“Thanks, yes.” Decision made, Jessica hung up, still wondering when and how she would tell Richard of her new case and its connection with James Parry.
The Poet Lord liked the apartment dimly lit, and so the thickly embroidered, burgundy-and-gray tapestry that covered the larger windows pleased his eye on waking. Music of another period poured from the CD set on continual play. The poet had slept to the music of an Italian opera. Incense filled the room with a delicate sandalwood scent, and the tapered candles had burned down to stubs, creating tentacled stalagmites of the cooling wax over the arms of the candelabra at his bedside.
The poet clawed toward wakefulness, somehow touching foot to floor and staggering through the apartment, clicking on the coffeepot and showering for the day.
The apartment walls stared back at the poet. All the eyes watched from all the paintings, prints he'd gathered as cheaply as possible, framed and placed at increasingly smaller intervals around the rooms. In fact, the wall could hardly be made out for the prints. Max field Parrish, Edward Burne-Jones, Waterhouse and his disciples, Hieronymus Bosch's visions of heaven, an assortment of enchanted visions of paradise, some depicting it as another realm entirely, others depicting it-or its closest approximation-as a place here on earth. All the poet's paintings spoke of lost times and lost souls. Each of his victims had seen this shrine, and all had shared his taste in art, music, and literature. None of them had the least interest in Beanie Babies, makeup kits, inflation, or current events. None had watched a TV sitcom in years, and none of the one's he'd helped to pass over even knew firsthand what a skin blemish was. Prerequisite to having the poet sponsor someone as a living poem.
With coffee in hand, The Lord Poet Messenger of Misspent Time did what every Philadelphian did on a Monday morning: he struggled to consciousness. He staggered about his small castle like place with its black-sky ceiling overhead, its earth tones all around, and its stone-tiled floor selected specifically for its old-world appearance.
The staggering was a dance performed each morning, but it was particularly acute after pulling an all-nighter with someone special, someone not of this world, someone chosen to be sent over.
After a pot of coffee and a roll, he located the remote and scanned the news channels for any mention of the body's having been discovered. Nothing, nada, zip, not a word. He imagined that the body would be found before long. The poet would keep an eye out and an ear open. While it mattered little to him what authorities thought of his work, he wished to stay informed and to remain above suspicion so that he might carry on with the necessary labor. After all, he had a universe to save. A crusade had been taken up, and this crusade to stomp out ignorance, eradicate fear, and end the poverty of impoverished souls-this had become the true calling of the poet.
But for now, it was off to work, a taxing, energy-draining job, the nine-to-whenever grind.
Still, the poet paused to think of each of his lovers, the ones he had chosen for the ultimate journey. He pictured his first victim, Micellina Petryna. She had been so beautiful in her purity and naivet6. There was an angelic quality even in her self-deprecation. The most worthy never know their worth, he thought now. She had attracted the poet the moment she stepped into view, and when she received the first love sonnet the poet had written to her, she had not been frightened off, but rather touched.
They met for coffee on several occasions, talking mostly-of poetry and literature, the classics and the modern classics. Each flattered the other on their choices of the best lines ever penned by man-or womankind. She was hungry for the attention he lavished on her, and easily led as a result, and the very qualities that made her angelic also made her vulnerable to the lies, lies necessary to carry out the mission.
He recalled how, on that last night they'd spent together, he'd told her how much he both admired her and helplessly loved her in that special spiritual way reserved only for the most intimate of souls, those souls who miraculously did what most could not. “And what is that?” she'd asked, staring into the poet's flaming eyes.
'To both locate and then hold on to the gift of a soul mate.”
They had closed down the little coffeehouse where they'd met. She'd so opened up, revealing every detail of herself and the horrors of her everyday existence. She'd been molested as a child by a stepmother, and she had sought therapy for the emotional scars. Now she promised,
“I'm working on relating to other women more and more, but I gotta tell you, it's not easy. You… you're so understanding, so gentle and caring. I've never met anyone quite like you. There's a fire in your eyes when you're listening to me talk, and that's so cool, so attractive.”
She was right about the poet; he was the most gentle being she would ever encounter in this world. His eyes blazed with the light of attentiveness whenever someone bared his or her soul, as Micellina, Caterina, and Anton had all done before leaving this world.
True enough, a fire burned behind the poet's eyes, the fire of a crusader, a person on a quest for the holiest of spirits on this plane. The Holy Grail was not a thing, not a chalice, not an object, but a soul, a rare soul indeed. It mattered not a whit that some sordid and polluted moment existed in their pasts on this plane, or even if they were presently sleeping with someone, for they remained innocent of their own true natures, innocent of the power they wielded, the power of their souls when taken by the angels. And while none of the chosen had been old enough to have committed any great sins against God or man-none had been cheats, liars, whores, none had practiced prostitution or promiscuity of either the worldly kind or the ethereal kind that characterized so many so-called experts on art and creativity. Certainly, no one in this life remained pure. People didn't long endure on this plane without smut attracting to them. Only the children of the angels, chosen by the poet to go over, remained pure of heart and being.
This had certainly been the case with Caterina Mercedes, the poet thought, groggily getting up and searching for something to wear to work this morning. While Micellina had been easy to lead, Caterina had been a holdout. It had taken a great deal more persuasion to convince her that it was in her best interest to have a private moment with the poet. When she finally acquiesced, it proved almost as hard to get her to meet with him a second time. She had serious reservations about seeing him privately, and she had serious doubts as to his intentions, almost up to the end. But the poet's dexterity with words, both spoken and written, finally won her over. In the end, Caterina, like Micellina, felt a joyous and heartfelt obligation to carry out the poet's plan-to write her into eternity. They had both, in the end, willingly gone over, first believing they would achieve a kind of immortality among their peers for displaying the poems on their backs, but in the end knowing that he had a greater immortality in store for them.
Then came Anton Pierre, a beautiful young man, not unlike the two women who had preceded him in physical beauty and mental purity.
The poet stepped from the modest apartment, located the elevator, and with his valise in hand soon stood on the avenue fronting his building. A penniless man with a squirt bottle in hand asked if he could hail a cab for the poet. He nodded, indicating that yes, he would like the beggar to help him, but to remain at a safe distance. As he waited for the cab, he felt a wave of revulsion wash over him at the sight of the derelict. When a cab pulled over, he threw a five-dollar bill at the homeless man and rushed to enter the cab, glad to be speeding off.
It wasn't every day he took a cab to work, but it looked like rain again, and he'd left his umbrella in the stand, the one with the Victorian hounds that stared out at the poet, hounds whose eyes burned with a fire to match the poet's own.
FOUR
We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey.
Dr. Jessica Coran stepped from the soupy Virginia fog that enveloped Quantico Naval Air Station to greet Dr. Kim Desinor. Taking her by the hand, Jessica said, “The boys at the hangar have a new toy to play with, a Soviet- built MiG tactical helicopter. It's not exactly new to us, nothing like a big mystery, but they're incredible machines. I think I've convinced them to transport us to Philadelphia in it instead of in that boring departmental Cessna Citation.”
“That boring Cessna is just fine with me, Jess.”
“But you want to know you're flying, don't you?”
