“Granted, the lack of punctuation would allow it,” Beckett said, “but it still looks strange.”
“I’m grooving here,” I said. “Watch this.” I cut “each” and pasted it to the right of “love” below.
“Now read it,” I told him. “Please.”
“ ‘Soar with me my friend,’ ” Beckett read. “Good show.”
“ ‘Thing you will be,’ ” I said. “Sorry ‘thing,’ it’s moving day.” I dropped it down next to the words “love” and “each.” The bottom line now read “love each thing.”
Beckett began to read what remained on the top line.
“ ‘Soar with me my friend and you will of be the.’ ‘Of’ has to be next,” he said.
I pasted it below.
“Now ‘this,’ ” I said, moving it.
Beckett read the bottom line excitedly. “ ‘Love each thing of this . . . world’—it has to be ‘world,’ Reb.” He removed his handkerchief from his coat pocket and mopped his brow. “My word . . .”
I clipped “world” and pasted it at the end of the bottom line. “ ‘Love each thing of this world,’ ” I said softly.
Beckett read the top line. “ ‘Soar with me my friend and you will be the new guardian of the’ . . . ‘for,’ Reb, pull ‘for.’ ”
I was already doing it.
“ ‘Soar with me my friend and you will be the new guardian of the dagger.’ Goddamn,” I said. “We are getting into the sweet stuff now. Can you smell it?”
“With both nostrils,” Beckett said exuberantly, pointing at the top line. “ ‘Dagger above you the tangle.’ Dagger above you? ‘Soar with me my friend and you will be the new guardian of the dagger above you.’ That makes sense somehow.”
“No,” I said. “Look further. ‘The dagger above you the tangle all.’ ‘All’ shouldn’t be there. I’m pulling it.” I moved it to the end of the bottom line, which now read, “Love each thing of this world for all.” “Hmm,” I said, “I’ve lost it. ‘For all’ what? After that we’ve got ‘of the are sleeping carver’s its mighty whorl keepers.’ We’re in the mud here. Give me a second, give me a second. ‘Are’ would have to come next, right? ‘All are’?”
“Definitely,” Beckett said. “Do that.”
I dropped the word “are” down below next to “all.” Then I read the remaining top line.
“Soar with me my friend and you will be the new guardian of the dagger above you the tangle of the sleeping carver’s its mighty whorl keepers.”
Beckett and I looked at each other blankly.
After a concentrated moment he pointed at a line on the screen and said, “What if we have a sentence break here? Then it would read, ‘Soar with me my friend and you will be the new guardian of the dagger above you. The tangle of the sleeping carver’s its mighty whorl keepers.’ Doesn’t hold up, does it?”
I shook my head. “What if we clipped the second ‘you’ out of the first line and stuck it in the bottom? Then that would make it ‘you all are.’ That would be okay.”
“My dear American friend, I’m afraid Leonardo wasn’t from Alabama,” Beckett chuckled.
“I’m serious.” I took the “you” out of the first line and laid it in before the word “all.”“Now read the top line.”
Beckett complied. “ ‘Soar with me my friend and you will be the new guardian of the dagger above.’ ”
“Continue,” I prodded, “don’t read it as two lines.”
Beckett sighed. “ ‘Soar with me my friend and you will be the new guardian of the dagger above the tangle of the sleeping carver’s its mighty whorl keepers.’ Goodness,” he said. “Take ‘its’ out of there.”
I did, pasting it into the bottom line. I read the new line, my pulse quickening. “ ‘Love each thing of this world for you all are its.’ ” My eyes met Beckett’s.
We both whispered, “Keepers.”
I clipped that word from the top line and placed it at the end of the bottom one. I read it.
“Love each thing of this world for you all are its keepers.”
I looked at what remained on the top line with a mixture of awe and concern—that I wouldn’t get it, that I wouldn’t grasp Leonardo’s meaning.
I read.
“Soar with me my friend and you will be the new guardian of the dagger above the tangle of the sleeping carver’s mighty whorl.”
Beckett and I sat back, enthralled, exhausted, and bewildered. The stitches in my back hurt. So did my leg and hand, not to mention my mind. Outside, red and orange scarves of sunset unfurled as daylight faded into early evening.
After a moment, Beckett said,“I understand the second part of each line, lines two and four, if you will. They are quite straightforward.
“Love each thing of this world for you all are its keepers.
“I offer future people my heart and soul.
“Both very powerful messages,” he said. “Without question. But the first two:
“Soar with me my friend and you will be the new guardian of the dagger above the tangle of the sleeping carver’s mighty whorl.
“The lion God and the languid man share the secret the bearded man will never know.
“I am baffled by them,” Beckett said. “My brain is porridge at the moment. I’ll just jot this down and confer briefly with Mobright. Perhaps the stretch will help.”
“How much time do we have?” I asked, my eyelids putting on weight.
