by Farris, John
But we made it, Pinky here on very wobbly legs, and the next morning at breakfast by the heated pool at the hotel you would never guess in a thousand years who was at the table next to ours. NEIL DIAMOND!!! I was like seventeen all over again, totally tongue-tied, but you know Frank, five minutes and they had a conversation going. Neil could not have been sweeter about it. Then, in Ravello the next day, I swear it was Tom Cruise we saw on a red Vespa with this ravishing dark-haired girl, right there on the square. The Passionist Father we were having coffee with, who is my aunt Claudia's second cousin if I have that straight, said a lot of young Italian men resemble T.C. Anyway I took a couple of pictures on the sly and you can judge for yourself when I get back if I was right.
Even though I hated the idea of going one inch closer to that volcano, Frank the National Geo freak insisted and so we toured Herculaneum, one of two Roman towns buried in an eruption twenty centuries ago. Herculaneum was a spa for rich Romans. I had no idea how well those people lived! They even went to the bathroom indoors.
Well, if the vacationing Romans of yore ate half as well as we did for two days, they all must have been happy campers. I can't begin to describe the taste treats! Oyster-stuffed red potatoes. Steamed lobster in a gelatin of tomato and basil, cannaroni with little shrimp in a fennel-and-almond sauce—let me get to the desserts, and trust me my mouth is watering as I type this. Too bad the wild strawberry gelato won't travel, I'd bring home a gallon. And just try to imagine the torta la Zagara, the house speciality at this wonderful garden restaurant in Positano: chocolate cake, stuffed with candied tangerine!!!! Yes I'm afraid I pigged out.
But we're back in Rome now, at our cozy hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps. And I'm stuffy and wheezing. The bad news is the Holy Father has had to postpone our meeting for three days, an abscess in his ear, according to Msgr. Ramone at the Office of the Prefecture of the Apostolic Household. I don't want to sound like we're too disappointed by the postponement. After all, we're in Rome. The Eternal City!!! We have a walking tour of Bernini's fountains scheduled for this afternoon with that lovely couple from the archdiocese of St. Louis I think I mentioned before. I only hope my feet hold out.
Frank says hey, and God bless and keep you all, with special blessings for baby Jordana!!
Chapter 11
"SHUNGWAYA"
LAKE NAIVASHA, KENYA
OCTOBER 14
1545 HOURS ZULU
"Bad complexion? My eyes are too close together? What did you tell him that for?" Eden closed her eyes wearily, trying to relax in a tepid bath in her bungalow adjacent to the main house.
"Because I knew it would annoy you," she said to her doppelganger. "Because it wasn't smart to show yourself to Lincoln Grayle this afternoon; what were you trying to prove?"
"I'm not annoyed. My feelings are hurt. If I have to remind you again that I have feelings. I'm your mirror image. We are exactly alike."
"No, we're not. At least I have a sense of humor. For the last four months whenever we… get together, all you do is moan and complain."
"I'm bored. I haven't been out for more than a week."
"That's another thing. When you are... out, you don't have to dress like I do. I told you; dare to be a lit-tie different."
"I can be different! Just name me, and release me. I promise, faithfully swear, I will never desert you."
"Nothing doing."
"Then I don't have a choice. I have your taste in clothes, your taste in jewelry, your interest in Lincoln Grayle."
"Excuse me?"
"I wasn't trying to 'prove' anything. I did what you asked me to do at the university library." Her research in the library had whetted an old appetite. She wanted to read more. Read for herself, season her mind with the life experiences of others, learning apart from what Eden already knew. But there never was enough time. She came and went too quickly, subservient in a monocracy. "After that, because you weren't in a rush to recall me, I went for a walk?' Gwen sighed, reliving the blood-perk of blissful freedom. "After all, it was my first time in Nairobi. And I just happened to walk by the Stanley. And there he was. I can see why you're nuts about him."
"Whatttt? I don't intend ever to see him again, which I made perfectly—"
"Oh, bull. I know what you know; I feel what you—by the way, if you're having your period, you probably shouldn't be taking a bath."
