A Hideous Beauty (39 page)

I remained at the sports bar long enough to see a live report
from the Coast Guard station at the foot of Laurel Street at Harbor Drive as the recovered body of President Douglas was loaded into a hearse. According to the reporter on the scene, Adrian Barbour—I knew him as the tie—President Douglas had left meticulous orders regarding the handling of his remains should such a tragedy occur, including his choice of medical examiner. However, the president's medical examiner had been delayed at LAX—something about an automobile accident—and a local examiner, Ted Dickson, an ex-marine, was being called in to identify the remains and perform the autopsy.

“Everything's playing out just as Semyaza said it would,” I muttered.

You can't win, Grant. You're overmatched.

It was time I started making my way to Broadway Avenue.

Leaving the sports bar, I turned north on Fourth Street. As I was walking past a restaurant with outdoor seating, I was startled by a hand shooting over the wrought-iron railing and grabbing my wrist. “Hey, aren't you . . .” He started to release my arm, but before he did, he said, “Stand right there. Just for a second, OK?”

He appeared to be in his mid-twenties. There were three other people at the table, a couple sitting across from him and a good-looking redhead seated next to him. They seemed as shocked and perplexed by their friend's actions as I was.

Fishing for something under his chair, he retrieved a yellow plastic bag from a Barnes and Noble bookstore. Inside the bag was a copy of my book. He turned it over to the photo on the back and compared the likeness to me. “That's you, isn't it?” he said.

He showed the publicity photo to the other couple and his date. They looked at the photo, at me, then at the photo again.

“It is him!” the redhead squealed.

“You're . . .” He had to turn the book over and read my
name from the cover. “. . . Grant Austin! You're Grant Austin, aren't you?”

“Bummer! Today must have been a wild one for you, what with the president getting whacked and all,” the other male at the table said.

“Were you there? In the motorcade?” his blond girlfriend asked.

“I wasn't in the motorcade,” I said.

“But you saw it, didn't you? You saw the assassination?” the holder of the book asked. “Man, that must have been rough, I mean, you've talked with the man, right? Sat down with him . . . interviewed him . . . did you get to know him?”

Had he asked me that question a couple of weeks ago I would have told him I knew the president. I probably would have boasted a little about being on Air Force One, or sitting in the Oval Office, or weekending at Camp David.

“No,” I said. “I didn't know him that well.”

“But that must have been sad for you today,” the redhead opined with a pout.

A middle-aged man sitting with his wife at a neighboring table interjected, “I believe he won an award for that book. The Nobel Prize. Am I right?”

“So what are you going to do now?” the man with the book asked. “Write a final chapter or something?”

I took the book from him, autographed it with the date, and handed it back to him. “Hold on to that,” I said. “It may be worth something someday.”

Reaching the fountain in front of Horton Plaza with time to spare, I took a moment to look across the street at the U.S. Grant Hotel nestled in a cozy light, its polished glass doors reflecting the passing car headlights of Broadway Avenue.

If I took Semyaza up on his offer I could return later tonight and stay in the presidential suite. Or I could take door number
two and spend the night on a crowded ceiling with a couple hundred of my closest slimy green relatives.

I looked away. It was better if I didn't think about it, diverting myself instead with the sights and sounds of humanity.

The street I stood on had seen its share of history. I'd seen black-and-white pictures of Broadway on VJ Day at the end of World War II, and while the street didn't look nearly as crowded as it did then, the downtown's main artery was pretty much wall-to-wall people.

I turned westward toward the Emerald Plaza and nearly got run over by three boys on skateboards, all wearing hooded sweatshirts. Despite their attire they seemed nice enough.

Noting my direction, one of them said, “Going down to the bay?”

“Been there.”

“Kickin' president, saving those schoolkids like that! When I go down? I want to go down big time, in flames like that!”

“Careful what you wish for, kid,” I said.

But he wasn't listening. The three of them had already slapped their boards down and were crossing Fourth against the light.

Five blocks later I'd reached the Emerald Plaza. Pulling open the heavy glass door, I stepped into the lobby. The door swung closed behind me, shutting out the city noise. A huge atrium of chrome, glass, and greenery, it served as entryway to hundreds of businesses located in the towers.

Being nearly midnight, it was empty and as silent as a mortuary, except for a pair of bodiless voices coming from one of the adjoining corridors. One male. One female. Apparently he said or did something funny because she laughed.

Crossing the polished white tile floor, I summoned an elevator. The doors made a ritzy whoosh sound when they opened. I stepped inside. The doors whooshed closed behind me.

For several moments I stood there like a man in an oversized coffin. I stared at the double row of buttons.

Semyaza appeared next to me.

I started at his sudden appearance.

“Going down?” he said with a smirk.

Without comment I pushed the button that would take me to the top floor.

Sue Ling lunged for the door.

“Grant?”

Jana and Christina walked in. Sue Ling threw herself into their arms, laughing and weeping at the same time.

“He wasn't at the hotel,” Christina said. She was shoeless and worried. “Did you have any luck with his cell phone?”

“A guy named Craig answered,” Sue replied.

“A tech at the station,” Jana said. She nodded as she pieced events together. “We used Grant's phone to do the broadcast.”

“He said he'd return Grant's phone to you at the station,” Sue said. “Are you . . . going out with him?”

“Who? Craig?”

“He sort of inferred that you and he have something going on,” Sue said.

“In his dreams,” Jana replied.

From the middle of the living room the professor watched with interest. The television set was on. It had been on all afternoon.

