Jimmy Fox - Nick Herald 02 - Lineages and Lies (20 page)

“In my day, this room was special to me, too. Indeed, I know all the secret places, for all of our little secrets.” Joscelyn chuckled as he opened the doors of the well-disguised bar and took up the bottle.

A man too much in love with his own wittiness, Nowell thought.

Joscelyn walked back to his chair with the slow dignity befitting a former Captain-Director who had just entered his ninetieth year.

D’Hiver spoke next. “We know this is a difficult time for you, Preston.” After a few tries with his cane, he unwittingly found Nowell’s bad knee and tapped it lightly to make his point, as was his custom.

Nowell looked down at the red tip; something dark and dried up was on it. He’d missed a few of D’Hiver’s words and struggled to redirect his attention to the conversation.

“You’ve not often been called upon to do such things,” D’Hiver was saying. “We old Captain-Directors like to remain in the wings during your time on stage. But we are at war with our enemies. Always have been. I do not intend to lecture you on the horror of battle.
That
you know full well, even as my wartime memories are becoming as dim as my sight. You came to us after your war, an enthusiastic young man, interested in genealogy, of impeccable
Allégorie
descent. You promised to fight for the Society as you had done so valiantly for your country. We allowed you to peer into the deepest secrets of the Society. You learned those things that only Captain-Directors can know, which are passed on from generation to generation. We expect you to continue fulfilling your vows to your ancestors.”

“I am aware of what I owe both of you,” Nowell said. “However, I still maintain that Hugh was a blithering idiot. I ensured that he was taking enough drugs to make an elephant schizophrenic. I had the situation under control. No one would have believed a word he managed to get out. The note he passed to that disturbed orderly, Therman, could have meant anything.”

“And everything,” Joscelyn said. “Can we take a chance, Preston?” He sipped his port meditatively. “A chance with anyone. We were lucky with Hugh Montenay. My sources in the police department told me about the note. Otherwise, we might never have known, until it was too late. Perhaps Hugh’s mental functioning was returning.”

“Certainly he’d forgotten how rich we made him!” D’Hiver interjected testily. “Hugh was a gutless ingrate. I never liked him.”

Joscelyn gave a nasal drone of agreement. “The Society has made us
all
wealthy beyond our dreams. Preston, we do not intend to meddle in your directorship. We simply feel that you could benefit from our experience, as we benefited from the advice of our elders. You have many profitable years ahead of you. But there is much more than money at stake here.”

“I know full well what splendid recompense the Society offers its Captain-Directors, and I have every intention of earning—”

Joscelyn cut Nowell short. “A Captain-Director must act swiftly and decisively. Sentiment has no place in battle. You should have taken care of Wayne Therman long before he began to hurl accusations—harebrained though they were. What if he’d stumbled across something important, or had the intelligence to put certain things together, as Hugh’s son did?”

D’Hiver took up the argument: “And while we’re on the subject of that orderly, we feel you should be more rigorous in deciding whom you consider for admission. No more riffraff. Ability to pay the initial fees is not enough now; we are interested only in those who have the social and
long-term
financial standing to justify our expenses. Creating an
Allégorie
pedigree is not as simple as it used to be. I remember when the only thing needed was—”

“Yes, yes, Arthur. Let’s save our reminiscences for another time, shall we?” Joscelyn wiped his neat white mustache with his ring finger. The soft light of the lamps glinted along the gold frames of his glasses. His cold blue eyes reminded Nowell that beneath his benevolent exterior he was a ruthless man, with a gift for finding weaknesses and using them against his enemies.

“Those medals on the walls,” Joscelyn said. “You are justly proud of them, Preston. What if someone were to suggest that you did not deserve them. That you had obtained them under false pretenses. That your whole life and all of your endeavors had been nothing but a play within a play.”

“A platoon commander, left for dead in a rice paddy, taken prisoner, indicts his second lieutenant for abandoning him,” D’Hiver continued, tapping his emphasis on Nowell’s knee. “
We
know it was not true
; we
know the poor man was tortured for five years—a day of that would be an eternity—and finally signed the statement to stay alive, saying anything his captors wanted;
we
know our government never believed it for a moment, after he was released and debriefed, after his complete recantation of everything he’d claimed under duress. It happened in my war, it happens in every war. Which is why, through our connections, we were able to expunge the unfortunate incident from the records.”

