GORDON EKLUND

THE CROSS ROAD BLUES

I went to the crossroad

fell down on my knees

I went to the

crossroad

fell down on my knees

Asked the Lord above “Have mercy

save poor Bob, if you

please.”

—Robert Johnson

What rough beast, its

hour come round at last

Slouches towards…?

(And so on.)

—W. B. Yeats

Chapter Zero — Who Do You Love/(11/1)

The short, hard-boiled,

shaven-headed young woman comes energetically hopping in

through the front door like a cat

out of the rain and the first thought Leary’s

thinking is how it’s been seven, eight months

since the last time he’s had any

other human being inside this here personal domicile. (In

reality: a raw sewage

dump of a communed roomapt in a nasty comer of the Little Hell

Projects.) And

with various of his soiled personal possessions, records and socks mostly,

chaotically strewn about the bare dirt floor, half empty bottle of mescal (with

Leary,

mescal bottles are always half empty, never half full) resting forlornly

atop the clanking

radiator like a mourner at a funeral. Well shit in the sink,

thinks Leary, struggling to

sit and taking a squint at his caller, so here he

lies a drunken spent dick of a lowzone

ex-cop and here waltzes in some kind of

skin pale-as-death, big wet doe brown eyes,

grab-your-balls and

squeeze-for-sweet-Jesus class act of a bebopping girl-child’s face and

body in a

red vinyl leather vest, boots, and bursting blue velvet pantaloons.

So what gives?

Then he recognizes her. (And freezes up inside: ohjesuschristnotagainoh please

not fucking

again.)

She purrs: “Hi, I’m Sunny,” plopping her fetchingly boyish little butt

unceremoniously

down beside him, knees crossed seductively, boot tops clinging

to bare calf skin. “What’s

that music you’re playing? I think I know it.”

“Robert Johnson,” he lies. “Now get out of

here. I’m retired.”

She smirks, showing far too much gum. “Forcibly retired.”

“So?”

“So who

cares? Get up off the floor. Sit straight. You look like a dead turd

down there.”

He stands,

swaying over her, scowling like a goose, wagging a bony finger. “Get

the fuck out of my—”

“Your home?” She laughs, spraying glee like a lizard. “Leary, you crazy shit.

You’ve got to

be —”

He bellows: “It’s still my home!”

She lets her big brown eyes flutter. “And that’s

not Robert Johnson either. He

never played electric guitar. And he died in 1938 — ‘39. A

jealous girlfriend

poisoned him.”

“That’s one version,” says Leary.

“There’s another?” she

asks, eyes wide with interest. Chapter Zero and One-half

— Sweet Little Angel (11/1)

“So

how come you’re here, Sunny? He sways, taking a swig from the mescal,

wishing he would stop

swaying. (It’s so goddamn undignified.)

“You really want to know?”

“Uh-uh. But you’re going

to tell anyway.”

She nods like a puppet on a loose string. “The guys downtown wants you to

take

out Rathbone,” she tells him.

Chapter One — Dust My Broom (11/1)

Leary isn’t much

interested in hearing Sunny out. But he doesn’t want her to go

away anytime soon either.

(Maybe he’s in love now or maybe he’s horny as a hog

or maybe he just hasn’t spoken to

another human being for over a month.)

He thinks he should probably explain the facts for

her, fill in some

prerequisite background: “Rathbone and I came up through the ranks

together like

brothers, him taking a bullet in the thigh for me one time, me a knife in the

groin for him another, you look hard you can see the movie playing in front of

your face

like it was real life. Which it was. And the Central Zone was our

bailiwick, nobody else

knowing how to keep it from blowing night after boiling

night, both of us crazy as the

niggers but knowing the whole fucking time any

one of them could take us both out any time

and not spit snot over it.”

“I don’t like that word,’ she says.

“What word?”

“Nigger.”

“I’m

still not going to fucking kill him for you,” Leary says.

“Sure you are.” She lays a warm

hand on his leg above the knee, squeezes like

mashed potatoes. “I’ll tell you why.”

Chapter

Two — Terraplane Blues (11/1)

Sunny tells Leary: “William Campbell Rathbone, as you likely

are aware, has

served as Central Zone Captain for somewhat more than the nineteen months.

There

was some initial resistance to his appointment on the grounds that although a

highly

successful operational officer he was not a proven administrator, but for

the first year of

his tenure he was an effective if at times unconventional

occupant of an historically

difficult position. Then in the spring of this year,

this previously observed

unconventionality began to assume a more dominant

aspect in his relationships both within

and without the Force. He offended

several ranking officers through his salty language and

blunt demeanor. It

became known that he had abandoned his wife of fourteen years and

established

living quarters in a room at the rear of his precinct station, where he was

reported

to fornicate nightly with a succession of mistresses from the Zone,

many of them known

prostitutes, sometimes two and three per evening, leaving at

least one known pregnant with

child. He further became an obsessive reader of

the Christian Bible, specifically the four

gospels of the New Testament,

asserting views which while Biblical in origin were

nevertheless far from

conventional and even, some might assert, illegal. As an example, he

strongly

supported the concept of a second coming of the messiah while also proclaiming

that

the first messiah, our lord Jesus Christ, was a false messiah, the literal

spawn of the

devil. He further alleged that the being we call Satan is in

actuality God while God is the

devil. Additionally, he refused to attend

regularly scheduled captains’ meetings downtown

and ceased returning phone calls

from his superior officers. On June seventeenth of this

year he produced an

interdepartmental memo in which he severed all communication between

himself,

his precinct, and the rest of the city. No specific reasons for this decision

were

given, only that he believed it was (and here I quote) ‘in the best

interests of myself,

the City Police Force, the citizens of the Central Zone,

and all children of God and/or

Cain.’ Since that .day no official word has been

received from either Captain Rathbone or

his assigned officers.”

Leary grins like butter in a pan: “And you’re trying to get me to

think you

haven’t done a fucking thing about it.?”

Her liquid eyes flash as cool as mercury

in a bottle: “You know better than

that, Leary. We made three forays. The first we sent in

one man, the second

three, the last a dozen in an armored cruiser.”

“And Rathbone took them

all out, right.?”

She shrugged. “Nobody’s made it back yet, no.”

“They won’t. Rathbone’s too

fucking sly for you guys. Once he’s made up his

mind, the movie’s done.”

Sunny intones:

“Captain Rathbone to this day continues to operate his command in

a totally individualistic

and out of control manner contrary not only to the

Edicts and Ordinances of Separation but

to the general good order of this city,

county, state, and nation.”

“So you want me to kill

him for you.”

“You’re an experienced officer, you know the terrain, and, most crucially,

you

know Rathbone.”

“None of which says why I’m going to do what you want.”

