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  Begin Content
caret SONOF RpMAR caret
IRA LEVIN'S NOVELS
A Kiss Before Dying-1953
Rosemary's Baby-1967
This Perfect Day-1970
The Stepford Wives-1972
The Boys from Brazil-1976
Sliver-1991 Son of Rosemary-1997
son of
THE SEQUEL TO
ROSEMARY'S BABY
IR caret LEVIN
A BUTTON BOOK
BUTTON
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson
Street, New York, New York 10014,
U.s.a.
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,
London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,
Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcom
Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (n.z.) Ltd, 182-190
Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New
Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:"
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
First published by Dutton, an imprint of
Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin
Books USA Inc.
First Printing, September, 1997

Copyright [*copy] Ira Levin, 1997
All rights reserved
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Lyric excerpts of "Let's Face the Music
and Dance" by living Berlin, copyright [*copy]
1935, 1936 by Irving Berlin. Copyright
renewed. International copyright secured. Used
by permission. All rights reserved.
Lyric excerpts of "Change Partners" by Irving
Berlin, copyright [*copy] 1937, 1938
by Irving Berlin. Copyright renewed. International
copyright secured. Used by permission. All rights
reserved.
Lyric excerpts of "Blue Skies" by Irving
Berlin, copyright [*copy] 1927, by Irving
Berlin. Copyright renewed. International copyright
secured. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Lyric excerpts of "Isn't This a Lovely
Day" by Irving Berlin, copyright [*copy]
1935 by Irving Berlin. Copyright renewed.
International copyright secured. Used by permission.
All rights reserved.
Lyric excerpts of "Cheek to Cheek" by Irving
Berlin, Copyright [*copy] 1935 by Irving
Berlin. Copyright renewed. International copyright
secured. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
REGISTERED TRADEMARK-MARCA REGISTRADA
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data
Levin, Ira.
Son of Rosemary : the sequel to Rosemary's
baby still Ira Levin.
people. cm.
ISBN 0-525-94374-9 I. Title.
PS3523.E7993S66 1997
813'.ed-dc21
97-14803 CIP
Printed in the United States of America Set
in Trump Mediaeval Designed by Leonard
Telesca
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents either are the products of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form, or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise), without the prior written
permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
(so)
TO MIA FARROW
"The Bible makes it abundantly clear that
Satan is real, and that he is very powerful. He is
not a myth, nor is he just a projection of our
minds as we attempt to explain the mysteries of
evil. He is a malevolent spiritual power whose
sole goal is to oppose the work of God."
combilly graham
Newsweek,
November 13, 1995
There may be trouble ahead, But while there's
moonlight and music And love and romance- Let's
face the music and dance.
Before the fiddlers have fled, Before they ask us to pay the
bill And while we still have the chance- Let's face the
music and dance.
comirving berlin
"Let's Face the Music and Dance"
Follow the Fleet,

in manhattan, on the crisp, clear morning of
Tuesday, November 9, 1999, Dr.
Stanley Shand, a retired dentist twice
divorced, leaves his apartment on Amsterdam
Avenue for his daily constitutional. Though
eighty-nine he walks vigorously, his
plaid-capped head erect, his eyes bright.
He is buoyed both by good health and a secret, a
glorious secret that warms his every waking moment. He
has been a participant-indeed, has recently
become the last living participant-in a cosmic
event thirty-three years in the making that is now within
two months of its ultimate fruition.
  At Broadway and Seventy-fourth Street an
out-of-
  control taxi shoots across the sidewalk and
squashes Dr. Shand against the wall of the Beacon
Theater. He dies instantly.f
  In that same instant-a few seconds after
11:03 a.m.- in the Halsey-Bodein Nursing
Home in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, the
eyes of the patient in Room 215 open. They have
been closed all the years the woman has been at
H-B-since nineteen-seventy-something, as long as
anyone there can remember.
  A wizened black nurse massaging the woman's
right arm shows extraordinary presence of mind. She
gulps, draws breath, and goes on massaging.
"Hi, baby," she says softly. "Nice to have you
with us." The nameplate on her uniform reads
clarise; above it hangs an i
*ment
andy button. Freeing a hand, she gropes for the
night- stand, jabs a push button.
  The patient's eyes, staring upward, blink. Her
lips purse, shiny with salve. She's in her
fifties, pale and fine-boned. Her head, its
graying auburn hair neatly brushed, rolls
toward the side, her blue eyes pleading.
  "You're going to be fine," Clarise tells her,
jabbing the push button, jabbing again. "Don't you
worry, you're getting better now." She lowers the
woman's arm to the bed. "I'm going to get the
doctor," she says. "Don't you worry. Be right
back."
  The woman watches her leave.
"TIFFANY! Take off them fackin' earphones!
Get Atkinson! Two-fifteen opened her eyes!
She's awake! Two-fifteen's awake!"
*"WS
iJsz@lr8*ff less-than tei-9
iat
in
God's name had happened? She'd been sitting at
the desk by the bedroom window, around seven in the
evening, while Andy lay on the floor a few feet
away watching TV. She was typing a letter
home about moving to San Francisco, trying not
to hear Kukla and Ollie and the damn coven chanting
up a storm next door at Minnie and
Roman's-and here she was in a sunny hospital
room with an IV in one arm and a nurse massaging
the other. Was Andy hurt too? Oh God, please
not! Had there been some kind of disaster? Why didn't
she remember
anything

.
She got the tip of her tongue out, licked her
lips
be
minty ointment of some kind coated them. How long had
she been asleep? A day? Two? Nothing hurt,
yet she couldn't quite move. She worked at getting her
throat cleared.
  The nurse hurried in. "Doctor's coming," she
said. "Stay cool."
  Rosemary whispered, "Is . . . my son
here?"
  "No, just you. Talking! Praise the Lord!" The
nurse drew a sleeve down Rosemary's arm,
squeezed her hand, and moved to the foot of the
bed. "Praise Jesus!"
  Rosemary said, "What. . . happened?"
  "Don't nobody know, baby. You been out like a
light."
  "How long?"
  Clarise drew a blanket up about
Rosemary's shoulders, frowning. She said, "I
don't rightly know. I wasn't here

when you came in. You ax the doctor right-brace was
She smiled down at Rosemary, clarise with an
I caret andy button.
  "My son's name is Andy," Rosemary said,
smiling back up at her. "Does the heart mean
love?"
  Clarise said, "That's right." She touched a finger
to the round white button. was 'I love Andy."
They been doing it for-for a while now. Different things.
Like "I love New York," anything."
  Rosemary said, "It's cute. I haven't seen
it before."
  A man in a white jacket excused himself through a
few elderly people looking in at the doorway, a
large man with ginger hair and a bushy ginger beard.
Clarise turned, moving aside, as he
came in and closed the door. "She's talking, and
she can move her head."
  "Hello, Miss Fountain!" the doctor said,
coming to the bed, smiling at her through his ginger beard. He
put his bag and a manila folder on a chair
alongside. "I'm Dr. Atkinson," he said,
turning down the side of the blanket. "This is great
news." He took Rosemary's wrist with warm
fingers and looked at his raised watch.
  "What happened to me?" she asked. "How long have
I been here?"
  "In a moment," the doctor said, studying the
watch. He looked as if under the beard he wasn't
much older than she, somewhere in his mid-thirties.
An ultramodern stethoscope hung like a slim
chrome necktie against his jacket, a dr.
atkinson nameplate on one side of it and an I
V andy button on the other-an Andy on
  the staff, she guessed, or a favorite
patient. She'd try to get one for herself before she
left.
  Dr. Atkinson let go her wrist, smiling down
at her. "So far, so good," he said.
"Surprisingly so. Bear with me another minute,
please. I want to make sure we're not
going to lose you again, then I'll tell you as much as
we know. Do you feel any pain?"
  "No," she said.
  "Good. Try to relax,-1 know it won't be
easy."
  It wasn't.
As much as we know. . .
Meaning that there were things they didn't know . . .
  And the name he had called her, Miss
Fountain . . .
An icy hollow grew in her stomach-while the
doctor attended to her heart and her eyes and her
ears and her blood pressure.
  She had been there
longer
than two days, she was sure of it. Two
weeks

.
They had cast a spell on her, Minnie and
Roman and the rest of the coven. That was what the heavy
chanting was about. They had found out she was taking Andy
three thousand miles away from them, that she had bought the
plane tickets.
She remembered how they had cast a spell
on her old friend Hutch, back when she was
pregnant, because they were afraid he knew enough about
witchcraft, the real kind, to catch on to what they
had done to her, and whose child she was carrying. Poor
Hutch had been in an inexplicable coma for
three or four months,
and then died. She was lucky to be alive but what of
Andy? He was completely in their hands while she lay
there,
I
E VIN
  they'd be feeding and fostering the side of him she
tried not to think about.
"Damn
them!" she said.
  "I'm sorry, I didn't get tst" the c
bar octor said, seating himself at the bedside. He
hitched the chair closer, leaned his gingery head toward
her.
  "How long?" she asked him. "Weeks?
Months?"
  "Miss Fountain-was
  "Reilly," she said. "Rosemary Reilly."
  He drew back, opened the folder on-his
lap, peered downward.
  "Tell me!" she said. "I have a six-year-old
son who's in-he's with people I don't trust."
  "You were signed in here," Dr. Atkinson said,
looking down, "by a Mr. and Mrs. Clarence
Fountain, as their granddaughter, Rosemary
Fountain."
  "The Fountains," Rosemary said, "belong to the-to
this group of people I'm talking about. They're the ones
who put me here, I mean put me into the coma.
Isn't that what it was, an 'inexplicable coma"?"
  "Yes, but a coma isn't-was
  "I know what was done to me," she broke in,
raising herself on an elbow,- she fell back. She
tried to raise herself again despite warnings and hands;
this time she got the elbow back where she could brace
herself against it. She stayed up, eye to eye with Dr.
Atkinson. "I know what was done to me," she said,
"but I'm not going to tell you because I know from experience
that you'll think I'm crazy. I'm not. I'd
appreciate it if you would please tell me how
long I've been here, and where exactly I am, and
when I'll be able to go home."
  Dr. Atkinson sat back and drew a breath.
He looked
  gravely at her. Said, "You're in a
nursing home in Upper Montclair, New
Jersey."
  "A
nursing home

."
she said.
  He nodded. "Halsey-Bodein. We
specialize in-long- term care."
  She stared at him. Said, "What day is this?"
  "Tuesday," he said, "November ninth ..."
"November!"
she said. "It was May last night! Dear God!"
She fell back against the pillow, both hands over
her mouth, her eyes staring upward, tears welling.
May, June, July, August, September,
October-six months!
Snatched from her life! And Andy in their hands all
those six-times-thirty days and nights!
  She saw the doctor still looking gravely at
her, still keeping a distance.. . .
  She raised her hands from her mouth, turned them before
her eyes. Their backs, the skin of them, was-
grainy.
A brown spot, two . . . She touched
one hand with the fingertips of the other. Looked at him.
  "You've been here a very long timest" he said. Now
he leaned close, took her hand, and clasped it.
Held it. Clarise, at the other side of the bed,
took hold of her other hand. She looked from one of
them to the other, her eyes wide, her lips
trembling.
  "Would you like a sedative?" the doctor asked.
  She shook her head. "No," she said. "No.
I don't want to sleep again. Ever. How old am
I? What
year
is it?"
  He swallowed, tears in his eyes.
"It's-1999," he said.
  She stared at him.
  He nodded.
  Clarise confirmed it, biting her lip, nodding.
  "You were brought here in September of 1972,"
Dr. Atkinson said, blinking. "A little over
twenty-seven years ago. Before that you'd been in
iffew York Hospital for four months. The
Fountains, whoever they were, set up a trust fund
that's been paying for your maintenance here ever since."
  She lay back, shut her eyes, shook
her head.
Impossible! Impossible!
The coven had won! Andy was fully grown, a
stranger raised by
them,
in their ways, for their purposes! He could be anywhere
now, or dead for all she knew!
"Oh, Andy, Andy!"
she cried.
  Dr. Atkinson, wide-eyed, asked, "How do
you know about
An
Jy?"
  "Her son, she mean," Clarise said, patting
Rosemary's hand. "His name's Andy too."
  "Oh," Dr. Atkinson said, and took a
breath. He leaned closer, patted Rosemary's
hand and stroked her hair as she lay sobbing.
"Miss-Mrs. Reilly," he said. "Rosemary
... I know it's small comfort when you've lost so many
years, but as far as I know, only two of the people
who've been in such long comas have survived. That
you've emerged, and emerged so-
cleanly,
in such relatively sound condition-well,
it's a
miracle,
that's what it is, Rosemary, an absolute
miracle."
they left her alone for a while, after Clarise had
wiped her face with a damp cloth and smoothed her
hair, and she had sipped down some water. She had
asked for the back of the bed to be raised partway. She
leaned against the pillow, looking out a window beyond the
IV stand, at November trees fittingly bereft
of leaves.
  She had asked for a mirror too.
  Not a good move.
  She debated-then lifted the plastic handle from the
blanket and took yet another wincing look at
Aunt Peg wincing back at her. Weird, the
likeness. The main difference was that darlin" Aunt
Peg had been around fifty
  the last time Rosemary had seen her, whereas she
herself was fifty-eight plus.
  She had done 31 plus 27 in her head*
twice, and got 58 both times.
  And Andy was thirty-three.
  The tears started again. She exchanged the mirror
for the clump of moist tissue, blotted both
eyes.
Get a grip on yourself, old lady. If he's
alive he still needs you.
They wouldn't have harmed him physically, of course,-
they worshiped him. That was the trouble. Being raised
by Minnie and Roman Castevet Si Company, not
to mention the frequent adoring visitors from all over
the globe, Andy must have grown up as spoiled and
overindulged as the worst of the Roman emperors. And
maybe as evil as-as she hated to think who. The
coven must have done everything in their power to open and
encourage that darker side of him.
  She had worked against them, hoping to teach him love
by loving him, honesty and responsibility by good
example-the enlightened Summerhill creed. Even
when he was too young to understand, she had taken him on
her lap each evening before-
  "Mrs. Reilly?"
  She turned her head toward the doorway. An
attractive, dark-haired woman leaned in, about
her own age- her age
before.
The woman's navy suit, smart looking and not very
futuristic, had white piping around its peaked
lapels and an i V andy button on
one. Smiling, she said, "I'm Tara Seitz, the
counselor here. If you'd rather be alone, I'll be
on my way, but I've talked with
  other coma survivors,-1 think I can be a help
to you. Can I come in?"
  Rosemary nodded. "Yes," she said. "It's
Miss, not Mrs. I'm divorced."
  Tara Seitz came in and sat in the bedside
chair, wafting Chanel No. 5. That, at least,
was the same; Rosemary drew in a deeper breath of
it.
  Tara Seitz smiled a model's dimpled
smile. "Dr. Atkinson is thrilled with how
you're doing, Rosemary," she said. "He and Dr.
Bandhu, our chief of staff, want to do some tests
later; if the results are what Dr. Atkinson
expects, you'll be able to start physical therapy
tomorrow morning. The sooner you do start, the quicker you'll be
out of here. We have a really great therapy team."
  Rosemary said, "How soon do you ..."
  Tara, a palm raised, smiled and said, "That's
not my department. My main message, I'm sorry
to tell you, is that however distressed and disoriented you
may be feeling now, tomorrow you'll be feeling even
worse, much more aware of the time you lost. That's
the way it is with shorter comas, and I'm sure yours
wasn't basically any different."
Don't count on it, Tara.
But she went on listening.
  "But the day
after
tomorrow," Tara said, "you'll be feeling
better
than you do today, guaranteed, and better the day after, and
so on. Try to remember that tomorrow. It'll be the
pits, but it's all uphill from there. Truly."
  Rosemary said, "I'll remember," and smiled
at her. "Thanks."
  "You have a son?" Tara asked.
"Yes,"
Rosemary said, and shook her head, sighing.
"Thirty-three now. He could be
anywhere.
We had no family in New York,
only-neighbors."
  "No problem," Tara said. "We subscribe
to a locator service." From a side pocket she
drew what looked like a square black compact.
Lifting its lid, she said, "What's his full
name?"
  Wonderingly, Rosemary said, "Andfew John
Wood- house ..."
  Tara's dark eyes fixed on her.
  "What's wrong?" she asked.
  "You said Reilly," Tara said.
  "That's my maiden name," Rosemary said. "My
married name was Woodhouse."
  "Oh," Tara said. The compact seemed to be a
1999 memo pad; she tattooed inside it with a
stinger-pointed red fingernail, saying, "Andrew,
John, Woodhouse. Spelled like it sounds?"
  "Yes," Rosemary said. The fingernail seemed
to have been groomed for its task; the others were filed
short. Weird. "Date of birth?" Tara asked.
  Rosemary almost said 6/66, the way the
Castevets always did. "June twenty-fifth,
1966," she said.
  Tara tattooed, closed the gizmo, and smiled
her dimpled smile. "I'll enter the request
pronto," she said. "We'll have a fix on him
by five."
"Five o'clock today!"
Rosemary said.
  Tara shrugged, pocketing the thing. "Credit
cards, school and car registrations, video
rentals, book clubs," she said, "they're all
on computers now, and the com14
  puters are all connected or can be gotten into one
way or another."
  "That's
wonderful*."
Rosemary said.
  "It has its down side," Tara said, standing up.
"Everybody's kvetching about loss of privacy.
Would you like to watch TV? It's the best way I can
think offor you to get caught up on things. You're going
to see enormous changes." She opened the nightstand
drawer. "For one thing," she said, "the Cold War
is over. We won, they caved." She took out a
slim brown paddle, pointed it across the room.
"Oh, that dinky screen. They switched you in here
last month; now I know why."
  Moored to the wall above the dresser, a giant
TV screen bloomed into color and music.
  "I'll have maintenance give you a big one
pronto," Tara said. "This is the remote. Have you
worked one?"
  "One
like
it," Rosemary said, taking the button-
studded paddle. "Clunkier."
  Tara bent over, tiding Chanel. "It's a
snap," she said, pointing that stinger-tipped nail.
"Volume up and down, channels up and down. These
are for the color."
  Rosemary thumbed the TV picture from a
happy woman holding a can of beans to a happy
baby eating cereal to a somber newscaster with an i
caret andy button on his jacket. She froze her
thumb. The mustached Negro newscaster talked about
wildfires in California.
  "This is an all-news channel," Tara
whispered in her ear. "It would be a good one to watch."
  Rosemary, turning to her, asked, "Who's
Andy

."
Tara stood up straight, drew in breath, and blew
it out, pop-eyed. "Where to
begin,"
she said-and gazed
  moonily at Rosemary.
"Andy,"
she said, "is only the most beautiful, the most
charismatic man on the face of the earth.
He came out of nowhere'a few years ago- well,
out of New York but nobody knew him before- and
he's inspired and united the entire world. I don't
mean united politically, I mean in terms
of-fellow feeling and willingness to cooperate and
respect each other. We were in really bad shape,
believe me, with all the crazies coming out of the
woodwork for the year 2000, and gunfire in the
streets and all. Andy made us like realize that whether
we call Him God or Allah or Buddha,
we're all children of the
same one God.
He's shepherding us into the year 2000-Andy, I
mean-as one humanity, refreshed and renewed."
  Rosemary, leaning against the pillow, looking at
her, said, "That's wonderful..."
  Tara sighed, smiling at her, and said, "You'll
see him any minute, guaranteed. GC runs a
ton of commercials, all over the world, every
language. That's his organization, foundation-both,
I think. I saw him live last June at
Radio City Music Hall. Talk about
mesmerizing! He doesn't do many live
appearances; mostly it's TV specials. And he
spends a
lot
of his time alone, meditating. He's a very spiritual
person but he's got this fun, human side too.
He's just the greatest,
everybody
thinks so the buttons are in every language now even
Braille!" She stopped for breath.
  Rosemary said, "What's-his full name?"
  "Adrian Steven Castevet," Tara said, "but
he likes to be called Andy, by everybody."
  Rosemary stayed looking at her.
  Tara nodded. "Whether it's in a homeless shelter
or a joint session of Congress," she said. "No
difference. That's the kind of person he is. The first
time he met
there he is! Look!"
Rosemary turned.
Jesus!
The paddle slipped from her fingers as she stared.
  He looked like
Jesus-
the calendar Jesus, not the hook-nosed Semite
she had seen in NYU lecture slides. His
longish hair and trim beard were tawny, his eyes
hazel. His nose was straight, his jaw
square.
  Hazel eyes? Andy?
  Where were his beautiful tiger eyes that had searched
her own eyes so intently?
  He was wearing contact lenses-or he'd had some
kind of operation that had been developed while she was
out. Nothing could mask him from her though, not the hazel
eyes, not the beard, not the twenty-seven years.
Andy. Andy. Andy.
  "Oh foo, it's the short version," Tara said, as
a golden sunlike symbol with GC in it appeared
against a sky- blue background. "Isn't he a
gorgeous person? Isn't he really someone
special?"
  Rosemary nodded.
  "Keep watching," Tara said. "You'll see the
long version. Other ones too. They're the best
commercials on TV. Famous directors make
them."
  Rosemary took the paddle in her hand and looked
at it as if she'd forgotten its purpose.
  Tara said, "Are you all right?"
  Rosemary looked at her, and asked, "What
does GC stand for?"
  Tara smiled at her. "God's Children,"
she said. "I'll be back later." She turned and
headed for the doorway, and turned, pointing her stinger
at Rosemary. "We're going to find you
your
Andy," she said. "Guaranteed!"
4-@lzandr83andxs8and-9
  She saw the long version of the same commercial and
two different short ones in the next five
minutes.
  Saw Andy at a distance, being applauded by an
endless carpet of people in Central Park.
  On the deck of an aircraft carrier, blocks
of sailors cheering.
  She saw Andy close up, looking her straight
in the eye, warmly, lovingly, and a little playfully
too. God, he had grown up handsome, the ordinary
eyes notwithstanding. And she was being
objective
about it, not just his mother.
  She heard him now, his voice strong but gentle,
with the same sandy, sort of, texture that had been there
yesterday when he was six. He didn't ask her
to make a big
thing
about it, he just wanted her to give a little thought
to the fact that we all really
are
descended from the same relatively small group of
ancestors, whatever size, shape, and color they
happened to be, and we really are all family.
Did it make sense for us to be giving each other such
bad times so often? Couldn't we
  all lighten up just a
little,
and light our candles, and so on ...
  She weighed it as she was lifted by Clarise and
another nurse onto a gurney.
  As she was wheeled into an examining room.
  As Drs. Bandhu and Atkinson drew blood from
her arm and passed electronic sensors over her
limbs.
Either she had done a really super job of mothering during
Andy's early years-or the coven had found a really
super disguise for the son of Satan.
That's who he was, there was no more trying to look the
other way. He was Satan's son too, not just
hers.
  But wouldn't the coven, all its thirteen members,
be dead by now? Even the youngest ones, Helen Wees
and Stan Shand, had been in their sixties.
  Whatever Andy was doing with a foundation called God's
Children and its flood of commercials, it was
his
doing, not the coven's. He liked to be called Andy;
wasn't that a good sign? From the very beginning, Roman
had wanted to call him Adrian Steven- his father's
name and his own real one-but she had vetoed it.
  They'd had twenty-seven years to call him
Adrian Steven or anything else they wanted. But
he chose Andy.
  Maybe
Summerhill had
worked.
f caret caret from caret to pSo caret com9
  She was sitting up in bed free of the IV, feeding
herself soup, paused at one of the
dozens
of channels-the wife of a convicted murderer beirfg
interviewed by an unctuous jerk-when Tara came in
hugging giant explosions of red roses and yellow and
rust chrysanthemums. "Hi, look at you!" she
said, carrying the bouquets to the dresser, berthing them
there. "Nothing on your son yet, I'm sorry
to say. They found forty-two Andrew John
Woodhouses so far, but only one, in
Aberdeen, Scotland, is the right age. He's a
triplet. I'm sure they'll find yours."
Don't count on it, Tara.
"All these interview programs," she said; "when
I'm in decent shape, do you think I could get on
one?"
  Turning wide-eyed, Tara said, "Are you kidding?
These-
are from them!
This one you're watching now, the roses, and his archenemy
the mums. Somebody called somebody, who called
somebody, who et cetera. Even as we speak,
Channel Five is setting up across from the
driveway."
  Rosemary peered at her.
  "You're famous!" Tara said. "Haven't you
caught the news? You're the woman who came out of a
twenty- seven-and-a-half-year coma this morning, and
is now sitting up watching TV! And eating soup.
You're going to be in the
Guinness Book of Records.
Did they have that back then?"
  Rosemary nodded.
  "When you're ready," Tara said, "you can be on
any program you want to be on."
  "Good," Rosemary said. "And I have sisters and
  brothers who should still be living, probably in
Omaha; would you get your locator service after
them?"
  "Maybe they'll know where your son is," Tara
said, coming to the bed with her memo gizmo in hand.
  "I doubt it," Rosemary said.
  "How about his father?"
  She stayed silent a moment, then said, "Is there
a famous actor named Guy Woodhouse? Stage
and screen?"
  Tara shook her head. "No," she said.
  "Did you ever
hear
of a Guy Woodhouse?"
  "Never," Tara said, "and I see
everything."
"Then he's probably dead," Rosemary said.
  Tara peered at her.
  Rosemary gave her Brian's name and date of
birth first, and then the others'.
  Guy must have died early in the twenty-seven
years.
  Or Satan was a welsher-and why not? To mangle
Oscar Wilde or whoever, once you commit
rape, the next thing you know, you're not paying your
debts.
  For whichever reason, Guy hadn't gotten his
agreed- upon price for nine months' use of her.
He hadn't become the next Olivier or Brando.
  Poor Guy.
  Sorry, no more tears.
A
on tuesday evening, November 23, two days before
Thanksgiving and two weeks after her miraculous
awakening, Rip Van Rosie-the tabloids'
consensus-gave her first interview, live, on
television.
  With her hair refurbished werecompliments of the hot
new hairdresser), wrapped in a stylish coat
werecompliments of a leading department store), she stepped
from the long white limo werecompliments of the network) that
had carried her to the West Side studio from the
WaldorfAstoria, where that morning she had checked
into a tower suite werecompliments of the management).
Bracketed by security men, she walked ably and
bravely through a rudeness of reporters.
  "I was a production assistant at CBS-TV
before I got marriedst" she told the makeup
woman prepping her.
  "I heard that somewhere," the frnakeup woman said,
powdering.
  "In the sixties, women stayed home after,"
Rosemary said. "At least I did."
  "I could live with that," the makeup woman said,
brushing.
  Enthroned in a tall chair, her dress tilde
werecompliments of a leading bridal salon) caped with a
towel werecompliments of the makeup woman), Rosemary
couldn't help but admire Aunt Peg in the
mirror. Forty-five, tops. "You're a
magician," she said.
  "You've got good bones," the makeup woman
said, spraying.
  "What's left of them," Rosemary said.
cjss caret rather caret fefTo esLdds
  She had chosen this program for two reasons:
first, because it was broadcast live, so what she
planned to say couldn't be edited out-in case,
surprise, they thought she was crazy; and second,
because the host seemed intelligent and genuinely
interested in his guests.
  She faced him across his narrow console, cameras
lurking.
  "Tell us, Rosemary," he said, leaning
forward over his folded arms, "what was your very first thought
when
  you came to?" He wore his customary
shirtsleeves, suspenders, and i V andy
button.
  Rosemary smiled. Home free. "My first
thought was of my son Andy," she said.
  "Yes, I know you had or have a son somewhere named
Andrew. So you're really wearing your button for two
Andys, right?"
  She took a breath-
bless the man-
and smiled down at her i V andy button.
"No," she said, touching it, and looked up. "I'm
wearing it for just one Andy-my son, Andrew John
Woodhouse. We lived next door to people named
Castevet, they were friends of ours. What happened,
apparently, is after I went into the coma, they took
care of Andy. Maybe they adopted him legally. I
hope I'll be able to find out soon, now that I'm
on my feet."
  The host stared through his glasses at her. He said,
"You're saying, Rip-Rosemary, that
Andy,
Andy Castevet, is
your
son?"
  "Yes," she said. "I know Minnie Castevet
is supposed to have been his mother, but she was much too
old. Our apartment, Andy's and mine, was back
to back with the Castevets". That was in the Bram, the
Bramford." Her face remained on the studio
monitors, the camera poring over her mouth, her
eyes.
  "And . . . was Roman Castevet Andy's father?"
  "No," she said. "Andy's father was my ex-husband,
a man named Guy Woodhouse. I think he's
dead now."
  The host, blinking behind his glasses, said, "That's
a stunning announcement, Rosemary Reilly.
It's common
  knowledge, you know, that the Bram was Andy's boyhood
home."
  Rosemary said, "No, I didn't inow that. That
it's common knowledge, I mean."
  "Have you tried to contact him?"
  "That's what I'm doing nowst" she said. "I
thought it would be a way to save a lot of explaining,
to a lot of people who would all be skeptical."
  "We'll find out," the host said, smiling
at her across the console. "Maybe we'll be hearing
from Andy before the end of the program." He turned to the
camera, looking skeptical. "You never know," he
said, close up. "We've had a presidential
candidacy announced here, an embezzler arrested-why
not Andy's real mother? We're going to take a break
now; we'll be back with Rosemary Reilly,
'Rip Van Rosie," and we'll have clips from
Andy's appearances here plus your phone calls-and
maybe a reaction from Andy himself. You
know
you're not going to touch that button!"
"com@lzandr8andi
i
9ts8and-9
T
telephone companies all over the world registered their
highest ever three-minute surge in usage.
"comJs@lr8@.caret Rfc8i.?
  71 fter two more breaks, the host leaned forward,
jLX-SHOULDERS hunched, and said, "Rosemary,
during the last break we received a call from Diane
Kalem, GC'S press coordinator, who's also
been a guest on this program. Andy is in his
retreat in Arizona, but he's been told
about the claim you've made here tonight, that you're in
fact his mother. He's been watching for the past quarter
hour." He glanced at the red-lighted
camera-"Yo, Andy"-and looked back at
Rosemary. "Diane tells me," he said, "and it
comes as no surprise, that Andy wishes you well with
all his heart, and he joins
everybody
in congratulating you on your miraculous recovery."
  Rosemary said, "Thank you, I thank him."
She glanced at the red-lighted camera.
  "Diane also tells me that Andy has a question for
you. Will you try to answer it?"
  "Of course," Rosemary said.
  "Andy would like to know," the host said, as the camera
zoomed in for a close-up of him, "if you remember
exactly what you were doing when you fell into your
twenty-seven-and-a-half-year coma."
  Cut to Rosemary. "Yes, I do," she said.
"In my memory it was just two weeks ago. I was
sitting at a desk by my bedroom window, an
antique school desk with a top that lifts. I was
typing a letter on an Olivetti portable." She
turned to the red-lighted camera. "Andy was lying on the
floor on his stomach," she said. "Watching
television.
Kukla, Fian, and Ollie."
The host, across the console from her, chuckled as she
faced him.
"Kukla, Fian, and Ollie
..." He turned to
  the camera, shaking his head smiling. "It has the
ring of truth to
me,"
he said. "We'll wait to hear Andy's reaction.
You never know what's coming next here.
Malmo, Sweden, you're on!"
cJssgJfSo caret rfttei*
  Andy asked for privacy, so another break was
taken and Rosemary was shown into someone's empty
office, where the phone on the desk blinked red.
  She sat down, took a deep breath, and lifted
the handset. Put it to her ear. Said, "Andy?"
  "Tears are running down my face."
  Her tears welled.
  "They told me you
diedl
I'm so angry-and so
joyful,
all in one moment-to "
  Neither spoke.
  She tried a desk drawer-locked-and another,
looking for tissues.
  "You there?"
  Wiping with the side of her hand beneath her eyes, she
said, "Yes, dear!"
  "Listen. My press coordinator is on
another line with them. You don't have to do the last
segment if you don't want to. Do you?"
  She weighed it, wiping. "I'll do it," she said.
"He brought us together; I don't want to leave him
stuck out there alone."
  He laughed in her ear. What a laugh. "I
forgot how
  sweet you are. No, no, I didn't forget.
I'll talk too. We'll have to do a full press
conference tomorrow, unless you don't want to. Where did
they put you?"
  "The Waldorf," she said. "This is weird!
I'm talking with a grown man and it's you! You were six
two weeks * ago, Andy!"
  "When will you be there,
Mother!"
"As soon as the program's over!" she said. "As
soon as I can get there!"
  "Figure on ten-thirty with traffic. I'll be
there at ten- forty-five."
  She gaped. "From Arizona?"
  "I'm at Columbus Circle. I have an
apartment here, over the GCNY offices. We'll
say I'm flying in. What's your room number?"
  "I can't remember! It's a tower suite!"
  "I'll be there. You're gorgeous on
television!"
  Laughing-crying, she said, "Oh my angel, so
are you!"
L
  the crowd outside the studio, expanding
exponentially, was excuse enough for a quick getaway.
Rosemary repeated Andy's and her on-air
promise to return to the program together, and went with the
security men out a side door, through the kitchen of a
Greek restaurant and a garage, to the limo waiting
on Ninth Avenue-the escape route originally
planned for just plain Rip Van Rosie.
  The driver, a champ, had her back at the
Waldorf by ten after. The security men steered her
through the buzzing lobby into the right elevator and up to the
right floor, the thirty-first. A concierge ran a
card through the door lock for her as she signed
scraps of paper from the security men's wallets.
  The message gizmo by the foyer phone read 37.
She pushed hold and don't ring.
  By twenty of eleven she had showered, touched up the
well-disguised old face-it still really sickened
her-and was standing before the bedroom mirror pinning her i
caret andy button to the least
bizarre
at-home garment among the mountains of stuff the
stores had sent, a cobalt-blue velour
caftan. Sort of.
  A knock at the outer door stopped her heart.
"Room service!"
restarted it-she had ordered platters of shrimp and
cheese. A white-haired waiter wheeled a table
alongside the doorway, his face almost as red as his
gilt- buttoned, i V ANDY'-BUTTONED
jacket. "In the living room, ma'am?" he
asked.
  "Yes, please," she said, and followed after him and
his dozen-domed table. "I only ordered shrimp and
cheese."
  "Compliments of the management, ma'am. Shall I
open the bar?"
  "Please," she said.
  She turned the mammoth TV on while the
waiter sprang table wings and rearranged domed
dishes, silverware, napkins. The news was
into sports already,- she turned the thing off. "Isn't
there a bill I can sign for the tip?" she asked.
  "No, ma'am, most certainly not." He
unfolded teak screens from a small mirrored bar.
"I'd be honored, however..."
  She signed a cocktail napkin for him.
  She stood looking down through parted draperies at
white and red lanes of car lights far below, lanes
reaching up Park Avenue's separate sides and coming
together
  blocks and blocks away. What would she say
after the hugs and kisses? How would she frame the
questions she had to ask? And more importantly, how could
she be sure of the truth of Andy's answers?
  It was fine calling him her angel, it was how she
felt and it was good for his self-esteem. She had done
it often, and often he had been angelic. But he was
her half- devil too; she shouldn't let herself
forget it, especially not tonight.
  He had lied to her before, believably, and more than
once. Just a few months ago-make that almost
twenty- eight years ago-he had broken a
small piece off Minnie and Roman's marble
mantel, and totally convinced the three of them not only
that he-a knock at the door.
  She turned, starting toward the foyer, but
"Room service!"
came in, another red-jacketed waiter, shouldering
a wine cooler and glasses on a tray.
"Champagne, compliments of the management."
  Stopping, sighing, she said, "Thanks, that's great.
Would you put it on the bar please?" She returned
to the window.
  Five-and-a-half-year-old Andy had totally
convinced all three of them not only-"Do I at least
get a hug before I open it?"
  She spun.
  He stood by the bar beaming at her-Andy!-
Jesus-handsome, combing his hair back with both hands,
his bearded face flushed, his eyes shining. "I
didn't want to attract attention," he said, coming
toward her in his gilt-buttoned, i V
ANDY'-BUTTONED red jacket, springing
  one side of his black bow tie, undoing his shirt
collar, opening his arms.
  After the hugs and kisses, the sighs and caresses
and tears and tissues, he wrapped the
champagne in a napkin, uncaged the cork and
popped it-all with the panache of a union member.
  Giggling, she said, "Where did you
get
all this stuff?"
  "Downstairs in the bar," he said, laughing with her.
"I swore a waiter to secrecy. You "have no
idea how glad everyone is to help me!" He
tipped the wrapped bottle, pouring foam into her
crystal tulip. Filled it to the brim . . .
  Filled his own . . .
  They gazed at each other over the glasses, he
taller than she, as the foam fizzed down into pale
gold wine. He shook his head. "Words can't say
it," he said to her. Eyes locked, they clinked
glasses, sipped.
  "Contacts?" she asked him.
  "Old-fashioned black magic," he said.
  "They're beautiful," she said. "It's a real
improvement."
  Chuckling, he leaned and kissed her cheek. "And
here I thought you were honest," he said. "Let's sit
down, Mom. There's a lot I have to explain to you."
t@lzandr8$3T less-than ch"*and-9
  U
S tilde caret backslash
od's Children," Andy said, "was meant to be a
  VJ tilde trap, a death trap, a way
to wipe out all human
  life. He was finally going to win. Instant
Armageddon."
  His eyes blazed-so intensely she could almost see
his tiger eyes again.
"Now,"
he said, "when I learn about
this,
that he
let them do it to you and never gave me a CLUE about
it-I"
He drew in a long, deep breath. "Now, more than
ever, I'm glad I fucked him! Excuse the
language but that's what I did, Mom. I
screwed up his Master Plan, thirty-three years
in the making."
  They sat close together, facing each other,
clasping hands, on a dark cloud of sofa, each with a
leg tucked under.
  "It was why he came up when he did," he
told her. "Covens are always 'summoning"
him-real witches, fakes, fakes who think
they're real, the whole range. He laughs. But
he needed a child here who would be the right age by the year
2000. So when the Bramford coven called in
'65, with you on the altar, he answered." She
looked away. "I'm sorry," he said, bending,
kissing her hands. "That was really brilliant of me.
I'm sorry. It must have been an awful
experience."
  She drew breath. Looked at him. Said, "Go
on. How was the plan supposed to work?" She watched
him as he took a sip of champagne.
  "Well," he said, licking his lips, setting the
glass back on the coffee table, "first of all, there
would be a charismatic leader, a great
communicator." He smiled at her. "With
normal-looking human eyes. He would be the age
Jesus was during
his
ministry; he might even brush up the resemblance
a little." Lifting his bearded chin, he brushed fingers
beneath it. "Enough to lure the Christians," he said,
smiling, "not enough to scare the Muslims and Buddhists
and Jews. Being who he was, he'd

