When I thought of Darius, I felt betrayed and disappointed-I was angry with myself for not believing J, and I hated Darius for killing Bonaventure, for being a vampire hunter, for not being the man I wanted him to be.
To distract myself I turned to Catharine, who was crying quietly in the pa.s.senger seat, soaking through Kleenex after Kleenex. "Do you feel like talking?" I said. "It might help you to get it all out, and it might help me to listen."
"I guess you of all people would understand," she said, her eyes swimming with tears. "Who else can, except someone who knows what Bonaventure was?"
"That"s true," I said. Only another vampire can truly understand what the life of a night stalker means. "Did you ever care about him or were you forced into the relationship?"
She sniffed into the tissue. "Oh, no, I loved him so much. When we first met, I was a waitress in a beautiful Dubrovnik restaurant, the Kon.o.ba Pjatanca. It"s outside the Ploce Gate on Kilocepska Street. From its terrace you can see the old port and the city walls." Catharine"s voice became dreamy, nostalgic. "I was still in school, but I needed the money, you know? He came in frequently and always sat at my tables. He ordered caviar, champagne. The cost meant nothing to him. He flirted with me. He was so charming. Finally, after coming in a few times, he asked me if I would go out with him."
Catharine was whimpering just a little now as she focused on memories instead of the present. "I was so flattered. He was a very important person. One night he had come in with Putin. I didn"t wait on them. They took a private room in the back. Another time he was with the French prime minister. What is his name? I can"t remember. But they all treated him with respect. And this important man who dined with heads of state wanted to go out with me, a student, a n.o.body."
The roads were virtually empty of traffic as I steered the Mercedes toward the interstate. The way was well marked, and I was relieved. The car was big and comfortable, and having to drive kept me from thinking. Keeping Catharine talking helped too, so I asked her, "How old were you?"
"Seventeen. Just seventeen," she said, and began to cry again. "So young and innocent. I had never even been with a man."
I reached over and gave her hand a comforting pat. "What happened when you went out with him?"
"He took me to a cafe for c.o.c.ktails, and afterward we walked along the old wall of the city. It is so beautiful in Dubrovnik. Like a fairytale."
"Yes, I know. I"ve been there." And I had been, both before and after the terrible sh.e.l.ling in 1991 from the Serbian and Montenegrin forces during the Balkan conflict. Since then that pearly city of marble sidewalks, palaces, bell towers, and green-shuttered houses had been carefully restored. Dubrovnik has been called the "Venice of the Adriatic," although it"s much older than Venice. It is a breathtakingly beautiful city.
Remembering that and feeling in my heart what Catharine was describing, I paused, then said again, "Yes, I"ve walked along the Dalmatian coast for miles. Its waters are so clear you can see schools of silver fish darting by. It reminds me of the Mediterranean as it used to be. The breezes are clean and pure. Cypress trees tower above, nightingales sing, and everywhere are wildflowers. It is a very beautiful place."
"Oh," she said, and clapped her hands. "You know! You understand, then, how much I love it. And you will understand too the romance. Bonaventure and I walked through the Old Town. He held my hand. We"d stop and kiss in doorways. He asked me if I would go back to his hotel room. I hesitated. He said we would do only as much as I wanted. That he respected me. If I just wanted him to hold me, that was all he would do. I trusted him, and I said yes."
"But of course, trusting some men is a bad idea," I said sadly.
"I don"t know," Catharine said, "about other men. But at first, when we got there, he kept his word. I was lightheaded from the drinks I had at the cafe. I was very dizzy-drunk, in fact. I couldn"t seem to think clearly. He sat me down on his lap. I put my head on his shoulder. He began stroking me. I didn"t stop him; G.o.d forgive me, I didn"t stop him. He asked if that was okay. I said yes, that he could do what he wanted. That I wanted him too. But I didn"t really know what that meant.
"He stood me up and began to unb.u.t.ton my blouse. I felt a little scared but I let him do it. Before I realized what was happening, all my clothes were off. When he started to undo his trousers, I got very scared. I told him no! I had changed my mind. But it was too late. He told me that. It was too late. He grabbed my arms and pushed me down right there on the floor. He pushed himself into me. It hurt. I screamed and he covered my mouth with his hand. He pushed and pushed. Finally it was over. Or I thought it was over. That"s when it happened."
"What happened?"
