“The painting has to be some kind of clue.”
“A clue to what?”
“Maybe to where he’s gone, and why.”
“And what is it that you think he wants you to do?” Garth sounded as if he were talking to a child.
“I don’t know, Garth,” I said, time pressure and frustration combining to squeeze my voice into a kind of plaintive whine. Garth thought I was being absurd, and in a way I could see his point. But he hadn’t looked down into the secret compartment beneath the floor and seen the painting, or found the envelope with my name on it and ten thousand dollars inside; he hadn’t seen the empty brackets or smelled the machine oil. “The only thing I can figure is that he may want me to search for him.”
“Ah, yes, a little game of hide and seek. Are you listening to yourself? If Kendry wanted something from you, why wouldn’t he just say so? Why play games?”
Of course, I didn’t have an answer. “Garth, I just have this feeling.”
“Get rid of it,” Garth replied in a low, very serious tone. He paused, sighed heavily. “Mongo, my beloved brother, you think somebody snatched Kendry?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Good, because it would take a battalion of men to do that, and that place would be torn apart. You listen to me carefully. Kendry never got in touch with you, and you haven’t been hired to do anything. The university, on the other hand, pays you good money to play professor, and in a very short time you’re supposed to deliver a very important lecture. Get your ass out of there.”
“Garth, the envelope with the cash was addressed to me!”
“I don’t care if it was addressed to Mary Poppins. It sounds to me like you just about had to tear the place apart to find it, which means that it doesn’t belong to you. You’re already trespassing; if you take anything out of there, some people might call you a burglar and a thief. Besides, you’re the one who once told me that Kendry often drops out of sight for long periods of time.”
“That’s true, but he’d always let me know when he was leaving so that I wouldn’t count on our Wednesday night workouts.”
“So? This time he forgot.”
“Garth—”
“Did he ever tell you where he was going?”
“No.”
“You never asked?”
“Veil’s a very private man.”
“Right. This is the private man whose loft you’re tearing up and looting while he’s away taking care of some private business.”
“Come on, Garth, be serious. At least stop being ridiculous. Why the hell would he leave without turning off the lights and locking the door?”
“You be serious. Kendry’s a loony, Mongo. In fact, he’s even loonier than you think he is.”
The smell of machine oil was still in my nostrils, and something in Garth’s voice—perhaps a warning—gave me pause. “Meaning what? Why is Veil even loonier than I think he is?”
“Never mind; he just is. Now turn off the lights and lock up that loft, brother, after you’ve put everything back exactly the way you found it. Later, after you’ve taken care of the other little item on your agenda for today, I want you to go home and write ‘I will mind my own business’ one hundred times on your blackboard.”
“Veil’s in serious trouble, Garth, and he needs my help. I know it.”
“Shit. You’re going to go looking for him, aren’t you?”
“Well, not right now. I’ve got a lecture to deliver, remember? See you later, brother.”
3.
The university was a lot closer than my apartment, so I went directly there and managed to be only twenty minutes late. From the looks of the packed auditorium, just about everyone had hung around considerably longer that any of my graduate students would have if I’d been late for a lecture. Walking through the building to the appropriate backstage entrance would have taken another three or four minutes, so I made a grand entrance from the rear of the auditorium. Holding a still-wet oil painting by the frame in one hand and a gym bag containing two towels, a change of socks, and ten thousand dollars in cash in the other, one unshaven and thoroughly grimy dwarf dressed in an orange sweat suit and dirty sneakers marched briskly down the center aisle and up onto the stage. There was scattered, uncertain applause as I set down the gym bag and painting, then stepped behind the lectern and up on the stool placed there for my convenience. I found myself looking out over a sea of puzzled and disapproving police-officer-type faces. To my right, ten rows back, I spotted the university chancellor; he did not look pleased. Next to the chancellor sat the head of my department; she did not look pleased, either. Garth had obviously arrived too late to get a seat, because he was standing up at the back, leaning against a windowsill. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he was shaking his head as he rolled his eyes heavenward.
Showtime.
There was nothing to do but apologize for being late, leave the matter of my somewhat unconventional appearance a mystery, and get on with it—which is what I did. Fortunately, lurid tales of sex and violence, however professionally and flatly offered, are always crowd pleasers, and sex and violence were what this talk was all about; the crowd of cops and academicians seemed pleased. I thought I had a few valuable things to say to them, and they seemed to agree. My audience sat attentively through a dry presentation of charts, statistical tables, graphs, and maps as they listened to stories of the grisly, blood-soaked scenes and episodes that had spawned the data. This was the stuff of nightmares in which I had been immersed for the better part of a year and a half, since what I thought of as my return to the real world from our parents’ farm, where Garth and I had spent six months recuperating from our mind-bending and body-breaking excursion into a terrifying world of criminals, fools, and madmen.
Garth and I, with a lot of help from a decidedly odd assortment of friends, had managed to survive the Valhalla Project, and the experience had brought two close brothers even closer together. However, what could very well have been a sneak preview of the end of the world as we know it had changed both of us forever, initially plummeting us into a deep depression. We’d emerged from that bone-deep melancholy when we’d finally realized, and accepted, the fact that there was nothing to do but go on with our lives, immerse ourselves in our work, and try to be decent and just men.