JS-
  have the connections and funds to launch the best and
  biggest media campaign in world history." He
stopped
  smiling. Looked away. Drew a troubled
breath.
  She watched him.
  He looked back at her. "When it peaked," he
said, "when everyone on Earth trusted him except a
handful of PA'S'-PARANOID atheists-he would
betray them. The best and biggest betrayal in world
history. Biochemicals. You don't want
to know."
  She winced; biochemicals
sounded
deadly, whatever they were.
  He leaned closer to her, squeezing her hands.
"That's what I was bred for, Mother," he said. "By him
and by the coven. But when the strong members
died-Minnie and Roman and Abe-I began to ask
questions. I was in my teens then. A lot of the rites
and rituals were laughable, and a lot
were-repulsive. I
like
humans, most of them, no matter
who
created them; I'm half one, aren't I? Half
you?
More
then half, look at me!"
  She nodded, biting her lip.
  "So I rebelled," he said. "Your half of me
got stronger than his. Those few years we did have
together"-he shook his head, his eyes wet-"I tried
so hard to keep the memory, the warmth and sweetness,
the
goodness
of you ..." He knuckled an eye, trying to smile
at her.
  Caressing his cheek, she said, "Ah my Andy
..."
  They leaned to each other, pecked lips.
  She backhanded her cheek, smiling at him,
blinking.
  He shifted, loosed gilt buttons at his
waist. "So as I said," he said, "I rebelled.
He has no control over me while I'm here-more
proof that my human side is
  stronger-so I decided to make GC into what
he
meant it only to
look
like, something
good
for humanity. Andy's message is simple and
true and it doesn't turn anyone off except the
PA'S, and you know what, Mom? It works. The
temperature's gone down a few degrees.
Everybody's a little less short-tempered. Teachers
and students, bosses and employees, husbands and
wives, friends,
countries-
all going a little easier on each other. In a way,
it's a tribute to you, Mom. Not in a way, that's
what it is: a tribute to everything you gave me in
those first few years."
  She studied him. Said, "How does ..."
"He
feel?" He sighed, smiled. "How can I convey
it? Picture a conservative father whose son joined the
Peace Corps, then multiply it by ten."
  She smiled at him, and said, "You know how
to press a liberal's buttons."
  "I'm a great communicator," he said, smiling
back at her. "He's furious. We're on the
outs. But while I'm here he can't do
anything to stop me. If he could, he would have by now."
He glanced at his watch, multidialed, black and
gold.
"I
have to go," he said, getting up.
  "So soon?" she said, getting up too, brushing
his hand from her elbow.
  "I've got visiting dignitaries," he said.
  "You didn't
eat
anything! There's all this
foodl"
He reached into his jacket, chuckling.
"Mother,"
he said, "from tomorrow on, you're not going to be able to get
me out of your hair." Putting a card on the coffee
table, he said, "The written number always reaches
me, in minutes." He put his arm around her; they
started
  toward the door. "There's a first-rate hotel in
the lower floors of the building I'm in. We'll
move you over there tomorrow morning. I'm in the
rJenthouse-the fifty- second story, overlooking
the park. You can't imagine the view. GCNY has
three floors, the eighth, ninth, and tenth."
In the foyer, he buttoned his shirt collar. "Do
you think you'll be up to a press conference tomorrow afternoon?
It would help if I knew now."
  "Sure I will," she said, fastening thefclip of his
bow tie for him. "It'll be fun." His bearded chin
high, he said, "I need the tray and the cooler.
Otherwise I'm going to be spotted."
  She held the door open a few inches with her
slippered foot, watching him go to the bar
be
smiled at him as he returned. She said, "What
a great Thanksgiving it's going to be!"
  "Oh
shit,
I forgot," he said. "I'm committed. I have to go
to Mike Van Buren's. Will you be my date?
Please?" He stood before her, the tray at his
shoulder. "I've got to go," he said. "Half the
Republican right wing is going to be there. I
slept over at the White House Saturday night
and it's important I stay even-handed, with the
primaries beginning."
  "Well, it's not exactly my crowd," she said,
buttoning his jacket for him, "but of course, my
darling."
  "They're going to flip over you," he said, smiling
at her.
  She stepped closer, looking up into his eyes.
"Andy," she asked him, holding on to one of his gilt
buttons, "have you been totally honest with me?"
  His hazel eyes-which were
nice,
now that she was getting used to them-gazed earnestly,
unswervingly
  into hers. "I swear I have, Morn," he said.
"I know I lied when I was little. And I do
now-plenty. But never again to you, Mom. Never. I
owe you too much, I love you too much. Believe
me."
  Caressing his cheek, she said, "I do,
my-baby."
"Oh please,"
he said.
  They pecked, and she watched him go out with the cooler
on his shoulder.
  She closed the door, frowning.
mi
Andy's Mom is at the Waldorf and you can bet
Andy's there too-he ietted in from Arizona last
night, it was on the news.
And there's going to be a press conference at GCNY
headquarters at three this afternoon. That's at
Columbus Circle.
Residents of the tristate area added together the
available information, factored in a large sunny
H extending over the entire region plus a
four-day holiday starting tomorrow, and got into their cars,
buses, Amtraks, LIRR'S, B trains,
D trains, rollerblades and strollers, and out of
their midtown offices. By eleven o'clock, people of all
sizes and descriptions packed every square foot of
sidewalk on the logical route between point A and
point B-
  nine blocks north on Park Avenue, and five
blocks west, three of them double-length, on East
Fifty-ninth Street and Central Park South.f
  Members of the NYPD, already burdened with
preparations for the Thanksgiving Day parade, might
well have been expected to show a degree of
surliness as they braced themselves against creaking
barriers-but smiles and good spirits prevailed.
Wasn't this all for
Andyl
And Andy's
Mom,
for chrissake?
  In the foyer of the suite, Andy and Rosemary
hugged each other, he in a GC zipper jacket,
jeans, and sneakers, she in a designer suit, her
i caret andy button, and heels. He presented
the group he had brought with him-his press
coordinator Diane, his buddy and driver Joe,
a secretary, Judy, who would get those 429
messages transferred to GC'S computer and
prioritized, and Muhammed and Kevin, already in the
bedroom assembling corrugated cartons for her
clothes. They had driven over in an unmarked van,
through the park at Sixty-fifth Street and down
Second Avenue, to avoid the crowds. "Have you
seen what's going on out there?" Diane asked.
  "I can't believe it!" Rosemary said. "It's
like when the Pope was here, and President Kennedy!"
  Diane nodded. Her feathered hair was gray, her
eyes violet; she was late-sixtyish. A gold
GC logo hung on the bosom of her dark
queen-size dress. "All those patient people," she
said in a diva's deep contralto, "waiting and
praying for a glimpse of the mother of your son! From what
I saw last night, I knew you wouldn't want
to fly past them in a limousine with tinted
windows; you're a gracious, warm-hearted woman.
So I took it upon
  myself"-she clapped a hand to her bosom, sending
velveteen shock waves-"Andy had nothing to do with it,
it was
my
idea, but he's agreeable if you are ..."
  Reclining side by side on patched fake-leather
upholstery, their hands-his right, her left-meshed between
them, they clip-clopped up Park Avenue in a
horse- drawn open carriage, waving and smiling and
nodding at the barrier-bound crowds clapping on both
sides, at the homemade i V andy and i V
andy's mom signs, at the hands waving from
office-building windows.
  A rolling police car led the way; security
men walked alongside; another sat high in front
with the top-hatted driver. Every block or so, Andy
hugged Rosemary and kissed her cheek; the crowd
cheered. He leaned to speak in her ear-"Makes you
feel like an idiot after a while, doesn't
it?"-and the crowd cheered louder.
  News choppers whanged away at the sky. When
the slow procession below took its westward turn at
Fifty- ninth Street-police car,
horse-and-carriage, police car- Park
Avenue's left lanes were cobbled with cars all the
way up through the Sixties and Seventies.
  They had to wait a few minutes at Fifth
Avenue till cameras stopped rolling in front
of the floodlit Plaza Hotel. He said in her
ear, "Movies, commercials, fashion shoots, you
can't get
anywhere
in this town." The crowd cheered.
  They clip-clopped along Central Park
South, waving, smiling, nodding at even bigger
crowds, more signs-i
less-than that
andy, i caret rosemary-spreading into the park,
climbing the trees.
  Ahead, where the park ended, a glittering tower of
golden glass rammed high in the blue sky.
his
Shaking her head, Rosemary ttirned to Andy.
"I'm dreaming," she said, and kissed his cheek and
hugged him. The crowd roared.
93aret szandr*@.andienAJ
  Pointing ahead over the slim microphone, she
said, "Y."
  "Thank you. Which name do you want to be called
by-Reilly, Woodhouse, or Castevet?"
  She said, "Well. . . everyone seems to go right
to first names now-I don't know if that's Andy's
influence or if it would have happened anyway"-a
small laugh surprised her-"so just Rosemary will be
fine," she said. "Legally, I'm Rosemary
Eileen Reilly. Actually I guess the name I
like best is the one I saw today on some of the signs,
Andy's Mom."
  Laughter, and a spatter of clapping, a sizzle
of cameras. Diane, among the standees, clapped
fortissimo, smiling and nodding.
  The Tower had been an office building in an
earlier incarnation, a motion-picture company's
headquarters,- its high ceilings had enabled
GCNY'S architect to design its auditorium,
on the ninth floor, in the form of a semicircular
amphitheater-Andy's concept. Five steep steps,
carpeted in forest green like every square inch of the place,
held sixty or so people; another twenty stood at
  the sides. On the half-moon stage, Andy and
Rosemary sat at a table draped with sky blue and
hung with a gilded GC logo. A trio of black
video cameras clung to ceiling rods,
turning beaked heads this way and that, pausing, turning.
Muhammed and Kevin roamed with fishpole mikes.
  Rosemary, smiling as the clapping petered out,
pointed to her left and said, "Y. No, you. Yes."
  "Rosemary, how do you feel about having missed out
on Andy's whole growing up?"
  "Awful," she said. "That's definitely the worst
part of the experience. But I'm glad"-she smiled at
Andy, squeezed his hand-"that he managed so well
without me."
  He leaned close. "I didn't," he said.
"I didn't, and Mom didn't miss the whole
thing. I told her last night- or early this
morning, I should say-that she was with me during the most
important years, one to six. She's the one who
set my feet in the path I'm following today." He
kissed her cheek.
  Clapping. Cameras. "Rosemary!"
"Rosemary!"
  She pointed. "Y."
  "Rosemary, so far no one's been able to locate
Andy's real father or find any information about him since
the summer of 1966. Can you explain why that is?"
  "No, I can't," she said. "Guy went out
to California then, and we divorced and lost
touch."
  "Would you tell us more about him?"
  She stayed silent. Cleared her throat. Said,
"He was a very good actor, as I said last night.
He was in three Broadway plays,
Luther, Nobody Loves an Albatross,
  and
Gunpoint.
We had our differences, obviously, but he was,
or is-a fine person, very-thoughtful, unselfish-was
"There are still areas," Andy laid, his hand on her arm,
"where Mom's memory hasn't fully returned.
Please, could we have a different question? John?"
*-@lzandr8@.andit@lffAJ
  She wanted to speak to him alone, but when they got
to her seventh-floor suite, the living room was
occupied by a dozen men and women, the inner circle of
GCNY. A waiter offered hors d'oeuvres, a
bartender poured wine. Diane presented
Williamthelegal-director and
Sandy-the-publications-director, and before Rosemary
had even gotten on a last-name basis with them, still
on her first Gibson, Andy was touching her shoulder with a
sorry-gotta-go-now look in those really beautiful
hazel eyes. He apologized
to William and Sandy, drawing her aside.
  "I'm sorry, Mom, I have to go now," he said.
"Some public-health officials from Louisiana are
coming to see me, it was set up last week and I'm not
sure what it's about or how long it's going to take.
If you need anything or want to see a show tonight,
ask Diane, or Judy or Joe. Van
Buren's farm is in Pennsylvania,- we'll be
driving, leaving at noon." He tipped his tawny
head toward the window. "Joe'11 call for you."
He kissed her cheek and left.
  Joe stood by the window some twenty feet away,
  holding a glass at his lips, looking at someone
or something down in the park or just thinking-big and
solid looking, in a tan corduroy jacket and
jeans. Men seemed to be wearing jeans everywhere now.
His hair was graying but he was oddly attractive for
an old man-sexy in a way. She hadn't felt
that
in a while.
  A
really
old man. Her age plus two. Maybe. He
turned, saw her looking. She smiled.
"Rosemary"- Diane clamped her
shoulder, turning her-"Jay our financial
director wants to meet you."
  "Such an honor, Rosemary!" Jay said.
"Such a blessing! And that ride! Diane, you're a
genius!" He looked like a jay-small, beaky,
bright-eyed behind glasses, with hair from the raven side
of the family. "Over an hour's exposure,
global
exposure!" he crowed. "At a total cost of
five hundred dollars! That's
if
the stable bills us, and chances are they won't!"
  She excused herself and went to the bar for a refill.
  "We don't get many calls for Gibsons
nowadays," the bartender said, stirring.
  "Andy's Mom?"
  She turned. "Crab cakes," Joe said,
holding out a pair of wood picks.
  "Oh, thanks, Joe," she said, taking one.
  He asked the bartender for a scotch, and they ate the
hot round crab cakes, eye-smiling at each
other. His eyes were dark brown,- his nose looked as
if it had survived a break or two.
  "Good," she said.
  "Mmm," he said, wiping his lips with a
napkin, finishing chewing. "I can't tell you,
Rosemary," he said,
  "how proud I am to know your son up close and
to be able to help him. I thought my best years were behind
me-I was a cop here in the city, gold badge-but was
I ever wrong. And now that
you're
part of the picture too-well, I don't know what
to say."
  "How about cheers," she said, smiling.
  "Good idea," he said.
  "Cheers," they said, and clinked glasses and
sipped.
  No ring on his finger. Did that still mean anything?
She rested her left hand on the bar.
  "Anybody gives you any trouble," he said
to her, "I'm the guy you want to speak to. Nuts
or pests-and rest assured you'll be getting them-any
problems of any kind whatsoever, just let me know."
  "Will do," she said.
  "When Andy's at the retreat," he said, "or just
busy somewhere and doesn't need me, I usually
hang out up in the spa on the fortieth floor. And
I live right over on Ninth Avenue. So don't
hesitate."
  "I won't," she said. "What's your last name,
Joe?"
  He sighed. "Maffia," he said. Raised two
fingers. "Two F's, and no, I don't belong,
and yes, I get a lot of respect."
  She smiled at him. "I'm sure you would if you
were Joe Smith," she said.
  "Rosemary," Diane said, clamping her
shoulder, turning her around, "Craig is especially
anxious to meet you. He's our director of TV
production."
  While she was talking with Craig, Joe touched a
fingertip to her shoulder. "Take care," he said.
"Andy said twelve noon."
caret szandrfSandtandAf
  She didn't want to offend Joe Maffia-because
she liked him, not for what she imagined were the more common
reasons-so for the first fifteen minutes or so it was a
three-way conversation. He explained over his shoulder
why the Vikings had a good chance of upsetting the
Cowboys, and she told him and Andy about the temptation
to drop sharp objects when viewing the Macy's
balloons from a floor above, and about being screamed and
waved at and having to do the whole
Princess-Grace-on-the-balcony bit from
the bedroom window.
  When they got out of the Lincoln Tunnel, though,
she signed to Andy, and in the next space of silence
he put a finger into the armrest at his right. A wide
black shield slid up from the back of the front
seat, blocking out the balding back of Joe's head
and half the daylight too, closing them in a humming
black-leather roomette lit bluely through tinted
glass.
"Andy,"
she whispered,
"I'm
so
uncomfortable having to watch what I say about Guy,
and the divorce, and-was
"You handled it beautifully," he said. "It was just that
one question."
"And the ones about Minnie and Roman right-brace was
He shrugged. "Don't do any more interviews. If
you
  don't enjoy them, there's no reason to. But
really, you were fine. Here, look again. Read." He
had the papers there. The front pages of both
tabloids were the same full-page photo of him
kissing her cheek at the press conference, one
overlaid with a white giving thanks!, the other with
thanksgiving! "And you don't have to whisper," he said,
nodding his head toward the front. "He listens
to tapes or sports. He can't hear a thing from
here,- believe me, I know." He
Grbucho-Marxed his eyebrows.
  "What about the others?" she asked. "I don't
know who knows what-Diane, William-was
  "Nobody knows anything!" he said.
  "They aren't involved in . . . ?"
  "What? Witchcraft? Satanism?"
  She gave a nod.
  He laughed. "I promise you they're not," he
said. "I had enough of that to last me a lifetime. Ten
lifetimes. Everyone who works for GC'-THE key people,
I mean- they were picked by me and hired by me
after I decided to change things around.
William was our ambassador to Finland under three
presidents. Diane is like the queen of press people;
she was with the Theatre Guild for thirty-five years.
They have no idea GC was ever intended to be anything
but what it is-an organization that's helping people in
lots of different ways. They're proud to be part of
it, and the same goes for all the others."
  She said, "But where do they think it
came
from?"
  "The same place everyone else does," he
said. "It was founded and endowed years ago by an
anonymous group
  of high-minded industrialists. It's all
documented. And as far as who my father is"-he took
her hands, leaned closer-"there are now exactly two
people on earth- which reminds me, there's something else I
have to tell you, don't let me forget-there are now
only two people on earth who know who he is." He
swung a finger back and forth between them. "U." He
squeezed her hands, held her eyes with his.
"That's why it's such-707 for me to be with you again. Not
just because you're my mother. Because you
know who I am,
because I don't
have to hide the truth from
you! And don't you feel something like that toward me? How
many people have you told about that night back then?"
  Shaking her head, she said, "No one. Who would
believe me?"
  "I do, "he said.
  They looked at each other-hugged each other
tight. "I love you so much!" he said in her
ear, and she in his, "Oh Andy, I love
you,
darling!" They kissed each other's temples,
kissed cheeks, the corners of their mouths-she pushed;
they let each other go, turned.
  Sat apart.
  Breathing.
  He fingered-combed his hair back, turned to the
window, looked out. Touched the armrest; the window
tops on both sides dropped half an inch.
  She looked out her window at a shopping mall
swinging past.
  Brown hills.
  "Stan Shand died November ninth."
  She turned.
  "At the same time you woke up," he said, "just
after eleven. A cab hit him in front of the
Beacon Theater."
  She winced, drew breath."
  "It can't possibly be a coincidence," he said.
"He was the last one alive of the coven, the
thirteenth. Roman said there were spells that went on
forever and spells that stopped when the last caster died.
He left me one of his engravings, Stan

that's how I found out. He's the one who taught me
art and music, and the right way to floss." He showed his
teeth.
  She smiled, sighed. "I wish he had died a
few years sooner," she said.
  "It wouldn't have helped you much. Leah Fountain
only died a couple of months ago. She was over
a hundred."
  The leather roomette took a wide right turn.
  "Andy, listen," Rosemary said. "Once I
got going with the physical therapists, I conked out
whenever I hit the pillow. Tuesday and yesterday
were-
crazy,
and last night I was reading an almanac I got
at the newsstand but I'm not up to date yet. Is
Mike Van Buren the TV evangelist who's
also the head of the Christian Consortium?"
  "No, no," Andy said. "That's Rob
Patterson. Mike Van Buren is the former
TV commentator who's bolted the Republicans and
is running as a third-party candidate."
  "I hope I don't get them mixed up,"
Rosemary said.
mike van buren, in a red tie, white
shirt, blue suit, and gold i
*ment
andy button, a carving knife in one hand and a
two-pronged fork in the other, stepped back from the head
of the table to allow his sister and campaign manager
Brooke, in a white apron over a blue
dress, to set down a large, succulent turkey
bedded in parsley on a white china platter. The
guests clapped, twelve on each side of the table,
their faces bright with light bouncing from white damask,
white china, silver, and glass.
  Brooke moved aside, shaking her hands and blowing
at them, as Mike stepped forward. "It's just
beautiful, Brooke!" he said. "Compliments
to Dinah!"
  Another hand for Dinah-in the kitchen,
presumably, and not alone.
  Rosemary, seated at Van Bureii's left,
scanned the opposite team as she clapped. Could you
believe it? Every man, from Andy across from her down
to Joe, and the men on her side of the table too-she
leaned forward and looked past Rob Patterson
clapping-yes, every last man at the table had on a
basically red tie, a white shirt, and a blue
suit. All wore plain or fancy i
caret andy buttons comexcept, of course, the Great
Communicator himself. At least his suit had a
pinstripe. And of course he looked fabulous,
dressed decently for a change.
  "Folks ..." Van Buren said. He stood
behind the turkey with his arms at his sides, waiting for
silence. "Before we go any further ..." He
turned to his right and smiled. "Andy, will you do us the
honor of saying grace?"
  "No, sir," Andy said, smiling back at him,
"not when Rob Patterson is at the table."
  Murmurs of approval hummed. Mark Mead,
the executive director of Patterson's
Christian Consortium, leaned clear of the woman
at his left and smiled at Andy. "Well spoken,
Andy," he said.
  Patterson himself, standing up beside Rosemary, said,
"Thank you, Andy. I've never been more flattered in
my life. If you'll bow your heads ..."
  Rosemary stole a peek across the table,- Andy
winked at her, and rubbed at his eye as if something had
gotten into it.
  When the relatively brief sermon was over,
Van Buren started carving. He was good at it; you
had to give him
  credit. Leaning over the turkey, operating on
its outer side with knife, fork, and occasional shears,
he sliced off leaf after unbroken leaf of dark meat
and light, talking all the while. "As a former
broadcaster myself, Rosemary, I can tell you with a
fair degree of authority that you acquitted yourself
magnificently yesterday."
  "Thank you," she said.
  "You radiate candor and sincerity. Those are
admirable qualities in a woman."
  "And not in a man?" she asked.
  "And a ready wit!" Van Buren cast a pixie
smile at her, slicing away. "That's something I
value highly."
  "Rosemary, my dear."
  She turned to Rob Patterson.
  "That was so gracious of Andyst" he said. "So
typical of his boundless generosity. It's a moment
I'll treasure the rest of my life."
  Smiling at him, she said, "You're too kind."
  "Sometimes, Rosemary," Rob Patterson said,
touching her wrist, "I feel that Andy himself is a
mite too kind, and too generous, and too forbearing.
I'm thinking in particular about PA'S, in connection
with the candles. I hope you don't share your
son's tolerant position. I feel Mike is
dead right on this one,- something
has
to be done about them, they're going to spoil it for the rest
of us!"
  She knew that PA'S were paranoid atheists, and
one of the GC commercials she had seen early on had
something to do with candles, but she had no idea what the
man was talking about. She looked for help, but the
  Great Communicator was communicating with the Great
Slicer.
  The woman beyond Pattersoii rescued her,
slapping his arm with gusto. "Now, Rob, don't you
start bawling about PA'S again! This is the day we
count our blessings, not our curses, isn't that so,
Rosemary? Andy says a few candles more or less
won't matter a snip and that's good enough for me!
Rosemary, you must be popping out of your skin with
pride! Merle and I, "we celebrate if the
boys stay two years in the same school!"
  "Andy," Mark Mead said, leaning clear of the
woman on his left, smiling, "would you mind passing
me the celery?"
  Joe, down at the end of the table, caught her
eyes, waggled fingers at her.
  She smiled, waggled back.
  He too looked good in Republican, sitting
there with his head on his hand listening to Mrs. Lush
Rambeau.
  'TOWST
JESUS!"
Van Buren dropped the knife and clutched his hand,
red blood dripping on white turkey breast.
  Gasping, Rosemary thrust her napkin at him.
eJs caret rather caret Jff caret sis
  As soon as Andy climbed into the back of the limo
after her, she collapsed against his shoulder, moaning.
"Ye gods!
What a-
yuuch!
Yowwww!" He hugged her as their black roomette
rolled forward. "Ah, poor
  baby," he said, raining kisses on her head,
"thank you, thank you. The corn fritters were good,
weren't they?"
  She mumbled something in his coat, and squirmed her
head around to look up at him. "Am I crazy,"
she asked, "or was the table set to look like the
Norman Rockwell painting?"
  He smacked his forehead.
"Yes!"
he said. "That's it! 1 kept feeling deja vu!
That's what it was! All the white stuff, and the
plain glasses ..."
  "And Brooke's dress and apron, that's in the
picture too I think."
  They sighed. He let go of her and they sat up
straight, shaking their heads. Settled their coats,
fixed their hair.
  Lights whipped by bluishly, a steady lashing.
  "Hey, what is it with the candles?" she asked.
"I saw something about them early on, but then ..."
  "A thing we're doing," he said. "Tell you
later. You think Mark Mead is gay?"
  "The possibility crossed my mind," she said.
  "I think he was coming on to me."
  "Van Buren was coming on to
me,"
she said. "I radiate candor and sincerity."
  "Well you
do,"
he said, poking at her hair.
  "Yeah," she said. "Especially when I'm lying
to the entire world on TV."
  "We said, no more interviews. Unless you
want to."
  "How about conversations with people?"
  They looked out their windows. A slower lashing
began, amber lights.
  "You know why he was, don't you?"
  "Why who was what?" she asked, turning.
  "Why Van Buren was coming on to you," he said.
  "I radiate candor and sincerity," she told
him. "And I have a ready wit.8I
  "And a charming innocence," he said. "You also
radiate
signatures.
On petitions. One date with you and he's on the
ballot in every state."
  She leaned away, peering at him. "Go on with
you," she said.
  He smiled at her. "You've got
clout,
Ma!" he said. "People heart Andy's Mom even more
than they heart Andy."
  "Oh go
on,"
she said, giving him a poke.
  He chuckled.
  She sat back. Settled herself against his
shoulder.
  Pink lights, slow and steady.
  "What was Saturday night at the White House
like?"
  He told her for fifteen miles or so.
  "Wow," she said.
  He sighed. "Democrats are more fun," he
said. "There's no getting around it."
f@lzandr8andf
i
fandA-9
  U caret bar caret he only exits," he
said, "are at the garage levels, JL the lobby,
on eight, nine, and ten, and my apartment. It's the
highest-speed elevator allowed by law,- only
six of them in the city. Two thousand feet per
minute. That comes down to-was "Spare me the
details," she said. They stood face to bearded chin
in a cylindrical
  cab not much wider than a phone booth, rocketing
upward faster, far faster, than she liked. The thing
was like a lipstick turned inside out-red leather
to shoulder height, her shoulders, and brass, or
solid gold for all she knew, from there up to the
glowing ceiling. "He put this in just for you?"
"He owes me." They waggled their jaws till their
ears popped. "I've scored a few times in here."
"Spare me
those
details too, Andy." "Here we are. Brace
yourself for the mother of all views, mother of all mothers." A
red 52 pinged alight above his head as they slowed.
  The cab split open behind him
be
he backed out through widening space, taking her hand,
leading her out-his other hand slapping wall-into a
softly lit, black-floored,
art-movie-house-lounge kind of space, sparely
but handsomely furnished in brass-trimmed black,
its far wall a Cinerama of city and stars and
three-quarter moon, moving lights of planes.
  "Oh Andy!" she said, and gasped, biting her
lip.
  He led her forward, lifting her coat away,
dropping it, shedding his own as they passed between sofas.
She swayed-at an open plane door a good few
minutes from touchdown. The park below was dark carpet
lightly salted; the East Side and miles beyond, a
glittering World's Fair display. The white moon
above washed stars from the cobalt sky.
  "A perfect night," he said behind her, harnessing
her between his elbows, holding her shoulders from the
front. She leaned back against him, sighed. "I
ordered a full moon," he said, his cheek at her
temple, "and they sent that. What are you gonna do?"
I
EVI n
  She smiled, scanning the glittering diorama,
caressing his hand on her shoulder. He reached his other
arm out, pointing. "That's the Whitestone feridge ..
. And that's Queens, the whole shootin" match
..."
  "It's incredible," she said.
  His arm dropped; he held her at waist and
shoulder, kissed her ear. "still had a
twenty-seven-year hole too," he said, his breath
hot, "only I was awake through mine."
  "Andy-was
  "You weren't around when I learned about women, and in
my teens and all, so now, at the same time we have this
tremendous bond between us, you're someone who just came
into my life-older, sure, but more beautiful than
any other woman on this whole planet." He
turned her around and mouthed her mouth, clamped her
head and waist, rammed hard at her middle,
tongued her tongue. She fought free; he drew
back-tiger eyes fading to hazel-taking his arms, his
hands from her, breathing hard.
  She backhanded her mouth, staring at him, quivering,
doubly shocked by what she had seen and what he had
done to her.
  She said, "Your old eyes ..."
  He drew breath, put a hand up for time out,
swallowed. Drew breath. Looked at her,
hazel-eyed. Nodded. "They're still there," he said.
"It's a way of-willing them to look different. I
lost control a little."
  She stared at him. "A little?" she said. "That was
"losing control a
little""?"
He leaned to her:
"You're the only woman, the only
person, I can be myself with!"
His eyes tigered as he spoke, and faded.
  He took a breath, stood straight, shook his
head as if to clear it. "With everybody else," he
said, "I'm afraid to let go all the way. Even
in the dark."
  She backed around him, shaking her head, a hand
up. "I'm sorry, Andy," she said. "I
feel for you, I
love
you, but-was She shook her head, backed away a few
feet.
  He raised both hands. "I'm the sorry one,"
he said. "I lost
a lot
of control, not a little. Never again. I swear.
Please. Please forgive me. Listen, I was going
to tell you. I'm going away tomorrow and maybe it's a
good thing. It is. You can go visit your family.
I'm going to the retreat for a few days and then I have
to go to Rome and Madrid. I'll be back
December sixth, that's a week from Monday."
  She let breath out. Nodded. "I guess it is
a good thing," she said. "Maybe we've both
been-trying too hard to make up for lost time."
  "Don't blame yourself," he said. "It was
me,
not we."
  "Don't ever," she said,
"ever,
let anything like that happen again."
  "I won't, I swear."
  She drew a breath. "Good night," she
said. "When are you going?"
  "Early," he said. "Joe's driving me to the
airport, but then he'll be around if you need him.
Everybody else too. Whatever you want, just ask.
And you've got the number I gave you; it works
everywhere."
  She said, "Thank you," and turned and picked up
her coat. And turned again. "Have a good trip," she
said.
  He half-smiled. "You too. Do you think you'll
go?"
  "Probably," she said. Looked at him. "I
love you," she sd.f
  "I love
you,"
he said. "Please, forgive me."
  "How do I get to the regular elevator?" she
asked.
  "Take this one," he said. "You can get out at the
lobby and then just go around to your right. You'll be at
seven while you'd still be waiting."
  Sighing, she said, "And seasick to'boot"-but
turned and went to the onyx wall, touched the button
by the brass cylinder, splitting it open. She
stepped into the Revlon Express, turned
and waved at him before the glittering, flickering
lights. He kissed at her.
  She touched L, and as the cab closed around her,
door open.
  He had turned to the window; the light turned him
back. He looked at her, brows up.
  "The candles," she said. "You were going to tell
me."
  "Oh," he said. Smiled and shrugged. "It's just
a thing we're doing, lighting candles, to welcome in
the year 2000. Kind of a corny idea, but people went
for it, except the PA'S. Even most atheists are
lighting them-what's the big deal?-but there's this handful,
because our name is God's Children."
  She stepped out of the cab, peering across the room at
him. "You mean,
everybody's
lighting candles?" she asked. "Everybody in the
whole country?"
  "In the whole world," he said. "Except a few
bushmen maybe. Out in the streets and parks, in
homes, stores, schools, churches, mosques,
synagogues, cathouses, you name it. In the exact
same minute. The first minute of
  the year 2000, Greenwich Mean Time.
Seven p.m. here, midnight in London, morning
in Moscow . . . It's supposed to symbolize-you
know, 'one humanity, refreshed and renewed." his
  She stared across the room at him, standing there before the
moon and the stars and the city. "Andy," she said, "that's not
corny,
that's a
lovely
idea. ..." She took a few steps toward him.
"It'll be like a billion points of light!" The
brass cylinder closed behind her.
  Andy smiled. "More like
eight
billion," he said. "The candles are neat: sky
blue on the outside, with a yellow core. So when you
look down on them from the top, it's like the logo."
  She said, "There are special candles?"
  Nodding, he said, "In glasses." He showed
juice-glass height with finger and thumb. "We've
been making them for over a year now," he said.
"It's one of our biggest projects. Fourteen
factories in Japan and Korea. Working day and
night, seven days a week."
  "Oh, Andy!" she said, dropping her coat and
going to him. "It's a
beautiful
idea! Who thought of it?"
  He did a little aw-shucks shuffling, grinned at
her. "Three guesses," he said.
  She hugged him. "Oh my
angell"
She kissed his cheek. "It's wonderful! It'll
make New Year's Eve a
really significant happening
for the entire human race!"
  "That's the general idea," he said, smiling at
her.
  "It's glorious!" She hugged and kissed him.
"I'm so
proud
of you!" She hugged and kissed him. He said, "If
you expect me to behave myself ..."
  "Oops!" Hands in the air, she backed off.
Kissed at
  him, picked up her coat. "Have a wonderful,
wonderful trip," she said. "Hurry home,
darling! I'll miss you so!"
  "Same here, Mom," he said, beaming at her before
his universe of lights.
  She pushed the button, got in the cab,
turned and waved, touched L.
  Heaved a sigh as the cab enclosed her.
What a beautiful, beautiful concept! Everyone,
everywhere, all of civilized humanity, lighting
sky-blue-and yellow GC candles, in the year
2000's very first minute, Greenwich Mean Time!
Too bad a few cranks would be taking the edge off
it, but they certainly had their rights, as Andy himself
clearly knew.
  What an angel! No wonder the whole world
loved him!
  Really: Had
any
mother, anywhere,
ever
had so much reason for pride in a son?
Only Mary,
she answered herself-dropping two thousand feet a
minute toward the center of the earth-
only Mary.
she decided to put off visiting Omaha till after
New Year's. Of her five sisters and brothers,
all older than she, three were alive, a sister and
two brothers. She had spoken on the phone with each
of them twice, once as Rip Van
Rosie and once as Andy's Mom-which was probably
one time more than she had spoken with them in the whole
year before the coven zapped her. Brian, the one she
loved best, who had joined AA, thank God, and
been dry since '82, was leaving Monday with his
wife, Dodie, on a thirty-fifth-anniversary
"round-the-world cruise-they'd be lighting their candles
in Auckland, New Zealand-and Eddie, the one she
loved least, sounded unchanged by time. "You tell Andy
that his Uncle Ed speaks for thirty thousand union
meat

