Second Horseman Out of Eden

7

Malachy McCloskey seemed oddly subdued and distracted when Garth and I went in the next morning to make our formal statements concerning the suicide of Dr. Craig Valley; I had the feeling that the few days he had left before retirement were weighing heavily on him, and that we made him decidedly nervous. Despite the fact that the police detective apparently believed our story, the process was still maddeningly time-consuming, and it was past eleven by the time we got out of the precinct station. Garth headed for the 42nd Street library, while I hailed a cab.

Pier 42, on the Lower East Side, was the last maritime shipping facility left in New York City, and it was used primarily for the importation of bananas. But bananas came from the tropics, and I considered it a good possibility that one of the container ships might have been persuaded to bring in some soil along with its bananas.

I visited five offices and warehouses, talked with secretaries, warehouse foremen, and longshoremen. Not a few people thought I was joking when I asked if they knew anything about a load of a hundred tons of dirt. Then I told them why I wanted the information and quickly got their cooperation. What I didn't get was any useful information.

It was four o'clock by the time I finished working the area around Pier 42, and I realized with a growing sense of frustration that by the time I went back for my car and then made it through the rush hour crush of traffic in the Holland Tunnel, all of the shipping offices in Jersey City and Hoboken, across the river, would be closed.

I hailed a cab, went to the library to help Garth.

My brother was not encouraging; just in Manhattan, there were close to a hundred companies that supplied glass or plastic.

The next morning, the day before Christmas, I was up bright and early, driving Beloved-a modified Volkswagen Rabbit-down the East Side and through the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey, where most of the shipping companies had fled over the years to lower taxes and modernized container-shipping facilities.

I started in Jersey City, visiting companies in alphabetical order. At my first stop I found that a Christmas party, complete with jug wine, cookies, and a huge grab bag, was already in progress, although it was only nine thirty in the morning. I decided that did not bode well.

It didn't. Everywhere I went, Christmas parties were in progress, sometimes covertly, and more than one person I talked to had glassy eyes and liquor breath. Christmas music was everywhere, on the streets and in the offices; people were smiling, eager to cooperate.

Nobody knew anything about any shipment of Amazon rain forest soil.

By noon, I had covered less than half the companies on my list, and I still had Hoboken to visit. I tried to keep my frustration and anger tamped down, because I knew these emotions would only drain me of energy, but it was difficult; the good cheer that was evident everywhere only underlined the fact that somewhere-perhaps only a short distance away-there was a little girl who was not going to get any puppy for Christmas, only rending physical and psychological pain. To make matters worse, Christmas this year fell on a Friday, which meant that it would be three full days before Garth and I would be able to resume our search through corporate America.

After yet another fruitless visit, I put on my parka and trudged out of the shipping company office into a raw, gray afternoon that perfectly matched my mood. There was a cold drizzle that I was certain would soon change to snow, making my trip back into Manhattan even more slow and miserable. I was suddenly very tired, and depressed; my instincts told me that the rest of the day was going to be equally unproductive. I thought I might be coming down with a cold. I wanted to get back into Manhattan well before the heavy traffic started, but I knew I couldn't; I had to keep slogging along until I ran out of offices or they closed, because there was always the possibility that the very next one I went into might be the one that had shipped the dirt. If I quit early, I thought, Garth would have the right to punch me in the nose.

And I had another reason for wanting to stay on the job right up until the time I had to leave to meet Garth for dinner; I thought I just might have picked up a tail, and I wanted to be sure; if someone was following me, I wanted to make certain I didn't lose him.

The man I thought might be following me wore a tan parka with a fur-lined hood hiding his features, brown corduroy slacks which were tucked into the tops of old-fashioned rubber galoshes. The parka was bulky, but I gauged him to be of medium build, about five feet nine or ten. He had a kind of spring in his step and upright posture that somehow reminded me of how certain athletes move. Three times I had caught a glimpse of him as I had emerged from different shipping offices. There was always the possibility that he was a salesman of sorts making similar rounds, but he carried no briefcase or notebook. If he was a tail, and I was almost certain he was, he was the lousiest one I'd ever come across.

