[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Raoul's eyes fastened on his, this time not to be easily driven away. "Face the truth about what has
happened between you and Rosamond! When you first saw her she was alone, she was frightened, she
was in danger."
"She wasn't exactly alone."
"Immediately you went to her aid. Your relationship thus began with no erotic values, but society
tolerates that in an emergency, and you yourselves did not realize that in your hearts you wanted it that
way.
"When the immediate danger was past, perhaps you turned to sex? Yes. Then, when your lust was
temporarily in abeyance, there came the moment of temptation. The forces of the subconscious were no
longer to be denied. The fragile remnants of your lust were to be sacrificed upon the altar of repression.
You wanted to flee with Rose from the world of flesh, to climb a crystal stair to an ethereal palace, to
enter the world of sublimation. Yes. Perhaps you draped her body "
"Enough of this." Art pushed away his suddenly vigorous memories of that sunset with Rose on the bank
of a wide river. He tried to get to his feet forcefully but the reclining chair betrayed him and he staggered
and had to make an effort to keep from falling. "Look here, I haven't asked you to analyze me."
Raoul fell silent, gazing at Art with what seemed a mixture of pity and antagonism.
"Dearest?" Rose spoke up timidly. "Raoul? The reason I thought you might be able to help Art is because
his wife is looking for a mid-wifer. Art want to help her save her baby, but there are obstacles."
Raoul, professionally unshockable, took the news in stride. "I can help him live with the situation,
provided he wants to be helped."
Rose shook her head. "No, my chill one, that isn't what I meant."
Raoul blinked. "What, then?"
"Oh, for you to see your father about it, of course" Rose was lovingly irritated by her lover's obtuseness.
At mention of his father, Raoul's face twitched, and he laughed bitterly. He sat on his desk again and tried
to relight his pipe.
"Please, dearest. You mustn't be jealous. Art and I are not having an affair. He and I are strongly erotic
together, really we are."
Puff and pause. "Why do you say that?"
"Who is his father?" Art asked, standing now with his arms folded.
Rose flowed easily to her feet; probably she had some experience with these chairs. "I say it because you
are my knight. Do you think I could ever want to sit coldly beside any other man?"
Raoul closed his eyes and let his pipe go out.
Rose hovered near him, pleading. "My champion! Won't you do this little thing for me? Take Art to see
your father?"
"Who is his father?"
Raoul's eyes opened. His whisper had a broken sound. "For you, my lady, my chaste one, I will do it.
Sometime tomorrow."
"Tomorrow might be too late for his poor wife. Couldn't you do it now?"
"I thought that you and I would have this evening alone together."
"Please. Take Art to your father now. I set you this task, to prove that you revere me."
"Then I have no choice but to obey." Raoul came to life and slid off the desk. "Will you wait for me here,
my lady?"
Rose squirmed as if with repressed desire and took a step back, avoiding any possible physical contact
with her knight. "I'll wait here all night for you, if need be. When you come back, maybe ... we'll play
chess."
"My lady, not that childish game, I beg of you. Anything else."
"Who is your father?" Art asked the ceiling. "And what good is seeing him supposed to do me?" Like as
not Rizzo Sr. would turn out to be the head of Chicago's branch of the Family Planning office. Soon
everyone in the city would know about Rita's warped reproductive cravings and her illegal plans. No one
would do anything to save her, but everyone would know, even irredeemable idiots who thought chess
was a childish game.
After staring incredulously at Art for a moment, Raoul asked: "You don't know who my father is?" And
then he laughed bitterly and long.
Still not knowing, Art went along with Raoul, first in a taxi to a garage, and then in Raoul's car. In spite of
all, a nagging hope persisted.
Whatever his occupation might be, Rizzo Sr. had evidently made a success of it. The blockhouse in
which he lived was every bit as high-walled and luxurious as the Jamisons'. The Rizzo garage space was
even larger than the archbishop's had been, and protected by heavier gates. As Raoul eased his fine car
to a stop and turned its turbines off, Art was once more nagged by the sense of having recently heard the
Rizzo name in some other connection. Was it something about this very structure, Rizzo's townhouse?
In a short passage connecting the garage with an underground level of the Rizzo home, a pair of
non-uniformed guards were stationed. They looked meaner than the Jamisons' Jove, though neither of
them was quite as large.
"Who's your pal, Doc?" one of them asked.
"A man I know." Young Rizzo smiled wryly. "A man with a problem, I expect my father will be able to
help him, if he wants to help."
"Maybe you shoulda just phoned," said the other guard. "The Magnifico's sorta been lying low for the
past few days."
The what? thought Art.
"You know how my father likes to do business face to face."
The pair of gate-blockers looked doubtfully at Art. He could place them now. They were the ones who
had sat on him in the brothel. Not the same men, but the type. Rizzo, Rizzo, he almost had it.
"Well, let's see if you're carryin' anything. Doc, the boss is in his study now, if you wanna go up."
"I'll be back in a minute, Rodney," said Raoul, and went on ahead. The two guards began to pat Art's
pockets and bulges, searching him. Rizzo. Little old Alfie in the slumburb tavern, saying Vic Rizzo's
town-house was bombed. Oh, great stargazing quadruplets.
Rizzo Jr. was soon back from his filial visit. His face was flushed, but seemingly not with joy. "He says I
can bring him up."
"Awright."
Art rode up with Raoul in a large and fancily paneled elevator, which disgorged them into a room like the
entry hall of a small art museum. Marble columns supported a high, vaulted ceiling, and across one end of
the room there burbled a complex of waterfalls and fountains and pools, complete with fish. For all its
size the hall was almost crowded with paintings and statuary. On the wall opposite the elevator, in a place
of dominance over the other objects d'art, was an ancient life-sized crucifix of wood, done in a
realistically gory Spanish style. Its paint, once red and brown, had aged into a grayish dullness that with
the cracks and holes gave the figure a look of frighteningly patient endurance.
Raoul led Art across the museum hall and opened a massive wooden door. "In here," he ordered tersely.
The room behind the door was also quite large, with a beamed ceiling and woodpaneled walls. Might it
all be real, virgin, tree-segment wood? Anyone whose house had fountains and waterfalls Art-caught
one breath-tripping glimpse of a girl, heavily garmented, even her face veiled, before she moved out of
sight behind some opaque woven draperies. And there, almost as startling as the girl and the paneled
walls, was a huge genuine fireplace that appeared to be consuming genuine logs.
At least four chess sets, of stone or wood or metal, all large and ornately carved, were visible on tables
or in display cases. A suit of armor stood at Art's right hand. What appeared to be medieval torches
standing in brackets on the wall bore warm and writhing electric flames. Upon one paneled wall there
hung a crossed pair of long, pointed weapons, pikes or lances of some kind; on the opposite wall a brace
of submachine guns were mounted in the same way. Walls and furniture bore many framed photographs
evidently reproduced from twentieth century newspapers or films, showing men in the obscenely heavy
garb of that time. The men smiled unpleasantly and many of them were carrying firearms. From the upper
walls there looked down at least a dozen paintings of a more distant time, mostly of men in archaic
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
