“I hope you didn’t listen to anything that Larson guy said. He’s a recruiter. Tries to get people to join up with Arthur’s army, his Society.” She said the last word with a twist of distaste. “You don’t want to get mixed up in that.”
The image of Arthur being controlled by that demon-thing flashed before Ed’s eyes. “I don’t want to think about any of it right now. I just want to sleep.” His body was aching all over, and he was overdue for another fix.
“The Guru knows what he’s talking about.”
“Good night.” The need for more heroin gnawed at Ed’s insides, making him wonder how he could possibly get through even a single night without it. He made his way slowly down the driveway, ignoring the fading hallucinations as they rippled the air and sent wild colors flashing through the tree branches overhead.
* * *
The Guru approached Doris as soon as she was back inside the house. “Do you think he’ll pass my test?” he said quietly.
She looked out the front window to see Ed’s taillights moving away down the road. It was unusual for the Guru to show any sign of doubt. “I don’t know.”
“There’s something I need you to do for me. Come to my room, let’s talk.”
* * *
When Larson arrived at Society House, he found Arthur in his sitting room enjoying a glass of wine with one of the girls, who seemed to have misplaced her top. Arthur dismissed the girl when he saw Larson in the doorway. “Didn’t come back with you, did he?” Arthur asked.
“The Guru’s chick got to him, I think. Pussy’s a real persuasive thing.”
Arthur took a sip of wine. “The important thing is that we know who he is now. We’ll get him eventually.”
“Should we try the other one, then?”
“Yes, go ahead. We could use him either way, and his friends, too. He can work on Terwilliger for us when the time comes.”
Larson smiled. “I’ll make a couple phone calls, Lord Orc.”
15
The Gnome Returns
“These Tet attacks are going to be a big problem for the administration,” Albert said, his voice distorted slightly by the secure phone line.
“That’s what the attacks were all about, weren’t they?” said Tom, stifling a yawn. Albert’s Monday morning briefings came much earlier for Kajdas than they did for Wensel. “They didn’t accomplish much militarily, but the anti-war zealots are having a field day over here. Any idea what the President is planning to do?”
“No idea.”
“This could be the end for Johnson. It’ll be a political disaster for him.”
Kajdas heard Wensel exhale deeply. “Maybe, or it might be the luckiest thing that ever happened to him. Mr. Witherspoon has been talking to the Director, trying to get him to convince the President to bow out gracefully while he still can. If Johnson has any brain inside that big head of his, he’ll listen. Our sponsor thinks he might drop out of the race over this.”
“In which case,” Tom said, continuing that line of thought, “we could call off the plan and just let him retire quietly. What does this mean for Daisy?”
“Our sponsor wants us to expand Daisy to include additional targets.”
“So he wants us going after McCarthy, too?” Kajdas propped the phone against his shoulder and rubbed his temples. “Where does this end, Albert? We can only do so much.”
“Well, now we have to do a little more. He wants us to make plans to take out both McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy. I don’t―”
“Both!”
“I don’t expect we’ll have to execute both plans, but we have to be ready. Our sponsor wants the Vice President to be the last Democrat standing come November.”
“I’ve got no people, Albert. I’d have to find and train a shooter for each of them. Every shooter has to be a custom fit for the target; I’ve told you that. There has to be a plausible motive, and the psychology of the subject has to be a match.”
“What about your man in Canada? Seems like this’d be right up his alley.”
“To pull the trigger? No, no. I do want to put him on this in some capacity, assuming he finishes his current assignment without pulling the walls down on his own head. But he’s too valuable to be doing the wet work.”
Wensel was silent for another moment. After another long exhalation—he was smoking heavily, no doubt—he said, “The details are yours to figure out, Tom. But when we get the order, you need to be ready.”
“I’ll be ready.” Kajdas hung up and held his head in his hands. “Lord help me,” he muttered.
