I had a feeling it was Dante who kept bringing me back to Oakland. It wasn’t that I was reading him as much as the situation seemed to be beckoning me to him. When I found Dante again, he was standing in an alleyway with about twelve onlookers enraptured by his performance. I have to say he was truly captivating with his James Earl Jones voice and his Samuel L. Jackson presence. The man could have played Othello without competition.
He was very good, and though I did not know my Dante well, I did know a grand performance when I saw one.
“Turn your back and keep your eyes shut tight;
for should the Gorgon come and you look at her,
never again would you return to light.
“This was my guide’s command. And he turned to me about himself and would not trust my hands alone, but, with his placed on mine, held my eyes shut.”
I stole a look at members of the audience and couldn’t help but smile. Dante held them in the palm of his hand with his theatrical flair. When he spoke, he moved with the words. He stood there now, with both of his hands over his eyes.
…suddenly, there broke on the dirty swell of the dark Marsh a squall of terrible sound that sent a tremor through both shores of Hell.”
As he spoke, his voice pitched and rose like a professional thespian. I was enthralled.
When at last it was time for an intermission, he accepted a small bottle of water from an older woman. “Virgil was afraid, wasn’t he?” she asked. Virgil was Dante’s guide through Hell in this particular epic tale.
“Indeed he was, but Virgil tried to hide it.”
She shook her head. “But Dante wasn’t fooled, was he?”
Dante smiled softly at her. “What do you think, Jenny?”
She thought for a moment, like a student in class might, before finally shaking her head. “I think Dante’s not so sure Virgil knows the way.”
Dante patted her on the back. “And you would be right. Bravo!”
I rose and walked over to him. I sure could use a Virgil now. “This is quite a performance you put on. Do you do these every night?”
“Every single night. Consistency is key to the folks out here, so I’m here first and then I go down the street a bit and do a shorter version down there. Gives them something to do.”
“And always Dante’s Inferno?”
“Oh heavens, no. It’s seasonal, really. I do Dante in the summer months from June to September. From September to October I do the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. In November and December, of course, I do the Night Before Christmas and other tales. And January through April I do Paradise Lost.”
“Wow.”
“The Inferno is everyone’s favorite. It’s been Smiley’s favorite since before he could walk. That kid knows the story like the back of his hand. I’ve never seen a kid love a story so much. He can recite it verse for verse. It’s pretty amazing for a kid who seldom talks.”
I grinned. “You still call him a kid.”
“He always will be to me. It was Smiley who got me to start performing in the first place. He wanted other people to feel what he felt whenever I told a story. At the beginning, only a few folks gathered around. Most thought I was crazy. Can’t say I blame them. When one of us starts orating on a corner somewhere, we usually sound quite insane.”
Something in my stomach turned. “He…feels the story?”
“Well…I don’t know that he really does, but that was the way he put it to me.”
I blinked several times and let the thought linger a bit.
I stayed for the next piece, but it was getting cold and I hadn’t brought a jacket. Whatever was nagging the edges of my mind wouldn’t come up, so I waved goodbye to Dante and headed home.
Nothing on my phone from the boys. Nothing from Danica. Nothing at all. By the time I got home, I had a headache the size of Texas. Whatever was poking at me was in a part of my brain I couldn’t locate. It reminded me of a song playing over and over in your head but you can’t name it. So, I did what every other red-blooded American did when that happened…I took a shower, brushed my teeth, filed my nails, fed the cat, cleaned out my refrigerator, and did everything I could to keep my mind off whatever it was playing hide-and-seek with me. When it didn’t come, I cleaned the house and surfed the Internet until I could barely keep my eyes open.
They had been closed for half a second when the phone rang. Checking the caller ID as well as the time, I grinned. Finn.
“Normal women don’t call after midnight,” I said, yawning.
“Who said I was normal? You’ve been given erroneous information if you think that. Sorry I woke you, but I needed to know you were okay.”