For me, immersing myself in work had meant attacking the riddle posed by the mind of the so-called serial murderer: the rogue individual who roams across the face of the nation killing dozens of faceless strangers—men, women, and children—at random and without warning, with no more motivation than an ephemeral sexual thrill associated with the torture and murder of others. Financed by a number of generous grants awarded to me on the basis of past performance, I’d crisscrossed the country, visiting scenes of violence and then prisons, logging more than a thousand hours of taped conversation with convicted serial murderers who’d agreed to talk with me. What I hoped were a few fresh insights garnered from this research was what I shared with this audience, and they rewarded me at the end with a standing ovation that lasted almost five minutes.
If I was getting a bit gamy, and I was certain I was, no one at the sumptuous buffet and reception following the lecture seemed to notice—or at least they didn’t mention it as I stood in a corner of the reception hall shaking hands and chatting with the many people who came up to wish me well, congratulate me, offer their own opinions, or simply ask questions. To my surprise, quite a few people had seen me perform in the circus years before, or they had heard about it, and they wanted to talk about this. Others were curious about my dual career as a private investigator, had read about some of the bizarre cases in which I’d been involved, and wanted to talk about that. I wanted to talk about neither and always steered the conversation quickly back to serial murderers. Since my involvement with the beasts of Valhalla, my past was something I preferred not to discuss.
Not until that moment had I realized this was a trait I shared with Veil Kendry. It occurre
d to me that he had suffered his own Valhalla Project, and I wondered what it could have been. The answer, I thought, could be in the painting.
After a half hour or so the well-wishers started to drift away toward the food and drinks, leaving me alone for a few moments. Garth emerged from a crowd of cops at the other end of the hall and came over to me.
“Great job, brother,” Garth said as he gripped both my arms. His dark brown eyes glowed with pride. “God, you’re such a ham.”
“Is that a compliment or a complaint?”
“It’s an opinion formed from careful, lifelong observation.”
“Thanks. I think.”
Garth pointed down at the painting propped against the gym bag at my feet. “This is the painting you talked about?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yeah.”
“Then you did take it out of the apartment.” There was a distinct scowl in his voice.
“Obviously.”
“Not a good idea at all, Mongo. What about the money?”
“It’s in the gym bag.”
“Even a worse idea.”
“You’re probably right.”
“What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“I took the painting because I’m convinced Veil left it for me, and because I think it could provide answers to why Veil did what he did, what his problem is, and maybe what he wants me to do for him. I think the cash was meant to be a retainer.”
“Thinking that doesn’t make it yours, Mongo.”
“I’m aware of that. I took the money because it’s probably safer with me than it was up in the loft. I’m putting it in the bank for him.”
“Damn it, Mongo, this is none of your business. You’re leaving yourself open to a lot of grief—legal and otherwise.”
“I don’t think I’m needed here anymore,” I said, picking up the painting and gym bag and turning toward the door behind us. “Let’s go someplace where we can talk.”
Garth held the door open for me, then followed me out into the curved corridor that arced around the reception hall. I walked to my left, kept going until we found an empty office.
“There’s something else you should know,” I said as we entered the office and Garth closed the door behind us.
“What’s that?” Garth asked in a flat voice as I set the painting and gym bag down against the wall.
“Veil’s armed. He has nunchaku—”
“Nunchaku are illegal in New York State,” Garth said in the same flat tone.
“Yeah, but he’s also got guns. I should have mentioned it when we talked on the phone. I’m sorry.”
Garth sighed heavily, bowed his head slightly, and ran the fingers of his right hand through his thinning, wheat-colored hair. “You’re damn right you should have mentioned it to me before,” he said, anger in his eyes and voice. “Veil Kendry may be a friend of yours, but armed like that he’s breaking the law and poses a threat to the public. You had no right to withhold that information.”
“I know. What can I say? When you’re right, you’re right. I was concerned that—”
“How many guns?”
“At least two, maybe three.”
“Any idea what kinds of guns we’re talking about?”
“At least one handgun, maybe two. I think he’s also carrying a semiautomatic rifle or submachine gun with a collapsible stock.”
“How the hell do you know what he’s carrying if you didn’t see him?”
I told Garth about the empty brackets and gun oil in the hidden compartment. My brother listened in silence, staring at a spot just above my head. When I’d finished, he hunched the broad shoulders on his six-foot-three-inch frame, shoved his hands into his pockets, and proceeded to pace. Finally he came to a stop in front of me again.
“Except for the mountains, that looks like Viet Nam,” he said, nodding toward the painting.
“There aren’t mountains in Viet Nam?” I asked. Garth would know; he’d spent time there during the war as an MP stationed in and around Saigon.
“Not like those.”
“Still, he must have been somewhere over there. The soldiers are definitely Asian—Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars, I’d say.”
“Veil Kendry as an angel,” Garth said with a sardonic smile. “Not likely.”
