"Hey, Eric," Taylor said finally, "why don't you tell us what you're really doing out here." Eric shrugged and kept his eyes on his plate and swallowed. "He's a wanderer," Taylor told his wife.
A wanderer, Eric thought. That was a good one. "The conference," he said. "At Heron's Neck."
"You ain't part of that shit, are you?"
"No." Eric tried to explain. "I came out to see… what local people had to say."
"Local people?" Taylor asked. "What do you mean by that?"
"He doesn't mean anything," Annie said.
"I got nothing to say," Taylor told him. "Annie's got nothing to say neither."
"I might, Taylor."
"I should have been here earlier," Eric explained. "Fog. And I had you guys' address from Lou. And I wanted to maybe meet her friends. So I thought I'd call and say hi. So here I am. Tomorrow…"
"On your merry way?" Annie Shumway asked. "Up to the Neck and the conference? Hey, this ratatouille turned out really well."
"Well, no," Eric said.
She was watching Eric being overcome by the wine. He was ever so slightly like Taylor. Like her dad too, though not quiet and surely not violent. These people shouldn't drink. Like her dad. Scandinavian family on her side. Surely not violent, but you could never tell. She had discovered once that drunks were boring and unpleasant, and she had left Taylor once, before they lived on the island. Then the guy she had gone with had told her: Boy, that asshole — meaning Taylor — was work. He was your job, not a lot more than that. She had thought, Oh, I don't know. Because he, that guy, was also boring and unpleasant, and violent sometimes himself, not as brave as Taylor, and that turned out to count with her, as it did with most women. He was not committed to the world outside himself the way Taylor was.
She got tired of the guy mocking Taylor; she came to see it as mockery against herself. So love has no pride like the song says, and she had found out how ruthless she could be in a worthy cause, and she had gone back to Taylor, who took her back quite lovingly. They had moved to the island, and she had made people unhappy and she had helped people and she thought helping felt better, as was well known. So that was love for Annie.
"Veggies pretty good," she told the men. "Very nice, Taylor."
"The bird life is interesting here too." The word for Taylor's smile, Eric thought, was grim. Unless he had started imagining it, the cardinal was still at the window. "You a bird watcher too?" the grim ferryman asked. "You know," he asked his wife, "you remember the last pack of weird bird watchers we had?" He turned the rictus back on its subject. "They were Feds, Eric. They were government spies. Now, you say you're here for that conference. You say you're talking to local people. What's up, partner?"
"Well, not really." Eric proposed to explain himself further.
"Maybe you know something we don't, Eric."
Perhaps because of the bird outside, the dark Paraclete descended on Eric once again.
"Know something you don't?" He turned to Annie with a radiant countenance, then to Taylor. "That may be."
Taylor trembled.
"Taylor probably doesn't believe a lot of what he reads in the papers," Eric ventured, addressing Annie.
"You got that right," said Taylor. "I disregard the trash."
Annie watched, less anxiously. Having seen these situations before helped. Fraught as they got, they usually ended with some bloodless antler-rattling when she rallied herself to protect Taylor's feckless prey.
Eric had fallen under the spell of his demon.
"This is wise," he said. "It's not just a matter of slanted perspective. It's a matter of arrant fictionalizing. They rarely get caught."
"He says it himself!" Taylor declared. "Admits it's all bullshit!"
"I've never heard it put that way, Taylor, have you?" Annie asked. "I want to hear." And she did, if she could not change the subject.
"Like those planes!" Taylor did not raise his voice but spoke with great passion. "That was faked, wasn't it? The planes into buildings. For oil, wasn't it?"
"There were no planes," Eric said.
"But wait," Annie exclaimed.
"I knew it!" Taylor shouted. He half rose from his chair. "No planes whatsoever!"
"No, Taylor," Eric said. "No planes." The force within him drove him to assume a wise condescending expression. An air, perhaps, of punditry. "Annie? There were no planes, do you understand?"
"But people were killed," Annie said. Taylor, triumphant, only grew more angry.
"Annie? Taylor? Have either of you ever heard of fractal imaging?"
"I have," Annie said. "I think." Taylor looked as though he were hearing something he had always known without quite realizing it.
"Did you know," Eric asked, "that in professional wrestling the outcome was always agreed to? The referee called the signals. This did not mean that people didn't get hurt." Eric chuckled. "Oh yes, Annie, people got hurt. Even killed. Did you know that the former Soviet People's Army accepted a four percent casualty rate in maneuvers?"
"This wasn't the Russians," Taylor said. "This was no maneuver."
Eric looked at the empty fruit jar and spoke thoughtfully. "That depends, Taylor, on what you mean by a maneuver. Think about it."
"What are you trying to do, man," Taylor asked, "make some bullshit excuse or something?"
"No no no, Taylor, don't misunderstand."
Annie watched Eric carefully. Taylor took a deep breath and puffed through closed lips. Eric leaned backward in his uneven captain's chair with an air of complacency.
"Watch the chair, Eric," Annie warned, but Eric took no notice.
"I've been doing this all my professional life, my two friends. I've been — you might say — behind the scenes. Listen to your Uncle Eric, as I'll call myself tonight. Whatever you think is happening, be certain it's not happening. Nothing you ever see or hear is correct. Shit, it's not even real. See, some are content. Others confused. Some shocked into a dreadful unprotesting silence. Some incensed, filled with impotent rage. All persuaded."
"I'll give you impotent rage," Taylor said softly.
"It's a funny idea," Annie said. "But our rage isn't impotent at all, I'm afraid. Although," she said to Taylor, "we're very peaceful people. We've accepted peace."
"You!" Taylor kept his seat but turned corpse-white. "Maybe it's your job to keep people persuaded! Could be that's what you're doing here."
Eric laughed.
"Think it's funny, Eric? You gonna tell me those planes weren't part of a U.S. government conspiracy? Invented in every detail?" He raised his voice. "And fuck the people! A monster conspiracy, right?"
Eric looked into Taylor's small, very blue eyes with an expression of serious sympathy.
"That's precisely what I am telling you, Taylor."
"The phone calls! The whole thing invented by baby-raping motherfuckers. And you, man — who we don't want in this house — I can tell you're one of them!" He breathed heavily. "Second plane! Third plane! Bullshit!" he shouted.
Annie knew the one thing she could not do was threaten to leave the room or actually leave it. To her surprise and dread, Eric seemed oblivious to the danger. He laughed into Taylor's uncomprehending rage, his eyes wild. He looked desperate until his gaze settled on the fire.
"It's all conspiracy," he said to the fire, then looked to Annie. "It's all conspiracy, Annie. I can explain it for you."
Neither of them answered him. Annie wondered briefly if she might hear some valuable information. She thought it unlikely.
"You guys heard about history being mere fiction? That's the way it's always been. Heard of the Romans?" Eric demanded. "They never existed!" He raised his voice. "It's baloney. I mean there's Rome, right. But there never were any Romans with togas and shit, and helmets and feathers. A fairy tale out of the Vatican Library. They even dreamed up the idea of a Vatican Library. There isn't one!"