“If I’m caught stealing a toothpick,” Frank told her, “I’m still in forever. What difference does it make? I can’t do anything that’s more dangerous or less dangerous.”
Maria Elena, terrified of the whole idea, floundered for something to reply, and could only come up with, “What if they won’t pay?”
“They’ll pay,” Frank said, with calm assurance. “Just to be sure we don’t accidentally hit the wrong switch. Or on purpose. This is the one, Maria, this is the only five—”
The doorbell rang. Grigor clutched the sofa arm: “They agreed! They said I could stay!”
Maria Elena left the living room, and the others sat silent, listening. They heard the door open, heard Maria Elena’s question, heard a heavy dark-timbred male voice say, “I’m looking for Pami Njoroge. Saw her at the shopping mall, wanted to say hello, missed her there. Saw the car out front here, didn’t want to leave town without I say hello to my old friend Pami.”
He’d been approaching all through this speech, and now he appeared in the living room doorway: a big-boned, hard-looking black man with a cold smile and mean red-rimmed eyes. He glanced once, without interest, at the group in the room, then smiled more broadly and more meanly: “Hello, Pami.”
They all saw the frightened look that came and went on Pami’s face. They all heard the fatalism in her voice: “Hello, Rush,” she said.
Ananayel
So Brother Rush is back.
Well, no matter. The process is under way now; he can’t stop it. That strange quintet will get into Green Meadow III, I can count on Frank to make that happen. Each will go in for a different reason, but the reasons will unite them just long enough for my purposes.
Once inside the plant, the five will make their demands, and the demands will not be met. It won’t be out of bravery or foolhardiness that officialdom will refuse to meet their conditions, but out of muddle and mess and ego and incompetence. Responsibility will be diluted among various private corporations, public and semi-public regulating authorities, even congressional committees. Those who are afraid to act will be counterbalanced by those who are afraid they will not get credit for whatever actions turn out to be successful. Publicity-hogging, buck-passing, all the common discourtesies of public life, will conspire to keep Frank from getting his money. And the usual spinelessness of the happy media will keep the various propaganda efforts from getting out of the plant and into the world’s consciousness.
Gradually, but sooner rather than later, Frank and the others will begin to realize the enormity of what they’ve done and the hopelessness of their position.
And then my task will be finished.
33
No one knew exactly what to make of Pami’s “friend,” Brother Rush. Clearly, he wasn’t her friend at all, but she seemed to feel powerless to deny him. There was at all times something cold and sly and insinuating about him, but the menace never quite broke the surface, never entirely solidified into anything you could call him on.
Frank felt the frustration of this the most, and took Pami aside to make her tell him what was going on: “What’s with this guy? He your pimp? What do we want him around for?”
“I don’t want him around,” Pami said, “but Rush — he gets what he wants. But he won’t bother nobody.”
“He bothers me.”
At which point, Rush came strolling into the room and said, “Hey, what’s happnin,” and that was the end of that.
That he would be staying for dinner was understood, somehow, though he never asked and no one invited him and in fact no one wanted him. But a sixth place was set at the table, Rush took his seat at the far side of Pami, and as the meal progressed he alternated between extravagant praise of what Maria Elena had accomplished in the kitchen and questions that confused them all.
He was pumping them, that was clear, or at least he was trying to, but about what? His questions were hard to answer because they were full of assumptions that weren’t true. He said, “You just waitin here for somebody else gonna show up?”
Frank said, “Like who?”
“I dunno,” Rush told him, shrugging as though it didn’t matter, trying to make that mean secret face look casual and innocent. “Somebody to tell you what to do next, where y’all gonna go from here.”
Grigor smiled at Rush with closed lips, and said, “No one tells us where to go. We know where we are going. Some of us do. We are absolutely free.”
“You know where you’re going?” Rush looked interested. “Where’s that, Grigor?” (He couldn’t quite seem to get his mouth to twist the name all the way around to Grigor.)
This time Grigor permitted his lips to open when he smiled. “To the grave, brother,” he said.
Rush looked merely interested: “You got what Pami got?”
“This,” Maria Elena said firmly, “is not a thing to talk about at dinner.”
“You’re right, Maria,” Rush said. “I love this sauce. You got some special spices in here, don’tcha?”
But soon he was at it again, saying, “Do you all have some special doctor you’re gonna go see?”
Frank put down his fork. “Rush,” he said, letting the exasperation show, “do I look like I need a doctor?”
“No, you don’t,” Rush agreed. “You truly don’t.” And he grew quiet again, if thoughtful.
The next time he spoke, it was something new; neither irrelevant questions nor extravagant praise. Lifting his head, sniffing the air, almost like a cat, he said, “You got somebody hangin around outside. This the guy you been waitin on?”
“Goddammit, Rush,” Frank said, “I don’t know what the hell is the matter with you, what Pami said to you or what—”
“I didn’t say nothing to him!” Pami cried. “This is some idea all his own!”
“Whatever it is,” Frank said. “Whatever gave you this wild hair up your ass, Brother Rush, let me tell you once and for all. We aren’t waiting for anybody. We weren’t waiting for you—”
“Absolutely,” Grigor said.
“—and we aren’t waiting for anybody else.”
Rush nodded through this, smiling gently, and when Frank was finished he said, “Then you won’t care if I go out and see to this fella outside.”
“Be my guest,” Frank said. “If you think there’s somebody out there.”
“Oh, somebody’s there all right,” Rush said.
Maria Elena, looking toward the curtained windows, said, “But who?”
“That’s what I’ll find out,” Rush told her, and got to his feet. “Satisfy all our curiosity.” Dropping his napkin beside his plate, smiling around at them all, he turned away and left the dining room. For a big man, he could move very silently.
Ananayel
They are in the air like bats, these creatures of the night, the lesser servants of Lucifer. He was the first schismatic, of course, Lucifer, that onetime angel and captain of angels, my former brother. Pride was his besetting sin, and darkness his punishment. He had been very nearly as immortal as God Himself, and remained so. It was not by a foreshortening of his life, his sensations, his awareness, that he was penalized, but instead by a near-eternity of darkness, a permanent exclusion from the Light. Yes, that’s right; from the Light.
An odd judgment, when you stop to think of it. Lucifer was punished by being given his own kingdom, his own minions, his own realm and rule; and fall for the sin of pride. Pride. So an angel can be proud. An angel can sin. An angel has free will.