Vigil

by Robert Masello

  “St. Vincent’s it is,” Maury said. “I’m gonna just listen to the game, if you two don’t mind,” he added, turning the radio up. Was this their method for affording privacy to the occupants of the backseat, Carter wondered? Not that he thought they’d be needing it for any reason.

  As the car wound its way around the cemetery drive, Carter asked Ezra how he knew Bill Mitchell.

  “I don’t, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh. So you’re a friend of his family?”

  “No, not that either. I read about the funeral services in the paper. My real interest, I’ll confess, was in meeting you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Because I’d read about the accident in your lab, and I was very curious about what exactly had happened. You, I thought, must know better than anyone.”

  “Are you a fire investigator?” Carter asked, though the plush town car certainly indicated otherwise.

  “No.”

  “A reporter?”

  “Oh, no. I’ve worked in many labs myself, most recently in the Middle East, and I’m always curious when there is a mishap as dire as yours.” No use, right now, in going into his real reasons. “Would you mind my asking, what kind of work were you doing in your lab when the fire broke out?”

  Who was this guy, Carter wondered. And should he answer that question? The car pulled out of the cemetery gates, and after mulling it over for a few more seconds, he couldn’t see what further damage could be done if he did answer. All the damage imaginable had already been done. “Professor Russo and I are both paleontologists, and we had been working on a fossil.”

  “With the deceased Mr. Mitchell?”

  Carter hesitated, then said, “Bill wasn’t really authorized to be there.”

  Ezra appeared to take his meaning, and said, “Yes, I see. Experiments can easily go wrong, can’t they, in the wrong hands?”

  To Carter, it sounded as if he was speaking from experience.

  “But can I ask you then,” Ezra said, proceeding as cautiously and politely as he could, “what is this fossil you and Professor Russo had been working on?”

  Carter looked out the window at the other cars now whizzing past. “Was. What was this fossil we were working on. It was completely destroyed in the explosion and the fire. And now we’ll never know what it was.”

  “What did it look like?”

  That was a good question, and despite himself, Carter found himself re-engaged in the subject. It was the bitter-sweet feeling you got from talking about an old flame. “Most of it was pretty well entombed in a block of stone, but from what we could see, it might have been a member of the raptor family.”

  “That would be a dinosaur?”

  So now he knew the guy wasn’t a rival paleontologist. “Probably. All we had seen of it so far was its hand, or I should say claw, and part of one limb.”

  Ezra seemed fascinated by this information. “That’s funny,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “You said hand at first. As if it had struck you as human.”

  Carter couldn’t argue with that; the fossil had always stirred curious thoughts in him. Not to mention the bizarre sensation he’d had the day he’d taken the sample of the extended talon—the fossil had seemed somehow warmer than the surrounding stone. “Is that why you’re interested?” Carter asked, taking one more stab. “Are you an anthropologist?”

  “In the broader sense of that word—the study of mankind—yes, I guess you could say I am.” To Ezra, this seemed like a fair compromise, and an effortless way to assuage Carter’s curiosity. “I’m very interested in how we got here, and why.”

  “Sounds like you take a fairly cosmic approach,” Carter said. Was this guy actually a little . . . off? Carter began to wonder if he was about to start hearing about alien explorers who taught us the secrets of pyramid building.

  “I’d accept that—I do take the cosmic approach,” Ezra said, “even though I know you’re using the term in a derisory way.”

  Jeez—had Carter’s tone of voice betrayed him that badly, or was this guy supersensitive? Carter had to remind himself that even if he did think Ezra was strange, he wasn’t stupid. In fact, his features had a sharp and brilliant cast to them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any offense.”

  “None taken,” Ezra replied, though it was clear that he was annoyed. He turned his face away—in profile, he reminded Carter of a desert hawk, gaunt, spare, and hungry—and studied the tollbooth inspector who was even now giving the driver in the front seat his change.

  They drove through the tunnel in silence, Carter feeling bad that he’d insulted the guy who was giving him his ride. When they emerged, Carter took a shot at improving the climate in the car by asking Ezra where he lived.

  “East Side,” was all Ezra said.

  “Alone?”

  “No.” If there was one good thing, in Ezra’s view, that had come out of the UN imbroglio, it was that the court had mandated he remain at his present address under close supervision. Kimberly had been livid—one of the few things in a long time that had given Ezra genuine joy.

  But what he couldn’t afford to do right now, Ezra realized, was remain offended, or in any way alienate this Carter guy—at least not until he had extracted enough information to resolve any doubts or questions he might still have. Was there some connection between what was going on in the lab that night—a lab where a curious fossil was under close scrutiny—and the pealing bells that had gone off in every church in town?

  “I’ll have to circle the block,” Maury interjected, “to get into the hospital driveway,” but Carter, anxious to get out of the car, said, “No problem, you can just drop me off across the street.”

  Maury shrugged and pulled the car over to the curb in front of an abandoned building that faced the main entrance to the hospital.

  “Thanks for the ride,” Carter said to Ezra, who finally turned back to him and asked, “Is Mr. Russo being treated there?”

  “Yes.” That was an easy one. “I’m going to go up to the ICU and see how he’s doing.”

