F Paul Wilson - Novel 03 (5 page)

           
And lately, in his darkest moments,
Dan had begun wondering if God was doing
anything.
The world—at least the part of it in which he spent his days—was, to put it
bluntly, a fucking mess. Everywhere he looked people were sick, hurt, or
dying—from AIDS, from racism, from drugs, from child abuse, from stabbings,
shootings, or just plain old kick-ass muggings. And the violence was
escalating. Every time Dan told himself it can't get any worse than this, sure
enough, it did.

           
 
And every year there seemed to be more
homeless— more lost souls.

           
 
Tighten
up on the misery spigot, will you, God? We 're up to our lower lips down here.

           
 
Yeah. Where
was
the hand of God in all of this? Why wasn't
it
doing God's work? A long, continuous howl of agony was rising
from this city, this world. Was Anybody listening? Why didn't He respond? Dan
could do only so much.

           
 
Like tonight. This was doing something—or at
least Dan hoped it was. Who knew if it would accomplish anything? All you could
do was try.

           
 
And then word came out that the
thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner was over. The doorman started signaling the
hovering limos forward. Taxis nosed in like koi at feeding time. Dan pulled
Dirty Harry out of the line and set him in the middle of the circle.

           
 
"All right, everybody! He's coming. Chant
as loud as you can. Harry's going to lead you."

           
 
"Me?" Harry said. He had long greasy
hair, a thick beard matted with the remains of his last three meals, and
probably hadn't changed his four or five layers of clothing since the winter.
"I dunno what to—"

           
 
"Just keep leading them in the same stuff
we've been doing all night," Dan told him. "And give me your posters.
I want to get up close."

           
 
Harry lifted the sandwich-board placards over
his head and surrendered them with obvious reluctance. Dan grabbed them, waved,
and hurried off. He didn't dare slip them over his own head—not after Dirty
Harry had been wearing them.

           
 
He headed for the Waldorf entrance. As he
squeezed between two of the barricade horses, one of the cops moved to block
his way but let him pass when he saw the collar.

           
 
Ah, the perks of the Roman collar.

           
 
Celebrity gawkers, political groupies, and the
just plain curious had formed a gauntlet along the path from the Waldorf
entrance. Dan pushed, squirmed, wheedled, and elbowed his way to the front row
where anyone exiting the hotel would have an unobstructed view of the
sandwich-board's message:

           
CONCENTRATION

           
CAMPS ARE

           
UNAMERICAN!

           
 
Finally he saw his man. Senator Crenshaw
appeared at the door. He stopped inside the glass, shaking hands and smiling at
some of the hundreds of people who'd plunked down a grand for a chicken dinner.
Dan ground his teeth as he calculated how many people he could feed at St.
Joe's for the cost of just one of those dinners.

           
 
He watched him through the glass and reviewed
what he knew about Senator Arthur Crenshaw, the
Silicon Valley
giant. In the mid-seventies, at age thirty,
he'd started CrenSoft on a shoestring. His software innovations earned him huge
profits, which he plowed back into the company, which in turn yielded even
larger profits. When Microsoft bought him out for an ungodly sum, he traded the
corporate rat race for politics. He didn't start small. He challenged an
incumbent for one of his native
California
's U.S. Senate seats and won. Now he had his
eye on the Presidency. He hadn't declared himself yet, but no one seemed to
have any doubt that he'd be stumping in
New Hampshire
when the next round of Presidential
primaries rolled around.

           
 
A widower now—his wife had died five years
ago—with one grown son, he was a formidable candidate. The Born-Again line of
moral righteousness and family values he spouted guaranteed him a built-in core
constituency. But he needed a broader base if he was aiming for national
office, and he was steadily building that with his speech-making and his
strong-featured good looks. Especially his speech-making. Crenshaw was a
mesmerizing orator, whether from prepared text or off the cuff. In unguarded
moments even Dan had found himself nodding in agreement with much of his
rhetoric.

           
 
But when he listened carefully, Dan tapped
into an undercurrent that told him this was a man who had quickly become extremely
powerful in his own little world and had grown used to having things his own
way, a man of monstrous self-esteem who knew—
knew
—he had the answers, who believed there could be only one way
of doing things—the Arthur Crenshaw way.

           
 
But Father Daniel Fitzpatrick was here tonight
to let him know that there were a few folks around who didn't think Senator
Arthur Crenshaw had
all
the answers,
and that he was downright wrong when it came to the Domicile Plan. Here he
comes, Dan thought as the glass door was held open for Crenshaw by a
broad-shouldered Hispanic with dark glasses and "security" written
all over him.

