Chapter One
Interventions
God himself could not alter the course of nature.
Goethe, 1820
He always stayed at the Marriott just off the Gänsemarkt, a modern hotel near the old city center, deep in the reconstructed downtown area of Hamburg, Germany. Staying here was habit now, nothing more or less than that, because as far as chain hotels went this Marriott was better than most and, when he thought about the matter he thought the staff always treated him well, and what more could one ask of a hotel? Besides, he thought, The Four Seasons over by the lake was simply too pretentious, and it was too far away from all the action.
Because Hamburg was, after all was said and done, all about the action.
The man’s name was William Taylor, though few ever dared call him Bill these days. He was a big man full of big ideas for making big money, and for the past twenty five years he had been doing just that. Growing up on a ranch northwest of Billings, Montana, he’d never once considered staying out there on the windswept prairie with his family, and he had never felt any familial obligation to continue ranching. He instead went to the University of Southern California on a full-ride football scholarship, yet he — somewhat uncharacteristically for a jock on an athletic scholarship — took his studies seriously. He majored in economics and did well, though he carried a minor in film production — for reasons that will soon become clear. Still, his future was taking shape nicely, though he needn’t have worried, not really.
He’d been an outstanding talent in high school, and became a fearsome middle linebacker respected by every team USC faced, and while he had a reputation of being a little too mean every now and then, he was also considered a “fair” player — whatever that meant. USC went to the Rose Bowl twice while Taylor was on the team, and he won the defensive MVP his senior year when SC won another national championship, and Taylor almost singlehandedly shut down Notre Dame’s final drive, preventing their ‘go ahead’ score and insuring that USC took home yet another national title. He was drafted by the San Francisco Forty Niners and played there seven years, and he was instrumental in San Francisco’s two Super Bowl wins during that time. His football career was, however, cut short by a cheap shot in what turned out to be his last playoff game, in a heartbreaking loss against the Dallas Cowboys. He flew home weeks later with his shattered left femur and knee still in a cast, with a host of metal rods and plates in his leg. While effectively ending his professional football career, this injury had lasting effects: he used a cane to walk, and the pain was usually so bad that walking more than a quarter mile left him in tears.
But after this career ended, and not yet having turned thirty years old, he realized that he still had friends all over California, and none of them seemed too put off by his limp and his growing collection of eccentric canes. Friends in The City, and even closer friends down in LA, were more than helpful, and in no time at all Taylor went to work for a film production company working out of the Twentieth Century Fox studios adjacent to Century City. His first real assignment was to join one of the location scouting teams working on the second trilogy of a popular science fiction film series, the first film he was involved with concerned the early childhood years of a kid named Skywalker. The rest is, as the saying goes, History.
Because he did well on this first project, and because he did he took on a more active, participatory role on the two sequels that followed, moving into production for the third installment, learning the ropes from masters of their craft all along the way as he progressed. Smaller independent projects followed, but he was credited as an Associate Producer on an Oscar winner and that was pretty much that. He’d made it into the big leagues once again and soon bought a house on Foothill Road in Beverly Hills, then he picked up a nice sailboat which he berthed down at Marina del Rey. Life seemed good. Better than good, really, yet people talked. Perhaps because through all his meteoric rise William Taylor had remained resolutely unattached…and so he was by the time he first limped into his house on Foothill Road considered a confirmed bachelor. Except…there was a history he refused to talk about.
Because, in point of fact, he wasn’t a bachelor, at least not in his mind, or should we say heart? No, he wasn’t…not really. At least, he didn’t want to be, yet while being single certainly wasn’t the result of a conscientious decision on his part, by the time Taylor made it to Hamburg he really didn’t seem to care anymore whether he was in a relationship or not. And perhaps because he was in his mid-forties, though in his mind he was fast approaching fifty-years-old, and this despite the fact that most of his business associates considered him a decent enough looking fella. No, maybe it was because, despite his good looks and all his newfound money he’d never really grown all that comfortable about his leg. He was, in fact, still something of a jock, too — at heart, anyway. He’d soon grown comfortable with the fact he’d never run again, yet even so he almost religiously went to a gym over on Sunset at least four evenings a week. He kept in shape that way, yet because his left leg had begun to wither and atrophy, he became increasingly insecure about it.
Even so, a bunch of stuntmen types worked out at the gym he used, a couple of B-listed actors he knew as well, and he did in fact make a few new friends there from time to time, too, but then again he always did. And even though lots of actresses worked out there, he’d never bumped into anyone special. Nothing ever developed, these girls were more than willing to go out for drinks.
Because William Taylor just wasn’t that kind of guy. He was a guy’s guy, true enough, and he had an easy way around beautiful women that most found completely disarming, but you might consider that it was all a ruse. People liked him, and probably because they found him genuinely easy to talk to, and he was, predictably enough, a popular guest at parties all around the West Side. He had that Super Bowl ring, too, and in a status driven town like Los Angeles a little chunk of metal like his opened all kinds of doors, doors that might otherwise remained firmly closed, especially to a cowboy from the Middle of Nowhere, Montana. And yet even in the rarified places he soon frequented, his easy going smile and kind eyes always carried the day, and he easily made new friends wherever he ventured — even in locales as varied Tunisia and Tibet, or yes, even in cities known for more reserved citizenry, places like Hamburg, Germany.
Taylor’s production company had just begun work on a small production in Stockholm and he had decided to come down to Hamburg to decompress before heading back to LA, and he’d reserved his usual top floor suite for the night. After he arrived he showered and changed into the same clothes he always wore, before he made his way down to the taxi stand off the lobby, yet right away he did a double take — because there were, literally, dozens of priests walking around everywhere he looked. Even members of his own security detail stopped and gawked, because the sight was almost comical…like herds of penguins out walking the streets of Hamburg as a light snow began falling.
These days his security team was never really far away. Like the famous, big name actors the studios used for their biggest productions, Taylor was now considered a ‘high-profile target’ and when he was abroad the studio regularly kept a large detail on him. If the threat level was considered high enough, a team regularly followed him around Los Angeles.
And then there was the matter of his clothing, which vexed these security contractors to no end. Taylor always wore a black suit and a white shirt — topped with a bright red bow tie. Everywhere. No exceptions. And the same heavy black wingtips. The closet in his suite at the Marriott had four freshly laundered suits and four freshly shined pairs of identical shoes, everything custom made in London; even his socks and briefs were identical, and when members of his detail swept the rooms for listening devices they came away making up jokes about the clothes in Taylor’s closet.
