University, graduate of the Fort Polk Infantry School and the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading Class and six year lover of Janice Marie Rice, sat on a curb in Watts wondering why he couldnât get what a fat Negro slob probably got all the time. Lloyd shined his light in the back seat window again. It was as he suspected; the guyâs dick was at least two inches bigger than his. He decided it was God and commitment. The jerk in the photo had a low I.Q. and a bad build, so God threw him a big wang to slide through life on. It all worked out.
Janice would take him orally when he graduated the academy and they got married. The last thought made him sex-flushed and sad. Janice made him sad. Then he thought of the daughters they would create. Janice, five foot eleven barefoot, slender, but with a robust set to her hips, was made for bearing exceptional children. Daughters. They would have to be daughters, made to be nurtured by the love in his Irish Protestant credoâ¦
Lloyd took his Janice-daughter fantasies to ends of fulfillment both good and bad, then shifted his mind to women in generalâwomen pure, wanton, vulnerable, needy, strong; all the ambivalences of his mother, now silent in her strength, rendered dumb by years of giving shelter to her lunatic male brood, from which only he emerged sane and capable of providing solace himself.
Lloyd heard a burst of gunshots in the near distance. Automatic weapon fire. At first he thought it was the radio or TV, but it was too real, too right, and it was coming from the direction of the African Church. He picked up his M-14 and ran to the corner. As he rounded it he heard screams, and turned to look in the shattered storefront window. When he saw the devastation inside, he screamed himself. Sister Sylvia and three male parishioners lay on the linoleum floor in a mass of tangled flesh, melded together in a river of blood. From somewhere within the twisted mound of bodies a severed artery shot up a red geyser. Lloyd, transfixed, watched it die and felt his scream metamorphose into the single word, âWhat! What! What!â
He screeched it until he was able to will his eyes from the bodies to the rest of the cordite-reeking church. The tops of dark heads peered above pews. Dimly, Lloyd perceived that the people were terrified of him. Tears streaming down his face, he dropped his rifle to the pavement and screamed, âWhat? What? What?â, only to be answered by a score of voices hurling, âKiller, killer, murderer!â in horror and outrage.
It was then that he heard it, faintly but plainly, back off to his left, clicking in so succinctly that he knew it was real, not electronic: â Auf weidersehen, niggers. Auf weidersehen, jungle bunnies. See ya in hell.â
It was Beller.
Lloyd knew what he had to do. He tossed the Negroes huddled behind their pews his sternest resolve and went after him, leaving his rifle behind on the pavement, crouching his long frame low behind parked cars as he made his way toward the destroyer of innocence.
Beller was running slowly north, unaware that he was being followed. Lloyd could see him framed plainly in the glow of those streetlights not destroyed, turning every few moments to look back and savor his triumph. He checked the second hand on his watch and calculated. It was obvious: Belterâs unconscious was telling him to turn around and scan his blind side every twenty seconds.
Lloyd sprinted full out, counting to himself, and hit the pavement prone just as Beller would turn and peer backwards. He was within fifty yards of the killer when Beller ducked into an alleyway and started screaming, âFreeze, nigger, freeze!â A burst of shots followed, fully automatic. Lloyd knew it was the elephant clip .45.
He reached the alley and halted, catching his breath. There was a dark shape near the end of the cul-de-sac. Lloyd squinted and discerned that it was clad in fatigue green. He heard Bellerâs voice a