“The British papers are always foul. There’s no reason to pay attention to them.”
“And then there’s this delay,” Marianne said, as if she hadn’t heard. “It’s been almost five days. It’s going to be six at least before we have the body back, and then we’ll have a wake and a funeral with something that’s— that’s—decomposing.”
Charlotte picked up her embroidery. She didn’t embroider in any serious way. She only liked to have it with her to give herself something to do with her hands. “The casket will be closed for the wake,” she said, “and the embalming will take care of the smell, if that’s what you’re worried about. The delay is unpleasant, but there isn’t anything I could have done about it. The law requires an autopsy in cases of violent death, and in this case there were other considerations pertinent to the investigation—”
“You sound like a press release.”
“—that held up the return of the body to us. There’s no point in making a fuss, especially in public. You know what happens. The papers fill up with oped columns deploring the way in which the rich expect special treatment not available to ordinary mortals.”
“Well, don’t we?”
“Not where it can be reported on in the newspapers, Marianne, no.”
“Doesn’t it bother you? Somebody hated him enough to kill him, somebody he probably didn’t even know, at least not personally.”
Charlotte put the embroidery back in her lap. The truth of it was, she hated embroidery, just as she hated needlework, just as she hated almost all the things her mother had taught her in the way of “ladylike pastimes,” as if the mere fact of having a vagina made it incumbent on her to prick her fingers with needles. Besides, she was bad at it, and she’d never had much patience for what she was bad at.
“Most people,” she said carefully, “do not care who your father was, or what he did. Most people care only about celebrities, and your father made it part of his lifework never to be a celebrity.”
“He’s certainly a celebrity now,” Marianne said. “And you know there are going to be hundreds of people at the funeral. Onlookers. People off the street. And the press. And the police. He’s not going to be able to stay obscure in the midst of all that.”
“It’s not like we’re movie stars,” Charlotte said. “It’s not like we’re the Kennedys. If we maintain a solid policy of noncooperation, it will all blow over in time.”
“Someone will right a book about it.”
“Probably. But he won’t get any help from me.”
“Maybe they’ll make a miniseries of it,” Marianne said. “Isn’t that a wonderful prospect? People are fascinated by these nuts, you know, they really are. Timothy McVeigh. All those people.”
“Timothy McVeigh murdered one hundred sixty-eight people and obliterated most of a block in Oklahoma City. You’re exaggerating again.”
“I’m trying to get you to react,” Marianne said. “God, you’re impossible. You’re worse than impossible. You’re living in a fantasy world.”
“No,” Charlotte said seriously, “the one thing I’m not doing is living in a fantasy world.”
Marianne ran her hand through her hair. It was too long and too thick and too haphazardly cared for. Then she turned around and walked out of the room. Charlotte listened as her footsteps receded down the hall, heavy thuds of expensive running shoes landing on carpet. When Charlotte was sure Marianne was gone, she leaned over and pulled a small folded sheaf of papers out from under her. She’d been reading them when Marianne first came in, but she’d known, instinctively, that she shouldn’t be caught at it. She leaned over, pulled up the ottoman, and put up her feet. Then she flattened the papers on her lap.
THE HARRIDAN REPORT, the first one said, at the very top, as if whoever had desktop published this did not want to waste paper. The Reptilian Connection.
Charlotte ran one delicate fingernail—polished clear, not too long, not too sharp—along the side of her nose.
One of the few things we know for certain about both the Deacon and the Ross families is that they’re part of the reptilian bloodline. They look human, and people who have been brainwashed by the system believe that they are just lucky: lucky to have been born rich; lucky to have been born talented; lucky to have been born better than the rest of us. Well, they were born better than the rest of us, with powers of intelligence and concentration no ordinary human being could possibly attain. They are the descendants of the intermarriage of humans with something the ancients called “gods,” the Serpent Race described in the holy books of every culture from Sumer to Rome. From this hybrid race came the ruling families of all the countries of the world, first in the Middle East and Europe, and then, through the conquests of the British Empire, in Asia, Africa and America.