But these priests out here on the street were, however, another matter entirely. They were everywhere. Standing in clusters noisily chatting away. Gaggles of them walking along like penguins playing on Antarctic shores — all of them noisily chatting away. Taylor had never seen anything quite like it, not even in Rome, and he laughed a little as he stepped outside, because the sight of so much ecclesiastical garb out on the sidewalks of Hamburg was faintly preposterous. Still, he wondered what was going on and why they all seemed so excited. In the end, he bunched his lips and shrugged, then hopped into the next taxi that pulled up to the stand, asking the driver to take him down to the Reeperbahn.
+++++
Yes. The Reeperbahn. That Reeperbahn. Ground Zero for fun in Germany.
After the Beatles played Hamburg — once upon a time — the city became a stop where every semi-serious musicians of every stripe called from time to time. Yet Hamburg was also famous for semi-naked chics sitting in overstuffed chairs, their recumbent forms lounging in open windows — even in the middle of winter! — selling their bodies and, just maybe, little slices of their souls — one cheap little fuck at a time. Cheap dance halls, too, all usually overflowing with sailors just off freighters fresh in from faraway ports, and these fetid establishments lined many of the side streets just off the Reeperbahn, with all kinds of garish strobes pulsing to deeply unsettled music and with steaming, testosterone-fueled lust running headlong into the cool, calculating economies of hard-eyed girls from eastern Europe — their darting eyes like double-edged stilettos, looking to settle a few quick scores in the night just ahead.
Yet the real heart of the Reeperbahn remained steadfast in everlasting, blazing, neon-hued agony: because if sailors didn’t get lucky in the dance halls there were always the dozens of adult video arcades waiting with open mouths everywhere they turned, ready and willing to take whatever bodily fluids came their way. Less reputable girls — and boys — worked in all those dark shadows, poor souls lost in the depths of a bottomless food chain.
For William Taylor, however, music mattered most of all — because music was the real beating heart of the city. And not just any music. Taylor was pulled like a moth to the flame by the city’s jazz clubs. Little out of the way hole-in-the-wall places with a good piano on a tiny stage, a decent bar and maybe a kitchen. Taylor loved jazz and he always had, but to him Hamburg was special. His veins pulsed with the piano infused, gin fueled music of minor keys, and the soft musical wanderings he found in Hamburg really, really tripped his trigger. Who knows…maybe it was all the debauchery going on just outside the walls, around the Reeperbahn? Maybe the dualities of life…like the other people just outside, out there walking along neon-bathed sidewalks, tripping and falling their way to the other side of their lives, while he sat inside listening to music most would never understand. Maybe he enjoyed his little island in the middle of an ocean littered with the falling, and the fallen.
He was, you see, still that middle linebacker who’d played for ‘SC and the Forty Niners, still at heart a rather mean human being, and still blessed with a very cold heart. He knew that, deep down at least, the easy smiles and free-flowing conversations he devised were simply a ruse, they always had been, and when he’d had a few drinks he was willing to admit — if only to himself — that he was filled with a deep hatred for people. His fellow man. Not ambivalence, mind you. A deep, abiding hatred. And he’d felt that way all his life — because, as it is with most people who feel this way, he’d learned this way of approaching life from his father.
The drive from the hotel took less than five minutes, even in the dense, early evening traffic and, because it was almost Christmas, the sun had been down for some time, the temperature, too. As a matter of fact he felt it was almost too cold for this kind of nonsense, but when the taxi stopped William Taylor paid his driver and stepped out into the cold; he began walking the last few steps to his favorite old jazz club just off the Gerhardstrasse — a funky little building that looked like a purple and black house stuck inside an inconvenient alcove off an alley of ill-repute more than anything else. The dive was conveniently just out of sight, too, which was probably a good thing. Hookers and trannies stood in deep shadows while middle-aged worshippers got down on their knees and prayed at their alters, and everywhere William Taylor looked he saw desperate eyes quietly in search of flagging weakness…predators on the prowl for fresh blood, for the next kill. Oh, how he hated what he saw.
He made it into the club and through that press of besotted humanity gathered near the door and he found a table not far from the tiny stage, his back up against a brick wall, a wall that had probably last been painted a deep, glossy black sometime in the early 50s. An old Steinway sat on the stage in funky purple shadows, along with a gleaming upright bass and a decent sized drum kit, and he looked at his watch while he tried to stifle a deep, jet-lagged yawn as he sized-up the crowd — such as it was. A handful of officers from ships, a couple of bespectacled, middle-aged businessmen with their too interested mistresses — their current playmates of the mouth — and even a couple of hookers at a table near the bar, surrounded by a half dozen kids fresh off the boat from Liverpool, or someplace like that. A cocktail waitress dropped by a minute later and asked what he needed — not wanted, mind you, but needed — and he grinned his order for a gin and tonic to her bored eyes then watched her walk away with a brief shake of his head. When she dropped off his gin he tipped her fifty euros and she instantly grew more solicitous and cheerful, and that made William Taylor a very happy fella, indeed. He looked at discovering and rediscovering again and again that his fellow man was nothing if not a craven, hollowed out creature — with no morals at all beyond an unquenchable hunger for money — and this was an event to be cherished, as something that justified his outlook on life.
But when a bunch of penguin-walking priests toddled into his old cave few patrons bothered to look up from their whiskeys or biers — which Taylor also found more than a little amusing. Hiding, were they? Of course they were, especially the beer bellied men with their mistresses. Most of the priests went to two big adjoining tables, but a couple of stragglers came in late and walked around in states of holy confusion, looking for one last vacant table — only now there weren’t any. One of the singletons found a table with sailors in a far corner, and when these drunkards didn’t object the poor priest sat with them. Taylor could just imagine their inner conflict as he watched them, and he grinned at their misery.
But now one last priest was roaming the room, and when he spotted Taylor’s table he ambled over, a hopeful gleam in his eye.
“Sorry,” the old priest began. “I hate to intrude, but would you mind if I sat here?”
Taylor smiled genially. “Not at all. Please, make yourself comfortable.”