Just to test the waters, I casually walked three quarters of the way around the block, then abruptly headed down toward the river. I stood for a few minutes in a snow-covered meadow in a deserted park, watching legions of gulls hitching a free ride on the ice floes in the Hudson. Out in the harbor, the Statue of Liberty was just barely visible in the misty gray air. I walked out of the park, turned left, then right, then stopped to pretend that I was looking in a store window while I studied the reflections in the glass.

Lo and behold, my man with the springy step dressed in a tan parka floated through the sheen of the glass; he was on the opposite side of the street.

It was the best thing that had happened to me all day, and I loved it. Why anyone would want to waste his time following me while I wasted my time was beyond me, but I wasn't going to question providence.

As I turned away from the store window and walked at a decidedly moderate pace back toward Beloved, I noticed something else that was making a return appearance-a long, black limousine parked on my side of the street about a block and a half away. The limousine was out of place in the neighborhood, and I decided that my tail was being chauffeured about in style.

It was definitely amateur hour, I thought. Peter Patton, undoubtedly under orders from Henry Blaisdel, wanted to keep an eye on me. Apparently not willing to bring in professional help from the outside, Patton was using a company car and, no doubt, company personnel to do it. It was, of course, absurd to use a stretch limo to tail somebody, but Patton obviously didn't realize that. Or he didn't care; the stretch limo and obvious tail could be an attempt at intimidation, or even a show of contempt.

Outstanding.

If my man had wheels, it seemed to mean that he was under orders to keep following me wherever I went, as long as it looked like I was taking care of business. If I was getting too old to break Garth's nose, it probably meant I was getting too old for heroics-especially when there was so much to lose if I made a mistake. I certainly didn't want to come out on the losing side of a confrontation, and my tail's chauffeured limousine meant that I should have time for consultation with my burly backup troops. I made a mental note of the license plate of the limousine, then continued walking at a leisurely pace to where I'd parked Beloved.

Reasoning that maneuvering a stretch limo through rush hour traffic was no easy task, I took care to keep Beloved in the right-hand lane as I went back through the Holland Tunnel into Manhattan and headed uptown. The black limousine dutifully followed, keeping no more than three or four car lengths behind. I was beginning to feel insulted; I couldn't decide whether the driver thought I was blind, very stupid-or if he just didn't care if I knew he was behind me. I suspected it was the latter.

I'd left Jersey City not a moment too soon, because it was five minutes to seven by the time I'd negotiated my way back up to West Fifty-sixth Street. Normally, I'd have driven Beloved right into the brownstone's underground parking garage, since Rick's Steak House, where I was to meet Garth for our Christmas Eve dinner, was only a block away. However, I was afraid that the driver of the limousine, whose intelligence

I was seriously beginning to question, might think that I was bedding down for the night and drive away with the man in the tan parka; after leading them as far as I had, I couldn't risk that. It is well-nigh impossible to find a legal parking place on the streets in midtown Manhattan at any time, and it was hopeless on Christmas Eve. Consequently, I did something I had sworn I would never do, since it is the equivalent of handing over your wallet to the police department and the tow truck operators; I parked in a tow-away zone, right beneath a sign that read: NO PARKING OR STANDING AT ANY TIME.

"I'll make it up to you if you get towed away, Beloved," I mumbled as I got out and locked the door. "A tune-up, at the least, and I'll personally touch up any scratches."

The limousine stopped at the end of the block. I made a show of checking to see how close my tires were to the curb, used my peripheral vision to watch as the man in the tan parka got out of the limousine. He quickly stepped back into the shadows-but not before I had gotten a good look at him. It must have been warm in the car, because he'd unzipped his parka and flipped back the hood. He was wearing a brown corduroy jacket the same color as his pants, a light blue shirt with no tie. He was fair complexioned, with modishly cut light brown hair. I patted Beloved on the trunk, then stepped into the light where I was sure he could see me. Then I headed into the rich, deliciously gloomy wooden interior of Rick's.

