Nick Nolan

by Double Bound (Sequel To Strings)

  Jeremy felt his head rock back and forth and was faintly aware that his breathing had ceased. Then he blinked at his host, gasped, blinked some more, then vomited his breakfast onto the table and down the front of his lovely white robe. Darkness began swarming his vision from the outside in--crowding his spectacular view of Guanabara and Sugarloaf and Cristo, until utter sorrow defeated his eyes.

  He fainted.

  Fabiano looked up to the second-story window beyond and waved at Rosa, who held up her cell phone and waved back at him. Then the two handsome young servers from the island appeared with a wheelchair, hoisted Jeremy into it, and wheeled his slumped-over, vomit-splattered form into the house. They pushed him into an elevator that descended into the belly of the hill; down to the labyrinth of cells and passages that made up the ancient Morro do Castelo--also known as São Januário's Hill--from which he had been released only hours before.

  Chapter 41

  We need guns," Arthur announced. "Or at least one. We should be able to find some around here. Right?"

  "You cannot take one up there," Babalu told him. "The security at a religious event like this is better than at your airports, especially with el Gigante's paranoia getting worse each year."

  "Do they have metal detectors?" Carlo asked.

  He nodded. "You must remember what you told me about Fabiano and his security measures on that island; you should be certain that he has installed, under orders from the government, at least those same measures around Cristo, especially now that the holy statue is one of the Wonders of the Modern World."

  "Then what do we do?"

  "We go there now, and make our way through the crowd toward the front, and we wait for the opportunity to save your Jeremy."

  "But he'll recognize us, immediately," Arthur said. "Especially if he's part of the mass. If we want to get up to the front, we'll need some sort of disguises--as stupid as that sounds."

  Babalu shook his head. "No, it does not sound stupid. But we have a good chance, as they will not expect you to be there; I am one of the only people outside Fabiano's circle who still knows what he does for São Januário, and they don't know that you know me." He paused in thought. "There is one part of the ceremony where the people come up to donate dinheiro, and to pick up the glass vials with the fresh blood inside; they give the church more to actually receive a vial that is still warm."

  "So we'll have to approach them at that moment," Arthur added, "with our money in hand, and overtake them and save Jeremy...and we'll have to act quickly, because he could bleed out. Or worse."

  "What's worse than that?" Carlo asked.

  "Permanent brain damage from not having enough blood oxygen."

  "Jesus. Then what would we do?"

  "We'll just have to get to him right after the incisions are made."

  "So we'll have to be one of the first groups of people up front."

  "But not the first," Babalu added, "because we don't want to give them the chance to look at us for too long."

  Arthur and Carlo nodded at each other.

  "There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people there already," he told them, glancing at his watch. "I'm sorry, but I should have mentioned that they begin their pilgrimages well in advance. We will have a very difficult time being near the front."

  "We'll just have to, that's all...but what kind of disguises can we use? They'll spot me a mile away!" Arthur exclaimed.

  "We could go in drag," Carlo suggested.

  Babalu shook his head. "Maybe you and I should do drag, but not him. He would look terrible."

  Arthur thought for a moment, trying to picture what sort of crowd would be gathered so they could blend in. Then it hit him. "We need to look old," he said.

  "Old people are harmless, and there should be many of them there, trying to get

  'healed.'"

  Babalu's eyes brightened. "Yes! We can get a wheelchair, and hide a gun inside the seat, because it wouldn't make any difference to the metal detector."

  "I had some training on how to look elderly, and I think we can pull everything together here."

  "But what about me?" Carlo asked. "Do you think you can really make me look old?"

  Babalu and Arthur looked at each other and smiled. "You," Babalu began, "you can go as a young girl. We will be a husband and wife from the country, and you will be our daughter, pushing me in the wheelchair."

  Each looked to the others. Then they stood.

  * * *

  Babalu drew up a list for Ernesto, and moments later he was out scouring the favela for accessories and props.

