Knowing that her mind wouldn’t dare move them on its own, she pushed her knees down with her hands.
“What’s your name?” he said brusquely.
She didn’t answer.
“Vee haf vays of maykink you talk.”
“Melanie,” she whimpered.
“Melanie ... what?”
“Sands.”
He brought the camera to his face. “Well, Melanie Sands, I’m in something of a hurry, as I have to get back to the church. So, if you’ll just bear with me...”
The flashes were blinding.
She raised her arms to shield her eyes. Voice hitching, she said, “May I have my clothes back?”
“No can do,” he said. “But not to worry. I’ve got something that’s going to fit you just right.”
He began circling her, taking picture after picture after picture. Oddly, the electronic whirring noise made by the camera’s auto advance seemed to intensify her thirst.
“Sir, can I please have a glass of water?”
“Very thirsty, are you?”
“Real bad thirsty,” she said, trying so very hard not to cry.
He sat the camera gingerly on the floor. “How about some lemonade instead?”
Melanie nodded, her chin quivering.
“Alright then,” the man said as he began to unzip his pants. “One glass of lemonade coming right up.”
“Eli!” shouted a voice from the stairs, that of an old woman. She raised her cane and aimed it at the man like a rifle. “I’ll get her some water from the tap, so zip it up!”
He quickly obeyed the woman. “Haven’t I warned you about sneaking around, Mother?”
“The world ain’t yours yet,” she said. “Until then, this is my house. If you don’t like it, then go back to your cot at St. Patrick’s.”
Chuckling, he said, “Alright, get her some water then. And while you’re at it, bring me down a beer, will you?”
18.
As if he’d just emerged from an office filled with whining faxes and whirring printers, the sounds of his camera still haunted his ears. And his crotch. Those sounds were, without fail, the only things in this world that could give him an erection—whether he wanted one or not.
After having captured two rolls of black and white images of Melanie Sands, Eli hurried back to the church. The little girl remained in the custody of his deranged mother, who he instructed to begin preparations for the wings. He’d also dispatched two couriers: one to contact Gamble, as he urgently needed to speak with him, and another to search out and recapture the Bently girl.
Now he sat in the confessional, which was feeling exceptionally close today. Christ, it was hot. Five more minutes and he thought he just might smother to death.
Then footsteps.
Finally, the adjacent door opened and closed.
“You rang?” said Gamble.
Eli inhaled deeply. “I believe that Samuel Flannery is going to pursue his findings.”
“You’re referring to the sword imbroglio, I presume?”
“Yes.”
“You have to admit, Father, it’s damned clever. Oh sure, it’s amateurish, puerility at its most basic, yet still manages to deliver its message with discerning savoir-faire. Don’t you agree?”
“Um, yes, of course.”
Eli waited uncomfortably for Gamble to speak. Nearly a minute passed before he finally did.
“Very well,” Gamble said cheerily. “I’ll make sure that Flannery doesn’t become the town crier.”
“I wouldn’t mind doing it myself.”
“Nonsense! You have other things requiring your full and immediate attention. And let me just say how proud I am of you. Although congratulations aren’t quite in order just yet, you now have your seventh angel and window, padre! You’re almost there! You’re sliding into home base! Wow! I imagine that you’re extremely excited, yes?”
Eli managed a smile. “Excited is not quite the word I would use.”
Gamble let go with a charitable laugh. “Just don’t wet yourself prematurely, Father. Keep painting by the numbers and we’ll all come out well.”
“Melanie flies tomorrow.”
“Does she? Very well, then. But don’t forget about Katherine.”
“Oh, I haven’t,” he promised through clenched teeth. “I have another courier looking for her this very moment. That little cow’s going to rue the day she was born.”
Gamble pressed his face against the screen. “I think you meant to say days.”
“Days, yes, of course,” Eli said, rolling his eyes at Gamble’s affinity for the arcane. “Also, there’s one thing I’ve been…been meaning to ask you.” His hands were trembling in his lap.
