The God Gene

by F. Paul Wilson

  Eleven adults gone—good riddance—along with fifteen irreparably damaged children.

  And as they’d burned, Rick had seen something in the flames … something dark …

  The shrinks who’d debriefed him afterward had tagged him with PTSD, and maybe they were right. He’d faked getting over it but he hadn’t. Not really. Because he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t all going down again. Right now. Had the man with the book given another copy to another gang of psychos and were they now doing the unspeakable to other children?

  Yeah … PTSD all right.

  But he hadn’t been prone to fits of violence, he hadn’t been suicidal. He’d have to feel something for any of that, and he’d felt nothing.

  Which didn’t mean that he couldn’t project feelings. He learned to fake them really well, enough to fool the shrinks, enough to fool the various women who’d passed through his life since Düsseldorf. He conned them all, ushering them past the Potemkin village of his emotions.

  But Laura had awakened something he’d thought dead forever. He cared about someone again. And that felt so damn good. He’d discover her traipsing across his field of thought at the oddest times.

  He’d told her about Düsseldorf, but not the whole story. Three quarters of it, but not the worst part, not the part that made him a monster.

  The truth will set you free? Yeah. Set him free from Laura, set her running from him. She could never know. Because if she ever did …

  She deserved better. He believed that—no, he knew that.

  And yet he couldn’t stay away.

  He stepped through the doorway. “Looks like I’ll be making a quick trip home.”

  She put down her knife, wiped her hands, and trained those eyes on him. “And where might that be?”

  “The Incorporated Village of Monroe.”

  “Really? That’s North Shore.”

  “Preferred North Shore, don’t you know. Do you mind?”

  “You’re going to make it back for dinner, right?”

  “Better believe it. Keep the bubbly cold.”

  He’d need it after visiting with his mother. Might even have to pick up a second bottle on the way back.

  And what the hell had she meant by “that damned monkey”?

  4

  NORTH SHORE, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

  Rick was cruising Cedar Swamp Road, about five miles out from Monroe, when his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number—wait, yes he did. His mother. He hit the accept button on his steering wheel and Bluetooth did the rest.

  “Thought you didn’t have my number.”

  “Caller ID tell me,” said Lena.

  The wonders of modern technology.

  “What can I do for you, Lena?”

  “Mother say you pick up accountant at Boulevard Motors in Glen Cove.”

  “What?”

  “This is what she say.”

  Boulevard Motors had been fixing local cars for generations. What was an accountant doing at Boulevard Motors? And why an accountant?

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Mother say all explained when get here. But you pick up Harry Tate at Boulevard Motors. Very important.”

  How long had it been now? Five … seven years without a face-to-face and already she was sending him on errands.

  Plus ça change …

  “All right. Be there soon.”

  He piloted the Ford pickup—part of Stahlman’s fleet, but he’d used it earlier today so he’d kept it—up to Sea Cliff Avenue, then headed for Boulevard Motors.

  Stepping into the repair bay, he flagged down a guy in appropriately greasy overalls.

  “Looking for a Mister Tate.”

  “Tate?” He shrugged and pointed. “Got me. Check the waiting area.”

  Rick followed the point to a tiny room with battered furniture, an old tube TV, and a Keurig machine. The only occupant was a squat Indian woman in a yellow-and-orange sari shuffling through a pile of papers on her lap. She had a gentle round face framed by short dark hair that made her look like a contented housecat ready to purr.

  “You work here?” she said as he stepped in.

  “No, I—”

  Apparently she wasn’t listening because she glared at him and pointed across the room. “What’s the idea of having a Keurig machine and no K-cups? Not a single goddamn K-cup in the whole place. That’s like torture to someone who needs coffee.”

  Okay, make that a hungry feral cat.

  “Just looking for a Mister Tate,” he said. “Any idea—?”

  “I’m Tate and I ain’t no mister.”

  “Really? Harry Tate?”

