Black heart, p.2
Black Heart, page 2
The sound had grown considerably until now it seemed to fill the room with vibration as well as sound Sweat broke out along Thwaite's hairline Gradually he became aware that the source of this unsettling effect was Tracy Richter's half-opened mouth
'This,' the sensei said, pointing towards Tracy's expanded chest, is yo-ibuki or hard-style breathing, used in combat It is, as you all know, the opposite of m-tbuki, the meditation breathing Yet both use the entire natural breathing apparatus, not merely the top of the lungs as is the norm in modern-day society Here the whole body is tensed, including the throat and oesophagus, thus constricting the air passage, forcing the air out of the abdomen '
The sensei took a balletic step backward, clearing the field 'Now,' he said, 'you will knock him off his feet'
Obediently the students moved in and, using arms and shoulders, came against Tracy Thwaite noticed especially his toes which were curved and tensed, as immovable as stone He reckoned that the four students, combined, weighed somewhere between 650 and 700 pounds
'Use all your strength now1' the sensei cried
For an instant Tracy seemed to give the smallest fraction and then one after another the students were flung from him as if by their own reverse momentum Thwaite was reminded of the Whip at Coney Island
'Yes1' the senset's voice conveyed carefully controlled excitement 'Give and snap back1 This is your lesson for today You must study this most carefully Now one hour's meditation '
Thwaite found that his body had tensed itself during the demonstration He had thought of all manner of retorts to Tracy's
18
last comment but abruptly he felt the need to leave this place His sense of ahenness and isolation was threatening to suffocate him
Senator Roland Burke delighted in theatricality That was why, he supposed, he loved chiaroscuro His house in Kemlworth, the most exclusive suburb of Chicago, was decorated entirely in blacks and whites, the lamps and overhead lights so placed that when turned on they created pools, shafts, oblique blocks of shadow and light
These lights were never off until Senator Burke was in bed, ready for sleep Then, with a flick of a master switch, the entire house was plunged into darkness at once
This still warm evening in July the senator was particularly pleased to turn the key in the latch and open his front door There the perfectly ordered pools of light and dark confronted him comfortingly
The Senator turned and, sighing, closed the door He walked slowly down the hallway, emerging from darkness into the light, disappearing into shadows again It was good to be home
It was quiet in Kemlworth, always The wind through the well-tended trees, a nightbird or two and, in summer, the crickets and cicadas That was all
He lifted a hand, massaged his eyes beneath closed lids The pandemonium of the morning's press conference still rang in his ears In the living room, he crossed to the bar, began to fix himself a bourbon and water
Christ, he thought, dropping a handful of ice cubes into an Old Fashioned glass, what a stink the press makes when a senator changes his mind1 You'd think war had been declared That particular thought made him smile Well, it had in a way His war on America's ailing economy, the disastrous fall-off in social services for the poor and the aged, environmental grants
He sipped at his drink Now it seemed odd to him that he could ever have consented to retire prematurely Money could do that to you, he mused, and the thought of a lifetime of security working in the private sector
19
'What ->'he managed to get out before the room exploded in to blurredtnotion-
A patch of deep shadow obliquely across the room from him had seemed<°come alive-Ic ballooned outward with the frightening rapidiff °fa dream. He tried to move, to get away but that awful/rie sour>d had returned, pinning him to the front of the bar n116 saw death approach.
He tried!"screarn then but it was as if his vocal chords had been ripped V°m his throat. He watched the shadow approach and he was^"0"6^ in terror. He fouled his trousers.
Eyes Iike^tter'n8 diamonds, lethal and inhuman from out of the dark'*'8 creature seemed to bring the shadow with it as it crossed through the beams of light. It came faster than anything brought possible.
The hideo"5 sound was building, eating away at his brain. He threw up hrlrms and the glass with its contents went flying against the A the liquor spilling like silent tears. He pressed his hands afJ|llst his ears to blot out the noise but it did no good.
