Two Songs This Archangel Sings

'Neither am I. You let me take care of my own business, Garth. You don't know how long solving this is going to take. It was my feet they beat on, and my ass they tried to burn. I take things like that personally, too. Also, Veil is still my friend, and I'd become personally involved even before my visitors came. I'd taken Veil's money.'

'You took shit. You just put his money in a safer place, remember? Besides, the painting is gone. You've got nothing left to go on.'

'I've got more than you do. I remember the painting, and in particular I remember the symbols on the robe the figure wore.'

'Maybe they were just put there for decoration.'

'Nothing in that painting was put there just 'for decoration.' They were some kind of symbols, and I'm going to find out what they mean.'

Garth slowly shook his head. 'You're not thinking clearly, Mongo. You make sketches of whatever markings you remember, and I'll have them checked out. You don't exactly blend into the scenery, which means you can't just go walking around the streets. You want those guys to finish what they started?'

'Indeed not. But I don't think I'm alone; I do believe I've picked up some heavy protection-a guardian angel, so to speak.'

'You've got smoke on the brain. What are you talking about?'

'How many cops and firemen were on the scene when you got there?'

'They were all over the place.'

'Ambulances?'

'Two or three. What are you getting at?'

'You said you found me on the sidewalk, wrapped in wet drapes. Let me tell you something; whoever cut me off that bed and carried me outside was no fireman. When I passed out, I was surrounded by flame and just this side of Barbecue City-a minute, probably less. Now, I never heard any sirens-and believe me, I was listening with keen interest. I would have been ashes by the time firemen pulled up to the front of the building, much less got up to my apartment. No way. Five people died in a fire that started under my bed.'

Garth considered it, and I could see in his eyes that he was reaching the same conclusion I had. But then he backed away from it. 'Fires are tricky things, Mongo. I'm not sure you would have heard sirens over the noise of the fire itself. The firemen could have been a lot closer than you think.'

'A cop or fireman would have taken me directly to an ambulance, not dropped me on the sidewalk. It had to be Veil who got to me, cut me loose, and carried me out. He'd known what was likely to happen to me if I got involved, and he'd been keeping an eye on me from the time I pushed open his door and went up to his loft. He must have broken through the door of my apartment almost as soon as the two men left. It was probably Veil who turned in the first alarm. After he got me out, he would have gone back up to try and help others; it was too late for five of them.'

Garth was silent for some time, thinking. 'Just for the sake of argument,' he said at last, 'let's assume that you're right. One question: If it was Kendry who brought you out, and he was that close all the time, why didn't he make an earlier entrance and blow away those two guys before they started thumping on your feet and toasting your ass?'

'I don't know. I'll ask him when I find him.'

Garth reached out, took the Beretta and the Seecamp out of their holsters, and emptied both boxes of cartridges on the bed. He put a bullet in the chamber of each gun, filled both magazines. When he had finished he shoved the Seecamp under my pillow, put the Beretta, the holsters, and the remaining cartridges into a drawer of the stand next to the bed. 'If any hospital personnel try to give you a hard time about the guns, you have them call me.'

'I'll keep them out of sight.'

'Just as long as you keep them close at hand.' Garth gave me a smile and a thumbs-up sign before rising from the chair and heading for the door. He paused with his hand on the knob, turned back. His smile had vanished. 'I'll be the one asking Kendry why he sent you out on a paper raft into a sea of sharks,' my brother said in a low voice that carried more than a hint of menace. 'As a matter of fact, I have quite a few questions to ask Mr. Kendry, and I plan to have his ass in custody by the time you get out of here.'

'Garth, you be very careful how you handle Veil Kendry,' I said quickly, but my brother was already gone from the room.

6

My hospital stay lasted three more days, and I was out on Wednesday-the one-week anniversary of Veil's disappearance. I hadn't expected Garth and the rest of the NYPD.to find Veil, and they hadn't. Nor had they found my two torturers, although, working from my descriptions, a police artist had come up with excellent sketches. In fact, neither the NYPD nor the F.B.I, could even come up with mug shots, police records, or anything else that matched the faces and the MO of the two men. That, I thought, was what you'd call a low profile.

Fortunately for my feet, I was able to use the telephone to take care of a lot of business involving insurance coverage, credit cards, and so on-all the pieces of paper and plastic without which you feel really naked after you've lost everything but your living room drapes.

I'd feared I would need crutches to get around, but by the time I checked out of the hospital I was able to hobble along pretty well with only a cane. Carrying the loaded Seecamp strapped to my right ankle and the heftier Beretta in its shoulder holster under a jacket, wearing dark glasses and a broad-brimmed fedora low on my forehead, keeping a very wary eye on everyone who passed within ten yards of me, I spent the morning filing for replacements for the documents I had lost, including my P.I. and driver's licenses. I bought two skewers of shish kebob and a can of Pepsi from a sidewalk vendor, ate a leisurely lunch on a bench in a small plaza with my back to a stone wall, peering out from under the brim of my fedora to see if I could spot anybody who might be tailing me. Satisfied after a half hour that I wasn't being followed, I picked up a pad and pen from a stationery store, then took the subway to the 42nd Street library. During the subway ride I copied down as many of the symbols as I could remember that had appeared on the robe Veil had been wearing in the painting.

With the help of a librarian, I began ordering up from the stacks books on the peoples of Southeast Asia, Asian calligraphy and symbology, and even-on the off chance that the shape and color of the robe itself might be meaningful-a text on the Asian textile industry. Four large tomes and an hour later I found what I was looking for, in an anthropology text. The symbols were of a religious nature and were used by a Southeast Asian people called the Hmong. I canceled the rest of my order, filed a new one for three books on the Hmong.

By the time I left the library two and a half hours later, I had learned that the Hmong were a tribal people indigenous to the heavily forested, mountainous regions of Laos. Fiercely independent, the Hmong had fought not only against the Pathet Lao, that country's Communist guerrillas, but against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars who had used the Laotian jungles as sanctuaries and the trails to move men and supplies into what was then known as South Vietnam. The Hmong had fought for themselves, for their own reasons, but they had also played a crucial role in the C.I.A.'s secret war in that country. The tribespeople had been equipped with American arms, trained in their use, and often led in combat, by

American Special Forces personnel, who, often as not, doubled as C.I.A. operatives. When the Americans left and the arms shipments stopped, the Pathet Lao had moved on the Hmong villages and wreaked a terrible vengeance. Thousands of Hmong were murdered, and virtually all of the remaining Hmong forced to flee. With the assistance of various American agencies, many of these Hmong refugees had emigrated to the United States. There was, according to a New York Times article I found on the library's microfiche machine, a large settlement of Hmong in the Pacific Northwest, particularly around Seattle.

It almost certainly meant, I thought, that Veil had been Special Forces and had spent time fighting with the Hmong in Laos. Probably, he had also been a C.I.A. operative.

It was all enough to start making me a bit nervous.