Chapter Five

 

          The next morning, Carter got up early and worked out for two hours. Push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, deep knee bends, the whole routine from basic, plus everything he could remember from the two months he had spent studying karate in High School. He was wheezing and puffing through a lot of it, but still, he was a lot stronger than he had thought. Powering through the whole thing, he kept reminding himself that his life might depend on his condition, his reflexes, that his country was depending on him now, that when a man like Checker put his faith in you, you couldn’t let him down and still maintain any self respect. He was Special Agent Twister Four, and Special Agents Twister One, Two, and Three, whom he had not yet met but assumed existed, might be putting their lives in his hands. He wasn’t going to let them down, either. He was motivated. He finished off by jogging to the shopping mall and back.

          After a hot bath and a shave he put on one of his two new identical gray three piece suits, the clean one, purchased off the rack yesterday on a six month time payment plan two-for-one sale at the Fashion Warehouse, down on Sixth. He checked himself out in the mirror, front and side views, with his arms in different positions, and concluded that he looked pretty sharp. Those two chicks last night at Socrates had seemed to think so. They were both pretty hot for him, actually, and he probably could have scored, but it had all seemed a little childish. I mean, a Special Agent with a license to kill, running after Fresno secretaries. And the expressions on their faces when he’d looked at his watch and said that he had to go, had some important things to take care of, real mysterious-like, without even asking for their phone numbers, it was almost better than sex. He’d have to be careful of his sexual associations now, even though he was pretty horny; gotta find me a lover that won’t blow my cover, like the song said.

          And Julius, doing his musician thing, being cool and all that, it just seemed kind of silly, looking at it in perspective. He started thinking about Julius; have to check him out, really check him. Of course, he wasn’t a sleeper, not much chance of that, they being friends and all, but he had been to Iraq, come to think of it, and kept up the Muslim thing pretty strong ever since then. Who knows who he might have met over there?

          Going down for his suit, and eating at McDonald’s afterwards, he seemed to notice a lot of Arab-looking guys, some of them probably Mexicans, but you never knew. This sleeper thing was pretty scary. Living normal lives, waiting for their time, shit, they could be anywhere. It was like seeing the world through new eyes.

          Maybe, he thought, while practicing his fast draw with the Zippo from the watch pocket of his vest, I should buy a gun.

 

 

         

          Tony had gotten Serena her own room at the hotel, next door to the suite where the band was staying. It was small, but big enough for her morning T’ai Chi exercises, after moving the bed over closer to the wall. She went a little faster than usual, checking the clock on the nightstand. She was meeting Julius for a late breakfast at eleven, just before they stopped serving, and didn’t want to be late. She ran into Tony in the hall, and they took the elevator down together.

          “You were great last night, Serena.”

          “It was a great crowd. You told me this was a hick town.”

          “It is. Horace is just good with the publicity. Even ran a couple of TV spots. But I never heard you sing any better.”

          “Thanks.”

          “What did you think of Julius?”

          “What did you think?”

          “I think he’s a solid player. I talked to the band last night, and everybody liked what he did. Got a big Coltrane influence, but he doesn’t just copy shit, like a lot of guys.”

          “Did you ask him to sit in again tonight?”

          “No, but I’m going to after breakfast. I got his phone number.”

          “You won’t need it. He’s meeting me this morning in the restaurant.”

          “Oh really?” Tony rolled his eyes a little. “He’s a fast working dude.”

          “We’ll see,” said Serena, smiling.

          Julius was already there when they walked in. He jumped up to pull out a chair for Serena and shake hands with Tony.

          “Thanks for letting me sit in last night, man. Here, take a chair.”

          “No thanks, we got a table set up already for the band. I’d invite you, but looks like you could use some privacy. Look, why don’t you come down again tonight? If you get there early we can check out some charts, make a little plan. I have a couple of original numbers that could use a sax.”

          “Cool. I’ll be there.”

          The rest of the group was starting to filter in, and Tony headed over to meet them. Julius sat down and poured some coffee for Serena from the thermos on the table.

          “You look really great today.”

          “Thanks.”

          “Hey, I recommend the waffles, it’s the best thing on the menu here.”

          “OK. How’s the bacon?”

          “I don’t know about the bacon. I try to stay away from pork.”

          “Oh. Are you a Muslim?”

