“Who is it?” he called.
“Cliff.”
Cliff. Better than Borst. Kent let him in. “Sorry, I didn't know it was locked,” he lied.
“What are you doing in here, Kent?” The new recruit smiled. “Anything I should know about?” He nudged Kent as if they shared an understanding.
“Yeah, right.” Kent willed his heart to settle. He sat and crossed his legs. “So what can I do for you?”
“Nothing. Betty just told me you were back. I figured you needed a welcome.” The grin straightened. “I heard what happened. You know . . . to your son. I can hardly imagine. Are you okay?”
“Actually, I'm not sure what okay means anymore, but I'm ready to get back to work, if that's what you mean.”
“I'm sure it'll take some time. Maybe getting your mind on work is the best way to pass it. And speaking of work, I've dug pretty deep since you were last here.” He smiled again. “You'd be proud of me. I've found things I'm sure only you know about.”
A chill broke over Kent's crown at the words.
ROOSTER?
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Like links to the Chinese banking codes that are still inactive. Now, that's what I call foresight, man.”
“Well, it
is
a global system, Cliff. So what else have you dug up with that long snout of yours?”
“A few anecdotal notes buried in the codeâthings like that.
Borst has the brain of sausage.”
He grinned wide.
“Good night, you found
that?
That
was
buried. I should probably pull it out.”
“No, leave it in. He'll never find it.”
They nodded, smiling.
“Anything else?” Kent asked.
“That's it so far. Well, it's good to have you back.” Cliff stood and walked to the door. “After you get settled I have some code to run by you. You up for that?”
“Sure.”
The younger man slapped the wall and disappeared. Now, that was close. Or was it? Actually, the chances of Cliff or anybody finding ROOSTER would be akin to picking a particular grain of sand from a bucket full of the stuff. Either way, he'd have to keep an eye on the man.
Kent settled his nerves with a few long pulls of air and walked into Borst's office.
“Have a seat, Kent.”
Kent sat.
“We weren't sure we'd see you again.”
Yeah, I'll bet. You and your pal Bentley both.
“Well to be honest, I wasn't so sure myself. So, how were things in my absence?” he asked, thinking the question stupid but unable to think of a better way to begin this sucking-up thing to which he had now committed himself.
“Fine, Kent. Just fine. Boy, you've been through hell, huh?”
Kent nodded. “Life can deal some pretty nasty blows.” He suddenly despised being here. He should stand now and walk away from this foolishness.
“But I'm back. I need to work, Markus.”
That's right, get personal with him. Appeal to his need for friendship.
“I need it bad. All I really have left is my career. I miss work here. Can you understand that?” His voice came soft and sensitive.
“Yes. Makes sense.” The man had taken the bait. He paused and shifted his eyes. “Look, Kent. I'm sorry about the misunderstanding about AFPS. I just . . .”
“No. You don't need to say anything. These things happen. And I apologize for blowing up the way I did. It was totally uncalled-for.”
Gag. If you only knew, you slimeball.
Borst nodded, delighted behind that controlled smile, no doubt. “Well, we all got a bit off line, I think. Perhaps it's best we just put the incident behind us.”
Kent crossed his legs. The sweat was drying cold on his neck. “You're right. Water under the bridge. So how is AFPS these days?”
Markus brightened. “In a word? Incredible. We put together a doozie, Kent. They're already saying that it will save a third of the manpower the old system used. Price has estimated the overall savings to the bank at over twenty million annually.”
Price? First-name basis now. Partners in crime. Probably had dinner together every night. “Great. That's great. No bugs?”
“Sure. Plenty. But they're minor. Actually, you'd probably be best suited to start working on them.” The Information Systems supervisor had honestly fooled himself into full ownership of the system, Kent thought.
The man shifted the conversation back to what was apparently his favorite topic these days: money. “Hey, I still haven't allocated that twenty-five-thousand-dollar bonus,” he said with a glint in his eyes. “At least not all of it. I'm giving Betty, Todd, and Mary five thousand each. But that leaves ten thousand. You need any spare change these days, Kent?” He jerked his brows high a few times. “Hmm?”
