Crisscross rj-8 Page 8

  Jack couldn't detect a single false note. A true believer.

  "I hope so. I've tried Transcendental Meditation and Buddhism, even Scientology, but none of them lived up to their promises. Then I read The Book ofHokano and…"

  "And lightning struck, right? That's what happened to me. I read it and thought here is the answer I've been looking for."

  "But I've got questions…"

  "Of course you do. The Book is confusing to those who have a dormant xelton. But once it is awakened and you've started the ladder toward fusion, it all becomes crystal clear."

  "I can hardly wait."

  Atoor led him down a short hall, then ushered him into a small office furnished with a three-drawer file cabinet and two chairs flanking a small table. He closed the door and directed Jack to a seat while he pulled a folder from the filing cabinet. Seating himself opposite Jack, he opened the folder and pushed it across the table.

  "Okay, Jack. The first step is for you to tell us about yourself."

  Nice way of saying, Fill out these application forms so we can get the lowdown on you.

  Jack looked down at the forms and frowned. "I have to apply to join the church?"

  A laugh. "Oh, no. It's just that the better the Church knows who you are, what your life is like, what your goals are, the better we can help you. We don't want people coming to us with unrealistic goals and then leaving disgruntled because we couldn't achieve the impossible."

  Sounded good, but if "the Church" was already promising the sun and moon and stars, was any goal out of reach? He wondered how many were turned away for any reason.

  But Jack said nothing. He wasn't here to make waves.

  As Atoor watched, Jack filled in the blanks with mostly phony information. He wasn't surprised to see a box for his Social Security number—tracking down members' financial data was probably routine. He made up a number and stuck it in. The only true data was his Tracfone number.

  He finished up, leaving only one box blank. Atoor tapped it with a finger.

  "Did anyone refer you?"

  "No. I don't know any Dormentalists."

  "Well, then, might as well stick my name in there—just so all the blanks are filled."

  Jack glanced up and caught a hint of hunger in Atoor's eyes. He wanted the headhunter discount.

  "Should I put in your real name?"

  "Atoor is my real name now. When you reach the Fifth Rung you learn your xelton's name and can choose to use it or not." Pride filled his voice. "I choose to use it."

  Jack remembered how Maria Roselli had said that her Johnny now wanted to be called Oroont. Must have reached the Fifth Rung.

  He glanced at Atoor and couldn't resist. "I can't wait till / reach the Fifth Rung. I'm going to name my xelton Pazuzu."

  Atoor, though still smiling, looked scandalized. "You can't name your xelton. It has its own name."

  Jack shrugged. "Well then, I'll rename it."

  "That… that isn't possible." Atoor looked like he was having a real hard time holding that smile. "Your xelton isn't some sort of pet. It's had its name for billions of years, since the beginning of time. You can't just up and change it."

  "No?" Jack put on a hurt expression. "I really like the name Pazuzu." Then he brightened. "Maybe its name really is Pazuzu!"

  "Highly unlikely. How is it spelled?"

  Jack spelled it for him.

  Atoor shook his head. "All xelton names have a double 0."

  "Well, maybe we could compromise and spell it with double O's instead of Vs. You know, Pa-zoo-zoo?" He glanced at Atoor's strained but still smiling face. "Or mavbe not."

  Jack asked Atoor to spell his name, then printed it in the referral box. That form was snatched away to be replaced by another.

  "And here is a simple nondisclosure agreement."

  "Why… whatever for?"

  "The Church has enemies and at this point you are an unknown quantity, so we must ask you to agree not to reveal anything of what you see, hear, or learn here. Even though you might have good intentions, your words could be taken and twisted and used against us."

  Jack had to ask: "Who are you afraid of?"

  Atoor's expression darkened. "Just like any movement that seeks the betterment of mankind, Dormentalism has fierce enemies in the outside world. Enemies who, for their own selfish reasons, want to keep humanity from bettering itself and reaching its full potential. A man or woman who has reached Full Fusion bows to no one. And that terrifies the oppressors of the world."

  Good speech, Jack thought as he signed the form.

  Jack Farrell would not disclose a thing.