“It means something.”
“And I come back to the same question I asked earlier: If Kendry wanted to tell you something, why not just pick up the phone? Or leave a note?”
“The painting is the answer to that, and I’ll let you know when I figure it out. Incidentally, that picture’s interesting for other reasons. As far as I know, he’s never painted anything else this realistically. Also, I’ve never seen anything else of his that had people in it.”
Garth’s response was an indifferent shrug; his mind seemed to be elsewhere—undoubtedly on the man himself, not his painting.
“What are you going to do now?” I asked.
“Officially or unofficially?”
“Let’s hear the official part first.”
“I’m not sure, Mongo. You’re the one who opened the can, but I get responsibility for the Goddamn worms. I have no doubt that Kendry’s carrying all the stuff you say he is. The problem is that you haven’t even seen him, much less witnessed him carrying weapons. As far as the law is concerned, Kendry has committed no crime; you have. Still, if I spread the word that Veil Kendry is wandering around loaded for bear, every cop in the city is going to be looking for him, and those cops are going to have itchy trigger fingers. That could lead to somebody unnecessarily getting hurt. On the other hand, if I don’t spread the word, some unsuspecting cop is likely to get blown away.”
“That’s not going to happen, Garth.”
“Oh, isn’t it? Can you guarantee me that? Can you tell me what’s on Veil Kendry’s mind?”
“You know I can’t.”
“Then don’t try to tell me what’s not going to happen.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” I said quietly, “and I appreciate the dilemma. It’s one reason I didn’t mention the guns over the phone; I wasn’t sure how the cops would react.”
“You mean, you weren’t sure how I’d react.”
“It’s the same thing. I didn’t want him killed by some nervous cop while all he was trying to do was defend himself against somebody else who was trying to kill him. Christ, Garth, I’m just following my nose on this thing, playing it by ear.”
“A long nose in this case, Mongo. And maybe a tin ear.”
“You still haven’t told me what you’re going to do officially.”
Garth sighed, shook his head. “I’m going to have to put out the word, Mongo, but I’ll have to give some thought to what that word is going to be. I damn well don’t want either Kendry or some cop blown away just because you can’t mind your own business.”
“Jesus Christ! You—!” I paused, swallowed my anger. “What the hell is it between Veil and the NYPD? He keeps putting away muggers and dope dealers, and you keep putting him away. Talk about overreaction! He’s never hurt anybody who wasn’t trying to hurt him or somebody else. I can see some of the other guys on the force getting jealous because they think Veil makes them look bad, but not you. What’s your problem?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mongo,” Garth said tightly. “That’s your problem.”
“Why don’t I know what I’m talking about?”
“You just don’t.”
Whatever it was Garth knew about Veil, or thought he knew, he obviously wasn’t ready to share it with me. That only served to arouse my curiosity further, but I knew better than to push. I shrugged my shoulders, asked, “So, what are you going to do unofficially?”
“Keep an eye on you.”
“I don’t need anybody keeping an eye on me,” I replied tersely.
“Bullshit,” Garth said, and laughed. “Never in the history of the world has anyone needed a keeper more than you.” The laughter and his bro
ad smile abruptly vanished. “Here it is up front, Mongo. I want you to back right away from this thing. Whatever may be going on, back off. Why the hell do you want to get involved in Kendry’s miseries, anyway?”
The question both puzzled and troubled me, and I searched Garth’s face for some answer as to why he had asked it. He stared back at me impassively. “Because he’s my friend,” I replied at last. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Wouldn’t you do as much for a friend you thought was in trouble and needed help?”
Garth abruptly turned away and walked to the one window in the office. When he finally spoke, his deep voice sounded strange, muffled by the glass. “You’re the only friend I have, Mongo. Except for Mom and Dad, and a few of the relatives, other people are just ghosts. You’ve already used up more lives than a litter of cats, and there’s no reason for you to take any more chances. The lesson we learned from those nice people who ran Valhalla was that almost nothing we do really matters, not in the long run. Well, you matter to me. I don’t want you hurt, and I certainly don’t want you hurt because of a creep like Veil Kendry—and he is a creep, as far as I’m concerned. We’ve both dealt with enough crazies to last us a lifetime, so to hell with Kendry and the rest of the crazies.”
Garth’s words and manner deeply distressed me. For some time it had seemed to me that a shadow hung over my brother—now I knew I’d been right, and I recognized the face of the shadow. When Garth and I had left our parents’ farm, I’d thought both of us were sufficiently healed to get on with our lives. Now I realized that I’d been wrong. Garth wasn’t immersed in work, or anything else; he was just floating on the surface under a rotting sun of memory and despair that was eating him away. He wasn’t living a life, I thought, but just going through the motions. I wondered if the serum we’d both been repeatedly injected with had done it to him; it was hard for me to imagine Garth being beaten by his own mind.
“Garth,” I said, trying to fight my own despair with words, “I can’t just walk away from this until I at least find out what’s going on. You almost act as if there’s nothing to it, and—”
Two Songs This Archangel Sings Page 3