Day of Reckoning, Page 4

  One of the bearded men stepped out of the circle and hurried down the hallway, hesitating at the bathroom door. He whispered: “Meg? Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

  Behind him, the group broke up. Weapons were retrieved and put into safekeeping. There was laughter from the kitchen as some breakfast was started.

  The bearded man could hear the sounds of nausea.

  “Meg! C’mon! Are you okay?” he continued to whisper.

  He was not aware of the presence behind him, and started when he heard the voice.

  “Maybe your squeeze isn’t ready, huh, math-man?”

  The bearded man turned abruptly, his voice high-pitched with tension. “I told you she’d be okay! You asked, and I told you! She’s as committed as any of us. She understands why we’re here! So give it a rest, Tanya!”

  “You have to purge yourself,” Olivia continued, steadily, her voice filled with disdain. “You have to lose all your old bourgeois thoughts and replace them with pure revolutionary fire.”

  “I told you, we’re ready!”

  “I think you’re the weak link, math-man. Still filled with all that old learning you got at that school. Still a little bit of the college boy in you, playing at revolution.”

  “Listen, Tanya, I’m not playing at anything, and I wish you’d get off my back. We’re here, aren’t we? I’m not your precious fucking mathe­matician anymore. I put all that behind me. You’re the one that keeps reminding me of it. You know, we’ve been over this a couple of times now, and it’s starting to piss me off. College was the past. I’ve finished it. The Phoenix is as real for me as for you. You weren’t a revolutionary all your fucking life, you know.”

  “No,” Olivia replied, voice even, smooth and bitter. “I was a pig once. But no longer. I have given everything to the movement. That’s why I took this name, that’s why I could die today and I would die happy. Could you die happy, math-man? What have you given up? The pigs still know Sundiata and Kwanzi by their old prison names, but we know them by their revolutionary names. And they’re willing to die. They’ve lived through the battle of the ghetto, and they’re willing to die in the war today. The others, too, Emily and Bill Lewis—nice, normal, American names, right?—but now they’re Emma and Ché. They are real soldiers. Nobody’s play-acting. But you two, you’re the ones I’m worried about.”

  “I wish you’d cut out the rhetoric.”

  “You’re one to talk. Because that’s all we’ve heard from you is talk. About all the times you’ve been gassed and arrested and beaten. Where are the scars, math-man? We’ll see. Now you have the chance to fight back, I just wonder whether you can really do it. No more pacifist bullshit, no more nice Sunday civil disobedience. War! They’ve asked for it, now they’re going to get it.”

  “Do I have to die to prove myself?”

  “Others have.”

  He hesitated.

  “I told you. We’re ready. We’ll do what we have to.”

  “We’ll see, won’t we? We’ll see real soon.”

  Olivia glared at the bearded man. She was almost as tall as he and able to look him directly in the eyes. Then she laughed derisively. Before the bearded man could say anything else, she turned on her heel and disappeared toward the rear bedroom. The bearded man watched after her for a moment, filled with anger himself. “She thinks she’s the whole fucking show,” he said under his voice. Inwardly, however, he added: And she is.

  He turned back toward the bathroom door. “Meg, c’mon, are you okay?”

  He heard the toilet flush, and after another second the door swung slowly open.

  She looked pale and shaky.

  “I’m sorry, Duncan, I just got sick. Nerves, I guess. Don’t worry, I’ll be okay. You just tell me what you want me to do.” She stared down the hallway toward the room where Olivia had just disappeared. “You know what I think. But I’ll do what you say.”

  “Look, we’re all nervous. This is an important day.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “It’s going to work out fine. Look, really this is more of a gesture than anything else. And anyway, nobody’s going to get hurt. So don’t be nervous.”

  But she knew it wasn’t nerves. She knew it was life quickening within her, and for an instant she considered whether this was the time to tell him. No, she thought, not here, not now. But when? Time was short.

  Megan reached up and stroked his cheek. “Is everything okay with you?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  “Why? I mean, what could be wrong?”

  She simply looked at him.

  “Goddammit,” he whispered angrily, “now don’t you start in as well. We’re going through with it. We’ve talked about it, and that’s it. I’m tired of marching. I’m tired of protests. They’ve never done a damn bit of good. We’ve been over this, and over this and over this. The only thing that the people in power in this society understand is violence on their own terms. So strike at their heart. Maybe that’ll change things. It’s the only way.”

  He hesitated, then added: “It’s the only kind of symbolism that they’ll understand. It’ll get attention. It’s necessary.”

  At first she didn’t say anything. Then she said quietly, “Well, fine. Believing in change is one thing. But don’t start sounding like Tanya, because that’s not you.”

  He sighed in frustration.

  “We’ve been through this.”

  She nodded.

  “Dammit, not now. Just not now!”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders, but not angrily, merely to hold her at arm’s length. She slid her arms around him. “Not now,” he whispered. “Oh, Christ,” he said. “I should never have brought you here. This wasn’t your scene. I knew it.”

  “My scene is your scene,” she said. She laughed. “Boy, that really sounds corny.” She knew the joke would help to relax him. She could see the tension in his eyes. She hoped it was tension caused by doubt. I’ve got to find a way out of here, she thought. I’ve got to get us out of here.