I was met just inside the door with a bear hug and kisses from Kim, a beautiful young lady with the blackest hair I'd ever seen. Garth had taught the woman, a former prostitute and functional illiterate, how to read, and then gotten her a job at Rick's. She was now what Garth and I thought of as the World's Best Waitress. And I suspected that she deeply loved Garth.

"Merry Christmas, Mongo, my love," Kim said in her husky voice.

"Merry Christmas, Kim, my love," I mumbled as I tried to extract my head from her ample bosom. "Is Garth here yet?"

Kim's smile wavered slightly, and shadows moved in her jet black eyes. "He's in the back, at your usual table. He seems so. . morose. What's the matter with him, Mongo?"

"Troubles, babe," I said as I finally managed to escape from her powerful grip. I reached up and patted her cheek as I moved past her toward the rear. "Bring me my usual, will you?"

"You look morose, too!" Kim called after me as I pushed my way through a wall-to-wall throng of celebrants. "It's Christmas Eve! I'll be back in a little while to cheer you both up!"

Garth, wearing dark glasses to cover the black eyes I had given him, was sitting at our regular table, a banquette in a comfortably dim corner on the far side of a filigreed wooden partition that separated the dining area from the bar. He looked up from his diet soda, nodded as I sat down across from him.

"How'd you make out at the library today?" I asked, leaning across the table so that I could be heard above the din of Christmas music blaring from a jukebox in the bar.

My brother shrugged his broad shoulders. "Lots of information-too much information, really. Blaisdel owns lots of companies. It would take a month just to sort it all out."

"Any companies besides Nuvironment that might be involved in the design and construction of biospheres?"

"Lots-or none. The man owns companies that make just about everything you can think of, all around the world. Some of his companies did a lot of defense work in the late fifties and early sixties, but he doesn't seem to have had too many government contracts in the last few years. It would take too long to check everything out systematically, so I'm following hunches, making some calls."

"What hunches?"

Again, he shrugged. "What difference does it make? They're just hunches. How did you make out?"

"Nothing at Pier Forty-two, and nothing in about half the companies in Jersey City. But I still have half of Jersey City, and all of Hoboken, to work on."

"Great," Garth said in a flat voice as he sipped at his soda. "I don't think you're going to get anywhere there, Mongo; however they brought in the dirt, they've covered their tracks. On the other hand-"

"On the other hand, I've got some good news," I interrupted, reaching across the table and squeezing Garth's heavily muscled forearm. "They may think they've covered their tracks, but they're still nervous about the comings and goings of the Frederickson brothers. You may not believe this, but Patton-or whoever-put a tail on me, complete with chauffeured limousine, and he is bad. I mean, like el stinko. I can't think of a better Christmas present right now, under the circumstances, and he's waiting for us right now out at the bar, all gift wrapped in a brown corduroy suit and a tan parka. He's medium height and build, with his hair cut in a style that went out with the Beatles. You can't miss him."

Garth stared at me for a few moments, a strange expression on his face. He took another sip of his soda, then set the glass down on the table and smiled wryly. "You've got it mostly right-except that he's wearing a blue parka."

"What the hell are you talking about? He's my tail, and I'm telling you he's wearing a tan parka."

Garth grunted, rose from the table. "Excuse me for a little while, brother. I've got to go to the head."

"I can see that my report got you all excited."

"Sure has."

Garth was gone less than thirty seconds.

"That didn't take long," I said as he settled himself back down on the leather-covered bench across from me. "You must have a small bladder."

"I just wanted to take a look in the bar. I'd tell you to go take a look, but it might arouse suspicion. Think carefully now, Mongo. If you did go in there now to look over the clientele, especially people wearing parkas, what do you suppose you would see?"

"No shit? Twins?"

