the well of souls (excerpt)

8/8/2019 The Well of Souls (excerpt)

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Also by Justin R. Smith

The Mills of God

The Well of Souls



THE

WELL OF

SOULS

A Constance Fairchild Adventure

BY

Justin R. Smith

HOLLISTON, MASSACHUSETTS



THE WELL OF SOULS

Copyright © 2010 by Justin R. Smith

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any

resemblance to actual events, locations or persons, living or deceased,

is entirely coincidental.

Printed and bound in the United States. All rights reserved. No part of

this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any

means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or

by an information storage and retrieval system—except by a reviewer

who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine,

newspaper, or on the Web—without the express written consent of Sil-

ver Leaf Books, LLC.

The Silver Leaf Books logo is a registered trademarks of Silver Leaf

Books, LLC.

All Silver Leaf Books characters, character names, and the distinctive

likeness thereof are trademarks of Silver Leaf Books, LLC

Cover Art by Justin R. Smith

First printing June 201010 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN # 0-9787782-9-4

ISBN-13 # 978-0-9787782-9-3

LCCN # 2010925725

Silver Leaf Books, LLC

P.O. Box 6460

Holliston, MA 01746+1-888-823-6450

Visit our web site at www.SilverLeafBooks.com



Dedicated to my wonderful wife, Brigitte



THE

WELL OFSOULS



Chapter 1

A vast library surrounded me, its stacks stretching to the horizon,

and I searched for a book.

Why couldn’t I find it? It’s something I saw every day.

“That book doesn’t exist anymore,” the librarian said.

“That’s impossible!” I screamed, running from the reference desk

and down an aisle between the stacks.

A book flew off a shelf, tripping me: Scott’s Adventures in the Ant-

arctic , the diary of his ill-fated expedition.

I crawled to the open book on the floor and read “...my feet are numb, and I can’t hold out much longer. For God’s sake, take care of

my child!”

It was more a howl than a request. And it was directed at me.

I sat bolt upright in bed and glanced at the clock on my nightstand.

It was four in the morning. I fumbled for the computer beside the

clock and recorded the nightmare in my dream-database.

The dream radiated pain, death, and inevitability. It was the books,

I realized: One no longer existed, and the other had been publishedlong ago. They implied tragedy that—if it hadn’t already happened—

might as well have.

I numbly eyed the reproduction of Picasso’s Night-Fishing at Anti-

bes on the opposite wall— with its misshapen, dreamlike fishermen us-

ing lights to summon creatures from the depths.

What had I summoned tonight?

Then I slid into my black chenille robe and stumbled through the

living room to the apartment’s roof-garden, tripping over its threshold.Reflected city lights painted the overcast sky the color of bruised

flesh. Millions of birds roosted on the city’s alcoves and ledges, as on

the storm-battered cliffs of Newfoundland, or the Orkneys. At this



hour, New York was a city of birds, as though built for them.

The dream demanded something of me.

I leaned over the roof-garden wall into the abyss that was Central

Park and the concrete walls surrounding it. Even at this hour, Central

Park South and Fifth Avenue were languid rivers of light. By day, the

view was magnificent. Perhaps that’s why my grandfather, E. Rupert

Fairchild III, had purchased this mid-Manhattan jewel-box— the Park

Place Hotel—and built this penthouse apartment.

I returned to bed.

After tossing and turning for two hours, I resigned myself to getting

up and staggered into the study.

Darkly stained Circassian walnut bookcases lined the room, and a

massive art-deco desk and chair stood by the window. Three strips of

track-lighting lit the bookcases and the poster opposite the window.

Grandfather had shown good taste in designing this room.

The desk faced the door, of course: Grandfather never sat with his

back to a door.

I gazed at the poster on the opposite wall: a beautiful Swiss land-

scape reminding me of my years in prep school. When I’d inherited

this penthouse from Grandfather, I’d replaced his enormous scowling

portrait with it.

“Don’t screw with me!” his portrait had bellowed. I’d wanted to de-

stroy it, but Horizon International Corporation’s board had called it

“corporate history.” After all, he’d founded the company to manage

our family’s business interests.

At the time, one could have counted our family on one hand—and,

now, on one finger. I banished the portrait to the Horizon International

reception area. There, it snarls at visitors and staff alike—our corporate

gargoyle.

How Grandfather could live under his own malignant gaze mysti-

fied me. Perhaps he had held meetings here and wanted to project his

scowl from two directions at once. Or perhaps he was a victim of thethreat mothers make to children, and his face had frozen in that expres-

sion.

I knew little of the man, though—other than the fact that he had

10 • JUSTIN R. SMITH



murdered at least two people. If he could live with that, I guess he

could live with anything.

What did my dream mean?

The phrase “stacks stretched to the horizon” intrigued me. Could it

refer to Horizon International?

What a zombie I’d be today!

I changed into my powder-blue jogging outfit and took the elevator

to the lobby. Last year, I’d discovered jogging and the wonderful way it

made me feel.

Hotel staff had lowered the chandeliers to eye-level and were clean-

ing them. Others polished the marble walls and vacuumed the thickly-

carpeted floor. The Hibiscus Court—my favorite of the hotel’s four res-

taurants—was a quiet kaleidoscope of mirrors and foliage.

As smoothly as possible, I stole past the front desk and out the

door. Nobody noticed me.

A light fog shrouded the world, wafting the city’s distinctive fra-

grance: rotting trash and burnt coffee. I crossed the Grand Army Plaza,

entered Central Park, and jogged on the Bicycle Path. Jogging without

bodyguards felt odd and liberating. Normally we were quite a specta-

cle—a curvaceous teenage girl accompanied by huge men, their bulk

swelled by body-armor and God knows what armaments. While I’d always huffed and puffed like an asthmatic steam iron,

they’d effortlessly matched my pace—even having casual conversations

with each other. It was slightly embarrassing. They were cute, too, but

older than me and spoken for. Sometimes they even chatted on their

headsets with their wives or girlfriends. They’d never quite explained

why I needed so much more security when jogging than at other times.

