Midnight Angels by Lorenzo Carcaterra Page A

drive-in movies, carnivals, amusement parks—that are the first to vanish whenever civilization gets the urge to go modern?”
    “That shouldn’t pose a problem for you or me,” Edwards said, “since we live in the past. For men like us, nothing ever dies. It’s just frozen in time.”
    MacNamera sat back and thrust his hands into the pockets of his worn Cubs jacket. He always dressed for the occasion, easily blending in regardless of the circumstances, making it a point never to be the one in any group who stood out. He was short, and now, due in part to the ravages of the disease coursing through him, somewhat frail, his once stout upper body reduced to a shell of bones and stretched skin, the booming voice of old replaced by a hoarse wheeze. But the eyes, so prominent in his gaunt face, told even the most casual observer that there was still quite a bit of fight left in the old man.
    He glanced over at Edwards and rested a thin, withered hand, purple veins bulging over knuckles and fingers, on the professor’s elbow as the game began, the crowd cheering the strike thrown on the first pitch. “Have you heard from Kate much since her arrival in Florence?” he asked as the cheers abated.
    “Between the e-mails, letters, and cell phone calls, I’m surprised she has any time left for her studies,” Edwards said, his eyes on the field, but his attention focused on MacNamera.
    The older man’s face crinkled, the edges of a smile forming around the corners of his mouth as he dug his hands deeper into the pockets of his warm-up jacket. “Did you know Wrigley was the first ballpark to use an organist?” he asked. “They tried it back in the summer of 1941, hoping to draw a younger crowd. Even back then, ‘Bring Out the Youth’ was the message of the day.”
    “I don’t think you dragged yourself to the game to exercise your baseball trivia muscles, Andrew,” Edwards said. “What is it you need to tell me?”
    MacNamera turned from the field and stared at Edwards for several long seconds, then shifted his body closer. “They’ve made contact with Kate,” he said. “Two days ago in the herbal pharmacy.”
    “She in danger?”
    “Not at the moment,” MacNamera said with the slightest shake of his head. “They’ll wait and give her the time she needs, see if she comes up with anything. If she does, then they’ll make their move on both Kate and her discovery.”
    “Who approached her?”
    “None other than the Raven himself,” MacNamera said. “We shouldn’t be surprised. He is probably as curious about Kate as he is about you. After all, had he stayed true to the cause, he would have been the director of the Society. And young Kate would have been groomed by him, not by you.”
    “How did she handle the meeting?” Edwards asked.
    “She was fine, I’m told,” MacNamera said. “My guess is she was initially caught off guard, but she seems fine.”
    “What are we doing about it?”
    “To start with, I’ve doubled the eyes on Kate,” MacNamera said. “I’ve also put two men on that friend of hers. But I don’t need to tell you, our people are not out there alone.”
    Edwards leaned back, ignoring the home crowd cheering a Carlos Zambrano strikeout. “I wonder at times if the right thing to do would have been to keep her away from the ugly end of our business,” he said. “Just let her live her life.”
    “She is what she is, Richard. And do not deceive yourself into thinking you had any say in the decision,” MacNamera said.
    Edwards took off his Cubs cap, ran a hand slowly through his thick, wavy hair and shook his head. “The Immortals,” he muttered, his voice dripping with disdain. “He was always a pretentious twit.”
    “He fancies himself a warrior, and so named his group accordingly,” MacNamera said with a slight smile. “The Immortals, after all, did defeat the Spartans. Granted, the odds were more than slightly in their favor, but a win is a win.”
    “Let’s assume