Vitals

  Marquez started the video again. Five golden women climbed the steel columns to their ropes and began a high-wire act.

  Tammy’s eyes took on a dreaming quality, remembering marvelous days, commitment and faith. “Philippe said Dr. Goncourt was a genius. To me, he was God. He chose our foods, supervised our training. He gave us special baths, smell very bad, like sulfur. Swabbed our skins. But he never gave us drugs. I never felt so good. I learn the boleadoras. I am top-notch, excellent even on the high wire. Philippe was proud. They told me I can travel now.”

  The high-wire act was amazing. Strength and agility I had never seen before, and grace as well as ingenuity. The young women seemed to dance in the air, or sometimes just to fly.

  “I learned from Philippe that a few of the family did more than just circus. They went places and did favors for Dr. Goncourt. He asked me if I wanted this. Everything was grand, exciting, I loved Philippe so, I would do anything. I agreed. He nominated me—took me before the Committee, older people who had been with Dr. Goncourt since long before Fantôme. Olympic athletes, performers from Russia.”

  “Fucking Communists,” Marquez muttered. He hid his eyes behind his hands, then leaned his head back again to stare at the ceiling.

  “Damn the Jews,” Banning shot back, as if in spasm.

  Tammy held her hand to her mouth and bit a knuckle, blinking. “The Committee adopted me, with Philippe—”

  Marquez boiled over. He stood and pointed his finger at Banning. “I’ll tell you about Jews,” he shouted. “I’ll fucking tell you about victims and crimes!”

  Banning’s eyes went wide and his brows pushed up his forehead in furrows. “Marx, Trotsky, Sinoviev, Kamenev . . . The Communists were empowered by world Jewry, by Jews who hated themselves and their race!”

  Marquez almost leaped over the chairs to get at Banning. Tammy held him back.

  Banning was into it completely. He couldn’t stop. “The Jews orchestrated their own demise, bit by bit—and blamed it on Hitler, but it was also Stalin who killed so many, who killed all but one of the Jews around him, sent them to Siberia, and who put him in power? Jews. Who spied for him? Communist Jews. The Rosenbergs, Ted Hall . . . Jews! Damn the Jews!”

  Marquez let out an anguished war cry. “I’ll kill you!” He pushed Tammy aside. Banning leaned back over a row of seats and braced to receive Marquez’s assault. Marquez wrapped his hands around Banning’s neck, shaking him like a chicken.

  Cousins nodded to me as if we had always been beat partners, cops on patrol. While Tammy shouted, “Stop it! Stop it!” we grabbed the two men and pulled them apart. Banning slipped through my arms, tripped in the aisle, and fell with a loud thump.

  Tammy whispered in her lover’s ear. Marquez screamed his curses but stopped trying to break free. “Goddamn that bastard, I don’t care what he knows—”

  “He’s sick, shhh, he is a sick man,” Tammy soothed.

  Banning stood, brushed his jacket and pants with as much dignity as he could muster. He inclined his head and extended his gloved hand as if politely requesting permission to leave, and minced out of the theater.

  “I don’t care if his brain has got filthy Nazi syphilitic worms all through it, that’s enough, that’s more than I can stand!” Tears streamed down Marquez’s face.

  Tammy started to sob. “I can’t bring a child into this!”

  Marquez’s anger blew out like a candle in an open window. “Oh, shit,” he said.

  Tammy fell back in her seat. “I can’t leave the house, I have to act brave, my head is like a hurricane. I have to keep it all inside, all day long! I don’t know who or what I am, or where I belong, I don’t know anything!”

  “We’re sorry, honey,” Marquez said. “We are all so sorry.” He looked sick with remorse. Tammy tried to push him away, but he clutched her tightly and stroked her hair. It was a sad and scary moment and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to slink off down the road.

  We stood in silence while Marquez tried to placate the mother of his coming child. “I wish we could take it all back,” he murmured to her. “I surely do.”

  Cousins had an odd look. Analytical, like watching fish in a bowl. It seemed out of character, and maybe I was just seeing his way of coping with emotional scenes.