Garth nodded. "Matching outfits, to boot-except for the parkas. My guy is the one in blue. That was what I was about to tell you when you interrupted me. While I was in the library, I could feel this guy watching me-and he kept checking out the books I'd called up from the stacks after I'd finished and put them in the cart. I took a little walk before coming here, just to see how serious he was. He stayed right with me; in fact, he'd probably have stepped on my heels if I'd stopped. A real clown. He had a car trailing him, too."

"Jesus Christ. I hope this isn't somebody's idea of a practical joke."

"It's no joke, Mongo," Garth said seriously. "They're from Nuvironment. Patton sent them to keep tabs on us."

"Your nose again?"

"If you like."

"It doesn't make any difference. I agree with you. Who else would put tails on us?"

"Did you get a look at your man's driver?"

"No. The limo had smoked windows, and they were up all the time. You?"

Garth nodded. "Just a glimpse-but it was a memorable one. A big, ugly guy; shaved head, flat nose. He's got the thickest neck you're ever likely to see this side of a livestock show." Garth paused, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. Finally he opened his eyes, looked at me, and shook his head. "I'm sure I've seen him someplace before, and I feel like I should know him; but I just can't place him."

"Is he out in the bar?"

"I didn't see him-and I definitely would have if he was in there. Both drivers must still be in their cars."

"And both parked on Fifty-sixth."

"Maybe not. It would make more sense for one of them to park on Fifty-seventh, in case we went out the back."

"Whatever. Brother, I would say that a lovely Christmas present has been dropped into our laps just in the nick of time."

"Right."

"But we have to cut out the drivers."

"Right," Garth said, and smiled thinly. "I knew I wanted to have a chat with my companion, but, naturally, I wanted to check with you first. I'd hate to do anything that would cause you to criticize me again."

"Go to hell, Garth," I said, rising and signaling for Kim. "You made sure your twinny followed you right in here, just like I did; if he hadn't, you'd have been all over him and his King Kong chauffeur-and you'd have been right, if slightly unwise, to do so. So don't give me any of your shit about criticism from me. That business with Patton was different, and you know it."

I gave Kim a big tip, told her we'd be back as soon as possible, then walked slowly through the bar with Garth, past the corduroy-suited twins, and out the door.

Outside, Garth nudged me, and I nudged him back; there was no sign of any limousines. Apparently, it had been assumed that we were through for the day when we'd gone into Rick's, and the twins had been left behind, on their own, just to make certain we were safely tucked into bed.

"Where to?" Garth asked.

"I've always considered my roof garden a wonderful place to entertain, no matter what the season."

"Good idea. The alley and fire escape?"

"Let's do it."

We walked to the intersection, but instead of crossing it to the next block and the front entrance to our brownstone, we turned right, quickening our pace slightly as we angled across the street. I cast a quick, furtive glance over my shoulder to make sure the tan and blue parkas were following us; they were, moving up the sidewalk in tandem, about twenty yards behind us. We slowed down to make sure the twins wouldn't miss our big move, then, halfway up the block, we ducked into the narrow alleyway that separated our brownstone from the one on the block behind us. Instantly, Garth pressed back against one wall, and I stepped back against the other.

The twin in the blue parka was the first to poke his head cautiously around the corner of the alley. Garth grabbed the fur-lined hood of his parka, rudely yanked him into the alley, and slammed him up against the brick wall. When the second twin appeared a split second later I treated him to a drop kick to the solar plexus, doubling him over. I grabbed the back of his parka, pulled him into the alley to join his brother.

My twin, the one in the tan parka, wasn't going to be able to breathe, much less speak, for a bit longer, so I turned my attention to the other one, who was staring wide-eyed into Garth's stony face.

"Yes, he does bite," I said to the man, who then directed his attention down to me. He wriggled a bit, but Garth held him tightly up against the wall. "Before he does, I have one question; answer it, and we'll all be on our way to see what Santa brings. Where did Nuvironment dump its hundred tons of rain forest soil?"

There was some gasping and wheezing from the twin at my feet. Slowly, both hands grasped to his stomach, he managed to get up. He took a few tentative deep breaths, looked at his brother, and nodded.