Sweating bullets after twenty minutes, I was thoroughly finished. I

returned to the hotel, where Mr. Tisch—the third-shift desk clerk—spotted me coming in. Alone.

“Good morning, Mr. Tisch,” I said.

“Morning, Miss Fairchild. You went jogging...?”

THE W ELL OF SOULS • 11



“I know, I know... I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake... those

guys up.”

He raised his eyebrows, and I left for the elevator.

I showered and got dressed.

“Happy birthday, Miss Connie!” Tilda said.

Tilda—Matilda Appleby—was the middle-aged, regal Jamaican

woman Grandfather had hired to manage the apartment. She super-

vised hotel staff when they did repairs, cleaning, and food-service, and

ensured that the apartment was never vacant for long.

I’d long ago given up trying to get her drop the ‘Miss’ from my

name. She believed “the forms must be observed,” whatever that

meant.

“Thank you!”

“How old are you today?”

“Eighteen.”

“Eighteen!” she exclaimed, her eyes misting over. “When I was

eighteen, I’d just stepped off the plane from Kingston. I had the whole

world in the palm of my hand. Those were the days, indeed! Those

were the days...” She shook her head and said, “Will you be wanting

breakfast?”

“No thanks, Tilda. I’ll get something downstairs.”

“Well, give me a shout if you need anything,” she replied, sitting

and opening one of her Town and Country magazines.

I threw my books and some corporate documents into a backpack

and returned to the lobby.

It was 8 AM and the gift shop had just opened. I picked out a la-

dies’ sports watch, guaranteed water-resistant to a hundred meters.

“It’s my birthday present to myself,” I told the clerk.

“Happy birthday, Miss Fairchild!” she replied.“Thank you!”

Then I descended the Hibiscus Court’s steps to its recessed floor

and picked out a table in the center, ordering a newspaper, Oolong tea,




and toast. I threw my backpack onto the opposite chair.

All I could see from here was the skylight above, potted palms, topi-

ary hedges, and a concert-harp with music stand. The lady who played

it came on at noon. Mirrored panels hid the surrounding lobby, mak-

ing the restaurant seem larger and more secluded than it was. I might

have been in a cloistered medieval garden or a Florentine palazzo. Any-

where but Manhattan.

I set the time and date on my new watch—Monday, September 5,

2018—and put it on. It fit perfectly.

Then I sipped my tea and glanced at the newspaper headlines: an

economist saying the national debt would cause economic collapse, the

Apostle Dunford on another big crusade, more indictments in the

Saudi Oil scandal. Colorado Senator Norbert had introduced a bill

slashing NASA’s budget if they didn’t fire Jack Szabo from the space

program.

One item caught my eye: the so-called “big lead” in last year’s

Shroud of Turin theft had turned out to be bogus.

Big deal.

I needed to finish my homework assignment. When I’d signed up

for The Classical Egyptian Language, I’d felt drawn to ancient Egypt.

Did I live a past life there? The only past life I clearly remembered

had ended in New York City, some nineteen years ago.

I opened my Ancient Egyptian reader and tried to decipher part of

The Eloquent Peasant’s Plea:

“O—if you go to the Lake of Truth, you will sail in it with a sure

wind!”

The beautiful phrase “Lake of Truth” appeared in the Chronicle of

Sanehat, too, but was usually translated as “Sea of Truth”—even though

spelled rather than I. A large lake could be an inland

sea, I guess.

The Ancient Egyptians had poets’ souls and angels’ brains, Ithought, yawning and rubbing my eyes, the hieroglyphs blurring into a

parade of drunken cartoons...

I glanced at my watch and scooped up my books, exclaiming, “The




trains better be running or I’m dead.”

“Condor’s moving,” my main bodyguard, Thomas Fields, said into

his lapel and followed me.

He was a large, nattily-dressed ex-Secret Service agent of few words.

At first glance, one could mistake him for an executive or diplomat. His

dead eyes and his grim, piercing gaze dispelled that illusion. It even in-

timidated me.

With Mr. Fields in tow, I ran from the hotel lobby to the subway at

Sixth Avenue and 57th street. The surrounding skyscrapers so closed off

the sky I barely felt I’d been outside.

As I descended the steps, an incoming train’s gush of air swept past

me, carrying odors of mold, earth, and hot cinnamon buns. People

thronged the subway platform—we hadn’t managed to avoid the rush

hour.

This upset Mr. Fields.

The train left, the rising whine of its motors echoing in the cavern-

ous station. We’d missed it.

Five minutes later, another train screeched into the station and its

doors popped open. Like water washing trash into a sewer, torrents of

people sucked me and Mr. Fields through the subway’s open doors.

Passengers pressed against each other harder than in lovers’ most

passionate embraces. The heat and humanity made me feel faint, al-though I couldn’t possibly have fallen down. And the noise was deafen-

ing.

“You work hard all your life, and what do you get?” a middle-aged

man groaned. “They transfer you to New York.”

The squeal of steel on steel drowned out his friend’s reply.

“Cut it out, pervert!” a woman shouted to a man standing behind

her.

By the time we reached West 4th Street, the mob had thinned out.




Located in Greenwich Village, the subway station was in a quiet

neighborhood of low buildings with bookstores and a fresh produce

market. A light drizzle fell through the overcast sky, but I didn’t mind.

It was refreshing.

