Shadow Play (36 page)

He had admitted this fantasy to King one night during mat initial journey to Japura\ when

they were ensconced in King's plush stateroom on his steamboat, and the chant of the engines and the churning of the paddle wheel had seemed no more annoying than some distant insect humming in the night. He'd lain half on and half off a settee, his long legs spread over the back and an arm of the delicate piece, while King had sat across from him, sprawled in his Jacobean chair—the very image of success that Morgan had envisioned all his life. Everything about Randi exuded prosperity. His features were flushed with laughter, his hair tousled, wild and windblown, and his eyes bright with exhilaration. Morgan himself had felt drunk with hope. The admission had suddenly poured from him, fantasies of writing books. "Of course I'll be poor and eccentric," he'd proclaimed. "I'll sit on park benches and feed the pigeons and watch the people parade by, and I'll study their idiosyncrasies and splash them across the page in vivid color and embellished reality."

"Why poor?" his friend had asked in amusement.

' 'Because writers are always poor until they're discovered and adored."

"They are usually dead before they are discovered and adored," he reminded him. He took a long drink of wine and added, "From what I've read, writers are always in the throes of depression."

Morgan replied, "Why is that, do you suppose?"

"Because they pour a lifetime of dreams into their work and watch as reality smashes it to smithereens. I think writing must be a little like self-flagellation, Morgan. Are you certain that's what you want?"

"Positive."

"Then here's to your success, my dear friend." He held up his glass of wine, and roared with laughter.

Then about a month after Morgan had come to Japura\ Randi had led him to a room in a portion of
la casa blanca
that he had never entered. There before him was his fantasy, complete in every meticulous detail: desk, chair, pen, ink, paper, and all around him, dressing the walls, volumes of glistening books.

He had covered his face with his hands and wept—not
in joy but in outrage and disappointment. Already the nauseating and ugly truths about this
Paradise Found
had reared their dark, twisted heads. There would be a heavy price to pay for King's generosity. The sacrifice was his soul: the acceptance of Randi's sexual demands and a willingness to tolerate
el patrao's
cruelties. As he stood there, staring

at the library full of books, he saw his fantasy curl and wither like pages in a flame.

"No," he'd stated in a dry voice, then turned from the room.

"Fine," came Randi's voice, vibrating with anger. "Go on and rot in obscurity, Morgan. No one will ever give a damn but you. No one will ever know you even existed when you're gone. Go on with your high ideals and warped sense of justice and disillusioned paradigms of righteousness. You make me sick. Did you think you could have it all without some sort of
sacrifice!"

He'd walked to his room, dropped into a chair, and buried his head in his hands, looking up only when Randi came to the door and leaned against the frame, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, his face and eyes sad as he regarded Morgan. "You're a monster," he'd said to King.

"I know."

"And even if I was inclined to submit to what you expect of me—which I'm
not
—I couldn't, just on the basis of your cruelty to these people."

"How very noble. And naive. Morgan, your innocence surprises me sometimes. There have been dictators since the beginning of time, men who had the power of life and death over the people. They controlled the actions and thoughts and speech of a populace who is more than eager to be ruled. Take Julius Caesar, and your own God-fearing Pope. Veer too far from
his
dictates and you'll find yourself damned and cast out of the church—all on his say-so. And what is God if not the supreme dictator? Stumble on your road to His life everlasting and you find yourself flung out of heaven to burn for all eternity in hell."

"God does not maliciously torture and kill."

Randi threw his head back in laughter, and for a moment he looked so young and miserable Morgan almost forgot his anger and disgust, nearly left his chair to put his arm around his friend's shoulder.

Once he had regained his composure, Randi shook his head, spilling his hair over his shoulders.
^4
4
My dear Morgan, you're a fool for all your ideals of goodness and evil. God neither tortures nor kills? Explain to me then why children such as ourselves must suffer the indignities of squalor and abuse. Why the poor hover in doorways, shivering and hungry, while the rest of the world wheels by in fine coaches, never once touched by the thick and filthy slush stagnating on the unpaved streets. Why people are stricken with the pox, or cancer, or rheumatism that twists their joints up until they scream out in pain.'' He shook his hand in Morgan's face before turning away and walking to a window where he stared out for a long while at his paradise.