"Praise the Lord," Garth's twin said.

"Praise the Lord," my twin wheezed.

"Amen," Garth said, and clipped his twin hard on the jaw. He crouched down to catch the slumping body of the unconscious man over his shoulder, then effortlessly straightened up, reached over his head, and pulled down the fire escape. "Any criticism, Mongo?" he continued, looking at me.

"Well, maybe you're just a trifle impatient, brother," I replied, studying the thoroughly shocked face of the twin in the tan parka. "But then, so am I. No criticism."

"You got your gun?"

"No."

"Are you too old to break one of the guy's kneecaps if he tries to run away?"

"At the moment, he doesn't look like he wants to find out."

"Good," Garth said, and, with the twin in the blue parka still draped over his shoulder, began climbing up the fire escape. "If he doesn't want to come up on his own, I'll be back down in a couple of minutes to get him."

"So?" I said to my ashen-faced twin as his eyes followed the progress of his brother on my brother's shoulder as Garth climbed up into the night. It had begun to snow heavily, and they disappeared from sight as Garth passed the first floor. "The price of declining this party invitation is to answer my question. If you do, Garth will bring your brother back down. Where's the dirt? Don't bother trying to lie, because we'll be taking the two of you with us to make sure the dirt's where you say it is."

My twin didn't bother trying to lie; he didn't bother saying anything at all. His pinched features and dark brown eyes clearly reflecting alarm and concern for his brother, he suddenly stepped to the fire escape and began climbing up into the snowy darkness. I clambered up after him-again noting his springy step, and the easy manner in which he moved.

We arrived at the top, climbed over the brick parapet to find my brother standing over his twin, whom Garth had sat down right on top of the burlap covering one of my prize-winning rosebushes. When my twin rushed over, Garth grabbed him by the lapel of his parka, sat him down on top of a second rosebush. The twin in the blue parka had regained consciousness, although he still looked more than a bit groggy. He looked around him, saw his brother sitting beside him, reached out and took his hand. If he was about to praise the Lord again, he apparently thought better of it when he glanced up into Garth's face. Both men slumped forward on their rosebush perches, bowed their heads.

"That idiot Patton sent you two idiots to tail us," Garth said to the men, his voice barely audible above the rising wind that whipped his wheat-colored hair about his head. "Mongo and I should feel insulted, but we don't have time to go into that. We're looking for a little girl, and you're going to tell us where to find her. Your employers dumped a shipload of some special dirt somewhere around here. Where is it?"

The twins exchanged surprised looks, and that bothered me; they shouldn't have looked surprised. It could mean that something Garth had said-perhaps something about our assumptions-was wrong, and that would be bad news indeed.

"What's the matter?" I asked my twin, the one in the tan parka. "Talk to us, for Christ's sake. Is it so hard for all of you people to believe that our only interest is the welfare of the child? Don't you care at all about her? What the hell's the matter with you people?"

"We won't tell you anything," my twin said. "Praise the Lord."

"Praise the Lord," his brother said.

"Amen," Garth said, and both men immediately flinched and put their hands over their faces.

But Garth didn't hit anybody. Instead, he grabbed the front of his twin's blue parka and yanked him up off the rosebush. He unceremoniously marched the man to the parapet, then, still maintaining a firm grip on the front of the man's parka, roughly sat him down on the brick.

My twin started to rise, and I kicked him in the left thigh-not hard enough to do any real damage, but with sufficient force to sit him back down again. "You have to forgive my brother's impatience," I said to the man as he furiously massaged his thigh. "I know he's making a terrible first impression, but he's not really as mean-tempered as he seems. It's just that he gets very crazy about child molesters, and people who protect them. Right now, you and your brother fit into the second category."

"Lies!" the man shouted at me. "Lies! We know who you are! You two are the spawn of Satan! You won't trick us! You won't defeat Christ's legions in the final hour! The second seal has been opened, and you and your brother chose to ride with the red beast!"

"What does he have to say, Mongo?!" Garth shouted over the wind.