New York University and Shimkin Hall were a pleasant ten-minute

walk away—passing restaurants, a devil-worshipers’ shop, a flower shop,

a Dunford Rapture Runway filled with singing people, and an art gal-

lery.

My English class was in Shimkin Hall’s basement. The room’s ag-

ing fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered, casting a harsh glow that

turned people into cadavers. I was early.

George Peterson slumped into the chair next to me and greeted me

with a “Hi, Connie.” George was a gangly, pale, blond-haired boy a

head taller than me and dressed in typical geek attire: a powder-blue

shirt, jeans, and two pens in his shirt pocket. He also had acne—worse

than mine.

“Hi, George.”

George and I had known each other casually for almost a year,

studying together in the classes we shared: English and physics. I also

helped him with his math.

“I’m metaphorically challenged,” I groaned.“What?”

“This damned assignment. I don’t know where to begin.”

“The essay?”

“Yeah, the one on ‘Jack London’s Call of the Wild as Gay Mani-

festo.’ Maybe I should switch my major. To something that makes

sense, like math or physics.”

Some time ago, I’d given up on him as a potential boyfriend. Once,

I’d blurted out I had two tickets to a concert at Lincoln Center—andhe’d nervously changed the subject. That had upset me, but the next

time he asked to study with me, I agreed.

He liked being with me—that much was clear—but was afraid to go




any further. And I’d accepted that. And I surely didn’t lack opportuni-

ties to date men. But somehow, I wanted George the Unattainable.

“I saw this at Barnes and Noble,” he said, holding up a book—

Death in the Alps, by Jane Grey.

“You said you wrote books as Jane Grey,” he added under his

breath. “It’s really good!”

“Thank you! I’ll sign it for you.”

I wrote:

George, my dear study-hall friend

Glad you liked the book I penned

—virtually Jane Grey and actually Connie Fairchild

“Do you make a lot of money from these books?”

“I don’t know. The publisher sends it all to a charity. Something

called Child Reach.”

“Cool!” he said, his eyes misting over with longing and despair.“You’re... wonderful, Connie. I always knew that. Generous and won-

derful. I wish...”

His voice trailed off, and he looked away.

“Oh, George... yes, I am generous but... it’s... easy for me to be gen-

erous. I’ll give you a copy of my other book.”

“I’d rather buy it.”

Class started.

The look George had flashed me made the hairs on my scalp standup. I couldn’t focus on class and frankly, didn’t want to. I wrote a

poem:

Fly—fly—golden child of the wind

Glow pure and keen against the so-sullen night

Seed-carrier in our seedling season,

Informing with a twinkling might.

Arise, now, to dawn’s dread thunder

To skies burning with barren refrains

To Earth, parched and split asunder,

That dies in wait of healing rains.




And then, when all is still and bright,

And pensive stars pierce the lucid night,

Wrap yourself in enchanted light;

And fling your restless soul in flight.

Some people chew their nails when they’re nervous; I write poems.

Hoping Professor Abrams didn’t notice, I put on my crystal head-

set, played Bach’s Art of the Fugue, and reviewed fifty pages of Hori-

zon International Corporation’s “homework.”Unlike the homework my professors assigned me, my survival de-

pended on this. Glowing yellow stick-on arrows pointed to places need-

ing my signature.

Most of today’s documents concerned the Energy Division—

building a plant in Nebraska to convert prairie-grass oil and cooking

grease into diesel fuel by “de-gumming and de-acidifying” the oil.

Oil has acid in it?

Another document combined several divisional Mergers and Ac-quisitions Departments into a single division-level Mergers and Acquisi-

tions. Audits would also be done.

A scribbled note fell out, and I picked it up and read it. It was from

someone named Hector Milner, and it threatened “disaster” if I signed

the papers without meeting him first. He must’ve bribed a secretary to

slip it into my packet.

I hated it when they did this! I’d never second-guess my “able com-

mander!”I wasn’t even sure what these departments did, except that it proba-

bly involved mergers—and, I guess, acquisitions.

This wasn’t the first time someone had tried to undercut my CEO.

Despite his saying we needed ambitious people, I hated them—these

“players” who’d murder their mothers to get ahead. Two years ago,

several of them had plotted to murder me—and almost succeeded.

I signed everything.




After class, George and I went for a walk in Washington Square

Park. The rain had stopped, and the clouds had parted to reveal a hy-

drangea-blue sky.

A gray-faced, ancient man in a black overcoat fed a gathering flock

of pigeons, and a bag-lady slowly pushed a garbage-filled baby-carriage.

Passing the park’s dormant fountain, we made our way toward the

north end. In summer, kids my age frolicked in the fountain’s jets,

sipped jug-wine, and smoked marijuana, creating a pungent haze that

always made my stomach do somersaults.

From the corner of my eye, I spotted Mr. Fields watching us from a

distance.

“Autumn is a strange and powerful season,” I said. “Something’s in

the air. I just feel it.”

“Yeah,” he smiled. “I smell it too.”

“No, George!” I laughed. “It’s... it’s as if time is rearranging itself,

somehow. As if new futures are... sliding into place. Centuries stream

through every moment, and... you can feel them sometimes.”

George took my hand—a first for him. I stroked his hand with my

thumb and he blushed. We found a damp bench and sat. Shards of

broken wine bottles littered the area around our bench.

“Sometimes you sound like a friend of my family, Connie,” he said.

“He’s sort of a shaman named Raven... uh... uh... Would you like to

get together sometime? I mean, would you mind having dinner with

me? If it’s convenient?”

For a moment, I wondered what exam was coming up that we’d

have to study for. Then, it dawned on me he was asking me for a date.

“Sure, George. I’d love to! When?”

