Still, a part of Jessica recognized the role that Larina Gahran had played in creating the monster Giles. No matter his genetic makeup, no matter the mark of Cain on his soul, no matter his predisposition toward blood and violence and that which could not be predicted, his sick fascination with spinal fluid, bone marrow and bone, fed as it were by the rare esoteric volumes he'd collected over the years. Despite all of it. Despite what he may or may not have done as a child to make Larina believe him the spawn of Satan himself, Mother Gahran could have gotten him help, she could have shown an inch of compassion, she could have shown a modicum of love at least for that part of the child that was good and innocent, but she chose instead to pour poison over poison.
It reminded Jessica of a story of child abuse written decades before it became commonplace news and TV and radio talk fare. The tale entitled Born of Man and Woman was penned by the master storyteller Richard Matheson. Matheson's monster, too, was created of poor parental attitudes and behaviors as much as the boy's birth defects.
These thoughts swam about in Jessica's mind even as she keenly and warily watched her every step now that she'd entered the museum. She was suddenly barred from going farther by a hefty black woman in security guard uniform. When she flashed her badge, the woman didn't budge from her path. “Everybody pays same here, cops, no different.”
“I'm on the job here, in pursuit of a fugitive.”
“How do I know that?”
“Fucking… Christ lady look…” She read the woman's nameplate, “America? Is that your name?”
“That's right. Mama was a marine, first lieutenant.”
“Well, listen, America, I need your help on this case.”
“My help?” “That's right.” Jessica pulled forth a folded sheath of papier. “Wanted poster,” she added.
“This looks like just a kid,” she replied.
“His high-school photo. It's all we've got to go on. Look, America, I want you to make copies of this picture on your museum copier and get it out to every security guard in the place for me. Can you do that? And can you let me have your radio in order to keep in touch with all your personnel?” Jessica pointed to the state-of-the-art earphones and mouthpiece.
America nodded and handed over the radio and said, “Does it rain in a rainforest? I'm a law-and-order woman.”
“But no one is to go near this guy. He's armed and dangerous.”
“No way he got through our screening with a gun,” she countered.
“Perhaps not, but he is a multiple murderer.”
“I see.”
“Point me in the director of the Lovely Bones exhibit. I'll start there.”
“Straight ahead. That big mess, you ain't gonna miss.”
Jessica started out alone save for the headphone hookup. She wondered how quickly and efficiently America might act or fail to act. She entered the huge, marbled concourse of the Field Museum, the lights turned down for effect over the simulated dinosaur boneyard created for the exhibit at the center of the concourse rear. Instead of a museum, she had walked into the Mojave Desert. Leading up to the bone yard itself a simulated dusky red earth trail. On all sides, an impressive illusion, created masterfully with Hollywood effects and lights made Jessica feel herself in a strange desert filled with people in black tie and evening gowns toasting the museum's latest major opening, celebrating an enormous find in the Mojave. From what she gathered, the find had come of a vision. This vision had led the chief archeologist in charge, a millionaire named Abraham Stroud, to the exact spot and layer below the surface, and aside from the dinosaur find, it had also uncovered evidence of an early race of forgotten people, the Mojaves, Stroud named them.
Jessica meandered through the desert on the Field Museum marble floor, and she wondered what the effect had had on Giles, and where he might be at this moment. Certainly, he hadn't donned white shirt, coat and tie. He should, like herself, stick out in this crowd. But she could not find him.
Her phone rang, annoying people closest to her, milling about the complex recreation of the dig.
It must be him. Still playing games.
She let it ring until other patrons showed their annoyance. The man of the hour, Abraham Stroud-a bifocaled elderly Kirk Douglas look-alike, in need of a good tailor- looked ill at ease with unkempt hair and a scraggly beard at odds with his baggy tuxedo. He addressed the crowd in a warm and unpretentious manner, folksy in his approach, befitting the string tie, Navajo jewelry and western boots he wore with the tux.
“The find at Mojave is perhaps the most important single…”
Jessica answered the phone and heard Richard's voice, angry at her sudden disappearance. He did not disguise his anxiety. “Are you mad? You've gone after him alone, haven't you? Where are you?”
She pointed the camera and panned the museum. “Field Museum,” she said. “He's here someplace, Richard, and he insisted I come alone.”
“Damn you, Jess! You have no bloody right to endanger yourself in such a way, not now, now that you've made me love you.”
“He's close, Richard, and he thinks we have some sort of connection due to-”
“Foolish, Jess! He's a mad hatter, and you are following his lead! Harry Laughlin and I are on our way now. Stay put. Stay close to that crowd there.”
“I'll be careful, of course.”
“Don't hang up, you! Keep this line open, and keep the camera filming. I swear this will not be our last conversation. After what this monster did to Amanda Petersaul, Cates, all the others… how could you be so foolish as to go off after him alone, Jess?”
“Richard, had I come with an entourage… even being on the phone with you now compromises my deal with Gahran.”
“You cannot make a deal with the Devil and come out unscathed, Jess. You of all people know that!”
She thought of her many scars over the years inflicted by others such as Matisak, both physical and psychological.
The radio earphone crackled with a voice now, Giles Gahran. “We don't have a lot of time left, Jessica-darling of my father's wet dreams. I want you with me now. You'll be the prize Father could not have, but I will possess. Make the old man proud, wherever he is.”
“Giles, where are you? I'm here. Just direct me… guide me.”
“You almost sound willing.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe I should have gone out of this world with your father, Giles. I haven't exactly had the best life since then. Filled with depression, fear, anxiety, night sweats, nightmares, visited by your father's spirit.” She hoped the lies would keep him off balance.
“Come to the top floor, rear stairs, directly on your right or left, either way… but no elevators. And come alone. Remember, I can see you from here.”
She looked up far overhead, but she could not see Giles on the overhead promenade due to the lighting around the Mojave boneyard exhibit. The Lovely Bones banner lifted and lowered with the air spilling from nearby ducts, sending a shiver through the canvas sign. The smooth river of movement and ripple reminded Jessica of how at the lightest touch of the brush her horse's back rippled with feeling from hoof to ear. How could a horse have more feeling in its epidermis than a man had in his entire being, she wondered as she took the first white marble step toward her and Giles's fate.
As she made the half-landing, she could see down over the crowd. The speaker continued to gloat and praise fellow archaeologists working the dig back in the southwestern desert. He was working up toward the money pitch, she realized. Looking down from the second landing, she saw the enormous boneyard from straight over the top now. It looked like a jagged pile of arrowhead shaped glass. It's centerpiece appeared to be what the speaker referred to now as the diablo spinata, and with a long pointer, he touched it and added, “The Devil's Spine, we came to know it as… called it that when it began to take full shape from out of the eons-old layers of rock and sand around it. And I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, out under a Navajo moon at night with that thing staring up at you for what seemed a half a mile at the time, I can tell you, it began to smell of sulfur, it had so convinced us of its namesake… that we knew we were indeed tugging on Satan's own tailbone.”
The laughter rose up to Jessica as she made the third landing. The boneyard looked smaller from here, all save the diablo spinata section.