"He says we're the spawn of Satan!"

"Tell the prick he's got that right! This guy doesn't want to say anything at all! He must think he can fly! Ask your guy if he thinks his brother can fly!"

"Tell us where the dirt is, pal," I said to the man sitting in front of me. "That's all we want to know; we check it out, and then you and your brother can be on your way. Patton will never know that you told us, I promise you."

"I don't know what you're talking about, spawn of Satan!" The fear and shock in the man's brown eyes had now turned to hate which was so clearly reflected in his twisted features that it startled me.

"Oh? Why were you following us?"

"You can't trick me! I won't tell you anything!"

"Then don't try to tell me you don't know what we're talking about, because you do. At least you know about the dirt. Maybe you don't know about the child, so I'll give you the story. Listen to me carefully: a lunatic by the name of William Kenecky is repeatedly raping and sodomizing a child by the name of Vicky Brown. You babble a lot of the same religious bullshit as Kenecky, but I don't think that either you or your brother molests kids. And you have absolutely no reason to protect Kenecky. We'll find Kenecky and the girl if you'll tell us where the dirt is being stored. You'll take us there, and then you'll see that what I'm saying is true." I paused, sighed heavily. Suddenly I was filled with a great weariness, as if the man's blind zealotry and stupidity formed a great weight that was pulling at my heart, dragging me down. "It's Christmas Eve, man," I continued quietly. "Imagine how you'd feel if she was your kid. Can't you give her a break?"

"Mongo?!" Garth shouted. "What's happening over there?! Do I launch this guy or not?!"

"Keep him on hold!" I shouted back over my shoulder as I kept my eyes on my twin's face. I didn't like what I saw there; the gleaming, crazed look in his eyes could mean that he was beyond threats to either himself or his brother, and thus beyond reason. It frightened me. I said, "Don't you think Jesus would want you to help this child?"

The man shook his head. "It doesn't make any difference if you kill Floyd or me. Soon we'll both be in Paradise."

"Good for you-but that doesn't answer my question. Don't you think Jesus would want you to cooperate with us in stopping a child molester from abusing a little girl's mind and body?"

"You're lying about Reverend Kenecky! He would never-!" He abruptly stopped speaking, but it was too late; the child molester had already been let out of the bag.

"Mongo?! Has he told you where we can find the dirt?! My arm's getting tired!"

I glanced over my shoulder at Garth, and didn't at all care for what I saw. My brother had pushed the twin in the blue parka back over the edge of the parapet, and the only thing that was keeping the man from falling four stories was Garth's grip on the front of his parka. The man's legs pumped up and down, and his fingers clawed at the brick wall he was bent back over. Garth lowered him a little more. I didn't think Garth would drop him-but I had to admit to myself that, under the circumstances, I wasn't absolutely sure. Vicky Brown's plight had him more worked up than I'd ever seen him, and he'd already made it very plain to me that he cared nothing for the rights-and, presumably, the lives-of victimizes or their allies. He had truly lost patience with the evil in the world in the most profound sense; to Garth, evil people were no longer people. And even if he didn't drop dear Floyd intentionally, there was always the chance that his gloveless hands might become stiff and numb in the cold, and lose their grip.

Cold hands just wouldn't make a very good defense at our murder trial-and our being brought up on charges of murder wouldn't do anything to help Vicky Brown.

"Uh, Garth, hold off for a while, will you?! My friend here and I are just getting into a serious chat! Why don't you bring your guy over and join us?!"

For a moment I didn't think he was going to do it. Our eyes met, held. Then he shrugged before abruptly pulling brother Floyd back up over the parapet. He dragged him back across the roof and again sat him down on my rosebush, next to his twin.

"These guys seem to have popped out of the same fruitcake as Valley, Mongo," Garth said easily. "I think I may have to start breaking things in them."

