Jesus and I walked to the University of Truth and Justice. It was a pleasant half-hour stroll, meandering through deserted streets lined with the elaborate facades of a more prosperous age, periodically punctuated by the slender spires of forsaken churches. The cool night air held a promise of spring. We sauntered along in silence, sunk in our separate thoughts. Although my stunned eyes had seen Maya gunned down by Rasputin, I still could not comprehend that she was dead, and I found it even harder to believe that Luke had perished. Plots were colliding head-on like vast tectonic plates, crushing my best friends in their mangles.
"Someone will have to break it to Barbie," I said reluctantly.
"Is she here?" I nodded. Jesus took a deep breath. "I will do it," he said at length. "She is my responsibility now."
"I've known her since she was six." I felt oddly jealous but also relieved.
"Sleaze and I were closer than brothers. I take care of what he left behind." Jesus looked at me with heavy hooded eyes.
I shrugged, overcome by his unabashed machismo. "Whatever." I felt numb. I needed a jolt to shake me up, I needed drink and drugs and nostalgic conversation, I needed a wake. And so Jesus and I went to Marek's bar. Barbie and her entourage had disappeared and Marek was closing up. We picked up an assortment of strong spirits, found a convenient terrace with comfortable chairs, and settled in for a long night of serious drinking.
"Nice place Xox has here." Jesus downed his fourth tumbler of tequila, glancing around at the terra cotta and plate glass and track lighting all around us. He idly pinched a buttery fold of leather upholstery between his fingers. "Almost as luxurious as his New York office."
"Were you trying to raise money from Xox?" I asked curiously. "Luke told me that you had gone to New York to meet some old pal of yours who had defected from the Enlightenment and set up his own splinter group."
"I wouldn't describe Xox as an old pal exactly," Jesus replied calmly. "But I did go to New York to meet him, yes."
"Are we talking about the same guy?" I asked in bewilderment. "Grinning bald billionaire..." Jesus nodded. "Why would the richest man in the world be involved with a Marxist revolutionary movement?"
Immanuel peeked his head around the corner at that moment, still in muddy purple robes, followed by Benito, Hachek Katastrofski (as ever, nose first) and Delilah. "So that's where you are," Immanuel said happily. "Barbie and the boys have gone to bed."
"Separately, I hope."
"I can't swear to that. What a girl. Marek told us you were drinking heavily. We've been looking everywhere for you. May we join you?"
Jesus rose and bowed politely. "Jesus Guevara at your service. What's your poison?"
Immanuel beamed. "Whisky, please. Thank you." He sat down between us, knocking over a couple of empty bottles. Delilah's two suitors perched themselves on either edge of the armchair into which she had gracefully subsided. Hachek and Benito glared at each other each time they found their rival staring down into her spectacular cleavage. "This looks like a heavy discussion."
"Jesus here claims that Xox is a closet Marxist."
"Really?" Immanuel exclaimed. "Which closet? Leninist or Maoist?"
"I don't want to get into Marxist theory," Jesus began. I heaved a sigh of relief. "What do you know about the Enlightenment?"
"It's a shadowy movement in Peru trying to bring about a peasant revolution," Delilah responded, clearly a girl used to getting good grades.
"Basically, that's correct. The Enlightenment was started by a university professor who read too much Mao."
"That is how it all starts," hook-nosed Hachek interjected gloomily. "Silly ideas about the dignity of labor."
"Dangerous things, vegetable gardens," Immanuel added.
"There are more peasants than factory workers," Jesus continued. "So the revolution must come from the peasants. The poorest countries in the world are agrarian economies. So the capitalist world-economy can only be overthrown by an alliance of societies ruled by peasant communism."
"Do you actually believe all this, Jesus?" I asked. "You were the chief spokesman for the Enlightenment."
"Well, it is hard to imagine that North Korea and Albania and Cuba are going to rule the world," Jesus agreed. "But the peasants need something to believe in. It's better than believing in a virgin who wants you to have fifteen starving babies."
"What does Xox have to do with all this?"
"He's Enfer Hohdzha's cousin."
"Who?"
"Hohdzha was the chief ideologist of the Albanian communists for forty years. A ruthless megalomaniac who wanted to make Tirana the capital of the world. So he sent his acolytes out to the poorest countries in the world. Their mission was to infiltrate local communist parties and to spread the word. Proletariat bad, peasants good."
"And Xox was sent to Peru?" Immanuel asked incredulously.
