The Juror (39 page)

The Teacher has a sparkle in his eye. “An extraordinary alliance, yes.”

“But you know what?” says Louie. “I don’t know the first fuckin thing about what makes you tick. In all those twenty years.
Didn’t learn nothing.”

The Teacher tells him, “It seems simple to me.”

“It does?”

“It seems simple.”

Says Louie, “This woman, this juror woman, yesterday at my mother’s grave she comes to me, she says you was saying ugly things
about me.”

“Annie came to see
you?
”

“You spoke ugly about me?”

The Teacher ponders a moment. “Well, nothing really ugly, Louie. Dismissive, rather. I think I called you a fool, or a freak,
or some such—”

“You called me a motherfuckin
monster!
Don’t bother to fuckin deny it, shitsmear, ’cause it’s on tape.”

The Teacher chuckles. “I wouldn’t deny it. I’d only deny that I spoke with malice. Not at all. I spoke with indifference.”

“You said you’d fuckin discard me—”

“I said I
might
discard you. I might or I might not. I said it didn’t matter to me. Does that offend you?”

“Offend me? You
cocksucker
.”

“There are no blood ties between us, Louie. We never pretended to be soulmates. I’m sure you and your brother here have called
me worse things than a freak.”

Joseph breaks in. “You want to know what
I
call you? I call you a fuckin sicko pervert, like you always been. When you was a kid you was a sicko. I told Louie, I said
stay away from this cunt.”

Says the Teacher, “This is such a useful dialogue, Joseph. I’m so glad you’re sharing these feelings.”

Joseph leans over the seat and spits in his face. “Fuck you, asshole. Get him outta here. Let’s get this over with.”

Archangelo opens his door and steps out. “Let’s go.”

Frankie pushes the muzzle of his Glock into the Teacher’s temple. “
Move
.”

The Teacher slides across the seat and gets out.

They walk across the desolate field. Frankie on one side of the Teacher, Archangelo on the other. While Louie and his brother
wait in the car.

They come to a rock wall and a belt of woods. The Teacher looks through the trees, down to the railroad tracks and the river.
He says, “Hey guys? Do I get a last request?”

“What?”

“I want you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“I want you to watch Louie’s car.”

He digs the heel of his hand into his thigh—pushes down on the trigger of the transmitter in his pocket. He doesn’t get to
see the blast directly. Only the flash against the trees and then the
whump
and the glass shattering, and afterwards somebody—he thinks it’s Joseph Boffano—shrieking with pain.

He turns to Archangelo, who’s gazing stupidly at the wreckage of the car. The Teacher takes Archangelo’s Beretta 92 away from
him. Then Frankie pours three shots into Archangelo’s left ear.

Frankie and the Teacher hasten back to the car. The passenger door is open, and Louie has crawled out. He’s missing an arm.
He’s covered with pieces of his brother. His face has come loose and it hangs down from his chin like a bib. The Teacher kneels
and says, “I’m sorry this was so untidy. I couldn’t fit much Flex-X in that briefcase. Forgive me?”

He fires into Louie Boffano’s head, shielding himself from the blood-spatter with an open palm. Then he and Frankie hurry
across the soccer field and up the hill.

On the way he says, “Listen, Frankie, I’m grateful to you for tipping me off, I really am.”

“It was nothin.”

“I value loyalty.”

“No big deal.”

“But I have to tell you, Frankie—as for these promises I made about taking over Louie’s operation and setting
you
up as boss? On further consideration, I think those were all cloud-castles. Do we have enough sway in the organization? You
and I? I think we don’t. Besides, I’m preoccupied—I’ve got this tragedy of Annie Laird and her son thrashing around in my
head.”

“Wait a second,” says Frankie.

He stops, under the dripping trees. “What the fuck are you
talking
about? We made
plans
, we got—”

“The truth, Frankie? I don’t think I have the patience for any fancy family footwork just now. Will you excuse me?”

“What the
FUCK
ARE YOU—”

Frankie scrabbles under his jacket, gets hold of his pistol. The Teacher shoots him in the carotid artery, and Frankie’s neck
snaps out long whips of blood. The Teacher has to stand to one side to avoid the spray. He slams the butt of his HK into Frankie’s
hand and he can hear tiny bones breaking. Frankie’s pistol drops and the Teacher catches it.

