Just two questions of many in Matthew’s mind, and here came another one as the road emerged from the forest onto a plain of wild grasses swept by the seabreeze: how much money had that thing cost?
That thing being the castle of white stone that came into view on the right-hand side, perched on the cliff overlooking a turbulent cauldron of Atlantic foam. It was a massive monument to the power of a wallet…and also, possibly, to the power of power itself. In any case, Matthew suddenly felt very small indeed. Turrets roofed with red slate stood like cobra heads. Arched windows and doorways called attention to the art of a highly-talented architect. The road continued on, but a gravel driveway curved from the road to the castle’s entrance, and passed between stands of wind-sculpted pines, thatches of palmettos and ornamental flower gardens. Outbuildings stood to either side of the main structure, possibly stables or servants’ quarters. The whole picture was one of serenity and removal from the world beyond. This truly was Professor Fell’s kingdom, and one would have to be very stupid not to be awed by it. Not being by any means stupid, Matthew was sufficiently awed; yet he did not let anyone see this register on his face, for the masquerade was underway and much depended on the power of his mask.
The berline turned on the driveway. The team followed the orderly path until they reached a porte-cochere supported by thick white columns, and there stood the offending coach driven by the Thacker brothers. A pair of native servants wearing sea-blue uniforms and elaborate white wigs were removing Gentry’s luggage from the baggage compartment while two more in the same colored clothing and ridiculous wigs waited to transfer it beyond a massive oak door. The Thackers were waiting beside the coach, one having removed his shirt and using it to wrap around a bleeding hand. His blood-spattered coat was draped over his shoulders. Jack Thacker’s chest looked like a squat wall of reddened brick. Both brothers eyed the approaching berline with barely-concealed loathing.
As Matthew’s coach pulled up under the porte-cochere, Jonathan Gentry half-stumbled and half-fell from the passenger compartment of his own. He went down on his knees nearly under the hooves of the approaching horses, which had to be pulled up short and sharply by the beleaguered driver. “Hell’s bells!” Madam Chillany snarled, and she was out of the coach like, indeed, a belle from Hell.
The chilly madam had become a redhot fire spitting a plentitude of profanities in the faces of the Thackers as Matthew disembarked the berline and strolled up beside her. The brothers looked highly disinterested, and the wounded Jack produced a yawn for her troubles. Their eyes then went to Matthew and their gazes sharpened like daggers.
“Soggy Ass,” said Jack.
“In the flesh,” said Mack.
“Listen to me!” the woman nearly screeched. Augustus Pons waddled past, his fat and florid face stricken by the need to distance himself from any impending ugliness. Aria reached out and seized Jack’s chin, as he was the brother standing closer to her. “I could have you fucking killed for that! Do you hear me? I could have your fucking heads on fucking platters, you fucking assholes!”
“Such language!” said Jack.
“Tut, tut!” said Mack.
“I’ll report this to him, you can believe it!” she threatened. “We’ll see what he decides to do to punish you fuckers!”
“What he might decide to do,” said Mack in an easy voice, his eyes on Matthew, “is punish Spadey, ’cause we’ve been waitin’ on this fuckin’ island for more than one solid month. And you know what he tells everybody?”
“The meetin’ can’t start without Spadey,” said Jack, smoothly picking up the tale, “so we all have to wait. We all have to twiddle our fuckin’ thumbs and play with our cocks ’til—”
“Spadey gets here,” said Mack, “which was supposed to be weeks ago, as I take it. What I want to know is…what was so important, that Spadey had to make everybody wait for him—”
“And us with our business to get back to, ’cause it ain’t gonna run itself!” Jack finished, with a puffing out of the brickwall chest and a defiant glare at the faux Nathan Spade.
This prideful puff visibly stole some of the wind from Madam Chillany, who sought to make a comeback and found nothing in her slim treasury of wit. “We’ll see about that!” she managed to say. And then, back to more familiar territory: “You assholes!”
Matthew was suddenly aware of an additional presence.
The young Indian woman had emerged from her coach. She stepped slowly and carefully around Jonathan Gentry, who still sat on his knees blinking stupidly at the sunlit garden. She passed Matthew at a distance of three or four feet. It was near enough for Matthew to feel he was crowding her, and so he moved further aside; he also seemingly felt the hairs stir on his arms and on the back of his neck, yet he knew this must only be his imagination or some effect of gaining his landlegs.
She was a painting come to life, he thought. She was a piece of art that could never be confined by frame or glass. To his tastes she was stunningly beautiful. Her face, her hair, her body…all the creation of a master’s hand. She was nearly as tall as he, and she was lithe and long-stemmed and moved with a grace that perhaps was born of silent walking in lush green forests. She wore a slate-gray gown trimmed with red, and a pale blue blouse with a boil of black lace at the throat to compliment the lace on her hat. She looked neither to right nor left as she approached the brothers. Matthew noted that she did not look directly at them either but rather seemed to be staring as if in a dreamstate through them at some scene beyond their reckoning.
Mack spoke sharply. “What’re your eyes findin’ so interestin’…”
“…boyo?” said Jack, just as sharply.
“A very attractive woman,” Matthew answered, with a little of his own defiance in his voice. The girl obviously heard, but gave no reaction to this compliment whatsoever. Her face was slightly downcast, her attention removed from the moment. Matthew had the impression she was hearing a different voice in her head, and possibly it spoke the Iroquois language. “Where she did come from?” he asked, to whichever brother would reply first.
“She’s a fuckin’ squaw,” said Jack.
“Where d’ya think she came from?” Mack’s eyes held a dangerous glitter. “You ain’t too smart, are ya?”
And so saying, Mack Thacker reached out and grasped the girl’s arm, and he pulled her roughly toward him so she was between himself and his brother. Then, his dangerous eyes still focused on Matthew, he began to lick along the girl’s face with a brown-coated tongue, and on the other side Jack took her free arm in a hard grip and he too began to lick the girl’s face with his own ghastly tongue, his eyes also on Nathan Spade the jayhawk-turned-political pimp and purveyor of valuable state secrets.
And between these two nasty and brutish tongues, the Indian girl looked at Matthew with her sad ebony eyes. There was something crushed and defeated in her yet-beautiful face that nearly wrenched his heart out, but he had to keep his mask on and so by the most difficult effort his visage maintained its stone. The two brothers began to laugh as they marked her cheeks with their saliva, and then the girl lowered her gaze from Matthew’s and she was again gone, walking silently through a forest unknown.
Minx Cutter took Matthew by the elbow and guided him toward the formidable oak door, which was being held open for the guests by a black servant in the sea-blue uniform and a powdered wig that must have been three feet tall.