"He lowered his mouth to my neck and bit me. He began drinking my blood. I couldn"t believe what was happening. I tried to get away, but he kept drinking until I pa.s.sed out.
"When I regained consciousness, I was in a big bed. I was still naked, and I felt very weak. Bonaventure came into the room and asked how I was. I told him I was tired. He came to me and brought me a cup of tea. He sat on the edge of the bed while I drank it. After I finished I began to feel very strange. I think the tea was drugged.
"He took me again then. I couldn"t resist. He was rough with me. And when he finished he lowered his mouth to my neck once more and began to drink. I don"t remember much after that. Days seemed to pa.s.s. I don"t know how long. I was delirious. I remember him coming to me again and again. He did things to me. I can"t talk about them really. He said he was teaching me about love. Sometimes he tied me to the bed. Sometimes he hurt me, not much, just a little. It was so strange. The pain increased the pleasure, and when I told him that, he laughed and told me I was a good pupil. And always he drank from me. At last, though, I felt stronger and different somehow, powerful and new. And by then, when I finally felt better, I didn"t want to leave him. I was bound to him by the things we had done, by what he had shown me, and by the blood we shared."
My heart felt like stone as I listened to her. I pitied her. But I couldn"t change what had happened. She went on, her voice more excited now, almost happy in remembering.
"He gave me beautiful clothes to wear and expensive jewels. He told me he was married, but that he loved me. He said he had left his wife, and that she had filed for a divorce. He told me we were going to America, where I"d be very happy and have a wonderful life. When I was lonely during his absences for business, he went and bought me Princess. He wasn"t all bad. Miss Urban. He could be kind, and I do think he loved me in his own way. His servants adored him. Tanya loved him, I think. All of them were completely loyal, and that says a great deal."
Yes, I thought, it says money can buy loyalty it says money can buy loyalty.
"And Bonaventure was telling me the truth. Anything I asked for, he gave to me. But I didn"t understand what he was. One day I gathered up my courage and asked him about drinking my blood, why he had done that. I asked him what happened to me."
Listening to Catharine"s story I felt so terribly sad. For her. For myself. Even for Bonaventure, that damaged, stupid man. He thought you could force a person to love you, and that he could possess Catharine"s heart by drinking her blood. He wasn"t the first vampire to make that mistake. "And what did he tell you?" I asked her.
"He said he was a vampire, and that he had been a vampire for a very long time. He said by biting me he had given me a wonderful gift: that I could never die-by natural means anyway. It also meant we could be together forever, literally forever. He said there was nothing wrong with what happened between us and apologized for his impatience in taking me by force that first night, but that he adored me. To face an eternity without me would be torment, that"s what he told me. He didn"t tell me, not then anyway, that he had to drink blood to live and paid poor souls to sell their bodies to him. Sometimes he drank too much and they died. He had people who helped him bury the bodies. Families were paid off. No one complained or stopped him. In Croatia they called him a great man." She began trembling uncontrollably then.
"Catharine," I said sharply, "it"s over. You are safe." I wondered if I should stop the car and try to help her, but she rallied and, shaking, but less so, she continued.
"And he didn"t tell me that I had to drink blood too.
But I was soon driven to it. I tried not to, but the hunger overwhelmed me. He brought me young men mostly. They were very sweet, really. They knew what I wanted and they let me do it. It seemed to excite them so much. I don"t like to think about it. That"s when I began to drink vodka, starting in the morning until everything was hazy and beautiful. I drank to forget and tried to stay drunk. What shall I do now, Miss Urban? Will I die? Will I have to go out wandering the streets looking for blood? I don"t know what to do." She began to weep again.
"I"ll help you, Catharine. There are other ways. I"ll send you to my mother. Stay with her until you can go home. She"ll show you how to live without killing. You can trust her. She"s helped others before."
"I don"t know how to thank you. You"ve done so much for me. I hope you don"t think badly of me for not hating Bonaventure. I know he was a bad man. I know he made his fortune by selling weapons. I know what he did to me was wrong. But I loved him. At least, I loved him once."
I understood her more than she could ever know. Pain struck me like an arrow through my heart. When I answered her, I was fighting back the tears. "We don"t love with our reason and intellect, Catharine. We love with our souls. It doesn"t always make sense. Women love bad men as well as good men. We sometimes can"t help loving them even when we know it will bring us pain. We love them even when we know we shouldn"t." I thought of Darius then, the memories flooding my mind, remembering him telling me how much he felt for me, and then remembering his shock when he saw who I really was. Tears spilled over my lower eyelids and rolled down my face. I would never be held by him again. It was over. And I would never stop wanting what I had lost.
