"Who'd ever thought our son would own this place ! " Emma said, clutching Jonah's arm. "And this is only the first floor!"
"That's what I'd like to talk to you two about," Jim said. "I want to share my inheritance with you."
Carol watched Emma's eyes widen.
"Oh, Jimmy—"
"No, I mean it," Jim said, cutting her off. "I can never repay you for the life you've given me, but I want to see you two live in comfort without worrying about layoffs and property taxes and things like that. I want to give you a million dollars."
As Emma began to cry, Carol put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. She and Jim had discussed this last night. He had wanted her approval, and she had encouraged him. She only wished her own parents were alive to share some of the bounty.
Jim said, "Dad, you can quit your job and just take it easy, if you like."
Jonah stared at them both for a moment, then spoke in his slow, South-tinted voice.
"That's very generous, son, and it will sure be nice not having to worry about being laid off, but I believe I'll keep working. A man's got to work."
"At least you can get a more sedimentary job," Emma said.
"That's sedentary, Ma."
"That's what I said. One where he can sit down more and not work so hard."
"For the time being, I'll stick with what I'm doing at the plant," Jonah said firmly. "That is, if none of you objects."
Carol felt a twinge of resentment at the sarcasm in his voice, but that was quickly overcome by the revulsion of knowing what Jonah's job was, and realizing that he liked it too much even to think of quitting it.
Seven
Saturday, March 2
1
Nicky's bishop and queen were laying a trap for his king, but Bill thought he saw a way out. He moved his remaining knight onto a square that posed a potential threat to Nicky's queen.
"Your move."
"Don't rush me," the ten-year-old said. "This is going to take some thinking."
Five days since that ghastly incident on Monday night. A deep breath still gave Bill a stab of pain where he had been kicked in the ribs, but he was able to function, and the slip-on-the-ice story had been accepted by everyone. His body was slowly healing, but his mind, his soul—he wasn't sure they would ever recover.
carnage IN the village the Daily News had said. Six bodies—four clustered mid-block, and two more, one at each end of the block—all killed by a single crushing blow to the skull. The police were laying it off to a "hippie drug war" because of all the speed they had found on the victims.
Victims! The irony of it! We were almost their victims! And what they got was probably right in line with what they had planned for us!
Still, it didn't sit right. Even though he knew he could tell the police nothing that would help them solve the case, it felt wrong to be hiding his involvement. He firmly believed that everything in life should be open, honest, and aboveboard. An impossible ideal, he knew, one the world would laugh at, but one by which he struggled to live his life.
The ideal had to start somewhere.
But another nagging question tormented him: Who was their savior? And why? Some sort of vigilante? Someone who just liked to kill? Or both?
He shook off the questions. He was too tired to wrestle with them today. They'd never be answered, anyway. At least not by him. He wasn't getting his usual amount of sleep lately. Visions of Carol—teasing, vamping, dancing across his brain—were still keeping him too excited to sleep.
This had to stop!
With an effort Bill turned his mind back to his weekly chess game with Nicky.
"There's someone I think you should meet," Bill told him.
"Who's that?"
"A new applicant who wants to adopt a boy."
Nicky didn't look up. "What's the use?"
"I think this couple is right for you. Their name's Calder. The husband is an assistant professor at Columbia. The wife's a writer. They don't want an infant. They want a bright boy under twelve. I thought of you."
"Did you tell them my head looks like a grapefruit someone left sitting on one side too long?"
"Knock it off! I don't think they'll care."
At least they had said they didn't care when Bill spoke to them. They were a bright, young, stable couple. They had passed their interviews, reference checks, and home inspections. And they'd said they were more interested in what was inside their child's head than the shape of his skull.
"Save us both the trouble and match them up with someone else," Nicky said, and moved his queen. "Check."
Bill moved his king one square to the left.
"No way. You're it, kid. This is one couple who won't be put off by your Lynn Belvedere act."
