Vitals (25 page)

Banning's face emptied.

"Back up a bit," I said. "Who in hell was Golokhov? How did he manage to do all this?"

"He was the most brilliant biologist of the twentieth century," Cousins said.

"The Svengali of germs," Marquez said. "That's how I'd pitch it."

He stood up from the table. "Everybody eat their fill? Wonderful curry."

Tammy looked nervous, as if her performance were about to begin.

"Time for some videos," Marquez said. "I'll bring a tray of drinks."

"I'm a pig, and I know it," Marquez said. We sat in his lavish theater, four rows of plush seats flanked by dark red velvet curtains. A video projector hung from the ceiling, its cooling fan a soft whisper in the hush. In the wall behind us, slits opened for the peering rodent eyes of three film projectors. Marquez pushed a button, and a short length of front curtain pulled aside, revealing racked towers of expensive electronics. He slipped a disk into a player. "Banning's a loon, but I'm a platinum-plated swine. I got where I am all by myself, with no help from anybody. I locked myself up in this paranoid's castle, and ... lo and behold!" He made a biblical sweep with one hand, as if unveiling a new Golden Calf. "I'm just what the poor girl needs."

Banning marched across the front before taking his seat. He waved his arms like a professor giving a lecture. "In 1948," he said, "Stalin and Golokhov seemed to have had a massive falling-out. Stalin may have felt that Golokhov was trying to control everyone around him. Stalin gave orders to purge Golokhov and all the specialists involved in Silk. He instructed Beria to deport all"--his lips worked--"the Jewish medical researchers who might have been associated with Silk. The so called Doctors' Plot of 1952. Ultimately, millions of Jews were banished to Siberia. You must agree, there was a measure of poetic justice."

Marquez sat straight up in his seat. "You are a guest," he muttered. "But you will not provoke me."

Banning's eyes seemed to glaze. He sat.

"Rudy, we aren't concerned here with who was Jewish and who wasn't," Cousins said calmly.

"No, of course not," Banning said, and looked away.

"Golokhov escaped and went to New York," Cousins continued. "He, and what remained of Silk, kept a low profile. Beyond that, it's sketchy. We're going to New York to fit in the final pieces and look at the whole puzzle. Then ... we're off to Florida and Exuma Cays."

Marquez leaned forward. "That's where Tammy comes in."

"Tammy?" I asked. "She's part of this?"

"Tangentially," Cousins said, and looked to Marquez.

Marquez raised his hands. "What can I say? It's all amazing."

I was getting punchy with too much information and too many gaps. The silence lengthened.

"So?" I said.

"Tammy flew to LA from the Bahamas with her boyfriend," Marquez said. "They were at an awards ceremony for Themed Entertainment at the Beverly Wilshire. You know, Disneyland, Sea World, casino shows, that sort of thing. Have you ever heard of Cirque Fan tome!" Marquez punched a button and another curtain parted. The projector threw a gorgeous, sharp picture of an amphitheater onto the screen. People were filing down the rows to reach their seats. Long, filmy, white drapes obscured several layered stages at the center. Lights inside the drapes played like butterflies.

"Yeah, I suppose," I said. "Some sort of Vegas show, isn't it?"

"Mostly European," Marquez said. "Best circus in the world, really. Incredible acts, staging, unbelievable stunts." Marquez gazed at Tammy with little-boy worship, marked by a small eyebrow twitch of concern.

"It is my story, I will tell it," she said, drawing her shoulders up. "Fantome is more than a circus. They send recruiters into the city, the slums. When they found me, I was orphaned, a slum girl in Rio. What did I know? I was fourteen. If I did not leave, I would end up selling my body, taking drugs, and soon I would die. Tending bar or working dates was the best I could hope for. My guardian--he would have been my pimp, maybe--signed me over and the recruiters got me a visa, a work permit. They took me to Lee Stocking Island."

"Exuma Cays," Marquez said. "In the Bahamas."

Titles played over the screen: "Cirque Fantome, Fin de Siecle, L'Ombre et la Lumiere." The translucent drapes drew back to show three empty platforms. Steel columns rose on all sides, six in all, supporting lights and ropes, platforms and wires.

"Fantome taught me English and Russian and French and high wire, juggling, and dance. I try with the boleadoras. You become part of a family. Everybody contributes, everybody works together. They train you day in, day out. The food is wonderful. You eat all you want but you don't get-heavy. You work it off. I had never known fresh sheets, soft bed, people caring. It was heaven."