“Yes?”
“It’s about Katherine Bently. You see, I can understand how...how she might have easily remained secluded from me these past years. But I was curious as to how she got past...you.”
The burgeoning silence began to liquefy and was soon a cold, drizzling dread saturating his skin, leaching the air from his lungs, numbing his soul like Novocain. Eli could not enlist so much as a wheeze to verify that Gamble had not already turned him into a bloating corpse. Or worse.
Gamble cleared his throat. “That’s a valid question, Father. In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t approach me about this earlier. Well, I imagine you were somewhat fainthearted to confront me with such a quiz. Am I right?”
“Y-yes.”
“Well, the truth of the matter is, I did know of Katherine’s whereabouts. Naturally, when she didn’t show up after her nasty fall, I went looking for her. I eventually found her, but in a place, shall we say, that was not graciously accessible to me. So, I just left her alone, knowing that she’d rear her ugly head eventually.”
“So, may I be...absolved from any negligence regarding the little bitch?”
“Exculpated, vindicated, exonerated—why, Father, consider yourself pardoned.”
“Thank you,” Eli said, near tears.
“You’re welcome. But if you don’t catch and keep her this time, I’ll personally handpick the bacteria necessary to ensure that the excruciating ingestion of your flesh not only endure eternity, but also its successors.”
“Of course,” Eli whispered.
19.
After his meeting with Gamble, Eli hurried back to his mother’s house.
He stood once again before the seventh window, enraptured.
Knowing that he shouldn’t, but unable to resist the urge any longer, he pushed his hand through the window. Instantly, he was passing through stratums of time, his fingers resonating across the layers as if he were strumming the cords of a vast celestial harp. Pushing onward, his groping fingers began to feel planets revolving around alien suns, galaxies teeming with life, infant universes growing on the frontiers of creation, suckling from the pulsing lifeblood of that which is eternal.
The mobiles of gods.
The tactility he was experiencing was not suggestive in any way. He was actually feeling these things on so literate a scale as to be acutely unimaginable; touching not with the fingers of his hand, but with the phalanges of something so powerful, so omnipotent, that the light of creation would be snuffed with one little pinch should the decision be made to do so.
Oh, how superbly grand!
He smiled triumphantly. He would be ruler of these realms once Gamble released him.
He withdrew his arm, which he’d submerged up to his elbow, and studied it. Although it looked no different, it felt bewitched with a sensation of denseness and hollowness at the same time; here and not here.
Grand, yet humble.
Within seconds, however, the arm felt like its old self.
Eli was intoxicated.
The fruition of his many years of hard work was about to be fully realized.
20.
As Rachel and Duncan left the room, having just tucked her in, Kathy said, “Thanks for letting Juanita come with us.” She sat up suddenly in bed. “I mean, you d
id tell her she’s coming, right?”
“Of course we did,” Rachel said.
Duncan scowled. “I had to give her my window seat. She started blubbering about having never flown before, wants to ‘see thee world from a beeg height,’ so...”
“See,” Kathy said. “Amy didn’t believe me when I told her that you really liked Juanita.”
“That’s a vicious rumor,” he balked.
She flopped back down, laughing. “You can’t fool me, Donut. I know you like her.”
“Okay,” he said, “she’s all right. Sometimes.” He put his hand on the light switch. “Now go to sleep. Our flight leaves very early.”
“When we take off it’ll still be dark,” Rachel said. Then, just as she always did with Amy every night, she blew Kathy a kiss from the doorway. “Sweet dreams.”
Hurriedly, Kathy said, “Rock Bay isn’t the end of the world.”
“Of course it’s not,” Duncan said. “I believe that title belongs to New Jersey.”
Rachel stared at her curiously. “Why would you say that?”
“Just because,” she said. “See ya in the morning.”
Then the light went out.
“The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings.”
–John Bright
Part Three
Reunion
1.
