Like Adam at the end of his tenure, Roy was going to have to meet his
unmaker.
But Adam hid, and so did Roy. Expecting Morris to send the
police after him, he stayed with Bennie’s family that night in the
Fairfax neighborhood. This proved to be a mistake. Bennie’s mother
insisted on performing an enormous assortment of shamanistic
rituals on him, all in the interest of protecting him from evil.
Throughout the course of the evening, two chickens were killed,
chants were wailed, drums were beaten, and all variety of effigies
were burned, until it was finally too much for the weary neighbors to
bear.
The police never came to Undergrounds that night. It seemed
that the entire LAPD was over at Bennie’s house.
The Pantera family was arrested on immigration charges and
Roy was taken down to the police station with them. Seeing it as a
quirky example of diversity in the big city, news crews arrived on the
scene, which in turn drew more policemen. The cameras jostled with
each other for footage of Roy, still painted all over with ritual chicken
blood.
With their leader in hiding and danger looming on the horizon, the
fabric that held them together threatened to come apart. Colin had
drunk himself into a corner, Leona was crying softly at the bar, and
Bennie was pouring shot after shot across the wooden lips of San
Simon. Partment had been grinding his teeth so ferociously his
denture came loose and he was using it to scrape gum off the
underside of a table. They knew Undergrounds’ days were numbered.
All this made the customers very uncomfortable, so they quickly
finished their drinks and left. The shop looked as it had weeks ago,
before the boom: a lost group of wanderers lamenting what they
imagined to be another misstep. But not all of them were so hopeless.
“This is ridiculous,” Niles said to Sprout, “These people have so
much possibility before them.”
She touched his hand. “So why don’t you do something about it?”
she said, “Help them.”
“Me? What can I do?”
She fixed him with her eyes and said, “Whatever you want,
Niles.”
“I’m not a director,” he replied. “I’m a deliveryman.”
“Then deliver something.”
ABYSSINIA
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