The illuminatus! trilogy (2 page)

The scene of the blast was one of those old office buildings with Gothic-and-gingerbread styling all over the lobby floor. In the dim light of the hour, it reminded me of the shadowy atmosphere of Charlie Chan in the Wax Museum. And a smell hit my nostrils as soon as I walked in.

A patrolman lounging inside the door snapped to attention when he recognized me. “Took out the seventeenth floor and part of the eighteenth,” he said. “Also a pet shop here on the ground level. Some freak of dynamics. Nothing else is damaged down here, but every fish tank went. That’s the smell.”

Barney Muldoon, an old friend with the look and mannerisms of a Hollywood cop, appeared out of the shadows. A tough man, and nowhere as dumb as he liked to pretend, which was why he was head of the Bomb Squad.

“Your baby, Barney?” I asked casually.

“Looks that way. Nobody killed. The call went out to you because a clothier’s dummy was burned on the eighteenth floor and the first car here thought it was a human body.”

(Wait: George Dorn is screaming
….)

Saul’s face showed no reaction to the answer—but poker players at the Fraternal Order of Police had long ago given up trying to read that inscrutible Talmudic countenance. As Barney Muldoon, I knew how I would feel if I had the chance to drop this case on another department and hurry home to a beautiful bride like Rebecca Goodman. I smiled down at Saul—his height would keep him from appointment to the Force now, but the rules were different when he was young—and I added quietly, “There might be something in it for you, though.”

The fedora ducked as Saul took out his pipe and started
to fill it. All he said was, “Oh?”

“Right now,” I went on, “we’re just notifying Missing Persons, but if what I’m afraid of is right, it’ll end up on your desk after all.”

He struck a match and started puffing. “Somebody missing at this hour … might be found among the living … in the morning,” he said between drags. The match went out, and shadows moved where nobody stirred.

“And he might not, in this case,” Muldoon said. “He’s been gone three days now.”

“An Irishman your size can’t be any more subtle than an elephant,” Saul said wearily. “Stop tantalizing me. What have you got?”

“The office that was hit,” Muldoon explained, obviously happy to share the misery, “was a magazine called
Confrontation
. It’s kind of left-of-center, so this was probably a right-wing job and not a left-wing one. But the interesting thing is that we couldn’t reach the editor, Joseph Malik, at his home, and when we called one of the associate editors, what do you think he told us? Malik disappeared three days ago. His landlord confirms it. He’s been trying to get hold of Malik himself because there’s a no-pets rule there and the other tenants are complaining about his dogs. So, if a man drops out of sight and then his office gets bombed, I kind of think the matter might come to the attention of the Homicide Department eventually, don’t you?”

Saul grunted. “Might and might not,” he said. “I’m going home. I’ll check with Missing Persons in the morning, to see what they’ve got.”

The patrolman spoke up. “You know what bothers me most about this? The Egyptian mouth-breeders.”

“The what?” Saul asked.

“That pet shop,” the patrolman explained, pointing to the other end of the lobby. “I looked over the damage, and they had one of the best collections of rare tropical fish in New York City. Even Egyptian mouth-breeders.” He noticed the expressions on the faces of the two detectives and added lamely, “If you don’t collect fish, you wouldn’t understand. But, believe me, an Egyptian mouth-breeder is pretty hard to get these days, and they’re all dead in there.”

“Mouth-
breeder?”
Muldoon asked incredulously.

“Yes, you see they keep their young in their mouths for a couple days after birth and they never, never swallow them. That’s one of the great things about collecting fish: you get to appreciate the wonders of nature.”

Muldoon and Saul looked at each other. “It’s inspiring,” Muldoon said finally, “to have so many college graduates on the Force these days.”

The elevator door opened, and Dan Pricefixer, a redheaded young detective on Muldoon’s staff, emerged, carrying a metal box.

“I think this is important, Barney,” he began immediately, with just a nod to Saul. “Damned important. I found it in the rubble, and it had been blown partly open, so I looked inside.”

“And?” Muldoon prompted.

“It’s the freakiest bunch of interoffice memos I ever set eyes on. Weird as tits on a bishop.”

This is going to be a long night, Saul thought suddenly, with a sinking feeling. A long night, and a heavy case.