"Why, are you bleeding?"
"No, of course not."
"Not exactly alike then, are we?" Eden said, with the merest hint of malice. She was tired, and her glands were subtly out of phase.
"Okay, one important difference. I can't reproduce the species, so what's the point of going through that every month. Anyway, you can hide me, but you can't hide anything from me. You know you put a little extra something into that good-bye kiss at the airport."
"Temporary girlish weakness."
"Can't you just admit you've been lonely, and you were thinking about how nice it would be to curl up in bed with—"
Eden pitched a soapy bath sponge at her doppelganger, who had already stepped out of the way. She said with an impudent grin, "Why bother? I knew it was coming."
Eden sighed and sank deeper into the old zinc tub.
"Okay, I like him, but it's impossible. Let's get off the subject of Lincoln Grayle. Can I have my sponge back?"
The dpg retrieved Eden's sponge for her. "Can't refuse any request. It's in the doppelganger's job description." She quickly held up a hand. "But you don't want to blow the five o'clock whistle yet."
"I'm not. Stay a while. And tell me if you found out anything today."
"Marble staircases, possibly of religious importance. There are a lot of those, particularly in Rome. Do you want me to download all of my research while you're soaking? Based on your sketch, I did about three hours on the Internet and in the stacks at the library."
"Keep it short; I don't need a lot of travelogue stuff cluttering up my brain."
"I counted twenty-eight steps in your sketch. I assume you were certain about that number, because you took pains to make it exact."
"I tried to draw exactly what I dreamed. Maybe the number is important."
"Helpful. I came up with La Scala Santa, the only staircase in Rome designated as 'holy.' It's located across from the basilica of St. John Lateran in an unimpressive little building filled with Christian relics and a couple of sculptures, one of which is the Ecce Homo—'Christ presented to the rabble by Pontius Pilate.' That's significant."
"Why?"
"According to legend, that same staircase led to Pilate's office in the Governor's palace in Jerusalem. Fourth century A.D., it was taken apart and shipped to Rome by order of Helena, Emperor Constantine's mother. She was a convert to Christianity and took a trip to Judea to locate objects Christ might have touched. More than three hundred years had passed, but she found what she thought was the 'True Cross'; it also occurred to her that Christ probably walked up Pilate's staircase for his arraignment, Pilate being in Jesus' time the provincial governor of Judea."
"Then Christ walked back down those steps on his way to Golgotha."
"So… through tradition the steps became objects of veneration to the popes of Rome. In the sixteenth century the staircase was moved to where it stands today, a ceremonial approach to the papal chapel on the second floor of the building, the sanctum sanctorum. Holy of holies. It's one of the major attractions for pilgrims to Rome, who follow the example of generations of popes by ascending the steps on their knees, stopping to meditate or pray. In the photos I saw the building looks kind of dark inside, so you had that part right. But the steps are covered in wood."
"Easier on the kneecaps of the devout. Doesn't change anything. Underneath the staircase is still marble. And I saw it desecrated. Dripping blood."
"Whose blood?"
"Well—it must be—the Vicar of Christ. Pope John the Twenty-fourth. He's going to be murdered, like that evangelist in Tennessee."
"Unless you're reading way
too much into some bloody paw prints."
"I'm not! But that's just what Bertie would say. She may be hard to convince. And Tom."
Eden stood up in the tub. Her doppelganger handed her a towel, glanced at the inside of a tanned thigh where blood mixed with bathwater ran thinly. Eden looked down and grimaced.
"You never have an easy one, do you?" the dpg said sympathetically.
"No, and I'm getting another cramp. I'm gonna lie down for a while."
"When are you going to introduce me to Bertie and Tom?" the dpg asked. "After all, it's been four months. I feel like a poor relation."
Eden paused in toweling off and looked at her. "Well—I don't think they're quite ready for you yet."
"Ready as they'll ever be," the dpg said with a pout.
"But you're still the boss."
