Heart to Heart: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (22 page)

I could appreciate that.

Fifty-one percent of me wanted to do the
same thing.

But I knew that I had to see the night
through.

One does not, I say again, defy the angels.
And clearly I was the man for Valentinius.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Show Goes On

As by some hidden signal, the jolly partying
came to an end and all the characters save Francesca moved to a
solemn inspection of the art display. She stood haughtily removed
from all that, arms folded at the breast and eyes directed stonily
upward to the wall above.

I had a flash then—a
genuine burst of under- standing—about Francesca and that
art.

I left Alvarez steeped in
thought at the bar—thought, I took it, aimed at Francesca herself
because he was staring a hole through her. I realized of course
that the guy had seemed fascinated by the lady from their first
meeting; I had taken it as a romantic interest; now I was not so
sure about that.

Anyway I corralled the
lady and strong-armed her into a walk-through of the improvised
gallery, she protesting all the way in terms not especially
complimentary to me or my ancestry. But I forced her to look, and
to discuss the style and technique of several of the paintings
until I could confirm my hunch and play the only hand I'd decided
I had to play.

"You did not paint these," I told her.

She bristled, said, "Of course I painted
them. Do you think they came from the blue?"

I said, "Maybe. But you
are not the master. This work did not come from Francesca II.
That's the real secret about you, isn't it. The other Francesca,
the working Francesca, the daytime Francesca who experiences only
slight intimations of
this
Francesca,
she
is the master."

She responded with haughtiness, "Whatever
are you talking about, Mr. Ford."

I told her, "We're going
to discuss another painting; come on." I dragged her to the double
portrait dubbed Soul Mates by my art critic friend, the cop,
demanded: “Tell me about this one.”

She sniffed, looked at the floor, replied,
"It captures neither of us. I am ashamed of this painting."

"Then why do you display it as the crown of
the show?"

"Did I do that?" She looked around, seemed
to be losing herself, leaned against me, said very quietly: "Help
me, Ashton. I need to come out."

This was, yeah, Francesca I coming out.

I held her in my arms
and
kissed
her
out of there, then commanded: "Stay here! Don't let her back! She
is trying to undermine you!"

The voice was weak but steady as she
replied, "Yes, I... I think I understand."

This is shivery stuff, understand.

Maybe it does not read
that way, and you have to experience it directly to get the full
effect of it, but believe me I was shivering inside. Ask any
psychiatrist who works with multiple personalities.

I looked up and saw Alvarez hovering nearby.
I caught his eye; he came on over. "Know what's happening?" I asked
him.

He jerked his head in an understanding nod.
"Some of it, I think. Can I help?"

I turned her over to his
willing arms and I told him, "Keep her engaged. Discuss the
paintings with her, anything, but keep this personality
present."

Alvarez understood, yes, quite a bit more
than I would realize he understood until some time later. He took
over without missing a beat, and I went to talk with
Valentinius.

The old soul was giving me one of his
patented wise looks as I approached him; he knew I was coming; knew
why I was coming.

Before I could get a word out, he said to
me, "Good work, Ashton. And just in time. We must depart soon. Hai
Tsu has been ordered home. We must leave before her."

I probably already knew or guessed the
answer, but I said, "Why?"

He ignored it, told me instead: "All abodes
are temporary after all. You will not need the paper I gave you.
Perhaps it will be useful however if you should wish to clean up a
bit behind us."

I felt suddenly very humbled; looked around
the magnificent room and the palatial furnishings; told him, "I am
sorry I failed you, Valentinius."

"Ah, but you have not failed me, my
brother," he said generously. "I did not ask you here to rescue the
abode. Another shall be found, when it is needed." He smiled.
"Perhaps not for another hundred years, as you reckon it."

I asked, "What's it all about, brother?"

