In addition to his own name and that of Ginger Weiss, there were eight
on the list. One of them, Gerald Salcoe of Monterey, California, had
rented two rooms for himself, his wife, and two daughters. He had
entered an address but no telephone. When Dom tried to get it from the
Area Code 408 Information Operator, he was told the number was unlisted.
Disappointed, he moved on to Cal Sharkle, the long-haul trucker, a
repeat customer known to Faye and Ernie. Sharkle lived in Evanston,
Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He had included his telephone number in
the motel registry. Dom dialed it but discovered that the telephone had
been disconnected and that no new number was listed.
"We can check his more recent entries on the current registry," Ernie
said. "Maybe he's moved to another town. Maybe we have his new address
somewhere."
Faye put a cup of coffee on the counter where Dom could reach it, then
joined the others at the table.
Dom had better luck on his third attempt, when he dialed Alan Rykoff in
Las Vegas. A woman answered, and he said, "Mrs. Rykoff?"
She hesitated. "I was Mrs. Rykoff. My name's Monatella now, since the
divorce."
"Oh. I see. Well, my name's Dominick Corvaisis. I'm calling from the
Tranquility Motel up here in Elko County. You, your former husband, and
your daughter stayed here for a few days in July, two summers ago?"
"Uh . . . yes, we did."
"Miss Monatelia, are either you or your daughter or your ex-husband
having . . . difficulties-frightening and extraordinary problems?"
This time her hesitation was pregnant with meaning. "Is this some sick
joke? Obviously, you know what happened to Alan."
"Please, Miss Monatella, believe me: I don't know what happened to your
ex-husband. But I do know there's a good chance that you or him or your
daughter-or all of you-are suffering from inexplicable psychological
problems, that you're having frightening and repetitive nightmares you
can't remember, and that some of these nightmares involve the moon."
She gasped twice in surprise as Dom was speaking, and when she tried to
respond she had difficulty talking.
When he realized she was on the verge of tears, he interrupted. "Miss
Monatella, I don't know what's happened to you and your family, but the
worst is past. The worst is past. Because whatever might still be to
come . . . at least you're not alone any more."
Over twenty-four hundred miles east of Elko County, in Manhattan, Jack
Twist spent Sunday afternoon giving away more money.
On returning from the Guardmaster heist in Connecticut the previous
night, he had driven through the city, looking for those who were both
in need and deserving, and he had not rid himself of all the cash until
five o'clock in the morning. On the edge of physical and emotional
collapse, he'd returned to his Fifth Avenue apartment, gone immediately
to bed and instantly to sleep.
He dreamed again of the deserted highway in an empty moon-washed
landscape, and of the stranger in the darkvisored helmet who pursued him
on foot. As the moonlight suddenly turned blood-red, he woke from the
dream in panic at one o'clock Sunday afternoon, flailing at his pillow.
A blood-red moon? He wondered what it all meant, if anything.
He showered, shaved, dressed, and took time for only a quick breakfast
consisting of an orange and a half-stale croissant.
In the large walk-in closet that served the master bedroom, he removed
the cleverly concealed false panel and inventoried the contents of the
three-foot-deep secret storage space. The jewelry from the job in
October was finally gone, successfully fenced, and most of the money
from the fratellanza warehouse in early December had been converted to
scores of cashiers' checks and mailed to Jack's accounts at three Swiss
banks. Only a hundred twenty-five thousand remained, his emergency
getaway fund.
He transferred most of the cash to a briefcase: nine banded pickets of
hundred-dollar bills, a hundred bills in each, and five packets of
twenty-dollar bills, a hundred in each. That left twenty-five thousand
still in his cache, which seemed more than enough now that he was no
longer involved in criminal activity and would not be putting himself in
situations that might necessitate a swift exit from the state or
country.
Although Jack intended to dispose of a considerable portion of his
ill-gotten wealth, he certainly did not plan to give away all of it and
leave himself penniless. That might be good for his soul, but it would
be bad for his future and undeniably foolish. However, he had eleven
safe-deposit boxes in eleven of the city's banks-additional emergency
caches in case he needed to escape but could not reach the money behind
the false partition in his bedroom closet-and those caches contained
more than another quarter of a million. His Swiss accounts were worth
in excess of four million. It was far more than he needed. He was
looking forward to shedding half of that fortune during the next couple
of weeks, at which point he would pause to decide what he wanted to do
with his future. Eventually, he might give away even more.
At three-thirty Sunday afternoon, he carried his moneyfilled briefcase
out into the city. All the strangers' faces, which for eight years had
seemed fiercely hostile, every one, now seemed like animated portraits
of promise and dazzling possibilities, every one.
