The Six Messiahs

by Mark Frost

  "Some of my most outstanding qualities," said Stern, laughing again.

  "Well, I approve of them, Mr. Stern. You're a fine old fellow."

  Stern took a satisfying breath and looked out the window, moonlight gleaming off the luminous snowcap of a distant peak. "It is a most amazing world, in any case," he said. "Such a shame we can't appreciate it more."

  "I suppose you just have to take advantage of those moments when they come your way," said Eileen, a delicious sleepiness creeping into her.

  A dreamy look came over Stern, transparent and fine; he looked years younger suddenly. "Nothing is lost. Nothing's destroyed. There are no divisions. No disharmony. Everything returns."

  No, this isn't possible, thought Eileen, a familiar stirring quickening her heart. Ridiculous. She hunted down the feeling, examined it, produced it, tested it; and then had to admit there was validity to it, however absurd.

  She was falling in love with him.

  chapter 6

  They gathered under the heroic arch in the great hall of the Metropolitan Museum, Fifth Avenue's northernmost outpost of downtown civilization, a glittering multitude of bosomy dowagers and their consorts, society's finest—they called themselves the Four Hundred, someone explained to Doyle, the exact number of people who could fit into Mrs. Vanderbilt's ballroom—paying homage to their distinguished visitor from England. Doyle felt overmatched at first sight of the prestigious throng, but he had watched the Queen handle a few receiving lines over the years; the moves were as ritualized as dance steps and he had learned from a master.

  Repeat the person's name when it's spoken to you, shake their hand—unless you're the Queen; one notable perquisite of royalty—accept their obligatory compliment with modesty and a poised facial expression suggesting an abstract fascination with the person, offer brief thanks and a neutral see-you-later: Next please. He'd been through the drill many times at home, although as with everything else he'd encountered during his first day in New York, never on such a colossal scale. By the time Doyle had dutifully worked his way to the end of this wave of wellwishers, his palm throbbed like a beaten timpani; what strange custom led these American tycoons to believe that crushing the bones of a stranger's hand would be interpreted as a sign of friendship?

  After the first hour, the crowd merged into one bejeweled and black-tied thousand-headed beast, which put him at a distinct disadvantage as he circulated the floor; it seemed that once you'd been introduced to a person in this country, he could just walk right up and start talking to you. How ghastly! Flanks unprotected, vulnerable to attack from every direction, he felt like a partridge flushed into an open meadow.

  And why weren't they sitting down to eat a proper dinner? Another American innovation, Innes explained, as they ducked behind a pillar: no big meal. Only enough champagne to float a gunship and an open field of raw mollusks. More circulation of the guests, less outlay of cash, and this way multiple affairs could be scheduled on the same night and the same four hundred socialites could attend them all without offending anyone by taking an early leave. What did it matter? thought Doyle. They'll all see each other an hour later at the next party, anyway. What an exhausting schedule to maintain; half their time spent dressing up to go out, the rest in transit hurtling through the night perpetually troubled by the nagging possibility that somebody somewhere else might be having a better time.

  "Sorry about Pinkus, by the way," said Innes. "The way I behaved on board. Afraid I was quite taken in by him at first. My fault entirely."

  "Quite all right," said Doyle, secretly delighted. "Happen to anyone."

  "Visions of show girls dancing in my head; quite the silly ass—look lively, Arthur, trouble off the starboard bow."

  Innes drew his attention to an approaching flock of matrons who had him locked directly in their sights, ravenous admiration firing their eyes; Doyle pretended not to notice their advance and took flight while Innes waded into their midst to stage a rearguard delay.

  But in his haste to escape, Doyle strayed into a boxed thicket under a flight of stairs and found himself penned in by a wedge of sweaty faces, glowing with sun and unnatural health. Where was Pepperman? The Major had kept pace with Doyle as they made the rounds, repeating the name of each assailant as they closed in on him—why couldn't they wear little buttons printed with their names instead of these silly boutonnieres?—but he had been swept aside by the rush of some mad Italian tenor. Doyle could see the Major's shaggy head poking out of the fray nearby beyond his reach and he realized he would have to fend off the pugnacious, buck-toothed predator at the head of this pack alone. What was the man's name again?