           
 
A cheer went up from the onlookers as the
senator stepped outside. Lots of normally liberal Manhattanites seemed
enthralled with the man. Dan put it down to his resemblance to Pat Riley, the
Knicks' former coach, but knew it went deeper than that. The man was magnetic.

           
 
And as the cheer rose, so did the chanting
from Dan's homeless. Good for you, Harry, he thought.

           
 
Crenshaw walked the gauntlet, shaking hands
and smiling that smile. When he came within half a dozen feet, Dan held up his
placard and thrust it toward the senator to make sure he didn't miss it. The
dark-skinned security man moved to push Dan back but Crenshaw stopped him. He
stared at the message, then looked Dan in the eye. "Is that directed at
me?" he said. Dan was momentarily taken aback by the man's directness.
He'd expected to be ignored. But he met the senator's steely blue gaze with his
own.

           
 
"Yes, Senator. And at your out-of-sight-out-of-mind
Domicile Plan. You can't lock the homeless up in camps and think that will
solve the problem."

           
 
"I resent that," Crenshaw said, his
eyes flashing, his voice soft but forceful.

           
 
The crowd around the entrance had stopped
cheering; they were listening instead. Only the chanting of the homeless from
behind the barricades disturbed the sudden silence.

           
 
Dan was not prepared for this. His mouth went
dry; his voice was hoarse when he replied.

           
 
"And I think the homeless will resent
being carted off to camps in the middle of nowhere."

           
 
"What's your connection with the
homeless, Father?" he said.

           
 
"I run a kitchen for them downtown."

           
 
Crenshaw nodded. "That's very admirable.
My hat's off to you. But how many of their lives have you changed?"

           
 
"I don't under—"

           
 
"How many have you gotten off the street
and into some sort of self-supporting activity?"

           
 
Dan had a feeling he was being maneuvered into
a corner, but he had to answer—and truthfully.

           
 
"I couldn't say. We barely have enough
money to keep them fed."

           
 
"Exactly! They need funds and there
aren't enough funds to go around. That's why we have to centralize our efforts
to help them." He gestured to the crowd. "Look around you, Father.
See these people? They support the Domicile Plan. They're all willing to put
their money where their mouths are, because they're going to pay for the plan
with their tax dollars. But they want to see those dollars well spent. Soup
kitchens only perpetuate the problem—like giving a transfusion to a bleeding patient
without sewing up the wound."

           
 
God, he's good, Dan thought. And he means
every word. He truly wants to help. That's what makes him so convincing. But
he's still
wrong!

           
 
"I couldn't agree more," Dan said,
"but concentration camps aren't a moral alternative."

           
 
Senator Crenshaw's eyes flashed with sudden
anger.

           
 
"You're handy with the loaded terms,
aren't you, Father. And I'm sure you have a real talent for dishing out the
soup on the breadline at your kitchen, but have you ever actually gone into a factory
and worked to earn a single dime to pay for their shelter? Or your own, for
that matter? Have you ever labored to grow a single grain of wheat or a single
kernel of rice to feed them? Or yourself? Have you ever woven or cut or sewn a
single stitch for their clothing? Or for your own? If you want to be a man of
God, then limit your concerns to Godly things; but if you want to be a man of
the people, then get out and sweat with them, Father. Until you do, you're
nothing but a middleman, trafficking in their troubles. A hand-wringing monger
of misery, hoisting yourself up on their crosses to allow yourself to be better
seen from afar. Which is fine, if that's the way you want to spend your life.
This is still a free country. But don't block the way of those who really want
to help."

           
 
Dan was stunned by the quiet tirade. Before he
could frame a reply, Crenshaw turned away and stepped into his waiting limo.
His security man closed the door, glanced at Dan with a smirk on his dark face,
then slipped around to the other side.

           
 
Someone patted him gently on the shoulder. Dan
looked around and saw an elderly stranger standing next to him.

           
 
"Don't take it too hard, Father. We all
know you mean well. But you just ain't getting it done."

           
Still mute, Dan turned back to the
street and watched Senator Crenshaw's limo pull away. On the surface he knew he
appeared unscathed, but he was bleeding inside. Hemorrhaging. Crenshaw's words
had cut deep, right to the heart of his deepest doubts.

           
 
And the elderly stranger had twisted the
knife.

           
 
. . .
you
just ain 't getting it done . . .

           
Knowing
I was not fit for the company of other men, I turned from my southward course
and searched the wilderness for a place in which to spend my allotted days
alone.