  Within the hour, they were gazing with wonder at one another's transformations.

  For Carlo they found a tight black T-shirt that read Yo Baby Yo, and they made substantial breasts for him out of socks stuffed with uncooked rice. Over the Tshirt he wore a knee-length jumper of sorts, and from a drag performer nearby they borrowed some white espadrilles that were the right size, and had just enough slope so he could run fast, if the need arose. In addition, the generous man had been so gracious as to contribute his best weave--a blond-streaked brown wig that looked as if it was lifted from Jennifer Lopez's very dressing room.

  Babalu was much less flamboyant, having slipped on the traditional shapeless black garb of a Brazilian widow, the stomach of which he stuffed with towels; and he was able to retrieve a jet-black wig from his own stash, which he topped with an opaque veil.

  As for Arthur, they decided he would pose as her son rather than her husband, as his skin still looked too wrinkle free, and he had no discernible double chin. So he slipped on some huge pants, which he padded with rolled-up towels and belted to keep in place, then stuffed his belly with a sizable throw pillow. Finally, he donned a simple straw hat.

  Babalu and Carlo looked at him and frowned. He still looked like Arthur.

  "He needs glasses," Ernesto suggested, taking a moment away from another game show. "Use some of your old glasses, Papa, without the glass."

  Babalu went over to where the hot plate served as his kitchen, and retrieved a pair of reading glasses. "I use these when I cook," he told Arthur. "You could probably use them now even with the glass in them, at your age."

  Arthur smiled thinly at him and put them on, then looked down at his hands. To his chagrin they worked perfectly; they actually improved his vision--close up.

  "He still needs something else," Carlo suggested. "Your face--it's still yours."

  Then Arthur remembered a trick that a more experienced agent had shown him once. "I need some strips of cloth," he announced. "Any kind of cloth."

  Ernesto leapt up and retrieved an old, but clean, pillow case. Arthur took it, then ripped two thin strips from it; these he rolled into balls the size of apricots, which he shoved into his mouth against his upper molars on each side.

  He looked up at the men and they smiled. "No more Dom Arthur," Babalu said.

  Their only other task was to find a wheelchair, but in the hills of a favela, Ernesto discovered there were none to be had. So they decided Babalu would have to use his cane instead, as it was just as convincing for an elderly person, especially the way he walked.

  But it did not allow them to hide a firearm inside.

  They still needed some sort of weapon. What could they use?

  There was nothing Arthur could think of that a metal detector couldn't discover. So he decided he would save Jeremy with the only weapons he had: My hands.

  He would gladly fight to the death.

  For without Jeremy, there was really no point in living.

  Chapter 42

  Ernesto gave the trio, for protection, three sets of his very best rosary beads--not the cheap, plastic kind, but the much-sought-after variety carved from brazilwood and strung with stainless-steel links--then dropped them off at the bottom of Corcovado, where they stood nervously in the security line with the other pilgrims.

  After the trio was wanded and scrutinized by the guards, they took their seats on one of the old red tra
ms, which lurched and groaned and squeaked its way up the long, steep railway. Finally, after disembarking, they rode the escalator up to the top platform, where they stood beneath Cristo's placid gaze.

  The long, narrow platform was already crowded along the sides, as the center was roped off for the procession, so they pushed their way to the front as far as they could, then continued inching forward after they could walk no farther. When they got almost to the front they stopped, leaned against the balustrade and waited--with two of them praying quietly, and clicking their beads like veteran nuns--because the mass would not begin for another hour or so, just after sunset.

  In the meantime, across the hills in a chamber deep within Morro do Castelo, Jeremy's disguise was being readied.

  As was he.

  * * *

  He had revived from his fainting/throwing-up spell quite quickly, and, after finding himself back within his all-too-familiar cell, he was as angry as he was despondent.

  Did Fabiano actually turn me back over to the kidnappers? Why didn't he protect me? Why didn't Katharine pay the ransom? Doesn't anyone give a shit about me?

