“Wanda, I have a feeling there’s going to be plenty of work to do here after you give me everything you can.”
She sighed. “Two strange bits of info. He flew government officials.”
“What do you mean, government officials?”
“I couldn’t get his log. It was frozen. All I can tell you is he didn’t get as high as Air Force One. That log I could check. But that seems to have been his assignment for years, piloting whoever needed piloting to and from D.C. Other than that you’re on your own.”
“All right. What’s the second thing?”
“He was still receiving his Air Force salary, right? But he was also getting paid by someone else.”
“Who?”
“A company called Midas.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Don’t know. I didn’t have time to dig that deep. And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t particularly want to.”
“It’s not illegal to be getting a civilian salary while you’re in the Air Force, is it? I mean, I imagine it happens all the time when rich guys go into the service. If any rich guys ever actually go into the service.”
“No. It’s not illegal. It’s just that. . this guy was a lifer, Jay. That’s what his records show. He wasn’t rich. And he wasn’t getting paid by Midas until eighteen months ago. Right at the time he seemed to disappear from the Air Force.” She cocked her head to the right and narrowed her eyes. “What the hell is going on here, Jay?”
Before Justin could respond, there was a firm knock on the den door. Both Justin and Wanda jumped a bit at the noise.
“Jay,” Justin’s mother called in. “Billy’s on the phone for you. He says it’s important.”
“Billy DiPezio?” Wanda asked, and for some reason she asked it in a whisper.
Justin nodded, leaned over to the other side of the couch, and grabbed the phone. “Billy,” he said. “What’s up? It’s too late for a free dinner, if that’s why you’re calling.”
“That’s not why I’m calling,” the Providence police chief said. “I’m over at Chuck Billings’s house.”
“Give him a message for me, please,” Justin said. “Tell him he’s an asshole. He’ll understand.”
“I can’t give him the message, Jay. I’m with his wife.”
“Well tell her to give him the message, please. I’d appreciate it.”
“Chuck’s dead,” Billy DiPezio said.
“What?” Justin found himself stammering. “When?. . How. .”
“Late this afternoon. He was driving up here, got off the I-95 for some reason, probably to find something to eat, and his car spun out of control, hit an oncoming car. Both cars were totaled.”
“What do you mean, he was driving up?”
“I mean he was driving from Long Island back home. He was supposed to get in tonight.”
“No, he wasn’t. He-”
“Jay, what the hell’s your problem with this? I spoke to him this morning, he was driving up. The local cops called me, said it looks like he fell asleep at the wheel. What the fuck are you arguing about this with me for?”
Justin heard Billy’s muffled voice-he must have put his hand over the speaker in the phone-apologizing to Chuck Billings’s wife for his language.
“Jay,” Billy said, quieter and calmer, “I’m calling you because when I spoke to him, Chuck said he was going to see you this morning. It means you were the last one to see him alive. The last one of
“Of course,” Justin said. “I don’t have much to report, but I’ll come in the morning. I’ll do whatever I can.”
He took down Katy Billings’s address, told Billy he’d talk to him in a few days, and hung up the phone.
He turned to Wanda Chinkle, told her about the conversation he’d just had with Billy. He realized his own nails were digging hard into his palm, causing the skin to turn a blotchy red and white. “It doesn’t look like Chuck was being paranoid.”
“Billy said it was an accident,” Wanda said slowly. “Don’t go off half-cocked, Jay.”
“He wasn’t going to drive. He was flying up with me.”
“Maybe he changed his mind.”
“Or somebody changed it for him.”
“Jay. .”
“Be careful, Wanda,” he said.
“Careful of what?”
“I’m not sure,” Justin Westwood said. “But right now, just to be on the safe side, be careful of everything.”
12
Muaffak Abbas was not afraid. He was, however, angry.
He felt that the man who had paid him so much money didn’t really trust him. Wouldn’t let him do the job he was being paid to do. Abbas felt some shame in this fact. And dishonor. But by the time he reached his destination, he realized that shame and dishonor in this world were of no importance. Soon he would be covered in glory. He would never feel worthless again for he would be meeting his God and spending eternity bathed in His light.
The feeling made him lightheaded. He felt as if God were already nearby, gently pulling him toward His eternal reward.
Thinking about his place in heaven, even Muaffak’s anger dissipated. When he walked into the small Italian restaurant on West 22nd Street in the evil city of New York, in the sinful borough of Manhattan, he felt nothing but peace.
His mother had received the money. Fifty thousand dollars. Money that would be spent feeding the poor and caring for the sick. The money was nice. But he was not doing this for money. Neither he nor his mother cared about physical rewards. They cared about their people. And the purity of their own souls.
She was proud of him, he knew. Proud that he was about to become a martyr for Allah. A martyr to help rid the world of sin and evil and Jews and Americans. How could a mother not be proud?
Muaffak Abbas looked at his watch, waited for the second hand to tick off thirty more seconds, then he walked into the restaurant. Went straight past the hostess without so much as a nod or acknowledgment of her existence. He did not acknowledge insignificant, godless insects. He walked right up to the man at the table, the man whose picture he had studied. The man who sat alone at a table for two, waiting for his luncheon partner. Waiting for someone who would never arrive.
Abbas stood in front of the man, who looked up, confused. The man’s eyes narrowed when Abbas threw his hands out, a grand gesture to God, welcoming Him as he would soon be welcomed in return.
He screamed out the words, realized that he was in America, that these people would not know what he was saying, and he wanted them to know, wanted them to understand. A final moment of vanity. So he screamed the words out again, this time in English: “I am ready!”
It took another few seconds. Abbas stood there, arms outstretched, the man at the table staring up at him, the restaurant silent.
He wished they had let him do this himself. He wished they had trusted his strength. And then he wished for nothing more.
Because that’s when his cell phone rang.
And Muaffak Abbas was, at last, bathed in light and glory.
And flesh and blood and bone and devastation and death.
He had received his reward.
Somewhere his mother was smiling and her heart was glad.
