The Hollow Ones(35)

She realized he meant the microwave—as opposed to boiling water in the kettle on the stove, as he had. “It’s fast,” she said.

He emitted an unhappy exhale, not quite a sigh, not exactly a grunt, but with elements of both. “So is a beheading.”

The microwave beeped and she pulled out the hot water, stirring it. “You have to let it steep,” he said.

“Ha,” she said, returning to her chair. “Nobody has that much time.”

She noticed he was still looking at her as though she had committed an atrocity. “Do you eat the tea bag when you are done?” she asked.

“The tea bag itself is a modern convenience. A shortcut from pouring water over loose tea, brewing the beverage, and straining out the leaves. You are circumventing even that process, sacrificing the pleasure of taste for immediacy.”

She nodded, sipping the tea, perversely enjoying his contempt. “It’s good.” She sat back.

“These entities,” said Blackwood. “They respond to many names, favor certain rituals.”

“Favor?” said Odessa. “What do you mean?”

“The same entity can appear in Palo or in a Catholic exorcism,” said Blackwood, “under a different name. They cherish role-playing. Lies. Pretense. Emotion. Just as you would tune in or out of a radio station. So they get attuned to whatever they feel like at that particular time…”

“Are you a professor of religion or something?”

“Or something,” he answered.

“You’ve dealt with situations, cases, like this before.”

“Many times, too many times, in too many places. It never really ends, you see? They’re the Yin and…you could say I am the Yang.”

“You sound like a fortune cookie—how do you know the things you know?”

“Experience. You appear to be a novice agent.”

“Hardly,” she said, offended. “I’m relatively new to the Bureau.”

“Solomon was a novice once.” Blackwood glanced around her apartment as though he were reading her résumé. “One has to start somewhere, I suppose, in acquiring clients.”

“Acquiring—clients?” she said, not understanding him.

“At your Bureau. You are an agent.”

“I’m a special agent, it’s a designation. I’m not a…a representative.”

“An agent is a liaison, as I understand it. An envoy, an instrument. A representative, yes, of the Bureau of Investigation.”

She was almost amused. “How has Agent Solomon never explained this to you? We are not facilitators. We don’t have clients. Our clients are the American people, as a nation.”

“You are an agent of an investigatory body. I believe we are speaking about the same thing.”

“No, we are not. I am a law enforcement officer, an agent of the federal government. Duly sworn. You are…I still don’t know what you are.”

“I am Hugo Blackwood. I was trained as a barrister, if that is what you mean. That was quite a long time ago.”

“A lawyer,” she said. “Me too. And how did you get in here, by the way?” She was getting weirded out again.

“Oh, the door,” he said.

“The door has two locks.”

“Indeed, it does. I opened both.”

Odessa sat with that a moment. “A well-mannered burglar is still a burglar.”

“I assure you, I am not here to burgle. Perhaps we can get back to the matter at hand. I believe you may be of some assistance to me.”

“Yes, let’s get back to the matter at hand…but I am not offering my assistance to you. I wrote you at the suggestion of Agent Solomon, who thought you might be able to assist me in figuring out what is going on.”

“It is very important to you not to appear submissive or subservient in any way, isn’t it.”

Odessa crossed her arms, looking at this man curiously, still unable to get a handle on him. Smart retorts flew through her mind, but Hugo Blackwood appeared to be making an observation, not an insult.

She got to her feet again. “I want to show you something.”



Odessa opened the news articles on grave robbing she had saved as pdf files on her MacBook. When she set it down in front of him, Hugo Blackwood sat back and shook his head. He declined even to touch the laptop. “You operate the machine,” he said.

“You not an Apple guy?” she asked.

He squinted at the type as though this were his first time encountering text on an LCD screen. He scanned the “Baby Mia” stories, then the article about the man who died in 1977.

“Would you…where did the first document go?” he said, frustrated.

“Okay,” she said, spinning the MacBook back toward herself, bringing up the article, spinning it back. “Luddite much?”

“Luddite?” He glanced at her. “If you are referring to the early-nineteenth-century protest by textile workers who smashed their looms in fear of being replaced by lesser-paid, lesser-skilled workers, then no. I would gladly welcome obsolescence. If you refer to the modern misconception of that protest, implying an aversion to technological advancement in general, then yes.”

“Thus the paper letter in the precise envelope dropped in a slot in a slab of stone in Manhattan. You know you can get text messages on your phone, right?”