Still Nicky did not look up. In a careless tone he said, "You really think these folks might be the ones?"
"Never know until you try each other out."
"Okay."
One word, but Bill detected a note of hope in his tone.
He watched Nicky picking at his face as he hung over the board, studying the pieces and their positions. Suddenly his hand darted out and brought in his bishop from half the board away. He looked up and grinned.
"Checkmate! Ha!"
"Damn!" Bill said. "I hope Professor Calder's good at this game. Someone needs to teach you some humility. And stop picking your face. You'll turn that blackhead into a full-blown pimple if you don't watch it."
"It's called a comedo," Nicky said. "The little white ones are called 'closed' and the black ones are called 'open.' The plural is comedones."
"Really."
"Yeah. That's Latin."
"I'm vaguely familiar with the language. But I never realized you were such an expert on blackheads."
"Comedones, if you please, Father. Why wouldn't I be an expert? I'm covered with them. Comedo ergo sum, you might say."
Bill's barking laugh was cut short by a shooting pain in his ribs. But inside was a warm glow. He loved this kid, and no question about it: Nicky was going to make a great addition to the Calder family.
2
"Oh, my God!"
It was Carol's voice. Jim rushed into the downstairs library.
"What's wrong?"
She was sitting in a dark green wing chair that dwarfed her. But then, Hanley's downstairs library, with its high ceiling and rows and stacks of books that seemed to go on endlessly, tended to dwarf everyone.
"Take a look at this!" she said, pointing to the open book on her lap.
Jim knelt beside her. The book was obviously a college yearbook. He stared at the black-and-white photo under Carol's fingertip. It showed a dark-haired fellow with an old-fashioned center-parted haircut, intense eyes, a square jaw, and slightly protruding ears. Below the picture was a name:
RODERICK C. HANLEY
It was the first time Jim had ever seen a photo of Hanley as a young man. Other than that…
"So?"
"You don't see it?"
"See what?"
"Trim your hair, lop off those big sideburns, and that's you!"
"Get off!"
Carol took out her wallet and pulled a photo from it. This one was in color, a miniature of one that hung in their bedroom: their wedding portrait. She put it next to the old Hanley photo.
Jim gaped. The resemblance was astonishing.
"We could be twins! I wonder if he played football?" And if he did, I wonder if he enjoyed breaking arms and legs on the other team?
"Doesn't mention it here."
"So he probably didn't."
"Well," Carol said, "we still don't know who your mother was, but from this it looks like you're all Hanley. If there was ever any doubt that you sprang from his loins, as it were, let them now be forever put to rest."
"Far out!" said a third voice.
Jim looked up to see Gerry Becker leaning over the wing on the other side of the chair. He bit his tongue. Becker had hung around the mansion all day yesterday and had showed
up this morning shortly after Jim had arrived with Carol. He wanted to tell him to take a hike, but Gerry said he was doing a "feature" on Jim for the Express and needed lots of background. Jim liked the idea of a feature article. Maybe it would get picked up by the wire services. Maybe his mother would see it and get in touch with him. And maybe, too, the recognition factor might tip some fence-sitting publisher toward buying his new novel.
Who knew? Maybe it would work. But if it meant putting up with Becker on a daily basis, was it worth it? He had practically moved in with them.
"Two peas in a pod, all right," Becker said. "You know, when I was at the Trib—"
"I thought I left you upstairs," Jim said, trying to hide his exasperation.
"You did. But I came down to see what all the excitement was about." He pointed to the yearbook photo. "Hey, you know, if we could get a copy of your yearbook from… where was it?"
"Stony Brook, class of sixty-four."
"Right. Stony Brook. We could put them both side by side in the article. The effect would be groovy. Think you could find Jim's old yearbook, Carol?"
"I'll hunt around when I get home," Carol said.
"Make sure you do, okay? Because I'm going to make this a big article. Really big."
