Empire of Dust (28 page)

Griswold was pleased with
Vampicassos
. It didn't flow as well as the
Vamparazzi
handle that he had used in his story SECRET BLOOD CULT CHASED PRINCESS DI TO HER DEATH, but it would do. Most of the dummies who read the rag ought to know who Picasso was, for Chrissake.

He closed the phone and thought for a moment. Laika Harris and Joseph Stein were at the bottom of the canyon, and if they were there, Anthony Luciano wouldn't be far away. He had first come across them in New York City, when they had spotted him, taken away the film he had shot of them, and given him a goofy warning to stay the hell away from them, as though they thought he actually believed the crap he wrote about.

No, he didn't believe in
that
shit, but there were some things he believed in. He believed that the bodies were something worth thinking about, although he thought the drawings were an elaborate hoax. And he believed in money, and now that he had fed the news machine, it was time to fill in the main man, the one who was searching for truth amid all this crap.

He dialed a number and waited as the call was shuttled along several lines to make tracing impossible. Finally a muddy voice with a strong burr grunted a few syllables, and Griswold identified himself. There was silence for nearly a minute, and then a different, crisp voice said, "Aye?"

"I've found them," said Griswold. "The three of them. In Arizona."

"Why are they there?" The Rs rolled slightly, just enough to cause an audible break between words.

"Two reasons. One is giant drawings in the sand . . . and mud now, it looks like. Like big crop circles. The other is dried corpses. That's the one that shows promise. No explanation so far."

"Could be his work. Stay on them. I swear before Christ that one of them has a connection to the one we're searching for. And they've still got something we want. But we can't take it until they lead us to him."

"Don't worry," Griswold said. "I'll stay as close as I can."

"You lost them before."

"Yeah, well, I found them now, okay?" There was a cold silence at the other end. The longer it lasted, the more uncomfortable Griswold grew. "Look, I'm sorry . . . I won't lose them, really." There were another few moments of silence, and then the sound of the phone being hung up.

Shit. He had pissed the guy off. But he had apologized. Everything was still okay. And he
wouldn't
lose those three this time. Odds were they would come up here to see the thing from above, and he could pick them up when they left. Trailing them was going to be tricky on these skinny, curvy roads, but he would do it. He couldn't lose them now, he just couldn't. There was too much at stake.

I
t was mid-afternoon when the shake and bake with Laika, Joseph, and Miriam arrived back at the western end of the canyon. Tony and Joshua Yazzie had already left in Yazzie's white Fury and Sam Bitsosie's 1972 Dodge Dart, which Tony was driving up to the rim of the canyon where the old man was waiting for him.

The policeman dropped off Laika, Joseph, and Miriam at their Camry, and they drove to the south rim road until they reached the left turn that would take them to the path that led to the Spider Rock overlook. Cars were parked everywhere along the small loop of road near the path, but Joseph squeezed into a space that had just been vacated, between a mobile news truck and an old VW van with Ohio plates.

Laika and Joseph opened their doors, but Miriam leaned forward over the backseat. "Would you mind terribly if I just stayed here in the car? I hate to say it, but I think the sun's kind of gotten to me. I feel a little sick."

"An old desert rat like you?" Joseph said.

"No, it's all right," Laika said. The girl did look pale, and there were droplets of sweat on her forehead, despite the coolness of the car's interior. "You want to keep the engine running so the air stays on?"

"No. If you just open the windows, I'll be fine."

"We'll leave the keys," Laika said. "That way you can start the air if you need to."

"Thanks," said Miriam, with a sickly smile. "This has happened before. I'll be okay in a little while. You want to take my camera?"

Laika shook her head. "We have some gear in the trunk." She popped the lever and Joseph took out the camera bag. "We shouldn't be long," she told Miriam, then smiled. "Especially if there are many reporters out there."

When they were out of earshot, Joseph said to Laika, "And what if there
are
a ton of newsfolk waiting for us, 'Dr. Kelly?'"

"I don't think any of them will recognize us from being down below. It was too far. And if they do, we leave."

I
n his car, parked only three spaces behind the operatives, Taylor Griswold slowly sat up, thanking what gods there were that Harris and Stein hadn't spotted him. He knew that they were tough people, and that although they had let him go once, next time he might not be so lucky.

He watched them disappear down the path to the overlook, but noticed that the girl was still in the car. Who the hell was she anyway? And what was she doing now?

She seemed to be looking all around her, as though searching for someone. Griswold ducked down in his seat again so that she would not spot him, and watched as she got out of her car and started walking back toward his.

There was nothing to do but fake it, so he leaned his head back against the seat, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth as though he were sleeping. After he heard her footsteps pass by him without slowing, he opened his eyes and watched her in the convex plane of the outer rearview mirror.

She walked back past several more cars and then stopped at one, a dark blue Buick. A door opened and she got in. Even though Griswold sat up and looked through the rear window, he couldn't see who she was with or what she was doing.

M
iriam Dominick sat in the Buick's backseat and looked at the man beside her. He was in his mid-twenties and wearing a dark gray polo shirt and khakis. At last he smiled and kissed her, and she returned the kiss. When the greeting was over, another man, who was sitting in the front seat, turned around to look at them. "God's peace, Miriam," he said.

"God's peace, John," Miriam replied, then turned to the man in the backseat. "God's peace, David."

