Connor rolled his eyes. “No, Frank Dante over in Things That Go Bump in the Night. Of courseDivine Comedy Dante!”
I had a passing familiarity with his books, but if his name came up onFinal Jeopardy, I probably wouldn’t bet all my money.
“Dante wrote a lot about Divine Love,” Connor said. “Beautiful stuff. Anyway, he goes on and on about chivalry and, most importantly, forbidden love. That which is labeled wrong or unattainable.”
He stopped to flag down the waiter and made the internationally accepted check mark symbol in the air to get our bill.
“Anyway, when Dante descends into the Inferno, one of the first places he’s taken is to the level of least sin-the lustful. Giving in to the wrongkind of love is the least offensive of sins to him, see? While he’s there, he sees the spirits of famous ill-fated lovers-Paris and Helen, Cleopatra and Antony. Real tear-jerker material. Condemned to the Big BBQ Pit simply for choosing the wrong kind of love, the kind that led them astray from the path of love that leads to the divine, to God. A simple sin, really, easy to make.”
The waiter stopped by the table with the check, and lingered as Connor spoke. Even the punk rockers were listening now.
“It’s notloving that’s the sin,” Connor continued, “but more the act of choosing the incorrectkind. A slippery slope, if I ever read of one. So, you’ll want to think carefully before you make your next move.”
“But what should that be?” I asked. I was exhausted, fearing to return home. Ever since Irene had disappeared-or was pulled away by whatever mysterious force was out there-I had been wishing for her return. Now for my own safety, I hoped that she had disappeared again.
Connor threw down a few bills.
I felt for my wallet. “Can you cover me?” I asked. “I left my wallet back at the apartment when I was running for my life.”
Connor threw down a few more bills. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a vial of the viscous, patchouli-like fluid he had used on that spirit back in the alley. He slid it across to me. “Use this if she gives you any more trouble, kid. And then call me.” I picked it up and slid it in my pocket, feeling relieved.
“You wanna get your head together and figure out what you should do?” Connor asked. “Let me jump ahead several hundred years to answer that one, if you don’t mind. I’ve come to use it as my personal mantra. ‘Dead is dead and life is for the living.’ Helps me get through the day in our line of work.”
Connor stood. I rose. “Who came up with that?”
“The Master himself,” Connor said as he threw up the collar on his trench coat and stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “Humphrey Bogart.” He lit the cigarette, and then with the worst Bogey impression I had ever heard, he said, “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”
I stood there, shaking my head as he left. Connor walked toward the door, the waiters swarming him angrily for lighting the cigarette in the diner. He parted them like the Red Sea and was gone, leaving me with much to wonder about. One thing I knew for sure. I certainly wouldn’t be rentingCasablanca in the near future.
29
I didn’t go home that night, but sat at the diner, milking free refills of coffee until the owner threw me out. The sun had been up for an hour, and I walked the streets of the Lower East Side, watching the city slowly coming to life. I couldn’t face going home if Irene’s spirit was still trashing the place, and I wasn’t in any shape to head back to the Department, so I let fate be my guide as I wandered, nervously looking over my shoulder for any signs of being followed the whole time. I spent hours thinking about the case and how I could help Irene, but that in turn only led to wondering about Jane. I had walked out on her, and God only knew if she was okay. I was failing everyone right now, and I decided I had to do something to change all that, starting by dealing with Jane. I returned to the last hotel I had moved Jane into, hoping she was still staying there. I also prayed that my abandoning her on the street hadn’t caused her to revert to evil just yet.
When Jane opened the door to her room and saw me standing there, she left it open and walked back into the room without waiting.
“Lookitme,” she said sarcastically. “Not dead yet…survived awhole night by myself!”
Evil I could handle with the retractable bat hanging from my belt. Sarcasm took a gentler hand than that.
“Jane, please…” I said.
“Please what?” she said. “I think I’m in pretty good spirits, all things considered. Do you walk out on all your cases like that, or just me?”
My gentle approach flew out the window, and I couldn’t help but feel a little incredulous.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Jane,” I said. “You seem like a good person here, but you’re not giving me a whole lot of faith in that. You want my help, right? You seem to want me to blindly trust you, but then I find out you’re holding information out on me…”
“What’s it going to take to get you on my side?” she said. “The Sectarians,my own people, want me dead, and that’s not good enough?”
“It’s not just me,” I said. “Eventually my Department’s going to figure out that I’m helping you, hiding you. It’s just a matter of time and what I’d love out of you is some…I don’t know…grandiose gesture that’s going to put you in good not only with me but with them as well.”
I knew I was being manipulative-partly because I needed answers about Tamara and Irene, but also on a personal level. I liked Jane more that I felt was right, and I would love to feel like it was justified.
Jane fell quiet so I pressed on. I needed something that could help me gain the upper hand in our fight against Bane and the corporate headhunter he had sent after her.
“Give me something, Jane,” I said. “Help out an underpaid psychometrist with bills to pay. Prove you’re on my side. I need a break if I’m going to help you or make any headway on the case I’m working on. Didn’t you tell me that the Sectarians were obsessive about their record keeping? Get me inside the Sectarian Defense League.”
Jane looked at me like I was crazy. “You want me to go back there?” she said. She looked like she was going to argue, but she stopped herself. “Fine. If that’s what it’s going to take. I can probably find something on that fish you asked about in my old records.”
“I don’t think they’re going to let us just walk right in, Jane,” I said.
“You don’t have some brilliant plan?” she said, smiling for once.
“No,” I said, “but clearly you do. Why don’t you tell me whatyour plan is?”
“We’ll need to get past building security first, so we’ll wear all brown,” she suggested, perking up. “Jumpsuits maybe. With matching baseball caps.”
The twinkle in her eye made Jane look like she was Wile E. Coyote, Supergenius, hard at work at the drawing board. “Or blue. Doesn’t matter.”
I looked at her skeptically. “And this will help how…?”
“Delivery people,” she said. “Does anyonereally pay attention to delivery people? No. It’s always someone dressed in a jumpsuit or some kind of generic-looking outfit. You never remember the person. All you see is a blur of ho-hum colors and a hat.”
Jane was right. I couldn’t remember what any delivery guy I had ever encountered looked like.
“Won’t they route us to a mailroom or something?” I asked.
Jane shook her head.
“No,” she said. “One of the great things about being cultists is that trust is always an issue with them. They route everything straight through to their office. They’re so not going to risk the chance of the Mask of Yojeeti or the Basket of Sepiroth going missing at the hands of a mailroom clerk. As if!”
Several hours (and one trip to K-Mart) later, we breezed past check-in at the Fifth Avenue entrance to the Empire State Building. Security barely gave us a glance as we signed the building register. My bat was hidden discreetly in a flower delivery box, underneath an all-too-pricy cover of roses. I fully intended to give them to Jane if we made it out alive. I also intended to expense them.