The Block kitchen smelled of coffee and hot chocolate, then of cinnamon
and pastry dough when Faye took a package of breakfast rolls from the
freezer and popped them in the oven.
While the others sat at the table, listening, Dom continued to call the
people who had registered at the motel on that special Friday night.
He reached Jim Gestron, who turned out to be a photographer from L A.
Gestron had driven throughout the West that summer, shooting on
assignment for Sunset and other magazines. Initially, he was friendly,
but as he heard more of Dom's story, he cooled off. If Gestron had been
brainwashed, the mind-control experts had been as successful with him as
with Faye Block. The photographer was having no dreams, no problems.
Dom's tale of brainwashing, somnambulism, nyctophobia, obsessions with
the moon, suicides, and paranormal experiences struck Gestron as the
babbling of a seriously disturbed person. He said as much and hung up
in the middle of the conversation.
Next, Dom called Harriet Bellot in Sacramento, who was no more troubled
than Gestron. She was, she said, a fiftyyear-old unmarried
schoolteacher who had developed an interest in the Old West when, as a
young WAC, she was stationed in Arizona. Every summer, she traveled old
wagontrain routes and visited the sites of the forts and Indian
settlements of another age, usually sleeping in her little camper but
sometimes splurging on a motel room. She sounded like one of those
likable, dedicated, but stern teachers who brooked no nonsense from her
pupils, and she brooked none from Dom. When he started talking about
fanciful stuff like poltergeist phenomena, she hung up, too.
"Does that make you feel better, Faye?" Ernie asked. "You're not the
only one whose memories were so thoroughly scrubbed away."
"Doesn't make me feel one damn bit better," Faye said. "I'd rather be
suffering problems like you or Dom than feel nothing. I feel as if a
piece of me was cut out and thrown away."
Perhaps she's right, Dom thought. Perhaps nightmares, phobias, and
terrors of one kind or another are better than having a little pocket of
absolute emptiness inside, cold and dark, which would be like carrying a
fragment of death around within her for the rest of her life.
When Dominick Corvaisis telephoned St. Bernadette's rectory at 4:26
Sunday afternoon, seeking Brendan Cronin, Father Wycazik was in the
study with officers of the Knights of Columbus, concluding the first of
many planning sessions for the annual St. Bernadette's Spring Carnival.
At four-thirty, Father Michael Gerrano interrupted with the news that
the call he had just taken on the kitchen phone was from Father
Wycazik's "cousin" in Elko, Nevada. Only a few hours ago, one day ahead
of schedule, Brendan Cronin had boarded a United flight to Reno, taking
advantage of cancellations that had opened up some seats, and intending
to use a small commuter airline from Reno to Elko on Monday. At the
moment, Brendan was still in the air with United, not yet even as far as
Reno and in no position to be calling anyone, so Michael's message
intrigued Father Wycazik and instantly pried him loose of the planning
session without alerting the visitors that something extraordinary was
happening in the lives of their parish clergy.
Leaving the young priest to conclude matters with the Knights, the
rector hurried to the kitchen phone and took the call meant for Brendan.
Dominick Corvaisis, with a writer's appreciation for the fantastic, and
Stefan, with a priest's appreciation for mystery and mysticism, became
increasingly excited and voluble as they spoke to each other. Stefan
swapped his knowledge of Brendan's problems and adventures-lost faith,
miraculous cures, strange dreams-for Corvaisis' stories of poltergeist
phenomena, somnambulism, nyctophobia, lunar obsessions, and suicides.
Finally, Stefan could not resist asking, "Mr. Corvaisis, do you see any
reason for an old unregenerate religious like me to hold out the hope
that what is happening to Brendan is somehow divine in nature?"
"Quite frankly, Father, in spite of the miraculous cures of that police
officer and the little girl you mentioned, I don't see the hand of God
in this. There are too many indications of human connivery in this to
support the interpretation you'd like to put on it."
Stefan sighed. "I suppose that's true. But I'll still cling to the
hope that what Brendan's being called to witness there
in Nevada is something meant to bring him back into the hands of Christ.
I won't give up on the possibility."
The writer laughed softly. "Father, just from what I've learned of you
during this conversation, I suspect you'd never give up on the
possibility of redeeming any soul, anywhere, any time. I'd guess you
don't save souls quite the way other priests do-by finesse, by gentle
and genteel encouragement. You strike me more as . . . well, as a
blacksmith of the soul, hammering out the salvation of others by the
sweat of your brow and the application of plenty of muscle. Please
understand: I mean this as a compliment."
