Knight Life

  “Now you can use me. Now.” Percival shook his head. “After all this ... after I gave away my life. You never told me, never warned me ... gods, you are evil, Merlin. You must know that.”

  “Yes. I know that. Now tell me something I do not know ... such as, for instance, how long we’re going to have to sit here while you wallow in your misery.” When Percival didn’t respond immediately, he said, “Percival, look around you. Look at this place. The leaves have disappeared from the trees. Winter is hard upon us. All that’s left for you to do is huddle and shiver on cold, uncaring stone stairs. And when the winds blow hard, the best you can hope for is to find shelter in some pile of garbage. Human refuse blending in with the rest of the trash.” He leaned forward, his small fists clenched and his voice pleading. “Whatever resentment you may have for me, Percival ... you were great once.”

  “None of them made mention of my skin color ... did you notice that?” Percival spoke as if he was talking from very far away. “None of those who wrote about the Grail quest. None of them mentioned I was a moor. As if ... as if it was some sort of dirty secret that the court of Camelot numbered a dark skinned man among its membership.”

  Merlin sniffed disdainfully. “Is that what you’re stewing about?”

  “I’m not stewing ...”

  “Your story transcends race, Percival. The Grail—”

  Percival spoke with sudden urgency, the first time in years he had felt such a drive. He gripped at Merlin’s outer garment and said in a voice low and filled with tragedy, “In my hand, Merlin ... it was in my hand ... the water from it passed through my lips, and now ... now ...” Tears started to fill his eyes. “Now I am this? This was my reward?”

  “No. This is.” And Merlin hauled back a hand and slapped the startled Grail knight across the face. His brow was dark, his voice impatient and with an undertone of threat. “Now stop feeling sorry for yourself just because you consider to be a curse what others would consider a blessing.”

  Percival said, in a low and resigned voice, rubbing his cheek, “It’s my life, little wizard. Why not let me live it?”

  “Because it’s not a life. And it’s not living. I need someone with your skills, Percival. You were among the best. I know what you were, Percival. Before the Grail.” He rose and extended a hand. “Come,” said Merlin. “We’ll talk.”

  The silence seemed to extend forever. Finally:

  “Okay.”

  They left the park together.

  “ARE YOU DEMOCRAT or GOP?” Gwen called.

  Arthur felt terribly exposed and vulnerable, up high on the statue in Duffy Square. “I’m an Independent,” he called. “I subscribe to no party line save for the dictates of my conscience.”

  Several people nodded in approval, but others smirked or snorted or said things like, “Great, someone else to waste a vote on.”

  And suddenly yet another voice, depressingly familiar, called out, “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, not you again.”

  Arthur turned, knowing whom he was going to see before he even saw him. “Officer ... Owens, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” said the self-proclaimed Iron-Spine Owens. He was shaking his head, looking amazed that he had run into this same nutcase again. “You just can’t keep out of trouble, can you.”

  “I’m afraid I have a history of being rather in the middle of it,” Arthur said, although he didn’t sound especially apologetic about it.

  “And what do you think you’re doing here?”

  Gwen looked worried, her gaze darting from Arthur to the policeman and back. But Arthur didn’t lose his equanimity for a moment. “Why ... I’m simply taking your advice, officer. About politicking. I’m endeavoring to run for mayor of this city. Will I be able to still count on your vote?”

  A small crowd was gathering. Apparently, Arthur reasoned, this was the way to garner attention: be challenged by a police officer. People were always willing to stop whatever they were doing if it meant getting to see someone being dragged off by a uniformed law enforcer. That was when he suddenly recalled a headline he had read the other day. He read so many newspapers and continued to do so, aided by a memory retention potion that Merlin had cooked up for him. He’d have been lost without it, since there was so much to remember. “I read recently one of your number was slain,” Arthur said to Owens, genuine sympathy in his voice. “My deepest condolences. The loss of a fellow blue knight is always difficult.”

