and the respectable appearance that Mickey’s labors afforded.
This afternoon at Harold’s, Mickey was sifting through the gardens trying to deduce what brand of plant food Harold used to such great effect in hot weather. He knew if he asked, Harold wouldn’t know. Harold had a landscaper, no doubt, and the landscaper was hired by Harold’s pretty wife. Mickey was also digging with his hands in order to look occupied. He really didn’t want a bunch of strangers asking him about his days on the road. Mickey may have longed for a garden in those days, but never human contact. He had been a traveling monk, a man alone with God, and he still believed that other people were only obstacles standing between him and the Lord.
“Hey, Mickey!” Harold shouted. “Come here! I want you to meet someone!”
Exhaling, Mickey stood slowly and turned to see what horror Harold had planned for him. An overweight Baptist grandma from Arkansas who’d baked him purple-frosted Jesus cookies? A teenaged HoG wannabe who would burst into tears if his mommy gave him two cross words but who was convinced that it was his destiny to execute gynecologists? Evangelical parents who wanted him to lay his hands on their colicky tot? He’d met all of those just since he’d arrived last night. If this many people knew him by sight, he considered it a miracle he wasn’t sitting on death row.
As he drew closer he saw it was Garner McGill. He knew the man, though they had never met face-to-face. McGill was the anti-cloning generalissimo who cheered the Hands of God from the sidelines but who, despite calling himself a “soldier,” didn’t have the balls to tell his quarter million followers what was really required to be a member of God’s army. You’ll never hear Reverend McGill say you can’t fight evil with petitions and bullhorns, Mickey often said at private meetings back in Ohio. God’s enemies will be defeated at the end of a gun and McGill knows it, but he doesn’t want the rifle in his own hands.
“Have you two met?” Harold asked. “Reverend McGill? Mickey Fanning?”
They shook.
“This is a pleasure, a real pleasure,” McGill said. “Mr. Fanning, I don’t have to tell you how important your personal ministry has been to the cause of righteous men. The Lord smiles upon your work, and He celebrates your sacrifice in the service of your faith.”
Mickey nodded. What a load of crap. “Reverend,” he said. He sat down next to Harold and in his periphery he could see other Soldiers for Christ wandering over. He scooted to his right, hogging the rest of the bench so no one could claim a seat on either side of him.
Harold said, “The reverend and I were just talking about the list.”
“Yuh,” Mickey said, grabbing a potato chip between two fingers and plunging it deep into the dip, nearly to the tips of his soiled fingers.
“The reverend was wondering – and to tell you the truth, I started to wonder, myself – exactly how many of those red lines were yours.”
Mickey shrugged. “Lots of them. Almost all of them, I suppose, one way or another.”
“All of them?” Reverend McGill said. “Not really.”
“You got a copy with you?” Mickey asked.
Harold did, in his pocket. He unfolded it, six pages stapled together, and he set it in the middle of the table. Eight or nine Soldiers for Christ surrounded the picnic table, none daring to squeeze in on the bench, and leaned in to get a look at the infamous list. They’d all seen it on the Internet, but here they were sharing it with three legendary figures of the anti-cloning movement: Reverend McGill, Harold Devereaux, and Mickey Fanning. They’d all heard stories about Mickey’s dedication and coldness of heart, about how he’d circumcised himself with a razor blade and a bottle of aspirin, about how he’d killed dozens of doctors and scientists. They just weren’t sure which or how many of these tales they should believe.
From behind his ear Mickey produced a pencil, which he had used to dig about in Harold’s garden. He wiped soil from the lead in the margins of the first page and began putting marks next to the names.
Heads leaned forward all around as Mickey methodically checked off the names of dead and retired doctors. Dr. Andrea Ali, Dr. Jim Baggio, Dr. Phillip Byner, Dr. Thomas Curry… In places, he claimed eight or nine in a row before skipping one with the tip of his lead. On more than one of those streaks, a lanky bearded kid, no more than twenty, whispered a “Whoa. Dude.”
