Queen of Angels Read Free Page A

Madame de Roche came down the stairs in a quick saintly glide, blue chiffon trailing, red hair gentle on her shoulders. Richard paused and smiled showing his large uneven teeth. Such a lovely group, she greeted, beaming. Without apparent discrimination she fixed her faithful with sapphire eyes wrapped in naturally acquired wrinkles in that motherly face, features arranged to show good humor and loving sympathy though she did not actually smile. Always a pleasure. Pardon my lateness. Do go on. Nadine said, Richard has been at the scene of a crime. Really? Madame de Roche said at the bottom, ivory hand on ebony wooden ball. Leslie Verdugo joined her and Madame beamed briefly on her then turned all attention to Richard. I was interrogated by the most stunning woman a pd in uniform, black as jet but not negroid. I think at first she wanted to accuse me of the crime, or at least of public recklessness for not turning Emanuel in. I wondered: was this Nemesis, come to balance my books? Do start again, Madame de Roche said. I believe Ive missed something.
    No pain, no gain. Worlds a rough. All we learn comes of our own sharp go. We torment each other. Race is like acid in a tight metal groove; we etch. Hope
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    In a lost time of myth the coast of southern California had been littoral brown and dusty desert populated by Indians Spaniards mestizos scrub and ancient twisted pines. Now from twenty kilometers below Big Sur to the tip of Baja it was a rambling ribbon of community linked by slaveways, fed by desalting plants and mountain melts gathered from as far as Canada, punctuated by the towers of Santa Barbara the immense diurnal mirrored combs of Los Angeles centipede segments of South Coast monuments and the sprawling rounded ceramic arches and spires of San Diego. Nestled between the desalting and fusion plants of San Onofre and San Diego, like islands in this coastal and inland battle of titans lurked the groundling enclaves of La Jolla and Del Mar, blanketed in shabby gentility and celebrated memory of years past. Flanking the sprawl of the University of California at San Diego, these cities boasted hundreds of thousands of atavists who wished to live lives of past simplicity. The once ubiquitous doctors and lawyers and heads of corporations had decades before abandoned their beacbside palaces to move into the central luxuries of the monuments; outmoded academics and scholars took their place. Herr Professor Doctor Martin Burke, O.V.F. & I.Once Very Famous and Influentialbad recently left the monuments and the bosom of highrise society to slum in the flatlands. He had found himself an old not ruinously expensive apartment in the inland hills of La Jolla and here he sat with barely enough energy to answer his chiming phone, trying to raise some enthusiasm for a scheduled public broadcast of the latest Lit Vid 21 AXIS report, history in the making. He turned down the sound on the floating head and shoulders of an announcer and reached out on the third chime to make sure the phones vid was off. Then he said, Ill take it. The phone opened a connection. Hello. Martins voice was hoarse and phlegmy. He sounded sixty; he had just earned forty five. Martin Burke, please. A pleasant, aggressive male voice. He coughed. Speaking. Mr. Burke, you used to work for the Institute for Psychological Research Used to. Pause. Sounded like a journalist. I had nothing to do with No, of course not. My name is Paul Lascal, Mr. Burke. Im not a reporter and Im not interested in the Raphkind scandals. I am interested in what you know about IPR. Would it be possible to speak with you soon? A LitVid simulation of AXIS itself floated before him, narration muted. The crafts deceleration vanes were shown spread wide a spidery thing of deep space. The vanes withdrew with unreal speed and AXISs children flushed like a thousand handsful of nickels smeared by gravity in a gray pointillistic curve around the second planet of Alpha Centauri B. The last thing I want to