"Right. He gave the university professor lots of books by Hohdzha. The cool college kids loved it. More Maoist than Mao. Wow. What a great reason to grow a beard." Jesus gulped down the rest of the tequila, coolly inhaling the worm straight from the bottle. Benito whistled in admiration.
"Did Xox grow a beard?" I asked curiously. "It's hard to imagine him with facial hair."
"He's been bald ever since I've known him," Jesus answered. "Which is almost twenty years."
"You've known him since you were a small child?"
"My parents died for the revolution." Jesus smiled remotely. "How do you think I managed to go to an expensive prep school like Bendover?"
"My mother sent me there to make rich friends," I replied, shame-faced. Yet again I realized how thoroughly I had failed my poor mother.
"Well, I had a full scholarship from the Fund for Peace and Love. Except it wasn't called that back then."
"So how did Xox make his billions?" Immanuel asked.
"And why?" I added.
"He defected."
"What?"
"He changed sides at some stage. He does not talk about it much but I suspect it was when he went to Chicago to study with Otto Hell. That was when he decided that Mao was wrong and that Hohdzha was naive. You see, Xox had to find money for the Enlightenment. Revolutions need guns, bullets, uniforms, boots. And the peasants would rather betray you to the army and collect a reward. They don't want to feed you while you fight for their freedom. Xox saw the obvious answer. Cash crops. He built symbiotic relationships with local peasants, regional cartels, compliant policemen all over Latin America, and flexible politicians everywhere. But this was hot money and these were simple people. After buying their limousines and private jets and penthouses and everything in the fashion magazines and lingerie catalogs, when the money still kept rolling in, they got frightened. Like Midas in the myth, everything they touched was turning to gold and they didn't like it. It was too conspicuous. Xox was glad to help. He was everyone's front man. He invested their money, and, lo and behold, it multiplied even beyond their dreams, safely, far away, in computer printouts and stacks of gold ingots in underground vaults. When the Enlightenment had less than a thousand guerrillas and a bank account bigger than ten billion dollars, Xox saw the irrelevance of the peasant revolution."
"So he moved to Wall Street and became a capitalist?"
"He moved to Wall Street because he was still a communist. But now he knew where Marx and Lenin and Mao and Hohdzha had all gone wrong. They tinkered with movements among the poor, the proletariat, the peasants, the peripheral. But it was the center that was crucial, Xox decided. If he was going to give capitalism a heart attack he had to become a great big lump of fat to choke the system at its core."
"A Master of the Universe," I said dreamily. Finally the connections were all coming together. I still wasn't sure I liked it.
"How do you know all this?" Benito asked.
"He told me."
"Why?"
Jesus chuckled. "I've been working for him for years. We get together once a year usually when he brings together the leaders of all the revolutionary movements he funds. The Sikhs, the Acehnese, the Tamils, the Mindanao people, the Xighurs, the Kashmiris…"
"What does he want?"
Jesus shrugged. "Truth and justice? A better world?"
"Why doesn't he buy himself some better clothes first?" I snapped peevishly. "I hate those baggy grey suits he wears. Why doesn't someone stop him?"
"How do you stop the richest man in the world from giving away all his money?"
"It's not just his money, is it?" Immanuel shrewdly pointed out. "If I understand you correctly, Xox wants to do away with money altogether."
Jesus grinned. "You're right. And lots of people are actually trying to stop him."
"Isn't Xox worried?"
"Hard to tell. He smiles constantly and gives lots of television interviews."
"He's up to something, isn't he?" I asked suspiciously. "An ultimate project. Like all the megalomaniac trillionaires in the James Bond movies."
"I don't know." Jesus smiled serenely, a pock-marked Buddha. "We'll just have to see."
Immanuel let out a resonant belch. "Xox has a dream," he declared drunkenly.
Benito nudged me. "Uh, oh. Time for another sermon."
Immanuel continued, unfazed. "Xox wants a refrigerator for every Chinese peasant and Amerikan hausfrau. He wants each species of animal and plant, fish and fowl to lie together in peace in the New Ark, in their allotted place in the Big Refrigerator filled with frozen genes, awaiting rebirth on a better planet. He wants solar energy and perpetual motion and desalination plants. He wants psychotropic drugs and endless joy." Immanuel reached for his bottle of whisky, missed by a mile, and toppled over with a deafening crash. "Long live Xox! Xox is in us all. I am Xox!"
"No, you're not," Benito replied primly. "You're just drunk."
"Better drunk than stupid," Immanuel replied sharply, resisting our attempts to help him up from the floor. "Get in touch with your instincts, damn you, and stop fussing over me."