* * *
Ed turned down the TV and listened. He heard it again: a faint shuffling sound just outside his door. Not the gnome; he hadn’t seen or heard the gnome in the week since the Guru’s party. Someone was lurking out in the hall. Probably Mrs. Findlay, coming over to tell him to turn down the television. Ed was tempted to tell her that he turned it up to drown out the little ceramic man who tormented him, but the poor woman would probably work herself up into a panic if she thought she was living next door to a crazy man.
It occurred to him as he opened the door that Mrs. Findlay would have simply knocked.
Doris was standing outside, looking around as though trying to get her bearings, and she jumped when she saw Ed.
“Geez—you scared me. Can I...?”
Ed mumbled something incoherent and motioned her inside. He shut the door behind her and silently wished it had been Mrs. Findlay. He had no idea what to say to this girl.
“I needed to get out for a while,” Doris said. “When the Guru’s away, a couple of the others... Well, they give me a hard time. I can’t change or take a bath without one of them poking his nose in to try and get an eyeful.”
“I thought you said it’s a good place to live.”
“It is,” Doris said defensively. “With the Guru around. The guys are real nice when he’s there. He doesn’t put up with any nonsense. When he goes away on his trips, they stay nice for a day or so. Then there’s one of them who gets a little weird. Stealing my underwear and stuff. I’m not a prude or anything, but sometimes he crosses the line. You know?”
Ed thought of the creepy fellow he’d seen the other night. “That guy with the gray hair―”
“Rat? He doesn’t bother me. I’m talking about Lou. Lou’s a pervert.”
“Doesn’t he have better things to do than pick on a girl?”
Doris gave him a level look. “I can take care of myself. You got any food? We never have anything in the house.” She opened the refrigerator and began helping herself. Ed watched her pile up all the food he had—leftover chicken, Swiss cheese, half a head of lettuce, a jar of mayonnaise, two oranges. She somehow carried all of it in her arms to the living room and dropped it on the end table in a heap. Then she went back for a loaf of bread, which she examined slice by slice looking for mold. Several of the slices went in the garbage, but some were apparently serviceable. She returned to the living room, turned up the television, and took a seat in his big blue recliner. The ottoman was in her way, so she slid it aside with her foot to make room. “Grab me a knife, will you?” she said.
Not knowing what else to do, Ed brought her a butter knife. She constructed a sandwich by peeling bits of chicken off the bones and laying them out on the bread. Everything except the oranges went on the sandwich, which she ate messily while watching an old episode of Andy Griffith. Ed hurried to get her a napkin, but he wasn’t quick enough: a globule of mayonnaise dripped to the carpet, forming a bead just in front of Doris’ left foot. Ed stared at it, afraid that it would make him seem uptight if he were to leap from his seat to wipe it up immediately. He would wait until after she left, he decided.
“How you doing with the smack?” Doris asked.
“The what? Oh, pretty good,” Ed lied. “Been off it since the party.”
“A whole week, huh? And you haven’t cheated once, right?”
Ed had trouble meeting her eyes. “Nope.”
As she sw
allowed the last bite, Doris started peeling an orange with her fingernails. Ed sat watching the TV program, wishing he could sneak away for a fix.
“You read poetry?” Doris said with a very full mouth.
“Hmm?”
She was pointing with a piece of orange peel to a fat book on the table. “Collected Works of William Blake. You actually read that?”
Ed picked up the book. “I’ve read it, sure. It’s good.”
“Really?” She seemed to be trying to figure out whether he was putting her on.
“I’m serious. My dad was really into his work. He gave me that book when I was a teenager.” Ed’s father had left him a large collection of Blake’s works when he’d died, some of them quite old. His father had been fascinated by the man.
“What poems did he write?” Doris asked. “Anything I’ve heard of?”
“I don’t know what you’ve heard of. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The Book of Urizen. Did you ever hear of Orc and Urizen?”
She frowned at him as though he was spouting nonsense. “Are they people?”
“Characters in Blake’s poems. He developed a whole mythology. Urizen represents reason, tradition. The oppressive laws and structure of society. Orc represents creativity, the struggle against the tyranny of the old order. A lot of Blake’s work is about the conflict between the two. Chaos versus order, free spirit versus rigidity.” He was starting to sound like his father, he realized.
