Well in Time (21 page)

“And you wanted this property because…?” she asked Father Keat, as her eyes followed El Lobo to his seat.

“Because I was getting older and I wanted out of what I was doing. And I knew a lot of other guys who did, too. You’re among a rare group of men, Miss Searcy. Altogether, we’ve personally killed over a thousand people. Those are the ones we know about. When you do aerial bombing, like I did, you don’t get to count coup.”

An entire assembly of assassins! Calypso fought to keep her composure. She felt her chances of survival, like the tube in the cave, gradually but ineluctably diminishing. At the end of this kangaroo court would there be some small hole still left, through which she could just barely wriggle to safety? She glanced at Father Keat’s granitic jaw and doubted it.

§

“We are united by a spirit of democracy, Miss Searcy,” he continued, oblivious to how absurd that assertion sounded to her. “So the men thought it was only fair if they shared their stories with you, since against your will they’ve gotten to know yours.” His eyes swept the assembled men. “Who wants to go first?”

“I do.” The voice came not from the body of men, but from the door. It was Lone-R. Father Keat tilted his head and someone rose from the seated men to take Lone-R’s place as guard. Lone-R came to stand where El Lobo had stood and took up the same posture.

“Begin,” Father Keat commanded.

“My name is Lone-R. I have another name, an official one, but it was never really mine. The State gave it to me because I didn’t have no father. My mother was a prostitute. I was born addicted to crack cocaine and almost died when I was a baby, comin’ off it. When I was just a kid, my mom started sellin’ me to weirdos for sex. When I got to be nine, I thought
fuck this
, and I ran away. I lived on the street, doin’ what I had to, to survive.

“I grew up big, like you see me. On the street, if you’re strong everybody gots to take a swing at you, to test theirselves.” Lone-R held up his scarred hands, covered in callouses thick as rhinoceros hide. “I learned to fight. Ha yeah! When people started dyin’, then people started leavin’ me alone. But I kept driftin’ west, and I had to prove myself again, in every city I came to.

“Finally, I got to LA and I took up with some guys who were on their way to do a robbery and I said,
What the hell?
and went along. Well, they gave me a .9 and when things started to go wrong, I used it. I killed a cop and that was the first time I went away to the pen. They never could prove it was me, though, so after nine years, I was out again and I was still only twenty-seven.

“When I got out of prison, I was full of anger and hate. I wanted to kill everyone, no exceptions. I paroled in LA and out on the street I was always in fights. One day this guy comes onto me about some shit and I cold cocked him. He was dead before he hit the pavement. Well, you might know, a cop was just drivin’ around the corner and seen the whole thing. Bam! I’m back in prison on a second strike.

“I ended up doin’ time in San Quentin, twenty-five to life. But I got lucky. The California prison system was over-crowded, and the federal court said they had to let twenty thousand people go. I don’t know how it happened, but my number got pulled, and I was out on the street again, after only doin’ seven years. So now, I’m thirty-four years old and mean as hell. I knew it was just a matter of time before I got slammed for somethin’ else, so I broke parole and ran to Dallas. And that’s where I met Father Keat and my life got changed.”

Lone-R glanced at Father Keat, who nodded almost imperceptibly. Lone-R turned his eyes to Calypso. “I guess he’ll tell you about that.” He turned and walked back to the door. The relief guard returned to his chair and everyone looked expectantly at Father Keat. Rather than explain, however, Father Keat called for another testimony.

“I’ll talk.” A hand went up in the middle of the assembly.

Father Keat nodded saying, “Go ahead.”

A short, elderly man threaded his way past the others and came to stand before them. Calypso studied him closely, finding it hard to believe that he, too, was a killer. He had the inoffensive face of a grandpa, a balding head fringed in gray hair, and glasses. His robe looked like a black barrel, giving evidence of a stout body beneath. He cleared his throat and began in a gravelly voice.

“My name’s Tito, but everyone calls me The Knife. I grew up in Chicago, South Side, Back of the Yards. My father was a tailor from Armenia. He married my mother when she was fresh off the boat. He was fifty-three and she was sixteen. That’s how they did things in those days.

