Something else that was spreading was the slogan 'There will be a cleansing of the temple'. Some bunch of subversives had been busy in the night. The words were daubed on walls all over town. Winters felt very uneasy when he looked at them. He could not forget the moment when the same phrase had appeared on his computer terminal. He and Rogers were parked in front of a boarded-up storefront on Park Avenue South a little to the north of Union Square. It was covered with half-torn-down duraprint posters for the Proverb show. 'There will be a cleansing of the temple' had been pressure-painted right across them all in foot-high, vibrating yellow letters.
"You want to go and rip that thing down?"
Rogers, who seemed to be taking the catastrophic course of events very personally, shook his head. "Why bother? There are hundreds of them."
"So what do we do? Head back to Astor Place?"
"I should imagine that CCC is the last place we want to be. There's probably faeces hitting the fan all over the building."
Winters was thoughtful. The bruising around his groin was still painful. "You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to forget that we heard about the warrant on Carlisle being dropped and go and pick him up anyway. We know where he is. He went home with that whore Cynthia Kline."
Rogers shook his head. "They'd crucify you if you mess with Carlisle after what happened today. Besides, it's not only Carlisle, you'd also be messing with this month's party girl."
"This week's party girl, the way that she's going."
"You still don't want to put your neck on the rail."
Winters scowled. He didn't like Rogers and was not happy about being paired with him, but he had not imagined that the man would be so chicken-shit.
"I'd like to do something about him. He isn't going to get away with what he did to me."
"There are more ways of skinning a cat."
Winters glanced sidelong at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Think about it."
Rogers dropped the slightest hint of a wink. Winters looked at him long and hard. He had not suspected it of Rogers. He was seeing him in a new light. "You mean you're a- – "
Rogers grinned. "Don't say it. There's no such thing."
The word that they were not using was 'magician'. The Magicians were a legend among the deacons, and in other quarters as well. They were a powerful and highly secret society of officers with a very radical attitude toward the enforcement of social order and the elimination of enemies. They were called the Magicians because they made people disappear. Membership of the Magicians was also supposed to be an inside track to promotion. They were the clandestine cream of the agency.
Rogers had taken out his wallet. He pulled out a small pink card. "You know that a replacement for Fifteenth Street has opened up?"
"I didn't. I…"
Rogers indicated that he should take the card. "Why don't you come along tonight?"
Winters quickly shook his head. The thought of dim lights and perfume started an uncomfortable constriction in his chest. "I don't think…"
Rogers did not let him finish. "You're not hearing me. I said why don't you come along tonight, relax, and have a little fun? You'll be contacted, and you'll meet with some people. It's possible that the case of Lieutenant Harry Carlisle will come under discussion."
Winters swallowed hard. The constriction had gone and there was an excitement building inside him. "I'll be there."
"Good."
Rogers put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. He was grinning cheerfully, his mood totally changed. "I tell you what, let's roust some street punk and work off a few frustrations."
Mansard
Rita looked up from the intercom. "There's three deacons on their way up."
Fear clutched at Charlie Mansard's brain. He prayed that he had heard wrong. "Say that again."
"Three deacons, to see you."
Suddenly there was cold sweat under his armpits and beading his back. Even the normally unshakable Rita had turned the color of a corpse.
"Did they look serious?"
"Of course they looked serious. Deacons always look serious."
"Oh, Christ."
Here was the moment that he had been dreading all night. Indeed, here was the moment that he had been dreading ever since the Fundamentalists had first taken power. It was only the best part of a bottle of scotch inside him that stopped him from going headfirst out of the window. He had always joked about the day when the deacons came for him, but now that the day seemed to have really arrived, he was more terrified than he could ever remember. All the torture stories started to close in on him. He was not going to be tortured. At the very suggestion of physical pain, he would talk. He would cooperate fully. He would tell them anything.
Rita was looking at him uncertainly. "Do you want me to stay?"
Mansard quickly shook his head. "No, get the hell out of here. Tell all the others you see to make themselves scarce. The fewer of us involved in this the better."
Most of the crew were scattered around the building or in the bar down the street. By far the majority had come there straight from the Garden; the others had drifted in quite soon after. Nobody seemed to know where to go or what to do. They had put up the biggest projected image ever, and then two hundred people had died. Mansard's crew seemed to want to stay together as a group and share the confused depression.
Rita did not need any second urging. She gathered up her coat and bag and slipped out the side door. Mansard sat back in his chair and did his best to compose himself for the arrival of the deacons. Without thinking about it, he took a pencil out of the organizer on the desk and started tapping it on the Lucite top. With Proverb on the run, he did not have a friend in the world. He had called a few of the preachers for whom he worked regularly, but they had all been in meetings or at prayer. None of them could be disturbed.
The deacons knocked. Mansard raised his eyebrows. They were observing the niceties. Maybe he still had some value. He counted to five.
"Come in."
A junior officer came through the door first, holding it open for his boss. The top man of the trio sauntered in with studied deacon arrogance. His lip was slightly curled as if there were a bad smell under his nose. The heavy brought up the rear. He had a machine pistol slung under his right arm. The situation did not have the air of a social call. The three arranged themselves in front of his desk in positions of courteous menace. Charlie Mansard looked at each of them in turn. They were all variations on the same theme, cold-eyed and clean-shaven with those thin, smug, lipless mouths. The young one was a mere flunky, nodding and opening doors and absorbing the moves. The heavy was wider and flatter, flat mid-European cheekbones and a flat forehead. He had huge hands that looked built for crushing. Mansard did not even want to look at those hands. The top deacon did the talking. He was one of the ones with that constant aura of amused superiority. Soon they would be cloning the bastards.
"Charles Mansard?"
"Yes."
"Charles Everett Mansard?"
Mansard sighed. "Right. Charles Everett Mansard."
"Would you please come with us?"
The deacon's tone left no space for a refusal. Mansard felt sick, but he did not immediately move. He tried to maintain as much dignity as he could. He carefully replaced the pencil in the organizer.
"Am I being arrested?"
"Not at this moment, but we do want to ask you a number of questions."
"So please ask them."
"It'd be better if you came with us."
"I'm a very busy man. Couldn't you simply ask your questions here?"
The heavy started giving him a very hard stare. The top deacon leaned forward and placed a black-gloved hand on the top of Mansard's desk. "It would be better if the questioning was conducted down at the Astor Place complex."