by J. R. Mabry
Larch made a little bow. “The very same.” He then waved toward the furniture. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.”
Closer up, Richard could see that the bookshelf was packed with paperback Weiser editions and, on the lower shelves, ancient-looking tomes bound in leather. No titles adorned their spines, but Richard could guess what they were: grimoires. Just then, he noticed the hand-painted plaster Baphomet staring down from the top of the bookshelf. “Howdy to you, too,” he winked at the statue. Yup, he thought to himself, this is a magickian’s den, no bout a doubt it.
Richard ignored the smell of mold emanating from the armchair, and forced himself to sit. Terry and Dylan took places beside one another on one of the couches, and Larch planted himself in another armchair directly across from Richard. Just then, the shock-haired young man who had answered the door emerged from the stairwell, holding the back of his head and grimacing. “Oh, it seems you’ve met Frater Charybdis.”
“Sorry about the head-thing,” Richard said, without any real remorse.
“Fuck you,” said Charybdis.
“Frater, some tea for our guests, if you please.”
Charybdis sneered but turned and limped toward what Richard assumed must be the kitchen.
“Richard Kinney,” Larch shook his head. “My, my. You know, I’ve been reading your posts since the early WELL days.”
“Then we’ve been mutual admirers,” Richard returned, a real smile emerging.
“Well?” asked Dylan.
“A very popular computer bulletin board in the Bay Area back in the ’90s,” Terry explained. “The first real internet community for most of us.”
“Just so,” smiled Larch. “I still remember how you put those Temple of Set bastards in their place on the Ceremonial Magick list.”
Richard couldn’t help a smile himself. “Oh yeah. That was intense.” Despite himself, Richard found he was warming to Larch. He told himself it was the result of intentional flattery and to stay on guard. “Listen, Mr. Larch, we’re here on business.”
Larch’s smile lessened somewhat but did not disappear. “And pray, what would that be?”
“One of our friars has gone missing. We want him back.”
“And you think he might be here? Why?”
“He was staking out your house earlier today.”
Real surprise registered on Larch’s face. “No. My God, no. Father Kinney, you may feel free to scour every inch of this house. I’m sure you and your companions are familiar with the paraphernalia of the magickian’s craft; it will hold no surprises for you. Your friar is not here.”
“Then where is he?”
“I’m as clueless as you seem to be, I’m afraid.”
“We’ll see about that. Look, we have one of your brothers.”
Larch’s eyebrows shot up. “You know where Randall Webber is?”
“I do. He’s safe, but we’re not disclosing his location. You want him back; we want our friar back.”
“You’re holding him hostage?”
“Not at all. He’s gravely ill, and his sister is tending to him.” It wasn’t exactly true, but Larch didn’t need to know that. “She has employed us to find out what happened to him. In the course of our investigation, our friar disappeared.”
Terry passed Larch an iPod, a photo of Mikael grinning stupidly on its screen. “That’s Mikael Bloomink, a member of our order,” Richard said deliberately. “You sure you haven’t seen him?”
“I swear to God, Father Kinney, I have not.”
Richard looked at Terry and gave an almost imperceptible nod.
After a few moments, Terry rose. “Excuse me, may I use your restroom? You only rent coffee, you know.”
“Oh of course. Through this door here”—Larch indicated with a wave—“down the hall, to your left.”
“Thank you,” Terry said and excused himself.
Richard stared at Larch. An uncomfortable silence stretched out between them. Finally, Richard cleared his throat. “Mr. Larch, we inspected Webber’s house. We saw the sigils. We know which demon was summoned, and we know what he did.”
Larch looked at them with admiration and wonder. “Do you really?”
“Really. What we don’t understand is why.”
Larch cocked his head. “What part of it don’t you understand?”
“Why avocados?”
Larch grinned and let a few chuckles fall into his lap. “Well, the avocados aren’t the important thing, obviously.”
“I’m certain there are a few thousand avocado growers and probably thousands more migrant workers that would disagree with you there.”
“What I mean to say is that we have no real interest in avocados. It was…an experiment. To see if it could be done.”
“Well, congratulations, I suppose.”
“Don’t expect me to thank you fellers for depriving the world of guacamole,” Dylan sniffed.
“I’m missing that a bit myself, I must admit,” Larch feigned a pained look.
“So, what’s this really about?” Richard asked.
Just then Charybdis came through the door with an antique tea tray, hastily arranged with yellowed and cracked china. He set the tray down on a cracked fiberboard coffee table and then turned and walked back to the kitchen, letting the door swing behind him.
“Please excuse Charybdis’s rudeness.” Larch reached over and filled the four cups. “And just to put your minds at ease, I’ll drink whichever one you gentlemen don’t choose.”
“Thank you,” said Richard with a nod. He did not reach for a cup. “What was the experiment intending to prove? Why did you do it?”
Larch’s eyes narrowed. “Come now, Mr. Kinney, as you well know, every group has its secrets.”
Richard did know about that, and in lieu of responding, he picked up one of the cracked china cups and swirled tea in its stained and ancient bowl.