Kent nearly lost the charade then. Came within a gnat's whisker of leaping over the cherrywood desk and strangling his boss. For a few seconds he could not respond. The other
three?
Betty was getting a five-thousand-dollar spiff too? But that was just fine, of course, because he, Kent Anthony, the creator of said program, was to get double that. Yes sir! A whopping ten grand. And Borst? What would bug-eyed Borst's cut be? Oh, well, Borst was the main man. He would get 10 percent of the savings for ten years. A mere fifteen, twenty million. Chump change.
Sounded like a good, round number. Twenty million.
“Sure,” Kent said. “Who couldn't use ten thousand dollars? I could cut my Lexus payment in half.” That last comment slipped out before he could reign it back. He hoped Borst did not catch his cynicism.
“Good. It's yours. I'll talk to Price this afternoon.”
“I thought you were going to Phoenix today.”
“Yes. We are. I'll talk to Price on the plane.”
It was an unstoppable freight train with those two. Kent swallowed his anger. “Thank you.” He stood. “Well, I guess I should get started. I want to talk to the othersâyou know, make sure there are no misunderstandings.”
“Good. Splendid idea. It's good to have you back.”
Kent turned at the door. “One more thing, Markus. I kind of blew it with Bentley the other day. You wouldn't mind putting in a word for me, would you? It was just a bad week.” He swallowed deliberately and was surprised at the sudden emotion that accompanied it. They said the grief would last a year, gradually easing. Evidently he was still in the stage where it could be set off with a mere swallow.
“Sure, Kent. Consider it done. And don't worry. He and I are rather tight these days.”
Yes, I'll bet you are,
Kent thought. He left before the revulsion had him doing something silly, like throwing up on the man's carpet.
PASTOR BILL Madison parked his gray Chevy on the street and strode up to Helen's door. She had sounded different on the phone. Almost excited. At least peachy. Like someone who had just been handed some very good news. Or like someone who had flipped their lid.
Given the last few weeks' events, he feared the latter. But then this was Helen, here. With Helen you could never know. The New Testament characterized followers of Christ as peculiar. Well, Helen was just that. One of very few he would consider peculiar in their faith. Which was in itself strange when he got right down and thought about it. Perhaps they should all be rather unusual; Christ certainly was.
She had asked him to pray, and he had indeed prayed. But not simply because of her request. Something was happening here. He might not have the spiritual eyes that Helen claimed to possess, but he could sense things. Discernment, some called it. A spiritual gift. The ability to look at a situation and sense its spiritual origins. Like,
This face sends chills up my spine; it must be evil.
Not that he always operated in the most accurate mode of discernment. He had once felt chills peck at his heart, looking at a strange, alien-looking face on the television screen. To him it looked downright demonic. Then his son had informed him that it was a closeup of a friendly little creature found in the Amazon. One of God's creatures.
That had confused him a little. But this thing with Helenâit was more than just a weird face on the boob tube. It was an aura that followed her around in much the same way he imagined an aura might have followed Elisha or Elijah around.
He rang the doorbell. The door swung in immediately, as if Helen had awaited his arrival with her hand on the knob.
“Come in, Pastor.” She wore a yellow dress, tube socks, and running shoes, a ridiculous sight for one who had trouble walking even around the house.
“Thank you, Helen.” Bill stepped in and closed the door, glancing at her legs. The musty scent of roses hung in the air. The old lady's perfume was everywhere. She left him for the living room, smiling.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, following.
She did not respond directly but walked across the carpet humming her anthem, “The Martyr's Song.” She had told him once that the song summed it all up. It made death worthwhile. Bill stopped behind her large, green easy chair, fixated on the sight of Helen walking. She was seemingly oblivious to him.
“Are you okay?”
“Shhhh.” She hushed him and lifted both hands, still pacing back and forth. Her eyes rested closed. “You hear that, Bill?”
