Carefully, ceremoniously, Petty pulled open the fatigue jacket and removed the artifact. It was a piece of turf from the baseball field, a lump of grass and earth about the diameter of a compact disc. Petty set it on the table and ran a hand across it, stroking the grass like a baby’s soft hair.
Victory is mine.
Stepping back, Petty pulled off the green watch cap and turned on the television. Tonight’s events were historic. It was vital not to miss a moment, not one beautiful second.
There—news. Images sparkled on the screen, familiar and thrilling. The smoke so black, the blood so messy, Tasia’s hair so thick, fanning around her head in a gold comet’s tail. People screaming, fleeing from her body. Tasia had terrified the crowd, dying like that. What a cow.
Bursting through the crowd came Searle Lecroix. Petty grimaced.
Too late, Searle. She’s gone. She can no longer suck the love from a man’s bones. We’re free.
Free. Petty glanced at the artifact. It was a memento of deliverance, like a chunk of the Berlin Wall.
Lecroix shoved his way past the ravenous onlookers on the field, gawky strangers who wanted a piece of Tasia McFarland, who wanted a chance to say, I was there. But they were only about celebrity and sentiment. They would never understand. Tasia’s death was not an accident. It was a triumph.
On-screen, Lecroix dropped to his knees beside Tasia’s body. Petty cringed.
“Searle, you fool.”
The death of a cow should not affect a man so. It was a painful sight. It diminished the victory.
If you believed the gossip, Tasia had lured Searle Lecroix into her bed. But he couldn’t have known her. He couldn’t have given himself to her and received back in turn. Not from an unhinged, half-lunatic fame-whore who had fucked the president to get where she was.
Lecroix gripped Tasia’s hand. He begged, “Help her.”
Smarting, Petty turned away. But Tasia’s face followed. She stared down from the walls of the hotel room. Hundreds of photos, her beautiful face, her filthy gaze, her dark inner light, staring, knowing.
Petty stared back. “But you didn’t know what was coming. You refused to listen.”
Tasia had snubbed NMP. Then ignored NMP. She’d had the gall to rebuke and disregard NMP.
A smile squeezed Petty’s lips, full of pain.
Stop that. You are not a fat, weak-kneed fan. You are a righteous guardian and protector of the truth and the Good Ones. Petty scratched an armpit.
The hotel room smelled stale and fuggy, like a cheap costume for a stage play. But that’s what this Tenderloin dive was—a disguise. Nobody would look here for a hovering angel.
The news switched to a White House press conference. Robert McFarland was praising Tasia. He was waxing melodic about her talent.
The thrill of victory subsided. Petty sloughed off the fatigue jacket and sat heavily on the bed. Generosity of spirit…was McFarland joking? The president of the United States was beatifying Saint Tasia, the Holy Cow.
Slut, thief, liar.
A heart as big as the sky. Letting out a moan, Petty thundered to the table, grabbed the artifact, and threw it at the television.
This was insane. It was…a spell. The vixen had bewitched even the leader of the free world.
All Petty’s work had been in vain. The king rat of politicians, a man of the smoothest tongue, a hypnotist, was spreading the lie. People would buy it. Heart as big as the sky would become conventional wisdom. It would twist people’s minds, turn them into Tasia-lovers. It would burrow under the skin of people who needed protection. Tasia, thief of hearts, would steal yet again, just as she’d stolen from NMP, but this time from beyond the grave.
Her death hadn’t ended the battle. It had only intensified it.
Petty heard a voice, a whisper, a promise. Don’t tell. You’re my eternal love. Shh.
Deep breath. It was time to slough off Noel Michael Petty. Time to put on the camouflage that kept the Protector safe and anonymous. It worked on the Net, where nobody knows you’re a dog. Now, offline, Petty needed to assume the guise. Full-time, with no slipups.
Going into the bathroom, Petty faced the dingy mirror. From now on, you’re not Noel. You’re not a sweaty fan who follows the tour around the country. You’re him. NMP.
Tasia hadn’t seen the end coming. Neither had Searle Lecroix, though he’d been onstage, staring at her. And judging from the news footage, Lecroix still didn’t see. Tasia still held him in her thrall. And now the president was hypnotizing the public into believing the same thing. Somebody had to stop it.
Somebody needed to expose Tasia once and for all. End the love affair with her. Get proof, and make noise, and shut the liars up for good.
You are NMP, the archangel, the big bad bastard. You are the sword of truth.
You’re the man.
IN THE MORNING JO WOKE TO THE RADIO.
“…investigation into the death of Tasia McFarland. A police source tells us that a psychiatrist has been hired to evaluate Tasia’s mental state.”
She sat up.
“Our source believes that the police are working on the theory that Tasia committed suicide, and want a psychological opinion to back it up.”
She reached for the phone. Saw the clock: six twenty. Too early to harangue Lieutenant Tang about departmental leaks.
She heard the foghorn. She kicked off the covers, pulled on a kimono, stumbled to the window, and opened the shutters. Fog skated across the bay and clung to the Golden Gate Bridge. But uphill, the sun was tingling through the clouds. The magnolia in the backyard looked slick in the early light.
The news continued. Not a word about a merchant ship on fire and down by the stern five hundred miles off shore. Not a word about the 129th Rescue Wing. Accidents at sea could entangle rescuers in disaster, and she listened, shoulders tight, for the words Air National Guard. Nothing.
She grabbed her climbing gear and drove to Mission Cliffs. She found a belay partner and spent forty-five minutes on the gym’s head wall. It soothed her. Hanging fifty feet off the ground, with nothing but a void between her and a broken neck, always cleared her head.
She was at her desk by eight. She’d finally cleared out Daniel’s mountain bike and Outside magazines, and turned the front room into her office. She kept gold orchids on the bookcase and her favorite New Yorker cartoon framed on the wall—where a drowning man yells, “Lassie! Get help!” And Lassie goes to a psychiatrist.
