Well In Time Part 20

"I have been."

"Okay. Here's the deal. I bought this place for a reason. I bought it with money I got running a secret CIA operation in Africa. They pay well for somebody to do their dirty work. All that was involved was to fly over certain villages in this plane they set me up with and drop incendiary bombs.

"No problem, right? So I fly over, drop the bombs, the villages go up in flames, and I just circle around, and watch as people run out of their houses with their clothes on fire. Or their hair. Or they're dragging the bodies of old people who can't walk. Or their children who are injured or maybe dead.

"I've got w.i.l.l.y Nelson singing on a tape deck and I'm thinking about how I'm going to go on a big drunk when I get back home. And all of a sudden, it hits me.

"I look down and I see-really see-the damage I've done to innocent human beings. I get this rush of sickness and I up-chuck all over myself. I feel like I can't breathe. Like I'm wearing a s.h.i.+rt of fire myself. Only it's not going to kill me-it's just going to eat away at me for the rest of my life.

"When I got back, I knew I'd never be able to do that work again. So what the h.e.l.l was I going to do? That was when I met El Lobo in Dallas and he told me about this place in Mexico where he'd been hiding. And it came to me: I was going to buy it and make a home for retired killers. I knew other guys who were getting too old for it anymore. They were tired. They wanted out.

"So that's what I did. We fixed the place up and we established our perimeters. The only people we had to worry about were the local Indians, and they won't come near the place because they think it's haunted.

"There's the occasional hiker. We used to just kill them and bury them out back to fertilize the fruit trees. But as time went on, we started not feeling good about that.

"So we switched to Scopolamine. If we can catch them on the boundaries of the property and give them the drug, like we did you, we just lead them away and when the drug wears off, they don't remember a thing."

"Why didn't you do that with Hill and me?"

"Because El Lobo couldn't track you past the cave. And you told him when the drug took over that you'd come through the cave from the Urique Canyon. He knew that was impossible and he couldn't figure out how you could still be lying, with the Devil's Breath in your system. So he brought you here."

"And Hill, too?"

Father Keat didn't respond.

"So you present a challenge to us," he continued. "Frankly, we don't know what to do with you."

"I'd rather not fertilize any fruit trees."

"That's understandable."

"May I ask a question?

"Of course."

"You're a group of killers. Don't you have internecine conflicts? I mean, what keeps killers from killing one another? I had a roommate once and before we were through, I wanted to kill her!"

She smiled for the first time since her capture, and she thought she caught the wraith of a guffaw rising from the Ghosts.

Father Keat nodded.

"We've had our problems, especially at the beginning. We came down here, a bunch of freewheeling guys, and we worked hard but we partied hard, too. We drank. Did some c.o.ke. Brought in some women.

"Pretty soon, all sense of discipline broke down. A couple of the guys started a feud and ended up killing each other, one with a knife, the other with a gun at point-blank range."

"Did you bury them under the fruit trees?"

"We did. The orchard was just getting started. Birdman went under an apple tree and Saw made the orange tree take off like crazy."

Calypso couldn't stifle her smile.

"I see. So what happened to change things?"

"We knew it would never work unless we got some control over things. So we started having a.s.semblies. We talked until we thought talking might be a new form of torture. We made some rules. Things started to settle down."

"There must have been people who didn't like the new rules."

"In the end, there were only a couple of hardcore guys who couldn't adjust."

"Apple trees?"

"A mango and a date palm, if my memory serves me."

"Killing seems to answer most of your needs."

"It used to. Over the years, we've changed, most of us. Transformed is maybe a better word. We've recognized our guilt. We've experienced our shame. We've taken vows not to do harm anymore. We practice martial arts. We meditate. We eat clean food and don't do drugs or drink-much anyway.

"Finally, we realized we're nothing but a bunch of monks. A brotherhood of ghosts. So we bought ourselves some monk robes and here we are."

Calypso nodded.

"Very admirable," she said drily.

Father Keat called Lone-R to witness again.

"Tell her what happened to you," he commanded.

Lone-R folded his hands in front of him and dropped his head to stare at them.

"I was in LA after San Quentin," he began, his baritone softened by remembrance, "and I gots a job. It was just shovelin' dirt. Day labor. But I was tryin' to go straight.

