Hennes said, “But Ellery is not Guy’s father. Piranha is.”
“Pir—?” Doreen’s jaw dropped mid-word, and then in a burst of rage she sprang at Hennes and started pummeling him with closed fists, screaming, “I hate you! I hate all of you!”
Ducking her blows and fighting her off with one hand, he crossed into the oncoming lane. A red minivan laid on its horn and swerved onto the shoulder, just missing us.
“Doreen!” I yelled, catapulting forward and catching her flailing fists. “Calm down!” It took all my might to yank her back into her seat and pin her arms to her chest. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Calm down.”
“I’m sorry,” Hennes said, shaken from the near miss. “I really am.”
“No, you’re not,” she spat. “You people don’t know sorry! Mess with this, mess with that. Mess with the big people, mess with the little people. Just leave us alone!”
“Doreen, Doreen,” I said, holding her tight and rocking her in my arms. “Shh, it’s okay.” Slowly her rage melted into weary sobbing, and she went limp in my arms. When I loosened my hold she got onto her knees and threw her arms around me, pressing her moist cheek against mine.
“Don’t listen to him, Guy,” she pleaded. “He’s lying.”
“No, he isn’t. It’s true.”
“But how could it be?”
“Later. I’ll explain it to you later. It doesn’t matter now.”
Doreen sighed in frustration, twisted back around, and slumped into her seat. She gazed sullenly out her side window and watched the desert pass by, still cradling my left arm to her chest like a Teddy Bear. A long, uncomfortable silence followed, punctuated by the irritating chime of her unfastened seat belt. Finally, Doreen loosened her grip on my arm and I gently withdrew it and collapsed back into my seat. Doreen rebuckled her seat belt, ridding us of the annoying chime, and then reached for Hennes, who flinched. But she laid a soft hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry I freaked on you, Hennes. It’s just—”
“No, no,” he said. “It should be my apology.”
“But did I…hurt anybody? With what I might have said or given to Jim, I mean?”
“You didn’t know,” he said. “It’s my fault. I was…late.”
“So I did,” she mumbled, her head hung low. I thought she was about to start crying again, but she didn’t. “I feel so…” She wiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “If you had told me, I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have even seen him. I swear.”
“We know,” I said. “But that’s just it. If you had refused to see him again, he’d have known something was up. Getting Mongoose was more important than what you might have given away. Right, Hennes?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“And you got him?” she asked.
Hennes nodded. “Yes.”
“Is he…dead?”
“He—”
“Hennes,” I cut in. “That’s okay. No need…you know?”
“Oh, right,” Hennes said. “Sorry. Interrogation. There was interrogation.”
“Oh God, it’s like a dream, an awful drea—my dream! Guy, the dream I told you about. Do you think…?”
“No, Doreen. That’s all it was. Just a dream.”
“But it seemed so real. And now… Oh God, if I hurt them Guy I don’t know how I’ll ever live with myself.” She buried her face in her hands and the crying was unmistakable.
I leaned forward and gave her my arm back, which she took and wrapped tightly around her. I’d seen Doreen cry a thousand times, mostly over stupid things—guys, school, sappy movies—but no matter how insipid I thought the reason, it always got to me and made me want to comfort her. Not just Doreen, all my family. It killed me to see any of them cry. They all possessed lacrimal glands like overripe papayas, juicy and swollen. The fact that I almost never cried and had tear glands like croutons should have tipped me off long ago that I wasn’t one of them.
Pulling Toes
We drove on. Hennes looked over at Doreen every few minutes to see whether she had stopped crying. When it looked as if she had pulled herself together he began to make small talk, mostly about the landscape. He said he was amazed by the vast emptiness of the countryside—the cloudless, infinite sky above and a desert that stretched as far as his eyes could see. “It makes me dizzy,” he said. “Where I’m from the sky hangs low and gray most of the year. We have lovely countryside, but it looks nothing like this!” He pointed to the mirage made by the blazing sun on the road ahead, as excited as a child at a magic show.
