The Way of All Fish: A Novel (40 page)

Hess laid claim to a barstool as if it were a parcel of land in the old Cimarron Territory land rush. He ordered a double Hennessy and ate half the nuts in the dish.

Paul asked the bartender for what was on tap and came away with a Blackstrap stout. The wow factor was once again evident. Black as sin and with a head a good two inches thick. “You should try this, Bass.”

“I hate beer.”

He would.

L
ena bint Musah was waiting for them in the lobby of the Warhol Museum.

She was wearing a dark gray pin-striped suit that so exactly fit the museum’s pale walls and dark leather that the curator might have chosen it. That was the business end of her getup. Beyond that, it was all brass, from the curly wig to enough chunky jewelry to fill one of Ali Baba’s urns. Hammered-gold hoop earrings, a couple of necklaces, several bracelets. She also wore large sunglasses. She was a completely different person. Paul wanted to applaud.

There were to be no introductions, Paul pointed out to L. Bass Hess. Madame de Museé had asked expressly that no names be mentioned at the outset. That was usually the case, wasn’t it? As if he knew what was usually the case. And he’d forgotten to ask Lena exactly what the case was with séances. Then he remembered that this wasn’t a séance and she wasn’t a psychic. He glanced at her. She was taking it all with perfect equanimity.

So were Toby and Rebecca, he was pleased to see. They entered the lobby and walked up calmly to the other three and nodded as if silence were their business. Toby had heightened the Brando effect by wearing a worn leather jacket over his white T-shirt. Rebecca was her see-through self in her ethereal dress of scarves that seemed to be moving in different drafts across the lobby.

There were few patrons on the museum’s first floor. The five of them filled the small slickly running elevator to the second floor, where there were even fewer people.

Lena bint Musah, or, rather, Madame de Museé, the name chosen by Lena (leading Paul to wonder, wasn’t that French for “museum”?), had said nothing so far beyond a murmur to acknowledge the others’ presence.

She paused outside the skull room (as Paul had fondly named it) and said to the gathering: “This is my choice for a venue, whenever I can arrange it.” The accent was foreign but vaguely so. From a soft leather bag, she withdrew a small bronze sculpture of a pig. Its surface was as worn as Toby’s jacket. “If you would be so kind as to hold this for a moment in your hands, each of you.”

L. Bass was first. Half closing his eyes, he felt the pig, then passed it along. Oh, this was rich, thought Paul as Rebecca passed the little sculpture to him.

Then Lena nodded toward the white-parachute-silk-covered sofa with a familiarity that implied the odd piece might once have been situated in her own living room. “We will sit there, the five of us. We will not join hands, as it is unnecessary and would be exceedingly awkward.” A slightly condescending smile played on her lips.

They trooped into the room. Hess seemed a little overcome by the surround of skulls. The two actors took it in with actorly calm.

“Do not be disturbed by the skulls, please. The art has nothing to do with death. If you know Warhol . . .”

You could’ve fooled me, Paul thought, looking at Lena with fresh amazement. Just tossing out whatever she felt like. Nor did she complete the “if you know” idea.

Lena had taken in the details of his plan in one long swallow. It was as if she’d been here before, done this before. He began to wonder if she did have psychic powers utterly unknown to the Frobishes and Gumms of the world.

She told each of them to have a seat on the big cloth-covered sponge, which Paul thought was large enough in notion if not in actuality to contain multitudes.

Whoooosh.
Everyone sat down, Lena seeing to it that Hess sat near her. In low tones, she directed each of them to try to focus on the skull before him.

That was winging it, Paul thought delightedly. He hadn’t specified that as a direction, but he followed it. He thoroughly enjoyed his minutes with the skull on the wall before him. It was a blend of seaweed green, a sort of van Gogh yellow, and a selection of faded reds. He thought at one point that its nonlips moved, but that might have come from spending too much time in the Gumm household.

He turned his head a fraction, enough to see that Hess was collapsed in an ungainly position, though it was hard to sit with dignity on the sponge.

Ten or fifteen seemingly uneventful minutes passed, after which Madame de Museé turned her head and said softly, “That will be all.”

There was a general air of bewilderment as they extricated themselves from the sponge, Hess looking more irritated and agitated than bewildered. “That’s all? But there was no communication, no message, nothing.”