She gives him

another roiling dart with her eyes, smiles elliptically, lips like

jelly, and starts

ticking off on her razor red fingernails: “Reinstatement in

the Department at your previous

rank and grade. All due back pay and allowances

up to and including Zone rations. A Special

Achievement Award and accompanying

official citation for valor above and beyond. And of

course there’s the oldest

motivation of all: revenge. Totally free and unpunishable too.”

“What revenge? Rathbone was my best friend.”

She laughs out loud, grabs his thigh, jerks

him down on the floor next to her.

Her lips are inches from his. She whispers: “Now who’s

the dumb shit? Have a

brain, Leary. Billy Rathbone snitched you out. Haven’t you fucking

figured that

out yet?”

“He’d never —”

“He’s the only one who could. Who else knew all the

ragged shit you two were

pulling in the Zone? Rathbone knew and when it came down to him or

you, somebody

to take the fall, he picked you.”

“Prove it.”

She pulls a micro from her

waistcoat, flips it over. “Hit play and scan. It’s

all there. The complete official shit.

While you’re doing that —” she bounces

lightly to her feet with the grace of a native

dancer” —I’m going to piddle.”

She leaves the door hanging open as she strides into the

corridor. He can hear

heels rap-tapping like gunfire in the desert.

Leary scans the micro.

Of course it could be a fucking forgery, he thinks.

Chapter Three — Shake, Rattle, and

Roll (11/1)

Leary twists his head from side to one. “How do I know everything in here isn’t

a fucking forgery?”

“You don’t.” She closes the door. “But you used to be a cop. Doesn’t it

hang

together? Doesn’t it make sense?’

His head keeps shaking. “I still won’t die for you

bastards. Drop me in the Zone

and they’d spot me in an instant. I don’t care how much heat

I’m packing, I

can’t take on a whole precinct.”

“We’ll take care of that. They won’t know

you.”

“How? Shoe polish? You want me to wear blackface?”

For the first time she seems

hesitant: “A procedure. Even the genes are somehow

altered. You won’t just look native. For

all intents and purposes you’ll be one

— body and soul.”

“You’re going to turn me into a

nigger?” His laughter is like the baying of a

hound.

She frowns. “I said it was a procedure.

Much of it reversible. There may be

scars though.”

“You’re all fucking crazy.”

“You won’t do

it?”

“Oh, sure. Black, white, what difference does it make? Anything’s better than

this.

There’s one other thing though.”

“What?”

“You.”

She says, eyes batting as if irreducibly

charmed: “Uh-uh, Leary. Forget it. I

work for the Force. It doesn’t own me.”

“Afterward,

then? After I snuff Rathbone?”

“How do you know he won’t kill you instead?”

“I don’t,” he

says. “That’s what makes it a risk.”

Chapter Four — Black Snake Moan (11/11)

He runs thick

hard rough fieldhand fingers across the polished, ivory sheen,

pale-as-death flesh of her

shoulder blade. Muscles underneath ripple like waves

in a wind.

“I could purr,” she says,

voice a river low in her throat. “God, I want you

inside me again.”

So am I still the same

person I was before? Leary ponders, studying his

reflection in the mirror above her bed.

Everything about himself seems altered.

(It’s a feminine room, full of frilly objects,

dainty things: very much her

room. A scent of vanilla rife in the air.) And I told her I

wanted to fuck her

dry but now that I have it’s as though I’ve done it with another man’s

body,

another man’s dick. Leary’s sensual world has transformed itself too. Sensations

are

stronger, sharper…more authentic. Like lye instead of bar soap. And not

just sensations:

he realizes how he never believed in the immortal soul till he

Changed and how now even

after only a few hours in this new body he believes not

only in the soul but also in God

Itself and — even more crucially for his

present predicament— in the devil too — in

Satan. For of course Satan is real.

And Satan is black. (As everyone knows. It’s in the

Bible.) And because he—

Leary— is now black too — and just as real —so if Leary exists,

then Satan

must exist too. But not as evil: this is where the first great fallacy appears.

And why the Preachings of Rathbone (at least in the form explicated by the

gloriously

lovely barenaked plumpbutted Sunny as he enters her again, this time

from behind) upon

which he has considerably — and consistently meditated at

length (squeezing fuzzy cheeks)

makes no fucking logical sense whatsoever no

how, no way. Which is how come it all got

turned around wrong in the first

place: this whole coonshow thing where God is supposed to

be white and Satan

black so the one is all good (the white God) and the other evil (black

Satan).

What bullshit, he thinks.

Hell, ask Sunny. (As she squirms, ready to come.) Hell,

ask anybody who knows:

white is the purity of the essence of falling snow and black the

specter of

death but they’re both mixed up in the blood like wine and therefore God can be

as evil as Satan and Satan as good as God and snow is death and death snow. Oh

no nothing

is ever as simple as it seems, on my fucking knees, I pray to the

black dog god of Satan

…

Leary tilts, hurls his long hard arms around her chest, cups her milky breasts,

one in

each big hand. “I’m going to fuck you dry as a dove,” he says.

(“There is one other thing

you probably ought to know about,” she adds later in

the night.

(“Like what ?”

(“Maybe

nothing important, just rumor, but it’s part of our regular intelligence

briefings and I

suppose you ought to know. But it’s so weird I haven’t said

anything till now.”

(“What?

(”

Something about a new messiah being born. Like a second Jesus. We figure it’s

pretty much

got to be tied in with Rathbone’s insanity but which came first, him

or the rumors, we

don’t know yet. Either this baby’s about to be born or it’s

just been born and every

psychic healer and Tarot dealer in the Central Zone

knows all about it, where it is and

what it’s about, and they’re all crazy

excited and thinking it means something significant

and important, that it’s

going to grow up to be the black Jesus Christ or even more. The

whole story

seemed to get going just about the same time Rathbone went out of control and

that’s why we figure the two things may be connected.”)

Chapter Five — Night in Tunisia

(11/12)

(This scene will be covered in a single arty long take, an elevated pan shot,

the

setting the broad black ribbon of a mid-city boulevard on a moonless wintry

night, a few

patches of snow dotting bleak pavement, a forty-foot-high cyclone

fence crowned with

glistening barbed wire severing the dead center of the

street, the buildings on either side

dark as the eyes of a vampire and

windowless, big warehouses, abandoned factories,

tool-and-die shops, with the

solitary exception of a garishly ritzy cocktail lounge maybe

half-a-block to the

right, pink-and-green neon flashing, from out of which titters the

occasional

tinkle of laughter, the clink of glass, the lowdown rumble of nighttrain blues.

Then (suddenly!) light bursts like a star going nova, the roar of an engine

cracks, and a

sleek streaking black limousine comes rippling down the left side

of the boulevard, brakes

screeching like banshees as it spins to a halt. Doors

fly open like birds from their cages.

