The Traveler (11 page)

Holding the roses, Victory
From
Sin Fraser stood in the middle of the terminal. Like most of the members of her church, she had met Shepherd during his occasional trips to Los Angeles. The man seemed so conventional, with his genial smile and stylish clothes, that Vicki found it difficult to believe that he was a Harlequin. In her fantasy, the Harlequins were exotic warriors who could walk up walls and catch bullets in their teeth. Whenever she saw someone acting cruelly she wanted a Harlequin to smash through a window or jump down from a roof to deliver instant justice.

Vicki turned away from the booth and saw a woman approaching her. The woman carried a canvas travel bag, a black tube with a shoulder strap, a video camera, and a tripod. She wore dark sunglasses and had short brown hair. Although the woman's body was slender, her face was puffy and unattractive. As she got closer, Vicki realized that there was something fierce and dangerous about this person, a barely controlled intensity.

The woman stopped in front of Vicki and gave her an appraising look. "Are you looking for me?" She spoke with a slight British accent.

"I'm Vicki Fraser. I'm waiting here for someone who knows a friend of our church."

"That must be Mr. Shepherd."

Vicki nodded. "He told me to take care of you until he finds a safe meeting place. Right now, people are watching him."
"All right.
Let's get out of here."

They left the international terminal in a crowd and crossed a narrow road to a four-level parking structure. The woman refused to let Vicki carry her luggage. She kept glancing over her shoulder as if she expected to be followed. As they climbed the concrete stairs, she grabbed Vicki's arm and twisted her around.

"Where are we going?"

"I—I parked on the second floor."

"Go back downstairs with me."

They returned to the ground level. A Latino family chattering in Spanish pushed past them and went up the staircase. The Harlequin turned quickly, looking in every direction.
Nothing.

They went back upstairs and Vicki walked over to a Chevrolet sedan with a bumper sticker in the rear window: "Learn the Truth! Isaac T Jones Died for YOU!"

"Where's my shotgun?" the woman asked.

"What shotgun?"

"You were supposed to supply me with weapons, money, and American identification. That's standard procedure."

"I'm sorry Miss—Miss Harlequin. Shepherd didn't say anything about that. He just told me to carry a diamond shape and meet you at the terminal. My mother didn't want me to do this, but I came anyway."

"Open the boot—the trunk—whatever you call it."

Vicki fumbled with her keys and opened the trunk. It was filled with aluminum cans and plastic bottles that she was taking to a recycling station. She felt embarrassed that the Harlequin had seen them.

The young woman placed her camera case and tripod inside the trunk. She glanced around. No one was looking. Without a word of explanation, she snapped open the hiding places in the tripod and pulled out two knives and a sword. All of this was much too harsh. Vicki remembered the imaginary Harlequins in her dreams
who
carried golden swords and swung through the air on ropes. The weapon in front of her was a real sword that looked very sharp. Not knowing what to say, she remembered a passage of scripture from
The Collected Letters of Isaac T Jones.

"When the Final Messenger comes, the Evil One will fall into the Darkest Realm and swords will be transformed into Light."

"Sounds wonderful."
The Harlequin slipped her sword into a carrying tube. "But until that happens, I'm keeping my own blade sharp."

They got into the car and the Harlequin adjusted the right side mirror so that she could see if anyone was behind them. "Let's get out of here," she said. "We need to go someplace where there aren't any cameras.

They left the parking structure, followed the airport traffic circle, and turned onto

. It was November, but the air was warm and sunlight was reflected off every windshield and pane of glass. They were driving through a commercial district of two- and three-story structures, modern office buildings facing immigrant grocery stores, and fingernail salons. Only a few people were on the sidewalk: the poor, the elderly, and a crazy man with matted hair who looked like John the Baptist.

"There's a park a few miles from here," Vicki said. "It doesn't have surveillance cameras."

"Are your sure about that or just guessing?" The Harlequin kept looking at the side mirror.

"Guessing.
But it's a logical guess."

Her answer seemed to amuse the young woman.
"All right.
Let's see if logic works any better in America."

The park was a small strip of land with a few trees across the street from LoyolaUniversity. No one was in the parking lot and there didn't appear to be any surveillance cameras. The Harlequin examined the area carefully, and then removed her sunglasses, tinted contact lenses, and brown wig. The young woman's real hair was thick and black, and her eyes were very pale—with only a hint of blue color. Her puffy appearance came from some kind of drug. As it began to wear off, she looked much stronger and even more aggressive.