He smiled. "But you
already know that, don't you. Never mind, it shall come to you in
time." His gaze shifted to the exhibition and those grouped there
in almost worshipful appreciation. "They are joyful, are they not?
Because they are filled with the secret. Francesca's secret, and
yours. Ah, yes. They are joyful."

I said, working very hard at a thought,
"Valentinius... is this what I think it is? Are all these
people...?"

He replied, "They are coming into
understanding, yes."

I said, "But...I always thought it would
be...like... instantaneous."

He explained, "If you
board a plane in San Francisco, go promptly to sleep, awaken in New
York—are you any wiser when you wake than when you fell
asleep?"

I said, "Well..."

"But if instead of sleeping on the plane, if
instead you bring a briefcase stuffed with work to be studied—say
for a business conference at the end of the journey—do you arrive
in New York wiser than you were when you left San Francisco?"

I said, "See what you mean, yeah. These
folks are catching up on their studies."

"This folk," he corrected me.

I said, "Oh shit."

It was not exactly the understanding I'd
been reaching for, but it reached me instead.

I tried it on him. "These people are all
pieces of you?"

He said, "Oh
no"—chuckled—"Dear me, no, not pieces of me, Ashton. Never mind, do
not be embarrassed. You will understand when understanding is
needed. Something else is more directly bothering you, I see. Hai
Tsu is bothering you. Do not be bothered for Hai Tsu. She is not
called home in disgrace but in recognition of admirable
service."

I asked, "Where is that home? Lemuria, Mu,
Atlantis, Isis; by whatever name, where is home for Hai Tsu?"

He laughed, told me, "You very nearly
stumbled into it, my brother. At the very edge of infinity one
could say."

I said, "I thought infinity could have no
edges. The infinite is unbounded, isn't it, so what's with
edges?"

He replied, "Infinity is both bounded and
unbounded, edged and unedged. How would one define space and time
beyond the lip of a black hole, eh? Both space and time become
infinite, mass and energy become infinite, infinity itself finds
new infinities within itself. Is infinity not also present at the
outer edge of the black hole? So what is that infinity within the
hole?"

I told him, "You left me back there at the
lip, my friend."

He laughed again,
apparently enjoying the little exchange. "Consider then that the
black hole is not fixed in the panoply of heaven. It moves as do
all existent things. Think of that, eh? A portable
infinity?"

I cried, "Damn! Right here inside this
mountain!"

"Do not leap at truth that
way, Ashton. It may leap away from you in consternation." But I
could see by his reaction that I'd leapt a bit closer than he
intended me to. "Suffice to understand that there is room in our
infinity for Hai Tsu and her infinity, but that you in present form
could not survive hers."

"So how does she survive ours?'

"Ah, but that is one of her imperatives you
see."

"And that is why she was called home." I'd
already decided.

He replied, "Well...but not in
disgrace."

I said, "In discretion."

"You could put it that way."

I told him, "I saw something strange in
another chamber earlier today. Looked like steel tubes or cylinders
fused into solid rock, work tables made of the same stuff.
What...?'

He showed me his hands at shoulder level.
"Obviously a work room of some sort."

"The cylinders..." I persisted.

"Well..." He smiled. "Even a portable
infinity must have its portability, eh? No. Do not think of them as
engines." Guy was reading my mind, right off the top. "I fear
there is no correlation in this language. Think of ionization
chambers however and you will be closer than engines."

I asked him, "What's going to happen to this
mountain when they blast out of there?"

He laughed again. "There shall be no
blasting out, Ashton. Oh no. The effect shall be very subtle."

I was feeling like a
first-grader trying to get the drift of a doctoral thesis on
creation theory. So maybe I was reaching for more comfortable
ground when I changed that subject to ask my mentor, "What did you
expect me to do with that power of attorney?"

