Carrion Comfort

  The film had been showing mostly the empty street and backs of heads.

  Harod guessed that it had been taken from thirty or forty yards from the shooting, on the wrong side of the street, by a blind person with ce re bral palsy. There was almost no attempt to steady the camera. There was no sound. When the shootings took place they were obvious only by increased commotion in the small crowd; the photographer had not been aiming at the president at the time.

  “Here!” said Barent.

  The film stopped with a single freeze-frame on the large video screen. The angle was bizarre, but an old man’s face was visible between the shoulders of two other spectators. The man, who appeared to be in his early seventies, had white hair emerging from under a plaid sportscar cap and was intently watching the scene across the street. His eyes were small and cold.

  “Is that him?” asked Sutter. “Can you be sure?”

  “It doesn’t look like the photographs of him I’ve seen,” said Kepler. “Tony?” said Barent.

  Harod felt beads of perspiration break out on his upper lip and forehead. The frozen image was grainy, distorted by the poor lens, odd angle, and cheap film. There was an octagon of light glare on the lower right third of the frame. Harod realized that he could say that the picture was too fuzzy, that he did not really know. He could stay the fuck out of it. “Yeah,” said Harod, “that’s Willi all right.”

  Barent nodded and Haines killed the video image, brought the lights back up, and departed. For several seconds there was only the reassuring drone of the jet engines. “Just a coincidence, perhaps, Joseph?” said C. Arnold Barent. He walked around and sat behind his low, curved desk. “No,” said Kepler, “but it still doesn’t make any sense. What’s he trying to prove?”

  “That he’s still out there, maybe,” said Jimmy Wayne Sutter. “That he’s waiting. That he can get to us, any of us, whenever he wants to.” Sutter lowered his chin so that his jowls and chins furrowed and he smiled at Barent over his bifocals. “I presume that you will not be making anymore personal appearances for a while, Brother C.,” he said.

  Barent steepled his fingers. “This will be our last meeting before the Island Club summer camp in June. I will be out of the country . . . on business . . . until then. I urge all of you to take appropriate precautions.”

  “Precautions from what?” demanded Kepler. “What does he want? We’ve offered him membership in the Club through every channel we can think of. We even sent that Jew psychiatrist out with a message and we’re sure he was in touch with Luhar before the explosion killed them both . . .”

  “The identification was incomplete,” said Barent. “Dr. Laski’s dental records were missing from his dentist’s office in New York.”

  “Yeah,” said Kepler, “but so what? The message almost certainly got through. What does Willi want?”

  “Tony?” said Barent. All three men were staring at Harod. “How the hell should I know what he wants?”

  “Tony, Tony,” said Barent, “you were the gentleman’s colleague for years. You ate with him, spoke with him, joked with him . . . what does he want?”

  “The game.”

  “What?” said Sutter. “What game?” asked Kepler, leaning forward. “He wants to play the game on the Island after summer camp?”

  Harod shook his head. “Uh-uh,” he said. “He knows about your island games, but this is the game he likes. It’s like the old days— in Germany, I guess— when he and the two old broads were young. It’s like chess. Willi’s fucking crazy about chess. He told me once he dreams about it. He thinks we’re all in a fucking chess game.”

  “Chess,” muttered Barent and tapped his fingertips together. “Yeah,” said Harod. “Trask made a bad move, sent a couple of pawns too deep into Willi’s territory. Bam. Trask gets removed from the board. Same with Colben. Nothing personal just . . . chess.”

  “And the old woman,” said Barent, “was she a willing queen or just another of Willi’s many pawns?”

  “How the fuck should I know?” snapped Harod. He stood up and paced, his boots making no noise in the thick carpeting. “Knowing Willi,” he said, “he wouldn’t trust anybody as an ally in this sort of thing. Maybe he was afraid of her. One thing’s for sure, he led us to her because he knew we’d underestimate her.”

  “We did that,” said Barent. “The woman had an extraordinary Ability.”

  “Had?” asked Sutter. “We have no proof that she is alive,” said Joseph Kepler. “What about the watch on her house in Charleston?” asked the reverend. “Did someone pick that up from Nieman and Charles’s group?”

