“You’re not only a smirking prick,” I offered, “but you make a very nice tamale.”
The look of puzzlement faded, replaced by his familiar glower.
I pushed past him. “Aren’t you supposed to be coordinating the search for Krell?”
“But I’m only—”
“Get back to it,” I interrupted, taking my seat. “We’re busy.”
Mobright retreated and Beckett slid the laptop toward me. “You don’t like him, do you?” he said. “The man is a tad squirrelly, I think.”
“Forget that. Truth Two. We took ‘people’ and ‘heart’ out of there. Let’s see what that leaves.”
Beckett turned the screen in his direction and read it. “ ‘The lion I God and offer the languid future man share the secret my the bearded man will and never know soul.’ Take ‘my’ out of the ‘secret my the bearded man.’ ”
I clipped it out and pasted it down between “people” and “heart.”
“That’s good,” Beckett said. “ ‘The secret the bearded man will and never know soul.’ Never know soul . . .”
“I’m taking the ‘and’ out of there,” I said. I clipped it and pasted it down after “heart” in the same order as the sentence.
“Take ‘soul’ out, too,” Beckett commanded.
“Why?”
He pointed at the four words I’d pasted at the bottom. “ ‘People my heart and.’ Tell me ‘soul’ doesn’t follow.” His gray eyes gleamed.
“You’re right,” I admitted. “Heart and soul, just like the tune.”
“Look at this now, Reb,” he said, pushing my hands away from the keyboard. “What at the beginning of the sentence would Leonardo do to ‘people my heart and soul’? If this is the correct order, then a verb would naturally precede those words, would it not?”
“Right,” I said. “The verb is ‘offer.’ ”
“So take ‘offer’ and put it in front of ‘people my heart and soul.’ Now what have we got up top?” We both looked down and saw:The lion I God and the languid future man share the secret the bearded man will never know.
I said, “Somebody has to offer people, right? There’s only one word that’s singular and that’s ‘I.’ I offer. Are you certain ‘offer’ is singular?”
“Positive.
“Okay, then, ‘I offer people my heart and soul.’ What’s sticking out here?”
“The lion God?” Beckett asked.
“Yes, that, but also ‘future’ is sticking way out. This is a message. Leonardo wasn’t talking to his peers in the present. This was meant for the future.” I cut “future” and pasted it before “people.”
“Absolutely,” Beckett confirmed. We stared at the two lines.
The lion God and the languid man share the secret the bearded man will never know.
I offer future people my heart and soul.
“What the devil is ‘the lion God’?” Beckett mused.
We both puzzled over that for a minute and then it occurred to me. A smile crept over my face as I felt the thrill of discovery. “It’s not ‘the lion God,’ Beckett,” I blurted. “It’s ‘the lion, comma, God, comma, and the languid man.’ Leonardo didn’t use punctuation.”
“By Jove, you’re right,” Beckett said. “Then who is the lion?”
Tingles of excitement tap-danced on my stomach. Back and forth, in and out, I was walking the master’s path.
“It’s Leonardo himself,” I stated with certainty. “Leonardo is the lion. Leonardo, God, and the languid man share the secret the bearded man will never know. I’m sure of it.” A wave of sadness washed over me as I read the next line.
“He’s offering us his heart and soul,” I whispered.
“So he is,” Beckett said, shaking his head in amazement. “So he is.”
I took a deep breath. “Now who the hell are the languid man and bearded man?”
“Excellent question, my good man. Perhaps it’s in with the mighty whorl, eh? Incidentally, how in the world did you get so bloody good at this?”
“I’m enigmatic,” I said.
“Quite right,” he replied with a smile. “I suppose the same could be said of me.”
With Truth Two solved, we stepped into Truth One, side by side, ready to explore the rest of Leonardo’s lush and mysterious path.
Beckett read it out loud.
“Soar with love me my each friend and thing you will of be the this new guardian world of the for dagger above you the tangle all of the are sleeping carver’s its mighty whorl keepers.”
“ ‘Soar with love me my’ doesn’t sound right,” I said. “ ‘Soar with love me’? I’m pulling ‘love.’ ”
“Why? ‘Soar with love’ sounds right.”
“Not with ‘me my’ after it,” I said. “Watch this.”
I clipped “love” out and put it below. Now it read “soar with me my.”
