Two Songs This Archangel Sings

it. There was no doubt in my mind that what Garth had said was true, but I could not make the description of a drunk and a junkie and a bar brawler match the strong-willed and controlled man I had known for over eleven years.

People do change,' was all I could think of to say. 'Veil Kendry did.'

'Maybe.'

'Maybe? That was more than eleven years ago. For Christ's sake, Garth, give the man a break.'

'I grant you that he cleaned up his act for eleven years, but now he's wandering around with martial arts weapons, handguns, and a submachine gun. It's also possible that for all that time he was nothing more than a time bomb waiting to go off. You interpret the lights and the open loft as the actions of a rational man trying to send you some kind of signal. Judging from his past record, I say it's possible he wasn't thinking of you at all; he wasn't thinking of anything. He just went off, and when he did there wasn't a rational thought left in his head.'

'Which explains why you've been trying to downplay everything I've been telling you.'

'Right. You're incredibly loyal to your friends, and you can get a bit myopic where they're concerned. When a friend is involved, you walk into a wide open loft with burning lights and missing guns and smell a mystery. I smell a potential mass murderer. If that's true, there's no reason for you to be in his line of fire when he goes nova. The fact that he had that kind of armory squirreled away in the first place indicates that he's been thinking some very heavy thoughts for a long time.'

'Maybe he was thinking of defending himself.'

'Against what? A fucking army?'

'Against whoever it was who winged a shot at him.'

'You can't be certain that's what happened. If he did go buggy, and that's what I think happened, he could have put that bullet hole in the window himself, as a kind of warm-up. If you go looking for him, you may not find what you think you will; it's even conceivable that you could trigger him into killing you, and a lot of other people. You let us handle Veil Kendry. He's a loony.'

'What about the painting and the cash?'

'It could be that he expects to die, and that he wanted to leave something for you. He didn't expect you, or anyone else, to find it so soon.'

'All of this occurred to you even before I mentioned the weapons, didn't it?'

Garth nodded. 'It occurred to me during our second telephone conversation.'

'You should have told me about his background then.'

'You had an important lecture to deliver, and you already had enough things on your mind. There wasn't time to go into gory detail, and I was hoping I could talk some sense into you.' He paused, smiled thinly. 'That's still my hope.'

'Why didn't you tell me about Veil before?'

'Because he'd been clean for almost a year at the time you met him. Under those circumstances, I would have considered it an abuse of my authority to discuss his record with you, or anyone else, who didn't have an official need to know. I'm a police officer, not a gossip, and Kendry's record was strictly police business. In any case, you'd have accused me of gratuitously badmouthing one of your friends-and you'd have been right.'

'That was very honorable of you, Garth,' I said simply. 'It's exactly what I would expect.'

'Now it's a different situation, because you've been toying with the idea of becoming involved in a search for a very dangerous man who isn't playing with a full deck.'

'Thanks, Garth,' I said as I picked up the painting and my gym bag. 'I appreciate it. And don't worry; I'm not going to do anything foolish.'

'You already have.'

4

After leaving Garth I walked across campus to my office, where I typed up a letter to Veil explaining in detail everything I had done and planned to do, and giving my reasons. I made two copies of the original, then, after locking up the painting and gym bag in the office, walked the four blocks to my bank, where I opened a new savings account in Veil's name and mine and deposited the ten thousand in it. I added the account number to the letters, then went next door to the post office. I sent the original, by certified mail with no signature required, to Veil's address. The two copies I sent by registered mail to Garth and myself.

I debated going back to my apartment to clean up, decided that it would just be a waste of time. I still had a load of examination papers to grade, so after picking up a couple of sandwiches and some coffee from a deli, I went back to my campus office. After turning Veil's painting to the wall so as not to be distracted, I tuned my small desk radio to an all-news station and proceeded to attack the mountain of papers piled all over my desk.

Grading papers kept me busy until seven thirty in the evening. I went home, soaked myself under a hot shower, put on pajamas and a light robe. I poured myself a liberal Scotch over ice, then proceeded once again with my telephone ritual-Veil's loft, my answering service, the hospital emergency rooms. Nothing. The first Scotch felt warm and pleasantly heavy on my stomach, so I poured myself another. I put a TV dinner in the oven, made myself a salad, then went and sat down in the leather reclining chair in my den to study Veil's painting, which I had propped up on my desk, beneath a small spotlight.

A sulphurous, gun-toting angel-a lone American-draped in a strange robe and hovering over a jungle filled with soldiers in a country that might or might not be Viet Nam, but was almost certainly in Southeast Asia.

A close examination with a magnifying glass revealed no hidden messages or symbols, at least none that I could detect, and when I scraped paint from one corner I found nothing beneath but canvas. Garth could be right about an insane Veil Kendry going over the edge and falling into some black abyss in his admittedly complex and problematical mind, but I didn't think so. Wherever he was, I was still convinced he'd been pushed there and that, with time, the painting would tell me where and why. The problem was that I didn't know how much time I had.

The smell of burning TV dinner sent me padding into the kitchen. I managed to salvage most of my meal, ate it in front of the television set while I watched the Cable News Network. I'd hoped to pick up some news item that I could possibly link to Veil's disappearance, but the vast majority of the coverage was given over to background reports on, and interviews with, Kevin Shannon's cabinet nominees, which didn't interest me at all. My time with the people involved in the Valhalla Project had convinced me that nations were neither moral nor immoral; only individuals could make those kinds of choices, and only time, not television appearances, would determine in which camp Kevin Shannon and his new crew on the Potomac belonged.

When I began to doze, I turned off the TV, threw away the rest of my dinner, worked up enough energy to brush my teeth, then fell into bed, exhausted. I fell asleep almost immediately.

I exploded awake, jackknifing forward in bed as the air exploded from my lungs. Then, writhing and rocking back and forth helplessly, I imploded into a small, airless world of throbbing agony centered in the pit of my stomach. Doubled up in a fetal position tighter than a clenched fist, I kept gasping-but air wouldn't come, and the veins and arteries in my neck and head felt about to burst from the pressure of effort and need. Gasping in my universe of pain, I vaguely realized that the lights in my bedroom were on. Two men in business suits were standing at the left side of the bed, staring impassively down at me. Just before I got my head over the edge of the bed and threw up on their polished surfaces, I found myself looking down on two pairs of expensive, wing-tipped shoes, one brown and one black.

I was just managing to drag some air into my lungs when two sets of hands with strong fingers gripped my arms and legs and pushed me back on the bed. Ropes were quickly looped around my wrists and ankles, pulled taut, and secured to the four corners of the bedframe. Thus spread-eagled, the joints in my shoulders, arms, and legs immediately began to ache. I was still unable to breathe right, much less scream for help, and so I concentrated on getting air into my lungs while I studied my uninvited guests and fought against rising panic.

The brown-suited night visitor standing at the foot of the bed looked to be in his late twenties or early