  He pounded his fists on the door. He yelled obscenities.

  But no one seemed to hear.

  Then he got sick to his stomach again--after realizing he'd been worried only about himself, while he should have been just as concerned about Arthur and Carlo as, clearly, they'd been about him.

  And now it was too late.

  So he searched every inch of the room for a way out, because he decided that with both Arthur and Carlo gone, there was no point in playing it safe anymore.

  He was out for blood, even if it meant spilling his own.

  So he continued pounding his fists on the door. He screamed threats.

  Then, after he'd continued his tirade for the better part of an hour, he heard a key scrape in the lock.

  The door was shoved open.

  By Rosa.

  With Dom Fabiano behind her.

  They wore identical smug expressions.

  "What are you doing here?" he asked Rosa. "Didn't they arrest you?"

  She smirked. " Si, they arrest me, and then take me for a beautiful lunch like they did for you"--she sniffed the air--"but from how you smell I think you did not care for yours."

  Fabiano pushed his way in front of her. "We're short on time. You need to get him ready. Get started."

  "So you're in on this together?" Jeremy asked as he looked unbelievingly at one, then the other. "What are you gonna do to me, you big fat faggot motherfucker?"

  Fabiano backhanded Jeremy hard across the face.

  The force sent him to the floor.

  "You don't ask questions, you little bitch." El Gigante laughed. "You, you are nothing. Your wicked aunt doesn't care enough about you to send the money, so now you have no Arthur and Carlo, you have no freedom, and in a few hours you will have no life!"

  "You killed them!" he screamed. "They did nothing to you!"

  "We gave her some very realistic deadlines, but after the first six hours passed and she didn't pay, bang! I killed your Carlo, and then the next six hours passed and bang! I killed your Arthur. You should know that Senhora Tyler told me it was too much for her to pay, that all of that money from her bank would ruin her. So bang!

  in their heads." He mimed the crime with his thumb cocked over his extended forefinger. "I have some funny pictures to show you in case you don't believe me,"

  he lied. "They died crying and begging for their lives; even your big stupid Arthur died like a coward faggot!" He bent down and slapped Jeremy again, and threw him on his front and clenched his hands so Rosa could snap the handcuffs back on.

  "You'll die, you fucking monster!" Jeremy screamed into the floor. Then he began pistoning his legs.

  The big man kicked him hard, and Jeremy screamed in pain, thinking his femur had snapped. "Silence!" the man bellowed. "I'll rip you apart if you are not quiet!"

  Jeremy stopped struggling and Rosa slipped the shackles back on his ankles. "Just kill me; just fucking kill me!" he begged, realizing that the two loves of his life were gone, just like his mother and father before. "I don't care! Just fucking kill me! "

  The big man bent down and put his mouth an inch from his captive's ear. "You Americans have no talent for suffering." He chuckled, and Rosa echoed his cackle with her own creepy, falsetto version. "If I wanted to, I could draw out your death for days or weeks; I could drive you to such a state of terror that you would pull out your intestines or saw off your feet rather than face another second of my tortures. But tonight you are lucky...tonight we need São Januário to give his river of life to the faithful, to the sick, to the nearly dead." Fabiano threw his arms into the air. "How many people can die a saint?" he shrieked. "And here, you have done nothing to deserve it! You, with so much money and privilege; you, who do nothing good for the world except to be a cocksucker for old men, you who live off the money of others and do nothing but offer your young body to perverts; you who do nothing but complain about wishing to die. You are nothing, Dom Tyler, and such nothing like you does not deserve to live." He looked at his watch, then turned to Rosa as he pulled Jeremy to his feet, then shoved him down into the chair. "We have little time before the procession. Everything is ready, yes?"

  "Bring me my case," she told him. "It is out in the hall."

  He sneered at her. "You get it yourself, puta velha."

  She huffed, and went to retrieve it.

