Conspiracy Theory(58)

“What woman?”

Krystof shrugged. “An old woman. Nothing much. Past the time of being pretty but not, what do you say, not hunched over. Not near dead.”

“Middle-aged,” Gregor said.

“She comes in maybe two hours ago. There is nobody in the store. She comes up to me and asks me if I know what is going on in this neighborhood. Of course I know what is going on in this neighborhood. The women are bringing food to each other all the time, up and down the street, day after day. It is very strange not everybody here is very fat.”

“That’s a point,” Gregor said.

“I do not answer her,” Krystof said, “except I make a noise, you know. I do not say words. I do not like to talk much because my English is not good and my, what do you call it, my voice—”

“Accent.”

“Accent, yes. It gives me away. I did not know, when I came here, that everybody would be from Armenia.”

“They’re not. Most of them were born in the United States. What do you have against the Armenians?”

“I have nothing against anybody. But I am from Russia, and Russia and Armenia have not always been, what is it? Allies.”

“True enough. I doubt if anybody here will care.” This was not exactly accurate. The Very Old Ladies might care, but they might not, since their enmity was still fixed on the Turks.

“So,” Krystof said. “She comes, and I say nothing, and she talks. She talks for a long time. About how here on this street they worship the Devil. They worshiped the Devil in this church up here where the explosion was. I know this is not true. This is only an Orthodox church. I think she is very stupid and very ignorant, and I wish her out of my store, but I say nothing. Even hello and good-bye I mostly do not say to the people who come here.”

“Yes,” Gregor said. “I’d heard about that.”

“It is no wish to be unfriendly. I am only ashamed of the way I talk. So I do not talk, and this lady hands me these things.” Krystof went around behind the counter, rummaged underneath it, and came up with a stack of papers and magazines.

Gregor recognized the paper on the very top. It was another copy of The Harridan Report. Gregor wondered which one it was. Krystof handed the stack across to him, and he took it. Right under The Harridan Report—an edition he hadn’t yet seen, he was sure—was America Fights Back. Gregor would have thought it was one of those hyperpatriotic throwaways that had been everywhere after the September 11 attacks, except that under the title there was smaller lettering: Against the New World Order.

“You know what these things are?” Krystof said.

“I’ve seen similar things, yes,” Gregor said.

“I have looked them over,” Krystof said. “After she left and I locked up the store, I sat down to think for a while and then I looked them over. I read a little. They are insane.”

“Yes,” Gregor agreed. “They are insane.”

“We have something like this in Russia after the government falls. Everything is a plot. Everything is the KGB. But nothing like this—reptiles. Thinking people are reptiles.”

“What?”

“So she puts them on the counter, and then next to them she puts this gun. There is nobody else in the store, you understand? There is never anybody in the store at this time of day, and now she is there and she puts the gun on the counter and the first thing I think is she is trying to rob me, but I am not afraid. She is a small woman. I do not think I will have trouble getting rid of her.”

“And?”

“And she says I should not be afraid, the gun is for me. To protect myself. Against these people here on this street, who worship the Devil, or think they worship the Devil, because she knows that I know it is really something else. They are really agents—spies—for something else. It’s not a word I have heard before.”

“The Illuminati?” Gregor suggested.

Krystof’s face cleared. “Yes, that is it. You know this? It is not a word that makes sense to me. This is an organization of terrorism you have here a problem with?”

“No,” Gregor said firmly. “This is a paranoid delusion some people obsess about. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“If you could maybe talk a little slower,” Krystof said.

“Yes, I am sorry. She just came in here and laid down the gun? Just like that?”

“I am afraid the police will not be believing me,” Krystof said, “but that is what she did, yes. She is talking the whole time, about this word I don’t remember again, about the New World Order. I know that. We have that in Russia. About how this here on this street is full of spies or saboteurs or, I don’t know. She talks and talks.”