“We’re a team, son. You can’t cut and run anytime you feel threatened.”

  “You and Consuela were a team, and look what you did to her.”

  “Son, people want to kill us. There is nowhere you’ll be safe, except with me. Where I’m taking you, we’ll be sheltered for as long as it takes to de-arm the world.”

  “And just where is that?”

  “I can’t risk telling you until we get there. But know this: you can’t go home.”

  Home, the ranch, was the only place Matt Reece truly wanted to go, back to that quiet, lonely life where he was once sheltered from a crazy world. And the thing that became evident was that Kenji made no attempt to deny the allegation of Consuela’s murder.

  “He’s staying with me,” Vishal said in a voice that filled the room with a tone of challenge. He draped an arm across Matt Reece’s shoulders, pulling him closer.

  Vishal’s laying claim on him, when he felt most adrift, became intoxicating.

  “I see,” Kenji said. He bowed his head toward Matt Reece, coldly, like an enemy. The shock of Vishal’s claim on him was compounded by Kenji’s calm reaction to losing what Kenji considered his property. The subject seemed exhausted, and nobody spoke for over a minute. They stood like mannequins, no one making a move.

  “Do I still get to keep the car?” the uncle finally asked.

  “I’m prepared to offer you something of greater value,” Kenji said, “if you both come with me tomorrow. You can be lovers. Let it never be said that I stood in the way of passionate love, even if it’s only a day old. Actually, I’m a sucker for love at first sight. It happened to me once, with Jessup.”

  “Don’t trust him,” Matt Reece said.

  “I don’t need anything you can offer,” Vishal said.

  “Help me de-arm the world. What could be more important than that?” When neither Vishal nor Matt Reece took the bait, he said, “My treatment doesn’t simply make one live for thousands of years. It generates new cells at an astronomical rate, and that includes skin cells. With one wave of my magic wand, I can remove your scars and make you normal again. Skin is the quickest organ to replace.”

  “He’s beautiful the way he is,” Matt Reece said.

  Vishal only stared, unable to answer. Kenji had found the right button to press.

  “Will it turn me green?”

  “By the time we get to our destination, you’ll look as you did before the fire. Come, both of you. You can be lovers, and I’ll be your guardian angel.”

  “Why?” Vishal murmured. “Why do you need us?”

  “Aren’t you lucky, you stupid complaining thing?” the uncle said. “He’s offering you a dharma. But I suppose you would prefer to someday take over this shop, inking pictures on the skin of people who are all show, condemned to die slowly of ‘security’?”

  “I’ll do more than make you beautiful,” Kenji said, “I’ll cure your uncle’s ischemic heart disease and make him young again. Don’t take too long to decide. At his late stage, he could die any minute.”

  Vishal shot his uncle a questioning stare. The old man looked away.

  Matt Reece didn’t wait for Vishal to answer. Vishal’s expression showed Kenji had outmaneuvered him, and this likely was a pattern that would repeat itself for as long as he stayed with Kenji. His choice now was go it alone or stick with Kenji in order to keep Vishal. He took Vishal’s hand and led him upstairs to his apartment. As they entered the living room, he made a beeline to the black bag and pulled the tricorder from the side pocket. He steered Vishal into the bedroom and flicked on the lights.

  He glanced at the unfortunate furnishings: a waterbed, a low chest of drawers that functioned as a bedside table, lamps with muted lighting, and a chair set by the window.

  He led Vishal to the bed, telling him to undress and lie on his back. He knew that wasn’t necessary, but he wanted to see him naked, and he hoped they would make love once they completed the treatment.

  While Vishal disrobed, Matt Reece moved to the window and peeped through the curtains. Some of the shops below glowed yellow from the streetlights. Matt Reece opened the window. On the sidewalks, young men and middle-aged women walked, whistling at cars. Occasionally, one would wave at a driver and say, “Hey, baby, looking for company?” They seemed desperately lonely. Were they only after money, or did they need companionship to keep the demons away for a few precious hours? Matt Reece could feel that loneliness swelling in his gut, reminding him that he was far from home. But then he turned and saw Vishal lying before him on the bed, naked, waiting.

