His chest heaved and his Rubenesque hair was matted to his forehead.
“Robin, please get back in the car.”
He shook his head violently.
“It may have looked—you could not have seen—”
“BUT I DID.”
“Robin, no, Robin, your father is dead; I can prove that to you if you’ll only—”
He turned; in place of eyes she beheld a shocking luminosity in the headlights.
“They never sent him back; so there’s no proof!”
She had to go after him.
“Robin, come home with me.”
“We could be following them!”
“Where? Which road? I didn’t see the way those cars went. Be sensible. If it could have been—by some miracle—he’ll get in touch, won’t he? Well, don’t you think so?”
Robin lowered his head. There was a little blood where he’d bitten his underlip; it washed away quickly. Gwyn took him by the arm. She had to pull him, one sticky, sluggish step at a time, back to the DeSoto. They rode shuddering and in silence the short distance to the house.
He was just out of a hot tub when she called his room an hour later.
“Robin, could you come down to the study for a few minutes?”
Gwyneth had changed into a long tropical skirt and put her hair up. She was drinking Scotch. Her eyes looked a little muzzy. He sat on a seat of a wall-sized bow window that overlooked the swimming lake. At the perimeter of the terrace Japanese lanterns were lit. The rain had all but stopped. Clouds like chimney smoke rolled away toward the Hudson Valley. In the last full flash of day, trees dripped diamonds.
She brought him a nine-by-twelve envelope from the safe.
“I’ve had these for a week. I never intended showing them to you. I know I may be making a mistake, but—” Gwyn tried to undo the string-tied flap but her fingers blundered. Robin took the envelope from her hand, opened it, slid out several glossy black-and-white photos. For three or four minutes he stared at the top one. Flat road in a hot country. A baobab tree. Sunflare off the icy shards left in the windscreen of the Land Rover, which had gone off the road and was inclined at an angle of about twenty degrees from the horizontal. Thirty or forty brightly peened bullet holes in the metal. Man in bush jacket sprawled head down out of one side of the vehicle. In the background, two black men dressed in guerrilla fatigues. Paratrooper boots, heavy weapons, bandoliers, berets. Toothy grins. The photography, in all respects, was excellent.
Robin reluctantly abandoned the first photograph. The next one was a full shot of another native soldier, fully equipped but barefoot. He pointed exuberantly at the body in the road. Black blood; swarm of flies about the shattered head.
Robin looked up open-mouthed at Gwyn, who was squeezing her glass in both hands.
“Go on,” she said stonily. “Keep looking.”
He flipped the two photos face down on the seat and sat with the third in his lap. Closeup of another body inside the vehicle. Sweating soldier with tribal scars holding the head back by the hair, a look of frantic excitement in his eyes. Five, possibly six round dark bullet holes in the victim’s face alone. Although the features were distorted by various fluidic pressures, he was easily recognizable.
“Is that your father?” Gwyn demanded.
Robin didn’t speak. He turned this photo face down with the others. “Where did you get those?”
“Childermass.”
“Why—would anyone—take them?”
“Gloating privileges.”
“What?” Robin said, trembling with rage. He blinked rapidly. His lips were like suet. She was certain he was going to faint.
“I’m so sorry; it’s an evil, dirty business, and I honestly didn’t want to—but if you go on thinking, the rest of your life, that you might run into him on the s-street; or, or, every time the phone rings you—”
Robin got up and left the room. Gwyn heard him pounding up the stairs with a growling wail that wrenched the heart out of her. She sat down, prickly with nausea, and pressed the cold glass against her head. She wept a little, fitfully, while she nursed one more drink.
About ten o’clock Gwyneth went upstairs to her apartment. She found three wood carvings, the figures hand-polished to a high luster. Tranquil sylvan setting. Mother and two cunning children, a boy and a girl, seated, a large picnic hamper between them. Detail was rendered beautifully: the palm of the mother’s hand, the folds of her skirt, the curve of a child’s mysterious smile. The figures engrossed her; she was thrilled by this display of youthful talent. Now she understood the reason for all the Band-Aids she’d noticed on his fingers.
