A New Eden Read online

  IDOLATRY

  A Story in Five Parts

  The fiction of Quent Cordair

  resides at ~

  As It Should Be

  quentcordair.com

  Also by Quent Cordair ~

  Idolatry Part I: Genesis

  A Prelude to Pleasure

  The Lunch Break Collection

  The Match

  The Seduction of Santi Banesh

  At Home with Heather James

  Sheltered

  Mujahid

  IDOLATRY

  A Story in Five Parts

  Part II

  A New Eden

  by

  Quent Cordair

  Cordair Inc.

  Napa MMXVI

  Published by

  Cordair Inc.

  1301 First St., Napa, CA 94559

  (707) 255-2242

  www.cordair.com

  © 2016, Quent Cordair. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Cover art, A New Eden © 2016, Bryan Larsen. All rights reserved. Original art and limited-edition prints subject to availability @ www.cordair.com. See back of book for more information.

  Cover image © 2016 Quent Cordair. All rights reserved.

  To my wife and best friend,

  Linda,

  who makes it possible.

  Part II

  A New Eden

  One

  It was Maria’s fourth week on the job, and the third week during which when she knocked on the door of Suite 117 and called out “housekeeping,” there was no reply. Using her passkey, she entered, pulled the cart in behind her and quietly shut the door.

  The suite featured a kitchenette, a large Jacuzzi tub, and gas fireplaces in both the bedroom and living area. The Prairie-influenced design, in light woods and local stone, was finished in a warm palette, with sensuous fabrics covering the plush furnishings. Accenting the walls were sepia photo-prints of the local fauna. French doors opened onto a flagstone patio, beyond which a double terrace of flowering flora bordered a tidy square lawn with a cascading stone fountain in the corner. The perimeter of sculpted hedging, taller on the sides to provide privacy from the adjacent units, was cropped shorter across the end to allow a sweeping southerly view of the high-desert valley. The rugged range of snowcapped mountains rising close to the west and the soft rolling hills to the east cradled the city below and stretched away to the distant, hazy horizon.

  On a reclined lounge chair on the patio, the suite’s lone occupant lay prone in the sun, her head to the side, her eyes closed. She hadn’t moved when the housekeeper entered. She was completely nude.

  Maria cleared away the breakfast tray from room service, wiped down the slate-floored bathroom, replenished the towels and toiletries and emptied the nearly empty wastebaskets. She tucked the tip that had been left on the bed into the pocket of her apron. As she stripped the Egyptian-cotton sheets, her eyes were drawn again to the patio.

  The young woman was hardly older than Maria herself, probably in her mid-twenties. Her lithe, runner’s body was already well tanned. Her bobbed chestnut hair gleamed in the sun. She had been present in the suite each day Maria had entered to clean, usually on the patio reading a book or writing longhand in a spiral-bound journal. Her face was pretty, in a tomboyish way, a lingering girlish cuteness with a tauter set to the mouth; her moss-green eyes tracked in a gazelle-like watchfulness, not afraid, but ever mindful, ready. When she wasn’t sleeping or sunning she might acknowledge the maid’s presence with a polite nod, but otherwise she said nothing and made no requests. The dozen or so books she had finished reading during her stay were mostly paperback suspense novels and biographies. On some days, Maria would find her standing silently at the end of the lawn in a bathrobe, gazing in silence at the valley.

  The suite was always quiet. The televisions and radio were never on. A leather satchel, in which a notebook computer and camera case were tucked, had been left leaning against the wardrobe. Maria never saw the computer or camera being used, or a phone, if the woman had one. Surely she had one. Hanging in the closet next to the bathroom were three outfits of casual travel wear. Next to the single piece of generic carry-on luggage was a pair of well-used but clean walking shoes and a pair of sandals.

  In the three weeks the guest had occupied the suite, none of the staff had seen her leave the suite, save for over the last few evenings when she had gone down to the hotel lounge to sit at the bar, where she would order a cocktail and take her dinner with a glass of wine while continuing her reading. After dinner, she would always return directly to her suite for the night.

  The woman intrigued Maria, so much so that her thoughts were filled with her night and day.

  One afternoon when the woman was sunning on the patio, she began talking in her sleep. To Maria it sounded as if she were arguing with someone, and in increasingly desperate tones, but in a language Maria didn’t at all recognize. Then, with a sharp turn of her head, as though someone had slapped her, she fell silent again.

  Who was she? How could she afford to stay in such an expensive place for weeks on end, and if she were wealthy enough to do so, where was the rest of her luggage? Where was the expensive clothing and jewelry? Didn’t she have friends or family, or an employer she needed to check in with occasionally? Maybe she wasn’t rich at all. Maybe the owners of the resort were letting her stay, helping her through a difficult situation of some kind. Maybe she was recovering from a broken heart. Maybe she was hiding from someone. Had she killed an abusive husband and escaped with his money? Maybe she had been the secret love interest of a handsome, rich landowner in Mexico until discovering he was already married – just like in the telenovelas – or maybe she was a foreign spy between assignments, awaiting instructions before jetting off to another exotic destination to seduce and poison a diplomat who had learned too much. Despite the careful way about her, the woman seemed entirely sure of herself. Maria wondered if there was a pistol in the handbag. She hoped so.