Before we got back into Manhattan, I made Catharine write down Mar-Mar"s phone number. My mother may drive me crazy, but there"s no better person to have in your corner when the chips are down. Mar-Mar knows everyone-everyone of importance, that is. She has connections that reach into the highest circles of governments all around the globe, and she always has, starting back when she lived in the Vatican hundreds of years ago.
Mar-Mar may look silly, with her hippie clothes and peace signs, but my mother is one of the shrewdest manipulators I have ever met. She has run great businesses as far back as the merchant guilds in medieval Europe, and probably countries, too, although she won"t usually talk about it. From what I have found out about her, I know she was always behind the scenes, pulling the strings, and more than once she told me what Margaret Mead said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it"s the only thing that ever has." I wouldn"t want to be her enemy, but if I weren"t her daughter, I would be proud to be her friend.
I planned to give her a call too, explaining what Catharine probably wouldn"t tell her-that this fragile woman needed some time in detox, and rape counseling too. When Catharine got her head together, Mar-Mar would help get her back to Croatia and set her up in a nice villa. Prices have skyrocketed there, but money wouldn"t be a problem for Catharine. Even if she merely sold all the jewels that Bonaventure had given her, she"d be set for life. And she had confided in me that he had made sure she had safe deposit boxes filled with gold coins and ingots. She might not think so now, but she could be happy. And Mar-Mar could help her find a purpose in life too. Her country needed rebuilding. She could become an important woman there, a respected woman. When I told her what I was thinking, her eyes no longer were filled with tears.
We pulled up in front of the Park Avenue apartment house, and the doorman came out to open the car doors for us. Catharine told him to put the Mercedes in the garage, so we left it running while he called someone on his cell phone. I was so exhausted I was running on fumes by this time. I didn"t have much time to get home before six A.M., but Catharine said she could find Bockerie"s address and phone number for me. So I took the elevator up to the penthouse with her.
When we got in, she went right over to the phone table that I had searched last night. I hadn"t found anything except blank pads and pens. She pushed a b.u.t.ton underneath, and son of a gun, a secret drawer popped out. She copied down the information and handed it to me.
"Come with me a minute," she said. "I want to give you something. But first let me let Princess out." She stooped over, opened the cat carrier, and Princess went scampering down the hall. Then Catharine led me through the apartment. She stopped in the dining room and opened the doors of a built-in cabinet. She took out a blue box from Tiffany"s and handed it to me. "I bought this," she said. "Not Bonny. I thought it was beautiful and wanted it."
I opened the box. A huge opal in a platinum filigree setting hung from an intricate platinum chain. Catharine reached into the box and took it out. She stretched her arms up and slipped the necklace over my head. "Please," she said. "Take this to remember me. A girl whose life you saved. A girl who will never, ever forget you."
"Thank you," I said. "It is so kind of you. It is magnificent." I had learned long ago that to accept a gift gracefully is as important as giving one. I understood Catharine felt she was in my debt, and so I accepted her generous present with my whole heart.
I hugged her, and her thin body felt as delicate as a bird"s beneath my hands. It was then I noticed that Princess was pacing back and forth in front of the door to the library. She was meowing and making a fuss. The door itself was ajar, and the lights inside were on. The apartment had been dark everywhere else when we entered. I wondered why that room was lit. A chill pa.s.sed over me. I had a terrible foreboding.
"Catharine," I said. "Stay here. I want to look in the library."
"Is something wrong?" she said nervously.
"Probably nothing. But let me look."
I went into the library. I walked past the table where I had sat with Bonaventure not so very long ago. As I rounded the table I saw it. There on the pale pink and cream of the Chinese rug was a wooden stake lying amid a pile of dust. I inhaled sharply. Who? What?
That was when I saw the glitter of gold in the dust. I stooped down and picked it up. It was my ring. My precious, beloved panther ring. An awful realization washed over me.
"Oh, noooo," I cried. "Benny! Dear, sweet Benny." Tears flowed, and rage filled my heart. I shook my fist at the fate that had brought me to this point. "Darius!" I screamed. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d! What have you done! What have you done!" I ripped his sweater off from where I had tied it around my waist and flung it across the room. Then I sank to the floor, covering my face with my hands and weeping, sobbing, and swearing, "You will pay for this, Darius Bella CHI"s. I will make sure you pay for this."
