"Why now?" she wondered aloud. Ask Grillo, Raul suggested.
"Must I?" Grillo had been strange the last couple of times she'd called him: remote and short-tempered. When they'd spoken five or six weeks before, she'd come off the phone thinking maybe he was on serious drugs, he sounded so damn strange. She almost headed over to Nebraska to check on him, but she'd been feeling spooked enough without going into that apartment of his. Raul was right, however If anyone knew what was happening in the places that never found their way onto the evening news, it was Grillo.
Less than happily, she called him. He was in a better mood than the last occasion, though he sounded tired. She got straight to the point; told him about returning to the Grove, and her encounter with the trio.
"Kate Farrell, eh?" Grillo said.
"Do you know her?"
"She was the mother of one of the League of Virgins. Arleen Farrell. She went crazy."
"Mother or daughter?"
"Daughter. She died in an institution. Starved herself to death." This was more like the Nathan Grillo Tesla was used to. A clean, clipped summary of the facts, presented with the minimum of sentiment. In his pre-Grove days he'd been a journalists He'd never lost his nose for a good story.
"What the hell was Kate Farrell doing in Palomo Grove?" he asked.
She explained, as best she could. The circle of incense bowls, set around the place where Fletcher had perished (or at least done a damned good impersonation of perishing); the talk of sightings; the exchange about messiahdom.
"Have you heard anything about this?" she finished up by asking him.
There was a moment's silence. Then he said, "Sure."
"You have?"
"Listen, if it's there to be heard, I hear it."
This was not an idle boast. There in Omaha-a city built at the Crossroads of America@rillo had established himself as a clearinghouse for any and all information that related, however remotely, to events in Palomo Grove. Within a year he had won the trust and respect of a vast circle of individuals, from molecular physicists to beat cops, to politicians, to priests, all of whom had one thing in common: Their lives had somehow been brushed by mysterious, even terrifying, forces, the details of which they felt they could not share, either for personal or professional reasons, with their peers.
Word had quickly spread through the thicket where those marginalized by their experiences and beliefs and terrors had taken cover; word of this man Grillo who had seen the way things really were and wanted to hear from others who'd seen the same; who was putting the pieces together, one by one, until he had the whole story.
It was that ambition-whether practical or not-that had kept Tesla and Grillo talking to each other in the years since the Grove. Though she had gone wandering, and he seldom left his apartment, they were both engaged in the same search for connections. She had failed to find them in the Americas-it was chaos out there-and doubted Grillo had been any more lucky; but they still had the search in common. And she never failed to marvel at his ability to put two apparently disparate fragments of information together to suggest a third more provocative possibility. How a rumor from Boca Raton confirmed a hint from a suicide note found in Denver which in turn supported a thesis spoken in tongues by a prodigy in New Jersey.
"So what have you heard?"
"People have been sighting Fletcher on and off for the last five years, Tes," he said. "He's like Bigfoot, or Elvis. There's not a month goes by I don't get somebody sending me his picture."
"Any of them the real thing?"
"Shit, I don't know. I used to think His words trailed away for a moment, as though he'd lost track of his thought.
"Grillo?"
"Yeah."
"What did you used to think?"
"It doesn't matter," he said a little wearily.
"Yes it does."
He drew a long, ragged breath. "I used to think it mattered whether or not things were real. I'm not so sure any more...." Again he faltered. This time she didn't prompt him, but waited until he had his thoughts in order. "Maybe the messiahs we imagine are more important than the real thing. At least they don't bleed when you crucify 'em."
For some reason he found this extremely funny, and Tesla was obliged to wait while he got over his bout of laughter.
"Is that it then?" she said, faintly irritated now. "You don't think it matters whether things are real or not, so I should just give up caring?"
"Oh I care," he said. "I care more than you know." He was suddenly icy.
"What the hell's wrong with you, Grillo?"
"Leave it alone, Tes." "Maybe I should come see you
"No! "
"Why the hell not?"
"I just-leave it alone." He sighed. "I gotta go," he said. "Call me tomorrow. I'll see if I can dig up anything useful about Fletcher. But, you know Tes, I think it's time we grew up and stopped looking for fucking explanations."
She drew breath to reply, but the line was already dead. In the old days, they'd had a routine of cutting each other off in mid-farewell; an asinine game, but diverting. He wasn't playing now, however. He'd cut her off because he wanted to be away from her. Back to his grapevine, or to the doubts rotting on it.
Well it was worth a try, Raul said.
"I'm going to go see him," Tesla thought.
We only just got here. Can't we stay in one place for a few days. Kick back? Relax?
She opened the sliding door and stepped out onto the balcony. It was a voyeur's paradise. She could see into half a dozen living rooms and bedrooms from where she stood. The indows of the apartment directly across the yard from her open wide; people were partying there, music and aughter floating her way. She didn't know the hosts: They'd moved in a year or so ago, after the death of Ross, who'd been in residence a decade when she'd moved in. The plague had taken him, the way it had taken so man others in the vicinity, even before she'd left for her travels. But the parties went on, the laughter went on.
"Maybe you're right," she thought to Raul, "maybe it is time I-"
There was a knock on the door. Had somebody seen her listening alone on the balcony, and come to invite her over?
"What is it?" she called as she crossed the living room.
The voice from the far side of the door was little more than a whisper.
"Lucien," it said.
He had come without Kate Farrell or her sidekick Eddie knowing; told them he wanted to look up some friends in L.A. before he rejoined the pursuit of Fletcher. "Where's Kate gone?" Tesla wanted to know. "Up to Oregon." "What's in Oregon?"
Lucien sipped the neat vodka Tesia had poured for him, and looked a little guilty. "I don't know if I should be telling you this," he said,
"but I think there's more going on than Kate realizes. She talks about Fletcher as though he's got all these answers-"
"Fletcher's in Oregon?" Lucien nodded. "How do you know?"
"Kate has a spirit-guide. Her name's Friederika. She came through after Kate lost her daughter. Kate was channeling her when you arrived.
And she picked up the scent."
"I see." "A lot of people still find it difficult to believe-"
"I've believed a lot weirder," Tesla replied. "was, uh, was Friederika specific about this, or was it just somewhere in Oregon?"
"Oh no, she's very specific."
"So they've gone looking for him?"
"Right." He drew a deep breath, swallowed the last of his vodka, then said: "And I came after you." He gazed up at her with those submarine eyes. "was I wrong to do that?" She was very seldom dumbfounded, but this silenced her. "Shit," he said, grimacing, "I thought-maybe something was going on... " The words became shrugs.
"Have another vodka," she said.
"No, I think I'd better go."
"Stay," she said, catching hold of his arm with a little more urgency than she'd intended. "I want you to know what you're getting into."