House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

“You have to trust me, Mr. Holland.”

“Tell Andre I’m glad he’s doing okay.”

“He’s not okay. They treated him worse than they would an animal.”

“Miss Beatrice, you cain’t negotiate with Beckman. His kind only understand force.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “His kind understand money. That’s their weakness.”

“When I first came by the cup, I got drunk in a cantina and passed out in a pole shed full of manure. You came to me in a dream. You stroked my forehead and kissed me on the mouth. You told me I was chosen. You called me ‘mi amor.’ You put me in a state of arousal. But I was just flattering myself. You were telling me I’d been given an obligation of appreciable significance, one I probably wasn’t going to like.”

“That’s more detail than we need to hear, Mr. Holland.”

“It’s what happened,” he said.

“There’s a historical fact I think you have a right to know. It’s not meant to upset you or to indicate I necessarily believe it’s anything more than coincidence. In a small museum in Paris, there is a painting of Jacques de Molay’s death by fire in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. Standing in the crowd is a man who looks exactly like Arnold Beckman.”

“Miz DeMolay, you’re a nice lady, but the wingspan of a moth is the wingspan of a moth. I’m going to bed now. Take care of yourself and Andre. Check with you later.”

He quietly hung up the receiver and lay down on top of the covers and went to sleep with his clothes on, his fingers folded on his chest, the light burning, hoping Ishmael would speak to him again.

BUT HE HEARD no voices during the night and saw no images in his dreams. When he woke in the morning, he was not sure where he was. He sat on the side of the bed, the covers slipping off his legs, and tried to reconcile the sun shining on the balcony and the ornate normalcy of the room with the prospects the world offered him on that particular day. He had no legal authority and was powerless against the forces that had taken his son. He felt as though fate had imposed upon him a role he had seen many hapless individuals play when one day they discovered that they were absolutely alone, that no one believed their story or understood the nature of their loss and the depth of their grief. They may have had only one eye in the kingdom of the blind, but they did have one eye. Unfortunately, no one could have cared less.

He looked at his watch. It was 6:14. He opened his saddlebags and laid out his possessions and went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth and shaved and took a hot bath and put on a clean shirt and socks and underwear. He called down to the desk and ordered a plate of steak and eggs and a pot of coffee, then called Willard Posey in Kerrville. “Miz DeMolay said you were looking for me.”

“I was wondering if you’d gotten yourself shot or if you’d set fire to a church or a saloon or anything like that,” Willard said.

“Will you give me back my badge?”

“I talked with the state attorney’s office.”

“Did you hear me?”

“No, you’re not getting back your badge. Now will you shut up a minute? He says Beckman has broken no laws. Does the state attorney like him? No. Does he fear him? He wouldn’t say.”

“You asked him that?”

“Forget the state attorney. What is it Beckman wants from you? You keep asking for he’p, but you’re not willing to trust me with your secrets. I’m pretty wore out with it.”

“I have a cup Jesus may have used at the Last Supper.”

“You picked it up at an attic sale? How you fixed for Gutenberg Bibles?”

“It’s encased in gold and jewels. It probably goes back at least to the Middle Ages.” Hackberry could hear a sound like someone drumming a pencil on a desk blotter. “Are you still there?”

“I don’t know what to say. There are rumors you were hit in the head with lightning when you were a child. Some say it was an improvement.”

“You think I want a problem like this?”

“If what you say is true, give it to somebody. The Catholic Church or the Dunkers or the Holy Rollers, whoever. I’m embarrassed to have this conversation.”

“You have three children, Willard.”

“Don’t drag my kids into this.”

“That’s the point. You cain’t bear to think of them in the hands of a man like Beckman. Why should it be different with me? Do you have any idea what he may have already done to my son? You want me to tell you where I’ve hidden the cup?”

“No.”