Then da^ess blossomed from just in front of him, a violent sunset, his l)st chiaroscuro, as the heel of his attacker's hand smashed vrt11 incalculable force into his nose at just the right angle, ramming bone and cartilage like a missile into his brain.
The senatf'^P1 °ff his feet, lifted by forces he could not have understood'*" ^ad he still been alive.
What Tract iemembered most clearly about the night John
Holmgren*^ was the tone of Moira's voice. She had called
him from tlii>rown-stone, pulled him out of sleep.
'Oh, Gcdte's dead.1 really think he's dead.'
1 The soM«iot'her had chilled him because she had released the
shuddering!^01' that had suffused her. He got dressed and went
to her. John's coil* was laid out on the sofa. One leg dangled to the
floor, the Wlind ball of the foot flexed as if he were about to
lower his W" onto itHe was ii^' of course, his skin peculiarly white save for an
area aroundli|llleart> h's neck and face. Those were suffused with
colour
He knelt beside his friend's body, put a hand out to touch the cool flesh. The face looked just the same as the dead men Tracy had seen in Southeast Asia. Caucasian, Vietnamese, Chinese or Cambodian, it did not seem to matter. Violent death gave their faces one terrible fixed expression.
He sighed inwardly. He had never really doubted Moira's assessment; she was a brilliant woman, one not given to hysterics or exaggeration. But the physical confirmation was like a vault door swmgmg shut in his mind. So it was, after all. What dreams they had shared! Gone, now, the way of all dreams.
He turned to look at Moira but she was turned partially away as if she could not bear to look at John anymore. It looked to him on the face of it as if John had had a heart attack; the bodily signs were all there. But he needed to hear from Moira just what had happened.
Tracy came around and sat in a chair opposite her, took her longnngered hands - so cold! - in his. 'Moira,' he said softly, gently, 'you must tell me what happened.' She stared at nothing. He could only see her long lashes, the bruised purple of her upper eyelids. He knew he had to get through to her in the next minute or two. A call to 911 had to be made and, he knew, the sooner the better. The ME, establishing a rough time of death, wou d provide a starting point for the detectives and surely they would ask why it took an hour between the time of the Governor s demise and the call to the police.
So he tried another avenue. 'Moira, if you don't help me now, I won t be able to protect him.
Her head came up and he saw those bright green eyes, the sharp nose, wide mouth, high cheekbones. 'What do you mean?' Her voice was still quavery and he could feel the tremors shuddering through her like quakes.
it wXr kn°W Just what l mean-' He kept his voice low but filled
to «1 3 Cd urSency- 'l have to know, Moira. Now. I have
1 9n- Every minute is working against us. You must tell
That is 'Smgle W°rd W3S Hke an ab>Ject ^Tender. 'He -
feel the n* br°ke °ff' Her V°ice choking and Tracy could
Pressure of her fingers gripping his with all her strength.
22
23
'We were ... we were making love ... for the second time -' Her eyes locked with his, a challenge but Tracy said nothing, his face revealed nothing and, apparently satisfied, she went on. 'We often ... did that. John often seemed, well, starved for sex if not love. Trace, do you understand me?'
'Yes, Moira, I do. Go on.'
Her face was clouded with pain. 'He reared up in the middle of it. My eyes were closed. I was not exactly all there. At first I thought ... he had come.' Lines had apppeared between her eyes, atop the bridge of her nose. The nostrils were slightly flared. 'But then something I don't know what made me open my eyes.'
'What kind of something,.Moira? Did you see anyone else in the room?'
'It was what you feel when you wake up from a nightmare. You feel a presence but when you turn around and look, nothing's there.' Tracy felt her long nails digging into his flesh. 'I was looking right into his face and, Trace, I thought I was still dreaming. He was as white as a sheet of paper. His lips were dark, drawn back from his teeth. He was gnashing them together. He looked like ... Oh, God, he looked like some kind of animal!' Now the sobbing began and Tracy moved forward. He stroked her back, whispering words of solace that he did not believe.