Vicki tried not to stare at the sword case. "Are you hungry, Miss Harlequin?"

The young woman stuffed the wig into her travel bag. Once again, she glanced at the side mirror. "My name is Maya."

"My church name is Victory
From
Sin Fraser. But I ask most people to just call me Vicki."

"That's a wise choice."

"Are you hungry, Maya?"

Instead of answering her, Maya reached into her shoulder purse and took out a small electronic device about the size of a matchbox. She pressed a button and numbers flashed on a narrow screen. Vicki didn't understand what the numbers meant, but the Harlequin used them to make a decision. "Okay. Let's have lunch," Maya said. "Take me to a place where we can buy food and eat in the car.
Park facing out, toward the street."

They ended up at a Mexican-food stand called Tito's Tacos. Vicki carried sodas and burritos back to the car. Maya remained silent and picked at the beef filling with a little plastic fork. Not knowing what else to do, Vicki watched the people come and go in the parking lot.
An old woman with the stocky physique and Indian features of a Guatemalan peasant.
A middle-aged Filipino husband and wife.
Two young Asian men—probably Korean—wearing the flashy clothes and gold jewelry of black rappers.

Vicki faced the Harlequin and tried to sound confident. "Can you tell me why you're in Los Angeles?"

"No."

"Is this about a Traveler? The pastor of my church says that the Travelers don't exist anymore. They've all been hunted down and killed."

Maya lowered her can of soda. "Why didn't your mother want you to meet me?"

"The Divine Church of Isaac T. Jones doesn't believe in violence. Everyone in the church knows that Harlequins . . ." Vicki stopped talking and looked embarrassed.

"Kill people?"

"I'm sure that the people you fight are wicked and cruel." Vicki dumped the rest of her food into a paper bag and looked straight at Maya. "Unlike my mother and her friends, I believe in the Debt Not Paid. We must never forget that the Lion of the Temple was the only person brave enough to defend the Prophet on the night of his martyrdom. He died with the Prophet and was burned in the same fire."

Maya rattled the ice in her cup. "So what do you do when you're not picking up strange people at airports?"

"I graduated from high school this summer and now Mother wants me to take the exam for the post office. Many of the Faithful here in Los Angeles are postal carriers. It's a good job with lots of benefits. At least, that's what they say."

"And what do you want to do?"

"It would be wonderful to travel around the world. There are so many places I've only seen in books or on television."

"So do it."

"I don't have money and plane tickets like you. I've never even been to a nice restaurant or a nightclub. Harlequins are the freest people in the world."

Maya shook her head. "You don't want to be a Harlequin. If I was free, I wouldn't be in this city."

The cell phone in Vicki's purse began playing the theme from Beethoven'
s
Ode to Joy.
Vicki hesitated, then answered the phone and heard Shepherd's cheerful voice.

"Did you get the package at the airport?"

"Yes, sir."

"Let me talk to her."

Vicki passed the phone over to Maya and listened to the Harlequin say "yes" three times. She switched off the phone and dropped it on the seat of the car.

"Shepherd has my weapons and identification. You're supposed to go to 489 Southwest—whatever that means."

"It's a code. He told me to be careful talking on the cell phone."

Vicki got a Los Angeles phone book from the backseat and turned to page 489. In the lower left corner—the southwest section of the page—she found an ad for a business called Resurrection Auto Parts. The address was in Marina
del
Rey, a few miles from the ocean. They left the parking lot and drove west on

. Maya stared out the window as if she were trying to find landmarks that she could remember.

"Where's the center of Los Angeles?"

"Downtown, I guess.
But not really.
There's no center here, just little communities."

The Harlequin reached beneath the sleeve of her sweater and adjusted one of her knives. "Sometimes my father would recite a poem by Yeats when we were walking around London." She hesitated, then spoke softly:
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart, the centre cannot hold ..."

They drove past shopping malls and gas stations and residential areas. Some of the neighborhoods were poor and shabby with little Spanish-style houses or ranch houses that had flat roofs covered with gravel. In front of each house was a strip of Bermuda grass and a tree or two, usually a palm or a Chinese elm.

Resurrection Auto Parts was on a narrow side street between a T-shirt factory and a tanning salon. On the front of the windowless building someone had painted a cartoon version of God's hand from the Sistine Chapel. Instead of giving life to Adam, the hand was hovering over a muffler.

