Malice

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “BEHOLD THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE…AS FORETOLD IN THE BIBLE!”

  Karp whirled at the thundering of the voice behind him. A wild-eyed denizen of the streets stood there in a filthy yet colorful coat that appeared to have been sewn from the remains of many other articles of clothing. Beneath it, he could see a stained and faded T-shirt on which were stenciled the words Jerry Garcia Lives!

  With his wild mane of wiry gray hair and a flowing salt-and-pepper beard, the man had always reminded Karp of some prophet newly arrived from the desert. “Well, Edward Treacher, imagine meeting you here,” he said.

  Treacher, a former philosophy professor of some note at New York University during the 1960s until a dose too many of LSD had addled his brain, was one of the regular street people who Karp often saw hanging around the Criminal Courts Building. He sometimes frightened the tourists with his vociferous biblical warnings, but he was harmless and from time to time, as one of Grale’s Mole People, passed “street information” to Karp.

  “Free country, the last time I looked, Mr. Karp,” Treacher replied. “Though seemingly less free with each passing day, thanks in part to this.” The old bum looked at the WTC site and then glanced around as if someone might hear.

  “The government, of course, knew about the attack before it happened,” Treacher said under his breath, which smelled of cheap wine, marijuana, and poor dental hygiene.

  Karp raised his eyebrows. Every New Yorker had, of course, heard the conspiracy theories that concluded that the U.S. government was in some way involved in the September 11, 2001, attack. The theories ranged from criticism that the intelligence community and the military should have known the attack was coming and that the 9/11 Commission was merely a cover-up for their incompetence, to allegations that rogue elements within the government either allowed the attacks to happen or executed them in order to pursue already determined foreign and domestic policies. One theory even had government agents planting bombs in the building to bring them down and then blame Osama bin Laden.

  Although willing to concede the point of incompetence ascribed to an assortment of government intelligence agencies, Karp was one of those observers who was persuaded by evidence, not paranoia. “I didn’t realize you were a conspiracy buff, Edward,” he said.

  “Believe what you will, Mr. Karp,” Treacher replied. “But Satan prefers to corrupt from within before attacking from without.”

  Karp was about to reply, but Treacher had already spotted a likely gathering of tourists across the street and was hurrying toward them. “AND BEHOLD, A PALE HORSE. AND THE NAME OF HIM WHO SAT ON IT WAS DEATH…” he bellowed with his hand outstretched, hoping for a one-or two-dollar bribe that would send him away to the next unfortunate group.

  Watching him go, Karp considered how the conspiracy theorists must be looking at Ariadne Stupenagel’s stories about a possible connection between a Russian agent and the attack at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The Russian government’s denials and the U.S. government’s refusal to comment were sure to spark the conspiracy hotline.

  Although officially, the police were treating the attack on Stupenagel and Murrow as a run-of-the-mill intruder assault, the reporter wasn’t buying it. And for that matter, neither was Karp. She’s onto something that’s making someone nervous, he thought. He recalled a conversation before the attack that he’d had with his cousin Ivgeny Karchovski, a Brooklyn gangster with the Russian mob who was convinced that certain clandestine Russian and possibly U.S. interests were in collusion to, if not promote, then at least allow certain acts of terrorism to further their own goals under the guise of fighting the so-called War on Terrorism.

  Karchovski’s views had surprisingly meshed just a week earlier when Karp attended a meeting of the New York Bar Association to hear Senator Tom McCullum speak. The Montana senator was pushing for public support of his calls for a congressional hearing regarding the attack at St. Patrick’s. However, the thrust of his talk that night had been to warn about government incursions into the private lives of citizens, using the fear of terrorism to thwart opposition.

  “I understand that intelligence gathering in war is fundamental to winning that war,” McCullum had said. “But I worry over the growing and seeming unilateral power under the Patriot Act of secret spy agencies and the placement of formerly independent departments under the single umbrella of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Where is the oversight when the administration cites ‘national security’ and keeps the other branches of government, as well as the public, in the dark? Who is watching the watchers? Who says that they are only inspecting the financial records of suspected terrorists? Who makes them follow due process before they subpoena the records of bookstores to find out what citizens are reading? And at what point will the government decide it would rather not have us read certain books?”

