really is. I haven't seen one myself."
"One what?"
Static fizzed and crackled.
"Paulie?"
Among the broken, twisted words issuing from the speaker, one sounded like devils.
"Paulie," Neil said, "if this line goes, we'll call you right back. And if we can't get through, you try calling us. Do you hear me, Paulie?"
On TV, in a city now identified by caption-Berlin, Germany-the last of the soundless, running feet chased across the streaming pavement, past the fallen videocam.
Suddenly out of distant Maui, as clear as if originating from the adjacent kitchen, Paul Sloan's voice once more swelled loud in midsentence: " chapter twelve, verse twelve. Do you remember that one, Neil?"
"Sorry, Paulie, I didn't catch the book," Neil replied. "Say it again."
In Berlin, captured blurrily through a wet lens, legions of luminous raindrops marched across the puddled street, casting up a spray more glittery than diamond dust.
A prescient awareness of pending horror kept Molly's attention riveted on the muted TV.
The action seemed to be over, the mob having moved on to other territory, but she assumed that the accompanying audio must be telling an important story. Otherwise, the network would have cut away from Berlin when the camera struck the pavement and was not at once snatched up again.
She still held the remote. She didn't press MUTE and summon the sound again because she didn't want to risk blotting out anything that her brother-in-law might say.
On the phone, Paul's voice fell into an abyss, but just as Neil was about to hang up, the connection proved intact, and Paul rejoined them briefly again: "' having great wrath because he knows that he hath but a short time.' "
The line finally went dead, transmitting not even the click and scratch of static.
"Paulie? Paulie, can you hear me?" Neil pumped the disconnect bar in the phone cradle, trying without success to get a dial tone.
On the TV, as silent as a bubble drifting into frame, a human head, perhaps that of the luckless cameraman, precisely cleaved in half from brow through chin, dropped to the pavement, landing flat-side down, one dead terror-brightened eye peering along the microwave pipeline from Berlin to California.
----
8
UNTIL NOW, MOLLY HAD NEVER FELT A NEED TO TAKE a loaded pistol to the bathroom.
She put it on the yellow ceramic tiles beside the sink, the muzzle toward the mirror. The presence of the weapon gave her no comfort, but made her bowels quiver.
In the quick, when either you had the heart for justice or you didn't, Molly could squeeze the trigger without hesitation. She'd done it once before.
Nevertheless, the prospect of having to shoot someone half sickened her. She was a creator, not a killer.
On her porcelain prie-dieu with flusher handle, she prayed that regardless of what might transpire in the hours ahead, she would not have to defend herself against other human beings. She wanted only enemies so alien that, after the shooting, there could be no cause for doubt, no reason for guilt.
Although acutely aware of the multiple ironies and absurdities of both her position and her prayer, she sent each word to God with sincerity, in a fever of mind and bone. The humor of the moment was too bitter to tease from her even a wretched laugh.
She had chosen the windowless half-bath off the kitchen. From beyond the door, through the white noise of the rain on the roof, came the clink and clatter of Neil packing two insulated coolers full of provisions to take with them in the SUV.
Each of his two careers had required that he think ahead. These days he worked as a cabinetmaker. He knew the importance of having good plans and precise measurements before making the first cut.
He worried that they would grow hungry before they were ready to
"One what?"
Static fizzed and crackled.
"Paulie?"
Among the broken, twisted words issuing from the speaker, one sounded like devils.
"Paulie," Neil said, "if this line goes, we'll call you right back. And if we can't get through, you try calling us. Do you hear me, Paulie?"
On TV, in a city now identified by caption-Berlin, Germany-the last of the soundless, running feet chased across the streaming pavement, past the fallen videocam.
Suddenly out of distant Maui, as clear as if originating from the adjacent kitchen, Paul Sloan's voice once more swelled loud in midsentence: " chapter twelve, verse twelve. Do you remember that one, Neil?"
"Sorry, Paulie, I didn't catch the book," Neil replied. "Say it again."
In Berlin, captured blurrily through a wet lens, legions of luminous raindrops marched across the puddled street, casting up a spray more glittery than diamond dust.
A prescient awareness of pending horror kept Molly's attention riveted on the muted TV.
The action seemed to be over, the mob having moved on to other territory, but she assumed that the accompanying audio must be telling an important story. Otherwise, the network would have cut away from Berlin when the camera struck the pavement and was not at once snatched up again.
She still held the remote. She didn't press MUTE and summon the sound again because she didn't want to risk blotting out anything that her brother-in-law might say.
On the phone, Paul's voice fell into an abyss, but just as Neil was about to hang up, the connection proved intact, and Paul rejoined them briefly again: "' having great wrath because he knows that he hath but a short time.' "
The line finally went dead, transmitting not even the click and scratch of static.
"Paulie? Paulie, can you hear me?" Neil pumped the disconnect bar in the phone cradle, trying without success to get a dial tone.
On the TV, as silent as a bubble drifting into frame, a human head, perhaps that of the luckless cameraman, precisely cleaved in half from brow through chin, dropped to the pavement, landing flat-side down, one dead terror-brightened eye peering along the microwave pipeline from Berlin to California.
----
8
UNTIL NOW, MOLLY HAD NEVER FELT A NEED TO TAKE a loaded pistol to the bathroom.
She put it on the yellow ceramic tiles beside the sink, the muzzle toward the mirror. The presence of the weapon gave her no comfort, but made her bowels quiver.
In the quick, when either you had the heart for justice or you didn't, Molly could squeeze the trigger without hesitation. She'd done it once before.
Nevertheless, the prospect of having to shoot someone half sickened her. She was a creator, not a killer.
On her porcelain prie-dieu with flusher handle, she prayed that regardless of what might transpire in the hours ahead, she would not have to defend herself against other human beings. She wanted only enemies so alien that, after the shooting, there could be no cause for doubt, no reason for guilt.
Although acutely aware of the multiple ironies and absurdities of both her position and her prayer, she sent each word to God with sincerity, in a fever of mind and bone. The humor of the moment was too bitter to tease from her even a wretched laugh.
She had chosen the windowless half-bath off the kitchen. From beyond the door, through the white noise of the rain on the roof, came the clink and clatter of Neil packing two insulated coolers full of provisions to take with them in the SUV.
Each of his two careers had required that he think ahead. These days he worked as a cabinetmaker. He knew the importance of having good plans and precise measurements before making the first cut.
He worried that they would grow hungry before they were ready to
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