The Angel of Eden (13 page)

“Leave this whole thing behind you, Madison, or I will make sure you don't get another chance to smear me.”

I waved him off and carried on. After a minute I checked to make sure he wasn't still following. Then I whipped out my phone and called Bennet, warning her to slide the inside bolt on the apartment door. Yersan's threats made him only more suspicious. And it was clear I'd made an enemy, probably a lethal one.

I tried to put the confrontation with Yersan out of my mind as I sat on the 1 train up Broadway. I'd been seeing the same doctor since my days at Columbia; his office was on West 112th, not far from the enormous Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The route traversed an old Indian pathway once called the Hollow Trail. As the train clattered its way north, I thought about the cathedral's life-sized statue of St. Michael, the winged archangel I'd always regarded as a profoundly pagan work, surrounded as it was by sculptures of wild, mystical beings and symbols. Fascinating and quite at odds with traditional Christianity.

“Well, John, haven't seen you for ages,” my doctor said when he ushered me into his office. “I've received the reports from your specialists, though—glad to see you're still breathing.” He punctuated this with a barking laugh. He always found a way to lighten the mood. A pint-sized man in his fifties, Dr. Cass had a booming voice quite at odds with his height. He looked at me over his glasses. “What can I do for you today?”

“The injuries have all healed, the blood disorder seems unsolvable, but the sleep paralysis is getting really bad. Last night was the worst I've ever experienced.” I indicated the fat file on his desk. “I even went to a sleep disorders clinic. Nothing's worked and it's
driving me crazy. I'm hoping you can think of something.” Cass had always seemed practical and possessed of good common sense. I shouldn't have bothered with specialists and come to see him sooner.

He pursed his lips. “Atonia. It's common enough, you know. I've had it myself on night shifts at the hospital when I'm dead tired. You experience that momentary terror—it seems as if you're paralyzed—but after all, that's what sleep is. The body is immobile while we sleep. With the atonia syndrome, your brain just wakes up before your body does.”

“Why does that happen?”

“Well, for one, it's much healthier to be immobilized during REM sleep so you won't act out your dreams. Otherwise homicide would definitely be on the rise.” His laugh boomed again in the small office. “How often do you have these episodes?”

“More and more. Lately, at least on a weekly basis. And last night it was almost as if I was hallucinating along with it too.”

Cass frowned. “How so?”

“It felt like my hands and feet were tied up. That I was bound.”

“You were having a nightmare. And transiting out of it. That's not a classical hallucination.”

He flipped through my file until he found a sheet of notes. “You've had one hell of a time, John, starting with your car accident and Samuel's death. Your body took a lot of punishment in the Middle East because you got yourself into situations you weren't trained for. Or, I suspect, able to deal with psychologically. Emotional stress can be deadly if it's prolonged and severe enough.” He sat down behind his desk and steepled his fingers. “I think you're suffering from PTSD. No doubt you've heard of it. There's no record in your file that you've seen a counselor, so I assume you haven't?”

“No.”

“Well, let's check your vital signs and then we'll see about that.”

After going through the usual procedures, he put the blood pressure monitor back and gestured for me to sit in the chair again. He sat at his desk and scribbled something out on a prescription pad, tore off the leaf, and handed it to me. “You're not taking any drugs right now?”

I hesitated.

He smiled. “I mean of the prescription variety.”

I shook my head.

“I'm recommending you take prazosin. In layman's terms it's called Minipress. You may notice some dizziness and tiredness at first. Let me know if that happens.” His voice lowered, taking on a stern, doctorly tone. “And you need to talk to someone, John. See a counselor. I can recommend a good one who's helped a lot of soldiers. After what you've experienced she'll have a cornucopia of bad memories to sift through.”

“I'll think about it, thanks.” I left his office with the prescription clutched in my hand. I wished I'd told him everything. I'd tried to convince myself that the sensation of being bound could be my body's way of interpreting my inability to move, the same way dreams can be simply a reflection of emotions. What I didn't tell Cass was that along with the terrifying immobility had come an unbidden image of conical houses fashioned from red rock.

A sight I'd only ever seen before in a photograph.

Nineteen

I
called Bennet once I was out on the street. “Just checking on how my girls are doing.”

She chuckled at that. “Took Loki to the dog park. She fell in love with a Boston terrier.”

“She played with him? With her cast and all?”

“He was very considerate and didn't roughhouse.” She paused.

“I've finished reading your notes, and I've decided to write your biography—a simple article would never do you justice. How you came out of that in one piece I'll never know. You had to be stretching the truth in places—no?”

“Nope. All in a day's work.”

“Sure. Is there an accounting of your first time in Iraq?”

“Afraid not. But if you promise to wear the same outfit to bed that you did last night, I'll whisper it all in your ear.”