Chapter 14.
If you can look into the seeds of time And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak then to me...
-Shakespeare Banquo, Macbeth Macbeth, Act 1, scene
I slept, but I got no rest. What"s done cannot be undone What"s done cannot be undone. I tossed and turned and dreamed fitful dreams. In one I was phoning Benny on my cell phone, but the number was out of service, and the phone melted in my hand. In another I was hiking on a trail through a thick forest and a sign read BENNY, THIS WAY. But when I followed the arrow, she wasn"t there. Instead I heard Darius"s voice, calling my name. I ran toward the sound and saw him being attacked by dark figures, fighting alone, screaming to me to help him. I couldn"t reach him. J couldn"t move. I could only watch helplessly as he was struck again and again and fell down. It was a terrible nightmare, and I awoke with my heart racing. I was filled with guilt over Benny"s death, for it was I who had brought Darius to her. My grief spilled over into helpless tears that drenched my satin coffin.
As evening fell and I arose, doubts battered against my conscious mind like a moth at the windowpane. Should I have refused to become a spy? Would it have been better to have perished on the spot than to undergo this pain? The words pounded through my brain. What"s done cannot be undone What"s done cannot be undone. But I have never been one to wallow in self-pity. "Get on with it," my mother always said. "Don"t put your wishbone where your backbone ought to be."
Now I needed to survive and do what I had started out to do-use my gifts, my strengths, my intelligence to protect others. I clung to that idea, wanting to extinguish the desire for revenge that was already beginning to eat away at my soul. Yet blind rage overtook me when I thought of the stupidity and waste of Darius"s misguided quest, and the taste for getting even stayed with me, burrowing down into some place deep in my heart.
I checked my phone messages. As Darius had predicted, J had called the evening before to say there would be no movement that night. He sounded incredibly angry that he couldn"t reach me. I didn"t call him back. My mother had also phoned, wondering where I was and would I please contact her. I would phone her soon to tell her about Catharine. If Catharine didn"t call her, I knew with certainty that Mar-Mar would show up at the Park Avenue apartment with a tote bag filled with organic veggies and a load of good advice.
I dialed Benny"s number, hoping against hope it had all been a terrible mistake. As in my dream I could not reach her. Her answering machine picked up on her home line, and her cell phone went straight to voice mail. I fought back tears. I wondered if J knew she was dead. I didn"t want to tell him or have to admit he had been right all along about Darius, and about endangering the entire team. I should have listened. Right now I couldn"t bear even one "I told you so."
The night hours stretched before me like a long highway to nowhere. I could sit here waiting for the phone to ring and tell me that it was time to go out and stop some terrorists, or I could do something something. Gunther hopped up on my shoulder and squeaked in my ear. I put Bach on the CD player. I sat down, took out my Waterford crystal, and dined on my "victimless" blood-bank blood. Then I went to the corner of the living room I had made into a meditation s.p.a.ce.
A retired military man once told me that when you are suddenly hit with a crisis and get the urge to jump right into action, stop! Sgt. Harry DePew had looked lazily at me with his dark eyes barely visible under his hooded eyelids. He tipped back in his desk chair and folded his ashy dark hands over his still-trim belly. He spoke slowly and deliberately, just the way he did everything. "Don"t panic; remember the t.i.tanic t.i.tanic," he said. He went on with his advice. "You get the call that all h.e.l.l"s breaking loose. The ship"s going down. Or the enemy"s circled the fort. Your heart starts doing a tap dance. You want to run for the lifeboats or grab your gun and head for the door. Don"t do it, brother. Instead, sit down. Put your feet up on the desk, and think think. Even if you only take a minute to do this, and five minutes are optimal if the situation allows it, you will make a better decision and probably avoid one h.e.l.l of a mistake." That was what Harry told me. I"ve done my best to follow his advice.
With no imminent crisis looming over me, I took five minutes and fifteen more. I sat down in the lotus position. Gunther sat by my knee and proceeded to wash his face with his little pink hands. I touched my forefinger to my thumb in the cla.s.sic mudra. I opened my mind, I emptied it of all thought, and I let guidance come to me.
