Ashley Bell (Ashley Bell #1)(127)
The violence equally thrilled and shamed Bibi, made her feel empowered though not exalted. If shame had not been part of it, she would have struck another blow, and another, until she’d seen the skull cave and the blond hair darken with blood. But she retained control of herself, cranked shut the vent that would have released her fear-spawned rage in volcanic gouts.
The voices in the construction trailer continued their muffled conversation. Urgently scheming or merely garrulous, plotting the destruction of a city with a nuke or playing poker—it was impossible to tell which.
If one of them was Vorshack, lucky husband, perhaps the other was Robert Warren Faulkner, alias Terezin. In which case she could surprise him, walk in and shoot him dead, deny him his birthday celebration and save the life of Ashley Bell. But would the leader of such a cult—such an enterprise—go anywhere without a couple of bodyguards? Unlikely. She couldn’t know how many others might be in the trailer, stationed in rooms or a hallway into which she couldn’t see from outside.
She thought it better to explore the acreage under development rather than force an ill-conceived confrontation, just as it was better not to dwell on the strangeness of her encounter with Marissa Hoffline-Vorshack and the bizarre way that it had ended.
What is your motivation?
To save Ashley Bell.
Is it really?
Yes. Ashley Bell. Save her or die trying.
The fog enfolded her.
The old woman appeared not to suffer from arthritis, for she moved quickly and without complaint, and there were no thickened and distorted bones in her fingers, no swollen knuckles. She wore no eyeglasses, and Pax doubted that she had resorted to contacts. There was about her a general air of good health, as though she had suffered so much anguish and terror by the age of eleven that, when she’d been borne out of Auschwitz, the exchequer angel that tracked the debts owed by every soul had excused her from paying any serious price for living well into her eighties.
She stepped past the collection of Valiant Girl novels in various languages, to other shelves where she kept the young-adult titles she had written outside that series. From the tightly packed volumes, she extracted the only book she’d written using the nom de plume Halina Berg. It was also her first published work under any name: Out of the Mouth of the Dragon. The jacket art depicted a stylized dragon with human skulls for eyes, but the image was poorly conceived and perhaps quickly executed, unappealing. Although the words A NOVEL, under the title, provided buyer guidance, the work might have been in any of several genres.
“It sold poorly. A disaster. The package didn’t say ‘buy me,’?” Toba noted, “but in truth I didn’t have the skill to pull off the story I wanted to tell. It was meant to be a little journey through Hell that would nevertheless be inspiring. The story of a young girl who survived Dachau, overcame the trauma, and built a meaningful life in America.”
“Your life,” Pogo said.
“Actually, no, dear. But it is fact-based fiction. It spins off from a true story about someone I met in this country after the war. Her name was Arline Blum, but of course I changed it for the novel.”
Scanning the front jacket flap, Pax said, “So the heroine’s name is Ashley Bell.”
“Easier on the American ear,” Toba explained.
Pogo was as straightforward as the white line on a highway and as easy to read as a roadside sign. His puzzlement was obvious. “The tattoo on Bibi’s arm—ASHLEY BELL WILL LIVE. She did live, but her name was Arline Blum.”
“Is the woman still alive?” Pax asked.
“Sadly, no,” Toba said. “She died four years ago.”
“And Ashley Bell isn’t really a person,” Pogo said, “she’s a character in a novel. So why the tattoo?”
“After that first visit with her mother,” Toba said, “when she found out I’d written one novel as Halina Berg, Bibi insisted she had to read it. I told her the book was out of print, and for very good reason. My talent couldn’t make good use of that kind of material. I found my métier in jolly adventure fiction for girls. But she charmed a copy out of me.”
“Not just adventure fiction for girls,” Pax said, because there was an eleven-book series about a Valiant Academy for boys, which he had read when still living on the ranch with his family, long before the idea of becoming a SEAL had taken root in him. “It helped Bibi and me click on the first date—we’d both read Toba Ringelbaum.”
“Yes, she told me, and I was tickled. But the boy books didn’t sell as well as the series for girls, I’m afraid. Otherwise, I would have written many more.” The graceful folds of her well-aged face conspired in an expression of sheer delight, and her brandy-colored eyes brightened. “I found it so very exhilarating to climb into the young male mind, to imagine boys being boys and kicking butt with rollicking good cheer.”
“Your girls kick butt, too,” Pax said. “That’s a big reason Bibi loves those stories.”
“Back to my question,” Pogo said. “Why the tattoo? Where is Bibi? What is she dreaming? Or not dreaming—but doing? How is Ashley Bell a part of it?”
“Toba?” Pax said as he returned Out of the Mouth of the Dragon to her. “Any ideas?”
“There is one thing. One more strange thing.” After the old woman shelved that book, she took down another nearby volume. “I didn’t have many extras of the American edition, so I gave this one to Bibi, the British version.”