Doris shrugged. “I never really dug poetry. It doesn’t speak to me, you know? Well, I like music, and I guess song lyrics are like poetry. Depending on who writes them. I mean, ‘Happy Together’ doesn’t really say much. But Janis and Hendrix, they have something to say. It’s like what the Guru always says about music, how it can be very powerful.”
Everything comes back to that Guru person, Ed thought. “Blake wasn’t just a poet, though. He had visions. Milton appeared to him, and Ezekiel. He even invented a method of printing based on something his dead brother told him in a dream.”
Doris smiled crookedly. “Sounds like a real nut case, seeing things and all.”
“Right.” Ed cleared his throat. “Blake devised this printing process that involved painting letters and images on a copper plate with a paint that resisted acid. He coated the plate with acid and let it eat away at the copper, and when he was done he had a plate with raised letters that he could use to print a page in a book.”
“Was this before that Gutenberg thing? The printing press?” Doris asked around a mouthful of orange.
“No, this was much later. Three hundred years later. But printing presses were only good for printing letters. Blake printed illuminated books, books with both pictures and text. He called it ‘illuminated printing.’”
Doris swallowed the rest of her first orange and started peeling the second. “So he was a chemist, then, like you. Or a poet who practiced chemistry. Do you write any poetry?”
Ed shook his head. “I used to try and write songs, but they were mostly garbage. Now I just buy records.”
“I’m sure they were fine,” she said. “Oh, you just reminded me of something.” She pulled a small paper bag our of her pocket. Ed took it and looked inside. “Gumdrops,” she explained. “The Guru wanted to wait before he gave you any more, but I didn’t think it would hurt as long as you’ve got someone to keep an eye on you. They’re only dangerous if you’re alone. I thought they’d make it easier for you. You know, instead of—.”
“I told you, I’m done with the heroin.”
“Yeah, you told me. Where’s your bathroom?”
While she was in there, Ed wet a paper towel and went to work on the mayonnaise droplet she had left on the carpet, but it had sat there too long and left a dried yellowish stain.
He heard water running. It sounded like she was filling the bathtub. What is she doing in there? Taking a bath? Sure enough, she came out a second later and rummaged through the linen closet for a towel. She found the fluffiest one he had—he felt a twinge when he saw that it was Eleanor’s fluffy old green one—and shut herself in the bathroom again. Ed cleaned up the remains of her meal.
She stayed in there a long time. Ed was dozing on the couch when she emerged. He woke up with a start to find her perched on the arm of the sofa, wrapped in Eleanor’s towel, eyes fixed on the floor. Her hair was wet; Ed wondered vaguely how much of it he would find in the drain tomorrow morning. Something had changed about her in the last few minutes, he thought, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. The look in her eyes was different, like she wasn’t quite herself.
“Thanks,” she said, her voice quavering slightly. “Nice to have a little privacy for a change.”
“Don’t mention it.”
She slid from the arm to sit next to him. “Ed.” She moved awkwardly, as if suddenly unsure of herself, although she had certainly not suffered from a lack of confidence before this. “Is it okay if I spend the night here?”
Ed felt his system fill with adrenaline. “What do you mean?”
She was sitting very close now. The towel slid down an inch or two as she moved even closer. “I don’t want to go back there tonight. Let me stay with you.” She was leaning toward him provocatively, but something was not right. She was still looking down, failing to meet his eyes. Ed put an arm on the back of the sofa to try to lever himself away from her. Why did she seem so uneasy? The towel brushed his arm, and his mind filled instantly with an image of Eleanor. The girl was wearing Eleanor’s towel.
“Stop it!” he squeaked. She paused, lips moving as though she wasn’t sure what to say next. Ed forced his voice to sound more firm. “Stop. I can’t—I’m not ready for this.”
She drew back a little. The towel drooped dangerously low, but Ed forced himself to look her in the eye. Mostly.
