Lost Angels: 13

He chose each one of us to go with him to Sister Woman, and the fourth one is— … “Orin, what is going to happen tomorrow?” Lisa woke startled. She sat up in her bed and looked at Orin.

Orin lay on the other bed. His eyes were already open, or they opened instantly. His hands were behind his head; his torso was bare—the first time he had slept without his undershirt since that night when he cried, that sexual night, Lisa realized. Opposite him, Jesse woke when she repeated her question.

Not tomorrow! Jesse knew, turning to give his full attention to Orin's answer. She thinks it's still yesterday-night. Today's Saturday!

Like a purplish scrim, the drawn curtains filtered the haze of beginning dawn. An edge of the wide window scorched orange by the rising sun threatened another day of ferocious heat. Reflections from the pool outside painted fiery waves on the ceiling.

Orin said, “I don't know.”

But today is Saturday! Jesse almost said that aloud and he sat up in bed. Was it possible that Orin didn't really “know"! Cody always knew, exactly.

Jesse assuaged himself: Orin was talking about the part that depended vaguely on Sister Woman; there were several possibilities there—but each had a definite shape, a definite goal. Reassured, Jesse lay back, although the glow at the window extended like a luminous fan, announcing full morning. Before he closed his eyes, Jesse saw that Orin was shirtless and that Lisa—so beautiful, so very, very beautiful—was staring at Orin.

It's already tomorrow, Lisa realized, fully awake. As she leaned back in bed, she wanted to hold back the dawn bleeding at the window, to will back the purple haze of an uncommitted day.

Jesse and Lisa woke again to the sound of water running in the bathroom. The door open, Orin was showering—a liquid shadow of flesh and reddish, water-darkened hair against the translucent curtain. Naked for moments, he emerged—the slender body defined. Surprised by the allowed nudity, Lisa and Jesse looked at the exposed form as he began to dress.

He had left the shower running, and it was as if that sound was washing away last night's unreality—morning continued to render the turbulent night unreal.

Lisa was about to close the door to take her shower. Orin said, “It's okay, Lisa.” She showered behind the diaphanous curtain. She felt their gaze, welcomed it.

Jesse wished his eyes could part the curtain. Even through the translucence, her body glowed. For a moment Lisa, too, revealed her naked body, and then wrapped herself in a soft towel.

Jesse showered without even drawing the curtain, but he kept his back to the open door because he was hard.

Submerged for long—threatening and desired—the sensuality among them flowed into the exhilarated brightness bursting into the room as—like always before—the new day swept even further away the unreal, unwanted night. Now, neither Lisa nor Jesse were sure they wanted Orin to fulfill his promise to tell them “everything.”

All three ready to leave for today's trek, at the door Lisa looked back at Pearl on a chair and almost ran to grab her, at least say good-bye—but she didn't.

They had breakfast at Denny's on Sunset nearby: eggs and bacon and hotcakes. The intimacy allowed earlier by their nakedness grew—they laughed, their arms would tangle as they reached for syrup, sugar, butter—and they would laugh; their bodies touched, they shifted legs under the table—and they laughed even more. Joining in their happy mood, the waitress told them it was “loads of fun to wait on people who didn't have a jag on.”

“Well, I just knew we'd run into you again!” said the jubilant woman they had seen yesterday at the Movieland Wax Museum. The hostess was seating her and her husband at a table just feet away from their booth.

“Well, hello!” Lisa tried to match the woman's dogged gaiety. “Mornin’,” Jesse lengthened a drawl. “Mornin’, ma'am; sir,” Orin greeted courteously.

The woman's hairdo had barely been damaged by the wind, which had plucked it from its shield of spray only on one side. Her husband could not keep his eyes away from Lisa, who wore a ruffled white blouse, off her shoulders.

“Well, what do you recommend?” the cheerful woman asked the three, and the waitress. When she and her husband had ordered the Special Number Three with orange juice, she turned back to the booth. “Well, you know the way we just keep running into each other over and over, I wouldn't be surprised if we ran into you tomorrow at the Gathering of Souls.”

Lisa and Jesse James looked quickly at Orin. With her words, the woman had dredged up what they had buried since the suspended interlude when Lisa woke up briefly this morning. His silver poised in midmovement, Orin stopped eating. He didn't look up.

“Well, you know, that's really why we're here,” the exuberant woman went on, “for the Gathering of Souls and Sister Woman's fireworks display of miracles; and, well, you know, she's hinted of something very special.”