I
J
udy was Vassar "93 and beautiful, with sleek
black
  hair demurely bunned, cinnamon skin,
lavishly black- rimmed eyes, and a dime-size
red dot above the bridge of her nose. Her i
V andy button was pinned to pastel saris; her last
name was Kharyat. On Monday morning, swathed in
lime silk, she brought Rosemary a computer-
printed breakdown of the thousands of messages that had
come in as of six the evening before, along with suggested
response formats that would cover almost all of
them.
  She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes every now and then
while she and Rosemary worked at the table by the living
room window. The mascara wasn't going to make it
through lunch. Rosemary touched her hand and said,
"Judy, is something wrong?"
  Judy sighed, brown eyes looking woefully through
their black mini-mask. "A guy," she said, and
looked upward. "Listen to me! I can't believe
it!" She sniffed, dabbed with her tissues.
  Rosemary sighed and nodded, remembering her own
Guy. "They sure can screw you up," she said.
Patted Judy's hand. "If you want to talk,"
she said, "I'm a good listener." Dying to hear.
RA LEVIN
  packers when he says, with all due respect,
he should stop being such a softy about the PA'S. Van
Buren's right; we should
make
them light candles,
it
gunpoint if need be."
9-@lzandT8@.andfffgA-9
  "Thanks," Judy said, mustering a smile,
dabbing. "I'm surviving."
  Rosemary spotted crossword-puzzle squares,
neatly inked, in Judy's attache case when she was
getting ready to leave. "Do you play Scrabble?"
she asked.
  The beautiful Indian face lit up. "You
bet! A two- minute time limit, blanks
wild?"
  "Um . . . One night real soon,"
Rosemary said.
*-l3andr?!
i
xs8and-9
  The TV division occupied the northwest quarter
of the tenth floor. Approaching Craig's corner
office, Rosemary walked through a few thousand
square feet of empty cubicles with barren
desks-computers and phones, no people. Pictures
and papers tacked to partitions .. .
  Craig and Kevin, in GC T-shirts and
jeans, sat with their sneakers up on a coffee table,
watching TV-EdWARD G. Robinson in a
black-and-white movie. They were black and white
themselves (you were
supposed
to use black now, Negro was out). Craig
looked like Adam Clayton Powell and Kevin
looked like a nineteen-year-old kid named
Kevin-except that today some nineteen-year-old
Kevins were probably short and Chinese.
"Rosemary! Hi!" they said, jumping to their feet.
Kevin knocked over his Coke.
  "Sit, sit," Rosemary said. "Wow, what a
view!" She went to the window, looking out across West
Side build-
,A

  ings at the Hudson River and the George
Washington Bridge in its end-to-end entirety.
  "Isn't it great?" Craig's deep voice
asked behind her.
  "Fantastic!" She turned, nodded toward the
doorway. "Where is everybody?" she asked.
  Craig said, "Vacation between Thanksgiving and
New Year's. The whole shebang."
"That's
generous," she said.
  "That's Andy," he said, smiling. "There isn't
much to do here; the New Year's Eve show is in the
can."
  "What about what's in the pipeline?" she
asked.
  "There isn't much," Craig said. "We're
cutting back on production next year. Mostly
reruns."
  Kevin wiped the table with paper towels.
  "What are you watching?" Rosemary asked,
looking at Robinson pleading with Hedy Lamarr,
no, the one who looked like her.
"The Woman in the Window,"
Craig said. "Fritz Lang, 1944."
  "I don't think I've seen it," she said.
  "It's good. Noir."
  The three of them sat and watched a few minutes.
  Craig said, "Is there anything in particular you
wanted to see me about?"
  "Yes, there is," Rosemary said.
  "I'm sorry, I should have asked right away."
He got up. "You go on watching," he said
to Kevin, "we'll go inside."
  He showed Rosemary into an office next door.
Here it looked as if work were done; two desks were
piled with
  papers and computer printouts and magazines, a
wall was banked with monitors, speakers, and audio
equipment, the other walls were shelves of
cassettes and records. Craig cleared two
castered chairs.
  When Rosemary had seated herself, Craig sat,
rolled his chair fairly close, and leaned forward,
elbows on the chair arms, hands folded, his head
cocked, ready to listen.
  Rosemary said, "I worry that even though Andy
has lowered the temperature all around, there's a
hot spot where the PA'S are concerned, and the way some
people are reacting to them. I don't know what you have in the
works-was
  "Almost nothing," Craig said.
  "comand I don't want to butt in where I'm not
needed-was
  "Rosemary," he said, "we would welcome any
suggestions you care to offer."
  She said, "I know Andy wants their rights to be
respected, but doesn't it look as if he
hasn't done enough about it? I'd like to see a commercial
that addresses the issue head-on, and I mean
head-on, where he's talking straight at my brother
Eddie the gun collector, while there's still time
to cool things down before New Year's. So it would have
to be done quickly. But simple would be better than
elaborate, I think."
  Craig looked down, a sneakered foot tapping.
He looked at her. "That makes a lot of sense,
Rosemary," he said. "Have you spoken to Andy about
it?"
  "No," she said. "I wanted to check first and see
if anything was in the works, and to sound
you
out."
IE
VIN
  "Thanks, I appreciate that," Craig said.
"Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you
review the things we've done- the specials, the
commercials, thfe whole magilla-and then when Andy
gets here-he's due back, when, Monday?-you'll
be up to speed and we can take a meeting not only about
this but maybe also about not cutting back so much on new
production. That was Jay's idea-you know, the bean
counter?" He shook his head, tapped his temple.
"People like that, I don't know where they're coming from."
  He showed her how to use the tape player and its
remote control, and how the tapes were more or less
arranged-Gc's own productions, news coverage
of its activities, and documentaries on all
kinds of related subjects. Movies
too, some on records like LP'S that used a
different player.
  "This is great!" she said, looking around. "You
don't by any chance have
Gone With the Wind,
do you?"
  "As a matter of fact we do," Craig said,
smiling. "With screen tests and outtakes and a whole
mess of other material."
"Oh God!"
Rosemary cried.
"I'm in HEAVEN!"
cJssgsr caret Just caret fandsUs
caret So tilde *iood
morning, may I ask who's calling??-a
VJ-PLEASANT female voice with just a hair of a
Japanese L.
  "This is Andy's Mom," she said. "He gave
me this number."
  118One moment please. Is this Rosemary E.
Reilly speaking?"
  "Yes, "she said.
  *8Please hang up, Rosemary. Andy will
return your call soon. If you wish him to call
you at a different number, press one."
  She hung up, suspecting she'd been talking
with a computer chip. She'd have to watch
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
She punched the pillows up higher behind her, settled
her glasses, took the other half of the croissant
from the plate on the tray, what the hell, and nibbled
while she checked the crossword puzzle. She did
the upper-left- hand corner in her head and was
refolding the paper one- handed to the book review when
the phone rang. She dropped the paper and the
croissant stub, licked crumbs from her
fingertips, brushed them on satin, picked up.
"Hello?"
  "Hi, Mom, everything okay?"
  "Couldn't be better!" she said. "Breakfast in
bed! I feel like I'm in an MGM movie, the
old MGM. Norma Shearer,
Garbo
..." She swooned on the satin.
  He chuckled in her ear. "I think you'd make the
cut."
  Smiling, taking her glasses off, she said,
"Where are you, angel?"
  "In Rome, just the right place for one."
  "You sound as if you're right around the
corner."
  "Wish I were. What's up?"
  She said, "I don't mean to be pushy but I-was
  "If it's about Craig and the commercial, I
called him about something else and he mentioned it. I
think it's a
great idea."
I
  She said, "You do?"
  "Absolutely. Talk about someone coming to something with
fresh eyes; who could possibly have fresher eyes
than Rip Van Rosie? Not just about the commercials
but about everything that's going on. You've put your finger
on something I should have seen for myself weeks ago.
We'll get right to work on it, you included. I'm
sorry but I'm really in the middle of something. I'm
coming back Saturday."
"Saturday!"
she said.
  "I canceled Madrid." A beat. "I never
missed anyone before."
e.Js caret r*@.*
i
i caret to to i-greater-than
  She watched a whole batch of GC
commercials and specials comthe medium's best,
undoubtedly-handsomely produced, stirringly written
and visualized, all featuring Andy. Sometimes when
he was talking to her, about lightening up, lighting her
candle, and so on, she could almost see a flicker of his
old eyes in the new ones. She rewound, froze,
and stepped the picture forward frame by frame a
few times, but no, there was nothing- just his hazel eyes
and her memory, seeing his beautiful tiger eyes in
the wake of the kiss, the wicked, shocking kiss .. .
"s
  But really, could anyone blame him? Poor
lonely angel...
  And it wasn't as if she
looked
like his old mom. Every newspaper and magazine
article and TV talking head- well it was vain
even to
think
about what they had to say on that subject.
  She watched, five or six times, a
ten-second spot where he was his absolute Jesus
best, strong and loving and just plain gorgeous,
reminding her to pick up her candles at the
supermarket or wherever and put them out of
reach of the kids, and to wait and open the shrink- wrap
along with everyone else in the world, just before the Lighting.
  After that, as a break, she watched screen tests and
outtakes from
Gone With the Wind.
M
she was edgy Friday, thinking about Andy being thirty
thousand feet in the air tomorrow afternoon.
  And down on the ground tomorrow evening . . .
  Around midafternoon she called Joe to arrange to go
to the airport with him. "The spa, the fitness center,
whatever," she said, "it's coed all the time, isn't
it?"
  "Unisex. Sure. When you thinking of going?"
  "Now," she said. "I want to loosen up. I'm
a little tense, with Andy flying tomorrow."
  "Give me twenty minutes. I'll show you around
and introduce the guys and make sure nobody
pesters you."
  She said, "I don't want anybody being shut
out, Joe."
I
EVI n
  "It's just a question of cluing people in on how to behave,
that's all. Don't worry."
  "That's great," she said. "Thanks. Whenever you're
ready. Don't rush."
  They pedaled exercise bikes side by side.
He told her about his ex-after-twenty-years,
Veronica, in real estate now in Little Neck, and
his daughter, Mary Elizabeth, going for her
master's in economics at Loyola. She told
him about the proposed commercial" and how pleased she was
to be getting actively involved in GC. Both
ideas sounded good to him.
  She jumped rope, atrociously, while he
punched a punching bag, awesomely. "I used
to box," he said, dancing in and out,
rat-a-tat-tatting. "Golden Gloves,
middleweight."
  "I used to jump rope," she said, untangling the
damn thing from around her ankle. "Omaha Junior
High School Championship Team, two years
running."
  "I can tell by your form," he said,
rat-a-tat-tatting.
  They strode along on side-by-side
treadmills.
  "Great place, isn't it?"
  "Oh terrific," she said. "A real
morale booster." A floodlit photo shoot was
going on across the equipment- filled room. Small
swimsuits on large young women.
  Joe sneered and looked away, striding along.
"Not my style," he said. "Ronnie was a fashion
model when we started going together. The first time she
turned sideways I called Missing Persons."
He smiled at her. "My mother was a broomstick.
You know how it is with us guys-"I want a girl,
just like the girl, that married dear old Dad." his
  Striding along in place, Rosemary nodded.
"Yeah, I know how it is," she said, "I know."
tJs caret rather caret caret so caret SsSJ
I
  She was still edgy when she got back to the suite.
She called Judy, who was home sounding teary.
She jumped at the invite.
  She arrived on the dot of eight, in a kerchief
and a wool coat with damp shoulders, holding a big
brown Bloomingdale's shopping bag. Under the coat
the sari was peach; out of the bag came a plastic
Scrabble board with a built-in turntable and molded
nests for the tiles, a beaded drawstring bag, two
black racks, a miniature silver-caged
hourglass, and-naturally-a scorekeeping
gizmo.
  They set up on the table by the window. Light snow
was falling, powdering the park's treetops, hazing
Fifth Avenue's cliff of lights half a mile
away. Rosemary won first move.
  She looked through her glasses at jetty m on
the rack-trying not to think of ice forming on wings and the
damn timer at the side of the table (sand running out)-and
lifted the tiles in clusters. She fed them into the
nests across the board as jittery. "Double on the
J," she said, "double word, fifty-point bonus."
  Judy tapped at the gizmo-not with a special
fingernail,
  just one of a set of matching pearl ovals. "One
hundred," she said. "Good beginning."
  "Thank you," Rosemary said, giving her an
over-the- glasses look while drawing new tiles
from the bag.
  Judy turned the tinier over, looked at the
board through her mascara, blinked, and set tiles
down below the J, making jinxed. "Double word," she
said.
  Rosemary plucked up tiles, reached without
turning the board, and began laying in foxy using the
X and the pink space beside it.
  Judy wailed and wept and tore at her hair.
"Now
he's ruined my Scrabble too! Look what I
did! An X by a pink! You win! You win! He's
melted my brain! He's made my life SHIT!
I'm jinxed! Jinxed by HIM! That's why I saw the
word!"
She threw herself across the board sobbing, beating her
fists on the table.
  "Oh dear," Rosemary said, catching the rolling
timer. She set it up straight and got up; moved
to the side of the table and bent over Judy, patted her
hair, stroked her heaving back. "Ah, Judy,"
she said, "ah, Judy . . . No guy is worth
getting this upset about, not even oh jeez it's
Andy,
isn't it? Isn't it Andy? It is, isn't it?"
  Yeses snuffled in among the sobs, yeses and
Andys.
  Rosemary nodded, sighed. She was getting slow.
In her old age.
  Judy raised herself from the board, weeping, tiles
dropping from her cheek, the mascara holding up
surprisingly well. "I
hate
Andy!" she cried, tearing her button away, tearing
silk, flinging the button against the window. "I only
wore it because I didn't want you to guess! I
hate
him! I'll make my own button to say how I
  really feel! Oh Rosemary, if you knew the
whole story, if you knew what goes on up on the
ninth-was
  "Shh, shh." Rosemary hugged and soothed her.
"Shh, calm down, dear," she said. "Ssh.
Take a good, deep breath. That's it ... Atta
girl . . . There . . . That's a little better.
Now why don't you go pat some cool water on your
face and then we'll have a good long talk. Would you like
something to drink? There's room service, so if you're
hungry, just say so."
t@lzandrfand*itand-9
  f" caret hey sat on the sofa.
  JL "He spoke at a benefit for Indian
flood relief," Judy said, dabbing. "Last
summer at Madison Square Garden. I brought
a proposal I had written for improving methods
of food distribution, and was able to hand it to him
personally. Right then, there was a little spark between us."
  Rosemary nodded, listening.
  "A few days later," Judy said, "he called
me here, to his office, and invited me to join GC,
as a secretary at first but with the prospect, the
promise, of going higher. We began a
relationship-as equals-but within days, nights I should
say, he gained complete mastery of me. You can't
begin to imagine what an incredible lover he is."
  "No," Rosemary said, "no, of course not, being
his mother. No, I certainly can't. No."
  "I meant that in the general sensest" Judy said.
She leaned closer to Rosemary. "In my
culture," she said, "women readily confide in one
Another about intimate matters. I have two married
sisters, and my roommates at Vassar liked
nothing better than to discuss their sexual
activities. So even though I've only known one
other man myself-a slimeball named Nathan about
whom the less said the better-I know that all men, not
only he, are more concerned with their own satisfaction
than that of their partners. And in truth, as the climax
approaches, women are too,
n'est-ce pasl
Don't we all ultimately become involved
solely with our own mounting excitement?"
  Rosemary nodded.
  "Not Andy," Judy said, and sighed. "It's as if
a part of him is always in control, always aware of
me
and my needs and my feelings.
And now it's HER needs he's aware of, HER
wretched feelings! I can't bear it!"
She grabbed at her hair.
  Rosemary caught her wrists. "Whose?" she
asked. "Who?"
  "The woman he's in Rome with!" Judy cried.
"And going to Madrid with! His new beloved! The
woman he was with after your dinner on Thanksgiving,
when I waited all night for his call! The one he
took to the retreat for the weekend instead of me! There
has to be someone!
Why else not a word, Rosemary, not a single
WORD, in eight days and nights right-brace Why
elsel"
Rosemary stayed silent a moment. Shrugged. Said,
"still don't know ..."
  "And if only that were the worst of it..." Judy
drew a breath, shook her head, cast a sidelong
look at Rosemary. "He led me
into-practices I didn't even know were-was
  "Stop right here," Rosemary said,
pressing a hand on Judy's arm. "I really
don't want to hear details. You're upset for
no reason. He isn't going to Madrid; he's
cutting the trip short because there's
someone here he misses very much.
He told me so yesterday morning."
  "He did?" Judy stared at her.
  Rosemary nodded. "Yes," she said. "He's
coming back tomorrow. I'm absolutely certain he'll
be calling you. I'll bet on it. And I'm sure
he'll have a good reason for not having called you.
I'll bet on that too."
  "Oh, Rosemary, do you really mean it?" Judy
asked. "Are you sure you're not saying this just so
I'll feel better?"
  Rosemary smiled at her. "Judy," she said,
"I'm Andy's Mom. Would I lie to you?"
  Judy shook her head, smiling. "No," she
said, "no. Thank you, Rosemary! Thank you!"
She dabbed at her eyes, sighed, shook her head.
"Look at me," she said. "I was an
intelligent, capable woman with a meaningful job
to do-and he has me completely derailed, a
blubbering ninny who puts an X by a pink."
  Patting her hand, getting up from the sofa,
Rosemary said, "Come on, we'll start over."
  "No!" Judy said, getting up, going after her.
"It wouldn't be fair, you had a hundred! It's
easy to put back: you were 'jittery," I was
"jinxed," you were "foxy." his
  Rosemary, sitting at the table, shook her head.
"No, dear, a new game. I insist on it."
  "Okay, but you go first."?
  As they gathered tiles, Judy asked, "Are you
good at anagrams too?"
  Rosemary recalled the time, weeks before giving
birth, when she had shifted tiles back and forth between
steven marcato and roman CASTEVET, realizing that
the neighbor who had befriended them was the son of
Adrian Marcato, the nineteenth-century
Satanist who had lived at the Bramford.
"Pretty good," she said.
  "Thanksgiving night," Judy said, "while I
was waiting for Andy's call, I finally solved the
all-time killer anagram, after more than a year of
working at it in trains and buses and waiting rooms."
She sighed, smoothing her hair down. "Quite
minuscule compensation, in truth."
  "It
sounds
like a killer," Rosemary said, drawing tiles from the
bag.
  "That was an observation," Judy said. "The
anagram is "roast mules." his
  ""Roast mules"?"
  "R, O, A, S, T," Judy said,
turning the timer over, "M, U, L, E,
S. They can be made into one common ten- letter English
word, so common that even children of five and six use it."
  Switching tiles around on the rack, Rosemary
said, "I'll get on it later."
  "Don't come begging for the answer," Judy said,
drawing tiles from the bag. "You'll be wasting your
breath; I'm unyielding. And no fair using a
computer."
  "I don't know how to," Rosemary said, "but
I've really got to learn. What a great tool!
Who ever thought they'd be so small and cheap? They
filled whole rooms! Double on the y, double
word." Starting at the central pink space, she
laid out the letters of dandy.
I
I
he brought her an angel-a curly-headed lad with a
lyre and a book and a fine pair of wings,
reclining in terra-cotta relief on a plaque
about four inches square, white on della Robbia
blue.
  "Andrea della Robbia made it," he said.
"Circa fourteen seventy."
  "Oh my
God,
Andy!" she said, cradling it in both hands, adoring
it. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!"
  "It's named "Andyst was he said. "For him, I
guess."
  Smiling, she tiptoed to kiss his cheek. "Oh
thank you, darling, thank you!" She kissed Andy
della Robbia- lightly,
very
lightly. "My handsome angel Andy!" she
  said to it. "I adore you! I could eat you up!"
She gave it another feather-kiss.
  Sunday brunch was the first chance they had to be together.
At the airport, he had come out of the VIP pass
door with two elderly men. They seemed to be in an
ongoing discussion, so after a hug and two handshakes
outside the limo-one with a Chinese, one with a
Frenchman-and a little eye language with Andy, she had
ridden back to the city the way she had ridden
out, up front with Joe. They listened to tapes of
fifties big- band music, chatted about the
musicians, and admired the billboards that had
begun going up December first- Andy beaming at them
over the lines of copy:
Here in New York we're lighting our candles at
7 p.m. on Friday, December 31/. Love
ya!
When they got out of the limo on the building's lower
garage level-at two in the morning Rome
time-Andy was jet-lagged. They made their morning
date.
  Rosemary and the waiter had shifted the Scrabble
table aside a few feet to make room by the window
for the brunch table and chairs. She walked there
slowly, hands cupped, and leaned the plaque
carefully,
very
carefully, against the side of the jam caddy-so Andy
della Robbia could see and be seen.
  Andy Castevet-Woodhouse, seated, smearing
cream cheese on bagel, said, "You look great.
That's just the kind of negligee I was picturing."
  "I'm meeting Joe at the spa at
eleven-thirty," Rosemary said in her
pink sweatsuit and sneakers, sitting down.
  He said, "Uh, you and Joe . . . ?"
  "Enjoy each other's company," she said,
unfolding her
  napkin. "I would tell you to mind your own
business, but I played Scrabble with Judy the other
night so I'm not in a position to talk. Indian
women sure do, at least the heartbroken,
maltreated ones."
  He groaned, filling her cup with steaming coffee.
  "You really ought to be ashamed of yourself," she said,
shaking a packet of sweetener at him. "She's such
a nice girl. And what a champ! She beat me
twice, and I'm good. I'm not used to a
two-minute limit, not that that's an excuse.
We're having a rematch tomorrow or Tuesday." She
tore a corner from the packet.
  "She no longer appeals to me," he said, lifting
a slice of salmon on the tines of a silvery fork.
"What do you want me to do, fake something I don't
feel?"
  "You could at least have spoken to her face-to-face
about it."
  "Oh sure," he said. "You haven't seen her in
her District Attorney mode." He
laid the salmon over the cream cheese.
  "I have a feeling you'd stand up under cross-
examination," she said, stirring her coffee.
  He bit and chewed, looking out the window.
  She sipped, looking at the plaque. "It's just
so
beautiful,
darling," she said. "Thank you so
much."
She sighed, drew the basket of rolls and bagels
nearer, poked among them.
  Andy sighed. "You're right," he said. "It's not
my finest hour. I'll call her later. She
sleeps late Sundays anyway."
  Rosemary chose a thin slice of bagel.
"We're invited to a fund-raiser for cerebral
palsy," she said.
"Against
it.
  You know. In the ballroom, Wednesday, black
tie. I'm going with Joe. He says he's a
great dancer; is he?"
  Andy shrugged. "Pretty good," He said. Took
a bite.
  "I thought maybe you and Judy ..."
  "Mom," he said, chewing, "she doesn't
appeal
to me anymore. I can't help it. Okay? I
wish I could."
  She spread a thin layer of cheese onto her
bagel slice, squinting at it. "Bring someone
else," she said. "Does Vanessa have a steady?"
  "I don't know," he said.
  She took a small bite and chewed. "I did
a little trading in the Bergdorf boutique," she said.
"Six old-lady outfits for a satin sheath right off
Ginger Rogers" back. I figure if Joe
thinks he's Astaire, I'll humor him. I
hope I didn't go overboard." She took a
larger bite and chewed, peering out the window at something
of interest.
  Watching her, Andy smiled. "Aren't you the foxy
one," he said. "You win, we're a foursome. But after
New Year's we're going on a little vacation
alone, just the two of us. We're going to need it;
we're going to be really busy all month." He
wound the fork's tines around a sliver of salmon on
his plate, frowning. "There's a real danger of the
timing getting screwed up," he said. "We just got
polls showing eleven percent of seniors
worldwide still think the Lighting's at midnight
everywhere. Can you believe it? We're going to have to do
something
more. And there's the PA commercial. I'd like to meet
on it tomorrow at three; is that all right with you?
Craig, Diane, and Hank. Maybe Sandy
too; she comes up with good ideas."
"You
know everybody, I don't."
  He raised the forked curl of salmon and put it
into his mouth, ate it facing her as she sipped.
  She lowered the cup. "Don't do that," she said.
  "Do what?"
  "Just stick with the hazel, Mr. Wise Guy,"
she said. "I ** mean it, Andy. And don't
tell me it was my imagination either."
tJs caret rather caret com*8*8caret com*
  Specific information on representative PA
groups might be useful at the meeting, Rosemary
realized, so she eased past Monday morning's
Film Society meeting with a whispered "Hi,
everybody"-to Craig, Kevin, Vanessa,
Polly, and Lon Chaney Jr., sprouting face
hair- and went right on into what she had begun to think
of as her office. Craig's assistant
Suzanne would be reclaiming it the Monday after
New Year's but maybe they could share it, as long as
there were two desks.
  She searched among the news and documentary
tapes, and was about to recruit a computer-literate
research assistant when she found a tape of a
year-old PBS production called
Anti-Andy.
Watching it, she had some doubts about its overall
objectivity-the narrator, a charming if
loquacious Southerner, was wearing a large i V
andy button- but the footage he eventually got
around to showing spoke concisely for itself, ranging from the
foolish to the frightening.
  The likeliest winner in the foolish division was the
Ayn Rand Brigade, whose half-dozen sallow,
crewcut members wore large dollar signs
painted on their T-shirts and small ones
tattooed below their sweatbands. They opposed tax
exemptions for religious institutions and supported
"In Reason We Trust" on paper
money-everybody's, not just the United States'.
They had hijacked a freight train in
Pittsburgh, tied banners to both sides of the
engine reading pay your taxes, andy and all
witch doctors!, and driven it cross-country with
their one female member at the throttle, a piece
of symbolism based on one of Rand's novels but
by and large meaningless to the general public. The train
had been abandoned in Montana, where the Brigade
was believed to have found refuge in an enclave of
laissez- faire capitalists.
  The middle ground of anti-Andy protesters was
best represented by the ACLU, still around and still fighting
the good fight. Their spokesman made it plain that
he loved Andy and admired everything he had done
to improve race relations, ease the abortion
conflict, settle the Irish troubles, and get the
Arabs and Israelis back yet again to the
negotiating table. Good grief, wasn't he wearing
two
i V andy buttons? He just felt that as long as
Andy was addressing groups like the Joint Chiefs of
Staff and the governors of all the states, then GC
should be renamed WE, for World's Children, and if that was a
problem in Europe, then EC for Earth's Children.
And did Andy really have to lean quite so heavily on his
resemblance to Jesus Christ?
  Sheer rudeness. She was surprised at the
ACLU.
  The frightening anti-Andy group, the Smith
Brothers, were frightening only to her. They had been
joke fodder for late-night comedians,- the Southerner
showed samples.
  Four mountain men more wildly bearded than their
cough-drop namesakes, the Smith Brothers had
holed up in a Tennessee cabin with the latest in
military hardware, bullhorning to the world that Andy was
the son of Satan, the Antichrist, and they weren't
giving up without a fight.
  The FBI had waited them out and they were now in a
federal hospital, shaven, medicated, and undergoing
psychiatric evaluation.
caret caret so caret rf caret caret go caret just
  Mrftie meeting was hugely productive and
over almost 1. before it began. Seven took
part-Andy, Judy (with memo gizmo), Diane,
Craig, Sandy, Hank, and Rosemary-in Andy's
office looking out at the buildings of Central
Park South and midtown. The coffee table was stocked
with veggies and nuts,- they sat around it on a
black leather sofa and chairs, Hank in his
motorized wheelchair.
"You were right, Rosemary!"
Judy had whispered on the way in,
radiant in a buttercup sari, i caret
ANDY'-ED.
"A joyous reunion last night!"
Rosemary was joyous for her.
H
And for Andy too, the lying weasel.
Mom, she doesn't appeal to me anymore, I
can't help it, I wish I could.
She smiled at him, taking a carrot stick from the
bowl he offered, smiling at her.
  Everyone agreed about simple being better than
elaborate, for both effectiveness and fast
production, and from there it was a hop, skip, and jump
to a unanimous decision to use the same technique
that had produced four of Andy's top ten
commercials-which meant that he and Diane would sit in a
couple of easy chairs on the stage of the
amphitheater down on the floor below, the ninth
floor, and schmooze about the PA'S and their rights for a
couple of hours while Muhammed and Kevin worked the
hand-held cameras. Diane would then be edited out and the
footage pared down. And pared, and pared, and pared.
  Except that this time, Diane suggested,
Rosemary should do the schmoozing, her feelings on the
subject obviously being stronger than
Diane's. The PA'S could all be shipped to the
South Pole as far as she was concerned. Rosemary
would also draw richer emotional responses from Andy.
"And leave some of her in," Diane said. "She
radiates honesty and openness."
  Craig said, "What do you say, Rosemary, do
you want to give it a shot? The most we can lose
is a few hours tomorrow morning. Andy, I assume
it's okay with you?"
  From then on it was a party. Andy opened a bottle
of wine, and William and Vanessa came in with
another bottle. William, our ambassador
to Finland under three presidents, was handsome and
white-haired-red tie,