Just then, Terry emerged from the hallway and winked at Richard. Richard took a sip of the tea, momentarily amazed at how good simple things can be, especially when one is not expecting them.
“Mr. Larch—”
“Please, I’d always so hoped we could be friends. Call me Stanis, won’t you?”
“Let’s work up to that, why don’t we? Yes, we’re on a case. But what’s more important to me—to us—is our friend being missing. We want him back, and we will stop at nothing to get him back.”
“Why, Richard,” Larch said with a smile, “that could be taken as a threat.”
“Take it any way you like. Finding Mikael is our priority, but second on our list is the whole missing avocados thing. We know you and your lodge mates are up to something—something dangerous, something that got your friend hurt very badly. What I don’t understand is why you’re not more concerned about him.”
Richard watched Larch closely as Terry slid back into his seat beside Dylan.
“I think you misjudge me, Richard…” Larch paused and looked away, pausing to think through his next words, or perhaps to master his emotions. When he looked back at Richard, he was master of his features.
“I love Randall as much as you love your order mates. You don’t need to believe me. I don’t care what you think…well, not much.” He looked down at his tea for another thoughtful moment. “Tell me, Richard, have you ever put yourself or one of your order mates in danger to achieve something important? Something you believed in? Maybe to save someone, to save a lot of people?”
Richard nodded. Of course I have. Almost every fucking day, he thought.
“Then you know. You know the risks, you know what can be at stake. You know how you must keep a stiff upper lip. You know how you must maintain the pretense of having it all together because you’re the leader.”
Terry snorted. If he had been drinking milk, it would have sprayed. Richard pretended not to notice. “I’m not so good at the last part, but yes, I know what you mean.”
“There are no such things as acceptable losses, Richard, but ther
e sure as hell are losses.” He stared back down at his cup.
“What are you trying to do that could justify such a loss?” Richard asked, finishing the tea in his cup.
“Saving the world, of course.”
“From what?”
“From the greatest tyrant it has ever known. From the cause of every evil, every blight, the source of all disease and pain.”
“Satan?” asked Dylan.
“No, not Satan. Satan’s the fall guy, the patsy, the dupe, the straw man. He’s the one that was set up to take all the heat off the real perpetrator.”
“And who would that be?” asked Terry.
Larch stared at him for a long moment before responding. “Why, God of course.”
27
As Dylan drove back over the Bay Bridge, stony silence ruled over the car. Terry worried silently, while Richard’s face was set with grim determination. Not until they reached Emeryville did one of them speak.
“Any idea what Brian’s got cooking?” asked Dylan with exaggerated brightness.
Terry ignored him, but Richard took the break in the silence as a cue to wonder aloud. “I fucked up back there.”
“How d’ya figger?” asked Dylan.
“I shouldn’t have tipped our hand about Kat’s brother.”
“No, it was good,” Terry said. “It’s a balance of power thing. Did you sleep through the Cold War?”
“But we were bluffing. That would be fine if we actually had him in our care. We took a gamble even bringing him up. We’ve got to bring him home. Tonight.”
“I have something that will make you happy,” said Terry.
“Threesomes are out.”
Terry leaned through the bucket seats and presented a flash drive as if it were the Holy Graal.
Dylan glanced over at it. “Yer shittin’ me. What did’ja get?”
“I’m not sure. There was a running Mac in what looked like a holy wreck of an office. I just plugged in the drive and dragged a bunch of miscellaneous stuff over to it as fast as I could. I know we got a lodge roster, I made sure of that. We’ll have Susan sift through the rest of it when we get home.”
Dylan sighed, elated. “Well, dude, you just rock.”
Richard managed a “Good job” but otherwise kept his thoughts to himself. As they entered the house, Kat pounced on them at the door. Her eyes were ringed and red, as she grew less able to master her distress. “What did you find? What happened?”
Richard gave her the CliffsNotes version of their meeting as the friars shed their coats and washed up for supper.
“This stew is going to be mush if it stays on the stove any longer.” Brian appeared in the hall, his hands on his hips. Given his hunched back, this was a more menacing pose than it might otherwise have appeared.
Seated at the table, they said a quick blessing and began tearing at the bread and helping themselves to the pot of stew steaming in the middle of the huge oaken table.
Susan walked in from the office and gave her husband a peck, settling in next to him. “Guys, Bishop Tom just called.”
“Ah shit,” said Dylan. “Ah was hopin’ that if we just ignored that whole business it would just go away.”
“Not happening,” Susan said. “In fact, it’s worse. A whole file full of damning materials just landed in the presiding bishop’s hands today.”
“How damning could they be?” asked Terry. “We’ve got nothing to hide.”
“From liberal Berkeleyites, maybe,” Richard agreed. “But from assholes like Hammet? I can think of a lot of things about what we do I wouldn’t want him and half of the Christians in Texas to know about.”
“Like what?” asked Dylan, licking the ends of a joint.
Richard stared at him hard.
“What? What did I say?” Dylan implored.
“No smoking at the dinner table.” Brian grabbed the joint out of Dylan’s hand and threw it on the shelf behind the portly priest’s head. “Jesus, I thought I had you trained.”
