24

The coffee shop.

“So,” Adam said, “what did you dig up?”

“It’s a gentlemen’s club,” Thomas answered.

“In the woods,” Adam stated.

“Basically,” Thomas continued, “it’s a place where old farts, like CEOs and politicians and such go to let their hair down and tell dick jokes.”

“Yeah, that’s just what Marsh said.”

“And there’s entertainment. Female impersonators, drag karaoke, spin the bottle. Richard Nixon called it … what were his exact words? … ‘the faggiest goddamn thing he’d ever seen.’ Women weren’t allowed on the grounds, because, according to the club charter, ‘their presence taints the sacred earth on which the club stands.’ Although that’s been lifted recently to allow female employees in limited roles. You know, to avoid litigation and scandal. A lot of oil tycoons, and bigwigs from the entertainment industry are regular guests. And did you know,” Thomas voice grew to a confidential tone, as he leaned in, “nearly every president to be elected in the last sixty or seventy years has been to the bonfire of conscience ceremony on the eve of his election. Apparently to be schooled up by the old guard. So, still thinking about going?”

“Yes,” Adam answered, without hesitation, “I don’t know why or even how, but he’s behind it. All of it. The accident. The chip we know for sure was his work. I have to find out what it’s all about.”

“I still can’t believe you know Henry Falconer personally.”

Thomas’ last remark brought with it a few glances from the neighboring tables, and with the glances, stares, nods and elbow nudges.

“Me neither. I wish I didn’t. He gives me the creeps. Must be the way he’s always smiling and moving his head, looking one way, looking the other way, always smiling and giggling. Like he knows something. Everything.”

“Probably does.”

“Right. He probably does know everything. Gives me the creeps.”

“Guy probably knows who hit you.”

“Guy like that probably knows who killed Kennedy.”

“Come on, everybody knows. It was George Bush Sr., right?”

Adam shook his head, looking out the window.

“Oh,” Thomas continued, “but he was only in charge of the shooters.”

“I mean,” Adam said, “could he have orchestrated the whole thing?”

“Maybe in the beginning. Everything up until you left the hospital.”

Adam bit his thumb nail, thoughtfully.

“Why,” Thomas asked, “right? Why you?”

Adam breezed a glance at Thomas with his thumb nail still locked between his teeth. It was a question he couldn’t face up to.

***

“This,” Marsh said, from the computer chair, “is the annual bonfire of conscience ceremony.”

Marsh maximized the youtube video and it went to full screen. The picture was dark, shot at night. The resolution was terrible. It was obviously shot from some kind of small, handheld digital camera, most likely one found on a cell phone. After a moment the picture settled down and Adam and his houseguests were able to clearly make out what they were looking at.

From across a small man-made lake or pond, six dark robed figures chanted, carrying a wooden effigy.

“You see,” Marsh said, turning in his chair to face everyone, “the effigy represents the conscience of the men in the ceremony.”

On the screen the effigy was marched to a bonfire and set down in front of it. A seventh dark robed man stood at a podium and began conducting the ceremony. A deep, almost God-like voice boomed from an unseen sound system, rumbling the small computer speakers.

“These men,” Marsh continued, “I could tell you who each of them are, but I’ve got no proof so I won’t even bother. But, I’ll just say that I’m sure everybody in this room is very familiar with each of them. The man at the podium is someone who you might recognize from the evening news. Anyway, these are leaders and future leaders of this country in this satanic ritual, prancing around in their satanic robes. They feel, it is their duty, as leaders, to burn the effigy of conscience so that they can go about their business blamelessly for the rest of the year. It’s like a satanic businessman’s way of going to confession.”

Leah leaned into Adam’s line of sight and pointed with her thumb to the still-playing video and said, “This? You‘re doing this?”

On the computer monitor the six robed figures carefully laid the effigy of conscience onto the flaming pyre. Within seconds, the thin, wooden man was consumed, illuminating a rocky twenty foot tall moss-covered statue of an owl in the background.