The White Road-CP-4 (34 page)

I laid the drawings down carefully on the table.

“You know where he might have gone?”

“I followed him, two or three times. He always went to the same place, because it was where Mobley liked to go when he was in town. It’s called LapLand.”

And while I sat talking to Adele Foster, surrounded by images of spectral women, a disheveled man wearing a bright red shirt, blue jeans, and battered sneakers strolled up Norfolk Street on the Lower East Side of New York and stood in the shadow of the Orensanz Center, the oldest surviving synagogue in New York. It was a warm evening and he had taken a cab down here, electing not to endure the heat and discomfort of the subway. A daisy chain of children floated by, suspended between two women wearing T-shirts identifying them as members of a Jewish community group. One of the children, a little girl with dark curls, smiled up at him as she passed and he smiled back at her, watching her as she was carried around the corner and out of his sight.

He walked up the steps, opened the door, and moved into the neo-Gothic main hall. He heard footsteps approach from behind and turned to see an old man with a sweeping brush in his hand.

“Can I help you?” said the cleaner.

The visitor spoke.

“I’m looking for Ben Epstein,” he said.

“He is not here,” came the reply.

“But he does come here?”

“Sometimes,” the old man conceded.

“You expecting him this evening?”

“Maybe. He comes, he goes.”

The visitor found a chair in the shadows, turned it so that its back was facing the door, and sat down carefully upon it, wincing slightly as he lowered himself down. He rested his chin on his forearms and regarded the old man.

“I’ll wait. I’m very patient.”

The old man shrugged, and began sweeping.

Five minutes went by.

“Hey,” said the visitor. “I said I was patient, not made of fucking stone. Go call Epstein.”

The old man flinched but kept sweeping.

“I can’t help you.”

“I think you can,” said the visitor, and his tone made the old man freeze. The visitor had not moved, but the geniality and passivity that had made the little girl smile at him was now entirely gone. “You tell him it’s about Faulkner. He’ll come.”

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again there was only spiraling dust where the old man had stood.

Angel closed his eyes again, and waited.

It was almost seven when Epstein arrived, accompanied by two men whose loose shirts did not quite manage to hide the weapons they carried. When he saw the man seated on the chair, Epstein relaxed and indicated to his companions that they could leave him be. Then he pulled up a chair and sat opposite Angel.

“You know who I am?” asked Angel.

“I know,” said Epstein. “You are called Angel. A strange name, I think, for I see nothing angelic about you.”

“There’s nothing angelic to see. Why the guns?”

“We are under threat. We believe we have already lost a young man to our enemies. Now we may have found the man responsible for his death. Did Parker send you?”

“No, I came here alone. Why would you think Parker sent me?”

Epstein looked surprised. “We spoke with him, not long before we learned of your presence here. We assumed that the two occurrences were related.”

“Great minds thinking alike, I guess.”

Epstein sighed. “He quoted Torah to me once. I was impressed. You, I think, even with your great mind, will not be quoting Torah. Or Kaballah.”

“No,” admitted Angel.

“I was reading, before I came to you: the Sefer ha-Bahir, the Book of Brightness. I have long been considering its significance, more often now since the death of my own son. I had hoped to find meaning in his sufferings, but I am not wise enough to understand what is written.”

“You think suffering has to have meaning?”

“Everything has meaning. All things are the work of the Divine.”

“In that case, I got some harsh words to say to the Divine when I see Him.”

Epstein spread his hands. “Say them. He is always listening, always watching.”

“I don’t think so. You think He was listening and watching when your son died? Or worse: maybe He was and just decided not to do anything about it.”

The old man winced involuntarily at the hurt that Angel’s words caused him, but the younger man did not appear to notice. Epstein took in the rage and grief on his face. “Are you talking about my son, or yourself?” he asked gently.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“He is the Creator: all things come from Him. I do not pretend to know the ways of the Divine. That is why I read Kaballah. I do not yet understand all that it says, but I am beginning to comprehend a little.”

“And what does it say to explain the torture and death of your son?”

This time, even Angel recognized the pain that he had caused.