“Ah. You’re American. I can’t tell you how good it is to hear your voice.”
“Oh? Why’s that, Father?”
“I’ve been over here a week and hardly anyone speaks English these days. They can, mind you, but we’re so passé these days. Like a venerial disease running rampant through a convent, I should think. Anyway, I can’t wait to get back home.”
“Really? Where’s home?”
“I’m teaching these days, in South Bend.”
“Ah. Notre Dame,” Taylor sighed, remembering his Rose Bowl victory over that school while wanting to smash this fucking priest against the brick wall — as he rubbed his left knee in thoughtless ambivalence.
“Don’t tell me. You’re a football fan.”
Taylor grinned. “I played for USC, once upon a time. Against Notre Dame in the Rose Bowl, as a matter of fact.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yup. Then for the Forty Niners.”
“The NFL? Splendid! Now all I’ll need to make my night complete will be to contract HIV.”
Taylor chuckled. “Not a fan of the sport, I take it?”
“A mild understatement, my good friend and savior.”
“Sorry, Father, but I’m nobody’s savior.”
“I see. You aren’t Catholic, I take it?”
“Montana, so yes indeed, I certainly am. But perhaps lapsed would be a better word…”
“Ah,” the priest sighed, nodding. “Most of the early settlers there ran right into the open arms of the missions we’d established for the indigenous.”
“My great-grandparents first among them, Father, you’ll be so happy to know.”
Again, the priest chuckled…a very good natured, easy-going smile on his face. Taylor found him easy to talk to, and he started to relax a little. “So,” the priest asked, grinning smartly now, “do you come here often?”
Taylor laughed. “Not the most original pick-up line out there, is it, Father?”
“No, I suppose not, yet I couldn’t resist…”
“Why are there so many priests in town right now?”
“An academic conference on the Vatican and the Holocaust, and, dear boy, there’s not a mackerel left in the city, not from what I’ve heard, anyway. What about you? Fishing for Lost Souls, perhaps?”
“Hah! No, I was wrapping up a project in Sweden and I try to come here every time I’m in the area.”
“A project? Mind if I ask what?”
“Motion picture. I work in Hollywood, if that’s still an accurate descriptive. What do you teach?”
“History, of course. That’s about all us Jesuits are really good at these days, or so they tell me? We had a front row seat to the whole shooting match, after all.”
“A seat? I heard you were the guys behind the curtains pulling all the levers.”
The old man shrugged. “Wishful thinking, I’d say, or so sayeth the Wizard. Did you study history at USC?”
“No, not really, at least not beyond the requisite survey courses. I majored in Econ, was thinking about law school if football didn’t pan-out.”
“Pan-out…oh-ho, Forty Niners. That’s a good one…I like it. I’ll have to remember that.”
The lights dimmed and three people walked out onto the stage. The pianist was an old white guy who walked with a limp, the bassist was black and appeared to Taylor to be about twelve years old, while the drummer appeared to be only vaguely human, though he was of course carrying his sticks like they were knives. The pianist once had a reputation as a bad boy and was still kind of famous, at least among the jazz set, and everyone in the room seemed happy to find him still at the keys and actively touring again.
Taylor leaned back and took a long pull on his gin and when the first set ended — about an hour and a half later — he found he’d been barely breathing the entire time. The pianist then announced they’d be taking a short break, and as the lights came up the room seemed to collectively exhale and visibly relax — if only just a little.
“Incredible,” the priest sighed.
Taylor nodded. “Saw him up in The City first time, oh, I think it was back in the early 90s. He’s mellowed since then, I think.”
The priest seemed to struggle for a moment. “Ah. You met him before the bad times.”
“Really? What was that all about? Drugs?”
“I’m not sure, really. Just rumors, probably nothing of consequence, but he disappeared for years. Still, he’s always been something of a lost soul, something of an enigma.”
“A lost soul? How so?”
The priest sighed then turned to signal their waitress. “I think I’m going to need a drink. You? Need anything?”
“I could use a bite to eat, actually.”
When the waitress came over to their table Taylor asked if they had anything to eat — after the priest asked for a Drambuie — and when she mentioned wurst and kraut Taylor seemed to think that was about right so he ordered a plate, along with some spicy brown mustard.
“What about you, Father?” the girl asked timidly.
The priest turned and looked up at the girl, his demeanor kind yet almost expectantly, and then he replied to her in perfectly unaccented High German: “Ich hätte gerne geräucherte Felchen, bitte.”
“Danke, Vater,” the girl said, her kind voice now almost an awestruck whisper.
“They’ve always had a perfectly respectable smoked whitefish here,” the priest said as he turned back to Taylor. “I always have a little whenever I come back to Hamburg.”
“Really? I’ll have to give it a try sometime.”
“I do love this city, despite all that happened here.”
“I do too. Some pasts are more difficult than…”
“Yes. Precisely so. Yet there is a spirit in the air here. To say it is complex would be,,,”
“An understatement,” Taylor said. Thrust and parry, the dance always the same.
“That was really something,” the priest said, lost in thought but deciding to change the subject. “He’s playing better now than he has in years. He must be ninety years old by now.”
“So…you’ve been following him for some time, I take it?”
“Yes. Some time. His mother was…well, it’s a complicated tale, that much I do know, but he was seriously injured in some kind of accident and didn’t play for years.”
The waitress brought the priest’s Drambuie and Taylor thought better of it, asked if he could have another Tanqueray and tonic as well. The girl smiled and nodded genially enough before she walked back to her station beside the little bar, and though he watched her movement, he did so more out of professional curiosity than anything else.
“So, Father, should I know your name, or do we keep it simple tonight?”
“Oh, I am sorry. Andrew Kerrigan, Cynical Jesuit — late of South Bend.”
Taylor laughed. “I didn’t think Jesuits were allowed to be cynics.”
Which only made the priest laugh more — and quite loudly. “Jesuits are born cynics, Mister…ah, I am sorry…but I didn’t catch your name?”
“William Taylor.”
“Not Bill, I take it?”
“Not Bill.”
“Oh, yes, I remember now. William Taylor, number 55. Middle linebacker for the ‘Niners. Two Pro Bowls and then a devastating knee injury — against Dallas, was it not? MVP in your Rose Bowl victory against Notre Dame, if I remember correctly, and a defensive MVP the year you won the Super Bowl. And you were something of a celebrity around San Francisco for a while, I seem to recall.”
