Life Blood Part 21

"Well," I said, my anger welling up, "maybe I don't feel quite so laissez-faire. Tell me, you know anybody who can run a plate for you on a Sunday?"

"You got the p.r.i.c.k's license number?" he exclaimed. "Why the h.e.l.l didn't you say so?"

"Honestly, it sort of slipped my mind. I'm having a little trouble thinking straight right now."

Fortunately my short-term memory is pretty good, even when I'm stressed, so I spewed it out.

"Don't go anywhere," he declared. "I'll get back to you in five minutes."

I hung up the phone and lay down, flat out on the carpet, trying a breathing exercise to calm down. The problem was, it wasn't working.

Having had some experience with being robbed--I once got completely cleaned out when I had a ground-floor apartment down in the Village--I know you go through certain Kubler-Ross-like stages of anger, denial, depression, acceptance. You also go through a predictable series of recriminations: I should have had window bars and gates; I should have had a different lock; I should have had two different locks. In the instance just recalled, I'm virtually certain an apartment painter duplicated a set of my keys on his lunch break and then pa.s.sed them on to a second-story artist. No way to prove that, mind you, but it had to be what happened. I also suspect he checked my appointments calendar to see when I was going to be out of town.

But in this case the lock was definitely picked. n.o.body had a set of my keys except the super, and Steve. So the guy with the Spanish accent knew how to slip through doors and he had no financial interest in my old VCR. He only had an interest in my film. What had he said there on the sidewalk outside Paula Marks's apartment? Something about how making this picture was a big mistake?

I jumped as the phone erupted by my ear.

"The name Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos Grijalva mean anything to you?" Lou asked.

"How could it? I'm not sure I can even p.r.o.nounce it."

"Well, Colonel Ramos declares himself to be a military attache at the Guatemalan Consulate here. You've got a big shot in the Guatemalan Army rummaging through your apartment. This is even worse than I thought.

Those guys are killers."

"Jesus." I was still coming to grips with the horrifying fact he'd been in my apartment, in my only refuge. "Think I could bring charges against him?"

"Well, let's consider this a minute. Probably no prints, no credible witness. You'd have a d.a.m.ned hard time proving anything." He sighed.

"Truth is, I doubt you could even get a restraining order, given what little you've got to work with."

"The b.a.s.t.a.r.d." I sat a moment, feeling the logical, left side of my brain just shut down. My mind went back to its most primitive level, running on adrenaline. "Look, I need to check out something. I'll call you in the morning."

"Well, be careful," he said warily. "And for G.o.d's sake don't go running off anyplace alone. I'm telling you you're not safe. Always be around people."

"I'll keep it in mind." With that I gently hung up the phone and exhaled.

Think. Some colonel from Guatemala just broke into my apartment looking for what I might know about Children of Light, where I've been going to see about having a baby. So why is he so interested in what I'm doing?

I remembered Alex G.o.ddard wanted me to go to a "clinic" he had somewhere in Central America. Ten to one that clinic was in Guatemala.

That was what this whole thing was about. And now he'd just gone back there; at least that was what he'd said.

Guatemala was a long way off, but his other operation was right up the river. I hadn't seen all of it this morning, but that was about to change. A lot of things were about to change. It was time to start getting the playing field level again.

Chapter Twelve

I arranged with Patrick Mooney to have his sister in Queens, a full-figured woman named Rosalyn, come in and finish the job of reconstructing my wrecked home. She arrived an hour and a half later, and was hard at work when I left. I also agonized over the police-report issue, but finally decided to forgo the bother. Lou was right: It would be a two-hour ordeal of futility. Besides, I had better things to do with my time. I was going to return the favor of an information-gathering expedition.

Alex G.o.ddard had said he'd be absent from Quetzal Manor--who knows for how long--and this time around I was going to do the place right, the next step in my undercover research. The first, and main, thing I wanted to do was explore the new high-tech clinic that sat nestled in the woods across from the old building. Everything about it was the exact opposite of a "Manor." Not a shred of New Age "spirituality,"

just a lot of digital equipment and ultrasound and . . . what else?

Chief among my questions: What was behind that big, white door?

Maybe I was being impulsive, but I was completely wired and the truth was, I wasn't going to sleep till I knew a lot more than I did. And if I went late tonight, Sunday, I probably wouldn't have to deal with Ramala.

I called Roger Drexel, my unshaven cameraman, and asked him to come up and meet me at Applecore. It was Sunday and he was watching the third quarter of a Knicks game and into his second six-pack, but he agreed.

After all, I was his current boss.

