Cellini, the cleverest man of his day, had been outwitted.
The plane, buffeted by another strong gust of wind, banked its wings, and the chocolate lapped into his saucer. The attendant, on unsteady feet herself, brought him a fresh cup and another linen napkin.
The artisan who had never made an untrue object in his life had been lured into a trap of his own design. With greater skill than even a Leonardo or Michelangelo, he had fashioned for himself a destiny with no purpose, no shape, and no end.
Chapter 44
“Where is David?” Sarah murmured, as Gary took a seat beside her bed in the hospice. “I need to see David. Where is he?”
Gary wished he knew, and he wished he knew what to tell her. He had been waiting for his cell phone to ring any second, telling him that David had at least landed in Chicago. But so far, nothing. “Soon,” he said, for the hundredth time, “I’m sure he’ll be here very soon.” He’d even tried reaching him on the last cell-phone number David had called from, but he’d gotten a mysterious message, in Italian yet, saying that Dr. Jantzen was not available. Or at least that’s what he thought it had said.
He glanced out the window at the rock garden, with its ornamental pool-now frozen-and its white-barked birch trees. He could see the lighted windows on the other side, too, occupied no doubt by other dying patients. The late-afternoon light was even more attenuated by the cloudy skies and the oncoming storm. He was terrified that David’s flight-whichever one he was on-had been delayed by the weather.
Sarah’s eyes closed again, and her head twisted on the pillow. Gary wondered if he should call the nurse and get her some more painkillers. “What do you need?” he asked.
“My mouth,” she whispered. “It’s so dry.”
He reached into the plastic cup for a chip of ice and put it on her tongue. It seemed as if she didn’t have enough strength even to suck on it, and the chemo had left her with mouth sores that refused to heal. But when the ice was gone, he picked up the tube of Vaseline and gently rubbed some of it on her parched lips. Her eyes took on that faraway look again.
“Maybe I should make a meat loaf,” she said, in one of the typical non sequiturs brought on by the medications.
“That sounds good.”
“David always likes it.”
“So do I.”
“And chocolate pie for dessert,” she said. “It makes Emme so happy.”
Emme was home now, with her grandmother. She’d come by a few hours ago, but Sarah had been seized with a feverish bout of pain and nausea, and the scene had suddenly gotten so awful that Gary had had to take Emme out to the car and rock her in his arms until she was able to stop crying.
Much as he hated for that to be her last view of her mother, he wasn’t sure that there’d be time for her to come back again. He’d told his mom to put her to bed early and try to get her to go to sleep.
Gary hadn’t had more than three hours of sleep in a row for days.
But there was a faint smile on Sarah’s face now, which meant that she was probably imagining herself back in her own kitchen, preparing that meat-loaf dinner. Just as well, Gary thought. When she was conscious, she was fretful and wore herself out asking about David, or worrying about what should be done to help Emme through the trauma once she was gone. When the morphine was kicking in, she was off on a cloud, but untroubled.
Gary slumped back in the chair, yawning and scrubbing his face with his hands. Dreadful as it was to be there, at least this place wasn’t as dismal and antiseptic as the hospital. Each room was private, and done up in neutral colors, with indirect lighting and soft, soothing music. You weren’t even allowed to use your cell phones except in the main lounge area. That, plus the view of the outdoor garden, gave the hospice a peaceful, even comforting, atmosphere.
A flock of sparrows landed in the garden, pecking at the ground between the tufts of snow and ice. Gary picked up a piece of the dried toast from the meal tray that Sarah hadn’t touched, left the room, and went down and around the corridor. A door there opened directly into the garden, and he stepped outside.
The cold air was a shock, but a bracing one. He took a few steps on the little winding path that circled the fountain, and the birds nervously flitted up onto the branches of the birch trees. He tore the bread into tiny pieces and threw them on the ground.
“Go for it,” he said, and once he’d taken a step back, the birds swooped down.
He looked up at the gray sky, getting darker by the minute, just as an airplane, its red lights flashing, passed high overhead, heading toward O’Hare Airport. And he prayed-he prayed -that David was on it.
Chapter 45
O’Hare was tied into one big knot.
David’s plane, like dozens of others, had been forced to circle the airport, flying out over Lake Michigan and then in again, as the controllers tried to safely land all the existing traffic before the wind and snow got any worse, or made any more of the runways inoperable.
The FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign had been on for nearly the entire hour, as David had huddled, invisible and anxious, against the emergency exit, occasionally peering out through the porthole at the turbulent clouds scudding across the night sky. Would the storm abate, or would it increase to such an extent that the moon was completely obscured? From everything he knew about the Medusa-first from his study of The Key to Life Eternal, the rest from the mouth of Sant’Angelo himself-the moonlight was as essential to his enterprise as the mirror itself. As he had translated the text himself, sitting in the silo of the Newberry…
“The waters of eternity,
Blessed by the radiant moon,
Together stop the tide of time
And grant the immortal boon.”
If his plan was to succeed… if the magic was to happen… he would need all the elements to come together.
And even then, what were the chances?
When the plane was finally cleared to land and David could hear the wheels coming down, he breathed a sigh of relief. There were still a dozen hurdles to go-on a night like this, just getting out of the airport was going to be tough-but oh, how he longed to get his feet on the ground. For that matter, he longed simply to see his own feet again. Being disembodied felt alarmingly close to feeling nonexistent.
It was a bumpy landing as the wheels skidded on the runway and the crosswinds tore at the plane’s wide wings; without a seat or seat belt to hold him in place, David was buffeted from one wall to the other. But with one invisible hand, he made sure he kept the wreath on his brow. His head ached from its grip, but now was no time to be discovered and hauled off to airport security as an undocumented passenger.
“ S’il vous plait sejour pose jusqu’a ce que nous soyons arrives a la porte,” the intercom announced, and the few impatient passengers who had already tried to retrieve bags from the overhead compartments dutifully sat back down. David used the opportunity to slink silently up the aisle and position himself directly behind the main hatchway. Getting the ramp in place created another delay, but as soon as the door was thrown back, David breezed past the flight attendant, who seemed to sense his presence somehow and put a worried hand to the base of her throat, before skirting a waiting wheelchair, running up the ramp, and out into the terminal.
Following the signs for Customs, David hurried along the endless corridors and escalators, and though a luggage cart was trundled over his foot and a baby carriage was shoved into his shin, he was able to pass through the automated doors without trouble by following close on the heels of a bulky businessman.
At the Customs desks, David looked around to see which officer was already occupied riffling through