  Roosevelt? That was it. "Theodore: call me Teddy." Ruling-class family—although there weren't supposed to be any in this land of the free, it would take an idiot only one glance at this room to know differently. Roughly Doyle's age. Blunt and stubby as that fat cigar in his mouth, packing enough fearless will in his eyes to stare down a rhinoceros; fanatical eyes, magnified by thick lenses, jutting out of a perfectly square head.

  Roosevelt had been introduced as the Commissioner of Something or Other, Parks or Commerce or the Interior of the Exterior. Americans made a national pastime of bestowing on each other titles that strung together like railroad cars, ripe with redundancy and a dearth of imagination. Vice Superintendent of the Assistant Commissioner's Office for Health and Safety Regulations. Administrative Supervisor of the Public Transit Authority, Horse and Buggy Department, Bootstraps and Stirrups Division. Nothing like the poetic lyricism of English offices: the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Home Secretary. Viceroy of the Sub-Continent, The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod.

  "Been on a lecture tour," said Roosevelt, chomping maniacally on his cigar. "Boston, Philadelphia, Atlantic seaboard. Can't stray too far from home now; my younger brother died two months ago. Alcohol. Dissolute living. Epilepsy. Hallucinations. Confinement in sanitariums. Tried to throw himself out a window. Family's in turmoil. Dreadful. You can't imagine, Arthur."

  Why is he telling me this? wondered Doyle. And why is he calling me Arthur?

  "Terribly sorry," said Doyle. What else could he say?

  "Appreciate it. What can you do when someone you love so fiercely wants no part of living? Nothing. Not a thing. You have to let them go." With no other sign of emotion, and without shame, Roosevelt wiped away a tear that dropped beneath his glasses. "Life goes forward. It's for the living. Wrestle with it, contend. Don't give in, to your dying breath. Time will have us all in the ground soon enough."

  The man's muscular fortitude struck a sympathetic note. This was what he admired most in Americans, wasn't it?

  Forthrightness, candor. Expressing strong emotion freely. None of the stiff formality and ritualized chatter that his repressed countrymen hid behind like field mice in a Sussex hedgerow.

  Roosevelt took the cigar from his mouth and leaned closer to Doyle.

  "My view on such excesses as killed my brother are these: Look around this room and all you see is wealth, refinement, sophistication. Let me tell you that elsewhere there is open warfare on the streets of this city; gangs of toughs and hooligans on the Lower East Side control entire neighborhoods, unmolested. The city's helpless to respond. Here, starkly illustrated, are the two lines along which the human race is evolving: One through the self-improvement and philanthropy of the morally strong, striving to increase their knowledge and broaden their minds; they carry society forward.

  "The second is accomplished unknowingly by the morally bankrupt, through drink and immorality; two invisible hands plucking weeds from the garden of life. I predict that by three generations from now the strains of the drunkard, the hedonist, and the criminal, interbreeding as they tend to do, will be extinct or on their way out. Why? Because they weaken the blood line, their bodies give out under their excesses or their crimes kill them before they have a chance to breed. Thus the rotten branch is pruned and over time the average of the race is elevated to a higher standard. Nature has its o
wn devices." He stepped back to assess the impact of his theory.

  Doyle stared at him. "Are you running for office, Mr. Roosevelt?"

  "I have been a candidate in the past for the office of mayor of this great city, and we do not rule it out in the future," said Roosevelt. The supporters behind Roosevelt came to life and stood a little taller at the mere suggestion. "Do you plan to get out to the West while you're here, Arthur?"

  "I'm not certain all the stops on the tour have been arranged," said Doyle, still reeling from the man's quicksilver transformation from grieving brother to Malthusian geneticist.

  "My advice to you, tour be damned: See the West. A hard and dangerous place, the wild parts of it. And a more proper setting for the contemplation of man's puny insignificance you could never hope to find."

  "Do that often, do you?" said Doyle.

  "But you'll find that man has gone west for a larger purpose; it's the particular fate of the American to conquer this frontier and the doing of it will shape his character for hundreds of years to come."

  "Really? How so?"