y
  white shirt, blue suit. A fun guy though,
judging from his hand on Vanessa's miniskirted rump.
  Yuriko and Polly came in-Rosemary had
hardly spoken a word with either of them-and Muhammed and
Kevin, fiddling with one of the cameras. Then Jay
swooped in and the whole GCNY inner circle was there,
all the varied team that was holding the fort or just hanging
out during the generous year-end vacation-all thirteen of
them.
  Plus Rosemary. Sipping ginger ale, talking
with Hank and Sandy about the Broadway season, such
as it was, she saw Judy nearby eyeing her
sadly but then radiant again, holding onto Andy's
arm and smiling at him as he spoke with Jay-all
aflutter about notes coming due in January.
Rosemary had to smile too as Andy smoothed
Jay's feathers, giving him his solemn word, right hand
raised, that sufficient funds would be in place by the
first business day of January to meet all of
GC'S legal obligations.
  Diane called downstairs and ordered crab
cakes and the little potato pancakes for fourteen.
  Rosemary talked with Vanessa about motivational
psychology, with Yuriko about computers, with Sandy and
Polly about skin cream.
  When the windows were alight on Central Park
South, and the party was winding down, Diane sent
Muhammed and Kevin and Polly down to make sure
everything was spick-and-span on the ninth floor.
  She talked with Craig a moment, then sent
Yuriko and Vanessa down too.
*-caret szandr8andfandnessffff*j greater-than
  Dapper in his tux, Joe Maffia talked with the
bandleader a moment, then walked back around
the rim of the jam-packed dance floor toward the center
front table for twelve. The cha-cha ended sooner
than was generally expected, and by the time Joe took
Rosemary's hand and Andy stood up and took
Judy's, the musicians had changed books and some
of their instruments, and the bandleader was cuing them into an
Irving Berlin medley.
  When Andy and Judy and Rosemary and Joe
walked onto the floor, everyone else backed off,
clapping warmly but not excessively, forming an
admiring circle within which the two couples orbited
to "Let's Face the Music and Dance." Like in
a movie.
  Smiling at Joe, Rosemary said through her
teeth, "Oh God look at them! They're
looking*.
I can't
stand
this!"
  "Just relax," Joe said, dipping her low, "I
do all the work." He lifted her. "You got a real
winner in this dress, Rosemary. It's perfect for
ballroom. I only wish I'd worn my
tails."
  She relaxed, what choice? The glass
of champagne she'd had helped, and Joe's arm and
hand were surprisingly light.
  "See what I mean?"
  "Hey, Joe, you
are
great..."
  "Ronnie and I went to Roseland twice a
weekst" he said, easing up on the flash. "You
want to go sometime? You could wear shades, plenty of people
do."
  "Let me work up to it."
  "You're there."
  Andy was a good dancer too, whirling white-saried
Judy around with elegance and style-and what man
doesn't
look his absolute best in black tie? "I
give him lessons now and then," Joe said, looking
with her. "He had two left feet when we started."
"Last one in is a rotten egg!"
Andy shouted over Judy's shoulder. The onlookers
laughed-and hustled back onto the floor, jamming it
again as the lights dimmed a point or two and the band
segued into "Change Partners."
  Rosemary breathed a sigh. "Sometimes I'm
glad I had him," she said.
  Joe, smiling, said, "He sure has a knack
for saying the right thing at the right time, doesn't he?
You think it's because he's the son of an actor?"
  She drew a breath. "Who knows?"
  "I didn't mean you didn't contribute too,"
he said. "You know, I'm surprised they haven't
turned up anything on your ex since whatever year it
was. It's like he-was
  Andy tapped Joe's shoulder. "Change
partners," he said. "Orders from Irving Berlin."
  Rosemary and Judy smiled at each other as the
four obeyed.
  Andy favored a tighter hold and the lyrics in the
ear:
"Can't you see, I'm longing to be in his placet
Won't you change partners, and dance with met"
  "Crooning?"
  "It comes under the heading of. Great Communication.
So does the dress." "Back
off,
are you
nuts!"
He backed off, danced her angelically,
devilishly grinning at her. Nodded at dancers
alongside, said, "Love ya."
  She caught her breath, gave him a look as he
turned her.
  He said, "Craig's going crazy trying
to decide what to cut. Of you. He's already edited out
all of me. Really, just about. We're going to call
it the Andy's Mom commercial."
  "Love you both!" a girl of eight or nine
called to them, dancing by on Dad's shoes.
"We're lighting our candles at Colonial
Williamsburg!"
  "Love
you,
darling!" Rosemary called after her.
  "Love ya, sweetheart!" Andy called. He
smiled at Rosemary. "You want to do another
one?" He dipped her low. "About when to light the
candle in which time zone?" Lifted her.
  "I'd love to," she said. "In fact, I'm
thinking about starting a whole career."
  "Don't," he said. Smiled at her.
  "Why not?" she asked him. "I'm the Great
Radiator, aren't I? Wasn't I radiating
yesterday? My New Year's resolution is to start
radiating independent income, with some kind of
interview program. Every network has
invited me to lunch; I'm going to start accepting."
  Looking at her, turning with her, he said, "You
don't want to give too much weight to those guys.
One day they're hot, the next day they're cold."
  She drew back and squinted at him.
  His shoulder shrugged under her hand. He said, "I just
OS
  don't want you getting your hopes up too
high, that's all." He looked away.
  "Oh come
on,"
she said. "Get real, Andrew. They'll be panting
the minute I say I'm interested and they won't
cool down either. You know that's the truth." **He
looked back at her. Nodded. "I guess," he
said.
  was 'Guess"?"
  "We're naming our twins Andrew and
Rosemary!" a woman sang out alongside them,
her green-gowned belly immense; her man chimed in
with, "Love you both!" The band launched into
"Blue Skies."
  "Oh bless you," Rosemary said, swaying with Andy.
"Bless them!
Love you!" She tugged the hair at
Andy's nape,- he looked at the couple. Said
"Love ya"-and watched them as they were borne away
among other dancers.
  Rosemary sighed, smoothed his hair down, rested
her cheek on his shoulder. Sang softly as they
turned together,
"Nothing but blue skies, from now on. Never saw the
sun shining so bright
..."
  Andy looked out over her head. Shook his own head
as if to clear it. Smiled at the people dancing around
them.
ft-A caret from' caret caret teiJust
  Outside the door of Rosemary's suite,
Joe's palms hovered
this close
to her bare shoulders. "Andy's Mom," he said. "I
can hardly believe it."
  The concierge was absent from his desk down the
IE
VIN
  hall. Perhaps he had been clued in that it was a good
time to go take a leak.
  "Joe," Rosemary said, "sometimes I lose
sight of it myself, but Andy's not Jesus and
I'm not Mary. I'm Rosemary Reilly, from
Omaha. The men in the family work for Hormel.
Or used to."
  He took a breath. "Gotcha," he said, and
grabbed her shoulders and kissed her mouth. She
kissed him back, holding him.
  They smiled at each other, and she got the card from
her bag and unlocked the door. They went in.
  She let him go ahead of her, bolted the door
behind her.
Why bandy right-brace She was randy. He was handy.
They got snifters and two miniatures of Remy
Martin from the bar and sat on the sofa with the lights down
low. Hugged and kissed each other.
  A lot.
  "I have to tell you somethingst" Joe said, caressing
her cheek. "I haven't exactly been celibate
since Ronnie and I split, so considering all the
crap around, I think I'd better get myself
checked out before we get into-you know, anything risky.
But I've got a suggestion I'd like to make."
  "What's that?" she asked.
  "Well, I'm thinking about New Year's
Eve," he said. "I know we're all going to light
our candles together, either at the ceremony in the
park or at Gracie Mansion or someplace, but
I thought that maybe later, at midnight, you and I
could light candles, just the two of us. I've got
extras."
  She smiled at him, and said, "That's a great
idea, Joe." They kissed each other.
  He took the snifters from the coffee table and
gave her hers. "I figure we can start the year
off with a bang," he said, smiling. "That's a pun
that's intended." He sipped his brandy, watching her.
  She smiled, sipped hers. Said, "If not at the
beginning of the year 2000, when?"
  He smiled at her. Nodded. "When you stop
to think about it," he said, "I'll bet you a higher
percentage of people are going to be screwing around right after
the Lighting than at any other time in all human
history."
  "You're right," she said. "The year 1000, forget
it." They chuckled.
  "Dullsville!" he said. They pecked each
other's lips. "Jeez," he said, shaking his head,
"this is something I really didn't anticipate!"
  "I did," she said. "The first good look I got
at you, I thought, 'old but sexy." his
  "Thanks a heap, Rosemary."
  "I was thirty-one in my head," she said. "I still
am sometimes."
  He said, "You're about eighteen in your mouth."
  They got rid of the snifters.
she woke up bright and early, feeling fully
recharged despite the smooching till midnight.
  Or because of it, more likely. She'd damn near
forgotten how exciting two-party sex could be, even
with Joe's sensible and admirable limitations. Her
first real contact with a man in ... almost seven years
her
time, add twenty-seven for reality. Ye gods.
  The Kiss didn't count, of course.
  She looked forward to New Year's Eve with
Joe.
  Today was what-Thursday, the ninth? She'd have
to speak to him. How long did it take to get checked
out? And exactly how romantic did they have to be,
time-wise?
  Her New Year's resolution would have to wait for
IE
VIN
  its proper season; more important things came
first, like helping make sure everyone got the Lighting
right, time-wise.i
  Again, as whenever she gave more than passing thought to the
event, the happening, its beauty and symbolic power
thrilled her. She had only learned on Tuesday,
during the schmoozing and taping, about the high-resolution
satellite images that would be coming back to Earth as
the candles were lighted, about the concert-the Boston
Pops, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir-that would be
broadcast live in worldwide stereo. Maybe Andy
was no angel but he was certainly an artist, because
that's what his Lighting was: a major work of
conceptual art, accessible and meaningful to all
humanity.
  He was nuts, of course-weren't so many of them?-
rubbing against her like that right out there among the dancers; a
dozen people must have-
Anywherel
He shouldn't have done it
anywherel
She really had to have another talk with him.
  Opening the draperies, she got a golden sun
smack in the eye
be
raised an arm against its brilliance above the Fifth
Avenue cliff.
Never saw the sun shining so bright!
Never saw so many joggers either. She squinted down
under her forearm at two lanes of shorts and
sweatsuits, jogging in both directions beyond the
southbound taxis and cars on the Park Drive.
Who'd have imagined there were so many health nuts crazy
enough to be out running early on a cold December
morning, under a blue sky, then going on to put in a
full day's work . . .
Never saw things going so right!
In leotards and a
  Hsweatsuit, Garboed up in a muffler, a
floppy-brimmed
  ch"hat, and a big pair of shades-sunglasses
till that very
  bar morning-she jogged with the health nuts, an
incredibly
  J bar attractive assortment of
determined-looking New Yorkers,
  bar bar was most of them sporting i caret andy
buttons, a few in i V
be
f* *.
fj *** andy sweatshirts, others declaring their V
for mozart,
CHOCOLATE, and FIRE ISLAND.
Noticing the days hurrying by! When you're in
love-
she segued into humming.
  And saw, to her surprise-across the drive and beyond
  the park, on Central Park West-the Bram.
Its peaked
  roof and upper turrets anyway, screened
by tree
  J greater-than branches. Or
was
it the Bram? The little she could see
  Ibblooked different somehow. Lighter.
  She waited till the taxis and cars were checked
by a traffic light farther north, and crossed the
drive.
  She followed a road that sloped up, curving
rightward; walked its verge, cars passing close on
her left. Nearing Central Park West, the road
curved leftward and the whole of the Gothic brick
building came into view. The Bramford, all right.
  It had been cleaned up-sandblasted, or steamed,
or whatever they were doing nowadays. Black Bramford
had become Pale Peach Bramford. The gargoyles
were gone,- the stars and stripes waved atop the roof's
pinnacle.
  Andy's Boyhood Home.
  Smiling, she shook her head. T-shirts were
probably on sale in the courtyard-an assortment
of Andy and one each of Theodore Dreiser and
Isadora Duncan. Did they have any shirts with
pictures of Adrian Marcato and his
  mementos of Satan? Of the Trench sisters
sauteing sweet Daphne? Of Pearl Ames and
her pets?
  A woman sobbed behind her. f
  She turned, and saw, beyond a slatted snow fence
and a span of shrubbery, a clearing lower down where a
few people stood in a circle. The sobbing woman,
young, in black, was being led away from the gathering by an
older woman.
  Rosemary shut her eyes. Sliding her
fingertips in under her glasses, she pressed tight
at her eyeballs, swaying.
  The Unthinkable, the one thought she had stopped herself
from even
thinking
of thinking about from the very first moment she'd seen Andy on
TV
exactly a month ago today-
the Unthinkable tapped her on the shoulder.
  She lifted her head, lowered her shades, brushed
the Unthinkable's hand away. Tugged her hat down
snug, wound her muffler over her mouth, and went
looking for a path to the clearing.
  She found one bending back from the road she'd been
on, an asphalt lane curving down past a
sign,
Strawberry Fields,
to where six or seven people stood around a wide
black-and-white-patterned disc set in the ground,
a few flowers and folds of paper on it. Some of the
men and women looked down, as if praying; others
gazed mournfully ahead. Other people, farther away,
aimed cameras at the gathering, came closer aiming
their cameras at the disc, clicking at it.
  A stately Mediterranean-looking woman
spilled an armful of red roses onto the disc,
her eyes closed, her red
  lips moving. She was all in black like the younger
woman, who sat, still sobbing, with her mother or whoever,
on one of the surrounding benches.
  Rosemary tried to stay calm, sure she was
having some kind of vision, as the Unthinkable chiseled
itself into her head: andy is 33-the same age as
jesus when
HE WAS NAILED TO THE CROSS.
These people across from Andy's boyhood home were gathered
around a shrine that didn't exist yet. But would
someday.
She drew a deep breath and walked closer to it,
hands clenching at her sides.
  The disc was a mosaic of black and white
tiles, its pattern a wheel with curiously jagged
spokes. At its center a four-letter word lay inset
in black capitals amid the mass of red roses;
she raised the glasses to be sure of it-magi.
  What it signified she couldn't imagine, what
wise men were being invoked or heralded and why. But
did it matter? She lowered the glasses and walked
on past the mourners, fixing her hat and muffler;
walked faster down another path leading toward the
drive, jogged down it seeing the top of the
gold-glass tower half a mile away, bumping
into someone, jogging on. She called back over her
shoulder,
"I'm sorry, excuse me!"
An oldster in a Yankees cap and an i V
symbols sweatshirt shook a fist after her.
"Watch where you're going, Greta Garbo!"
She slowed herself down at the drive,
waited, and jogged across into the southbound lane.
  Jogged in the stream of joggers toward Andy in the
tower of blinding gold sunshine.
*-@lZ3andr8@.andfand.9
  He had told her Tuesday that her card had been
validated for the lobby entry to the private
elevator,- she hadn't expected to make use of
it. She touched 10, rocketed upward. It was still
early, but he was usually at his desk by eight, he
and the media said.
  He was there this morning. When she was halfway through
his quarter floor of empty cubicles with barren
desks, she heard him speaking to someone doggedly,
trying to get a word in. As she neared the open door
to his anteroom, she heard him clearly.
"Please? Please? Will you-
Hey! Please!
Just let me finish, okay? Half the billboards
aren't even up yet,
more
than half in China and South America, but they're
all going to be up by Friday the latest,
everywhere."
  She went into the anteroom-Judy wasn't at
her desk yet-and went on across the
anteroom toward the open door of Andy's office.
"We're absolutely saturating TV from
Monday the thirteenth right through to the end of the month with the
two commercials you yourself said got the point across most
clearly, the kid and his grandfather and-You
did backslash
Just the other day! Oh
shit
..."
  She could see his hand raking through his tawny hair
above the chair back as he sat facing the window behind
his desk. She put hat and glasses into one hand,
raised
  the other to the door-and paused, not wanting
to interrupt him. Sniffed coffee.
  "The numbers are going to get better, I
promise you; I honestly don't think it's necessary
or practical, and it just doesn't seem like the right
thing to- Well of
course
she'll want to, I know that." His chair turned
around and he looked at her.
  She stepped into the office, turning her hands out
apologetically.
  He smiled, beckoned. "Rene," he
said to the phone, standing up in a GC sweatshirt and
jeans. "Excuse me. Excuse me.
Rene,
my mother just came in; could we cut it short,
please?" He came around to the side of the desk as
she came farther into the office. "Yes," he said.
"I will." He said to her, "He says
bonjour.
The airport."
  "Oh," she said, recalling the elderly
Frenchman whose hand she had shaken. She waggled
fingers.
  "Mom says
bonjour
back," he said, eye-smiling at her. "We'll
talk when you're home, okay? Have a good flight.
And please, thank Simone for the generous offer and
tell her I wish there were time to schedule a
dozen
more concerts.
Ciao
to the lovely granddaughters." He put the phone
down. "Whew," he said, coming to her, wiping his hands
back over his brow and hair. "Thanks for rescuing
me. He's one of our main supporters
and a sweet old guy but what a worrier!" He
wiped his hands on his jeans. "And his wife is the
world's worst soprano."
  He held her shoulders, kissed her cheek.
  She leaned against him, her cheek against his shoulder,
held him; listened to his heart beating as his arms
I
EVI n
  enclosed her. He said, "You're cold; were you
running outside?"
  "Mm-hmmst" she said, staying cldse against him.
  "With Joe?"
  "Alone."
  "And nobody bothered you?"
  She raised the hand with the hat and glasses.
  He drew back, looked down at her.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
  She said, "I've been worrying about you."
Looked up at him. "I'm afraid-something awful
might happen to you . . ."
  He sighed, nodded. "It's possible," he said.
"Awful things happen to awful people all the time. Look
at Stan Shand. Kersplat."
  "Oh
don't,"
she said, hitting his arm.
  He said, "Did you have something particular in mind?"
  "No," she said. "I just got scared. Up across
from the Bram ..." She looked at him.
  "Did you see what they did to it?" he asked.
  She nodded.
  "I feel guilty about it," he said.
"That
isn't what scared you; what did? I can see you're
upset ..." He stroked her back.
  She said, "I saw ..."
  "What?" he asked, stroking, looking down at
her.
  She shrugged, sighed. "Just a man with an
anti-Andy sign ..."
  "An "Original Son of Liberty"?" he
said. "They're a joke, like the Ayn Rand
Brigade. Don't worry, I'm as safe
  or unsafe as the next guy. Safer.
Everybody loves me, remember?"
  "If people found out..." She looked at him.
  "Don't tell," he said, "I won't. Want
some coffee? I just got a pot. Nice and fresh."
  She sighed and said, "I'd love some."
  He kissed her head and they let go of
each other. She unwound her muffler as he went to the
side table by the desk. "Go with Joe next time,"
he said. "Or me
be
I keep meaning to jog. Or with security. If
someone recognized you, you could have been mobbed."
  "Okay," she said, sitting on the sofa. She
rubbed her hands.
  He brought her a GC mug of coffee lightened
to the right shade, with a spoon and a packet of
sweetener. "Actually, I was going to call you in a
few minutes," he said, sitting down in a side
chair with a mug of his own. "Before Rene," he said,
nodding toward the desk, "I was talking with Diane.
She's had one of her theatrical brainstorms, but
it's nothing essential and you shouldn't feel any
pressure to do it, I really mean that. If you want
to get right onto your own plans next week, I can
have Judy set up appointments for you with the networks
or you could-was
  "Cut to the chase, Andy," she said.
  "We go to Ireland," he said. "Next week for a
few days. Dublin and Belfast. Because of your
Irish roots and my lightening up the IRA. The
idea is, they'll go more ape over us there
than anywhere else and it'll get maximum
coverage worldwide, maybe GCUK can get the King
to move up his visit, and we'll mention the
  time-zone thing every five minutes. I can see this is
going to be a hard sell."
  She sat back, blinked a few tinies, and
squinted at him, putting her mug down. "Of
course
I want to do x/" she said. "Andy, I don't
understand you." She leaned close to him, took his hands.
"You act as if we're selling
cigarettes,"
she said. "We're promoting a wonderful,
beautiful event that's going to stir and caret excite
the entire world! Don't minimize it; the Lighting
is a work of
art. I
mean that. We had
lots
of artist friends, Guy and I, and some of them created
'happeningsst public events that people participated in and
were enriched by, so I know what I'm talking about.
The Lighting is going to be the greatest happening ever."
  Andy sighed. "Okay, Mom," he said, "I'll
stop minimizing it."
  "Of
course
we'll go to Ireland," she said. "I always meant
to someday." She shook her head. "How I wish
Brian and Dodie weren't on that cruise ..."
  "It'll just be the two of us," he said.
  She looked at him.
  He smiled at her. "That was the champagne last
night," he said. "Otherwise I never would have rubbed
against you like that. I'll behave. Really." He
tiger- flashed.
  "My angel Andy," she said, and thought a moment
while he waited, watching her. "No," she said,
"I'm definitely going to need a secretary at
my side. Preferably someone I know and have a
rapport with. Any suggestions?"
  He sighed and said, "Not off the top of my head,
but I'll try to think of someone."
  "Good," she said. "And my boyfriend comes too."
He looked at her. Said, "Your boyfriend?" She
nodded. "That's the way we big stars travel."
She ** smiled, batting her lashes at him.
He didn't seem amused.
on monday morning, December 20th, the day after
they got back from Ireland, Judy hitched
up the skirt of her sari, said "Excuse me,
gotta run," and cut in front of Hank's
wheelchair to chase after Rosemary down the
tenth-floor center hallway.
  She caught up with her outside the ladies"
room and pulled her in. "Rosemary, I've got
to talk to you," she said, closing the door. She
crouched, checked under stall doors, and stood up,
catching her breath, smoothing her sari.
  "My gosh, Judy," Rosemary said, rubbing her
arm. "From still
Walked with a Zombie
to this? I'm glad you've recovered."
  "I'm sorry," Judy said. "About the way I
behaved-it
  was all I could do to get through the trip-and for hurting
you now. I'm so anxious to get out of here. I'm
leaving. Please, can we get together caret this
evening? We must!"
"Leaving*"
Rosemary said.
  Judy nodded. "Leaving GC, leaving New
York."
  "Oh
Judy,
I know you and Andy have problems-was
  "Had," Judy said. "It's over. I knew it
the second night in Dublin. Remember? That was
trie night he had the fever, after you and he got
caught in the rain-where was it, in the park?"
  Rosemary nodded.
  Judy sighed. "He used to like it when I had
to play nurse or Mommy-all men do, or so I
hear-but that night he-oh, I'll tell you later.
Please, you
have
to make time. There's too much to tell you now, and I
have
to tell you before I go. And I want your counsel
too about certain things."
  "Judy," Rosemary said, "in
my
culture, which is basically Omaha with a thin
overlay of New York, women really don't like
hearing details about their sons" private
affairs."
  "It's nothing like that," Judy said. "Not in the
sense you mean. It involves matters you'll be
reading about anyway, in April or May, if not
sooner."
  Rosemary looked at her. "What do you mean?"
she asked.
  "I'll tell you everything later," Judy said.
"And I beg you, don't tell Andy I'm leaving.
I'll call him tomorrow or late tonight, but I'll never
make the break if I have to face him. He gives
me his soul-searching looks and
  romantic words and completely derails me every
time; I despise myself for it."
  Rosemary drew a breath, and said, "Okay.
Tonight. Eight o'clock?"
  "Thank you," Judy said, taking her hands,
clasping * them. "Thank you."
  They went out into the hallway. Hank sat waiting
a few yards away, his moon face aglow, his
eyes twinkling behind his glasses. "Okay,
Rosemary," he said, "let's have the scoop about you
and the King!"
  Judy said, "Oh yes please! I intended
to broach the subject!"
  "There is
no scoop whatsoever,"
Rosemary said. "You know those Brit reporters,
so-called. He kissed my hand; what was he
supposed to do, slap me?"
  "Oh well," Hank said, "there's fun news
here. I've got the weekend poll results."
  "They're good?" Rosemary asked.
  Judy, touching her shoulder, said, "They're great.
See you later." She kissed Rosemary's cheek,
said "Hank ..."
  "Take care," Rosemary said, and moved closer
to Hank's chair.
  "For the first full week the commercial's been
running," Hank said, was "Make them light
candles" is down from an average of twenty-two
percent to thirteen. Look."
  "I don't believe it," Rosemary said, bending
to read printouts. She whistled, read.
  Hank smiled, watching her. He leaned his head
sideways, said, "Hi."
  Rosemary turned, standing straight, and said "Hi"
to Sandy in the ladies' room doorway-serene and
blond in
  high-collared beige, even more
TippiHedrenin-The-
Birds
than usual. She must have been in one of the farthest
stalls-too far away, surely, fto have overheard
what Judy had said.
  Coming out smiling, Sandy said,
"Hello.
Welcome back. I was hoping you wouldn't be too
jet-lagged to come in. What an exciting trip that
must have been! You were a vision in the Belfast gown."
  "See you later," Hank said, wheeling around and
heading up the hallway.
  "All right,
givel"
Sandy said, coaxing Rosemary with both red-nailed
hands. "What's with His Majesty?"
"Absolutely nothing,"
Rosemary said. "You know those Brit reporters,
so-called."
  They followed after Hank's chair, their heads
close together.
  Craig came down the hallway. He and Hank
played at blocking and pushing, then Hank showed him
the printouts and everybody huddled over them a minute
or two.
  Then Rosemary waved and went into the TV
division, Hank rode on up the hallway, and
Craig headed for the men's room. Sandy stayed where
she was. "Craig," she said. "We have to talk when
you're through."
eAs caret rs caret so caret isis
  One of the strangest things to the fresh eyes and ears
of Rip Van Rosie was the way everybody in
1999 wrote and talked about terrorists
claiming responsibility
  for their atrocities. Sister Agnes would have
split her ruler and deepened the scars in her desk:
"We
claim
that which is good!"
Whap! "Responsibility
implies intelligence and maturity!"
Whap!
"They're
admitting guiltl" Whap! "Shame
on those who say otherwise!"
Whap!
Though Andy had cooled terrorism way down from last
year's terrible peak, acts of violent barbarity still
occurred, and not only in the Middle East. The
morning they landed in Belfast, they had learned that
over six hundred people in Hamburg had been killed
by a new variant of an old terrorist gas. No
one had yet "claimed responsibility." The
affected area, a dozen square blocks
near the harbor, was still toxic. Details were being
withheld.
  Rosemary had spoken to Andy on the plane home
about the possibility of his doing a commercial or
speech aimed at getting everyone to stop speaking
Terrorist, so that those of them remaining and growing up
would be goosed in the direction of thinking Civilized.
He had agreed it was a good idea for next year, but
he hadn't sounded wildly enthusiastic, so she was
putting together some thoughts on possible approaches
she'd stored in her memo gizmo, with the aim of either
getting him more stirred up or doing something herself on the
subject somewhere down the line.
  That was what she really wasn't concentrating on
while she waited for him to call about the nine-point
drop in "Make them light candles." That's
radiation!
  He was busy with someone. He had to have seen the
printouts by now.
  After another half hour or so, she called him-and
got his recorded message.
  She called Hank and got
his
message.
  She got up to speak to Craig. Opened
the door and goggled.f
  No Film Society!
  No Craig, no Kevin, no nobody . . .
  Nothing on the three TV'S,- how's
that
for weird?
  She moved out amid the empty cubicles, where,
if she cocked an ear and squinted, she could usually
detect signs of life in the central hallway
and the legal division beyond-a shift of light, a
footfall, the far-off artillery of a computer game
. . .
  Not today.
  Stillness unbroken.
  She went back into the office.
  Called Sandy, got
her
message.
  She looked at the date of the
Times-
Monday, December 20, 1999 (hamburg death
toll mounts ...)- and finally realized why everybody
had taken off so mysteriously.
  And why she should take off too. Right now.
  Only five more shopping days till
Christmas.
"Asg greater-than r8@.@.fcctei caret
  In her shades and a kerchief, dark sweater, and
slacks, she browsed the Christmas-decorated
windows of the lobby boutiques. Bellmen waved
white-gloved fingers,- she waved back, paused for a
laugh and a word. "You know those British reporters
..."
  She had sent sweaters from Dublin to her whole
list of siblings, siblings-in-law, nephews, and
nieces-but that still left everyone here to find gifts for:
the GC crew (seven men, five women), a few
members of the hotel staff who had earned more than just
cash in an envelope (two men, two women), and
Andy and Joe.
  Andy, of course, had presented a problem.
  Last Christmas had been a breeze-a
tricycle, jigsaw puzzles, and
a
couple of Dr. Seuss books. This Christmas,
a little over six months later, was different somehow,
with him nearly twenty-eight years older and knowing who
his real father was. Not a problem of what, but of
whether.
  Give
him
a present for His birthday?
  Yes, she had decided. In a way it was like the
don'tspeak-Terrorist thing: keep him aware of the
alternative.
  She priced gloves in the Gucci boutique,
costume jewelry at Lord
and
Taylor, cologne at Chanel.
  In the Hermes boutique she picked out half a
dozen kerchiefs and a scarf. She would give the scarf
to Judy tonight-if she couldn't get her to change her
mind about leaving. Couldn't she and Andy stay friends?
(and what had she meant by that unsettling "matters
you'll be reading about anyway, in April or
May"?)
  She paid with her credit card, reminding herself that
regardless of who had planned and initiated
GC'-AND let's not think about
him
at this time of year!-its funding today came mainly from
plutocrats like Rene What's-his-disnom, who also
contributed to a separate fund earmarked
specifically for Andy's personal expenses; he
had told her about it when he had given her
the card,
  before they left for Ireland. No one in his or her
right mind expected people today to identify withand be guided
by someone who didn't live fyell. Get real,
Mom. As for the dimes and dollars, and pesos et
cetera that came in to GC'S offices, that money
all went entirely to local social programs and
expenses; the IRS and its foreign cousins saw
to that.
  Okay. But she looked forward to Christmas
shopping with her own money next year.
  In the Sulka boutique she examined a handsome
black satin robe trimmed and lined in royal
blue that would be super on Andy. Wildly
expensive, of course, and maybe a little too
bedroomy, but a possibility . ..
  She got back to the suite a little after four,
having kept a two-thirty appointment for a hair
touch-up and questions about the King. She'd barely gotten
the shades off when the private line beeped; Andy
had been trying to reach her.
  "Hi, I wasn't going to bother you with this but then
I remembered, wasn't
Luther
one of the plays Andy's father was in on
Broadway?" Diane, an
assumer-youknowthe-voice.
  Rosemary said, "Yes ..."
  "I thought so. You may want to give these kids a
hand. They're doing a revival of it,
off-Off-Broad way, just started rehearsals. It
turns out the owner of the space is a Lutheran; he
says it's heresy and he's kicking them out on some
technicality. The check was two seconds late."
  "If he's a Lutheran why does he think it's
heresy?" Rosemary asked. "It's a pro-Luther
play."
  bar bar con8Do I know what's in the man's head?
All I know is bef bar they've got two days
before they're out on the sidewalk, bar like they're
having some kind of rally, and the director is the if
granddaughter of an old friend. If you could give them
  five minutes on freedom of speech, it would
get them ** on the news and in the papers and save
the day. That's
  the theory. Frankly I don't think the landlord will
  budge,- he's pulled crap like this before and gotten
away
  with it."
MV' less-than
m
Rosemary said,
"Where and when is this rally right-brace was
H She called Judy at her apartment. Got her
message and held on. After the beep she said,
"Judy, this is Rosemary. Could we possibly-was
  "I'm here, Rosemary. What is it?" "Hi,"
she said. "Could we possibly make it a little later
tonight? There's this rally for some kids who are putting on
a show ..." She explained.
  "Yes, of course! Help them! What a terrible
thing fp when people try to stop the expression of ideas!
Ip Although, if the check was late and the man owns the
  conbar to " property-was
  greater-than bar bar was
  32ar bar "I'll be back by nine, according
to Diane," Rosemary
  psd, "but it's on Carmine Street in the
Village so let's
stbledft:"
say nine-thirty to be safe."
  "That's fine for me. I'm packing; I can use the
time." "Don't be in such a hurry," she said.
"Let's talk a little."
  "My mind is made up. Speak
well. What do they say? 1 I Break a leg."
  She called Diane. Said only a low-pitched
"Okay."
  "Oh good. It just may work; wouldn't
that
be nice. I'll arrange for a car.
Seven-thirty?"
  "I'm going to call Joe," she said. "If he
wants to go, he may want to give his own car a
workout. I'll call back. Have you seen Andy today?"
  "I haven't seen anyone except my maid.
I'm in bed with sciatica."
  "Oh, I'm
sorry,
Diane!"
  She called Joe at his apartment.
  "Yeah, sure. We can use my car. Will
he
be there?"
  "Andy?"
  "The Lutheran."
  "Joe," she said.
  "Maybe we have some friends in common, that's all.
I know theater owners. What time?"
  She called Diane and got the
address. "Your contact is the stage manager,
Phil something. Oh, and congratulations on the
polls!" The buzzer buzzed, Andy's buzz.
  "Andy's here now," Rosemary said. "I'll let
you know how it goes."
  "Give him my-was
  She clapped the phone down and hurried to the door
as Andy buzzed again. She opened and roses came at
her, rose-smelling roses round and red like the roses
surrounding magi.
  Andy beamed at her-too brightly? "Count them,"
he said, giving her the bundle of stems wrapped in
the lobby florist's gold paper.
  "They're beautiful," she said, cradling the
bouquet, "thank you"-watching his face as he came
in and closed the door. "Is something wrong?" she
asked.
  "You jest," he said. "Count them."
  Nine.
  "For the nine-point drop," he said. "That's
radiation!"
  "That's what still thought!" They pressed cheeks,
kissed them. "Oh thank you, darling," she said, "they
really are ** beautiful!" She nuzzled her
face in the roses.
  "Your hair looks different," he said,
unzipping his jacket.
  "You like it? Ernie got inspired." She showed him
both sides.
  Squinting, his head cocked, he said, "Mmmmm
. . . it's going to take a
teeny
bit of getting used to."
  "I love it," she said, opening the kitchen as he
took his jacket off and dropped it. "Where've you
been all day?" She opened a cabinet.
  "The Mayor flew a bunch of us up
to Albany," he said, "to beg the Governor about the
hospital bill."
  She got out a cut-glass vase. "And that's how
you dressed?"
  "Yeah," he said. Nodded. "And boy, was the
Governor pissed off." They smiled at each
other. He leaned against the counter, watching her as she
put the roses into the vase. He said, "The thing I
had on for tonight was canceled. You want to go to a
movie?"
  "Can't," she said, leaning back, squinting.
"I'm speechifying, briefly." She explained,
jockeying the roses.
  He said, "I'd love to hear you."
  "Come on along," she said, "but Joe's taking
me in his car. "It's a two-seater, isn't it?"
  "Three, "he said.
  Running water into the vase with the spray hose, she
looked at him and said, "On one condition."
  "What's that88f
  "Not one 'old buddyst 'old man," or "old
palst was she said. "Not one in the entire evening."
  "What are you
talking
about?" he said. "I don't-was
  "Oh
Andy,"
she said, wiping the vase,
"honestlyl
I really expect a little more subtlety from you. You
know perfectly well what I mean."
  "All right," he said, walking away toward the
TV, "all right, all right. .."
  "I'm going inside," she said, carrying the vase
to the coffee table. "I want to rest and make some
notes. If you're staying, there's half a
ham-and-Swiss in the fridge. Or just take it with
you if you want. I'm going to order something
around six. Joe's coming at seven- thirty."
  "Here's Van Buren." Andy stood at the
TV, holding the remote. "Did you hear? He
cut both gun lines out of his stump speech."
  "Because of the
commercial!"
she asked.
  "He reads polls."
  Mike Van Buren, in a cowboy hat, against a
blue sky, his breath pluming, said above several
hand-held microphones, "comsides can cool down a
little, don't you? The Original Sons of Liberty
now say that if they're not being pushed, they'll
reconsider lighting, so it really does look as
if, thanks to Rosemary's thoughtful, heartfelt
message, and Andy's too of course, we're all
coming together as a nation."
  Andy clapped his chest. "My career is over!"
he cried.
  Laughing, Rosemary said, "Oh God, he's
moving toward the center,- he'll be the next
president because of us!"
  Chuckling, channel-hopping, Andy said, "No
way, I promise you."
  *" "You never know in politics," she
said. Ifbb8Trust me on this one," he said.
A truly hellish night. The speech was just about the
only thing that went well. The audience was smaller
than Rosemary had expected-about thirty young men and
women, the actors in the show and their friends-but they
couldn't have been more responsive and supportive; it
was almost as if they were her partners in some kind of reading
or rehearsal or happening. The space was a
four-story brownstone's ground floor, its platform
stage smaller than the half-moon in GC'S
amphitheater. Squeezing even a minimal
Luther
onto it was going to be a real challenge for
Diane's friend's granddaughter (who was having a
detached retina repaired at St. Vincent's,
Phil the stage manager said).

  Rosemary got easy laughs quoting some of
Hutch's put-downs of religious-fundamentalist
library purifiers- he'd had a run-in with them
over a scene in one of his boys" adventure
books where the boys went skinny- dipping and sat
around the campfire eating beef jerky- and thanks
to an assist from the information line of the New York
Public Library, she was able to quote
accurately from Tom Paine and Tom Jefferson
too. She preached effectively to the converted, who
gave her a really big hand then gathered round for
autographs, congratulating her and telling her she
was great and to go for it and things like that. Andy sat in a
back corner of the room on one of the plastic stack
chairs, his legs out and crossed at the ankles, his
arms folded, his head lowered. Joe, next to him,
beamed at Rosemary, giving her two thumbs up and
Andy an elbow.
  The hellishness came before and after.
  First there was the fire a few blocks east of
Carmine Street-big enough to attract all
approaching TV mobile units.
  Then, at eight-thirty, when Phil said they would
wait no longer and make do with the footage from the
video- cams in the audience, just as everyone was
getting seated again and he was raising his hands for
silence- came the police cars.
  And the bomb squad. With the truck and the dogs.
  A warning had been phoned in by someone representing
a group called Lutherans Against Luther-the play,
not the man, the woman had specified. They were
claiming responsibility for a bomb that was going to go
off at nine o'clock. Ninety-nine chances out
of a hundred
  it was a hoax but the entire building had to be
evacuated immediately and searched from top to bottom.
Sorry, folks.
  Joe was ready to go get the car but Rosemary was more
irked than ever at the incredible selfishness of some people
who claimed to believe in Jesus Christ; and besides,
being psyched up and having a sympathetic audience on
tap, she felt the speech could be a good warmup or
try out for longer speeches to tougher audiences.
  Andy shrugged.
  Joe said, "You're the boss"-to her, not him.
  She borrowed Phil's phone-he was young and
cheerful, with wide-set blue eyes like Leah
Fountain's, the same weak chin too-and backed across
the crowded blocked-off street to the lee of a deli
window, wrapping her coat more tightly around her.
Everybody else-Andy, Joe, Phil, the
actors, half of Carmine Street-was checking out
the men and women coming down from the building's top two
floors, Dominique's Dungeon.
Flexible standards, that rat-ftnk landlord.
She shook her head, waiting through Judy's
message. "It's Rosemary," she said. "Are you
there?" She ought to have been; her apartment on
West End Avenue was only a short walk from the
Tower. "There's no way I'm going to be back
by nine-thirty," Rosemary said, craning to see who
or what the crowd was cheering. "We've had a bomb
scare. Ten o'clock is more likely. I'll call the
desk and tell them to tell whoever's on seven to let
you in, in case I'm not back by then."
  She did that.
  It was well past nine-thirty when she finally got
up
  there in front of that sympathetic, responsive,
supportive audience.
  The hellishness resumed when "Andy, about to fold
himself into the back of Joe's classic black
AlfaRomeo roadster, discovered a three-inch,
shiny-new scratch low on the left rear fender.
Joe, scowling, silent, drove them around the block
to the
garage
where the car had been parked; there he climbed out,
reintroduced himself to the attendant, a large
shaven-headed man with one gold earring, and invited him
to see the scratch. The man said he was seeing it for the
first time, which Joe found hard to believe. It was after
ten when Rosemary persuaded him that she
really wanted to get home, and that lawyers, not
threats, were the next logical step if it was really
that important.
  "If? "Joe said.
"If right-brace was
That was roughly when the water main was bursting at the
intersection of Eighth Avenue and Thirty-ninth
Street.
  "I'm telling you, Rosie, you couldn't have been
better," Joe said as they sat locked in traffic
between Thirty-second and Thirty-third Streets.
"You had them in the palm of your hand all the way."
  "Oh please," she said. "That was the friendliest
audience anybody ever spoke to. I could have"-she
shook her head, waved a hand at him-"the
phone book."
"Go on, you were great." He buffed at the dashboard
with the heel of a hand. "Wasn't she, Andy?"
  "You were."
  Rosemary turned around, squinted at him,
sitting
  huddled behind them. Glints of light brushed his
hair, cheekbones, beard. "Are you all right? "she
asked.
  He stayed silent, then said, "No, not
really. I must have eaten something ..." He moved a
hand to his middle.
  * "Ahhh," she said, reaching over the seat,
touching his other hand on his knee. "I hope it
wasn't that ham-andSwiss ..."
  "No, I don't think so," he said.
  "Ham, you got to be careful," Joe said,
putting a tape in the deck.
  They rolled, in a slow tide of taller
traffic, across Thirty-third Street and up Tenth
Avenue, while Ella Fitzgerald sang the
living Berlin Songbook.
She was more than halfway through it when, after eleven,
they were finally back on Eighth Avenue heading up
through the Forties. Rosemary didn't fret unduly
about Judy
be
she'd either be asleep on the sofa or, more likely,
doing anagrams with the Scrabble tiles.
Roast Mules!
She'd have to beg her for the answer again, really literally
get down on her knees and
beg
this time-just in case Judy did take off for parts
unknown. Maddening, the time wasted pushing around
those ten damn tiles!
  "Clear sailing from here on in," Joe said.
  "Bite your tongue."
  "No, you." He watched in the mirror, easing
to the right, slowing. A howling police car flinging red and
white lights raced past them, another car following,
lights flailing, the howls dropping pitch as they
passed. Ella sang that as far as she was concerned, it
was a lovely day, and everything was okay.
  "It's a hellish night, Ella," Rosemary
said, watching the police-car lights shrinking ahead.
  Ella countered with,
"Isn't this caret a lovely day to be caught in
the raint You were going on your way, now you've got
to remain-was
"Get the news," Rosemary said.
  "I like this."
  "Me too," Joe said, looking in the mirror,
easing right and slowing again. Rosemary jabbed at the
dash, pushed buttons. "Ooh!" Joe said.
"Okay. Middle button. Take it easy."
An ambulance screamed past them. "Oho!" he
said, smiling at her, his brows raised. "We've
got our Irish up!"
  She drew a breath, relaxed into the
bucket seat.
  A woman talked about flooded basements in
Hell's Kitchen, disrupted subway service.
About the fire on West Houston Street-two people
dead, ten families homeless four days before
Christmas.
  Rosemary sighed, shook her head. Turned around
as a howling police car raced past them, lights
flailing. "How you doing?" she asked.
  "So-so."
  "Andy," she asked, her chin on her hand on the
seat top, "who does Phil remind you of?"
  He stayed silent.
  She said, "Leah Fountain. The eyes? The chin?"
  He said, "Yes, you're right."
  "Uh-oh."
  She turned. They were stopped for the light at
Columbus Circle; up ahead, on the left, a
dazzle of
  lights, red-white-amber, spun-flashed-blinked
at the base of the Tower. She said, "Oh God
..."
  Joe patted her coat-covered thigh. "Could be
nothing," he said. Left his hand there.
  Andy gave a laugh. "A bomb scare.
Lutherans Against * Luther."
  "I'm glad you're feeling better," Rosemary
said, squinting ahead against the flashing lights.
  Joe took his hand from her thigh and shifted into first.
9-@lzbb@lr8@.andiffand-9
  caret That If
That
gives?" he asked out the window.
  V V The cop letting them through to the garage
entrance crouched and said, "A murder, that's all they
told me. Love you, Rosemary!"
  They drove down the ramp, down the ramp, down
the ramp, down the ramp. On the lower level,
Joe pulled up in front of the uniformed
attendant; she hurried around the car, bent, and
opened Rosemary's door. "Hey, Rosemary!"
she said. "You looked so cool over there!"
  "Thanks," Rosemary said, climbing-with a hand
52ar from the attendant-out of the ridiculously low
car.
A man his age . . .
Spotting the embroidered name, she said, "Thanks,
Keesha," and pointed upstairs. "Do you know anything
about-was
  Keesha leaned close, brown eyes
wide. "A woman been killed," she said. "In
the lobby, in a boutique. Blood all over."