Bill cocked his head and listened, but he heard nothing. Except her faint humming. “Hear what?”
“The laughter. Do you hear that laughter?”
He tried to hear laughter, but he heard only her soprano hum.
Let me to Thy bosom fly . . .
And he smelled roses.
“You might have to open your heart a little, but it's there, Pastorâvery faint, like the breeze blowing through trees.”
He tried again, closing his eyes this time, feeling a little foolish. If one of the deacons knew he was over at Helen Jovic's house listening for laughter with her, they might very well begin the search for a new shepherd. After hearing nothing but Helen for a few moments, he gave up and looked at her.
Helen suddenly stopped her pacing and opened her eyes. She giggled and lowered her hands. “It's okay, Pastor. I didn't really expect you to hear anything. It's like that around here. Some days it's silent. And then some days he opens up my ears to the laughter and I want to walk around the house kissing things. Just kissing everything. Like today. Would you like some tea?”
“Yes, that would be nice.”
She shuffled toward the kitchen. She had her socks pulled up to midcalf. A red Reebok logo splashed across the heel of her shoes. Bill swallowed and eased around the chair. She might very well have lost it, he thought. He sat on the green chair.
Helen emerged from the kitchen holding two glasses of tea. “So, you're thinking that my elevator is no longer climbing to the top floor, am I right?” She smiled.
“Actually, I had given it some thought.” He grinned and chuckled once. “But these days, it's hard to differentiate between strangeness and craziness.” He lost the grin. “They thought Jesus was crazy.”
“Yes, I know.” She handed him the drink and sat. “And we would think the same today.”
“Tell me,” Bill said, “did you see Spencer's death in all of this?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The night after we last talked, a week or so ago. When we talked, I knew there would be more skulls in the dungeon. I could feel it in my spine. But I never really expected it to be Spencer's skull lying there on the ground. It nearly killed me, you know.”
“So this is really happening, then.” He said it calmly, but he found himself trembling with the thought. “This whole thing is really happening. I mean . . . orchestrated.”
“You have put two people in the dirt. You should know. Looked real enough to me.”
“Fine, I'll grant you that. It's just hard to swallow this business about you knowing about their deaths beforehand. Maybe if I could see into the heavens like you can, it would be easier.”
“It's not everybody's place to see things so clearly, Pastor. We all have our place. If the whole world saw things clearly our churches would be flooded. The nation would flock to the cross en masse. What faith would that require? We might as well be puppets.”
“Yes, well, I'm not so sure having full churches would be so bad.”
“And I'm not so sure the deaths of my daughter and grandson were so necessary. But when I hear their laughter, when I'm allowed to peek to the other side, it all makes sense. That's when I want to walk around and start kissing things.”
He smiled at her expression. In many ways they were very similar, he and Helen. “So then . . .” He paused, collecting his thoughts.
“Yes?”
“In my office last week you told me you'd had a vision in which you heard the sound of running feet in a dungeon. To whom do the running feet in your dungeon belong?” He glanced at her feet, clad in those white Reeboks. “You?”
She laughed. “No.” She suddenly tilted her head, thinking. “At least I had not considered it. But no, I don't think so. I think the running feet belong to Kent.”
“Kent?”
“He's the player in this game. I mean, we're all players, but he is the runner.”
“Kent's the runner. And where is Kent running?”
“Kent is running from God.”
“This is all about Kent?”
She nodded. “And about you and me and Gloria and Spencer. Who knows? This might very well be about the whole world. I don't know everything. Sometimes I know nothing. That's why I called you over today. Today I know some things.”
“I see.” He looked at her feet absently. “And why are you wearing running shoes, Helen? You walking more these days?”
“With my knees?” She wiggled her feet on the carpet. “No, they just feel good. I've got this itching to be young again, I guess.” She stared out the window behind Bill. “It seems to ease the pain in my heart, you know.”
Helen sipped quietly at the glass, and then set it down. “I've been called to intercede for Kent, Pastor.”