“May I speak to Detective Wade?” Marilee asked.
“Who is this?”
“Marilee Frith-DeGeorgio.”
“And why are you calling my husband in the middle of the night?”
Marilee wanted to say that it was morning but didn’t. She suddenly imagined the entire globe of Earth dancing through the plane of sunlight, an intangible but still physical thing joining in that dance.
“I’m, what do you call it? I’m an informant, and he told me to call when I had information.”
The receiver banged down, and Marilee waited. A few minutes later he answered.
“Ms. Frith-DeGeorgio?” Odell Wade said over the line.
“I’ve searched his house when he was out,” she said. “I’ve checked every file in all of his computers and smartphone. I’ve been through his closets, pockets, drawers, and behind and under each piece of furniture. There’s not one thing about his wife or partner that’s incriminating.
“I asked him point-blank if he would have killed her if he knew about her infidelity, and he basically said that he felt sorry for her.”
“Is there some reason you need to tell me all this at four in the morning?” Detective Wade asked.
“I’m going to his laboratory today.”
“Oh.” Wade hadn’t even known about the lab until Marilee unearthed that knowledge. “That is important.”
“What should I be looking for?” Marilee asked.
5
The lab was in the basement underneath a six-story apartment building near Tenth Street and Avenue C in the East Village. The door was solid oak and fifteen steep steps down from the street. There was no knob or handle, only a big yellow button to the left of where the knob should have been.
Marilee pressed this button and waited.
A minute later the door swung inward, and there, standing before her, was a god.
He was tall, six six at least, and darker-skinned even than Martin. He wore a tan T-shirt, black trousers, and no shoes or socks. His demeanor exuded something like power or confidence, knowledge, and intense joy. His eyes were light gray, like those of some cats, and his hands seemed as if they were designed to perform miracles.
“Ms. Frith-DeGeorgio?” the earthbound deity asked.
For the moment Marilee was speechless.
“Are you all right?” the godling wondered.
“What are... I mean who are you?”
“Lythe Prime.”
“That’s your name?”
“And designation,” he said. “I was born LeRoy Moss, but that was a very long time ago.”
He didn’t look a day over twenty-five.
“Come on in, Ms. Frith-DeGeorgio. Velchanos is waiting.”
“Who?”
“He still goes by Martin Hull out there, but down here he is Velchanos.”
The man calling himself Lythe Prime turned then, leading Marilee into a large empty room with high ceilings crisscrossed with ancient wooden beams overhead and a concrete floor underfoot.
“This isn’t a laboratory,” Marilee said, feeling a pang of fear.
“No,” the divine youth replied.
He pressed a place on the white plasterboard wall opposite the entrance, and a panel slid aside, revealing a cavernous stairwell.
While Lythe Prime descended, Marilee took a moment to wonder whether this could possibly be where Martin had murdered his wife.
“Coming, Ms. Frith-DeGeorgio?”
The beautiful voice seemed to be calling to some hitherto unknown part of her — her soul.
The chamber below the first basement level was immense, at least eighty feet wide and half that in depth, with twenty-five-foot-high ceilings. There were eleven long metal tables, most of which held hundreds of multicolored beakers and vases that reminded Marilee of some fantasy palace. One wall held at least six dozen computers on various shelves and ledges. And at the far end of the room, there was a huge metal door that looked like the portal to a big bank’s vault.
“Velchanos,” Lythe Prime hailed.
That’s when Marilee saw her lover/prey, in a classic white smock, sitting behind an old-fashioned walnut desk in a corner beside the vault.
He stood and said, “Hi, Marilee. I’m so glad you could make it. Come in. Come in.”
She realized that she hadn’t taken the last step from the stairs into the subbasement.
Lythe touched her arm. This sent a jolt through her like static electricity, only it was a pleasurable sensation. Almost involuntarily she took in a deep breath and walked toward the man whose chosen name was that of a precursor to the Greek god Vulcan.
How did I know that? she wondered.
“Come, sit,” Martin said, giving her that goofy grin. “You met LeRoy.”
“Lythe,” she corrected.
“What’s in a name?” Martin quoted. “Sit.”
Marilee did as he asked, looking around the room. There was a scent in the air, something wonderful and fresh.
“I’m sure you want to know everything,” Martin said.
“I just wanted to visit.”
“I seriously doubt that,” Martin replied, in a tone that was certain, almost hard.
“What do you mean?”
“Odell Wade convinced his superiors to reopen his investigation of me. I think it was when he realized that I had a new girlfriend.”
For some reason Marilee was not surprised at Martin’s knowledge.
“He believes that you really did murder your wife and the doctor,” she said.
“No doubt,” Martin/Velchanos answered. “Modern men have externalized their thought processes and use their prejudices to divine guilt.”
“How did you know about Odell?” Marilee asked, twisting uncomfortably in her chair. Even her old fat dress was beginning to feel tight.
“I have a friend that works as a male receptionist in his precinct.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Not at all. Lon Richmond was bed-bound, suffering from a slowly progressive nerve disorder. His mother died, and no hospital would take him. He was the cousin of one of my reconstructive-surgery patients, and so I visited Lon and gave him five injections. After two months, he was out of bed and applying for the job.”
“A plastic surgeon cured an incurable nerve disease?” Marilee asked. Behind these words she was trying to remember the significance of five injections.
“As I told you, plastic surgery is just my day job.”
“You sent him in there as a spy?”
“Most definitely.”
Not for the first time, Marilee wondered if Martin was insane. She glanced behind her chair and saw Lythe Prime standing there.
“What was in those injections?” she asked Martin.
He smiled and nodded.
“What are you grinning about?”
“You,” he said. “I’ve just told you that I’m spying on the NYPD, and they have assured you that I’m a murderer. Here you are in a closed space with me and a man who looks as powerful as a professional athlete. All that, and you ask the only important question.”
“So, are you going to answer me?”
“The human body recognizes categories of cells. I have discovered that if I place a small amount of a certain cell type in the HMT-1 hinny, that parasite will be ferried to the part of the body that resonates with the passenger cell type.”
“You can target organs,” Marilee heard herself say.
“The brain,” Martin said, “the heart, spinal cord, liver, and any gland I choose.”
“And what do you use these parasites for?”
“Open the vault, LeRoy,” Martin replied.
He stood and ushered Marilee toward the stainless-steel door.
The man once called LeRoy Moss entered a combination on a number pad and then turned a great lever that looked something like the chromium wheel of an ancient sailing ship.