Bitter Truth (26 page)

I can see so far it is as if I can see through time. I trace the indentation of the river as it flows through the jungle. In the distance to the east is San Ignacio and the rest of Belize. But for a slight haze I’m certain I could see the ocean. To the west is the absolute green of the wilds of the Petén region of Guatemala. I am being held aloft by the ruins of a temple thousands of years old and for a moment I feel informed by the ancient wisdom of those who built and worshiped in this edifice. There is more to the universe than what I can see and feel, this ancient knowledge tells me, more than the shallow limits of my own horizons, and this limitlessness, it tells me just as surely, is as much a part of me as my hand and my heart and my soul. It comes to me in an instant, this knowledge of my own infinitude, as solid as any insight I have ever held, and disappears just as quickly, leaving the unattached emotional traces of a forgotten dream.

I wipe the sweat from my neck and wonder what the hell that was all about. I figure I am suffering from dehydration and should quickly get to the hotel in San Ignacio, suck down some water, relax, take it slow for a day or two before continuing my search. But I look around and think again on what it was I thought I understood. The story of the corpse we found beneath the garden behind the great Reddman house twists and turns through love and war and ever more death, but it also contains one man’s understanding of his place in the universe that gave solace and serenity and maybe even something akin to forgiveness. For the first time since I learned of it I have an inkling of what it might have done to him to see the world and his life that way. Jacqueline Shaw, I think, was looking for the same sort of understanding during her time with the Church of the New Life, as was Beth after her. There are truths, I know with all certainty, that I will never grasp, but that doesn’t make them any less true. And some of those truths might be the only antidote to the poison that passed like a plague through the Reddman line.

And as I spin around and look once more at this grand vista I know something else with an absolute certainty. I don’t know how I know it, or why, but I know it, yes I do. What I know for certain is that the man for whom I am searching is somewhere down there, somewhere hiding in the wild green of that jungle.

And I’m going to find the bastard, I know that too.

31

M
ORRIS KAPUSTIN was sitting at my dining room table with his head in his hands. He had a naturally large head, Morris did, and it seemed even larger due to his long peppered beard and mass of unruly hair, the wide-brimmed black hat he wore even inside my apartment, the way his small pudgy hands barely covered his face. His black suit was ragged, his thin tie was loose about his neck, he leaned forward with his elbows on the table and his tiny feet resting on the strut of his chair, listening with great concentration. Across from him sat Beth, who was explaining her most recent meditative exercises to him. On the table between Beth and Morris was the metal box Caroline and I had disinterred from the garden behind Veritas the night before. Deep ridges slashed through the surface of the metal where I had futilely chopped at the box with the shovel. It sat there, dirty and crusted, still unopened, large with mystery.

“We start with a small seed,” said Beth. “We place it before us and meditate upon it, thinking all the while of the plant that will grow from the seed. We visualize the plant inherent in the seed, make it present to us and in us, and then meditate on that visualization, allow our soul to react to it. Eventually, we begin to see the life force in the seed as a sort of flame.”

“And this flame, what does it look like?” asked Morris.

“It’s close to the color purple in the middle, with something like blue at the edges.”

“And you’ve seen this hallucination?” I said.

Beth looked up at me calmly. “Yes,” she said.

“Fascinating,” said Morris, the final “ng” sounding like a “k.” “Simply fascinating.”

“And then we concentrate on a mature plant and immerse ourselves in the thought that this plant will someday wither and decay before being reborn through its seeds. As we concentrate on the death and rebirth of this plant, banishing all thoughts other than those of the plant, we begin to see the death force inherent in the plant, and it too is like a flame, green-blue in its center and yellow-red at the periphery.”

“I can’t believe you’re buying into this crap, Beth,” I said.

“I’ve seen it,” she said. “Either that or my lentil casserole was spiked.”

“And now, after you’ve seen all this,” said Morris, “what are you supposed to do with all that you are seeing?”

“I don’t know that yet,” said Beth with a sigh. “Right now I’m struggling to develop my spiritual sight so that, when the truth does appear, I’ll be ready to perceive it.”