A male clown at least twelve feet high from toe to crown, with very long legs, walked onto the largest platform. Though he must have been wearing stilts, they were like nothing I had seen before. One half of his face was painted white, the other black, and he wore a formal suit of charcoal gray. He bowed at the waist, then got down on his knees, if they were knees. Eerie music rose in the background, and above the platforms, another drape lifted to reveal a rock band of men and women wearing what looked like concentration-camp uniforms.

"I was sixteen, youngest in our group, the child," Tammy continued, her eyes fixed on the screen. "I was a pretty good juggler, but not good on the wire. I lacked concentration. So my family took me to visit Dr. Goncourt at his house on the beach. There, I met Philippe Cabal. Philippe is top performer, close to Dr. Goncourt. He liked me."

The tall clown spread wide his arms and spun about. Old fashioned bicyclists in turn-of-the-century clothes wheeled around all the stages, juggling armloads of small antiques--clocks, jewelry, lamps. On the next turn, they were tossing pistols and rifles. How they switched, I could not tell. The music became cockeyed martial.

Tammy turned her golden brown eyes on me. "At sixteen, I became Philippe's mistress. He was both lover and father. My master."

Marquez held his hands behind his head and stared up at the screen. "You're leaving out the ship," he gently reminded her. He

touched a button on a large remote control. The picture sped up, clowns and bicyclists racing, music rushing past at a cheerful jog.

"Oh, yes. They have built it for five years now. They call it Lemuna. Big."

"The floating skyscraper--condominiums?" I asked. "I read about it in the papers."

"Two thousand feet long," Marquez said. "Tax haven for rich bastards like me." He froze the picture just as the tall clown was leaving the main stage.

"That is Philippe," Tammy said softly.

"Fucker," Marquez said. He fast-forwarded until the clown was off the stage, then froze the picture again.

Tammy's eyes were astonishing, irises like gold-flecked chestnuts. "On the ship, they did not sell all the units. They have money problems. Goncourt, director of Fantome, our doctor, our father, suggested the circus rent space on Lemuria. We would provide entertainment and publicity. The Lemuria stockholders agreed, so that is where Dr. Goncourt moved his training and medical center, from Lee Stocking Island to Lemuria. I go aboard Lemuria last year to live with Philippe and take Dr. Goncourt's treatments. He wants to make us the finest athletes, the most disciplined performers the world has ever known. We never get sick, we are always strong, always of the right temper. We are the best."

Marquez started the video again. Five golden women climbed the steel columns to their ropes and began a high-wire act.

Tammy's eyes took on a dreaming quality, remembering marvelous days, commitment and faith. "Philippe said Dr. Goncourt was a genius. To me, he was God. He chose our foods, supervised our training. He gave us special baths, smell very bad, like sulfur. Swabbed our skins. But he never gave us drugs. I never felt so good. I learn the boleadoras. I am top-notch, excellent even on the high wire. Philippe was proud. They told me I can travel now."

The high-wire act was amazing. Strength and agility I had never seen before, and grace as well as ingenuity. The young women seemed to dance in the air, or sometimes just to fly.

"I learned from Philippe that a few of the family did more than just circus. They went places and did favors for Dr. Goncourt. He asked me if I wanted this. Everything was grand, exciting, I loved Philippe so, I would do anything. I agreed. He nominated me--took me before the Committee, older people who had been with Dr. Goncourt since long before Fantome. Olympic athletes, performers from Russia."

"Fucking Communists," Marquez muttered. He hid his eyes behind his hands, then leaned his head back again to stare at the ceiling.

"Damn the Jews," Banning shot back, as if in spasm.

Tammy held her hand to her mouth and bit a knuckle, blinking. "The Committee adopted me, with Philippe--"

Marquez boiled over. He stood and pointed his finger at Banning. "I'll tell you about Jews," he shouted. "I'll fucking tell you about victims and crimes!"

Banning's eyes went wide and his brows pushed up his forehead in furrows. "Marx, Trotsky, Sinoviev, Kamenev ... The Communists were empowered by world Jewry, by Jews who hated themselves and their race!"

Marquez almost leaped over the chairs to get at Banning. Tammy held him back.

