A Hideous Beauty (12 page)

CHAPTER
9

F
atigue stalked me from El Cajon to my hotel room in Mission Valley and I was ready to surrender to it. This time yesterday I was passed out on Myles Shepherd's office floor. I wouldn't call it a nap, but it was the last time I'd closed my eyes for any length of time.

I took a much-needed shower, left a message for Jana on her answering machine, listened to Christina's phone ring a couple dozen times, grabbed a jar of peanuts and a soda from the honor bar, and crashed onto the bed.

Three hours later I awoke holding an empty jar. Peanuts lay scattered on the bed, the floor, and plastered on the side of my face. It could have been worse. I could have fallen asleep holding the soda can.

From my balcony I watched the sun expand until it was a huge orange ball. It dipped itself into the Pacific Ocean. I dialed Jana's cell number a second time, then tried calling her at the television station. They took a message.

The six o'clock evening news broadcast Jana's story of the
freeway accident during the morning commute and the resulting traffic jam. I knelt inches from the screen and searched the crowd behind her, hoping to get a glimpse of Myles. I didn't, of course.

Seven p.m. How much longer should I wait for Jana? Should I order room service?

Reaching for the remote, I sat at the foot of the bed and clicked on the television. The Los Angeles Angels were dominating the Devil Rays. I wasn't familiar with either team and after a few innings my interest waned. I changed channels.

Click.

The Angels were still playing, only this time heavenly angel Christopher Lloyd was lifting the baseball outfielder off his feet to make a miracle catch.

“It could happen!” I quoted the line with little J.P.

Click.

Redheaded angel Roma Downey was revealing her true identity to a suicidal artist. “I'm an angel, sent from God,” she said with her soft Irish brogue. Special effects lighting simulated a halo.

“It's nothing like that!” I shouted at the screen. “Trust me, I know.”

I couldn't believe I'd said that. I knew nothing of the kind. This whole angel scenario was Professor Forsythe's theory, not mine. What I saw in Shepherd's office was a hallucination, not an angel.

But three angel programs in a row? What a coincidence, especially considering all the talk about angels today.

My thumb paused over the channel changer. I grinned. What are the odds of four programs in a row about angels?

Click.

John Travolta was the Archangel Michael. His wings were molting.

I stared dumbly at the television. This was beyond coincidence. It was downright spooky.

Click.

Angel Cary Grant swooped his arms and a Christmas tree was miraculously dressed.

Click.

Probationary angel Michael Landon adjusted his ball cap and climbed into a car driven by Victor French.

Scared now, I turned the television off. It came back on by itself.

Angel Clarence explained to Jimmy Stewart that every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.

Click.

I didn't change the channel. It changed by itself.

Pluto the dog was torn between two opinions, with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other shoulder.

Click.

I pushed the
OFF
button repeatedly.

Angel Nicholas Cage stood on a beach with a whole city of angels wearing trench coats and listening to the sun rise.

Click.

Feminine hands displayed a ceramic angel figurine on the shopping channel.

I dropped the remote. Reaching behind the set, I pulled the plug. The screen blinked out.

My hands were shaking.

“Now that was weird,” I said.

I paced the room.

“Coincidence. Malfunction. Had to be.”

I stared at the television's electrical plug.

I ordered room service. Feeling the unmistakable need to distance myself from anything even remotely related to heaven, I ordered a burger and fries . . . and a dessert, Chocolate Sin.

Ten p.m. Jana obviously wasn't going to call.

“Why am I still here? I should be thirty thousand feet over Kansas by now, halfway home.”

I kept telling myself I'd stayed because of Jana, that I wasn't staying because I'd been invited to meet an angel. “I'd be a fool to go out there in the morning.”

Big joke on Grant. I knew what would happen. I'd show up and the professor would give me some lame excuse about the angel being called away suddenly to deliver an emergency scroll, or administer a plague in Kazakhstan, or transport a holy man in Tibet to heaven on a fiery prayer rug.

“It would have to be a Tibetan holy man,” I said. “Who'd believe an angel could even find a holy man in Washington, D.C.?”

I chuckled at my own humor and crammed a cold fry into my mouth.

“Now if the angel looked like Roma Downey, that would be a meeting worth going to,” I said.

Ten-thirty p.m. I climbed into bed and turned out the lights. I was tired, but not sleepy. My eyes were closed, my mind active.

Why Semyaza? I asked myself.

It had to be a code name. The other participants in the assassination plot no doubt had similar names.