          “Yeah. Well, I try.”

          “But you still drink, I noticed.”

          “Hey, please, I’m not a fanatic. I just been into the philosophy for a while. It’s no big thing. When my brother comes up from Bakersfield, I cook bacon for him.” He looked around nervously. “Listen, I know being a Muslim is not exactly cool these days. I hope it doesn’t bother you.”

          “My whole family is Muslim, on my mother’s side. Lebanese Muslim.”

          “And on your Dad’s side?”

          “Southern Baptist. They all live down in Louisiana. Actually, my Dad was one quarter Creole.”

          “You’re a pretty exotic lady.”
          “In San Francisco, I’m pretty average.”

          “Honey, you are a lot of things, but average is definitely not one of them.”

          While they were eating, the rest of the band wandered over and said hello, that they looked forward to playing with Julius again that evening.

          “The band likes you, Julius,” said Serena, as they were finishing the last of their coffee. “I think Tony might offer you a job.”

          “No kidding?”
          “No kidding. Carlo, that’s his manager, he’s been bugging him to expand the group ever since I joined, says he wants us to start playing more concerts, not just nightclub gigs. That means a full horn section, maybe even a guitarist. Unless you’re too attached to the area here.”

          “I’m ready for a change. I grew up here, spent my whole life in this place, except when I was in the army.”

          “Well, then, maybe you can show me the sights of Fresno.”

          “Sure. Let’s get out of here.”

          She turned to him as they were walking out.

          “Julius.”

          “Yeah?”

          “Are there any sights in Fresno?”

          “Hell, no.”

          She smiled and put her arm through his, looking into his eyes.

          “That’s a relief.”

 

 

 

          Sonny spent the day getting the apartment ready. Yaro couldn’t help him, of course, because if the falafel-heads across the street saw him going in and out, hauling a bunch of stuff, it would “arouse suspicion,” as he had put it. Sonny had to admit he was right about that. But the guy was a fucking master at avoiding anything that resembled real work. Sonny had been most of the day going to second hand stores collecting shit, and then nearly all evening lugging it up the stairs. Six goddamned mattresses, almost impossible for one guy to deal with, four student desks, the kind with the golf-club shaped top and a plastic seat contoured for the “average” butt, which nobody ever had, a big portable blackboard, a roll-down movie screen and a table for the slide projector, a big picnic table with folding legs and six folding chairs, an easy chair and a stand for the telescope, an old-fashioned ten inch reel-to-reel tape recorder, a computer, kitchen stuff, including a giant church social-sized coffee urn, pillows, blankets, a TV set, a couch, and a knife throwing board. He’d had to rent a van to carry it all.

          After returning the van, he stopped at I-Hop for some dinner. Hawaiian pancakes with a banana split for desert. He gave a call to Otto from a pay phone, then made the drive over to the machine shop, near the beach in the Sunset district. It was almost ten o’clock, but the lights were still on in the shop. He parked the Camero across the street and took a silver Haliburton briefcase out of the trunk. As he walked up, he could hear the sound of the lathe running. Otto liked to work late.

          The door was open, but Otto didn’t worry much about being robbed. Three guys had tried it once, and he’d shot them all dead with the Sig-Sauer he kept tucked in the pocket of his machinist’s apron. He was always hoping it would happen again. When he saw Sonny, he shut down the lathe, took off his safety glasses and welder’s cap, and motioned him into the office.

          “Hello, Sonny,” he said, reaching into a cupboard for a bottle of red wine. “Can I offer you a drink?”

          “Sure.” Sonny didn’t care much for wine, as a rule, but Otto drank only the best.

          They sat down at the battered card table that Otto used for solitaire while he watched TV. He pushed some blueprints to the side, reached into the cupboard again for two crystal wine glasses, and poured for them both. They drank a little in silence. Otto slipped a pair of battered spectacles over the bridge of his nose and stared for a moment at the Haliburton, now on the floor next to Sonny’s chair. He got out a cigarette, lit it.

          “What can I do for you tonight, Sonny? More silencers?”

          “Know anything about atomic bombs?”

          Otto took a long drag on his cigarette. “Don’t you think,” he said, in his Dr. Strangelove German accent, which seemed to get more extreme every year, “that it’s a little late in life for a man like you to be trying to develop a sense of humor?”

          “I’m serious.”

