Geoff brought his empty pint glass down on the table with a loud rap. Marisol went quiet and looked at him. Tony leaned back and grinned and folded his arms across his expansive belly. “Kathleen doesn’t know her own boozy head from a hole in the ground. And anyway she’s decamped to her summer ranch in Wyoming and she’s not talking. She knows there’ll be no further investigation since they killed her husband—”
“Wait, they? T-Jacques Rubell killed Duchamp. Revenge for Dalia. There’s no conspiracy—”
“No conspiracy? Some squad of so-called Texas Rangers that no one now has any record of moves Duchamp in broad daylight and stands around while he gets gunned down in a fucking parking garage? T-Jacques just shows up at the right place and time, three hundred miles from home? Someone put the gun in his hand, told him where Duchamp would be. And anyway I saw it in Willie’s eyes. Whatever evil’s going on at that lake—the evil you sensed Marisol; hell, held in your hands—it’s going to continue without Duchamp. And our window to stop it is closing.”
Marisol rubbed her temples. “I’m not sure what I saw anymore, Waltz. Not sure what I held.”
“What you saw jibes with what Willie told me—or, at least, with the fear I sensed on him. And the Prince. And we’ve both seen the animals down there—”
“You always said those stories were bunk, Geoff.” Tony said. His voice had grown soft, as if trying to sooth a petulant child. “Willie Kincaid—I know the rule, thou shalt not speak ill of your client—but really, he’s got a screw loose, right?”
Geoff hung his head and breathed for several seconds, the irony of his trying to convince this pair not lost on him. Willie had tried to push him in this same direction, and he had refused to go. But that was before they killed Duchamp.
And before Joey had severed the last of his lazy resistance, a resistance that for too long had masqueraded as rational skepticism. He fingered the folded napkins in his pocket, his trump card exhibit.
“Willie knows something—I should have been listening to him all along.” And he’s taking the boy. Geoff was not ready to bring up his feelings about—his fear for (of)—Joey; he was still not convinced those feelings did not amount to his own damaged mind’s transference. But he could no longer deny the boy was key to this thing. Nor could he any longer deny that Joey was somehow special. He took the paper napkins from his pocket and spread them out for Tony and Marisol.
“Joey Kincaid drew this, in a diner, right in front of me. It took him no more than twenty minutes.”
Unfolded and pieced together, the napkins formed a mosaic that nearly covered the table. Marisol and Tony looked down at the drawing in silence. Geoff heard Marisol swallow.
Tony said, “The boy’s got talent. But what …”
He did not finish the thought. The scene was of the bayou—each cypress frond, every dogwood blossom and water lily, sketched in intricate detail. The foliage formed a pattern too complex, too strange, for nature. Amid the trees and the water plants, Joey had drawn the pump jack of an oil well. Beneath all that he had captured the murky water in shades of green and gray. And at the bottom, far below the surface, resided a man. The man was scarlet, his eyes terrible and empty.
Geoff saw Marisol bite her lip as she stared down as if mesmerized. Tony fumbled for a cigarette. “Wait,” Geoff said as he revealed a hand mirror, which he had brought for this purpose. He angled it so Tony and Marisol could bend down and see a part of Joey’s drawing reflected. He did not prompt them as they looked into the glass; he could tell by Marisol’s gasp when the message had come into focus. He could tell also by that gasp that she could not walk away now. He had felt the same when he had gathered up the napkins after Willie and Joey left the diner (Joey had made them leave, but another part of him had wanted to give me this message—a mind divided), once he discovered the words Joey had left there, amid that odd and beautiful pattern of leaves.
Save Me.
Chapter 37
The town square was littered and quiet and strange, as if a thousand people had thrown a party there before a starship carried them away. The campsites on the courthouse lawn were gone, in their place trodden earth and plastic water bottles and protest banners and signs already faded in the damp East Texas air. In the wake of the shooting, they had all returned home to Austin or Chicago, Portland or Atlanta. Some may have decided that the story ended with the guilty pleas of the twins who murdered Dalia Bordelon and the shooting of the man accused of ordering that ugly crime. Others may have felt some chagrin at the perception that their movement had ended in more killing before the justice system could run its cathartic course.
