Angel Fire Read online

  “I was a stupid fool.”

  So angels can sob too. She was not about to be kidded out of her self-hatred. Female types seldom were. Oh God, why me?

  Because you’re able to do it. And she’s at least capable of forgiving herself if you push her hard enough. Unlike your mother or poor Moaning Mona.

  “Ah, woman, you’re a trial. When are you folks going to give up your ridiculous pride. You didn’t kill me. You were able to stop. I learned a lesson about love. You learned a lesson about humility.” His phony brogue grew thicker. “Sure, it was a benign experience for the two of us. No harm done at all, at all.”

  “There is that.”

  Ah, she wants to believe me. That’s half the fight.

  “I understand that, unlike the other seraphs... or should I use the Hebrew and say seraphim?”

  “Either is acceptable.”

  “Well, like I say, you’re the only one of that crowd who has to

  be immune from temptation. A veritable Mary Poppins of seraphim ... I kind of like the Hebrew plural.” “Shut up.”

  “I won’t. And I don’t think you can make me. Anyway, you’re the only one in that immense choir—“ “Not all that immense.”

  “—who has to be totally perfect. A real Mary Poppins.” “I am not!”

  “You are too! You’re bound to be perfect.” “That’s what the others will say. You are as bad as they are.” “Mike and the bunch.” “We always call him Michael.”

  “Well, I call him Mike___Mickey when I’m upset.”

  “All three are acceptable,” she whispered, like she was trying to suppress a silly giggle.

  “I’m still very much alive, after all”—now I’m going to put my foot in it—“and convinced that I had better find myself a wife. But stop feeling guilty that you cut it kind of close. And stop hiding.” “I’m so ashamed,” she said, mostly convinced. “Of being human? Or whatever the hell you are? You’re not Herself after all. You don’t have to be perfect, seraph or not. Now come back here.”

  She reappeared in the chair next to his bed, her slip clutched modestly at her throat, a sheepish smile on her tear-stained face. “That’s better.” The woman was almost the death of me. “If there is pure Mind, Seano—and we both believe that there is—you can imagine the power of that Love. The exploding ‘singularity’ that began the cosmos would be only a pale reflection.” “Terrifying,” he agreed, and then the blarney put in its last lick, “and if you’re anything like the Other, I’ll find meeting Him, oops, Her, an interesting experience indeed.” She blushed to the roots of her silver hair. “You see what I mean when I say there are no superior and inferior species, Sean Desmond. We are merely fellow pilgrims, companions on a journey.”

  Some companion. “I wouldn’t trade with Tobias.” “Thank you.” She stood up, still hiding, not all that successfully, behind her slip.

  “You’re getting ready to leave?” “Yes, Jackie Jim. ET goes home!”

  “Sit down.”

  “What?” Her imperial or seraphic dignity was offended.

  “I said sit down; I have something to say.”

  And I better do it right.

  “You have been in charge of this caper. You gave the orders and I went along, gracefully, right?”

  “More or less gracefully.” The imp in her eyes began to dance.

  “Which is as it should be because you’re the guardian angel and I’m the wolfhound, right?”

  “Cute wolfhound, though.”

  “You gave me all kinds of orders about how to live the rest of my life.”

  “Recommendations.”

  “Sure ... Now I’m giving not a recommendation, we inferior species can’t afford that luxury. Turnabout is fair play, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, right?”

  “Go on.”

  Getting a little testy.

  “Well, I’ll flat out say it. I’m not letting you go home until you promise me that you’ll put aside your grief and find yourself another companion of somewhat greater durability than I possess.”

  Total quiet. She bowed her head. Her shoulders and breasts moved up and down rapidly.

  “That’s what your friends tell you, so now I’m making it official. Understand?”

  ‘Yes,” she whispered.

  “Yes, you understand, or yes, you’ll do it?”

  “Yes, I’ll think seriously about it.”