“I am fine and I wasn’t asleep. Really.” Now I was sitting up. There was something in her voice I hadn’t heard before and couldn’t place it.
“I worried about you all night. I only worry about people I truly care about. I…uh…just wanted to say it seems like you’re ready to start a new chapter in your life and I would really like to be part of it.”
“I’d like that as well, Finn. I know I am preoccupied with my story and my career, but maybe once this gets off the ground, so can we.”
“Once the story is over. Echo, I think you’re an incredible woman, and I hope you feel the same way about me.”
“Officer Finn, I think you rock. Don’t you know? Can’t you tell? If I wasn’t so interested in finding Bob, I’d be making up other reasons to call you. I’m sorry if I haven’t been sending out the right vibes. I would love to spend time getting to know you.”
She chuckled goodheartedly. “That’s good to hear. I was hoping this wasn’t a one-way thing.”
“It isn’t. I enjoy spending time with you, too.” I heard her radio in the background.
“Damn, I gotta roll. Oh, and Echo? If you ever want to feel safe at night…sleep with a cop.” With that, she hung up, leaving me smiling and feeling a little tingly.
Rolling over, I sighed contentedly, my eyelids getting heavy again. I don’t know how Finn could do that job. It must have been hell day in and out dealing with nothing but tragedy. I was just about asleep when suddenly I sat up straight and turned on the light so fast Tripod ran under the bed. “That’s it!” Jumping out of bed, I ran to my bookshelves and rifled through all of my old college textbooks, spilling them to the floor. “Where is it?”
When I finally found the one I needed, I pulled it out and held it to my chest. “This has to be it.”
I was holding Dante’s Inferno; my key to the clue kingdom.
I was sure of it.
Turning on my desk lamp, I grabbed the slip of paper with numbers on it and studied it for a moment. “I knew there was something there.” The moment Finn said the word chapter, all the doors started to unlock for me.
“Okay, Echo, calm. Calm down.” My heart was pounding so I took a deep breath, pulled a pen and pad out, and then opened my copy of the Inferno.
It had all my earlier chicken-scratch notes from when I had taken a Milton course from Dr. LaBoskey. I remembered how difficult I’d found the class in college. I may not have gotten it, but Smiley the Savant did.
Rainman was a savant who was exceptional with numbers. He couldn’t hold a conversation or drive a car or even make his own meals, but he could count cards in Vegas, memorize lists and compute almost faster than a calculator or computer.
Smiley knew the Inferno like the back of his hand. He had used it to send some kind of message to his people. Dante’s Inferno was a story about his trip to hell and the different people who occupied the layers of each region. According to Dante’s version of hell, people ended up in the appropriate situation depending on what kind of sinner they were.
I started reading from the first of Smiley’s number 3:9. Canto III. It was called the Opportunists, people whose souls are neither good nor evil, but self-centered. It had the most famous line in the work, and most of us had heard it at one time or another: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. That was the sign above the gates to H
ell.
Why had Smiley written this down on a piece of paper? Quickly, I flipped to the next set of numbers. Seven was Canto VII, which dealt with the Hoarders and Wasters, The Wrathful and Sullen. The Hoarders and Wasters lacked all moderation and thought nothing was as important as money. Turning to line 30, I read the next ten lines out loud:
Why do you hoard? Why do you waste? So back around that ring they puff and blow, each faction to its course, until they reach opposite sides, and screaming as they go, the madmen turn and start their weights again to crash against the maniacs. And I, watching, felt my heart contract of pain.
Sighing, I leaned against the back of the sofa and scratched Tripod’s ahead. At the moment, he wasn’t stoned, so he liked me a little bit. “What was Smiley trying to say?” I was beginning to think I was way off base; that I had reached too far in an effort to find an answer.
I jammed a three-by-five card into both cantos and moved on to 24, Canto XXIV, which was about thieves. That was pretty self-explanatory, so I pressed on. There was one line from Smiley’s notes: line 93: In that swarm, naked and without hope, people ran terrified, not even dreaming of a hole to hide in or of heliotrope.