Before he could answer, my purse beeped. I was tempted to ignore

it, but he’d ask what the sound was. I pulled out my phone—its red en-

cryption light was lit. As I’d thought, it was my secretary, Angela, at Ho-

rizon International Corporation—they needed my approval for some-

thing.I told her to wait until I came to the office later. She said it was an

emergency and asked if I could come by one o’clock.

“Yeah, all right,” I muttered. They’d send a car for me.




“Who’s that?”

“I’m sorry, George, I didn’t mean to cut you off. It’s my family busi-

ness. They want me for something.”

The entire time I’d known him, I’d avoided discussing my family,

steering conversation away from these topics. No doubt he regarded

me as a Woman of Mystery.

“Your family makes you work there?”

“I’m the only one in my family, George. My parents died... a couple

years ago... and then my aunt and grandfather. I live alone, now, and

the business supports me.”

“I wish I could afford to live alone!” he said. He lived in a dorm

and always complained about his sloppy roommates and the lack of

privacy.

“Actually, I don’t really live alone. I have a housekeeper who super-

vises... others.” And then I realized George had been right: I was quite

alone.

Like muck from a pond-bottom, memories swirled through my

mind. I shut my eyes, clenched my jaw, and clenched and unclenched

my fists several times—determined not to cry. In spite of this, tears

welled up in my eyes. I’d thought of my parents’ death before without

being overcome. Why did it affect me so, this time? Because it was my

birthday?

George quietly observed all of this. We sat for several minutes,

without speaking.

“I’m very sorry,” he mumbled, looking at the ground.

“So am I.”

Then, he looked into my eyes and came so close our noses almost

touched. He kissed me lightly on my lips—more the suggestion of a kiss

than the act. I peered into his eyes, wondering what to do next. Time

slowed and became electric, making the hairs on my arms stand up. I

stroked George’s face with the fingertips of my open right hand. A light

breeze blew an autumn leaf into his hair, where it trembled like a trapped paper insect. Then, I gently pulled his head toward me and

kissed him, trying to bury my face in his, trying to hide from the ghosts

swirling about me now.




After a minute, our faces parted, flushed, eyes half-closed. I took a

deep breath, and George put his books on his lap and hunched over.

We said nothing.

“There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you,” George finally whis-

pered.

“What is it?”

After a moment of deafening silence, he whispered, “I love you,

Connie. I wanted to tell you that since last fall. When we started study-

ing together... I had to take summer classes and was going to ask you

for a date then, but you weren’t around. I was even afraid you weren’t

coming back.” His voice trailed off into inaudibility, and he looked

away.

I took a deep breath, wrapped my arm around his neck, and kissed

him again.

“I would have loved to date you last summer, but I had to be out of

town. My family business.”

We left the bench, bought hot dogs from a vendor, and ate. When

we’d finished, I glanced at my watch and noticed it was 12:30. I said,

“I’m sorry, George. I’ve really got to go. The office said I had to be

there by one.”

“How about tomorrow at six? For dinner.”

“That’s fine. Where should we meet?”

“How about the Student Union?”

“I’ll be there, George. Until then...”

I ran back to the Student Union and ducked behind it. Then, I

pushed the blue button on my phone—summoning my car. It picked

up Mr. Fields and me five minutes later.




Chapter 2

My main chauffeur, Napoleon Jones, drove. He was a middle-aged

man chiseled from a black granite mountain. He played jazz on the

sound system as the car lurched and bumped its way through traffic.

My moment with George had been beautiful; I shouldn’t have run

off afterwards. George said he understood, but I wasn’t sure I did.

Of course I knew why the company needed me: I was the thin

thread from which it hung. Grandfather had worded Horizon Interna-

tional Corporation’s charter so that all ‘strategic decisions’ had to be

approved by someone who had the name Fairchild, was a 100% stock-holder, and was his descendant. Although no biologist, Grandfather

had worshiped genetics.

For the past three years, I had been the only person on Earth who

met these criteria. Grandfather’s dead hand bound us together, my

company and me, with chains stronger than steel.

“This ain’t no camel race, fool!” Mr. Jones bellowed. “I fought

these guys in Iraq, and now they’re here.”

“Calm down, Napoleon,” Mr. Fields said. “We’re in no hurry.”

We pulled into the Rumpole Building’s tiny underground garage.

Its grimy, rib-vaulted stone ceiling gave it the appearance of a cathedral.

I took the elevator to the top floor.

Horizon International owned the building, but its name only ap-

peared on the top-floor office suite. This, of course, was Fairchild para-noia: Money and power are easier to keep if nobody knows you have

them—if nobody knows you even exist.

Grandfather had named the building after a character in a novel he



liked—Rumpole at the Bailey.

When the elevator door opened, a hundred voices yelled

“Surprise!”

“Oh my God!” I whispered, covering my face.

Tilda and my secretary, Angela Pappas, wheeled out a huge flat

cake. Angela had dark brown hair, an olive complexion, and green

eyes. As always, she wore a prim navy-blue dress. Years ago someone

decided that I, as the company’s owner, just had to have a secretary.

Hence Angela.

Her duties mostly consisted in bringing me soda when I attended

“Bored Meetings.” At one stupefying meeting, she rose above and be-

yond the call of duty and brought me a triple-shot espresso.

Last semester, I almost asked her to type my term-paper on The

Anatomy of Devonian Fish. Explaining what I wanted would’ve taken

longer than typing it myself, though.

In a black evening gown, my old friend Monika von Sachsen-

Coburg played Happy Birthday on her violin. Her shimmering gown

set off her natural blond hair and electric blue eyes.

She’d been my dorm-mate at the Lucerne Academy for Girls—the

Swiss prep school we’d attended. We’d had many adventures together

and, when I inherited the company, I’d appointed her father Vice

President of International Affairs.