  From the entry, I heard the sound of a big piece of glass breaking. Cousins and I ran into the hall. Banning stood before a tall decorative arrangement of silk flowers rising from a marble table. He had shattered the gold-framed mirror behind the flowers, picked out a piece of glass as long as a dagger, and was shoving it by inches through his left palm. Blood fell in a thin red ribbon on the tiles, his shoes, his pant legs.

  “I am such a wreck,” he said, then his eyes rolled up and he toppled like a sack of rice.

  Together, we hauled him into the bathroom. Tammy told us we would find a first-aid kit under the bathroom counter. Marquez shook his head and clenched his fists and marched back and forth outside the door as we pulled out the shard, stanched the bleeding, and bound the wound.

  “We have to get him to a doctor,” Cousins said. “He could have nerve damage. He’ll certainly need stitches.”

  “I have my own doctor,” Marquez said through the bathroom door.

  I opened the door. Banning was just coming to. Marquez backed off. Two of his bodyguards, brutes in black T-shirts and silk suits, heads shaven down to fuzz, flanked him, frowning mightily.

  “Tammy,” Marquez said, “call Dr. Franks.” He rubbed his palms on his pajama bottoms.

  Tammy made the phone call. Cousins and I carried Banning, groggy and disoriented, past the bodyguards, through the back door, and across the side yard to the guesthouse next door. Tammy unlocked the French doors and we laid him out on a bed.

  “My apologies,” Banning said, his speech slurred. Then he rolled over and passed out again.

  Cousins wiped his hands on a towel from the guesthouse bathroom. His face was pale and the underarms of his shirt dark. “What a day!” he said.

  The doctor arrived just after ten. The guards drove him up from the front gate. He examined Banning’s hand in the guesthouse and said he would much prefer to take the man to the hospital. The wound was serious enough, but he was more concerned about Banning’s state of mind.

  Marquez stood out in the yard doing stretches. The dogs in the kennels were going crazy, barking and leaping in their chain-link runs.

  Banning glanced up at me, groggy, as they helped him walk to the waiting ambulance. I gave him a little wave. He shook his head. He didn’t need to say it again: I am such a wreck.

  The ambulance drove off into the darkness.

  Cousins had dragged me into a world of nightmare and no sense. I had had my house turned upside down and spent three nights in jail. I had been drugged—I think—twice, and did not know whether I would ever again be the master of my own soul.

  They wanted my help, but what could I do? What were they up against? How could they possibly win? It all was piling up on my shoulders, and I did not know what my final decision should be.

  The Rottweilers were still leaping and barking. “It’s all the fuss and the people,” Marquez said. “They’ll get over it. They always do.” He walked over to the cage and tried to calm them, but all three dogs went into a spinning frenzy. Two of them, hefty bitches, chewed at the wire, spit flying through the links onto the concrete. Marquez backed off with a dismayed smirk and stuck his hands in his pajama pockets.

  Cousins approached from behind. The dogs caught his scent. The male started rolling around in his separate cage, gnawing at his paws, eyes rolling. I tried to get one of the bitches to come to the wire, but she ignored me and barked madly at Cousins.

  “Who feeds the dogs?” I asked.

  “Why?” Marquez said with a defensive look.

  Cousins suddenly got it. “Oh, my God,” he said. “Joe, who feeds them?”

  “Sometimes Tammy or me, sometimes the bodyguards.”

  “Where do the bodyguards come
from?” I asked, kicking myself for not seeing it earlier.

  “A security firm in Van Nuys. They rotate out every other day,” Marquez said.

  Cousins took Marquez’s arm and they backed away from the cages. The dogs settled down a little but watched them with keen interest. “Let’s go into the house,” Cousins said.

  Inside, Cousins told Marquez the bodyguards would have to leave the compound. We couldn’t trust them. Marquez paced around the living room, orating one long and monotonous apology, flinging his arms, swearing at his stupidity.

  Watching him was the final straw.

  I approached Cousins and said quietly, “This isn’t Oz, this is Kafkaville. Banning isn’t the only loon here.”