She ignored this comment and said, “One of you feels a grave injustice has been done.”

Was she kidding? There were two actors present. Three hands shot up—no, four, when Paul raised his own.

“One of you is a fisherman,” she went on, leaving grave injustice behind.

Here, L. Bass’s was the single raised hand.

Lena drew him aside and, in a soft yet strangely carrying voice, said, “He sympathizes. What you seek is in the cage.” She adjusted her dark glasses and turned away.

Leaving them there openmouthed, including the instigator of the deal, Paul.

“Well, there
is
a story by Henry James,” Paul offered, but had to stop on the way out of the museum because Bass had stopped.

“Henry James? Henry
James
? What are you talking about?”

“A short story. ‘In the Cage.’ It’s about—”

Blustering, Bass interrupted. “For God’s sake, man, if it was my father she was talking about, he didn’t
read
. What did she mean? What?”

“Dunno. Let’s walk across the bridge, okay?” Paul hummed. He wished he could just push Hess in the river and take Lena bint Musah to dinner. That had been brilliant, brilliant!

“What could it mean?” Bass struck his balled-up fist into his other hand.

Don’t ask me, bud. I’ve never been to Everglades City. Paul hummed and walked.

T
he five-star restaurant toward which L. Bass thought they were headed was as mythical as Camelot. Paul chewed his lip, wondering why he hadn’t thought of working a little of that—King Arthur, Excalibur, the lake, whatever—into the mix.

They were driving along the part of the road where Montagne Cassino sat above them, bathed in moonlit benevolence. Paul wondered how much this effect was owing to expensive exterior lighting.

“Over there,” said Paul casually, “is the monastery I told you about. Friend of mine is the abbot.” He laughed softly. “Hard to believe, knowing him back in high school.”

“The life of an oblat,” said Bass Hess, craning his neck to look back at the abbey, “has something going for it. How did this friend of yours happen to wind up doing this?”

“Spiritual awakening. Very sudden. An epiphany, say, like Saint Paul . . . oh, sorry, didn’t mean to go there again.”

Hess did not respond.

It was country out here, tree-filled, with hills like hammocks. Not another soul, no other cars. The car ticked along with high beams unchallenged, with the occasional lurch over a pothole.

Paul’s phone jerked around in his jacket pocket; that would be Molloy calling. This was the signal that the four of them were in place. A hundred feet on, he saw the
WORK AHEAD
sign beside the road. Paul had asked that a marker be put up in case he didn’t recognize the turn before the hill.

In a hazy and uncertain illumination (uncertain because it had been made by Graeme, not God), Paul saw the four horses and four riders in
a line atop the craggy hill. Three of the horses were dark, either black or brown; the fourth was dead white, a ghost of a horse.

The four riders wore dark capes with hoods. It was astonishingly dramatic.

“Stop!” yelled Bass.

Paul had all but crawled around the turn and now braked hard, pitching both of them forward. “Something wrong?”

Beside him, Bass Hess nearly went through the top of the car. “What’s that?”

The thrust of his pointing finger almost gouged out Paul’s eyeball. Paul turned to peer out his window and off to the hill. “What’s what?”

Bass grabbed Paul’s arm and looked at him in horror. “Horses, four of them. And four horsemen! You must see them!”

Paul squinted toward the hill and shook his head. “Maybe if I get out.”

When he opened the door of the car, Bass pulled at him. “No! Don’t get out!” The voice was near a shriek. “Don’t you see them?”

“Okay, Bass, take it easy.” Paul put his hand on the man’s shoulder, gently pushing it down. “Head down, deep breaths, come on, now.”

When Bass lowered his head between his knees, Paul clicked the high beams to low and back twice. He heard a dry sob coming from Bass.

The horsemen immediately turned their horses and, with a wave in Paul’s direction, cantered off. “Nothing out there, absolutely nothing, Bass.” He said this to the lowered head. “Look, I’m getting out, I’m climbing up that hill to show you—”

“No!” Bass sat up like a shot and looked past Paul out the driver’s-side window. “Where are they? Where did they go?”

“Nowhere. There was nothing there in the first place.” Paul had not turned off the engine, in case there was a need to muffle horses’ hooves; the car was idling. Paul put it in gear, prepared to turn around. “Listen, I think we should head back. You need a drink. Some rest.”