Orin put down his silver, softly. He still didn't look up.

The woman continued her blissful gush. “Well, Lord, the cures that saintly woman has brought about, all those gifts to the Holy Spirit. Well, I just know hundreds of sinners will be slain in the Spirit of the Lamb,” she went on ecstatically, and told them of “the little gift” they had just given themselves—“a new Chevrolet, especially for our drive to the Gathering of Souls tomorrow.” She glowed with rapture. “Well, it's a two-tone blue car.”

“You might just see us there.” Orin finally looked at her.

“Well, that would be a joy—like a climax to our running into each other like this. Well, it can't be accidental. Well, it's like Sister Woman says, that there are no accidents under heaven!” She seemed beside herself with jubilation. Her flushed face erupted ino a series of smiles. Tiny utterances of happiness issued from her mouth. “Well, that would be just wonderful!—to run into you at the Silver Chapel on the Hill, for Sister Woman's Gathering of Souls, God love her and her blessed mission! Well, the way she actually extends salvation even to the dead—those who have died in sin!—through the intercession of the living! Well, I call that inspiring—and, well, no one else does it but Sister Woman.”

“No one but her,” Orin said somberly. He stood to leave. Then anger seemed to push out words: “That's what she says!”

The woman's laughter stopped. Her breathing came like panting. Then the bountiful good humor returned. “Well, this food is delicious!” she announced jubilantly over her plate.

As if feeling Lisa's troubled eyes on him, Orin looked at her—and he smiled. She smiled back at him, sexily but shyly. She and Jesse rose to leave with Orin.

Waving delightedly as the three left the restaurant, the happy woman chimed, “Well, good-bye—or rather, till we meet again.”

Outside—and the wind was still for almost minutes—they saw a brand new dark and light blue Chevrolet with dealer's license plates.

“I bet that's their ole new car. Ugly,” Jesse said, doubly proud of the classy Cadillac they'd be getting into. “You're hot as pistols,” he told the Cadillac, and extended his words to Lisa. “That's what Cody said to that Verna when she walked out in a black negligy,” he trumpeted his firm memory. He looked at Lisa—as sexy as that. “No,” he was confused again, “he said Verna'd knock your eyes out—he was hot as pistols.” The very last line of Cody's had hinted of lapping at the edge of his consciousness, but confusion shoved it back.

A motorcycle cop drove into the parking lot—all black sunglassed authority. Jesse got into the Cadillac quickly. Lisa had to climb over his long legs to sit in the middle. The cop looked at them through the menacing glasses. “What year is it?” He pointed to the car.

“Fifty-three,” Orin answered, lowering the top.

“Beauty, real beauty.” The cop looked at the car and Lisa.

Driving away, Orin said, “Relax, Jesse.”

“Just got used to being nervous around cops,” Jesse blurted, “'cause I was in the army—just a short time—underage! Kept going AWOL! Real restless! Kicked me out when they found out I was just a kid, and I had to go back to— …” His sudden “confession” stunned him, even while he went on. “And when— …”

Orin stopped him. “Whatever happened in the past, that won't matter soon. Sister Woman promised. Wipe away all the tears.” He said that happily.

“Awright, kid!” Jesse said in the same mood.

Yes, Orin believed that! A fragment of last night's shattered darkness stung Lisa. And now Jesse seemed about to believe it, too! Reality stabbed through the hazy happiness of the day. “I want a flavor of the week!” Lisa rejected it all forcefully—and when they stopped at a red and white Baskin-Robbin's, she immediately began to devour the first of two double-scoop cones!

In the city on hot weekends, traffic is light in the afternoon; everyone has fled to the beaches early.

Orin, Jesse, and Lisa rode on Wilshire. “Let's, Orin!” Lisa said when they passed the famous La Brea Tar Pits. Taking the last delicious bite of her second cone, Lisa thought, It will all go on, like this, on and on and on.

“Yeah, let's!” Each time they had passed the park, Jesse had wanted to stop—but he didn't like being judged by a dismissed choice.

In an area of several blocks of green park, children played—there was the atmosphere of a fair—roaming clowns performing, people selling balloons like clusters of multicolored grapes; old people resting.

Among trees and shrubbery is a large pool of tar, millions of years old. Alive still, it bubbles in slow restlessness. Within it, a carefully reconstructed mastodon, a saber-toothed tiger, a giant bear stand petrified, a million years beyond their time.

