“I can. I do.”
Anna put her hand over his.
For a while they talked of Shohei. Anna recited the events of their day together, the way he had smiled, why she had become fond of him so quickly. Then Sam talked of his first meeting with Shohei, their cases together, and tried to recite a few of Shohei’s jokes, which were legion, all the while struggling to distill the dry sense of humor and the unbeatable confidence of the man.
“When we were together,” Sam explained, “I felt a special energy, like we could do anything. I wish now we had hugged each other at least once.”
“You never did?”
“Never. We usually nodded our greeting. That was us. Cool to the end.”
They returned to the kitchen and Sam cooked the pasta.
“Dinner is about ready,” Sam said. While they waited Sam placed a call to Carl Fielding.
“A big portion of the file is encrypted,” Fielding said. “Ask Anna if she would know how to finish a sentence that begins ‘Receive for yourself…’ ”
Sam asked her.
“… the same sun that shines on your brother, the same blue sky that colors his river.”
“Any commas?”
“One after brother,” Anna answered.
“I’ll try it,” Carl said and was gone.
“Jason would know that I would know that Nutka painted it on a piece of wood.”
“Intriguing-all these codes,” Sam said.
“What did the police say? They sure were fast with me.”
“I used some pull. They know they don’t have the whole story. I told them it was international and that they needed to trust me. They used to trust me for a lot more than this when they wanted my help. I also told them that Weissman’s killer could be related to Grace or Samir Aziz. They have no more desire to reveal your involvement in this thing than we do. I had to promise to tell them anything I discover in that regard the minute I discover it.”
“What in God’s name happened to the helicopter?”
“Well, of course it’s not official yet. But a fuel line was put together badly after maintenance. It came apart and starved the engine of fuel.”
Sam prepared the pasta and pulled out the fish. “That can’t be a coincidence,” she said. “Right now they’re saying it is just that. We may never know.”
Out of nowhere Anna said, Tell me about the psychologist Spring.”
“You haven’t admitted you know she’s my mother.”
“Okay.” She sighed. “Tell me about your mother.”
“I wish she would put what she knows in a book. And I wish people could hold the book and sense the woman when they read her words. She is the best person I know. She is strong and principled and intelligent in her compassion. I feel humbled when she talks.”
“Wow. That’s quite an endorsement for a mom.”
“She is quite a woman. But to learn what she is saying, you have to struggle because her words have to be used if you want to find their meaning. They are like bones, you have to add the meat.”
As he put the dinner on the table, Anna nodded, not quite understanding.
“She is a Talth and the daughter of a Spirit Walker.”
“What exactly is a Talth and a Spirit Walker?”
“Are we all done snooping around, calling Josh, or anybody else?”
“We are all done with that.”
“Talths and Spirit Walkers can be the same or different. Kind of like a priest and a monk can be the same and different.”
“Okay.”
“A Talth can be male or female and they are a ceremonial and a spiritual leader. In our tribe they are thought to be the keepers of the secrets to harmony of the soul. They know the sacred places and teach the young people. Today not many young people are listening. Spirit Walkers, like my grandfather, are thought to have mystical powers; they are usually loners, but can be married, and they wander a lot. They dream. For them the wilderness is a place of plenty. By the way, I don’t necessarily buy into the mystical powers part. I think maybe there are comprehensible reasons why it all works. Then again, you wonder.
“There is a story handed down among my tribe that life on earth was started by Wah-pec-wah-mow, which would mean something like Earthmaker in a literal translation, but we would say God or Great Spirit, and that Wah-pec-wah-mow began humankind through a race of spirit beings that held the secret to inner strength and harmony of soul. Spirit Walkers are thought to be their spiritual descendants. Sort of like a Catholic would say that the pope is the spiritual heir of the apostles.”
“I’d like to know more about Spring.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything. Whatever you’ll tell me. Let’s start with her legal name.”
“Key-atch-ker,” he said quickly. “Try to remember that.”
“One more time.”
“Key-atch-ker. It’s actually Yurok, not my tribal language, because she was named by a Yurok Talth, and to honor the woman who named her she left it in Yurok. She took the name later in life-Spring, the time of new beginnings. It’s also part of the culture of my tribe.”
“What is your tribe?”
“We’ll get there. We have to get to know each other first. Every year my tribe and some others have a sort of new-beginnings ceremony where they renew themselves and everything in the earth.”
“And what do you believe?”
“Well, as to people, I guess I more or less made my living on the premise that people don’t change. That’s if you want to play the odds.”
“Tough outlook, don’t you think? I got the impression you were trying to change.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m trying to beat the odds. What about you?”
“Lately I think the odds are beating me.”
Twenty-one
Normally Salice is warm in early November, and this year had been no exception. Samir sat on the balcony on the third floor of the lavish government guest house. It was built around an inner courtyard with garden and fountain. On the first floor a large entry lobby led to a three-way intersection. To the right lay a living area for the women screened by a mashrabiyya, to the left a larger living area for the men, and straight ahead an open courtyard.
Designed so that Arab dignitaries might appropriately entertain guests, it had complete daytime facilities so that men and women could be separately entertained. The upper two floors were bedrooms and game rooms and Western-style multimedia rooms. On the third floor there was one less bedroom and a library of sorts.
In keeping with Muslim tradition, the decor featured no artistic depictions of people or animals, lest they become objects of worship. Paintings were landscapes only, with one exception-pictures of the emir of Quatram. Perhaps veneration of the emir was a pardonable sin in Quatram. Despite four of his men behind the door and another eight at various points in and around the building and hallway, and the safe-passage guarantee of the general, Samir sat and watched the tremor in his hand, felt something like a peach pit in his esophagus, and suffered the raw acid of anxiety-driven esophageal-reflux disease eating his duodenum. He imagined red puckered holes growing in the lining of his stomach.
Samir’s anxious moments had grown so powerful that they frequently felt like pain. Often he considered putting a bullet in his head. To relieve the tension he took all manner of tranquilizers. By insisting to himself that his mind had been invaded and that his feelings were unreal and unjustified, he remained barely capable of making