  Owens shrugged stoically. “Unfortunately, cops are targets. It comes with the shield,” and he tapped his badge.

  This ... this was what was considered a shield for knights of this day and age? Arthur looked at it, not with derision, but with sadness. Was this the best that they had to offer their defenders? “A shield should provide protection,” Arthur noted.

  “Go talk to the judges,” Owens said with a long-suffering air. “Guys know you can kill a cop and walk.” Then he eyed Arthur curiously. “Okay, Mr. Politician ... where do you stand on capital punishment? There are some people who are making noises we should get rid of it again. What do you think?”

  Arthur looked to Gwen. Her eyes were wide, and she shrugged in a “You’re on your own” manner.

  “Execution of the guilty,” Arthur sighed. “There was a time,” he said, “not so long ago at that, when disputes were settled man to man, on the field of honor. Frequently it resulted in death. The matter was ended ... but the cost was wasted life. Life ... is too precious to waste.” He paused, gathering his thoughts on the matter. “I do favor allowing the death penalty in instances of murder. However, I do not feel that it should be up to the state to decree whether a man live or die.”

  This got genuine puzzled looks from the rapidly growing crowd. It was Gwen who said, “Well, then, who?”

  “The injured party,” Arthur said matter-of-factly.

  “You mean the dead guy?” said a bewildered Owens.

  “Hardly,” he said. “The problem with the criminal justice system is that it gives to lawyers and judges power that should belong to others who matter far more. I’m not advocating a return to trial by combat. But when it comes to actually deciding upon death, the determination should be made by those whose lives are to be permanently affected, namely the survivors of the victim.”

  A sharp wind came up and he clutched more tightly onto the statue for fear of being blown off. Then the wind switched about, carrying his words out to the entire crowd—a crowd that had grown considerably beyond merely those people waiting for tickets. And his voice rang out, strong and clear. “If a woman has her husband taken from her, it should be up to her to decide whether the man who did the deed should live to see another sun or not, for it is the woman, not the judge and not the state, who must come home to an empty bed.”

  The crowd was buzzing, thrilled by the novelty of the notion. In a world of politics where one answer sounded much like another—canned, rehearsed, and remarkably the same—the bizarre uniqueness of the idea was attractive to them.

  Owens said, “Aren’t you just passing the buck?”

  “Is advocating a true trial for the people passing the buck?” asked Arthur. “On the contrary, it’s the perfect solution. No one will be able to feel that a proper sentence has not been meted out, for it will be the sentence of the people whose lives had been hurt the most by the criminal’s actions.” Raising a fist proudly, he unashamedly mixed up quotes as he declared, “Trial by jury of the people, by the people, and for the people!”

  Traffic didn’t move for an hour.

  And across the street, standing just inside the door of an adult movie theater ... a man was watching. A man with a fox-like face, ferret eyes, narrow beard and black hair that came to a widow’s peak. A man who drew his coat around himself as the chill wind cut through him and watched as a TV news van, which literally happened to be passing by, slowed and a news crew hopped out to see what the commotion was all about.

  “This ... could be a problem,” he muttered, before he mingled with
the crowd and hurried away.

  CHAPTRE

  THE EIGHTH

  IT WAS SOMETIME later when the ferret-eyed, bearded man from the crowd entered the Eighth Avenue Health Club and made his way down to the racquet ball courts. He slid through empty seats mounted on tiers, moving down as close as he was allowed to the actual court. A large piece of Plexiglas separated him from the two men aggressively battling it out for final points on the court. One man was tall, lean, a sharp and accurate player. The other man was much shorter, heavyset, with a beer belly he liked to smack affectionately and refer to as his “old hanger-on.” His legs were spindly and looked as if every sudden shift in direction might cause them to break like twigs. His thin blond hair was tied off in a sweat-soaked bandanna, and his LaCoste shirt was plastered to his chest. The first man was, by contrast, calm and self-possessed. His opponent was on the ropes, and he had barely broken a sweat.

