He steps around the cross-lighted quartet of dead gangbangers and moves boldly into the building, the compass in the corner of his vision now glowing blood-red. He retrieves the flashlight and holds it loosely in the hand with which he grips the forward handguard on the rifle, which isn’t ideal but the only choice he has. He splashes through the shallow flood and arrives at a series of rooms on the right, at a door that makes the compass needle throb. He throws the door open. Without venturing across the threshold, he declares, “It’s me, Michael.”
In the influx of light, a length of opaque plastic billows. A moldering slab of plywood topples. Nina and then John crawl out from under what seems to be a solid mass of trash. The sight of mother and son stirs in Michael emotions that he doesn’t fully understand, that speak of something more than the satisfaction of having done for them what Shelby would have wanted to do if he had lived.
Whatever else he is feeling and whatever it means, he will have to delay consideration of it until they are out of the orchard and on their way to a refuge where they can safely put the past behind them. In that place, he can also determine how to use his gift to unwind the coils of destruction that humankind has wound about itself during decades of progress from reason to unreason.
A TROUBLED GUEST ON THE DARK EARTH
Curtained by the rain, shrouded by the night, cloaked likewise by a shadow of deception that is provided by the prince of this world to those who serve his violent purpose, Orlando Fiske slinks unnoticed, staying close to the wall of the packing plant, toward the common area where the dead lie. He pauses only when the shooter, rifle in hand, departs the building from which he killed Aleem and crosses the mouth of the wide passageway, crouched and quick, to the front of this same packing plant.
Orlando knows it was Aleem who was taken down only moments ago, because in the scream he could recognize his homey’s voice. He is a connoisseur of screams, having heard so many in the most intimate of circumstances over almost two decades. The personality of a man and the tonal quality of his voice are not altered by sharp pain or the terror of impending death, but are in fact amplified in their unique characteristics, if one has the ear for that kind of thing.
As the mysterious gunman passes, Orlando doesn’t seriously consider taking a shot at him. His SIG P245 is a reliable weapon; however, when he factors in the distance and wind and swiftness of the target, the chances of a kill are just north of nil. And his quarry has a semiautomatic rifle, a weapon with range and perhaps with an extended magazine, which allows him to answer a shot with a sleet of return fire that will be devastating.
Orlando continues along the building and comes to the corner and hesitates and then eases forward, just his head, to reconnoiter. Reflecting the crossed beams of light on the ground, raindrops craft short-lived silver rings in the puddled water. The dead have yet to be carried off by Valkyries, which he knows about because Alana has read aloud a really good story in which sexy Valkyries conveyed the bodies of slain soldiers up to Valhalla. The rifleman is nowhere to be seen. Judging by the fact that the four were gunned down here and that Aleem chose as his vantage point a window overlooking this very scene, Orlando surmises that Nina and the boy have hidden in this packing plant and that her nameless rescuer has ventured inside to bring them out.
He turns the corner, exposing himself to anyone who might be lurking anywhere in the common area, and he sidles along the gable wall toward the entrance to Whole Fruit. When he peers inside, he sees a small, shielded light receding and the suggestion of a figure maybe halfway through the building. Again, the situation suggests that taking a shot is too risky. Orlando can imagine several ways things could go wrong for him if he tries to follow the shooter into that dark and flooded structure.
As an enforcer for the gang, he has not been called upon to be imaginative in his daily labors. There are a limited number of ways to pinch, pummel, pierce, abrade, and maim an individual and still leave him or her in a condition to make right the wrong that has been done to the gang. And if it’s a case in which the offense is unforgivable, then the simplest methods of resolution are the best—a bullet in the back of the head or a wire garrote cinched around the throat with grave determination. But a loving woman has expanded his mind. During the years Alana has read to him on most evenings and on rainy weekend afternoons, he has developed an appreciation for cunning characters and clever plot twists. One such twist now occurs to him, and it is irresistible.
He steps away from the gaping entrance to Whole Fruit, out of sight of the rifleman in case that individual should happen to look back, and he studies the distribution of the corpses: the angles at which they lie to one another, how legs are bent and arms are tucked or not tucked, how one hood is rucked back from an exposed head but three are not, and other fine points of Death’s artful composition. They all wear the black, hooded raincoats that are gang issue, as he does. Unfortunately, he lacks the time to drag one of them away and take that place as his own.
However, when the rifleman returns with Nina and young John, he’s going to shepherd them around this grisly scene as quickly as possible. He will be surveying the night for threats, yes, but he will expect any danger to be erect and in a shooting posture or on two feet and moving fast. He won’t be focused on the dead, who can do him no harm. If he’s not focused on them, he’s not going to notice that they number five instead of four.
His mind racing but his heart beating slow and steady with the conviction that the author of a clever ruse will see it play out as planned, just like it does in novels, Orlando decides that he should not face the door to the packing plant. If by chance the rifleman glances down and sees eye movement or blinking lashes, the trick won’t work. Orlando lies on his side near the late Kuba, out of the crossed flashlight beams, with his back to the building, head turned toward the north end of the common area, where he believes the three are most likely to proceed. His raincoat is zippered open to mid chest, his right hand tucked inside, the pistol held against his heart and in a firm grip. His left arm is thrown behind him with the palm up, as he imagines it might have been cast in his death throes, and the skirt of his coat is arranged just so. When they are past him, eager to flee the orchard in whatever vehicle the rifleman arrived, Orlando will sit up and shoot them from behind, at close range. All that is required of him now is a little patience.
Replacing the magazine of the AR-15 with a spare, Michael warns them with a single whispered word, “Quiet.”
Clutching the duffel bag, John follows his mother out of the storeroom where they were hidden.
Michael says, “There’s one still alive.”
As she’s putting her gun away, Nina decides to keep it in hand and pocket her flashlight instead.
In the dim radiance of Michael’s shielded beam, mother and son seem to float on the air like mere images of people who once were of this world but now linger here to haunt.
With gestures, he indicates that he will lead and Nina should follow John.
“Take this.” His voice is hushed as he places the flashlight in the boy’s free hand and switches it off. “Use only if I say.”
Swallowed in darkness, the boy says, “Okay,” with no tremor or hesitation.
“We’ll pass some dead men,” Michael whispers. “Just look away.”