Jim saw her eyes flash at him, silently begging to get this pushy so-and-so out of here. He knew how much she disliked Becker.
"Come on, Gerry. Let's get back to the upstairs library."
"Right on. Don't forget, Carol. I'll check with you tomorrow, okay? Or maybe later on after you guys get home."
"I'll let you know when I find it, Gerry," she said with a smile that looked so forced it would have been far better had she not tried to smile at all.
3
Bitch! Gerry Becker thought as he followed Jim upstairs. Stevens's wife must think her shit don't stink! Where'd she get off with the high-and-mighty act? Nothing but a hick broad from a hick Long Island town whose husband suddenly got lucky. Big fucking deal! Gerry held it all in. He had to stay on Jim Stevens's good side until he got what he wanted for this story. Yeah, a feature on James Stevens, sudden heir to Dr. Roderick Hanley's fortune, including exclusive interviews with the famous scientist's unacknowledged son—that alone might be enough to ride the wires.
But Gerry had a feeling there might be more than just another rags-to-riches story here.
"All right," Stevens said as they reentered the upstairs library. "Let's pick up where we left off."
"Sure," Gerry said. Right.
Where they'd left off was nowhere. Stevens was looking for Mommy and Gerry was helping him. Not out of any deep feeling for Stevens but because it would add tremendous human-interest value to the feature.
But what Gerry was really looking for was juice. Hanley, for all his fame in the scientific community as an innovator with a commercial bent, had been pretty much of an enigma, always shunning interviews. A lifelong bachelor, always in the company of that M.D., Edward Derr. Gerry had a suspicion that maybe the guy was queer. Sure he fathered Stevens—after seeing those two pictures a moment ago, no one could doubt that—but maybe that had been just a momentary aberration. Or maybe he liked to swing both ways. Gerry's nose for news told him that there was some pretty weird shit hiding in Roderick Hanley's private life. All he needed was to find a couple of juicy bits and his feature would be hot stuff indeed.
And a hot feature on the wires would get him off a hick rag like the Monroe Express and back into the journalistic mainstream. Maybe the Daily News. Maybe even the Times!
Gerry had been in the mainstream once. Younger guys like Stevens—younger only by a few years but that was like a generation away these days—seemed satisfied to diddle around on a local rag and write the Great American Novel on the side. Not for Gerry. News was the only writing that mattered. He'd been on his way up at the Trib, living in a fourth-floor walk-up, but slowly inching ahead, doing what he wanted. Then the Trib had folded, just like the World Telegraph & Sun. Black days, those. Only the News, the Post, and the Times were left, and they were up to their eyeballs in guys more experienced than Gerry. For a while he had tried The Light, hoping for a shot at the top spot after its editor mysteriously disappeared, but it went to someone else. A weekly didn't prove to be his style, so he had hooked up with a small-time daily and waited for his chance.
His chance was now.
He slammed a notebook back into its slot. So much for that shelf. Nothing but notes and jottings and equations and abstracts of scientific articles pasted onto the pages. No love letters or dirty pictures—not a drop of juice.
Time to go to the next shelf. Boring as hell, but something was going to turn up, and Gerry intended to be here when it did.
He went to pull a volume from the next section of bookshelves but couldn't seem to budge it. When he took a closer look, he saw why. Suddenly excited, he squeezed his fingers in above the books, grabbed hold of the tops of their spines, and pulled.
The whole row of books pulled free in one piece.
Only they weren't books, just a facade of old spines glued to a board. He heard Stevens at his side.
"What've you got here, Gerry?"
At the rear of the shelf a dull gray metal surface reflected the light from the window.
"Looks like a safe to me, Jim. A big one."
But where was the combination?
Eight
The First Sunday in Lent, March 3
1
"You're welcome to stay for the service, Grace."