As close as they could come to it from behind the wired fence that surrounds the pool, they watched the oily black surface of the tar, reflecting colors like a scummy rainbow.

“The animals were trapped in the pools!” Jesse learned from a placard nearby. “See,” he explained, “they'd get stuck, and then pre-da-tors—one of them—would pounce on that animal, and they'd all sink into the tar, like quicksand. That's why that one— …” He pointed to a mastodon, entrapped, struggling against the dooming tars. “… —is fighting to get out… . “I wonder if he did,” the awesome question struck him. He went on hurriedly, “And that's how scientists know what the animals looked like, from their bones.”

And a small mastodon watched the sinking one in horror! Lisa felt sad—imagining the doomed struggle in the thickening trap.

Orin said, “Millions of years ago, and it was all forming.” He reached up with one hand, feeling the rising wind.

In awe, Jesse James was silent. Millions of years—and here they were!

An incongruous modern building houses a museum there. “It contains the reconstructed skeletons of thousands of prehistoric birds and animals! From fossils!” Jesse read from his guidebook. Feeling Lisa's rapidly declining interest, he added, “And there's the skeleton of an Indian maiden!”

Lisa definitely did not want to go in.

They walked to the County Art Museum a long block away, a clean white structure of stairs and arches and stately square wings. Orin wanted to see the Modern wing. Lisa would have preferred the Old Masters—and Jesse didn't really care.

They stood before an enormous painting covering one whole wall. Colors collided with others as if hurled from the dark whirling center of the canvas.

Outside, the wind increased with the heat. They left the car top up. The radio was set on the news station. “… society. ‘Audiences are so jaded,’ Fred Hay wood told me in an exclusive interview at the Polo Lounge,” a woman's voice said. “Haywood has the job of arranging the entertainment for Rodeo Drive's International Gala Ball. He told me the challenge is to come up with an act that will excite the audience after the eight-course meal catered by the chef of Chez Toi. The exclusive black-tie affair will be limited to two hundred guests. Funds raised by the celebrity affair will go to the Orphaned Children's— …”

Jesse punched the country and Western station—sure of his right to do so now—turning up the volume so they could hear the singer lament crushed dreams, and praise love sustained.

Orin turned off the radio. “The old woman, she had sinned grievously,” he said. He faced straight ahead. He clenched the steering wheel tightly with both hands, but his voice was even. “All her life. Steeped in evil.”

And so just like that, he was keeping last night's promise! Did he want to hear what was coming? Jesse wondered.

Seated between them, Lisa wished she were in back—to avoid the words.

“I was her eyes, read to her from her books—stories, everything. But only toward the last. The old woman said Sister Woman looked like a ghost, a messenger from beyond, because by then her eyesight was failing bad. Sister Woman—she spoke the most beautiful words you ever heard—and she spoke cruel ones, too—but you have to hear that, too, so you can choose whichever you want. She said she could wash away all the pain and all the sin. And even after death—if it was too late. The old woman, she listened—and I remember it all so clear. Sister Woman's words, they were like nothing you ever heard. Nothing / ever heard. Nothing the old woman had ever heard, either. So we wrote her. She wrote her first, in her great big letters—and then I wrote for her, what she told me. Wrote Sister Woman everything—all about the sins— …” He closed his eyes, held a long sigh, opened his eyes, repeated: “Sins, blackness, the sin; always, always failing, lower and lower until we almost touched hell.”

We. … Jesse puzzled over Orin's word.

“Still alive and touching hell! And Sister Woman answered! She said she understood—everything. Understood everything!” Orin captured one word, softly—as if assuring himself: “Everything.” Now he resumed in a cadenced, slow voice: “The old woman was dying, knew it; too late to save herself—in this life. Just in the next.” He shook his head. A gentle smile touched his lips, then faded. “She got so thin I could lift her with one arm, almost. She's sitting in her bed, and she's saying, ‘Orin, you underline that word proof in that letter; tell that Sister Woman we want proof.’” He paused, as if filtering memories.

“But she's not here and you are,” Lisa said. She wanted to hold him, shelter him—feeling his controlled pain, the mysterious hurt buried in his memories.

“Was she real, real old, Orin?” Jesse formed sad words.

“Fifty. Not quite that.”

