Coming of Age: Volume 2: Endless Conflict (30 page)

Antigone walked slowly the length of the vast room, over its checkerboard of imported white and black marble. She crossed once to the windows and briefly looked out on the lake. “It’s very … impressive,” she said.

Praxis nodded, not wanting to take personal credit for the project. He would let it speak of his heart and the memory of their visit to the original in France, so long ago.

Inside the main residence, he led her through the unfinished rooms, up the staircase, and into more rooms. All were bright, airy, and open, with sunlight reflecting off the water and up into chambers full of rough white quartz and flecked gray stone.

“Why did you bring me here, John?” Antigone asked at last.

“So you could pick out your apartment and have it finished any way you like,” he replied. Then he went on, even though he knew it might sound desperate, “You can face east, with the sun rising over the mountains, or west, with it setting among the trees. The lake’s beautiful here in summer—”

“Do you think I’m going to
live
here?” she asked. “Because I have my own place, you know, my own life, in the city.”

“You could come and visit,” he said. “Anytime you like.”

“But … I need to take care of my ward, Angela.”

“Then she can have her own apartment.”

“Did you think this would bring us back together, John?” she asked sadly. “That we would live here together? Be a couple once again? Fall
in love
again?”

“Wouldn’t this be the place for it?” he suggested.

“For any other two people, perhaps. Not for us.”

“But what did I ever
do?
” he said hopelessly.

“Nothing. Just that you couldn’t save me.”

And there, in those words, Praxis realized that the woman of his heart, the Antigone he had known and loved, no longer existed. Maybe she never did exist, except in his own mind. The woman who loved him, wanted to be with him, to share his life, his enthusiasms, had been like a summer storm. All those years ago, she had passed over the mountains, arising in the west, shedding her life force—her gusts of romance and sensual pleasure, her rain of occasional tears, her lightning flashes of hot anger—all too briefly. And then she had disappeared into the east.

In the place of his loving, playful, sympathetic Antigone, with her fresh spirit and dancing eyes, there was now this distant, closed, selfish woman, no warmer than the stones of the room in which they were standing. She had once borne an image of herself, the beautiful Antigone Wells, who commanded courtrooms, judge’s chambers, and conference rooms with her presence, her stature, her exquisite beauty, and her bell-clear voice. And then, one day, in her quest to preserve and extend that beauty, some doctor had damaged that face and that voice—and Antigone had never recovered. She still wore the hat and veil that everyone who saw her now insisted were unnecessary. But they had become her dark persona.

Antigone had become an old woman, set in her ways, like a bubbling, free-flowing stream that had frozen into a single, narrow channel. She had not grown senile, exactly. She was still able to function as an attorney, or as an online legal reference, a ghost among her databases of law and precedent, operating within that self-defined channel—or so his great-grandson Kenneth said. But while her body might still be strong and supple from her karate exercises, she had grown old and brittle in spirit. Perhaps she had always been that narrow and inflexible, and he just couldn’t see it. But she was no longer the woman with whom he had fallen in love. That woman was gone forever.

“I’ll take you back to the plane,” he said.

* * *

Having deciphered the names of his targets, Hsu Bolin discovered they were the chairman and president, respectively, of the Praxis Family Association. That made them difficult, but not impossible, to approach and destroy. He had immediately deployed his resources to the San Francisco area and made new contacts there as well. One of them was an intelligence in the Bay Area Air Control Center, who agreed to track the family’s aircraft through the flight plans they were required to file.

Unfortunately, there was a lag. On the day that one of the PFA’s armored ariflects—the one designated No. 5 and reserved for the chairman’s personal use—was scheduled for a stop at the Treasure Island Heliport, Hsu got the word ten minutes too late. By the time he arrived, the craft had come and gone. However, witnesses on the scene reported that a man and woman had both stepped out of the fuselage, met with a woman in black, and escorted her back to the plane.