  Roosevelt slowly rotated his cigar and stared into Doyle's eyes; clearly he was not used to having his pronouncements questioned, but Doyle did not flinch.

  "The American will come to believe in his own God-given ability to master nature. Eventually, he will be handed the responsibility of running the civilized world. But he must manage it with respect; indeed, with reverence. And only through exposure to nature will we cultivate the proper attitude for the shouldering of this enormous task. If you visit the West, Arthur, at every turn you will see vistas of such stunning magnificence it will transform the way you think of the world forever. I urge you not to miss it."

  "I have always wanted to see some Indians," said Doyle.

  Roosevelt's eyes narrowed, focusing his magnetism down to a concentrated beam. "Listen; there's been a lot of warped, sentimental, backward talk in this country about holding up the expansion of our empire to preserve the lives of a few scattered tribes of the plains whose lives are but a few degrees less meaningless, squalid, and ferocious than the wild beasts with whom they held ownership before we came along."

  "I have read that, in their own savage way, of course— scalpings and so forth—they're really quite impressive."

  "Pay no attention to it. The red man is a relic of the Stone Age and his so-called innate nobility is no match for the march of progress. History never stops turning its wheels out of pity; those unable to move from its path are crushed. This is the fate God has in store for the Indian, and their refusal to adapt to the changing world around them makes them complicit in its execution."

  Unexpectedly, Roosevelt reached out and applied another crushing squeeze on Doyle's tender hand.

  "Greatly enjoyed your stories," he said. "Holmes. Watson. Splendid stuff. Too bad you had to kill him off. Think of the money you could have made. Bully for you, Arthur. Enjoy your stay in America."

  With a compact, commanding gesture to his waiting courtiers, Roosevelt strode off, and the entire group fell into lock-step behind him. Innes stepped into the void left by their wake.

  "What was that all about?" asked Innes.

  "A shocking example of the species Homo Americanus. They could stuff and mount him in the museum."

  "Quite a right bunch of toffs, isn't it? Real balmy gaffer over here," said Innes, nodding toward a willowy man in a top hat, swallowtail coat, black cape, and flowing white silk scarf, engaged in conversation but regularly glancing then-way. His face was dusky, fine-featured, an East Indian cast to the eyes and an almost feminine delicacy to his lips and nose. A mane of long black hair flowed into a leonine ponytail. He appeared to be in his early thirties and carried himself with the flamboyant confidence of a lionized maestro.

  "Started telling me about this concert he plans to give where every instrument in the orchestra's represented by a different smell that he pumps into the auditorium with a machine whenever they start to play...."

  "Different smells?"

  "You heard me correctly; rose for the strings, sandalwood for the brass, jasmine for the flute, and so on. Each scent pouring out of a different nozzle hooked up to and activated by that particular instrument."

  "Good Christ."

  "Says he already owns a patent. Smell-A-Rama: Symphony of Scents."

  "You could knock me over with a feather."

  "Only in America."

  Innes moved off.

  A tall, blond, good-looking man in a dinner jacket emerged from the crowd and walked steadily toward Doyle's back, a hand slipping inside his jacket. Seeing him approach, the elegant, swarthy man in the silk scarf turned and made a direct line to Doyle, took him firmly by the arm, and led him deeper into the crowd.

  "Mr. Conan Doyle, the honor is entirely mine, sir," said the swarthy man, in rounded tones of upper-class Oxfordian English. "I have just enjoyed the delightful pleasure of your brother's company and thought perhaps I would seize the liberty of introducing myself to you."

  And so you have, thought Doyle. Mr. Smell-A-Rama.

  Behind them, the tall, blond gentleman stopped and hung back at the edge of the room.

  "My name is Preston Peregrine Raipur but everyone calls me Presto. We are fellow countrymen. I am an Oxford man; Trinity, class of '84," said the dandy; then in a quiet, deadly serious tone with no corresponding change of expression: "Please continue to glance towards the gathering from time to time, if you would, sir, and smile politely as if I had said something of mild amusement to you."

  "What?"

  "We are being observed. It would be best if our conversation remained brief and appeared to be of an entirely superficial nature," said Presto, the frivolousness entirely gone from his voice, replaced by an earnest, intelligent sincerity.

