Velocity

Explorer.
    Songs of crickets rose to dispel the silence, and the throat-clearing of toads. Pennants on the tent whispered in the barest breath of a breeze.
    Billy walked to the open door of the motor home. He stood in the light but hesitated to ascend the steps.
    From inside, all edges smoothed off by the high-quality speakers of the motor-home sound system, which apparently doubled as intercom, a voice said, “Barbara could be allowed to live.”
    Billy climbed the steps.
    The cockpit featured two stylish swiveling armchairs for the driver and co-pilot. They were upholstered in what might have been ostrich skin.
    Remotely operated, the door closed behind Billy. He assumed that it locked, as well.
    In this highly customized vehicle, a bulkhead separated the cockpit from the living quarters. Another open door awaited him.
    Billy stepped into a dazzling kitchen. Everything in shades of cream and honey. Marble floor, bird’s-eye maple cabinets with the sinuous rounded contours of ship’s cabinetry. The exceptions were black-granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances.
    From the in-ceiling speakers, Valis’s mellow and compelling voice made a proposal: “I could whip up an early breakfast if you’d like.”
    The marble floor continued into a built-in dining area that could comfortably seat six, eight in a pinch.
    The top of the maple table had been inlaid with ebonized wenge, carnelian, and holly wood as white as bone, in an intertwining ribbon motif-spectacular and expensive craftsmanship.
    Through an archway in another bulkhead, Billy entered a large living room.
    None of the fabrics cost less than five hundred a square yard, the carpet twice as much. The custom furniture was contemporary, but the numerous Japanese bronzes were priceless examples of the finest Meiji-period work.
    According to some of the tavern regulars, who’d read about this motor home on the Internet, it had cost over a million and a half. That would not include the bronzes.
    Sometimes vehicles like this were called “land yachts.” The term wasn’t hyperbole.
    The closed door at the farther end of the living room no doubt led to a bedroom and bath. It would be locked.
    Valis must be in that final redoubt. Listening, watching, and well armed.
    Billy swiveled toward a soft noise behind him.
    On the living-room side, the dining-area bulkhead had been finished with beautiful narrow-reed bamboo tambour. These panels slowly rolled up and out of sight, revealing secret display cases.
    And now blinds of brushed stainless steel descended to cover all the windows, but with a sudden pneumatic snap that startled.
    Billy didn’t think those blinds were solely decorative. Getting through them and out a window would be difficult if not impossible.
    During the design and installation phase, they had most likely been called “security” devices.
    As the ascending tambour panels continued to reveal more display cases, the voice of Valis came from the speakers again: “You may see my collection, as few ever have. Uniquely, you will be given the chance to leave here alive after seeing it. Enjoy.”
     
     
     

Chapter 70
     
    The padded interiors of the cabinets behind the tambour panels were upholstered in black silk. Clear glass jars of two sizes held the collection.
    The base of each jar nestled in a niche in its shelf. A black-enameled clamp held the lidded top, fixing it to the underside of the shelf above.
    These containers would not move whatsoever when the motor home was in motion. They wouldn’t make one clink.
    Each jar was lighted by fiber-optic filaments under it, so the contents glowed against the backdrop of black silk. As the lamplight in the living room now dimmed to enhance the effect of the display, Billy thought of aquariums.
    Each of these small glass worlds contained not fish but a memory of murder. In a preservative fluid floated faces and hands.
    Every face was ghostly, each like a pale mantis perpetually swimming, the features of one hardly distinguishable from those of the others.
    The hands were different from one another, said more about each victim than did the faces, and were less grisly than he would have assumed, ethereal and strange.
    “Aren’t they beautiful?” Valis said, and sounded somewhat like HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
    “They’re sad,” Billy said.
    “What an odd word to choose,” Valis said. “They delight me.”
    “They fill me with despair.”
    “Despair,” Valis said, “is good.