  “That won’t do at all, Gabriella, and you know it.”

  Her shoulders sagged, her body slumped over.

  “Yes ... yes, I know it, and yes, damn you, I’ll do it. Satisfied?”

  “Promise?”

  She looked up at him, weeping but grinning. “Angels don’t lie. But yes, master, I promise.”

  “All right.”

  Easier than he had expected.

  “Most High’s lines”—she laughed—“are not always this straight. Thank you, Sean Seamus Desmond. May I leave now?”

  “Go in peace.” He’d play priest to the end. “And God bless you.”

  “I’ll never forget you.”

  “Candidly, I’m not surprised.”

  She stood up, ready to go.

  “I won’t ever forget you either, Gabriella Light.”

  “You’d better not.”

  They laughed together for the last time, and she took his hand in hers, her big brown eyes filled with infinite and tearful tenderness. He felt very sleepy. He wanted to say “I love you” before he lost consciousness, but he was not sure that he did.

  He saw first a naked woman with a slip at her belly, graceful breasts poised over him, then a radiant pattern of crimson lights, and then, once again, nothing at all.

  But not so soon that he didn’t wonder why she did not extract a parallel promise from him.

  When he awoke the next morning, Gaby was gone, as he knew she would be. No trace of her clothes or her luggage. His rosary was gone too.

  And, of course, the door to the adjoining room had disappeared.

  In

  He found the money in Paris, crisp new United States Treasury

  Two million dollars, notes.

  He had flown to Paris directly from Berlin on Air France. Jordan Bonfonte, the Paris bureau chief of Time and a friend of Blackie Ryan, had pleaded for an interview to follow up the Time cover story. What was it like to be a Nobel laureate? What were the costs and the rewards?

  What can I tell you?

  Well, I can’t tell you everything, that’s for sure.

  He took the limo in to Paris from Charles de Gaulle and hiked over to the George V, which Gaby had told him was a good hotel if he didn’t get a room next to a rich Arab family.

  His plans were to stay the night, fly to London for a promised lunch with Hastings, and then leave on the next day for Chicago.

  When he checked in, the clerk with typically Gallic courtesy told him that he was fortunate that it was December and there were some empty rooms. What sort of accommodation did monsieur desire?

  “One in which I am not next to an Arab family.” “Oui, monsieur.”

  Gaby was right again. If there ever had been a Gaby. He phoned his daughters as soon as he reached his room. “Daddy!”

  “You’d never guess what?” “No, what?”

  “We have a new stepfather.” “And is he ever a geek.” “Totally gross.” “He lives way out west.” “In Elgin.”

  Forty miles from Chicago. “He’s some kind of doctor.” “He has two totally gross sons.”

  “Mom goes we have to live with her now that we have a stepfather.”

  The verb “to go” had replaced in the younger generation the

  archaic form “to say.”

  “And we go no way, Jose.’

  “Totally no way.”

  “I mean, his boys are space cadets. Really.”

  “Anyway, Mr. Ryan goes we don’t have to live with them at

  all.”

  “No way, Jose.”

  Sean broke into the
flow of adolescent outrage. “Mr. Ryan?”

  “You know, like Laura O’Connor’s grandpa.”

  “And Father Blackie’s father.”

  “Ned Ryan?”

  Senior partner of the legendary Loop law firm of Ryan, Rosner,

  and Ryan.

  “Uh-huh. He’s real old.”

  “But he’s real cute.”

  “Was he really an admiral, Daddy?”

  “Laura says he was, but he just laughs.”

  “A real admiral, with all kinds of medals.”

  “And he goes that we should tell you not to worry. No way we’re going to have to live in Elgin.”

  “Did you have to go to the wedding?”

  “It was a total gross-out, Daddy. Really.”

  “In church?”

  “Oh, sure, St. Moron’s or something like that.”

  “Really.”

