"Roselli?" the TP at the kiosk called. "Is that John Roselli?"
"No, I'm LFA Roselli," Jack said, making for the front door. He added some attitude. "You got a problem with that?"
This was the last hurdle. If he could get past this guy without too much fuss, he'd be home free.
"Just hold on there. Where have you been?"
Jack didn't break stride. "On the Communing Level."
"No, you weren't. You didn't show up on the cameras so the GP went looking for you and—"
Keep moving… keep moving…
"I just left Jensen. And he didn't mention cameras."
The guard had a two-way up to his lips. "GP Jensen? GP Jensen?" He lowered the two-way and looked at Jack. "He's not answering. Where did you see him?"
"I left him upstairs. He's going to hang around awhile."
As Jack reached the doors the TP came out from behind his kiosk and hurried toward him.
"Wait! You can't go yet!"
"No? Watch me."
Jack pushed through the doors, hit the sidewalk, and began walking uptown. The guard stepped out behind him.
"Hey! Come back! The GP will want to talk to you."
Jack ignored him and kept walking. He was heading home. He needed sleep something awful. He found his car two blocks away where he'd left it, parked on a side street. After cheeking to make sure the TP hadn't followed him, he slid behind the wheel and hit the ignition.
He drove a dozen blocks then pulled over and threw the Buick into park. He put his head back as far as the headrest would allow and took a few deep breaths. A tremor shuddered through his body. That cold black rush was fading, leaving him shaky and exhausted.
He scared himself when he got like this. Not while he was in the dark thrall—he feared nothing then—but in the low aftermath it unsettled him to know what he was capable of. Sometimes he'd swear never to let it loose again, to push it back next time it lunged for freedom. Yet inevitably, when the moment came, he'd embrace and ride it.
But he never wanted another episode like tonight. It would take him a while to forget this one.
7
As per usual, Luther Brady had awakened early and driven in from the hills. He'd started the day with a slight headache—not unexpected after a night of carousing—but that was gone now. And as always after a bout with the boys, he felt rejuvenated. Give him the right playmates and he'd never need Viagra.
He liked to arrive before seven, when the temple was relatively deserted, and slip up to his quarters.
But this morning he found chaos—flashing police cars and ambulances outside, bustling cops and EMTs within.
One of the TPs recognized him and came rushing up.
"Mr. Brady! Mr. Brady! Oh, thank Noomri you're here! It's terrible! Just terrible!"
"What's happened?"
"It's GP Jensen—he's dead!"
Shock passed through him like a cold front. Jensen? Dead? He'd been Luther's most valuable asset—loyal to the Opus, fearless and relentless in pursuing its completion. What would he do without him?
"How?"
"An accident. He fell down the elevator shaft. It was awful! TP Cruz found him. His head… his head had smashed through the top of one of the elevator cars!"
An accident…
Already Luther could feel a small sense of relief tempering the shock, a slight loosening of his tightened muscles. For a moment there, and he couldn't say exactly why, he'd feared that Jensen had been murdered. Bad enough that he'd lost his right-hand man, but a murder… that would cause a storm in the media. An accident, however… well, that was a nonstory. Accidents can happen anywhere, to anyone, at any time. No reason the Dor-mentalist temple should be expected to be any different.
"This is terrible," Luther said. "This is tragic. I must get to my quarters to commune with my xelton."
"The police may want to talk to you."
"I'll speak to them in a little while. Right now I'm too upset."
Too true. He'd invested a lot of time, money, and effort in Jensen. He'd been one of a kind. How was he going to replace him? Worse, this was going to set back the Opus Omega timetable.
Damn it to hell! Just when the end was in sight.
He'd worry about a replacement later. Right now he had to get Vida working on a press release, and have her prepare some public remarks about what a kind, gentle, wonderful man Jensen was.
Oh, yes. And he needed her to look up Jensen's first name. He should know the first name of the man he'd be publicly mourning.
8
The clock radio woke Jack at nine. He lay in bed listening to the news about a murder in the Bronx and a fatal accident in the Midtown Dormen-talist temple. He shook off the memory of Jensen's dead eyes staring at him from the ceiling on the elevator ride down to the lobby and got to work.
Wearing boxers and a T-shirt, he dug out his X-Acto knife kit and seated himself at the round, paw-foot oak table in his front room. He pulled on a pair of latex gloves—man, he was going through these things like chewing gum—and got to work.
He removed the stack of Cordova's photos from the envelope and shuffled through them a second time. Familiarity did not make the task any less nauseating. Last night, while Cordova was unconscious, Jack had sorted them into three stacks: Brady alone, Brady pulling on the mask, and the masked Brady with the boys. He'd picked one at random from each of the first two, but it had taken him a while to find three from the third with the boys faced away from the camera. He'd cut off the corners where the camera had imprinted the date and time, and left them all with Cordova.
On this new pass through the stacks, Jack culled the most damning examples from each pile, then set to work with the X-Acto, cutting out the centers of the boys' faces. No need for something like this to follow them the rest of their lives. Again he cut off the camera's date-and-time imprint.
That done, he placed them in a FedEx envelope along with the letter he'd printed out from Cordova's office computer.
If you're reading this, I am dead, and this is the man who did it. Please don't let these pictures go to waste.
Richard Cordova
He sealed it and addressed it to The Light. He made up the return address.
Then he picked up his cell phone for the first of two calls he had to make. Information connected him to the Pennsylvania State Police. When he said he wanted to report a crime, he was shunted to another line. He told the officer who answered that they needed to go to a certain farm where a concrete cylinder had been buried, and that within that cylinder they'd find the remains of the missing New York City reporter, Jamie Grant. He also told them where they could find the mold used to make the cylinder and that the symbols on it were strictly Dormentalist.
The officer wanted to know who he was and how he knew all this.
Yeah, right.
The second call went to Mrs. Roselli-Not. She picked up on the second ring.
"Good morning, Jack."
That startled him. He had no name listed with his phone. Even with caller ID, how could she…?
Maybe she recognized his number. Or maybe she didn't need electronics.
"Good morning. Peeling well enough for company today?"
"Yes. Finally. You may come over now if you wish."
"I wish. See you in about half an hour."
He got dressed, switched his latex gloves for leather, and headed out. He had the overnight envelope in hand and Anya's skin in the pocket of his coat. One he'd mail along the way. The other was for show and tell—he'd show and the old lady would tell.
He hoped.
9
Gia stood at the corner of Second Avenue and Fifty-eighth and marveled at how good she felt today. She seemed to have regained most of her strength and ambition. She'd even done some painting this morning.