  The guards made Marquez sign a special form that their firm would not be held responsible, then piled into a black Nissan SUV and rolled off down the road, through the main gate.

  Tammy took Marquez off to bed.

  I peered into the theater, waiting for Cousins. The circus was still frozen on the big screen. The room was quiet and peaceful. None of it, on the screen or off, seemed real.

  Cousins came back and closed the theater door.

  “Looks hopeless, doesn’t it?” he said.

  “When did you guys meet?”

  “Six months ago. Marquez had worked with Banning on an idea for a war movie, before Banning was tagged. When Tammy showed up last year, Marquez called Banning to get his opinion. Not long after that, Banning called me.”

  “That is a remarkable string of coincidences,” I said.

  “All roads lead to people who make movies,” Cousins said mildly. “Believe me, in Los Angeles, there are very few genuine coincidences. Before you go, let me show you what we’ve got on our side. What I’m working on. Might change your mind.”

  “I really don’t think I want to see any more,” I muttered, a little ashamed. “I might compromise your operation.”

  Cousins sighed. “Look at us,” he said. “We’re amateurs. If you can’t help us, it’s time to give up. And that means . . . well, you can guess. But I’ll understand if you want to just get the hell out. Give me ten more minutes of your time, then I’ll escort you down to the gate myself.”

  I followed him around the east side of the house, down a flight of steps and through a side entrance, below the level of the lawn, into the basement.

  Cousins flicked on a light switch. There was a bright white room down there, like something in a hospital, with expensive-looking equipment, microscopes, refrigerators, ovens. Equations and sketches of molecules covered a whiteboard on the wall. Off to one side stood a sunlamp, in the corner a small bath and shower stall, and beyond the benches, several stools and an easy chair.

  “Is this where you made the stuff you fed me?”

  “It is,” he said.

  “And you?” I asked. “Are you susceptible?”

  “Yes. But I’ve been experimenting with myself over the last few years, in the interests of living longer. Before I knew about Silk, I altered my own gut bacteria and some of my cellular characteristics. Unwittingly, I gave myself some immunity. Now it’s all I can do to stay just one step ahead of Silk.”

  “They know where you are,” I said.

  Cousins made a wry face. “I thought Marquez’s paranoia made this place ideal.”

  I let that pass without comment. Civilians rarely know the best places to hide or whom to trust with their lives. “What about Banning? What do you know about him? He brings you all together, he provides the catalyst that unites all these people who could be dangerous to Silk. Have you ever considered the possibility that he’s some sort of henchman or decoy?”

  “I’ve thought about it,” Cousins said. “It’s not impossible. But I don’t think it’s him.” His face loosened a little, sad, then thoughtful. “My wife, maybe.”

  “You’re afraid of your wife?”

  “We’re getting divorced. I got suspicious. Lots of little things.”

  “Shit.” Nastier and nastier. I rubbed the back of my neck and stretched, looking around the setup in the basement. “How long have you been working on your vaccines?” I asked.

  “Six months.”

  “And how long has Silk been out there?” I had already done the math, I was making a point.

  “Seventy years, maybe.”

  I held up my hands as if surrendering. “These guys have been scouring channels and making contacts, creating their little operatives, breaking trails of subversion, for seventy years. That’s way outside my league. No, thanks. Pardon me, boys, but that’s the fucking Chattanooga Choo-Choo.”

  Cousins stared at me sadly. “I know we have a chance,” he persisted. “We can’t just let it all go!”

  Tammy opened the basement door and poked her head in. “Interrupting?” she asked.

  “Not at all,” I said, dropping my hands and walking off. I did not want that woman in the room, not when I had made my decision, when my instincts told me to get the hell out and fast. Something melted in me when she was near. Not even Janie had evoked such a reaction, and that made me angry.

  “I put Joe to bed. He sleeps like a baby.” She sighed and closed the door behind her. She had put on a block-print caftan, warmer and almost able to conceal her shape. “He is sensitive about Jews, especially with Mr. Banning. He does not understand.”

  “Tammy didn’t finish her story,” Cousins said. “Maybe now’s the time?”