Jesse was jarred. He had thought of her as very, very old, the way Orin spoke.

Not yet fifty. Lisa, too, had imagined an old, old woman. The shifted reality confused, then disturbed her.

“The illness just got her,” Orin seemed to answer their silent questions. “Long time a-coming, and then it just took over. But even then the sinning went on.” His words erupted. “I stopped calling her my— … !” The rest choked. “But she stayed so beautiful.” The gentleness returned. “Like a beautiful ghost.”

Lisa looked at Orin's glazed eyes. Was the dead woman his mother?—the question floated on her consciousness. And the dark sin— … She pulled out of the disturbing currents, rejected the thoughts. No! The woman was just someone he had loved—loved strangely and powerfully… . A woman loved strangely… . Lisa's own troubled memories whirled. Even when she fled from her into the sheltering darkness of the cherished theaters, she was actually searching her, her mother, her mother's past, reflected in the silver black images of abandoned movie heroines, abandoned over and over and over, like her mother—that woman “who could have been a movie star.” “I'm sorry,” Lisa sighed into the wind.

Again Orin shook his head. “I think—I actually believe—the reason she cursed—her last words were curses!—was to make it real hard—real hard—on God. And Sister Woman. Challenging to the last moment!” He sighed an endless sigh. “So now Sister Woman has to prove to me that the blind woman is saved—out of the fires of hell. And then I can tell her— …”

Yes, like Cody talking to his dead Ma in the black wind. “How will she prove it?” Jesse asked quietly.

“She'll have to know how,” Orin said, again as if the logic was obvious.

The aimless dream had found direction in a nightmare, and the nightmare could be ended only by waking—but if ended too abruptly, it might abandon Orin forever in its impenetrable darkness. And if Sister Woman did not give him the proof he needed, what?

The sun spilled long shadows as they drove past the glassy gravestone buildings of Century City.

“And if she doesn't give you proof, Orin?” Jesse knew he could ask questions now.

“She will.” Orin's face clouded. The blue eyes deepened.

“But if— …” Jesse pursued just so far.

Orin's tone changed. “There's two wills. She wrote each one out by hand—by herself, so careful, each word. All legal. She checked over and over, made sure. I can destroy whichever one I want. Sister Woman knows that. Everything's waiting now. And it's up to her.”

Jesse inhaled heat, which boiled in his body. He could hardly form the words: “How much money, Orin?”

“Million. More. Maybe two. Never thought to count it. Lots left for us,” he smiled an important promise. Then he was somber. “When the old woman's at peace, really at peace, at last,” he seemed to speak to himself, “then I will be at peace, too, from her life and her death—and I can let her rest from mine.”

He had come to bury the dead woman—really bury her, in his mind—whatever she was to him, whoever she was. Lisa thought she heard hints of that now in the recurring echo of some of his haunting erratic words and lessons. To bury her. Was it the dead who reached out in anger to the living—or the living who didn't let go, in greater anger? … All the discarded awarenesses returned to Lisa now, jostling the dream of unperturbed aimless-ness in this languorous city.

“There's a right time to die—and a wrong time,” Orin's cadenced voice said. “Like if the best that's ever going to happen has already happened and nothing after will be that good; or if the worst is still to come and you couldn't take any more—then that's the right time; but some lives end before they're finished, and then others have to live for them, even die for them.” The wind seemed to echo the rhythm of his words. “Depends.”

Lisa thought of Maria.

Now he smiled the incongruous little-boy smile. “That explain just about all of it—like I promised?”

“And how do we figure in it, Orin, me and Lisa—with that Sister Woman?” Jesse asked firmly.

“Clear,” Orin said simply. “Sister Woman said there would be four angels, four rebellious angels.”

There it was again—the same illogical logic with which he delivered his lessons to them—allowing him to assert his fantastic reality to include them. And he had been able to lead them into the park, that deep night, led them to— … the fourth rebellious angel he had chosen, Lisa understood.

“Got to fulfill our side of it,” Orin said, “so she'll have to fulfill hers. She wrote us back, lots of times. We read her letters, studied them, listened to every word in her sermons, me and the old woman did; and we understood… . The old woman would say, ‘Orin, you mind now—can't let her have excuses. No excuses. Got to fulfill our side.’”

Our side. Jesse heard the sweet words. “Our side,” he beamed aloud. Then with sudden anger he realized that Orin was including the man in the park! “What makes you so damn sure we'll go along with you, Orin—wherever the hell you're going?” His rage shocked him, and he glanced at Lisa for support.

