Crisscross rj-8

by F. Paul Wilson

  "This is terrible," Luther said. "This is tragic. I must get to my quarters to commune with my xelton."

  "The police may want to talk to you."

  "I'll speak to them in a little while. Right now I'm too upset."

  Too true. He'd invested a lot of time, money, and effort in Jensen. He'd been one of a kind. How was he going to replace him? Worse, this was going to set back the Opus Omega timetable.

  Damn it to hell! Just when the end was in sight.

  He'd worry about a replacement later. Right now he had to get Vida working on a press release, and have her prepare some public remarks about what a kind, gentle, wonderful man Jensen was.

  Oh, yes. And he needed her to look up Jensen's first name. He should know the first name of the man he'd be publicly mourning.

  8

  The clock radio woke Jack at nine. He lay in bed listening to the news about a murder in the Bronx and a fatal accident in the Midtown Dormen-talist temple. He shook off the memory of Jensen's dead eyes staring at him from the ceiling on the elevator ride down to the lobby and got to work.

  Wearing boxers and a T-shirt, he dug out his X-Acto knife kit and seated himself at the round, paw-foot oak table in his front room. He pulled on a pair of latex gloves—man, he was going through these things like chewing gum—and got to work.

  He removed the stack of Cordova's photos from the envelope and shuffled through them a second time. Familiarity did not make the task any less nauseating. Last night, while Cordova was unconscious, Jack had sorted them into three stacks: Brady alone, Brady pulling on the mask, and the masked Brady with the boys. He'd picked one at random from each of the first two, but it had taken him a while to find three from the third with the boys faced away from the camera. He'd cut off the corners where the camera had imprinted the date and time, and left them all with Cordova.

  On this new pass through the stacks, Jack culled the most damning examples from each pile, then set to work with the X-Acto, cutting out the centers of the boys' faces. No need for something like this to follow them the rest of their lives. Again he cut off the camera's date-and-time imprint.

  That done, he placed them in a FedEx envelope along with the letter he'd printed out from Cordova's office computer.

  If you're reading this, I am dead, and this is the man who did it. Please don't let these pictures go to waste.

  Richard Cordova

  He sealed it and addressed it to The Light. He made up the return address.

  Then he picked up his cell phone for the first of two calls he had to make. Information connected him to the Pennsylvania State Police. When he said he wanted to report a crime, he was shunted to another line. He told the officer who answered that they needed to go to a certain farm where a concrete cylinder had been buried, and that within that cylinder they'd find the remains of the missing New York City reporter, Jamie Grant. He also told them where they could find the mold used to make the cylinder and that the symbols on it were strictly Dormentalist.

  The officer wanted to know who he was and how he knew all this.

  Yeah, right.

  The second call went to Mrs. Roselli-Not. She picked up on the second ring.

  "Good morning, Jack."

  That startled him. He had no name listed with his phone. Even with caller ID, how could she…?

  Maybe she recognized his number. Or maybe she didn't need electronics.

  "Good morning. Peeling well enough for company today?"

  "Yes. Finally. You may come over now if you wish."

  "I wish. See you in about half an hour."

  He got dressed, switched his latex gloves for leather, and headed out. He had the overnight envelope in hand and Anya's skin in the pocket of his coat. One he'd mail along the way. The other was for show and tell—he'd show and the old lady would tell.

  He hoped.

  9

  Gia stood at the corner of Second Avenue and Fifty-eighth and marveled at how good she felt today. She seemed to have regained most of her strength and ambition. She'd even done some painting this morning.

  But now it was time for some fresh air. This was the first time she'd been out of the house in almost a week. It was good to know the city was still here. It even smelled good. A fall breeze was diluting the fumes from passing cars and trucks. And most amazing of all: traffic was moving.

  She planned to walk up to Park, maybe head downtown for a few blocks, then circle back home. As she waited for the light to change, she felt the baby kick and had to smile. What a delicious sensation. Tomorrow she was scheduled for another ultrasound. Everything was going to be fine, she just knew it.

