When the women and the pies had been loaded in the backseat, O’Connor got behind the wheel, and Maddison sat shotgun.
“Follow them just short of visual,” Benny said. “We want to be able to move in quick if there’s an opportunity at the other end.”
The unmarked police car pulled away from the curb, and when it turned out of sight at the corner, Cindi followed in the Mountaineer.
Instead of conveying the black women to a police lockup, the detectives drove them only two blocks, to another house in Bywater.
Once again parking half a block away and across the street, in the shadows between two streetlamps, Cindi said, “This is no good. At half these houses, people are sitting on the front porch. Too many witnesses.”
“Yeah,” Benny agreed. “We might snatch O’Connor and Maddison, but we’ll end up in a police chase.”
They needed to be discreet. If the authorities identified them as professional killers, they would so longer be able to do their jobs. They would not be authorized to kill any more people, and indeed their maker would terminate them.
“Look at all these morons. What’re they doing setting on a porch in a rocking chair?” Cindi wondered.
“They sit and drink beer or lemonade, or something, and some of them smoke, and they talk to one another.”
“What do they talk about?”
“I don’t know.”
“They’re so…
“I heard one of them say the purpose of life is living.”
“They just sit there. They aren’t trying to take over the world and gain total command of nature, or anything.”
“They already own the world,” Benny reminded her.
“Not for long.”
Chapter 54
Sitting at the table in the kitchen of the parson age with the replicant of Pastor Laffite, Deucalion said, “How many of your kind have been infiltrated into the city?”
“I only know my number,” Laffite replied in a slowly thickening voice. He sat staring at his hands, which were palm-up on the table, as if he were reading two versions of his future. “Nineteen hundred and eighty-seven. There must be many more since me.”
“How fast can he produce his people?”
“From gestation to maturity, he’s got it down to four months in the tank.”
“How many tanks are in operation at the Hands of Mercy?”
“There used to be one hundred and ten.”
“Three crops a year,” Deucalion said, “times one hundred ten. He could turn out three hundred and thirty a year.”
“Not quite so many. Because now and then he makes… other things.”
“What other things?”
“I don’t know. Rumors. Things that aren’t… humanoid. New forms. Experiments. You know what I’d like?”
“Tell me,” Deucalion encouraged.
“One last piece of chocolate. I like chocolate very much.”
“Where do you keep it?”
“There’s a box in the fridge. I’d get it, but I’m beginning to have some difficulty with recognition of spatial relationships. I’m not sure I can walk properly. I’d have to crawl.”
“I’ll get it,” Deucalion said.
He fetched the chocolates from the refrigerator, took off the lid, and put the box on the table before Laffite.
As Deucalion settled into his chair again, Laffite reached for a piece of candy, but groped beyond and to the left of the box.
Gently, Deucalion guided Laffite’s right hand to the chocolates and then watched as the pastor felt piece after piece, almost like a blind man, before selecting one.
“They say he’s ready to start up a farm outside the city,” Laffite revealed. “Next week or the week after.”
“What farm?”
“A New Race farm, two thousand tanks all under one roof, disguised as a factory or greenhouses.”
When Laffite could not find his mouth with his hand, Deucalion guided the candy to his lips. “That’s a production capacity of six thousand.”
Closing his eyes once more, Pastor Laffite chewed the candy with pleasure. He tried to talk with the chocolate in his mouth but seemed no longer capable of speaking while he ate.
“Take your time,” Deucalion told him. “Enjoy it.”
After swallowing the chocolate and licking his lips, still with his eyes closed, Laffite said, “A second farm is under construction and will be ready by the first of the year, with an even greater number of tanks.”
“Do you know Victor’s schedule at the Hands of Mercy? When does he go there? When does he leave?”
“I don’t know. He’s there much of the time, more than anywhere else in his life.”
“How many of your kind work at Mercy?”
“Eighty or ninety I think. I don’t know for sure.”
“Security must be tight.”
“Everyone who works there is also a killing machine. I might like a second chocolate.”
Deucalion helped him find the box and then get the morsel to his mouth.
When Laffite was not eating chocolate, his eyes rolled and twitched beneath his lids. When he had candy in his mouth, his eyes were still.
After he finished the sweet, Laffite said, “Do you find the world more mysterious than it’s supposed to be?”
“Who says it isn’t supposed to be?”
“Our maker. But do you find yourself wondering about things?”
“About many things, yes,” Deucalion said.
“I wonder, too. I wonder. Do you think dogs have souls?”
Chapter 55
On the walkway at the foot of Lulana’s frontporch steps, with the sweet scent of jasmine on the early-night air, Carson said to the sisters, “It’s best if you don’t tell anyone a word about what happened at the parsonage.”
As though distrusting the steadiness of her hands, Lulana used both to hold the praline pie. “Who was the giant?”
“You wouldn’t believe me,” Carson said, “and if I told you, I wouldn’t be doing you a favor.”
Coddling the second pie, Evangeline said, “What was wrong with Pastor Kenny? What’s going to happen to him?”
Instead of answering her, Michael said, “For your peace of mind, you ought to know that your preacher long ago went to his final rest. The man you called Pastor Kenny there tonight… you have no reason to grieve for him.”