  Carter turned the handle on the door and got out. But before he could walk away, Ezra had slid across the backseat and lowered the back window.

  “One more thing,” Ezra said.

  “Sure.” Now that he was out of the car, Carter felt like he was in the clear.

  “Did your colleague tell you anything, no matter how odd, about what happened in the lab that night? About the explosion? The fire? The fossil?”

  “Not much,” Carter said. “You’ve got to understand, he’s still in very bad shape. I know that they were using a laser, and the beam hit a pocket of gas that was trapped in the stone. That’s what caused the accident.”

  “You’re sure that’s all?” Ezra asked. “There wasn’t anything more?”

  Carter debated going into it; all he wanted to do was get away, but at the same time there was something in Ezra’s query—in the imploring look in his eyes—that made him pause.

  And Ezra saw it. “What? Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “Okay, he did say one thing that might interest you,” Carter said, as Ezra waited by the rolled-down window. “Now, you’ve got to remember that he was delirious and doped up to his eyeballs when he said it—”

  “Tell me.”

  “He said the fossil had come to life.”

  Ezra remained expressionless for a moment, then his cheeks flushed and he banged on the inside of the car door with his clenched fist. “I knew it!”

  Now it was Carter’s turn to be surprised. “You knew that?”

  Ezra scribbled something on a scrap of paper and handed it out the window to Carter. “That’s my number, but I never pick up. Call it, and leave your number with the housekeeper.”

  Housekeeper?

  “We need to talk,” Ezra said, “much more.” He sat back on the seat, his eyes straight ahead. There was a momentary break in the traffic, and the car pulled away.

  As Carter waited
for the WALK signal, watching the Lincoln’s taillights disappear, he happened to glance at the huge sign on the derelict site behind him. COMING SOON, it said, in big letters, THE VILLAGER, A 26-STORY LUXURY CO-OP. And under that, in equally big letters, A PROJECT OF THE METZGER COMPANY, INC. Why did that ring a bell all of a sudden? It took him a second to put it together, but hadn’t that Ezra guy said his last name was Metzger? Could it be . . . ?

  The WALK light flashed and Carter crossed the street, wondering exactly who it was that he’d just been talking to. And more important, how in the world could Ezra Metzger—yes, he was certain that was the name—how could he have anticipated, as he claimed, Russo’s ravings about a fossil coming to life?

  TWENTY-ONE

  Night was becoming his friend. It was so much simpler to move through the streets at night, under the glow of the lamps that made everyone and everything look slightly unreal. He was able to move like a mist among the people, to absorb unnoticed their thousand scents and voices and shapes. He could inhale their perfumes, look into their eyes, even brush against their bodies, feeling the texture of their clothes, their skin. He went where the streets were full, to inhale the air they’d breathed, to listen to them talk—a hundred different tongues, all seemingly spoken together—and to learn the secrets of their hearts and their souls.

  In that, he felt, there was little surprise. And some comfort. He had not been wrong then, so long ago . . . and he was not wrong now.

  But in everything else, so much was changed.

  Already he had learned the name of the place he now inhabited, and he had learned, too, its position in the present world. Could a place for his return have been more wisely chosen? Was there anywhere on earth he could so readily begin again? It was not divine providence—oh no, surely not that—but it was something closely akin to it, something that had been set in motion. A plan that even he, in all his wisdom and all his knowing, had not yet fully compassed.

  Still, he had come to know certain streets, certain corners, better than others, and he often found himself returning to these, like a wolf might follow the trails he had successfully hunted on before. When he emerged from the darkness of his lair—a place of splintered wood and crumbling brick, where he could hear the faint echoes of infirmity and disease—he often walked these familiar paths. Here, for instance, was the place the burned man had been taken . . . here was the place where he had watched from the shadows as the fire blazed . . . and here was the place, now blackened and abandoned, from which he had been returned to the world. There were answers here—oh yes, that much he knew—but he did not yet know in whose breast these answers were held.

  He wanted to know. It was his very nature to know.

  In the halo cast by a streetlight, on the glistening slick pavement, he saw someone pacing, the same one he had encountered when he’d walked out of the inferno that night. The one who had given him the red cloak he still wore.

  As he approached, the figure stopped and stared at him, as if in awe. Was it so plain, what he was? He didn’t want that; he wanted things to be as they were, so long ago . . . before everything had come so terribly undone.

  The closer he came, the more the figure seemed rooted to the spot. Dark skin, long hair, the features of the face concealed by paint and mud, juice and dust. A leather pouch—a purse, the word suddenly came to him—slung over one arm.

  “It’s you again,” his benefactor said, wonderingly. “It’s you.” Wobbling on shoes with sharp heels, the figure approached, and laid one hand—whose nails, he noticed, were dyed a bright silver—on his sleeve. “I never thought I’d see you again. Never in this life, at least.”

  With so many in the world now, perhaps that was common.

  “But this time you’re not getting away so easy. Not without telling me a few things first.”

  “What . . . do you . . . want to know?” It was the first time he’d actually tried speaking the words, the words he had plucked from the very air around them, and he looked to see if they were understood.