  Matt Reece cried out, “My God!”

  Nearly all of Vishal’s body held the same nasty scars as his face—horror in its most absolute ugliness, surpassing all understanding. Only that one side of Vishal’s face was strangely spared from the devastation. The thought of how much agony he must have endured, and might still endure, caused a deep sadness to wash over Matt Reece. He stared, shocked, while Vishal lay with eyes closed, mouth open, and features calm, as though placidly waiting for the Rapture.

  He sat beside Vishal and ran his hand over the top of his head. He had wanted to do that all day, and now he did it. He felt his throat swelling. Vishal moved his head under his hand and smiled up at him. He swept his hand through the silky roughness of Vishal’s hair, felt it rippling between his fingers, and then he dropped his hand to caress that disfigured cheek.

  Matt Reece turned on the tricorder and waved it over Vishal’s body. He felt grateful that he was able to do this for him. If nothing else good came of this nightmare, at least he was able to cure his new love, make him beautiful again. And if he could do this for Vishal, perhaps he could do it for hundreds, or thousands, or millions like him.

  He had used the word love, and he knew it was true in its full meaning.

  I’ll make love to this beautiful soul, we’ll go out and find an all-night diner for a bite to eat while Kenji cures the old man, and we’ll come back here and spend the night in each other’s arms. At sunrise, I’ll decide whether to go it alone or stay with Vishal, who will no doubt follow Kenji.

  Chapter Eighteen

  IN JESSUP’S opinion, the dean of Berkeley’s political science department, Professor Terrence Wallace, looked more like the student protesters on campus and less like any university professor he could imagine. With his lean physique, tousled sun-streaked hair, and expensive clothes that were designed to appear grungy, he looked like a living Abercrombie & Fitch ad. Jessup sized him up as a privileged kid, albeit gifted, with far more money than was healthy. His manner was almost boyish, but he possessed the cool carelessness of a man of far greater age and experience.

  “Yes,” Wallace said, “what happened to Patrick was appalling. Such a gifted intellect.”

  Jessup and Blake sat across a desk from Wallace in a choky office that had no windows. In that stifling space, he noticed the faint odor of marijuana. He scheduled an appointment with Wallace because Patrick mentioned him often and considered the man a mentor.

  “Appalling?” Blake asked.

  “He gave me hope. While he attended my classes, he showed up prepared, got involved, and leaned into every lecture. He pushed back when he thought I was being wishy-washy and went for the jugular in every debate. He has an extraordinary mind and also a plethora of internal demons. He was working on a term paper that stemmed from one of my class discussions on why Bush and Cheney goaded our nation into the Iraq war. You see, every one of my students knew the White House lied, and everyone but Patrick was convinced the hidden reason was acquiring cheap oil. Only Patrick, and I believe him wholly, claimed the only reason for that war was so the Republicans could bleed trillions of dollars from the American middle-class taxpayers and funnel that money into the pockets of the defense industry shareholders. Ten years of war and killing and honoring our dead was all done to make the rich richer and the poor flat broke. That’s why they strung it out for so long. They didn’t want to win. They wanted to keep milking the cash cow for as long as the ignorant voters would allow.”

  “Ignorant?” Blake echoed.

  “Sorry, I should have said ‘patriotic.’”

  “That’s rather appalling, if it’s true, but how does that apply to Patrick?” Jessup said.

  “Oh it’s true. Patrick proved it with his paper. Trouble was, in doing his research, he somehow gained access to some incriminating documents. And the more he dug, the more he realized that it wasn’t just the Republicans at blame. They were all in on it, and all getting their piece of the pie, Republicans and Democrats alike. And not just the DC Beltway crowd, many state officials as well.”

  “That couldn’t have been too surprising,” Jessup said.

  “It was to Patrick, who had his sights set on a political career. He thought he could make a difference until he realized the deck was stacked against him, against anyone with integrity, no matter which way he jumped. He’s a passionate soul, and when he uncovered the truth about our political system, that everything is controlled by a handful of corporations, it crushed him. He’s that kind of kid. His off hours were spent doing outreach in a clinic to stop child abuse. Patrick harbored Don Quixote-like dreams.”

