“We’re okay,” Millar answered quickly. “Definitely . . . well, he did ask about Choriza and Swan.”
Silence.
“Can someone — keep an eye on him?” Millar asked. “Just in case?”
“We’re already on it,” rumbled the first voice. “It’ll be taken care of.”
The phone clicked twice. The connection went dead.
Mormon Prophet Canon G. Smith and his assistant reached the end of the little-known tunnel that ran from Temple Square beneath State Street, and took the private elevator upstairs. He was very tired tonight.
It had been a long and exciting day. The Plates! He gripped his cane more tightly, wobbling a bit as the car came to a stop, opening directly into his spacious penthouse. His assistant’s hand shot out to steady him.
“Are you okay, sir?”
“Fine, fine,” he replied, not noticing the oddly vacant look in the young man’s eyes.
From the kitchenette off the bedroom, Smith’s assistant made him his usual nighttime tea, then helped him settle into bed. “Good night, sir,” the young man said as he closed the apartment door.
“Good night.”
The tea had a sweeter taste tonight. He took out his false teeth. Set them in the case on his nightstand. He licked his tired gummy lips, savoring every drop.
The old man lay back. Cut the light and noticed an unusual sensation, something he hadn’t felt in nearly twenty years.
Twenty years ago his beautiful blonde wife had died. He pictured her now, her lovely naked body. He snaked a hand downward, beneath the covers, scarcely believing what he felt.
I have an erection!
Ever since the suicide of Church teenager Kip Eliason, the Quorum of the Twelve had been largely silent on masturbation. To many of the faithful, the Church seemed to be easing back on its old proscription. Nothing overt had been stated, but Prophet Canon G. Smith had been one of those behind the change in attitude.
In certain cases.
Where a spouse had passed on was one of them. Might as well take this as far as it goes, Smith thought.
As he began to stroke his penis, he felt his old heart begin to beat faster. It had been a long, long time.
It feels so good to be alive again!
His old heart was really beating now, thumping away in his chest. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears. But in the back of his skull another sensation began to grow too: A warmth. A spreading, burning kind of heat. He ignored it.
Ahh! So close! Faster . . . faster!
Down there in his loins it began: muscles contracting, tightening, pumping out his semen into the white satin sheets. And with the fourth and final feeble spurt — for, after all, he was a very old man — a red laser light flashed across his closed eyelids. That feverish burning filling the back of his skull. Circling. Spreading. Intensifying.
And all at once, something new: a terrible shooting pain that gripped his heart.
And squeezed. With a violence he had never known.
“Sir? Sir?”
The Prophet’s assistant entered the apartment, turned on the light.
The ancient face was fixed in a rictus of pain and terror. His mostly toothless mouth wide open, eyes big and round, staring at the ceiling.
Staring at nothing.
No breath. No movement.
The assistant took the empty teacup to the kitchenette. Washed it thoroughly and dried it. Then went to the Prophet’s private phone and dialed Hyram Millar’s number.
When the line was answered, the assistant said only two words: “It’s done.”
Unbearable
As Franklin pulled into downtown Erie he could see blue and red flashing lights up ahead.
At the church, police were everywhere. Yellow crime tape. Cameras flashing. He had to park way out in the side lot.
For two hours they interviewed him.
Questions about the Adlans. Why had he gone down there? More questions about his relationship with Marjorie. They wouldn’t let him inside to see her. Not even tell him how it happened. They asked him everything he could imagine and wouldn’t tell him anything.
Then they told him to go home.
As he walked though the cold and dark for his jeep, he heard two cops talking. “Her throat was cut just like that other couple, the bird people down in Pittsburgh.”
“That thing with the eyes too.”
“Yeeeash!”
The idea of it pulled Franklin apart.
His friend. Murdered. Horribly.
All the way back to Erie, Franklin had thought about nothing else. He’d heard of the practice. Zhou was a kind of Shaman. It’s his religion. Blinding the eyes of his enemies!
Rage flowed through him, twisted in his guts.
He was at his jeep when the white news van rolled up the back alley, screeching to a stop almost in front of him. It startled him. He felt like screaming at it, the driver, the police, the whole damned world.
A female news reporter jumped out followed by a cameraman. She had dark tied-back hair. Five six or seven.
“Dr. Reveal! Dr. Reveal!”
He recognized her voice. She was the one who’d come barging into the office minutes before Victoria showed up. The one Ralph had yelled at and chased away.
“Sheila Koontz with National News. We understand your secretary was killed while you were in Pittsburgh today, where there were two more deaths. Can you tell us what’s going on?”
He stared at her in the cold night air, hands clenching down at his sides into fists.
More news vans roared in. More reporters rushed over. A pack of dogs at feeding time. Bright lights. Cop light bars flashing blue and red all around. Shouted questions. Microphones thrust in his face. He said nothing, blinking at the lights.
Finally, he let out a long and violent exhale. “I’ll talk with you.”
More questions. He waited. Until they stopped. “I’ll talk with you. But only if you’ll listen.”
One by one, they nodded, settled down.