“God
damn
,” says Frankie.

Those arcs of blood-spume, one after the other.

The Teacher heads up the path at a rapid pace. But Frankie comes running after him.

“What the fuck is the matter with you!” he still wants to know. The words come out soggy with blood, but they come. And the
Teacher, as he trots up the road, turns to look at him and to smile wonderingly.

He says, “Frankie, how in the world are you still able to talk?”

“I don’t trust you for shit!” says Frankie. He puts on a burst of speed and tries to grab at the Teacher.

The Teacher bats his hands away. “Frankie, you’re not thinking.”

“Shut up. I don’t trust you no more, I don’t trust you for
shit
,” Frankie says, and then his eyes roll back in his head, and he pitches forward and his face drops into the mud.

S
ARI
is driving slowly on a dirt road near Garrison. This is where Eben told her she could find him. But there seems to be no
one here. Only these barren trees and the railroad tracks and the river below. Then suddenly he’s in front of her car, standing
in the road, and she slams on the brakes, skids on the wet mud. He gets in. He’s grinning. Blood on his jacket and on his
shirt. His hair is wild, his irises are plates of hammered gold, and he kisses her passionately.

He tells her, “Drive, lover.”

She drives to the end of the dirt road, then turns onto a blacktop road that loops along at the foot of great estates. Glimpses
of Tudor mansions.

He says, “I thought perhaps you wouldn’t come.”

“Of course I came. Tell me what happened.” She’s begging her heart to ease up on her.

“No, I really shouldn’t.”

“Tell me, Eben.”

“Better not to involve you.”

“Are they chasing you?”

“Yes.”

“The police?”

“Yes.”

“Are you innocent?”

“Of what?”

“Of whatever they think you did.”

“What man born to woman is innocent? But I was trying to save a child’s life. I struggled in the name of love.”

In a patch of woods, she pulls over. Not enough room on the shoulder to get all the way off the road, but it’s a lonely road—there
are no cars coming anyway.

She turns to him.

“Did you fuck
her?
”

This feeling that she has for him, she can’t call it love anymore. No name for it. Just lips inside of her skull, sucking
at her brain, that’s what you could call it. As though her brain were a rotten black lemon.

He sighs. “Why are you asking me all this?”

“Did you fuck her?”

“Have I made love to Annie? No.”

“Who is she then? Don’t give me any bullshit because—”

“Sari. I won’t tell you any lies. But I shouldn’t say who she really is.”

“No? Well, that’s too bad, Eben. Because you know what? If you told me the truth, I’d do something for you. I’d tell
you
something. Something about a little trip to Guatemala.”

She turns to look at the gold flecks in his eyes. She sees them shimmer like struck gongs.

“Where?” he asks her.

“No.” She shakes her head. “First tell me
why
you want to know.”

“Because if I know I can rescue her. And her child. I can rescue them both.”

“Rescue them from what?”

“Not from tragedy. They can’t evade fate. But from mendacity and hypocrisy, yes. I can’t tell you any more, though. You have
to trust me. Don’t you trust me?”

“No.”

“Then simply love me, Sari.”

“I think I was insane to love you.”

He says, “Tell me. Where did Annie go?”

“No!” She’s adamant. “First I have to understand what’s happening.”

“What’s happening?” He laughs. “Certain constellations are burning up the sky. Scorching the heavens, destroying all in their
path. Now what in this universe can shelter us from such danger? Do you know? Do you know, Sari?” He puts one finger under
her chin and lifts it up, so she’ll have to look at him again. He tells her, “Love. Of course. Nothing less. Love will deliver
us. Where did she go, Sari? Lover?
Tell me.
”

She looks out the window. She looks at him. Maybe he’s right, she thinks, maybe she ought to stop fighting this and simply
follow her heart.

No! Her heart’s misled. He’s a liar.
He’s a cancer
.

But he’s the man I love. And love will deliver us.

He’s grinning at her. He says, “Where did Annie Laird go in Guatemala?”

She hates him.

She looks at her lap and says, “She didn’t go at all.”

She can feel his eyes upon her.