“I’m sorry,” he said, reddening. “Sometimes, I get angry.”

Epstein nodded—“I too get angry.”—then resumed.

“I think it speaks of harmony between the upper and lower worlds, between the visible and the unseen, between good and evil. World above, world below, with angels moving in between. Real angels, not nominal ones.”

He smiled.

“And because of what I have read I wonder, sometimes, about the nature of your friend Parker. It is written in the Zohar that angels must put on the garment of this world when they walk upon it. I wonder now if this is true of angels both good and evil, that both hosts must walk this world in disguise. It is said of the dark angels that they will be consumed by another manifestation, the destroying angels, armed with plagues and the avenging wrath of the fury of the Divine, two hosts of His servants fighting against one another, for the Almighty created evil to serve His purposes, just as He created good. I must believe that or else the death of my son has no meaning. I must believe that his suffering is part of a larger pattern that I cannot comprehend, a sacrifice in the name of the greater, ultimate good.”

He leaned forward on his chair.

“Perhaps your friend is such an angel,” he concluded. “An agent of the Divine: a destroyer, yet a restorer of the harmony between worlds. Perhaps, just as his true nature is hidden from us, so too it may be hidden even from himself.”

“I don’t think Parker is an angel,” said Angel. “I don’t think he does either. If he starts saying he is, his girlfriend will have him committed.”

“You think these are an old man’s fancies? Perhaps they are. An old man’s fancies, then.” He dismissed them with a graceful sweep of his hand. “So why are you here, Mr. Angel?”

“To ask for something.”

“I will give you all that I can. You punished the one who took my son from me.” For it was Angel who had killed Pudd, who had in turn killed Epstein’s son Yossi; Pudd, or Leonard, the son of Aaron Faulkner.

“That’s right,” said Angel. “Now I’m going to kill the one who sent him.”

Epstein blinked once.

“He is in jail.”

“He’s going to be released.”

“If they let him go, men will come. They will protect him, and they will take him out of your reach. He is important to them.”

Angel found himself distracted by the old man’s words. “I don’t understand. Why is he so important?”

“Because of what he represents,” replied Epstein. “Do you know what evil is? It is the absence of empathy: from that, all evil springs. Faulkner is a void, a being completely without empathy, and that is as close to absolute evil as this world can bear. But Faulkner is worse still, for he has the capacity to drain empathy from others. He is like a spiritual vampire, spreading his infection. And such evil draws evil to itself, both men and angels, and that is why they seek to protect him.

“But your friend Parker is tormented by empathy, by his capacity to feel. He is all that Faulkner is not. He is destructive, and angry, but it is a righteous anger, not merely wrath, which is sinful and works against the Divine. I look to your friend and I see a greater purpose in action. If evil and good are both creations of the Almighty, then the evil visited on Parker, the loss of his wife and child, was an instrument of the greater good, just like Yossi’s death. Look at the men that he has hunted down as a result, the peace that he has brought to others, living and dead, the balance that he has restored, all born of the sorrow that he has endured, that he continues to endure. In his response to all that he has suffered, I, for one, see the work of the Divine.”

Angel shook his head in disbelief.

“So this is some kind of test for him, for all of us?”

“No, not a test: an opportunity to prove ourselves worthy of salvation, to create that salvation for ourselves, maybe even to become salvation itself.”

“I’m more concerned with this world than the next.”

“There is no difference. They are not separate, but linked. Heaven and hell begin here.”

“Well, one of them sure does.”

“You are a wrathful man, are you not?”

“I’m getting there. I hear another sermon and I’ll arrive.”

Epstein raised his hands in surrender.

“So you are here because you want our help? Our help with what?”

“Roger Bowen.”

Epstein’s smile widened.

“That,” he said, “will be a pleasure.”