“Don't have to,” Orin answered easily. “Never did. Only if you want to. You decide. Don't have to do a thing a-tall.”

His shabby life till now; transformed. Jesse felt rejected by Orin's easy answer; his own question sounded mean, and it had left him abandoned. He felt frightened, a sense of loss. “I guess there's nothing wrong in wanting to know why that man in the park is so important to you—to us,” Jesse ordered his words carefully.

“Thought I did,” Orin said. “Gotta be four lost angels.”

Why four? Lisa wondered. Did he know?

“Talked to him, before I could even approach him, and— …”

“The mornings you were gone?” Jesse tried not to sulk.

“Yes. Told him about you; he had to see you to trust me,” Orin continued, as if their questions, not his statements, might be strange.

That hot, hypnotized night in the park—when he pushed the stone in signal. “And you went looking for him?” Lisa asked; said.

“Found him,” Orin said. “Drew conclusions, studied it all from those news reports.”

The same way he studied intricate structures, patterns. Lisa remembered him that afternoon at the Observatory, staring through the telescope, and then those boys set off firecrackers, like bullets.

“Half-looking, half had-to-happen,” Orin said, “'cause that's how things ‘just happen.’ Like I met you. Guess, yeah, I was looking.”

Choosing us carefully, finding us. Like him—the man in the park. But why four! Why did that woman insist on four?

Jesse felt awed by coincidence which isn't.

“And if she can wash away the old woman's sins, she can wash away all our tears. All the guilt,” Orin sighed. “All the horror we ran away from.”

All the horror, Jesse James thought.

Guilt, Lisa heard. Horror. What if Sister Woman did give him what he wanted? What was the real test?

“And I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth,” Orin recited last-night's echoed words. “These are they who come out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, but they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

Jesse surrendered tension and anger. Four angels, he thought. Orin knew. “Got to be four,” he said aloud.

Lisa looked fearfully at Orin and Jesse.

“Now we have to go to the park,” Orin said. “Okay?”

Jesse nodded easily.

They would go with or without her, Lisa knew. And she would go with them. She loved them, and they loved her—and she—they—had to face what was out there, had to know what seemed and what was. That was the only possibility of pushing away the darkness looming over Orin—perhaps now over Jesse. “Yes,” she said.

“Knew you'd see it,” Orin said happily.

In the white desert, when Orin had stopped to pick him up, with Lisa so pretty already in the car—Jesse remembered the Cadillac like an apparition in the wavy unreality of sun and heat—as far back as then, Orin was collecting his “evidence,” “fulfilling” his side! Yes!—he had rejected many others along the long highways, the many coffee shops and motels—choosing, searching for, him and Lisa! And so his determination to find and approach the man in the park made sense. Now Jesse did not feel threatened by that. He felt special!

It was late dusk when they reached the park. Vast parts of it were dark, shaded deep gray; others were still splashed by windy sunlight. They walked and ran into the heart of the greenness until they reached the naked rocks on which they stood that first time. Orin dashed halfway along the blackened burnt patch and toward the green mass. “It's Orin! And Lisa! And Jesse!” His voice mixed with the sounds of the wind.

The verdure remained sealed. Orin bolted across the bare stretch and plunged into the cove.

Perspiration melting like ice, Jesse gasped.

Lisa dashed against the ripping wind and toward the greeness that had swallowed Orin.

Inside the tangled enclosure of the cove—a shell of dried twigs, branches, vines, leaves—like the inside of a cave, the size of a room—inside, Lisa faced Orin—alone. Then Jesse was with them.

The enclosure was littered with empty cans of food, opened bottles, papers, a soiled sleeping bag, spilled iodine, a portion of a bandage. Sheltered from the wind, the cove contained a quivering stillness.

“He's gone,” Orin said. There was amazement in his voice. “Said he wouldn't leave—he promised!” His voice veered toward franticness.

A part of the dangerous unreality had fled, Lisa thought gratefully.

In a carefully cleared space, a rifle lay.

“He did have a rifle.” Orin's voice was puzzled. “He lied, said he didn't!” He frowned deeply.

Jesse leaned over the weapon. “Its an M-16,” he identified it. “Godamighty, you realize what he could've done with that? Could've sprayed the park in a second with— … Safety's on, though.” He secured it doubly.