A membrane ruptured in my memory. "Instincts!" I exclaimed, draining down my vodka and throwing the empty bottle off the balcony. "Now I remember!. Lady Rudolphine gave me a drug called Basic Instinct and said I would remember when the time was right. Jesus, does Lady Rudolphine know that her son is dead?"
Jesus nodded. "I met her in England yesterday. Xox sent me to Murti Bing's country house. I had to identify the bodies." He smiled coldly and flexed his powerful fingers. "You say these men in purple jumpsuits work for Axel von Schadenfreude? I hope to meet him one of these days. In fact, I'm going on a little manhunt."
"What a good idea." I smiled back. "Let's go scalp the Holy Roman Emperor."
"Is that who he is?" Jesus didn't seem terribly concerned about the potential impact of his regicidal plans on world history. "I'm sorry, amigo, but you can't come. I assassinate better alone. Besides, this is a private vendetta."
"Luke was my friend too," I protested. "And I have my own vendetta with Axel."
Jesus shook his head implacably. "You don't have the training."
I pouted. "Oh, all right, you old feudster. Will you at least bag a couple of purple jumpsuits for me?"
"Did I hear someone mention drugs?" Immanuel spoke up from the floor. "I feel the strong need for a pick-me-up of some sort."
"Of course," I said, reaching into my pocket for the shiny phial of Basic Instinct. "Lady Rudolphine said that it just had to be dropped into any open wound."
"That's good." Immanuel pulled out a shard of glass from his thin ankle. "I'm bleeding like a pig already."
I took the sharp sliver and scratched my wrist. "In memory of Luke Leazy," I whispered huskily, carefully dripping a drop of the silvery fluid into the bright red blood welling up in the wound. "Drug designer extraordinaire and the best of friends."
"Rest in peace." Jesus injected his dose.
"I miss him already and I didn't even know the guy," Immanuel piped up. "Can I have some too?"
"Yes, but wait till you get in touch with your instincts before you try to kill yourself again."
"Ow!" Delilah suddenly screamed. "I cut my foot!"
"Permit me to assist." "Goddamnit, just get out of the way." In their haste to assist Delilah, Hachek and Benito toppled together to the floor. The vial of Basic Instinct flew out of Immanuel's hands and broke with an ominous tinkle. I closed my eyes and covered my ears in an ineffectual attempt to block out the animal grunts of the two powerful young males angrily wrestling on the glass-strewn floor. I could feel my basic instinct coming to the fore: I looked around for escape.
"Someone will have to break it to Barbie," I said reluctantly.
"Is she here?" I nodded. Jesus took a deep breath. "I will do it," he said at length. "She is my responsibility now."
"I've known her since she was six." I felt oddly jealous but also relieved.
"Sleaze and I were closer than brothers. I take care of what he left behind." Jesus looked at me with heavy hooded eyes.
I shrugged, overcome by his unabashed machismo. "Whatever." I felt numb. I needed a jolt to shake me up, I needed drink and drugs and nostalgic conversation, I needed a wake. And so Jesus and I went to Marek's bar. Barbie and her entourage had disappeared and Marek was closing up. We picked up an assortment of strong spirits, found a convenient terrace with comfortable chairs, and settled in for a long night of serious drinking.
"Nice place Xox has here." Jesus downed his fourth tumbler of tequila, glancing around at the terra cotta and plate glass and track lighting all around us. He idly pinched a buttery fold of leather upholstery between his fingers. "Almost as luxurious as his New York office."
"Were you trying to raise money from Xox?" I asked curiously. "Luke told me that you had gone to New York to meet some old pal of yours who had defected from the Enlightenment and set up his own splinter group."
"I wouldn't describe Xox as an old pal exactly," Jesus replied calmly. "But I did go to New York to meet him, yes."
"Are we talking about the same guy?" I asked in bewilderment. "Grinning bald billionaire..." Jesus nodded. "Why would the richest man in the world be involved with a Marxist revolutionary movement?"
Immanuel peeked his head around the corner at that moment, still in muddy purple robes, followed by Benito, Hachek Katastrofski (as ever, nose first) and Delilah. "So that's where you are," Immanuel said happily. "Barbie and the boys have gone to bed."
"Separately, I hope."
"I can't swear to that. What a girl. Marek told us you were drinking heavily. We've been looking everywhere for you. May we join you?"
Jesus rose and bowed politely. "Jesus Guevara at your service. What's your poison?"
