before there were automobiles? I really left the book wondering about that fact."
He laughed.
Behind me, there came the blast of a horn. The traffic was moving and so were we.
"That's a perfectly legitimate question," he said, "especially after one has read that particular book. It doesn't matter what we've done in the past. What matters now is what you and I can do together."
"And you don't have any name."
We were speeding again, but I was going no faster than the other cars in the far-left lane.
"You can call me Malchiah," he said kindly, "but I assure you, no Seraph under Heaven is ever going to tell you his real name."
"A Seraph? You're telling me you're a Seraph?"
"I want you for a special assignment, and I'm offering you a chance to use every skill you possess to help me, and to help the people who are praying for our intervention right now."
I was stunned. I felt the shock. It was like the coolness of the breeze as we drew closer to Los Angeles and closer to the coast.
You've made him up. Hit the embankment. Don't play the fool for something out of your own diseased mind.
"You did not make me up," he said. "Don't you see what's happening?"
The despair threatened to drown out my own words.It's a sham. You've killed a man. You deserve death and the oblivion that's waiting for you.
"Oblivion?" murmured the stranger. He raised his voice over the wind. "You think oblivion is waiting? You think you'll never see Emily and Jacob again?"
Emily and Jacob! "Don't speak to me about them!" I said. "How dare you mention them to me. I don't know who you are, or what you are, but you don't mention them to me. If you're thriving on my imagination, then shape up!"
This time his laughter had an innocence and a ring to it.
"Why didn't I know it would be this way with you?" he said. He reached out and laid one of his soft hands gently on my shoulder. He looked wistful, sad, and then as if he were lost in thought.
I looked at the road. "I'm losing it," I said. We were driving into the heart of Los Angeles, and within minutes we'd taken the exit that would lead me to the garage where I could leave the truck.
"Losing it," he said, as if he were musing. He seemed to be watching our surroundings, the dipping ivy-covered embankments and the rising glass towers. "That's just the point, my dear Lucky. In believing in me, what do you have to lose?"
"How did you find out about my brother and sister?" I asked him. "How did you learn their names? You made some connections and I want to know how you did it."
"Anything but the obvious explanation? That I am what I say I am." He sighed. It was exactly that sigh I'd heard in the Amistad Suite, right by my ear. When he spoke again, his voice was caressing. "I know your life from the time you were in your mother's womb."
This was beyond anything I could have ever anticipated and suddenly it came clear to me, wondrously clear, that it was beyond anything I could have imagined.
"You are really here, aren't you?"
"I'm here to tell you that everything can change for you. I'm here to tell you that you can stop being Lucky the Fox. I'm here to take you to a place where you can begin to be the person you might have been ... if certain things had not happened. I'm here to tell you ..." He broke off.
We had reached the garage, and after hitting the remote for the door, I brought the truck safely and quietly inside.
"What, tell me what?" I said. We were eye to eye and he seemed wrapped in a calm that my fear couldn't penetrate.
The garage was dark, lit only by one grimed skylight, and the single open door through which we'd passed. It was vast and shadowy and filled with coolers and lockers and piles of clothing that I would or could use on future jobs.
It seemed a meaningless place to me suddenly, a place that I could surely and gloriously leave behind.
I knew this sense of elation. It was like the way you feel after you've been sick for a long time and suddenly a clearheaded good feeling comes over you, and life seems worth living again. He sat perfectly still beside me and I could see the light in two small glints