“He didn't want to hurt anyone,” Lisa said adamantly.

Orin touched the rifle. Kneeling by it, he studied it, as if amazed by its simple complexity. Then he rolled it carefully in the green sleeping bag.

“Leave it, Orin,” Lisa's strong voice said. “It's dangerous.”

“Not with the safety,” Jesse was proud of his knowledgeability.

“Can't leave it,” Orin said urgently. “Gotta take it away,'cause now they're looking for where he was. If they find this, it'll be bad, real bad.” He lowered his head. “And I have to tell Sister Woman I have proof there were four rebellious angels,” he said. His voice slid toward panic. “Gotta have my side of the proof.”

When they moved out of the cove, Lisa looked back at the sorrowing pines over the enclosure.

After Jesse and Lisa were in the car, Orin placed the wrapped rifle in the trunk.

“Drive out on the other side, Orin,” Lisa said quietly, firmly, “Like on the first day we came here, remember?”

Jesse remembered, easily. Would it—could it—happen, finally? The mounting sensuality this morning— …

This side of the park was shaded purple. Light fell only in dusty slanted sheets. “Here,” Lisa said.

It was the place where Jesse had almost challenged Orin in those moments of demanding sexuality that distant afternoon.

Orin parked on an isle of dirt off the main road. They got out.

This day's sensuality, released by Orin this morning with his nakedness and theirs—Lisa would use it. Eager—anxious—Jesse would help. She pointed to the trail, the path. They moved through it. Before the cove, Orin waited. For a moment, he looked puzzled—young, lost, innocent.

Lisa reached out and took his hand, leading him in—and pulling him away from the screaming ghost she felt sure his life had become a ritual to. Orin stared at her with eyes whose color melted into liquid blue.

Lisa's fingers slid down Orin's cheek, to the edge of his shoulder. She reached for his hand and placed it on the bare flesh over her low blouse. Answering her nod, Jesse's hand quickly coaxed the blouse lower, exposing a portion of one breast. His fingers touched the nipple. He thought, Its happening!

Orin's body trembled. He turned away. But Lisa held him, gently. His head lowered. “Help me!” Orin whispered. Lisa placed her lips on his. Jesse's hand cupped her exposed breast. Closing his eyes, Orin touched the other one, still covered. The blouse slipped down easily. Orin's tense hand—but not his lips—pulled away. Then his hand returned to the naked flesh. Jesse released Lisa's skirt, her panties, revealing the tinted softness between her legs, sequined in spurts of vagrant light. Then he connected his lips to hers on Orin's.

Lisa opened Orin's shirt. The two bare torsos pressed against hers, hands gliding. The three faces joined in moist lips, tasting flesh, perspiration—and Orin's tears?

Jesse lowered his hands. He turned Lisa's body more fully toward Orin's. Orin pulled back. Lisa touched the cool moisture on his face, soothing it, the other hand opening his pants. His cock, like Jesse's, was full and hard.

His arms enveloping the two bodies—and theirs his—the three mouths connected. Orin thrust into Lisa, and with a sigh of joy released from a sob of sorrow, he came—and Lisa felt the long, long orgasm. Jesse replaced him, his “Ah!” echoing Orin's and extending Lisa's, which had united the two. The three bodies held each other.

Then they separated slowly. They adjusted their clothes. Orin's head was bowed as he buttoned his pants, his shirt. Lisa and Jesse waited anxiously for his look. Orin turned away from them. Out of his wallet, he pulled a small paper, perhaps a photograph. He laid it on a rock near the opening of the cove. The wind carried away what he had placed there, as weightless as a soul. Turning, he smiled at them.

He had released a photograph, a constant presence, Lisa felt certain; and, along with the disappeared, mysterious man in the cove, that strange woman who beckoned nightly?—would he release her now? Yes, Lisa told herself. Yes!

As they descended in the car, an eerie smoky veil advanced on the darkened city.

They stopped to buy food. Outside the motel, they could taste ashes.

The closeness extended as they ate together at the familiar table. There was a shy embarrassment, but there was also a gentle, secure connection.

Then Orin looked at his watch.

No! Lisa saw him touch the television. Only for the news, she insisted. Only for the news!

Kenneth Manning's voice was excited: “… —estimated at least a week, more, living on canned food in the park. He gave himself up early this morning—or just wandered out into the area of the Observatory.”

