The
Chapter 7 a
If you follow the great
circle through Cairo and New Orleans, you pass through Athens which was central
to the Greek word, Rome of a later civilization, north Italy where the
renaissance flowered, Paris, the Stonehenge area of England, where the
industrial revolution started, Nova Scotia, Oak Island, Boston, which was
central to the American Revolution, New York, the later commercial giant,
Washington D.C., through Richmond, Charlotte, Atlanta, Montgomery and on to New
Orleans.
From there the line continues
to
The van, in James’s expert
hands, roared toward
“I would have thought if the
power wasn’t in
“Everybody knows that the big
international giant corporations don’t have their headquarters in
“But why?”
“
James couldn’t stand it. “
“Tolerant but closed. And it’s the most secure port. The navy has a lot of subs in the
“Well where in the world did
you hear about it?”
“I talk to a lot of rich
business men.” It was not clear whether she
was taunting him or she was serious.
Anyway the idea that she talked with a lot of business men had to be
right.
Jon returned to looking at
the screen of the laptop. Then he said,
“Hey, Ivan. It looks like
“Why should he care?”
“Didn’t you say he was
descended from Charlemagne?”
“He said his family went back
that far and farther. But he didn’t
actually say he was descended.”
“All right.”
Interstate ten was gathering
traffic as they swept in from the flat countryside. The eastbound lanes were clogged with the
evening rush hour. “We’re going to go
past the Super Dome,” said James. “It’s
the biggest stadium in the world.”
“So all those huge
international corporations can have the biggest committee meetings in the
world,” said Jon. He was not going to
give up easily believing that
James laughed, and then he
said, “I know where there’s a hotel you’ll like in the French Quarter. It’s nice and old and historic. You’ll look just like tourists. I’ll probably stay with family tonight. We can go visit Grandpa Amos in the
morning.”
The hotel had been a private
house, where Harriet Beecher Stowe had written her fatal book. They settled in and then went for an early
evening stroll through the French Quarter.
They then let James lead them
to a small restaurant, where he pulled strings and got them admitted despite
the enormous crowds. They settled down
to enjoy a feast of crawfish étoufé that did justice
to its name suggesting a muted harp string, and they had blackened redfish,
which had come back on the market as the fish population had recovered from
excessive enthusiasm. Hapgood tucked in with the gusto of a far younger man, but
he managed a few remarks about the scene anyway.
“The Cajuns, who developed
this style of cooking, are supposed to be a mixture of white, African American
and Native American. And that certainly
would account for the richness and variety.
But the name comes from the word “Acadian” or “Arcadian.” It’s an old name for
“I thought
“It was. It was the heart of the Greek homeland,
although mostly
Ivan said, “
Thoroughly mellow after the
meal, they started to wander again or rather to follow James’s gentle lead. Down a deserted street they found a voodoo
shop. They wandered in to have a look
around. For sale was an unsettling mix
of what looked like the tackiest tourist schlock, unblushingly imported from
The proprietor came in from
the back and walked up to Jon. He stared
at her face. She was an elderly Black
woman, her face drawn not with fear but with concern; the face seemed to want
to help but not to know quite how, a pleasant face indeed, but she seemed to be
thinking about something difficult, even dangerous to mention.
She said, “I’ve seen you
before.”
“I doubt it,” said Jon. “We just got into town.”
It was a reasonable enough
reply. But it did not explain why he had
gone pale. She led them through a
curtain into a little room with a covered table and some chairs. There was nothing from the world market in
the room, and the handmade decorations on the wall were far more sophisticated
and unsettling than the objects out front.
They sat, and the woman took out some bones, knuckle bones of a sheep,
and rolled them on the table a few times.
Then she looked at Jon again.
“The man you’re going to see
is at the Pegasus Hotel, room 695.”
“We aren’t looking for a
man,” said Jon. “Not one who would be
staying at the Pegasus.”
“Maybe not, be he’s looking
for you. Sooner or later you’re going to
see him.”