"You hear the way my brother talks?" I said, looking back and forth between the two men, whose faces had suddenly become oddly vacant. "He's the bad guy-but you're in luck, because I'm the good guy. I say, let us reason together." I paused, moved in front of the man in the blue parka. "Floyd, your brother tells me he doesn't believe Reverend William Kenecky would sodomize a young girl. Well, what if he would? Just suppose he would-and is. Just suppose that Garth and I can prove to you that Kenecky is a child raper. Would you help us then?"

The twins looked at each other-with Floyd displaying what might have been a slight frown of disapproval at his brother's talkativeness. But neither spoke.

"What the hell is it that you Nuvironment people are trying to hide that's worth all this aggravation?" I continued, struggling to remain calm and keep my tone even. "Why did Patton have you follow us? What on earth is he afraid we may find out?"

Again, there was no response. The twin in the tan parka had bowed his head again, and appeared to be praying.

"Show them the letter, Garth."

"You show it to them if you want," Garth replied tersely, taking the well-worn envelope containing Vicky Brown's letter out of his pocket and handing it to me.

I removed the letter from the envelope, shielded it from the gusting wind and snow with my body, held it out in front of them. "Is this a lie? Read it."

Neither twin would look at the letter. "We won't be tricked," the man in the blue parka said.

I refolded the letter, put it back in the envelope, and handed it back to Garth as I continued to study the faces of the brothers. Suddenly I felt pity for them. Appeals to reason and Garth's threats were getting us nowhere; I wondered what might happen if I appealed to their madness. Christmas Eve was no time to be beating on people, no matter the reason.

"I can see that the two of you are very devout," I said seriously. I was rewarded with a flicker of interest in their eyes. "Garth and I respect that, but it's difficult for us to understand just what it is you believe. I know it's the millennium and all that, and every thousand years all sorts of people take it into their heads that the world is going to end; it's part of the human condition. But what's interesting about you two is that you seem to be convinced that it's going to happen tomorrow or the next day. What do you know that we don't? If the world is really going to end that soon, maybe Garth and I should start thinking about getting our affairs in order."

"You mock," the twin in tan said. "You don't believe it."

"I'm just curious as to the specifics of what you believe. Is what you believe supposed to be a secret?"

He shook his head. "It's clear for all who have truly taken Jesus into their hearts."

"What's clear? That the world is going to end?"

"Yes!" the second twin snapped. "Jesus is coming!"

"When?"

"Soon. Very soon."

"How do you know that?"

"Let him who has eyes see. Let him who has ears hear."

"How is the world going to end?"

"In fire," the twin in tan said. "As it is prophesied."

"What's going to happen then? What's on the celestial agenda after the world ends in fire?"

"Those who truly have Jesus Christ in their hearts will be spared, including those who have died before. Those of us who are clean will be swept up to the sky to be with Jesus while demons ravage those of you who have been left behind and who have survived the fire. There will be hell on earth for you. After seven years, Jesus will finally descend to vanquish the demons and establish His kingdom here on earth. We will join Him, and we will live forever. People like you will be dead. And damned."

"So you really believe this nonsense Kenecky has been feeding you?"

Both men had been shivering. Now they stopped, and their eyes flashed. "It's all in prophecy!" the twin in tan shouted. "It's clearly written for all to see! The fact that you have not seen and do not believe is what damns you. Reverend Kenecky has Christ in his heart; when Reverend Kenecky speaks, it is the same as Christ speaking."

"Even you can't believe that Christ wants him to rape little girls-and that's what he's doing. I think you know now that it's true, even if you won't read Vicky Brown's letter. I think you know Vicky Brown-and you certainly know Kenecky. Garth and I wouldn't be up here in the cold chatting with you unless we were absolutely certain that what we say is happening is happening. And you say that a man who screws kids has Christ in his heart? Give us a break."

The twins exchanged uncertain glances, and it seemed to me that each was waiting for the other to say something. I felt a rush of excitement. Mine had certainly been the voice of sweet reason, and I could see by the expressions on their faces that what I said had troubled them; I dared to hope that my words would serve as an antidote to the poison in their heads-at least long enough for one of them to give us the single piece of information we needed to go on. I glanced at Garth, gave a slight nod. Obviously, he didn't share my optimism; he simply shook his head slowly.