The sun was a good thirty minutes away, and already the airport was bustling.
In the line for United, the woman standing in front of Chris Kaddison was a bit shorter than him, but much broader about the shoulders. Her carrot-red hair was cropped military-style, and the back of her bare neck offered a galaxy of freckles, with a few eraser-size moles added for celestial dimension. But it was the silkscreen on her back—two grinning, leather-clad skeletons straddling a Harley Davidson motorcycle—that was adjuring him to betray his better judgment.
The man next to her, a tall, thickset ape with a shaved head and Fu Manchu mustache (and pierced in places even Chris hadn’t considered), carried his own proverb: If you can read this, proclaimed the back of his shirt, then the bitch fell off.
Chris could no longer contain himself. “Biker cunt!”
From the adjacent lines of travelers, an erudite brunette (with the biggest pearl necklace he’d ever seen) went slack-jawed, gaping at him in disbelief; a dark-skinned man, who Chris guessed was of Muslim descent, was studying him with the black, abhorring eyes of Allah. And to his immediate left a rather refined gent in a gray tweed jacket was nodding in agreement.
The redhead glanced casually around, as if the accusation had surely been directed at someone else.
“Biker cunt!” he charged again. A nervous tick had begun to somersault across the left side of his face. As if to quell a threatening burp, he pressed the top half of his one-way ticket to his pursed lips. Damn! His mouth was going to get him into trouble once again.
This time, the redhead turned slowly around. Her front looked every bit as masculine as her back insinuated. Chris even thought she might have a bright future as a short lumberjack.
The Ape had turned around as well, and was regarding Chris dolefully; sorrowful, perhaps, that he was going to have to squash this little bug.
Standing a few persons ahead of the redheaded biker was an older woman who looked and dressed like a Rockwell schoolmarm. She was ogling him, her huge bosom swelling around her crocheted carry-on as if it were the eyes and ears of a child, protecting it from the wickedness that abounded in this world.
Staring directly now into her eyes, Chris quickly countered himself. “Like, I’m really sorry, lady. It’s just that I—cunt!—have a condition.”
Her eyes narrowed. “A condition, huh?” she said in a voice that was more feminine than Chris had anticipated. “How would you like me to cut—”
“Kick-stand mama!” Chris barked.
“—your balls off and shove them down your throat?”
“That might be an undertakin’,” said a tall, urban cowboy, his chivalry as garish as his belt buckle, “considerin’ the fact that this asshole’s obviously got a pair the size of bowlin’ balls between his legs.”
“Split-tail on wheels!” Chris accused.
“Potty-mouths,” Schoolmarm accused, indignant. “The both of you!”
The urban cowboy laughed. “Don’t go gettin’ your cotton undies all bunched up, grandma. I believe what this pissant needs is for me to stomp his ass into a mud hole.”
The Ape stepped in. “I’ll take care of this,” he said wearily. “You can have sloppy seconds.”
Although a few passing travelers had paused to observe the quarrel, most continued on without giving a second glance. Those waiting in line, however, were forced to endure the situation, some with scathing resentment, still others with ribald amusement, but most with indifference. After all, Chris thought, this was LAX, where fracases like this were as much a part of the scenery as those Rama-Rama-Ding-Ding guys and their Hare Krishna bibles—although he hadn’t really seen any of those people hanging around this morning. It had been quite some years since he’d been in LAX, or any airport for that matter, and he wondered if they’d been kicked out for good, or if they’d just opened up their own website like everybody else.
The quiver on his face was growing spastic.
A pretty flight attendant, blonde, clad in a tight, navy skirt and vest, towing a miniature dolly stacked with luggage, hesitated as she went by. “Everything all right here?” she said with a practiced smile.
“It’s about to be,” promised the Ape.
“Chrome blower!” Chris said, backing away from the promising beginnings of a lynch mob. God, how he hated lynch mobs. He’d been the focus of many throughout his years as an intrepid loudmouth.
