I pulled out of the parking lot and turned right, away from the on-ramp.
“Where am I going?” I asked.
“Where do you think?” the guy behind me cracked. I guessed he was saying I was going to my grave or to hell, probably to hell for all the people dead because of me.
Bennacio said, “Think carefully about what you are doing. I do not wish to kill you.”
“Shut up,” the man sitting behind him said.
“There is still time,” Bennacio said. “If you repent now, heaven may still receive you.”
The guy holding the dagger to my throat laughed.
“Whatever Mogart has offered you—is it worth the price of your immortal soul?” Bennacio asked calmly. He might have been talking about the weather.
The guy behind me said something to his buddy. It sounded like French. His buddy grunted and said, “Repos!”
“Think of your wives, your children,” Bennacio said. “Would you have them widowed, fatherless? If you do not value your own lives, can you not consider theirs?”
“Speak again and the fat kid dies,” the guy behind me said. I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw his hand was shaking slightly. Bennacio was getting to him. I thought about what Mogart told me, about the will of most men being weak. I also was thinking that just because a guy has an oversized head and a big body, you shouldn’t call him fat.
We drove a few miles until we passed a sign that said “George Washington National Forest.” I was directed onto this access road marked “Rangers Only” that narrowed to a skinny one-lane, winding deep into the woods.
“Here,” the guy with the dagger to my throat said. “Stop here.”
“I will kill you both,” Bennacio said, still in that weird, calm voice. “First you with the knife. I will turn your own hand upon your throat and use it to sever your head from your body.” He nodded to the guy behind him. “Then you I shall gut as a hog in a slaughterhouse, and I shall spread your steaming entrails on the ground for the carrion to feast upon.”
This guy said something to the guy behind me. I don’t know what he said, but it sounded pretty urgent. “Fou!” the guy with the dagger hissed back.
“You guys oughtta listen to Bennacio,” I said. “He’s a knight and those guys never lie.”
“Get out,” the guy with the dagger said.
“Ave Maria, gratia plena . . .” Bennacio began to pray. The guy behind him got out of the car, opened Bennacio’s door, and yanked him out.
“Get out,” the man behind me said. I got out. They dragged us into the trees. Dominus tecum. Bendicta tu in milieribus. . . . The ground was carpeted with pine needles and dead leaves, and there was a mist in the air and no sound, not even a bird singing. I looked over to Bennacio, now on his knees, with his arms hanging loosely at his sides. Et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. His eyes were half closed. The man standing before the kneeling Bennacio was heavy and broad-shouldered, with short-cropped black hair and a jutting brow. My guy was slighter and shorter, though I probably had at least ten pounds on him. He had shaggy blond hair and an ugly scar running from beneath his right eye, down his cheek, to his jawline.
I got a good look at the dagger too. It was about two feet long, black, double-bladed, with the image of a dragon’s head carved into its hilt. It looked like a miniature version of the swords Bennacio and the other knights used in Samson Towers. All these guys must go the same outfitters.
Santa Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae.
“I want to pray too,” I said. I don’t know why I said that, but Bennacio was praying and he seemed like the kind of guy who always did just the right thing in a crisis. I went to my knees, bowed my head, and started the Hail Mary, only in English, but when I got to the “pray for us sinners” part I stopped because I heard a scream and a loud snap like the sound of a branch breaking. That’s it, I thought. Bennacio’s bought it.
Then I looked to my right and saw Bennacio coming in a blur for the guy in front of me. The man raised his dagger.
He was moving in slow motion, though. Bennacio wasn’t.
Bennacio grabbed his wrist and I heard another snapping sound, not quite as loud as the first, and with his other hand Bennacio grabbed the guy by his shaggy hair while he forced the dagger back toward his throat. I didn’t want to see what was going to happen next, so I stood up and kind of stumbled through the trees and undergrowth, passing the bigger man, who lay twisting on the ground. I heard a soft thud behind me and I knew without looking that Bennacio had kept the first part of the promise he made in the car. Then I heard the pleading tone in the bigger man’s voice as Bennacio walked back to him, and I knew he was going to keep the second part too.
I went behind a tree and threw up. I was still bent over when I heard Bennacio call softly behind me.
“Kropp! Alfred! Come!”
Don’t look; don’t look, just keep your head up and your eyes on Bennacio, I told myself as I walked back to the car. He was already sitting in the passenger seat. He had taken the Big Mac apart and was eating the patty, holding it in the palm of his large hand, using a napkin as a plate, cutting the meat with the side of his plastic fork. Don’t look, don’t look, I told myself, but I had to look because I didn’t want to trip on any body parts on the way to the car. So I looked and saw Bennacio had kept both his promises.
18
I drove toward the interstate. Bennacio told me to turn into the McDonald’s parking lot. At first I thought he wanted to wash up, but I couldn’t see any blood on his clothes, not a speck anywhere. He had me cruise around the building once, then pull onto the road again and turn left into the parking lot of the gas station on the interstate side of the McDonald’s.
“There it is. Stop, Kropp.”
I pulled beside a car parked behind the station. Bennacio dabbed both corners of his mouth with a napkin and got out while I sat there and watched him through his open door. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and pressed the remote button, unlocking the other car. I got out then and joined him.
“Hey,” I said. “This is a Ferrari Enzo.”
Bennacio didn’t answer. He was searching the car. He checked the center console, over the visors, under the seats and floor mats. He opened the glove box and pulled out a sleek black cell phone.
I said, “You know, it’s funny. Somebody once promised I would have one of these cars.” All of a sudden I felt like crying.