Heliotrope? I flipped to the notes in the back of my translation and saw that a heliotrope was some sort of stone. A bloodstone believed to be capable of making the wearer of it invisible.
Okay…
With the exception of people running terrified, the idea that Smiley had used the Inferno as a way of communicating what he saw was a quantum leap, but I couldn’t let go. Not yet. Canto XXXIV, Smiley’s 34 dealt with Satan and others. The one line, line 62 read: That soul that suffers most, explained my guide, is Judas Iscariot, he who kicks his legs on the fiery chin and has his head inside.”
My glimmer of hope was quickly fading. “What are you trying to say? What did you see?” Flipping back to the notes in the book, I read that Judas’s punishment was patterned after the Simoniacs. The who? I made a note and continued.
I looked at the last sets of numbers 26, 86; they were a reference to Circe. I knew that one well. Circe was a woman Ulysses stayed with for a year when he was trying to get home. The final set of numbers, 22 {B} made a reference to a bridge: by the bridge and among a shapeless crew. Now, that caught my attention. San Francisco is known for the Golden Gate Bridge. Was Smiley making a reference to that? And if that was true, then was the reference to Judas about the person who was giving over our guys to those possibly driving a van? If all of this was true, then where was Smiley? Why was he able to even give any clues?
My headache had returned. I either had a whole lot or a whole lotta nothing.
Feeling defeated, I decided maybe the boys could find something, so I emailed my notes to them with a note. Guys-I hope you’re up to this task. The numbers I sent might be sections of Smiley’s favorite novel, Dante’s Inferno. I’ve been banging my head against the wall for an hour, and I can’t come up with anything. Maybe you can. Princess.
If anyone could decode Dante’s lines, those three would. I decided after my press conference with the mayor I would see what my fellow thespian could come up with. Maybe he could sort this out. Maybe I was so far off track I could never get back on it. At least I had one thing going for me; I still had a press conference to attend.
“Come to watch a pro in action?” Carter said when he saw me at the Center.
“Something like that.”
“Why don’t you sit with me? I will lend you some much needed credibility.”
I was not in the least insulted. In the journalism field, there is a definite pecking order. If Carter could get me in the door, I would’ve sat on his shoulders if it meant getting the mayor’s attention.
When we took our seats, I looked around and finger-waved to a few people I knew. There were camera crews, light guys and print media there. I didn’t stand a chance in this crowd. Sure, I was with a damned Pulitzer winner, but there were also daytime Emmy winners as well as other power journalists who had been around the block long before I was born.
Carter had gotten a seat right in the center. The podium stood in the middle of the stage with three chairs on either side of it. When the crowd quieted down you could see everyone jockeying for space. The truth was, I was really excited to be there.
When the mayor’s press secretary came out, I got butterflies in my stomach. He was just a mayor, but there was an energy swirling around the room that swept me up in it like Dorothy’s tornado.
“Just wait,” Carter whispered. “His mother will be coming out in a second. Everyone thinks it’s bizarre the way she goes everywhere he goes, but I’m sure it’s a cultural thing.”
“Of course it’s a cultural thing, and not necessarily a bad one.”
“Oh, it’s bad,” he replied, straightening his bright red silk tie. “The old bag goes everywhere with him. It’s weird. Look. There she is.”
I watched an elderly Chinese woman walk out and sit on the chair closest to the podium. Her keen, clear eyes slowly inspected the crowd, like a mother bear surveying the territory before her cubs can play there. Her eyes made a slow, methodical pass over every face. When her eyes locked onto mine, I knew exactly why she was her son’s greatest adviser, and why she creeped people out.
“Weird, huh?” Carter whispered. “Almost like she’s looking at you, Branson.”