I accepted that I had made mistakes. I focused on the knowledge that I had two tasks before me that I couldn"t screw up. Number one, I still needed to find Schneibel"s art and destroy it. If it were in Sam Bockerie"s hands, that was a very bad thing. Bonaventure was greedy and venal, but Bockerie was a psychotic killer; of that I had no doubt.
And the second task: With Benny gone, I had to be there to help intercept the terrorists. Just the two of us remained standing, and Cormac O"Reilly could never handle the situation alone. Perhaps a steel resolve lay hidden beneath his self-absorbed b.u.t.terfly demeanor. I hoped so, but I could not allow the lives of millions of people to rest on his fluttery wings. No, this was a job for Daphne Urban, Vampire Spy. I walked over to the CD player and switched the disk to "The William Tell Overture." Perfect. The Lone Ranger rides again. Or flies again, as it may be.
Sam Bockerie, a.k.a. General Mosquito, lived in Brooklyn-legendary Brooklyn with John A. Roebling"s Brooklyn Bridge leading in from Manhattan at its mouth and the Verrazzano Bridge stretching out to Staten Island at its a.s.shole. Brooklyn: Williamsburg, Coney Island, d.y.k.er Heights; Flatbush and Bay Ridge; old Jewish ladies speaking Yiddish on Thirteenth Avenue, asking the counterman for whitefish and just a little lox. Brooklyn, the third-largest city in the United States.
I went back there now. I had dressed for comfort, not fashion. I pulled on an old pair of black jeans, black turtleneck, black leather jacket. I finished it off by putting on my workout Nikes, leather gloves, and a hat with earflaps. I slipped a can of Mace into my purse. This was New York at night, and I"d rather use a conventional defense if someone tried to mug me. Clawing out someone"s eyes would surely attract unwanted attention.
I left my apartment building and headed for the subway. I took the BMT, catching the N local. I got off in Brooklyn at Forty-fifth Street and Fourth Avenue. There is no lonelier place in the world than a New York subway station in the dead of night. The sounds of my footsteps on the dirty cement platform echoed off the white-tiled walls. I felt oppressed by the smell of urine, the dingy yellow light. I emerged up the stairs into a Spanish neighborhood and started walking as fast as I could to the great warehouses that line Gowa.n.u.s Bay, the Brooklyn waterfront.
I found Bockerie"s address. The square, plain corner building looked like a fortress, with wire mesh covering the small panes of its factory-type windows. I stepped inside the building. According to a label scrawled in Magic Marker over the mailboxes in the vestibule, Bockerie was on the fourth floor. The entrance door was secure, hard as steel, and locked up tight. s.h.i.t and double s.h.i.t s.h.i.t and double s.h.i.t. I had no choice. I removed my clothes in the little antechamber and transformed.
Afterward I cautiously opened the door and looked up and down the street. Silent as a tomb. I went outside and flew nearly straight up to the fourth floor. I landed on the window ledge and peered in through the dingy panels of gla.s.s. I could see a loft s.p.a.ce like Schneibel"s, but this one was unfinished. Large pieces of milling machinery still occupied most of the floor s.p.a.ce. The big, hulking pieces of metal sat beneath flickering fluorescent lights and cast quivering shadows across the gray linoleum floor. A makeshift bedroom had been set up in one corner; it was little more than a battered dresser and a mattress on the floor. Anyone would have mistaken this place for a squatter"s quarters if it weren"t for the whole a.r.s.enal of semiautomatics that were leaning against one wall-and the valise sitting near them. It was the one I had seen at Bonaventure"s, and I knew it held $250 million worth of diamonds. Son of a b.i.t.c.h Son of a b.i.t.c.h! I thought. Bockerie had had been the one to kill Issa and Tanya. It figured. The realization clicked into place as neatly as the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. I hovered outside of the window, watching. been the one to kill Issa and Tanya. It figured. The realization clicked into place as neatly as the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. I hovered outside of the window, watching.
Sam Bockerie walked into my line of vision carrying a large suitcase. He threw it on the mattress, unzipped it, and began stuffing clothes into it from the dresser drawers, not doing it neatly, and definitely not folding anything. I could see sweat beading up on his forehead and running down his face. He didn"t bother wiping it away. His breath looked as if it was coming heavily. He sat down all of a sudden in a chair, shaking his head, and appeared to be mumbling to himself. He kept looking toward the door, which was out of my sight, somewhere to the left of the window.