I saw too little of her these days.

She was a classic example of “be careful what you wish for; you

might get it”. In prep school, she’d dreamed of being a violinist. Now,

as a student at the Julliard School of Music, she spent every waking mo-

ment immersed in music.

Feeling like a deer caught in headlights, I made a wish and blew out

the cake’s eighteen candles.

Angela took my school books, and picked her way through the

crowd. One junior executive—I don’t remember his name—introduced

me to his new wife. As I accepted a champagne-filled flute, the clink of metal tapping glass hushed the crowd. It was Abe Cohen, my com-

pany’s CEO.

Looking more like a professor than an executive, he was a wizened,




bespectacled man in his mid-sixties. He held a glass of champagne in

one hand and a cordless microphone in the other. He was almost a

father to me.

“To the new people,” Abe began, “who have spotted this young

lady hanging around the office and wondered who she was, I give you

Constance Fairchild.”

I smiled and said, “Hi.”

Applause.

“This is not as dramatic as the first time I met her, three years ago.

She fainted from hunger in front of my office, so I gave her my lunch.”

“He’s always acting like a Jewish father,” I said.

“In those days,” Abe continued. “I was the director of Revenue Ac-

counting, and she said she’d completely change the company by her

eighteenth birthday. I said I’d come out of retirement and fly up from

Florida to see for myself. Because I was so generous with my lunch, she

asked me to stay on as CEO.”

Laughter.

“Because I hate flying, I agreed, saving myself two trips.”

More laughter.

“At an age when most girls have nothing more serious on their

mind than school and dating, Constance found herself an orphan and

in the bizarre position of having to run the most powerful corporate

entity in the world.”

What an exaggeration! I blushed and shook my head. Abe and the

Board ran the company. My “contribution” was to stay awake during

Board meetings and sign long documents. The one initiative I’d ever

taken had driven a vice-president to resign in protest.

Abe finally wrapped up his speech with, “Well, I’ve bored everyone

long enough. It’s your turn, Constance.”

With tears streaming down my face, I walked over to Abe and took

the mike from him. Grandfather’s portrait scowled at me, and I stuck

my tongue out at it. As I started to stammer something into the mike, a loud crash interrupted me. A gunshot?

Like everyone else, I looked for the source of the strange sound.

Before I could say anything, there was a female scream followed by




wailing. It came from one of the back offices and the voice sounded

familiar. Angela?

Nick Obolensky, my Chief of Security, told us to stay where we

were—he’d investigate. He was a soft-spoken, tall, wiry man in his early

50’s with slate-gray eyes, thinning gray hair and a painful-looking scar

on his chin.

He carefully pushed his way through the crowd to the back offices.

Ten minutes later, he returned and ordered the receptionist to call an

ambulance. Then he called several of his own personnel on a lapel mi-

crophone.

“Stay out of your office, Miss Fairchild,” he said. “There is some-

thing horrible in there.”

The elevator arrived—Nick’s men with a stretcher. I vaguely recalled

him saying many of his men were trained paramedics. They went into

my office and returned ten minutes later, bearing Angela on the

stretcher. They set her down and—using their lapel-transmitters—

described her condition to the ambulance crew.

Dazed, I went over to Angela. Her face was a nightmare—a mass of

red with no discernible features. She moaned and a slit opened at the

bottom of her face.

“Don’t try to talk, Angela,” I said. “An ambulance is on the way.”

“Constance...” she wheezed. “Tim. Take care of Tim... promise...”

“I promise, Angela! I promise!”

She couldn’t hear me—she was unconscious now, and a sickening

gurgling sound issued from her chest. A man with a video camera re-

corded the whole exchange and I glared at him, muttering, “Ghoul!”

Mr. Fields snatched the camera from his hands and erased its mem-

ory.

“Who’s Tim?” I said, to nobody in particular.

Another secretary said Tim was Angela’s son—he was in a day-care

center in the building.

Did Angela have a husband? I didn’t recall her ever mentioning one. Realizing I still held the microphone, I said, “Does anyone know

how to locate Angela’s husband?”

An elderly woman announced she was the Personnel Director. She




disappeared into a back office for a few minutes.

When she returned, she handed me Angela’s personnel file. In the

box labeled “Whom to notify in case of an accident,” Angela had writ-

ten “Tim Pappas (?).”

A team of paramedics arrived.

“Any other victims?” one paramedic said.

“There’s another one in the back office,” Nick replied. “Dead.”

“You a doctor?” one paramedic snapped. “Did you even check for

a carotid pulse?”

“A bit hard to do when she has no neck,” Nick growled. “And no

head.”

“We’ll take this one to the Cornell Medical Center,” the other para-

medic said.

“Where?” I mumbled.

“York Avenue and 69th.”

“OK—thank you.”

The paramedics lifted Angela and one of them punched the eleva-

tor button. When it arrived, two men in suits and a police officer came

out and held the door open for the paramedics.

“Stanzi!” Monika exclaimed, calling me by my German nickname.

“What happened?”

“A bomb went off in my office,” I said. “At least I think it was a

bomb.”

“Yeah, it was a bomb, all right,” Nick muttered.

“I’ve got to pick her son up from the day care center,” I mumbled.

“I’ll go with you!” Monika said. “Will they let you pick up one of

the children?”

“Good point!” I said and asked Mr. Philips—our Director of Hu-

man Resources—to accompany us.

“Wait!” Nick exclaimed. “I want more security on you before you

go wandering off. And your subway-riding days are over, Miss Fair-

child!”“OK, Nick. I planned to go on a date tomorrow. At six.”