“Tonight, two people I liked very much were murdered in Pittsburgh. Two harmless bird-lovers, Dean and Sally Adlan. The man that killed them tracked me to their aviary and tried to kill me too.” He dragged fingers unconsciously across his throat. Cold air seeped through the shoulder of his leather jacket. “And came very close to accomplishing his goal. But because Dean and Sally intervened, I survived. It cost them their lives.
“He fell chasing me up into a tree, and as I passed out, I managed to fall on top of him, killing him, I believe, breaking his neck.”
Franklin paused.
“What about your oath as a minister?” someone shouted.
Franklin ignored him. “More personally devastating to me, the same man who killed Dean and Sally, in the process of looking for me, killed my secretary Marjorie Stemple, a close personal friend.
“That man told me his name was Zhou. During his attack on me, Zhou also strongly implied he was responsible for the deaths of millions when he exploded the New York and Virginia Beach bombs.”
There were gasps. Cameras wobbled. “Did you believe him?” the female reporter asked.
“Yes, I did — I do.”
No one said a word.
“Zhou killed my sister when he detonated the first bomb that destroyed New York City. Zhou killed the Adlans and my secretary and how many others I don’t know. But Zhou’s dead. I killed him. I’m a minister . . . and . . . I’m happy, very happy he’s dead.”
To a background of shouted questions, Franklin turned, walked to his jeep, got in and drove off.
“We got it!” Sheila Koontz exclaimed. “You got that, didn’t you?”
“I got it,” her cameraman nodded as he clicked off the light. “Do you think people will believe that stuff about New York and the bombs?”
“Who cares?” Sheila retorted as they got back in the van. “It’s a great story!”
When he dragged into the manse, there were eighteen messages on his voi
cemail, none of them regarding Mattie or Barb.
But from his computer he heard Everon’s chime.
To: Franklin Reveal
From: Everon Student
Subject: Got Your Message!
What the hell — heard something, can’t be right about your secretary. She okay?
Very strange stuff going on over here. Got power all the way into west Trenton but things seem to be getting pretty dangerous everywhere right now.
Up to see you, Bro, soon as possible.
E
Franklin wrote back, telling Everon about Marj and Zhou, about the Adlans and Harry. How Ralph was getting to him. I sound desperate, he thought. It was the kind of thing he would have written Cynthia.
Reluctantly he clicked SEND.
Everon’s so busy he probably won’t even have time to read it.
Franklin lay back on his bed fully dressed and stared into the dark. Rubbed a hand gently across the long patch of bandage around the front of his neck beneath his chin. He probed at it gingerly. The giant’s words came back to him. Twice he’d said it: “The Kongju has not told Zhou this!” then, “Soon Zhou’s fire will consume you all!”
Zhou was the giant’s name. No doubt about that. O’Neil’s right, though, there’s no proof. At least Zhou’s dead. I know he killed the Adlans. Franklin had failed to push Zhou far enough though. To get Zhou to really, really make clear what he meant. “Releasing the fire!” That had to mean the bomb.
But he said something else, didn’t he? He hadn’t noticed at the time but it came back to him now. “Those who stand behind Zhou are within! Always the Americans! Always the sea!” What does it mean?
His shoulder and neck felt stiff and tight where the skin had been pulled back together. The back of his head ached where he’d been slammed against the office wall, pummeled against the wall by the Adlans’ radiator. His stomach still sore where the giant head-butted him.
How in hell did the big Asian ever find me?
He knew how. Television. Those magazines.
Marjorie.
It was no assumption. Zhou’s path to Pittsburgh was a lot more clear than any path to God.
Was it really over, or would Franklin have to pay? And pay some more? Cynthia, the Adlans . . . Marj.
But it’s over. There are no more bombs. Zhou’s dead.
He reached for the nightstand in the darkness and placed there the broken chain and cross that had been around his neck for the last two years. The old family heirloom Cyn had given him. He’d found it on the aviary’s floor — beneath the radiator where it had almost gotten him killed.
No proof the bombs were Zhou, though. No absolute verification. “Will anyone really believe me?”
A single word came to mind and he muttered it softly, shaking his head: “Belief.”
Removing The Nails
Three tall crucifixes. A mass of people on a rounded hill.
Franklin knew it well.
As he came closer, everything vanished but the man on the center cross. The man’s face wasn’t clear. Of course it was Jesus.
Closer.
The hair was dark and long. But it wasn’t Christ. Whoever it was wore a black leather jacket and jeans.
The face resolved. It was his own.
Inches from his own staring cobalt eyes, Franklin found a tiny reflection . . . growing larger . . . a glowing golden plate. An ancient language carved into its surface.
The Franklin on the cross closed his right eye. A wink. And the tiny golden plate was gone.
And he was inside himself. Now he was the man on the cross. Unbearable pain in his hands. Feet burning with the single spike that held them fast one atop the other. Pinned to the stout wood upright.
He looked over, an aching ancient nail’s square head protruded from the middle of his right palm.
He worked the hand — back and forth, up and down, his face twisting in terrible agony as the flesh pulled right over the nail’s head.
