A Hideous Beauty (7 page)

The kitchen door swung open. A mean-looking, heavily tattooed cook walked out. If it was Jorge, I knew I didn't want to tangle with him.

“All right . . . how much?” I cried.

Through the plate-glass window I could see Jana standing in the parking lot, her arms folded.

Alida pulled out her pad. “Let's see . . . the lady had a tea with lemon. The gentleman . . .” She spoke the word like it was an obscenity. “. . . had a coffee.” She looked up. “Was that one cup or two?”

“Here,” I said, slapping a ten-dollar bill on top of her pad. “That should cover it.”

I don't know how a cab got there so quickly, but while I raced the length of the coffee shop, through the window I could see Jana climbing into the backseat. By the time I was out the door, the cab was pulling out of the parking lot. The last I saw of Jana was the back of her head in the cab's rear window.

The door to Bruno's opened behind me. Waitress Alida watched Jana's departure with an expression of mission accomplished. “Hey, prize winner,” she said. “Do you want your change?”

I knew she didn't mean it.

CHAPTER
5

W
eariness wrapped itself around my shoulders like a shawl as I drove west on Interstate 8 toward my hotel. I hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours.

In that time I'd delivered a speech to an assembly of high school students who didn't want to hear it, endured the usual badgering of reporters at a press conference, been assaulted by an old classmate with some kind of voodoo or psychedelic drug, learned of a possible plot to assassinate the president of the United States, spent the night in a parking lot chatting with East Coast answering machines, witnessed a fiery death on a freeway, thought I saw a ghost, and managed to infuriate a former girlfriend.

“Not a bad day's work,” I muttered.

Before leaving the restaurant parking lot, I'd tried to reconnect with Christina. She wasn't answering. This time there wasn't so much as an answering machine. She must have turned her phone off.

I also tried Chief of Staff Ingraham's number and got his
secretary, Margaret. Finally, I thought, I was getting somewhere! Margaret liked me. She'd told me I reminded her of her little brother.

Apparently her little brother had ticked her off recently, because the voice on the other end of the line was very cold and very professional. Biting off the end of each word, Margaret informed me that Mr. Ingraham would not be available for the rest of the day, nor was it likely he'd be available to take my calls anytime soon.

Desperate now, I dialed the president's private cell phone again. Even the phone company's computerized voice sounded miffed that I was calling again.

Lack of sleep was catching up with me. Like a horse at the end of a long journey, I headed mindlessly for the barn—the barn being the Red Lion Inn at Hotel Circle in Mission Valley.

I was functioning in three-word sentences. Take a shower. Order room service. Grab some sleep.

After my batteries were recharged I figured I'd fire up the laptop, jump online, and see if I could find some answers about Myles Shepherd and exactly what happened in his office.

I didn't have much to work with—a name and an experience I'm not sure I could put into words—but I'd started projects with less and researching was what I was good at.

With a game plan established I settled back and enjoyed the ride on rented genuine leather seats. In Washington my car was a rusting Ford Taurus that felt like it was kicking you in the pants every time it shifted into third gear.

Familiar landmarks whizzed past me. Grossmont Shopping Center. The community hospital. Freeway exit signs—Jackson Drive, Fletcher Parkway, College Avenue.

“Of course!”

I sat up so fast I nearly changed lanes, coming close to hitting a pest patrol truck beside me. Shrugging an apology, I
filtered through the traffic toward the exit. Within moments I was swallowed up by the campus of San Diego State University with parking structures on one side and hillside classrooms on the other.

Despite the advances the Internet had made over the last few years for anyone doing serious research, cyberspace still couldn't hold a candle to a determined, old-fashioned research librarian. My shower, nap, and room service would have to wait.

I descended the curved stairway into the subterranean atrium of San Diego State University library. Sunlight through the dome cast geometric shadows on the steps.

Approaching the circulation counter, I interrupted a coed in pigtails for directions to the research library. She glanced up from a copy of Schopenhauer's
The World as Will and Representation,
cracked her gum, and pointed down a wide passageway.

The underground hallway led to the heart of the facility, several stories' worth of books and periodicals. To get there, I passed a row of glass cases featuring Indian artifacts from archaeological digs in Old Town, early San Diego.

The displays might as well have been mermaid sirens calling to me. There was no way I could walk by them without stopping to read the information cards.

I loved this stuff.

I breathed in the surroundings—the displays, the carpets, the photos, the books, the air-conditioning. This was my turf. This was where I felt most at home.

Most people don't understand what a library does for me and I've given up trying to explain it to them. All I know is that I feel energized when I'm in one. My pulse quickens when I walk
through the stacks. I feel like an explorer surveying an uncharted shore. Lost worlds are here waiting to be discovered. Ancient worlds; once glorious, now crumbled. Future worlds; no more substantial than the numbers or ideas or words of those who dream them. Mythical worlds. Worlds of limitless dimensions.

Libraries are medieval forests masking opportunity and danger; every aisle is a path, every catalog reference a clue to the location of the Holy Grail. It is here that I become privy to the sacred songs of kings and the ballads of rogues. Here are tales of life-and-death struggles of other wayfarers as they battle personal dragons and woo fair maidens.

Walking down this hallway, I am a knight entering the forest in search of truth—the truth about Myles Shepherd and that carnival ride of sensations in his office; the truth about his involvement in the plot to assassinate the president; the truth about his death.

Having reached the research library, I went in.

“Grant Austin!”

