Oh, it was rich to listen to them talk about levitating or leaving their bodies to wander among the planets and stars, almost as if they were engaged in an unspoken contest. And since Luther had made it implicitly clear all along that to exercise one’s FF abilities in front of others was bad manners—tantamount to trivializing the wonders of FF by cheap exhibitionism—no one had to back up his or her wondrous claims.
That way, no one could say the emperor had no clothes.
“My xelton feels the same way, but for some reason it cannot pierce through and contact Amurri’s. And we know what that means, don’t we.”
Jensen nodded. “Amurri is probably a Null.”
“And that,” Brady sighed, “is always tragic. I pity Nulls, but I pity even more the poor Null who’s deluded himself into Sham Fusion.”
He watched Jensen blink and swallow. He could almost read his mind: Why’s he saying that? Does he suspect? Does he know?
“So do I,” Jensen rasped.
“I’m sure there are members with SF in the temple, but one must restrain one’s xelton from piercing their veil. That would be too much of an invasion. And unnecessary because, as you know, sooner or later all Nulls betray themselves.” He cleared his throat as if clearing his mind. “But back to our friend Jason…”
Yes, Jason Amurri…after the Reveille Session was over and Amurri gone, Luther realized that he didn’t know a damn thing that he hadn’t known at the outset. Perhaps the man was just naturally reticent, but Luther had an uneasy feeling that he might be hiding something.
“Since our xeltons cannot yet contact his,” he went on, “perhaps you had better pry a little more deeply into his background.”
“I’m already on that.”
Brady raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“My, um, PX doesn’t think he acts like a rich boy. Doesn’t move like one.”
“And your xelton knows how the rich move?”
“I agree with my PX. I know people who move like Amurri and they’re not rich. They’re dangerous.”
“But it’s not like he showed up claiming to be Jason Amurri. He tried to hide that.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s the only thing that doesn’t fit. But then again maybe he planned it that way all along—gave an obviously phony name and then—”
Luther laughed. “That’s pretty convoluted, don’t you think?”
Jensen shrugged. “My PX thinks there’s more to him than meets the eye.”
“I think you give him too much credit.”
“Maybe. But if I can find just one picture of Jason Amurri, I’ll feel a whole lot better.”
“Knowing you, Jensen, if you found one, you’d wonder if it had been planted.”
A rare flash of white teeth in Jensen’s dark face—he almost never smiled. “That’s my job, right?”
“Right. And one you do so well.” Time to end this. He waved his hand at Jensen. “Keep checking on him. But if he shows up tomorrow with a six-figure donation, then stop. Because who he really is will no longer matter.”
As Jensen walked out, Luther pressed the button under the edge of his desktop. The panels rolled back, revealing the Opus Omega globe.
He’d felt like a stunned fish when he’d walked in earlier and found the panels open with Amurri standing before it. He’d been about to shout for Jensen when he noticed that Amurri made no attempt to hide what he was doing. His lack of furtiveness had allayed Luther’s suspicions. And his open curiosity about the meaning of the lights on the globe had seemed genuine.
Obviously he had no idea of the apocalyptic significance of what he’d seen.
Luther’s thoughts slipped back to that late winter day in college when he first saw the globe. It had existed only in his mind then. He’d been a frosh, away from his strict Scottish-American home for the first time in his eighteen years, and making the most of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll of the early seventies. He was into his first tab of acid, with a couple of more experienced guys guiding him through the trip, when the globe had appeared, suspended and spinning in the center of the room. He remembered pointing it out to the others but he was the only one who could see it.
Not a Rand McNally globe, but a battered, pockmarked sphere with brown, polluted oceans and bilious chemical clouds shrouding the land. As he’d watched, red dots began to glow on all the continents and oceans, and then glowing red lines arced out from each to connect with the others, creating a globe-spanning network of scarlet threads. And then black circles appeared at some of the intersections of those threads. Soon after, the black circles began glowing white, one by one, and when all were lit, the globe glowed red, then white hot. Finally it exploded, but the scattered pieces returned and reformed into a new world of fertile green continents and pristine blue oceans.
The vision altered the course of Luther’s life. Not immediately, not that night, but in the weeks and months afterward as it returned on a nightly basis, with or without chemical enhancement.
At first he was uneasy, thinking it was a recurring flashback and that he’d really screwed up his head. But after a while he got used to it. It became part of his quotidian existence.
But he was terrified when he first heard the voice. Never during his waking hours, only in his sleep, only during the vision. He began to think he might be schizophrenic.
At first it was an indistinct muttering—definitely a voice, but he couldn’t understand a word. Gradually it grew louder, the mutterings progressing to distinguishable speech. But although he understood the individual words, they seemed disjointed and he could make no sense of them.
That too changed and by his senior year he came to understand that this world, the ground on which he stood, was destined to change and merge with a sister world in another space-time continuum. Those here who helped speed the fusion would survive the transition from a polluted planet to paradise; the rest of humanity would not. The voice told him to find the places designated by the white lights, to buy the land there, and wait.