Immanuel beamed. "Whisky, please. Thank you." He sat down between us, knocking over a couple of empty bottles. Delilah's two suitors perched themselves on either edge of the armchair into which she had gracefully subsided. Hachek and Benito glared at each other each time they found their rival staring down into her spectacular cleavage. "This looks like a heavy discussion."
"Jesus here claims that Xox is a closet Marxist."
"Really?" Immanuel exclaimed. "Which closet? Leninist or Maoist?"
"I don't want to get into Marxist theory," Jesus began. I heaved a sigh of relief. "What do you know about the Enlightenment?"
"It's a shadowy movement in Peru trying to bring about a peasant revolution," Delilah responded, clearly a girl used to getting good grades.
"Basically, that's correct. The Enlightenment was started by a university professor who read too much Mao."
"That is how it all starts," hook-nosed Hachek interjected gloomily. "Silly ideas about the dignity of labor."
"Dangerous things, vegetable gardens," Immanuel added.
"There are more peasants than factory workers," Jesus continued. "So the revolution must come from the peasants. The poorest countries in the world are agrarian economies. So the capitalist world-economy can only be overthrown by an alliance of societies ruled by peasant communism."
"Do you actually believe all this, Jesus?" I asked. "You were the chief spokesman for the Enlightenment."
"Well, it is hard to imagine that North Korea and Albania and Cuba are going to rule the world," Jesus agreed. "But the peasants need something to believe in. It's better than believing in a virgin who wants you to have fifteen starving babies."
"What does Xox have to do with all this?"
"He's Enfer Hohdzha's cousin."
"Who?"
"Hohdzha was the chief ideologist of the Albanian communists for forty years. A ruthless megalomaniac who wanted to make Tirana the capital of the world. So he sent his acolytes out to the poorest countries in the world. Their mission was to infiltrate local communist parties and to spread the word. Proletariat bad, peasants good."
"And Xox was sent to Peru?" Immanuel asked incredulously.
"Right. He gave the university professor lots of books by Hohdzha. The cool college kids loved it. More Maoist than Mao. Wow. What a great reason to grow a beard." Jesus gulped down the rest of the tequila, coolly inhaling the worm straight from the bottle. Benito whistled in admiration.
"Did Xox grow a beard?" I asked curiously. "It's hard to imagine him with facial hair."
"He's been bald ever since I've known him," Jesus answered. "Which is almost twenty years."
"You've known him since you were a small child?"
"My parents died for the revolution." Jesus smiled remotely. "How do you think I managed to go to an expensive prep school like Bendover?"
"My mother sent me there to make rich friends," I replied, shame-faced. Yet again I realized how thoroughly I had failed my poor mother.
"Well, I had a full scholarship from the Fund for Peace and Love. Except it wasn't called that back then."
"So how did Xox make his billions?" Immanuel asked.
"And why?" I added.
"He defected."
"What?"
"He changed sides at some stage. He does not talk about it much but I suspect it was when he went to Chicago to study with Otto Hell. That was when he decided that Mao was wrong and that Hohdzha was naive. You see, Xox had to find money for the Enlightenment. Revolutions need guns, bullets, uniforms, boots. And the peasants would rather betray you to the army and collect a reward. They don't want to feed you while you fight for their freedom. Xox saw the obvious answer. Cash crops. He built symbiotic relationships with local peasants, regional cartels, compliant policemen all over Latin America, and flexible politicians everywhere. But this was hot money and these were simple people. After buying their limousines and private jets and penthouses and everything in the fashion magazines and lingerie catalogs, when the money still kept rolling in, they got frightened. Like Midas in the myth, everything they touched was turning to gold and they didn't like it. It was too conspicuous. Xox was glad to help. He was everyone's front man. He invested their money, and, lo and behold, it multiplied even beyond their dreams, safely, far away, in computer printouts and stacks of gold ingots in underground vaults. When the Enlightenment had less than a thousand guerrillas and a bank account bigger than ten billion dollars, Xox saw the irrelevance of the peasant revolution."
"So he moved to Wall Street and became a capitalist?"
"He moved to Wall Street because he was still a communist. But now he knew where Marx and Lenin and Mao and Hohdzha had all gone wrong. They tinkered with movements among the poor, the proletariat, the peasants, the peripheral. But it was the center that was crucial, Xox decided. If he was going to give capitalism a heart attack he had to become a great big lump of fat to choke the system at its core."
"A Master of the Universe," I said dreamily. Finally the connections were all coming together. I still wasn't sure I liked it.
"How do you know all this?" Benito asked.