The intelligence had lost track of the AFR-III once it left the Greater Bay Area’s airspace. But Hsu had no intention of chasing his targets to their presumed destination. The BAACC intelligence also reported that the ariflect was due to return later in the day, and the witnesses under further questioning recalled that the woman had no luggage. All of which indicated that the touching performance would be repeated that afternoon. Hsu was patient. He could wait. And the café at the heliport offered an excellent cup of tea and selection of
dim sum,
even if it was prepackaged.

Sooner than he expected, however, the air-control intelligence alerted his smartphone that the No. 5 aircraft was inbound. He just had time to finish his tea, get down to the apron, and prepare himself mentally and physically for engagement.

The dark-bodied machine landed in a clatter of blades, the door opened, and a tall woman in a black dress, hat, and veil—looking like the widow at a western funeral—stepped down. Watching from fifteen meters away, Hsu waited for more people, perhaps his targets, to descend behind her. But the door closed immediately. Hsu could see other figures inside the cabin, but they were just shapes and shadows. All told, the ariflect was off the pavement and into the air within thirty seconds.

Not a matter for concern, he decided. This was simply his first contact. Others would follow.

In the meantime, this woman in black was definitely a person of interest: someone that a man and woman, who might have been his targets, had cherished enough that morning to descend from their plane and meet with touches and smiles.

He followed her out of the heliport at a discreet distance.

* * *

When Antigone Wells returned to her condominium after that painful flight up into the mountains, she knew something was wrong the moment she turned the key and walked into her own front hall. From further down came a rustle of startled activity, the exchange of hushed voices, and the slamming of a door. It originated in Angela’s bedroom. “Hello?” Wells called.

After a slight hesitation, the answer came back: “Aunt? You’re home!”

“And who else would it be?” Wells demanded.

Angela came out of her room. She was barefoot, wearing a light silk robe, and nothing much else—in the early afternoon.

“Are you all right?” Wells asked.

“I was just napping,” the girl replied and gave a big yawn. She covered her mouth with the back of one hand and raised the other in a half-stretch. It was almost convincing.

“Is someone here?”

“No. Why would there be?”

“Because I heard two people’s voices.”

“Oh! That was just …” And there Angela ran out of excuses.

Antigone Wells stalked down the hall, brushed past her ward, and entered the bedroom. The bed was unmade and rumpled, the covers thrown back, the pillows piled up against the headboard. The door to the connecting bathroom was suspiciously closed. Wells crossed the room and pulled it open.

Kenneth Praxis stood there on one leg, his pants up around his hips but still unzipped, his arms through his shirtsleeves but with nothing buttoned. One foot was bare, the other jammed halfway into a sock. He looked up with shame in his eyes. He shook his head at Wells and the girl standing behind her.

“I don’t have to ask what you two were up to,” Wells said.

Praxis put down his foot, stood with his arms at his side.

“I’ll give you the chance to arrange yourself and leave.”

When Wells closed the door, her ward came up to her.

“I love him, Aunt,” she said. “I’ve always loved him.”

Wells just stared at her. “Cooking classes, indeed!”

* * *

John Praxis had received an urgent message from Antigone, asking him to meet with her that evening. He did not know what to expect, after their disastrous trip up to Cherry Lake and the long, silent ride back. Would she try to make up to him, apologize for her behavior, unbend a bit and recognize his grand gesture? Would she declare a latent love for him, burning slowly over the long years? And, even if she did have a change of heart, after all those years, after the decision Praxis had made for himself as they stood facing one another in the cold stone room overlooking the lake, would he care now?

His HUMV-IX paused in front of Antigone’s condominium building. Pamela stepped out of the vehicle and preceded him across the sidewalk to the lobby door. The mechanical doorman recognized them both and admitted them. Praxis nodded to his bodyguard, indicating she should wait in the lobby while he went up.

At the apartment door, Antigone met him herself, let him in, and led him down the main corridor to the living room. He expected to find Angela there, as usual, but he suddenly sensed the place was empty. That could be good for the coming encounter, or very bad.

Antigone arranged herself on the sofa, pointed to a chair opposite.

“Today I discovered a very shocking thing,” she began.

Here it comes,
he thought, bracing himself.

“When I came back here, I surprised my niece, my ward,
in flagrante delicto
with your great-grandson Kenneth.”