          “Even if I could build an atomic bomb for you, Sonny, which I assure you that I cannot, you couldn’t afford it. Now what the fuck are you talking about?”

          “I didn’t ask you if you could build one. I asked what you know about them.”

          “I know something about them. They are in great demand these days, for one thing. Now, at the risk of repeating myself, what the fuck are you talking about?”

          “Could you build something that looks like one, enough to be photographed?”

          “You mean, something that would actually fool an expert, or something out of a James Bond movie?”

          “It doesn’t have to fool any experts. It just has to look convincing. And you could keep all the stuff. All I really want is the photograph.”

          Otto smiled a little and poured himself some more wine.

          “I admit that curiosity has made me do a little research on the subject. Yes, I suppose I could.”

          “And could you make some kind of blueprint to go along with it, and a set of authentic looking operating instructions?”

          “That is actually a more difficult request, but I suppose I could do that also.”

          Sonny moved aside his wine glass and put the briefcase on the table.

          “It has to fit into this briefcase.”

          “Now you are talking about something, Sonny, that probably even the Pentagon could not do. What kind of idiot is this supposed to fool?”

          “They don’t make them that small?”

          “If they made them that small, George Bush might be president for life, although of a much smaller country. For a real strategic device, you would need something at least the size of a small coffin.”

          Sonny thought about it for a moment. Finally he crossed his arms and put his elbows on the table, his shoulders hunching forward.

          “How about one just big enough to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge?”

          “Have you gotten into the terrorist business, now, Sonny?”

          “It doesn’t have to actually work, remember?”

          “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

          “Like you said, I don’t have much of a sense of humor.”

          Otto took a few more sips of his wine.

          “It’s a very good bottle, don’t you think?”

          Sonny lit a cigarette.

          “Come on, Otto, I don’t have all night.”

          Otto put down his wine and took off his glasses. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and started wiping them, slowly.

          “I’m afraid you may be missing the point. The distinguishing mark of an atomic bomb is not that the explosion that it produces is so big, but that it is atomic. The ingredients must be kept a minimum distance apart, or separated by very thick lead shielding, or the bomb will go off immediately. It is true that there has been an effort to produce what is called tactical nuclear weapons. They are quite a bit more destructive than Cemtex, but a million times more expensive.”

          “It doesn’t matter. The bomb has to be atomic. Look, it isn’t fucking even real, remember. Just fake the thing. Make it tactical. It could still blow up the bridge, right?”

          “It could definitely bring it down, certainly if it were placed correctly, at one of the towers, for instance. It would also give everybody in the Bay Area cancer.”

          “Good enough. Can you do that?”

           “How much time do I have?”

          “A week. Ten days, max.”

          Otto thought for a moment, scratching his ear.

          “It’s possible.”

          “How much would it cost?”

          “A thousand dollars.”

          “For a fucking picture of a bomb and some bullshit papers?”

          “And for me keeping a straight face. Who else is going to do it for you, Sonny?”

          Sonny exhaled heavily, blowing smoke in Otto’s face.

          “You fucking kraut asshole.” He didn’t say anything for a minute. Neither did Otto. “I’ll have to talk to somebody about it.”

          “I didn’t figure this was the kind of thing you could come up with by yourself.”

          Sonny got up to go.

          “I’ll call you tomorrow. But start thinking about it, OK? We’re on a schedule.”

          “Of course,” said Otto, pouring himself some more wine. “It’s a lot more interesting than silencers. I’ll take half up front, and half on delivery.”

          “Yeah, right.” He walked out of the office. As he left the shop, he could hear Otto whistling, still sitting at the card table. It was Ride of the Valkyuries.

 

 

 

          Julius was home alone, after taking Serena back to the hotel around six. She’d turned down dinner, said she didn’t like to eat before singing, but promised to have a pizza with him after the show. The date hadn’t gone exactly the way he’d planned, or, he had a feeling, the way she’d planned either. He hadn’t had a woman in two months, kind of a record, and Serena was about the most attractive woman he had ever met. She liked him, that was clear enough. And despite her choirgirl smile, she was definitely putting out a lot of stuff that didn’t signal a desire for anything platonic, relationship-wise. But she had so much class he felt cautious about just jumping her bones. They had a lot in common. Music, hell, that was a strong enough connection, all by itself. She had really surprised him, though, when he found out she was into gung-fu, and she was probably pretty damn good, too. He’d mentioned his karate thing, when she asked him how he stayed in shape, and they’d spent a long time comparing Chinese and Japanese styles.

