Nightjack (27 page)

“No, not that.”

“Shh!”

“Have some fruit. Drink some coffee.”

“Shhh!”

Pace opened the door to the suite and only had to wait half a minute before one of the servants rushed down the hall to him. Pace was trying to figure out how to gesture for coffee when the man said that he spoke English. Pace asked for some coffee and something to eat. Five minutes later three maids wheeled in three carts of food and a cappuccino maker.

Faust never turned his head from the window.

Wearing a large cotton robe, her hair wrapped in a towel, Pia came out of the bathroom and sat on the bed while Pace struggled to get a few cups of cappuccino down Hayden’s throat. Eventually Sister Lurteen faded and Hayden settled down and started eating.

Pia asked Pace to dry her hair. He took the towel from her and his hands knew the gentle motions because Pacella used to dry Jane’s hair this way. Pia sighed and began to fall asleep in his arms. He wondered if there was any chance of happiness for him, or if it would have to wait until he became the next alternate down the list.

“Kaltzas is planning to take us out, one by one,” Hayden said with cream on his lips.

“No,” Pace said while he drew Pia’s hair back and forth with delicate precision. “I don’t think so.”

“Look. His daughter flees from him and goes where? To America. New York. So he’s already got a hard-on for Americans. Then what happens? She loses her shit completely, has a nervous breakdown, winds up eating fucking rats in alleys.”

“That’s not what hap—”

“America drove her insane. Now he’s got even more reason to hate us. Now she winds up in the booby hatch, where bad things happen. Now her father thinks that all these nuts chased after her, beat her up. All of us sticking our crazy cocks in her.”

“Did you?” Pace asked.

“Did I what? Fuck her? No. None of us did. Except maybe you.”

“What was she like?”

Pia relaxed against Pace’s chest. “A total bitch.”

“What was she like, Hayden?”

“She was a sweet girl. Very quiet. Black circles under her eyes. You can see she wanted to die. Like Pia. That’s why Pia hates her.”

Pia looked at Hayden and went, “Shh.”

“Do not fucking shush me!”

“Shh.”

“
Did you hear me, I said do not
—”

Pace looked over at the window. “Faust?”

Faust said, “I don’t remember.”

“Are you sure?”

Faust tilted his head aside, chin aimed toward Pace but his gaze going through him. “Why would you ask that? You don’t remember, so why would you expect me to?”

“Because I do remember,” Pace said. “Some things.”

He told about the night of the fire, and how Pacella had saved Cassandra Kaltzas from the flames. How Jane’s death could be tracked back to Cassandra, if you wanted to think about it that way. Pace didn’t but Pacella did.

His hands tightened on Pia’s hair and she let out a gasp but didn’t pull away. She whimpered once, a beautifully sweet sound of highly charged sexuality. His voice was that of a schoolteacher trying to excite passion in his students about some great tome of literature. He spoke about the hospital. Pace listened as if from very far behind himself, running to catch up.

“You two have blood ties,” Faust said. “It has nothing to do with us at all.”

“That depends on what happened on the ward,” Pace told him.

“No,” Hayden said. “All that matters is what she thinks happened there. She’s a nut. She could’ve told her father anything. The man still wants vengeance. I can smell it, the hate is all around us.”

“That’s the hate in us.”

“Same thing!”

They watched television the rest of the night, hardly moving at all. Eventually Faust left his seat and stretched out on the enormous bed. Even with the four of them on it there was still plenty of room. They settled in deeper while more sitcoms moved in front of their eyes speaking in a strange language. On occasion one or the other of them would laugh. Sometimes it was Pace. His hands were still twined in Pia’s hair. She couldn’t slip away if she wanted to, but she didn’t seem to mind. Someone would get up and grab some food and share it. One by one they fell asleep, all except for Pace and the storm, which continued to pound at the walls, hoping to slip in and escape back into his flawed human heart.

~ * ~

The next day went by quickly because of the party.

Pia and Hayden asked the servants to teach them Greek songs and dances. They wanted to recapture some of the fun they’d had in the
taverna
. The maids and butlers looked away shyly until Vindi said something in Greek that gave them permission. It was all part of keeping the guests happy. Someone drove down to the village and brought back one of the
bouzouki
bands. The members entered the house dripping wet, wide-eyed and alarmed at being invited into the temple of Olympus.

Over the course of the day Pace learned that the English words chorus, chorale, choir, and choreography all come from this same Greek word HOROS. Dance, song, and music were such integral parts of the theater that the single word covered all of it. Pacella liked learning new things. Pace stood aside while the others enjoyed themselves. After the first two times the maids asked him to join in on the dances, they kept away.

At first Faust was a little distracted, but he eventually got over it and he joined in on the
Yeranos
—the Crane. They learned how to do the happy, exuberant
Syrtos,
the national dance, written about by Homer in the
Iliad
. It was done with a smooth, flowing style by the women, while the men bounced and leaped wildly.

Pia and Hayden did amazingly well right from the beginning. Faust got better and better as the afternoon progressed. The celebration became an expression of the moment. The Greeks went on to mix step variants. Improvisation that became open challenges, the men trying to outdo one another, the women becoming more and more sensual.

More people showed up, more food and drink were brought in. More seating and tables. The wide marble floors seemed made for this reason, for gala and rejoicing. Pace sensed that deep-rooted emotions were being purged or expressed, that these people were showing love and hatred and pain in a way that was denied to him.