Morgan took a deep breath and released it. "I don't profess to have any answers. But my conscience tells me that brutalizing these people isn't right. You can't make mem all pay

for your mother's indifference, or the world's apathy toward our plight when we were young. Somehow you must find a way to change the world for the better; end the victimization, don't add to it."

King had turned then, and the sunlight through the window made him seem unearthly. As always, Morgan had been struck with the uncanny beauty of him, envious and angered that his physiognomy could make him feel so shaken. What shook him even more was that King saw through him, right to the core of him, his countenance relaxing in a mocking half smile of understanding, his eyes appearing as if a light were flaring somewhere deep behind them.

"And tell me," he said quietly. "Were I to grant you one wish, dear Morgan, just one wish, what would that be? That I turn over a new leaf right now, suddenly put hedonism
and murder behind me forever? Or that I give you your freedom so that you can return, without harm, to the real world?"

He had sat there, his hands clasped between his knees, painfully aware that he could say nothing, feeling the blood drain from his face. He knew which he would choose, and that knowledge tasted as bitter as bile.

King had walked gracefully across the room, one hand still buried in his pants pocket, the other he placed com- passionately on Morgan's shoulder. "Sacrifice," was all he said, then he quit the room.

He had never—ever—wanted to die as badly as he did in that moment.

Chapter Eighteen

He had come very close to death once o* twice in his thirty years. But at no time had life seemed so expansive as it did at this very moment. So full of vibrancy. Of light and color and noise. As Morgan stood on the veranda, sipping cognac from a Waterford glass, he allowed his eyes to feast on the startling array of colors spread out before him, splashes of hibiscus pink and orchid purple capping greens of every shade imaginable. Mangoes, papayas, and bananas hung heavily from the limbs of the trees. The towering
Hevea brasiliensis
formed a cathedral ceiling of interlocking branches, the perches of wildly squawking birds—toucans, parrots, and the umbrella bird, whose colorful crest undulated with every breeze.

Odd how he had struggled so hard the past days to grow strong when he still intended to
die. He had forced himself to eat the chef's meals, though for the most part he
had secretly disposed of the medication King had supplied him for his fever. He didn't
want to be completely well. He wanted to remain in a kind of stupor, or he might find
himself
questioning his decision to in effect, end his life.

He'd sensed that morning when he awoke that the time had come. He'd little choice. Since his health had appeared to stabilize and he had grown somewhat stronger, King had become impatient to get on with the "relationship.'' Morgan simply could not stall for time any longer. To do so would jeopardize the tenuous trust he had managed to build in King.

Earlier in the day he had ridden out with Randi to the mines, then over the plantation, listening abstractedly as the
pafrap
explained the changes he had made in the collection and curing of the rubber. Then King had taken him to Chico's and Teobaldo's huts in order that Morgan could see that they were still alive and unharmed. It had been a fortuitous blunder on King's part because it had enabled Morgan to relay to Teobaldo, with a nod of his head, that tonight would be the night.

He had returned to
la casa blanca
and put his plan into action. He had searched out a revolver, which had been easy enough to find. King's house was fortified with enough guns to fight off the entire British army for a week. When Morgan first arrived at
la casa blanca,
Randi had explained to him that every dictator with any wits about him knows that there are always martyrs among the people who are willing to die for a cause; therefore, he surrounded himself with bodyguards at all times and kept a handgun within easy reach.

Morgan had found the one with which he intended to kill King and himself, a Colt .44-caliber revolver, in a secret niche beneath the library desk. It was now tucked under the back waistband of his trousers, hidden beneath his coat. It bit uncomfortably into his skin, a sharp reminder that, in minutes, his life would be over.

He finished his cognac and turned to find King leaning against the doorframe, his hands in his pockets. Morgan remained silent. King said, "The suit fits you perfectly, don't you think?"