“I’d hardly call it that,” Taylor said, and yet, as he always did, Taylor looked away. Disinterested, you might say. Habitually so, even if his disinterest might have been an act.
“Involved with charities, too. Kids’ hospitals, that sort of thing, at least I seem to remember something like that. Then I recall you won an Oscar not long ago, did you not?”
Taylor shrugged while he fiddled with a fingernail.
“You know, William, sometimes modesty is nothing more than pretense.”
“I never liked being around braggarts, Father, and I’ve always assumed it’s better to remain quiet about that stuff.”
“But some people bask in all that reflected glory, William. Your accomplishments make them feel so important…”
“What?”
“Of course they do! There they are, sitting at a table with You — so they must be Important too, right? Isn’t that how the game is played? All those Pretenders? The Second Handers — trying to grab you unawares and hang on for their free ride as long as they can? I don’t tell me you’ve never basked in that reflected light, William!”
Taylor shrugged, yet he didn’t disagree. “I guess that’s just life, Father. The Haves and the Have Nots…”
“An equitable trade,” the priest cried jovially, “And now, here you are making millions off of all the great unwashed? Isn’t that a part of the game too? The reward, if you will?”
But just then their plates came — and Taylor thought not a moment too soon: a plate piled high with sausages, another with sauerkraut and mustard for Taylor, and a nice filet of smoked whitefish for the priest.
“Vielleicht ein bisschen Meerrettich, bitte?” the priest asked the girl.
Who smiled and nodded before she left them to their food.
“You’re not really the shy type, are you, William?” Kerrigan asked — out of the blue.
“No, I suppose not. I mean…really…what’s the point…? Odd, but I’ve never looked at fame and fortune in quite the way you describe,” Taylor said, rejoining the string of their earlier conversation. “And I don’t agree with the whole winner take all proposition…”
“Nor would I,” the priest sighed, smiling while doing his best to walk away from Taylor’s unintended ironies. “So, tell me about Sweden? A new film, you said? But first, how is your sausage? It looks rather good…”
“Decent enough, thanks. And Sweden is always delightful. I love it there, even in winter.”
“Yes. Nothing at all like Los Angeles, is it?”
Taylor looked up and thought about that for a moment. “I love LA, but the wildfires are really getting troublesome now,” Taylor replied blandly, “and there are other problems…”
“Yes indeed. Not to mention all those pesky homeless encampments next to the Maserati and Porsche dealerships down off Little Santa Monica,” Father Kerrigan said — as his fork skewered the pale flesh of the fish on his plate — though he was still waiting for his horseradish.
Yet Taylor only nodded, as if Kerrigan’s sarcasm was merely a pedantic, if too obvious, observation, self evident in the extreme and so not really worthy of further comment.
The priest sighed before he took another bite of his fish. “So tell me, William, I’m curious. Have you read Faust?”
“Faust? Goethe, you mean? No, never got around to that one. I do recall a movie, I think it was Tombstone? One of the writers told me that key elements of the timeline were developed with Faust in mind.”
“Tombstone?” Kerrigan grinned. “You mean the Val Kilmer film? Faust in a western? Good grief!””
“He was in it, yes. Val Kilmer and Kurt — oh, what’s his name. Kurt Russell, right? Yeah, the Russell kid. There were, well, there are a bunch of references to Faust in the narrative arc.”
“The narrative arc?” Father Kerrigan said, smiling broadly now. “What on earth does that really mean, William? I mean, really mean? That seems such a worn out phrase these days…!”
“Oh, don’t you know?” Taylor said, genuinely shocked. “Tell you the truth, Father, I’m not really sure I know myself, but all the writers seem to use the term every time they’re pitching a screenplay to the development team, so Hell, it must mean something, right?”
“Just so,” Kerrigan said, smiling again, enjoying this jock’s passive-aggressive ignorant-arrogance almost more than was healthy for someone his age.
“Yeah, just so. I mean…an arc even sounds impressive, ya know?”
“It certainly does, William. So, speaking of arcs, are you familiar with the concept of fallen angels?”
“Angels? Fallen angels? You’re referring to Lucifer, right? To Satan, to the devil and all that stuff?”
“Stuff indeed, William! Truer words have never been spoken.”
Taylor shrugged. “My mother was into all that stuff, at least she was near the end.”
“Your mother? Really? Tell me about her…”
“Yeah? Well, I really don’t know much about that, Father. That was her little part of our universe, but not really so much when we were growing up, ya know? Everything we knew about Satan probably came from The Exorcist, ya know?”
“We? You have brothers and sisters?”
“I had a brother, yeah. He stayed on the ranch after I left for LA, wanted to take over the business after the parents were gone. I guess you could say things didn’t work out the way he thought they would…”
“Oh? And what happened to him, William?”
Taylor looked away, still trying to push those unwanted images from his mind’s eye, even after 25 years. Still unsuccessfully, he admimtted. “He got drunk one night, Father. He was driving back out to the ranch in a snow storm. Happened coming up to Lavina, bad intersection out in the middle of nowhere. Braked too hard I guess, rolled the truck. Had the window down a little and his head got caught between the top of the window and the truck’s roof — as it collapsed. Popped his head like a zit, his brains landed out in the snow like fifty feet away from where the truck stopped rolling, and that was that.”
“How’d your parents take that, William?” the priest said, taking in the vacant denial fixed like a wedge inside Taylor’s lost soul.
“Dad…he…uh, well, he had a hard time with all that stuff. Kind of came undone. Never the same after that, ya know?”
“And your mother?”
Taylor shrugged. “Dementia, or maybe it was Alzheimer’s. She’d already pretty much come undone by then, and Dad ended up putting her away up in Lewistown.”
“Lewistown?”
“That’s where the state hospital is, on the way up to Great Falls.”
“And…is she still there?”
Taylor shook his head. “She died,” he whispered, “a few years ago.”
“And your father?”
“He passed away a few months after she did. Couldn’t take being alone, I think.”
“Oh? Where were you?”
“Africa. Working on a film.”
“When did you last see him?”
“At Frank’s funeral, I guess.”
“Frank was your brother, I take it?”
Taylor nodded. “That’s right.”
“So, if I’ve got this right, Frank died before your mother went to the hospital?”