Dark furtive figures emerge in long

jackets and cocked fedoras. Four men —no, five — and

a lone woman in a black

skirt (though she appears to be the one giving orders, hands

motioning). The men

surge close to the fence. The woman mouths shouted instructions. A

cutting

grinding noise like eyes wrenched from their sockets: a torn hole gapes in the

chain

link fence. One man separates from the others. The camera pans near for a

shadowy close-up:

flat nose, slitted eyes, heavy lips, teeth like jewels, as he

slips quicksilver-like

through the hole in the fence. (The camera lunges after

him, pursuing, rising, as he races

stealthily into the death rattle of the

night.) The others pile back into the limousine.

The motor coughs, catches,

surges. The limousine edges away, a round face (the woman)

ambiguously pressed

to the window glass. Then nothing. Only the street. And the darkness.

And the

tinkle of glass, the baying of laughter, the rumble of the blues.)

Chapter Six -(You Ain’t Nothin but a) Hound Dog(l 1/13)

Being some initially selected excerpts from the

journals of David Leary:

— Day 1 inside the Fence and immediately I’m finding the Zone

largely as I

recall tho simultaneously completely different too on account of because altho

what I’m seeing as I snake my way furtively along the familiar broad streets and

cracked

pavements at dawn has changed little (if at all) in the intervening

years, the perspective

from which I’m viewing has now altered dramatically: in

other words where before I was a

badass white fuzz cop in a blue uniform with a

black gun now I’m just another Zone dude in

my long vinyl jacket and cocked

fedora, my thick fieldhand fingers, my hatchet face, my

raspy twang. Hey, nobody

glances twice at me. (Or once.?) Nor does nobody warily watch from

the comers of

his (or her) eyes. They do not watch because they fail to give even

itty-bitty

fried shit. For who am I to be watched? I am: nothing. Anonymous. Invisible. An

unseen and unseeable presence. I could fade into walls. Become as one with the

boulevard. I

could (and have) cease(d) to exist in the blink of an eye. I am an

immaterial object of no

particular consequence to anyone else. And in the old

days as a white beat cop riding

shotgun with Rathbone it was like being on stage

every waking instant, watching warily,

always watching. And that distorts

reality for a man. It’s like a red hot pipe rammed up

the ass. It gives you the

crazy idea you’re a lot bigger pile of shit than you really are.

It’s conducive

to megalomania. So is this what’s happened to my old partner Rathbone? I

wonder

as I snake the streets. Is this where it’s gone wrong with him? It’s a theory

anyway,

not that I need a theory to snuff Rathbone, revenge being — as always,

since the time of

Cain w sweet as a melon. (And by the way: I’ve ventured into

the Zone deliberately unarmed,

knowing guns are cheap and easily come by here.)

— Two hours inside the Zone, dawn well

etched in the sky, and I spot my first

cop walking a foot beat. Go figure but it’s got to

be somebody I know from

before: Tony Alonzo. No buttbud or anything intimate but Alonzo and

I did go

round a few bases some cool hard times in the past like one fatal instant when

Alonzo

aced an unarmed kid in a liquor store heist and I held him tight in my

arms while he cried

on my shoulder and Rathbone slipped around and dropped an

extra .38 in case the kid had

friends. (Those were fucking wild days, for sure.)

And here I am coolie squatting in front

of an Ace Hardware, airing my dirty

socks, when Alonzo saunters around the comer, pauses

menacingly like meat in

front of me, glancing down with the tips of his eyes only, wiggling

shaggy

brows. “What’s up here, bro?” he officially inquires. “All be cool,” I implore,

holding

up thick hands to partly shield my face, not looking away though,

keeping my rasp steady in

the back of my throat. I let my head loll on my neck

like a drunken moo-cow. “All be very

cool.” Alonzo nods, considers, flicks a wry

grin (showing a little tooth), nods again, taps

my foot gently with his

nightstick, saunters off. It’s over in an instant-and-a-half. Tho

only when he’s

well gone past does the air come rushing out of my lungs in a burst of pure

orgasmic relief: heymyfuckingGodwowohboy! No recognition. Nowhere. (Yet one

thing does

disturb me: in his open top buttonhole, protruding, waves the long

thin stem of a daisy.)

(No, two things disturb me because later the more I think

about it, the more times I run

the movie through my head, the more I’m sure:

Alonzo was not carrying a gun.)

— Noon Day 1

and I do lunch on the far right stool at the stained formica

counter of Ol’ Uncle Elmer’s

Hot Sauce Emporium and Bar BQ Grill located

directly across from the station house. Perched

inside in three booths (I count)

eight cops in uniform, two in plainclothes: not a one I

know from before. (Go

figure.) Three have daisies in their buttonholes, a fourth a

carnation, and none

are packing heat, including the plainclothes. I slurp barbecue grease

on a hot

poppyseed bun, splashing down beer. Still the same old gaunt gray concrete

fortress

(the station house, I mean, not Uncle Elmer’s), tho I note the iron

bars have been removed

from the windows and now there’s just bare glass. My

waitress is a sweet-looking high red

with big teeth named Edith Elaine whom I

also recollect. (She doesn’t bat an eye. (Edith

Elaine, I whisper at one point,

what’s this I hear about the boys across the street?

Strange doings over there,

I hear, and no guns in their holsters. What gives? But she just

grins. You been

off in neverneverland playing with your pecker, old fool? But there’s no

rancor

in her tone, no fear. I sit there gazing dreamily through the window soaking up

a

second beer as one shift departs and another assumes its place. But where do

they go? I

wonder. None of Rathbone’s troops have emerged from the Zone since

the circulation of his

memo of farewell.

— And what about God? I get to thinking later on as the day drifts

inexorably

toward night. Maybe what I’m thinking is that God is a lot like a cop Himself

and that helps explain the suffering in the world. Maybe so many billions of

people

watching God all the time, waiting on Him, expecting Him to do something

to set everything

right, and pretty soon He just says Fuck It All and does

something mean like summoning up a

hurricane or starting a war or killing a baby

for no reason. And then afterward He feels

miserable as hell about it.

— Edith Elaine and I make a date to hit a couple joints later

tonight, her in

search of company, me in pursuit of further intelligence. I am sorely aware

that

I must be careful with my drinking so as not to say the wrong thing at the wrong

time

to the wrong person, endangering not only my mission but my black ass as

well. Sunny

cautioned me often on this point.

Chapter Seven — Potato Head Blues (11/13)

A Play in One

Act

The Setting: The formica countertop of Ol’ Uncle Elmer’s Hot Sauce Emporium and

Bar BO

Grill, the Central Zone.

The Time: November 13, 1680 Hours.

The Characters:

David Leary -undercover ex-cop looking for revenge sweet as honey.

Edith Elaine Lyman — high red

waitress and mother of Barry, age 10.

Leary (rasping): I asked bring me another beer.

Edith

Elaine: And I said you already had plenty. I don’t want you puking up and

me having to

clean after you.

