On the relaxed outlook of North Mountain, flowers, which were everywhere fostered and tended for their individual needs, reflected the prevailing tranquility, amity, fraternalism and brotherhood. Daisies carried the walls, violets the windows. Pansies ran amok in gentle assertion of the right of chaos to everything yet allowing order to the geranium. Tulips in row, begonias in file, forsythia, huddles of morning-glory, lily-of-the-valley, zinnia, and iris, plenty of iris, were tended as though they were children by children who delighted in foretelling which of them would pee the bed by buttercups held in divination beneath the chin. And what would life be without bleeding hearts, roses, and sweet Williams. Flowers. Healing herbs to the soul, you can lose yourself in their balm when your fabric is shredded. On North Mountain, silence commanded that unseen corridor which couples soul and efflorescence.

But that quiet was of exclusion. Beyond the rise of the mountain, the flowers, and the singing children, bedlam prevailed. Those days of renewal were not in a time of quiet, not elsewhere. That phrase muttered in Sissy's driveway - was echoed into an answering machine. "Price, you are not done," an inhuman mechanical voice had forewarned. He didn't get it. His initial response was, "What the hell was that? Meaning what? Ass hole doesn't know my scope! Done with what?" as he purged his phone messages reflexly. His first clue was found in a McGuiness' poem, Promise Unkept, clutched by an unlucky son-in-law found disconnected in a luxurious out of the way apartment.

"Sir, do you know anything about the meaning of this poem? Mr. Price? Sir? Some of these mmm things are yours, correct? Who is this woman in the photograph with you?" Contents of drawers and closets gave the police plenty of material for many long sessions of questions with Mr. Price. "This woman. Recognize her? She seems very close to Mr. Johnson - in a naked sort of way." It was obvious that the extravagant and plushy out of the way apartment which had no other tenants, jointly held by an oddly constructed partnership, was used regularly for trysts by both men. Johnson, decapitated was found sprinkled with shamrocks and fuchsia. A toy sword was folded into his lifeless left hand, a pen in his right. The right was stretched toward a bedside table where a message spelled out, LIFE CAN BE PRICELESS. "Do you know what that means, Mr. Price? What's your connection to the law school?" Sean Price startled with that one which was not a question but a prod which proclaimed, "We know where you live." The police offered him no information, but radio accounts provided a clear view of the scope of his error. "What do you know about a Doctor Milton Blake? The papers in your office, your desk, contain a very interesting depth of detail on the comings and goings of Doctor Blake." Much more than that, Price had diagrams of the man's home and a map to a field in Pennsylvania which was being excavated in an area of fresh growth. He was done, one way or the other. "Oh, Mr. Price, I almost forgot, Mr. Dryfus sends his regards." Price quaked with that.

There were still chances that he might extricate himself from this mess, perhaps through some flaw in law he did not own but might be able to buy, or coerce. Who's left? Any judges? Legislators? Todd? Yes, Senator Todd has influence, chances were slim but not zero. Power is to the man who can wedge himself into the tenth decimal place. But legal escape was no escape at all. Identifying his son-in-law's head for the police was a lesson in civics. Without law, there is mankind and mankind without law gets ugly. You can only fuck with mankind so far and it is he that guards the order of things from the third decimal place on.

Price left his shaken, message on Shannon's voice mail, "I'm done," certain that the Irish Passion league, an arm of vengeance in the Irish community, who McGuiness supported, had marked him. In fact, he called every Irish person he knew to tell them he was done, to their confusion. He tried every angle to pass that message to McGuiness, who lent no sign of affirmation, quipping, "It wasn't my message. Even if it were, God has taught me silence well. My answer is a sip of brandy. I suspect His is ambrosia."

It was about a week later, at the old restaurant, in a back room used only by special patrons, when Gavin McGuiness connected with John O'Brien who had been brought there to reunite with his wife. The intimate space still had its old cozy and comfortable style with masculine leather seats recently pulled into a lazy circle about a coffee table. Adjacent each seat, a handy side table was set out for brandy and sweets. A vintage deep red Persian rug graced the well cared for old hand hewn pegged wooden floors. Lighting was old style, floor lamps dated easily to the twenties. A gold colored braided rope with a conspicuous red trimmed tassel hung over the coffee table. It was used to beckon a server. It was intimate and inviting. Yet, occupants were generally left unattended, secured in their privacy by two rather heavy four-panel wooden doors, kept closed. The top panels of each door were half the size of the lower. The panels were all darker in tone than the adjoining wood framing which created separators which made each of these portals look like large free standing crucifix.