Taylor nodded, not quite evasively but even so he was growing visibly uncomfortable now.
“So tell me, William. Do you think a person can die of a broken heart?”
“You mean, like, some kind of psychological thing…like a collapse?”
Father Kerrigan nodded.
“I suppose that’s possible, but if so I’ve never heard of something like that happening.”
Kerrigan nodded again but still he remained silent.
“I guess maybe I could have spent more time with him,” Taylor added, but the priest could see a certain indelible insincerity in the man’s eyes, like some kind of hardened inability to understand another human being’s need, and that basic failing had been permanently etched inside the man’s soul — and probably before he’d even been conceived.
“But…you were working on a new film? Right?” the priest added, coaxing Taylor now.
“That’s right,” Taylor sighed. “Dad understood all that.”
“Understood?”
“The money involved. The risk.”
“So, money was important to him?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And to you to, I take it?”
Taylor looked at the priest and smiled. A hard smile, almost hurtful. “Certainly, Father,” Taylor said. “I am, after all, only human.”
And Father Kerrigan smiled too. “Excellent!” the priest said as he slapped the tabletop. “A man should know what he’s all about! Now, how was that sausage!”
They said their goodbyes after the pianist’s second set, and Taylor walked out into the night feeling pleasantly numb from his third gin and tonic. He passed garishly lit windows that framed pink neon ladies of the evening, yet all their plaintive entreaties left him feeling little more than cold and resolutely alone, like he had grown too old for all these kinds of things. For all these human kinds of things. Because after all…they weren’t selling sex…they were working a con for some easy money, and all he felt was hate.
But…wasn’t he doing just that very thing? Didn’t that priest as much as say so?
And as he passed window after window he wondered why that had sprung to mind. Why was money so central to everything we did? And why was renouncing money so central to…
He stopped as he came to a very strange looking window, indeed.
There was a woman inside, but her room was a dark space unadorned by light, and not even shadows seemed welcome there.
He could just make out that she had blond hair, and that her skin was ferociously pale. The space around her eyes had been airbrushed — like something out of the old, original Blade Runner film — only this girl was dressed in purest white. Stockings, garters, heels — and maybe even a g-string, but he couldn’t be sure — because everything was pale off-white in her ambient shadows, pale yet almost lavender. Yet she was selling the purest white, he thought at once, because she was selling little pieces of her virginity in the darkest part of her little room, and what was that if not pale?
“What are you staring at?” the coiling blond hissed.
“Oh, I’m sorry! Was I staring?” Taylor said as he walked past her window without stopping.
“And rude, too! You won’t even stop to speak to me?”
“Why would I do that?” Taylor said as he stopped and turned to face her.
“Simple politeness? To another human being, perhaps?”
“But why…you’re…a prostitute?”
“Ah, so, am I therefore sub-human? Not worthy of even a modest ‘Hello, how are you?'”
“Well then, hello, how are you?”
“I am fine. And you?”
He looked at the hooker, this ur-woman, not at all sure what to say next, or even if he should say anything at all. He didn’t feel like being pulled into whatever con she was playing, but the simple fact that she was almost surreally attractive might have had something to do with the things he suddenly felt. “I’m not sure,” he said at last.
“Not sure — how you feel? And how is that?”
“I’ve just spent several hours talking to a priest. I found it very unsettling.”
She watched his hands now. Deep inside his trouser pockets, fingers twirling like tumblers inside an iron vault door. “Unsettling? Did the priest speak in truths to you?”
“‘Speak in truths?’ Now there’s an odd thing to say?”
She smiled, but — in truth — he could hardly see her features — hidden as she was in the peculiar near darkness of her lavender shadows. “Odd? Perhaps that is so, but isn’t that how our priests talk to us? In the hard absolutes of faith and redemption? In the hard truth of human existence?”
“Ya know…I think I’ve had enough philosophy shit for the night. You have a good one, alrighty?” He turned and started to walk off into the pale slanting light and lavender shadows surrounding her little window-like fortress, glad to be done with her — and that fucking priest! — when he heard a crisp snap…like she’d just snapped her fingers…and — at him!”
He turned and glowered at her.
“Why did you leave me like that?” the woman said, her eyes locked on his.
He cleared his throat, now — suddenly — feeling more than a little angry. “Because I really don’t feel like having a goddamn Princeton Debating Society marathon with a mother-fucking whore standing out here in the snow!” he bellowed. “Does that make any fucking sense at all to you? Am I being clear enough for you?”
She seemed to recoil under the weight of his assault, the fury behind his words tearing into her like physical blows, and quite unexpectedly he watched as she turned and began to cry. Gently at first, and when she realized what was happening she ran off into the back rooms of her little flat, leaving him standing there in flat-footed, open-mouthed wonder.
“Imagine that,” he sighed inwardly. “A hooker…with feelings.”
He walked over to her little window and peered inside. He saw a little sliver of light coming from under a closed door on the far wall, then…out of the corner of his eye…he saw an arm…from, he guessed, another hooker’s window, flinging something his way. Some sort of liquid was arcing through the air, headed his way, and he suddenly realized it was too late to react.
Piss, and a lot of it, rained down on his head and shoulders, and the acrid odor was instantly recognizable. He looked down and shook his head, then he stepped closer to the now abandoned window and knocked on the glass.
Another arm appeared from yet another window, and another cup full of urine headed his way, but he stepped clear of this assault before he walked back out into the light to address this shooting gallery of well-armed whores.
“If any of you does this to me again,” he began, pointing at the first woman who’d pelted him, “I will see to it that you feel some real pain. Tonight.” He continued to stare down this first woman as a third cup of piss arced in from behind, and this huge colloidal mass splashed all over the back of his head, running down his neck and then under his shirt — as a new, uncertain gravity took hold of events. He reached in his coat and took out his phone and began photographing each laughing woman, and each obligingly flipped him the middle finger before flinging even more piss his way, cackling as he simply stood there, their pee raining down all around, and over, him.
He brought his phone up and punched a number, then he put the conversation onto the speaker before he turned up the volume.
“This is 11-780. In Hamburg tonight.”
“Yessir. We have two teams on you, and they report matters are getting a little out of hand on your end.”
“Is that so? Well, let you team know I do NOT appreciate your team letting this happen. Be that as it may, I’d like your team to wrap this up for me right now. And right now wouldn’t be too soon,” he said — just as he noticed a pimp of some kind coming out of one of the shadows.