18

I LEFT ADELE FOSTER and headed back into Charleston. Her husband had begun visiting LapLand prior to his death, and LapLand was where Tereus worked. Tereus had hinted to me that Elliot knew more than he was telling me about the disappearances of Atys Jones’s mother and aunt, and from what Adele Foster had told me Elliot and a group of his former boyhood friends were now under active threat from some outside force. That group included Earl Larousse Jr. and three men now deceased: Landron Mobley, Grady Truett, and James Foster. I tried Elliot’s phones again, with no result, then swung by his office close by the intersection of Broad and Meeting, what the locals called the Corners of Four Laws since St. Michael’s Church, the federal court, the state courthouse, and city hall each occupied a corner of the intersection. Elliot occupied a building with two other law firms, all three sharing a single, street-level entrance. I headed straight for the third floor but there was no sign of life behind the frosted glass door. I took off my jacket, placed it against the door, then used the butt of my gun to break through the glass. I reached in through the hole and opened the door. A small reception area with a secretary’s desk and shelves of files led into Elliot’s office. The door was unlocked. Inside, filing cabinet drawers were open and files lay scattered across the desk and chairs. Whoever had gone through the files knew what he or she was looking for. There was no Rolodex or address book that I could find, and when I tried to access the computer I found that it was password-locked. I spent a few minutes going through the alphabetically ordered files, but could find nothing on Landron Mobley and nothing on Atys Jones that I did not already have in my possession. I turned out the lights, stepped over the broken glass at the door, and closed it softly behind me.

Adele had given me an address in Hampton for Phil Poveda, one of the by now rapidly dwindling group of friends. I drove out there in time to find a tall man with long gray-black hair and a flecked beard closing his garage door from the inside. As I approached him he paused. He looked nervous and skittish.

“Mr. Poveda?”

He didn’t reply.

I reached for my id. “My name is Charlie Parker. I’m a private investigator. I wondered if I could have a few minutes of your time.”

He still didn’t reply, but at least the garage door remained open. I took it as a positive sign. I was wrong. Phil Poveda, who looked like a hippie computer geek, pulled a gun on me. It was a.38, and it shook in his hand like unset Jell-O, but it was still a gun.

“Get out of here,” he said. His hand was still shaking, but compared to his voice it was steady as a rock. Poveda was falling apart. I could see it in his eyes, in the lines around his mouth, in the sores that had opened on his face and neck. On my way to his house, I had wondered if he might be responsible in some way for what was occurring. Now, faced with the reality of his disintegration and the fear he exuded, I knew that he was a potential victim, not a possible killer.

“Mr. Poveda, I can help you. I know something is happening. People are dying, people to whom you were once close: Grady Truett, James Foster, Landron Mobley. I think Marianne Larousse’s death may also be linked. Now Elliot Norton is missing.”

He blinked. “Elliot?” he said. Another little shard of hope seemed to fall away from him and shatter on the ground.

“You have to talk to somebody. I think that sometime in the past, you and your friends did something, and now the consequences of that act have come back to haunt you. A snub-nosed

.38 in a shaky hand isn’t going to save you from what’s coming.”

I took a step forward, and the garage door slammed down in front of me before I could get to it. I hammered hard on it.

“Mr. Poveda!” I shouted. “Talk to me.”

There was no reply, but I sensed him there, waiting, at the other side of the metal, trapped in a darkness of his own devising. I took a card from my wallet, inserted it partly into the gap between the door and the ground, then left him there with his sins. When I looked back, the card was gone.

Tereus wasn’t at LapLand when I called by, and Handy Andy, his courage now boosted by the presence of a bartender and a couple of doormen in black jackets, wasn’t in any mood to be helpful. I also failed to get a reply from Tereus’s apartment: according to the old guy with the permanent residency on the front steps, he had left for work that morning and hadn’t returned since. I seemed to be having a lot of trouble finding the people with whom I needed to talk. I walked across King and entered Janet’s Southern Kitchen. Janet’s was a relic of times past, where folks took a tray and lined up to receive fried chicken, rice, and porkchops over the counter. I was the only white person eating, but nobody paid me much attention. I picked at my chicken and rice, but my appetite had still not returned. Instead, I drank glass after glass of lemonade in an effort to cool myself down, but it did me no good. I was still parched, and my temperature was still way above normal. Louis would be here soon, I told myself. Things would become clearer then. I pushed my plate to one side and headed back to the hotel.