“We got the firepower and we got the manpower,” he said. “I spent the whole night working on the other guys. They’re all on deck. That just leaves you, Phil. Come on, let’s get to work.”
He strode back into the other room. I followed, stopping in the doorway.
“First I want to see my son,” I told him.
Sam stretched out on the sofa and yawned massively.
“No problem. I’ll send for him. Sit down.”
I took a seat on the chair facing Sam. He leaned forward intensely.
“Have you ever heard of the Secret of the Templars?” he asked.
My heart sank. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was certainly something more original than this. One of the guys I worked with at the community college was a conspiracy buff who used to press books on me about supposed secret societies dedicated to concealing the fact that Jesus had survived his execution, married Mary Magdalene and founded a dynasty which had controlled the destiny of the world ever since. He also believed in flying saucers and the prophecies of Nostradamus, and was an avid chess player and computer nerd.
“The Templars,” Sam continued without waiting for an answer, “were the richest and most powerful bunch of motherfuckers in the medieval world, yet they were ruthlessly wiped out to the last man in this like show trial, right? The charges against them didn’t make any sense, but they were tortured into making confessions and then burned. So what was the deal? Lots of people believe that the official charges were just a cover for something too terrible to be mentioned. The truth is that the Templars were the guardians of a secret which they had learned from the Cabalists, who were these Jewish mystics-”
“Sam,” I said, holding up my hand. “Excuse me, but could we skip the history lesson?”
He wasn’t used to being spoken to like that. For a moment he looked at me in a way I had never seen before, and which scared me. Then he shrugged.
“Maybe you’re right. I’ve never done it this way before. It’s kind of hard to know where to start.”
He looked down at the floor for a moment.
“OK, let’s try something more recent. You remember that night at the Commercial Hotel? You remember that baby we were talking about, the one got cooked by its junkie mother? Have you seen what’s been happening in Africa? Sometimes they just cut the kids’ arms and legs off with machetes and let them bleed to death. Sometimes they-”
“I don’t need a catalog of horrors, Sam. Sure, bad stuff happens. So what?”
He seemed to make a deliberate effort to fix me with his eyes.
“So what about God?” he breathed.
I sighed.
“That’s not a problem for me, Sam. I don’t believe in God.”
Sam smiled unpleasantly.
“So what
“I don’t have a choice. But if I did, I’d rather live there than in a world ruled by an omnipotent Deity who lets all these horrors happen.”
Sam leaped to his feet and slapped his hands together.
“You’ve put your finger on it, Phil! How can He permit such things to happen? That’s the whole point.”
“What about David?” I said.
Sam waved impatiently.
“Let’s look at it the other way. Supposing God did use His power to prevent evil, what would happen?”
“We’d all be a hell of a sight better off.”
“Materially, sure! But what about spiritually? If the innocent never suffered and the guilty never prospered, faith would be meaningless. We would be
I nodded.
“So you’re saying that baby got boiled alive as exhibit A in an ongoing theological demonstration?”
Sam smiled.
“God is both just and loving, Phil. He’s not into playing sadistic games. Never for a single moment does he permit one of his creatures to suffer.”
I stood up.
“What about when you beat up Ellie?” I demanded. “Are you saying her pain doesn’t really exist? That she’s just pretending to be hurt because she knows it turns you on?”
Sam searched me with his eyes.
“Ellie!”
The far door opened and Ellie walked toward us in her cotton robe.
“What?”
“Did you tell Phil here anything about our bedroom secrets?”
The look of betrayal she shot me was answer enough. Sam grabbed the rifle and jabbed the barrel into her stomach with a swift bayonet-like thrust. Ellie grunted and fell to the floor.
“Stop it!” I shouted.
Sam turned the rifle on me. He smiled lazily …
“I didn’t do that to punish her, Phil. I did it to enlighten you.”
Ellie lay at his feet, clutching her abdomen.
“Initiation usually takes us over a year,” Sam went on. “Sometimes longer. We don’t have that kind of time, so I’m having to come up with some new methods.”
He pointed to the injured girl.
“Tell me what she’s feeling, Phil.”
The rifle was still pointing at me.
“Is she in pain?” Sam asked.
“Of course.”
“How do you know?”
I fought to remain calm, to play this appalling game by the rules Sam had imposed.
“Because I know that if you get hit like that, it hurts.”
“That’s not what I asked, Phil. Sure, you’ve taken hits and they hurt.
I stared at him blankly.
“You don’t!” he exclaimed. “You can’t! There’s simply no way we can ever know what another person is feeling, or whether they’re feeling anything at all!”
“‘Hath not a Jew eyes?’” I murmured. “‘If you prick us, do we not bleed?’”
Sam stepped over Ellie’s prone form, gesturing rhetorically with his free hand.
“Yeah, I remember that class. The professor, what was his name? That old guy in the tweed jacket. Remember how he set fire to his pocket one time, putting his pipe back when it was still lit?”
There was a low moan from the floor behind him. Sam turned and prodded Ellie with his boot.
“Get the kid,” he said. “Bring him back here.”
The girl got to her feet, bent over, still holding her stomach. Sam waved toward the bedroom.
“Come on, Phil.”
I followed. Sam evidently had a point to make, and since he was holding both my son and the gun it seemed best to let him make it. He threw the rifle down on the bed, picked up the binoculars and scanned the scene outside.
“Where were we?” he asked without looking round.
“You were saying that we can never be sure another person really feels pain,” I replied. “But by the same token, we can never be sure they don’t.”