“Did he put you up to this?” Ed asked. “Did he tell you to come onto me?”
She put on a look of shock that was clearly feigned. “What? Who?”
“You know who. That—that Guru. Did he tell you to throw yourself at me?”
For a moment, she stared at him with her mouth agape. That’s it, he thought. That sick son of a bitch sent her to seduce me.
She pulled up the towel to cover herself, blinking back tears. “You are insane. Get away from me.” She ran to the bathroom and shut the door. Ed got up to follow, but he stopped himself short of banging on the door. He was furious with her for trying to manipulate him. But she was being manipulated too, wasn’t she? The thought made Ed’s blood boil.
She came back out of the bathroom a minute later, dressed in her jeans and sweater again, and shoved past Ed. “Thanks again, asshole,” she said.
He beat her to the door and put a hand on it to hold it shut. “Wait. You’re miles away from home. How are you going to get back?”
She glared at him with enough acid in her eyes to etch a sheet of copper, tugging on the doorknob. “What the hell do you care? Let me go.”
“He’s taking advantage of you. You’re better than this.”
“Let me go!” She yanked once more on the doorknob, but Ed had his full weight on the door. “Go to hell!” she cried. Then she dropped to her knees and burst into tears, head pressed against the doorframe. Her still-damp hair hid her face, but he could see her shoulders shaking.
Now what? “Doris―”
She looked up at him with tears on her face. “Yes, all right?” she shouted. “He wanted me to check up on you. I was supposed to get close to you. Any way I could. Can I go now?”
“You don’t have to do everything he says. He can’t control you.”
Doris jumped to her feet. “Don’t you make him sound like some kind of psycho! He doesn’t control me. I do what he asks because it’s right!”
“This wasn’t right! He can’t ask you to... to... You hardly even know me.”
“And you don’t know him, so don’t tell me what he can’t do! He sent me here because he’s worried about you. He knows you can’t get clean on your own, but
he doesn’t want you to die either. God knows why.”
“But how well do you know him? Do you even know his real name?”
Doris glared at him and said nothing.
None of this made sense to Ed. What could possess someone to follow a man who would ask her to do this? Was there anything the Guru wouldn’t ask her to do? “Doris,” he said, “I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t mean to say anything bad about him. Just don’t leave right now. It’s not safe.”
Doris crossed her arms and stared at the floor. “I’m tired,” was all she said.
“You can sleep here tonight. Take my bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t bring a toothbrush.”
“You can go one night without brushing your teeth.”
She took a deep, unsteady breath and then walked toward Ed’s room, hugging herself tightly. Ed watched her go without saying another word.
Half an hour later, after Ed had fixed himself a little dinner, he glanced in and saw her sprawled on top of the covers, sound asleep. She looked peaceful when she slept. He closed the door halfway and went back to his couch.
Later, in the deep silence of the late evening, he heard the faint sound of ceramic footsteps in the bathroom. It was back.
16
Danny Makes a Deal
Money grew even tighter in the weeks after Danny’s defeat of Mr. Chiu. Danny and Alice spent several days going through the remains of the merchandise in the shop, salvaging whatever they could, but almost nothing was in a condition to sell. They threw away dozens of bags of trash and still hardly made a dent in the mess. The water dried up after a few days, leaving stains and foul smells, and the damage from fire and smoke proved to be more than they could deal with on their own.
Mrs. Chan moved the fortune-telling operation to their apartment. They averaged eight or ten customers a day, which helped buy the groceries but not much else. No lofahn came; the only customers they saw were local regulars who paid substantially less for Danny’s services. Some offered them extra money, which his mother politely refused. Alice’s paycheck from the library covered the electric and gas bills. The heat was perpetually broken. Hot water came a little more reliably, but Danny still found himself taking lukewarm baths more often than not. The old maintenance man listened patiently to his complaints and shrugged helplessly, saying, “I can’t fix.”
Forest of the Mind (The Book of Terwilliger 1) Page 14