  He let himself be talked into donating five hundred dollars to the church and paying another five hundred in advance for his first five Reveille Sessions. Atoor was a little taken aback when Jack pulled out a roll of bills.

  "We'd prefer a check or credit card."

  I'm sure you would, Jack thought.

  "I don't believe in them."

  Atoor blinked. "But we're not set up to take cash, or make change…"

  "Cash or nothing," Jack said, sliding one of the Roselli thousand-dollar bills across the table. "I'm sure you can find a way to handle this. No change necessary. All I need is a receipt."

  Atoor nodded and took the bill. After some fumbling around in a drawer he found a receipt book. A few minutes later Jack had his receipt and his appointment for his first Reveille Session at ten tomorrow morning.

  Atoor glanced at his watch. "Almost time for the afternoon AR."

  "The what?"

  "Affirmation Recital. You'll see." Atoor rose and motioned Jack to follow him. "Come on. You'll love this."

  He led Jack back to the lobby where a couple of hundred Dormentalists, uniformed in an assortment of hues, had gathered. They all stood facing a man in a sky blue uniform on the balcony.

  "That's Oodara, the TO," Atoor whispered. Before Jack could ask, he added, "The Temple Overseer."

  "But what—?"

  "Here we go." His eyes were alive with anticipation.

  "First," Oodara the TO intoned into a microphone, "there was the Presence and only the Presence."

  Jack jumped as hundreds of fists shot into the air and an equal number of voices shouted, "IT IS TRUTH!"

  "The Presence created the World, and it was good."

  Again the fists and the shout. "IT IS TRUTH!"

  "The Presence created Man and Woman and made them sentient by endowing each with a xelton, a Fragment of Its Eternal Self."

  Atoor nodded, and smiled and nudged Jack's right arm upward. "IT IS TRUTH!"

  Jack closed his eyes. Don't tell me they're going to run through all the Pillars of Dormentalism. Please don't.

  "In the beginning Man and Woman were immortal…"

  Yep. That was exactly what they were doing. He fought the desire to run screaming for the street. He was supposed to be a Dormentalist wannabe and had to act the part. So he clenched his teeth and, when it was time for the next response, pumped his fist and shouted with the best of them.

  It went on forever.

  "… forsaking all his personal needs and goals to create the Dormentalist Church to carry out this sacred mission."

  "IT IS TRUTH!"

  Then everyone started clapping and cheering.

  Was it over? Yes. Finally.

  Atoor slapped him on the back. "Wasn't that wonderful? Wasn't it inspiring?"

  Jack grinned. "I can't tell you how much I enjoyed myself. How often do you have these, um, ARs?"

  "Only twice a day. I wish it were more."

  "More would be overwhelming, don't you think? I don't know if I could take it."

  "We're going to be filming one of our ARs, you know, so Dormentalist shut-ins won't feel left out."

  "Really? Too bad LR isn't alive to direct it."

  Atoor's brow furrowed. "LR?"

  "Leni Riefenstahl. She'd be perfect."

  "I don't think I've ever—"

  "Never mind. Doesn't matter."
/>
  A minute later Jack was trucking for the door. On the way out he waved bye-bye to the ever effervescent Christy.

  He started humming the refrain from Richie Haven's "Freedom" as he stepped back onto the sidewalk.

  Okay, check off Step One on the Dormentalist front. As for Sister Maggie's problem…

  Before leaving home this morning he'd looked up the number of Cordova Security Consultants, Ltd. He now punched it into his cell phone as he walked up Lexington.

  A woman answered. When Jack asked for Mr. Cordova he was told that he was in, but with a client. Could she take a message? Jack asked if he could have an appointment later this afternoon. No, sorry, Mr. Cordova was leaving soon. Would he like an appointment tomorrow? Jack said he'd call back later.

  Perfect. Now home for a quick change, a little makeup, and a hustle to the Bronx.

  7

  "'Of all these people, the Belgae are the… the most courageous because they are far… farthest removed from the… '"

  Sister Maggie suppressed the urge to translate the difficult word for the little girl, opting instead for simple encouragement.

  "Keep going, Fina. You've got it so far."

  Big brown eyes glanced up at her, then refocused on the text.