He nodded and set his glass aside.

"That particular one was made in Italy. You know the Italians. They have a flair for fitting clothes. I think it's because of their immense appreciation of the human body.

When they find one that is so perfect, they tend to believe

it should be revealed to its every advantage. I think we'll have all your suits made there. Would that please you?"

"Of course."

"Good." He smiled and, straightening, said, "Dinner will be ready in half an hour. I thought we'd relax first with a few drinks in the library. Come along, Morgan. Don't hang back, or I might begin to suspect that you're having second thoughts about tonight."

King laughed. Morgan didn't. He stepped from the veranda and moved down the hallway that ran the length of the house, enjoying the twilight shadows on his face, thinking that they had never felt so soothing. The idea came to mind that perhaps death would seem as gentle; perhaps he had feared it for nothing.

Reaching the end of the corridor, he turned right, and now the left wall of the hall was nothing but glass that looked out over the rolling green lawn to the river itself. The steamboat was docked there, and men were scurrying about its deck, scrubbing and polishing its already glistening floor, rushing to finish their chores before night descended. He rounded another corner and entered yet another corridor that overlooked a veranda surrounded by a low wall of brick and bromeliads. A man sat at a wrought-iron table, his hat pulled low over his eyes as he broke off a bit of banana and fed it to a marmoset.

Morgan stopped. Gilberto de Queiros looked up and his mouth stretched into a smile that twisted the scar on his cheek. Yet it was the monkey that held Morgan's attention. He was almost tempted to tap on the window, to try and catch the animal's attention just to see if it was
his
marmoset.

But of course it wasn't. It couldn't be. His was with Henry and Sarah now and... Besides, Amazonia was full
of the animals, and monkeys especially frequented the com- pound for handouts.

"Something wrong?" came King's voice behind him.

"What's
he
doing here?" Morgan asked.

"Gilberto? He works for me, of course."

"How long has he been back?"

"Since long before you returned." He slapped a hand on Morgan's shoulder, making him flinch. "Don't worry," King said. "He won't bother you again. If he does I'll kill him. He knows that. Relax, Morgan. You're stiff as a brick."

He forced his eyes away from Gilberto and, refusing to glance at the marmoset again, continued to the library. He stopped just inside the doorway and waited as King
brushed by him and headed for the decanters of liquor across the room. His eyes were drawn to the shadows, and as always, there sat a sleepy-looking sentinel, his broad-brimmed hat pulled down over his face. But Morgan knew that he didn't sleep at all. He would be the very quickest, the most alert and trustworthy, of King's employees. He would sacrifice his life to save his
patrao
from harm.

"Sit down," King said.

He did so, choosing one of a pair of Queen Anne chairs positioned in the center of the luxurious room. The high ceiling and wide walls made him feel small, and in a flash he recalled Henry standing before him in that pitiful hovel in Georgetown, his short arms flung wide as he described English houses with twenty-foot ceilings and dining rooms sixty feet long.

Henry,
he thought.
Henry.

If he could only see him again, he might actually tell him how much his friendship had meant this past year. And Sarah. Ah, God, if he could only hold her. But no. Best not to think about it. He'd made his decision and would live with it, die with it. Sarah was gone, returned to Norman. He'd refused to dwell on it. He couldn't start now...

"Morgan?"

He took a breath and glanced up, muttering his thanks as King handed him a drink.

"Are you feeling all right?" King asked.

"Well enough."

"You're looking a little pale."

"Sorry."

"No matter. Once you're stronger and able to ride about the compound, you'll get your color back." He sat in the chair opposite Morgan and crossed his legs. His hair rioted over his shoulders and lay upon his white suit like gilt. "You're understandably nervous. But don't be. You've made the right decision to come back to me. You'll realize that in time."

Morgan drank his whiskey even as he felt some emotion roll over inside him that wasn't fear at all, but a flash of the old gnawing anger. He welcomed it. Embraced it. It made him feel human; he hadn't felt it since that last night with Sarah.