“Looks like this place gets a lot of use,” Nathan said, trying to sound casual. “Is it usually crowded every night, or just weekends?” He wanted to ask does my father come here every night, or just weekends?
Peter Quinn laughed, a full, hands on flat stomach guffaw. “Ah,” he said at last. “It’s very heartening to see how roles between children and parents switch over the years. We’re a men’s club. That’s all. A place for like-minded people to get together and talk outside of their sometimes mundane and restrictive homes. An escape, if you like.”
“Maybe I’m wrong,” Nathan said slowly, “but I never thought my home, or my mother, were overly restrictive.”
He was angry. So much so that Nathan expected to hear steam whistling from his own ears. This rage felt wrong, forced. He didn’t like it. A few minutes ago, he felt helpless, sick and terrified. Now he’d swung to the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. He was furious with everything around him. Maybe this was a defense mechanism, but defense against what? Nathan took a step forward, uncertain why he’d done it. Quinn’s smile faded. His gaze darkened.
“Many things can restrict a man from being what he wants to be, Reverend. Marital strife, even out-dated religious beliefs.”
He was being goaded, knew he needed to step back and calm down. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to find chinks in his faith, in his unwavering belief in God and Christ’s teachings. But this was so sudden, out of context. And it was said with a victorious gloating. I shattered your father’s faith, young Dinneck, the man’s voice implied.
“My father chose his faith, of his own accord. Like everyone.” What was the point in arguing like this? As he stood in a posture that could not be mistaken for anything but “squaring off” with Quinn, his thoughts were too jumbled to remember any specific goals he might have had in coming here today.
Quinn nodded. “And everyone has the right to choose for themselves if they want to learn other ways, serve other gods. Even if such a god proves to be nothing but their own wants and desires.”
The statement struck Nathan mute. Quinn’s voice had taken on a cadence, much like many evangelical preachers he’d listened to in the past. There was a power behind it. Sweat broke out again across his back, down his arms.
Speaking slowly, running his words through his own head once before speaking, Nathan took a step away, then two. “So, is there some religious or faith-based background to your group?”
He looked at the old paintings on the wall, not focusing on them but needing something other than Quinn’s challenging stare to take up his field of vision.
“Any faith or religious beliefs we might have are merely those carried into the doors by our members. We do not condone any specific creed.”
Nathan felt a physical strength in Quinn’s voice, a charisma to his speech. He tried to ignore it. Before him was a woodland scene, creek running through, a flat reproduction but still powerful in its motion, the name Robert Gilbert clear in the corner. Quinn moved with him, matching his slow steps but keeping two paces behind. In the corner of his vision, Nathan detected a trace of a smile.
Another painting, snow-capped peak rising above a vast plain, not as powerful as the Gilbert, but pretty to look at.
He said, “And what about you, Mister Quinn? What do you believe in?” He continued moving slowly, almost sideways across the room, trying to convince himself he was pulling Quinn along rather than being pursued by him. Nathan had gained some control in the short conversation.
“Do not try and convert me, Reverend. My beliefs, and yours, could not be further apart.” Any trace of amusement in Quinn’s voice was gone.
Nathan stopped finally and looked at him. More as a statement than a question, he said, “You’re an atheist, then?”
Quinn laughed. It was a shallow sound, without mirth. “Hardly. I believe in your God very much. I simply choose not to serve him.”
Nathan knitted his brows. The connotation was undeniable. He resumed his slow trek across the room, needing to focus. The way this conversation was heading, he could imagine his father’s angry reproach. How dare you come and preach at my club, he might say. A week earlier he would never have imagined his father scolding him for such a thing. But now... Dad, I don’t think you understand the nature of this place.
And you do?
Nathan was beginning to think he did, at the very least the nature of the man who was behind him right now.
He stopped in front of another painting. Unlike the others, this had an ornate dark wood frame. It looked quite old, but the colors were striking, dimensional in their fiery hues. Nathan began to say, “What do you—” but then could no longer speak.
The painting before him was of a desert, deeply colored in oranges and browns. The burning red sun had fallen behind a pyramidal structure. It was a temple, a massive backdrop when compared to the minute hooded figures marching away from the viewer, toward the temple’s dark red stone. All were washed in the hues of the dying sun. The walls rose up in stepped tiers, a slightly skewed rendition of an Incan temple.
Nathan knew this place.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The pilgrims were no more than slight, impressionistic dots along the bottom, dwarfed by the structure’s magnitude and presence. He imagined them moving as he watched, felt himself pulled forward, lost in the nightmare which had once again invaded his waking world.
He needed to look away, pretend this painting meant nothing. It was too late for that. Seeing this representation of his own private nightmare was too much of a shock. Its impact was not as it might have been, had there not been so many other enigmas these past few days. Just another mismatched jigsaw piece dropped in front of him.
“A lovely painting, isn’t it?”
Quinn had moved beside him and gazed at the picture.
Nathan’s voice was a harsh whisper. “What is it?” Any cards he’d hoped to play close to his chest had just been scattered across the floor. The best he could do was feign indifferent curiosity.
“If you don’t mind my saying, Reverend, you look a bit shaken.”
His confusion melted back into anger, or maybe this was simply what abject terror felt like. It filled every corner of Nathan’s body. The wall around the dark frame, the room itself, was crinkling away. Only the painting’s sharp colors offered any clarity. He needed to focus elsewhere, turn away. Instead he whispered, “What is that, that building in the painting?”
The other man said nothing, not right away. Instead he looked alternately between the temple image and his guest.
Nathan wasn’t sure if he’d answered. He didn’t think so. He closed his eyes, and the pressure around his head lightened a little. He turned to his right before opening them again, no longer trying to keep his composure. He wanted to run screaming into the parking lot but also grab this man and shake the answers out of him.
“Tell me,” he said again, with a voice only slightly louder than before, “what that is. Now.” This last word surprised him. He didn’t like threatening anyone, even subtly. But it was too much. Too much to take in. Too much to accept.