“It was a tough neighborhood. As I kid, I had to fight to survive. I was small, so I bought me a knife.

“One day in front of the barber shop, this kid twice my size starts pushing me around, threatening to pull my gizzard out through my mouth. So I take my knife and I stick him right in the gut. Well, I must of hit an artery, ‘cause the guy falls to the ground, bleeding like a broken hydrant, and in a few seconds, he’s dead.

“I’m in shock. I’m just a kid. I don’t even have the sense to run. I hear a siren coming and I’m just standing there, staring at this guy lying on the sidewalk in a puddle of blood, and I’m still holding the knife.

“All of a sudden, I feel this big hand come down on the back of my neck and somebody drags me into the barber shop. Whoever it is has got a death grip on my neck. He pushes me right through the shop, out the back door, into an alley. I’m thinking,
oh shit, my time is up.

“The guy’s got a car parked back in the alley, and he’s got a driver. He says to the driver,
Open the door!
And when he does, the guy throws me into the backseat and says,
Let’s get outta here.
The driver pulls out fast and away we go, with the guy holding my head down so nobody sees me through the window.

“Well, long story short, turns out I’d connected with Big Joe Gratz, one of the biggest mobsters in Chicago. He tells me,
You got sand, kid
, and he says he wants to train me to be a hit man. Well, hell. What have I got to lose? So he puts me in with these really tough guys and they teach me all they know. And for over twenty years, I do Big Joe’s dirty work, even when he’s spending time in the slammer.

“But then, one day…”

“That’s enough for now, Knife,” Father Keat cut in. “We’ll hear the rest later.” He looked at the group. “Next?”

One by one, the men came forward, stood with hands clasped over their black cassocks, looked straight ahead, and told the most ghastly stories of mayhem and murder. There were thieves, pimps and assassins, interrogators, drug dealers and gun runners, each one with a nickname evoking his trade. Some of the worst were Latin American soldiers trained in counter-insurgency at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. They told their stories of the torture of innocent
campesinos
with the bland confidence lent a twice-told tale, sometimes with a hint of pride, sometimes with the barest breath of shame.

Calypso’s attention was riveted to each. She studied their faces with their stress lines, scars and baggy eyes, their thinning hair, their powerful hands. As the stories went on, she began to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of their cumulative crimes, the weight of which seemed to be filling the room and snuffing the light from the windows. To her surprise, it wasn’t disgust that filled her but a ragged sort of compassion for these lives so marred and mangled by violence and crime.

At last, Father Keat announced that they would break for lunch. Calypso was escorted back to her room, where a tray was waiting for her.

“It’s nice to see they sometimes alternate rice and beans with beans and rice,” she said acidly.

She plopped down on the mattress, pulled her legs into lotus posture, then balanced the tray on her thighs. Maybe, she thought as she chewed the tasteless mess, instead of killing her they might let her bring some inspiration to their kitchen as their cook.

§

After lunch the stories went on. Calypso began to differentiate the lesser from the greater offenders against the human race. Mere murder of rival drug soldiers began to seem petty, compared to wholesale slaughter of innocents by agency of airplane, helicopter and automatic weapons or through sadistic torture. Initially, she felt nauseous, listening to the gruesome details of death and destruction. Later, as the afternoon wore on and each man came forward to tell his tale, she became numb.

Finally, the ordeal was over, with no apparent verdict having been accomplished in her own case. She was led back to her original room, with its low wooden bed, primitive table, and chair. A fire was lit and extra wood brought. A tray of food arrived, featuring the same monotonous rice and beans.

As she chewed morosely, she thought of Hill, wondering where he was salted away in this pile of stone. She could hear his voice, in sardonic mode, saying, “Too bad Pedro’s not with us. He could shuck and jive in assassin, and maybe win us our freedom.” She smiled, despite herself.

She was so enervated by the day and its revelations that she scarcely ate. The sun had barely sunk behind the cliffs when she lay on the bed, pulled the woolen blanket over her, and fell into exhausted sleep.