  The bearded spectator rolled his eyes as the heavyset man lunged at the ball and missed it by the width of several states. He thought to himself, as the two players shook hands, See if you can pick the likely candidate for mayor, and groaned silently.

  The beer-bellied man turned and spotted him. “Moe! Hey Moe!” he called in that annoying “Three Stooges” imitation which he apparently never tired of. He waved a beefy hand. “Come to see your next mayor in action?”

  Moe managed a grimace and a nod. “You bet, Bernie. You bet.”

  The exceptionally jovial (exceptionally, considering he’d just been slaughtered at racquetball) Bernard Keating dragged his opponent by the shoulder. “Moe, you gotta meet one of the top eleven players I ever met. This is Ronnie Cordoba. Ronnie, this is Moe Dreskin, one of the top three P.R. hacks I ever met. Ronnie, Moe. Moe, Ronnie.”

  Moe reluctantly extended his hand and felt several fingers crack in Ronnie’s grip. He grimaced again, and gingerly unwrapped the remnants of his hand. “Bernie, we have to talk.”

  “So we’ll talk. We’re talking.”

  “I think he means just the two of you,” said Ron. “I’ll be shuffling off to the locker room.”

  Bet he tosses a salute, thought Moe.

  Ronnie smiled a perfect smile and tossed a salute before turning his broad back and trotting away, arms held perfectly for jogging.

  “So what’s to talk?” said Bernie. “Newspapers already start giving their endorsements for me?” He grinned broadly, displaying teeth yellow from cigar smoke. “I mean, come on. I’m the best DA this city ever had, so they know I’m tough on crime, plus I’ve lived here my whole life—I’m not some carpetbagger—plus the outgoing mayor gave me his personal endorsement. I got it sewn up, even before the primaries. They know that. I know that. We all know that.”

  Moe said, “Bernie, sit down.”

  Bernie looked at him oddly and stroked the faint stubble on his cheeks. “What do you mean, sit down?”

  Moe sat and patted one of the solid wood foldout chairs next to him. Bernard Keating sat down. He drummed his fingers on his knee impatiently.

  “Bernie,” said Moe slowly, “I agree with you that you have the Republican nomination sewn up. You’ve got your years as the DA, that’s true. Plus you’ve got your high profile participation in well-covered charity stunts and your seat in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and all of that. You’ve got great TV presence, an aggressive stand that lots of New Yorkers find easy to handle—”

  “Moe,” said Bernie cannily, “you didn’t want to talk to me to tell me all these wonderful things about me.”

  “This is true,” said Moe, lowering his gaze. “What I’m saying is that you may have your work cut out for you after the primaries.”

  “After?” He eyed Moe suspiciously. “You trying to tell me you think the Democrats really have a prayer? This guy, Kent Taylor ... he’s really going to be a problem?”

  Kent Taylor was Moe’s personal nightmare, because Taylor was everything that Moe was not. The broad-shoulder, handsome actor had played the mayor of Chicago in a popular drama called City Hall, which had run for six years on NBC. He was telegenic, he had a good smile, he was slim and well-muscled, and most of all, he was already fixed in many people’s heads as the ideal mayor just because they’d watched him playing one on television.

  “No, I don’t think so, Bernie,” Moe assured him.

  “But the polls have him—”

  “I don’t care where the polls have him now, Bernie,” Moe said patiently. “Ultimately, Taylor’s an empty suit. He can deliver scripted lines like no one else, but don’t worry. Once he has to start improvising, thinking on his feet, the voters are going to see there’s no ‘there’ there.”

  “Not necessarily. We’ve had presidents who got elected who were empty suits, and the voters didn’t notice.”

  “That’s because their opponents didn’t have me making sure that people did notice.”

  Bernie’s eyes narrowed and glinted with anticipation. “You talking dirty tricks, Moe?”