'It didn't matter to me what he looked like,' Moira whispered in his ear. 'I held him like a baby, kissing his cheeks, his eyelids, his half-open lips. I called his name over and over again. But he was gone, Trace. Gone.' She held onto him tightly. 'I'll never hear his voice again. Never feel his gentle touch.'
And despite himself, Tracy shuddered at her words. He wanted very much to comfort her; he understood her loss well. But what could he really do? He hated himself for what he was about to burden her with, but he had no choice. It had to be her. So he told her in his calmest, most convincing voice with his arm around her imparting warmth and comfort.
'But you'll be here.' She looked into his eyes. 'Won't you?'
He shook his head. 'No. I can't. You can see that, Moira. I don't want any hint that you might have made a call before you
24
spoke to 911.1 don't want anyone to think you've been coached or there's been any kind of coverup. It's going to be difficult enough going for the first two weeks as it is. After that, everything'H die down.'
'Trace, I can't stay here. Not through all that.'
'No. Of course not. I've got a place in Bucks County. Just outside of New Hope. I'll give you my spare set of keys and you drive out there tomorrow morning. Stay there. You have money?'
She nodded.
'Okay. Now when I leave, give me five minutes, then make the call to 911. You know what to say and how to say it.' Moira nodded again and for the first time since he got her call, Tracy thought it was going to be all right. 'Good. Now help me get some clothes on the Governor.'
Machine hum. The brief hiss of tape running, emanating from the threefoot Yamaha studio monitor speakers, breaking into an almost palpable silence. Words running together in a blurred ribbon of alien sound, abruptly bursting forth like a clear bubble climbing out of brackish water: '... don't know. I just felt ... something.' 'But what, exactly?' the second voice said. 'That's just it,' the first replied shakily. 'It isn't something I can ... put into words.' The quaver in the voice threatened to disintegrate the words. 'Perhaps tomorrow I can think ..."
The reproduction was astonishingly accurate. One could even feel the inner tension fuelling the exchange.
Moira's voice returned, clotted with emotion: 'It... well. It was what you feel when you wake up from a nightmare.' A deep, shuddering breath. "Youfeel a presence but when you turn around and look, nothing's there. I -' The voice was cut off as easily and completely as one wipes words off a blackboard.
There was little light in the room and no sound at all save the barely audible hiss from the speakers. Shadows lay like a threedimensional landscape.
'Je ne crois rien h ce qu'elle dit. Son amant s'estfait tue; elk en est cotnpletement hysterique.' The young man said. When he was speaking French, he had no accent at all; it seemed a much more
25
natural language for him than English. He was dark-skinned, his face impossible to discern in the gloom.
For just an instant it appeared as if he were talking to himself, a thinker's pensive appraisal. Then another voice was raised.
'Non, au contraire, je crois qu'elle est au courant ... de quelque chose.'
There was no movement in the room so that this voice gave the impression of emanating from the very heart, the mind of the house. Then a shadowy figure stirred in the wing-backed leather chair near the young man and the arch of one cheekbone came into a shaft of what dim light there was. From the height at which it appeared, it was possible to conclude that the figure was tall, certainly slender, for there was no excess fat on that crescent of flesh. A bit of reflected light illuminated the long hands lying peacefully along the polished mahogany arms of the chair. An odd combination: polished nails and calloused skin.
'Qu'est ce qu'elle pourrait en savoir?' The young man moved with absolute silence across the room; as a professional might move. 'Pensez-y d'unefa^on logique.'
'Your Cambodian mythos,' the figure in the wing chair said, 'has gotten lost within the logical teachings of the radical French. Yes, logic says that she saw nothing. Yet I believe her when she says she felt something.'
'It is impossible.' The young man knelt in front of the chair. 'I was invisible.'
'Invisible, yes. But not undetectable. She felt you, all right, though what, precisely, will surface we cannot determine.' He steepled his fingers. His voice was deep, resonant and, to the young man, infinitely reassuring.