Nick simply nodded. Two additional guards joined Monika,

Mr. Fields, and me.




When we arrived at the day care center, Mr. Hansen spoke to the

woman who ran it while Monika and I waited. It was a room slightly

smaller than my office had been. Big stuffed animals were scattered all

over the floor and three children climbed on an odd-looking, colorful

contraption.

That must be a playhouse. Two years ago, I’d demanded the com-

pany provide day-care facilities for employees. I hadn’t visited any of

them until today—and it had taken murder and mutilation to bring me

here. What a sorry excuse for a manager I was!

One child stood apart from the others—a sad, brown-haired boy

whose haunting green eyes fixed me in an unblinking stare. His resem-

blance to Angela was striking. There was something very familiar about

him, too, as though I’d met him before. I knew he was Tim Pappas.

“Where’s my mommy?” the solemn boy asked. The center’s man-

ager introduced me to Tim and said the boy was four years old.

“We’re... we’re going to take you to her, Tim,” I stammered.

That didn’t calm him a bit: Like all children, he could read minds.

We all went down to the street where my car picked us up. My security

men followed in a second car. Our little motorcade drove to the Cor-

nell Medical Center, a few blocks away. Luckily the traffic wasn’t bad.

Monika showed Tim her violin, and he plucked the strings. This

calmed him down. Thank God she had come with me!

We found the Emergency Room and I spoke to the desk clerk. He

asked about Angela’s health insurance, so I called the office and had

him talk to my Benefits Coordinator. I also said I wanted Angela to

receive the best of care, and would pay for it out of my pocket, if neces-

sary. The clerk just nodded and grunted.

The six of us found seats in the Waiting Room. It reminded me of

a Hieronymus Bosch painting, the central panel of The Last Judgment.

A woman sat in the next row of seats with blood streaming from her

nose, talking to a police officer. She was a ghastly sight—half her face

was purple and swollen. I couldn’t help overhearing her story—her boy-friend had smashed her face with a bottle. She was very drunk.

Two paramedics wheeled a wounded gang-member in on a gurney,

and the Hospital Security Guards got into a loud argument with other




gang members, who wanted to accompany him into the operating

room. They said they’d kill the doctor if their friend died. My security

people positioned themselves between us and the altercation and fin-

gered the firearms inside their jackets.

Two rows behind us, a teenage boy vomited and went into convul-

sions, rolling in his own vomit. Two orderlies ran over and jammed

some object in his mouth.

“What a nightmare!” I muttered.

“My neighborhood hospital has a sign over the door,” one body-

guard said. “‘Do your cutting and shooting Wednesday; avoid the

weekend rush’.”

In the midst of this, Monika—in her black evening gown and jew-

elry—started to play Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, to entertain Tim. He

was spellbound. When she stopped, several people applauded.

A tired-looking, middle-aged Indian man in green surgical scrubs

approached us and introduced himself as Dr. Joshi. He said Angela

was suffering from a subdural hematoma, among many other things,

and he needed authorization for emergency surgery.

“I’m her employer, and her personnel record lists no husband or

relatives,” I said. “As far as I can tell, her son here is the only person in

the world related to her. And he’s four years old.”

“If she has no next of kin, I can use my own judgment. With these

Seventh-Day Adventists you can’t...”

“Yes,” I snapped, “Please do!”

He left.

I went to the gift shop and bought a coloring book and crayons for

Tim. Monika packed up her violin and, in the midst of the chaos and

confusion, Tim scrawled pictures in the coloring book, ignoring the

lines.

“I don’t think there’s anything more we can do here, Monika.

They’re about to perform surgery on Angela.”

“What about Tim?” Monika said.“He can stay with me. At least a week, from the looks of things.

Come on, Tim, honey. We’ve got to go.” Against my will, an image of

Angela’s demolished face flashed through my mind. Yes—it would be at




least a week. Probably much longer.

“Where’s Mommy?” Tim said.

“I want to take you to her,” I said, “but she’s very, very sick.”

Dr. Joshi returned with a clipboard and pen.

“No! I want to see Mommy!” he cried.

“My dear little boy,” Dr. Joshi said. “If she tries to talk, it will make

her much, much worse. You want her to get better, don’t you?”

Tim slowly nodded.

To me, he added, “If she survives the next eight hours, she will

probably improve.” I took a deep breath and signed the paper he held

out to me.

“If she survives?” Monika said.

“I guess we should stop by Angela’s place to pick up some of Tim’s

things,” I said.

“Do you have the keys to her apartment?” Monika said.

I didn’t. The duty nurse allowed me to sign for her purse. As we

left, Tim started crying for his mother again. We met my car and drove

to Angela’s apartment—someplace in Flushing, Queens. On the way, I

called Nick.

“The police need your books as evidence,” he said. “Angela was

carrying them.”

“I sure don’t want them anymore.”

“What was the other woman doing there?” Nick said. “Did you ask

anyone to work in your office?”

“No.”

“We sent her fingerprints and DNA to the FBI,” Nick murmured.

“They’ll get back to us by tomorrow—if her info’s on file. I have a feel-

ing we’re not going to know much until we talk to Angela.”

“I’d be surprised if she were able to answer questions by tomor-

row,” I said.

“You must be extremely cautious until we know more,” Nick said,

with an audible sigh. “You have a date tomorrow. Do you have any similar plans tonight?”

“No.”

“Good. Stay indoors! I’ll increase security at the hotel, and I’ll ar-




range for special security on your date.”

“Was I the target?” I said. What a stupid question! Of course I was!

“I honestly don’t know. Everything hinges on identifying the dead

woman. There’s one person missing from the office—a data-entry clerk

named Diane Brumberg. She called in sick this morning. We’ll try to

locate her.”