*
  Rosemary drew breath.
"Where
did you say?" Andy asked, looking up, halfway
out of his berth. Rosemary gave him a hand. "A
boutique," she said along with Keesha.
  He stood up, frowning. Arched his back, kneading
at it.
  "What is it?" Joe asked, standing on the other
side.
  "A woman been killed," Keesha said, going
around the hood of the Alfa. "In a boutique. I
don't know which."
  Rosemary said, "I want to get upstairs.
Andy, you go right up to your place and take something and
get into bed. You look awful. Do you have any
Pepto-Bismol or anything like that?"
  "I'll be okay," he said.
  She put her hand to his forehead, held it there,
looking away, frowning. He stood still, watching her.
"You don't have a fever," she said, lowering her hand,
looking at him, "but take a couple of
aspirin anyway. Do you have tea? Make some, or
order some."
  "You were really good," he said. "Even a tough
audience would have started thinking."
  She said, "Praise from the master.
Merci.
Do what I said."
  She walked with him to the authorized personnel
only door, kissed his cheek as he ran his card
through the lock. Joe came over and held the door
open while Andy carded the elevator door and went
into the red- and-brass cab, turned to them. "Thanks
for the wheels, Joe baby," he said. Smiled at
her as the cab closed.
  "Get
him,"
Joe said, letting the outer door close. "Joe
Hollywood."
  Smiling, she said, "Let's call it a night,
okay? I'm bushed."
  "Me too," he said. They linked arms and hands,
and walked toward the elevators. "Slow driving like
that is murder," he said. "Wrong word."
"I
wonder who she is, poor woman." She
shuddered.
  "We'll hear tomorrow. I wonder which boutique.
Talk about shit publicity." He touched the
button.
  They kissed each other.
  "You were great," he said.
  "Thanks," she said. "And thanks for taking us.
I'm sorry about the scratch."
  "Thanks for reminding me."
  When she came out of the elevator, Luis was at
the desk, with the phone at his ear, pushing buttons,
shaking his head. "I never saw anything like this before,"
he told her, putting the phone down, standing up.
"Every line is busy. Is it true? A murder in
one of the boutiques? Dogs went crazy?"
  "I didn't hear
that,"
she said, "but the other ..." She nodded. "A
woman."
  He crossed himself.
  "Did you let Judy Kharyat in?" she
asked.
  "Dennis told me to," he said, "but she
didn't show up."
  She stood looking at him a moment, and
said, "Thanks," and turned and went down the hall,
getting out her card.
  "Are you still expecting her?"
"Yes!"
she called, walking faster.
  She let herself in and went to the private-line
phone in the living room.
  Zero messages.f
  She picked up the phone, tapped Judy's
number.
  Closed her eyes, listening to the message.
  Opened them. "Judy, this is Rosemary," she
said. "Pick up if you're there . . . This is
important. Judy? Please pick up."
  She waited. tilde tilde
Beep, dial tone.
She hung up.
  Shucked her coat off onto a chair, stood in
her i caret andy sweatshirt and jeans.
Judy
down there? Grabbed by some maniac on her way in?
  Or was she somehow, somewhy, on one of those stalled
subway trains? Or maybe-and this was a real
possibility-stuck in the elevator in her own
building? So Miss Punctuality was
late,- she could show up any second now with a standard
urban horror story, especially tonight.
  She turned on the local news-radio and TV
both, just loud enough to hear.
  Leaned against the window frame, looking down at the
roofs of cars, vans, ambulance, in a swirling
light show of red, white, and amber.
  A truly hellish night.
ft
  new york City's newspaper readers, and its
citizens who only glance at newsstands, relish
those rare and delightful days when the two major
tabloids headline the same headline. Tuesday,
December 21/, was such a day, its twin front
pages a true collector's item.
  Not only were the identical headlines typical
of the "feisty, irreverent" style that had enabled both
journals to survive right up to the rim of the new
century,
but also
each of the two pages tucked fire and flood into a
pair of those little boxes up top
in the same order.
Different wording there, but hey, you can't expect
miracles, can you?
  A hideous crime, madman's work, the poor
woman
  savaged in a way so bizarrely theatrical; and the
setting, that building, that
boutiquel-a
tabloid editor's dream. The headline had offered
itself on a feilver platter: blood- fest at
tiffany's!
  Big, black, stacked in three lines.
  The reports in the two papers differed not much
less. One said the dogs that smelled the still-warm
blood were Weimaraners belonging to the owner of one of the
upper-floor apartments,- the other "said they were
wolfhounds belonging to the building's owner.
  Both papers had the victim lying naked on the
boutique's central counter, her arms at her
sides-likened by one to a patient on an operating
table, by the other to a sacrifice to a primitive
god.
  They agreed on the seven steak knives and the
icepick. One said that other pieces of cutlery had
been placed on and around the body; the other gave
specifics. One mentioned minor looting-a few
bracelets and watches, a punch bowl.
  Both papers featured the same
wire-service telephoto in the same tepid
newsprint colors: a side view of the victim,
blurred where you expected, lying on the glass counter
filled with touched-up sparkling riches, festooned with
ribbons of reddish blood. The silver handles of the
icepick and three knives were circled in white; a
few spoons and forks could be seen, and in the
background, holly branches.
  According to both papers, the luckless victim remained
unidentified as of press time. She appeared to be
in her late twenties and a Hindu; the icepick had
been driven through the dime-size red dot on her
forehead.
  Luckless all right.
  Jinxed, you might even say.
9-@lzandr8andZT less-than gs@lless-than just
  It was only when the coroner's men began readying
the body for removal that someone wondered if she
might possibly be Andy's Indian dish. You
couldn't be sure, even the bellmen couldn't, the way
she pulled the veil across her face in public most
of the time, and Indian women with the dot aren't so
unusual in New York City, especially in a
hotel with an international clientele. But still,
Andy's got a penthouse apartment and she's
the right age, shouldn't somebody maybe give him a
call?
  When Rosemary called down to the desk at
midnight to ask the night man if the woman had
been identified, he told her to sit tight, Andy
was on his way up.
  Hellishness II. Or was it III?
  Andy had been hyper, on second wind, and
distraught. Beyond distraught-enraged, furious, at the
lunatic killer or killers.
  He filled her in on what little was known at that
time. An inside job, beyond a doubt. The killer
or killers had not only known how to disable the
boutique's security system and fail-safe
backup system, they had known the out-of-the-way
location of the control box for the window shades; had known
even-though this may only
  have been a matter of luck-that the boutique's
staff had left en masse minutes after the eight
o'clock closing to attend a wake for one of their number
who had died that afternoon.
  Questioning of building and boutique staffs, hotel
guests, office workers, and apartment owners and
their
guests would begin in the morning. Thousands of
people would have to be interviewed.
  Rosemary wept, mourning Judy, so' young, so
smart, so sure of herself-except where Andy was
concerned- and mourning too the wrenching fact that at the
dawn of the year 2000, despite Christmas,
despite Andy, despite the advent of the Lighting,
a woman alone still wasn't safe in the heart of
what was supposedly a civilized world capital.
  Andy's outrage was naturally on a more intense and
personal level. When Rosemary was finally dozing
off, around three, wondering if maybe he knew
what Judy had meant about reading something in April
or May, she heard him on the phone in the living
room describing the murder scene to someone, using
phrases like
"off- the-wall lunacy"
and
"Grand Guignol horror show"-
sounding as steamed as if he had the actual killer or
killers by the throat and was venting all his anger and
sorrow. Good, it would help him . . .
  "dis . .
a production of the fucking Theatre Guild!!"
*-caret szandr?!
i
i less-than s8and-9
**
w,
M
Joe came over at nine with the tabloids and a box
of doughnuts, to keep Rosemary company while Andy
went with William and Polly down to City Hall
to meet with the Mayor and the Police Commissioner and
representatives of the media. Andy asked
Muhammed to drive them so Joe could be free.
  Andy had evidently been on the phone all night
with GC'S major backers; there was concern that if word
got out that Judy,
Andy's
Judy, was the luckless victim in the crime
that-thanks to its bizarre, lunatic, off-the- wall
theatricality-was traveling with the sunrise around the
whole world of tabloid journalism and TV, the
resulting media focus on Andy and the GC inner
circle in such an unsavory context the week before
the Lighting might disaffect some people. Right-wing
Muslims, say. The Amish. The Lighting would be
ragged and incomplete, instead of the unified,
transcendent communion that was its intended purpose.
  Andy was confident he'd be able to persuade
the Mayor and the others to keep Judy's identity under
wraps till January first. They too wanted a
flawless Lighting, and Christmas vacations had been
planned and prepared for. William had found a
tenable legal argument, in case one was needed for
sweetening. Polly, the flirty widow of both a
state senator and a judge in the Surrogate
Court, had dirt on everybody.
  Sipping black coffee from a hotel cup,
Rosemary stood in her warm-but-not-warm-enough Irish
wool sweater gazing down at the ten damn tiles
segregated from the rest of the herd. Deservedly, the
lousy little bastards. She pushed them around
into lousetrasm.
  From there into lostmauser. German soldier's
problem.
  outslarems. "Why seven knives?" she asked.
  "When they find him, they'll ask him," Joe
said, sitting on the sofa with a tabloid on a
crossed leg, reading through half-glasses, an arm
on the sofa back, Andy's face smiling from his
sweatshirt.
  Rosemary turned and paced slowly back toward
the foyer, holding the cup with both hands, frowning over
it.
  Over his glasses, Joe watched her going by.
"Sit awhile," he said.
  She stopped, looked down at the other tabloid
on the coffee table. Shook her head. "They think
they're so cleverst" she said. "They're sick,
disgusting
jackals
who ought to be ashamed of themselves. They're a disgrace
to their profession."
  "Tiffany's agrees," he said.
  She paced on toward the foyer.
  Turned and stopped there. "Why Tiffany's,
really?" she asked him. "Prime location, heaviest
traffic, best likelihood of passing hound dogs.
Why not one of the smaller boutiques on the other
side? Why a boutique at all, in fact?"
  "Sweetheart," he said, turning a page, "we
don't ask reasonable questions of this kind of pervert.
Or perverts." He sighed, read on through the
glasses.
  She paced slowly back toward the Scrabble
table, sipping, frowning.
  Stopped in the center of the room.
  He looked at her.
ROSE
MARY
  She turned to him. "Was there anything else,"
she asked, "besides the knives and the-pick?"
  "Uh-huh," he said. "Forks and spoons in the
pictures. Wait a minute ..." He leafed
back through the tabloid's pages, licked a finger.
  She moved closer, watching him with dark-ringed
eyes. Put the cup down, raked a hand through her
hair.
  He mumbled down a column, said, was 'He also
said that
other pieces of cutlery were placed on and around the
victim." his
"What others? How many?" she asked.
  "Doesn't say."
  "Maybe the
Times
has it..." She looked around.
  "Save your energy," he said. "It's on
Z-nineteen, "Woman Slain in Boutique."
That's about it."
  "Check that one," she said.
  He put his tabloid aside, lowering his leg, and
leaned toward her, elbows on knees, Andy smiling
at her on his sweatshirt. "Rosie," he
said, "Judy is dead. How many spoons were around
doesn't
mean
anything. These guys have their
things,
their fetishes,- they need things to be certain ways.
Please, honey, don't dwell on it. It won't
do any good."
  "Will you please look," she said. "I don't
want to touch the rag."
  He sighed and picked up the other tabloid.
"Myself, I think it's catchy," he said, opening it.
  "You would," she said. Waited.
  "Son of a gun," he said, "they've even got the
pattern, "Edwardian." Eleven each, spoons
and forks."
  "Eleven," she said. Stood still a moment.
Turned and headed toward the table.
  He watched her.f
  She messed outslarems up, pushed the tiles
around a moment-and stood looking out the window, tapping
a tile against the thumbnail of her other hand. "Do you
by any chance know her middle name?" she asked.
  "Judy's? "he said.
  She turned, nodded.
  "I don't even know if she had one," he said.
"And would you please tell me what
that's
got to do with anything?"
  She said, "There's a phone book in the drawer in
there. Maybe there's a middle initial, that's what
matters. Kharyat-K, H, A, R, y,
A, T. West End Avenue."
  "Her middle initial matters," he said,
looking at her.
  She nodded. "Crucially," she said.
  He sighed, opened a drawer between his feet,
lifted out the thick Manhattan phone book in a
burgundy binder. "Why do I suddenly feel like
Dr. Watson?" he asked.
  She waited.
  He found the It's, leafed; she watched him, her
thumb rubbing the tile.
  "It's the only one," he said, a hand at his
glasses. "Kharyat, J. S."
  She reached over the roses, spread her fingers;
he caught the tile, looked at it, at her.
"How'd you do it?" he asked.
  "I'm a psychic," she said. "I have visions."
  She turned and walked across the room.
Stood looking
  at Andy della Robbia leaning on his easel
atop the TV- seeing and being seen.
  She turned around and said, "Eleven spoons."
  Joe looked at her, holding a white arc of
doughnut, his mouth full.
  "Eleven forks," she said. "Seven steak
knives." Drew breath. "One icepick. What
are they?"
  He swallowed. Said, "What
are
they?"
  "In Tiffany's," she said.
  "They're something different somewhere else?" he
asked.
  "Maybe," she said. "Somewhere else they could be
stainless steel, or aluminum. In Tiffany's
they're silver." She raked both hands back through
her hair, clutched it. "Thirty pieces," she
said, dark-ringed eyes staring at him. "Thirty
pieces of silver."
  His mouth opened, crumbs dropping.
  She stepped closer to him. "Thirty pieces of
silver," she said, "in and on the body-of Judith
S. Kharyat."
  He blinked at her, putting the doughnut down.
  She stepped closer. "Judith S. Kharyat."
Leaned over the roses and rushed it:
"Judithesskharyat."
"Judas Iscariotl"
he asked.
  She nodded.
  They stared at each other.
  "I have a feeling," she said, "it's not the name she
was born with." She stood straight. Closed her
eyes, put a hand across her forehead, turned.
Started pacing a slow, wide circle . . .
  Watching her, he said, "Do you? Have visions?"
"Sometimes," she said, pacing, holding her forehead,
eyes closed.
  He watched her, backhanding hi@. mouth.
  She stopped and faced him, drew breath. "She
needed a name that sounded Indian," she said.
"VassarIndian- for when she got noticeably
un-Hindu, I guess. She was a smart one,
God bless her. And she likes,
liked
word games and puzzles." She stood a moment,
blinking, lips tight, hands clasped tight together.
"She came on to Andy," she said,
"planning to dig up dirt on him and GC,
to expose it as a scam, and him as, I don't know,
a con man, a charlatan. We all know who
he
looks like, so she called herself Judith S.
Kharyat, Judy Kharyat. She must have figured
it would sail right past everybody, which it did, and she
probably didn't plan to be here for more than a
month or so anyway, if that. But Andy cast his
magic spell"-she cleared her throat-"and she
fell in love with him. She was stuck with the role.
He "derailed" her, she said. I should have made
the connection right then."
  "Made
what
connection?" Joe asked, peering at her.
  "I'll bet you anything you want," she said,
bending, choosing a doughnut, "that she was really
Alice Rosenbaum. It's a perfect interlock.
The medical examiner, or whoever is doing the
autopsy, ought to know by now."
  "What are you
talking
about?" Joe asked. "Who's Alice
Rosenbaum?
I never even
heard
the name before!"
  "You probably did a few years ago and
forgot," Rosemary said, eating a doughnut, holding
her elbow. "I heard it in a PBS docu I
watched a couple of weeks ago. One of my
brothers dated an Alice Rosenbaum in high
SON OF ROSEMARY
  school and had fights with my father about it, so I
noticed the name. The PBS Alice Rosenbaum was
the female member of the Ayn Rand Brigade, the
woman at the throttle of that train they hijacked.
I guess trains were significant for her. Using
"derailed," I mean."
  Joe said,
"Judy
is-was that PA?"
  Rosemary nodded. "I'm sure," she said. "It
has
to be." She ate some more. "The name can't be real,"
she said, "and no other woman would have had to do the
Indian bit in the first place."
  "What do you mean, I don't
get
it," Joe said, standing up. "She
had
to be an Indian? Why? Why wouldn't a wig and
glasses and Alice J.-Smith or Jones have
been enough?"
  Rosemary tapped a fingertip at the center of her
forehead. "Her tattoo," she said. "They have
tattoos on their foreheads! What was she going to do,
wear a band-aid for a month? Count on covermark?
She needed the dot to hide the dollar sign."
Joe stared openmouthed at her.
  She finished the doughnut, brushed sugar from her
lips and fingers, licked them.
  He held his forehead, shaking his head. "Jeez,
I'm all at sea here," he said. "So
whoever-gave her the thirty pieces of silver"-he
lowered his hand, looking at her- "was saying that that's
what she was, a Judas? Betraying Andy?"
  She turned away.
"How right-brace was
Joe asked. "She loved him, like you said. Sure,
you could see they had a little tiff or something last
week, but there's no way
he
could have-if you
  could even
imagine
such a- He was with
us
the whole time!"
  She turned around, aimed her dat'k-ringed eyes
at him. "The others weren't," she said. The buzzer
buzzed, Andy's buzz.
e caret Jssgr caret Just caret fesUs
  caret caret hey stayed looking at each other a
moment, and she l. let breath out and walked away,
slowing as she reached the foyer-Andy buzzed again-slowing
more as she neared the door. She stood a moment.
Joe moved out from behind the coffee table, watching.
  She opened the door.
  Andy nodded. "Mission accomplished," he said.
  "Oh good," she said.
  They hugged each other; he said "How you doing,"
kissing her temple, smoothing her hair back.
  "Okay," she said. Kissed his cheek. "You're
back so soon!"
  His eyes shone. "Wait!" he said, closing the
door behind him.
  They went arm in arm into the living room. "Joe!"
he said.
  "Andy ..." Joe said, looking at him.
  "Sit down, both of you," he said, taking his arm
from around her. "I'm going to tell you something that's going
to absolutely knock your socks off." He
unzipped his jacket.
  They looked at each other.
  "I mean it," he said, shedding the jacket,
looking back and forth between them. "Sit down or fall
down, take your choice." He straightened his
sweatshirt-navy, no message.
  Joe said, "Is this maybe about a tattoo?"
  Andy stared at him. Swallowed. "Who called?"
he asked. "I've got to know who leaked it."
  "Your mother figured it out," Joe said, nodding at
her.
  Andy turned and stared.
"That Judy was Alice Rosenbaumi"
Rosemary nodded.
"Howf"
Looking at him, she said, "The thirty pieces of
silver, and the name."
  "The flame? "he said.
  She said, "Judith S. Kharyat..."
  "Say it fast, "Joe said.
  Andy's lips moved. He stared-at her,
at him-and clapped the side of his head. "They even
thought of
thatl"
he said. "A name that reinforces everything! I never
put it together! She told me her middle name was this
long Indian ..." He spun a hand, looking at
Rosemary. Stopped the hand. "Don't you see who
did it?" he asked. "Don't you see who's behind it
all?"
  She said, looking at him, "No ..."
  He turned to Joe.
  Joe shook his head, looking at him.
  "The rest of the Brigade!" he said. "The five
guys! Or some of them. The Commish got word who she
was just as we got there. I realized right away what the
story was,
  what it meant: they had planted her here to spy on
us, they were getting even with her for-I guess you'd
say switching teams-and
at the sarfae time
they were messing up
the Lighting
by making it look as if she was killed for betraying
me
somehow! Because I look the way I do, and the
thirty pieces of silver-which that
name
only reinforces! That's why they killed her in such
an attention-getting way. Really, who except
someone looking for absolute maximum worldwide
publicity would-I
mean,
Tiffany's, nudity, blood, silver-come
on,
it
had
to be a setup."
  Joe, gasping, said, "Whew, kiddo, I have
to admit, your mother and I had a little nervous moment
there, at least I did, I shouldn't speak for you,
Rosie. What a
relief.
Whew!" He wagged a hand, slapped at his chest.
  Rosemary said, "It sounds logical..."
  Andy lifted a finger. "But before I could even say
a
word,"
he said, "the Mayor had put the whole thing together
himself! Including the thirty pieces of silver!"
He tapped his temple, nodding. "Once
he laid it all out, everyone agreed in a flash.
She stays unidentified, both identities, till
after the Lighting, after vacation, Jan third. The
FBI is mounting full surveillance on Fort
Whatever- they-call-it in Montana, and their computer
already found a connection between one of the Brigade
members and a lawyer on the eighteenth floor."
  "What a relief," Joe said, checking the
doughnuts.
  Andy turned to Rosemary, took her by the
shoulders. He sighed, gazing into her eyes. "At
least we know who did it," he said. "I hope that
helps a
little."
Nodding at him, she said, "It does, dear."
  "Ahh, poor baby ..." He kissed her
nose, hugged her. "You look old enough to be my
mother." She punched, he chuckled.
  Joe, eating as he watched them, smiled.
  Rosemary, looking up at Andy, said, "It
really
does
help, angel. I'd probably have seen myself that the
Brigade was behind it if I'd had more time to think about
it. I only realized who she was minutes
before you came in. I'm glad the FBI is on it
so quickly,- I'm sure they'll find them." She
smiled up at him-radiating candor and sincerity. And
honesty and openness.
9-caret SZANDr*andcaret @lffand-9
t
bar caret he Antijudas . . .
  l. It figured she'd have been in there among his
twelve antiapostles.
  Eleven now.
  She split multaroses, shifted the tiles,
made
ASTRO LUMES.
Sitting at the table in the late afternoon, after a nap
and a shower. Soft lounging pajamas, soft jazz on
the radio, soft snow sifting down past the window.
  ultramesso. Like a teenager's room. Not so
common a word, though, that five- and six-year-olds
use it.
  Could Judy/alice have been lying about Roast
Mules too-to drive her bats? Was there really
no
word using those ten letters? Was it a hoax, like her saris
and the dot?
  No . . . Not even a PA would do
that. . .
  And they'd been friends. That hadn't been a hoax.
MORTUALESS . . .
Hutch had been stopped from telling her Roman's
real identity by the spell Roman and his coven cast,
the spell that finally killed him.
  Judy had been stopped from telling her-what? That
Andy had a coven? were witchcraft and Satanism,
not fraud and tax evasion, what Alice
Rosenbaum had found-what Andy had derailed her
into? And after she had told
her,
who would the Antijudas have told today? The
Times*
The tabloids? They'd sit on
that
for about two seconds, coming from her. Or a
publisher, for a book to be published next April
or May? Why else would she have been killed that
way? They must have been high on something, like many a
knife-wielding murderer in recent history-far
fewer nowadays, thanks to Andy.
  Could the Antijudas have spread the worse news,
the Bad News?
  No. If she had known who Andy's father
was, she would never have opened up to his mother, not even
partially comand would have pried for more information besides. The
Indian cultural thing-ha!-would have given her the
excuse.
  Which meant, probably, that the eleven others
didn't know either. Coven members shared their secret
knowledge,- that was one of Roman's lures, whenever he
tried to get her to join .. .
STEALORMUS . . .
Last Christmas Eve-
her
last, six months ago-she had let Andy go
to Minnie and Roman's alone, for the first time, and stay
overnight. He had been five and a
  half, to the day. There were rituals that had to be
performed half a year before his next birthday,
Roman said, instructions to be given. They were
honoring their part of the bargain; she had to honor hers.
His father had rights too. Rites too.
  She needed the coven. When you have a toddler with
beautiful tiger eyes, and horn buds slightly
less beautiful, and other parts even less
beautiful-all of which today he presumably controlled
(she wasn't asking) by the same semi-Satanic
willpower that gave him hazel eyes-when you
have a toddler like that, you can't drop him off at a
preschool and go on to the job. When you really
desperately need a sitter for a few hours, you
can't call an agency or the teenager in the apartment
down the hall.
  The coven paid the bills. The women were doting
nanas on whom she relied only when absolutely
necessary, under strict rules whose following she checked in
secret ways. All of them, men and women-except
Laura-Louise, the bitch-treated her with the same
helpfulness and respect everybody gave her today.
  Roman promised her-he made a vow he said was
sacred to him-that Andy wouldn't be harmed in any way
or pressed to do anything he resisted, that he would
only be strengthened mentally and physically in ways that
would be useful to him all his life. The experience would
be inspiring and uplifting, like any other good
religious service. Though she couldn't be there as an
onlooker, she was more than welcome, as she surely
knew by now, as a celebrant. The coven could
certainly use some young blood-his old eyes
twinkled-and
  there were two places empty. That way she could
keep an eye on Andy.
  Thanks but no thanks."
  She had spent half that Christmas Eve sitting
on a footstool in a deshelved closet whose back
opened, when it wasn't bolted on the other side as
it was then, into a closet next door-the same
passage she'd been carried through that night in
October of "65. Sitting there with an ear to the
bottom of a glass pressed to white-painted
plywood, she heard faintly now and then echoes of the
piping flute of that night, the chanting, the beating
drum. The tang of tannis root sneaked through
cracks, sour but not unpleasant ... A whiff of
sulfur, though, sickened her. Had
he
come up, or out, or materialized from outer space
or wherever the hell?
  She wept for Andy then. She should have taken him and
run. She
would,
and before his birthday-far, to San Francisco or
Seattle. She'd get the plane fare somehow, and
find an agency or children's hospital, a
church-run hospital, that would help her.
  Once the sulfur smell was gone and there was just the
scent of tannis again, stronger soon in the
closet's shelter, she felt better.
She recalled the tannis taste of the drinks
Minnie had made for her during her pregnancy,
drinks that had nourished Andy. Minnie and Roman
loved
him, they'd take good care of him.
  Later she poured herself a glass of eggnog, added
a splash of bourbon, and watched
It's a Wonderful Life-
on the way to becoming a TV Christmas tradition.
Sweet movie. Second time she'd seen it.
  When Andy came through the closets the next
  morning, he was fine, happy, glad
to see-hug-kiss her and run into the living room.
Had he had a good time? He nodded, looking up at
the tree. "What did you do?" she asked, kneeling
beside him, smiling at the lights shining in his eyes, on
his cheeks.
  "I said I wouldn't tell," he said. "Should
I?"
  Her hand on his flannel-shirted back, she said,
"If you really didn't want to say it, yes. Or
if you changed your mind and want to tell me
anyway. Kids can do that. If you don't want
to, no. I gave permission, I said you could go."
  He chose not to tell.
Her
last Christmas. He'd had twenty-seven since,
or this would be the twenty-seventh. The ones when he was
growing up and in his teens, at least, must have been like that
one, scented with tannis, caroled by whining flutes and
chanting. Black Christmases . . .
TREMULOSSA . . .
He had told her he was through with Satanism-after
looking her in the eye and saying he would never lie
to her again. If he
had
lied . . . Friday night could be just the time to find
out.
  He had said on the plane that he and Judy had
plans for Christmas Eve, that they would exchange
presents with her and Joe on Christmas Day in the
morning. And Judy had started saying something the first
time they played Scrabble about goings-on on the ninth
floor .. .
  Not a bad space-the amphitheater and its dressing
rooms and green room, the conference rooms, all
carpeted, soundproofed by floors of empty offices
above and
  below-not a bad space at all for a Black
Mass. Better than Minnie and
Roman's living room, for sure.
  Five people to get it spick-ana-span? Didn't
the cleaning crew hit nine? Ultramesso?
SOULMASTER . . .
Snow strummed the window, falling faster now,
windswept swaths of white, whipping down out of
darkening sky. Score one for the forecasters; four
inches by midnight, they had said, two to four more
by morning. Wind gusts up to forty miles an hour.
  Snow was probably coming down at the radio station
too,- Bing Crosby had begun dreaming of a white
Christmas.
  Just like the ones he used to know.
i.
rtTl
h
h
W
h
P"

u
  the blizzard of '99, lasting two and a half days
and dumping two to five feet of the white stuff all
the way up the Eastern seaboard from Cape
Hatteras to Cape Cod, was far and away the peak,
the pinnacle, the Everest of the century's blizzards,
and the paramount headache of them all.
  New York City was lucky, only 23.8
inches. God got thanks for that-Boston, it was said,
would
never
dig out-and "Mother Nature" (god in drag?)
took the rap for the rest of it: the buried commuter
trains, the collapsed roofs of supermarkets, the
empty theaters and stores, the stranded travelers, the
homebound everyone else except children with sleds and
cross-country skiers.
  The last flakes fell and the sun came out early
Friday
IE
VI n
  morning, as if in direct obedience to the feisty,
irreverent order of only one of the tabloids: stuff
it, bing. Midtown Manhattan was a grid of
lumped tundras where people tramped, kicked, skied,
threw snowballs, frisked with dogs, pulled children
on plastic shells-while store managers watched,
smiling, from open doorways.
  Tiffany's alone was jammed with
card-waving customers, not only the Fifth Avenue
store and its satellite boutiques but the branches
in White "Plains and Short Hills as
well-proof yet again that as long as they spell the name
right, there's no such thing as bad publicity.
t.j5sg5r8*ff less-than teffi."
  U "T Tj. Let's go look at the
tree."
  L JL They hadn't seen or spoken to each
other since Tuesday morning, when her obviously
wretched state of exhaustion had given her a
legitimate excuse to send him and Joe on their
way, each with a kiss on the cheek, Joe with the rest
of the doughnuts and both the rags, thank you. Andy had
said he was going to the retreat but would be back in time for
Christmas-morning brunch.
  She had been glad of his going-the radiating
hadn't been exactly a lark-but she had wondered
whether it was grief or guilt or a mixture of
both that he was retreating from, and in whose company, if
anyone's. She imagined him or them in an
adobe-andsteer-horn
Playboy
pad surrounded by desert. Another subject left
unmentioned; a retreat is a retreat.
  "You there?"
  "Yes," she said, moving with the phone to the bedroom
window. "Where are you?"
  "Forty-five floors overhead. Just got in."
"Howl"
she asked, looking down at the billowed white
quilt laid over the park.
  "Plane, chopper, and subway. Feel like some
exercise? The snow's more or less packed in the
middle of the streets and the plows are getting plowed out.
It's real Christmasy."
  She sighed, and said, "We had a tree of our own
the last Christmas I remember. You were five and a
half, we trimmed it together. Do you remember that?"
  "Completely forgot it. That's why I'm still in
Arizona. Do you have boots? The boutiques must be
sold out."
  "I've got," she said.
93aret So caret Tf*caret S8A caret 9
  Everybody had- boots brown, black, red,
yellow. Gloves, mittens, scarves, hats,
earlaps, red cheeks (those usually pinkish), i
caret andy buttons, i V rosemary buttons,
big smiles, shiny shades or eyes smiling right
back at you.
  "The city's never better than after a big snow,"
Rosemary said, pluming out breath, tramping along
arm in arm with Andy down the center of Central Park
South amid dozens of other proud Reclaimers of the
IP"!
IRA IeaE VI n
  Land from Vehicles. "It really brings out the best
in people."
  "I guess it does," Andy said, as they paused
at Seventh Avenue to watch some men, women, and children
helping a crew of sanitation workers dig out a
drifted- over salt spreader. Another group
farther down the avenue was doing similar work on something
else large and orange.
  They tramped on down Central Park South
among the other pioneers, steadying each other now and
then; the 23.8 inches wasn't packed down hard
yet.
  Rosemary was well Garboed: new bigger
shades, a scarf around her head, the
floppy-brimmed hat, and a coat out of
Ninotchka-
worn maybe by a Russian colonel. She had
been on the verge of giving it to a bellman.
  Andy's simple street disguise had
never failed him: shades and a jumbo i caret andy
button-transforming him instantly into one of the
city's, the planet's legions of Andy
wannabes.
  One of the better ones. A cop in shades coming
toward them gave him a gloved thumb up. "Yo,
Andy!" he grinned. "Great!
Numero uno!"
They smiled back at him. Andy said, "Thanks,
love ya," as they passed.
  "The voice too!" the cop cried, pointing,
walking backward. "Say something else!"
  "Up yours!"
  The cop laughed, waved.
  Rosemary elbowed.
"Andy,"
she said.
  "It's part of the disguise!" he said. "Would Andy
say that? Never!"
  "Ohh . . ."
  "Say shit, it'll help."
  They laughed-
"Shit!"-
following a right-turning packed-down trail
into Sixth Avenue. There the Land had been
Reclaimed as far as the eye could see-white
tundra dotted with people, bordered with car-shaped
igloos.
  "When did they give up on "Avenue of the
Ameri- cas"?" Rosemary asked, looking up
at a street sign.
  "Officially, just a few months ago," Andy said.
  Smiling, she said, "Hutch used to say someday
they'd count the syllables."
  The name cast a pall.
  She had told him about Hutch, the friend he had
been to her, that Roman's coven had killed him.
  They tramped down the Sixth Avenue tundra,
holding gloved hands, scanning their shades about,
smiling.
  Pausing in mid-avenue, they watched a few people
scooping snowdrifts from a skewed limo with partly
uncovered windows.
  Andy pitched in. Rosemary too. When an
unlocked door was found and opened, no one was
inside.
  They waved and tramped on, brushing snow from their
fronts.
  On the West Fifty-first Street tundra they
tramped past the red-neoned rear marquee
of Radio City Music Hall. Rosemary said,
"When are you going to do your next live show? I can't
wait to see one."
  Andy drew breath; plumed it from his nostrils.
He
  said, "I don't think I'm going to be doing any
more, not for a while anyway."
  "Why not?" she asked. "They're terrifically
effective. The woman at the nursing home who
told me about you, she saw you here and talked about it as
if-she'd had a religious experience."
  Turning his shades from her, he said, "I don't
know, I just sort of feel that after the Lighting I ought
to take a little time off and-reevaluate what I
want to do next."
  She said, "I've been doing some work on a
presentation for a talk show. I don't want to just come
in and say, Tm here, I'm Andy's Mom, take
me." I've got a great name for it, you gave it
to me. 'Fresh Eyes." Isn't that a good name for a
program dealing with the differences between now and then?"
  "Yeah, it is, "he said.
  She said, "I want to deal with big things, like the
mistake of talking the terrorists' language, and
little things, like rollerblades-with people connected
somehow with whatever the area is."
  "Don't forget we're going away for a while,"
he said.
  She blew out a long plume. "No," she said.
"No, I really don't think that's a good idea.
Not right now."
  He drew breath, clamped his lips.
  They tramped along in their shades, gloved hands
joined.
  Turned right into Rockefeller Plaza and
froze, cowering. "Wow!" Andy said, raising his free
hand. Rosemary whistled. People moved around and past them
in both directions.
  They made their way closer to the towering cone of
multicolored lights. Rosemary said, "I'll
tell you one thing fresh eyes see right off the bat:
too much! It used to be you could see there was a
tree
holding everything up
be
that's just a gigantic cone of lights and baubles. It
could have styrofoam inside it."
  "Actually they cut back from last year," Andy
said. "People started complaining."
  They made their way closer-on
almost-clear asphalt, in a crowd, between walls of
plowed-back snow.
"But,"
she said, when they had found a vantage point where they
could stand and see the tree and the skaters on the rink before
it, "if you're going to go for glitz . . ."
  He nodded, looking up at the tree.
  She looked at him, at the lights shining on his
shades, on his cheeks above his beard.
  "Say hello to Andy," a man before them said,
tugging the mitten of a boy of seven or so. The boy
nibbled his other mitten, looking up at Andy. The
man winked at them.
  Rosemary said, "Be nice ..."
  Andy crouched down, smiled at the boy, took his
shades off, said, "Hi."
  The boy got his mitten down to his chin and said,
"Are you really Andy?"
  "To be perfectly honest," Andy said, "at the
moment I'm not sure. Who are you?"
  "James," the boy said.
  "Hi, James," Andy said, offering his gloved
hand.
  James shook it with his mitten, said "Hi ..."
Andy said, "It's fun when there's all this
snow, isn't it?"
  "Yes," James said, nodding. "Wef're going
to make a snowman."
  Andy clasped his shoulder, smiled, and said,
"Enjoy it, Jimbo."
  He stood up. "Great kid," he said to the man,
putting the shades back on.
"You,"
the man said, poking him in-the chest, "are a
ten-times-better Andy than the guy in the miniseries.
And your voice is closer too."
  "Years of practice," Andy said. Rosemary
tugged his sleeve.
  "Merry Christmas," the man said. Nodded it
to her too as he steered James away toward the
tree.
  "Merry Christmas!" Rosemary said.
  Andy waved; James waved back.
93aret s8greater-than er8*anditeand-9
  caret That?"8fhey tramped over to Seventh
Avenue, a tundra
JL.
being carved away by a phalanx of snowplows, and up
to the Stage Deli-half empty.
  "Your brother's in the corner," the
waiter said, standing at the table with pad and pencil.
Andy looked; another Andy waved at him. He
waved back. Rosemary waved too. So did the
other Andy's tablemate, Marilyn Monroe.
"What'll it be?" the waiter asked.
  Pastrami sandwiches, beer.
  Andy chewed, shades facing the window.
  Taking hers off, looking at him, Rosemary
said, "Do you want to talk, Andy?"
  He stayed silent a moment. Sighed, shrugged.
"It's just ironic, that's all," he said, shades
turning toward the half sandwich on his plate. He
picked at it. "I finally find a smart, sexy
woman who really prefers total darkness," he
said, "and it's because it saves her from having to keep an
all-over suntan. She told me Indian women
never let a man see
anything.
Who knows, maybe it's
  true."
  "I doubt it," she said. "They're very open-I
think."
"It sure frees up the imagination," he said.
  Putting on her shades, scanning, she said, "I
can't eat all of this, I'm going to have them
wrap it."
  Central Park South had been plowed and was
getting a second go
be
a few cars and taxis crept through a foot- thick
dry mash of dirtied snow. Rosemary walked
single file after Andy beside a wall of shiny
snowbank.
  "What are you doing tonight?"
  She said, "There's an eight-thirty Mass at
Saint Pat's. Joe got us seats." She
walked along behind him. "What are you doing?" she
asked.
  "Turning in early. The trip took a lot out of
me. It was worth it though."
  A mailman gave him a hand over chopped-out
snow steps, and they both helped Rosemary. They
thanked him. "Real good," he said.
  "Thanks, love ya."
  "Great!"
  They walked to the Tower's marquee, nodded to the
  winking doorman, and first she and then he passed through
a revolving door into the crowded lobby of the grand
hotel, its marble reaches decked with green branches
and gold leaves, "Greensleeves"
tintinnabulating overhead on medieval strings. They
maneuvered between bellmen with luggage, past the desk
where a sheikh and his entourage dallied, through an
entanglement of French schoolgirls in uniform and a
stumbling waiter spilling a bowl of oranges in
thgir path, to the bank of elevators. "I have
to pick up a few things in the drugstore,"
Rosemary said. "Sure you don't want it?" She
held up the deli bag.
  "Positive," Andy said, kicking an orange
aside. "Around eleven tomorrow?"
  "Fine," she said.
  "I'll call you."
  Their shades clacked as they kissed cheeks.
"Merry Christmas," they said to each other, their
lips smiling.
  He headed for the corner beyond the elevators.
  She went into the drugstore. French schoolgirls
jabbered over the magazine rack, the perfume and
costume- jewelry displays.
  She picked up toothpaste and a flashlight,
charged them to the suite, then went to the back and spoke
to the smiling pharmacist. He withdrew from the counter.
  Rosemary scanned the store with her shades,
took them off, smiled at the clerk smiling
at her. The clerk screwed a finger in her ear,
wincing, as the schoolgirls hurried out the door.
  The pharmacist came back, reached over the
counter. "Midnight Mass?"
  "You guessed it, Also. Thank you. Merry
Christmas." "A half will keep you wide awake
for three or four hours. Merry Christmas,
Rosemary."
less-than s@lz greater-than andri335andJ
  U T Ti, Rosemary. Joe. Give me
a call when you get
  JL JL-IN, will you? I've got a problem."
  The problem, he told her when she called him,
involved Mary Elizabeth, his
twenty-three-year-old daughter, who had just come out
as a lesbian and moved in with her lover, a woman
in her forties. "Ronnie got a sudden impulse
and invited them for dinner, she's big on Christmas
spirit, and they're coming. The trains are getting through, and
I'm afraid if I don't go, Mary
Elizabeth is liable to think I'm shutting the-was
  "Oh go, Joe!" she said. "Do, don't
worry! I'm glad you're all sitting down
together."
  "And I want to meet her. I mean,
if she's
living
with her, I at least want to get some kind of-was
  "Joe, I'll tell you the truth," Rosemary
said, "I'd just as soon go by myself. Honestly. I
haven't been to church in a long time, even before the
coma, and maybe it'll be better for me if it's
more-private. Don't worry, go. You should, I
want you to."
  "Thanks, Rosie. Go in by the entrance on
Fifty-first near Madison. Someone'll be there with a
list, just give my name. What time tomorrow?"
  "Around eleven," she said.