Settled back comfortably, Gaffy looked at John O'Brien, and sighed, "John, their marriage was a garden of weeds, best tilled." A nod and grunt was agreement. McGuiness continued on, rolling a brandy snifter curiously in his fingers, observing the patterns in the bandy flowing on the sides of the glass rolling glass, "A big screw has been unturned. Some wedding, huh? Hmm. Well, at least I was the best actor who ever played me. I was rather good, wouldn't ya say O'Brien? I do a pretty good me." John O'Brien laughed one of those affirmative short nasal throat humphs with another head bob and a substantial sip from his glass. What John was drinking wasn't brandy, as Gaffy remarked, "Sucking the leaves right off the Bush?.. Don't go out on me, Johnny, I need your audience." Pausing in reflection, then addressing an empty alcove at the darkened far end of the room, "You know, I filled this vessel grandly yesterday? That corner. I dined right over there with a nice old Italian man whose eyes, I swear John, they peer through time and space, and with a huge black man who may very well be the mountain on which I was delivered. We were, the three of us, each men spit - not born - of fate. None of us were headed in the same direction. Get that, O'Brien? Differences in direction. But differences in direction can be those of convergence. That's gravity, a divine radiance. It's so cosmic! B'Jesus, is that the sign? Three streams fed and joined by will of a common imposition of externality, to carve a magnificent canyon in singular flow to the sea. Oh what a glorious moment it was."

McGuiness reflected, after a deep still, "Reconcilliation doesn't suite me. But dressed in revenge, I am a well tailored man."

He paused, considering his own assessment, sighed, then lowered his head. His voice of certitude failed. " Will God ever forgive me? Am I hopeless? Will I never earn my Caitlin? I tried, Johnny, I tried. I am not feathered as an angel, huh?"

John O'Brien leaned forward reaching out to pat his hand, declaring, "God needs you Gaffy. .. If only as an honest critic."

A loud "Ha!" and reassertion of proud poetic demeanor attended that assessment as John held his glass up and stared at the light through the Scotch. McGuiness picked up on that, "We filter what we see, John."

O'Brien just grunted affirmation, paused as the liquid swirled oddlly animating light fairies on the tablecloth. "Gaffe."

"Hmm?"

"What's this pool thing?"

"Ohhhhh, Johnny. It's the history of mankind. Mankind. Kind man.... hmmmm.. anything but that."

"Don't get all poetical on me."

"People fight. Hey, that's my cow, or get your chickens off my field, you scratched my car... they fight. Law resolves, Johnny, law resolves. Law between the parties. But who stole my cow? A thief is loose? That's crime. The state has a vested interest in civility and thus is a wounded party when crime is committed."

"I didn't drink that much."

"I'm getting there. So, what happens when a horde from the east sweeps in on horseback killing everybody in their path? Taking everything? Take'em to court? War? Better have a bigger army. It's not about law anymore. It's about power. Think of that repeating theme, Attila, every kind of Goth Upagoths, Downagoths, Left and Rightagoths, hell they all came a head lopping through. Anybody get sued?"

"What's the point?"

"Time. There are petty crooks stealing sweaters from Brooks Brothers, but there are grand scale menaces who destroy or repress populaces. Law? What good is that? They make it."

"Time, Gaffy. You said time."

Ahhhh. Time goes on. Stalin, Hitler, wannabees... not likely to work anymore. Everybody's smarter. Time once ticked, but now it hums. Who winds their watch anymore? Power. Now people have power. But the grand theives are still afoot, and smart as ever. They wear suits. They buy law. They buy government. They plan outrageous crimes, as they have always. But the warriors of crime in suits have evolved. They plan the crime then make it legal before they commit it. Aggressive enterprise. In the red white and blue, the white - I suspect - is purity, though it may just signify fog. The red is blood. People have died for that fog. The blue is the color of faces as criminals squeeze their throats and take their wages in the name of good. Good as defined by corrupted law. The system is up for bid. Those who pool their resources get it. Right now, that's not the common man."

John just flipped his head back and finished off his drink. Gaffy paused, again, in eyebrow furrowed consideration, "You know," this delivered very slowly with a solemn lowering of pitch, "your request of me.. and my words..  almost cost us your bride." There was another reflective silence. "To think, a Presbyterian pulled her from our green depths. It is good to know I'm a wee wiser before I'm a tick older. Oh John, I miss the children. Is it wrong to hope that they miss me? Selfish, hmmm?"

"No. Love seeks approval." John was allowing himself to be uncharacteristically philosophical, as Gaffy raised his eyes and arms heavenward with wide open symmetric hand gestures, speaking directly into the overhead darkness.

"Hear that, You? It's LOVE that seeks replies!" He recomposed. "I guess I need them as much as they me, Johnny." O'Brien just nodded. Gaffy then animated and added, "Oh, I've new brothers..  and sisters. Let me introduce you. Wait till you see what they carved on your lady's breast. Its amazing how she's taken to flashing that thing. A might prideful, but not too, given the flux of things."

John bolted up, tumbling his glass, though it was empty, "Flashing what thing?"

