convenient escape route.
Beathan slipped the key card into the lock. The door eased open. He prodded me in with the muzzle of his NI. The kid followed between us.
Ann quietly slipped in last to hide in the cloakroom. Beathan still hadn't detected her presence.
The joint was big, by Auberge standards. Three steps led to a sunken living room that contained several couches, a gaming table, and a functional fireplace. I had no idea where the smoke went.
Three of the couches were arranged in a U-shape around the fireplace. Upon them sat the strangest collection of clothes this side of a Rocky Horror revival. There were a dozen old men in all, comprising a fairly thorough ethnic spread.
'Ah,' I said casually, tapping the ash off what was left of my cigarette, 'you must be the Ecclesia.'
None of them said anything, yet somehow the room grew even quieter. The men stared coldly at Isadora and me.
'We are of dubious pleasure,' said a shaven-headed man in a saffron robe, 'to discover that you know of us.' He looked as if he should be handing out incense at the airport.
'Relax,' I said. 'I read about you in the papers all the time. `Ecclesia' this, `Ecclesia' that-'
'Enough,' said The Cardinal. He was dressed all in red, right up to his little beanie.
They were all old men. Some were fatter, some were skinnier. Some darker, some lighter. None of them smiled, nor did any look as if he'd smiled much since 1954.
'Let us get down to business.' The Cardinal stood with a jangling of sacred hardware. 'We have been informed by the Reverend Emil Zacharias that you are the mastermind behind this GodKiller campaign.'
I smiled a calculated smile. 'We're totally open in our operations. You could have come to our business office-'
He interrupted me. I didn't like that. 'We want to know what you mean when you say that God will die.'
'I mean what I say, fatso.'
'Which God do you intend to kill?' he asked, as calmly as if he were asking about my vacation plans.
'All of Him,' I said.
'Allah?' Some guy in a burnoose jumped up as if to reach for his sword, only to discover that he wasn't wearing one. The Rabbi beside him tugged at the fellow's khaffia. They exchanged whispers for a moment before The Ayatollah grudgingly sat back down.
'A vast undertaking,' The Cardinal said. His elocution was as full and round as Anthony Quinn with a sock in his mouth. 'How do you propose to do this?'
'Trade secret.' Let them sweat it.
The fellow in red fiddled with an ostentatious gold ring on his index finger. A crucifix hung heavily around the thick folds of his neck, as tasteful and as dainty as a solid gold hockey stick.
'Mr. Ammo, your effort to kill God will fail because God does not exist.'
'Then why treat me any differently from any other Southern California nut? You could have saved a lot in airfare.'
He smiled and reached up to touch his scarlet beanie. 'Mr. Ammo, it is one thing to defy God, to set up a competing religion, or even to declare oneself to
God. None of those actions robs God of His primal position in people's minds.' He peered at me straight in the eye with a gaze that emerged from two narrowed, murderous slits. 'To imply, on the other hand, that God is a being that can be killed is to unleash an anarchistic impulse not seen since the time of the Corn Kings.'
He stepped up to me closer than even most Europeans stand when talking to one another. His breath smelled of fish and Binaca.
'The desire to murder God is an almost universal emotion in human beings. If you succeed in destroying their God for them, if you show them it can be done, you will create two disastrous consequences.
