The Holy

by Daniel Quinn

  “I see. That’s plain enough.”

  “Good.”

  “So you’d rather not meet with me.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But look. You understand that I wasn’t there last night on my own account. I was there on behalf of a client. I was doing a job.”

  “So?”

  “So I’d like to try and finish that job. I’d like to ask you some questions.”

  “Go ahead and ask them.”

  Howard sighed. “Couldn’t we just get together and talk for a while?”

  “You mean sit down and shoot the breeze about Satanism.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Why are you so hostile? I’m not your enemy.”

  “Believe me, Mr. Scheim, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Outside the rite, everyone is my enemy.”

  “All I want to do is understand, for God’s sake!”

  “Come to the rite and you’ll understand.”

  It took Howard almost half a minute to throttle the desire to growl into the phone. “You win, Mr. Bailey. Can I at least ask a couple of questions?”

  “I already told you to go ahead,” Bailey snapped.

  “Okay. When did the worship of Satan begin, as you see it?”

  “To me, your question means, when did the god we worship come to be called Satan.”

  “All right.”

  “You know the answer already: during the Middle Ages.”

  “What was he called before that?”

  “The Romans called him Faunus, the Greeks called him Pan, and in the Near East he was called Baal. This is the earliest name known for him, dating back about three and a half millennia.”

  “Okay. This is the key question for me, and I hope it won’t offend you. What makes you think the god named Baal is the god you worship as Satan?”

  “It doesn’t offend me, Mr. Scheim. I think Baal and Satan are the same, because they’re hated by the same people. By the righteous and the sanctimonious. By those who believe that the spirit can only be liberated if the body is mummified.”

  “That’s sort of negative evidence, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah.… Well, again I don’t want to seem contentious, but I have done a little looking around about this. As I understand it, the only thing that’s definitely known about Baal—I mean on the positive side—is that he was a Syrian rain god. And even this was only recently discovered.”

  “I take it you’re referring to the Ugaritic tablets discovered at Ras es-Shamrah in 1929.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m aware of this discovery, Mr. Scheim. What’s your question?”

  “My question is: What’s the connection between a Syrian rain god and the god you were talking about last night?”

  Bailey sighed wearily. “Contemplate the mystery of the light, the shadow, and the smoke and you’ll find the connection, Howard. Or Verdelet will show it to you when next you come to the rite. Since this is a matter that troubles you, he’ll make a special point of it.”

  “I see,” Howard said, since there didn’t seem to be anything else to say.

  By noon, it was obvious that he was coming down with a cold. Ada had always maintained that he got a cold when he needed a vacation or was working on a job he didn’t like.

  Colds didn’t just annoy Howard, they felled him. Once he’d tried carrying on as usual through a cold and had ended up hospitalized with pneumonia. After that, he just went to bed and stayed there till it was completely over. Without Ada to look after him, this meant getting in a two-week supply of antihistamines, tissues, cough syrup, and food before the symptoms overwhelmed him. Books he didn’t need to worry about, because he had all the Nero Wolfes in tattered paperback, and these were reserved for reading during colds.

  He went to his office to collect his mail and change the message on his answering machine. Though it wasn’t strictly necessary, he considered calling Aaron to let him know he’d be sidelined for a while. He decided he’d wait until his symptoms were fully and audibly established. By four o’clock he was in bed with Fer-de-Lance and a large piece of chocolate fudge cake, which from at least the age of ten had been his special sickbed treat.

  He was up to Plot It Yourself when a breath of air from the Gulf of Mexico broke the city’s persistent cold spell. Light coats and jackets were pulled from the backs of closets for the day, though no one was fooled into thinking that spring had come to stay.

  That evening Howard was attacking a week’s accumulation of dirty dishes when he got a telephone call from Richard Holloway.

  The boy observed that he sounded terrible. Howard admitted he had a cold.

  “Spring colds are the worst,” Richard noted prosaically.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, look. I’ve been picking up some things. About our friends.”