“Want to peek?” Muldoon asked him maliciously.

“You better find a place to sit down,” Pricefixer volunteered. “It’ll take you awhile to go through them.”

“Let’s use the cafeteria,” Saul suggested.

“You just have no idea,” the patrolman repeated. “The value of an Egyptian mouth-breeder.”

“It’s rough for all nationalities, man or fish,” Muldoon said in one of his rare attempts to emulate Saul’s mode of speech. He and Saul turned to the cafeteria, leaving the patrolman looking vaguely distressed.

His name is James Patrick Hennessy and he’s been on the Force three years. He doesn’t come back into this story at all. He had a five-year-old retarded son whom he loved helplessly; you see a thousand faces like his on the street every day and never guess how well they are carrying their tragedies … and George Dorn, who once wanted to shoot him, is still screaming…. But Barney and Saul are in the cafeteria. Look around. The transition from the Gothic lobby to this room of laminated functional and glittering plastic colors is, one might say, trippy. Never mind the smell; we’re closer to the pet shop here.

Saul removed his hat and ran a hand through his gray hair pensively, as Muldoon read the first two memos in one quick scan. When they were passed over, he put on
his glasses and read more slowly, in his own methodical and thoughtful way. Hold onto your hats. This is what they said:

ILLUMINATI PROJECT: MEMO #1

7/23

J.M.:

The first reference I’ve found is in
Violence
by Jacques Ellul (Seabury Press, New York, 1969). He says (pages 18-19) that the Illuminated Ones were founded by Joachim of Floris in the 11th century and originally taught a primitive Christian doctrine of poverty and equality, but later under the leadership of Fra Dolcino in the 15th century they became violent, plundered the rich and announced the imminent reign of the Spirit. “In 1507,” he concludes, “they were vanquished by the ‘forces of order’—that is, an army commanded by the Bishop of Vercueil.” He makes no mention of any Illuminati movement in earlier centuries or in more recent times.

I’ll have more later today.

Pat

P.S. I found a little more about Joachim of Floris in the back files of the
National Review
. William Buckley and his cronies think Joachim is responsible for modern liberalism, socialism and communism; they’ve condemned him in fine theological language. He committed the heresy, they say, of “immanentizing the Christian Eschaton.” Do you want me to look that up in a technical treatise on Thomism? I think it means bringing the end of the world closer, sort of.

ILLUMINATI PROJECT: MEMO #2

7/23

J.M.:

My second source was more helpful: Akron Daraul,
A History of Secret Societies
(Citadel Press, New York, 1961).

Daraul traces the Illuminati back to the 11th century also, but not to Joachim of Floris. He sees the origin in the Ishmaelian sect of Islam, also known as the Order of Assassins. They were vanquished in the 13th century, but later made a comeback with a new, less-violent philosophy
and eventually became the Ishmaelian sect of today, led by the Aga Khan. However, in the 16th century, in Afghanistan, the Illuminated Ones (Roshinaya) picked up the original tactics of the Order of Assassins. They were wiped out by an alliance of the Moguls and Persians (pages 220-223). But, “The beginning of the seventeenth century saw the foundation of the Illuminated Ones of Spain—the Allumbrados, condemned by an edict of the Grand Inquisition in 1623. In 1654, the ‘illuminated’ Guerinets came into public notice in France.” And, finally—the part you’re most interested in- the Bavarian IIluminati was founded on May Day, 1776, in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, by Adam Weishaupt, a former Jesuit. “Documents still extant show several points of resemblance between the German and Central Asian Illuminists: points that are hard to account for on grounds of pure coincidence” (page 255). Weishaupt’s Illuminati were suppressed by the Bavarian government in 1785; Daraul also mentions the Illuminati of Paris in the 1880s, but suggests it was simply a passing fad. He does not accept the notion that the Illuminati still exist today.

This is beginning to look big. Why are we keeping the details from George?

Pat

Saul and Muldoon exchanged glances. “Let’s see the next one,” Saul said. He and Muldoon read together:

ILLUMINATI PROJECT: MEMO #3

7/24

J.M.:

The Encyclopedia Britannica
has little to say on the subject (1966 edition, Volume 11, “Halicar to Impala,” page 1094):

Pat

  Saul paused. “I’ll make you a bet, Barney,” he said quietly. “The Joseph Malik who vanished is the J.M. these memos were written for.”