“Yessir. What did you have in mind.”
“Something on the severe side, maybe just a little short of too much. Something no one around here will soon forget…if ever. And there’s a pimp headed my way…”
“Yessir. On him.”
By the time he turned to face the whores again all their windows were slamming shut and their garish pink neon lights were flickering off. The pimp was now, however, face down on the pavement, both legs broken, an arm too.
And William Taylor smiled.
But then, for the benefit of whoever might still be watching, or listening, he gently, almost smartly said: “You can run, ladies, but you can’t hide.”
Then, as he didn’t want to endure the humiliation of a taxi ride, he walked to the Marriott with his detail trailing a block behind. Seething. All the way. As a light snow fell on his piss-soaked shoulders.
And while he didn’t notice the woman following him in a taxi, two members of his security detail most certainly had. Their ‘Client’ was a Big Deal and now he was mad — very mad — because they’d fucked up.
And that would not, could not happen again. Not on their watch…
His detail let him out at the front lobby entrance, and the woman followed him inside. She kept a discrete distance, but she made it onto the elevator with him. And with two members of his team.
By the time Taylor pulled the wallet out of his jacket and held it up to the door to his suite, the woman was just a few meters behind, while the two members of his security team were right behind her. By then she was looking nervously behind as she walked up to Taylor, and now she appeared to be more than a little scared.
“Could I speak to you?” she said to Taylor as his door popped open.
“Ah. The philosopher-whore, and imagine my surprise, how complete you’ve made my evening,” he said, now addressing the two armed mercenaries watching over him. “Imagine that, gentlemen. She wants to talk to me, in all my piss-stained glory. Me. I am flattered.”
“Please,” the woman continued, “I would like to apologize.”
“You would? How interesting. I was thinking that maybe you’d rather go up to the roof and enjoy a complimentary flying lesson. Think you could arrange that for my apologetic friend?” he said to one of the men, the one with the Walther in his hand.
“Yessir,” the lead mercenary said, doing his best not to grin.
“Please?” the woman asked again, only now she was almost on the verge of crying. “I’d really like to speak to you.”
His eyes moved fractionally until he was looking at her, and she seemed to tremble when his brown eyes grabbed hers. “Talk?” he growled. “About what would you like to talk? Please, Whore…do tell.”
“Truth. About what the priest talked to you about. That kind of truth.”
“I’m tired,” he started to say…motioning to the lead mercenary.
“And you need a bath,” she stammered quickly, just like she was looking to get out of this situation alive. “Could I at least do that much for you?”
“What?” he said a little too melodramatically, startled by this sudden, unwarranted audacity. “Give me a bath? You?”
“Yes, please. While we talk.”
He thought for a moment then pushed the door to his suite open, stepping back and holding the door open for her, letting her enter. He held it open as his security detail walked in behind the woman, too.
“Wait out here,” he told the men as he walked into his bedroom, the woman trailing behind him by a step or two, then he closed the door as she entered the room.
Her hooker shoes looked vaguely pathetic in this setting, the raccoon makeup around her eyes beyond obscene as he pulled out his phone and dialed his security coordinator — this call still on the phone’s external speaker.
“Yessir?”
“Call Huff, would you? I want to be wheels up by 0600 latest. Get the car here in two hours, and someone to pack my bags in an hour.”
“Yessir. Anything else?”
“The women? What happened to them?”
“On the way to the hospital now, sir.”
“Fine, fine. Let your team know I appreciate the extra effort.”
“Yessir. Anything else?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Yessir.”
He cut the line and turned to the wide-eyed, terrified prostitute. “Well, what are you standing there for?” he said as he slipped out of his shoes and walked to the bathroom. She followed him into the palatial, marble-lined room and he stared at her reflection in the mirror as she came in. “Get that shit off your face,” he snarled as he pointed to the sinks and the assortment of soaps on the marble countertop, “before you fucking do anything else.” He turned on the water in the huge shower and when it was warm enough he stepped under the spray and let it run through his clothing, not bothering once to look at the wretch as she undressed and washed her face. With his arms outstretched he leaned into the wall and slipped off his trousers, then his shirts, the hot water now coursing down his back, then he felt a cool blast of air as the woman entered the shower.
She soon had a lathered sponge ready to go and started on his back, then the backs of his thighs. He moved the spray and she applied more soap to her sponge before she worked on his sides, then his shoulders.
“Go there, please,” she said, pointing to a marble bench along one side of the shower, “and sit for me.”
Feeling totally relaxed now he demurred, and without protest he went and sat. As she began washing his hair he closed his eyes and let his mind drift until he felt an easy sleep coming for him — with his forehead resting against her belly. ‘How maternal,’ he thought as a completely unexpected wave of emotion rolled over his thoughts, her gentle fingers sending him inward to a haunted landscape of unwanted memories he’d thought long buried beneath a cold Montana prairie.
“You speak English very well,” he said a moment later, running from long hidden feelings lurking in the steam.
“I spent most of my childhood on a farm near Bristol,” she began. “When my parents divorced I moved back here with my mother.”
“College?”
“I have had…an education,” she sighed, in-charge and smiling now, at ease once again.
“And what did you want to be when you grew up?”
She chuckled at his diffident disdain. “Before life turned sideways, you mean?”
“Yes, I suppose I do.”
“I always wanted to have horses. Nothing else mattered to me.”
“No interests, nothing you always wanted to do?”
“No, not really. Friends always said I should be an actress, but to me that seemed a frivolous thing to pursue.”
“Oh? Why’s that?” he said slowly, gently and on-guard now, his eyes wide open in the mist — like he knew there was a snake in the grass just ahead. Looking through her pubic thatch to her knees and feet, watching the water run from his head down her legs before pooling around her feet, he was suddenly very much aware of her presence, of every nuanced beat of her personality, and of all the warning lights in his mind blinking red.
“Oh, I was never pretty enough for all that drama stuff,” she sighed.
“Well, the question is…are you an actress now, or are you not?”
