“You ought to leave now and lay off talking to the Doc like that, you silver spoon up-the-ass mother—”
“That’s good, Leonard,” Gabriel said. He tried hard to fight back laughter. “Your items will be returned in pristine condition, Mr. Lindemann, I assure you.”
Wallace Lindemann, with one last look at the small black man standing in front of him, stormed out of the meeting room with the two bellmen.
John Lonetree was smiling at Leonard also. It seemed that Sickles disrespected everyone, and some of them deserved it. Lonetree was good with that — you always knew where you stood with the kid. Earn his respect and you’d be in.
Gabriel watched the double doors close and relaxed when they were finally alone again.
“Leonard, I am fully capable of handling Wallace Lindemann. You’ll find out the little bastard is mostly hot air.”
“Ah, Doc, the guy’s a—”
Leonard stopped short of his name calling when he saw Kennedy staring at him.
“Okay,” Gabriel said pointing at Sickles, “dim the lights a little and we’ll start with John and George.” Kennedy paced to the bellman’s cart and pulled the red sheet from the items.
Several items were immediately recognizable from the pictures they had seen of the interior of the house. The largest was the family portrait of the Lindemanns. Gabriel lifted the four-foot by five-foot frame and hefted the portrait to the easel he had brought in earlier. When Lonetree saw the professor was having a hard time lifting it, he jumped from his chair and assisted. As soon as his large hands touched the gilded edges of the frame, an electrical current seemed to course through John’s hands, arms, and then his entire body. As much as the large man tried not to react, he couldn’t help it. He let go and stumbled backward from the massive painting, almost making Kennedy lose the portrait to the carpeted floor.
As John grabbed for the back of a chair, George and Kennedy went to him. Leonard stood next to the long table, laughing at the look on Lonetree’s face.
“Man,” he said as he approached the painting, “you would think this thing was wired or something,” he said, reaching toward the frame.
“Don’t!” John said.
Sickles jumped at the loudness of Lonetree’s voice. He turned and looked at the Indian as if he had lost it.
“Cool it, Geronimo, I just—”
“You’ll interfere and block my feelings.”
“Leonard, take a seat,” Kennedy said as he helped John straighten up.
“Look, I’m getting bad vibes from this thing.” George took to a chair next to Lonetree. “Something is coming off of that painting in waves. I didn’t start picking it up until John touched the damn thing.”
Kennedy looked from Cordero to Lonetree, who was looking at the portrait as if he were taking in every nuance of the artist’s brush strokes. The sepia tones of the background, the bright colors of the skin tones, and last of all, the smiling faces of the family.
“What did you feel?” Gabriel asked. He was tempted to go to his own chair to write it down in his notebook, but was unwilling to move in case he broke John’s concentration.
“Something came through the portrait…but it wasn’t the painting itself. It was like—”
“The house is here with us.”
Everyone looked at Cordero who was now leaning his head on his crossed arms on the tabletop.
“He’s right,” John stood, stepping closer to the portrait. “It may not be the portrait itself, but its attachment to the house. It has eyes on us.”
Kennedy patiently listened.
Lonetree touched the old oil paint. He ran a finger over the faces of the small children, and then up to the older features of F.E. Lindemann. The fingers touching the face lingered for a moment and then slowly went down in a zigzag motion toward the beautiful face of Elena. When he finally touched the brush-stroked features, the reaction was quite different from the initial shock he had felt. There had been nothing when he touched the other members of the family, but now John sighed as a feeling of safeness came over him. At the same moment Cordero raised his head and started to shake.
“John…get away from there, I feel…like, hell, just get away until I can sort this out.”
George stood up, knocking his chair over. He was rubbing his hands together, almost as if he wanted nothing more than to tear the skin from the bone. Leonard backed away from the table uneasily.
Lonetree didn’t move. He felt like he was a child again — no, even younger. He felt as though his mother’s hand was caressing his face, while she smiled down at him in his crib.
“Gabe, pull him away from that damn thing. It’s not what it seems. The fucking thing is…is tricking him. He feels safe around it, but it’s taking something from him.” George stepped around the table and approached John, still wringing his hands together. “It’s like the picture is learning from him.”
“You mean like a Vulcan mind-meld or somethin’?”
Cordero started to reach out to touch Lonetree’s arm but he hesitated, and then went back to wringing his hands.
“John?” Kennedy said, stepping closer to Lonetree and the portrait.
John tilted his head and then nodded like he was answering a question only he could hear. “Mama—”
John blinked several times and then he removed his hand. He continued to stare at the portrait for a long time, and then, as if coming from a faraway place, he blinked and looked at Cordero.
“She said that we are all welcome into the Lindemann home. Summer Place has been waiting for all of us.”
“Elena said that to you?” Gabriel asked. He took John by the arm and led him back to the table.
“I think, uh, yes, it had to have been,” Lonetree said as he slowly sat down.
Kennedy looked up at George, who was watching Lonetree with a worried look on his face. Then his eyes went to Gabriel and he slowly shook his head. Gabriel tilted his head, not understanding what Cordero was trying to convey.
“That thing,” he said pointing at the portrait, “does not want us in that house. If it does, it’s because…because—”
“What a bunch of bullshit. You buying this crap, Doc?” Leonard asked. He still stood his ground, far away from the rest of the group.
“Do you feel it?” John asked, sounding more like his old self. Far deeper, far stronger than when he was touching the face of Elena Lindemann.
“What?” Sickles asked looking around the dimly lit room.
“I do,” Kennedy said.
“What?” Leonard asked again, losing the bravado he had been feeling a moment before.
“Get your thermal laser, Leonard,” Gabriel said. He ran his hand back and forth through the air, still looking at the portrait. “Now!”
Sickles jumped as if he had been goosed. He rummaged through his small back bag and came up with a pistol shaped instrument. He turned on its red laser light and started pointing it in all directions.
“74 degrees, 74…74…75,” he said as he pointed it toward the double doors. He swung it toward George and John. “73, 73…74…” Then he pointed it at the portrait. “Jesus Christ! 38 degrees, 37, 36…” He pointed it back at the interior of the meeting room. “Temperature dropping. 35, 35, 31, shit,” he said. His breath had started to particulate into a fog.
“It’s here, Gabriel. Goddamn it, it came into the room with everything Lindemann brought over,” George said. Sickles returned to his black bag and started throwing things out of it, searching for something.
“What is it?” Gabriel asked. Leonard had found the object he was looking for, and now held a black box up and outward toward the center of the room.