Sheriff Seastrunk pulled away from the courthouse annex and drove west, into the neighborhood of Sunset. The lawns were lush and green and the flower beds flared with variegated blossoms. Children played in the yards. Two boys smiled and waved from the low-hanging bough of a massive chinaberry tree. The sheriff smiled and waved back. It was the first of May.
Mose Carter came to the door with a limp. Carrying mason jars of ice tea, they went to sit on the patio in the early evening light.
“How’re you feeling, Mose?”
The Reverend did not answer for a moment and when he spoke, he stretched out the words until they ended in a low growl. “John, I feel old.”
Seastrunk only nodded.
“We’ve survived another round of trials and tribulations, though. We should be thankful for that.”
“Yup.” But as Seastrunk looked into the gloom, he did not feel that the ordeal had ended. He had lied to Waltz; he remembered clearly what he had seen in his mind’s eye as he lay on the gurney—Joey Kincaid, in that swamp, crying alone. Frightened, being pulled somewhere he did not want to go. And since Duchamp had died, every time Seastrunk closed his eyes it was as if the boy called out to him.
He could no longer deny what he had seen in the boy’s eyes that day on the lake as he cringed from the defiled body of Dalia Bordelon. He could no longer deny the broken bough. Perhaps this meant he had gone insane.
Seastrunk knew that Bobby had been in touch with Waltz since Duchamp’s killing. That Bobby wanted to continue an investigation that to all the world was closed and moot. He would let his deputy believe that his own trepidation stemmed as always from his political considerations. He could not speak of the vague summons, the cry of the boy, he sensed emanating from the bayou. He did not want to admit his fear. He did not want to be crazy.
A mental problem or a spiritual problem, the sheriff could not determine. To the holy man sitting beside him, it was all he could do to say: “But I can’t help thinking I’m being … asked to do something more.”
“What, John?” Seastrunk thought he heard a hint of mirth in that old voice. “And by whom?”
“I … I don’t know. Like you, I feel old. And so tired. I don’t know.”
“Then I suggest you pray on it. Or meditate. Whatever it is you do.”
“Okay.”
“Beyond that, I can’t help you.”
“Okay.”
“I may be old, but I’ve still got my flock to tend to. And there’ll still be plenty of injustice for me to call out till my dying day. But you—only you know what you want, need.”
“I know it.”
“I can advise you in my faith but I’ve got the feeling that’s not what you want. I’ve got my own flock. I’m not some Hollywood Negro guru here to impart new age wisdom to white folks.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not Morgan Freeman sitting over here.”
The sheriff half-smiled. “I know it.”
The Reverend looked him over in the dying, purplish light. “But John. You do look tired. You need some rest.”
“I know it.” Lord, do I know it.
Chapter 38
Geoff drove east out of Dallas at dawn on a bright May morning, sipping coffee, Marisol in the passenger seat. They would get to the lake by ten. Geoff could not know what they were traveling to. He only knew what Willie had told him
(I’ll get you inside, beneath; you need to see), and what the Prince had said. Picturing a labyrinthine network of subterranean laboratories of mid-century vintage—green institutional tile, flickering fluorescents—he developed theories.
Marisol said, “Tell me what you want to find.”
“I want to find what you had, what you found in Eileen’s storage unit.”
The P.I. shuddered. Geoff continued: “Based on what we’ve learned from the Prince, and what we’ve seen, maybe we’re looking at some sort of black box genetic engineering program. Operation Moth Wing. Used to be government-run, maybe. Or quasi-governmental. And somehow it’s connected to the Duchamp family and their associates and I guess the Texronco Corporation.” He fiddled with the air conditioner. “Why don’t you tell me what your research found.”
