strain of influenza down there in the cloud forest? A strain that, as Americans, your immune systems were unprepared to fight off? A good strong influenza infection could certainly explain those symptoms, right? In this country alone flu kills scores of thousands of people every year. And certainly you could have given it to Seliah with something as innocent as a goodnight kiss. Yes?'
Ozburn looked at the priest and resisted the urge to bite him.
'Or, what if…' Leftwich sat forward, looked hard at Ozburn and lowered his voice. 'What if this rabies tale was invented by Hood and Blowdown, to lure you to Seliah's bedside? Remember, Sean, you and Seliah never talked to this maid. Hood claims to have talked to her. And it was Hood who also forced Seliah to the hospital, correct? Where a doctor sympathetic to ATF could easily have manipulated and convinced her. As she has convinced you. Which was easy because you love her.'
Ozburn thought he recognized the tapping of truth on the door of his heart. 'But Eduardo said you wanted to see the vampire bats.'
'That's a lie from Charlie Hood, Sean. I swear to the god of your choosing that I have never seen a vampire bat. I feel faintly amused at hearing myself deliver that line.'
Ozburn thought that the rabies story really did sound like something Hood would come up with. 'Eduardo took you to a cave to see them.'
'That's another lie from Charlie Hood. And again I will swear that I was not shown a cave.'
'You could have captured one in the cave and brought it back to the Volcano View.'
'Except that I am too cowardly-and too prudent-a man, to ever dream of touching a vampire bat with my bare flesh. Except that I love you and Seliah and I still believe now what I believed in Costa Rica. I believe you two will do great and wonderful deeds on earth.'
'No!' Ozburn swept his arm across the table, knocking the plates and glasses and silverware to the floor in a clattering, shattering symphony. Daisy bolted from under the table, then stopped and watched her master from a distance. Everyone was looking over. The bartender stood with his hands on his hips and the waitress looked up from her order pad and one of the busboys ducked into the kitchen and came right back out with a rolling rack of bus trays.
Ozburn saw all of this outlined in green light. The broken dishes glowed like emeralds. The room began rotating clockwise, slowly, like a great kaleidoscopic mural. He leaned close to Leftwich and hissed into his face. 'I don't believe in our God in heaven anymore. I tore him to bits and scattered him to the Mexican wind. Seliah is gone and I am alone. I don't want to do great and wonderful deeds. Shove them up your ass and up the ass of your gutless God.'
Ozburn felt his heart break again, like the feeling he'd had when Seliah drove away in her red Mustang. He looked into Father Joe's eyes. Green embers. Ozburn felt the priest's hand on his wrist.
'No words can make me sadder than those, my son. None. You have crushed my heart and I am in anguish for you.'
Ozburn rose and leaned over the table and clamped a hand on Father Joe's cowboy shirt. He lifted him up and threw him against the wall behind the booth. Leftwich hit with a loud huff and fell to the booth bench like something suddenly deflated. A painting of calla lilies slid off the wall and crashed to the floor. Father Joe came to rest approximately where he had been seated before. His eyes were wide and welling and he fought to catch his breath. It took a moment. Then he wiped the cuff of his Western shirt across his eyes.
'You're a strong one, Oz.'
'You've ruined us. All of you.'
'No bat. No virus. This is not a time for superstition and speculation. It is time for the cold light of reason. It is up to you to carry on, Sean, despite your wild fears. Rise to your task or you will be destroyed.'
Ozburn stared down at Father Joe for a long moment. He was a little surprised that he could still do something like this. He felt his feet going numb on him again. Then Ozburn looked up at the busboy who would not approach, and at the bartender still glaring at him, and into the faces of the guests, men and women amazed at what they were seeing, at the cooks peering over from the kitchen, at the waitress whose face was filled with fear and sympathy.
Ozburn pulled out his wallet and took out five hundreds and dropped them on the table. He picked up Father Joe's cowboy hat and slapped it back onto the priest's head. 'I'll still need your help on Monday.'
'You shall have it. You're a good man, Sean Ozburn. I wish you would believe it, as I so strongly believe.'
Ozburn pulled the duffel from under the table and slung it over one big shoulder. Snapping his fingers for Daisy, he strode across the dining room and into the entryway. He stumbled on his unfeeling feet and nearly knocked over a woman who had just entered the building. She was dark-haired and singularly pretty and wore a red dress with white polka dots that looked to be from another era. She had a black coat folded over one arm.
'Madam,' Ozburn managed, dizzied by her scent.
'Excuse me,' she answered without slowing down.
The Amigos manager stood behind the counter at the cash register with a look of indignation on his face.
'I left five hundred to cover the dinner and the damage,' said Ozburn.
'I hope that covers it. Do not come back here.'
'I'm sorry for the spectacle. I didn't want it to happen.'
'This is a family restaurant.'
Ozburn leaned over the counter and he saw, even in his green vision, a blush of fear on the man's face. Ozburn bared his teeth at him.
He swung open the door and looked back across the dining room at Leftwich, who was holding the black coat belonging to the pretty woman as she waited for the busboy to ready the booth. They looked like a pair from central casting: the dude ranch cowboy and a forties femme fatale. The woman was speaking to Joe, sharply it looked, and the small cowboy-priest had the coat over his arm and a hapless expression on his face.
In the parking lot Ozburn hit the Ram key fob and swung open the truck door. Daisy sprang into the driver's seat, then hopped over the center console to the passenger side. Ozburn threw open the half door and climbed into the rear part of the cab and set the duffel out across the bench.
'Back here, girl,' he said. Daisy obeyed, curling into the floor space between the seats.
From his duffel Ozburn took both of his Love 32s, loaded with full magazines, and set them on the front passenger seat. He took two extra full magazines and set them up front next to the weapons. He tossed a windbreaker over them all. He zipped and yanked the duffel back down to the floor, which gave Daisy plenty of room to stretch out on the rear bench. She did so, thumping her tail.
'Just in case, sweetie. You never know who you'll run into on the road.'
At the sound of his voice Daisy's tail thumped harder and faster. Ozburn shut the rear door and climbed up front and started the engine. He roared out of the parking lot for Interstate 8, his foot with little feeling in it and heavy on the accelerator.
32
Hood sat in his dining room with the American League division series muted on TV, reading online stories about bats, rabies and the Milwaukee Protocol. An October wind bent the white sagebrush outside and rattled the paloverde and his windows. He was tired from the day but very much looking forward to a visit from Beth Petty, who was coming over after her four-to-midnight ER shift. He hadn't seen her since the Buenavista safe house massacre twelve days ago. He had bought good wine and a light dinner to prepare.
Hood was fascinated to learn that the vampire legends originating in eighteenth-century Eastern Europe followed a major rabies outbreak there in 1720. The author, Spanish neurologist Juan Gomez-Alonso, pointed out that rabies victims have symptoms very similar to the traits often attributed to vampires. He wrote that because the virus attacks the limbic system, which is a part of the brain that influences aggression and sexual behavior, rabies victims-like vampires-are prone to biting and to hypersexuality. And because rabies also affects the hypothalamus, which controls sleep, people with rabies suffer-as do vampires-from insomnia and become energized and agitated