  “My people are there,” said Kepler. “Nothing to report.”

  “How about the airlines and such?” pressed Sutter. “Colben was sure she was trying to leave the country before something spooked her in Atlanta.”

  “The issue is not Melanie Fuller,” interrupted Barent. “As Tony has so correctly pointed out, she was a diversion, a false track. If she is alive we can ignore her and otherwise it is irrelevant what her role was. The question now before us is how do we respond to this most recent . . . gambit . . . by our German friend?”

  “I suggest we ignore it,” said Kepler. “The incident on Monday was just the old man’s way of showing us that he still has teeth. We’ve all agreed that if he’d meant to get to Mr. Barent, he could have done so. Let the old fart have his fun. When he’s done, we’ll talk to him. If he understands the rules, he can have the fifth seat in the Club. If not . . . I mean, goddamn, gentlemen, between the three of us . . . excuse me, Tony, the four of us . . . we have hundreds of paid security people at our disposal. How many does Willi have, Tony?”

  “Two when he left L.A.,” said Harod. “Jensen Luhar and Tom Reynolds. They weren’t paid, though, they were his personal pets.”

  “See?” said Kepler. “We wait until he gets tired of playing this one-sided game and then we negotiate. If he doesn’t negotiate, we send Haines and some of your people out, or some of my plumbers.”

  “No!” roared Jimmy Wayne Sutter. “We have turned the other cheek too many times. ‘The Lord avengeth and is full of wrath . . . Who can stand before His indignation? And who can abide by the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken asunder by Him . . . He will pursue His enemies into darkness!’ Nahum 1:2”

  Joseph Kepler stifled a yawn. “Who’s talking about the Lord, Jimmy? We’re talking about how to deal with a senile Nazi with a chess hangup.”

  Sutter’s face grew red and he leveled a blunt finger at Kepler. The large ruby in his ring caught the light. “Do not mock me,” he warned in a bass growl. “The Lord has spoken to me and through me and He will not be denied.” Sutter looked around. “ ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him,’ ” he rumbled. “James 1:5.”

  “And what does God say on this issue?” Barent asked quietly. “This man may well be the Antichrist,” said Sutter, his voice drowning out the faint hum of the jet engines. “God says we must find him and root him out. We must smite him hip and thigh. We must find him and find his minions . . . ‘the same shall drink the wine of the wrath of God; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torments ascendeth up for ever and ever.’ ”

  Barent smiled slightly. “Jimmy, I presume from what you say that you are not in favor of negotiating with Willi and offering him a membership in the Club?”

  The Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter took a long sip of his bourbon and branch water. “No,” he said so quietly that Harod had to lean forward to hear him, “I think we should kill him.”

  Barent nodded and swiveled his large leather chair. “Tie vote,” he said. “Tony, your thoughts?”

  “I pass,” said Harod, “but I think deciding is one thing, actually tracking Willi down and dealing with him will be another. Look at the mess we made with Melanie
Fuller.”

  “Charles made that mistake and Charles paid for it,” Barent said. He looked at the other two men. “Well, since Tony abstains on this matter, it looks as if I have the honor of casting the deciding vote.”

  Kepler opened his mouth as if to speak and then thought better of it. Sutter drank his bourbon in silence.

  “What ever our friend Willi was up to in Washington,” said Barent, “I did not appreciate it. However, we will interpret it as an act of pique and let it go for now. Perhaps Tony’s insight on Willi’s obsession with chess is the best guide we have in this matter. We have two months before summer camp on Dolmann Island and our . . . ah . . . ensuing activities there. We must keep our priorities clear. If Willi abstains from further harassment, we will consider negotiation at a later date. If he continues to be troublesome . . . so much as a single incident . . . we will use every resource, public and private, to find him and destroy him in a method not . . . ah . . . inconsistent with Jimmy’s advice from Revelation. It was Revelation, was it not, Brother J?”

  “Just so, Brother C.”

  “Fine,” said Barent. “I think I will go forward and get some sleep. I have a meeting in London tomorrow. All of you will find your sleeping compartments made up and ready for you. Where would you like to be dropped off?”