  “I can guess,” I said.

  Tammy stood beside Cousins. They both looked at me expectantly.

  “Tammy saw Golokhov,” I said. “That’s what this is all about. He’s Goncourt, isn’t he?”

  Tammy rewarded me with a sad, lovely smile.

  “We’re pretty sure,” Cousins said.

  “He’d have to be, what, a hundred years old by now?”

  “Closer to a hundred and five.”

  “And you want me to help you do something in the Bahamas.”

  Cousins looked me straight in the eye. “Eventually. If you’re up to it.”

  “I tell why I leave Philippe?” Tammy inquired.

  Cousins nodded.

  “Yeah,” I said, giving up. It had been a very long day. Surely there was a point to it all.

  “I was ill in Los Angeles just after Philippe and I arrived. Something inside, turistas.”

  “Theme of the day,” I said dryly.

  “There was a banquet. Fancy hotel, beautiful people, from Canada, Venezuela, Brazil, China, Puerto Rico, Las Vegas, Bahamas, Disneyland. I became sick in our big room. Philippe was angry, he wanted to show me off, but what can he do?” Her voice was so exotic, a touch sad, with unpredictable upbeats and downbeats. Just achingly beautiful. “I don’t know it, but I am coming out of their control.”

  “Hardy constitution, tough on out-of-town bacteria like Goncourt’s,” Cousins said. “From living in the slums. That’s my guess.”

  Tammy rubbed her eyes and peered dramatically, demonstrating new insight. “I suddenly see the room, the city, all different. It is like suddenly losing faith in God, you know? But it is a big city, I am afraid, I know nobody and nothing. I go with Philippe to another hotel, the Beverly Hilton. He introduces me to a woman. The woman is blond, beautiful, tall. She is with two shorter men I do not know, but they also have the look of circus performers. I think of them as the Gray Men. Philippe says they represent Goncourt in California and the West Coast.”

  “Runners,” Cousins said.

  “He tells me he is going to leave me with the Gray Men, and they will train me.” Her face wrinkled in revulsion. “Leave me! In a strange town, away from my family!”

  “The bastard,” I said.

  “The two men ask Philippe how obedient I am. The blond woman acts as if I am a dog or a cat. Obedience is essential, Philippe tells me. We are a cell in LA, and we do important work for Dr. Goncourt. It is a fabulous life, he says, you go everywhere, sneak around in the dark. The Gray Men say I will become like them, masters of being inconspicuou
s.”

  I wondered how she could ever be inconspicuous.

  “They will teach me all the necessary skills, even how to kill without touching.”

  I heard a low, choppy rumble outside. Not like thunder. No windows in the basement. My neck hairs twitched.

  “I escape the next morning,” Tammy said. “I hang out on the streets, at YWCA, until I am picked up by Beverly Hills police. I tell them my story. I tell them it is about drugs, and maybe it is. Then, two, three people help me, I am lucky. One of them is a psychiatrist, she knows Joe. Joe’s house is isolated. Secure. Nobody bad will find me.”

  She dropped her shoulders and her chin, then looked at the far wall, the whiteboard with the cryptic writing. “I remember the codes,” she said. Before she could explain that, Cousins interrupted.

  “There’s no escape, really,” Cousins said. The hollowness in his voice was startling. He sounded like a ghost. “Think about it. What can they force people to do? Anything. Who can they touch? Anybody, anywhere. Jesus, I’d like to make them know how it feels.” He lifted his fist and swung at empty air. “Smash them right in the fucking nose.”

  The low-level noise—a harsh, distant whickering—was at first familiar and even welcome. My heart thumped in unison with the slicing blades, so like the rush of angels’ wings to an old jungle warrior. But that hope didn’t last for more than a couple of seconds.

  I wasn’t in the bush.

  “What is it?” Cousins asked.

  I had been working over Marquez’s challenge some more. How would I breach his security, invade his fortress? Like most civilians, he had made the basic assumption that there are boundaries in life, that what you’ve never experienced and can’t imagine just won’t happen.

  Marquez had neglected air superiority. I pointed my finger up. “Listen.”