I didn"t spot the masks or statues, but I could literally feel their presence. There was no point in waiting another second, so I grasped the wire mesh and effortlessly yanked it off the window, letting it drop to the empty street below. I took my foot and smashed the gla.s.s out, then crashed through the empty frame and landed like a huge black demon about ten feet from Bockerie.
Bockerie"s head yanked up at the sound of the mesh being torn off. When he saw me blasting into the room, I could see his eyes widen in shock. His mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out. Instead he clutched at his chest with his hand and crumpled to the floor. He landed hard and didn"t move.
Holy s.h.i.t! I thought. I"ve seen all the ways humans reacted to the sight of me. I"d had them faint with terror many times. But the way Bockerie looked in the split second before he collapsed hadn"t been a man fainting. It had been a man dying on the spot. I flew over to him. I knelt beside him and felt for a pulse. He was gone... to h.e.l.l, I hoped, to that beyond where he had to face his crimes and his victims, where he would truly pay for his sins. On the other side he would face a justice more terrible than anything man could bring on him.
And even if the official cause of death turned out to be a heart attack, I knew what had really happened to him. I looked at my watch. Two days ago, nearly to the hour, he had double-crossed his boss. He stole the diamonds and he grabbed Schneibel"s collection. He had to know what Bonaventure was. Even a psychopath or megalomaniac would fear Bonaventure"s mortal power as well as his immortal abilities. On top of that, the vampire had cursed him. Bonaventure had given him an ultimatum, and if he didn"t meet it in forty-eight hours, Bockerie was to die on the forty-ninth. That was why he was watching the door. Well, right on time death came calling. Only it didn"t knock; it came flying in through the window.
But my hands were clean. I had no doubt Bockerie had killed himself with fear. Bonaventure"s curse had kicked up all the superst.i.tions and fears of Bockerie"s African tribal heritage. He expected to die. When he saw me coming for him, his fears took physical shape and overwhelmed him. The mind is a powerful weapon, and he had turned it on himself. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.
I left the body lying there and flew through the loft. I quickly found the crates containing Schneibel"s New Guinea collection, or at least most of it, the things Schneibel hadn"t been able to destroy before Bockerie arrived. I don"t know how Bockerie tolerated being so close to them. They radiated malevolence. Perhaps his own twisted cruelty fed on their evil. Schneibel, I believed, had been protected by white magic, for he seemed unaffected by their powers. But what in the h.e.l.l was I going to do with them? Torching this large building would be unconscionable. Innocent people or firefighters could be hurt or killed. Instead I needed a way to get these crates out of here and to someplace I could dispose of them.
I couldn"t call J. He"d want to turn them over to the agency, and I feared that a government would misuse their magic. I don"t care if we"re the guys with the white hats. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So that avenue was out.
I couldn"t move these myself, at least not in the short time I had available. J could be calling at any minute and I"d be out of here. So I did the only thing I could do under the circ.u.mstances.
I called my mother.
Having learned from Benny"s example, I had begun to take my purse and cell phone with me when I transformed. Therefore I had mine handy. I had no problem calling Mar-Mar, and she was home. There was a lot of noise in the background, but I didn"t ask who was there keeping her company. I was relieved that she didn"t ask any questions when I told her to show up in Brooklyn with a pickup truck and a change of clothes for me. My own clothes were downstairs in the little anteroom in front of the inside door, and I didn"t think it was a great idea to risk tiptoeing down there to get them. Anyone walking in and seeing my abandoned black leather jacket would have taken it. It"s New York, where finders are keepers most of the time.
My mother had heard the urgency in my voice and said she"d be there as fast as she could. Even if she rushed, it would still take her two hours from Scarsdale, and at that she"d have to be traveling at warp speed. Meanwhile I transformed back into human shape, because otherwise I"m so big that it"s uncomfortable in any confined s.p.a.ce except maybe a castle in Transylvania. That left me prancing around naked until my mother showed up, un-less I found something to wear. There wasn"t a s...o...b..ll"s chance in h.e.l.l I"d put on anything of General Mosquito"s. I decided to see what was in the boxed-off part of the loft housing the bathroom, and was disappointed to find only a stall shower, a sink, a commode, and some filthy towels. Commandeering the plastic shower curtain wasn"t appealing, but there were heavy green velvet drapes over the windows. I ripped them down, found a safety pin in the medicine cabinet, and made myself a toga. It felt okay. I slung the swag from the curtains over my shoulders like a shawl, as I was feeling chilled to the bone. I had to stay barefoot, though, and I hated walking on the dirty floor. My feet were already grimy. I made a mental note to book a pedicure when this was all over, and then laughed at myself. Even in the midst of trying to stop a terrorist attack, I"m vain.