Leary (with feigned sincerity): Now look here, baby (whispering softly) so

how

‘bout the two of us hopping a little later on, maybe catching some vibes, a

little night

music, making some of our own magic too. When you get off work,

what you say, my sweet

thing?

Edith Elaine: Man, you have more to drink than I thought. You crazy as a hoot

owl

….

Leary: And you as beautiful.

Edith Elaine (cackling): As what? As shit. Old man, you

blind crazy.

Leary: Now, listen here and look at me good, this is how it’s going down. You

do

your shift, you hang your apron on the peg, you say my good sweet lover man,

where will

it be? And off we go, steppin’ high and handsome.

Edith Elaine: I got a little boy at home

alone.

Leary: We won’t be long then.

Edith Elaine: Besides I don’t go steppin’ with

gentlemen whose names I don’t

know.

Leary: It’s Doctor Brown.

Edith Elaine: Doctor of what?

Doctor of Fools?

Leary (archly): I am a licensed veterinarian.

Edith Elaine: You gonna end

up in jail for lying too.

Leary (sounding sly): But everybody tells me the cops here are

sweet as

molasses. Nobody goes to jail, I hear. How you figure that?

Edith Elaine (sudden

fear in her eyes, tension in her voice w she speaks too

loudly): I don’t figure nothing

where it comes to no police. Now you get out of

here, you crazy old man. You get back to

the crazy man’s farm where you come

from.

Chapter Eight — Soul Survivor (11/13)

Leary dances

spinning like a merry-go-round in the midnight empty neon speckled

street, whirling

dervishly, arms outstretched like a bird on wing, feet skipping

crazily pat-a-pat-a-pat,

head tossed back like an apple, eyes shut, mouth open,

and he’s howling as loud as he can,

screaming and laughing both at the same

time, and there’s a woman in a red spangled dress

with a jug of mescal in her

hand and she’s screaming at him too, calling him lunatic and

fool and crazy

coot, but she’s laughing almost as hard as he’s laughing and finally,

dizziness

overwhelming them both at the same time, they collapse like balloons into each

other’s arms and her dress rips up the spine and the mescal jug goes flying and

they land

in the street and he’s kissing her naked bosom and snaking his hands

up under the hem of

her red dress and it rips too and they’re both laughing so

fucking hard, eyes watering,

glass shattering from the broken jug, that when the

beefy moonfaced white cop comes

sprinting up with his baton in his hand huge and

erect like a bloated wood penis they don’t

even hear him.

Wham! (The baton slices down.)

Leary screams out in pain, throwing up his

hands.

But it’s too late.

A black pool gapes next to him. He falls into it.

Chapter Eight and

one-half- Smokestack Lightning (11/14)

Speckled ceiling spinning crazily overhead like a

child’s kaleidoscope, Leary

opens his eyes. He lies stretched on his back, legs askew, on a

thin cot chained

to a concrete wall. He reaches up and touches his forehead gingerly. A gob

of

blood comes away. He moans, skull still splintering as if under attack from

insects

boring from within. Cautiously, cradling his temples lovingly in his

hands like the breasts

of a maiden, he rolls to a sitting position and lets his

feet seek out the solidity of the

floor. His pants are ripped, his shirt a rag

of cloth clinging to his back. Blood spatters

everywhere he looks — on his

chest, hands, everywhere. His own blood.

He occupies a cell.

(Iron bars a prison making.)

He moans again. Even thinking hurts.

In starts and fits like a

boat riding out the remnants of a storm his vision

clears.

Across from him a man squats on a

toilet seat, his pants hanging loose at his

knees. The man is smiling beatifically as if he

has only just now heard the

funniest farmer’s daughter joke of all time. (“Hot, hell, I’m

six inches deep in

snow,” goes the punchline as Leary remembers it.)

The man wears the black

clerical garb of a minister of the gospel.

The Reverend (whispering conspiratorially) sez:

“You may not goddamn well know

it yet, son, but the best thing in the world to happen to

you was last night

when good Sergeant Shaw bashed you over the head with his nightstick in

the

service of the Lord God Eternal.”

Leary (still holding his head) responds: “Yeah, sure.”

The Reverend: “No, boy, you listen to me, you were the one who was risking the

fires of

damnation because of the carnal relations of fornication which you

might lustfully have

partaken with that sinful whore of a woman with whom you

were dallying.”

Leary: “What are

you talking about? We went out and had a couple drinks

together. Edith Elaine Lyman. She’s

a waitress at Uncle Elmer’s rib joint across

the street.”

The Rev. proceeds, scowling, “Your

story, son, and an honestly intended one, I’m

sure. But good Sergeant Shaw has a different

tale to tell, an older, sadder, and

far from uncommon one. The woman was a slut, a Jezebel,

a whore of the Earth.

Spawn of the devil, she sought to tap into your essence and through

it purloin

your soul. Hear my words as we sit, for when the Day of Days is proclaimed at

last when all Earthly temptations will be put aside and punishments endured for

all our

deadly sins, then salvation must and shall be denied to those many who

will thence be flung

into the flaming pits of hell. I know this must transpire

as surely as the turning of the

Earth, for I have seen it witnessed through my

own mind’s eye. Remember what I preach, son,

for this Day of Days draweth nigh.”

Leary snaps alert in spite of his agony. Slyly, he

infers, “So maybe you’re

talking about this new baby Jesus being born I’ve been hearing

about.”

The Rev. (cunningly): “There is no new messiah.” He stands, wipes his ass,

hitches

up his pants. “Or old one either. There is only the one messiah which is

the Truth of the

Lord.

Leary sez: “You mean Jesus then?”

The Reverend curtly remarks, “Oh, no. I said no

name. This Jesus was the

so-called son of God only.”

Leary asks, “So what are you talking

about?”

Rev. (his smile somehow even broader, more beatific, his voice an even gentler

whisper):

“Tell me, son, have you ever considered the possibility that even God

Himself may need a

god of His own to worship, a god we in our error have chosen

to call Satan?”

Chapter Nine -Let’s Go Get Stoned (11/14)

1. As he departs the Precinct Station later that day ushered by

two uniformed

cops neither of whom is the asshole who clubbed him the night before, Leary

shifts his gaze, searching for any sight of Rathbone.

2. Leary uncovers nothing pertinent

to his quest beyond a glazed glass door

inscribed upon which are the following letters: C,

A, P, T, A, I, N.

3. His escorts leave him at the high front doors. He proceeds down

concrete

steps to the street. It is a brilliant warm sunny day, cloudless blue sky, etc.

From the left, a shadow falls over him.

4. Leary swivels his head, glancing up.

5. He

discovers a sharp-tipped steel spike approximately ten feet tall and three

inches in

diameter protruding from the soft sandy ground, impaled vertically

upon which he recognizes

Edith Elaine Lyman. She is naked, bleeding profusely.

