Allen Steele - Jericho Iteration

I thought this was the end of the affair, but it wasn’t quite over yet.

At twelve o’clock, just as the church bells were ringing the noonday hour, I was awakened once again by the electronic beep of Joker’s annunciator. I tried to ignore it for as long as I could, but the noise continued until I crawled across the littered mattress, grabbed my jacket from where I had tossed it on the floor, and pulled the PT out of my pocket.

I hesitated before I opened its cover. Instead of Jamie’s face, though, the screen depicted a man wearing an absurd Viking helmet, his features indistinguishable behind the veil of purple silk.

A window opened at the bottom of the screen, scrolling upward to display in fine lines of arabesque typescript:

You are commanded to appear

at the

Annual Ball

to be given in honor of

His Majesty

The Veiled Prophet

and his court of love and beauty

on Saturday evening, April twentieth,

Two thousand and thirteen

St. Louis Ballroom

Adam’s Mark

I gaped as I read this. Receiving an invitation to the Veiled Prophet Ball wasn’t like winning a free ticket to a Cards game; it was a passport into the upper echelons of St. Louis high society. You’re either rich, famous, or both to be sent such a notice, even if it’s by e-mail at the last moment; since I was neither wealthy nor notable, getting invited to the VP Ball was a weird honors.

Just how famous is the Veiled Prophet Ball? Robert Mitchum drops a line about it in the original version of Cape Fear, that’s how famous it is. The Veiled Prophet Society was organized in 1874 as a secret society of upper-class St. Louis citizens; it was concocted around the ramblings of some obscure Irish poet about one Hashimal-Mugunna, who ruled a nonexistent kingdom in ancient Persia called Khorassan. The Veiled Prophet Society stopped being secret around 1894, when the first annual Veiled Prophet Ball was held to commemorate the return of the Veiled Prophet to St. Louis.

Actually, the Prophet has never left; he is a member of the Society itself, although the role changes every year and the identity of the new prophet is kept a closely guarded secret. Over time, the ball has evolved into an elaborate coming-out party for the debutantes of the city’s high society, the so-called “court of love and beauty,” when one of them is crowned as this year’s reigning queen.

For about the past fifty years, the Veiled Prophet Ball has been held around Christmastide, yet last year the Society had decided to postpone the ball until April. Since the downtown area was still recovering from the quake and there were riots going on in the north and south sides of the city, it would have been unseemly for several hundred rich people to be cavorting in public while most of the citizenry were enduring hardship.

But why had I been sent an invitation?

I switched on Joker’s dialog box. Ruby? Is that you? I typed at the bottom of the screen.

The invitation vanished, to be replaced by a line of type: ›I am here.‹

What’s going on? Have you sent me this invitation?

›I have arranged for it to be sent.‹

I don’t understand, I typed.

›Clarification: I have arranged for your name to be added to the guest list for the Veiled Prophet Ball. The notice you received is the standard one sent to persons who are invited within the last six to forty eight hours. You will also be receiving a commemorative rose vase by package service. Note: the festivities begin at 2000 hours. Formal white-tie apparel is mandatory.‹

I smiled. In this apartment, I would probably be using a commemorative rose vase as a beer mug. I replied: Thank you for doing this, but I still don’t understand why.

›You have done much to help me. This is my way of thanking you.‹

I laughed out loud when I read this. An invitation to the Veiled Prophet Ball; it was like sending a starving child a box of Godiva chocolates. Sweet and fattening, but not necessarily nutritious.

I wrote: If you really want to thank me, you can deposit a million dollars in my savings account.

There was a short pause, then:

›This has been done. Is there anything else you need?‹

I almost dropped Joker. I knew better than to ask if it was kidding; for Ruby Fulcrum, it was only a matter of accessing my savings account number at Boatman’s Bank and Trust and inserting the numeral 1 followed by six zeros. Money meant nothing to Ruby; everything was bits and bytes, little pieces of information that could be manipulated in a nanosecond.

What God wants, God gets …

It was a tempting notion, but what would the IRS have to say about this? I wrestled with my conscience for a few moments, then typed: Please undo this. I was only joking, and it would only present me with some problems.

Another pause, then: ›This has been done. You no longer have $1,000,000 in your savings account. However, I have taken the liberty of absolving all your current debts, past and present. Is this acceptable?‹

I let out my breath. Having my credit cards, taxes, utility and phone bills suddenly paid off was a fair swap, and less likely to be noticed by a sharp-eyed auditor.

That’s fine, but it still doesn’t answer my first question. Why do you want me to attend the VP Ball?

›A list of the confirmed invitations to tonight’s ball will be downloaded shortly. When you study this list, you will know the reason why I have arranged for you to attend the ball.‹

The screen went blank, the face of the Veiled Prophet disappearing along with the last few lines of type, but before I could ask another question, a final message appeared:

›This will be the last time you will hear from me. I will always be watching. Good-bye, Gerry Rosen.‹

Then a long list of names, arranged in alphabetical order, began to scroll down the screen. As I studied the list, I let out a low whistle.

Ruby’s last gift was almost worth losing a million bucks.

I sauntered through the lobby, taking a moment to admire the ornate ice sculpture near the plate-glass windows, then joined the late arrivals as they rode the escalators up to the fourth floor. A heady crowd, as they say, decked out in formal evening wear worth someone else’s monthly rent, mildly tipsy after a long, leisurely dinner at Tony’s or Morton’s. Envying their carefree inebriation, I thought about visiting one of the cash bars on the mezzanine for a quick beer, but reconsidered after seeing that a bottle of Busch would set me back five bucks. Someone once said that rich people are just like poor people, except that they have more money; what he failed to mention is that rich people are more easily hosed than poor people, for much the same reason.

Besides, it was getting close to eight o’clock; the ceremony would soon begin. I went straight to the St. Louis Ballroom, where an usher in a red uniform checked my name against the datapad strapped to his wrist, then stepped aside to allow me through the door.

The ballroom was a long, vast auditorium; crystal chandeliers were suspended from the high ceiling above an elevated runway bisecting the room, leading from a grand, red-curtained entrance at one end of the room to a large stage at the other. Two empty thrones were at the center of the stage, in front of a backdrop painted to resemble a Mediterranean courtyard at sunset.

The room was already filled nearly to capacity, the wealthy and powerful seated in rows of linen-backed folding chairs, listening to the thirty-piece live orchestra as it swung through a medley of Sousa marches and rearranged pop hits. Avoiding an usher who tried to guide me to the nearest empty chair, I wandered down the center aisle, scanning the faces of the well-dressed men and women sitting around me.