Going back into the main loft area, I began a methodical search, starting with Bockerie"s body. It"s always best to get the worst jobs out of the way first. He lay sprawled out on his back; his eyes were wide open and staring without sight. I pulled the Ray-Ban sungla.s.ses I had found at Schneibel"s out of my purse and slipped them on him. That was much better.
With two fingers I gingerly pulled his wallet from his pants pocket and flipped it open. Along with several hundred dollars in American cash, there were leone, the currency of his native country. I guess he thought he was going home, and I suppose in a way he had. There was also a yellow Post-it note with R530 written on it. I left the money and put the note in my purse. His wallet also contained an American Express card, a New York driver"s license, and a local supermarket discount card. That was it: no photos of family; no proof of health insurance.
I stood up and looked around. I dumped out the con-tents of his suitcase onto the mattress. Nothing but clothes. I went through his dresser. It was virtually empty. I pulled each drawer out, looking underneath on the off chance that, like my mother, Bockerie hid things by taping them under drawers. Lo and behold, when I pulled out the bottom drawer a brown nine-by-twelve envelope was taped to the underside.
I pulled the envelope off, opened it up, and pulled out a number of pages. I scanned them and realized they were Revolutionary United Front, or RUF, records of the diamonds they"d confiscated from Sierra Leone"s diamond mines. If there is a h.e.l.l on earth, it is where the blood diamonds of Africa originate. Blood diamonds... the name refers not to their color, but to their cost in human lives, particularly those of children who are used as forced labor. Those diamonds, legitimately sent or smuggled through the United Arab Emirates, Dubai in particular, can buy anything, and the dealing is largely unrecorded, anonymous, and effective. Terrorists have made diamonds their currency of choice. It was ironic that some of the most beautiful gems on earth financed death. Yet if I think back over history, perhaps it has always been so.
The envelope felt hot and heavy in my hands. Here were the secret records of millions of dollars in diamond transactions, including names of buyers and dates of purchase. Most of the buyers were Arabs, and even I recognized some known members of Al Qaeda. I would turn these papers over to J, who could use them to identify both terrorists and their financiers. If the money behind terrorism could be stopped, the whole chain of human misery, which began with the kidnapping of African children to become slave laborers, might be broken. Along with stopping Bockerie"s theft of the New Guinea art, I felt better that the violence and dying of the past few days-may poor Benny rest in peace-had proved to be important. And silently I promised her spirit that I would make sure the threatened nuclear attack could be stopped too.
My search of the rest of the loft turned up some gold coins in a plastic bag in the bottom of the toilet tank. I left them. The medicine cabinet held bottles of prescription painkillers, a muscle relaxant, and Prozac. I guess General Mosquito had a bad back and felt a bit depressed. I reminded myself that humanity is frail, and its immoral monsters are not completely evil. Even Hitler liked dogs. But everyone makes choices, and those people who choose to hurt others out of greed or psychosis make the worst ones humans can. General Mosquito chose cruelty and war. Now few, if any, would mourn his death.
My searching over, I decided to sit down and meditate until Mar-Mar showed up. Wherever I was going, there I was-specifically I was in a factory building on Gowa.n.u.s Bay with a dead man lying twenty feet away. I faced the large factory-type windows, sat down on the floor in my green velvet toga, and emptied my mind.
Time pa.s.sed unnoticed until a commotion in the hall outside the front door stirred me from my zazen. Mar-Mar had arrived, and she hadn"t come alone. Someone pounded on the door. I opened it just a crack. My mother stood there, holding the clothes I had left downstairs in the vestibule and a paper bag. Behind her stood a gang of six aging hippies, punk rockers, and Goths-all male-who looked like escapees from the seventies. I wondered if she had driven through the East Village and just picked up people off the street. Nah, I thought these were Mar-Mar"s Save the Trees people, no doubt.
"Ma!" I hissed through the crack in the door. "I"ve got a dead body in here."
"Did you kill him, sweetheart?" she asked, unfazed.
"No, he had a heart attack, I think."