  Trust Mona to grab the limelight. Well, no more alimony. She’d have a hard time proving that the children were neglected. If she were foolish enough to try after a little talk with Ned Ryan.

  Someone told him once apropos of his colleague Steve O’Connor’s in-laws that they were sort of a church-in-miniature, collecting strays and taking care of them—whether they wanted to be taken care of or not.

  He ‘was kind of glad to be on their list.

  He called Blackie next.

  “Johnny? Johnny.”

  “Ah, indeed. You have returned to our frantic pre-Christmas city?”

  “I’m in Paris.”

  “Remarkable. No good will come from it. But nonetheless remarkable.”

  “The kids told me you called up the first team. Thanks to you and Ned and Nancy. The kids seem to have survived Mona’s blitz pretty well.”

  “A gross-out.” Blackie sighed. “Totally. The ineffable Old Fella says there’s not a chance of the courts yielding her anything. He doubts that she will make an issue of it.”

  “A church marriage?”

  “Apparently there was some decision in another diocese that there was no obstacle to her remarriage. They neglected to inform us, which My Lord Cronin remarks is typical. As a result, your process, should you be interested, is nearing a satisfactory conclusion. I wish the Church would abandon its role as a legal tribunal for marriages. It’s relatively recent and an endless headache.”

  “Recent?”

  “Only a thousand years, more or less.”

  “Very recent.”

  They didn’t even give him time to feel guilty about leaving the kids with Nancy and Steve. The Ryans probably took better care of them in the crisis than he would have.

  Gaby might have been involved. No way of telling.

  If there ever had been a Gaby. Neither the kids nor Blackie had mentioned her. Which didn’t prove anything in itself, did it?

  He met Bonfonte in a little restaurant off the Quai d’Orsay and drank too much wine. He thought, however, that it was the kind of interview of which Gaby would be pleased.

  Gaby, Gaby, Gaby ... will 1 ever get her out of my mind? Jordan had brought along a stack of Time pictures of the awards ceremony. Sean considered them very carefully: not a trace of her. Either she had not been there or she had systematically erased all traces of herself from photographic negatives. Probably also from people’s memories. After lunch he took a taxi to the American embassy to say hello to a Notre Dame classmate who was First Secretary. The diplomat was delighted to have a drink with a Nobel laureate and show him the Herald-Tribune and the Times. No Gaby. He even played the USIA’s videotape for Sean. No Gaby. Naturally.

  Back in the George V, he forced himself to consider matters very carefully. Either she had never been there, he repeated to himself, or she had perpetrated an enormous deception on everyone else but him.

  That was impossible, wasn’t it? Probably. Even a seraph couldn’t be that systematic. Then he found the money.

  He removed his shaving pack from the Gucci carrying case and paused to reflect some more about le probleme Gaby.

  How would he still have his flight bags if there had been a thermonuclear explosion on the banks of the Elster?

  On the other hand, he would never have purchased such expensive hand luggage himself, not even if he knew he would be released from alimony responsibility.

  She might have snatched their belongings out of the work center at the same time, and with the same efficiency, that she

  snatched him.

  Or simply reconstituted them afterward.

  Easy tricks, she would say, when you’ve learned how to do

  them.

  He poked around in the contents of the two bags. Well, she was right about one thing, anyway. It is easier to travel light.

  Still a good pun.

  Witch.

  Then his fingers touched a thin leather case that ought not to have been there.

  He extracted it from the flight bag. A Gucci billfold with two compartments, compact in length and width and slim in depth.

  What the hell?

  He opened the wallet cautiously. Four stacks of bills. At a quick glance fifty in each stack. Two hundred new notes, sealed with United States Treasury binders.

  What denomination?

  Franklyn Chase!

  Ten thousand dollars!

  Oh my God!

  Ten times two hundred, two hundred thousand dollars!

  No, multiply ten thousand by two hundred and you get two million dollars.

  He dropped the wallet like it was on fire.

  The woman had gone too far!