When he turned the last page over he had marked 87 names without a word. He flipped the list right side up and pushed it to the center of the table. The gathering of Christ’s soldiers burst into chatter. Mickey slapped the back of his neck and examined his palm. Three bloody mosquitoes had been flattened there with one blow.
“Let me see that,” Harold said, pulling the list toward him with a skeptical chuckle. He turned the first page. “Here. What about this one? You claim Jon Kucza was one of yours. Jon Kucza died of a heart attack.”
“Nicotine overdose,” Mickey corrected. “I slipped it into his coffee grounds. He was already on the patch. Never tasted it.”
Harold tilted his head to show he was impressed, but continued to pore over the list. “Geoffrey Gahala. He died in a hiking accident.”
“He was hiking all right,” Mickey said. “It was no accident, though.” The soldiers whistled and clapped.
Reverend McGill held up a hand. “I can’t say I know whether to believe you, Mr. Fanning. What would be the point of killing any of these doctors and making it look like an accident? What deterrence value does that action have?”
Mickey had both of his palms down on the table, and he was staring at his filthy hands. “Who said it was only about deterrence?”
“Obviously, the taking of lives such as these must be justified by the greater good,” McGill said. “Don’t misunderstand me, Mickey, you have performed miracles for the movement through your public displays of protest. But I don’t understand why you would allow any doctors to die without sending a message to the general population about the evils of the cloning profession. What about the greater good?”
Mickey looked up from his hands, not at the reverend, but at Harold. “Sometimes the greater good is just a dead doctor. Those men and women offended God, and now they’re dead. Perhaps that’s as good as it gets.”
While his followers turned to McGill for a response, Harold found another name of interest. “Lookit here. Davis Moore,” he said. “Moore quit his practice but he still stumps for the pro-cloners. I saw him on the news less than a month ago.”
“You’re the one who drew a line through his name,” Mickey said. “I just claimed his retirement as my own. Count it as half a victory.”
“That’s fair,” Harold said. “But he hung it up years and years after you shot him. How can you look me in the eyes and take the credit for that? Seriously. There could have been any number of reasons he gave up being a doctor.”
Mickey stuck his jaw out and smiled over the underbite in a manner that gave Reverend McGill a slow chill. “Some take longer than others,” he admitted. “And let’s just say that I did more than shoot Dr. Moore in the shoulder.” No one reacted, so Mickey continued. “Some things you mean to do, some things you don’t, and everything you do has unintended consequences.”
Leaning his large frame so far back he had to hook a foot around one of the table legs to keep from falling over, Harold said, “What are you goin’ on about, Mickey?”
Without looking up, Mickey said, “To be honest, I don’t think the reverend wants to hear it.”
The soldiers grumbled. McGill’s presence was forcing a premature end to a good story, and they planned on walking away from the famous Mickey Fanning with a good story at the very least. The reverend was losing a popularity contest among his own flock. He started face-saving measures. “Mickey, you’re among friends here. I assure you that nothing you can say will shock me. There has been no greater supporter of your work than the Soldiers for Christ. Of course we maintain a certain – veneer – to remain palatable to the suits in Washington as well as plain folks in Peoria. But we understand this is a war. Whatever tactics you have used in pursuit of your many accomplishments are no doubt justified. You have earned that much respect and more, in my opinion.” The soldiers muttered their agreement. The bearded kid patted Mickey on the back, to Mickey’s irritation. Harold was gratified to hear the reverend coming around to more radical, forward thinking.
“I shot Davis Moore about twenty years ago, from sixty-five yards,” Mickey said. “I missed by two inches and he survived. A year or so later I was driving back through Chicago and decided to have another go at him. It was a cold, cold winter and I didn’t have time to set up all the necessary precautions for a proper – uh, elimination – so I decided to try something a little different. A tactic that didn’t work that night, but which has served me well in the years since.