Those steepled fingers began to flex in the regimented rhythms of isometric exercise. 'The human mind is the best computer on earth, always was and always will be. That's why man does the programming and not the other way around. But' one of his fingers lifted away from its work, pointed at the other man's head 'the mind's still a mystery to us any of us.'
The exercise over, the long competent fingers laced in repose. 'She might not know anything today. But she suspects. Somewhere inside her, the animal the million-year-old mechanism
26
for survival we all still carry around has marked you And tomorrow or perhaps the day after that, what then' Can you answer me that7'
The young man stared into the other's eyes for as long as he dared Then he bowed his head The scent of incense was very strong in the room at that moment as if a gust of wind from < the other side of the world, some ancient age, had crept in through the window sash, to permeate the atmosphere
'The pupil still respects the teacher,' the young man murmured 'Obey him, show him esteem by word and deed, harken attentively to his teaching '
The figure unfurled himself from the wing-back chair, a riding sail pushing against an unseen wind, ignorant of defeat He hauled the other up so that they stood within an inch of one another He seemed to tower over the young man, as if he were larger in every way
'Goddammt1' he bellowed 'Don't you dare give me any of that Buddhist bullshit' If you've got a point to argue, say so I won't have you hiding behind nonsense some old windbag taught you when you were a pup in Phnom Penh1'
The young man kept his head bowed beneath this verbal assault, as a child who submits to his parent's well-reasoned wrath
''Pardonnez-moi,' he whispered, a reed bending to the force of a strong wind
The tone, perhaps, rather than the words took all the tension out of the tall man's frame 'Oh, now ' His arm came up, wrapped itself around the other's shoulders 'Now, Khieu,' he said softly, the anger washed from his voice, 'just tell me what you think, that's all'
Together they strolled towards the casement curtains covering the high fifteen-foot windows They moved to the beat of an unheard metronome as if they had performed this act - a kind of ritual many times before
At last the young man spoke 'We have both listened to this tape,' he said, 'many times over But I still maintain that it is inconclusive ' In the faint glimmerings of streetlight, it was just possible to make out his black eyes, the unusual width of his
27
cheekbones, the thickness of his softly pouting lips as if, like the brightest of stars piercing a misty night, these were all that really existed or were of any importance. Still, there was an overall effect of beauty and sensuality that was instantly arresting. 'I was there and I can tell you unequivocally that she did not see me. She could not. When I made the strike, she was ... otherwise occupied.' His hands came up, stroked the tautness of the ivorycoloured curtains. 'As you know, sex tends to limit the senses into a tight-fisted path.'
The tall man absorbed the other's words yet still he was haunted by what the woman had said. I just felt ... something. He knew who that 'something' was. Did she?
He tightened his grip on the young man. 'You have been away from me too long, Khieu.' His voice held an odd tone. It was lighter, driftirig as if on reflected water. 'First at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Paris, then Geneva, Weisbaden and, finally, Hong Kong for your ... less orthodox studies. A long time since "Operation Sultan", eh?' He looked fondly at the younger man. 'Now you are ready ... We both are. And events are moving with us ... All is in its proper place.'
He raised his gaze above their heads. Along the ceiling the street lights cast their pale illumination as a procession of diffuse circles like old-time illustrations of lit candles.
'I read in this morning's paper of Senator Burke's unfortunate demise. The place was also burgled, they say. Good. His punishment will not go unnoticed among his ... former colleagues. None of them will now dare contemplate the road he travelled. So -' He rubbed his hands together ' we are absolutely shutended. Our security is once again at one hundred per cent. But now it occurs to me that this woman may just be a walking timebomb.'
'Even if she remembers,' Khieu said reasonably, 'she cannot hurt us.'
'Perhaps not,' the figure agreed. 'But this man Tracy Richter is another story entirely. We must both be very careful.' He was looking out the window again. Mist had come against the panes, moistening the streets like the tongue of God. Khieu could see that the other man's eyes were focused on nothing. 'You see,