  “Uh huh?”

  “I think something’s going on in Colorado.”

  “Colorado.”

  “Southern Colorado or northern New Mexico. In the Rockies somewhere along in there.”

  “Okay.”

  “I have the impression it’s about a child, a boy.”

  “What is?”

  “Whatever’s going on.”

  “I see.”

  “Is this any help to you?”

  “I don’t know, Richard. I’ll have to think about it.”

  “You want me to keep you posted if I get anything else?”

  “Absolutely. I appreciate the call. Say hello to Denise for me.”

  “Will do, Howard. Take care of that cold.”

  Howard promised he would, and by the time he was back at the sink he’d put the conversation out of his mind. He was giving Aaron’s problem a complete rest for the duration of his cold, and by now it was all but comatose.

  He fixed his attention on washing the dishes, a chore he detested because it seemed to require so much attention. Unlike Ada, who could whip through a bushel of dishes in twenty minutes, he had no method, no rhythm; he washed each dish, each utensil as laboriously as if it were to take its place in a surgery.

  He was so absorbed in the task that it was only by degrees that he became aware of the murmur of voices nearby. He cocked his head toward them, perplexed, because none of his neighbors were party-givers. After rinsing and racking the last plate, he draped the dishcloth over the faucet, dried his hands, and went into the living room. There the puzzle deepened, because the voices seemed to be coming through the south wall—the outer wall of the building.

  He went to the window and gazed into his neighbor’s windows, a dozen feet away; they were dark. From this position, the voices seemed to be coming from his left. In fact, they seemed to be coming from Ada’s sideboard. Feeling a bit foolish, Howard opened the cabinet.

  The voices became noticeably more distinct, and he listened to them with a frown of bewilderment. There seemed to be half a dozen different speakers, most of them male. He couldn’t make out what anyone was saying, partly because they were all talking at once and partly because there was a persistent background clatter of dishes and silverware. A sound engineer would have described it as “a restaurant presence.”

  Howard shoved the sideboard away from the wall and stood there blinking. He wondered briefly if he was dreaming but knew he wasn’t; in dreams you never wonder if you’re dreaming. There was a door in the wall—an old wooden door with cracked, peeling brown paint, and he stared at it with a woozy sense of déjà vu. Thinking about it, he seemed to remember now that the door had been there when he moved in, that he had deliberately used the sideboard to cover it up, since it led nowhere.

  The dining room babble was coming from behind this door.

  His head felt leaden on his shoulders. He shook it irritably, reached for the doorknob, and paused, wondering if he should knock. Knock on a door in your own apartment? He pulled the door open and found himself looking into a large, vaguely familiar kitche
n. A short, blocky woman was standing at the sink washing dishes, her back to him. Without turning around, she said:

  “Well, don’t just stand there, you oaf. Come in.”

  Howard’s heart rose up in his chest like a helium-filled balloon.

  “Ada!” he whispered ecstatically.

  She turned off the water and faced him, drying her hands on her apron. “Well, look at you,” she growled humorously. “I bet that bathrobe ain’t been washed in four years.”

  Howard barely heard her words. He was taking in the all-but-forgotten features of her dark, square face, with its beaky nose and bright black eyes. Tears welled up in his eyes and he squawked: “But they said … the doctors said …”

  “Doctors! What did they tell you? That I was gonna croak? Well, that shows what doctors know, don’t it.”

  The tears spilled down his cheeks, and he felt a great laugh of joy swell up inside of him as he realized that her death and the lonely years that followed had been nothing but a bad dream after all. Ada was still alive—still young!

  He looked around, trying to reorient himself to reality, and at last recognized the apartment they’d moved into in 1973 when Howard’s income had been at its peak.

  “I gotta finish these dishes, sweetie,” Ada said. “You go on in and look after our guests.”

  “Guests?”

  “In the living room, dummy.”

