The other photos, their colors muted by what Carter guessed to be insufficient light, were of the book’s contents. And most appeared to be of fanciful creatures, mythological beasts made up of strange composites — the heads of lions on the bodies of snakes, a chicken’s beak on a lumbering bear, a towering giraffe with eight legs and a prominently displayed set of curving tusks. They were all rendered in the primitive, but forceful, medieval style Carter had seen in some of Beth’s textbooks from her days as a student at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
“Snoop,” she said as she padded into the kitchen in her stocking feet.
“You caught me.”
She plopped onto his lap and leaned her back against the edge of the table.
“Looks like they’ve got you working from home.”
“Mrs. Cabot messengered those over this morning.” She was wearing matching sweatpants, too, and had her black hair tied up hastily in a ponytail.
“What’s she want you to do?” Carter asked innocently.
She smiled. “Didn’t you read the cover letter first?”
Carter laughed. “So when are you supposed to meet with Mr. Mysterious? It failed to specify that.”
“Who knows? Whenever he chooses to come forward.”
“Looks like a very interesting project.”
She snuggled closer. “I think so, too. It looks like one of the earliest and most complete bestiaries ever found. I can’t wait to get my hands on it.”
“And I can’t wait to get my hands on you,” Carter said, wrapping his arms around her; she smelled of Dove, Prell, and milk, a combination he would never have thought could be so heady. “You know, with the prince asleep…,” he said suggestively, running his hand up the front of her sweatshirt.
“And the queen so sore,” she said, taking his hand away but kissing the knuckles. She laid her head on his shoulder, and as he held her, Carter’s eye fell on a photo lying upside down on the table. He reached out and turned it around, to see what at first he took to be a beautiful illuminated picture of a peacock. Its head was turned to one side, its tail feathers were fanned out in a wide display, but unlike any peacock he’d ever seen, this one was bright red and had an unmistakable aura of menace. Its eyes glowed like rubies, and its talons looked as sharp and gnarled as thorns. It reminded him less of an ornamental creature than a prehistoric bird of prey.
CHAPTER TWO
The veterans administration hospital was just off Wilshire Boulevard, but most motorists never even noticed it. They were too busy looking for the on-ramp to the 405 freeway, and traffic at this spot as a result was almost always a nightmare — even by L.A. standards.
The hospital access ramp was separate from all the others, and every time Greer took it he felt slighted. As his beaten-up Mustang convertible left the other cars, he felt afresh his injuries. All those bastards driving by, he thought, had no idea of the pain he’d suffered, and the wounds he had borne, fighting for his country in Iraq. It was just so damn easy to drive on by, in your Mercedes or your SUV, babbling into your cell phone, and never give another thought to guys like himself who had made the big sacrifices.
And for what? That was one question that had kept him up more nights than he cared to count.
By now, he knew the VA routine inside out. He parked his car in one of the few spots that offered any shade, checked in with the security guard, who always demanded that he show his credentials every time he came in (one more way for the military to still stick it to you), and then hobbled down the hall to the physical therapy clinic.
Most of the other patients in there he knew — there was Gruber, who’d lost both hands to a booby trap in Tikrit; and Rodriguez, who’d stepped on a land mine outside Basra; and Mariani, who’d never talk to anybody about what had happened to put him in that wheelchair. Greer would look around at all these other guys, many of whom had suffered far worse injuries than he had, and try to make himself feel better. See, he’d say, you could be pushing yourself around like Mariani, or using clampers for hands like Gruber, or clomping around like Rodriguez on a carbon-fiber leg. But it never worked the way he wanted it to; he was just as pissed and bitter when he left as when he arrived.
Indira was his usual therapist, and today she had the table already prepared for him. “How are we feeling, Captain Greer?” she said, smoothing the paper cover on the table nearest the windows. “Are we grumpy as usual?”
He never knew how to answer stuff like that. Affirmative?
She patted the table with a smile, as if she were urging a dog to jump up onto the sofa. “Come on and get ready. I’ll get the towels.”
There was a changing room to one side, and he went in there, put most of his clothes and valuables in a locker, and came back out in his clean T-shirt and running shorts. He refused to wear those open gowns.
Indira was waiting, and as soon as he levered himself up onto the table, she slipped a small pillow under the crook of his neck, another one under his knees, then gently wrapped the hot towels around his left leg. He tried not to let her see him studying her as she did all that, but he suspected that she was aware of it. The first time he’d seen her, he was so consumed with pain and rage that he’d hardly noticed her. But the next time, and the time after that, he’d been able to take a good look.
She wasn’t like anyone he’d ever known. She was small, with dark hair and dark eyes, and her skin was a kind of copper color. Kind of like the Iraqis’. She didn’t talk a lot about herself, but over the many sessions he’d had, he’d learned a few things. She was from Bombay, which accounted for that kind of singsong way she spoke, and she was something called a Zoroastrian. It was some ancient religion (he’d looked it up on the Internet) that believed in cycles of fire, or something like that, lasting millions of years. She lived somewhere in West L.A., with her parents and a bunch of brothers and sisters. He could never figure out a way to ask her how old she was, but he was thirty and he knew that she had to be younger than that.
“Let’s give it fifteen minutes,” she said, setting an egg timer and leaving it by his feet. “Tell me if it gets too hot.”
The heat was used to limber up the leg, before they tried the exercises designed to increase the muscle tone and range of motion. He’d never told her how his leg had been injured, and she’d never asked; he wondered if that was part of their training. Wait till the gimp volunteered the information; don’t press him on it. He knew a lot of the guys — like Mariani in the wheelchair — didn’t want to talk about it. And in his case, he was just as happy to keep quiet. When he’d been brought into the camp’s medical tent outside Mosul, Sadowski had corroborated his story; they’d been conducting a perimeter patrol when a sniper had taken a potshot. In those days, not a lot of questions got asked; everything was up for grabs, and sniper attacks were an hourly occurrence. The army had given him his Purple Heart, his honorable discharge, and a monthly disability check that didn’t go nearly far enough.
He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the ticking of the timer and the grunts and groans and murmured conversations of the other vets talking to their therapists and going through their agonizing drills. Still, he kind of looked forward to these sessions; the government paid, and Indira took care of him.
When the timer went off, she came back, unwrapped the towels and tossed them into the bin, then told him to bend the knee. At first it wouldn’t go.
“I’ll help,” she said, lifting the leg slightly. “Tell me if you need to stop.”
Her hands were cool and smooth, and the leg felt better just from her touch. He tried to flex the knee, but sometimes it felt like the damn thing had just locked in place. Like right now.