Bass had his fingers to his temples. “I can’t believe I imagined that. I didn’t
imagine
it. It was too vivid. I can’t believe there was nothing there.” The small sob suggested he could believe it.

As the car sped away from the site of the apocalypse, Paul said, “This could be another one of your epiphanies, Bass. You’ll feel better after
a good night’s sleep. Then it might be wise for you to think of getting away—I mean, really getting away for a rest. And then, well, maybe talking to someone who can give you spiritual guidance.”

Bass got a grip on his arm, almost making Paul lose control. “That monastery! That monastery. Don’t monasteries have guest quarters? Guest quarters.” Apparently he was going to say everything twice now that his spiritual self was overseeing things. “A retreat, a retreat. You know. Sanctuary.
The Magic Mountain.
” He had Paul’s upper arm in a viselike grip.

How nice that he had brought up the monastery as a solution. Paul wrinkled his forehead. “I don’t think you can just check in like it’s a hotel.” The grip on his arm was numbing his hand. Paul drove on.

“You could find out! Look, there it is! ”

Damned if it wasn’t. Paul smiled in the dark. As if reluctantly, he said, “I guess I could give them a call.”

Bass’s grip nearly tore his hand from his pocket as Paul tried to get to his cell phone.

“Don’t call, don’t call! They might say no. Let’s just go there. Just drive!” Bass sank back against his seat. His posture said that here was a man who’d run his final mile.

“Okay,” said Paul with a shrug.

In under ten minutes, they were pulling into the Montagne Cassino’s parking area and getting out, crunching across the gravel to the huge front door. Paul was delighted that the iron door knocker crashed against the wood when he lifted and dropped it. It would wake the dead.

As they stood waiting, Paul said in a small-talkish way, “So you saw three horses and riders? Where do you suppose they were going?” Forgetting they were not supposed to exist, though it made no difference.

Acidly, Bass replied, “The apocalypse, Paul. You’re not familiar with the horsemen?”

“Oh? I thought that was four horsemen.”

“That’s what I
saw
. I told you,
four
.”

Paul nodded. “Right.” He was glad that Hess retained something of his old condescending tone.

The little wooden door in the big wooden door slid open, revealing a face in a square of light. “Yes? May I help you?”

“Thank you. My name is Paul Giverney. This is Mr. Hess. We’d like a word with”—abbot? Paul couldn’t say it—“Father, uh, Brother John? Del Santos? If we may?”

The monk (or kind of monk) opened the door and herded them into a hall that Paul remembered from his first visit. He wouldn’t mind spending a few days here himself. It was so cool and so quiet.

“I’m Brother Francis. I’ll just go and find the abbot.” Brother Francis was off at a good clip, robe swinging behind him.

Paul looked around at the pleasant absence of things, of stuff, of accumulated rubbish, that everyone in Manhattan managed to position around themselves. Life was one big garage sale. There was no furniture here except a long wooden bench against one wall. He thought of his office, its cheaply chosen junk, the chairs and their chic tattiness. He and Molly and Hannah ate their Dean and Deluca dinners on wedding-gift Vilroy and Booth china. He sighed.

It was under two minutes before Johnny del Santos came lumbering down the empty hall, his steps echoing. “Paul Giverney, as I live and breathe!”

“Hello, Johnny.” They shook hands. “This is Bass Hess, a friend of mine. Forgive this sudden intrusion.”

“Don’t mention it. Come on back to my office.”

As soon as they sat down, Bass launched into a monologue on spiritual decline and possibly uprising. Johnny leaned across his desk and listened. That earnest look of concern, that empathy, that expression that told the speaker he was the only person on earth Johnny del Santos had any interest in—that was the quality that Paul marveled at.

At the end of this oration, in which Bass had omitted the alligator but made much of the burning bush, Johnny said, “Of course, you’re welcome to stay here. But perhaps during the time that you’re with us, you might consider becoming a Benedictine oblate.”

For Bass, “oblate” was the game changer, the deal-maker, for he was repeating “of course, of course, yes, certainly” as if he wanted to get that understood in case speech deserted him altogether. His head was bobbing up and down like the little wooden bird on Bunny’s desk, plucking at a raindrop of water when a finger sets it in motion.