A birthday card accompanied the carvings.
I WISH YOU
was all it said, all the words he had needed.
She thought she heard Robin in his room. Thrashing in his sleep, crying out. Gwyneth finally overflowed, crying enough tears to sop one bell sleeve of her white crewel-work blouse.
There was a big shower in her bathroom, a modern instrument of torture like an iron maiden, needle spray coming at her from half a dozen different directions. The ribs which Vic had belabored in his love-rage ached horribly, but she stuck it out. She used a loofah to get the blood going even more fiercely.
Gwyn came out red as a radish, breathing hard and pleasantly exhausted, wrapped herself nearly head to toe in a big orchid towel and lay down tingling on her bed to orchestrate emotions. Before she was completely dried she discarded the towel and reached for the little bottle of concentrated hash oil she kept close to hand. She measured a small drop of the valuable stuff directly onto one fingertip. Sitting in the lotus position, she held the firm viscous drop aloft and stared at it. Then she looked down at her gently rounded crinkle-free belly and the soft fume of droplet maidenhair. Without uncrossing her legs she lay back, inserted the finger quickly deep into her vulva, withdrew it immediately, placed it inside her anus, withdrew again and let her fingertip loll deliciously on the fat and uppity joy-button.
Within seconds she was jumping up and down at the brink of what could be a night-long orgasm, to be maintained as long as she wished with a further judicious application of hash oil. Her skin flushed again, and her head was a heavy ball of vipers, entwining sensuously, hissing like flame as the incredibly potent oil was absorbed by soft erogenous tissue.
Gwyneth placed another drop on the heart-beat nipple where it could not be absorbed too quickly, at least by her. She was avid then to put her hands on herself, to claw out and cling to the steamy pulsating heart, to rub against walls and furniture, fall panting and grinding on the rough carpet, wearing the skin off her hips and behind while she wore out her need. She forced herself to obtain a small measure of self-control, and went keenly along to Robin’s room. She was a stifled madhouse, a sweltering storm.
He was sleeping, but poorly; he sat shock upright when she came in. “Who’s that!”
“Gwyn, darling. Are you all right?”
“I was dreaming. I’ve got a—terrific headache.”
Gwyneth kneeled on the bed beside Robin. She put a hand on his forehead. He was still groggy and had night sweats.
“I was in the bath. I thought I heard you, so I came right away.”
“I’ll be—”
“I can stay with you,” she said urgently.
“I—”
“I want to stay with you. Robin … I have something good for your headache.”
She hitched closer to him, sat knee to knee, her other knee raised, making him fully aware of skin tone and stressed muscle, the blood’s enormous pulse, the bawdy thoroughbred heaving of her breast.
“What is it?” he said in all innocence.
“Oh God Robin, put your arms around me, please please please before I lose my fucking mind!”
But she couldn’t wait for him to make even the first sampling move; she gathered him in, flocked his face with butterfly kisses. She treated him to alluring flights of fancy with her tongue. Her hands were loving and roving, then
lewd and to the point. Not a moment too soon she was astride him, a nesting pungent lapful, and the loaded nipple was between his teeth.
“Tastes funny,” Robin murmured, very nearly his last cogent thought for the remainder of the night.
Five thirty in the morning. The stones of the house were sweating. Conifers in the gunmetal greenery of the garden stood limp with beads of moisture. Fathoms of curling fog, white as bone, wisped hotly from the surface of the black reflecting lake. Two whistling swans glided rose petal smooth in malicious self-admiration to a far bank where the tall spruce, dim sentinels dark as midnight, began to perish in illusion. Birdsong was chilled, isolated. Gwyneth, in bluesy linen and charming sou’wester, drifted along paths far from the hardpan of the soul, cherished by the spirit that unknots the troubling flesh, all her sins exemplary.
She heard the whisper of giant wings an instant before the bird appeared, directly in front of her and only a few feet off the ground. Gwyn recoiled with an oath, thinking the raven would crash into her, but with a rushed tilt of his iridescent black wings he flew off without a sound above the shrubbery, and was swallowed in cotton mists.