“So what do you want to see, Hennes?” I asked. “We have to make a decision shortly.”
“Of course, I wish most of all to see your Grand Canyon, but I realize that is too far for a day trip. So, I was thinking…” He pulled a map out from on top of the sun visor and pressed it against the steering wheel. One eye on the road and the other on the map, he located his destination, and pressing his thumb on the area, handed the map back to me. “I was thinking of driving in this area and then heading over to that old mining town, Jerome. I read it’s built on the side of a mountain and that it became a ghost town, but that now it is a kind of art colony or something. It sounds interesting. And that area where my thumb was, I read it’s a pretty drive with a nice lookout point. You know better than me, however. I leave it to you.”
“Believe it or not,” I said, “I’ve never seen Jerome. I’ve always wanted to. Doreen…?”
“Sure. Maureen and I stayed at a little bed and breakfast there once, but that was years ago. It’s nice.”
“Okay, then,” Hennes said enthusiastically. “We’ll go to the lookout point and then to Jerome. We can have lunch there too. What’s my turn off, Mr. Navigator?”
“Umm…turn at Highway 260. It should be coming up soon.”
Ten minutes later we turned and headed up a gently rising, two-lane highway. The traffic was sparse and we had the road mostly to ourselves. Signs of civilization were many miles away, a sight Hennes found very pleasing. “America,” he said dreamily, almost like a patriot. He cast a look back at me. “Does such rugged emptiness cover much of your Arizona?”
“Yep.”
“In Europe it’s nearly impossible to drive so long without seeing cars or people or a town. This is amazing.”
“Thanks,” I said, as if I had something to do with it.
Sensing that Doreen had calmed considerably, Hennes broadened his conversation. “Your new friends, I imagine they are even more remarkable than I remember them to have been.”
“Yes, quite remarkable,” Doreen said.
“I often wonder what they will do after Ellery retires. Did they ever mention anything to either of you about that?”
“No,” Doreen answered. “Their reply to any work-related question was always that it was better that we don’t know.”
“Yes, well, that makes sense. I understand they are a very idealistic bunch.”
“That was my impression,” Doreen said.
“And the other two, Max and Aidos, that’s their names, right? Are they on the same page, so to speak? I assume that if they associate with the others they must share many of the same ideals.”
I said, “They impressed me as completely apolitical, if that is what you are asking.”
Hennes said, “They must believe in something, right?”
“The infinitude of the private soul,” I answered. “…And miracles.”
“The what?” Hennes said. “Miracles?” He glanced at me in his rear view mirror and saw my grinning face. “Oh, you are pulling my toes,” he said, and laughed.
“Just your little one. The miracle of daily life,” I clarified. “Aidos thinks that being alive is a pretty special state of affairs, and one that goes mostly unappreciated. She thinks that if we weren’t half-asleep most of the time we’d see it for the miracle it really is.”
“Oh youth!” Hennes said with a chuckle. “Well, I must say that’s certainly a pleasant and cheery outlook, but a little h
ard to put into action, wouldn’t you say?”
“For most people, sure,” I replied. “But not for Aidos. And if you were to ever meet her or talk to her you would know what I mean.” I almost added, or let her hold your hand.
“Does Max have the same effect on people?” Hennes asked.
“Yes,” Doreen said.
Hennes eyed her quizzically, as if trying to decipher a hidden meaning in the confident, but mournful tone in which she had spoken the word. Her head sagged, and I wondered whether the memory of Max was going to spark another round of tears. Instead, she looked distantly out the window. I saw that her eyes were dry and that a faint smile passed across her lips.
“I see,” Hennes said. “And how, I wonder, do they intend to spread the word of their…vision?”
Doreen said, “I don’t think they have any such intention.”
“I thought that this Max was some kind of a leader.”
“Oh, he has every quality of a leader,” Doreen said, “but a more reluctant leader I doubt you’d find.”