I said good-bye and hung up. Monika called her father from the car

and explained what had happened.

Angela lived in a dingy apartment building in Flushing, Queens, on

the corner of Main street and Sanford Avenue. Like its neighborhood,

Angela’s building had seen better days. A graffiti-covered cardboard

panel filled in a missing picture window framing the entrance, and

cracked plastic panels adorned the lobby—the style, perhaps, of the

1960’s.

I spotted a mailbox marked “A. Pappas” and I pulled out a sheaf of

mail—bills and catalogs.

We found Angela’s apartment, and two security men checked it.

After they reported it empty, Monika, Tim, and I went in.

The place was tiny but spotless. It had two bedrooms, a bathroom,

a living room and a kitchen that was a corner of the living room. A free-

standing bookcase contained books, silk flowers, and a stuffed squirrelseparating the two.

The walls and ceiling were a grimy off-white, and the wall opposite

the entrance had a picture window that must have opened onto Main

Street; I couldn’t tell in the dark. Threadbare forest-green carpeting

covered the floor.

A large portrait-type photo of Tim hung over the TV set, and the

opposite wall held a needlepoint of a cat with the caption “Man’s best

friend.” A meowing cat jumped off the sofa and fled.Tim ran into one of the bedrooms and slammed the door, and I

followed. He lay in bed, face down, sobbing, and I kissed him—but he

wouldn’t be consoled.




I searched the room for some things he’d need: pajamas, under-

wear, shirts, and pants. The room was nicely decorated with pictures of

animals on the wall and stuffed animals on his bed. There was a little

bookcase filled with children’s books. The room glowed with Angela’s

love for Tim.

After gathering a few articles of clothing, I said, as gently as I could,

“Tim. We have to go to my house now. What toys do you want to

bring with you?”

“No! No!” Tim screamed. “This is my house! How can Mommy

find me if I go? Mommy won’t ever find me! This is my house!” Shud-

dering sobs racked his tiny body. And all I could do was sob myself. I

ran from the room.

“Look,” I said to Monika. “Maybe I should stay here with him to-

night. Maybe he’ll calm down by morning.”

“You’ll sleep here?”

“I’ll stay here. I doubt I’ll get any sleep.”

We returned to Tim’s bedroom and I picked him up and tried to

reassure him that we weren’t going anywhere tonight. Monika sang him

a German lullaby.

“You may as well go home, Monika,” I said. “Mr. Jones will drive

you.”

“Be careful, Stanzi!”

I nodded.

“Will spending the night here be a problem, Mr. Fields?”

“No,” he replied in his gravelly, Brooklyn-accented voice. “We’ll

do a stake-out.” He reported this to his lapel microphone.

After Monika left, Tim began to calm down.

“Hey Tim,” I murmured. “What do you say we get something to

eat? We’ll have to go to a restaurant, ‘cause I can’t cook to save my life.”

This momentarily took his mind off his mother, and he looked up

at me, furrowed his brow, and exclaimed, “Tony’s. We go to Tony’s,”




drawing out the first syllable of the word “Tony’s.”

“Sounds good, Tim! Then let’s go to Tony’s.”

Accompanied by four guards, we left the apartment and started

down Main Street. It was dark—most of the street lights needed replac-

ing.

“You’ll have to show me where Tony’s is, honey.”

Tugging at my hand, Tim dragged me two blocks until we stood

outside “Anthony Marinelli’s Bar and Grill.”

People thronged the dimly lit bar. We pushed our way past them to

a dining area in back. A jukebox played, but it was impossible to hear

any music above the general din.

We found a table and sat. A middle-aged waitress recognized Tim

immediately and warmly said hello. Then she eyed my security men

and me.

“You know Tim?” I said.

She nodded and said, “Where’s Angela?”

“Angela’s had a terrible... accident... at work today and she’s in the

hospital. Cornell Medical Center.”

“What happened?”

“Mommy’s very sick!” Tim said.

I nodded and said, “A bomb. I think it was meant for me. I’m her

employer, and I’m looking after Tim for her. Maybe you can help me.”

“You look like a kid!” the waitress said.

“I’m eighteen.” I showed her my Horizon International ID.

She nodded uneasily, eying my security guards, and said her name

was Marge.

“Do you know Angela very well?” I said.

“We chat sometimes when she comes in here. Tim looks like my

nephew’s twin brother, so we got to talking one day. Isn’t he the cutest

kid?”

“Oh yes—he is. Can you tell me anything about Angela? About her

family, for instance?”“Not really. She said she moved here from Iowa a few years back.

She wanted to be an actress.”

“I didn’t know that!” I vaguely recalled seeing a copy of A Streetcar




Named Desire on Angela’s desk. And I remembered last year’s Christ-

mas party, when Angela had entertained everyone with uncanny imper-

sonations of President Stone making a speech proposing “the death

penalty for bad jokes,” and various movie stars saying other ridiculous

things. She had talent.

“Yeah. She was very discouraged, though. She couldn’t even land a

one-minute TV commercial. After three years of trying, she was ready

to give up. She hated the idea of being a secretary, although she said it

was a very cushy job.”

“Really?” I smiled.

“She had to bring a book to work so she wouldn’t fall asleep,”

Marge replied. “She said you never asked her to do anything.”

“I’m a student—I don’t spend much time at the office.”

“How’s Angela doing?”

“Very bad,” I sighed. “The doctor said her condition is extremely

critical.”

“Is there a chance she’ll... die?”

“Yeah. It’s possible, I think. The doctor said the next eight hours

will tell.”

“What will happen to Tim?” Marge moaned.

“I gave Angela my word I’d look after him, and I will!”