5a. Something he has somehow not

previously noticed: etched in the concrete

edifice of the Precinct Station above the high

front doors is the design of a

cross, a crucifix. The precise nature of the image upon the

cross is uncertain.

But it is most certainly not Jesus of Nazareth. Instead the image

appears to be

that of a cloven hoofed beast.

5b. Leary’s gaze darts from the crucifix to the

impaled woman and back to the

crucifix again. “God, Edith Elaine,” he murmurs like water in

a brook.

6. Edith Elaine’s eyes are open and staring. She appears to be looking at

nothing

at all.

7. A handprinted sign around her neck proclaims: BY ORDER OF THE PRECINCT

CAPTAIN

8. A cursory examination of her wounds indicates that the tip of the spike has

entered her

body between the vaginal and rectal canals and exited diagonally

through her right shoulder

blade. Her heart therefore has not been pierced.

9. Nevertheless, Leary is hopeful that

she’s dead.

10. But she isn’t.

11. Her head twists, her shoulders heave. She mouths: “God,

please help me. Oh

my God.”

Chapter Ten — Hellhound on My Trail (11/14)

Being some

additional excerpts from the journals of David Leary.

—Two things are now as clear to me

as a fire bell in the night. (But first an

interruption for narrative purposes: staggering

away in a state of extreme

psychological trauma from the station house and the impaled

Edith Elaine, Leary

wanders aimlessly through the teeming afternoon streets of the Central

Zone.

[More local color herewith painted, probably in montage sequences reminiscent of

forties

Warner Brothers melodrama.) Then as darkness descends like a vampire’s

shroud Leary slips a

hand into a torn pants pocket and to his surprise pulls out

a rabbit’s foot key ring with

an address imprinted upon it. While Leary goggles

at the keys nestled in his weathered

palm, a flashback shot as if through the

haze of memory depicts a red-eyed Edith Elaine

(the night before) handing Leary

her keys, saying, “This is my extra set, sweet darlin’.

You use ‘em now if we

lose each other.” Back in real time, Leary lets himself into the

building,

ascends rotting wooden stairs to the fourth floor, unlocks a door. Here he finds

a ten-year-old boy sitting in the dimness staring at a muted television picture.

(A cat and

mouse cartoon, sledgehammer violence.) The boy looks up hopefully as

Leary enters and sez,

haltingly, “Did my — my mamma send for me?”)

Chapter Ten point nine-oh-nine — Got My Mojo

Workin’ [11/14-11/15)

Being a continuation of the further excerpts from the journals of

David Leary:

—Three things are now as clear to me as a fire bell in the night. First that

Rathbone (whatever his fucking story) needs to be killed. Second that I’m the

one guy ready

and able to do it. The third thing, I forget at the moment, though

it may have something to

do with all this shit about God and Satan and Jesus and

the New Messiah, how it must all

mean something, must be leading somewhere, and

where that somewhere is is scaring the holy

piss out of me as I sit here in poor

dead Edith Elaine’s apartment, jug of red wine in one

hand, cold chicken leg out

of the fridge in the other, looking at this doe-eyed

ten-year-old kid who just

keeps looking back at me.

“Hey, man, what’s your name?” I finally

manage.

“Barry,” he sez. “What’s yours?”

I think for a second. But the kid’s had too much

lying in his life. Then:

“Leary. But don’t tell nobody.”

“Who I tell?”

“Some dickhead.”

“What

dickhead?”

“The one who lives under the stairs and eats kids who talk out of turn.”

“There

ain’t nobody like that.”

I give him a wink. “Smart, kid. But don’t tell nobody, hear?”

That

night as the TV casts a greenish glow upon our shadowed faces I perch

half-drunk on my end

of the couch and tell Barry (my voice fake hard) that his

mama won’t be back. “She took the

bus and went away,” I say.

He knows better. “You full of shit, man. She dead.”

Like I said:

smart kid.

—The next day (with Barry) strolling the main boulevard I spot Rathbone for the

first time as his white limo glides past like a ship at sea. In the back seat he

squats

alone, like a frog basking on a rock. His head turns as we pass. Our eyes

lock. But there’s

no recognition.

“Who that, boy?” I ask softly, playing dumb.

“That there’s the Devil Man,”

Barry shouts back.

“Who told you that? Your mamma?”

“Everybody knows the Devil Man.”

—That

same day (I’ve gone dinner shopping for two: four butchered chops,

potatoes to be peeled

and mashed, jar of hot mustard, butter slab, milk, sugar

cookies for the boy) I see

crossing the street ahead of me a beefy white man. I

know him. A cop named Hogan. From the

old days.

According to Sunny, Hogan was among the men dropped into the Zone to kill

Rathbone.

For the hell of it— and for intelligence gathering purposes— I follow him

home.

Chapter

Eleven — The Cross Road Blues (11/17)

OMITTED

Chapter Twelve — Hoochie Coochie Man (11/18)

(The interrogation of the suspect Hogan commenced at 9.015 hours, November 17,

in unit 23b

of the Sunny Dell Apartments, Central Zone, interrogating officer

David Leary present, the

interrogation herewith transcribed.)

Hogan (looking at the gun): So where’d you get the

piece?

Leary (shrugging): On the street.

Hogan: They wouldn’t let you bring it in with you?

Leary: They wanted the job done right this time.

Hogan: I can see that looking at you.

(Smirking.) Hey, I hardly recognized you

as a nigger.

L: Neither did Rathbone.

H (more

quietly): You seen him already then?

L: Not up close. In his limo. He went riding by.

H:

Ain’t that some rig?

L: So why don’t you tell me what’s going on around here?

H: Christ,

starting where?

L: With you. Like how come you didn’t kill Rathbone. And why he didn’t kill

you.

And how come you’re still fucking around here in the Zone.

Chapter Twelve and a Quarter

— Statesboro Blues (11/18)

Some background: Hogan was one of the men dropped into the Zone

by armored

cruiser in the third unsuccessful attempt at assassinating Rathbone. Leary knew

Hogan off and on during his years on the Force. They even partnered together

early in their

careers before Leary requested reassignment to the Central Zone.

Hogan was best known for

his hot gunhand, including five certified

in-line-of-duty kills. Leary hated his fucking

guts, always had.

Chapter Twelve (continued) — Hoochie Coochie Man (11/18)

Hogan (finger in

the air): Let me tell you a few things, Leary. First, you say

you want to know how come we

didn’t kill Rathbone. Well, it’s not like we didn’t

try. We came roaring down here in that

fucking cruiser thinking nothing could

stop us and drove straight up to the station house

door, you should have seen

the coons scatter, and me and Finnegan and Gordie Shaw all jump

out, guns out

too, flack jackets zipped, and guess who’s fucking coming out the door just

as

we show —fucking Rathbone himself, that’s who. So guess what Finnegan’s got to

do?

Leary:

What?