“When you perceive something a little more than these flamelike colors,” said Morris, “then you come back to me and we’ll talk. The spirit world, it is not unknown to Jews, but these colors, they are no more than
shmei drei
. Just colors I can see every day on cable.”

Morris Kapustin was my private detective. He didn’t look like a private detective or talk like a private detective or act like a private detective but he thought like the best private detective you’ve ever dreamed of. I liked him and trusted him and, after Beth, the list of those whom I actually liked and trusted was rather short. Like all good things in this life I had first had him rammed down my throat. A group of insurgent clients had thought a settlement offer I had jumped at was less than their case was worth. They ordered me to hire Morris to find a missing witness. Morris found him, which increased the value of the case tremendously, and in the process he sort of saved my life. Since then he had been my private dick, my spiritual adviser, and my friend. I had thought I would do my dance around the Reddman fortune without him but, after discovering that skeleton the night before, I realized that the mysteries were deepening beyond my minimal capacities and that I needed Morris.

“I think,” I said to Beth, “that Morris is pretty firmly entrenched in a spiritual tradition a few thousand years older than your Church of the New Life. I’m sure he’s not interested in your New Age rubbish.”

Morris picked his head up out of his hands. “On the contrary, Victor. It is just such rubbish that interests me so much. Did you ever hear, Victor, of Kabbalah?”

“I’ve heard of it,” I said, though that was about the limit of my knowledge. Kabbalah was an obscure form of Jewish mysticism, neither taught nor even mentioned in the few years I attended religious school before my father quit the synagogue. It was said to be ancient and dangerous and better left untouched.

“Your meditation, Beth, this is not a foreign idea to Jews. The Hassidim, they chant and sing and dance like wild men and they say it works. I always thought it was the way they drank, like
shikkers
in a desert, but maybe it is something more. And this is what I find, Miss Beth. Every morning, in
shachris,
when I strap on my
tefillin
and
daven,
I find often something strange it happens. Some precious mornings all the
mishegaas
around my life, it disappears and I find myself floating, surrounded by something bright and divine and infinite. The Kabbalists, they have a term for it, the infinite, they call it the
Ein-Sof
.”

“But that’s very different,” said Beth. “We’re being trained in our meditation to focus and join with a great emptiness, not a deity of some sort.”

“Yes, of course, that is a difference. But there are those who claim that any true knowledge of the infinite, it is so beyond us that we can only experience the
Ein-Sof
as a sort of nothingness. The Hebrew word for nothing, it is
Ayin,
and the similarities in the words are said to be of great significance.”

“How come I never learned any of this?” I asked.

“This is all very powerful, very dangerous. There were people, very devout people, great rabbis even, who were not ready to ascend into certain of the divine rooms and never returned. The rabbis they think maybe you should get off your
tuchis
and learn more about the bolts and the nuts of our religion before you start to
potchkeh
with the Kabbalah. Maybe learn first to keep the
Shabbos
and keep kosher and learn to
daven
every day. They have a point, Victor, no? These are not games or toys. They take intense commitment. True devotion comes from following all God’s
mitzvoth
. The righteous, they reach a point where every act in their daily rituals is full of meaning and devotion and life itself, it becomes like a meditation.”

“If this is all so darn terrific, how come I never saw it being hawked on an infomercial?”

“Not everything in this world can be bought, Victor,” said Beth.

“Maybe not,” I said, “but have you seen what the stuff Cher sells can do for your hair? Tell me something, Beth. If your friends are so exclusively devoted to the spirit world, why are they so anxious to get their mitts on Jacqueline’s five-million-dollar death benefit?”

Beth looked at me for a moment. “That’s a good question. I’ve been wondering about that myself.”

“Until we find an answer,” I said, “I think you should be extra careful. They might just be as dangerous as they think they are.”

“That’s exactly why I set it up so you’re the one who’s going to ask Oleanna all about it.”

“Oleanna?”

“Tomorrow night, at the Haven. I told her you had some important questions.”

“And the great seer deigned to meet with me?”

“It’s what you wanted, right?”

“Sure,” I said, suddenly and strangely nervous. “What is she like?”

“I think you’ll be impressed,” said Beth, laughing. “She is a very evolved soul.”