“Hmm. Guy already knows of my interest in the subject, but out of curiosity, did you ever witness anything…strange about either of them?”
“Strange?”
“Out of the ordinary. Odd. Not quite normal. Paranormal, even?”
Doreen chuckled. “Put it this way, Hennes, next to them Uri Geller is pulling rabbits out of a hat on a Carnival Cruise ship.”
Hennes frowned, dug a finger in his ear and gave his head a shake. “I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow your meaning.”
I said, “What Doreen means is that compared to them, Nostradamus was as near-sighted as a one-eyed rhino. Dr. Doolittle stuttered. Merlin was a Venice Beach street performer. And Pan had as much in common with nature as a commodities trader on Wall Street.”
“Whew!” Hennes said. He laughed and threw his hands up in surrender. “I really have to muscle up on my English because I didn’t understand a thing you said. Can you be a little more specific?”
“Not really,” Doreen said.
“You can’t give me any examples?”
“Psychometry, clairvoyance, telepathy, remote viewing. Take your pick,” I said.
“You witnessed those things?” Hennes said, unable to contain his excitement.
I said, “They could be watching us right now and we wouldn’t even know it.”
Doreen giggled.
“Ah, I see,” Hennes said to Doreen. He chuckled, a slightly impatient smile on his face. “Your brother is pulling my toe again, isn’t he?”
“Just your little piggy,” she said.
I said, “Hennes speculates that Max and Aidos are on the run from government organizations that want to exploit their talents for military and nationalistic purposes.”
“I don’t know what agenda, if any, Max and Aidos adhere to,” Doreen said, “but I’m certain that they would never, under any circumstances, lend assistance to any government or group whose principles contradict their own. Integrity is not just a fine sounding word to them. The allegiance they pledge runs higher than any flag, position, or sum of money that could be offered to them.”
“That’s all very noble sounding,” Hennes said, “but I fear you both underestimate the minds and powers that certain groups possess. Besides, there’s nothing metaphysical about what they might be able to do. Everything can be traced to a physical, chemical, or electromagnetic source, or to a certain discipline that influences one of these. I believe that’s what the people who run such groups would be looking for.”
“So you’re saying they’d be made guinea pigs,” Doreen said.
“At the very least. If they refused to share what they know willingly, then yes, I’m afraid so.”
“If you’re right,” Doreen said, “they’d have to be found and caught first, and that hasn’t happened yet, has it?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
I said, “If groups like the Organization and men like Piranha are so smart and powerful, why haven’t they caught them yet?”
“I confess I don’t know that much about it, but they have been under Ellery’s umbrella for one thing, and that’s a pretty watertight place to be. And the other reason…”
“Yeah?”
Hennes shrugged. “They are damn lucky.”
“Lucky or good?” I said.
“For their sake, I hope the latter, Guy. Because luck always runs out sooner or later.” Hennes pointed to a sign up ahead. “Is this where I turn?”
“Yeah. Then there should be another intersection a few miles up.”
We turned off the highway and drove across the high desert plateau to the second turnoff, which was a dirt road. There were no other vehicles on the road, and we hadn’t seen any for miles. Hennes rolled his window down and stuck an arm outside. He rolled it back up. “Goodness, it’s like a stove out there!”
“Oven,” I corrected.
“Like an oven out there! Your famous dry heat, eh?” He laughed.
After another ten minutes the road ended in a small, deserted, dirt parking lot, a few yards from the lookout point. The only suggestion that the place was ever visited was a square, cinder-block outhouse, and a sign at the edge of the plateau. The surrounding area was flat with a waving sea of tall, straw-colored grass. A few stunted manzanita trees stood out here and there, struggling for a livelihood on the parched, sun-baked and wind-whipped plateau. Hennes parked, and when he opened his door to get out, a blast of hot air rushed in.