I said nothing, but kept my eyes on Mrs. Lee. Only when her son came out did her intense gaze shift from mine.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, loosening his maroon tie. Mayor Lee possessed the carriage of a higher ranking official than just mayor. He stood erect as he looked out over the standing room only crowd, confident, poised, yet not arrogant or challenging. His hair was like shiny black tar on his head, and caressed his expressive eyebrows. He looked like a man who had come to claim his second tour of mayoral duty. “Thank you all for coming. I know some of you are here to help me win reelection while others of you would love nothing more than to help me out the door. Well, I would like both sides to know that I am not bowing down to any kind of external pressure from you, my opponent, or the ugly rumor mills. I am proud of the work I’ve done and will continue as long as the people of this great city allow. We only just started making some of the necessary changes that will keep this city in step with the changing times. I intend to see those programs to fruition. To that end, I’m willing to answer whatever questions you may have. But let’s be civil, shall we? Try to keep the mudslinging to a minimum.” He smiled, but the truth behind that smile spoke volumes.
“Sounds like he knows you’re gunning for him,” I whispered to Carter.
“Yeah, well, watch and learn.”
I did. All the big names asked questions about gay marriage, domestic partnerships, the possibility of Microsoft returning to the Bay Area, jobs, the security of BART in light of recent terrorist activities and ways to clean up the downtown business district. One by one, Mayor Lee patiently answered every question. I found it incredibly interesting that he had yet to call on Carter, whose hand kept shooting in the air as if he had a spasm.
When the mayor finished with a question about parking, I figured it was time for me to throw my hat in the ring, so up went by hand.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Carter demanded under his breath. “Put your fool hand down.”
“Not a chance. Why do you think I came here? To watch you?” I didn’t hear his caustic response because I was too focused on Mrs. Lee. She motioned to her son, who bent down to listen to her. When he stood back at the podium, he was staring right at me and pointing. Carter stood up.
“Mr. Mayor…”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ellsworth. I was not motioning to you. I would like to hear from your colleague in the beautiful red suit.”
The look on Carter’s face was worth my weight in gold. His head slowly turned toward me, eyes blazing, nostrils flaring.
I turned from him and smiled at the mayor as I stood up. “Mr. Mayor, Echo Branson from the Chronicle
. Are you aware someone has been abducting our homeless people right off the street and after repeated requests for an investigation into these disappearances, your police department has refused to get involved?” My heart was banging so loudly in my ears I could barely hear myself. My mouth had that dry, I’m too nervous to speak feel, and my palms were all clammy.
He frowned for a moment. “Miss Branson, you wrote the article with that photo of the homeless animals, didn’t you?”
I nodded and felt a blush rise from my shoulders to the top of my head. “Yes, sir.”
“Wonderful story. Fabulous photographs.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll let the photographer know you thought so.”
He leaned forward on the podium. “So let me get this straight. You are saying that even after the article and requests for help, our police department still has done nothing about these missing people?”
I nodded. “I’ve done everything I can as a journalist and concerned citizen to get someone to help me figure out what is going on. I’m here because I’m hoping you can help. They may be homeless, sir, but they are our citizens, nonetheless. They deserve the same actions you’d give to someone living on Nob Hill.”
The crowd tittered slightly at this, but his gaze silenced them. He took notes and then turned to his mother. I couldn’t tell if there was an exchange or not, but when he turned around she smiled politely at me. “Miss Branson, I assure you I will be in contact with the chief of police before the day is through. If what you say is happening, you have my word I will do whatever I can to get to the bottom of it, and I appreciate you bringing it to my attention.”
Nodding, I sat down. “Thank you, Mr. Mayor.”
The press conference went on and I could feel the heat emanating off Carter, who was no longer raising his hand. He was livid and could barely contain himself. The mayor never looked our way again.
When it was all over, Carter grabbed my elbow and pushed me through the crowd. We were practically out the door when what looked like a bodyguard or security stopped us.
“Excuse me, Miss Branson? Mayor Lee would like to see you right now if you have the time.”
More Than an Echo (Echo Branson Series) Page 23