The thing that disturbed me about the name Semyaza was that historically it was the name of a subordinate, an angel lieutenant. Semyaza answered to Lucifer and Myles Shepherd wasn't the kind of person who answered to anyone. It was a matter of ego.

But, as unlikely as it seemed, I had to allow for the fact that given the scope of the plot, Myles might be someone's subordinate. Did that mean the code name of the top guy was Lucifer? Or better yet, Satan?

“This is ridiculous. What am I doing here?” I said to the darkness.

Throwing off the bedcovers and chastising myself for letting a small-college professor pull me into his religious fantasy about supernatural beings, I got dressed, threw my stuff into my travel bag, and ordered a cab to take me to the airport.

I booked a flight that would get me to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., by 9:40 the next morning.

At thirty thousand feet over Omaha, Nebraska, my eyes were too tired to read but not tired enough to sleep. I've never been able to sleep on planes. My legs are too long and the headrest hits me in the back of the neck. The best I can do is doze.

The cabin was dark. I had an aisle seat four rows from the back galley. Flight attendants floated up and down the aisles like night fairies. A dozen or so reading lights were on, but mostly people slept. Some wore earplugs or headphones.

My back hurt and my right leg had fallen asleep. I shifted position for the hundredth time. My eyes were closed and I was dozing when I heard a skittering sound in the overhead luggage bin across the aisle.

Awake now, I focused on the bin and listened. Nothing. Just the constant drone of the engines.

A man with heavy jowls, seated next to the window across the aisle, squirmed, folded his arms, laid his head against the window, his eyes closed. His cheek twitched nervously as he slept.

I tried folding my arms to see if it would help. My eyes drooped closed.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

There it was again! Something was in that overhead bin. Something alive.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

It sounded like some kind of rodent.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

I pushed the call button. A flight attendant responded immediately. She turned off the call light. “Can I get you something?” she asked.

Thick was the best way to describe her—thick middle, thick legs, thick neck. She appeared to be Scandinavian, with a slight accent and a motherly demeanor.

“I think there's something in that bin,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Something alive.”

She turned and looked at the bin. “Alive?”

“An animal. Maybe a rodent. I heard scratching.”

We both listened.

Nothing.

“I don't hear anything,” she said.

To my chagrin, neither did I.

“I'm sure I heard something,” I said.

She assessed me and apparently concluded I wasn't drunk or the practical-joker type. She pushed the call button.

Another flight attendant appeared. Younger. Black hair. No-nonsense eyes. Before inquiring, she sized me up, the man with the problem that required a consultation of attendants.

“He says he heard a rat in the luggage bin,” the first attendant reported.

“A rat?”

“I didn't say a rat,” I protested. “I said I heard something. Something scratching.”

People three rows in front and behind me were awake and looking at us. The word
rat
skittered from row to row.

“What do you think we should do?” the first attendant asked.

“Open the bin,” the second attendant replied.

“What if there's a rat in there like he says?”

The first attendant took another assessment of me. “You're certain you heard it?”

“I'm sure I heard something.”

She put her hand on the bin, not to open it, but to keep it from opening. Then she put her ear close to it.

“I don't hear anything,” she said.

“Neither did I,” the first attendant said.

Without taking her hand off the bin, the black-haired flight attendant asked if anybody else had heard scratching noises. If they had, nobody admitted it.

She thought a moment. “All right. Here's what we'll do.”

She sent the first attendant to get a large trash bag. Then, she had everyone sitting within three rows of the bin get out of their seats and move a safe distance away. To protests the length of the plane, she had the lights turned on. Then she informed the pilot they might have a rat in a luggage bin. Within minutes the copilot was present to oversee the plan.

“Ready?” the second attendant asked.

With the first attendant holding the trash bag, the plan was to open the bin and brush anything that moved into the bag. Taking a linebacker stance, the copilot stood at one end of the bin. The second attendant would open the bin and man the opposite side.

“On three.”

The pilot and bag-holding attendant indicated they were ready.

“One . . . two . . . three!”

The door to the bin flew open.

A gray streak fairly flew out of the bin and into the trash bag. People jumped. Gasped. Muffled screams.

“I got it!” the first attendant shouted, closing the bag with a stranglehold.

Something definitely was in the bag. But it wasn't moving. The attendant held up the bag to get a better look at it.

“Let me see,” the copilot said.

She handed him the bag.

The copilot instructed people to step back. He looked inside the bag. His face registered disgust. He reached into the bag. A woman passenger squealed in protest. Ignoring her, the copilot pulled the rat out of the bag by its tail.

A gray, plush toy rat with big eyes and a silly grin.