Dirty birds, she thought, hating them because of what they symbolized. Several of the ravens haunted the campus, and some of them were large enough to trigger magnetic-wave detection alarms. The one that had almost bumped her head had a wing span of more than five feet. Security men occasionally took potshots but without much luck; the ravens had learned to be devious and seldom seen in order to survive.
“Is that you, Gwyneth?” said Granny Sig Newvine, and presently she became visible down the path Gwyn was taking. Mild light had struck the grove and, stirring in bare shadow, Granny Sig came forth, vocal, extravagant, stinking of candor, lovely in cloche maroon and supplemental swag. She carried a ferocious-looking walking stick.
“Oh, yes. There you are. Was it that bird? I saw it too. Well, you look—vital, as always. Not badly used, as I might have expected after so many hours with your tot-cocky soulmate.”
“You know already?”
“Guesswork,” said Granny Sig, with a hint of a simper.
“The time was right for—laying ghosts. I would say we’re rid of his father once and for all. Robin is totally mine now.”
“With the aid of a dollop of hash oil, to break down lingering inhibitions?”
Gwyn said dreamily, “They say that making love in the astral is nirvana; for pure sensation it eclipses anything we can manage in the flesh. But we managed pretty good last night.”
“Robin is somewhat adept in the astral, you are not. Be careful, dear.”
“What are you afraid of, Granny Sig?”
“For one thing, your proclivities toward the left-handed uses of sex.”
“You’re being an old Puritan. Using drugs and sex rites to implement paranormal experiences is standard occult practice. The release of sex energy through ritual copulation can be very creative. It’s white magic. I’m not fool enough to dabble in black magic—”
“You are focusing the libidinal forces of this mind-boggling youngster on yourself. He may prove to be quite extraordinary sexually—”
Gwyn said with a flippant shrug, “Study the films if you want to. It’s going to be a class act.”
“No joking matter. I think Robin will become far too much for you to handle—”
“Ho-ho-ho!”
“Sheer youthful braggadocio. I have a very healthy respect for the kinetically destructive powers of the sexually aroused. You can satisfy, even exhaust, the physical body, that’s purely a matter of mechanics, but what about the ‘double,’ the bioplasmic body we know so little about? What happens when it is subjected to conditions of prolonged spasmic orgasm without emission? Can you satisfy Robin in the ethereal? What happens if you don’t? You may find yourself in possession of a tulpa, a living nightmare beyond your control.”
Mention of the unruly and often terrifying tulpas, part of the lore of Tibetan mysticism, caused Gwyneth’s skin to prickle momentarily, but then she scoffed.
“Tulpas are thought-forms, and I’m a hard-headed realist. And Robin is—he’s—all boy. I’m really awfully fond of him, Granny Sig. I’m going to take good care of him.”
“Very well,” Granny Sig murmured. “I only want you to be aware of the possible dangers. Where do we go from here?”
“I think Robin and I will take a brief wanderjahr: he ought to enjoy canoeing on the Ampersand for a week. Hard physical work, and those deep downy sleeping bags at night—lovely! When the relationship is really firmed up I want to introduce him to the kabbalists.”
“The Fifty Gardens of Knowledge?”
“Even now, on sheer raw ability, he must be somewhere around the Thirtieth Gate, farther than any of our earthly geniuses can go.”
Granny Sig said reverently, “Solomon passed through the Forty-eighth Gate; by the grace of God only Moses has sojourned in the Forty-ninth garden.”
“Robin will pass through the last gate.”
“To the Final Garden, the Ultimate Mystery?”
“The creation of life itself. And why not?” Gwyn said exultantly, feeling very much up on her luck.
They reached higher ground where the fog was parting. Ahead of them the sun had risen; the blue and speckling day exploded.
Chapter Thirteen
Paragon Institute took up part of the block between East Eighty-sixth and Eighty-seventh Streets in Manhattan, facing Carl Schurz Park and the river. The main entrance was at the corner of Eighty-sixth and East End, a handsome Federal house of aging red brick. Paragon also owned the row house next door and the two houses immediately behind them, each with a private entrance on a narrow mews which lay in the permanent shadow of a twenty-story apartment building.
