Veil

Chapter 20

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Veil dreams.

Spring. The Greenwich Village Art Show. Surrounded by his oil paintings, he sits in a tattered canvas folding chair on Christopher Street.

He is terribly thirsty; he is so thirsty that he cannot focus on the potential customers who walk by or occasionally stop to look at his work. Everything seems to be covered with pink gauze, as in fever-vision. He has a pounding headache, and he can think of nothing but water. He is near a number of bars, and he knows where there is a fountain, but he does not bother to rise and go to look for water, for he knows there will be none. Veil knows he is dreaming, and around his dream is a steel cage.

"You're a dead man, Kendry."

Veil squints through the haze at Madison, who is emerging from a taxicab. The CIA controller's shoes are covered with steaming, green jungle mud.

The dream is out of control, Veil thinks, with disparate times, places, people, and things all bleeding into one another. He is dying, and he is both afraid and enraged. He could roll out of the dream, but chooses not to; a waking state will bring him only the worse torment of the cage and the sun.

"Tell Parker the truth, Madison," Veil says to the man at the curb with the rotting jungle mud on his shoes. "Kill me with a bullet, a knife, or a garrote—not a lie."

Footsteps come up behind him, and Parker's voice whispers in his ear. "He can guess all he wants to. By the time I let him in here again, you'll either be dead and buried in the riverbank or—"

Veil wheels, causing the pink fever-haze to swirl around him, but Parker is gone.

"I really wish I could get the two of you together," Veil says, and begins to laugh hysterically.

"He can guess all he wants to," Parker intones from the bottom of a well.

"Madison, don't kill me with a lie!"

"You're a dead man, Kendry. I'm going to shoot your ass on the day you find peace or happiness."

"Orville, old stick!" Veil shouts. "Today isn't that day! I'm really not very happy, so don't let this stupid bastard kill me!"

I'm losing it, Veil thinks as he suddenly finds himself standing in the middle of Christopher Street with cars passing through him. Thirst, exposure, exhaustion and fear are taking their toll, ripping up his mind.

There is no place left to escape to.

"Tell him the truth, Madison. You execute me as you see fit, but please get me out of this cage. I don't want to die like an animal. I don't deserve this."

Raskolnikov, the White Russian art dealer who will become Veil's mentor, rounds a corner. The portly, bearded man carries an ivory-handled cane in one hand and a chocolate icecream cone in the other. His black patent-leather shoes flash in the sunlight; his footsteps explode on the sidewalk like beats of a snare drum.

Madison, Po, Sharon, Parker, Pilgrim, and Perry Tompkins are all in the crowd.

I am dying.

Raskolnikov glances at Veil's paintings and walks on. He crosses the street at the intersection, steps up on the curb, and stops. He stands still for some time, absently licking his icecream cone as people pass by on either side of him. Then he abruptly tosses his cone into a wire trash container, wheels around, and comes back across the intersection against the light. A car screeches to a halt, narrowly missing him, but Raskolnikov does not even seem to notice.

"Dead and buried in the riverbank," Parker whispers in Veil's ear.

Raskolnikov again walks past Veil's paintings, but immediately turns, comes back, and stops in front of them.

"Call Madison or Bean," Veil whispers. "Please, please. Please. I'm so thirsty."

"Interesting," Raskolnikov says as he turns toward Veil. "One really has to view your paintings out of the corner of the