§

In the depths of the night, Calypso suddenly found herself standing in a barren stone hallway before a pair of elevator doors. She could hear the mechanism of the lift rumbling, feel the slight tremor of it rising up her legs from the floor. It was cold and she shivered as she waited under a bare bulb that shed sickly yellow light.

The grinding of the elevator ceased and after a pause, the doors parted. Calypso peered into an interior that seemed to hold shadow and nothing more. Then with a slight rustle, as of dry leaves shifting, a figure appeared from the darkness. It was tall, thin, and all in black, and she thought it must be one of her captors. Her eyes swept up the long, inky garment to the face. Then she gasped and froze, too paralyzed with fear even to scream.

The face, hooded in black, was fleshless. There were no eyes, only gaping sockets were eyes should have been. Nevertheless, Calypso had the distinct impression that she was under intense scrutiny. The two black holes were leveled at her like twin barrels of a shotgun.

Mesmerized, Calypso could not tear her eyes away from them. Her mouth went dry; her heart hammered. Her thoughts were gelatinous, unstable, amorphous. She could not move, but remained captive of the vacant but intense stare, as hypnotic and lethal as a cobra’s.

Despite the figure’s similarity to the Grim Reaper, Calypso began to discern that it was female. What was more, this was no mere mortal, but a divinity:
La Flaca
, “The Skinny Lady,”
la Señora de las Sombras
, “Lady of the Shadows,”
Santa Muerte
, “Saint Death”—she went by many names among the poor and disenfranchised of Mexico, who venerated her and invoked her against violent death, especially by gunshot.

Death Herself had come to call, and Calypso had the impression that this visit was in response to the day’s litany of Ghostly crimes and in defense of their victims. Punchily, she realized that some sort of respect must be paid to so august a visitor.

She tried to speak, but her mouth was frozen in a rictus of terror. Gathering her will, exerting maximal effort, she tried again, and achieved a ragged hiss of air. At last, contorting her face in sheer determination, through clenched teeth and shuddering lips, she managed a rasping whisper.

“Bl-bl-bless you, Mother.”

Before her startled eyes, the terrible faceless face began to morph. From within the skull, a hazy mass pushed outward and began, layer upon layer, to solidify, first into muscles crisscrossing, and finally into flesh. In the place of the hideous skull, a ravishingly beautiful face appeared, of an angel, of a goddess. Calypso, unable to fathom its loveliness and delicacy, gazed upon it with wonder and delight.

The figure made the smallest movement with its hand, that moments before had hung down only bones of
la Huesuda, “
the Bony Lady
,”
but now was long fingered and graceful.
Santísima Muerte
, “Most Holy Death,” raised Her fingers in a gesture of blessing. Calypso felt hot, stinging energy shower over her like sparks blown from a fire. She stood encompassed in the fiery breath of
la Dama Poderosa,
“the Powerful Lady
,”
entranced.

The doors of the elevator began to close and the car to descend. Calypso’s awed gaze followed, as it sank from view. Her last glimpse was of the sweet face, smiling up at her from floor level, as the doors closed completely.

§

The ponderous grinding of the inner mechanism recommenced; the floor shook. Calypso’s eyes burst open, her breath coming in wrenching gasps, heart racing so fast it felt like it would explode. A tremendous flash of brilliant white light was followed by an enormous bomb blast of sound. She screamed and ducked, shielding her head with her arms.

It was her first realization that paralysis was gone. She could move. She could speak. She lay trembling, attempting to locate herself in time and space. Another flash of painfully bright light illuminated plastered stone and the looming mantel of her room.

Lightning! Followed by thunder. Calypso took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Storm. It was only a passing storm. Her entire body shuddered uncontrollably, as her rational mind explained that she had just had a nightmare, brought on by violent weather.

Her deep heart, however, where
l
a
Señora de las Sombras
now communed, insisted that something mighty and terrible had shown itself, offering its naked awfulness, and asking something of her in return: respect, homage, recognition of her own fate.

Having given it, Calypso received a blessing. In the final transformation of the epiphany, Her robes had turned from black to white, a color symbolizing purity and protection from negative energy. The Goddess, showing the beneficent side of Her nature, had smiled upon her.