  “Crushed?” Blake said.

  “He knew then that the only ethical thing to do was revolution, the kind where you hang all the politicians, the lobbyists, and the corporate board members from the nearest trees and start from scratch. I believe that’s what he’s trying to organize now.”

  “Impossible. He could never plot to overthrow the government,” Blake said.

  “Mr. Connors,” Wallace said, “the corruption in our government is so blatant now that our politicians don’t even pretend to be ethical. So much for peer oversight. How can democracy work when they’ve all sold out? Or should I say, souled out? Patrick’s work proved that. I tell you his paper is Pulitzer Prize–winning material.”

  “Shit,” Jessup muttered.

  “It gets worse,” Wallace said. “Those incriminating documents I mentioned? They were classified, and he posted them on WikiLeaks to back up his dissertation. Now he’s under investigation by Homeland Security.”

  Jessup stood. “You’re not telling me what I came for. I need to find him, Professor.”

  “How do I know you’re not working with the FBI or Homeland Security?”

  “As a matter of fact, Professor, the FBI has me under investigation as well. They might even be listening to this conversation.”

  “To understand where he’s hiding,” Wallace said, “I’ll have to tell you about Patrick’s negative side.”

  “Plotting a revolution is his optimistic side?”

  Wallace rose and laid a hand, soft with apology, upon Jessup’s shirtsleeve. “Once he dropped out, he became dissolute and undependable. He drinks and takes hard drugs, keeping himself in a romantic haze. He looks so innocent, so needy, that all the girls line up to mother him. From what I’ve heard, he takes advantage of anyone who helps him.”

  Jessup clenched his teeth.

  “While they comfort him, he seduces them and spends their money on drugs until they wise up and throw him out.” Wallace drew a sorrowful breath. “Patrick is a man who brings both happiness and pain to everyone in his orbit. He lies, steals, cheats, and imposes on kindnesses, leaving only a bitter taste in his wake. Everyone loves him, excuses his faults, and protects him. Men admire him; women pity him. Around campus, he’s become a bit of a cult hero.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “It would be unethical for me to reveal his whereabouts.”

  Blake stood, leaned over the desk, and grabbed Wallace by the shirt collar. “More unethical than me dragging your skinny ass over this desk and putting a serious hurt on you? You gonna whine to the nurse through your wired jaw about what’s ethical?”

  “You touch me and I’ll have you arrested.”

  “Right, but that’ll be after I smash your mouth so that you’ll chew with shards of pain for the rest of your miserable life.”

  Wallace tried to step back, but Blake held him. “There’s a girl.” He would not say her name aloud, but he wrote it on a slip of scratch paper.

  JESSUP AND Blake left Wallace’s office with a name—Julie Summers—and an address of an apartment across campus. As they neared the apartment complex, they saw a man in a shabby, gray overcoat beating a stout woman in a Russian blouse and long dark skirt. She was crouched by some garbage bins while the man cuffed her face, arms, and shoulders. She tried to protect her head with her arms, not crying, just covering up like a boxer in trouble. He beat her hard, swinging his fist furiously.

  Blake rushed to her aid, grabbing the pale, anorexic man from behind, pulling him away from her, and holding him captive. The man wore faded jeans, a torn tank top under an overcoat, and cowboy boots. The bleached-blond hair on his head and face were as short as a thirty-second fuse. He looked like a stray mongrel on the verge of starvation. As the man turned, behind his pierced eyebrows and a hummingbird tattoo on his neck, Jessup recognized his son, Patrick.

  There was no mistaking those gemstone eyes—a tiger’s eyes that gave Jessup the impression he should have been more prepared, although prepared for what he couldn’t say—eyes identical to his own. Yet those eyes, which had always shined, were now as dull and arid as desert dust.

  They glared at each other, both recovering from the shock.

  “Dad, what happened to your face? You look like something the cat refused to bury.”

  The woman leaped up and launched a counterattack. She battered Patrick about the face with her fists until Jessup grabbed her and shoved her away. She stumbled, and from the ground, she turned on him with fire in her eyes, a fire that matched the fury in Patrick.