"See you then. Thanks
again."
She was doubly thankful too, because they all were
sitting down together and because caret he really did want
to be alone. Garboing on the inside too.
  She hadn't thought of going to Mass till
Tuesday night, after she had decided where she'd be
going later Christmas Eve. The cathedral would be
packed, even though extra Masses had been
scheduled this Christmas of 1999, and she didn't like
the idea of wearing shades in church, so she
had asked Joe if he could arrange for special
seating. She had invited him because she'd had to; she
sensed that he had accepted likewise. He was no more
devout than she, both with their divorces.
  And she'd have had to ditch him later anyway-
another letdown for him.
  Poor Joe. Poor both of them. He'd
checked out fine and had seen as little reason for
postponing things as she did, but every time they had
planned a proper night or weekend together, something
had come up to get in the way. First the Dublin power
failure, then the fire in the inn outside
Belfast, then his pinched spinal nerve, and then the
blizzard.
It was almost as if, somewhere in the universe, a
malevolent spiritual power had made it his sole
goal to oppose their getting into the sack together before
New Year's Eve.
t caret zandrfiandfandAj
  She called her brothers and sister. Gave out the
last of the staff Christmas gifts.
  Her gifts for the GC inner circle, possibly
Andy's coven-innocent until proven guilty-would
wait till tomorrow or never, depending.
  Judy's scarf in its Hermes
wrap-she wasn't sure what she'd do with that. Wear
it herself probably. An Indian design. Ha.
  She ate the other half of the pastrami sandwich
sitting at the window, thinking how she would put things,
marshaling her thoughts so she wouldn't waste His time,
assuming ... It was, after all, one of His busier
nights.
  Hutch's bones must have been rolling over in the
"worm cafeteria," as he called it.
  Judy/alice would have been annoyed too, for
sure, though she probably would have accepted it as a
kind of "centering" thing.
  When you have proof positive, gained in a hard
way, of Satan's reality-you tend to regain your
belief in God's. Of course
He
may no longer believe in
you,
may even get edgy if you set foot in His house
or dare to take His Holy Communion, so you
maintain a respectful distance . . .
  Until it seems really necessary to clarify things.
  She left the Tower at seven, fully Garboed.
The doorman said there were taxis around but she had
allowed plenty of time, the night was clear,
and she was from Nebraska; she walked.
  The same route she had walked with Andy-on
shoveled sidewalks now, by ranges of snow
mountains pocked here and there with glints of entombed
chrome.
  Santas in phony beards rang their bells
over their kettles-going right up there with Chanel
No. 5 and Stage Deli's pastrami sandwiches
qn Fresh Eyes' list of Unchanged Good Things,
an idea for the fourth or fifth program, or
maybe a weekly feature.
  She passed the entrance to Rockefeller Plaza
with just a glance at the cone of night-bright lights-not
too bad- and went on to Fifth Avenue, where snow
mountains had been banished and traffic, what-little there
was, diverted. St. Patrick's Cathedral
stood on the other side of the avenue in all its
Gothic majesty, every detail of its tri-arched
front and twin spires lavished with white frosting,
brilliantly floodlighted, never more splendid.
  Another big plus for 1999 New
York-night lighting of landmark buildings.
  She was more than an hour early. The line, behind
blue police barriers, snaked around into Fiftieth
Street but wasn't long enough yet to fill the
pews. Travel conditions were probably keeping
away a lot of people from Long Island, We/chester,
all the suburbs.
  The idea of house seats for serious prayer
hadn't sat well with her from the beginning, and when she
crossed the avenue and got a good look at some of the
people in the line-bikers in studded leather, a girl with
purple hair, for pete's sake-she decided to go
in with the commoners,- the Garbo gear wouldn't raise an
eyebrow, certainly not His.
  The elderly couple in front of her-they'd made
it in from We/chester-smiled at her and faced forward.
  The blizzard didn't start up again when she
passed through the portal and vestibule; nor did
lightning strike
  when she knelt and crossed herself. She found more
than enough space in a back pew on the right, slipped
in and sat.
  She took a deep breath, and loosed her
coat's belt and buttons. Sank back in the
creaking pew, savoring the organ's cascading
harmonies, marveling at the beauty and vastness of the
vaulted space before her-the ranks of soaring stone
pillars and arches, each pillar hung with a
red-ribboned wreath, each outer arch framing
stained glass that gleamed jewel-bright in the light from
outside. Flats of orange candle flames
flickered at the rows of side altars in their
alcoves; the gold-and-white high altar and
sanctuary far ahead stood empty, waiting,
spotlighted, banked with masses of red
poinsettias.
  Throat clearing. A woman waited by the
pew-stout and white-haired in a pink hat and suit,
i caret andy and i V rosemary side by side
on a shoulder. Rosemary smiled at her and slid
farther toward the man on her right. The woman
hesitated, smiled, squeezed herself down in. The
pew creaked. "They all creak," she whispered.
  "I know," Rosemary whispered.
  "Merry Christmas," the woman whispered.
  "Merry Christmas," Rosemary whispered.
  They faced front.
  The woman shifted. Folded her coat on her
knees, shifted. Fussed with her handbag. Shifted.
Poor dear comes to Mass and finds herself next to this
weirdo in space goggles. Too embarrassed or
polite to get up and look for another seat, if there
is one.
  Rosemary leaned toward her, tapped the
stem of the shades. "Eye surgery," she whispered.
  "Ah!" the woman whispered, nodding.
"I see,
I see, I was wond'rin'. What was it, dear?
I'm a nurse at Saint Clare's.8I
  Rosemary whispered. "A detached retina."
  "Ahh," the nurse whispered, nodding. Patted
Rosemary's hand.
  They smiled at each other, faced front.
  Lying in church. To an Irish nurse. Off to a
great start.
  She straightened her back.
  Tried to get her head straight too.
  The organ poured descending scales in all its
voices. Almost everyone now knelt praying-the old
man on her right, and the nurse too, murmuring, her
broad back bent. What a lot of voices rising
upward!
  Rosemary eased her knees down onto the padded
red leather kneeler, tucked her booted feet back
under, folded her hands on the oak rim of the pew before
her, lowered her head.
  Sneaked the shades off and into a pocket, folded
her hands again, closed her eyes, let breath out.
She'd forgotten the comfort of the position.
Breathed again . . .
Father, forgive me for I have sinned. As well You
know. But I'm here about Andy, and about what's going
on. Thank You for allowing me in. I know this is
presumptuous, I guess it's from everyone talking
about my miraculous awakening and my miraculous
recovery so much, but I've begun to think the last
few days that maybe You had a hand in Stan Shand
dying when he did, so I would wake up and do something
You want to be done. The problem is, I'm not
sure what it is, and I'm afraid it may
involve hurting Andy, maybe severely.
SON OF ROSEMARY
  The pew she leaned on trembled, creaked. She
waited, head bowed, while the people there reordered
themselves.
I'm trying to take things a step at a time. If
I find what I'm afraid I'll find tonight, Andy
conducting a Black Mass, please help me
take the next right step. Some kind of sign would be
greatly appreciated. Is desperately needed, in
fact. All I presume to ask in return is that
You remember that Andy is half human-more than
half, I hope-and that if things turn out badly for
him, I pray You'll show him at least
half of Your usual mercy. That's-
Like a steel wheel thrown through the cathedral, a
scream sheared up to the vaulted ceiling, banged off
into the transepts, rang back doubled into the nave,
another scream shearing after it, scream after
steel-wheel scream banging, ringing, shearing away
echoes. Heads up, eyes up, in every pew of the
cross-shaped church-nave, apse,
transepts-lips bitten, rosaries kissed, hands
sketching crosses.
  The nurse shoved her coat and bag down between them,
grabbed the pew in front, hoisted herself, squeezed
out, hurried down the aisle. A few pews ahead
a standing man sidled-"I'm a doctor, excuse
me."
  Small screams shimmered away. Silence
spread, stuffed the cathedral to its walls and windows.
  Sobbing down front where the nurse and others
flocked. A priest hurrying out from behind the altar.
  The organ poured music; everyone breathed.
Prayed, whispered.
  Rosemary sat straight and still, her fist at her
chest where her cross had ended.
caret
IRA IeaE VIN
Clear enough sign, Fresh Eyes!
She swallowed, drew breath.
  Gathering her coat around her, she pushed the
nurse's things into the corner,- got out of the pew and
headed for the vestibule, belting the coat, putting on
the shades, tugging down the hat as she hurried through.
  "That was Rosemary! I swear it was!"
  "Go
on.
Dressed like that? Leaving now? Alone? Yeah,
sure, it was Rosemary."
I: I'
  sheer coincidence, she told herself, walking along
with her head down and her hands in her pockets, on the
clear-swept sidewalks of Central Park
South. Coincidences happen, even in St.
Patrick's on Christmas Eve. Stupid of her
to take some poor soul's seizure as a sign to
her
from
Him.
Not just stupid, arrogant-casting herself as God's
agent on Earth. And thinking for even an instant that,
out of the hundreds of millions of prayers rising up
to Him that night, He had zeroed in on hers
for His immediate attention and splashy reply.
  She passed hotels and apartment houses, people
leaving, people arriving, Christmas gifts and Christmas
  grins. She walked from the heated downdraft of a
broad marquee to Sixth Avenue's cold
crosswind.
  The Tower, nearing, shone as in daylight, the city's
nightglow magnified by the snow in the park and
streets. She had hoped to spot a telltale
lighted window on one of GC'S floors, had
left a marker in her bedroom window-a blue
kerchief pinned taut between the draperies, a shadeless
lamp behind it-to locate the floors above. She
couldn't even spot the blue window in the shiny
gold-mirror facade.
  When she had crossed Central Park South at
Columbus Circle, she stepped to the side of the
trodden snow path and looked all the way up, lowering
her shades. The skyscraper, towering over her,
kept its shades in place; there was no seeing in its
face of luminous sky which of its windows were light or
dark-or blue or purple.
  She went on around the Circle and over toward the
cut through the snowbank across from the marquee.
  t caret so caret Jr caret So caret
tesUs
  She changed into black slacks, a green
blouse, black sweater, black flats. Wrestled
the slim black flashlight out of its
plastic-shelled card, fed the batteries into it,
capped it, checked the on-off twist of its head.
Bright light, neat design. Good New Thing.
  She put it into her left-hand pocket, her card
in the right.
  She wouldn't need anything else. She'd only be
up there a minute or two; they would either be there,
getting ready for their blasphemous
whatever-thehell-they- did, or the floor would be
dark. It wasn't as if she were planning to hang
around and watch.
  She had asked Also for the pill-he had given her
two but she had only asked for one-just in case all
the walking knocked her out. It hadn't; she felt
wide awake, full of beans-adrenaline kicking
in, probably.
  Or maybe just the fact that it was only
nine-fifteen. Which might be too early for more than
one or two of them to be there, conceivably for some
other reason.
  She made a cup of instant coffee and
turned on the TV-TO a news anchor touching his
ear, listening. "We have word now," he told her, "that
there are fifty-seven known dead." He sighed,
shook his head. "To recap for you . . ."
  Another Hamburg. Smaller. This time
Quebec.
  On Christmas Eve . . .
  She sat sorrowing, shaking her head.
  Half the channels had it coming in.
  An anchor said, "No one has claimed
responsibility."
  "Asshole," she said.
  She flipped past Jimmy Stewart dancing with
Donna Reed on the floor opening over the
pool-sweet movie but twice was enough-and watched
some of
The God's Children's All-Holy-Days
Special.
When Andy started talking she flipped away,-
didn't feel like watching him do his stuff tonight. She
thumbed back to news. The death toll was up
to sixty-two. She zapped it.
  She stood looking out the window at the park's
quilt
  of snow-rounded shapes aglow with lights,
laced with footpaths-wondering how Joe was faring out in
Little Neck, at Ronnie's table with Maify
Elizabeth and her doctor. Would erratic train
service make him stay over? He hadn't
volunteered details about the marriage and its
breakup, but she'd gathered that the physical side
hadn't been the problem. Would he be spending the night
in former-fashion-model Ronnie's room? The
thought stung-with surprising sharpness. A "brake
screamed below; she heard the screams in St.
Patrick's, banging, ringing. She shuddered, hugged
her arms.
  Changed amourlests into lostmauser. Vaguely
familiar.
  At a quarter of eleven, she freshened her
makeup and fixed her hair-she'd had Ernie undo
his inspiration, Andy had been right-and took half of
one of the pills, just to be safe.
  She cracked the hall door and peered off at the
concierge's desk; one of the women was on, she couldn't
tell which, talking to a couple in coats. She drew
the door closed and waited, looking at the framed
hall map with its red emergency exits. She'd
find hers somehow- ten feet dead ahead.
  She cracked the door again and-as a few
people came out of a door farther down on the opposite
side-drew it closed. But cracked it, waited
till the two men and a woman were near the desk,
blocking her-and stepped out, closed the door with its do
not disturb sign hanging, crossed the hall, pushed
open the glass-paned emergency exit door, went
onto the landing, pushed the door closed.
  The stairway was whitewashed cinder blocks and
fluorescent lights. Holding a black metal
banister, she climbed zigzag half flights to the
eighth-floor landing.
  Leaned her cheek to the door's glass pane.
  She opened the door and went out into a softly lit
hall-forest-green vinyl and sky-blue walls-like the
hall on ten but half its width, and fully walled
except for a large pair of doors across from the
elevators and rest rooms.
  She walked down there, to walnut double doors
sealed with a giant brass GC logo. Saw herself
askew, in black, in its polished surface.
  She crouched, a hand to the floor,- put an eye
to the crack beneath the brass.
  She stood, drawing breath, and took the
flashlight and the card from her pockets. Reached the
card to the slot by the door frame and ran it
through; if it let her into Andy's private elevator
it ought to open his front door for her.
  Before she could touch the brass logo it split
backward, the doors swinging open on darkness.
  The flashlight and the spill from the hallway showed a
large reception room-upscale furniture and
magazines, doors all around.
  She went into the room and turned, facing the
elevators. Stood palming her forehead, trying
to recall the ninth-floor layout from the day of the
taping, over two weeks ago, and a meeting in one
of the conference rooms a day or two after.
  The conference rooms overlooked the park, which meant
that the amphitheater was behind the elevators.
  Yes, they had gone out and back, around a curving
wall; the rear of the stage ran parallel to the
building's Broadway side. Which meant that the
fspiral stairs in the passageway between the dressing
rooms and bathrooms- would be
there-
off somewhere beyond the northwest corner of the reception
room, almost all the way back.
  She followed her fluid disc of light through a
door to the right, and down forest-green vinyl between walls
of office doors numbered in the low
SCO'S. At a fork, she went left; followed more
forest-green vinyl past higher- numbered doors. Just
about where she thought it would be, she found, in an
alcove on her right, a black iron spiral to the
floor above.
  She mounted its wedge steps slowly, holding the
handrail, pausing to listen-silence-keeping the light
down, coming up into forest-green passageway, floor
and walls carpeted. On the right, two doors a
few yards apart, a pay phone on the curving wall
between; on the left, two doors side by side,
symboled bathroom doors, dark at the bottom.
Light underlined the dressing-room doors,- the
nearer, the door to the women's, was open a crack,
light from inside glazing its forest-green enamel.
Coming out of the spiral, standing in the carpeted
passageway, Rosemary sniffed.
  Sniffed
again.
Tannis, anybody?
"A caret ""*caret tesu
  child"'caret he peeped into the dressing room. I;
jk$5 No movement, no sound.
  JS-HE opened the door farther. The booths,
facing each
  bar other three and three, were open, curtains
gathered at
  the sides. In the booth at her right, Diane's
five hundred
  % dead minks hung on a wall hanger
alongside one of her
  velvet tents. Her jeweled watch and rings lay
on a shelf,
  her black leather drawstring bag on the bench,
black
  boots below. At the other end of the bench, black
panty
  hose, tangled, stretched . ..
  Craig's deep voice spoke in the green
room; the door to it, beyond the empty chairs at the
makeup tables, was only partway closed. He
sounded as if he was asking questions. She leaned into the
dressing room, a hand on the knob, a hand on the
jamb, straining to hear. Couldn't make out what he was
saying or an answer but caught a click from the
hallway; stepped in, closing the door at her
side as the men's dressing room door opened. She
backed into Diane's booth, stood with her heart
thumping.
  Got a good breath.
  In the booth opposite, a flouncy aqua
suit, dead beavers, brown boots, a Gucci
sack. Polly. Leopard- printed undies . .
.
  Silence now from the green room.
  She waited.
  Sniffed. The tannis tang seemed stronger,
weaving through a jungle of perfumery-or maybe the
pill, whatever it was, had sharpened her sense of
smell. Colors too looked clearer.
  Leaning around, she checked the booth alongside.
  Vanessa-electric-blue duffel coat, jeans,
fuchsia sweater, brown hiking boots, black
panties.
  She leaned farther out; the booth (next
to Polly's was Sandy's-dead coyotes, white
leather boots, a pistachio dress. No undies.
  She could leave right now. Did it make any
difference whether Andy was there or not? They hadn't
stripped to discuss GC'S public-health
programs for the year 2000- never mind at least
two of the men beirrg there. And the tannis smell was
tannis, definitely, no mistaking it.
  She took a good deep breath, to be sure.
  Definitely tannis . ..
  Silence still from the green room.
  She stepped out and checked the last two booths;
an empty beside Sandy's, another empty past
Vanessa's- except for a long rust-colored robe
hanging against the side wall she'd passed.
  She stopped, stepped into the booth, studied the
richly dyed robe. Raw silk, nubbly-supple
between her fingertips. She drew a wide sleeve
toward her; a cowl hung in back, a rust rope
belt.
  A monkish robe, lightweight, good lines,
hems double stitched. She worked the label clear of the
hanger's neck, squinted: mme.
delphine-theatrical costumier.
  She pinched a hair from the label, pulled it all
the way free.
  Held it up, seeing with her fresh, ultra-clear
eyes the sleekness of the foot-long black
filament.. .
  She draped the hair over the shoulder of the robe.
  She went between the chairs and the makeup tables with their
bulbed mirrors to the partly closed door
be
  moved behind it, and holding the knob, peeped through the
hinge crack.
  About fifteen feet away, almost directly in
front of her, a little to the left, Sandy sat in the
middle of a sofa, in a rust robe of her own,
studying cards on an antique wardrobe
trunk-tarot cards, for sure. She moved one,
studied the pattern, sighed. Bad news from the beyond.
  Tannis wafted through the crack; they were
probably burning it as incense, in there or on the
stage. Another rust robe passed close before her,
left to right. "It's way past ten-thirty! I
asked him specifically to start on time." Polly.
"I
hate
staying up till the wee small hours; my internal
clocks get all jangled."
  Sandy gathered her cards, quick-shuffled, began
laying them down again. Polly came back, sitting
on the arm of the sofa, nibbling a cookie. She
crossed bare legs out of her robe, good ones for her
age, wiggled red toenails. Leaned her blond
ringlets toward the trunk, bit her lip.
Tsktsked.
  Sandy sighed. "Always chaos, meaningless chaos
..."
  Enter third witch, left. "Has
anyone seen Andy? He was here, now he's gone."
  "It's way past ten-thirty," Polly said.
  "I know," Diane said, coming to Sandy's other
side. "The boys are getting antsy." Her robe
was violet, dyed no doubt to match her eyes. She
watched Sandy shift cards. Said, "What's
'lousetrasm"?"
  "Nothing," Sandy said. "Chaos. It's a
puzzle Judy gave me."
  "Alice, you mean," Polly said.
  "I
still
can't believe it," Sandy said, shifting her cards.
IE
VI n
  Diane, coming away from them, said, "Word games
bore the shit out of me." She migrated rightward.
  Rosemary drew from the crack, wide-eyed.
Sandy hooked too? She turned. Andy held a
finger to his lips: "Shhhh." She gaped; he
covered her open mouth with his fingers. Whispered, "I
was beginning to think you
weren't
putting me on." Grinned at her, gave her a
kiss on the nose.
f caret caret from caret that caret aHave caret
  He took his fingers from her mouth, kept the hand
raised for silence, winked at her as he opened the
door tighter against her, easing out. "Ladies, would
you mind? I need the room to myself for a few
minutes."
  "What for?" Diane, off right.
  "Heavy meditation, okay? Ou. Thank you all."
A black robe for him, the same design as the
others, from behind anyway, the cowl hanging down, the
rope belt. The Sulka robe, downstairs in its
giftwrap, would be sort of redundant; all the more
reason not to give it to him, the cocky lying son of
a-Satan.
  "What were you doing in
there

."
Sandy asked, gathering her cards.
  "Trying on boots. Polly ..."
  "You said we would start-was
  "Start without me. I mean it, go ahead.
Yo, Kevin! Go sound!
Tell him."
  He was closing the door to the stage when
she went
  into the green room-ducking, glancing up at herself
glancing down at her.
  A theater or TV green room that's actually
green is a rarity. One that's
all
green, forest green, in an all-forest- green
theater-is a visual oxymoron. Or something. The
low mirrored ceiling doubled the room's odd
flavor. The offstage space had been decked; the
control room for the light and audio systems was
close overhead-along with everybody's upside-down
reflection walking and sitting and schmoozing, or doing
whatever they were doing in the forest-green green room.
  Rosemary chose a chair by the sofa,- sat
straight in it, her elbows on its arms, her hands
folded before her, fin!
were
gers meshed, black-slacked legs together, black
flats together on the carpeted floor.
  Andy walked across the room-his reflection
walking close above him, pulling the black robes
tight, cinching the rope belts-to the coffee and tea
and the giant red Coke machine. "You want
coffee?"
  She stayed silent a moment. Said, "Black,
please."
  He poured coffee, poked the machine; a can
clunked.
  He brought her a GC mug of black coffee,
with a spoon and a packet of sweetener; sat at the
end of the sofa near her, popped the red can. Sipped from
it.
  She stirred the mug on the trunktop, eyeing
Sandy's "cards," slips of three-by-five memo
paper under a rounded silver paperweight. "You want
the answer to it?"
  She looked at him. "To Roast Mules?" she
asked.
  He nodded, smiling. "I got it in a week or
so."
"Don't you dare tell me!"
she said. "I'll find it myself!"
IE
VIN
  He chuckled. "Oh boyst" he said, "do I have
a hold over you. Watch out or I'll say it."
his
She put the spoon down, sat straight with the mug in
both hands; drew a breath and sipped,
looking ahead.
  He put the can on the carpet, away from his bare
foot; leaned closer to her. "I shouldn't tease,"
he said. "I know you're worried. Don't be. I
only lied a
little.
I'm sorry. I was afraid I might scare you
away again, after you'd been gone so long. Mom,
look at me. Please.""
  She turned her head, looked at him.
  He said, his eyes clear hazel, "What's going
on here isn't Satanism. I don't worship
him, believe me. To know him is to hate him,- he
lives up to his reputation. This is-trimmings,
things I grew up withand like, that's all. Those were the
only parties and holidays I knew. This isn't
even witchcraft, we don't do spells or
anything. It's no more Minnie and Roman's
old-time religion than-than an office
Christmas party is Rob Pat- terson's.
Listen to that..." He nodded across the room.
  Chanting had begun-coming from a speaker in the
forest-green carpet between the tops of the dressing- room
doors-an undulant chanting twined with odd,
quivering overtones. "Do you recognize
it?" he asked.
  She cocked an ear toward the speaker.
  "Did you ever-take part in any-was
  She shook her head. "No," she said. "I
heard though. Through the walls, and the closet. You
know."
  He nodded, smiled.
  She said, "This is different..."
  "It's one of the old chants," he said, "but
Hank's done things with it electronically-that's his
hobby, elec-
  tronic music. That's exactly what I
mean-taped chants, electronically enhanced." He
smiled. "Play them backwards, you hear the Lord's
Prayer."
  She smiled, sipped from the mug. Glanced at him
as he picked up the can and drank, his Adam's
apple moving. She put the mug on the trunk,
sat back with her hands on the chair arms, looked
ahead. Crossed her legs. Sniffed. Fanned a
hand before her face.
  "It really is an office Christmas party," he
said, setting the can back down. "Done the way Andy
likes it. They accept it as an interesting, not so
exceptional kink in someone who has
to present a full-time public image of conventional
goodness-a kink that Andy somehow
intuited
each of them could go along with, for his or her own
reason. It connects in a way with those professional
types coming down out of Dominique's Dungeon
Monday night. At least according to Vanessa; she
wrote her thesis on the subject."
  He leaned closer to her. "These are talented people
who do a world of good," he said, "and they ease the
stress and let off steam with some unconventional
behavior. They're no more Satanists than you are;
half of them are regular churchgoers. Jay's an
officer of his synagogue." He put his hand on
hers on the chair arm. "And they're not murderers,
Mom," he said.
"And I didn't tell them to murder.
That's what you're most worried about, isn't it."
  Looking at him, she nodded. "Yes," she said.
  He sat back, shook his head, raked his tawny
hair. "I don't understand," he said. "Why? I
suppose you could say Judy
meant
to betray me last summer, but she didn't. We had
absolutely no idea who she really
was."
  "She came to tell me something," she said, "not for a
game of Scrabble."
  He looked away, shook his headst sighed.
Looked back at her. "Probably that she was ending
our relationship," he said. "Things fell apart in
Dublin. Guess which night." He picked up the
can, drank.
  "She'd already told me that," she said, watching
him. "I think she was going to tell me about this."
  "Mom, it's
nothing,"
he said. "See for yourself, watch for a few minutes.
Her robe is in there; put it on, pull the cowl
all the way down, nobody'll know it's you.
They'll think I brought someone, I used to before.
You'll see, it's just a party with some druid chants
and old dances and good eats. Black candles instead
of red and green, tannis instead of holly-big
deal."
  She looked at him. Said, "Thanks but no
thanks."
  "Nobody would pressure you to do
anything,"
he said.
  "I said no," she said. "Even if it's as
innocent as you-was
  "I didn't say innocent," he said. Smiled.
"I said not Satanism, and no pressure. Chances
are William will grope you, but if you slap his hand
he won't do it again. Muhammed's more persistent."
  "And if Judy had gone to the media with just that?" she
asked. "Just 'druidic office parties at
GCNY"?"
  He sat a moment, and got up and walked toward
the dressing-room doors, draining the can under his
upside- down reflection sucking at his.
  He crumpled the can, tossed it into a
wastebasket, turned and faced her. "It would have
been an embarrassment, yes," he said, "but
believe me, Mom, I never
  would have hurt her little finger to stop her. I really
loved her-even after Thanksgiving."
  She looked away. A drumbeat joined the
chanting, slow and steady . ..
  "And I don't believe she'd have done x/" he
said, going back to her. "She enjoyed everything as much
as anyone. She gave us Yoga ideas we've
made part of things." He crouched by her chair. "Come
on,"
he said, his hand squeezing hers on the chair arm.
"Just for a few minutes. For
us,
you and me. How can we go on having fun together, like
today, with you thinking maybe I'm still lying and they're out
there chopping heads off chickens?"
  She sighed. "I wasn't thinking
that."
"What were you thinking?" he asked.
  She looked at him, blinked, shrugged. "I
don't know," she said. "A 'Black Massst I
guess. I don't really know ..."
  "What are you," he asked, smiling at her, "a
cardinal who condemns movies he hasn't seen?
Books he hasn't read?"
  "Oh
God,
Andy," she said, "all
right,
you
win."
She got up from the chair as he stood up straight,
smiling, taking her by the shoulders with both hands.
"I'm glad it worked out this
way,"
he said. "It's like you showing me things in Ireland.
These are
my
roots, sort of, some of them. I never thought I'd
be able to let you see." He kissed her cheek; she
kissed his, where his beard began.
  "I'm only going to stay two minutes," she
said. "It's been a long day and I'm very tired."
IRA LEVIN
  He watched her, smiling, straightening his robe,
cinching his belt, as she went to the women's dressing
room, her reflection walking upside down above
her, in sync with the beating drum.
she stood hand in hand with him by the wall at the side
of the stage, her eyes seeing farther into the dark, into the
dusk of candle flames, pastel spotlights,
dimmed red exit signs. A dozen feet away,
cowled robes, sleeve to sleeve, sidestepped
slowly back and forth, a circle wheeling
counterclockwise. Voices trailed the airborne
voices" undulant chanting, the drum leading, a
fife or flute piping along, all entwined in
reverberent echoes. Rust robes, brown robes,
darkly the same in the forest shade, swaying,
sidestepping comonly the violet robe's
wearer known for sure.
  And the shortest robe's wearer, Jay.
  And the tallest robe's, Kevin. Oops.
  She glimpsed, beyond linked sleeves, the
highlights of
  a dark chair. Whispered, leaning closer to Andy,
"Is that Hank in the center?"
  "No," he whispered, "I sit there.ffHe's in
the circle."
  She turned her head, letting go his hand, drawing
the cowl farther aside to look at him.
  His bearded face wrapped in black, he nodded.
"It's the only time he can stay on his feet more than
a few minutes," he said. "I gave him a pep
talk before." He smiled at her. "Stay till this
is over, okay? Ten minutes, tops. They
won't leave the circle." He kissed at her, and
turned and went, his robe swirling about his bare
heels, his Achilles' tendons.
  She watched dark sleeves part and lift to let the
black robe through; the sleeves slid down from pale
arms, a wide silver bracelet glinting on the
slim arm on the left. The robe's cowl turned
her way-darkness, a shadow face-as the sleeved arms
linked again. The cowl faced the other cowl; that
one leaned its shadow face toward her as the circle
of dancers wheeled farther counterclockwise.
  Andy was sitting now, stage center, facing front,
all black robe, glossed with pastel by the overhead
spots- all black except the tip of his beard and
his left hand on the chair arm. The violet robe
lowered itself to a seat before him. Cowl facing cowl, they
linked sleeves, while the chanters sidestepped to the
beating drum. The cowls stayed facing, violet and
black-then met, and parted. The violet robe
rose, Andy's hand helping. He beckoned before him.
A dark robe, brown, moved in from the circle;
violet and brown changed places. The chanters
sidestepped, the drum beat on.
  Rosemary swayed with the drum, her sleeved arms
away from her sides so the nubbly silk could brush
her skin-incredibly sensitive all over. Maybe
from the pill-or could it be the tannis? Or the combo;
she hoped there was no danger there.
  But she felt super, as fresh and loose as if
she were in some disco with Guy, the bastard, back in the
good times. Cowls turned shadow faces toward her,-
she smiled at them, knowing she was as faceless as they,
if not more, beyond the spotlights' glow, the nearest
candles yards to her side.
  Had they guessed who she was? Or did they
think Andy had found a new girl already-perfectly
understandable haste in someone who had to project so much
conventional goodness. She swayed more freely with the chant
and the drum-a foreign visitor he'd picked up in
the lobby. Italian. No, Greek. Melina
Mercouri. Swaying, silk brushing her skin . . .
  Pale fingers beckoned from two or three
sleeves in the circle. She shook her cowled
head, smiling, swaying. Never on Christmas .. .
  The dance was simple-two steps forward and one step
back, with a variation on every fourth drumbeat. A
slow-motion folk dance, steady, unhurried.
Hardly a challenge for Ginger Rogers. She tried
the step anyway, the carpet soft under the soles of
her feet.
  What would Joe make of the scene? A case for the
Vice Squad? Maybe . . . but maybe not.
She could also see him looking for a robe. He had
an adventurous spirit that she really
liked,
and lacked herself. The AlfaRomeo, for instance.
  Oh what the hell.
  She snugged the robe, cinched the belt, fixed the
cowl for maximum coverage. Took a
deep breath-and walked slowly, slowly, along with the
drumbeat, to the circle of robed dancers, to parting
sleeves, hands that took her hands warmly.
  She danced with the circle, sharing its rhythm, finding
its steps, watching black-robed Andy and a rust-
robed woman holding hands, talking:" She circled
sidestepping past his shoulder, holding Vanessa's
cocoa hand, greenish in the forest light, its usually
clear nails painted black or near-black. When
their arms swung, a chain bracelet rolled in and out
under Vanessa's rust sleeve-large round silver
links.
  The brown robe following Rosemary was tall-
William or Craig. She kept a firm grip
on his hand, in case it was William the Groper.
Closing her eyes, she hummed with the chant, not caring
to parrot the syllables, dancing comfortably, answering
some kind of mammalian herd instinct, all her
senses awake . . . "Pssst!" Vanessa's hand
squeezed hers and let go. "Andy wants you!"
  He beckoned; she was almost in front of him, a
brown robe rising.
  She went with the drumbeat to a backless black
seat; gathered the robe around her, sat on flat
warmth.
  Their robed knees touching, she gave him her
hands, looked at him smiling at her in his black
cowl. "I was hoping," he said.
  "You knew damn well, you bastard," she said.
  "My own mother? Shame ..."
  She said, "What do you say when
they
sit here?"
  He looked at her, his smile fading. "I
thank them," he said. "For everything they do for GC
and for me. And I tell them how glad the rest of us
are that they're part of the circle. And they say whatever
they feel like-air a gripe or admit a mistake
or just say "Thanks, same here." In the coven,
they knelt before Roman, vowed undying loyalty
to Satan and him, and he pricked his finger with a dagger
and they drank a drop of his blood. You can see why
it didn't grab me."
  She sat silent, holding his hands, looking at
him as he smiled again. "Here we kiss each other
on the lips," he said. "Chastely. The ball's in
your court."
  She said, "Chastely is easy." Leaned,
pecked his lips, was up, hands free, before he could
help her.
t caret ss caret from caret from caret Aj)
  caret
tilde the
"good eats"-laid out by the rust robes after the
JL
dance, along the amphitheater's first high curving
step-were only so-so: warmed-over standards from the
kitchen downstairs and icky-looking pates. There was
a terrific eggnog though, with a bit of a kick and a
hint of tannis, served up at center stage out of a
handsome silver punch bowl-not the hotel's plated
stuff but the unmistakable real thing, simple, shining,
sterling-stabbed with six or seven pastel light-beams
on a table draped in forest green, where Andy had
sat.
  Violet-robed Diane did the serving, her cowl
back
  from her feathered, lately darkened hair-looking
great, flushed from the dance and obviously fully
recovered from her bout with sciatica. She
silver-ladled the creamy cream into everyone's silver
cups as the robes all mingled and chatted, all the
cowls back, Hank in his chair laughing red-faced
at something William was saying, each with a silver
cup in hand.
  Sitting in near darkness on the top step, at the
greenroom side of the curve, Rosemary kept her
cowl up, though there was probably no need to. No
one had so much as glanced at her since Andy had
shepherded her up there when the dance was ending. The two
of them had eaten there, from plates he had gone down
and gotten, along with cups of the terrific eggnog.
They had both been ravenous, not having had much more
than the pastrami sandwiches all day.
  He came mountain-goating up the steps now with
refills, a cup in each hand, all black against the
light of the stage. She looked away anyway.
  The robes had a tendency to slide open-which had
become apparent when the dance sped up a bit after
everyone had sat and talked with him.
  He gave her a silver cup, sat on the step
a few feet from her, closer to the curve's center,
tucking his robe around him. "You can take the cowl off
if you want," he said. "You're almost invisible, and
anyway they know. Nobody thought I'd bring a
date-date so soon, so who else could it be?
Vanessa was sure." He sipped from his silver cup.
  She lifted the cowl back, fixed her hair.
"What's their reaction?" she asked.
ft