Chapter 12
COLDSTREAM BRIDGE, CALIFORNIA
OCTOBER 13-14
2:45 A.M.-6:15 P.M. PDT
The Assassin left shortly before three A.M. with the ten-year-old girl named Saffron Pike still unconscious but breathing normally in the back of his dusty blue pickup truck, under the locked tonneau bedcover.
Betts had made sure that little Saffron was okay before allowing the Assassin to leave with her. Pulse was a few beats fast, but her pupils were equal and reactive to the beam of light from a pencil flashlight. Unfortunately she had urinated, reverting, perhaps in deep slumber, to an old bed-wetting habit. Betts insisted on removing the soiled clothing, washing and drying panties and shorts while the Assassin waited in the cottage, engrossed in an old Judy Garland movie, only occasionally complaining that he had a couple of hours' drive ahead. But he commended Betts for her motherly instincts.
"No surprise Eden turned out so well" he said.
Betts didn't want to talk about Eden. "Your makeup looks a little saggy," she told him.
While he freshened the face of Rance Jool, Betts hung around the garage demanding to know exactly where he planned to drop the girl off.
"Not on her doorstep, if that's what you mean. There's a KOA campground about ten miles from Hum—from the down-at-the-heels town I plucked her out of. I'll leave Saffie there, only a few yards from all the ma-and-pa retirement RVs, just as the birds are beginning to twitter. By then she should be waking up herself."
"In time to make the seven o'clock news?"
"Well—we must allow a little more time than that. Noon, for sure."
"When I see that sweet face on TV, when I hear that she's all right—"
"You will f'fihl y'r end a' the bargain," the Assassin said, inserting fresh pads of silicone into his mouth, enhancing Jool's chipmunky, half-bright, good-ol'-boy expression. He turned away from his triptych of mirrors in the garage dressing room. "And deliver our message to Eden. Or else—" He leaned a hip against the truck and spoke Cowboy. "Reckon the next tasty pullet I bring you'll have its feathers off and its neck already wrung."
Betts responded with a nod, dumb in the face of his sulky antagonism, just one layer (and that close to the surface) of his impenetrable lunacy. She was thinking only of the safety of Saffron Pike. Later she would work out a method of killing the Assassin before Eden ever crossed his path again.
No sleep the rest of the night.
At seven she was eagerly scanning the television news on San Francisco and Sacramento channels, but there was nothing yet. She kept the radio in the kitchen tuned to an AM all-news station in Frisco. Maybe both she and the Assassin had made a mistake, assuming that a ten-year-old girl who turned up fuzzy-minded but physically unharmed after having been missing for less than twenty-four hours would be breaking-news material. But the Assassin had assured Betts, without elaboration, that Saffron Pike would indeed be news.
But by the noon hour she wasn't; and the Assassin hadn't returned.
When he showed up at two-thirty he was driving a Volkswagen Jetta with Nevada license plates, and he wasn't in a good mood. He had exchanged the rancher's straw for an Oakland A's baseball cap and was wearing a red NASCAR windbreaker. Sunglasses hid a third of his face. He sat down immediately in his dressing room and began to remove all traces of Rance Jool, peeling latex. No up-tempo ballroom music accompanied this stripping and discarding process down to the deadpan of his grim past.
"Where's your truck?" Betts asked.
"It wasn't mine in the first place."
"How about this one?" she said with a wave of her hand at the orange Jetta.
"What do you think?"
"Are you hot?"
"I'm never hot. Rance Jool assuredly is. But in ten minutes he will no longer exist."
"Is Saffron with the police?"
"I would assume as much. Or with her devoted parents. He happens to be one of the state legislature's prime movers and shakers. They will be making public the note I pinned to Saffron's clothing when I dropped her off 'midst the redwoods. The vid journalists are beginning to swarm. We'll watch the show on one of the Sacramento channels at six. Now don't bother me. I'm dead for sleep. Wake me at five-thirty. At which time a few of those little lamb chops broiled medium-well with some of the delectable porcini mushrooms and of course a chilled, mint-scented bell pepper salad would be most welcome. That is, if you're not still sulking and refusing to prepare either of us a memorable meal. No? Splendid. Use the good china."