“I am not on trial here, gentlemen,” Nowell said, an edge of anger in his voice. “That matter was laid to rest long ago.” It was an uncomfortable subject. He had always wondered: had he indeed deliberately abandoned his hated lieutenant on that horrible, steamy day? The man was a bloody, mangled mess when he last saw him.

He ached to tell them they didn’t need to coerce him. His love for the Society surpassed everything else in his life. There had been no man or woman he cared for as much. In war, patriotism and mission had sustained his young soul. But the Society did more for him now: it gave the past meaning, it gave the future a purpose. No task in the service of the Society was too
great to ask of him. And just as in Vietnam during the first days of his initial tour of duty, he’d already stopped counting his kills. He wanted to be a better soldier than he had been. The best, this time.

The two old men sipped their port. Both were exquisitely groomed and carefully dressed in costly, hand-made suits. It was a level of self-assured, quiet style rarely seen today, a relic from an age when a man’s wardrobe explained his background at a glance.

“Your dismay is understandable,” said Conrad Joscelyn. “Just imagine if this humiliating tale were to resurface, find its way into family histories and official Society records? These days, family histories are more reliable, looked to as serious sources. Who’s to say what the judgment of coming generations would be. What seemed so patently obvious to us may not seem so in a century or two.”

“Just an illustration, if you will,” D’Hiver said, delivering another poke of his cane. “We of the Society should feel the same way when someone threatens to undermine our beloved history, which is all the more at risk for being untrue.”

“Our ancestors created a new life in a new world,” Joscelyn said. “Our duty to them requires us to fight on their behalf, even if it is a lie we are defending. Is it really so different from your experiences in Vietnam, Preston?”

“I have been thorough, even if I’ve erred on the side of caution,” Nowell said, trying to keep his roiling emotions in check. He hated to lose his temper; doing so always made him feel vulnerable and dirty afterward. “My plan to eliminate the threat of the English records is already in motion. Only a man
with Dr. Bluemantle’s remarkable combination of skills would be able to make the same discovery. We have a buffer period of some weeks, I believe.”

Hiring Bluemantle had been his idea, his fault. A brilliant innovation, to take the Society to new heights of respectability. How was he to know it would go so sour, so quickly? These two would never let him forget that.

“Thorough, yes, but not thorough enough, Preston,” Joscelyn said. “We commend you for your efforts thus far. The vast majority of your ideas have been splendid. But here, below decks, you have allowed mutiny to flourish.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Some genealogist you are, my boy!” D’Hiver said, adding a jab of his cane to the jest.

The old bastard was having fun at his expense!

Nowell snatched the cane from D’Hiver and jumped up so violently that he knocked his own heavy chair backward. He stood there, a dark thundercloud looming over the older men, holding the cane like a broadsword poised to sever both of their scrawny necks. The knuckles of his powerful hand were white around the j-curved, rubber-gripped handle.

In another moment he had control of himself again.

He gave the cane back to the searching hands of D’Hiver, righted his chair, and sat down. He took up the bottle and poured himself another glass of port, to the rim of the heavy crystal glass.

“Please excuse me, gentlemen. I’ve had a rough week. A run-in with a drunk driver aggravated my knee injury. And the police.
They keep pestering me with questions about Bluemantle. Twice I’ve met with them in the conference room… . Conrad, kindly explain what you meant by a mutiny flourishing unchecked.”

Joscelyn eyed Nowell with sidelong caginess. “We all know that Hugh Montenay had a big mouth,” he began. “At first. He was a crusader, who did not like our means or ends. He felt revision of the Society’s history, according to his lights, was a better way.”

“He had an
ethical
problem,” D’Hiver said, making it clear he found such a dilemma a revolting personal habit.

Joscelyn nodded his head. “Yet, Hugh became a good Captain-Director in time. He came to see it our way once again: that even the tiniest hole in the hull of our story would be disastrous. He did, however, speak injudiciously among his family. That was the seed of a poisonous plant. And, alas, when his son came of age and went into law, he took up the muckraking mantle, and, I presume, saw some money to be made, as well. We had to make an extreme example of this bothersome young man, I’m afraid. There was also a
daughter
—”

“Yes, I know the facts of the case,” Nowell said, petulantly. If this was the point of the meeting, then everything was all right. “She lives with her mother and poses no threat to us.”