She stood up and ushered them
out to the street.
“Voodoo or grapevine,” said Hapgood. “You never
know. But it’s wise to take such things
seriously, and with a serious grain of salt.”
They strolled back to the
small hotel. As they passed the iron
gates
“Why sure.”
While James and Tracy went
shopping, the others went inside, where Jon set up the laptop and started work
on
The
trick was to decide just when an empire had started and when it fell, to
determine the lifespan of that civilization.
But while one had the expectation that a civilization would be invaded,
sacked and show no further vigor, the pattern was more complex. It was most hard to decide just who
supplanted whom when. Besides, much of
the manuscript had simply been copied out verbatim from old sources.
At
least he had worked out how he was proceeding.
Put together a list of civilizations and their dates. Record their ages at time of collapse. Then group them in fifty year intervals. Of those that started, calculate the
percentage that lasted until year fifty one.
Of those that lasted fifty years, calculate the percentage that lasted
until year one hundred one. Then the
percentage of them that lasted until year one hundred fifty one, and so
forth. But there was no trend, and
wouldn’t be a trend until he had some objective way of deciding when each
civilization rose and fell. Maybe
Hapgood
remarked, “Why don’t you have the computer search for mentions of
The early dynastic period
lasted 200 years. The
After
The numbers were obviously
rounded to the nearest five or ten years.
No matter. Jon grouped them by
fifty years, did some calculations and made the computer display it as a
graph. He whistled. “Ouch.
Reverend, how long has the word been a single civilization?”
Hapgood shrugged and said, “Obviously you can take any date
you like and define single civilization accordingly, but world trade rose above
five percent of total trade for the first time in 1800.”
“
“Bright
guy.”
The three of them stared at
the terrible information on the screen.
Ivan asked, “So why?”
The shopping trip had gone
well.
In the van,
“You mean a fancy boy?”
“I guess that’s what I
mean. Hotels sometimes have things like
that.”
James smiled elusively, “Well
of course I wouldn’t have any friends like that, and of course that would be
against hotel policy. But if I had to
guess, I’d try some name like Adrian Jones, just for example.”
“Good enough. In case I need help. Take me to the Pegasus.”
At the Pegasus she left the
van and walked boldly through the front door.
She was wearing strong reading glasses with heavy rims, that reduced the
world to a blur, but made here eyes look big as if she was worried, which was
not itself a deception. She was wearing
a severe business dress with sensible shoes, carrying a purse with a strap over
her shoulder and carrying a large chart with a graph on it. Her hair was done up in an uncompromising
bun. She had thrust a couple very sharp
pencils into the bun.
Anyone who challenged her
would presumably have to deal with whomever she answered to, and nobody was
going to want to do that. She made her
way to the elevators and waited with ill concealed patience. She punched up floor six.
During the brief ride, she
took off the business clothes.
Underneath she was wearing a tube top and miniskirt. She swapped the shoes for a pair of spike
heels in the purse, dropped the pencils in the purse and shook out her
hair. She took a more frou-frou purse
out. On the sixth floor she stepped out,
leaving the business clothes and purse on the elevator, along with the business
chart. She brought along a large, white
cardboard carton folded flat, which had been concealed by the chart.
Her heart was pounding with
fear and excitement. Her stomach was
churning. She tried to swallow, but
there was no saliva. She would have to
move fast before her nerves let her down.
At room 695, she opened up
the carton. The bottom was cut out. On the front she had painted a pair of
enormous voluptuous red lips and a pair of eyes, winking. Where the bangs should be, she had cut out a
window and hung a veil of cloth behind it to represent hair.
Quickly she opened the carton,
glued a little hook, a light-stick and a note pad to the inside, and then she
crouched and lifted the box over herself.
Inside, by the light of the stick, she stripped off her clothes and hung
them up. Then she edged up to the
door. Her plan was to reach through the
veil and knock. The bad news was that
she had no further plan. She would have
to wing it.
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