  “Don’t ask, don’t tell, Bernie.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “There’s an Independent candidate—”

  Keating laughed hoarsely and shook his head. “You’re kidding me, right? An Independent candidate? Some schmuck who puts up his own soapbox and starts pontificating to the public? Bullshit! I do not for one minute—”

  “Bernie,” and Moe’s tone as always was unpleasant, “you pay me quite handsomely for giving my advice, and I am telling you now,” he waved a thin finger threateningly, “that if you do not listen to what I’m telling you, you will have thrown your money away.”

  Bernie leaned back in the chair. He stroked his chin some more and then said, “All right, Moe. So who is this wunderkind you’re so concerned about, if it’s not Kent Taylor.”

  Moe cleared his throat, covering a sigh of relief. He had finally gotten Bernie to listen to him. That was three-quarters of the battle right there. “His name is Arthur Penn,” he said.

  Bernie rolled the name around in his mouth and finally shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

  “Neither has anybody else. But you’re going to.”

  “What. Why do you say that?”

  “He’s got ... something. Charisma. Charm. He’s ... he’s real.”

  “Real. What do you mean, real?”

  “He’s a leader, Bernie. A true leader. I don’t think you really understand just how hungry people are for one.”

  “What, you’re saying I’m not a leader?” Bernie was laughing slightly, as if the idea was absurd.

  But Moe wasn’t laughing. “Never confuse someone who leads with someone who’s a leader.” Before Keating could seek clarification, Moe continued, “He was over by TKTS today. He climbed up on a statue and started speech making. Impromptu, off the cuff. The crowd clustered to him like nothing I’ve ever seen. Bernie, it was frightening. They weren’t just standing there. They were actually listening, hanging on his every word. Anyone who came within earshot of his voice was mesmerized instantly. People asked him questions, and he started giving these Loony Toon answers, and the crowd ate it up.”

  “Loony Toon answers? What answers? What sort of questions?”

  “Well, the death penalty. He said that the decision whether to execute a criminal should be left to the survivors, since they were the ones most affected by the crime.”

  Bernie’s eyes widened so that they threatened to explode from his head. “What is he, nuts?” He started pacing angrily back and forth, up and down the narrow stairway that led up the aisle between seats. “Allowing the people to pass sentence. That’s crazy! Sentences are passed in accordance with the laws of this state. Certain crimes demand certain sentences. The angered or bereaved victim can’t begin to grasp the subtleties, the complexities of passing a—”

  “Bernie,” said Moe impatiently. “I know that. You know that. For all I know, even Arthur Penn knows that. But the people don’t.”

  “But the people don’t run the courts!”
r />   “True enough. But they run the polling booths. And if they find this Penn’s sideways view of the world attractive, they might say so come Election Day. New York is a city of nonconformists,” he pointed out. “Our television ratings never match. Our buildings don’t vaguely resemble each other in style. New Yorkers are rude in situations where others are polite, and polite in situations where Gandhi would bite your head off. They might just buy and slice this crock of baloney.”

  Bernie had barely listened. He was too busy shaking his head, saying, “The laws dictate the punishment that should fit the crime. Can’t he see that? It’s impossible.”

  “People don’t care, Bernie. Don’t you get that? They don’t care about practicality, or what’s reasonable, or even what makes sense. They care about what sounds good and what looks good, and right now he sounds and looks pretty good.”

  Bernie scratched his head. “So how do you figure we deal with this nutcase?”

  “Frankly, I’m not sure yet. I think we can only take a wait-and-see attitude for now.” Moe interlaced his fingers and crossed his legs almost daintily. “I mean, we shouldn’t start attacking his positions yet. All that will do is give him publicity. Hell, maybe that’s what he’s hoping for.”

  “Too bad,” muttered Bernie. “I’d like to take this guy apart in public.”

  “You may yet get your chance, if he sticks around. Which, I have a sick feeling, he’s going to do.” His nose wrinkled slightly. “Go hit the showers, Bernie. With the sweat you worked up, you’re starting to smell like New Jersey.”