Hogan: He’s ranking officer and he stops dead and goes, “Captain Rathbone, put

your

hands on top of your head for you are now under arrest by the authority

invested in me…”

I mean bull fucking shit!

Leary: And?

Hogan: And so I shot Rathbone square in heart. But it

was too fucking late. He

hops back through the door into the arms of his guys and then

about a hundred

and twenty others are over us like flies on shit. That was something else

we

hadn’t figured on. The cops here are fucking nuts about Rathbone. They’d walk

through

blood and water to save his ass. Like he was God.

L: So you missed.

H: Like fuck! I never

missed in my life. I hit the asshole for sure, right where

I said, right in the heart.

L:

He’s not dead, Hogan.

H: I know. And you won’t believe this either. I wouldn’t myself

except he showed

me with my own eyes. It was the Bible. The Bible he carries in his pocket.

The

bullet hit the fucking Bible and ricocheted. It was like a miracle.

L (taking a breath):

So tell me what you know about this New Messiah thing.

Chapter Thirteen — Blind Willie

McTell (11/19)

At “home” early the next morning as young Barry nods off on the couch,

Leary,

plate of blooded rib bones in front of him, sits cross-legged in front of the

blank

television screen contemplating the whole long sad history of race in this

country. And in

the contemplation he is at the same time contemplating the fate

of the lush fertile world

he and his species inhabit. (By the grace of God?)

Brought to this land in chains and

manacles, as commodities, property, as

Things, he thinks, simplifying to the essence. As

Things which were regarded as

superficially human but also less than human. As Things to be

used, to be worked

until-broken — like a plow or a reaper or a gin. As Things —as tools,

as

implements. Things to be sold. Things to be bought. Things to be bred. (And

slaughtered?)

Things without will (or destiny?) of their own. And Leary thinks

(contemplating still) how

this horror endured like a rock for centuries till the

land itself rotted with the reddish

stain of hell and those who owned it burned

with the brand of Cain. For if God is the god

of love and man created in His

image, then to be human is to love also and to hate is to be

bereft of humanity.

Oh yes, it was indeed along sad fucking story, he thinks. Generations

died. And

lived again. And died. He hears a stirring in his ears. Like the seashell wind.

It is the promise never kept — the chalice never tasted. And he closes his eyes

one last

time and stands in bib overalls in an East Texas field and above,

dangling from the tree

limb, sways the carcass of a human being, neck snapped,

legs and arms like twigs, and he

stands so filled with shame and with horror,

with guilt and with dread, that he cannot move

a muscle to flee from this dream

as nightmare, as truth, as history, as vision. And so, my

God, why did you not

make us all the same so that the hate which comes from difference did

not bum in

our hearts like a fire on the land? (And there is no answer to this question.

Only silence, which ever reverberates.) And the years of attempted integration,

he recalls,

a dream pursued too little and too late, and then the savage

uprisings, spreading, and the

Edicts and Ordinances of Separation promulgated,

and with that the final sealing of the

urban walls, the erection of the great

fences, the creation of the Zones. And the end of

the last dream. To Leary, the

more he thinks, the less he knows. For are we not all born

and created equal,

are we not all birthed by the same loving God? But if that God is not

the true

god, if He is an impostor, if in other words, the one true God is a god of evil,

then it all does make sense, it rings true, he muses.

And Rathbone is right.

Chapter

Fourteen w Preaching Blues (Up Jumped the Devil) (11/18)

Leary tosses out a hand, grabs the

wine jug off the formica table, gulps, wipes

a greasy palm across his mouth, bangs the

bottle down. “All right, asshole. So

you missed your chance at a clean kill, you dumb shit.

So now the question is:

how come if Rathbone’s alive, you’re not dead? And what about your

partners?

Where are they?”

Hogan eyes the wine as he has all night. Beseechingly -assiduously —his need

for it whines like a prayer in his face. A ham-listed man with a

round head and

the blank, dazed expression of a camel. “Then can I have a drink?”

Leary

speaks slowly as if the words choke in his throat: “I‘11 consider it.”

Hogan bobs his head,

licks his lips, snakes his tongue, sez, “Okay. I’ll talk.

Finnegan, he’s what you think.

Rathbone killed him. The same day. Never had a

chance. You won’t fucking believe what

Rathbone did. He impaled Finnegan. Stuck

him up on a big steel pole —”

“I know. I saw it.

Not Finnegan. Another friend of mine.”

“And you know the strange part, what was really

awful? Poor fucking Finnegan. He

stayed alive for hours. I couldn’t believe it. Rathbone

made us watch. Me and

Gordie Shaw. Handcuffed us to the railing.”

Leary nods: “Rathbone

loves shit like that — teaching lessons. So what about

the other guy?”

“Shaw. He went over.

Rathbone must have talked him into it. He’s one of his boys

now.”

“You too?”

“No.” His voice

is soft.

“What, then?”

“It don’t matter.”

Leary picks up the .22 pistol from the tabletop,

aims the muzzle at Hogan. “Tell

me, goddamn it.”

Hogan averts his eyes. Perspiration beads

his chin. “You want to know, Leary,

I’ll tell. But you’d better not fucking ever tell

anybody else. I mean it.”

“Who would I tell?”

Hogan nods. “Okay. Then how come I’m still

alive is because

Rathbone offered me a choice. He said which’ll it be, Hogan, your balls or

your

life. I thought he was kidding. What would you have done!”

“I want to know what you did

do.”

“What do you think/I’m here, aren’t I? I’m alive. But you don’t see me trying to

get

back home either. I’ve got a wife and two kids, Leary, on the other side.

Fuck it.”

“Have a

drink, Hogan.”

“Really?”

“Really. You’ve got it coming.”

As Hogan eases the wine jug to his

lips, Leary shoots him through the mouth.

An Unnumbered Chapter — Big Boss Man (11/1812/23)

Time passes. Leary lives a day by day existence in the Zone, taking care of

Barry as

if he were his own. But he’s also thinking. Leary thinks: If God is

truly alive in His

heaven and if the rest of us below are simply his pawns, his

agents, then isn’t it wisest

to wait upon His hand, to see first where He is

choosing to lead before plunging blindly

forward? And even if as now seems

likely this god whom we worship (on our knees) is a false

God, is in fact the

Beast in disguise, then there still must exist a Higher Force, for the

existence

of this universe alone is proof of that.

And so Leary makes no immediate move to

kill Rathbone.

Chapter Fifteen — Mystery Train (12/23)

The diminutive figure in the crimson

coat and hood falls into step beside him as

he makes his way home from the grocery store,

bulging paper bag clasped to his

chest like a baby to be loved. (Which means no way Leary

can get to his gun in

any kind of hurry to plug the bitch.)

From the scent of vanilla he

knows in an instant who she is.

Sunny sez, “So, Leary, you dumb fuck, what do you think

you’re up to?”