  “For starters, I want to know who you are.”

  They were.

  “Or maybe I should say, what you are. Last time I saw you, you were glowing like some kind of lightbulb. Now, you’re not giving off light like that.”

  He could not afford to. It would have been too unwise. He watched as a white car with blue stripes and a red bar across the top came slowly around the corner.

  “Oh shit,” his benefactor muttered.

  He felt himself tugged by the sleeve of his coat toward the darkened doorway where he had once stood to watch the fire.

  The car kept coming and he was dragged deeper, down to the bottom of the stairs, below the level of the street. The ground, littered with matted papers and broken bottles, reeked of garbage . . . and human congress.

  “We’re just gonna wait here for a while, till my friends are gone.”

  Now he smelled . . . apprehension, too.

  “So, they call me Domino, maybe because I topple so easy.” A chuckle. “You want to tell me what they call you?”

  He didn’t like it here, and he started back up the stairs. But Domino grabbed his sleeve again and said, “The cops are still cruising around up there. What’s your hurry, anyway?”

  Domino drew him close. They were about the same height, and he could look directly into Domino’s eyes—they were dark brown, with long black lashes, and the brows, he could see, had been brushed with an amber color.

  “You know, you owe me.” Domino’s fingers played with his cloak. “I did give this to you.” He felt the buttons being undone. “I’m not asking for money—’less you want to give me some—but the least you can do is show me what you’ve got inside.” The coat began to fall open. “I still think you’ve got something special going on.”

  The darkness at the bottom of the stairs brightened as the coat opened wider. Domino leaned back to take it in. “Damn—you’re doing it again!”

  His glow grew brighter still; he made it do so. And in its light, he could see Domino more clearly than ever. Could see the false hair that concealed the real, the strong bones of the face beneath the powder and clay, the sinewy arms under the soft, feminine clothes.

  Domino’s hands slunk inside the cloak. Touched him.

  Beneath the sweet perfume, he smelled the odor of corruption.

  “What the . . . hell,” Domino said, haltingly.

  He opened his own arms, wide, and Domino suddenly stepped back, against the damp wall of the stairwell. The purse slipped to the filth-covered floor.

  “Jesus Christ . . .”

  He shrugged the coat from his shoulders and moved closer . . . embracing Domino, who struggled now.

  Which simply made him hold on even tighter. He folded the thrashing, twisting body against himself. He could smell the heat, the fear, the fury. He clutched Domino so close his limbs couldn’t move. He could feel his body straining for breath, the heart racing wildly in his chest. “You asked me my name,” he said, as a precise circle of flame suddenly etched itself into the cement floor around their feet. Domino’s eyes, wide with terror, reflected the glow of the fire. “It is Arius.”

  And then the flames swiftly rose, coiling up around their joined bodies like a snake writhing up a tree. Domino screamed, but the sound was muffled by the fire, echoing hollowly around the shadowy stairwell. His clothes burned and his skin crackled and snapped. The wig on his head disappeared in a puff of golden fire.

  When there was too little to hold up anymore, Arius, unaffected, let go . . . and stepped away. What was left of Domino fell into a blazing heap of blackened skin and bones. Orange sparks danced in the dark air as Arius bent to retrieve the red coat, shook it free of ash, and then put it back on. He picked up the fallen purse and turned toward the stairs.

  Nothing has really changed, he thought as he rose toward the street, rummaging in the purse to see if there was anything of use. This was always what came of abomination .

  TWENTY-TWO

/>   Carter was in no mood today. First there’d been that disturbing appointment at the doctor’s office, and now he was trying to explain the theory of geochronology to an unusually restive class.

  “Most of us have been led to believe,” he said, “that mankind has evolved in one long continuous process, and that any protohuman fossils, no matter where they’re found and no matter what their age, must fit into that lineage somehow.”

  He glanced up from his notes and saw a couple of students in the back row conferring with lowered heads over something that looked like a greeting card.

  “But that theory, known as the single-origin, or out-of-Africa theory,” he went on, trying to ignore it, “is becoming increasingly hard to defend. Recent finds in such places as China and Indonesia, notably Java, have begun to point us in another direction. They’re pointing us toward a world millions of years old, in which several different hominid species all managed to inhabit the planet simultaneously. Not necessarily peacefully, but at least at the same time.”

  He glanced up again, and this time he saw somebody passing the same card to Katie Coyne, and he snapped.

  “All right, who wants to explain to me what’s going on out there?”

  Silence fell over the lecture hall.

  “Katie, you want to tell me what’s up, before I decide to just throw a pop quiz at you all?”

  Katie looked like she’d rather not, but after adjusting the blue kerchief she was wearing on her head today—she looked to Carter like a pretty peasant girl in a painting by Millet—she said, “It’s a get-well card.”

  “Okay,” Carter replied coolly, wondering how this was supposed to serve as an adequate excuse. “Who’s it for?”

  “Your friend,” she said, “Professor Russo. We were all signing it.”

  Carter was at a loss for words.

  “I was going to bring it over to him later today, if you think that would be okay.”

  “Yes,” Carter said, still flustered, “I’m sure he’d like that.”