He watched the men and women openly weeping during the sad, heavy
Zeibekikos
, and a lot of bared male chests during the heroic, masculine
Tsamikos
and
Beratis
.

It started as a kind of show—with Vindi telling him, Look upon us, the gods are kind to the peasants—and it became a hell of a party. Vindi joined in on some of the songs. He had a lovely singing voice. His laughter boomed around the villa. The festivities becoming richer and more vibrant by the hour. Young men swooned over Pia—young men would always swoon over Pia, forever. Pace spotted two fistfights about to start but Vindi got there before anything could happen. Old men and women sat clapping their hands, enjoying the food, a little puzzled and astonished by it all.

Pace watched and drank more ouzo. Eventually he wandered the villa and spent time studying the statues and paintings in the gallery. There were no photos of Cassandra, Kaltzas or his deceased wife anywhere on display.

He stood on the terrace in the driving rain. In seconds he was as wet as if he’d been dropped into the sea. The fountains below were overflowing across the mosaic tiles, the fruit and nut trees bending savagely in the wind. The storm flung itself against him and he held on to the stone balcony with both hands. The waves crawled into the harbor, wanting to get at him. The statuary below watched him with pitiless eyes.

When Pace finally released his grip and stepped back inside he wiped his hair from his eyes and immediately felt the hot breath of Vindi upon him.

The Minotaur, snorting, said, “My employer will see you now.”

twenty-seven

He was led to an immense library down the corridor from the suite where they’d slept last night. Twenty-foot-high shelving with rolling ladders set in tracks surrounded the room. There were tens of thousands of volumes. The smell of acidifying paper was overpowering. Busts, carvings, sculptures, and parchments under glass sat on lit pedestals. It was the kind of room that Pacella had dreamed about all of his life.

Vindi ushered him inside, then retreated and closed the door.

Alexander Kaltzas sat in a broad leather chair facing Pace, his back to a large window that trembled, the darkness beyond flowing and pulsing as bucketfuls of black water were hurled against the glass.

Pace had been expecting a broad, powerfully built man, someone imposing, as awe-inspiring as Zeus or one of the Titans. But Alexander Kaltzas was diminutive, fragile in appearance, almost petite. He was completely bald, his angular chin covered with a well-trimmed beard. Extremely red lips gave his mouth an obscene quality. His nose was as sharp as a hatchet.

He wore a black suit with tails, a high-fastening collar with a perfectly double-knotted thin tie, and a brocaded vest. The man appeared ready for a funeral. His hands were clasped, index fingers steepled under his chin gently stroking the tip of his beard. His gaze rested near Pace but not on him.

Kaltzas was in complete
repose
. A word that William Pacella liked to use repetitively in his book. Everybody in the novel was always in repose—after they got laid, after an argument, after the final revelations of a situation were finally made clear, those fuckers were in
repose
.

Alexander Kaltzas, father of Cassandra—unmoving, and at peace.

“Hello, Mr. Pacella,” he said without any accent.

The voice had a little grit to it, deeper than you’d expect from such a small man, as if thickened by constant use, shouting orders.

Pace decided not to correct him. Dripping, he stepped forward and his wet shoes squeaked on the tile floor. He stood and waited to see what kind of opening gambit would be made. “Mr. Kaltzas.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Many things, but let us begin with your accepting my invitation. I appreciate you making such a lengthy sojourn.”

Pacella liked that word too.
Sojourn
. Pilgrimage. He still couldn’t believe that publishers would reject somebody who knew such fancy words and used them all the goddamn time.

Pace said, “I didn’t mind coming to Greece.”

“Please sit.” Kaltzas gestured to the chair directly across from him. He wanted to be close, face to face like gentlemen about to play a game of baccarat.

Pace sat, thinking, You come all this way ready for blood and butchery, prepared to die but aspiring to live, almost hopeful that the mysteries which bind you can be undone with the triumph over a labor. You come all this way expecting murder and instead you drink and dance.

He waited in his seat almost wishing someone would try to kill him. That he would, at long last, be able to accomplish something.

“Why did you invite us here?” he asked.

“I need you, Mr. Pacella. All of
you
. The many facets of you.”

“Nobody needs all of me. Not even me.”

The small man placed his arms against the armrests of the chair and smiled. “I needed to awaken what had been put to sleep in that institution with abundant amounts of medication. I own several pharmaceutical companies and asked a chief pharmacologist to give me an extensive report on your treatments. Perhaps your doctor was not aware of it, but if you continue with that mixture of medication for another year or so, you’ll have complete renal and liver shutdown.”

Laying it out like that, practically saying that Dr. Brandt was trying to murder Pace. Maybe it was true. You just couldn’t tell with that lady.

“Why do you think you need me?” Pace asked. “The many facets of me?”

“To save my daughter,” Kaltzas said. “To lift the curse upon her. To counteract what was originally done to her. What you, in fact, did to her.”

“What did I do?”

“Infected her with your affliction.”

Pace thought about that for a minute.

He said, “How do you know she didn’t infect me?”

Kaltzas angled his chin. “Why do you say that?”

“My affliction, as you call it, began the day I saved your daughter’s life from the fire that killed my wife.”

Pace had a hard time saying
my wife
, talking about a woman he could hardly remember, but at the words Pacella chewed his tongue until his mouth filled with blood. He swallowed it and the taste made Jack throb.

Kaltzas’s repose wavered for a second. His lips grew even more red until he looked like he’d bitten someone’s throat. “My daughter...this illness...it may have originated with her?”