1,1 -----------------------------------
----
  "They're glad you're here," he said, "and they
understand if you don't want to mingle. They hope
you'll join in another dance but won't be hurt if you
don't."
  She sipped from the silver cup. "Meaning at
another party or tonight?" she asked.
  "Tonight," he said. "There'll be two or three more.
Faster, different." He sipped from his silver cup.
  "Oh," she said. Took another sip from hers.
  "If you're tired, I've got some pills."
  "No, no, I'm fine," she said.
  "Harmless," he said. "I get them from Also
downstairs."
  "No, I'm fine," she said. "Second wind."
  "Andy!" Sandy stood at the rim of the stage,
peering up toward them. "Can I speak to you for a
minute?" Sounding peeved.
  He groaned, putting his cup down, getting up.
"Back in a minute, I
hope."
He jogged down the steps, holding his robe around
him.
  Rosemary lifted herself, hitched at the silk,
shifted, settled into a more comfortable position against the
carpet at her back and beneath her, snugged the robe.
She picked up the silver cup and sipped, watching
Andy on the softly lit stage listening to some
disagreement between Sandy and Diane. He strolled with
them, his hands on their shoulders, to the far side of the
stage, followed them through the door to the offices and
storerooms.
  She savored the creamy nog, sweet-tart and
tannissy; savored the shimmery old-new music
idling all around her, the druidic forest-primeval
flavor of the candlelit
  stage-the spotlights dimming now as dark robes,
Kevin and Craig, lifted the table with the punch bowl
on it-
beautiful
silver bowl, Diane's or (Ec's?-and carried
it into the corner beyond the green-room door. Clearing
the stage for the next dance . . .
  Faster, different. ..
  Jimmy Durante had put it so well:
Did you ever have the feeling that you wanted to go and still have the
feeling that you wanted to stay right-brace
She chuckled, recalling him.
  High.
You are very high.
Slightly high, anyway. The rum or vodka or
whatever was in the nog. Or maybe it
was
the tannis-in there and in the air. She hardly
noticed the smell now, but braziers smoldered at
the corners of the stage, their smoke swirling up
into pastel pillars. Beautiful. . .
  Like the time she'd smoked pot with Guy and it worked,
that's how she felt-the music so ultra-clear, her
skin so ultra-tingly, sensing the silk against it, the
carpet
through
the silk-but in this instance with her mental faculties
completely unfogged, sharp as a tack. She sipped
from the silver cup. Could tannis and cannabis be
related? A dark climber stopped two steps below.
Bowed. "Please pardon me, Rosemary,"
Yuriko said. "I'm so happy to see you here.
May I speak with you a moment while Andy's
away?"
  Sitting straight, putting the cup aside, she
smiled and said, "Of course, Yuriko, please
sit down!" She closed her robe more
snugly. "I've been hoping we'd get another
chance to talk."
  "Thank you, so have I," he said, seating himself on
the step below her, a few feet to her left, the
angled planes of his cheek and jawbone gleaming in the
light from the stage.
Extremely
handsome. Forty-nine, divorced, two married children.
She had checked with Judy the day after the impromptu
party in Andy's office.
  She'd seen
Hiroshima Mon Amour
not all that long ago, or so it seemed; the man in that
had been an architect too. Yuriko was
GCNY'S, the amphitheater's designer; he
oversaw the design of all of GC'S worldwide
projects and headed his own firm too, one of the most
highly regarded in the profession.
  "How go the computer lessons?" he asked,
smiling up at her.
  "They're one of my New Year's
resolutions," she said. "Top of the list."
  "I have only one," he said. "To slow down.
I'm going to be fifty next year; that makes a
man think. GC has no upcoming
projects for me, I'm fortunate in having
surrounded myself with capable associates-and so I've
resolved to take some time off and "smell the
roses." his
  "I'm all for that," Rosemary said, smiling down
at him, leaning forward, her hands folded on her
knees.
  "I watched part of the "All-Holy-Days
Special" tonight," Yuriko said, looking up at
her. "Andy's part. I always do, even though I have
everything on tape; it's somehow not the same, is it?
I came away from it, as always, as from everything he
does-I speak as if I'm unique"-he
smiled-"I came away from it with a
  renewed sense that he truly is a celestial
being, no matter how he tries to pretend he's a
mere human. And of course, sitting with him tonight
(jnly strengthened the feeling. There's nothing I
wouldn't do for him." He sighed. "I truly
believe he's going to be ranked among the
immortals," he said. "The Lighting, I
believe, is going to be a watershed event in the
history of humanity, and at the same time a
magnificent work of art, all the greater because of its
transitory nature."
  "That's just how I feel, Yuriko," Rosemary
said, leaning down closer to him. "I've told Andy
that; I'm so glad you agree."
  "Seeing
you
here tonight," he said to her, "makes me more certain than
ever that he-and you too-are true divinities. I
mean that with all my heart. What ordinary mortal
could share this with his mother?" He gestured around them.
"What ordinary mother could share it?" He smiled at
her, dazzlingly. "Myths will grow around you. Does
that make any sense?"
  She smiled back her dazzlingest. "No," she
said.
  "I suppose the tannis is speaking," he said,
still smiling.
  "The tannis?" she said.
  "The incense," he said, pointing. "It's derived
from the leaves of an Egyptian plant that's a kin
of the Indian hemp plant, the source of
cannabis."
  "I
thought
I was getting a little high," she said.
  "Everyone is by now," he said, "but even
when I'm not, I regard you as a celestial being-and
so I sit below you. At your feet." His head of
jet hair bent.
  She gaped. Her toes kissed by surprise-a
first, and not bad.
  Yuriko stood, offered a hand to her, smiling.
"Come dance again," he said. "This one is fun."
  The robes were forming a circle in the candlelit,
pastel-pillared dusk-violet and black robes
coming onto the stage, Andy looking at her as she
stood.
  She watched her feet, holding the robe closed
with an arm as Yuriko helped her down the steep
steps. The music grew louder, a twining
woodwind, a driving drumbeat faster than before.
  When they reached the corner of the stage and stood
face-to-face, he slightly taller, she said,
"I'm sorely tempted, Yuriko, but I'm very,
very
tired, I've had an
incredibly
long day."
  He bowed to her hand and kissed it, something touching the
backs of her fingers. She said, as he stood
straight, "What a handsome pendant."
  "Isn't it?" he said, holding it forward from the
V of his robe: a circle of silver, a
teardrop bent on itself, hanging on a black
cord.
  She leaned to it in the forest shade. "Does it have a
special significance?" she asked.
  He said, "I don't know what the designer
intended; to me it suggests life's continuity, the
continuity of all things." He let the pendant fall
against his chest.
  "It's lovely," she said.
  He smiled. "It caught my eye," he said.
"I have another resolution now: to invite you to dinner
in the new year."
  She smiled and said, "I resolve to accept."
  They smiled at each other as he withdrew toward the
circle, bowing. She looked for Andy's black
robe. No cowls for this dance, and a pale greet
rope or vine held in everyone's both hands.
  No Andy, no black robe. Violet though,
amid the dark ones. The drum jumped louder; the
vine-linked circle stepped to its beat, began
turning clockwise.
  She watched a moment, then turned and went into the
green room, winced against its light as she
drew the door closed. The music shrank into the
speaker on her right.
  Andy sat looking at her, sitting on the sofa in
his black robe, a cookie in his hand. "I thought you
and Yuriko-was
  She shook her head, blinking. Glanced above,
headed across the room toward the snack table. "Why
aren't you?"
  He shrugged. "This dance can get raunchy," he
said, "and Diane must have gone heavy on the rum. I
was coming to get you, but then I saw you coming down with him,
and I felt ..." He shrugged. "I figured
I'd wait," he said.
  She took a handful of cookies, walked back
toward the sofa.
  He moved over.
  She sat down, put the cookies on the trunk
in a heap between them. Sat back and nibbled one. "Do
you know that tannis is related to cannabis?" she
asked.
  "You're kidding," he said. "I'm shocked.
Shocked."
She gave him a look. "No wonder you're
hooked on
OF ROSE MARY
  all this stuff," she said. "I never, never should have
let you go over that first time, to Minnie and
Roman's."
  "I'm not hooked on anything," he said, turning
to her, "and don't start blaming yourself; you had no
choice." He watched her a moment as she drew a
breath. "Plenty of women," he said, touching her
shoulder, "would have just taken off as soon as they could, and
left me with them, period."
  She sighed. "Some, I guess," she said.
  "Plenty," he said. Kissed her temple. She
touched his hand on her shoulder,- they smiled at each
other.
  He turned and picked up a Coke, drank.
  She reached. He gave her the can; she put it
to her lips, drank. Gave the can back to him. He
put it to his lips, drank.
  She sat looking at Sandy's rounded silver
paperweight gleaming on the slips of paper. Shook
her head as if to clear it.
  "So are you satisfied now?" he asked, putting
the can down, sitting back, his hand taking hers between
them. "Did you find any Satanism out there? Any
witchcraft? Did anybody pressure you to do
anything horrendous?"
  "No ..." she said, sitting back. The drum
drove faster, louder, from the speaker, through the door.
"Is this Hank's too?" she asked.
  "No," he said, "it's some French group, I
think."
  They sat back, listening.
  He switched her hand into his other hand, put his
arm around her shoulders. She settled back against
him, sighing. Closed her eyes. He kissed her
temple. Her cheek. The corner of her mouth.
  "Andy..."
  "One chaste kiss ..."
caret caret So caret from caret caret SffLJ
  Drum-driven high on a blissful tide, she
opened her eyes to herself on the sofa, arms clutching his
black-robed back, a hand in his hair as her
throat was bitten. Closed her eyes . . .
Held him tightly as he held her, skin against
skin, his knees spreading her thighs. A jungle
bird screamed; she looked toward the speaker and saw
a sign. Froze seeing it.
  She saw it straight through the mirrored ceiling-the
only patch of blue-sky blue in all the forest
green, a rectangle with black letters across its
middle.
  Below a crumpled red can.
  Clinging to the inside of a basket of woven reeds
hanging upside down between the bottoms of upside-
down doors.
  The sign's letters were reversed and it was a good
twenty feet away but she read it in a flash-so
distinctive it was, so much in the news and her mind
lately- and in the same flash she saw what she
hadn't been seeing all along through the tannis haze
and the pastel spots: Yuriko's pendant, the
bracelets, the punch bowl, the cup she had held
and sipped from. The sign made everything crystal
clear: tiffany and Co.
  Andy's head lifted tiger-eyed, horns showing.
"I
  thought you were ready," he said, the drum beating, the
bird screaming.
  She shook her head.
  He slipped farther down, a leg to the floor;
she pushed against his head. "No," she said. "Andy,
I want to be alone, just for a few minutes.
Please."
  He rose up on a knee, looking at her, his
eyes half- hazeling, the horns sinking in.
"Now,"
he said.
  "Please," she said.
  He drew a breath. Got up from the sofa,
closing his robe. "Whatever you say, Miss
Garbo." He looped his belt, cinched it. Smiled
hazel-eyed at her, his forehead smooth. "You're not
going to run out on me, are you?"
  "No," she said. "I just have to-adjust my
thinking. A couple of minutes. Please."
  He nodded, took a cookie, and went to the door
to the stage; opened it-hands were clapping in sync with the
drum-and went out, drawing the door closed.
  She sat up, closing her robe, and put her
feet to the carpet, shook her head, held it.
Drew a breath, blew it out. Drew another
breath. Shook her head.
  Picked up the can, shook it, sipped.
  Put it down and picked up the paperweight,
hefted the mound of silver, checked its bottom.
Put it down.
  She got up and went to the wastebasket, closing
the robe tighter, tying the belt.
  Picked out the flyer caught in the basket's
weave.
  A triple fold of slick paper with the
black tiffany and Co. across its sky-blue
face. Inside-she held it farther from Blind
Eyes-she was congratulated in italics on her
purchase of a Tiffany cigarette lighter, informed
that the
  repair department stood ever ready should service be
required, and shown photographs of gold and
silver cigarette and cigar cases in the same
ritfbed pattern.
  William smoked cigarettes, Craig smoked
cigars.
  She went into the men's dressing room.
  William had dressed casually: navy blazer
with gold i V andy button, gray flannels.
The gold lighter stood on his shelf, a matching
gold cigarette case in one of the blazer's inside
pockets.
  Another gold lighter lay on Craig's
shelf, along with a silver cigar case. Out of stock
on the gold. What a shame.
  Multidialed gold Tiffany watches lay on
two of the shelves, one with an instruction booklet
beside it.
  She went back out. The speaker was quaking with what
might have been the sound track of
King Kong.
She went into the women's dressing room, holding on
to the flyer.
  She hurried out of the robe and into her own things,
trying not to tremble,- put the flyer into her pocket and
got out the flashlight.
  On the way out she checked Diane's
jewel-crusted gold watch.
Cartier.
You can't win "em all.
  She hurried down the black spiral, followed
the disc of light down forest-green-vinyl hallway.
on christmas day in the morning, she called Joe and
told him she'd been up all night and had a bitch
of a headache; could they get together later in the day?
  He was disappointed but sympathetic. He too had
had a bad night. The train back had been stalled
for hours; he hadn't gotten home till after
three.
  "Ahh," she said, "what a shame. How did it
go?"
  A sigh.
"I
don't know . . . She comes on very nice but I have
the feeling she's a manipulator,
regardless of her orientation, and I still think she's
too old. Did everything go all right at Saint
Pat's?"
  She said, "Yes. I'll call later, okay?"
  She called Andy. Got his message.
  Called the Number, spoke to the chip.
  Sipped coffee at the coffee table, Scanning the
Times's
front page-the Quebec disaster, sixty-six
dead, across the top half; below the fold, boxed
side-by-side pieces about preparations for the
Lighting parties at the White House and Gracie
Mansion.
  The phone rang; she picked up.
  "Before you say anything-by tilde *
  "No," she said, "before
you
say anything. Get down here. You've got ten
minutes. And don't bother bringing Christmas
presents." She hung up.
  "comAffcaret *greater-than 88f5isij
  He made it in under nine. Buzz. But it had
to be him, with the do-not-disturb on the knob.
"Come in!"
she commanded-standing before the Scrabble table and the
window's chiffoned brightness with her arms folded, in the
cobalt-blue velour caftan she had worn the
night he came to her Waldorf suite-minus the
i caret andy button. A workmanlike director
had been her mentor at CBS-TV.
  Andy looked at her and shook his head, blowing out
breath, as he closed the door behind him. He came
through the foyer-and spotted the Tiffany flyer and the
della Robbia plaque on the coffee table, their
blues almost matching, the plaque a shade darker.
"Hey now," he said, going to them-Mr. Clean in
new jeans and a
  snow-white GC sweatshirt, could you believe the
gall? Fresh from the shower, hair still damp-dark, no
time for the dryer.
  "Don't you think you're overreacting a bit?"
he asked, turning toward her, the whites of his
hazels as white as his sweatshirt. Great
willpower; like father, like son, no doubt. "Come
on,"
he said. "I
mean,
you stopped us before the biggie, didn't you? And it was us
not just
me,
let's not play games here-was He drew a breath,
smiled at her. "Look, we both sniffed the
tannis, we both drank the eggnog ..." He
turned his hands out, shrugged.
  "From the Tiffany cups," she said.
  He looked puzzled. Pretty convincingly.
  She pointed at the flyer.
  He went on playing dumb, glancing over at
it, looking at her-just a puzzled Jesus
wannabe.
  "Andy," she said, "it's another boutique up
there. The bowl, the cups, bracelets, watches,
cigarette lighters ..."
  He held his forehead, closed his eyes.
Whispered,
"Oh for shit's sake
..."
  Persuasive. You could almost believe he hadn't
known.
  She went over to him and took those snow-white
shoulders with both her hands-as tightly as she could,
tight enough to make him show surprise that was
definitely the real McCoy; he grasped her
wrists, staring. She said, "Look me in the eye-with
your real eyes, please- and tell me your
coven or your gang or your inner circle didn't
kill Judy."
IRA LEVIN
  They held each other, wrists and shoulders, his
eyes tigering.
  She looked into the black-slit pijpils. "Go
ahead," she said. was 'no, Mom, they didn't do
it, it was five other people." Go ahead. That's your
line. Say it."
  His tiger eyes stared, his lips pursed.
  "Go on," she said, squeezing his shoulders still
tighter, leaning up closer. "Say it and we'll do
the biggie right this minute." She nodded toward8the
bedroom.
  He pulled her hands from him-
"Yes, they did it!"-
turned, moved away. "But it wasn't my idea!
I'm not a free agent!" He turned. "I have
backers," he said. "You know that. Did you ever stop
to think how much money they've poured into the Lighting?
Forget the factories, the distribution, think about the
commercials and specials and getting them seen
by everybody.
Everybody!"
He came closer to her, his eyes still
tiger. "We're talking about Bantu tribesmen
on the Serengeti! Peasants in Outer Mongolia!
Places where we had to put in roads to bring in
generators to show them the first TV they ever saw!
Billions
of dollars! Billions!" He drew breath.
"They didn't want to-see it put at risk."
  "Andy," she said, "things have changed a lot, but
since when do the angels run the show?
You're
the producer,
you're
the star,
you're-was
He barked a laugh. "My angels aren't
angels, Mom!" he said. Swallowed. "They're
businesspeople, altruistic yes, but hardheaded
when it comes to protecting an investment. Look, it's
done."
He moved closer to her, his eyes still tiger; she
folded her arms. "What can I do?"
I
SON OF ROSEMARY
  he asked. "I really was sick in the car, I
wasn't faking that. And
nobody
told them to do it like
that,
that was Diane! She's batty; thirty-five years
at the Theatre Guild and all the world's a stage!
She twists Craig around her little finger, he barks
and everybody obeys."
  "But you're the one who told them to do it," she said.
"You made them
able to do it,
the same way you made Hank able to walk."
  He drew breath. Nodded. "Not the same," he
said, "but similar. Yes. I'm the one who's
responsible. Yes. I had no choice." He
went to the coffee table, took a deep breath, and
stood looking down at the flyer and the plaque.
Shoved his hands into his pockets.
  She stayed with folded arms, watching him. "I'm
moving back to the Waldorf," she said.
  He turned, his eyes still tiger. "Oh
Mom
..." he said.
  "I'm not staying here," she said. "I'll borrow
what I need from a bank till I get "Fresh
Eyes" up and running. I'm sure my
credit rating is terrific."
  "Then borrow and stay here," he said.
  "No," she said. "I don't know what's going
to happen once the investigation starts, I can't even
begin
to think about what I'm going to say when they question me, but
I want distance between us from here on in, Andy."
  He drew a breath, blew it out, nodded. Lowered
his head.
  She said, "I don't want to put the Lighting in
jeopardy either, though I'm not as insane on the
subject as those non-angels of yours. I don't
want us to have to deal with a lot of awkward questions this
week, not when Ireland worked so well and all the
numbers are so good."
  He raised his head, looking at her, his eyes
beginning to hazel.
  "So I'll wait till next Saturdayf" she
said. "January first. But I really don't want
to see you, not till-things work themselves out somewhere down the
line."
  He stood looking at her with his hazel eyes,-
she turned to the table and the window.
  He said, "Will we-light our candles together?"
  She stayed silent a moment. "In
the-park?" she asked.
  "No," he said. "If we're there, we're not
at Madison Square Garden and the Abyssinian
Baptist Church and everywhere else. And I don't
want to do anything political... I think the best
thing is to just stay upstairs, in my place. Joe
too,- I wouldn't expect you to come otherwise.
We'll be able to see the whole show down in the Sheep
Meadow, bird's-eye view, and I've got this
great media room-you must have seen pictures-so we can
watch everything on all the networks. It'll really be
the best way to get an overview of the whole
happening."
  She turned. Took a breath. Said, "I'll
let you know."
  He nodded. Turned and headed for the foyer.
  "Take the della Robbia," she said.
  "Oh
Ma
..." He turned.
  "Take it, Andy," she said. "They bought it, you
didn't. And I really don't want it from either of
you."
  He went to the coffee table, swept the plaque with
one hand into the other,- swung it like a
paperback at his side, walking to the foyer. Out and
gone, pulling the door closed.
  She let out breath, unfolded her arms.
s
cJssgfSo caret to JtesUs
he began to top off her coffee, had the spout of the
not-real-silver coffeepot tilted nearly to the point
of pouring-but took the clean cup from the tray and
filled that instead, about three quarters full. Left
the coffee black, unsweetened.
  Began pacing back and forth between the foyer and the
Scrabble table . . .
  Slowly, holding the cup with both hands . . .
  Frowning over it, sipping . . .
  Funny, funny-peculiar, the way he had
laughed when he said his angels weren't angels.
They certainly weren't, those plutocrats who opted
for murder in a noble cause. Hardly a new
mind-set in human history.
  Where had GC found enough hardheaded altruists
to pour out
billions'?
were there thousands of million- dollar contributors?
Hundreds who gave multimillions? She had
never even tried to estimate the total
production cost of the Lighting, never mind all of
GC'S other projects.
  Andy had spoken as if the Lighting were the one and
only, the be-all and end-all. Naturally he saw
it that way now, under a week away . . .
  She sipped, pacing . . .
  Why hadn't she met any of those major
backers? She'd met people who gave thousands
annually-at
  affairs in New York and Ireland, and at
Mike Van Buren's on Thanksgiving day.
Rob Patterson's Christian Consortium, she
knew, was a significant contributor, but
multimillions? She hadn't gotten that
impression. A few million altogether maybe, over
the past three years.
  Wouldn't at least some of the top-level givers have
wanted to meet her? Wouldn't Andy have wanted
to oblige them?
  Only that elderly Frenchman, Refie, at the
airport, and maybe the man with him
be
their handshakes and few words had been the full extent
of her contact with GC'S non-angelic angels.
Rene had certainly been giving Andy a
devil of a time on the phone the morning she'd barged
into his office; Andy had sounded well accustomed
to placating, or try to placate, the old man . .
.
  She stopped in the center of the room.
  Stood for a moment. Swallowed.
  Closed her eyes, put a hand to her forehead.
  Drew a breath and opened her eyes. Turned to the
coffee table. Moved to it, bent, put the trembling
cup down, pulled the
Times
around to face her.
  Stood looking down at the front page.
  Turned, rubbing her forehead. Walked slowly to the
Scrabble table. Church bells began bonging.
  She stood wincing at snow-bright daylight shining through
chiffon. Looked down at the tiles on the table.
  Not the Ten.
  The rest of the herd, the other ninety-two, lying
mostly face-up from her hunt for the outcasts.
  She fingertipped a tile, drew it out through others
  onto the table's margin of polished wood. Left
it there-a B. As in bells bonging
Oh lit-tle town of Beth-le-hem . ..
She fingered another tile, drew that one out
too, giving the B an I alongside it. And an
O ...
  Gimme a C . ..
  Gimme an H ...
  Gimme an E, M, I...
  She didn't see the other C. Didn't keep
looking.
  She went back to the coffee table, picked up the
phone, tapped a number.
  Said, "Hi, Joe."
  She said, "A little better. Let's get together
now, okay? Someplace we can talk but not here,
I'm sick of this tower. I'll come there; I've
seen pigsties, I won't faint."
  She sighed. "Where's that Chinese restaurant?
It'll be empty today."
  She said, "I don't care about that. The food's
good, isn't it? Where is it?"
9-JSZANDr*and"
i
fand-9
  caret iTt's a dump," was what he had said.
Off Ninth JL Avenue, a faded twelve-table
restaurant with plate- glass windows and frozen
ceiling fans, decor by Edward Hopper.
  In a side booth, one of the two occupied tables,
they toasted the holiday with Chinese beer and got the
presents out of the way first. His was a huge, handsomely
  bound and jacketed book she had found in the
hotel's Rizzoli shop-photographs and
blueprints of classic Italian autos,
including his AlfaRojneo.
  "Oh this is just
beautiful*."
he said, turning the heavy pages. "I didn't
even know such a book existed!
Bello! Bellisimo!"
He leaned across the table and kissed her.
  Her present was a small gold i caret andy
pin with a ruby heart. Van Cleef and Arpels.
  She sighed, said, "You shouldn't fiave ..."
Leaned across the table and kissed him. "I love it,
thank you, Joe." She pinned it to her sweater while
he and the waitress gathered the wrappings and he
ordered for both of them, not using a menu.
  "What's on your mind?" he asked when the
waitress had gone.
  "Something really heavy," she said, "and I don't
want to worry Andy about it."
  "A threat?"
  "You could say." She looked him in the eye.
"Judy dropped a few remarks," she said, "that
make me think-now that I know who she was, and now that
these things have happened in Hamburg and now
Quebec-they make me think her gang might have
somehow tampered with the candles. Or a gang in the Far
East they had connections with."
  He sat back. Blinked a few times, looked
at her. "Tampered with the Lighting candles," he said.
  She nodded. "These might be cases where someone
lit one early, or maybe a store or a house
burned with candles in it."
  He sat looking at her. "The first two times
ever," he said. "The candles have been around all over
the world for months and these are the first two times one got
lit or burned."
  She said, "Maybe there's some kind of built-in
timer. I don't know anything about biochemicals,
I'm pretty sure that's what's involved here, but
there are two parts to the candles, right, the blue and the
yellow? Maybe they're more complicated than that.
Maybe there's some chemical something that keeps them
safe or unarmed or whatever till a certain time,
and a few of the candles are a little off. And a few of those
few were in Hamburg and Quebec ..."
  They looked at each other. Sipped from their
glasses of beer.
  He gave her a sidelong smile and said, "Do
you think maybe this could be a case of opening-night
jitters? You're Andy's Mom, you want everything
to go off picture perfect..."
  "It might be," she said. "I hope so. But
maybe it's more
be
we
have
to check it out, Joe. Do you know someone who could? Not
in the Police Crime Lab or the FBI, though.
Someone private, a forensic chemist who does
consulting work. Someone like that. With access
to up-to-date equipment."
  "Did Judy really say anything?" he asked.
"Or was this a vision?"
  She looked away, stayed silent, looked back
at him. "A little of each," she said.
  They sat back as the waitress put plates
on the table and doled out dumplings with a pair of
chopsticks.
  They
ate, he
with chopsticks, she with a fork.
  "Aren't these good?" he said.
  "Mmm," she said, eating.f
  "This is the worst time of the year to get
anything
done," he said, "let alone something as complicated as
this,- everybody's on vacation. The NYU School
of Medicine is closed down, which is where the first
person who comes to mind is on the faculty, a
classic-car collector up in Armonk. If he
can't do it himself, he'll know who can. Except he's
probably in Aspen or someplace, he and his wife
and kids all ski. Look, if you're this serious
about it, then we should go to the FBI. I know guys in
the office here, and they have the facilities in
Arlington to do the job right and do it fast."
  She shook her head. "I don't want to get
Andy involved in a-whole investigation," she said.
Covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes tearing.
  "Hey, hey, aaah ..." He reached across the
table, patted her shoulder, her cheek. "Andy wouldn't
be involved," he said, "not in any bad way. I'm
sure he'd be the first one to-was
  "still
don't want to go to the FBI,"
she said. "Maybe I'm-hallucinating, you're right,
and I don't want to open up a whole can of
worms. Please, Joe!"
  He sat back frowning, watching her as she
pressed a paper napkin to her eyes. "Okay,"
he said. "I'll get after this guy this afternoon. He's
in
something
with biochemistry in it, Dr. George Stamos.
One of his lab assistants was making designer
drugs, right there in the lab, until her boyfriend shot
her. In "94. George has two Alfas but
they don't come anywhere near mine."
caret szandrfandefSzftj
v

H
e
called her around five that afternoon. The Starnos
family was away but their message said they'd be
back Monday morning. "I didn't say why I
was calling; he'll think I'm ready to sell the car,
I'll be his first callback. You can't realistically
expect to get any action before Monday anyway.
But Rosie, the more I think about it ...
If Hamburg was a sample, then you're talking
about something that could maybe wipe out the whole human
race.
Nobody
is crazy enough to want to do that."
  She drew a breath; said, "I hope you're right,
Joe. Thanks for following through."
  "No sweat. Feel better soon."
  She went back to reading a trade paperback she
had bought that afternoon in the Doubleday's on Fifth
Avenue-
Biochemistry: The Two-Edged Sword.
She was up to the chapter on nerve gases and
flesh-eating viruses.
  The Stamos family was back from its skiing
vacation by Monday morning-all except George,
who was in a hospital in Zurich, in traction.
Joe got his phone number from Helen Stamos after
he explained that it was about a favor for Rosemary,
not cars, but he couldn't make the call till
Tuesday morning because of the time difference.
  That was the bad news he phoned to Rosemary on
Tuesday afternoon. The good news was that George had
S
  immediately come up with the man for the job, a
colleague who was a partner in a laboratory in
Syosset, Long Island, that did free-lance
forensfLc work in criminal cases. Joe had
spoken to the man, telling him that he himself, as an
employee of GC, had heard a candle- tampering
rumor that he wanted to check out just for his own peace of
mind; almost certainly nothing to it, but still. .. "He's
going to check a few of them. He'll know whether or
not they're clean by tomorrow morning."
  She said, "You told him "biochemicals"?"
  "Yes. He says it's not impossible but would be
an amazing feat for a gang of PA'S to pull off."
  She watched TV, thumbing through the multichannel
mix-being told time and again by Andy and by herself, in
ten-second and thirty-second formats, how moving
and inspiring the Lighting was going to be, and how great it
was that everybody in the whole human race was going
to take part in the glorious, symbolic, artistic
happening, and that the time to unwrap and light here in this
area
is seven p.m. this coming Friday,
just do it along with the TV, any channel, don't
miss the warm-up starting at six, and remember, out
of reach of the kids. Andy winked at her. "Sick of
these by now, right?" He chuckled, she
didn't. "Okay, but it's so important," he
said. "I ask you
please
to make sure that everyone you know lights at the right
time; will you do that for me? Thanks. Love ya."
  She wondered if there could be something he did,
something he projected, that she was immune to, because of
their kinship. It seemed no less impossible than
gases that could turn a person to jelly in fifteen
minutes.
  Joe had managed to get Wednesday-matinee
house seats
  for the first solid hit of the Broadway season, a
revival of a failed 1965 musical for which,
ironically, Guy had auditioned back in the happy
days before they'd moved into the Bram, when they were still
living in his one-room walk-up on Third
Avenue. The show was a charmer, as she'd thought then, but
she had a hard time focusing on the first act; Joe
hadn't heard yet from the lab in Syosset.
  He went to phone his answering machine during the
intermission. She smiled and signed a few
autographs for people sitting nearby, then sat looking
at her open Playbill.
  Joe didn't get back till the
house lights were down and the second-act overture
had begun. "Clean," he whispered, sitting down in
the seat alongside. She looked wide-eyed at
him. He nodded. "Perfectly clean. No
biochemicals. Not even any perfume."
"Shhh!"-
from behind them.
  She had a hard time focusing on the second act
too, but clapped wildly at the end and joined with
Joe in the standing ovation.
  They hustled into a bar next door and found a
foot- square table in a dusky corner. "He
analyzed everything," he said, "the wax, the wicks,
the glasses. Four candles-two from here, one from out of
state, and one from out of the country. One hundred
percent clean."
  "You spoke to him?" she asked.
  "The message was on the machine," he said.
"Written report will follow."
  "Whew!" she said. "That is one big relief."
  "You know," he said, "I hate to mention it, but
it's not conclusive. Don't forget there were fourteen
  factories turning them out. There could have been
tampering at one, or some, and these were from another."
  "No," she said, "my-impressipn was
that
all
the candles were affected."
  "All? At all fourteen factories? You
really thought that?"
  She smiled, shrugged. "Opening-night jitters,"
she said.
  The waiter brought them her Gibson, his
Glenlivet. "Cheers," they said, and clinked
glasses and sipped.
  "Thank you so much, Joe," she said. "I'm so
grateful to you." Kissed him.
  "Where are we going to light ours?" he asked.
  "At Andy's," she said. "I think. The three of
us. Is that okay with you?"
  "Why wouldn't it be? Sure, there's no place
better." He smiled at her. "For lighting our
first
candles, I mean."
  "Right," she said, smiling back at him.
  "Should I pick you up at six and we'll go up
together?"
  "Just what I had in mind," she said.
  "Happy New Year," he said. They pecked
each other's lips. He said, "Call me
romantic, but I'm glad we wound up waiting.
It's gonna be one great New Year's Eve."
t caret ssgSrs caret RS-SI-9
  T
Tt
That a load off her mind! Andy may have let
GC'S
  V V obsessed backers push him into abetting
Judy's
  murder-for which there could never be any forgiving
  and forgetting, definitely not-but at least they were
  tst obsessed backers whose goal was to do good, not his
"old man" using him to win an instant Armageddon.
  She took a long, hot shower. Finally she'd
get a good night's sleep. Weeks since her
last one, with the trip and then Judy . . .
  She ordered cocoa and petits fours from room
service; sipped and nibbled amid satin pillows,
watching preparations for the Lighting in a schoolroom in
Argentina, at the Air Force Academy, the
Wailing Wall, an oil rig in the North Sea.
  The only thing bothering her, as she zapped the TV
and snuggled into her warm satin cocoon, was a feeling
that Andy was calling her-like the time his head got caught
between slats of the crib and he called her
without being able to call.
  She snaked an arm out and lifted the handset of the
phone-alive and humming; she put it back down.
Snuggled into the satin.
  Knew damn well it was herself calling him.
  Should have taken a cold shower, not a hot one.
Mom!
His voice, in pain, woke her. Daylight fringed the
closed draperies.
  She lay listening.
  Felt him, less strongly, but certainly
didn't
hear
him again.
  She refused to let herself trick herself into calling
him. Went up to the spa after breakfast and hiked,
jumped rope, swam-the glassy splashing in the
window-walled pool masking all other sound.
  The bothersome feeling faded away as she sat
eating a club sandwich in the living room, watching the
Lighting
  finally becoming real-and so much more richly than she
had ever imagined.
  All regular programming had Been suspended.
On every channel the Lighting music, the
Lighting logo, the Lighting countdown in one corner
or another: com30:44:27, seconds streaming,
minutes melting. On every channel shrink-wrapped
sky-blue-and-gold Lighting candles being ranked on
tables and counters, sky-blueand-gold Lighting
banners being raised.
  On the Princeton campus. In a women's
prison in Hong Kong. In a casino in
Connecticut, a hospital in Chad, aboard the
QE2.
In an Oslo department store, a nursery school
in Salt Lake City.
  Heads talked with other heads about the Lighting's
beauty and significance, and about the discord and pain and
sorrow that would be darkening the planet at this cosmic
milestone were it not, thank God, for Andy, Son of
Rosemary, shepherding us into the year 2000 as One
Humanity, Refreshed and Renewed.
  Reporters shoved microphones at people and asked
leading questions-in a Bolivian shoe factory, a
Hassidic community in upstate New York, a
firehouse in Queensland, Australia. In St.
Peter's Square, in a subway station in Beijing,
in Disneyland, Mickey and Minnie waving
shrink-wrapped candles.
  Andy was probably watching upstairs. She
sighed; they should have been watching together, regardless.
Tomorrow night, watching the actual event with him, would be
the peak experience of her life.
  She surfed the channels, sipping a Coke,
using the
  biochem book as a coaster. Mombasa,
Iraq, Tibet, Yucatan . . .
Everybody in the world
would be lighting clean, safe, GC candles!
  The Amish
liked
TV, spoke readily into the mike about Andy,
Rosemary, the Lighting, and the joy of tractors.
  Even the dingbats waiting to be picked up
by aliens in UFO'S would be lighting their candles before
leaving planet Earth. There would be just enough time, a
woman leading a California contingent of three
hundred explained; Nostradamus had predicted
they would be picked up in the
second
minute of the year 2000, not the first. Two goes with
two, don't you see?
on friday morning, calling him was reasonable; she
had to finalize their arrangements, she'd
never even given him a definite yes. And she
wasn't imagining he was calling
her
anymore,- she had enjoyed a good night's sleep
at last. And good melon and coffee and croissant,
there in the satin. Maria, who had brought in the tray,
had been more excited than she. "I feel like I'm
marrying
everybody
tonight!" she had said, laughing, opening the draperies on
an overcast sky. Rosemary tapped Andy's
regular number and waited through his message, watching
Lighting preparations backstage at the
Metropolitan Opera House, com9:37:17.
"Andy?" she said. "I want to discuss this evening."
She waited, watching the scene at Yankee
Stadium.