Doreen pulled down her sun visor and checked her face in the little vanity mirror. From the backseat I could see her reflection in the glass as she tied her hair back into a ponytail. She was looking at me. I recognized a hardness in her eyes that I hadn’t seen in years, since the last time I watched her compete in the State tennis finals back in high school: a slight squint in the corners; a look of readiness and determination, clarity and single-minded purpose. I smiled, but she didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, she flipped up the visor and flung open her door. She stepped out slinging her daypack over her shoulder.
I pushed up her seat and crawled out. Hennes struggled with his cowboy hat against the wind and seemed to deliberate whether to keep it on or leave it in the car. A gust knocked it off his head making his mind up for him. He chased it down and tossed it into the car and slammed the door.
Hennes held up a camera and pointed to the vista spot. “I’d like to get a picture of you two together over there if you don’t mind,” he said. “But first I must use the toilet, okay?” He veered right and headed towards the restrooms. I put my arm around Doreen’s shoulder and we started towards the lookout point. “Phew!” Hennes said. “I can smell the toilets from here!” I turned and saw him disappear around the corner of the outhouse.
Grounded
Doreen and I walked to the edge of the plateau and beheld an immense stretch of lunar-like desert. Craggy rock formations, cactus, and Palo Verde trees punctuated the terrain. According to the sign, the cliff that we stood on dropped precipitously some 1500 feet. In the distance across the expansive chasm we could see a similar plateau.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Doreen faced me and looked me in the eyes, as if searching for something. She kissed me and hugged me tight, her cheek against mine. I looked over her shoulder and saw a few birds skim the tall yellow grass that encircled us. Doreen pulled away and turned to the restrooms where Hennes reemerged a moment later, pinching his nose and swatting at the air.
“What was that for?” I asked her.
“Nothing. I love you, Guy. That’s all.”
“Really, Doreen, that business about Darth Vader being my old man and all, I can deal with it. I may have his genes, but my soul, that’s mine. He can’t touch that.”
Doreen smiled. “Since when did you believe in a soul?”
“I’ve always believed in the soul, just not my own.”
Doreen kissed me on the forehead and smiled. “I’ve never doubted your soul, Guy, not ever.”
Hennes strolled up waving his camera. “I recommend that if you need to use the toilet you choose one of those fuzzy-looking trees over there.” He joined us at the ledge and peered down. “My goodness, that is something. And how does this compare with your Grand Canyon?”
“It doesn’t,” Doreen said.
“My, my, it’s still quite something.” He raised his camera and snapped a picture. “Now you two stand right here and let me get a picture of you.” He back peddled and stopped about eight feet away. He raised his camera. “Say cheese.”
“Cheese.”
Upon hearing the click of the camera, Doreen sang, “Okay, now it’s my turn.” She set her daypack on the ground and kneeled down to dig out her camera.
“That won’t be necessary,” Hennes said. “I’m not very photogenic.” His voice held no trace of a German accent. In place of his camera was a gun. “Stand up, Doreen.”
“Wha—?”
He fired a shot into her bag. Doreen leaped to my side. The report from the gun sent dozens of birds soaring from the surrounding brush and grass.
“Now back up…a little more…a little more. Isn’t that a fine backdrop?”
“Wh-what’s going on?” Doreen stuttered.
Hennes nodded at me. “How long have you known, Guy?”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“What do you want?” Doreen shrieked.
“For starters, darling girl, the ring would be nice.”
“But you already said that Jim has it.”
“Yes, but that was after Guy here had already switched it on you. He bought it at a jewelry store at the Biltmore after he had told me about it. I was there this morning and checked. Until then I didn’t know he knew who I was. Clever, son. I’m impressed. You’re a chip off the old block. Now toss me the ring.”
“What makes you think I have it on me?”
“Because you knew you might need it to bargain for your sister’s life. And you were quite right.” He fired another round at Doreen’s feet. Startled, her right foot stepped off the cliff and I barely caught her in time.
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