  Now he was in real trouble.

  He reached for the phone to call his friend at the embassy.

  His fingers poised over the dial as he tried to imagine the conversation.

  “I’ve found two million dollars.”

  “You what?”

  “I’ve found two million dollars.”

  “Where?”

  “In my flight bag.”

  “How did it get there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Or alternately, “An angel put it there.”

  He slumped onto his bed, next to the billfold. He couldn’t turn the money in. He’d certainly be in trouble with the government for the rest of his life.

  They’d try to trace the money and would discover that they could not. Ah, the woman was a clever one. She’d cover her tracks well. No one could prove he shouldn’t have the cash. Maybe they’d try to force the money back on him. Or maybe they would appropriate it for the government.

  it.

  But did the government have a right to it?

  He shoved the billfold away. I don’t have a right to it. She stole

  Angels don’t steal.

  How the hell do you know?

  He opened the billfold again. They might be counterfeit.

  Come on, she’s not that clumsy.

  What if they catch you carrying that much money around in your flight bag?

  He didn’t know much about international currency regulations, but he was certain he would be breaking numerous laws of France, the U.K., and the good old U.SA. by just possessing that much cash. Even if they only took the money away from him, he’d never live it down. He could imagine the headlines:

  Nobel Prof Arrested

  with Money Cache

  “Angel Gave Me

  Two Million,”

  Says Desmond

  That would be all Mona would need to swarm into court with demands for custody. Ned Ryan would probably fight her off, but the headlines would continue.

  Gabriella had told him he would need never to worry about money again. The woman meant what she said.

  I’ll have to worry not about not having it but about being caught with it. Can you imagine me walking into the Hyde Park bank and dropping five of these into a CD?

  Or giving ten of them to Steve so that his friends down at the Board of Trade could open an account for me?

  Was this supposed to be his pay for combat against sorcerers?

>   What had Gaby said about money? If they knew what he had done for them, they would willingly pay our fees?

  Yeah, but ...

  Angels don’t steal.

  I suppose not.

  But they can escape trouble more easily than I can.

  Damn it, it’s not my money.

  There was only one thing to do.

  He tore the notes into little pieces and flushed them down the drain.

  He left his room for a long, chilly walk under ugly, low skies up the Right Bank to Notre Dame and down the Left Bank back to the hotel.

  He stood at the door of his room after he had entered. The billfold was still on his bed where he had left it.

  With sinking heart, knowing exactly what he would find, he walked over and picked it up.

  Sure enough. It was thick again.

  He opened it. Four stacks of fifty. Two million dollars.

  “Damn you, woman, leave me alone!”

  f ould you not say, Hastings old man, that the woman over there—without her clothes, of course—would look like a Rubens nude?”

  “Which one?” Hastings peered over his glasses. “Where?

  The tall blond woman standing by the table over near the

  wall.” . ,„

  night’s sleep. Or if he wished, there was a nice restaurant in a mews down the street from the hotel.... She would be happy to buy him supper, “as a peace offering.” She managed her first smile. Not unlike Gaby’s at all.

  “Sure you deserve a much better introduction to Irish hospitality than I’ve been after giving you.”

  “The best part of the hospitality”—he beat Gaby and all the rest of the bastards to the punch—“is the offer of some rest. I’ll take a raincheck on the dinner.”

  She nodded sadly. Of course.

  “It’s not much of a car, I’m afraid.” She unlocked the door of the ancient Renault and opened it for him, extending her umbrella to keep him dry.

  What he should have said was that any car with so charming a driver was a wonderful car. Something like that.

  What he did say was, “All I care about is my room at the

  Shelbourne.”

  “We also have a reservation for you at the Westbury. It’s brand new. Quite American and far more comfortable.” She was having trouble with the Renault’s mechanical choke. “But without any history and it doesn’t have a view of the Wicklow Hills ... ‘course, that’s not much good unless it stops raining, is it now?”