All I really wanted was his Betacam and some metal tape, which would be broadcast quality. (I'd wanted to do it yesterday, but now the time had definitely come.) We met at the office, and he unlocked the room with the camera gear and loaded in a fresh tape. With any luck, he made it home for the end of the game.

I then had a sinful cheeseburger and fries at a Greek diner two blocks down the avenue. It was my idea of a courage-bolstering indulgence.

My watch read six thirty-five and daylight was waning when I revved my old Toyota and started my northbound trek back to Quetzal Manor. When I was pa.s.sing the George Was.h.i.+ngton Bridge, the first drifting flakes of a freak late-season snowstorm began pelting my winds.h.i.+eld. Good I thought, turning on my wipers, the less visibility, the better. At least I believed that till the road started getting slippery and I had to throttle back. It was only then I realized I'd been pus.h.i.+ng eighty on the speedometer, pa.s.sing a lot of cars. Lou's warning not to go anywhere alone was still filed in the back of my mind but I kept trying not to think about it. Sometimes there are things you've just got to do.

The highway grew more treacherous the farther north I went, but the traffic was thinning out and by the time I reached the turnoff to Quetzal Manor, total darkness had set in, in addition to which the paving was covered with at least an inch of sparkling-new pristine snow.

As I eased up the roadway, my headlights made the trees around me glisten with their light dusting of white, like frosting on the tips of a buzz cut. I switched off my lights as I made the last turn in the road but not before catching a glimpse of Quetzal Manor, and I must confess to feeling a shudder, of both anger and apprehension, run through me as I watched its magisterial turrets disappear into the snowy dark.

I parked my car at the back of the lot and retrieved the flashlight I'd brought, a yellow plastic two-battery model. I hadn't realized there'd be snow when I left home, so I was just wearing some old sneakers, but they'd do. I then sat there in the dark for a long minute, listening to the silence and thinking. The first thing was to find out if anybody was guarding the place. The next was to get some video of the new building.

I grabbed the bag carrying the Betacam, tested my flashlight against the floorboard, and then headed up the snowy driveway. I marched straight through the open arch that was the front door, and I was again in the drafty hallway where I'd met Ramala Sat.u.r.day morning. It was empty and dark now, no lights anywhere, not even out in the courtyard beyond. The stony quiet--no music, no chants--felt unnatural, but it also suggested that Alex G.o.ddard's adoring acolytes were safely tucked away. Early to bed . . . you know the rest. So maybe I really had come at the right time.

A chilly wind was blowing in from the far end of the hallway, and I felt like I'd just entered a dank tomb, but I tightened my coat and pressed on. When I got to the end and looked out, the snowy courtyard was like a picture postcard. And completely empty.

All right, I thought, move on to what you came for.

But when I turned and headed back down the hallway, toward the entry arch, I caught a glimpse of a furtive form, dark and shadowy, lurking just outside. s.h.i.+t! I froze in my tracks, but then the figure stepped inside, wearing something that made me think of Little Red Riding Hood, like a tiny ghost in a cowl.

It was Tara, Alex G.o.ddard's s.p.a.cey waif, who was moving so oddly, I thought for a moment she might be sleepwalking.

She wasn't, of course. She'd just been out strolling around the driveway in the snow. I soon realized she lived her life in something resembling a trance, as though she were a permanent denizen of the spirit world. For her it was a natural condition.

"It's so beautiful like this," she mumbled dreamily, as though we'd been in the middle of a lifelong conversation. "I just love it." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but in the silence it seemed to ricochet off the stone walls. "I want to take them out, show them G.o.d's paintbrush. Will you help me?"

"Take who out?" I asked, immediately deciding to go with the moment.

Finally she looked directly at me and realized whom she'd been talking to.

"You were here before. I tried to give you herbs to help you, but then he came and . . ." Her voice trailed off as she walked back through the portico and out again into the drifting snow. Then she held up her hands, as though attempting to capture the flakes as keepsakes. "I so want to show them. They've never seen it before." She glanced back at me. "Come on. Let's do it."

As I followed her out into the drifting white and across the parking lot, the acc.u.mulation of snow was growing denser, enough now to start covering the cars, but still, something told me the flurry was going to be short-lived. I took a long, misty breath of the moist air and clicked open the case holding the Betacam, readying myself to take it out the minute we got inside.

Well, I thought, maybe I've gotten lucky. She was headed for the new clinic, which was exactly where I wanted to go. It was nestled in the trees, up a winding pathway, and as I slogged along I could feel the snow melting through my sneakers.

When we got to the front door, large and made of gla.s.s, she just pushed it open.

"We never lock anything," she declared, glancing back. "It's one of our rules."

The hallway was dark, silent, and empty except for the two of us.