Book of Nathan (23 page)

“Maybe you read Kurios wrong. Maybe he was pro-life all
along.”

“Benjamin Kurios was pro Benjamin Kurios. A first-class
opportunist. He’d take any position on anything if he thought it would be
advantageous to him.”
 

“And one of those anythings was the
Book of Nathan
.”

“Exactly.”

“Still, since you don’t know what the book says about
personhood and abortion, it might not be out of step with
Quia Vita
’s
point of view.”

“If that were the case, Kurios would have come to us to
promote his so-called revival,” Russet replied. “That didn’t happen. Draw your
own conclusion. We did. Now let’s talk about Le Campion’s CD.”

“I thought that’s what we’ve been doing.”

“We want the disk.”

“I already figured that out.”

“We’re willing to discuss terms as long as we can verify
that the disk is for real. And
the
deal needs to include the translation key that will allow us to decode the
text.”

“What makes you think I have the CD?”

“Stop running in circles,” said Russet. “We have every reason
to believe you’re trying to extort five million from
Quia Vita
in exchange for giving up Le Campion’s disk.”

This was the time to lay the truth on the line. But Russet
didn’t give me an opening.

“Just for the record, we received your e-mail. Very clever
the way you used a relay and routing system to hide your Internet address.”

Whoever took the disk from Zeusenoerdorf’s hiding place was
no fool. Coming up with the technology needed to keep a billionaire and an
organization with deep pockets in the dark was impressive.

“How will this work?” I asked, figuring it would be worth
squeezing Russet for more details before convincing her I didn’t have the disk.

“Reluctantly—very
reluctantly—we
accept your terms. You’ll break up Le Campion’s preamble to the book’s
translation and e-mail us a few pages at a time. For each e-mail attachment we
receive, we’ll pay you a portion of the preliminary two point five million if
we consider the notes to be legitimate
and of any real value.”

The more I learned about the
Book of Nathan,
the
more curious I became. But far more intriguing to me was Henri’s introduction
to the translated disk. It had to be a masterpiece of seduction, luring both
Silverstein and Russet. Whoever had walked off with Le Campion’s disk was chopping
up the preamble into expensive little pieces. It was one elaborate, pricey, and
ingenious tease.

“Assuming we buy the full set of Le Campion’s introductory
notes, we’ll consider paying you a second two point five million for the full
encrypted translation of the book.”

Russet went quiet, waiting for a reaction. I was too
engrossed with my own thoughts to answer.
 

“Do we have a deal?” Russet asked after several seconds. “If
so, we need instructions on how to wire the money to your Cayman Island account.”

“No, we don’t have a deal,” I answered. “And I’ll tell you
why. I can’t deliver something I don’t have.”

Russet tilted back in her seat and scrutinized me carefully.
“The game continues, does it? This is a play for time, isn’t it? So you can
move the bid higher. Well, here’s some advice: don’t go there. Our patience is
already threadbare.”

“You’re making an assumption that I’m a common crook,” I
said. “But supposing I’m just a disinterested third party. Somebody who’s been
sucked into this deal by accident?”

“If that’s the case, you’ll need to be very careful.”

“Why?”

“Because you’d be worthless. And to some, worthless people
are expendable, particularly when they’ve been made privy to sensitive
information.”

I knew all about worthless people. It didn’t take sensitive
information to make most of them expendable.

“There are those who’ll do whatever it takes to protect
their beliefs,” Russet went on. “Some are convinced that selective violence is
appropriate if it’s a means to a justifiable end. You’re cruising into
dangerous waters.”

I got it. But the notion of sailing into a storm wasn’t
enough to ward off a change in strategy. Instead of taking another stab at
convincing Russet I wasn’t auctioning the
Book
of Nathan
disk, I just shut up. Being falsely accused had its
advantages. After all, I now had plenty of new information. For the time being,
I decided to let Russet continue thinking I was behind the theft and sale of Le
Campion’s CD.

“
Quia Vita
wants to bring this to closure,” Russet said. “I expect to hear from you
tomorrow. Any delay beyond that would be ill-advised.”

I watched Russet’s bowling-ball body disappear through the
room’s narrow doorway. I let a few minutes pass before ungluing myself from my
chair and making my way to the back door of the Nassau Club. En route, I passed
four ancient men playing cribbage. They all looked near death, but I had a
nagging feeling I’d be paying a visit to the pearly gates long before they
would.

Chapter 15

A
shallow, muddy stretch of the Raritan River is the divide between a suburb
called Highland Park and New Brunswick.

“Holy shit.”

I shot Maurice a look of disapproval. He knew I had a thing
about public profanity.
 

“Sorry,” Maurice apologized. “But over there—I think that’s
the—⁠” He stared into a thick Monday morning fog that lifted off the
Raritan and made the Albany Street Bridge all but disappear.

I followed Maurice’s eyes and got my first glimpse of a
phallic-looking vehicle penetrating the dense wall of Monday morning river
mist.

I couldn’t stifle my own oath. “What the hell is that?”

“I’ll tell you what it is. It’s the Wienermobile.”