“I studied a little, and I was in a play in London once…”
He stood abruptly and pushed her gently to a far corner of the shower. “You are at the front door of a house. You are a police officer and you have come to tell the mother of a boy you found earlier in the evening that her son is now dead, and that he was killed in a motor vehicle accident not two hours ago. My hand is the mother’s face…so now, follow my hand, her face, as you tell her what has happened…”
He watched her snap to and begin an ad-libbed dialogue with this imaginary, unseen woman, her movements deceptively true to character…empathy written all over her face, the strength of her fictional police officer’s resolve immediately believable, and while she spoke he studied her face, her eyes, as she worked through her hastily improvised sketch. When she finished he looked at her with something akin to respect in his eyes, and now he spoke with kindness in his voice.
“Have a passport?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“You want to make a movie? In Hollywood? Make a bunch of money, maybe enough to buy a some land, maybe a horse or two?”
She looked knowingly at this strange man — and she knew he wasn’t kidding now. “You would do this for me?” she asked humbly, smiling innocently as she watched his fall begin.
“I can put you in a position to make all this happen, yes. You’ll have to believe in me. To trust me — and I know that won’t be easy for you — not after tonight. You’ll have to do the hard work, all of it. Understand? I can get you in the door, but the rest will be up to you. You do that and yes, I can do that for you.” He watched her reaction closely, thinking ‘At least I can make some dreams come true, for some people.’
She nodded as she gauged his reaction to her smile. “Okay,” she cooed. “I accept your proposal.”
He held out his right hand and she looked down and took it. “We’re partners now,” he said, adding, “You take care of me and I’ll take care of you. That’s how the game works. Okay?”
“You mean, like sex or something?” she said, grinning — though still innocently.
He laughed — then shook his head. “Oh…Hell no. I don’t have time for that shit anymore, and besides, I seem to have zero interest in people these days. So, no…I mean I’ll look out for your business interests and you look out for mine. But at the same time, if you try to screw me you’ll be back out here on the streets before you can figure out what happened to you. Is that clear enough for you?”
“It is, yes,” she said, still holding his hand. “But…could you please tell me what this is really all about?”
+++++
After a quick stop at the prostitute’s flat — to collect her passport as well as some clothing — Taylor’s limousine made the short hop out to the main international airport just north of the city center. His driver avoided the large departure hall and drove to the south side of the airport, parking just outside the side entrance of a nondescript commercial building that, at five in the morning, looked completely barren, and except for a few lights inside, almost lifeless. They walked into the FBO and a customs agent cleared them to leave Germany, and then a Mercedes van drove their group out onto a bustling biz-jet ramp. Fuel trucks zoomed by while airliners taxied out to the nearby runway, and even in the blowing snow everything out here felt loud and important.
And when she saw the jet, the hooker couldn’t, apparently, believe her eyes.
The jet they’d pulled up to was huge, larger than many of the commercial airliners she saw parked over at the main terminal building, and as they walked up the air-stairs this impression was only magnified. In small italicized block lettering by the main door she saw the words Boeing Business Jet Max 900, and then she recognized the aircraft was some sort of modified Boeing 737. One of the jet’s pilots met them just inside the door, and someone from their security detail took her bag and carried it aft. A large polished mahogany table — in the center of the aircraft and just ahead of the wing — had been set for breakfast, and one of the flight attendants was just now pouring glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice into tall Waterford tumblers. Another shuttle pulled up down on the ramp and another small entourage made its way up the air-stairs and into the cabin, and she smiled and tried not to stare as two extremely famous actors — a husband and wife duo almost constantly in the tabloids — came to the table…saying “Hi!” to “William” as they sat at the ornately set table.
She hardly realized it at first, but the aircraft’s door had shut and the engines — though almost completely silent from inside the cabin — were starting. Seatbelts were checked and the cabin lights dimmed before the jet started to taxi out to the runway, and though she had flown before she thought this takeoff felt very smooth, and very quiet. A minute after takeoff, plates loaded with fresh bagels appeared as the lighting increased a bit, then smoked salmon and cream cheese arrived on another plate, followed by thin slices of onions and tomatoes on yet another. A fourth, smaller plate appeared, this one loaded with capers and caviar and other unknown garnishes, and she watched as everyone reached out and grabbed what they wanted, constructing huge open faced bagels loaded with enough stuff to feed a family.
The man, who she now assumed was named “William,” stopped rubbing his left leg and leaned over to speak to her just then. “Would you like me to fix you a bagel?”
“Could you, please?” she smiled. “Is there something wrong with your leg?”
Though he nodded he seemed to avoid her question as he took her plate, and he fixed a mountain-sized monstrosity of salmon and caviar and hard boiled egg and then set it down in front of her. Flutes were filled with champagne, then their plates were cleared just in time to make room for even larger platters loaded with eggs and steaks and thick slices of pepper encrusted bacon, everything covered in sautéed mushrooms, and with the freshly seared meat covered in a thick, creamy Béarnaise sauce. She watched as the husband and wife team wolfed down their steaks and eggs and then, without a word, she smiled as they disappeared into the large aft cabin.
And then, quite suddenly, she was alone with the man.
“My name is William Taylor,” he began without preamble, “and I make movies. More to the point, I produce movies. I’m going home now after working through some pre-production issues with my latest project, which for the most part will be filmed in Stockholm in early Spring,” he said as he opened a briefcase, pulling out a book from inside and setting it on the table. “I’ve secured the film rights to this book, and we’ll begin pre-production in a couple of months,” he continued. “It was written by a cop, works for the LAPD. A girl, as a matter of fact; works out of Rampart, that’s like South-Central, that kind of thing…so non-fiction, if you get my drift. Lot of guts, tough girl. She impressed the Hell out of me. And that brings me to you, and why you’re here.”
She looked at him and nodded. “Yes?”
He handed her the book. “Turn it over,” he said.
And she did. And there on the back cover was a photograph of the author, dressed in her LAPD uniform, and she smiled knowingly as she studied the other woman’s face.
“Yes,” William Taylor said, “you could be her twin sister, only younger. I couldn’t see that until I got that goddamn raccoon makeup off your face, but it was obvious the moment I…”
“I understand. It is almost uncanny, is it not? Is that the correct word, William?”
“Uncanny? Yes. Perfect.”
“So…I should read this book, no?”
“Do you read English?”
She smiled. “Of course I do, William. Raised in England, remember?”
“Ah, right. Just so. We’re running your passport right now. Background checks with German police and Interpol. Anything I need to know about?”