She says, “I have friends in the airlines, I got them to look through every damn passenger list on every flight to Guatemala
City in the last week. I made up every excuse I could think of. I was breaking the law, and I could lose my ARC number, but
I wanted to do this for you, Eben, because you asked me to. Annie Laird’s name never turned up.”

He mutters something under his breath.

Then she says, “But guess what? There was somebody else from Pharaoh, New York, who flew to Guatemala City. A Dr. Juliet Applegate.
I remembered meeting her at the poetry cafe and how you were flirting with her, so it got my curiosity going. Maybe she’s
Annie Laird’s friend? Maybe she went for her? The agent who booked the flight, I know her a little. I called her and told
her Juliet’s father had died, I told her we had to find her. And she told me that Juliet Applegate had asked for a connecting
flight to this village, T’ui Cuch, but there aren’t any—”

Eben’s glowing. “Sari,” he says softly. “Sari! You’re astounding!”

He takes her head in his hands and gives her such a warm sweet affectionate kiss and then laughs so heartily that her heart
can’t help but warm a little toward him.

“This makes you happy?” she says.

“Oh yes! It’s revealing. It opens avenues that I had imagined were completely shut.”

“But who are these women, Eben? Juliet Applegate and Annie Laird, if they’re not your lovers—”

But by now Eben isn’t listening to her. He’s thinking. He stares at the dashboard.

Then his head stirs slightly, an almost imperceptible nodding. He says with sudden decision in his voice, “Sari, I need this
car.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“No, actually I need the car with you out of it. I need to be alone right now.”

“You what? You… Is this a joke?”

He laughs. “It is! Yes. But it’s also true that I couldn’t possibly handle listening to your vapid prattle just now. Sari
lover.”

“You son of a
bitch!
I leave my job in the middle of the day, look what I’m doing for you, and you have the fucking nerve—”

“Please give me the keys and get out.”

“Fuck you! What are you talking about? What, do you think I’m going to
walk?
”

Eben sighs. “No.” He sighs again. “No, I guess that wouldn’t be practical. All right, wait.”

He reaches over and jerks the keys from the ignition. He gets out and goes around back and pops open the trunk. Then he comes
and opens her door. She feels the pistol barrel against her neck. He tells her, “Come on. I want you to get in the trunk.”

She looks sidelong at him. “Eben.”

“Now. Sari. Or I
will
kill you.”

“Eben!”

“Sari, I’m grateful to you for your help, and I do love you, and I don’t want you to suffer, but the Tao is restless today,
today all the Tao’s patience is flowing in another direction.”

He takes her elbow, hauls her out of the car. In a daze she lets him lead her back to the trunk. He pushes her head down.
She puts her palms on the felt floor of the trunk and tries to resist. But this is a dream, she doesn’t understand any of
it, she doesn’t know what to do. He stands behind her and lifts her legs, folds them, and she falls forward onto her elbows.
He tells her, “Sari, I’m sorry about this, I ask your forgiveness. But if you’ll just do this, you’ll be all right. Nothing
bad will happen to you.”

She shouldn’t trust him.

She should never have loved him.

She shouldn’t be curling up into a fetal ball in this musty space, but she’s scared witless, and she does.

The pistol touches her cheek. She sets her eyes on the barrel. She tries to focus on it, but it’s too close.

He tells her, “I promise you, if you’ll listen this once to Lao Tsu? If you’ll stay in the center and embrace death with all
your heart, you’ll endure forever.
Forever
, OK?”

He gives her a moment to answer. When she doesn’t, he answers for her. “OK,” he says, and it’s the last thing she ever hears.

E
DDIE
gets a call from Vincent.

“Touch of chaos, Eddie. I advise you to pull up roots, take your daughter south, find a more serene home.”

“What the fuck you talking about?”

Vincent laughs. “It was a difficult meeting. With your cousin and his retinue. We had divergent approaches to the same problem.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“A whittling. It was a complex situation, and it needed to be whittled. Seek shelter, Eddie.”

“You coming?”

“Not right away, no. I’ve got something to take care of first.”

“Like what?”

“I’m curious, Eddie. I wonder if Annie thinks that real love is somehow not my portion in life? Does she think that it’s too
simple for the Teacher? Or too common? I wonder if she thinks I’m some kind of ghost, I just wander the Earth dispensing ageless
wisdom?”