He’s cool as a snowfall: “On my way home for dinner.”

(It’s a keen, warm,

gentle, absolutely gorgeous winter day, birds chiming in the

treetops, warbling like

warblers.)

“Rathbone’s still alive.”

“I know that.”

“So what the fuck are you going to do

about it?”

“I guess that’s the part I don’t know yet.”

“You crazy shit. After all he’s done

to you.”

“Him and everybody else in the world when you come right down to it.”

“Don’t get

pathetic with me, Leary. You’ve been down in the Zone long enough.

You know what he’s

turned into.”

But that, too, was a part he didn’t know yet. (And he thinks how incredibly

vulnerable she is, walking here beside him, a true stranger in the strange land,

how one

word from him could seal her fate, impaled on a spike. And the pressures

that must have

welled up to cause her to venture down here on her own. Assuming

she is alone.)

He swivels

his head but sees no one who looks obviously suspect. (Which means

diddly squat.)

He waxes

philosophic: “So the guys downtown are pissed are they? That’s the gist

of the whole

fucking problem, Sunny. I have been down here in the Zone long

enough. And I have seen

much, much shit.”

“Not so much that you couldn’t ace Hogan.”

“So?”

“If you can do him, do

Rathbone.”

“Not yet.”

Her hand is on his arm. She squeezes hard. “Goddamn it, Leary. Do it.

Please.

Not for you. Not for me either. For everybody. He’s a madman, Leary. You know

that.

He rides around in that fucking limo like he was God on Earth.”

“Maybe he is.”

“Bullshit.

Gods don’t need a back room stocked with sweet brown whores he fucks

two and three at a

time.”

“Rathbone doesn’t do that.”

“Then what does he do?”

“It’s a long story,” says Leary

(tiredly).

Chapter Sixteen — Stones in My Pass Way (11/18)

(In which it is revealed for all

to know what Hogan responded when asked by

Leary, “So tell me what you know about this New

Messiah thing.”)

Hogan sez, “It’s not born yet, if that’s what you’re worried about.

Rathbone’s

supposed to have the mother holed up in a room at the station house. He wants

everybody to think it’s a bunch of hookers he’s got back there but it’s really

only this

one girl, the mother, and the one thing Rathbone ain’t doing is

fucking her, let me tell

you. The way I hear, every night he goes in there and

gets down on his knees and worships

in front of her and cries like a baby and

begs forgiveness. Who he’s supposed to be

begging, I don’t know. Maybe her.

Maybe God. Maybe somebody or something — else. They say

you can hear him from

every fucking corner of the station house, even from outside. I

haven’t been

around to listen. Finnegan said he saw her too. The mother. Rathbone took him

back there before he killed him. He said here’s your chance to be forgiven,

Finnegan.

Finnegan told him to shove it up his ass. Maybe me too if I’d said go

ahead and hang me on

the spike, I would’ve seen her too. But I didn’t. Finnegan

said she was just a little kid,

no more than like fourteen, but pregnant as a

whale. Some kind of albino kid, he said.

White looking but with heavy nigger

features. Didn’t talk, he said. Never let out a peep.

But he said she scared the

living shit out of him. Just looking at her did it. He said

after that he was

almost fucking glad to die. And he was shivering all over when he said it

too.

Ugly. Like I’d never seen him before. And then they grabbed him and stuck him on

that

spike and that was the end of it. He never screamed. I bet all Rathbone’s

boys have seen

her at least one time too. That’s how come they believe like they

do. They’re scared

shitless. Now some’ll try and tell you Rathbone’s the father

but if it’s really like the

son of the nigger god, then, shit, nobody’s the real

father. Except Him. God.”

“So when’s

the baby to be born?”

“Christmas Eve.” He laughed. “When do you think?”

“Have a drink,

Hogan.”

“Really?”

“Really. You’ve got it coming.”

As Hogan raises the wine jug to his lips,

Leary shoots him through the mouth.

Chapter Seventeen — Death Don’t Have No Mercy (12/23)

In which Leary comes home and finds Barry gone, snatched (he assumes) by Sunny

and/or her

agents. Alone, he drinks himself asleep and suffers a dream in which

he and Rathbone debate

the meaning of the New Messiah, whether it’s good or evil

or what. Then a scrawled note

arrives signed by Sunny saying he must either kill

Rathbone or else never see Barry again.

What shit, he thinks.

Chapter Eighteen — 32-20 Blues (12/24)

The assassination scene will

be done in a single extended take shot from an

objective eye level viewpoint, the idea

being to replicate through deliberate

image manipulation the visceral impact that almost

everyone has experienced

while witnessing an actual real time assassination on television.

A crowded

corridor. Inside the bowels of Rathbone’s station house: perhaps a subtitle to

so indicate. And a dateline — December 24. Bare wood benches splintered along

each side of

the corridor, the walls painted in heavy gray-green splotches. Lots

of cops surging back

and forth, their uniforms providing a splash of color

though often damp, soaked, covered by

black rain slickers, puddles of water

shimmering on the floor — it’s raining like hell out

tonight. Much cacophony.

Voices clashing like hot wires. Shouts. Howls. Few words actually

decipherable.

Upon the wood benches a dozen shabbily dressed men and an equal number of

women

resplendent in satin, lace, and cheap leather idly sit. (The idea is to get

across a

quick impression of the criminal classes.) The people on the benches

are black, the cops

white. Then from around a comer at the end of the corridor a

knot of five or so new cops

materializes. Surging. These are different from the

other cops. Soldiery. Disciplined.

Martial in their attitude and bearing. They

seem almost to be marching in step to the beat

of a soundless drum. (Bootheels

rapping on the wet tile floor.) Suddenly — at the first

apparition of the knot:

silence. Heads swivel like cranes turning in unison to look. The

man hunched in

the dead center of the knot can barely be glimpsed. His cap and collar

glitter

with braid, silver captain’s insignia glistening like a star. No one utters a

word.

They stare like cats wakened from a nap. (For the first time the sound of

the rain pounding

like hammer and nails on the rooftop can be heard.) And now

the assassin emerges. Lunging

past the camera from the opposite end, clenched in

his fist the black bulk of a .22 pistol,

the camera blurry now, as if peeping

through the window of a dream. The assassin wears

black, knit cap down over his

eyes. Shots ring out. (Or do shots truly ring? They crack,

they explode, they

burst, they boom, they thud, they go bang-bang-bang.)Three shots in

succession:

bang! bang! bang! The cop in the middle of the knot — the captain! — topples

like a puppet from a severed string, cap saucering off his head. Now the noise

detonates: a

woman screams wordlessly, a man yells, “Hey, look out, the fucker’s

got a gun!” Cops hurl

themselves on top of the assassin, bringing him down. One

more gunshot rings out muffled.

The camera tilts, bucks, sways, topples, falls.