  Finally, the walking green. She took one step off the curb but froze when she heard a blaring horn. She looked up and saw a delivery van racing toward her along the avenue. Gia heard a scream—her own—as she turned and leaped back onto the sidewalk. One of the front tires bounced over the curb just inches from her feet. The sideview mirror brushed the sleeve of her sweater as the truck slewed sideways and slammed into the rear of a parked UPS truck.

  The rest of the world seemed to stand silent and frozen for a heartbeat or two as glittering fragments of shattered glass tumbled through the air. catching the sunlight as they showered the impact area, and then cries of shock and alarm as people began running for the truck.

  Gia stood paralyzed, feeling her heart pounding as she watched bystanders help the shaken and bloodied driver from the car. She looked back to where she'd been standing and realized with a stab of fear that if she hadn't moved, the truck would have made a direct hit. At the speed he'd been going, she could not imagine anyone, especially her and the baby, surviving an impact like that.

  She looked back and saw the driver shuffling toward her across Fifty-eighth. Blood oozed from the left side of his forehead.

  "Dear lady, I am so sorry," he said in accented English—Eastern Europe, maybe. "The brakes, they stop working… the steering it no good. I am so happy you are well."

  Unable to speak yet, Gia could only nod. First the near miscarriage, now this. If she didn't know better she might think somebody up there didn't want this baby to be born.

  10

  Sitting at his office desk, Luther Brady studied the printout as TP Cruz stood at attention on the other side. Cruz looked exhausted, as he should: He'd been up all night and had lost his boss to boot.

  "So the elevator records show this John Roselli going to the twenty-first floor and nowhere else."

  "Yessir. At least not by elevator. GP Jensen used it next."

  The printout showed the elevator going directly to twenty-one a second time. The next use after that was when it was called back to twenty-one and taken to the lobby.

  "And this time?" He tapped the paper.

  "That was Roselli again, sir. He's on the tape. But there was something strange going on with Roselli and the tapes."

  "For instance?"

  "Well—"

  "Excuse me?"

  Luther looked up and saw his secretary standing in the office doorway.

  "Yes, Vida?"

  "I just got a call from downstairs. The police are here again and want to see you."

  Luther rubbed his eyes, then glanced at his watch. Only ten A.M. When would this morning end?

  "Tell them I've already given my statement and have nothing more to add."

  "They say they're here on a murder investigation."

  "Murder?" Did they think Jensen was murdered? "Very well, send them up."

  He dismissed Cruz, then leaned back in his desk chair and swiveled it toward the morning sky gleaming beyond the windows. Jensen murdered… Luther remembered his impression when he'd first heard the news. But who could survive a confrontation with that human mountain of bone and muscle, let alone hurl him down an elevator shaft? It didn't seem possible.

  Minutes later Vida opened the door and looked in on him. "The police are here."

  "Send them in."

  Luther remained seated as she stepped aside and a
dmitted a pair of middle-aged, standard-issue detectives. Both wore brown shoes and wrinkled suits under open, rumpled coats. But they weren't alone. A trio of younger, more casually dressed men followed them. Each carried what looked like an oversized toolbox.

  Alarm at the number of invaders and the looks on the detectives' faces drew him to his feet.

  "What's all this?"

  The dark-haired detective in the lead had a pockmarked face. He flashed a gold badge and said, "Detective Young, NYPD." He nodded toward his lighter-haired partner. "This is Detective Holusha. We're both from the Four-Seven precinct. Are you Luther Brady?"

  The detective's cold tone and the way he looked at him—as if he were some sort of vermin—drew the saliva from Luther's mouth.

  He nodded. "Yes."

  "Then this"—Young reached into his pocket, retrieved a folded set of papers, and dropped them on Luther's desk—"is for you."

  Luther snatched it up and unfolded it. His eyes scanned the officialese but the meaning failed to register.

  "What is this?"

  "A search warrant for your office and living quarters."

  The three other men were fanning out around Luther, opening their toolboxes, pulling on rubber gloves.

