Prodigal Son

happier."
        "That isn't rational. Come to me at the Hands of Mercy-"
        "There's this girl I see sometimes, she's particularly happy I'll find the truth in her, the secret, the thing I'm missing."
        The renegade hung up.
        As before, Victor pressed *69. Also as before, the call had come from a number that blocked automatic call-backs.
        His special dinner had not been ruined by this development, but his bright mood had dimmed. He decided to switch from tea to wine.
        Beer often went with Chinese food better than wine did. Victor was not, however, a beer man.
        Unlike many Chinese restaurants, Quan Yin had an extensive cellar full of the finest vintages. The waiter-in a ruffled white tuxedo shirt, bow tie, and black tuxedo pants-brought a wine list.
        As he finished his soup and waited for a salad of hearts of palms and peppers, Victor studied the list. He wavered between a wine suitable for pork and one better matched with seafood.
        He would be eating neither pork nor seafood. The entree, which he'd had before, was such a rare delicacy that any connoisseur of wine must be of several minds about the most compatible selection.
        Finally he chose a superb Pinot Grigio and enjoyed the first glass with his salad.
        Much ceremony accompanied the presentation of the main course, beginning with the chef himself, a Buddha-plump man named Lee Ling. He sprinkled red rose petals across the white tablecloth.
        Two waiters appeared with an ornately engraved red-bronze tray on which stood a legged, one-quart copper pot filled with boiling oil. A Sterno burner under the pot kept the oil bubbling.
        They put the tray on the table, and Victor breathed deeply of the aroma rising from the pot. This peanut oil, twice clarified, had been infused with a blend of pepper oils. The fragrance was divine.
        A third waiter put a plain white plate before him. Beside the plate, red chopsticks. So gently as to avoid the slightest clink, the waiter placed a pair of stainless-steel tongs on the plate.
        The handles of the tongs were rubberized to insulate against the heat that the steel would draw from the boiling oil. The pincer ends were shaped like the petals of lotus blossoms.
        The pot of oil stood to Victor's right. Now a bowl of saffron rice was placed at the head of his plate.
        Lee Ling, having retreated to the kitchen, returned with the entree, which he put to the left of Victor's plate. The delicacy waited in a silver serving dish with a lid.
        The waiters bowed and retreated. Lee Ling waited, smiling.
        Victor removed the lid from the silver server. The dish had been lined with cabbage leaves briefly steamed to wilt them and make them pliable.
        This rare delicacy did not appear on the menu. It was not available at all times or on short notice.
        In any event, Lee Ling would prepare it only for that one-in-a-thousand customer whom he'd known for years, whom he trusted, whom he knew to be a true gourmet. The customer must also be one so familiar with regional Chinese cuisine that he knew to request this very item.
        Restaurant-licensing officials would not have approved of this offering, not even here in libertine New Orleans. No health risk was involved, but some things are too exotic even for the most tolerant of people.
        In the dish, nestled in the cabbage, squirmed a double litter of live baby rats, so recently born that they were still pink, hairless, and blind.
        In Chinese, Victor expressed his approval and gratitude to Lee Ling. Smiling, bowing, the chef retreated, leaving his guest alone.
        Perhaps the excellent wine had restored Victor's good mood or perhaps his own extraordinary sophistication so pleased him that he could not for long remain glum. One of the secrets to leading a life full of great accomplishment was to like oneself, and Victor Helios, alias Frankenstein, liked himself more than he could express.
        He dined.

CHAPTER 50
        
        THE SECOND FLOOR of the Hands of Mercy is quiet.
        Here the men and women of the New Race, fresh from the tanks, are undergoing the final stages of direct-to-brain data downloading. Soon they will be ready to go into the world and take their places among doomed humanity.
        Randal Six will leave Mercy before any of them, before this night is over. He is terrified, but he is