           
 
I wandered the deserted hills, searching for a
sign. Finally as I climbed a steep incline, I looked up and beheld a bellied
cliff with an overhanging ledge. The letter tav leaped into my mind. Tav. .
.the letter to which the Kabbalah grants a numerical value of 400. . .highest
of all the letters.

           
 
This was the sign I had sought. This is where
I would stay. The lowest huddling in the shadow of the highest.

           
 
FROM THE GLASS SCROLL

           
 
ROCKEFELLER MUSEUM TRANSLATION

           
 
Emilio Sanchez regarded his employer with awe
as the limo whisked them uptown.

           
If only I could use words like that,
he thought. I would not have to be a guard dog. I could be anything . . . even
a
senador.

           
 
But Emilio had come to terms long ago with who
he was . . . and
what
he was. He was
a guard dog. He would always be a guard dog. And with those facts in mind, he
had become the best damn guard dog in the world.

           
 
"You sliced up that
padre
like a master chef,
Senador.
One would almost think your words were planned."

           
 
"In a sense, Emilio, they were. I spotted
the priest and his group on the way in but I didn't know what they were up
to."

           
 
"And you asked me to find out."

           
 
"Right. And when you told me they were
homeless types, I spent the time before my speech preparing a few remarks in
case they cornered me on the way out."

           
 
Imagine. . . to be able to come up with
word-razors while listening and responding to tabletalk.

           
 
"But they didn't corner you," Emilio
said.

           
 
"No matter. I liked what I came up with.
Too good to waste. So I let the priest have it."

           
 
"With both barrels."

           
 
The
senador
smiled and nudged Emilio with an elbow. "You of all people should
understand that."

           
 
Emilio nodded. He understood. One of his rules
had always been: Don't aim a gun if you have no intention of pulling the
trigger. And if you do pull the trigger, shoot to kill. Emilio's cellular phone
trilled softly in his breast pocket. He pulled it out and tapped the SEND
button.

           
"Sanchez."

           
 
"We've
found him."

           
 
Emilio recognized Decker's voice.

           
 
"Good work. Where is he?"

           
 
The
senador
stiffened beside him. "Charlie? They've located him?"

           
 
Emilio nodded as he listened to Decker's
reply.

           
 
"The
West Village. Where else?"

           
 
"Public or private?"

           
 
"A
dive called The Dog Collar, believe it or not. On West Street. Want me to bring
him in?"

           
 
"No. Wait for me outside. And make sure
he doesn't leave before I get there."

           
 
"Will
do. I called Mol. He's coming over. We'll meet you here."

           
 
"Good."

           
 
Emilio stared straight ahead as he punched the
END button.

           
 
"Charlie is in a bar in Greenwich Village.
Want me to bring him back to the hotel?"

           
 
The
senador
sighed and rubbed his eyes for a long moment. Then: "No. Who knows
what shape he's in? I don't want a scene. Use the jet to take him home, then
send it back for me. I won't be leaving until tomorrow night anyway."

           
 
"Very well. I should be back by early
afternoon."

           
 
"No. Not you. I want you to stay with
Charlie. Do not let him off the grounds. Do not let him out of your sight until
I get back."

           
 
"If that is your wish, then that is the
way it will be."

           
 
The
senador
laughed softly. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if that were true with
everything. I'd have wished Charlie to be a different sort than he is. Let us
pray that he'll cooperate this time."

           
He took Emilio's hand in his and
bowed his head. Emilio set his jaw. The very thought of holding another man's
hand, even in prayer, even if it was the
senador,
made him queasy. He bowed his head but he did not pray. That was for women.
Old women. This incessant praying was the only part of the
senador's
character he did not respect. It was unmanly.

           
 
But in all other matters he revered him.

           
 
That did not mean that he understood him. Why
track down Charlie and bring him back to Paraiso? He had done a good job of
hiding himself away. Why ferret him out? Let him stay hidden. Let sleeping dogs
lie. . .

           
 
If you're going to do anything, Emilio thought
as the
senador
prayed, do something
permanent. As much as I like Charlie, just say the word and he will
really
disappear. Without a trace.
Forever.

           
 
But he knew the
senador
would never order the death of his
maricon
son.

           
After dropping the
senador
at the Plaza and seeing him
safely to his suite, Emilio returned to the limousine, but this time he took
the front passenger seat.

           
 
"You'll probably be more comfortable in
the back," the driver said.

           
 
"I will not argue with that,
Frederick
," Emilio said. He knew the man's name,
home address, and driving record. He'd checked all that out before letting the
senador
into the limo. "But I wish
to speak to you as we drive."

           
 
"Okay," the driver said. Emilio
detected wariness in his tone. That was good. "But you can call me Fred.
Where to?"