  Howard nodded, vaguely remembering the people he’d heard; they were silent now. They remained silent as he entered the living room and stood blinking down at them, feeling awkward in his pajamas and bathrobe. He shook his head, disoriented; they were all strangers—and a strange assortment at that.

  A slight old man with a face like a sheep, an air of amused benevolence, and a tidy pot belly buttoned up in a shapeless old cardigan sweater.

  A wiry, unpleasant-looking redhead in his thirties who sprawled and sneered. A heavier man of the same age whose dull eyes peered at Howard from a face that might have been kneaded from dough.

  A shriveled Hispanic man of indeterminate age, his eyes haunted by centuries. Sitting beside him, a boy who might be his son or his grandson, with glossy skin but the same haunted eyes.

  An ancient, scrawny crone with hair like cobwebs, dressed in a faded house dress and broken-backed slippers; her voice, if she spoke, would be like the scrape of chalk on a blackboard.

  A solemn American Indian with a head like a chunk of dark rock and the body of a tree trunk.

  It was impossible to think of these people as guests in his home. He didn’t know what to make of them; no one spoke, no one nodded, no one offered any introductions. Under their silent, staring appraisal, he felt like a bull that had been led out into the selling ring for inspection. It was a curious moment—one that seemed to stretch on forever, outside of time. His eyes circled the room restlessly, meeting theirs again and again, searching in vain for a spark of human contact.

  Then Ada appeared in the doorway behind him, and the spell was broken.

  “Honey, go get the ice bucket from the basement, would you?” Howard frowned, trying to make sense of this. Their apartment was on the third floor. Why would the ice bucket be in the basement?

  “Go on,” she said.

  He wanted desperately to tell her to forget the goddamned ice bucket. He wanted to send these strangers away and spend the night talking to her, holding her, but he felt completely paralyzed. He couldn’t even turn to her, couldn’t even look into her face.

  “Go on now, Howard,” she repeated firmly.

  He shuffled forward, opened a door, and found himself at the top of a flight of stairs lit by a naked bulb. He could see that they led down to the bare cement floor of a basement. “Ada …,” he pleaded.

  But the silence behind him was total now.

  Oppressed by a dreadful sense of impending loss, he descended. At the bottom of the stairs, he shivered and looked around bleakly at the emptiest basement in the world. It seemed like the basement of a house waiting for its first tenants—or a house that would never have tenants.

  There was no ice bucket.

  But, under another naked bulb, he found a suitcase with a raincoat draped over it. He recognized these things immediately as his own. They were infinitely tired objects; the suitcase had suffered too many journeys, the raincoat too many seasons. They seemed grubby and pathetic in this pristine room.

  He couldn’t remember exactly what his errand was supposed to be, but it was evident that Ada was preparing him for some horrendous unwanted journey. The very thought of it wearied him to death. Dragging himself like a vast, unwieldy burden, he mounted the stairs, groped his way through the apartment above (now dark and completely deserted), and stumbled into his own living room. Somehow he found the strength to push the sideboard back into place before crashing into his bed like a felled tree.

  Sleep washed away all memory of his visit to the rooms that lay behind Ada’s sideboard, and he woke the next morning merely amazed to find himself still in his bathrobe.

  Nevertheless, as the day wore on, he began to feel burdened with a sense of desolation he couldn’t trace to any source.

  CHAPTER 13

  By the time he finished The Doorbell Rang, which he always saved till last because it was his favorite of the Wolfe books, his symptoms had been gone for two days. He should have felt ready to get dressed and visit his office, but didn’t.

  Another mass of chill arctic air had settled over the city, and he tried to convince himself that it was only the cold that was holding him back. Staring out at the clear sky, he told himself it was a gorgeous day to get back to work. He was trying to suck some of that brilliance into himself, to dispel the shadow that had dimmed his spirit since the night Richard Holloway called. Finally he shrugged and began to get dressed. It was probably just one of those circular things: He was idle because he was depressed, and he was depressed because he was idle. Maybe just getting back into the routine would break the circle. When he got to his office, he scooped up the mail from the floor, went through it standing over the wastebasket, where most of it went, listened to the few messages on the answering machine, sat down, and swivelled to face the window.