Jana said, “We're going to drive around downtown and look for him. Come with us.”

Sue glanced hesitantly back at the professor. “I probably should stay and—”

“She'd be delighted to go,” the professor answered for her.

Sue questioned him with a tilt of her head.

“I'll be fine,” the professor insisted. “Go with them. You need to get out.”

Jana said, “Professor, you're welcome to come too. I have plenty of room. We can put your chair in the trunk.”

“Very kind,” the professor said dismissively. “But I have plenty to do around here.”

“Maybe I should stay,” Sue said.

Christina linked arms with her. “You know you want to go,” she said. “You're as worried about him as we are.”

When they were gone the professor wheeled over to the television set and switched it off.

He sat for a moment in the silence, then lifted his head heavenward.

“Abdiel!” he shouted.

He waited a moment, then shouted again.

“Abdiel!”

He remained alone. Wheeling himself to the hallway, he shouted, “Abdiel!”

When the angel didn't appear, he wheeled himself into the kitchen.

“Abdiel!”

He opened the front door and shouted at the stars.

“Abdiel!”

A voice behind him said, “I'm not your genie in a bottle and I don't appreciate being treated as such.”

Abdiel stood in the middle of the living room.

The professor slammed shut the front door.

“Where's Grant?” he said.

“What makes you think I would know?”

“Do you?”

Abdiel didn't answer.

“Is Grant in danger?”

Again, Abdiel didn't answer.

“Does Semyaza have him?”

Abdiel appeared beatific, as composed as a statue, and just as silent.

“Answer me!” the professor shouted.

“The time has come for Grant to make a decision about whose side he's on,” Abdiel said.

“What do you mean, whose side? A few weeks ago he didn't even know there were sides. You have to give him time.”

“After Grant has made his decision, I'll return to inform you.”

“It's tonight? Why the rush?”

“Did I say it was tonight?”

The professor hit the arms of his wheelchair with his fists. “Do you know, for an angel you can be infuriating? Is it tonight or not?”

“I must leave now.”

“Wait! What's riding on his decision?”

“I must leave now.”

“Abdiel . . . I implore you . . . go to the Father. Intercede for Grant. See if you can—”

The professor was talking to air.

Fists hammered the arms of the chair.

“Abdiel!” he shouted. “Abdiel!”

He shouted until he was hoarse.

“It's not fair!” he bellowed at the ceiling. “It's not fair! Grant isn't like us! Without the Holy Spirit, he's on his own. What chance does he have?”

His words bounced back at him off the ceiling.

The professor wheeled in circles, his voice barely a whisper, pleading Grant's case. No longer addressing Abdiel, he made his case directly to God. “Almighty Father, please, the boy deserves a chance. He's caught between two worlds. He's no
match for Semyaza, and for reasons I don't fully understand, Abdiel and the others will not stand up for him. The boy needs an advocate, but you've denied him your Holy Spirit. Please don't throw him to the wolves. You've given him life. You've given him free will. Now give him a chance to choose. That's all I ask. Give him a chance.”

CHAPTER
31

T
he elevator doors whooshed open on the top floor of the Emerald Plaza. After his initial quip, Semyaza remained silent for the duration of the ascent.

“I don't need an escort,” I snapped as I stepped from the elevator.

A couple in evening dress stood waiting for the elevator. A curious expression crossed their faces. When I looked behind me and saw the elevator empty, I knew why.

I offered no explanation. The couple stepped into the elevator without turning their backs on me and were quick to close the doors.

The stairs to the roof were at the end of the hallway. I walked the length of the fluorescent passage to the stairwell and up the painted cement steps and onto the gravel surface roof.

An ocean breeze greeted me. From this elevation I could see the runway lights of the airport, the strip of residential and commercial lights that was Point Loma, and the velvet black Pacific Ocean beyond.

In the foreground was the bay, lit garishly by banks of high- powered sodium floodlights aboard ships and the meandering spotlights of helicopters. Normally the bay at night is softly lit and romantic. This stark white glare, while necessary for men to do their jobs, seemed a rude intrusion.

A myriad of craft bobbed on the bay combing through the debris that littered the surface. Between misshaped and jagged bridge pilings a huge crane on a barge was lifting the fuselage of Noonan's FA-18 from its watery grave.

A huge air-conditioning unit separated me from the open expanse of roof. I wasn't prepared for what I saw when I stepped around it.

Twenty-four angels were waiting for me.

Semyaza was the closest.

“You took me seriously when I suggested you make a spectacle of this,” I said.

“A word of caution,” he replied. “Keep a civil tongue. When you are intimidated or frightened you have a habit of resorting to sarcasm.”

“You noticed.”

“It will not serve you well tonight. Not all angels understand your humor. They interpret it as insolence.”

I started to say something sarcastic, if for no other reason than to get it out of my system. But I didn't. Better to go cold turkey.

Despite everything I'd seen today, until this moment I was never fully convinced that my former rival Semyaza, aka Myles Shepherd, was really an angel, a being with origins so ancient he predated time. But seeing him here, standing in an assembly of angels, my doubts were banished.

They were all of impressive height, having assembled in a circle. Two half-circles, actually. Twelve and twelve. I recognized Abdiel. He stood with eleven others who were counted among
the faithful. Opposite them were Semyaza and eleven rebel angels.

The historian within me was going crazy. The stories they could tell! Here on this roof were beings that had witnessed, and in some cases participated in, every moment of history. Not only that, the beings that stood before me were present when the foundations of the universe were laid.