  "What is this about, sir?" said Doyle, smiling, complying with the man's request to mask the discussion's true intent.

  "Another time and place is more appropriate for an elaboration. You are in danger. You must leave this place at once," said Presto, grinning and nodding to a passing couple.

  Doyle hesitated; a casual glance around revealed no danger.

  "And would it be convenient if I were to call at your hotel tomorrow morning, say, at nine o'clock?" asked Presto.

  "Not without my first hearing some idea of what this is about."

  Raipur waved to someone over Doyle's shoulder and laughed like a nincompoop; then, under his breath: "Someone is stealing the great holy books of the world, Mr. Conan Doyle; I believe you are already aware of this. Surely such a subject warrants an hour of your time, if only to satisfy your native inquisitiveness."

  Doyle took the man's measure; he stood up to the test "Nine o'clock tomorrow morning at the Waldorf Hotel."

  The man bowed slightly. "I shall now create a diversion; take your brother and go immediately," said Presto, producing a calling card for Doyle with a deft sleight of hand. "We shall meet again tomorrow."

  Doyle glanced at the card; under the name Preston Peregrine Raipur was printed a title: "Maharaja of Berar." Maharaja?

  "Ever so grateful," said Presto, then raising his voice back into the social butterfly register he had earlier employed. "And I can't wait to read more of your fantastic stories, Mr. Conan Doyle: Bravo! Bra-vo! The greatest pleasure to meet you, sir. Best wishes always!"

  With that, Preston Peregrine Raipur, the Maharaja of Berar, bowed low and glided off. As Innes made his way back to Doyle, Presto lifted his black gleaming walking stick high in the air:

  "Voila!" said Presto.

  The stick erupted into a cloud of billowing white smoke and a flashing column of fire. People around him and throughout the room scattered in every direction.

  "What the devil..." said Innes.

  "Follow me," said Doyle, taking Innes by the arm. "Quickly."

  The brothers moved through the agitated crowd, losing themselves in a cluster of others heading out the doors. Behind them the smoke cleared, revealing that Presto had disappeared
from sight.

  The tall, blond man spotted Doyle and Innes just as they left the museum and hurried to follow them.

  Outside, Doyle hustled Innes to their waiting coach at the Fifth Avenue curb, glancing behind in time to see the tall, blond man appear at the doors.

  "What's going on?" asked Innes.

  "I'll explain in a moment," said Doyle.

  They hopped into the cab.

  "Where to?" asked the driver.

  It was Jack.

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  She climbed off the train at the station, standing on the same platform that had held Jacob Stern a few nights before. Wearing a blue gingham dress that concealed the hard lines of her body and a bonnet over her jet hair, she looked more like a visiting country cousin or a rural school teacher than an Indian woman who had skipped the reservation. She kept her face behind the bonnet and her eyes low, submissive, attracting no attention to herself.

  The dream had come again that night on the reserve, as the owl medicine had said it would: She found herself wandering alone through a city of tall buildings and wide, empty streets. Waiting for someone in front of a pale castle with thin, fingery towers. She had seen this place in the medicine dream many times, but it had appeared black before, more threatening, and it always stood surrounded by desert, not in the middle of a modern city. That was as much as this new dream could reveal before the Black Crow Man—she never saw his face, only a twisted humpback and long, scraggly hair—swooped down and washed everything away with fire.

  She recognized the city as Chicago; it was the only big city she had ever seen. She did not remember seeing this pale tower during her only previous visit; a school outing twelve years ago, one of a group of reservation high school graduates trotted out to impress white politicians. The city had felt like a place of great anger, confusion, and wild energy that she'd hoped she would never experience again. But now she would stay and search its streets until she found that tower and wait for whoever was coming to her.

  As Walks Alone left the station, she caught the eye of a man loitering by the carriage stand. Dante Scruggs shifted the toothpick to the other side of his mouth and narrowed his one good eye; as the dark-haired woman passed by, the evil thoughts that ran through his head more regularly than the nearby trains picked up their frantic roaming. A month had gone by since his last work; it was coming around to the time when the Voices returned, and that same phrase skipped along the surface of his mind like a stone, over and over again.