Two Songs This Archangel Sings

guns over the phone; I wasn't sure how the cops would react.'

'You mean, you weren't sure how I'd react.'

'It's the same thing. I didn't want him killed by some nervous cop while all he was trying to do was defend himself against somebody else who was trying to kill him. Christ, Garth, I'm just following my nose on this thing, playing it by ear.'

'A long nose in this case, Mongo. And maybe a tin ear.'

'You still haven't told me what you're going to do officially.'

Garth sighed, shook his head. 'I'm going to have to put out the word, Mongo, but I'll have to give some thought to what that word is going to be. I damn well don't want either Kendry or some cop blown away just because you can't mind your own business.'

'Jesus Christ! You-!' I paused, swallowed my anger. 'What the hell is it between Veil and the NYPD? He keeps putting away muggers and dope dealers, and you keep putting him away. Talk about overreaction! He's never hurt anybody who wasn't trying to hurt him or somebody else. I can see some of the other guys on the force getting jealous because they think Veil makes them look bad, but not you. What's your problem?'

'You don't know what you're talking about, Mongo,' Garth said tightly. 'That's your problem.'

'Why don't I know what I'm talking about?'

'You just don't.'

Whatever it was Garth knew about Veil, or thought he knew, he obviously wasn't ready to share it with me. That only served to arouse my curiosity further, but I knew better than to push. I shrugged my shoulders, asked, 'So, what are you going to do unofficially?'

'Keep an eye on you.'

'I don't need anybody keeping an eye on me,' I replied tersely.

'Bullshit,' Garth said, and laughed. 'Never in the history of the world has anyone needed a keeper more than you.' The laughter and his broad smile abruptly vanished. 'Here it is up front, Mongo. I want you to back right away from this thing. Whatever may be going on, back off. Why the hell do you want to get involved in Kendry's miseries, anyway?'

The question both puzzled and troubled me, and I searched Garth's face for some answer as to why he had asked it. He stared back at me impassively. 'Because he's my friend,' I replied at last. 'I don't understand what you're saying. Wouldn't you do as much for a friend you thought was in trouble and needed help?'

Garth abruptly turned away and walked to the one window in the office. When he finally spoke, his deep voice sounded strange, muffled by the glass. 'You're the only friend I have, Mongo. Except for Mom and Dad, and a few of the relatives, other people are just ghosts. You've already used up more lives than a litter of cats, and there's no reason for you to take any more chances. The lesson we learned from those nice people who ran Valhalla was that almost nothing we do really matters, not in the long run. Well, you matter to me. I don't want you hurt, and I certainly don't want you hurt because of a creep like Veil Kendry-and he is a creep, as far as I'm concerned. We've both dealt with enough crazies to last us a lifetime, so to hell with Kendry and the rest of the crazies.'

Garth's words and manner deeply distressed me. For some time it had seemed to me that a shadow hung over„my brother-now I knew I'd been right, and I recognized the face of the shadow. When Garth and I had left our parents' farm, I'd thought both of us were sufficiently healed to get on with our lives. Now I realized that I'd been wrong. Garth wasn't immersed in work, or anything else; he was just floating on the surface under a rotting sun of memory and despair that was eating him away. He wasn't living a life, I thought, hut just going through the motions. I wondered if the serum we'd both been repeatedly injected with had done it to him; it was hard for me to imagine Garth being beaten by his own mind.

'Garth,' I said, trying to fight my own despair with words, 'I can't just walk away from this until I at least find out what's going on. You almost act as if there's nothing to it, and-'

'I never said there was nothing to it!' Garth snapped, wheeling back to face me. 'I'm not a fool! If you tell me he's carting around a submachine gun, then he almost certainly is. What I said is that it's none of your business. Wherever he's gone, it's fine with me. I just don't want you sucked away with him. Veil Kendry stinks of madness and death.'

'What the hell's the matter with you, Garth?' I asked softly. 'You talk like a stranger. Just because you don't like-'

'How long have you known Kendry, wise-ass?!'

Taken aback by the anger in his voice, I blinked in surprise. 'About eleven years,' I answered warily. 'I met him when I bought one of his paintings at-'

'I know how you met him,' Garth said curtly. 'What do you suppose Kendry was doing before he started all this painting bullshit?'

'Bullshit?'

'What's his background?'

'I don't know.'

'What the hell do you mean, you 'don't know,' wise-ass? I thought this guy was a great friend of yours. After all, you felt close enough to him to walk into his place uninvited and spend the night. You felt close enough to him to walk out with one of his paintings and ten grand in cash.'

The effect of Garth's scornful sarcasm was to make me feel more distant from him than I could ever remember feeling in my life. 'Why don't you get to the point?' I said coldly. 'That's assuming you have one.'

'The point is that I've known Kendry longer than you have, and he had a police record longer than both our arms put together before you met him.'

Ah.

'The reason the cops keep such close tabs on him,' Garth continued in a much softer tone, 'is because, unlike some criminologists and other professorial types, we don't believe any man can change as completely as Kendry appears to have changed. The rot's still there, just waiting to eat its way back up to the surface. That's what I think probably happened.'

'What rot?'

'According to his police record, Kendry blew into New York about four years before you met him, probably in the summer of 'seventy-three.'

'Where'd he come from?' 'Military stockades-first in Saigon, then in Leavenworth. Needless to say, he'd been dishonorably discharged.'

'How do you know that?'

Garth shrugged. 'A quick call to connections in the military justice system. Standard operating procedure. Anyway, at that time he was living in a series of flea traps on the Bowery, along with the other bums. He was a drunk and a junkie himself. He'd work as a bouncer in some of New York's less glamorous night spots until he had some cash in his pocket, then he'd quit.'

'What was he busted for?'

'Drunk and disorderly.'

'That doesn't sound very serious to me.'

'It is when it keeps happening, and it's even more serious when it keeps happening and you bust up some police officers resisting arrest.'

'Okay, agreed. But-'

'He was a brawler.'

'Did he ever kill anyone in any of these brawls?'

'No. He just kept making good business for the hospitals. The only reason he never did any serious time was because most of the people he brawled with had longer records of violent behavior than he did.'

'He could have, you know.'

'Could have what?'

'Killed somebody. I'm betting he could have killed anyone he went up against.'

'You're missing the point. The man was committed to Bellevue for observation twice; for some reason, the shrinks there let him out both times. When I say he's crazy, Mongo, I'm not exaggerating. He was a man bent on self-destruction, and that's the rot I was referring to.'

Garth's description of Veil upset me, as my brother had known it would, and I took some time to think about