Saffron Pike led off the local evening news in Sacramento. She was seen, briefly, getting into a sedan with her mom, responding with a bemused smile to the usual frenzied show put on by the media types hustling to get their tidbits, shouting questions at her. But Daddy did all the talking for the family. He looked like a man on his way up: magnetic eyes and he knew which side of his regal face the camera liked best.
"Of course we're outraged that this group calling itself 'Geo Puritas' would resort to the kidnapping of a child in an attempt to intimidate and coerce not only myself but other members of the California legislature. I can assure you that in spite of the psychological damage visited upon our daughter in the past twenty-four hours, my vote will not be changed and the Stony Fork dam will be built to the ultimate benefit of the citizens of our great state."
"'Geo Puritas'?" Betts said to the Assassin. The face of Rance Jool, a decent likeness as drawn by a police artist from Saffie Pike's description of him, was now on the TV screen.
The Assassin yawned, dancing a carpet slipper at the end of a pale bony foot. "Best I could come up with on short notice." He looked at Betts. The TV news scene shifted to a particularly nasty-looking accident on Interstate 80. With the remote he turned the set off. And there he was, fixed like a vampire from a bad movie in the depths of the blank tube, juxtaposed with Betts's desperate, petrified face above the confining neck brace.
"Shall I get out my laptop now, Betts? Or do you need a few moments more? Call on God, if you like. What is the old Army saying, 'There are no atheists in foxholes'? You are in a foxhole, honey chile. I'm the fox. But you know that. And you know that I am resolute. God is nowhere to be found, as usual. My will be done. There is no way out."
"Yes, I know," Betts said. "Just shut the fuck up."
Chapter 13
"SHUNGWAYA"
LAKE NAIVASHA, KENYA
OCTOBER 14-15
1640-0745 HOURS ZULU
After an evening meal of grilled tilapia fillets from the lake, Makate Mayai, which were Kenyan crepes stuffed with fried eggs and chopped meat, and fresh mango, Etan Culver said over coffee that he had something interesting to show them.
Pegeen Culver, irritable from prickly heat and bitchy to her husband, excused herself, to everyone's silent relief. They moved from the candlelit veranda to the spacious parlor of the house. The furnishings were largely leftovers from the days of Tom Sherard's grandfather Albert, an early settler in the Naivasha bottomland and safari guide to royalty, as well as a one-eyed U.S. President with more zeal than skill as a marksman. There was a faint but everlasting musk of cigars in the parlor. Tom's mother Deborah had contributed feminine touches during her u
nfortunately brief marriage: batik drapes and slipcovers, graceful Moroccan vases, two paintings by the French Impressionists Jean Beraud and Jean-Louis Forain. And an eighteenth-century French backgammon table. Deborah had been passionate about the game, and spent many hours during her husband's absences subsidizing her acquisitions of fine art with winnings from houseguests who lacked her touch with the dice.
The most recent addition was a digital projection TV with a sixty-inch screen. There were two large satellite dishes in the vegetable garden; all of it was surrounded by electrified fencing to discourage the herbivore night feeders, particularly hippopotamuses.
While Etan connected his digital camcorder to an i.LINK port in a Sony VAIO Notebook, which would enable them to see footage stored in his camera he had shot in Amboseli that morning, Eden wandered around the parlor with its cabinets full of museum-quality artifacts from prehistoric Kenya, the brute heads and curlicue horns mounted along walls paneled in termite-resistant mopane wood, and an arsenal of well-used weapons, some quite rare and all carefully maintained, from the days of legendary safaris.
There also were oil paintings: a male lion ready to charge, his tail standing straight up from his body; portraits of Albert Sherard wearing a squared-off red beard, with the naturalist and hunter Frederick Selous and two brawny lion dogs. A spacious landscape of an area Eden was familiar with, the unstable mirage-filled geography of plains and hills, evanescent in the barely tolerable scorch of noonday light. Horned animals by the thousands in a cratered place, shimmering miraculously into being from the ground up.