  It was time to consider what else he could do to justify keeping Aaron’s money. He wondered what Nero Wolfe would’ve done if Aaron had shown up at his house on West 35th Street. That was no help. Wolfe would have wiggled a finger, told Archie to put him out, and returned to his crossword puzzle.

  Howard could go back to Joel Bailey’s rite and have the connection between Baal and Satan explained to him. But he knew in advance it would sound terrific and have as much substance as a soap bubble. With a little effort, he could probably track down Sybil Leek, Louise Huebner, or some of the other “public” witches. With a little more effort, he could look into voodoo in Haiti and obeah in Jamaica. And of course if he was really ambitious, he could do some nosing around in the Middle East. Two experts, one in Middle-Eastern studies and one in comparative religion, had assured him this would be a complete waste of time.

  With a bleak little smile, he recalled that he could also check out the Rocky Mountains and see what the yoo-hoos were up to.

  In the end, there was really no doubt about what he had to do next. It was time to waylay his client at the club for an informal consultation.

  For two nights Aaron didn’t show up, and this was just as well. During Howard’s absence, the members had been bottling up things to tell him, and his services were in great demand. On the third night a giant, muscular warm front had moved into the area to vanquish the dragon of winter for good, and the atmosphere inside the club was as close to lighthearted as it ever got. This meant that ordinarily sober and respectable members allowed themselves to be talked into such giddy revels as bridge, cribbage, and even canasta. It also meant that Howard was free of listening duties when Aaron arrived at nine.

  The two men exchanged health reports, and Howard began to summarize what he’d accomplished before the rhinovirus
laid him low. Aaron interrupted to ask if he really felt ready to report at this point.

  “Aaron, I feel like I’ve run out of obvious moves. Everything I can see to do at this point looks pretty tangential, but maybe you’ll come up with something I’ve missed. That’s what I’d like to explore after filling you in on what I’ve already tried.”

  The old man nodded and told him to go ahead.

  It was well after midnight by the time Howard finished. “To me, frankly,” he said, “it looks like I’ve gotten nowhere for you. Am I going about it the wrong way? I’d like to hear your honest opinion.”

  Aaron worked his way through a half-inch of cigar before answering. “To be honest, I’m a little puzzled by your attitude toward this man Bailey. He seems to be trying to give you at least part of the answer to my question, and you’re pushing him away.”

  Howard scratched savagely at the side of his jaw. “Don’t take this wrong, Aaron, but if you think he can answer your question, then you don’t need me. You should go to him direct.”

  “God in Heaven!” Aaron exclaimed in alarm. “Now you’re taking me wrong. If you tell me this man’s a fraud, I believe you. What I’m saying is, maybe you’re calling him a fraud just because he’s saying he can give you an answer. I mean, maybe you started out with the idea that everyone who says there’s no answer is automatically reliable and everyone who says there is an answer is automatically suspect. I’m not saying this is so, Howard, I’m just asking.”

  “You could be right, Aaron. I’ve got to be skeptical of what I hear, but I’ve also got to have an open mind. Maybe I’m kidding myself when I think I’ve got an open mind about this thing. If I am, then I should quit.”

  “I don’t want you to quit, Howard. Definitely not. I think you’ve done a fine job so far. But do you want an opinion?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re holding back on this. You act like you’re tracking down a lost cat for some penniless widow. I gave you that ten thousand to use, Howard. Who says the answer can be found in Chicago? Chicago’s not the world, God knows. You think you can find out something in the Middle East? I don’t care what the experts say—go to the Middle East. You think you can find out something useful in Jamaica or Haiti? Go to Jamaica, go to Haiti.”