  “L.A.,” said Harod. “New Orleans,” said Sutter. “New York,” said Kepler. “Done,” said Barent. “Donald informed me a few minutes ago that we were then somewhere over Nevada so we’ll drop Tony first. I’m sorry you won’t be able to enjoy the accommodations overnight, Tony, but you might want to catch forty winks before we land.”

  “Yeah,” said Harod.

  Barent rose and Haines appeared, holding the door to the forward corridor open. “Until we meet again at the Island Club Summer Camp, gentlemen,” said Barent. “Ciao, and good fortune to each of you.”

  A servant in a blue blazer showed Harod and Maria Chen forward to their stateroom. The rear part of the 747 had been turned into Barent’s large office, a lounge, and the billionaire’s bedroom. Forward of the office, to the left of a corridor that reminded Harod of all the European trains he had ever traveled on, were the large staterooms, decorated in subtle shades of green and coral, consisting of a private bath, sleeping area with a queen-size bed, and couch and color TV. “Where’s the fireplace?” Harod muttered to the servant in the blazer.

  “I believe that is Sheik Muzad’s aircraft that has a working fireplace,” answered the handsome young man with no trace of a smile.

  Harod had poured another vodka on ice and joined Maria Chen on the couch when there was a soft knock at the door. A young woman in a blazer identical to the male aide’s said, “Mr. Barent wondered if you and Ms. Chen would care to join him in the Orion Lounge.”

  “The Orion Lounge?” said Harod. “Sure, what the hell.” They followed the young woman down the corridor and through a security-card locked door to a spiral staircase. On a commercial 747, Harod knew, the staircase would lead up to the first-class lounge. As they stepped off the dark staircase at the top, both Harod and Maria Chen stopped in awe.

  The woman went back down the stairs, securing the door at the bottom and shutting off the last gleam of reflected light from below.

  The room was the same size as a normal 747 lounge, but it was as if someone had removed the top of the aircraft, leaving a platform open to the skies at 35,000 feet. Thousands of stars blazed overhead, seeming not to twinkle at all at this altitude, and Harod could look left and right at the dark wedge of wings, the blinking red and green navigation lights, and a carpet of starlit cloud tops a mile or more below them. There was absolutely no sound and no sense of separation between where they stood and an infinite expanse of night sky. Only low silhouettes suggested the presence of shadowy furniture and a single, seated person in the lounge itself. Behind and below them receded the long metallic bulk of the airliner, the top of its fuselage glowing slightly in the starlight, a single, bright beacon flashing on the tall tail.

  “Jesus Christ,” whispered Harod. He heard Maria Chen’s sudden in-take of breath as she remembered to breathe.

  “I’m glad you like it,” came Barent’s voice from the darkness. “Come and sit down.”

  Harod and Maria Chen walked carefully to a cluster of low chairs around a circular table, their eyes adjusting to the starlight. Behind them, the entrance to the spiral staircase had a single warning strip of red light on the top step and the bulkhead to the crew compartment was a black hemi sphere against the western starfield. They collapsed on soft cushions and continued to stare at the sky.

  “It’s a translucent plastic compound,” said Barent. “More than thirty layers, actually, but almost perfectly transparent and much stronger than Plexiglas. There are scores of support ribs, but they are fiber thin and do not interfere with the view at night. The outer surface polarizes in the daylight and looks like a glossy black paint job from the outside. It took my engineers a year to develop it and then it took me two years to convince the CAB that it was airworthy. If it was left to the engineers, aircraft would have no windows for passengers at all.”

  “It is beautiful,” said Maria Chen. Harod could see starlight reflected in her dark eyes.

  “Tony, I asked both of you here because this concerns both of you,” said Barent.

  “What does?”

  “The . . . ah . . . dynamics of our group. You may have noticed a little tension in the air.”

  “I noticed that everyone’s on the verge of losing their fucking minds.”

  “Just so,” said Barent. “The events of the past few months have been . . . ah . . . troublesome.”