"Her, mmm, icon of nurturing femininity! Its a long tale in the telling, but not now, not by me. Pass no remarks, Johnny, pass no remarks. And don't fold on it."

But John was stuttering queries about his Shannon, who only undresses in the bathroom. "Flashing her tits? Is that what you're saying?" John squeaked incredulously while Gaffy laughingly played the mummer in hand gestures to convey the tender details.

"Just the left one, the one with the scar," running on to describe the fire power of the new gun she was carrying over a chorus of, "Jesus! Scar? What scar? On'er tit? Gun? What gun? She hates guns!"

McGuiness laughed a while at his friend's comic discomfiture. Then reengaging his neglected brandy with close scrutiny as if it were a fortune teller's crystal sphere, he again lamented that the children would be missing him. Pointing upward, "His wives have come to rely on me. Who will fix those bikes and scrounge up toys?" pausing, "Those babies need to learn the traps, John. Sweet ladies in raven raiment just don't know the underbelly." He spoke about getting back to Sicily as soon as travel could be arranged safely. While John was still stammering about guns, scars and tits, Gaffy just moaned, "Stuff it O'Brien. And it's just the one. Riper for it, too. Play with the other, if ya must have'em green. Here, have a brandy." He did. Then another.

So what had transpired that was so impossible for John to comprehend? Several days prior, when Shannon was allowed out of her womb of fully attended protection, her first reflex was to seek normality by dialing up her hospital phone messages. In a cue of about twenty 'Why aren't you answering your phone?' communiqués of frustration over mundane needs, there was one pressured message that spiked her ear. "I'm DONE!" Shannon knew that voice. Reflexly, her heart sank at it's sound. But she had heard that phrase before, and so, stiffened in resolution. In the reading room, a radio and the newspapers recalled events of the last few days. There was plenty to read, but curiously, there was no mention of Armageddon on routes 137 and 156. Nothing.

Shannon Eadan O'Brien finally got up the nerve and asked one of the men who had been looking in on her frequently, "Mr. Benson, do you know what has become of a Doctor Marcus Macaluso?" Benson just nodded very assuringly and offered his hand. She followed in gentle tow to the elevator, to the basement, down a long hallway, a highway of plumbing, through several turns toward a room in a back recess of a subterranean maze. Benson's silently outstretched arm gestured at a dark but open doorway. A brief smile and nod warned his quick exit.

In the low light, outside the room, blending into the indistinct door frame at nearly its same height, a threateningly vigilant tall swarthy man with a somehow kind and protective looking face, and almost sorrowful eyebrows, stood guard. She startled when he addressed her, "Mmm Mar Mmm Marc-c-cus. Hih' hih heeees in'nin in nnn there," helping her in the shadows with gentle conduct of his heavily scarred steel hands, then disappeared.

"I know him," she thought, "the protector." But quickly focusing on the void of the unlit room. "Marcus?" she whispered. "Marcus?" stepping slowly forward, eyes adjusting, "Marcus!" she blurted, acuity now establishing his form sitting in the deepest recess of the dark room, perhaps avoiding any would-be conversation. Nevertheless, "Mac," softer and less certain as she beheld, more, the whites of his deep distant eyes, eyes focused at infinity through empty space at the reaches of nowhere. "Marcus, have you heard the radio?" There was no response. He just fingered his left chest with his right middle finger, where Shannon noticed an arcuate blood stain. "You're hurt? MARCUS! DAMN IT! YOU HURT!?"

Startled from his trance, "Shannon? ... Shannon! Hurt? Me? No... Just a scratch. I did it myself."