  Moments later she returned with a tattered makeup case, which she placed on the floor and opened. Then she reached inside and produced a small package of waxy black paper that was folded over. This she unfolded and placed on the table next to the bed; Jeremy saw that the inside contained white powder. He also saw, out of the corner of his eye, Fabiano step backward out of the room.

  "Is that coke?" he asked, suddenly afraid. His mother had loved coke, and he dreaded the sight of it.

  "This is better--from Colombia." She fished a dirty medical mask from the case and tied it around her face, picked up a shortened drinking straw, lifted the paper to Jeremy's nose, then pulled up the mask to expose her lips and closed her eyes and blew the powder forcefully into his face.

  " Jesus"--he coughed violently--" Christ! "

  At once a scalding heat and tingling coldness began in his sinuses, and the next moment he felt that same sensation in his hands and feet as a dead stiffness started overtaking his limbs. He began to slump sideways.

  She caught him as he fell.

  His veins were burning as though injected with ignited gasoline, he couldn't feel his feet or his hands, and the area of his leg where he'd just been brutally kicked no longer hurt. But when he tried to move his arms, he realized those felt dead, too; and his torso and limbs felt as if he'd just been plunged into a tank of scalding tar or freezing water--it burned as much as it froze. Then his eyesight began to blur, as if Vaseline had been rubbed onto his corneas.

  And although he was completely and utterly paralyzed, his mind was working brilliantly. He saw the silhouette of Fabiano disappear into the hall, then reappear with the same young manservant from this morning, as they dragged an armchair into the room, then rolled in what looked like some sort of glass-sided coffin, edged with gold. Then they all lifted him from the floor and sat him in the chair, and strapped him into it so he was sitting up straight.

  Rosa bent down and took out her makeup kit and went to work. "Such a handsome São Januário you will be," she cooed as she smoothed his face with chalky white foundation. "We haven't had one so handsome as you in such a long time."

  She began humming a cheerful tune.

  Chapter 43

  Night was coming. And as the sun inched down toward the mountains, Arthur's anxiety rose.

  Could they really pull this off? There were thousands of people here who would witness their holy disruption. What if the supplicants rose up against them? How could they, completely unarmed, interrupt the ceremony and rescue Jeremy before someone--ei
ther Fabiano's security detail or otherwise--was able to stop them?

  "It's getting really crowded," Carlo told Arthur after someone bumped into him and he nearly lost his balance because of the tilty espadrilles on his feet. "If we're gonna make it to the front, we'd better do it now."

  "Let me go first," Babalu suggested, his face a mask of determination behind his willowy black veil. "People will not refuse an old woman-- except, of course, for other old women." So they pushed their way deeper into the crush, with the elderly Brazilian widow in the lead.

  They sidled through the mass of broken-down people; people barely able to stand, people missing limbs, people bent over sideways from a life of cruel labor, people filthy, people sad. The entire scenario reminded Arthur of a Hollywood reenactment of the good folks at a leper colony, awaiting the arrival of Jesus.

  Finally, they were within throwing distance of the carved wooden altar, which had been set up against Cristo's black granite base, along with an assemblage of white roses and towering brass candlesticks and a cluster of spooky saint statues adorned with high, pope-ish hats and black-as-coal faces. To the right of the altar, the three dozen or so members of the boys' choir fidgeted restlessly in their matching red robes, while to the left sat some of the more important citizens of the city; the murmuring men were dressed in expensive black suits, while their women sported shimmery dresses, vampiric makeup and baubles wrought from gold and diamonds.

  "The choir," Babalu whispered, nudging them. "There's some room off to the side."

  So they made a final push and wedged themselves between the ziggurat of boys and the rest of the crowd.

  Arthur took a moment to look around and assess any possible opponents, then decided that with the exception of the chain-smoking gentility seated up front, the people looked pretty harmless; these noisily chattering folks, he gathered, were probably from the country: tall, prune-faced men and squat, bandana-headed women with pendulous breasts, immense hips and strangely bow-legged calves.