*****
Kathy tugged Duncan’s pant leg. “What’s a chrome-blower?”
“A poor choice of words,” Duncan said, watching the commotion with keen interest.
“Are they going to beat him up?”
“More like throttle him, I think,” Duncan said, but Kathy missed the joke.
“Stay out of this, Duncan,” Rachel warned. “You’re not the law anymore.”
But Duncan was already on his way.
“Damn it, Duncan!” Rachel shouted after him.
The young man—still in laudable control considering the mess he was in—gestured with his hands pleadingly, but his mouth kept betraying him.
Duncan pushed his way in. “Ever heard of Tourette’s Syndrome?”
The afflicted man nodded.
“No,” said the Ape, “but I’ve heard of people getting hurt when they don’t mind their own business. So step aside, asshole.”
“Of course!” said the pretty flight attendant. “Oh my God, of course!”
“Spontaneous, uncontrollable outbursts,” Duncan explained. “This young man suffers from a medical affliction, not a moral one.”
“You tellin’ me this asshole’s got a prescription to spout off at the mouth whenever and whatever he wants?” said the garish cowboy, stepping toward Duncan.
Duncan met the advance: “I don’t remember him calling you a shitkicker. Get my drift?”
The cowboy stood his ground for a moment, reconsidered, then dropped back a few paces. Throwing up his arms, he said, “Hey, I was just tryin’ to help.”
“You wanna help,” said the redheaded biker, “then fuck off already.”
Emasculated, the cowboy cowered into the crowd.
“John Wayne!” Chris called after him.
Although the Ape stood his ground, his steely if not somewhat groggy eyes conveyed a look of surrender, as if he could smell a badge, retired or not. “Can’t you put a muzzle on him?”
“Afraid not,” Duncan said. “He’s not my dog.”
“Isn’t there a pill you can take for that?” said the redheaded biker.
Chris nodded. “Yeah, there is. Quite a few, actually. But I don’t—bitch!—take any medicati
on because it screws with my telepathic abilities.”
She looked stunned. “Only in LA!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. She grabbed her apish partner, both huffing and elbowing and excusing themselves back into line.
“Thanks, dude,” Chris said to Duncan. “But, like, how did you know I have Tourette’s?”
Duncan smiled. “Let’s just say that I made the same mistake once.”
He looked Duncan up and down. “Cost someone the use of their lip, I’ll bet.”
“And two days’ suspension for me,” Duncan admitted. “You seem fine now.”
Chris offered a devilish grin. “I was fine three minutes ago. Sometimes a guy just has to make his point.”
“And what point would that be?” Duncan said. “That you’re a bigot?”
“Hey, dude, most of it was legitimate,” he assured, not the least bit insulted.
Chuckling, Duncan said, “So, you’re heading to Boston, too?”
“Yeah,” Chris said. “Business trip.”
“Ahh.”
“Hey, like, thanks for helping me out.” He extended a hand. “Name’s Chris.”
“Duncan,” he said, taking Chris’s hand. “And don’t mention it.”
Chris’s face pulled back in sudden shock. “McNeil? You’re Duncan McNeil?”
Duncan tightened his grip. “Yes. I am.”
“Wow!” Chris said. “This is too bonzoid!”
“Translate.”
“Like, you’re why I’m going to Massachusetts. Flyspeck called Rock Bay. I’m supposed to meet you at some chick’s place—owh, owh...” Grimacing, twisting back and forth, Chris said, “Dude, my hand!”
Duncan released him. “The name of this chick?”
“Patricia…something,” Chris said as he dug into his blue jeans pocket. He withdrew a crumpled piece of yellow notebook paper. “I wrote it down. Yeah. Here it is. Patricia Bently. Her address is—”
“I know her address,” Duncan said. Upon the wrinkled piece of paper, below Patricia’s name and residential information, he observed the names Kathy, Amy, Wife Rachel, Juanita, and his own.
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