Jane prepared her clothes and belongings for the next day, checking them off against the sheet of prison regulations she had printed out from her computer at home. Visiting hours were eight-thirty to three on Friday, Saturday, and federal holidays. Processing of visitors stopped at two P.M . A visitor could carry only a clear plastic change purse, eight inches or smaller, forty dollars, and a comb. Jane would be permitted to wear "a reasonable amount" of jewelry. If she brought a baby she could have a clear plastic diaper bag with "a reasonable amount" of baby food, clothes, bottles, powder, and lotion. Shorts, halter tops, sheer clothing, skirts more than three inches above the knee, or khaki clothing were prohibited. Khaki clothes were what inmates wore.
She examined the picture ID she had asked Stewart Shattuck to make her the night she had brought Christine to see him. It was a duplicate of a California driver's license with Jane's picture in place of the original. Jane had known from the moment when Christine had told her the story of her family that she might need it one day. Jane put the license on the dresser and then went to bed and let the fatigue of the long day overtake her. In a few minutes she was asleep.
In her dream she was driving into Santa Barbara. She took the Salinas Street exit from the freeway, and then went by the corner of Ocean View Avenue, but didn't dare to take the turn. She couldn't avoid recognizing the tall hedge at the corner—at least twelve feet high and so thick it was opaque. The hedge was one of the first things she had seen when she had gone to Harry's apartment. She kept going and drove through the city, trying to get away from the memory of Harry's death. And then she made a turn and saw the old main building of Mission Santa Barbara ahead.
The sight of the Mission made Jane feel sick. It was an old adobe church with a tower and a long, low wing continuing to the left of it, the whole complex situated at the top of a vast sloping green lawn set off by big rose gardens. There was a small parking lot and a fountain, and to the right of the church was a high wall. It was what was behind the wall that was important. That was where the truth was hidden.
When the Jesuit missionaries came to the Senecas, they were promptly sent to their heaven. But the people who once inhabited this part of California coast weren't like the people of the eastern forests. They hadn't been fighting for a thousand years like the Iroquois. It took only a few Spanish soldiers on horseback to round them up and make them live in captivity. They died in such numbers that the cemetery filled up and the bodies had to be dug up and re-buried elsewhere over and over to make room for the new deaths. Jane couldn't help walking out through the side door of the church into the cemetery. There were old stone markers here, with names and dates worn away. And there were green plants and flowers growing with the vigor of Santa Barbara's perpetual May. There was a melancholy silence here, interrupted about once every two minutes by the whispery sound of a car passing beyond the wall.
"So you're back."
Jane shut her eyes tightly, but she knew she had to turn around, so she did. She opened her eyes, knowing. There he was, the way he always was in her dreams. "Hello, Harry," she said. He was wearing the moss green sport coat that had always seemed slightly too big for him. It made her wonder if he'd bought it that way to hide cards in poker games, or if he had begun to age and get smaller before she had even met him. Harry was leaning on the high stone cemetery wall, his sad brown eyes fixed on her. She added, "I was thinking of you when I flew into the Santa Barbara airport today. I can't come here without thinking of you."
"I'm hard to forget even after all this time."
"You are. I'm so sorry, Harry." She could feel the tears beginning to well in her eyes.
"I know, I know. It doesn't matter to me anymore. Dying was one nasty surprise on one night of my life, the big hand in my hair jerking my head back, and then the knife going right across my throat, as quick as that. The experience was really all over before I even figured out what had happened. The result was determined, I mean. He let go of me, and I was already dead, while I was stand ing up." Harry tilted his head back, and she could see the mortician's crude stitching across his throat. "Looks like a baseball, doesn't it?"
"A little."
"It doesn't matter. By now I could be dead from a bad piece of meat. Don't waste time blaming yourself. This was just the twins, the grandsons of Sky Woman. Hawenneyu the right-handed twin creates, and Hanegoategeh the left-handed twin destroys. We're all just part of the battle they've always fought with each other, and we don't even know what part we're playing. Hawenneyu creates a bright little boy who grows up to be an anesthesiologist, but Hanegoategeh has already given him a blind spot in his peripheral vision so he won't notice that the dial on the meter is too high and so he'll kill a patient. But maybe Hawenneyu has made sure the patient is the one who would have grown up to kill whole countries. Each move has a countermove, and only the twins know which is which."
"That example is pretty far-fetched."
"Is it?" he said.
"Why are you here?"
Harry looked around at the old cemetery with exaggerated interest. "Somebody belongs here more than me? Somebody deader than I am?"
"You know what I mean. Why tonight?"
"I'm here to warn you, Janie," he said. "You've been living a quiet life for a long time. You don't get to know why you were allowed to do that. Hawenneyu raises his right hand to strike, but Hanegoategeh raises his left to grasp his wrist, just like a mirror image. Maybe he blocked the blow, but maybe Hawenneyu was just keeping him from moving."
"Meaning what?"
"It's over. They're moving. You're out again."
"I know that."
"But do you know which twin is doing it—day or night? Creator or Destroyer? The good twin or the bad one?"
"You just reminded me that I don't get to know."
"There are always results. Somebody lives. Or dies. Think about the woman."
"What about her? She's just a kid."
"Woman. There are a lot of questions you never asked. You accepted her because she said Sharon sent her, but you never talked to Sharon."
"There were men with guns waiting in the parking lot. They persuaded me."
"What were they going to do with the guns—kill her? Kill you?"
"It doesn't much matter. I couldn't let them do either. I couldn't let them take her. I couldn't ignore the fact that they set off a bomb to get to her."
"You couldn't. You couldn't. Somebody put you in a position where you couldn't make any choices. Or maybe they were just making the right choices unthinkable. Who was it?"
"I don't know."
"Make sure you're doing what you think you're doing."
"I think I'm doing what I'm supposed to. I'm keeping my word."
Harry shrugged. "I can't hang around here all night. You hid the woman. Now you're going to see her only living connection, the only person who seems to give a shit if she lives or dies. The boyfriend must know about him, right? Would you send somebody else there?" He gave her a compassionate look, then reached out and touched her cheek.
The hand was cold, with a texture like wax. She shuddered and jerked her head back involuntarily, and awoke. She lay in the bed staring up at the cottage-cheese ceiling above her. There seemed to be light behind the curtain, so she sat up. The clock said it was five A.M., but she didn't want to go back to sleep. She was afraid that she would see Harry in her dreams again. She showered and dressed, then packed, checked out of the hotel, and drove to Lompoc for an early breakfast.