  After a moment he released her. “Let’s eat,” he said in a normal voice. He cupped her chin in his hand.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know if I’ve any appetite.” She hesitated, as if thinking. “Funny,” she said. “Actually, upon reflection, I think I could eat a horse. With whipped cream.”

  “For breakfast?” He laughed.

  “C’mon,” she said, taking him by the hand. But her smile masked an anxiety that cried within her: Tell him! Everything has changed now. It’s not just us anymore.

  She despaired of finding the right words and the right time.

  Olivia Barrow stood at a small dresser in the rear bedroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She had cut her hair short; it gave her whole face an edge. She examined her features, the straight nose, high cheekbones, and wide forehead that had driven her mother to stroke her head so often, standing behind her as they both looked into the mirror, and tell her that she would always be the prettiest girl at whatever party she was heading to. She laughed at the thought: Her mother probably didn’t have today’s kind of party in mind. She remembered the modeling agency that had tried to sign her to a contract when she was a freshman in college, and she snorted. I need a scar, she thought. Some horrifying bright red-purple badge that runs through the middle of these good looks like a crease across a painter’s final canvas. It would be better if I looked more dumpy, more nondescript. I should have become some baggy-bodied, stringy-haired hippie girl, with sagging breasts and buttocks, chanting mantras about peace, love, and flowers, looking like my only concern in the entire world is where to find another hit of acid. I would be harder to recognize.

  But she was equally aware of the strength her beauty gave her. She bent down swiftly, touching her toes, then,
still jackknifed at the waist, putting her palms flat on the floor. It was important to be physically fit.

  Her mother had been a dancer. She remembered watching her leap, twist, and fly in her studio. She was always strong. Olivia felt a sudden rush of anger. Why hadn’t she fought? Why had she just let the disease rob her of life? She remembered how shocked she’d been at how swiftly the cancer had sliced strength from her mother, diminishing her in moments, it seemed, rendering her small and pathetic. Olivia hated the memory. She hated the defeat, the murmurings and ineptitude of the doctors. She hated her father’s impotent acquiescence.

  She wondered what he was doing that minute. Probably stuck in that musty den in the apartment overlooking Washington Square, reading law books, getting ready for another legal assault on behalf of some hopeless cause, inevitably destined for failure. My father, she thought, with a small measure of kindness, always tilts at windmills. If one won’t come to him, then he’ll go find one.

  In an odd way, she both hated and loved him. She was aware how much he’d taught her, how his commitment to causes had affected her. He had instructed her that going through life without passion and beliefs was a cold, vapid existence. He had shown her that action, social duty, protest were the foundations of intelligence. Their Village apartment had always been filled with songs from one movement or another. It seemed as if she was forever awakening in her father’s arms in the middle of the night, as she was transported from her own tiny bedroom to a daybed in the corner of her parents’ bedroom, to make room for some important visitor, usually bearded, usually carrying a guitar, who would spend the night in her bed. My first sacrifices for the struggle.

  In third grade, when the others were doing book reports on Charlotte’s Web and The Wind in the Willows, she was talking about Joe Hill and the Wobblies. Her mind flashed back to a hundred demonstrations he’d taken her to. She remembered at age seven or eight being led by the hand into a cavernous hall in Greenwich Village filled with hundreds of people, all crying, “Free Them! Free Them! Free Them!” She had learned later that it had been a meeting on behalf of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. She remembered how impressed she’d been at the volume of voices, at the strength of unity in the hot, stuffy space of that hall. She’d been certain that this cause that her father was such a part of would be successful, and had cried when she’d seen the headline in the paper a few months later. Now she laughed out loud at the memory. That was my father, she thought. He was there to show support. He was there to lend his body, his prestige, his money to the cause he perceived as right. And to what effect? The state murdered the Rosenbergs. The state always thumbed its nose and laughed at men like my father.

  But they won’t laugh at me.

  She pictured her father again. He would wear either a blue, brown, or gray pin-striped suit every day. He called it corporate camouflage. Look like the enemy, he would laugh. He always lost with humor. I loved the humor. But I hated the losing. His principles were always correct. His politics were always right. His causes were always important. His tactics were sound. His legal reasoning always acute. His presentation always direct, impressive.

  And he always lost.

  Olivia looked again into the mirror and cleared her father from her mind.

  Today I will show them all that action is strength. For a moment she envisioned the morning papers. The plan excited her, and she looked into her gray-blue eyes in the mirror, as if searching for a flaw. She smiled in satisfaction.

  None.

  They had spent too much time watching, waiting, observing.

  She knew the route the armored truck drove. She knew the procedure followed when they picked up the cash receipts and when they deposited the cash at the bank. It was always just at the end of the business day, every other Wednesday. Slow time at the bank. She pictured the two guards in her mind. They didn’t even bother to unbuckle the straps that held their revolvers. Last week one of the guards had set his shotgun down, when a money bag had slid off of the cart. He was fat and she’d watched him grunt as he lifted it. They had seemed almost bored. Completely relaxed. Oblivious to the one thing that she was going to bring down on them.