  "What? You can't! I mean, this is outrageous! I'm calling my lawyer! You're not doing anything until he gets here!"

  Barry Goldsmith would put them in their places.

  "That's not the way it works, Mr. Brady. You have the right to call your attorney, but meanwhile we'll be executing the warrant."

  "We'll just see about that!"

  As Luther reached for the phone the detective said, "Do you own a nine-millimeter pistol, Mr. Brady?"

  My pistol? What do they want with…?

  "Yes, I do. Licensed and legally registered, I'll have you know."

  "We do know. A Beretta 92. That's one of the reasons we're here."

  "I don't under—" And then it hit him. "Oh, no! Was Jensen shot?"

  The other detective, Holusha, frowned. "Jensen? Who's Jensen?"

  "My chief of security… he died this morning… an accident. I thought you were here about—"

  Young said, "Where is your pistol, Mr. Brady?"

  "Right here in the desk." Luther reached toward the drawer. "Here, I'll show—"

  Holusha's voice snapped like a whip. "Please don't touch the weapon, Mr. Brady."

  Luther snatched his hand back. "It's in the second drawer."

  "Step away from the desk, please."

  As Luther complied, Young signaled one of the younger men. "Romano." He pointed to the drawer. "Gun's in there."

  Luther felt as if reality were slipping away. Here in his building, his temple, his word was law. But now his office, his home, his sanctum, had been invaded. He was no longer in control. These storm troopers had taken over.

  And no one was saying why. He felt as if he'd fallen into a Kafka story.

  It had to be a mistake. Did they think he'd shot somebody? Who? Not that it mattered. He'd never even aimed that pistol at a human being, let alone shot one.

  This mix-up would be straightened out, and then someone at the District Attorney's office would pay. Oh, how they'd pay.

  "What…?" He swallowed. "What am I supposed to have done?"

  Holusha pulled an index card from the breast pocket of his shirt.

  "How well do you know Richard Cordova?"

  "Cordova?"

  Luther ran the name through his brain as he watched the man called Romano lift the Beretta from the drawer. He held it suspended from a wire he'd hooked through the trigger guard.

  Cordova … he was drawing a blank. But how could anyone be expected to think under these circumstances?

  "I don't believe I've ever heard of him. It's quite impossible for me to remember the name of every Church member. We have so—"

  "We don't think he was a Dormentalist."

  Was?

  "What happened to him?"

  "He was murdered late last night or early this morning. He was pistol-whipped, then shot three times with a nine millimeter. When was the last time you fired your pistol, Mr. Brady?"

  Luther relaxed a little. Here was where he'd turn the tables.

  "Four, maybe five months ago, and that was on a shooting range at a paper target, not at a human being."

  Romano sniffed the muzzle and shook his head as he looked up at Young.

  "Beg to differ. This was fired recently. Very recently." He lifted the pistol farther, twisting it this way and that as he inspected it. He stiffened. "My-my-my. If I'm not mistaken, we've got blood and maybe a little tissue in the rear sight notch."

  Luther watched in uncomprehending horror as Romano dropped the Beretta into a clear plastic evidence bag. This couldn't be happening! First Jensen, now—

  "Wait! This is a terrible mistake. I don't know this Cordova person! I've never even heard of him!"

  Holusha smirked. "Well, he's heard of you."

  "I… I don't understand."

  "You probably thought you'd cleaned out his house pretty good, but you missed a few."

  "A few what?"

  Holusha only shook his head in reply. Luther looked to Young for an answer but all questions dissolved when he saw the detective's hard look.

  "We'll need you to come up to the Four-Seven for questioning, Mr. Brady."

  Luther's stomach plummeted. "Am I under arrest?"

  "No, but we need some answers about your pistol and your whereabouts last night."

  That was a relief. The thought of being led through the temple in handcuffs was unbearable.

  "I want my lawyer along."

  "Fine. Call him and have him meet us there."

  He hadn't done anything wrong, but he wanted Barry along to keep everything on the up and up.