Buy up pieces of land? He was a college student, virtually penniless. The voice didn’t say how, but it implied that his future well-being depended on it.
And then, shortly after graduation, the book arrived. He found it on his bed in the apartment he was renting. No mailer, no note saying who it was from…just this weird, thick book. It looked ancient, but its title was in English: The Compendium of Srem. The text was in English as well. He began reading.
The voice stopped with the arrival of the book. Reading it changed his life.
Toward the end of all the strange and wondrous legends the Compendium recounted, he found an animated drawing of his vision globe. The text following the illustration explained Opus Omega.
And then he understood the dream and what he must do with his life.
So Luther went hunting for the locations. By then he had seen the globe so many times he could picture every detail in his mind. He found those places—some of them at least—and when he looked up the deed holders he discovered a startling trend: Many of the parcels were owned by a man named Cooper Blascoe.
A little more research revealed that Blascoe was the leader of a commune in northern California. Luther went out to check on him and what he found, what he learned there, changed his life forever.
For he realized then that the vision and the voice had come from the Hokano world. Cooper Blascoe had stumbled on a cosmic truth; he would provide the means for Luther to fulfill the prophecy of the voice.
Yes, the Hokano world was real, and maybe xeltons were too—who could say for sure?—but the Fusion concept and the ladder to achieve it were all products of Brady’s imagination, all designed to aid him in completing Opus Omega.
And now, after decades of struggle, only a few more tasks remained before completion.
Luther stepped closer to the spinning globe and reached out to it. As the ridges of its mountains and flats of its plains and oceans brushed against his fingertips, he closed his eyes. Just a few more locati
ons and his work would be done.
But the final steps were proving difficult. Some of the needed land was terribly expensive, some simply not for sale. But Luther was sure he could overcome all obstacles. All he needed was money.
It always seemed to come down to the same thing: never enough money.
But perhaps Jason Amurri could remedy that, at least in part.
And then the final white bulbs could be lit…and the Great Fusion—the only real fusion in the tapestry of lies he’d created—would begin, joining this world with Hokano.
And in that new, better world, Luther Brady would be rewarded above all others.
5
Gia felt moisture between her legs. She hurried to the bathroom and groaned with dismay when she saw the bright red blood on the pad she’d been wearing.
Bleeding again.
She calmed herself. It wasn’t much and Dr. Eagleton had warned her to expect some intermittent spotting for a few days afterward. But this was a little more than spotting.
She’d been tired all morning but noticed an uptick in her ambition level. She’d been planning on trying some painting, but now…
The good news was she wasn’t having any pain. Monday night she’d felt as if someone had kicked her in the stomach. Not even a cramp now.
She’d watch and wait. She didn’t want to be an alarmist, jumping on the phone for every little thing.
She’d take it slow and easy. Put her feet up and put off painting till tomorrow or the next day. Another thing she’d put off was telling Jack. He’d have a squad of EMTs here in seconds.
She had to smile at the thought of him. He was so confident and competent in so many areas of life, but where this baby was concerned, he was as jumpy as a cat. He cared so much.
Now, if he’d just find a lifestyle that wouldn’t cause Gia to wonder every time he walked out the door whether this might be the last time she’d see him alive, he’d make a great father.
6
Dressed in street clothes, Sister Maggie stepped into the dimness of Julio’s. Jack had said he wanted to meet with her and she felt this Upper West Side bar would be the least likely place she’d be seen by a Lower East Side parishioner.
She spotted Jack waiting at the same table against the wall and rushed over to him.
“It’s true?” she said, clutching the edge of the table in a death grip. “What you said on the phone—they’re gone?”
Jack nodded. “Your worries are over. I wiped out his files.”
Maggie felt her knees weaken. Blood thundered in her ears as she sagged into a chair.
“You’re sure? Absolutely sure?”
“Nothing’s absolute, but I’m as sure as I can be without strapping him to a chair and taping live wires to delicate parts of his anatomy.”
“That’s…that’s wonderful. Not what you just said,” she added quickly. “What you said before.”
Jack laughed. “I gotcha.”
She didn’t know how to ask this, and felt her face turning crimson. Finally she blurted it out.
“Did you happen to see any of the…”
Jack opened his mouth, closed it, then said, “You know, I was going to say yes, and boy were they hot, but I know it’s not a joking matter for you. So the truth: no. He didn’t keep hard copies. Why risk leaving evidence around when he could point and click and get a fresh print anytime he needed it?”
“I’m so glad, so glad.”
Maggie closed her eyes. She had her life back. She wanted to drop to her knees right here on the bar floor and cry out her gratitude to God, but that would attract too much attention.
“But listen,” Jack said, his voice grave. “Here’s why I wanted to meet in person. I want you to realize that even though I’ve wiped out his files, you’re going to hear from him again.”
The wonderful, airy lightness that had suffused her drained away.
“What do you mean?”
“If I did my job right—meaning he thinks this was all a terrible accumulation of accidents—he’ll assume that none of his victims know they’ve been wiped out. Which means they’ll all be thinking they’re still on the hook. You can’t let him know that you know you’re not.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious about this, Sister. And you can’t let your other half know either.”