           
 
"Downtown?"

           
 
"Any particular—?"

           
 
"Just drive, Fred."

           
 
As Fred turned onto
Fifth Avenue
, Emilio said, "Have you chauffeured
many famous people around?"

           
 
Fred grinned. "You kidding? You name 'em,
and if they've been to the Apple, I've driven them around. Madonna,
Redford
, Luke Perry, Winona Ryder,
Cher
, Axl Rose. . . the list goes on and on. Too
many to mention."

           
 
"I'll bet you can write a book about
what's gone on in the rear section of this car."

           
 
"A book?" He laughed. "Try
ten
books—all of them X-rated!"

           
 
"Tell me some of the stories. The
juiciest ones."

           
 
"Uh-uh. No way. My lips are sealed. Why
y'think all those folks hire me? Why y'think they always ask for Fred? Because
Fred gets Alzheimer's when people come sniffing around about his clients?"

           
 
Emilio nodded. That jibed with what he'd heard
about Fred.

           
 
He pulled a switchblade from the side pocket
of his coat and pressed the button on the handle. The gleaming narrow blade
snicked
out and flashed in the glow of
the passing street lamps.

           
 
"Wh-what's that all about?" Fred
said, his voice half an octave higher now.

           
 
"I've caught some dirt under one of my
fingernails."

           
 
"B-better keep that out of sight. They're
illegal here."

           
 
"So I've heard." Emilio used the
point to scrape under a nail. "Listen, Fred. We're going to be stopping at
a place called The Dog Collar."

           
 
"Oh, boy. On
West Street
. I know the joint."

           
 
"Some of your famous clients have been
there?"

           
 
He nodded. "Yeah. And you wouldn't
believe me if I told you who—which I'm not."

           
 
"I admire your discretion, Fred. Which
brings me to the heart of our little talk. You will receive a generous tip
tonight, Fred. An extravagant tip. It is meant to not only seal your lips
tighter than usual, but to erase from your memory everything that occurs from
this moment until you drop me off at LaGuardia."

           
 
"You're not going to mess up my passenger
area, are you?"

           
 
"I'm not planning to. But on the subject
of 'messing up,' I feel obliged to give you a warning: In my homeland we have a
way of dealing with someone who has seen too much and talks about it. We cure
him of his affliction by removing his tongue and eyes. Unless we're feeling particularly
merciful, in which case we leave the eyes and take only the eyelids. And the
tongue, of course. The tongue always goes. Do you understand what I am saying,
Fred?"

           
 
Emilio hoped the driver would not take this as
an empty threat. He knew of no such tradition in
Mexico
, but that didn't matter. He meant every
word, and would personally do the cutting. And enjoy it.

           
 
Fred gulped. "Yeah. Loud and clear. No
problem."

           
 
"Excellent. Then you can look forward to
being hired whenever Senator Crenshaw comes to town."

           
 
Fred's expression did not exactly reflect
unbridled joy at the prospect. He said, "You want to hit The Dog Collar
now?"

           
 
Emilio folded the stiletto blade and put it
away. "Yes. Immediately."

           
 
As they drove on in silence, Emilio hoped the
senador
had some plan for Charlie, some
solution for the threat he posed. For he was indeed a threat. In order to be
President, the
senador
first had to
be nominated by his party. And in order to secure that nomination, he had to
run in primary elections in various states. Emilio had studied all this in his
civics lessons for his citizenship test, and he'd heard the
senador
discuss it numerous times, but
none of it made much sense. However, one thing that did make sense was that
many of those primary states were in regions of the country where the right
kind of rumor could tilt a close race the wrong way. And if the primaries were
going to be as hotly contested as the experts were predicting, having a
maricon
son might be the kiss of
political death.

           
 
But there seemed to be more to it than that.
The
senador
seemed obsessed with
finding Charlie and keeping him under wraps. Emilio didn't understand.

           
 
What he did understand was that whatever kept
the
senador
from the White House also
kept Emilio from the White House.

           
 
The White House. It had become Emilio's dream.

           
 
Not to become President. That was to laugh.
But for Emilio Sanchez to accompany the
senador
to the world's center of power, that was the ultimate spit in the eye to
the many throughout his life who had said he'd go nowhere, be nothing unless he
changed his ways.

           
But
I
never changed, Emilio thought. And look at me now. I am the most
trusted aide of United States Senator Arthur Crenshaw. I am riding in a stretch
limo through
New York City
. I have my pick of the women in the
Senate
Building
in
Washington
. I own my own Coupe de Ville. And I'm still
moving up.
Up!