“Her past lives were thrilling, no doubt,” I said. “She was a queen or a great soldier or Nostradamus himself. Why is it no one ever sold insurance in their past lives?”

“You should not be scoffing so quickly,” said Morris. “Someday, when you are ready, I’ll tell you of the
gilgul
. As Rebbe Elazar ha-Kappar once said, ‘Those who are born are destined to die, those who are dead are destined to be brought to life again.’ Be aware, Victor, there is much to learn in this world, and not all of it can be found in the
Encyclopedia Britannica
.”

I stared at him. “Did you ever go to college, Morris?”

“Aacht. It’s a
shandeh,
really. I regret so much in this life but that I regret most of all. No. I had plans, of course, when I was a boy, the Academy of Science at Minsk, they took Jews, they even taught in Yiddish, and the whole of my family we were saving each day zloty for my fee. I was to be an intellectual, to sip slivovitz in the cafés and argue about Moses Mendelssohn and Pushkin, that was my dream. Then of course the war, it came and plans like that they flew like a frying pan out the window. Just surviving was education enough. I won’t go through the whole
megillah,
but no, Victor. Why do you ask such a thing?”

“Because I could just see you hanging out in the dormitories, eating pizza, drinking beer from cans, talking all night about the cosmic mysteries of life.”

“And Pushkin, we could maybe discuss Pushkin?”

“Sure, Morris. Pushkin.”

“I don’t even like the poetry so much, I must admit, but the sound of the name. Pushkin, Pushkin. I can’t resist it. Pushkin. Sign me up,
boychick,
I’m in.”

“He is less the skeptic than you, Victor,” said Beth. “At least he listens and takes it seriously.”

“I tried it, Beth, really I did, I sat on the floor and meditated and examined myself and my life like a detached observer, just as you suggested.”

“How did it make you feel?”

“Before or after I threw up?”

“You know, Victor,” said Morris. “A very wise man once said that nausea, it is the first sign of serious trouble in this life. Very serious. Such nausea, it should not be ignored.”

“What, now you’re quoting Sartre?”

“Sartre,
Schmatre,
I’m talking about my gastroenterologist, Hermie Weisenberg. Maybe what you need is a scope. I’ll set it up for you.”

“Forget the scope.” I gestured at the box. “You sure you can open it?”

“I can try.”

“I thought Sheldon was coming.” Sheldon Kapustin was Morris’s son and a trained locksmith. “I asked for Sheldon.”

“Sheldon, he was busy tonight. He’s of that age now that I want for nothing to get in the way of his social life. A man my age, he should have granddaughters, no? So don’t be disturbing my Sheldon. Besides, who do you think taught him such about locks anyway?”

“You, Morris?”

“No, don’t be silly. A master locksmith named McCardle, but this McCardle he taught me too. Victor, this girl, when is she coming,
nu
?”

“Any minute now,” I said, and just as I said it my buzzer rang.

Caroline, when she entered the apartment, was nervous and closed. She came right in and sat on the couch, away from the table and the box. She crossed her legs and wrapped her arms around herself. As I introduced Morris and Beth to her, she smiled tightly and lit a cigarette.

After Caroline and I had discovered the bony corpse the night before we pondered what to do with it. We discussed it in tense whispers while we stood over the skeleton hand that pointed skyward from the grave and we both agreed to cover up the pit as best as we could, shoveling back the dirt, stamping it down, replacing as many plants as might survive, leaving the body right there in the ground. It was not like the corpse was going anywhere, and any hot clues as to the perpetrator were already as cold as death. We convinced each other it was to our advantage to not let on to what we had found as we probed further into the Reddman past. So we left it there under the dirt, the bones of that poor dead soul, left it all there except for the gold ring which clung to the bone until, with force and spit, I ripped it free. We took the ring to help us identify the body and once we examined the ring there wasn’t too much doubt about who was there beneath the dirt. The ring had been engraved, in a gloriously florid script, with the initials CCR.

“What’s the word?” I said.

“I checked an old photograph with a magnifying glass,” said Caroline. “It’s her ring, all right.”

“So there’s no doubt,” I said.

“No doubt at all,” she said. “The body we found is of my grandmother’s sister, Charity Chase Reddman.”