The picture on the screen showed the wrenched face of a man whose eyes were as colorless as the sweat that glistened on his cheeks, jaws, his exposed, skinny chest. He was wearing ripped combat clothes. His hands were handcuffed behind him. Police were leading him toward a black squad car.

The voice of another announcer, a man, was filling in the details. “Though unarmed when apprehended, the Viet Nam veteran who had escaped the hospital apparently thought he was back in combat in the jungle. We tried to get a statement.” Several microphones were thrust before the terrified man ogled by eyes and cameras. The man's mouth opened. Screamed words spewed out: “People burning!” The police pushed him behind the blurred windows of their car, erasing the terrified face.

Now Eleanor Cavendish, in the studio, said, “We have a tape of Dr. Frederick Krug in his home in Beverly Hills. Dr. Krug is an authority on Viet Nam veterans who experience what are called ‘flashbacks’ and believe— …”

“I'm glad you took the rifle, Orin!” Lisa said fiercely. The image of the terrified veteran, handcuffed, remained. “Now they can't connect it to him.”

On the screen, a man in his sixties, his head shaved totally, spoke authoritatively. “This is not an uncommon syndrome with soldiers. Even when they know they have fought justly, any criticism of war sets into motion a whole syndrome of unjustified guilt, not for the official killing, no matter how regrettable, but, more, for childhood guilts evoked— …”

Angrily, Orin turned off the sound.

“He wasn't going to use that rifle or he would have!” Lisa said.

“They'll take him back to the hospital,” Jesse said sadly.

“But he'll run away again!” Lisa said.

“No,” Orin said. “They won't let him.”

The picture on the television screen had changed. It showed a building of astonishing architecture—slabs of silver plastic, dissected triangles, elaborate designs of angular geometry, all like a magnified, twisted snowflake. The camera pulled back on the enormous building to reveal rows and rows of pews, and, elevated and separated from them, a huge transparently silver platform behind which a radiance of plastic slabs burst into a giant fan.

Orin raised the sound: “… —thousands, a capacity sponsors believe will be exceeded tomorrow when one of the country's foremost evangelists and so-called faith-healers—known only as Sister Woman—will hold what is being billed as a ‘Gathering of Souls in the Silver Chapel on the Hill.’ The chapel was completed earlier this year at a cost of eighteen million dollars. Joining Sister Woman will be other major figures in the evangelical movement, now arriving from all over the country. The giant crusade will open tomorrow, and its sponsors predict countless miracles, cures, and spiritual manifestations known as ‘slayings in the Spirit.’ … Well, finally, folks!”—Eleanor Cavendish wiped her brow in emphasis—"it looks as if we may—may—be in for some relief from the Santa Ana heat, at last. Unfortunately, the winds have already fanned two major fires, threatening to link into one.” The camera exposed a semicircle of fire like a blazing, broken crown.

Orin stood with his back angled to the screen.

“Tonight she's got to give us proof,” he said.

And Lisa knew that what had occurred in the park was not an ending to the ritual, which must now unwind, fully.

Orin shifted channels.

Jesse looked in panic at Lisa. What would happen now!

Lisa remembered the two gentle heads that had leaned on her shoulders in the cove, in the park.

The blazing cross appeared on the screen. On her throne-backed golden chair, Sister Woman sat alone, robed in white satin woven through with golden veins of thread. Not even her private breeze intruded. On her lap, her hands were slain birds to be resurrected. The camera framed the delicate white features of her face, as still as a photograph. Tears gleamed, tiny pieces of melting ice on her dark lids.

Orin sat on the edge of the bed. Jesse and Lisa flanked him.

“Please,” Orin pled to the figure on the screen. “Please say: ‘I am here.’ Say it, say it! ‘I am here.’ Say it, Sister Woman, please.” He seemed to want his words to penetrate the screen, the woman's mind. His exhortation assumed the rhythm of prayer. “And then I'll know she's speaking through you, just like she said she would, if you really did what you claim, and all you have to say is, ‘I am here,’ that's all the proof I need, she told me—and I'll hear her through you and I'll know she's saved. And me.”

Say it for him, Lisa pled silently. Jesse's hand was cold on hers.

Sister Woman's red mouth opened. It formed four slow whispers: “Awesome. Wondrous. Glorious. Terrifying.” She began tonight's sermon. “Awesome, wondrous, glorious, terrifying are— …”