“Focus, Mr. Curry, extract what you want to know. Are we good people or are we not?”
Michael nodded, repeating the question silently, then he couldn’t take all this any longer. He set the card down on the table, careful not to brush the table itself with his fingertips. He was shaking slightly. He slipped his glove back on. His vision cleared.
“Now, what do you know?” asked Lightner.
“Something about the Knights Templar, you stole their money,” Michael said.
“What?” Lightner was flabbergasted.
“You stole their money. That’s why you have all these Motherhouses all over kingdom come. You stole their money when the king of France arrested them. They gave it to you for safekeeping and you kept it. And you’re rich. You’re all filthy rich. And you’re ashamed of what happened with the Knights Templar, that they were accused of witchcraft and destroyed. I know that part, of course, from the history books. I was a history major. I know all about what happened to them. The king of France wanted to crack their power. Apparently he didn’t know about you.” Michael paused. “Very few people really know about you.”
Lightner stared in what seemed innocent amazement. Then his faced colored. His discomfort seemed to be increasing.
Michael laughed, though he tried not to. He moved the fingers of the right glove. “Is that what you mean by focus and extract information?”
“Well, I suppose that is what I meant, yes. But I never thought you would extract such an obscure-”
“You’re ashamed of what happened with the Knights Templar. You always have been. Sometimes you go down into the basement archives in London and you read through all the old material. Not the computer abstracts, but the old files, written in ink on parchment. You try to convince yourself there was nothing that the order could have done to help the Knights.”
“Very impressive, Mr. Curry. But, Mr. Curry, if you know your history, you’ll know that no one except the Pope in Rome could have saved the Knights Templar. We certainly were not in a position to do it, being an obscure and small and completely secret organization. And frankly, when the persecutions were over, when Jacques de Molay and the others had been burnt alive, there wasn’t anyone left to whom the money could be returned.”
Michael laughed again. “You don’t have to tell all this to me, Mr. Lightner. But you’re really ashamed of something that happened six hundred years ago. What an odd bunch of guys you must be. By the way, for what it’s worth, I did write a paper once on the Knights, and I agree with you. Nobody could have helped them, not even the Pope, as far as I can figure. If you guys had surfaced, they would have burnt you at the stake too.”
Again, Lightner flushed. “Undoubtedly,” he said. “Are you satisfied that I’ve been telling you the truth?”
“Satisfied? I’m impressed!” Michael studied him for a long moment. Again, the distinct impression of a wholesome human being, one who shared the values which mattered very much to Michael himself. “And this work of yours is the reason you followed me,” Michael asked, “enduring, what was it, discomfort and inconvenience, and my displeasure?” Michael picked up the card, which took some doing with his gloved fingers, and slipped the card into the pocket of his shirt.
“Not entirely,” said the Englishman. “Though I want to help you very much, and if that sounds patronizing or insulting, I’m sorry. Truly sorry. But it’s true, and it’s pointless to lie to someone like you.”
“Well, I don’t suppose it will come as any surprise to you that there have been times in the last few weeks when I have prayed out loud for help. I’m a little better off now than I was two days ago, however. A good deal better off. I’m on my way to doing … what I feel I have to do.”
“You have an enormous power, and you don’t really understand it,” Lightner said.
“But the power is unimportant. What I’m talking about is the purpose. Did you read the articles on me in the papers?”
“Yes, everything in print that I could find.”
“Well, then you know I had these visions when I was dead; and that they involved a purpose in my coming back; and that somehow or other, the entire memory has been wiped out. Well, almost the entire memory.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Then you know the thing about the hands doesn’t matter,” said Michael. Uneasiness. He took another deep swallow of beer. “Nobody much believes about the purpose. But it’s been over three months since the accident happened, and the feeling I have is the same. I came back here on account of the purpose. It has something to do with that house I went to last night. That house on First Street. I intend to keep trying to figure out what that purpose is.”
The man was scanning him intently. “It does? The house is connected to the visions you saw when you were drowned?”
“Yes, but don’t ask me how. For months, I’ve seen that house over and over again in my mind. I’ve seen it in my sleep. It’s connected. I came two thousand miles because it’s connected. But again, don’t ask me how or why.”
“And Rowan Mayfair, how is she connected?”
Michael set the beer down slowly. He took a hard appraising look at the man. “You know Dr. Mayfair?” he asked.
“No, but I know a great deal about her, and about her family,” said the Englishman.
“You do? About her family? She might be very interested to know that. But how do you know about her family? What is her family to you? I thought you said you were waiting outside my house in San Francisco because you wanted to talk to me.”
Lightner’s face darkened for a moment. “I’m very confused, Mr. Curry. Perhaps you’ll enlighten me. How did Dr. Mayfair happen to be there?”
“Look, I’m getting sick of your questions. She was there because she was trying to help me. She’s a doctor.”
“She was there in her capacity as a doctor?” Lightner asked in a half whisper. “I’ve been laboring under a misimpression. Dr. Mayfair didn’t send you here?”
“Send me here? Good Lord, no. Why the hell would she do that? She wasn’t even in favor of my coming, except that I’d get it out of my system. The truth is, I was so drunk when she picked me up it’s a wonder she didn’t have me committed. I wish I was that drunk right now. But why would you have an idea like that, Mr. Lightner? Why would Rowan Mayfair send me here?”
“Indulge me for a moment, won’t you?”
“I don’t know if I will.”
“You didn’t know Dr. Mayfair before you had the visions?”
“No. Not till five minutes afterwards.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“She’s the one who rescued me, Lightner. The one who pulled me out of the sea. That’s the first time I ever laid eyes on her, when she brought me around on the deck of her boat.”
“Good Lord, I had no idea.”
“Well, neither did I until Friday night. I mean I didn’t know her name or who she was or anything about her. The Coast Guard flubbed it. They didn’t get her name or the registry of the boat when the call came in. But she saved my life out there. She’s got some kind of powerful diagnostic sense, some sort of sixth sense about when a patient’s going to live or die. She started trying to revive me immediately. I sometimes wonder if the Coast Guard had spotted me, whether or not they would even have tried.”
Lightner lapsed into silence, staring at the carpet. He seemed deeply troubled.
“Yes, she is a remarkable physician,” he whispered, but this did not seem to be a full expression of his thoughts. He seemed to be struggling to concentrate. “And you told her about these visions.”
“I wanted to get back on her boat. I had this idea, that maybe if I knelt down on the deck and touched the boards, well, something might come through my hands. Something that might jog my memory. And the amazing thing was, she went along with it. She’s not an ordinary doctor at all.”
“No, I quite agree with you there,” said Lightner. “And what happened?” he asked.
“Nothing, that is, nothing except that I got to know Rowan.”
He paused. He wondered if this man could guess how it was between him and Rowan. He was not going to say.
“Now I think you owe me some answers,” Michael said. “Exactly what do you know about her and her family,