  “That’s H-a-r-i Tate.”

  Her garb might have been Mumbai but her accent was pure Mineola.

  “Sorry.”

  “Happens all the time.” She shoved the papers into a briefcase that had been hiding beside her chair. “So you’re Garrick?”

  “Rick, please.”

  “I didn’t even know you existed.”

  “Really?”

  “She never mentions you. Only Keith-Keith-Keith.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sort of the Jan Brady of the family.”

  “When your mother told me her son was going to pick me up, I was shocked. Thinking she meant Keith, I said, ‘He’s back?’ and then she explained.” Hari snapped her briefcase shut. “Where the hell have you been and what do you do?”

  Not exactly a shrinking violet.

  “Investigations and security work out of Westchester.”

  “How many employees?”

  “Three: me, myself, and I.”

  Straightening her sari as she rose, Hari said, “My Mercedes won’t be ready for at least another hour. Let’s get outta this dump.”

  As they headed for the exit, she said, “How’s sole proprietorship working out for you?”

  “Great. Nobody argues with my decisions.”

  “I’ll bet the company picnics are lame, though.”

  “Yeah. Me and a six-pack. At least I always win the horseshoe tournament.”

  “Busy?”

  “Very.”

  “Need an accountant?” After a beat, she added, “I’m asking for a friend.”

  “Not yet, but I hope to someday. Right now I’ve got only one client, so keeping the books is a breeze.”

  True. Almost everything he did was for Stahlman.

  “The accepted wisdom of small-business management recommends spreading yourself around.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  Yeah, if Stahlman took a turn on him, things could get tight pretty fast. But then again, Stahlman owed his current good health and therefore his life to Rick.

  He led her into the parking area. She stopped dead when she saw he was headed for the F-150.

  “Wait. We’re riding in a pickup?”

  “Something wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, I guess. I’m just used to foreign cars—more reliable.”

  “Oh, like the one that’s on the lift back here?”

  She made a face. “No wonder your mother never mentions you.”

  Rick held the passenger door open and noticed her having a little trouble hoisting herself onto the running board. He was tempted to help her but decided better not to. Human bites were dangerous.

  “We need to stop at a Seven-Eleven or something,” she said as she snapped her seat belt closed. “The Keurig at the garage was useless and I need coffee. Boy, do I need coffee.”

  Rick got rolling. “So, you’re an accountant? Where’s your office?”

  “Flatiron District. And I’m a forensic accountant.”

  “Which means…?”

  “I usually work on criminal cases involving fraud and money laundering.”

  Rick didn’t like the sound of that, but couldn’t make a connection.

  “Has this got anything to do with Keith?”

  “One month before he disappeared, your brother started liquidating all his assets, converting them to cash. For the
police, that signaled a plan to disappear.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “Your mother contends there was no reason for him to run, and I have to agree. Everything was going his way. He was moving up in the NYU biology department, his book was a bestseller, and his publisher was offering him big bucks for a follow-up. And one more thing: All his belongings, including his passport, are still at his apartment. He didn’t even take a toothbrush.”

  Not proof positive, but pretty damn convincing. It seemed like Keith had the perfect life. With his trust fund and bestseller royalties, he couldn’t have been running from debt. But what had Paulette said?

  “My mother mentioned something about a monkey…”

  Hari laughed. “Oh, she’s fixated as all hell on that monkey. I never saw it myself, so I’ll let her tell you about it, but she thinks the monkey is at the root of everything.”

  “A monkey?”

  “Nutshell version: She’s convinced someone was extorting money from Keith—either through blackmail or threats—and that the monkey was somehow at the heart of it. Find the money and we’ll find the bad guy. So she hired me to do what I do best: Follow the money.” She pointed through the windshield. “Hey, there’s a place. Pull in.”