“Other…?”
“Whoever else was in those pictures with you. Do not tell him.”
“But he’ll be forced to go on paying.”
“That’s his problem. Let him fix it. You fixed yours, so—”
“But—”
“No ‘buts,’ Sister. There’s a saying that three can keep a secret if two are dead.”
“But we two know.”
“No. Only you. I don’t exist. Trust me on this, please. This guy’s an ex dirty cop, so no telling—”
“How did you learn so much about him so soon?”
“Past research from my first encounter with Mr. Slime.”
“I…” She felt a sob build in her throat. “I can’t believe it’s over.”
“It’s not. Not yet. Like I told you, you’ve still got to deal with him, and very carefully. When he calls, tell him you’re tapped out and will send him something as soon as you get it. Plead with him to be patient.”
“But he wants me to…you know…” She lowered her voice. “The building fund…”
“Tell him you’ll try, but it won’t be easy. Because of the kind of neighborhood you’re in, they watch it like hawks, yadda-yadda. But whatever you do, don’t refuse to pay. You’re not going to send him another damn cent, but you can’t let him know that.”
“But I am going to pay you. I promise. Every cent.”
“No need. It’s all taken care of. Financed by a third party.”
Maggie was stunned. First the good news about the blackmail, and now this. But she couldn’t help being a little put off that a third party was involved in this, her most private business.
“But who—?”
“Don’t worry. You’ll never know her and she’ll never know you.”
A sob burst free as tears trickled down her cheeks. What more proof did she need that God had forgiven her?
“Thank you. Thank you so much. If there’s anything I can ever do for you, just say it.”
“Well, there is one thing.” He leaned forward. “How does such an uptight straight arrow like you let herself get involved in a situation that could ruin her life?”
Maggie hesitated, then figured, why not? Jack knew the bad part; he should know the rest of it.
She told him about the four Martinez children and how they were all going to have to leave St. Joseph’s for public school by the end of the year. She explained what a tragedy she thought that would be, especially for naïve little Serafina.
Without mentioning his name she told Jack about approaching Michael Metcalf for help.
“And somehow,” she said, “I found myself in a physical relationship with him. But the Martinez children are the innocent, unwitting victims. The blackmailer drained away the funds that would have gone to them. But don’t worry. I’ll find a way.”
Jack looked as if he was about to say something but changed his mind. He glanced at his watch instead.
“I’ve got someplace I’ve got to be, so…”
Maggie reached across the table and gripped both his hands. “Thank you. You’ve given me back my life and I’m going to do good things with it.” She gave his hands a final squeeze, then rose to her feet. “Good-bye, Jack. And God bless you.”
As she turned and started away she heard him say, “Did you hurt your leg?”
She stiffened. The burns on her thighs ached and stung with each step, but she offered up the pain.
“Why do you ask?”
“You’re limping a little.”
“It’s nothing. It will pass.”
Maggie stepped out into a new day, a new beginning—a redundancy she’d flag in one of her student’s prose, but
at this moment it seemed right and true.
Lord, don’t think I’m forgetting my promise just because I’m free of my tormentor. Tomorrow, cross number six. And on Sunday, the seventh and last, just as I promised. And also as promised, I will devote every moment of the rest of my life to Your works and never stray again.
She headed for the subway, for St. Joseph’s Church, to give God thanks in His house.
Life was good again.
7
Jack thought about Sister Maggie as he loitered in a doorway on Lexington Avenue and kept watch on the temple’s entrance. He’d ditched Jensen’s tail—he’d put two guys on him this morning—on his way to Julio’s. After his meeting with the nun, he’d returned to Lexington and set up watch for Johnny Roselli.
Sister Maggie…he’d had an urge to grab her and shake her and try to convince her to get out and enjoy life. But he couldn’t. It was her life, to live her way. His inability to comprehend her choices didn’t invalidate them.
Still…he didn’t get it. Probably never would.
His thoughts refocused on the here and now when he saw Roselli appear, pushing through the doors and then trotting down the steps of the nearby subway entrance. Jack had to do a little booking to keep from losing him.
He caught up on the downtown platform and followed him aboard a 4 train. Johnny was still in the grungy sackcloth-and-ashes mode and his mind seemed light years away as the car swayed and rattled and yawed along the tracks.
Jack’s mind wasn’t exactly locked onto the present either. It kept straying back to Brady’s office and the hidden globe. He remembered that cold feeling in his gut as he’d stared at the red and white lights and the lines running between…
They rode the 4 down to Union Square where Johnny hopped the L to its terminus on Eighth Avenue and Fourteenth. From there Jack shadowed him into the meat-packing district.
When Jack first came to the city, this area had deserved its name—beef hindquarters and pig carcasses hanging in doorways, burly, cleaver-toting butchers in blood-stained white aprons hustling in and out, back and forth. A different kind of hustle at night: curb clingers in hot pants and microminis—not all of them women—hawking their wares to passing cars.