  Presently her eyes wandered again to the woman’s body, coming to rest on the dimpled hollows at the top of the firmly mounded, athletic buttocks. She reached around her own waist to touch the base of her own back, wondering if she looked the same there: she had a similar build, similar frame. But Maria had never seen her own naked backside. She certainly would never lounge about in the nude. It was a marvel to her that any woman could be so comfortable allowing a stranger to see her that way. She herself would have been much too ashamed. It was the way she was raised, she supposed.

  The woman opened her eyes – she was staring directly at Maria, studying her with a piercing intensity.

  Maria flushed. Fighting her reflex to look away, she stood straighter, taller, feeling naked herself under a scrutiny that seemed to see through her clothes, through the fabric of her very thoughts – but she had nothing to hide. Nothing. Finally, the stare softened into what appeared to be a pained melancholy, as if Maria perhaps reminded her of someone. The woman smiled faintly, almost apologetically, and rolled over languidly to expose her front to the sun. By the time she closed her eyes again, the smile was gone.

  Maria hurriedly finished making the bed, her heart racing. She gave a final fluff to the pillows and wheeled the cart out of the room, her thoughts still tumbling. Before closing the door, she sto
le a last, lingering look.

  She was pushing the cart down the hall toward the next suite when she recalled that she hadn’t been to confession in months. She wasn’t sure when she would go again, but she was sure that when she did – if she did – she wouldn’t tell the priest about the woman in Suite 117. There were just some things a girl wanted to keep for herself.

  * * *

  The world outside was visible only through the mesh screen covering the face of the sweltering black burqa. She was struggling to work her way through a crowd of thick-bearded men and wild-eyed boys shouting and gesticulating in righteous anger, many with stones in their hands as they pushed forward for a clear shot at their target, a short, writhing object set in a clearing in the mob’s midst. At first impression, the living thing appeared to be a stunted animal with no legs – but it was a fully formed teenage girl, buried to her waist, her legs encased beneath the ground, her hands and arms bound tightly about her exposed torso. A thin sheet had been tied around the top half of her body, but the cloth had been partially ripped away by the sharp stones and the girl’s struggles. Blood poured from gashes on her face, head, and shoulders. The side of her skull was already partially caved where a large rock had smashed against it, an eye hanging partially out of its socket, the cheek beneath the eye torn through from mouth to jaw. The girl was wailing, pleading for mercy as she weaved and ducked vainly to dodge the hurled missiles. But the stones continued to land in dull, unremitting thuds against her clothing and hair, in wet smacks against her skin and bones.

  There was no way to reach the girl, no matter how hard she tried. Despite her efforts, she couldn’t force her way through the men. They pushed her back roughly, threatening her with the same fate as the girl’s if she persisted. She tried to speak, to scream, to beg them to stop and let her help the girl, but no sound would come from her mouth. The other women of the village were standing well back, their black, shapeless forms clustered on street corners and in darkened doorways. Not one would come to the girl’s assistance.

  Suddenly the crowd dispersed.

  The victim was motionless, her eyes still open, a slumped, human gravestone tilted askew in a field of strewn rocks and bloodied chunks of concrete.

  She ran and knelt next to the silent body, cradling death in her arms, rocking the girl, trying to shush away the cries of confusion and terror that lingered in the air, sounds she could still hear in the silence, sounds she would always hear, sounds the girl would never make again.

  “Shh . . . shh . . . it’s over now, it’s all over. . . . it’s okay now. . . .”

  But then there was more screaming in the distance, and she got up and ran toward the girls’ school, as she always did. The school was on fire, as it always was, surrounded by the cordon of religious enforcers holding the hysterical, pleading mothers at bay, proclaiming censoriously that the girls’ heads were not properly covered, that they couldn’t be allowed to exit, they couldn’t be allowed to be seen in public in such a state – the law stated it clearly. A man standing nearby shouted angrily that the girls were not supposed to be going to school anyway, that they properly belonged at home, that the fire was Allah’s punishment for the sin of seeking knowledge instead of obedience. The girls pressed desperately against the padlocked gates and windows, screaming to be let out as the smoke and flames took them one by one.

  She pushed through the cordon and ran to the gate, where she tugged, tore and twisted at the padlocked chain with her bare hands. An enforcer on horseback was bearing down on her from behind. The girls begged her, clutching at the sleeves of her burqa through the gate, screaming as the flames grew unbearably hot and the scorching chain blistered her hands. She could hear the steaming, snorting breath of the horse behind her as she begged for someone, anyone, for help – but there was no one, no one to stop the evil, no one to stop the horror, the injustice, the insanity. . . .

