Towing Jehovah Read Free Page A

pink. His once-bright feathers emitted a sallow, sickly aura, as if infested with aging fireflies. Tiny scarlet veins entwined his eyeballs. "The entire heavenly host is dying. Such is the depth of our sorrow."
    "You spoke of my ship."
    "The corpse must be salvaged. Salvaged, towed, and entombed. Of all vessels on earth, only the Carpco Valparaíso is equal to the task."
    "The Val's a cripple."
    "They refloated her last week. She's in Connecticut at the moment, taking up most of the National Steel Shipyard, awaiting whatever new fittings you believe the job will require." Anthony stared at his forearm, flexing and unflexing the muscle, making his tattooed mermaid do a series of bumps and grinds.
    "God's body . . ."
    "Precisely," said Raphael.
    "I would imagine it's large."
    "Two miles fore to aft."
    "Face up?"
    "Yes. He's smiling, oddly enough. Rigor mortis, we suspect, or perhaps He elected to assume the expression before passing away."
    The captain fixed on the altarpiece, noting the life-giving milk streaming from the Virgin's right breast. Two miles? Two goddamn miles? "Then I guess we'll be reading about it in tomorrow's Times, huh?"
    "Unlikely. He's too dense to catch the attention of weather satellites, and He's giving off so much heat He registers on long-range radar as nothing but a queer-looking patch of fog." As the angel guided Anthony into the foyer, his tears started up again. "We can't let Him rot. We can't leave Him to the predators and worms."
    "God doesn't have a body. God doesn't die."
    "God has a body—and for reasons wholly obscure to us, that body has expired." Raphael's tears kept coming, as if connected to a source as fecund as the Trans-Texas Pipeline. "Bear Him north. Let the Arctic freeze Him. Bury His remains." From the counter he snatched up a brochure promoting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, its cover emblazoned with Piero della Francesca's Discovery and Proving of the True Cross. "A gigantic iceberg lies above Svalbard, permanently pinned against the upper shores of Kvitoya. Nobody goes there. We've hollowed it out: portal, passageways, crypt. You merely have to haul Him inside." The angel plucked a feather from his left wing, eased it toward his eye, and wet the nib with a silver tear. Flipping over the brochure, he began writing on the back in luminous salt water. "Latitude: eighty degrees, six minutes, north. Longitude: thirty-four degrees . . ."
    "You're talking to the wrong man, Mr. Azarias. You want a tugboat skipper, not a tanker captain."
    "We want a tanker captain. We want you." Raphael's feather continued moving, spewing out characters so bright and fiery they made Anthony squint. "Your new license is in the mail. It's from the Brazilian Coast Guard." As if posting a letter, the angel slid the brochure under the captain's left arm. "The minute the Valparaíso's been fitted for a tow, Carpco will send her on a shakedown cruise to New York."
    "Carpco? Oh, no, not those bastards again, not them."
    "Of course not them. Your ship's been chartered by an outside agent."
    "Honest captains don't sail unregistered vessels."
    "Oh, you'll get a flag all right: a Vatican banner, God's own colors." A coughing fit possessed the angel, sending tears and feathers into the sultry air. "He hit the Atlantic at zero by zero degrees, where the equator meets the prime meridian. Begin your search there. Quite likely He's drifted—east, I'd guess, caught in the Guinea Current—so you might find Him near the island of São Tomé, but then again, with God, who knows?" Shedding feathers all the way, Raphael hobbled out of the foyer and toward the Cuxa Cloister, Anthony right behind. "You'll receive a generous salary. Father Ockham is well funded."
    "Otto Merrick might be right for a job like this. I think he's still with Atlantic-Richfield."
    "You'll be getting your ship back," the angel snapped, steadying himself on the fountain. He breathed raggedly, wheez-ingly, as if through shredded lungs.