"So come on," I continued evenly. "I'm telling you the truth about Kenecky. Where are Kenecky and the little girl? That's all we want to know."

The twin in the blue parka said tightly, "It doesn't matter what's happening now. Next week, it will end. Everything that we have known will end."

I blinked slowly in astonishment. The voice of reason croaked, "It doesn't matter?"

"Floyd's right," the twin in tan blurted. "And even if Reverend Kenecky is doing something to Vicky, it must be God's will. Perhaps the reverend's attention to her is God's gift to the child. You simply don't understand. God may be working for Vicky's salvation through the reverend. What he does with her would be like a sacrament."

The owner of the voice of sweet reason suddenly saw spots swimming in front of his eyes, the result of spiking blood pressure. Suddenly I felt as if I were burning, and then all reason was swept away as rage mixed with loathing and horror and exploded. I screamed something unintelligible and jumped on the man in the tan parka, knocking him backward onto a bed of snow-smothered pachysandra. I ripped off my gloves, but couldn't manage to get my hands around his throat because of his parka. Blind with rage, nauseous with a sick sense of something I couldn't quite identify, I rained blow after blow on his face, and didn't stop even when blood started flowing freely from his nose and mouth. I couldn't stop; while one part of my mind clearly recognized that the man I was sitting on was flesh and blood, another part of me felt as if I were punching a phantom, something unspeakably evil that had plagued the heart and soul of humankind from the time we had learned to walk upright. We had split the atom and soared in space, but all the knowledge we had gained had not been sufficient to slay this evil; the evil embodied in the man I was beating was immune to knowledge, for it spurned reason. I hated this evil and knew that it was too deeply ingrained in the man ever to be expunged. Even as my fists shredded the flesh of the man's face, I somehow felt that I was attacking superstition and stupidity, the things that had broken men's and women's bones in the Inquisition, the things that had caused the deaths of countless men, women, and children in countless wars.

I was a tad worked up.

"You shit-for-brains, rotten, fucking son-of-a-bitch!" I screamed as I grabbed the man's hair and shook his head back and forth. "You tell me where Kenecky and the girl are, or I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

And then Garth's powerful fingers grabbed the back of my parka, pulled me off the man even as I continued to punch and kick at the air. He lifted me up and away, then set me down on my feet-but he kept a firm grip on my coat as I again lunged for the man. The bloody mouth of the twin in tan hung open, and he seemed to be in a state of shock.

"He can't tell you anything while you're punching out his lights, Mongo," my brother said dryly, sounding slightly bemused. "Once you'd abandoned your perfectly rational and perfectly useless approach to these jokers, you should have let me take care of business. You just get too emotional."

"Let me go, Garth!"

"Calm down."

"I am calm!"

"Get calmer."

I stopped struggling, then started with surprise when the man I had been beating on, his face smeared with blood, abruptly sat up and started to shout-at least at first I thought he was shouting, but then realized that he had gone into a kind of trance and, like Craig Valley, was "speaking in tongues." His eyes were wide and out of focus, his head thrown back as he howled at the sky.

Then the second twin, apparently caught up in his brother's ecstasy, started. The man in the blue parka grasped his brother's hand as he screamed, swayed, shouted, and stamped his feet. A chill that had nothing to do with the freezing cold went through me.

Then, still holding hands and screaming, moving in unison as if through some secret means of communication, the two men abruptly leaped to their feet and rushed between Garth and me.

"Hey, what the hell?!" I shouted, grabbing for the man in the tan parka as he hit me in the chest with his elbow and rushed past.

Garth lunged and grabbed for the other twin, and ended up holding an empty blue parka.

Stunned and horrified, Garth and I turned as one, cried out as the twins, still holding hands and shrieking their language which no one could understand, sprinted the short distance across the rooftop garden, jumped up on the parapet, and without hesitation hurled themselves out into the snow-swept darkness that echoed with the bells and music of Christmas Eve.