          Then, taking a walk in the country outside of town, where he’d planned to get a little romantic, somehow they’d got on the subject of religion. She was playing around with Buddhism, but she knew fucking everything about being a Muslim, and she was a smart girl, deep, actually. They’d gotten into it a little heavier than he’d really planned, sitting under a tree on the blanket he’d brought along, a pretty obvious move that she hadn’t objected to. At one point he’d checked his watch and realized that the afternoon had slipped away, that the timing was pretty much blown for anything but getting ready for the club, and she’d seemed equally surprised. She had kissed him though, after saying she really needed to get back, reminding him he was supposed to come early tonight for a little brainstorming with Tony. And she’d come up with the pizza idea, which boded well for the future.

          She was a little more than he had expected, that was for sure. Some things she’d said had really gotten him thinking, and he was sitting in his favorite chair in the living room, reading the Koran, when the doorbell rang.

          It was Carter, still wearing the same gray three piece suit, except it looked completely new, like it just came out of the box. What’s gotten into Carter? He looked different, somehow, and it wasn’t just the suit.

          “Carter? What are you up to, dude?”

          “Julius,” said Carter, looking a little stiff, “we need to talk.”

          “Yeah, OK, but I got to get to the gig early tonight.”

          Carter came in. Instead of just plopping down on the sofa, the way he usually did, Julius noticed he stood in the doorway a moment, looking around.

          “Something wrong?” He looked like the neighbor lady in one of those room deodorant ads.

          “Just checking out your place.”

          “Same old place. Sit down. You want a beer?”

          Carter didn’t answer. He was staring at the coffee table, the copy of the Koran lying there, open. He sat down.

          “I’m going to be leaving town for a while, Julius. Taking a little trip.”

          “Oh yeah? Where to?”

          “Out of state. It’s job related.”

          “That’s great. So what’s the job?”

          “I’d rather not say, just yet.”

          “Really. Pretty mysterious, man. Is that what the suit is all about?”

          “It’s connected.”

          “Well ..... great. It looks good on you. Must be a really cool job, better than construction.”

          Carter looked down at the Koran.

          “Do you read this every day?”

          “Not every day. Look, buddy, nobody is gonna mistake me for a terrorist, if that’s what you’re worried about. There’s a million black guys who are Muslims in America, ever since Malcolm X and Mohammed Ali. Nobody thinks they’re fuckin’ terrorists. It’s no big thing.”

          “A lot of things are changing right now, Jule.”

          “Maybe, man, but not in Fresno. Hey, you shouldn’t let this Bush bullshit get to you so much. He’s just trying to get everybody all worked up, just stooging for his old man, really. There weren’t even any terrorists in Iraq, until we started blowing fuck out of the place.”

          Carter’s eyebrows went up.

          “It’s a Muslim country. They’re all in it together.”

          “Oh give me a break, man. There’s nothing in the Muslim religion, nothing in the Koran to support fucking terrorism. I’ve been reading it. I can tell you that. It’s all about oil, about money.” He laughed. “The war, I mean, not the Koran.”

          “Do you remember very much about your trip to Iraq?”

          “Do I remember much? I remember everything, including a lot of shit I’d rather forget. Why?”

          “No blank spots?”

          “Blank spots? What are you talking about?”

          “You know, gray areas, like.”

          Julius laughed again. “Lot of gray areas, man. The whole fucking place was pretty gray, if you ask me.”

          “Meet any Iraqis? Make any friends there?”

          Julius put his beer down on the table. “Carter, what is with you? Give this shit a rest, man. You been watching Fox a little too much, I think. Maybe you should switch to the culture channel for a while, KQED, something. Listen, I’m playing at the club tonight. You’re welcome to hang, but I gotta take a shower and get ready, dig?”

          “Sure,” said Carter. He stood up to leave.

          “So when are you taking off?”

          “Taking off?”

          “Leaving town, man, your new job.”

          “Oh, I’m not sure. Soon.”

          As Carter drove off, Julius stood in the doorway, watching. Good thing, he was thinking, the motherfucker has a new job. Maybe it would take his mind off all this terrorist stuff.