"I was workin' with a bunch of Mexicans and they thought I didn't know Spanish. So they started makin' cracks about black men, callin' me names. All under their breath and then everyone'd laugh. It went on all day, and I was gettin' madder and madder. Then one of 'em who's workin' next to me throws a shovelful of dirt right in my face and I just exploded.

"I swung my shovel back and I caught that guy right in the arm, and I heard the bone break. I hit him again-brought the edge of the shovel down on top of his shoulder and just about cut his arm off. Blood started to squirt everywhere.

"The other guys were paralyzed. Just starin'. The guy was on the ground but I hit him again in the head. And then I just kept beatin' and beatin' on him, until he was a b.l.o.o.d.y mush.

"Finally, the other guys came for me. I hit a couple of 'em and they dropped. Before the others could get to me, I just threw my shovel and ran. They chased me for a couple of blocks but I was too fast.

"Finally, they gave up, but I kept runnin' until I came to the beach. I ran across it straight into the surf and I stayed in there, scrubbin' off the blood 'til I thought it was safe to come out. Then I went down to the rail yard, hopped a freight goin' east and ended up in Dallas.

"I probably wouldn't of cared about killin' that guy except that when I was cleanin' myself off there was this gob of stuff plastered to my cheek, and when I peeled it off, it was some of his brains, all white and slimy.

"It made me puke. And I thought about how just a few minutes ago that guy had been thinkin' with that white slime. Thinkin' bad thoughts but still he was able to think. And now he was just a bunch of jelly, layin' in a pile of dirt.

"Somethin' clicked in me. Like I was in the dark and I flipped the light on. I don't want to kill no one ever again.

"I came here and I grow vegetables. I gots tomatoes nine feet tall in the summer. Right now it's fall, so I only gots greens-chard and kale and some lettuce and cilantro. Maybe I can show you later."

Lone-R concluded with such a note of boyish pride that Calypso felt a stab of compa.s.sion toward her jailor.

Father Keat nodded. Lone-R went back to his post at the door and The Knife took his place up front. He looked at Father Keat with the forlorn eyes of a dog left out in the rain and Father Keat gave him a nod.

"Well, like I said before," The Knife began, "I was a hired killer for twenty years and proud of it. I bought a shop for my dad and my mom had a car. I helped my brothers and sisters go to college. They all got good professions because of me. It never occurred to me that what I was doing was wrong because it was always making everything right.

"But one day I was doing a job. All I had to do was shoot this guy from a distance with a sniper rifle. So here he comes down the street and I aim and pull the trigger, and just at that very instant, this little girl darts out in front of him and I'm watching through the scope as the top of her head explodes.

"Jesus Christ! I'm ready to throw myself off the rooftop! I couldn't live with myself. I found out who her parents were and I sent them all the money I had, a hundred thousand dollars, anonymously. I tried to buy my conscience quiet but it didn't work.

"I was ready to shoot myself when Keat, here, calls me up and says he wants to talk to me. So you can guess the rest. I never married. It was easy to fold up shop and plant my ID on a b.u.m I found dead down by the river.

"Well, okay. No. I didn't find him dead. I killed him. But it was a mercy killing, believe me. Then I had to cut off his head and hands so they couldn't ID him. It was my last job. I don't want to kill anyone again, ever. I swear to you. I'm done. So I came here and I do the cooking, and I try to make my peace. You know. With the guy upstairs."

The Knife looked close to tears, his bald head bent, his shoulders sagging. "And the worst part is," he said in a voice that choked back a sob, "I had to leave my old dad without saying goodbye and him with cancer, too. I swear to G.o.d, I'd die every death I ever meted out, if I could just have seen my father before he pa.s.sed. Christ! What a mess I made of my life!"

The last words were squeezed out in a rasping whisper. Then The Knife dropped his head to his chest and wept.

Lone-R came from the door, put his arm around The Knife's shoulders, and lead him back to his chair.

The room was more than silent. It was as if the torrent of The Knife's shame had swept them all into a whirlpool that was sucking them down into the darkest moments of their lives, moments filled with blood and violence and the irredeemable selling of their souls.

As if on cue, the sun ducked suddenly behind a cloud and the room went dark. With a rising shriek, wind slammed the wall of windows and rain fell in a racketing deluge. An icy draft swept through the room and the fire guttered on the hearth.

Father Keat sat behind his judge's desk with his head bowed, staring at his folded hands.

"It's hard," he said at last, "when you realize you've become horrible through your own diligence at homicide. People think criminals are crude and have low intelligence, but we Ghosts see it as a spiritual problem of intelligence gone awry."