Glass shatters like a broken goblet. The

image is now cracked, spiderwebby.

Abruptly there looms a huge close-up of the assassin’s

face lying with his cheek

squashed flat against the floor, one eye glassily staring. “Got

the

motherfucker!” screams a voice. “Get a doctor!” screams another. “Oh, fuck fuck

fuck,

he’s dying,” says a third. “I know he’s dying. Oh, no, oh, no, my God,

fuck no no no!”

Chapter

Nineteen — Fattening Frogs for Snakes (12/25)

“I think the only really lousy Christmas I

had when I was a kid,” Leary tells

Barry as they finish Christmas dinner, “was when I was

probably about ten and

I’d asked for all this stuff, I don’t even remember what now, games

and toys and

shit, and like every year I’d always be poking through the house — we lived

in

this big old barn of a white house out in the woods: and we raised all these

animals, not

just dogs and cats and fish but ducks and rabbits, bantam chickens,

we even had a goat one

time, you would’ve loved it there — me poking around

trying to find the presents my

parents had bought but, Jesus, this one time —

guess what? — it sure wasn’t funny, then,

even if it is now, this one year I

really fucked up and looked too good and I found them,

found all my presents, so

guess what? — I bet you already figured it — none of the stuff

I asked for was

there — I don’t really know why either, still don’t to this day, because

usually whatever I wanted, no matter how stupid, my parents went out and got it,

it was

like their yearly ritual every year my mom and dad going to a loan

company and borrowing

the money to get Christmas presents for the kids — the

four of us — and then taking the

rest of the year to pay the money back because

that was the one serious expense in their

whole lives — it wasn’t like they

wore good clothes or went on a lot of vacations — they

couldn’t afford any of

that — not that any of this was stuff I knew then of course — it

was years

later before I figured it out — and my sister who died in the Third Uprising,

she told me a lot of it — but you know, that’s how it went that year, what I

wanted for

Christmas was not what I was getting — and I’m telling you now, I

felt like shit and what

was worse — think about it — what was worse was, what

could I do about it? I mean, look,

I didn’t dare say anything, I didn’t want to

get my ass chewed, I didn’t want them thinking

I was a snoop even if I was, and

I couldn’t go up and say, look, Mom and Dad, guess what? I

know what you got me

for Christmas and it’s not what I want, so why don’t you just take it

back and

get me something else? So I had to suffer in silence, acting noble like I didn’t

know shit when I did, and I felt lousy the whole time right up, I think, to the

day itself

and then all of a sudden that morning it just didn’t seem important

anymore, once it was

actually Christmas Day everything was basically okay.

Christmas was still Christmas. But I

never went snooping after that either. I

learned to let things be.”

Chapter Twenty — If I

Had Possession Over Judgment Day (12/24)

Leary sez, “I know I had to mark you. I fired

three fucking bullets. No way I’m

going to miss that many times, not from that range, not

even with a .22. No

fucking way in hell.”

Grinning, lips peeling back like the skin of a

snake, Rathbone slips a hand in

his blue coat. He pulls out a Bible and holds it in the

air, letting the pages

flutter.

“No, goddamn it,” Leary says, shaking his head. “Goddamn it,

no, not again.”

Rathbone is laughing. He’s got four uniformed men behind him, two of them

with

their guns out. The windowless interrogation chamber. White walls. Two-sided

mirrors.

Leary knows the room well. He once saw a man beaten to death in here,

blood running onto

the floor like a pool.

“You shot Hogan,” Rathbone says, his voice like a hoarse whisper.

“Maybe. So?”

“What did he tell you before he died?”

Leary spreads his hands. “He told me all

sorts of shit.”

Rathbone’s mouth creases. “Did he tell you that God was on my side?”

“Are

you so fucking sure He is?”

Rathbone wags the Bible in his hand. “What do you think,

David?”

“That’s not God.”

“It isn’t?”

The room seems barely bigger than a closet, two

steel-backed chairs one on

either side of a formica table. Leary is secured to his chair by

manacles on

both wrists.

“I don’t intend to have you executed,” Rathbone says.

“Why not?”

Rathbone

shrugs, shoulders rising and failing almost imperceptibly. “And the

little boy will be

returned to you too, if that’s the other thing bothering you.

As soon as you and I are

finished here. You’ll then be free to go.”

“How do you know I won’t come after you again?”

“You won’t.”

“But how do you know?”

A skeletal smile. “What would be the point? It doesn’t

matter. Don’t you

understand, David? I can’t be killed.”

“Bullshit. You’re not God.”

“No. But

as I explained: He’s on my side. For now. At least until the child is

grown.”

“The Messiah?”

“So they say.”

“He’s been born, then?”

“This morning at dawn. She was.”

“Can I see him -her?”

“Of course.”

“Where are they?”

“I’ll take you.”

“Now?”

“If you want.”

Rathbone motions to

one of the cops behind him. The man nods, holsters his gun,

walks around the table, unlocks

Leary’s manacles.

Leary comes slowly to his feet, knees shaky. “I want you to know I don’t

give a

shit whether you live or die.”

Rathbone remains seated. “Nor do I, David.”

Now it’s

Leary’s turn to shrug. “That’s your problem, not mine. What about

Sunny? Is she dead too?”

“Not yet, I believe.”

“When?”

“Oh, soon. Justice must be served.”

“That’s murder, not

justice.”

“And Hogan?” His eyes dance, the lids fluttering like parchment, not skin. Then

a hand rises from his lap and cuts through the air. He points to the door in the

far wall.

“This way,” he says.

Chapter Twenty point five — Baby, Please Don’t Go (12/25)

As Leary and

Rathbone descend the concrete steps outside the station house, a

shadow falls upon them.

Leary glances left.

Sunny.

Impaled.

On the spike.

Before he can speak Rathbone reaches inside

his coat, pulls out a gun, and blows

the top of her head off.

It is an act of mercy.

For the

first time all day Leary feels a welling up of hope.

Chapter Twenty-one — The Cross Road

Blues (12/25)

The house lies nestled on a back avenue far from the press of traffic. But

the

street is awash with people today, a hundred or more, none of them speaking now,

people

just standing and waiting expectantly.

They put Leary in mind of mourners at a funeral.

But

no one seems to be grieving.

Rathbone cuts a path through the crowd. People step back to

let him pass.

The house is warm, almost stuffy. There is a pine fresh scent in the air. An

elderly black man in a white coat and rimless spectacles sits on the davenport.

He glances

up as Rathbone passes.

The two men nod at one another.

Rathbone gestures at a door in the

wall. “In here,” he says.

Leary follows.

As Leary steps through the door to behold the

mother and the child, the New

Messiah, the black messiah, the child who is both daughter of

God and of the

creature who is not god but God’s god and who is known sometimes as Satan,

he

finds himself filled again with hope.

For beyond the door a light is brightly shining.

And for a moment he can see nothing.

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