  Rick followed her point to a storefront called Fly-By and pulled into the lot. A quick look-around showed three high-schoolers drinking the place’s Slurpee equivalent by the ice freezer over on the left, while to the right two roofers leaned against a van, smoking and drinking coffee.

  “If this is a chain, I’ve never heard of it,” he said.

  “Who cares? As long as they have coffee.”

  A landscaping van pulled in just as she was sliding from the passenger seat.

  “Get moving!” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Quetzalcoatl clown car!”

  “What?”

  “Just get inside so we can grab our coffees before them.”

  Once inside the front doors, she pointed through the window at Mexican laborers piling out of the van one after another. It went on and on until they formed a cluster of a dozen.

  “What I tell you?”

  “You afraid of them?”

  “I’m afraid of being behind them in line. Come on. Fix your coffee.”

  Fly-By was more of a convenience store than a coffee shop: no cappuccinos, no baristas, just half a dozen urns of varying flavors and octanes. The Mexicans filed in as Rick fixed himself a dark roast with sugar and light cream. He didn’t see what Hari made but he’d barely snapped on a lid when she pulled him over to a spot six feet back from the cash registers. An older white couple ahead of them at the counter were mulling over the array of donuts.

  He leaned close to her. “I still don’t get your problem with these Mexicans.”

  “Being Mexican has nothing to do with it—it’s everybody. People take forever. They stand in line and yak-yak-yak.”

  “Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

  “Not quite. We’ve fixed our coffees and we’re gonna be ready—money in hand—when it’s time to pay. You do have your money ready, don’t you?”

  Rick showed her the fiver in his hand.

  “Excellent. But people these days don’t give a damn about anybody else. They’ll wait till they reach the counter, then they start studying the sandwich warmer—‘Do I want it with cheese or not?’ You know, like they’d never consider using the time they’ve been standing on line to devote a single thought to it. Finally they make their momentous decision, and then, when everything’s tallied and the cashier tells them the amount, they’re suddenly like, ‘Oh, hey, I gotta pay!’ Like there was a possibility it was gonna be free? ‘Oh, here, let me wiggle my wallet from my pocket or bag and paw through all the compartments for some cash.’ And you think the next guy in line is gonna get a clue from watching this? No way. Same nonsense with every one of them. I don’t have time for that.”

  Rick fixed his gaze straight ahead. “Wow.”

  “Hey, don’t go hanging some kinda racist sign on me. I’m a minority too. And female to boot. That makes me a two-fer. Lack of anticipation has become the way of the world. The gene pool lifeguard went out for lunch and never came back, so these escapees from the skimmer are everywhere. No race has a lock on them. They come in every shape, size, and color—especially white. Take those two honkies at the counter now. No anticipation. Not a bit. The ones from the van just happen to come from south of the border, that’s all.”

  “What side of the bed did you get up on?”

  “Just low on caffeine is all. My ex-husband kept saying I need an anger management course, but that’s bullshit.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah, ‘really.’ I just need a world with fewer people who piss me off.” She pointed to a clear plastic container in a nearby display case. “Hey, will you look at this? Cannoli filling with a side of crackers—let’s sell a lump of fat-and-sugar paste as a cracker dip. Are they kidding? I mean, who eats this crap?”

  “Ever consider drinking your coffee while standing in line? It’s allowed, you know.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right.” She took a deep gulp. “My filter tends to slip a little when my caffeine level drops.”

  “Yeah?” He left it at that.

  Rick paid for her coffee so she could continue drinking. The obligatory Pakistani counterman was making change, saying, “Would you like to buy a lottery ticket?”

  “No,” Hari snapped.

  “Would you like donuts to go with your coffees?”

  “No.”

  “Would you like a bag?”

  Hari leaned over the counter. “What we’d like is to pay up and get the hell out of your store.”

  Rick managed to get her back to the pickup without her mauling anyone along the way. When they were rolling again, he turned the conversation back to Keith.

  “So what have you forensicked so far?”