Beep, dial tone.
She tapped the Number, spoke to the chip.
  Felt good having done it. She checked the
crossword puzzle and felt even better; there she
was-1 across,
Noted mother,
eight letters. The Lighting was the day's theme,
naturally, and the rest of the puzzle-except 6 down,
Noted son,
four letters-was tough and tricky, the usual Friday
challenge. Almost forty minutes before she finished.
  He hadn't called.
  She tapped the Number again, spoke to the chip,
stayed on through the different-number option. "If you
wish only to give a message to Andy, press
two."
  She pressed two.
  "Please record your message for Andy now."
Beep.
"Hi," she said. "I want to discuss this evening.
Joe's picking me up at six; is that what you were
figuring on? Call soon, will you? I have a hair
appointment at eleven- thirty." She waited.
  "Thank you, Rosemary. Andy will get your
message soon. You may hang up now."
  He hadn't called by the time she left.
  When she got back to the made-up suite, there were
double-digit messages on the regular line and one
on the private line.
  "Hi, do you know where that son of yours is?"
Diane. "I haven't heard from him since
Tuesday and the calls are pouring in. Some
he's
got
to return-I mean, like the Pope and the President?
I don't even know which site the two of you are going
to; I assume the park with the rest of us. Would you
please tell him to call me, or call
  me yourself if you know what's going on? And guess
who's writing haiku about you. "Bye."
  She erased it.
  Turned the TV on. Talking heads, at
combledccadccea.
  A plastic bag from the valet hung on the
pull-out rod between the closet doors. She tore it
open, drew free the sky-blue crepe, laid the
pantsuit across the bed. She hung the other things
away, and got out the gold silk blouse and the gold
high-heeled sandals,- put them on the bed too.
Rolled the plastic up, popping it, and stuffed it
into the wastebasket.
  She stood frowning. Checked the pocket of her
slacks for her card.
  She put the shades and the kerchief back on.
  Rode down to the lobby-jam-packed and noisy-and
keeping her head down, made her way around the
corner from the elevators to the authorized
personnel only door,- ran her card through the
lock and pulled the door open.
  She carded the elevator door; it split, the
cab right there-suggesting Andy had gone out. Maybe he
hadn't died of a heart attack after all while she
ignored his calls for help.
  She got into the inside-out lipstick anyway,
turned, braced herself for lift-off, touched 52.
Whoosh as 8-9-10 flicked past. She took the
shades and kerchief off, fluffed her hair, waggled
her jaw till her ears popped.
  Remembered last time, facing his bearded chin,
rocketing up with him faster than she liked-to the
view et cetera.
  The red 52 pinged alight as the cab slowed, and
split open.
  The sky beyond the black-sbid-brass lounge was
wintry gray, darkening already at three o'clock, clouds
growing heavier over distant Queens. More snow on the
way?
  "Andy?" she called as the brass cylinder closed
behind her.
  A woman spoke, a familiar, fluent
voice, off to the left and back. "... with our
continuous coverage of the Lighting. It's just
under four hours away now, and everywhere, in every time
zone, people are feeling a new solemnity..."
  "Andy?" she called, following the voice back
toward an open doorway. TV pictures shone and
shifted in the side wall of the room within, four large
screens she could see and parts of two nearer ones,
three over three.
"Andyf"
she called, along with some kids in a classroom
on the screen with the sound. She pushed the door all the
way open, looking beyond it to the room's other side.
  He was nailed to the wall. Nailed through his
bloodied palms, his arms outstretched, his head
hanging. In his white GC sweatshirt and jeans,
standing sandwiched between the dark wood wall and the back of a
black leather couch pushed against him.
  She closed her eyes, swayed, holding the
doorjamb.
  Looked again in the shifting light at-not a vision-
Andy crucified, small pale horns jutting from his
bloodied hair. Dead?
  She pushed from the jamb, rushed to the couch and on
son of to s emary
  it on her knees, a hand to his chest, a hand to the
side of his neck.
  Warm.
  And a pulse.
  Slow.
  Feeling the throb in the side of his neck, catching
her breath, she winced at his right hand-the fingernails
grown into claws, four inches of flat-headed metal
thick as a pencil sticking out of the bloodied palm.
What lunatic had done it? A track of dried
blood trailed down the dark wood wall.
  were his ankles nailed too? She craned her
head beside him but couldn't see into the dark behind the couch.
His feet seemed to be on the floor, judging from his
height and the moderate strain on his arms. She felt
his chest stir. "Andy?" she said. Across the room behind
her, he talked about the Lighting.
  His head moved, turned toward her, the horns
curving thumb-sized from his hairline. She caressed
his cheek, wincing. His eyes opened. She smiled at
him. "I'm here," she said. "I heard you. I thought
it was my imagination! I'm so sorry, darling!" His
mouth opened, gasping; his tiger eyes begged.
  She turned to a low black console, put a
foot to the floor, and lifted a dripping champagne
bottle from a cooler, stood it aside. She took
the cooler, turned with it and knelt on the
couch again, dipped a hand into water, wet his lips.
  She dipped water onto his tongue, into his
mouth; he sucked water from her fingers, swallowed.
"I'll get you down," she said, "I'll get you
down ..."
  He sucked water from her fingers, swallowed,
tiger eyes thanking her.
  "Oh my angel," she said, "who
tiid
this to you? What beast could
do
this?"
  His lower lip faltered against his upper teeth.
"F-f-father..." he said.
  She stared at him. Said, "Your-father?" She
backhanded tears away, shook her head.
"He
was here?
He
did this to you?"
"Is
here ..." he said. "He
is
here ..." His eyes closed, his horned head fell.
93aret 5zandrtandfts8and-9
  A caret
a
ybe he was hallucinating, but who else could
A.
V JL-HAVE committed such an atrocity?
Vengeance for Andy's betrayal of his plan? For the
candles being harmless?
  Satan didn't jump out of the kitchen when she
found it, or out of the freezer when she opened it.
  She took out the whole plastic drawer of ice
cubes, and went with them in search of the bathroom,-
found it by a bedroom with another window of wintry
sky, both rooms ultramesso. In the bathroom
she found a few fairly clean towels, a pair of
barber scissors, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol;
she snagged two neckties from an open bedroom
closet.
  Kneeling on the couch, she held a towelful of
ice cubes close around his claw-nailed right hand
and the
  thick iron nail sticking out of it. The nail had
been rock solid before,- there was no telling how far
it went through the rosewood paneling and whatever was in
back. She hoped the ice would contract the metal-and
numb his hand against the worsening of pain that was
already surely excruciating; wasn't that how it had
earned the name?
  She made herself wait, watching his sleeping,
troubled-looking face. Had his horns sunk in a
bit? Or was she getting used to them?
  She shifted her chilled hands-the towel was wet
through-making sure the ice stayed close against the nail
and his palm. She shook her head, wondering at the
cruelty of a being who could do this to
anyone,
let alone his own son.
He lives up to his reputation,
Andy had said. Surpassed it, rather; the worst she
remembered from the Bible was "the father of lies." How
about the father of bestial savagery?
  She shivered, seeing again-first time in a long time- the
yellow furnace eyes she had looked into for an
instant that night while he pounded into her, the coven
watching all around. Andy's tiger eyes, she had
decided when he was still in his bassinet, were a golden
mean between the extremes of those hellish eyes and her
human ones; now it struck her that his less
attractive traits and talents, like his lying and his
power to sway people, might also be only half his father's.
Nice thought.
  She lowered the towel of melting ice, put it in the
plastic drawer on the console, and got off the couch,
wiping her hands on her slacks.
  She dragged the end of the couch farther from the wall at
his right side. No nails in his ankles. She
felt to be sure-socks and sneaker tops, no
naife.
  She stood with her back against his hip, her shoulder
under his arm; wrapped a band of dry towel around the
inches of nail sticking out of his hand, and grasped the
wrapped, cold metal with one hand over the other.
"Out," she told it, and pushed at it and pulled at
it- slowly, not too hard. Andy moaned as "the
blood track below his hand freshened. "Got to do it,"
she said. The nail moved; she pushed and pulled with
one hand, bringing his hand along with her other, and as
gently and carefully as she could, began dragging and
twisting the nail out through his skewered hand, holding it still
against the wall. Seven, eight, nine inches long the
damned thing was; she tossed it away,- it clunked
on the carpet.
  She wrapped another piece of towel around his
hand, tied it with a necktie, tight, and turned toward
him, pulling his arm over her shoulder, trying
to figure out a way to keep him steady
while she got over the back of the couch to his other
hand; but his arm raised and reached over her. She
ducked, watching him, supporting him against the wall,
as he turned and reached to the nail sticking out of his
other palm. She said, "Ice first," but he clutched
the nail with his towel-wrapped hand and pulled, his
eyes squeezed shut.
  She turned away, wincing-wood and masonry
squealed-and she caught him, almost fell under him but
got him up and draped over the back of the couch as the
nail banged off the console. She bent, hugged his
  jeaned legs and hoisted them, hefted him up and
over, darting around the end of the couch, stopping him,
bracing him facing the back of it.
  She lowered him onto his back-out cold-and tugged
him farther down the couch so his ankles were on the padded
arm and his head low against the other arm. She wrapped his
bleeding left hand in a piece of towel, tied it and
put it at his side, fixed his other arm. Stood
watching his GC sweatshirt rise and fall.
  Took a good, deep breath herself, pushing her
hair back.
  She untied his sneakers and took them off, rubbed
his socked feet.
  Checked the Lighting countdown as she
left the room: com3:16:04.
  She got soap from the bathroom and a bowl of warm
water from the kitchen and went back to him; unwrapped
one hand and then the other, picked the conspicuous bits
of stuff out of both sides of his wounds, washed them,
trickled alcohol on them,- wrapped them tightly
with fresh lengths of towel and retied them.
  She unfolded a faded crocheted afghan over
him, remembering it, she was pretty sure, from the
Castevets" living room.
  He needed a tetanus shot, surgery,
hospital care; how could she get it for him with his
horns and claws and eyes showing?
  She would have to trust Joe with the truth, there was no
other way. Maybe, just maybe, he knew a
doctor who could be trusted, or bribed eventually
to stay silent, or of a private clinic somewhere.
  She washed Andy's face, and the blood from his
hair;
  separated the hair and dabbed at a swollen
inch-long line of dried blood; left it as it was.
his
She brought things back into thand kitchen, washed her
hands at the sink, and blood from her sweater; put the
drawer back under the icemaker and flipped
it on, filled a glass with cold water. Drank
some, refilled it.
  She put the glass on the console and sat down
on the floor by the end of the couch. Felt Andy's
forehead. Cool, but not too. She touched the tip of
one of his horns- ivory-ish, sort of.
  She leaned back against the end of the couch, rested her
head against the arm, close to his head lying against it.
Sighed, closed her eyes. Listened to a muezzin's
call to prayer segue into cantorial singing, an
operatic tenor.
  She opened her eyes and watched four different
scenes on six screens-twin temples, a
stadium with Egyptian signboards, the grand
stairway of the Ql2, twin shots of the crowded
Sheep Meadow downstairs-all the counters down to
com1:32:54 and running. Red digits on the console
gave a translation: 5:29.
  She hadn't realized it was so late, but cutting the
towels, cleaning the wounds . . . Joe would be on his
way by now, or almost; no point in calling him.
He'd surely assume she had gone up early and
would come right up himself.
  She watched the screens, listened to the talking
heads, the anchors, the Mormon
Tabernacle Choir.
  Andy's head turned; she turned hers,- his tiger
eyes were watching the screens. "Hi," she said.
"Nice to have you with us." He stayed silent, watching.
"Thirsty?" she asked.
  He made a sound in his throat.
  She knelt, cradling the back of his head,
holding the glass while he drank. "Joe's going
to be here soon," she said. "There's a good chance
he'll know someplace where we can get you some medical
treatment. You're going to be fine."
  She lowered his head, put the glass down.
  He watched the screens.
  She said, "It's going beautifully"-shifting around
and leaning back against the leather couch arm again.
  Their heads close together, they watched, listened.
"Ah, look ..." she said, smiling. He cleared
his throat. "Three minutes after they're lit," he
said, "the candles begin releasing a virus that's
suspended in a gas. It spreads ..."
  She turned to him. "A lab said they're clean
..."
  "Then they didn't know what they were looking for,"
he said. "That's why I was nailed there, to keep me
from telling you while there was still time to get the
word out. I was going to." He swallowed, looked
at her. "I feel so rotten about it," he said.
"I keep thinking about that kid James ..."
  She stared at him-as the Lighting music swelled,
the choir singing out.
"Rosie! You here!"
"Joe!" she called. "Wait a second!" She
started to get up
be
Andy's bandaged hand caught her arm. "I feel so
guilty,
Mom," he said, his tiger eyes tearing. "Lying
to you, keeping everything from you-about the candles, about him-I
just wish I were dead!"
  She turned from him to Joe coming in the door, tall
  and dapper-ultra-dapper-in top hat, white
tie, and tails, a bundle of sky-blue-gold
silk in one white-gloved hand, a picnic hamper
in the othfer. "Funny," he said, dropping the
bundle on a chair, "I always thought this would be a
festive occasion, but now, when it's finally here, I
all of a sudden feel-I guess "grave" is the
word for it. Hmm." He planted the wicker hamper
on the console. Took off his top hat, put it
crown down alongside. "You," he said,
pointing a white-gloved finger at Andy, "are lucky
you have such a loving mother, because if it was up to me, you'd
spend the rest of eternity nailed to that wall."
  Rosemary, on her knees, holding onto the
edge of the console, looked up at him. "Joe?" she
said.
  "Hi, puss," he said, smiling down at her,
tugging at white fingertips. "Tonight's the night."
He winked a yellow furnace eye at her.
*caret szandr?!
i
iandA-9
  Smiled at her as she climbed to her feet staring
at him, while Andy muttered.
  He dropped glove one into the top hat, tugged
at the fingertips of glove two.
"Had
to come along with him," he said, smiling at her.
"Couldn't trust him to run the show himself, could I, him
being half human, liable to go soft? Not with so much at
stake, no way. And was I right or was I wrong,
I ask you?" He dropped glove two in the hat.
  She stared at him.
  "I knew the dentist would get a cab or something
thrown at him," he said, straightening his
white tie. "I know the way that mind up there works.
This is mega- chess, the endless game; he's
white, I'm black. He got first move but tonight
I wipe out his pawns." He smiled at her.
"His knights and bishops too, and the king. The
queen I keep." He bowed to her, winked. "That
worked out neat, didn't it? You were his logical move
to make mush out of young Eat-a-pussy here, so I
had Joe Maffia ready and waiting for my
countermove."
  She stared at him.
  "Who's a lady in distress likely to turn
to," he asked, duding up his shirt front, "if
not an ex-cop with just- maybe mob connections? Could
anybody be more useful if she needs, say, a
forensic chemist? Or house seats for a hit or a
Mass? Oh hey, regards from Mary Elizabeth
and her lesbian lover!" He grinned at her.
"When still step into a cathedral, baby," he said, his
everybody
has a seizure. But enough about my devilish
machinations. Pride! I just can't seem to shake it."
He shook his head, picked up the sky-blue-gold
bundle, unfurled her pantsuit and blouse,
drew out the sandals; offered her both
handfuls.
  She looked at them, at him.
  "Go change," he said. "And fix yourself up;
he's got the complete works of Elizabeth Arden in
the guest bathroom. Over by the elevator."
  She stood staring at him.
  "Come on," he said, smiling. "Lighten up, like
he says in the commercials. We'll dance a little.
It's a better warm-up than this bullshit. That's
a great floor out
I
"J
"ust relax. Remember? I do all the work."
  They danced on the slick black floor before the
glittering diorama-the East Side, the Whitestone
Bridge, Queens, the whole shootin' match-under the
luminous bottoms of rolling clouds.
  He sang along with Fred Astaire:
"Before the fiddlers have fled, before they ask us to pay the
bill, and while we still have the chance
..." Held her closer, her waist, her hand.
"Hey listen," he said, "I'm sorry I was so
obnoxious in there. It's a very special night for
me,
RA LEVIN
  there,- it's where I taught him. Ballroom is
one of the few things you guys do that's nice to look
at."
  She drew a breath. Said, "I woulduld sooner
die. Honestly. I mean it."
  "Oh?" He lowered both handfuls, nodded. "I can
see how you would feel that way," he said. "It's your
species, after all. Plus the Catholic
upbringing." He nodded, looked at one of the nails
on the carpet. Squinted at it.
  The blood-streaked iron nail rose in the air,
drifted aside, rose higher, and hung with its head
against the ceiling, some nine or ten feet above Andy's
face. He lay looking up at it.
  "Which eye?" Joe/satan asked, looking at
Rosemary, not at the nail up above.
  She put out her hands.
Plus-or-more. @lffzandrfandit@lffandJ
  you've got to understand that, and I'm kind of keyed
up. And I'm not accustomed to getting backtalk,
except too much of it lately from him."
  "So you nail him to a wall," she said, not looking
at him.
  They danced, a piano and orchestra leading them.
  "Look," he said, "I could have had the
coven do the sensible thing with you way back when, but I
didn't; I made it the coma, and made sure you were
in a good place and the bills were paid." He turned
her as she looked away. "We looked into each
other's eyes that night," he said, "and don't tell
me you don't remember. It may have been a scary
moment for you, an awful one, I'll grant you-but it
was an exciting and beautiful moment for me. Once in
a lifetime-one of mine, not yours, if you follow
me-which you're doing better now, see? And who knows?"
He dipped her, lifted her. "Maybe I'm even
smarter than I think I am. Maybe I knew,
or just hoped somewhere deep inside, that if you were
alive when the time came for Andy to begin his work, it
might turn out that we'd look into each other's eyes
again, in a nicer, more civilized situation-that there was the
possibility, so to speak, of a sequel for us."
  She looked at him,- he smiled at her.
"See, we're looking," he said, turning her.
"You like
his
eyes? I can do tiger." He tiger-eyed her. "You
like Clark Gable?" Clark Gable asked her,
dimpling at her, turning her. "I can play
Rhett Butler all night long,
Scarlett." Gable grinned his roguish grin,
dipping her. "Up the stairs and never a fadeout."
Joe/satan lifted her. "My effects," he
said, "are very special." He winked.
  She looked away; he twirled her out and drew
her back. Astaire sang,
"There may be teardrops to shed
..."
  "Now we're getting to the godd partst" he said.
"In case you haven't seen where this is heading. . .
I'm talking about Eternal Youth, Rosie.
Pick your age, twenty-three, twenty-four,
whatever you like, and it's yours forever. No aches, no
pains, none of those pesky little brown spots,
everything ticking along like the motor of a Rolls."
She looked at him as they danced; he nodded.
"What I always promise and rarely deliver," he
said. "You're old enough to appreciate it, aren't you,
and I'll deliver it for you-not only the years you lost
but the years ahead, all of them, in a lovely
environment totally different from the hellfire crap
you've been handed all your life. Room service that
leaves this place at the starting gate."
  Turning with him, she said, "Would you stop the
Lighting if I-was
  "Oh please," he said, "don't start
that
business. No I wouldn't. And I can't, it's too
late. So it's Eternal Youth, or death when you go
downstairs. The gas spreads and stays around; it's
heavier than air,- that's why we're up on top
here."
  She drew back in his arm, looked at him.
Said, "What about Andy?"
  He shook his head. "He stays," he said. "I
don't need him anymore and I can't trust him,
especially where you're concerned. We can have other
kids, all you want; young forever, remember? Think
about it, Rosemary. I know it's a tough decision for
you to make, given all the circumstances and your
background and everything, but
  you're an intelligent person who can put things
together-you knocked me for a loop when you worked out that
stuff about Judy-so I'm sure you'll see it's the
only decision that makes sense."
  They danced before the glitter and the clouds. He
turned her, held her, put his cheek to hers.
"Heaven, I'm in heaven, and my heart beats so that
I can hardly speak
..."
tAzandMandftsziLf
  In the shifting light of the screens, Rosemary
sat bent in a chair, her hands folded, her head
down.
  Andy reclined on the couch with an elbow on the arm
and the afghan thrown back, watching with tiger eyes-
shaking his horned head, lowering his lips to the straw
sticking up out of the Coke can squeezed between the clawed
thumb and first finger of his towel-tied hand.
  Joe/satan leaned back in a chair with his
feet in black silk socks on the console,
watching with furnace- banked-down-to-tiger eyes,
eating caviar out of a pound tin with a spoon. He
checked his multidialed watch, taking care not to tip
the tin. Swallowed and said, "Son of a gun, three
minutes and twelve seconds and there they go.
Look, the guy on the steps. See? And there, over
there, that woman. Uh-oh, look where the candle
landed." He shook his head, stuck the spoon
straight up in the caviar. "Incredible, the way they
can time something like that." He picked up his glass of
champagne.
  Sipped. "Those guys were really good," he said.
"Where you going?"
  Rosemary left the room.f
  She walked all the way through to the window.
  Stood there, her forehead against the glass.
  Gold dust lay sprinkled over the park
fifty-two floors below, gold dust on the ball
fields, gold dust in the Sheep Meadow, gold
dust glittering as far north as she could see, thinner
in some places, puddled with black in others.
  Half the city-Gc's inner circle among
them-must have gathered to light their candles down there under the
leafless midwinter trees. Drawn by druidic
memories?
  Fire burned in two windows in the Fifth
Avenue cliff. In Queens, a red glow tinted the
clouds.
  High above, slow-moving lights crossed a cloud
gap of starry sky-one of the few international flights
that couldn't be rescheduled to avoid the hour. But the
pilot would have gone back and lit one token candle for
all the passengers and crew members, who planned
to light their own candles when the plane came down.
  Far below, a tiny horse toppled over on the
gold- dusted park side of Central Park South,
pulling its carriage over with it. Other horses and
carriages lay in a row behind it. Cars and busses
stood still, dark flecks and gold dust beside
them.
  She wept.
  If she had come up here Wednesday night, when
she had first heard Andy calling ... If she had not
had her guilt to confuse her . . .
  She shuddered.
  Drew a breath. Wiped her cheeks with the heels
of her hands. Stood tall and looked out, counted six
windows with fires in the Fifth Avenue cliff.
Flames now in Queens.
  She heard him behind her.
Get thee behind me, Satan.
She said, "I'm staying with Andy."
  "And here I thought you were smartst" Andy said.
  She turned to him.
  They looked at each other.
  "Go," he said.
  "How
can
I?" she asked him. "I don't even deserve
eternal old age. I don't even deserve a day
more of
now."
"Go," he said. "Believe me, it's what you should
do. You'll be okay."
  "Okay?" she said, her eyes tearing. "I'm
going to be
okay

.
With
everybody in the world dead,
and
you
dead, and me with iim? You're crazy from hunger!
You're insane!"
  "Look at me," he said.
  She looked at him. Into his tiger eyes. He
said, "Trust me on this one."
  She peered at him. Said, "Really?"
  He smiled. "Would I lie?"
  They smiled at each other.
  She leaned to him, caressed his cheek. She
tiptoed, he bent; they kissed lips, chastely.
  Smiled at each other.
  He stepped aside, raising a wrapped hand
toward Joe/satan, waiting by the open brass
cylinder in his white tie and tails, holding his top
hat.
  She stood a moment and walked-crepe
swaying, high heels clicking-across the slick
black floor to him.
  He ushered her into the redtand-brass cab. She
turned-glimpsing Andy standing before the glitter and the
clouds, a hand raised-as Joe/satan got in
close against her and the cab closed behind him.
  They dropped.
  He put his top hat on her head, tipped it
back, fluffed some hair out from under. "Cute," he
said, smiling down at her.
  She looked ahead at his white tie. Really
tied, no clip- on. "How do we get through the
gas?" she asked.
  "Not to worry."
  She looked up at him smiling at her, red
10-9-8 flicking above his head,
L-B-G1-G2 . . .
  The cab dropped faster.
  Grew hotter.
  Starting to sweat, she stared ahead at his tie.
  "I can't wait to get out of this monkey suit,"
he said. "The one
inside,
I mean. Three damn years now I been wearing
it." His hands clawed-clawed-at the tie
and the shirt collar, ripped them apart, tore them
away with parts of his neck from green-black scales;
flung fabric and flesh on brass and red leather.
  She stared up into furnace eyes, white horns
arcing. "You said it wasn't hellfire!"
  "Rosemary, baby," he croaked, tearing
jacket, shirt, flesh from wet green-black
scales, "still
LIE! Don't you know that by nowl"
He waggled a giant tongue in her face,- she
shut her eyes and screamed, his arms hugging
  her. "ToI ToI" he cried, holding her,
hugging her, kissing her head. "You're okay!
You're okay!"
  She opened her eyes, gasping, panting. "You're
okay," he said, hugging her, "you're okay, you're
okay ..." She clutched at her paisley
pajama top, at a hank of her auburn hair,
looked around, gasping, at the room in its
early-morning light.
  At the posters of Paris and Verona, the yellowing
full- page ad for
Luther
with the red circle near the bottom.
  She collapsed against his chest, gasping,
sobbing, catching her breath. "Oh Guy!" she said.
"It was
awfull
It went on and on, and I slept, and it started again,
and went on and on ..."
  "Ah my poor baby," he said, hugging her,
kissing her head.
  "It was so real!"
  "That's what you get for reading
Dracula
in bed ..."
  She leaned from his arms and looked down at the
paperback on the floor. "Bram
Stokerl"
she cried. "Of course!" She caught her breath as
he sat back beside her. "We got an apartment in this
old house called the
Bram,"
she said, "the Bramford! First it was midtown, then it
was on Central Park West, first it was black, then
it was pink, it had gargoyles, it
didn't
have gargoyles- basically it was the Dakota, only
it was rent-controlled."
  "Wouldn't that be loverly," he said, lying
back on the bed, yawning, scratching under the waistband
of his paisley pajama bottoms.
  She turned around and punched at his shoulder. "And
you, you rat fink," she said, "you lent me to a bunch
of witches!"
IE
VIN
  "Never, never!" he said, catching her fist,
laughing.
  "And I had a baby by Satan!" she said.
  "Uh-oh," he said, pushing her (down, climbing
over her, "if this is turning into the baby conversation,
I'm busy."
  He got off the bed and stepped into the bathroom,
pulling the door half closed as she hitched on her
knees to the gilt-framed mirror canted from the
wall at the foot of the bed. "Oh
Godl"
she said, ckpping her chest, leaning close to the
glass. She stroked her cheeks, grasped her
hair, kissed it, eyed her eyes, fingered the skin
around them, caressed her cheeks, her throat, her
hands. "I was
ftfty-eightl"
she said. "I didn't
look
it but that's what I was supposed to be! It was
awfull
I looked like my Aunt Peg!"
  "Isn't she the cute one?"
  "Yeah, but still-fifty-eight?" She whistled.
"Wow, what a relief to be young again! It was so
real! The whole thing!" She sat back on her
haunches, frowned. "It was 1999," she said. "It
was weird. My son and I, we were like .. . like
Jesus and Mary . . . but
very
different ..." She shook her head, kneeled and
studied her cheeks again. Looked really close at
them. Checked a teensy spot. "I've got
to take better care of my skin," she said.
  "It's good I'm up early. I'm going to go to that
open call for
Drat! The Cat!"
"It was a hit in 1999," she said, checking around
her left eye. "A revival."
  "I'll tell them, they'll be thrilled. I mean
it, it's a great line to come on with. "Gentlemen,
I'm happy to announce you've got a hit! My
wife is a psychic and she
  dreamed last night that there's going to be a
revival in 1999!"
  "Since when am I a psychic?" she asked,
looking in the mirror, folding her side hair up
and under.
  "Hey, this is show biz, remember?"
  She said, "The skates had all four wheels in
a line."
  "I won't tell them that."
  She chuckled. "There was a big gold tower at
Columbus Circle," she said, looking at the
other side of her head with the hair held shorter.
"That's where I lived in the part where I was old."
  "Where was 7 then?"
  "Either dead or not famous," she said.
  "Same thing."
  She smiled at his little joke. Said, "I just may
let Ernie cut my hair ..." The phone rang;
she turned, flopped down, found it on the floor
on the second ring, picked up the black handset.
"Hello?" she said.
  "Hul-lo, my angel! Sorry if I woke
you."
  "Hutch!" she cried, rolling over on her
back, stretching the cord. "You can't
imagine
how glad I am to hear you! I had the most awful
dream, a coven of witches cast a
spell
on you!"
  "It was prophetic, that's exactly how I
feel; I was out on a bender last night and I'm
at the Racquet Club trying to steam away the
aftereffects. Gerald Reynolds is here.
Tell me, have you and Guy found new digs yet?"
  "No," she said, sitting up, "and we're
desperate. We have to be out by the end of the month; that's
when everything gets shut off."
  "You shall bless me, my child. Do you remember my
IRA LEVIN
  telling you about Gerald's apartment? With the jungle
and the parrots? In the Dakota?"
his
"We were just
talking
about it!" sne said. "The Dakota, I mean! Not-the
apartment ..." She clasped a hank of hair,
held the handset, looked ahead.
  "He needs someone to sit it for at least a year,
maybe more. He's going home to work on a
film with David Lean. He's absolutely
desperate for someone responsible to tend the flora and
fauna. He's supposed to leave the day after tomorrow,-
he had a cousin ready to move in but she was hit by a
taxi yesterday and will be in hospital for at least
six months."
  Guy leaned around the bathroom door, half his
face bearded with lather. He mouthed,
"An apartment right-brace was
She nodded.
  "Are you there?"
  "Yes," she said-switching hands on the phone as
Guy sat beside her
be
he leaned to listen with her, holding his razor. "It's
rent free,
my angel! Four rooms in the Dakota,
overlooking the park! You'll be in among the
celebrities: Leonard Bernstein! Lauren
Bacall! One of the Beatles is dickering for the
apartment right next door!"
  They looked at each other.
  She looked ahead, grasping hair with her free
hand.
  "Do you want to discuss it with Guy?
Though what there is to discuss, I can't imagine.
Seize the moment; there's another chap here waiting
to call someone about it. I'll hold, I have a
nickel, but I'm getting glared at. Oh, before I
forget, Roast Mules? Exactly three minutes
and twelve seconds by the clock."
  She lowered the handset a few inches.
  They looked at each other.
  "To," he said, "you can't possibly be thinking of
letting a
dream
stand in the way. Nobody would! Rent free? The
Dakota?"
  *5he looked ahead.
T
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  I'm grateful to Alan Ladd Jr. and Andrew
Wald for getting me off the couch and over to the
computer, and to the following people for advice, patience, and
friendship, at least two out of three in each instance:
Adam and Tara Levin-Delson, Jed and
Suzanne Levin, Nicholas Levin, Phyllis
Westberg, Michaela Hamilton, Howard
Rosenstone, Wendy Schmalz, Patricia
Powell, Herbert E. Kaplan, Peter
L. Felcher, Julius Medwin, and Ellie and
Joe Busman.
  Roast Mules was laid upon me at a wedding
seven years ago by a man I know only as the father
of the actress Bebe Neuwirth. I cursed him for a
long time-mildly, because of that daughter-but now I'm
grateful to him too. The solution to the puzzle is
honest and pleasing. Save your postage.
T
**ira levin was born in New York City in
1929. His six previous novels have all been
international best-sellers and are in print today in most
major languages. He has won two Edgar
Allan Poe Awards.
  A playwright and lyricist as well as a
novelist, he wrote both the longest-running
thriller in Broadway history,
Deathtrap,
and the lyrics of the Barbra Streisand classic "He
Touched Me."
r
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
The typeface used in this book is a version of
Trump Medieval, originally designed in the
1950's by Georg Trump
(1896-1985) for the Weber foundry in Stuttgart.
Though not officially house designer, the prolific
Trump over the years provided the foundry with much of
its range of elegant types despite his busy
teaching career and being called up in both world wars.
Trump Medieval, his masterpiece, is an
"old-style" face-that is, one based on
Italian fonts of the Renaissance-its name
notwithstanding. (trump may have meant the shaping of its
serifs to be reminiscent of gothic architecture.)
One noteworthy feature is the relative
shortness of the uppercase letters, favored by German
designers because the many capitals used in their
language interfere with readability if full
height. Trump Medieval also has a modified sloped roman 
instead of a true italic, perhaps to maintain a visual 
relationship with the distinctive serifs of the roman.