"God's peace," he said. "So, do they trust you?"

"Vincent Antonelli definitely does, and I think the woman, Dr. Kelly, does. I'm not so sure about Kevin Tompkins."

"Whatever his name is, it isn't Tompkins," David said. "He looks like a Jew, and they don't trust anybody. Watch him. They're like serpents. Have they broken the book code yet?"

"Yes." Miriam looked out the window, away from David. "I did what I was told to. Antonelli found it in my backpack."

"When you spent the night with him?" David's voice sounded cold, but tinged with repressed excitement.

"That was the plan. But we didn't . . ." She turned and glared at him. "It was
your
idea, wasn't it?"

"Are you sure that he cracked the code?"

"He followed me the next morning, then turned off into a store. I backtracked on him. He bought two copies of the book."

"That's pretty definitive," said the man in the front seat.

"And I think the whole thing was unnecessary," Miriam said, looking out once more. "For Peter to lose his life back there, to . . . allow himself to be shot down just to get the list and the coded message to them . . . they know the trail is fresh again, they'd have kept searching anyway."

"Fresh?" said David. "We know the papists brought it west, but beyond that?"

"It's near, I'm sure of it. The one it speaks to has been having dreams again, visions about 'a prisoner.' Tompkins."

John in the front seat nodded. "The Jew. It makes sense that it would speak to a Jew, doesn't it?"

"And I think that these . . . mummification deaths might somehow be its doing, too," said Miriam. "So far, they have no explanation. But what's really scaring me is the fact that they keep occurring near the drawings."

David shrugged. "That's a fortunate coincidence, as far as we're concerned. A double 'event' to lead these three on. Besides, Miriam, you're the one calling the general locations. Remember,
God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform
. Maybe He's giving us these bodies as a bonus, to keep these three on the trail."

"The important thing now," John said, "is that they fully believe you are psychic. But you say this Jew has doubts?"

"I think he wants to believe, but he doesn't let himself. He's a very strange man. But I think their belief is strong enough that the . . . final suggestion will work, once we've pinpointed the location of . . . of it."

"It better," the man said. "We've gone to a lot of trouble with these drawings. Not to mention the rock slide."

"I've seen their faces," Miriam said. "I know that it worked. Dr. Kelly believes in my . . . powers, and Vincent . . . Dr. Antonelli . . . would follow me to the ends of the earth."

"I have no doubt," said David. "I'm sure he's fallen head over heels in love with you, good papist girl that you are."

"I'm not a papist anymore, David, you know that."

David smiled thinly and nodded. "You've seen the light. And pretty soon we'll show that light to the rest of this country."

"I should go," Miriam said. "I don't know how long they'll be." She looked at David, uncertain what to do, but he leaned toward her and kissed her again. It was a lingering kiss, but a cruel one. His mouth was rough against her lips, and she wondered if he could taste Vincent's presence there.

At last she pulled away. John had been watching from the front seat. "God be with you," he said.

"And also with you," she replied automatically as she opened the door and got out. As she walked back to the Camry, she could feel tears in her eyes, and wondered why, when everything was going as planned, she should be so filled with sorrow.

L
aika had been right. None of the newspeople looking down on the huge drawing at the overlook had recognized her and Joseph as the investigators who had been far down in the canyon earlier that day. Joseph took several photographs, and they started back to the road.

Laika had not discussed Miriam's purported abilities any further with Joseph. She had the feeling that even if Miriam had successfully predicted the license plate numbers of the next hundred cars to drive past, Joseph still would have called it coincidence, and that was a mistake.

It was one thing to be skeptical, but although Laika had started out that way when their shadow operation had begun, she had seen enough to make her believe that there were things in this world that science and skeptics could not fully explain, and maybe Miriam's strange predictions were among them.

But there was more to Joseph's denials than just stubborn skepticism. Laika somehow felt that he was a vessel for those very talents he dismissed in others. Maybe, she thought, that was why he was so adamant in his disbelief. It would be damned hard for a stone atheist to realize suddenly that he had the power to heal the sick and raise the dead.

When they arrived at the car, Miriam was still in the back seat. Though her eyes looked tired, some color had returned to her cheeks and her forehead was dry again. "Feeling better?" Laika asked.

"Much. I just needed some time out of the sun, I guess. When I'm in the back country I always find some shade and lie down for fifteen minutes every few hours or so. Guess it just sneaked up on me."

"Surprised you didn't see it coming," Joseph said off-handedly, though Laika read the message and was sure that Miriam did, too.

"Being hungry might have something to do with it," said Laika. "It's almost five. Why don't we head for the roadhouse—Abner's, was it? We can see if Vincent had any luck with the tracker."

Abner's was on Indian Road 12, east of the monument, but because it was reachable only by a labyrinth of dirt roads, Joseph decided to play it safe and drive west to Chinle, then northeast on IR 64 until he hit 12, and then head southeast. With the tourist traffic along the canyon rim drive, the entire trip took nearly an hour.

T
ony and Joshua Yazzie, after returning Sam Bitsosie's car to him, had stopped at the visitors' center and various businesses and residences along the road to Chinle, asking if anyone had seen any suspicious person the night before, possibly carrying a large container of some sort. No one had. By the time they gave up the search and left for Abner's, they were a considerable distance behind the car with Joseph, Laika, and Miriam.