We ordered some food. Tim had a Salisbury steak with mashed

potatoes. On Marge’s recommendation, my bodyguards and I had

shrimp scampi.

When we returned to Angela’s building, a car with two more secu-

rity men was waiting by the entrance. I went up with Tim and put him

to bed, helping him to change into a pair of pajamas that looked like a

superhero’s costume. One of my bodyguards asked if he could stay in

the living room and I agreed.Tim insisted I read him a bedtime story, so I found an odd book

entitled Horton Hears a Who , by a doctor named Seuss.

Tim was asleep by the time I’d finished the story. I found some cat




food in a cupboard and fed the cat. It timidly came out of hiding to eat,

and then rubbed against my leg. It was a small gray and white tiger—still

a kitten.

“What’s your name, kitty?” I said, petting it for a moment.

It meowed noncommittally.

Then I went into Angela’s bedroom and prepared to go to bed my-

self. I’d just sleep in my clothes. I pulled a computer from my purse

and wrote a poem:

Childhood is a difficult time—

Each season—an arduous birth.

Playing amid unnoticed grime—

Drawn taut between Heaven and Earth.

Graven masks in memory’s shadows—

From times and tales long lost

Haunt their moonlit meadows,

Endowing lives—storm-tossed.

Each awakening stirs a fear—

No adult’s terror can match:—

To pristine eyes—new worlds appear—

New minds must grasp from scratch.

Where they find childhood’s courage, though—

Is a secret—only children know.

When I met him, I recognized Tim. We always recognize the peo-

ple who will change our lives. As though we’re keeping appointments

made before we were born, or in forgotten dreams.

Where have I met you before, Tim? I wondered, shutting my eyes.

Years ago, I’d had a haunting dream of meeting an “ancient child”—

who was both a little boy and older than the Earth.

The apartment was stuffy, so I opened a window. Angela had deco-

rated her bedroom with needlepoint and pictures of herself and Tim.

Issues of Cosmopolitan and Variety and travel brochures for Disney

World covered the nightstand with a half-eaten candy bar on top.I vaguely recalled Angela mentioning her vacation plans: she’d

looked forward to taking Tim to Disney World.

Oh, Angela, poor Angela! I thought, my head throbbing. This is




unbearable!

Exploring Angela’s apartment made me feel like a thief. Although

this woman had worked for me for two years, I’d never known she had

a son. It was like meeting her for the first time today.

Before curling up on Angela’s bed, I peeked into the living room.

My bodyguard sat on the sofa, sipping a container of coffee and reading

a magazine. His machine gun lay on the coffee table, its polished steel

gleaming softly in the solitary light. And I realized there was an emotion

worse than the malaise I’d felt all morning: Fear.

I turned out the light.

Amazingly, I managed to fall asleep—maybe it was nervous exhaus-

tion. I don’t recall how long I slept. A few hours?

At 3 AM I awoke, drenched in sweat. A sickeningly sweet odor

filled the room, as though someone had spilled a gallon of perfume.

And I felt it—cold that chilled my bones.

“Mommy, Mommy, don’t go!” Tim screamed in his room. “I

promise I’ll be good! I won’t make a mess! Please don’t go, Mommy!

Please don’t go!”

“Damn!” my bodyguard muttered, peering into Tim’s bedroom.

“Nobody there!”

The sweet stench vanished. I ran into Tim’s room, scooped him

up, and took him to bed with me.

The next morning, I gave Tim his breakfast—cold cereal with milk

and sugar—before calling the hospital. The cereal box had a picture of a

pirate on it. I read and reread the list of ingredients on the box—putting

off making the call.

Angela didn’t have any tea, so I drank a container of coffee my

bodyguard handed me. On the refrigerator, I spotted a calendar with

notations on it for meetings of an organization called “Parents without Partners.” So Angela had no husband. Perhaps she had friends there

who could locate her family.

Finally—at about nine—I called the hospital. After being put on hold




ten minutes, I reached Dr. Joshi who said Angela had passed away in

the night, at three in the morning.

“Maybe it was just as well,” he added. “If she’d survived, she

would’ve been blind, paralyzed, and horribly disfigured.”

My eyes tightly shut, I hung up the phone and pressed my forehead

against the refrigerator.

I finally called Tilda and sobbed, “I need to ask you some favors.”

First I asked her to have all the furniture cleared out of the green bed-

room—the one next to mine. Then she should hire a moving company

to transport the furniture from Tim’s bedroom to there. And finally, to

come to Angela’s apartment with a camera and cat carrier.

“I’m sorry to dump so much on you, Tilda.”

“I can walk and whistle, Miss Connie!” she replied.

I gave her Angela’s address.

After breakfast, I dressed Tim and said, “A friend of mine is com-

ing and we will have to go with her to my place. We’re going to take

your bed and everything from your bedroom to my house.”

“Will we take Hamlet, too?”

Hamlet must be the cat.

“Of course, Tim. We wouldn’t go without Hamlet!”

Now I had to tell him. I decided to be direct. Tim was a child but

he wasn’t stupid. He’d know if I lied to him.

“I have something else to tell you, Tim. Something horrible. Your

mother has gone far, far away. Forever. She loves you and would like to

be with you, but she can’t. She asked me to take care of you.”

“Is she in Heaven, like Daddy?” he said.

“Yes, Tim,” I sobbed. “She went to Heaven. I want you to think of

me as a second mommy.” I hugged him and rocked him in my arms.

He just cried softly; he didn’t protest or fight now. He knew.

A terrible resolve filled my soul: I’d find the people responsible for

this. It was bad enough they were stalking me. Tim and Angela were

defenseless innocents, and nothing could justify the injury done them.The perpetrators would feel the pain they’d caused—every last bit of it.


the well of souls (excerpt)

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