For some mysterious reason, Maurice was an expert on one of
America’s most imaginative marketing inventions—the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.
I, on the other hand, knew nothing about the traveling hotdog and bun. Maurice
gave me a quick tutorial while we hurried across Albany Street, a main drag
that ran through the heart of New Brunswick. Until this unexpected diversion,
we had been on our way to the Hyatt Hotel hoping to locate Yigal, whom I
figured had to be taking full advantage of Twyla’s free room.

“Oh,” Maurice gasped again as a gargantuan vehicle rolled
into full view, a trail of dark gray smoke spewing out its back end.

“Oh, oh, oh,” Maurice mumbled, grabbed me by my arm and
began running toward the disabled conveyance. We were a bun length away when
two men who may not have been old enough to buy beer climbed out.

“Damn.” one of the men yelled and kicked the rear
passenger-side tire.

The other man was less distressed. He turned to Maurice and
me who were now at his side.

“Name’s Frank,” he said and stuck a hand at my belt buckle.

I wondered if the kid was putting me on. “Frank?”

“Yup.”

“Whatever you say.”

“The junk heap’s been givin’ us trouble the last couple of
days,” Frank explained.

Maurice blinked a few times. “Is this . . . is this the
Wienermobile?”

“This thing?” Frank slapped the broken-down bun. “Nah. This
is the Dubensko Kielbasavan.”

“But it looks like—” Maurice moaned.

“Yeah, I know—like the Wienermobile,” Frank broke in. “Get
that all the time. Dubensko Polish Meat Products ripped off the idea and built
this piece of crap to advertise its all-beef sausages. Oscar Mayer ain’t happy
about it but so far that hasn’t kept this fat piece of kielbasa from travelin’
all over Jersey.”

Maurice was too crestfallen to continue talking. I took up
the slack. “So what happens now?” I asked with a gesture to the dormant
sausage.

“Well, we can’t drive it no more until it’s fixed. Know
where we could park the thing?”

I tried to find another sane-looking soul who might come up
with a suggestion. Even though it was nine thirty in the morning and we were
standing on one of New Brunswick’s busiest thoroughfares, there wasn’t a human
in sight except Maurice.

“Albany Street’s fairly flat,” I observed. “Might be able to
push it back toward the river.”

Frank cranked his head to the side. “Sweet. So we push the
kielbasa backward into that side street over there.” He pointed to a road that
ran parallel with the river. “Right?”

“Sounds like a plan.”
 

“How about holdin’ up traffic?” Frank proposed to both
Maurice and me. “You know, until we get on the side street.”
 

“Will we get a whistle?” Maurice asked.

The last time I recalled feeling I was in such a state of
unreality was when I smoked hemp. “What are you talking about, Maurice?”

“A whistle. The guys who drive the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile
give away whistles that look like wieners. What about you? Got any whistles?”

Frank turned to Maurice. “Yeah, man, we got whistles. Shaped
like small sausages and ours come in different colors. Give you a handful if
you want.”

The revelation snapped Maurice out of his momentary
depression. The Kielbasavan might not be the Wienermobile, but toss in a few
whistles and it was close enough.

A couple of minutes later, Frank, Maurice, and I were waving
off inbound traffic while cranky driver number two jockeyed the Kielbasavan
backward until it reached a side road called Johnson Drive.

“This here road goes to that place, right?” Frank pointed to
a gleaming white tower connected to a series of angular buildings resting on
acres of manicured grass.
 

“Seems to, yup,” I replied. To be honest, I had never before
set foot on the road that led to the office complex.

“So what is it?”

“Johnson & Johnson.”

“The baby powder company?”

“That’s the one.”

Frank seemed impressed. “This where they make the powder?”

I was about to explain that this was Johnson & Johnson’s
headquarters that made nothing but a lot of managers very, very comfortable.

“They make tampons,” said Maurice, drawing this odd bit of
knowledge from his undersized memory bank.

“Really?” Frank was on the verge of pressing Maurice for
more information when a city cop pulled alongside the Kielbasavan.

“Get this thing out of the middle of the freakin’ road,” he
yelled.

Driver number two turned off the Kielbasavan’s engine and
threw the key at the cop. The kid clearly had a problem with authority figures.
“You want this thing off the freakin’
road?
Then you move it!”

The cop barreled out of his car. “Watch your smart-ass
mouth, boy!”
  

“Whoa!” Frank stepped between the two hotheads. “We’re not
lookin’ for no trouble, Officer. We got a blown engine and this here thing
can’t be moved until we get a tow.”

The cop was too busy staring down the second sausage driver
to hear much of what Frank was saying. The eyeball-to-eyeball standoff might
have gone on for some time had it not been for another New Brunswick PD patrol
car that had worked its way through a tangle of vehicles, choking Albany Street
to a standstill.

“Christ Almighty,” a cop with stripes on his arm shouted at
the patrolman. “What the hell are you doin’? You let the city get tied up in
knots because of this?
I
want this street clear—now!” He waved his arms at the snarled traffic. Cars and
trucks were either stopped cold or slowing to check out the drama unfolding on
the corner of Albany Street and Johnson Drive.

“All right, goddamnit,” the junior cop relented. “I’ll call
in a tow.”