  They had to be mistaken about his pistol… had to be.

  That reddish-brown stain he'd spotted in the rear sight couldn't be blood. But if not, what was it?

  11

  "What should I call you?" Jack said. "I mean, since your name isn't Roselli?"

  The old woman looked up at him from the seat of a Far Eastern fan-backed armchair. Her gnarled hands rested on her silver-handled cane. Her face was still round and puffy, her sinophilic apartment as crowded as ever with screens, statues, and inlaid tables. She wore a red turtleneck and blue slacks this time.

  She cocked her head. "What makes you think it's not?"

  Jack had run the gauntlet of Esteban the doorman and Benno the Rottweiler—who'd subjected him to an uncomfortably thorough inspection of his crotch—and demurred the offers of tea and shortbread cookies. Now, finally, he stood before the old lady who'd told him she was Maria Roselli.

  "Because I found Johnny Roselli and he says his mother's been dead four years. You look pretty alive to me, Mrs…?"

  "Why don't you just call me Herta."

  "Is that your name?"

  A small smile. "It's as good as any."

  Swell. "Okay… Herta. I can go with that. But—"

  She lifted one of her thin, gnarled hands from atop her silver-headed cane in a stop motion. "Just let me say that Johnny was both right and wrong when he told you his mother was dead. That may be true of his birth mother, but not of me. For I am his mother too, just as I am yours."

  Jack felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He wasn't going to have to argue with her. She'd just—in so many words—admitted who she was.

  He sank into a chair opposite her.

  "So there it is: You're one of them."

  A small smile stretched the tight skin of her moon face. "And who would 'them' be?"

  "The ladies with the dogs. The ladies who know too damn much. You're the fourth."

  The first had been the Russian lady with the malamute in June. The next had been younger, wearing a sari and leading a German shepherd. And the last had been Anya with Oyv, her fearless chihuahua. They'd all claimed to be his mother.

  He had no idea who these women were, o
r how many more of them existed, but somehow they represented a mysterious third force in the eternal tug of war between the Otherness and the Ally.

  "Yes, I suppose I am."

  "On our first meeting you told me you didn't know Anya Mundy. But obviously you do. How many other lies have you told me?"

  Under different circumstances he might have been angry, but now he was too tired.

  "I did not lie. You said, 'Do you know an older woman named Anya?' I did know such a person, but she is gone. You should have asked me, 'Did you ever know an older woman named Anya?' Then I would have given you a different answer."

  Annoyed, Jack leaned forward. "Okay, let's bypass the wordplay and cut to the chase: You manipulated me into getting involved with the Dor-mentalism. Why?"

  Herta reached out and stroked Benno's head. The dog closed its eyes and craned its neck against her hand.

  "Because it must be destroyed. Or barring that, it must be damaged, crippled, driven to its knees."

  This lady didn't mince words.

  "Because it's connected to the Otherness?"

  She nodded. "It was inspired by the Otherness, and has become its tool."

  "How does a cosmic force inspire a cult?"

  "Through a man whose drug-addled mind was open to influence when the Adversary was conceived—or I should say, reconceived."

  The Adversary… also known as the One… who moved about under even more identities and names than Jack… the Otherness's agent provocateur in this world… whose True Name Jack had learned only a few months ago…

  Rasalom.

  And Jack was pretty sure he could name the owner of that drug-addled mind.

  "Cooper Blascoe told me he got the idea for Dormentalism from a dream back in the late sixties. Was that when Rasa—"

  Herta's hand shot up. "Do not say his True Name! I don't want him to know where I am. And neither do you."

  Jack hated to admit it, but she had that right. He'd had a taste of what this Rasalom guy could do. Pretty scary.

  "What do you mean, 'reconceived'?"

  "After millennia of striving to maximize the human misery that fed him, he was permanently eliminated shortly before World War II. At least that was what was thought. But in 1968, through a freak set of circumstances, he contrived to be reconceived in the womb of an unsuspecting woman."