“Wouldn't you be too … distracted to pay attention? How about over dinner?”

“Deal.”

Helmstetter's former lover, Veronica Sills, lived on the edge of Central Harlem, just east of Morningside Heights. I'd made a note of the address the Conjuring Arts Center gave me. It was close to four-thirty. I decided to stop by on the chance she'd be home.

Her place was an old five-story, red-brick walk-up. The buzzers had no names or numbers, but luckily a kid wearing a backpack who looked as if he was coming home from school held the door open for me. The small square of space serving as a lobby was clean but shabby. Marble steps leading to the upper floors dipped in the center, worn from decades of tenant footsteps, and the ornate iron railings had pieces missing. In the building's glory days, though, it must have been a splendid entry.

Although the original plates were missing, the number twelve was still faintly outlined in a lighter shade on the stout oak door. My knock echoed down the third-floor corridor. After a minute I heard the slow shuffle of feet. The footsteps stopped, then came the labored rattle of chains being undone and locks freed. The door opened a crack.

“Veronica Sills? My name's John Madison. I believe Julia Morrow at the Conjuring Arts Center let you know I wanted to talk with you. Might I come in? It's about George Helmstetter.”

She let out her breath in a cross between a sigh and an exclamation. “Has he been found at last?”

“Not exactly. But I can add something to the information about his last known destination.”

She opened the door. She was dressed smartly in a white silk shirt that revealed a curvaceous figure, tailored navy slacks, a jade and gold bangle. She looked me up and down and then stood aside to let me enter. “You may as well come in. George's name hasn't
crossed my lips for a very long time, but his memory hasn't faded any.” She carried herself well; Veronica Sills was hardly the feeble, elderly lady I'd imagined.

We entered a small living room with a wide, bright window facing the street. A sturdy table pushed up against the window that served as a desk for her computer held stacks of files and binders. White bookcases so full there didn't seem room to add another volume stood against the west wall. Framed prints hung on the other walls; I recognized a Calder and an Albers. Stems of dried white roses, their petals like faded tissue paper, sat in an exquisitely tiled fireplace. Such elegance stood in odd contrast to the high piles of files, newspapers, and cardboard boxes crowding the room. She was a pack rat, but a neat one.

“Can I offer you a glass of wine? It's almost cocktail hour.”

“That would be great, thanks.”

While she went into the kitchen, I beat a path through the narrow canyon between newspaper piles and took a seat on her honey-colored leather couch, obviously old but of such good quality that the leather had worn beautifully with age.

I jumped when a voice croaked, “Sorry for the mess you're late.”

It seemed to come from a large palm beside the desk, the only plant in the room. Above it, the plush white plumage of a cockatoo with a yellow crest peeked out. The bird appeared to be perched on a stand hidden by the palm leaves. It tipped its head to one side and said, “Go home now.”

Veronica came back into the room carrying two glasses of white wine. “Shush, Bandit,” she said as she handed me one. “You have bad manners. Say something nice.”

“You're pretty.”

Veronica smiled rather awkwardly. I sensed she was of a serious turn and smiles didn't come easily to her. “Bandit's a sulphur-
crested cockatoo, almost thirty-six years old. A gift from George.”

“Helmstetter?”

“Yes. One of the few gifts he ever gave me.” She sat beside me on the couch and leaned forward, holding her glass in both hands. “So what is it you have to say?”

“You'll remember Lucas Strauss? George's mentor? He's hired me to find Helmstetter and a stolen book by a Renaissance abbot named Trithemius.”

If my words surprised her, she didn't let on. “
The Steganographia
. Are you some kind of private detective?”

“I'm an antiquities dealer, and sometimes I source rare books.” I handed her my card.

“George vanished thirty-five years ago. Why is Lucas reviving all that old pain now?”

“Some items have come into his possession. After Helmstetter left America he sent them from Kandovan, a remote Iranian village, to his wife. She died recently and passed them along to Strauss.”

Veronica's face blanched at the mention of Helmstetter's wife. That old wound ran deep.

I took a sip. The wine was crisp and cool. “Other than the fact that he may have been in the village and had a strange association with Faust, I know little about Helmstetter. Can you shed any light on him?”

She glanced at her desk. “You know I was an entertainment reporter? I still freelance. I've met loads of celebrities in my long career and have a good eye for hubris and outright shams. Actors, publicists, agents, writers, performers of all kinds. The entertainment world attracts those who are skilled at pulling the wool over people's eyes. But Lucas Strauss and George Helmstetter were the real deal. Both frightening and powerful individuals. I wish I'd never met either of them.”

“Why do you call them frightening? And you don't seem surprised that Strauss thinks Helmstetter is still alive.”