“Sure,” Muldoon replied scornfully. “These Illuminati characters are still around, and they got him. Honest to God, Saul,” he added, “I appreciate the way your mind usually pole-vaults ahead of the facts. But you can ride a hunch just so far when you’re starting from nothing.”

“We’re not starting from nothing,” Saul said softly. “Here’s what we’ve got to start with. One”—he-held up a finger—“a building is bombed. Two”—another finger—“an important executive disappeared three days before the bombing. Already, there’s an inference, or two inferences: something got him, or else he knew something was coming for him and he ducked out. Now, look at the memos. Point three”—he held up another finger—“a standard reference work, the
Encyclopedia Britannica
, seems to be wrong about when the Illuminati came into existence. They say eighteenth-century Germany, but the other memos trace it back to—let’s see—Spain in the seventeenth century, France in the seventeenth century, then in the eleventh century back to Italy and halfway across the world to Afghanistan. So we’ve got a second inference: if the Britannica is wrong about when the thing started, they may be wrong about when it ended. Now, put these three points and two inferences together—”

“And the Illuminati got the editor and blew up his office. Nutz. I still say you’re going too fast.”

“Maybe I’m not going fast enough,” Saul said. “An organization that has existed for a couple of centuries
minimum
and kept its secrets pretty well hidden most of that time might be pretty strong by now.” He trailed off into silence, and closed his eyes to concentrate. After a moment, he looked at the younger man with a searching glance.

Muldoon had been thinking too. “I’ve seen men land on
the moon,” he said. “I’ve seen students break into administration offices and shit in the dean’s waste basket. I’ve even seen nuns in mini-skirts. But this international conspiracy existing in secret for eight hundred years, it’s like opening a door in your own house and finding James Bond and the President of the United States personally shooting it out with Fu Manchu and the five original Marx Brothers.”

“You’re trying to convince yourself, not me. Barney, it sticks out so far that you could break it into three pieces and each one would be long enough to goose somebody up in the Bronx. There
is
a secret society that keeps screwing up international politics. Every intelligent person has suspected that at one time or another. Nobody wants war any more, but wars keep happening—why? Face it, Barney—this is the heavy case we’ve always had nightmares about. It’s cast iron. If it were a corpse, all six pallbearers would get double hernias at the funeral. Well?” Saul prompted.

“Well, we’re either going to have to do something or get off the pot, as my sainted mother used to say.”

It was the year when they finally immanentized the Eschaton. On April 1 the world’s great powers came closer to nuclear war than ever before, all because of an obscure island named Fernando Poo. But, while all other eyes turned to the UN building in apprehension and desperate hope, there lived in Las Vegas a unique person known as Carmel. His house was on Date Street and had a magnificent view of the desert, which he appreciated. He liked to spend long hours looking at the wild cactus wasteland although he did not know why. If you told him that he was symbolically turning his back upon mankind, he would not have understood you, nor would he have been insulted; the remark would be merely irrelevant to him. If you added that he himself was a desert creature, like the gila monster and the rattlesnake, he would have grown bored and classified you as a fool. To Carmel, most of the world were fools who asked meaningless questions and worried about pointless issues; only a few, like himself, had discovered what was really important—money— and pursued it without distractions, scruples, or irrelevancies. His favorite moments were those, like this night of April 1, when he sat and tallied his take for the month and looked out his picture window occasionally at the flat
sandy landscape, dimly lit by the lights of the city behind him. In this physical and emotional desert he experienced happiness, or something as close to happiness as he could ever find. His girls had earned $46,000 during March, of which he took $23,000; after paying 10 percent to the Brotherhood for permission to operate without molestation by Banana-Nose Maldonado’s soldiers, this left a tidy profit of $20,700, all of it tax free. Little Carmel, who stood five feet two and had the face of a mournful weasel, beamed as he completed his calculations; his emotion was as inexpressible, in normal terms, as that of a necrophile who had just broken into the town morgue. He had tried every possible sexual combination with his girls; none gave him the
frisson
of looking at a figure like that at the end of a month.