  She awoke in a panic, her eyes flickering open, squinting at the hot orb above. Anxiously, without moving, she closed them again, trying to remember where she was, what had happened to her, trying to identify, to assess –

  My name is Paige Keller. I’m an American. I’m at a resort, on a hillside. The hill is on the north end of a valley, a valley in northeastern Nevada. I am safe here. I’m back in America – I’m no longer in danger. No longer in danger. . . .

  Yet the sound of the horse’s wet snorting had been too real. She couldn’t shake it. She focused on relaxing her mind, slowing her breathing.

  How long had she slept? How long had it been since the maid left?

  The frequency of the nightmares, which nearly always played out the same, had begun to abate somewhat. It had been four or five days since the last episode – but here they were again today, in the middle of the afternoon. She wondered if they would ever let her be, or if they would plague her for the rest of her life. The enforcer on horseback was a new element though – and she realized that her internal antenna, acutely attuned to danger, was still crackling ominously.

  She heard the horse’s snorting again.

  Without raising her head, she determined that the sound had come from the far end of the lawn. Feigning being asleep still, she shifted her head slowly, just enough that she could see, between her lashes, the hedge at the lawn’s end, while in her mind’s eye she measured the distance to her purse in the nightstand by the bed.

  A movement through the hedge’s upper leaves revealed, beneath a black, round-rimmed parson’s hat, the face of a young man. His eyes were dark. He had a short, squared-off beard with no mustache. To his left, visible through the leaves, the head of his horse shifted nervously. The man’s eyes were flitting along Paige’s naked body, his expression torn between lust and loathing.

  Without covering herself, she sat up abruptly and stared back at him. The flash of guilt on his face settled into a sneer – he spurred his horse and rode away noisily.

  She rose, walked unhurriedly back inside and locked the doors behind her. After showering under hot water, then cold, she sat on the bed and tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate.

  Though the hedge was less than four feet high on the lawn side, the maintenance path running along the outside, lower on the slope of the hill, was a good nine feet below the hedge’s crown. If the man had seen her by accident, he could have ridden on. But this one hadn’t. The fact that he hadn’t ridden on wouldn’t have bothered her so much except that, upon being caught, he hadn’t shown even a modicum of appreciation for what he was seeing. His response had been quite the opposite. And there had been something else, something in the sanctimonious censure of his expression that reminded her too much of the behavior of other men in other places.

  She shook it off. An hour earlier than usual, she dressed for dinner. To her customary, casual ensemble she added a pair of modest freshwater-pearl earrings and a simple, matching neck chain, its single pearl resting at the base of her throat.

  * * *

  Her regular and preferred bartender was coming on duty, swapping out cash drawers with the day-shift bartender, the latter an unflappably staid and well-mannered gentleman, graying at the temples, immaculately groomed. The young woman replacing him was in her mid-twenties, tattooed and pierced, her body art mostly hidden by the long sleeves and starched white collar of her black-vested uniform. Save for the small silver ring in her eyebrow and the discreet silver stud in her nose, her numerous piercings had been left unfilled, an acceptable compromise, presumably, with her employer’s standards for appearance. Her close-cropped, ink-black hair was highlighted with a subtle but unapologetic purple streak through the left side, a contrarian gel-tipped bang swept low across her forehead. Belying her edgy externalities, her face was unlined and innocent, her almond eyes as calm as a lullaby.

  “Hi, Sandal.”

  “Hi, Paige.”

  Without looking, Sandal had already found her a tumbler and, in the same motion, had scooped it full of ice before adding a liberal shot of top-shelf vodka retrieved with her oth
er hand. While the day-shift bartender minded his bar with the dependable decorum of a butler’s pocket watch, Sandal ran her bar with the efficient precision of an experienced assassin. She and Paige had exchanged no more than brief pleasantries over the term of their relationship, but Paige was already convinced that if she were ever in a fight, she would be more than comfortable with Sandal having her back, or her side, or her front.

  “How was your day?” Sandal asked.

  “Fine, until about an hour ago.”

  Sandal frowned, capping the tumbler and shaking it. “What happened?”

  “While I was sunning, I had a visit from a gentleman on horseback, peeking through the hedge. I might not have minded except that, by the look on his face, the creep apparently didn’t approve of what he was seeing. And it wasn’t that he didn’t like my body type. Actually, I think he did – and he disapproved nonetheless, or maybe even because he liked it.”

  “By chance was he wearing black, with a black rimmed hat?

  “Yes – you know him?”

  “Maybe,” Sandal frowned again as she poured the vodka into a martini glass, adding a splash of olive juice and two speared olives. “It could have been any one of them.”

  “Any one of whom?” Paige asked.

  “Of whom?” Sandal gave her customer a raised eyebrow and a sidelong grin. “Another clue to the mysterious lady’s identity. But if you were a copy editor or an English professor, you couldn’t afford to languish so long in my gilded grotto.” She set the martini in front of Paige, turning it just so, leaving the olive spear pointing exactly to two-o’clock.