  "'Farthest removed from the… the culture and civilization of the Province.'"

  "That's wonderful! You are so good at this."

  And she was. Little Serafina Martinez might be only nine but she was already reading from Caesar's Gallic Wars—not fluently, of course, but her grasp of Latin vocabulary and sentence structure was beyond anything Maggie had ever seen in someone her age. Knowing how to speak Spanish didn't hurt, but still…

  And language wasn't Fina's only strong point. She was a whiz in math too, already doing simple algebraic equations.

  No question about it: This girl was the brightest child Maggie had encountered in nearly twenty years of teaching. Best of all was her hunger to learn. Her brain was a sponge, sucking up everything that came within reach. The child actually looked forward to her thrice-weekly after-school sessions with Maggie.

  "I think that's enough for today, Fina. You did great. Pack up your things."

  She watched Fina stow her Latin book in an oversized, overstuffed backpack that must have weighed as much as she. Well, perhaps not that much. Fina still had her baby fat, but less of it this year than last. And were those budding breasts beginning to swell beneath the top of her plaid uniform jumper?

  Fina wasn't one of the cool kids in school. Makeup wasn't allowed in St. Joseph's Elementary, but already some of the girls were starting to strut what little stuff they had: shortening the hems of their jumpers up to thigh level, pushing their knee socks down to their ankles. Fina remained oblivious to that. She kept her hair unfashionably short and, if anything, her jumper was overly long; she kept her socks all the way up to her knees. But she had plenty of friends; her easy smile and winning sense of humor guaranteed she'd never be a social outcast.

  But Maggie worried about Fina. The child was approaching a critical juncture in her life. When her hormones kicked in and ignited a growth spurt, her baby fat would very likely rearrange into more womanly curves. If she turned out to resemble her mother, even remotely, the boys would start to circle. And then she might have to decide: Be popular or be smart.

  Maggie had seen it happen so many times—bright children dumbing down to be with the "in" crowd—because cool kids found school "boring"; cool kids didn't care about anything except what was pulsing through their grafted-on headphones; and cool kids certainly didn't get A's.

  If Fina stayed in St. Joe's, Maggie was sure she or one of her sister nuns could keep her on the road to academic excellence and help her reach her full potential. But Maggie feared this might well be Fina's last year here.

  Maggie's too if those pictures were ever made public.

  "Any word on your father?" she asked as the child began to struggle into the straps of her backpack.

  Fina paused in her efforts, then shrugged the pack onto her back. Her lips trembled.

  "He's going to jail."

  Maggie had known this was coming. For years her father, Ignacio, had been in and out of rehab for cocaine. Last year it looked like he'd finally made it. He'd found a decent job that had eased the family's financial burdens. Even so, the tuition cost of sending four children to St. Joe's, despite the break the parish allowed for each successive child, strained their budget to the limit. But they'd been getting by. And then Ignacio was caught selling cocaine. It wasn't his first arrest, so this time he was sentenced to a jail term.

  Maggie smoothed the child's glossy black hair. "I'm so sorry, Fina."

  Fina's mother Yolanda was already working three jobs. Without her husband's income she was going to have to pull her children out of St. Joe's and send them to public school. They'd wind up at PS 34 up on East Twelfth. Maggie knew some good teachers there, but it was an entirely different atmosphere. She feared the public school meat grinder would chew up Fina and spit her out. And even if she did manage to keep her head, no way could she receive the one-on-one guidance Maggie offered.

  She'd gone to Sister Superior and Father Ed, but the parish was tapped out. No more financial assistance available.

  So Maggie had searched elsewhere for financial aid. And as an indirect result of that search, she was now being blackmailed.

  How could something begun with such good intentions have turned out so wrong?

  Maggie knew the answer. And hated it. She'd been weak.

  Well, she'd never be weak again.

  She walked Fina out to the late bus and saw her off. But instead of returning to the convent, she unlocked the door to the basement and entered the church's soup kitchen. The Loaves and Fishes served a hearty lunch every day. Volunteers from the parish ran it during the week, with Maggie and the other teaching nuns pitching in on weekends and holidays.