“Your information is incorrect, and your conclusion, therefore, is faulty,” D’Hiver said, just stopping himself from tapping Nowell’s knee. “She is here in New Orleans and visited her father every week, calling herself a friend of the family. She goes by one of her mother’s married names: Vair. Pretty thing.”

Nowell leaned back in his chair, awareness filling the sails of his mind.

“How would you know if she’s pretty or not, you superannuated lecher?” Joscelyn snapped, with the gruffness only an old friend can get away with.

“I can sense the presence of a lovely woman,” countered D’Hiver.

Joscelyn stood up, saying, “Pah! You’re getting senile faster than I am, Arthur.” And then to Nowell, “Yes, Preston, you see now, don’t you? She
must
know something she shouldn’t. Why would she seek anonymous employment here, after what her father has said against us in the bosom of his family? Why would she disguise her true relationship at the nursing home, knowing as she must that her father is being watched? Hugh must have perverted her mind, just as he did her brother’s.”

“That family has always caused us problems,” D’Hiver said sourly.

“Her knowledge can hurt us,” Joscelyn continued, “as surely as a submerged reef could have destroyed the
Allégorie
. She is a danger to us, as is that small-time pedigree mountebank she has befriended.”

“This Nick Herald,” D’Hiver said, squinting at his glass as if he could see it. “He worries us.”

Nowell had not told them he’d just offered Nick the position Bluemantle held. He decided now was not the time to say he believed Nick could more easily be corrupted than Bluemantle. But Jillian’s appearance at the Society … was that as ominous as the two old men were suggesting? Perhaps she aspired to being a Captain-Director herself, as was the noble tradition of her family. Nowell rather liked the progressive nature of that idea: the first female Captain-Director, and he enshrined in Society history as
her trailblazing mentor, as a champion of diversity. Yes, perhaps innocent actions on her part were being misinterpreted.

Suddenly he was exhausted. He felt like Hamlet in the first two acts—too many questions to deal with at once.

“You must watch them carefully, Preston,” D’Hiver was saying, “and deal with them, if necessary.”

“Or we will,” said Joscelyn. He now stood before the large carved rendering of the Society’s emblem on a panel behind Nowell’s substantial desk. He twisted the anchor of the ship and the panel clicked open to reveal a square black metal door with a chrome handle. To the left of the door was an alphanumeric keypad, like those used elsewhere in the building.

A pinpoint red light blinked.

“Is the combination the same?” Joscelyn asked.

“Yes. Of course,” Nowell replied, still thinking of all he’d done, all he had to do. Then with some indignation he said, “I would have notified you of any change. I’m aware that, according to the by-laws, a former Captain-Director must also know the combination. Arthur, because of his blindness, is not able to handle it on his own, so you are the one.”

Joscelyn carefully, laboriously punched in the code from memory. “The Captain-Director has an awesome responsibility, Preston. He must protect the crew and passengers from the perils of the open sea, where disaster can strike without warning, without pity. He must know many things they cannot know. He must ensure that those who wear the ring of the Society deserve that honor.”

Nowell had to restrain himself from telling Joscelyn to just shut up and concentrate on the keys.

After nine monotone beeps, a green pinpoint light glowed. Joscelyn pushed down on the handle. The door opened; a soft blast of trapped air disturbed Joscelyn’s hair. This safe shared the inert-gas conservation system with the Rare Documents Room.

Joscelyn removed from the safe a rectangular silver-colored fabric case—a pizza carrier, Nowell had often thought irreverently, back in the happier days of his tenure, before he had bloodied his hands in defense of their ancestry of deceit. The meticulously crafted case, Nowell knew very well, surpassed all existing archival standards and was itself worth a small fortune in development costs. It was, he thought, oddly beautiful in a futuristic way, something temples and churches and mosques would use in the next century to protect their holy texts. With minor difficulty but proud persistence Joscelyn held the case and its heavy contents close to his chest as he walked back to the other men.