Calypso found herself on her feet, gazing at the collected men, who stared back through sad eyes. She had no idea what to say, but knew she needed to say something, to lay some kind of balm on their collective psyche.

They looked at her expectantly, and Calypso realized it was time for her to give her own defense. What could she say to move the hearts of a roomful of a.s.sa.s.sins? It seemed that her case could only come out right if it included sending light into the darkness of these men's hearts. Maybe she even had been guided here for that very purpose.

"A wise person once told me," she began, thinking of Father Roberto in Chiapas, "that all things are sacred to those who are led by spirit-who are subordinated to mercy, enn.o.bled by love, dominated by truth, and restrained by justice."

She let her eyes glide from one grim, watchful face to the next.

"I have come among you quite by accident. When I learned who and what you are, I thought I would never find mercy, love, truth or justice here."

She stepped forward, her long skirt swaying, her dark, silvered hair drawn over one shoulder and her green eyes somber.

"Yet, what I expected and what I found were quite different. I discovered men who had committed terrible crimes, yes. But more importantly, I found men who have experienced genuine remorse. Who have known deep anguish of spirit. Who have repented of their dark deeds.

"I am not a simple woman. I have lived in the world and I know how wicked and violent and greedy and cruel it can be. I know that, this very moment, there are men and women in places of power whose crimes rival yours and probably exceed them. And I know that remorse and repentance are the furthest thing from their minds. Which makes your transcendence of your actions all the more amazing and admirable.

"I can't absolve you. I don't have that power. But I can tell you what I know about human behavior. We all make mistakes. And we keep making them until we realize they're mistakes. And then, we don't do that anymore.

"You've all made a huge leap in consciousness, from killing to not killing. You killed when you didn't know any better than to kill. Now, you don't kill because you know better."

She knew she was babbling. She looked at the faces of the men, turned up to her with a kind of expectation, possibly with hope. She wondered how long it had been since any of them had even seen a woman, as she lifted her hands and opened her arms to them in a gesture of inclusion and forgiveness.

"All I ask of you," she concluded, "is that you allow me and my friend Hill to go free. Your secret is safe with us. We are honorable people-just as I now believe you to be."

A shuffle of feet, a murmur of a.s.sent and nodding of heads erupted from the audience. Calypso felt a surge of hope until a harsh voice called out. It was El Lobo, frowning at her from his post by the door.

"You're a liar! You swore, even under the Devil's Breath, that you came through the cave from the Urique Canyon but that's impossible. So why should we believe anything you say? Maybe you're here to spy on us."

Another voice shouted from within the audience, "Yeah! I think you're lying, too!" Several more voices joined in the chorus of suspicion, until Father Keat's gavel came down in a single, sharp rap.

Shaken, Calypso gathered herself and answered, "It is true that I came through the cave from the Urique to the Batopilas canyon. I can show you how it's done, if you like."

"I've spent years exploring that cave, and I know that it's impossible." El Lobo's tone was surly.

"Then it's imperative that I show you. And I would like to request that others come, too, so that I have fair witnesses."

She addressed this last to Father Keat, who nodded impa.s.sively.

"And I also request that my friend Hill be present."

"Why?" Father Keat asked.

"Because I need to know he's alive and unharmed."

"Or what?" El Lobo sneered. "Are you threatening us?"

"Not at all. Hill is my friend and I'm worried about him."

She turned with an expansive gesture to the men seated before her.

"You may be a company of Ghosts, but I can see that you're also a company of friends. Wouldn't you be concerned for your friend if he were captured and held against his will?"

"One thing at a time," Father Keat demanded. "In the meantime, I'll go with you to the cave myself. Who else will to go?"

A few hands were raised and Father Keat picked eight men, Lone-R among them.

"It takes at least twenty-four hours for the entire pa.s.sage," Calypso said, needing them to understand the magnitude of the undertaking. "It won't be just an afternoon jaunt."

"We've got nothing but time here," Father Keat said, with a strange, twisted smile. "And you need to understand something: if you can't prove this to us, there will be consequences."

He paused to let the threat sink in.

"We'll go after lunch," and he motioned for Lone-R and El Lobo to take Calypso back to her room.

The afternoon was cold but the rain had ceased as Calypso and eight Ghosts set off for the cave. The men had changed from ca.s.socks to camouflage and were carrying weapons.