“Sure.” She pulled out a binder from the bag at her feet—printouts of official-looking documents, her own hand-written notes. “There’s not much to go on, but it’s consistent with what the Prince told you. Of course, a lot of this is based on leaked documents I’ve found on conspiracy theorists’ clearinghouse databases on the web. You know, the black helicopter, tin-foil hat crowd. Crazies. But we know the U.S. Government brought Nazi scientists to America to put their expertise to use in the Cold War—the Soviets, too, for that matter. You already knew that. But the name Moth Wing does come up a lot in connection with genetic engineering and bio-weapons research—”
“I think I know where they got the name, by the way. Moth Wing.”
“Yeah?”
“The peppered moth, in England. Sort of the first great genetic experiment. These moths were mostly white, see. And they blended in with the lichens where they lived. Then came the industrial revolution. All the soot from the burning coal killed the lichens and turned the rocks black. So the white moths didn’t blend in anymore. They stood out on the rocks and the birds munched them. Almost died out. Except the small minority of moths that were born black—genetic freaks—they did blend in. And they survived and reproduced and within a few generations, almost all the moths were black.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And there’s more. When they passed environmental laws, the air got cleaner and the rocks got cleaner and the lichens came back. So the black moths didn’t blend in—”
“And they died out and, let me guess—now most the moths are white again.”
Geoff smiled and glanced over to the passenger seat, but Marisol peered out the window. He put his eyes back on the road and felt a little less gusto. “Right. Natural selection. People studied those moths for decades and learned a lot about genetics.”
“Wow. You know everything. About that sort of stuff, anyway.”
Did Geoff did hear sarcasm in her tone?
“Have you noticed a white Lincoln SUV?” she asked. “It’s been popping up off and on since Dallas.”
Geoff checked the rear-view mirror and thought he spotted the vehicle Marisol referred to in the right-hand lane, the slow lane, three car-lengths back. The driver looked young and small.
He said, “I think so. You think we’re being followed?”
“I’m not sure—it’s an Interstate highway, after all. So if a car started out with us, it could stick with us just as a matter of course—not intentional. But I’m keeping an eye on it.”
“Okay.” The thought made him nervous. His mind flashed to New Orleans—the hit man, Jimmy Lee Monroe. But Monroe was dead and Duchamp was dead and the cable news all said the Speaker went nuts with the pressure of trying to cover up some environmental crimes. End of story. The media moved on. And in the eyes of anyone who might still care, he had moved on himself. So when the Lincoln moved out of view behind a truck, his heart found its normal rhythm. As if the only predator left was within his own mind.
But he didn’t trust the Prince. He had heard nothing from him the since their meeting in the warehouse, but he sensed somehow the slick little man had not shirked from whatever had motivated him to try to convince Geoff to recover what Dalia had found. He would reemerge.
He did not share this fear with Marisol, who wore about her a grimness—whether based in fear or weariness he did not know. Her apprehension seemed to grow the further east he drove. Not since she gazed at him over the rim of her glass in Pirate’s Alley, their first cocktails in New Orleans, had he felt he knew her less.
“Anyway,” he said, “back to what you learned through your research.”
“Just that there are all sorts of rumors in certain circles, going back decades, about a secret government bio-weapons facility somewhere in East Texas. And the Department of Defense did buy up thousands of acres of swampland right around the refinery after world War II.”
“That’s one thing I don’t get. With so much federal land out west, why would they buy up private property in a swamp for any kind of research installation?”
“Well, officially it had to do with forest management. One of the last great virgin cypress swamps …?”
“Sure.” With a pang, a vision of Eileen came into his mind’s eye. The last time he saw her, at the lake after Dalia’s murder to meet with the sheriff. She spoke of the biodiversity of that ancient, pristine place with passion, the only subject discussed that day on which Geoff did not in hindsight doubt her sincerity.
He pushed those thoughts of his old lover away. “I would think it should have been Interior, not DOD, buying up the land.”
“I don’t know. But anyway the Feds have never done anything with it, at least not overt. Except lease it to—”
“Let me guess. Oil leases—to Texronco.”