"Oh well, you see...there had been a
betrayal, Ashton. The careful work of centuries was being undone
for greed and—"

"Why didn't you tell me all this right up
front?" I asked almost angrily. "Maybe I could have approached the
thing from a better angle and—"

"No no, Ashton, you have
not grasped the central problem. You have done precisely as I
hoped you would. The paper was designed purely to put you in touch
with the situation and to forestall, if necessary, any interference
with the work to be done here. The work I would say is now in its
final hour—and you have already done that which needed doing, by a
hand such as yours, with an understanding such as yours, with a
heart such as yours. Do you see now?"

I thought I was seeing, yes.

I told Valentinius, "It all has been for
Francesca."

"Yes."

"She needed me to..."

"Yes, go on, follow it through."

"She had lost herself. You hoped I would
help her find herself. Before..."

“
Yes,
before...?”

"Before she arrived in New York."

"Precisely! Oh I am delighted with you, my
brother."

I said, "But it really isn't over yet, is
it?"

He replied, "Well there may be a final
detail awaiting some small resolution. I shall be depending upon
you, Ashton, to do in your heart what you know must be done. As
with my old friend, Tom."

I said, feeling a sudden
queasiness, "Uh huh. So why don't you tell me about old friend
Tom."

"He was betrayed by his own flesh. What else
must I say?"

I replied, "Like, uh, how difficult it is to
confront one's own errors? Tom could not confront Jim's
errors?"

"Oh he confronted them.
And saw in them the seeds within himself. Tom also, you see, though
a good man and staunch friend, was not above small
betrayals."

I really did not want to discuss that matter
any longer. I didn't want to discuss anything whatever in fact. I
was beginning to feel sick in the stomach; I knew that I was not
going to like what lay directly ahead in this night.

But I knew too that I could not or would not
do a thing to alter it.

I left my angel standing there and went over
to collect Francesca.

At least, I thought, I would get her out of
there before the walls came tumbling down.

But I was wrong about that too as you shall
see.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: From the Heart

I don't know if I have
made it sufficiently clear at this point that I was very much in
love with Francesca. That may sound a big gratuitous considering
the brevity of the relationship—and I have already told you that I
had never put much store in the idea of love at first
sight—nevertheless, all that notwithstanding, things of the heart
often defy logic or rationalization—and if I had resisted the idea
in the beginning, certainly I surrendered to it entirely during
that episode in the tidal cave.

It is possible too, I believe, to be crazy
in love and not immediately know that you are, especially if those
moments are crowded with cross-purposes as mine had been during
that furious pace of events during the thirty-odd hours that I had
known Francesca.

Whatever...I was very deeply in love and
knew it at

this time, and I was
strongly disturbed over the implications of my little talk with
Valentinius. I still did not understand as much as I would have
liked to understand, feeling mainly a vague sense of danger or
impending loss. Bear in mind too that I was fairly reeling from the
astounding revelations that had been pouring in on me—and there
did not seem to be the luxury of time available for me to sit down
and skull the thing through toward the best possible
resolution.

I admit it: I was just riding along with the
thing and trying to keep some balance while doing so—all the while
feeling like a surfer atop a killer wave rushing toward the

rocks.

Valentinius was very adroit at concealing
truths within truths as he spoke. Angels do not lie, do they? I
would think not. But there are ways to tell the truth and still
achieve the same effect as a lie. So I was not at all sure as to
where I stood in relation to the truth, where Francesca stood,
where anything concerning this house stood.

I knew only that I wanted
to get her out of there. No discredit to Valentinius intended; I
had done a bit of work with the mentally disturbed before and knew
how very delicate could be the catharsis in schizophrenia of the
type being suggested by Francesca's behavior. Angels maybe are
better at this sort of thing than anyone, but still I think I would
have preferred to have a second opinion with medical credentials
behind it. Whatever the work or goal of this assembly at Pointe
House, I did not feel that it should be regarded as a life or death
matter for the woman I loved...or for any mortal for that matter. I
always figured that heaven could wait for the dispositions on
earth; what else does heaven have to do after all? We down here are
the ones with the time problem.