  McCullum had urged those present “not to compound the tragedy of 9/11 with the loss of our fundamental liberties without a clear and present need to do so.”

  Not everything McCullum had said was popular with the association. At the cocktail party afterward, Karp had heard plenty of disparaging remarks about “bleeding-heart liberals who endanger us all.”

  To a degree, Karp agreed with the critics of those on the left who thought they could appease terrorists by talking to them. It reminded him of the pre–World War Two 1930s and Neville Chamberlain’s attempts to appease Hitler. However, like McCullum, he was also concerned that the government seemed to use the specter of terrorism to justify tampering with civil liberties.

  It was a difficult thought to deal with in front of the gaping hole across Vesey Street, and the sudden chiming of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on his cell phone startled Karp. He pulled it from his pocket with a scowl. He hated the thing and only carried it to make Marlene happy. He looked at the number flashing on the panel but didn’t recognize it or the area code: 208.

  “Probably a wrong number,” he muttered, but answered. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Karp?” a male voice asked.

  “Yeah, who wants to know?”

  “Excuse the interruption, but your wife, Marlene, gave me your number.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Mikey O’Toole. Fred’s brother.”

  “Mikey O’Toole, what a pleasure!” Karp exclaimed. He and Fred O’Toole had been roommates at Berkeley, where they’d both attended on basketball scholarships. “This is an unexpected surprise, what’s up?”

  He heard O’Toole take a deep breath before answering. “Well, I’m in a little trouble out here in Idaho, and I was hoping I might ask you for a bit of advice.”

  Karp’s stomach knotted up. Many years earlier, Mikey’s brother had called with a similar request and that had ended badly. But there was a debt that remained, so he asked, “What can I do for you?”

  5

  WHEN LUCY AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING SHE THOUGHT FOR a moment that she’d slept her way into a Frederic Remington painting. A barrel-chested Indian stood quietly with his face pointed toward the rising sun and the gray-blue mist of the still slumbering west beyond him. A red Navajo blanket was draped around Jojola’s heavily muscled shoulders, allowing his long, dark, gray-streaked hair to flutter in the morning breeze.

  In the moments of sobriety when the peyote temporarily released its grip on her mind between hallucinations, she’d been sure that she was going to wake up with a hell of a hangover. But while her body felt drained, as if she’d run a great distance, her mind was crystal clear, sharp as a tack, a steel trap. All the clichés seem apropos, she thought.

  However, her dreams had been troubled. She couldn’t remember them all and something told her that those she couldn’t were not important. The main one remained clear, a dream about crossing the desert by the light of a full moon with John Jojola as her guide. Only he was as he might have been four hundred years earlier, dressed in leggings beneath the traditional black skirt worn by Pueblo Indian men and carrying a bow and arrows. His face was painted dark on one
side and light on the other, and he said little during the dream, leading mostly by pointing or going on ahead.

  On the dream journey she’d come across St. Teresa, a fifteenth-century Spanish martyr who had been her sort of “invisible friend” since childhood, showing up in times of stress or danger with a warning or sometimes as a somewhat sarcastic witness. The saint had been standing behind a rock outcropping and might have gone unnoticed by Lucy if Jojola hadn’t turned his head in that direction and stopped.

  In the moonlight, the saint’s face looked like porcelain, except there were tears running down her cheeks. Oddly, Lucy could see that there was a red feather in her dark hair.

  Me aflijo para usted y su niño, the saint said in her native Spanish.

  Why do you grieve for me and my child? Lucy asked. I don’t have a child.

  The saint reached for Lucy, but Jojola pulled her away. We shouldn’t linger with sad spirits, they want company and can sap your will to go on, he said.