“Who sent it, that’s what I want to know,” Richard said, reaching for the bread.
“You’ll be so proud of Tom,” Susan said. “Because he gave us a name and address on that.”
“Go, Tom!” Terry shouted and turned to Dylan for a high-five.
“Turns out it was sent by a private detective agency here in San Francisco.”
Kat added pepper to her stew. “So, your enemies are local,” she said. “Who would have it in for you?”
“Try anyone we’ve stopped in the past fifteen years,” Dylan said, coming out of his pout.
“I’ll keep working on it,” Susan said. “But how about you guys? What kind of luck did you have?”
Richard repeated the CliffsNotes version for the benefit of Susan and Brian.
“So, what do we do?” asked Kat. She had placed a couple of ladles’ worth of stew in her bowl but couldn’t bring herself to touch it.
Brian noticed and pointed at her bowl. “Show some fucking respect. Eat.”
She looked at him with her mouth open, incredulous. Terry laughed at her shock, and softened the moment by rubbing Brian’s hair. “Every order needs a Jewish mother.”
Seeing Susan smile, Kat relaxed but instantly looked back at Richard for guidance.
“What’s the plan, Kemosabe?” prompted Dylan.
“The first thing we’ve got to do is get Kat’s brother. I led Larch to believe that we have him, and I want to make sure that we do.”
“How will we do that if I can’t even leave the house?” asked Kat, her voice rising in panic.
Richard looked lost for a moment, but Susan filled the void. “As soon as we’re done eating, Kat, you should call the hospital and explain that you can’t come get him because you’re ill, and instruct them to release him into the care of…well, whoever is going to get him. Then we’ll draft a letter to the same effect, which you will sign, just in case. That should do it.”
Kat nodded, eager to get it done. “But first things first,” said Susan. “Pass the rice, please.”
Ten minutes after clearing the table, Kat had finished on the telephone and was signing the letter Susan had hastily prepared on the computer.
“Dylan, why don’t you stay here and give Brian a hand with the kitchen cleanup,” Richard said, his face a stony mask. “Susan, I have a feeling we could really use your diplomacy here. Do you feel up for a trip to Alameda?”
“I always love an excuse to go to Alameda. Let me grab my coat.”
Kat was biting at her fingers. Richard noticed the strain on her face and put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her, realizing that having a job to do would make the waiting easier on her. “Why don’t you move your stuff to Mikael’s room and get the guest room ready for your brother? Dylan’ll give you a hand.”
She nodded, gritting her teeth against the worry.
Susan reappeared in the foyer and handed Richard and Terry their coats. “Let’s roll,” she said.
28
Terry drove while Richard stared out the windshield and bounced his leg for most of the way. Susan noticed and, leaning her cheek against the back of Richard’s seat, felt a wave of compassion for him wash over her. She was worried sick about Mikael, and certainly concerned about Kat’s brother, but she knew how heavy the weight of leadership was on Richard, especially coming so close on the heels of being dumped. He wasn’t just worried; he also felt responsible, and it was obvious that it ate at him.
She distracted herself by watching the dusk settle over one of her favorite places in the Bay Area. Alameda was one of its best-kept secrets.
She always considered it surreal to be in downtown, urban Oakland—as gritty as anywhere in New York or LA—and then, after a forty-second tunnel ride, emerge in Mayberry RFD. Alameda, a tiny little island off the coast of Oakland, evoked a sleepy and wholesome time long past. Webster Street, on the poorer end of the island, exuded small-town charm with plenty of specialty shops and restaurants.
Terry turned left
on Central and headed toward the ritzier side of the island, and the hospital.
“Do you think we’ll have any trouble breaking him out?” Terry asked no one in particular.
“You talk like he’s in prison,” Susan complained.
“You ever been in the hospital?”
“Point,” she conceded. “Kat talked to the admissions people, and they didn’t indicate there would be any trouble. They’re expecting us.”
She placed a hand on Richard’s shoulder. He didn’t look back but reached up and squeezed hers in place. Terry looked over, noticed, and smiled. “Here we are,” he said, pulling up in the visitors lot.
Like the rest of Alameda, the hospital exuded quaint charm and at the same time was clean and efficient.
The three of them made their way to the admissions desk, and Susan cleared her throat. An octogenarian volunteer had nodded off and was drooling on her intake papers.
Susan reached down and stroked her hair gently. “Hey, pretty lady,” she said. “Can you give us a hand?”
The woman jerked upward with a start. “Who the hell are you?” she snapped. Then she looked around and remembered where she was and, it seemed to Susan, what she was there to do. “Excuse me,” she said to Susan. “How can I help?”
Susan stifled a laugh and put on her all-business face. “We’re here to transport Randall Webber for home care. His sister, Catherine, called about a half hour ago.”
“How many of you does the man need?” The woman was looking behind her at the two friars.
“There’s only three of us.”
“And two more upstairs.”
Richard felt a trickle of ice water down his spine. He stepped up. “What two? What are their names?”
“I don’t take names, young man, I just give out visitors’ badges. Do you want one?”
“No need,” Richard said, “Clergy. C’mon.” He set off toward the elevators at a panicked trot.