  “Don’t touch me,” she shrieked.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jessup said, noticing for the first time how pretty her face was, this red-cheeked girl of twenty or so.

  “She’s a murderer,” Patrick hissed. “I’ll fucking kill her.” He tried to break away from Blake but only thrashed in vain.

  “Like you even care about me?” she said, her voice noticeably calmer. “What about my life, my career?”

  “That’s right, you self-centered cunt, it’s all about you. You didn’t give a shit about the life you carried.”

  “Like you give a fuck about anything but that needle in your arm.” She jumped to her feet, and she came off the ground holding a splintered piece of wood that had been lying beside the trash cans. She charged Patrick, bashing him across the face before Jessup could stop her. Jessup pulled her away and stood between them. She turned and fled.

  “I’d have given up the needle,” he yelled to her retreating backside. “I could have changed, if only…,” he said to himself in a softer tone.

  Patrick’s forehead was red, and a gash, diagonal to his eyebrow, oozed blood.

  “You’re bleeding,” Jessup said. “It might need stitches.”

  Patrick swiped a hand over the cut, smearing blood across his forehead. “I ain’t seeing no fuckin’ doctor.” Blake released him. He spun around ready to attack but stopped cold. “Grandpa? Christ, is it really you?”

  “Same ol’, just a little green around the gills.” Blake pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it over Patrick’s eyebrow. “Hold this to stop the bleeding.”

  Patrick held the handkerchief. “Then it really was Groucho who followed me home?”

  Jessup yanked Patrick to within a foot of his face. “You found Groucho?”

  “I didn’t know it was him, because he’s so young, but he wouldn’t leave me. He’s in my… Julie’s apartment now.”

  Jessup released him. “That means they’re here, nearby.”

  Blake nodded.

  ON THE walk to Julie’s apartment, Jessup told Patrick all that happened since the morning Kenji and Matt Reece disappeared. Patrick trembled all over. Jessup assumed it was partly from the loss of his child and partly from seeing his grandfather rejuvenated as proof of this wildass tale. As they approached the apartment, Patrick didn’t bother with a key. He simply lifted a foot and smashed the door. The rickety thing flew open, taking a chunk of the doorframe with it.

  Jessup and Blake exchanged a glance but said nothing.

  Groucho raced out the doorway and danced between Jessup and Blake. Jessup bent to one knee and gave the dog a hug. His hopes of finding Matt Reece ballooned. They were close by, within his reach, if only….

  They barged into a studio apartment. The décor was of clean, light-colored birch furniture, shelves of books in multiple languages, a seventy-inch flat-screen TV above the bookshelves, and a platform bed along one wall. Opposite the bed lay a kitchen area and a tiny bathroom. Abstract paintings added color—mostly yellows and reds—to the white walls, and more paintings stacked against a wall near the bed convinced Jessup that Julie was an artist.

  The largest painting hung over the bed, impressive with its size and blend of colors, bloodred and mustard-yellow blocks framed in charcoal gray. Being abstract, it allowed Jessup to see whatever was pressing on his mind, and right then, while he focused on the lower corner where bloodred blended with charcoal, he saw his son beating a woman who had come from aborting his child. A sour taste rose up his throat, and he swallowed it down. His shame was directed at his son, and a good measure directed at himself, although he couldn’t explain why.

  Jessup walked to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He took a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a box of cotton swabs, a handful of bandages, and carried them back to his son at the desk. He pulled the handkerchief away. It was soaked red, but the bleeding had slowed to a few thick drops. Jessup soaked a cotton ball with peroxide.

  “This will sting.”

  “Do it already.”

  Jessup cleaned the gash while Patrick remained stoic. Jessup could tell by the set of Patrick’s jaw that anger, not pain, drove his son into a deep, sullen quiet. The boy didn’t say another word while Jessup dressed his wound.

  Jessup and Blake faced each other across the partner’s desk with Groucho sitting at Blake’s side. Patrick drew a backpack from a closet and stuffed shirts and jeans into it. When he came across any of Julie’s clothing, he yanked them from the hangers and tossed them willy-nilly on the floor.