  Later, as Lucy and Jojola were crossing a shallow oily stream, there was a disturbance in a pool and then an apparition rose slowly. It was Andrew Kane, though he was hardly recognizable; half of his face was eaten away, and seaweed was twined throughout what remained of his blond hair. A crab skittered out of his mouth and dropped back into the water. But she recognized his eyes—the cold, malice-filled blue eyes.

  However, he spoke with the voice of a young boy that she recognized as Andy, one of the personalities of the schizophrenic Kane. Andy had briefly taken over from the murderous Andrew Kane during the St. Patrick’s hostage crisis and revealed his alter ego’s plans to Lucy that had eventually led to his downfall. He will reveal himself when the assassin strikes, Andy cried out. He bears the mark that stands wherever you throw it.

  Shut up, you weakling! the sociopath Andrew Kane snarled as he took over from his weaker personality. Baring sharklike teeth, he took two steps toward Lucy but was brought up short as first one, then another of the arrows shot from Jojola’s bow plunged into his chest. He clutched at their shafts and howled, then fell back into the roiling water and disappeared beneath the surface.

  As frightening as that was, the next image was more disturbing. She and Jojola were approaching a path leading up a butte when their way was blocked by a swirling cloud of dark smoke. Flames could be seen inside the clouds and a menacing dark figure moved toward her. She wanted to turn around, but Jojola took her by the hand and led her into the cloud. You cannot run from the dark warrior, he said. You must face him or he will defeat you in the waking world.

  Fear filled her as she felt a searing heat growing all around her. Then she lost contact with Jojola and fell to her hands and knees. Choking on the smoke, she was struggling to rise when a hand grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. Looking up, she saw that it was S. P. Jaxon, an FBI agent and friend of the family. She felt relieved as she’d known “Uncle Espey” many years as a colleague of her father.

  Then she saw his eyes. They were angry and she believed that he was the dark warrior Jojola had warned her about. The book, Lucy, he demanded. Where is the book? His fingers dug into her arm like hot nails.

  Lucy looked behind her and saw in the swirling black smoke an old book lying on a rock. There was a curious emblem in gold on the front, but as she reached for it, the book was consumed by flames while a terrified voice screamed in agony somewhere back in the smoke.

  Lucy turned and ran past Jaxon, who reached out to stop her but missed. She stumbled blindly, falling again and banging her knee hard on a rock. Then two hands grabbed her shoulders from behind.

  Don’t hurt me, Espey! she cried out. Please, don’t hurt me!

  The hands turned her, but instead of Jaxon’s eyes, she found herself looking into the calm brown eyes of Jojola. It’s okay, Lucy, he said. The danger has passed for now.

  Lucy looked around and realized that the smoke was gone, as was the unbearable heat. She was standing in the bright white light of a full moon that had risen above the New Mexican desert. A shadow passed across the moon. Looking up, she saw a snow-white owl drifting over her; its golden eyes met her own before it wheeled away.

  “How do you feel?” In the clear dawn, Jojola’s voice brought Lucy back to the present…the sober present. She looked at him again and saw that he was smiling at her, the morning sun defining the eagle’s beak curve of his nose and casting shadows in the rugged contours of his face. She returned the smile and stood up to stretch, gritting her teeth at the sudden pain in her knee. Looking down, she saw that her pants were torn and the knee bloody from a fall.

  But I was asleep, she thought. She looked around and her confusion grew. She didn’t recognize the campsite. Yes, there was a bed of soft cedar boughs, but otherwise nothing was the same.

  “Weren’t we over there?” Lucy said, pointing to a butte in the distance.

  “Very good,” Jojola said. “It’s important to remember landmarks when traveling on foot in the desert. To the untrained eye, the desert all looks the same, and distances can be tricky. Some things appear to be close and yet you can walk toward them all day and never reach your destination; others seem to be far away, but the next time you look up, they are right in front of you.”

  Lucy’s jaw dropped. “But how? I don’t remember you bringing me here last night. I must have really been tired. How’d you carry me so far?”

  Jojola gave her an amused look. “An old Indian man carry a big strappin’ white girl like you across the desert? No way. We walked here yesterday—actually, you slept all day and we walked all night. It’s only about five miles, but you stopped a lot to talk to rocks and bushes and animals.”