"He told me."
"Why?"
Jesus chuckled. "I've been working for him for years. We get together once a year usually when he brings together the leaders of all the revolutionary movements he funds. The Sikhs, the Acehnese, the Tamils, the Mindanao people, the Xighurs, the Kashmiris…"
"What does he want?"
Jesus shrugged. "Truth and justice? A better world?"
"Why doesn't he buy himself some better clothes first?" I snapped peevishly. "I hate those baggy grey suits he wears. Why doesn't someone stop him?"
"How do you stop the richest man in the world from giving away all his money?"
"It's not just his money, is it?" Immanuel shrewdly pointed out. "If I understand you correctly, Xox wants to do away with money altogether."
Jesus grinned. "You're right. And lots of people are actually trying to stop him."
"Isn't Xox worried?"
"Hard to tell. He smiles constantly and gives lots of television interviews."
"He's up to something, isn't he?" I asked suspiciously. "An ultimate project. Like all the megalomaniac trillionaires in the James Bond movies."
"I don't know." Jesus smiled serenely, a pock-marked Buddha. "We'll just have to see."
Immanuel let out a resonant belch. "Xox has a dream," he declared drunkenly.
Benito nudged me. "Uh, oh. Time for another sermon."
Immanuel continued, unfazed. "Xox wants a refrigerator for every Chinese peasant and Amerikan hausfrau. He wants each species of animal and plant, fish and fowl to lie together in peace in the New Ark, in their allotted place in the Big Refrigerator filled with frozen genes, awaiting rebirth on a better planet. He wants solar energy and perpetual motion and desalination plants. He wants psychotropic drugs and endless joy." Immanuel reached for his bottle of whisky, missed by a mile, and toppled over with a deafening crash. "Long live Xox! Xox is in us all. I am Xox!"
"No, you're not," Benito replied primly. "You're just drunk."
"Better drunk than stupid," Immanuel replied sharply, resisting our attempts to help him up from the floor. "Get in touch with your instincts, damn you, and stop fussing over me."
A membrane ruptured in my memory. "Instincts!" I exclaimed, draining down my vodka and throwing the empty bottle off the balcony. "Now I remember!. Lady Rudolphine gave me a drug called Basic Instinct and said I would remember when the time was right. Jesus, does Lady Rudolphine know that her son is dead?"
Jesus nodded. "I met her in England yesterday. Xox sent me to Murti Bing's country house. I had to identify the bodies." He smiled coldly and flexed his powerful fingers. "You say these men in purple jumpsuits work for Axel von Schadenfreude? I hope to meet him one of these days. In fact, I'm going on a little manhunt."
"What a good idea." I smiled back. "Let's go scalp the Holy Roman Emperor."
"Is that who he is?" Jesus didn't seem terribly concerned about the potential impact of his regicidal plans on world history. "I'm sorry, amigo, but you can't come. I assassinate better alone. Besides, this is a private vendetta."
"Luke was my friend too," I protested. "And I have my own vendetta with Axel."
Jesus shook his head implacably. "You don't have the training."
I pouted. "Oh, all right, you old feudster. Will you at least bag a couple of purple jumpsuits for me?"
"Did I hear someone mention drugs?" Immanuel spoke up from the floor. "I feel the strong need for a pick-me-up of some sort."
"Of course," I said, reaching into my pocket for the shiny phial of Basic Instinct. "Lady Rudolphine said that it just had to be dropped into any open wound."
"That's good." Immanuel pulled out a shard of glass from his thin ankle. "I'm bleeding like a pig already."
I took the sharp sliver and scratched my wrist. "In memory of Luke Leazy," I whispered huskily, carefully dripping a drop of the silvery fluid into the bright red blood welling up in the wound. "Drug designer extraordinaire and the best of friends."
"Rest in peace." Jesus injected his dose.
"I miss him already and I didn't even know the guy," Immanuel piped up. "Can I have some too?"
"Yes, but wait till you get in touch with your instincts before you try to kill yourself again."
"Ow!" Delilah suddenly screamed. "I cut my foot!"
"Permit me to assist." "Goddamnit, just get out of the way." In their haste to assist Delilah, Hachek and Benito toppled together to the floor. The vial of Basic Instinct flew out of Immanuel's hands and broke with an ominous tinkle. I closed my eyes and covered my ears in an ineffectual attempt to block out the animal grunts of the two powerful young males angrily wrestling on the glass-strewn floor. I could feel my basic instinct coming to the fore: I looked around for escape.