Grace smiled at Brother Robert and looked around the room. They were in the oblong basement of Martin's brownstone in Murray Hill. This room did not seem to belong to the rest of the house. It was so much warmer. Fluorescent lights, recessed into a beige suspended ceiling, glowed through multicolored panels, giving a stained-glass effect. There was wall-to-wall carpeting, and the walls were deeply stained tongue-and-groove knotty-pine. Rows of chairs were lined in a semicircle around a low platform at the far end. The walls were bare except for the crucifix at the far end; both it and the statue of the Blessed Virgin in the left corner were covered in purple drapes, just as they were in churches throughout the world during Lent. But this wasn't a church.
About two dozen or so people stood around chatting. Nothing special about them. The Chosen looked like people off the street of any middle-class neighborhood in the city. Some wore suits and dresses, some wore jeans; one woman who didn't have the legs for it sported a miniskirt. And they were all very friendly. They had greeted her with genuine warmth.
"Yes, do stay," Martin Spano said.
"I don't know, Marty—"
"Martin," said the pale young man grimly. "Please don't call me Marty. Nobody calls me Marty." Then he smiled quickly. "Well, what do you think of our little group?"
"They seem very nice."
"Believe me, they are."
He was called away by one of the Chosen, leaving her alone with Brother Robert.
"Are you going to have a Mass?" Grace asked.
"Oh, no," he said in his French accent. "Just some readings from the Bible, the Old and New Testaments. The Church doesn't really recognize groups such as these. They are clearly Catholic, but the monsignors and bishops and such think they are a little… you know how you Americans say… " He pointed his index finger at his left temple and moved it in a circular motion. "Loony Tunes."
"Oh, dear!" Grace said.
She was not at all sure she wanted to get involved in this sort of thing. During the past year or so she had heard of these groups. Catholic Pentecostals, they were called. Charismatics.
"I have not encountered this sort of thing anywhere else in the world, and I find it truly fascinating, truly extraordinary. In a way it is a return to Christianity's humble origins." He gestured to the room. "Believers gathering together in homes to pray and hear the word of God, to witness the presence of the Spirit. That's what Christianity should be about. They have accepted me as a leader of sorts, at least for the time being, but I am not here
as a priest. I am here as another one of the Chosen. They don't pretend that what happens here is sacramental, or in any way a substitute for the sacraments. It is an adjunct to the sacraments."
"I don't see how the Church can object to that."
"It doesn't object, but neither does it approve. It will never say so, but I believe the Church is a little concerned about groups like this. Although they are few in number, they are growing. They go to Mass and to confession and receive Communion in the orthodox ways, as we all did earlier this morning. But every Sunday afternoon and every Wednesday night, when they gather in meetings like this, they are on their own, with nothing between them and the Spirit. Surprising things happen."
"How surprising?"
He touched her hand gently. "Stay and see."
Grace stayed.
She sat in the last row and listened to readings from the Gospel, from various books of the Old Testament—mostly the frightening ones from Ecclesiastes—and to a homily from Brother Robert. His voice was mesmerizing. He was fiery and moving as he exorted the Chosen, whom he called the Army of God, to be ever vigilant for signs as to the identity of the devil incarnate, the Antichrist.
While he was speaking, some people sat and listened quietly, but some called out Amens, others stood and held their arms aloft as they swayed back and forth in time to a music audible only to them. Grace was shocked. This was more like one of those Protestant revival meetings they put on television every so often.
Then they all began to pray. And they prayed holding hands. The woman in front of her turned and reached her hand back for Grace to take, but Grace shook her head and folded her hands in front of her. She didn't want to hold hands during prayer! What kind of praying was that?
And then it happened.
A woman in a tweed suit in the front row stood up, rigid and trembling, then fell down onto the floor and began to shake. The nurse in Grace brought her out of her own chair.
"She's having a seizure!" Grace cried.
As she started forward, hands held her back, voices told her, "No, wait. She's all right"… "She has the Spirit"… "The Spirit is upon her."
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