who examined it as if he had handed her an object encrusted with filth.
“You’re right to wrinkle your nose at it,” he said, picking up his glass
of wine and moving to the large window. “It’s nonsense. Sick and
twisted but nonsense. The author was a convicted killer who claimed to
have seen Hell. His description isn’t like anything in Dante, let me
tell you. Oh, it possesses a certain romance, undeniable power. In
fact, if you were a psychotic young man with delusions of grandeur and a
bent for violence, with the unusually high testosterone levels that
usually accompany a mental condition like that, then the Hell he
describes would be your ultimate wet dream of power. You would swoon
over it. You might not be able to get it out of your mind. You might
for it, do anything to be a pert of it, achieve damnation.”
Kari put the book down and wiped her fingertips on the sleeve of her
blouse. “This author, Thomas Nicene-you said he killed his mother.”
“Yes. Mother and brother. Set the example.” Jonas knew he had already
drunk too much. He took another long sip of his wine anyway.
Turning from the night view, he said, “And you know what makes it all so
absurd, pathetically absurd? If you read that damn book, which I did
afterward, trying to understand, and if you’re not psychotic and
disposed to believe it, you’ll see right away that Nicene isn’t
reporting what he saw in Hell. He’s taking his inspiration from a
source as stupidly obvious as it is stupidly ridiculous. Kari, his Hell
is nothing more than the Evil Empire in the Star Wars movies, somewhat
changed, expanded upon, filmed through the lens of religious myth, but
still Star Wars.” A bitter laugh escaped him. He it with more wine.
“His demons are nothing more than hundred-foot-tall versions of Darth
Vader, for God’s sake.
Read his description of Satan and then go look at whichever film Jabba
the Hut was a part of. Old Jabba the Hut is a ringer for Satan, if you
believe this lunatic.” One more glass of chenin blanc, one more glass.
“Marion and Stephanie died-” A sip. Too long a sip. Half the glass
gone.
“-died so Jeremy could get into Hell and have great, dark, anti-heroic
adventures in a fucking Darth Vader costume.”
He had offended or unsettled her, probably both. That had not been his
intention, and he regretted it. He wasn’t sure what his intention had
been.
Maybe just to unburden himself He had never done so before, and he
didn’t know why he’d chosen to do so tonight-except that Morton Redlow’s
disappearance had scared him more than anything since the day he had
found the bodies of his wife and daughter.
Instead of pouring more wine for herself, Kari rose from her armchair.
“I think we should get something to eat.
“Not hungry,” he said, and heard the slur of the inebriate in his voice.
“Well, maybe we should have something.”
“We could go out somewhere,” she said, taking the wine glass from his
hand and putting it on the nearest end table. Her face was quite lovely
in the ambient light that came through the view windows, the golden
radiance from the web of cities below. “Or call for pizza.”
“How about steaks? I’ve got some fillets in the freezer.”
“That’ll take too long.”
“Sure won’t. Just thaw em out in the microwave, throw em on the grill.
There’s a big Gaggenau grill in the kitchen.”
“Well, if that’s what you’d like.”
He met her eyes. Her gaze was as clear, penetrating, and forthright as
ever, but Jonas saw a greater tenderness in her eyes than before. He
supposed it was the same concern she had for her young patients; part of
what made her a first-rate pediatric physician. Maybe that tenderness
had always been there for him, too, and he had just not seen it until
now. Or perhaps this was the first time she how desperately he needed
nurNrmg.
“Thank you, Kari.”
“For what?”
“For being you,” he said. He put his arm around her shoulders as he
walked her to the kitchen.