  She wound her way between the deserted tables toward the rear. Just outside the kitchen door she grabbed a chair and dragged it through. She set it before the stove and turned on one of the burners, turning the flame to high. She removed the two-inch-long steel crucifix from around her neck, then pulled a pair of kitchen tongs from a utensil drawer. She seated herself and pulled her skirt up to the top of her thighs. Using the tongs, she held the crucifix in the flame until it began to redden. Then she took a deep breath, stuck a dish rag between her teeth, and pressed the crucifix against the skin of her inner thigh.

  Sister Maggie screamed into the towel but held the cross in place as the smoke and stench of burning flesh rose into her face.

  Finally she pulled it away and leaned back, weak and sweaty.

  After a moment she looked down at the angry red, blistering cross, identical in shape and size to three other healing burns on her thighs.

  Four down, she thought. Three more to go. One for each time she'd sinned.

  I'm sorry, Lord. I was weak. But I'm strong now. And these scars will remind me never to be weak again.

  8

  Jack stepped up to the door and looked up at the camera as he pressed the button next to the Cordova Security Consultants label. He'd put on a black wig, black mustache, and shaded his skin with a little Celebre dark olive makeup. Getting a natural look around the eyes was a bitch, so he wore sunglasses. He'd removed his tie but left the shirt buttoned to the top; he'd kept the blazer but wore it draped over his shoulders, Fellini style.

  A tiny speaker in the wall bleated a tinny "Yes?" in a woman's voice.

  "I seek an investigation," Jack said, trying to sound a little like Julio, but not pushing it. He'd never been great with accents.

  "Come in. First door on your right at the top of the stairs."

  The door buzzed and he pushed through. Upstairs he opened the Cordova Security Consultants door and entered a small waiting room with two chairs and a middle-aged reed-thin black female receptionist behind a desk. Jack doubted Cordova was busy enough to need a secretary-receptionist or a
waiting room—if he were he wouldn't need the blackmail sideline—but it looked good. Sam Spade had Effie Perine and Mike Shayne had Lucy Hamilton, so fat Richie Cordova had to have a Gal Friday too.

  Jack gave the inner surface of the door a good look-see as he made a point of closing it gently behind him. He noticed how the two wires from the foil strip ran off the door just below the upper hinge to disappear into the plaster of the wall. They protected the glass, but what about the door? A glowing light on the keypad beside the doorframe confirmed an active alarm system, but where were the door contacts?

  "Yes, sir?" the receptionist said with a smile as she looked up at him over her reading glasses.

  "I seek an investigation," he repeated. "Mr. Cordova was recommend."

  "How nice." She picked up a pen and poised it over a yellow pad. "May I have his name?"

  Jack shrugged. "Some guy. Look, is he in?"

  He glanced around and saw no area sensors. He did spot a magnetic contact switch on the waiting-room window. It, like all the office windows, sat above Tremont. No way he was getting in through those.

  But why no alarm on the door?

  "I'm afraid Mr. Cordova is engaged in an investigation at the moment. I can make you an appointment for tomorrow."

  "What time he come in?"

  "Mr. Cordova usually comes in around ten." She gave him a you-know-what-I-mean smile as she added, "His work often keeps him up late."

  "No good. Be outta town. I come back nes' week."

  "I'll be glad to book that appointment for you now."

  Jack noticed that the door to the rear office stood open behind her. He wandered over and gave the room the once-over. As fastidiously neat and clean as his house, but no area sensors here either. He made note of the monitor on the desk.

  "Sir, that's Mr. Cordova's private office."

  "Jus' lookin'." He stepped back into the waiting room, keeping his distance. Too close and she might notice the makeup. "Bueno. How 'bout next Wen'sday? Garcia. Geraldo Garcia. Son'time in the afternoon."

  She put him down for three P.M.

  As he opened the door to make his exit, he stopped and crouched on the threshold, pretending to tie his shoe. From the corner of his eye he checked out the hinge surface of the molding. And thar she blew: The short plastic cylinder of a spring-loaded plunger jutted from the wood a couple of inches off the floor. These babies popped out whenever the door opened and, if the system was armed, sent a signal to the box. If the right code wasn't punched in during the preset delay, the alarm would sound.