Like the Christian Bible, much of what the manuscript had to say was conveyed in parables, and prophesies and proverbs, thus making the text illustrative and human.
This was one of many reasons why reading it was so hard. Pages were populated with people and images that penetrated to deeper layers of the brain. The Book, as we came to call it during the beginning of this new year, showed in exquisite detail how to kill and maim, frighten, brainwash and torture. The explicit section on the necessity of pogroms, including illustrations, made me quake.
I found the violence reminiscent of’ the Inquisition, and it was, in fact, explained that the New Zionists were here on earth to effect a new Inquisition, of sorts.
“We are in an age when the wrongful ones must be purged from our midst,” Hand had written, “and in doing so we must be loud and obvious like cymbals. We must feel their weak blood cool on our bare skin as we wallow in their annihilation. We must follow the One into glory, and even unto death.”
I read other ruinations and runes, and perused strange preoccupations with fusion and fuels that could be used to change the balance of the land. By the Book’s end, a terrible darkness seemed to have enveloped me and the entire cottage. I felt sullied and sickened by the reminder that there were people in our midst who might think like this.
It was Lucy who finally spoke, for our silence had been unbroken for more than an hour. “It speaks of the One and their loyalty to him,” she said. “Is this a person or a deity of some sort?”
“It’s Hand, who probably thinks he’s Jesus friggin’ Christ,” Marino said, pouring more champagne. “Remember that time we saw him in court?” He glanced up at me.
“That I’m not likely to forget any time soon,” I said.
“He came in with this entourage, including a Washington attorney who has this big gold pocket watch and a silver-topped cane,” he said to Lucy. “Hand is wearing some fancy designer suit, and he’s got long blond hair in a ponytail, and women are waiting
outside the courthouse to get a peek at him like he’s Michael Bolton or something, if you can believe that.”
“What was he in court for?” Lucy looked at me.
“He’d filed a petition for disclosure, which the attorney general had denied, so it went before a judge.”
“What did he want?” she asked.
“Basically, he was trying to force me to turn over copies of Senator Len Cooper’s death records.”
“Why?”
“He was alleging that the late senator was poisoned by political enemies. In fact, Cooper died of an acute hemorrhage into a brain tumor. The judge granted Hand nothing.”
“I guess Joel Hand doesn’t like you too much,” she said to me.
“I expect he doesn’t.” I looked at the Book on the coffee table, and asked Marino,
“This name on the cover. Do you know who Dwain Shapiro is?”
“I was about to get to that,” he said. “This is as much as we could pull up on the computer. He lived on the New Zionists’ compound in Suffolk until last fall when he defected. About a month later he got killed in a carjacking in Maryland.”
We were quiet for a moment, and I felt the cottage’s dark windows as if they were big, square eyes.
Then I asked, “Any suspects or witnesses?”
“None anybody knows of.”
“How did Eddings get hold of Shapiro’s bible?” said Lucy.
“Obviously, that’s the twenty-thousand-dollar question,” Marino replied. “Maybe Eddings talked to him at some point, or maybe to his relatives. This thing ain’t a photocopy, and it also says right in the beginning of it that you’re not supposed to let your Book ever leave your hands. And if you’re ever caught with someone else’s Book, you can kiss your ass good-bye.”
“That’s pretty much what happened to Eddings,” Lucy said.
I did not want the Book anywhere near us and wished I could throw it into the fire. “I don’t like this,” I said. “I don’t like it at all.”
Lucy looked curiously at me. “You’re not getting superstitious on us, are you?”