“Oh, my!” he said.
That changes everything.
“Are you sure?”

“He was half-dressed, in her bathroom, vainly trying to cover himself. She was even more
dishabille.
There is no doubt at all about what they had been doing.”

Praxis’s first thought was,
Good for her!
He had long sensed that the young woman was not as dutiful or compliant as Antigone imagined. She had decided to strike out on her own—even if it was with a putative cousin. For, of course, he knew Angela’s origins as well as Antigone did. His second thought was for young Kenny:
You had better be good to her! She doesn’t have your experience.
Somewhere in this mix of emotions, Praxis must have lost control of his face.

“Why are you smiling?” Antigone demanded. “This isn’t a laughing matter.”

“I’m sorry. I was just thinking … at least I can be happy for the young people.”

“You know his reputation! He’s a cad, a womanizer. And she’s just a young—”

“She’s not a young girl anymore! You can’t keep her wrapped in cellophane.”

“She is my ward, my responsibility, and … my daughter.” That last in a whisper.

“Angela is my daughter, too, is she not?” he said. “I recognize her features.”

“That makes it all the worse. She’s practically Kenny’s half-sister. The recessive genes alone should worry you.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about cross-eyed children just yet. And anyway, there are a few generations of women and their X chromosomes added into the boy’s genetic mix—my wife Adele, Brandon’s mother Elizabeth, and then Kenny’s mother Penelope. At that remove, about all he and I share is probably my Y chromosome.”

“You just don’t understand. The affair is
unseemly.
”

“I figure it’s nobody’s business but theirs.”

“It happens to be my business, too.”

“Why, as Angela’s guardian?”

“Because she is mine.”

In that moment, Praxis had another epiphany, two in one day. Antigone thought of Angela not just as a daughter, he realized. Every mother, at some point, had to acknowledge that her children—the daughters especially—were actually separate people, with their own likes and dislikes, their own loves and hates, and especially their own private lives. At some point—long after Angela’s true age—they had to leave and become something other than children. Perhaps they became friends and colleagues, as his own daughter Callie had remained for Praxis. Perhaps, in other circumstances, they became competitors and enemies, as in the case of his sons Leonard and Richard. Sometimes they simply became strangers. But they didn’t remain children forever.

And yet, for Antigone, this girl was something more than a child. Angela was her
creation.
Antigone had tried to create a beautiful young woman in her own image, one who could live the life she only imagined, one without risk, or damage, or heartbreak.

John Praxis felt sorry for the girl.

“I think I’ll go now,” he said.

“But you’ll talk to Kenneth?”

“I’ll have to think about that.”

* * *

Hsu Bolin had settled in to watch the condominium tower on Rincon Hill from a tiny coffee shop that was positioned obliquely across the street. It served no tea and offered only surgery, white-flour pastries, but a window seat there gave him an excellent view of those who came and went through the tower’s glassed-in lobby. And the café was open late into the evening.

At seven o’clock he saw a military-style vehicle pull up in front of the lobby entrance. A young woman with the bronze hair alighted and waited for a man slightly older—Hsu’s primary target—to step out. She led him across the sidewalk and into the building. Once they were inside, however, she took up station in the lobby while the elder Praxis went to the elevator bank. So this was not the daughter. He had suspected as much, because the hair was wrong—although western women were notorious for changing the color and style of their hair all the time. From the body language, he deduced she was some kind of servant, perhaps even a bodyguard. No matter. He had dealt with women before.

He waited patiently and observed. He would know when the elder Praxis was returning by the arrival of his transport vehicle, which had already driven away. It would return just minutes before Praxis came down, because so cautious a man would signal for it ahead of his need. Yes, it was an armored car. But even that wouldn’t save him.

Hsu Bolin paid his bill and moved out, across the street, and into the shadows around the corner from the lobby entrance. He watched the interior through five millimeters of tempered glass. That was all that stood between him and the arrival of his target. Hsu emptied his mind, prepared for the eternal
now
of combat, of challenge and resolution. It might come in a moment. It might come in an hour. It might not come at all this night. But Hsu was ready.