  “I don’t see why,” said Harod. “Most people don’t get worked up when their colleagues are blown to shit or dropped into the Schuylkill River.”

  “The truth is,” said C. Arnold Barent, “that we had grown far too complacent. We have had our Club and our way for too many years . . . decades actually . . . and it may be that Willi’s little vendettas have offered a necessary . . . ah . . . pruning.”

  “As long as none of us are next in line to be pruned,” said Harod. “Precisely.” Barent poured wine into a crystal goblet and set it in front of Maria Chen. Harod’s eyes had adapted so that he could see the others clearly now, but it only made the stars brighter, the cloud tops more milk-ily iridescent. “In the meantime,” said Barent, “there are bound to be certain imbalances in a group dynamic that had been so precariously established under circumstances no longer operative.”

  “What do you mean?” said Harod. “I mean that there is a power vacuum,” said Barent and his voice was as cold as the starlight that bathed them. “Or more precisely, the perception of a power vacuum. Willi Borden has made it possible for little people to think they can be giants. And for that he will have to die.”

  “Willi will?” said Harod. “So all that talk about possible negotiations and Willi joining the Club was bullshit?”

  “Yes,” said Barent. “If necessary, I will run the Club by myself, but under no circumstances will that ex-Nazi ever sit at our table.”

  “Then why . . .” Harod paused and thought a minute. “You think Kepler and Sutter are ready to make their move?”

  Barent smiled. “I have known Jimmy for many years. The first time I saw him preach was in a tent revival in Texas four decades ago. His Ability was unfocused but irresistible; he could make a tent full of sweating agnostics do what ever he wanted them to and do it happily in the name of God. But Jimmy is getting old and he uses his real persuasive powers less and less while relying upon the apparatus of persuasion he’s built. I know he had you out at his little fundamentalist magic kingdom last week . . .” Barent held up his hand to cut off Harod’s explanation. “That’s all right, Jimmy must have told you that I would know . . . and understand. I don’t believe that Jimmy wants to upset the applecart, but he senses a possible shift in power and wants to be on the correct side when the shifting subsides. Willi’s meddling has appeared— on
the surface— to have changed a very delicate equation.”

  “But not in reality?” said Harod. “No,” said Barent and the softly spoken syllable was as final as a rifle shot. “They forgot essential facts.” Barent reached into a drawer of the low table in front of them and withdrew a double-action semiautomatic pistol. “Pick it up, Tony.”

  “Why?” asked Harod, his skin bristling. “The weapon is real and it is loaded,” said Barent. “Pick it up, please.” Harod lifted the weapon and held it loosely in both hands. “OK, so what’s the deal?”

  “Aim it at me, Tony.”

  Harod blinked. What ever demonstration Barent had in mind, he wanted no part of it. He knew that Haines and a dozen other security people were within a critical distance. “I don’t want to aim it at you,” said Harod. “I don’t like these fucking games.”

  “Aim the gun at me, Tony.”

  “Screw you,” said Harod and stood up to leave. He made a dismissive motion with his hand and walked to where the red light showed the top step of the staircase.

  “Tony,” came Barent’s voice, “come here.”

  Harod felt as if he had walked into one of the plastic walls. His muscles cramped into tight knots and sweat broke out all over his body. He tried to surge forward, away from Barent, but only succeeded in dropping to his knees.

  Once, four or five years before, he and Willi had had a session where the old man had tried to exert power over him. It had been a friendly exercise, in answer to some question Harod had asked about the Vienna Game Willi had been rambling on about. Instead of feeling the warm wave of domination that Harod knew he used on women, Willi’s onslaught had been like a vague but terrible pressure in Harod’s skull, white noise and a claustrophobic closeness all at once. But no loss of self-control on Harod’s part. He had recognized immediately that Willi’s Ability was much stronger than his own— more brutal was the phrase that had come to mind— but although Harod had doubted if he could have Used someone else during Willi’s assault, there was no sense that Willi could have Used him. “Ja,” Willi had said, “it is always like that. We can turn on one another, but those that Use cannot be Used, nicht wahr? We test our strength through third parties, eh? A pity really. But a king cannot take a king, Tony. Remember that.”