She shook her head — slowly.
“No arrests? Any drug use I need to know about?”
Again, she shook her head.
He looked down at a photocopy of her passport. “Your name is Angel Stardust? Really?”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“What was your father’s name?”
“Gabriel.”
“Your mother?”
“Arcade,” she whispered, though it sounded like she had said something that sounded a little like Ar-caw-dah. “Though her given name is Lailah,” she added.
“How do you spell that?” he asked, and as she spelled it out for him he jotted notes on the margins of his photocopy. “That first is an odd one. Not sure I’ve heard that before.”
“It is a name that is not used much these days,” she said, smiling just a little.
“I see. And the last name? Isn’t that a little unusual…?”
She shrugged. “It is what it is and I never asked about it.”
“I’m just thinking of how it might look on a film poster, or, you know, in the trailer for the film? Angel Stardust? Hm-m? Oh well, I’ll turn it over to marketing, and I’m sure they’ll come up with something interesting. They always do.”
“Yes, I’m sure they will. Do you know what happened to the girls out there tonight…?”
“No.”
“Could you find out for me, please?”
“No.”
“I see. Well, if the opportunity should arise…”
“It won’t. Is that going to be a problem?”
“Of course not, William,” she said, smiling into his explicitly implied meanness.
“Okay. Angel.”
She stood and went to one of the windows and looked out into the pre-dawn sky. “That is an unusual aurora, is it not?”
“What’s that?” he said as he came over and looked out the window. “Gee-zuz!” he cried as the scale of the display hit him, and just then the BBJs captain came on over the intercom.
“Sorry about this, y’all, but there’s some kind of intense solar activity going on right now, mainly over Canada and the United States, but GPS sats are going down all around the planet and most radio transmissions appear to be offline now, too. We’ve just passed Bergen, Norway, so we’re diverting to that airport right now, and we’ll stay there on the ground until we know it’s safe to continue on to California. Again, sorry about the delay, but your safety is our priority at this point. We’ll let you know as things develop, and just as soon as we hear something we’ll let you know.”
“Well, damn,” Taylor sighed as he looked at his watch. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
She turned and smiled at him. “That’s understandable, William,” she cooed. “Things like this are seldom predictable. Or convenient.”
One of the flight attendants came back and asked them to take a seat and to get belted-in, and Angel smiled as she looked around, taking a more traditional seat on the left side of the aircraft near the forward galley. William, however, needed to go to the WC so he darted forward before he returned, eventually sitting just across the aisle from her.
She watched the aurora as the jet maneuvered around the airport beneath scattered clouds, and a few minutes later they were on the ground and taxiing to a corporate aviation ramp just north of the main terminal. Men were standing down there on the pavement, hands in pockets as they looked up at the sky, and at the intense display still visible — even though the sun was now rising. After the jet’s main door opened, and as cold winter air flooded the cabin, she and William walked to the opening and stood there watching the sky — and listening to the weird noises coming from the far side of the clouds.
“It almost sounds electric, doesn’t it?” he said — just as the captain came out the cockpit door.
“I’m glad we made it down when we did,” the pilot said as he came over to the door. “Tower reports that some jets are down over in the States, especially out west. Not sure why just yet, but I’m sure glad we didn’t have to come in on instruments this morning.”
“You said that the GPS is down?” Angel asked. “Doesn’t that effect your navigation systems?”
“Some. Yes,” the pilot said, still looking a bit shaken. “I’ve never run into anything quite like this before, and I’ve been flying for thirty five years…”
“Air Force?” Angel asked, smiling gently.
“No, Navy, then commercial until I retired — before I started with Fox.”
“Then we were in capable hands, Captain,” she said, smiling at the pilot.
He nodded. “Maybe God was just keeping an eye on us…?”
She smiled. “Can we ever really know about such things, Captain…?”
“I don’t know, but yeah, well, I think I became a true believer about a half hour ago,” the pilot said, grinning as he leaned out the door, listening to the cacophonous shrilling buzz the aurora was making right now. “Goddamn…but I ain’t never heard nothin’ like that in my life…!” he whispered. “Sounds like, I don’t know…like ghosts howling in the clouds, ya know?”
“Perhaps, yes,” Angel said, still smiling: “I can’t place your accent, Captain. Are you from Texas?”
“Yes Ma’am. Alpine…on a little spread just outside of town.”
“Cool nights there, even in summer,” she said.
“You’ve been?” the old pilot said, sounding a little surprised.
Her head nodded a little. “Yes, once, when I was younger. We went to Big bend, to the park, then we drove to Carlsbad Caverns before we went on to the Grand Canyon.”
“Sounds like a nice trip.”
She smiled — as if the memory was a warm one. “Yes, it was.” Then she noticed William was staring at her, like he was suddenly quite interested in how easily she seemed to connect with complete strangers, so she smiled at him then turned and walked back to her seat.
“Impressive,” he sighed as he sat across the aisle from her once again. “You’re not really the shy type, are you?”
“No, I suppose not. I mean…really…what’s the point…?”
And then it hit him. Hadn’t he said almost exactly the same thing to the priest — and just a few hours earlier? He turned to look at this creature — and found she was now staring intently…right back at him. And she was still smiling too. A soft, almost demure smile. Inviting, yet smiling in a way he had never seen, or felt, before. It was…a knowing smile…full of secrets too long obscure.
And then his mind drifted back to the few minutes they had shared together in the shower. The simple humanity of his forehead against the soft skin of her belly, the gentle streams of water running from his face down her legs. He’d wanted to put his arms around her and pull her close, to feel everything there was to feel about this strange girl, but then he’d felt the need to put some real distance between such feelings and all the tense ambiguities he’d felt in the dark shadows beyond and within the hidden world of her lavender windows.
But then here she was again — and quite suddenly, too — running her fingers through his hair, his scalp alive with electric currents of her own design, spiky sensations running like a million coiled tendrils snaking through his mind before washing down his spine, reaching into his gut as smoking waves of lava might on a cold night, the smile inside his mind’s eye so blindingly obtuse — because it suddenly felt as if someone — or was it some vast thing? — had just spoken to him at length in the forgotten language of simple truth. Yet in the span of a single heartbeat he felt a tremor deep inside, and for the very first time in his life, William Taylor felt the icy-hard claws of death scratching at his door.