  She tapped the briefcase on her saried lap. “That either your brother knew a lot about moving money around the world or someone else was involved.”

  Keith was smart. He could have learned, but …

  He said, “Not the sort of thing you pick up on your way to a Ph.D. in zoology.”

  “My thought too. As he liquidated his assets—not all of them, but very nearly—he deposited the proceeds in various accounts around the world.”

  “‘Very nearly’?”

  “Well, not his apartment. Worth a lot but hardly liquid.”

  “This means you’ve identified the accounts.”

  Rick was far from an expert in offshore banking, but he’d run across international money laundering during his time with the Company and had been staggered by the almost unimaginable sums secreted in offshore accounts.

  Hari nodded. “All over. We’re talking Caymans, Belize, Luxembourg, Bermuda, etcetera. But they’re mostly empty now. The funds were deposited, then transferred to other accounts, and from them to still others. I haven’t ferreted out where the money’s landed yet. But I will. And if that final account is owned by your brother, well, that means he’s on the run. If not…”

  “Could still be him under a different identity.”

  “Correct. But if not, then we will have found the one who coerced him into doing this.”

  “Keith is such a nerd. Can’t imagine anyone could have something to hold over him to that degree.”

  “How about threatening to kidnap his mother for a horrible death if he didn’t comply?”

  Rick smiled and shook his head.

  “What?” she said. “That’s funny?”

  “I’m seeing a Ruthless People scenario—you know, that flick with Bette Midler and Danny DeVito?”

  “You mean, where no one wants her back?”

  Exactly.

  “Forget I mentioned it,” he said. “I can see threats working on Keith. But where does this monkey come in?”

  She shook her head. “Your mother’s theory, not mine. I’ll leave that for her to exp
lain. Weird stuff going on inside that head.”

  Rick deadpanned, “Well, you’ve got to understand, she’s never been the same since Dorothy threw that water on her.”

  A heartbeat of silence followed, then Hari guffawed. “I think I like you.”

  “That’s a pretty exclusive club.”

  “And your mother’s not a member, I take it?”

  “Correctomundo.”

  “Well, she’s definitely a fan of your brother. The only time she’s not wailing about her missing Keith is when she’s ranting about My Fair Lady.”

  “The play?”

  Hari nodded. “They’re reviving it again on Broadway.”

  Rick knew he’d regret asking: “And what’s her beef?”

  “She wants them to change some of the songs.”

  “What? They’re classics.”

  “Whatever. I don’t know the play, but apparently she thinks some of the songs are too misogynistic. In case you never noticed, your mother is a granola-chewing, chai-sipping, PETA-donating crackpot. And I mean that in the most respectful way.”

  Rick smiled. “Taken in the most respectful way.”

  Hari, he thought, you’ve only scratched the surface. You’ve no idea.

  5

  SHIRLEY, NEW YORK

  Laura couldn’t resist any longer. She had the chopped romaine in the colander and some finely sliced Parmesan ready for the Caesar salad; she’d debated making the dressing from scratch but opted for bottled when she found some in the pantry. She had a couple of New York strips marinating. She’d dragoon Rick into grilling those. Which left her with not much else to do.

  And idle hands …

  She pulled the box from the top shelf, parted the bubble wrap, and removed the crimson snuff bottle. She wondered what the symbol meant, if anything. She’d seen snuff bottles in Chinatown, but they were usually much more ornate. This one seemed merely functional, and didn’t contain snuff.

  The ikhar sloshed within as she reread Clotilde’s note.

  Let the All-Mother guide you.

  The All-Mother … Clotilde’s Gaia-type goddess. Her pagan cult had been brewing the ikhar since the sixth century and doling out the curative tea to the lucky few designated by their deity. Curative was an understatement—the tea was the legendary panacea, able to cure every ill. But they kept its existence on the down-low because their goddess wished to be niggardly with it, dosing only those she deemed worthy of healing.