Banning was into it completely. He couldn't stop. "The Jews orchestrated their own demise, bit by bit--and blamed it on Hitler, but it was also Stalin who killed so many, who killed allbutoneofthe Jews around him, sent them to Siberia, and who put him in power? Jews. Who spied for him? Communist Jews. The Rosenbergs, Ted Hall ... Jews! Damn the Jews!"

Marquez let out an anguished war cry. "I'll kill you!" He pushed Tammy aside. Banning leaned back over a row of seats and braced to receive Marquez's assault. Marquez wrapped his hands around Banning's neck, shaking him like a chicken.

2 I 0

Cousins nodded to me as if we had always been beat partners, cops on patrol. While Tammy shouted, "Stop it! Stop it!" we grabbed the two men and pulled them apart. Banning slipped through my arms, tripped in the aisle, and fell with a loud thump.

Tammy whispered in her lover's ear. Marquez screamed his curses but stopped trying to break free. "Goddamn that bastard, I don't care what he knows--"

"He's sick, shhh, he is a sick man," Tammy soothed.

Banning stood, brushed his jacket and pants with as much dignity as he could muster. He inclined his head and extended his gloved hand as if politely requesting permission to leave, and minced out of the theater.

"I don't care if his brain has got filthy Nazi syphilitic worms all through it, that's enough, that's more than I can stand!" Tears streamed down Marquez's face.

Tammy started to sob. "I can't bring a child into this!"

Marquez's anger blew out like a candle in an open window. "Oh, shit," he said.

Tammy fell back in her seat. "I can't leave the house, I have to act brave, my head is like a hurricane. I have to keep it all inside, all day long! I don't know who or what I am, or where I belong, I don't know anything!"

"We're sorry, honey," Marquez said. "We are all so sorry." He looked sick with remorse. Tammy tried to push him away, but he clutched her tightly and stroked her hair. It was a sad and scary moment and I didn't know what to do. I wanted to slink off down the road.

We stood in silence while Marquez tried to placate the mother of his coming child. "I wish we could take it all back," he murmured to her. "I surely do."

Cousins had an odd look. Analytical, like watching fish in a bowl. It seemed out of character, and maybe I was just seeing his way of coping with emotional scenes.

From the entry, I heard the sound of a big piece of glass breaking. Cousins and I ran into the hall. Banning stood before a tall decorative arrangement of silk flowers rising from a marble table. He had shattered the gold-framed mirror behind the flowers, picked out a piece of glass as long as a dagger, and was shoving it by inches through his left palm. Blood fell in a thin red ribbon on the tiles, his shoes, his pant legs.

"I am such a wreck," he said, then his eyes rolled up and he toppled like a sack of rice.

Together, we hauled him into the bathroom. Tammy told us we would find a first-aid kit under the bathroom counter. Marquez shook his head and clenched his fists and marched back and forth outside the door as we pulled out the shard, stanched the bleeding, and bound the wound.

"We have to get him to a doctor," Cousins said. "He could have nerve damage. He'll certainly need stitches."

"I have my own doctor," Marquez said through the bathroom door.

I opened the door. Banning was just coming to. Marquez backed off. Two of his bodyguards, brutes in black T-shirts and silk suits, heads shaven down to fuzz, flanked him, frowning mightily.

"Tammy," Marquez said, "call Dr. Franks." He rubbed his palms on his pajama bottoms.

Tammy made the phone call. Cousins and I carried Banning, groggy and disoriented, past the bodyguards, through the back door, and across the side yard to the guesthouse next door. Tammy unlocked the French doors and we laid him out on a bed.

"My apologies," Banning said, his speech slurred. Then he rolled over and passed out again.

Cousins wiped his hands on a towel from the guesthouse bathroom. His face was pale and the underarms of his shirt dark. "What a day!" he said.

The doctor arrived just after ten. The guards drove him up from the front gate. He examined Banning's hand in the guesthouse and said he would much prefer to take the man to the hospital. The wound was serious enough, but he was more concerned about Banning's state of mind.

Marquez stood out in the yard doing stretches. The dogs in the kennels were going crazy, barking and leaping in their chain-link runs.

Banning glanced up at me, groggy, as they helped him walk to the waiting ambulance. I gave him a little wave. He shook his head. He didn't need to say it again: / am such a wreck.

The ambulance drove off into the darkness.

Cousins had dragged me into a world of nightmare and no sense. I had had my house turned upside down and spent three nights in jail. I had been drugged--I think--twice, and did not know whether I would ever again be the master of my own soul.