“Yep. Back when it was known as Duchamp Petroleum, Inc., and the family still controlled the company.”
“I think they controlled more than the company.”
“And you’re thinking genetic engineering, as part of a bio-weapons program.”
“It probably started out that way. The Prince’s story is accurate, at least about the basics—the bio-weapons race between us and the Soviets during the Cold War, genetically engineered viruses and whatnot. The Texronco refinery could have masked a covert facility. But Jimmy Carter shut down that program in the ‘70’s. “
“Sure. ‘Officially.’”
Geoff glanced over and chuckled a little at the air quotes Marisol formed with her slender fingers. “I’m not so cynical. We’ve seen no evidence that the government hadn’t completely divested itself of whatever it had going on at the refinery. I mean, if we were screwing around with a DOD or Homeland Security program, they’d be all over us thicker than fleas. No, I think it’s morphed into a non-governmental deal, controlled by the Duchamp family and associates and maybe some Texronco dummy corporation.”
“Okay, whatever. But what are they doing?”
Geoff considered for a minute and rubbed his face with one hand as he drove. He kept his eyes on the highway ahead. “I think it’s got to be organs.”
Marisol waited a beat. “Explain, please.”
“The thing you found in Eileen’s Pod—that Dalia had taken from the site. You said it was like a baby, a fetus …”
“Right.” Marisol looked between her knees to the floorboard, as if the memory of the thing made her nauseous. “But with no fully formed limbs, just nubs. No eyes. And its head was, like … caved in.”
“Like it didn’t have a brain …”
Marisol did not look up. When she spoke, her voice was phlegmy and barely above a whisper. “Back home, in the Valley a while back, there was an epidemic of birth defects—conditions called spina bifada and anencephaly. Babies born without brains, or hardly any brain. Maybe just enough of a spinal column to keep the involuntary functions going. Breathing, the heartbeat. The rumor was that some kind of pollution from the maquiladoras along the border caused the deformities, but nobody could ever prove it. And … God, Geoff. The thing—the baby—I saw. It looked like that.”
Geoff did not look over to his passenger. It felt good to be working up a theory of the case. He sai
d, “Yes, just like that. But I think they’re doing it on purpose here. I think they’re growing these brainless, limbless babies to harvest their organs. Like … an organ orchard.”
“Why?”
The catch in Marisol’s voice cut through Geoff’s excitement and he knew that she cried. But when he looked to her she had turned her face toward the window and gazed out at the passing landscape, the green prairie. As if she did not want him to see her face. When he spoke again, his tone was delicate. “There’s a black market for organs. The waiting lists for transplants is long, and unless a you’re young with a good chance of recovery, you may never get the heart or lung or liver you need.”
“So they’re creating these poor sick babies just to kill them? To give some old fucker with cirrhosis a new liver so he can stay drunk a couple of more years?”
Marisol had turned and her dark eyes now bore right through him. Her cheeks were moist. Taken aback by her sudden rage, he said, “Well, something like that. But … you know, most people don’t choose to get sick. I’m not saying—if I’m right about what they’re doing at the refinery—I’m not saying it’s ethical. Particularly since I’m sure it’s just for profit, they’re selling to the highest bidder. But all the same, I wouldn’t blame the sick people, who are desperate. And anyway, in principal, if they have found a way to grow organs … and these, these creatures … well, if they don’t have brains it’s not like they’re really alive in any human sense. And all the lives that could be saved if this were out in the open and regulated—”
Marisol looked at him with angry astonishment. “Are you justifying this? No, unh-uh. If they’re creating human life just to destroy it, that is never okay. Ever. It’s … the worst possible sin.”
Geoff drove on without speaking. In a bar, over beers with Tony Abruzzo, he enjoyed bringing his secular humanism and agnosticism to battle against Tony’s observant but hardly devout Catholicism. But in this car, with his private investigator, where the issue at hand was immediate and not hypothetical, he held his tongue.
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