The Face

no roses had been there, the precious voice of his lost wife speaking of ladybugs in the white room. This was the hand of some supernatural force held out to him and eager to lead.
        After spiraling high in a frenzied flapping, down again came the swarming doves, feathering the air, toward him, past him, with a [576] thrum that both exhilarated and frightened him, that plucked notes of wonder from his heart but also struck hard the jungle-drum terror of the primitive within.
        They flew. He ran. They led. He followed.

        “Wait,” Hazard told the paramedics as they came quickly to the bed in spite of the vile stink, as they stood wide-eyed and gaping in spite of all the horrors that they had seen day after day in the conduct of their vital work.
        “Boy,” Dalton croaked.
        “What boy?” Hazard asked, having taken the withered man’s hand once more, holding it in both of his.
        “Ten, “said Dalton.
        “Ten boys?”
        “Ten… years.”
        “A ten-year-old boy,” Hazard said, failing to understand why Dalton thought Laputa meant to return here with a boy, not sure that he was correctly interpreting what the wracked man meant to tell him.
        Dalton strained to speak in spite of throat pain that threatened to convulse him: “Said… famous.”
        “Famous?”
        “Said… famous boy .”
        And Hazard knew.

        In the elevator, Moloch dropped Fric, and Fric tumbled in a loose heap on the floor, not sure what had happened to him. No mere pepper in that pepper spray. He could see but could not turn his eyes with the usual quickness, could blink but only slowly. He was able to move his arms and legs, but as though straining against the pressure [577] of deep water, like a weary swimmer being pulled down by a relentless undertow. He couldn’t strike a blow in self-defense, couldn’t even fully close his hand into a fist.
        As they descended toward the garage, Moloch grinned at Fric and brandished the little aerosol can at him. “Short-acting semiparalytic inhalant developed by a colleague with the help of a generous grant from the Iranian secret police. I wanted you docile but alert .”
        Fric heard himself breathing. Not an asthmatic wheeze.
        “That gazebo didn’t appear on the architectural plans,” said Moloch. “But the moment I saw it, I knew . I’m still in touch with the child in me, the wild spirit that we are when we’re born, and I knew .”
        Fric didn’t hear the sound of healthy breathing, either. Clear but shallow, a faint whistle in his throat.
        With scary face-twitching spasms of glee that would have caused Fric’s bladder to empty in a rush if he had not such a short time ago relieved himself on the potted palm, Moloch said, “I wanted you alert to experience all the terror of being snatched out of your posh digs, knowing that your big-shot daddy can’t swoop down in cape and tights or on a flying motorcycle like you once thought he could. Not all the muscled movie stars in the world, certainly not all the supermodels, not even all the beefed-up bodyguards in Bel Air can save your pampered ass.”
        Fric knew then that he was going to die. No chance to sneak off to Goose Crotch, Montana. No hope of someday leading a real life. But maybe at last some peace.

        As the shepherd to the sheep, as the hound to the posse, as the scout to the cavalry, the doves showed Ethan the way, bird by bird, out of the conservatory, into the east hall, past the indoor pool, to the north hall and then westward toward the rotunda.
        Such a sight: thirty or forty luminous-white birds flowing along [578] the corridor, a feathered river in this canyon of sumptuous decor, as might a party of freed spirits soar toward Valhalla.
        Into the entry rotunda they flew, and circled there as if caught in the whirlpool currents of a forming cyclone, until Ethan caught up with them, whereupon the many birds swarmed closer to one another, closer, until they knitted together in one turbulent entity. They flowed down from the three-story heights to the floor, changing color as they came, changing form again, becoming that friend of childhood who had lost his way.
        Standing but ten feet from Ethan, the apparition that was Dunny Whistler said, “If you die this time, I can’t bring you back. I am at the limits of my authority. He’s taking Fric down to the garage. He’s almost out of