On the evening of the fourth of January it snowed for hours. The fifth dawned clear and very cold, a morning of blue shadows, red faces, vapor breath and crunching footsteps.
Roth, asleep on the couch in his office, flinched and burrowed under one arm when the drapes in his third-floor office were opened part way. He muttered bearishly.
“Dr. Roth?”
When he didn’t respond Hester Moore came over and put a firm hand on his shoulder.
“Doctor, you had an eight o’clock breakfast date on your calendar.”
For a few moments she thought he was going to ignore her. She looked around the office, strewn with papers and files. There were two horoscopes visible in view boxes on one wall. At a glance the charts appeared to be identical.
Roth sat up. His shirt was unbuttoned almost to his shaggy stomach, and he needed a shave.
“Time’s it now?”
“Seven forty-two.”
He smiled and yawned.
“Good to see you back, Hester. How was your vacation?”
“Oh—fabulous.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Skiing. In Colorado.”
“You don’t have much color. You ought to be the color of new pennies by now.”
“It was overcast most of the time, but I loved it anyway.” Hester drifted toward the view boxes. “I didn’t know you were an astrologer, Doctor.”
For having just come out of a sound sleep, Roth was fast and agile on his feet. He blocked Hester away from the view boxes without making an excuse for his rudeness and took the transparencies down.
“I can draw up a chart, that’s about it. The fine art of interpretation I leave to others.” Roth rubbed the crown of his balding head, smiling edgily. “Tell my, uh, tell him I’ll be a little late. Worked all night.”
His hand slid down over the wiry paunch of his chin and he began pulling open desk drawers, looking for his electric razor. “Oh, bring a pot of coffee for me?”
“Yes, Doctor,” Hester said. She walked down one floor and through a doorway, emerging into a sunlit foyer where a bodyguard stood with folded arms on a carpet designed by Leger. Hester had just a glimpse of the man who sat inside the private dining room behind a Wall Street
Journal, which he held with one hand. All she saw of him, really, was his stubby hand and a flighty swept-back hairdo; he might have been a man-sized cockatoo sitting there.
Hester’s blood didn’t run cold, as she’d expected, but she felt distinctly uneasy.
“Miss?”
“Oh! Ah, Dr. Roth will be just a few minutes late.”
“Thank you.” The bodyguard looked toward the dining room. “I’ll tell him.”
Hester swallowed and nodded and was about to turn away, but at that moment Childermass put down his newspaper and smiled, catching her eye. Hester froze outside the door, and quickly progressed from an initial stage of awkwardness to feeling downright foolish as she tried to raise a pleasant smile that would get her gracefully away from there.
He beckoned; she had to go in.
“Hello,” Childermass said, “and how are you this morning?” He seemed to know he couldn’t do much with his little mouth, it was—she couldn’t think of a kinder analogy—asshole-tight and just about as attractive, but there was a pert twinkle in his eyes. Hester was fascinated to see that he was wearing makeup to conceal a bad shiner.
“I haven’t seen you before, do you work for Roth?”
“Yes. Well, there’s two of us, Kristen and myself. I’m Hester.”
“I know Kristen. She’s a very pretty girl. You’re a very pretty girl yourself, Hester. Have you worked here long?”
“Almost a year.”
“Well, well. Is the Big Man going to keep me waiting today?”
“Oh, only a few minutes, sir.”
Childermass beamed at her for several moments longer, then his eyes became inexplicably cold as, without saying another word, he resumed with his newspaper. Hester beat it out of the dining room, hurried past the guard and went down another flight of stairs to the kitchen.
“Coffee for Dr. Roth,” she said to the cook. She continued on to an adjacent washroom, bolted the door. She sat down on the john with her knees together and rode out a trembling fit.
There’d been nothing about his appraisal of her, nothing in the routine compliment he’d offered like a leftover Danish pastry to trouble her so, but Hester had the super-creepy feeling Childermass was acquainted with her life from the first baby tooth—he knew everything there was to know about her liaison with Peter.
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