  Lucy’s brow knitted in disbelief. “We walked here? I mean, I dreamed we were walking in the moonlight, but it didn’t seem real.”

  Jojola shrugged. “What is real? You were still under the influence of peyote, if that’s what you mean. Lots of first-timers think that the journey is over after the first period of hallucinating. Occasionally, there are moments of sobriety, or in your case, you slept until I woke you to continue your journey. But sometimes it is so subtle when it decides to take hold again that you don’t even know that you’ve stepped back into the otherworld. What do you remember from your dream that was more than a dream?”

  Lucy recounted what she could remember. When she was finished, Jojola nodded. “Yes, there are good and bad spirits that take the form of people in the otherworld, just as there are good and bad spirits that inhabit human beings in this world, too. But that is the natural order of things—the balance of dark and light.”

  “Like the way you had your face painted,” Lucy noted. “Black on one side, white on the other.”

  “I did not paint my face,” Jojola responded. “However, under the influence of peyote you were able to perceive that within all men there is the potential for both good and evil.”

  Lucy nodded. They’d had the conversation before about the duality of the universe. Yin and yang. Right and wrong. Her father and Andrew Kane. One dependent on the other to provide context and meaning.

  Tears came to Lucy’s eyes as she recalled the angry look on Jaxon’s face. “How will I ever face him without seeing that or hearing those screams when he reached for me?” she asked after describing the vision.

  Jojola’s face clouded for a moment. “I did not see what you saw,” he said. “I heard you cry out.” He was quiet for a moment, a frown on his face. “It is important to remember that some of what peyote chooses to show you can be taken literally, but more often it can’t. Or, what seems to mean one thing in a vision quest may not mean that on this side of the otherworld. Even someone who seems to be doing evil may just be acting out a role that in the end accomplishes great good. And it can be unwise, even dangerous, to jump to conclusions.”

  “What about the owl?” Lucy said. “Aren’t owls harbingers of death? Like the vision I had of being buried alive.”

  Jojola nodded. “Sometimes. But whose death is not always known, nor do t
hey necessarily represent one’s own doom. Remember, too, they also are the animal that can see in the dark, which means that they represent the ability to see what might not be revealed or clear to others. And if the owl is your totem, it has been since you were born, yet here you are more than twenty years later, a healthy, beautiful young woman.”

  “Yes, but the death of others has often been a major part of my life,” Lucy pointed out. “Maybe I’m like the owl. Maybe I’m a harbinger of death.” The lingering tears now fell from her eyes.

  Jojola walked over and wrapped her in the Navajo blanket. “Lucy, listen to me,” he said. “If you’re going to mix your own spirituality with American Indian beliefs, then you should know that we believe that this life, and our deaths, are preordained. We are born into a life that has been laid out before us like the path leading up this butte, and we die when the path alters course and leads us into the next world.”

  “We’re all just actors, right?” Lucy said. “The thought is not encouraging.”

  “Yes, Shakespeare knew that universal truth when he wrote it,” Jojola said. “But that doesn’t mean we just sit back and let fate come to us. A warrior goes out to meet his, or her, fate.”

  Lucy was quiet for a time, letting the sun warm the blanket around her shoulders and the light, cool breeze refresh her. “So am I done with the peyote?” she asked at last.

  “I think for the most part, peyote is done with you,” Jojola responded. “However, you may notice the presence of the spirit for several days in small ways. Sudden clarity of mind. A subtle difference in how you perceive colors or sounds. But we will hurry the process now by sweating it out of you.”

  Lucy clapped her hands. “You built a sweat lodge?” she cried happily.

  Jojola pointed to a hunched-over piñon tree, the drooping branches of which formed a natural cave. He’d covered the branches with blankets and had a small fire going near the entrance. “It’s a wickiup, more like my brothers to the north, the Utes, used instead of teepees or adobe buildings. I prefer the kivas of my people because they offer a place to sit while we sweat, but this will do.”