Vicki parked across the street. "I can wait for you here. I don't mind."

"That's not necessary."

They got out of the car and unloaded the luggage. Vicki expected Maya to say "goodbye" or "thank you very much," but the Harlequin was already focused on this new environment. She glanced up and down the
street,
evaluating each driveway and parked car, then picked up her bag, camera, and tripod and began to walk away.

"Is that all?"

Maya stopped and glanced over her shoulder. "What do you mean?"

"We're not going to see each other again?"

"Of course not.
You've done your job, Vicki. It's best if you never mention this to anyone."

Carrying
all the
luggage with her left hand, Maya crossed the street to Resurrection Auto Parts. Vicki tried not to feel insulted, but angry thoughts pushed through her mind. When she was a little girl, she had heard stories about the Harlequins, about how they were brave defenders of the righteous. Now she had met two Harlequins: Shepherd was an ordinary person, and this young woman, Maya, was selfish and rude.

It was time to go home and prepare dinner for Mother. The DivineChurch had prayer service tonight at seven o'clock. Vicki got back in her car and returned to

. When she stopped at a red light, she thought about Maya walking across the street with the luggage in her left hand. That kept the right hand free. Yes, that was it. Free to draw the sword and kill someone.

Maya avoided the front door of Resurrection Auto Parts. She entered the parking lot and began to circle the building. There was an unmarked emergency door near the back with a diamond Harlequin mark scrawled on the rusty metal. She pulled the door open and entered the building. Smell of oil and cleaning solvent. Sound of distant voices. She was in a room filled with racks of used carburetors and exhaust pipes. Everything was stacked and sorted by make and model. Pulling her sword out a little farther, she moved toward the light. A door was open a few inches, and when she peered through the crack she saw Shepherd and two other men standing around a small table.

They looked surprised when Maya came through the door. Shepherd reached beneath his jacket for a gun, then recognized her and grinned. "There she is!
All grown up and very attractive.
This is the famous Maya I've been telling you about."

She had seen Shepherd six years ago, when he visited her father in London. The American had a plan to make millions of dollars from pirated Hollywood movies, but Thorn refused to finance the operation. Although Shepherd was in his late forties, he looked a good deal younger. His blond hair was cut in a spiky style and he wore a gray silk shirt and a tailored sports jacket. Like Maya, he carried his sword in a case slung over his shoulder.

The other two men looked like brothers. They were both in their twenties with bad teeth and bleached blond hair. The older one had smudged prison tattoos on his arms. Maya decided that they were taints—Harlequin slang for low-class mercenaries—and she decided to ignore them.

"What's going on?" she asked Shepherd. "Who's been following you?"

"That's a conversation for later," Shepherd said. "Right now I want you to meet Bobby Jay and Tate. I've got your money and identification. But Bobby Jay is providing the weapons."

Tate, the younger brother, was staring at her. He wore warm-up pants and an extra-large football jersey that probably concealed a handgun. "She's got a sword like yours," he said to Shepherd.

Shepherd smiled indulgently. "It's a useless thing to carry around, but it's kind of like being in a club."

"What's your sword worth?" Bobby Jay asked Maya. "You want to sell it?"

Annoyed, she turned to Shepherd. "Where did you find these taints?"

"Relax. Bobby Jay buys and sells weapons of all kinds. He's always looking for a deal. Pick out your gear. I'll pay for it and they'll go."

A steel suitcase was on the table. Shepherd opened it and displayed five handguns lying on a foam pad. As Maya stepped closer, she saw that one of the weapons was made of black plastic with a cartridge mounted at the top of the frame.

Shepherd picked up the plastic weapon. "Ever seen one of these? It's a Taser that delivers an electric shock. You'd carry a real gun, of course, but this would give you the choice of not killing the other person."

"Not interested," Maya said.

"I'm serious about this. Swear to god. I carry a Taser. If you shoot someone with a gun, the police are going to get involved. This gives you more options."

"The only option is to attack or not attack."

"All right.
Fine.
Have it your way . . ."

Shepherd grinned and pulled the trigger. Before she could react, two darts attached to wires flew out of the barrel and hit her in the chest. A massive electric jolt knocked her to the floor. As she struggled to stand up she was hit with another shock and then another that brought darkness.