A receptionist at the lobby desk told them how to find Phil's office; which adjoined the main press room. The noise of machines and the smells of ink and paper grew around them as they headed down the building's long central corridor. Cree's nervous anticipation grew with each step: This could be where they identified the boar- headed man. His identity, if her theory was correct, would make all the difference.
'For me,' she finished, 'that case was like watching three movies projected simultaneously onto the same screen – that raging moment of death, the fight with the grandfather, the long-ago evening of fishing. At any given moment, I had to figure out what image I was seeing, where I should start, which was most important. This case is the same way. When I experience the ghost, I sense many narratives at play at once – the affective complex of the ghost.'
Paul nodded. They had come to a pair of wide glass doors that opened into a huge, high-ceilinged room lined with gigantic printing and binding machines. When Paul opened the door, the racket of the equipment enveloped them. Paul mouthed 'Phil Galveston?' and a blue-uniformed technician gestured toward the back of the room, where a stairway led to a balcony lined with glass-enclosed offices. They walked along the rows of machines, skirting stacks of printed materials on pallets. Workers eyed them incuriously as they passed.
They climbed the metal stairs and entered a glass-walled lobby, where a secretary greeted them. She was a striking young black woman with the most elaborate hairdo Cree had ever seen, layers of oiled braids and curls woven and piled high on her head, and three-inch, curling fingernails. The sign on her desk said her name was Sharon Kincaid.
'Mr. Galveston is very sorry,' she told them, 'but he can't be here to help you. He got called to an emergency at our plant in Gretna.' After all the rising expectation, the sudden letdown felt crushing to Cree. But Sharon smiled and went on. 'So he told me to get you whatever you wanted from the Epicurus files. He got a whole room off his office just for those files. Sort of his hobby, you know? You all just have seat at the table there and tell me what you want, I'll go get it for you.'
They told her they were looking for photos and clippings of Epicurus parties and balls and parades for 1969 through 1972. They didn't need dues ledgers, charitable donation receipts, float construction invoices, or the rest of it.
'I am sorry. Mr. Galveston is very particular, I'm supposed to bring out only one file at a time? It's a lot of stuff, the records have a way of getting mussed up. I'll be happy to bring you the other years when you're done with the first one.'
They started with 1969. Sharon disappeared down a corridor between glassed offices, leaving them alone in the lobby.
Mr. Galveston was apparently an old-fashioned boss who liked the catbird seat. From this vantage they could see the entire printing room, the rows of web presses gobbling endless belts of white paper from gigantic rolls, the cutting and binding machines with their rhythmically rising and falling arms. Forklifts came and went with loads of bound books on pallets or giant spools of paper on spindles. The double-glass wall kept most of the noise out, but the floor vibrated slightly.
'You look frightened, Cree,' Paul said quietly.
In fact, she felt sick with anticipation. 'I was going to tell you what I learned from getting so… close to the ghost last night. First, his pursuit and rape is not his dying experience. I can't get any sense of the act of dying. That's been bothering me from the start, enough that I'd almost consider Joyce's specter idea. But for now, I'm still going to operate on the theory that the boar-headed man is a memory – a crucial, pivotal memory that in some way defines his life. The memory perseverates because it was so intense an experience – a peak of sadistic indulgence. I have to assume he perseverates because the guilt and regret he feels are so extreme, even though I can't find them in him. He's reenacting his worst deed. His perseverating as this pursuit and rape is his self punishment. In effect, he's condemned himself to reenact his most destructive, self-demeaning act.'
Paul nodded thoughtfully, as if they were consulting about a living person. 'That's how you'll reach him, right? That'll be your handle on him? Appeal to his contrition?'
'Maybe. It'd be nice if it was that easy.' Cree slowed, feeling her nervousness spike, feeling suddenly not equal to the revelation that she was sure was imminent. 'But there's one other thing I got last night, Paul. His arousal is predatory and sadistic as much as it is sexual. The pursuit and Lila's terror, the sense of power that gives him, are just as important to him as the rapes that culminate it. A big part of the thrill is the sense of violation. There's an element of that in all sexual encounters, even normal sexuality, the violation of social distance, right? But in his case, there's an acute sense of violating taboos. That really floats this bastard's boat.'
'Well, sure, rape is pretty damned taboo – '
'I'm afraid it's more than that. I think it's the taboo against incest. He's related to his victim, Paul, he's aware of how taboo it is. That's part of the excitement for him.'
Paul's shoulders slumped and his eyes fell to his empty hands on the tabletop. After a moment he stared out across the press room floor, a distant gaze oblivious to the activity below. Cree knew he was plugging the idea into his analysis of Lila; more, she could see genuine compassion in his face. He was as nervous as she was, drumming all ten fingers rapidly.
Below, at the far end of the press floor, a spindle lift driven by a young man approached a stack of paper rolls, each four feet in diameter. The shiny, six-foot steel phallus approached the holes in the massive paper spools, raised, lowered, found its way into the hole, backed halfway out to adjust its angle, went in again. How many bad jokes that job must generate here, Cree thought, feeling more than a little sick. It occurred to her that the incest probability didn't negate the specter theory. Ro-Ro's dark side?
And then Sharon was back, carrying a couple of fat, accordion-style folders. 'Here we go,' she said cheerfully. 'Epicurus, 1969. Y'all take your time and enjoy.' She gave them a stewardess smile and went back to her desk.
Paul seemed to share Cree's reluctance as they opened the first. It was a tidily organized file of photos of different sizes, some obviously done by a professional hired for the job, some three-by-fives apparently taken by Mr. Galveston or other Epicurus members. There were also newspaper clippings, yellowing and turning a little crumbly in glassine envelopes.
They flipped photos for a few minutes. People in tuxes, people in costumes, people toasting, people dancing, people looking up from meals. Then a posed group photo, obviously done by a professional: around thirty costumed partyers standing shoulder to shoulder. Cree thought she recognized Bradford Lambert in the middle row, the swashbuckling pirate.
And then she saw the boar-headed man.
He stood at the left end of the back row, his bristled head turned to a three-quarter view. He wore a jacket of some coarse material, ragged and patched.
Cree felt the breath go out of her. Paul whipped the photo over. Penned in neat copperplate, row by row, were the names of the partyers.
Far left, back row, was Richard Beauforte.
35
Cree needed space. The interior of any building, even the city streets, seemed too congested, thick with sorrows. She told Paul to drive to the lake. The top of the levee, with its wide vistas of water and green, was the only place in New Orleans with any promise of respite. Human beings were insufferable. She didn't talk to him as they drove, but she did use his cell phone to call Joyce on hers.
'Where are you?' Cree asked.
'Right now I'm at the main library, looking through old city directories for Josephine Dupree. No luck so far. I've gone through the tax rolls, public housing authority, and social welfare records, and there's no reference to her. I even made calls to a bunch of Duprees in the current phone book, and nobody knows of any Josephine. I'd say she's probably dead, but I can't find a certificate of death in this parish, or any burial record in New Orleans. I might have to go to Baton Rouge for the statewide records.'
Cree considered telling her to forget about Josephine, they'd solved the basic problem. But then it occurred to her that the old woman, if she were alive, might be useful in the next phase: helping Lila come to grips with what