My name echoed through the cavernous room. Every head in the library turned and looked at me.

The surprising thing about the outburst was that it prompted no immediate shushing from the library staff. For good reason. It was the reference librarian who was making all the noise.

She was a short, middle-aged woman wearing a long-sleeved white blouse and a man's black tie. Like a teenybopper catching sight of a rock star, she rounded the end of the counter and came toward me, her eyes electrified. “I can't believe it's actually you!” she gushed. “This is such an honor, Mr. Austin! Such an honor!” She rose up and down on her tiptoes as she spoke, her interlaced fingers punctuating every syllable.

A pleated black skirt, white socks, and black patent-leather shoes completed her retro fashion statement. She didn't have the knees for it.

Before I could reply to her boisterous greeting, her expression clouded over. “Oh . . . please tell me you're not here for a signing!” she cried. “Please, please, please don't tell me that! Because if you are . . . well, they're not going to hang this one on me! You have to believe me, Mr. Austin, there is no way on God's green earth that I would miss a memo announcing a signing if your name was on it!”

“I'm not here for a signing,” I assured her.

The woman's shoulders slumped in exaggerated relief. “Thank goodness! I can't tell you how glad I am to hear you say that!”

“Actually, I'm here to do a little research. Is there someone available who could assist me?”

Pressing one hand against her bosom as though she was taking a solemn vow, she touched my arm with the other hand. “Oh, Mr. Austin . . . it would be an honor . . . an honor, sir . . . to assist you,” she gushed.

“Thank you, Ms. . . .”

“Corbett,” she said. “Please call me Kathy.”

With a snappy about-face, Kathy returned to her post behind the reference desk, folded her hands on top, smiled, and said, “Name your poison!”

Behind her, a girl with straight, shoulder-length hair and large round glasses sat at a computer terminal entering data from a stack of cards. She glanced up at me and did a classic double take. Her eyes then darted to the end of the counter and I understood how I'd been so readily recognized.

Propped up in a wire book holder was a copy of my book with the back-cover publicity photo prominently displayed to anyone working behind the counter.

“Would you mind?” the reference librarian said, reaching for the book.

She opened it to the title page. Dutifully, I smiled and autographed it. As I did, I noticed no one had checked it out.

“I suppose this is the noncirculating reference copy,” I said. “If you'd like, I'd be willing to sign any circulating copies you have in the stacks as well.”

Kathy corrected me with a smile. “Oh no,” she said, “this is our circulation copy.”

Circulation copy. Singular. Never checked out. Being an author can be a humbling experience.

She closed the book, patted it, and set it aside. “Now . . . how may I help you, Mr. Austin?”

“Yes, well . . . I'm researching a name,” I said.

“Surname?”

“Um . . . no, I don't think so.”

“Given name, then.”

“Possibly . . . but I'm not . . .”

“Historical or contemporary?”

“Um . . .”

“Foreign or domestic?”

“Probably foreign, but not in the sense that . . . that makes sense . . .”

She pursed her lips and cocked her head and looked at me as only research librarians can do. She was good at it. It was probably an expression she used at least a dozen times a day on freshmen.

Loud and clear was the unspoken question behind her expression:
How do you expect me to help you if you don't know what you're talking about?

“Look, Kathy . . . I'm not certain, but the name may be rooted in mythology. It may be New Age. It may be the name of a fictional character. Or it may not be a name at all, it may be a title. I just don't know.”

She nodded, encouraged to hear lucid sentences coming from my mouth. “All right,” she said. “Let's approach this from another direction. Why don't you tell me the name and we'll go from there.”

“Semyaza.”

“Semyaza,” she repeated. Reaching for a slip of paper, she wrote the name down. “Semyaza. S-E-M-Y-A-Z-A?”

“That would be my guess.”

Her eyebrows arched.

“I've only heard it spoken once,” I explained. “I've never seen it written.”

Putting on her researcher's face, Kathy turned to a computer monitor. She tapped in a few commands and waited. When the desired screen appeared, she typed in the name. Her eyes remained fixed on the monitor while the computer did its magic. “Hmm. Interesting,” she said.

“What?” I leaned over the counter to see the screen, but she had it angled to prevent prying eyes. “What?” I asked again.

She punched a key and a printer jumped to life. It spat out a single sheet of paper which she grabbed and handed to me. “Why don't you start with these books,” she said, “and I'll follow up on some leads on the computer.”

The sheet contained a short list of call numbers.

Thanking her, I entered the stacks with printout in hand looking for the BT section. There were three books on the list. All of them with the reference call number BT966.2.

I found the BTs against the back wall and understood what the reference librarian had found interesting. I wasn't in the mythology section, as I had suspected; nor was I in the history, anthropology, or fiction sections. Section BT was reserved for books on New Testament theology.

Finding the three books on the list, I carried them to a table and dug in.

Moments later Kathy came walking up. “Somehow you don't strike me as the type,” she mused.

“What do you mean?”

She set an open book in front of me. It was a collector's edition with full-color photographs of angel figurines. Displayed was a ceramic angel with a lute, a hand-painted angel with a trumpet made of resin, a guardian angel table clock, and a girl angel snuggling up with a polyester blanket. Prices ranged from $12.95 to $74.95.

Kathy the librarian held out for as long as she could, which wasn't long. She burst into laughter. “I'm sorry,” she cried. “I couldn't help myself. Not after what I found. Here's the real scoop.”

She set two printout pages from Web sites she'd found on the Internet on top of the book. I glanced at them, then at her.