"Marcus, I got this weird paniced phone message from Price. He's was babbling about being done. Do you know anything about the stuff that they're talking about in the papers?" The news was hot. The president of SafeMed was beaten to a bloody pulp with a child's long leg brace. He swears he didn't see his attacker and refuses to talk to the police. The CEO of AmeriMed and the whole company party on his yacht were killed when the ship was torpedoed and finished off by two attack helicopters. Both of Amerimed's headquarters, one in Bethdale and the other in central Florida have been found empty. No one has showed up to work at any level. None of AmeriMed's executives, administrators, or lawyers can be found nor can any of the owners or bosses of two affiliate organizations be traced. The explosion that rocked the industrial section of Bethdale was described. A natural gas leak has been excluded. A single survivor of the building collapse was in County Hospital and stable after neurosurgery. It was reported that if he regained consciousness, he would need extensive rehabilitation and bracing. The police are hoping that he will retain memory and speech to shed light on what led to the explosion. The survivor turns out to be a wanted felon. The Chief officer of ProtectiSheild was found dead of a broken neck. That he had a bottle of anticonvulsant medication was found shoved up his rectum, plastic and all leaked out despite an attempt to withhold that information. A Doctor Patel, who worked for that same company was found moaning in an alley obviously thrashed with a spanking paddle found lying next to him. He refuses to talk to police. He swears he just tripped. He needed two units of blood. Some fall. Three lawyers and sixteen chief reviewers for PatriotAlliance Unity Health, an affiliate of Amerimed, are reported missing. Four men who had been working the state capital, lobbying congress on behalf of medical insurer interests, were found with their heads twisted backward and money stuffed in their mouths. A note was tagged to one of them, "A nation of laws not men? Not these men." The employees of six HMOs quit en masse, after receiving calls that merely stated God's work today. Two of the calls were traced to public phones in Ireland, several to various cities in the state, and others to Chicago. None led anywhere firm. In all of this, there were no witnesses. Senator Todd, who had gone on the air to decry the recent violence appealing to a return to law and order, has not been seen for a week. His proposal to prohibit fines on administrators of medical organizations suddenly lost support from several financially important organizations. "What's happening?" she again asked. "Do you know? The official word is that the CEOs crossed the mob, somehow? That the IRA is also involved. Three terrorist groups, three, have claimed credit for the attacks through calls made to Congresswoman Woodrow!" But Shannon knew. She knew. Her mind flashed that prayer that she herself had offered up in exasperation, "We need a hero."

A soft yet ominously building reply floated out from the darkness after a long pause. It rumbled as would a tornado bearing down. "No more. No more sacrifices to evil! Father pulled in the lines and let fly the blade. I am of him, forged from his steel, And now, here I am, pulled from the stone by an unseen hand of self, honed to my purpose, whetted on the grit of my ancestry. My edge is justice and my adversary that whoring wench with her upraised scales of greed. Aver is our castle and our mountain. On that rise, we lift safely above the seas of cupidity. New lines are everywhere, drawn about us. They are his lines. They are ours. We are safe." This was neither the voice nor the manner of the Marcus Macaluso she had known - well, except for those occasional beastly spells.

After a momentary reflection, in a more settled, almost whispered voice, he revealed, "I put flowers on my mother's grave yesterday. I saw her pictures. She was beautiful. She was a beautiful woman, thank goodness. My father, well.." He quietly massaged and savored the burning of the bleeding mark on his left chest. "You'll be able to go home soon, Shannon. It's OK. John's been waiting for you. Frank will send for him. "

"Frank?"

"Aver."

"Speaking of Franks, where's Frank Sumner? I haven't seen him for a while." Shannon was probably more curious than worried, given the turn of events and the command that existed here.

In the dark, those eyes lightened for just a brief moment. "Frank Sumner, my brother, sends you his love. He's home." A squint of pleasure hinted itself, briefly, in those deep menacing brows. Marcus wasn't just thinking about Nora naked, but of Frank smiling, at last, nestled shirtless in between those magnificent healing breasts with Nora's loving fingers gently tracing his newest scar, an Omega, worn proudly.

"Mac, are you going home?"

"I am home," he whispered, trailing off, "This one's mine."

"Mina?"

"Out in the courtyard with the children. We're needed here." Shannon was flooding tears, and choking out, "I know," but barely. She quietly, though haltingly, found her way to the stuttering man who she was certain would oblige her unusual requests, but first she asked him, "Is he gone.. from us.. has he passed the point.."

A steel finger gently pressed her lips closed from that utterance, "I, I, I'vvvveh b-b-bin th-there, I'll I'll b-b-bring him back."

She smiled a small smile but surprised the tall fellow when she asked, "With or without the whipped cream on your nose?"

"E-e-e-e-ther wway," he grinned with a nod.

Shannon looked at the big guy, poking at his biceps just to see if arms could be that hard. "They tried to hurt us. Maybe they,.." but she was cut off. "They  will  not  touch  either  one  of  you. I  absolutely  personally  guarantee  that." It couldn't have been said any clearer. She knew what that clarity meant, and didn't even think of second questioning. Instead, she surprised herself by asking for a personal favor, "This scar thing.."

Atop the building, a huge black man stood quietly surveying his valley. There would be no invaders on his watch. And below ground, in his gloom, Marcus's onyx eyes rolled up and back to his lids decline, bathed in the eerie quiet of solitude, away in afterthought. Briefly, a raised empty clenched quavering right hand silhouetted a haunting unshakable thought, the grip of a paddle. "Too easy," he mouthed, "It was too easy. Avarus nisi cum moritur nihil recte facit," drifted him beyond silence into an endless loop of a recycling unanswerable question, "The next level. The next level. The next level. .. up or down?"

Somewhere in the distance, outside this still dark room, one could hear children's voices weaving beautiful harmonies which rode upon a relentless driving pulse of energy, the resonance of percussion - the sound of a drummer whaling at dreams over a patterned pounding pulse of the heart, the eternal rhythm of life.