Stefan laughed, too. "How else could I possibly take it? I firmly
believe that nothing easy is worth doing. A blacksmith bent over a
glowing forge? Yes, I do rather like the image."
"I'll look forward to Father Cronin's arrival here tomorrow. If he's
anything like you, Father, we'll be glad to have him on our side."
"I'm on your side as well," Father Wycazik said, "and if there's
anything I can do to help with your investigation, please call on me. If
there's the slightest chance these strange events involve the manifest
presence of God, then I do not intend to sit on the sidelines and miss
all the action."
The next entry on the guest list was for Bruce and Janet Cable of
Philadelphia. Neither of them was having trouble of the sort that
plagued Dom, Ernie, and the others. However, they were more willing to
hear Dom out than Jim Gestron and Harriet Bellot had been, but in the
end they were no more swayed by his story.
The final name on the list was Thornton Wainwright, who had given a New
York City address and telephone number. When Dom dialed it, he reached a
Mrs. Neil Karpoly, who said the number had been hers for more than
fourteen years and that she had never heard of Wainwright. When Dom
read the Lexington Avenue address from the registry and inquired if that
was where Mrs. Karpoly lived, she asked him to repeat it, then laughed.
trustworthy sort if he told you that's my address. Nobody lives there,
although I'm sure there are thousands who might enjoy it. I know I
enjoyed working there. That's the address of Bloomingdale's."
Sandy was astonished when Dom reported this news: "Phony name and
address? What's that mean? Was he really a guest that night? Or did
someone add the name to the registry just to confuse us? Or . . .
what?"
Jack Twist possessed complete sets of sophisticated false IDsdriver's
licenses, birth certificates, Social Security cards, credit cards,
passports, even library cards-in eight names, including "Thornton Bains
Wainwright," and he always employed an alias when planning and executing
a heist. But he worked anonymously that Sunday afternoon, portioning
out another hundred thousand dollars to startled recipients all over
Manhattan. The largest gift was fifteen thousand to a young sailor and
his bride of one day, whose battered old Plymouth had broken down on
Central Park South, near the statue of Simon Bolivar. "Get a new car,"
Jack told them as he stuffed money into their hands and playfully stuck
a wad of bills under the sailor's hat. "And if you're wise, you won't
tell anyone about this, especially not the newspapers. That'll just
bring the IRS down on you. No, you don't need to know my name, and
there's no need to thank me. Just be kind to each other, all right?
Always be kind to each other, because we never know how much time we
have on this world."
In less than an hour, Jack gave away the entire hundred thousand that he
had taken from the secret compartment in the back of his bedroom closet.
With plenty of time on his hands, he bought a bouquet of coral-red roses
and drove out to Westchester County, an hour from the city, to the
memorial park in which Jenny had been buried over two weeks ago.
Jack had not wanted to put her to rest in one of the city's crowded and
grim cemeteries. Although he knew he was being sentimental, he felt
that the only suitable resting place for his Jenny was in open country,
where there would be expansive green grassy slopes and shade trees in
the summer and peaceful vistas of snow in the winter.
He arrived at the memorial park shortly before twilight. Although the
uniform headstones were set flush with the earth, with no features to
distinguish one from another, and although most of them were covered
with snow, Jack went directly to Jenny's plot, the location of which was
branded on his heart.
While the dreary day faded into a drearier dusk, in a world colorless
except for the blazing roses, Jack sat in the snow, oblivious of the
dampness and cold, and spoke to Jenny as he had spoken to her during her
years in a coma. He told her about the Guardmaster heist yesterday,
about giving away all the money. As the curtain of twilight pulled down
the heavier drape of night, the memorial park's security guard began
driving slowly around the grounds, warning the few late visitors that
the gates would soon close. Finally Jack stood and took one last look
at Jenny's name cast in bronze letters on the headstone plaque, now
illuminated by the vaguely bluish light of one of the streetlamps that
lined the park's main drive. "I'm changing, Jenny, and I'm still not
sure why.
It feels good, right . . . but also sort of strange.-,' What he said
next surprised him: "Something big is going to happen, Jenny. I don't
know what, but something big is going to happen to me." He suddenly
sensed that his newfound guilt and subsequent peace with society were
only the beginning steps of a great journey that would take him places
he could not yet imagine. "Something big is going to happen," he
repeated, "and I sure wish you were here with me, Jenny."
The blue Nevada sky had been armoring itself with dark storm clouds ever