He reached out to his other hand. Yeaaah! A scream from open lips as he flung away the second nail.
His knees bent down into a crouch against the wooden upright. Both hands reaching, twisting, pulling. With a shriek of such intensity he could barely take it, he ripped away the nail that held his feet. And dropped. Face and knees slamming to the earth.
It was a moment before his head lifted. He stood. Turned. And walked away.
He was in bed.
In his room.
Bright rays of early-morning sun crossing his open weeping eyes.
Awakening
The police were gone. The tattered crime tape mostly down.
Franklin’s hands clenched when he stepped inside the church office, turned on the lights. All that remained was a large red spot someone had failed to clean out of the carpet under Marjorie’s desk.
It was worse than he’d felt a week ago hanging from Ash Cave. Worse than seeing the Adlans with their eyes cut out. The only thing that hurt more was having Cyn die in his arms.
He wanted to scream.
He walked back to his office. He had to do something.
That Long Island number tickled stubbornly at his mind. He pulled Cynthia’s pages from his jacket, held them curled in his right fist and without looking, dialed the number.
He almost jumped out of his chair when it clicked several times and began to ring.
“Hello?” said a male voice.
It was a moment before Franklin could respond. “Uh — hello! This is Cynthia Reveal’s brother. I’m trying to reach someone named Aramath? I found this number on my sister’s papers. A note about it being imperative — something about Saudi? February ninth?”
“Nnnnnn . . .”
A dial tone?
Dammit! He tried the number again.
Busy.
Busy.
Four more times he couldn’t get through. The sense of loss gripped him so strongly he could barely stand.
He walked up front to the four-drawer file cabinet behind Marjorie’s desk. In the third drawer down — like the one he’d found Melissa in — halfway back, he found a folder marked BANK STATEMENTS.
He compared deposit dates to the dates on Cynthia’s sheets.
Ben Espy had caught on to something. Monday . . . Monday? Always Monday . . . he flipped through pages of the January statement. Deposits. Every week. He imagined cash tallied on the church’s slips. Bundled together. Taken to 1st Bank of Erie. He felt a growing sense of indefinable discomfort.
Why hadn’t he waited to ask Marjorie about it? She would have known what it meant. He wished he’d never gone back down to Pittsburgh. And maybe he could have protected her.
Who knows about this? First Erie’s business manager handles this stuff, right? Franklin certainly never paid attention.
He heard a rustling in the hallway. Ralph came in through the office door, already dressed in his bulging maroon robes. As Senior Minister, Ralph should know.
“Ralph, have you got a second?”
“Just about,” Ralph answered pompously, “that’s all,” God-like attitude showing more than usual today.
“Take a look at these deposits, would you?”
Ralph’s eyes flashed, suddenly wary.
“Do you know anything about this large increase in Sunday donations?” Franklin asked, holding Cynthia’s stapled pages under Ralph’s nose. “It probably started sometime back before a couple of months ago.”
Ralph went pie-eyed. Mouth thinned to an angry line. “Where’d you get this?”
“It was my sister’s. I don’t know where she got it. I think somehow through her bank.”
Lightning-like, Ralph’s eyes shrank back to normal. “I don’t know anything about it!”
The tone surprised Franklin. Like, End of discussion! But there was something more there. Franklin couldn’t just let it go. He ran a finger down a column on the right. “That’s our main bank account number, isn’t it?”
Ralph’s face turned to
the top page.
Franklin watched the Senior Minister’s eyes. Ralph isn’t even looking!
“I told you. I don’t know! You’ll have to ask the church’s treasurer. Now that we’ve lost our own dear, sweet Marjorie.” Ralph’s eyes narrowed fiercely. “More than ever, Reverend, I advise you spend your time productively. Helping our people adjust to their terrible losses. Using the Bible. Remaining focused on God’s word through assisted, directed prayer.”
Maples turned roughly into his office and closed the door.
BAM!
Ralph Maples rubbed his forehead. How could my Junior Minister have put this together? Impossible!
But it was all there.
There’d never been any reason to believe he should be concerned over the records. We weren’t doing anything wrong. Were we? Anyway, it’s over with. It doesn’t look like there’ll be any more coming in . . .
But Franklin isn’t going to let it go, is he?
The sex thing was Ralph’s ace in the hole, so to speak. It could stay that way. Ralph had kept the Charlie Regal hypnosis issue to himself too. So far.
Lips pressed together, Ralph slid his incisors rapidly back and forth. He had to protect himself. And the church. One and the same, really. He lifted the telephone.
Franklin stood outside his Senior Minister’s office, a building sense of something years old, almost anger — disgust — welling up inside. An understanding. That old, old question vomiting into his consciousness. The same as when he’d been ordered to take part in the attack on the little village in South America. The same question that pushed him out of the Rangers and into seminary school: What the hell am I doing?
He went on back to his desk. Have I somehow allowed another terrible error to consume my life?
He tried to shake it off.
Less than two hours. I still don’t have a sermon! Determined to put everything aside, not to stop until it was complete, he picked up a pen.
Search For Reason (State Of Reason Mystery, Book 2) Page 44