  And why not? This is a tiny little farming town in wine-growing country. It hardly feels the heat from San Francisco, two hours and one century distant. What’s happening on the streets of the cities is just a few bright images on the evening news. Nothing to be overly concerned about.

  Nothing until I arrived here.

  The plan had two great political strengths. First, the money they planned to seize came largely from a Dow Chemical subsidiary plant. If this small plant made pesticides for farm production, and wasn’t connected to the larger plants where napalm and the other chemicals of war were made, well, that was irrelevant. And the assault itself would happen in this small, conservative community. A bunch of tired old Eisenhower Republicans, ripe for the picking. The cops here are all farm boys whose fathers lost their farms to the bank. It will show them that the revolution can spring up anywhere.

  That was what she appreciated the most: the shock value.

  She looked at herself again, grinning with anticipation. She picked up her pistol and pointed it at herself in the mirror, then held her position for several seconds. The heft of the weapon gave her an electric sensation and she realized that she was on the edge of arousal. Continuing to hold the pistol in front of her, she lifted her free hand to her breast, stroking herself.

  All warriors are the same before battle, she thought.

  She did not pause as the door opened behind her. It was Emily Lewis. Olivia continued stroking her breast, looking at the other woman in the mirror.

  “Tanya,” she said. “Can we talk for a moment?”

  “Isn’t the time for talk over?”

  “Yes, that’s right. I’m just concerned about one aspect of the plan.”

  Olivia turned and put her arm around the other woman. For a moment she kneaded the woman’s shoulders, then ran a hand through her curly black hair. She moved her to the side of the bed. “Tell me,” she said.

  “It’s the getaway arrangements. I understand about the two vans. I understand about the switch. But what scares me is that on the escape route we’ll drive right past the bank. I don’t know if we’ll be able to stay cool.”

  “That’s the beauty of the escape. We take off in one direction, then, before the pigs know it, just as they all start chasing us, we head right back past them, going the opposite way. You’re right. It will take nerve. But we’ve got strength. It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  “Do you think she can manage it? I mean the driving? Suppose we get stopped?”

  “That’s why I let Duncan bring her into the brigade. First off, she’s going to do anything her squeeze tells her to. Regardless. The second thing you’ve got to remember is she’s never even had a fucking parking ticket, for Christ sakes. The pigs have absolutely no book on her. And look at her. She looks like your average, slightly far out, kind of dizzy college student. She’d be more trouble than she was worth to some scared cop looking for a bunch of professional revolutionaries. And even if we were to get stopped, and they ran her name and license, nothing would turn up when they checked their computers. They’d have to let her go. And we’d all be in the back, laughing our heads off.”

  Emily leaned back on the bed. She smiled. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “It is easy. Kwanzi and Sundiata have done a half-dozen jobs like this. They’re cool. Really know the business.”

  “Yeah, except they got caught once.”

  “They didn’t have the right commitment.”

  “Now they do?”

  “Now they do,” Olivia said. She wondered for an instant at how easily she lied. She lied on: “Once they were criminals. Now they are revolutionaries. They just know how to use the knowledge they’ve acquired on behalf of the strug
gle.”

  The dark-haired woman closed her eyes. “Well,” she said, “I wish we’d chosen something a little quieter for the first action, but I trust you.”

  “Good. Think of the money. New weapons. Better quarters. New recruits. The Phoenix Brigade will become a reality. We will become a true revolutionary organization. It will make a mark. Definitely.”

  Emily laughed. “God,” she said, “the pigs are going to be so pissed off.”

  Olivia bent down beside her and ran her finger along the valley of the other woman’s neck. “You must trust me,” she said. “You must do what I tell you. Together, we are an army.”

  “I will. We all will.”

  Her finger traveled down, undoing the top buttons of the other woman’s blue denim workshirt, then tracing the shape of her breasts. Emily closed her eyes. “Bill is jealous when we do this,” she said. She shuddered as Olivia touched her stomach, and reached her own hand up to run through Olivia’s blond hair. “He’ll have to learn I love you, too,” she said.

  “And I love you,” replied Olivia, as she undid the top of the other woman’s jeans. “I always have. I always will.” She did not say: You’re the only one that matters. You’re the only one I care for. When this is finished, it will be you and me going away and starting over, rid of all these hangers-on and confused political parasites. We can devote ourselves together to the new world. We are the real Phoenix Brigade. The two of us together.

  Emily giggled. “Everyone’s excited. I think everyone’s going to get it on this morning.” Both women laughed together. Then they quickly undressed. As Olivia started to climb on top of the other woman, she noticed the door to the bedroom crack open slightly. She could hear breathing from just beyond her sight. “Enter,” she commanded. She waited until she saw the bearded face of her lover’s husband.

  “You can watch,” she told Bill Lewis brusquely. “You can say nothing. Do nothing. Just watch.” It was an order, given in tones that left no room for discussion. She jerked her head to the corner of the room. The man flushed visibly, the scar on his neck flashing like a beacon, hesitated, then nodded. He walked quietly to the designated spot, without saying a word.