*********************************

Chapter Fifteen: Brahms and Betrayal

*********************************

Marriott Hotel
1:02 PM

Mulder stripped down and stepped into the shower, letting
the hot water spray over him, running down the curve of his
back to his tailbone. His ass was still aching slightly from last
night's experiences, as if he was still being penetrated--a
sensual twinge that pulled at his mind. He was hard again,
wanting more again, and he took himself fast and quickly,
coming against the tile, trying to clear himself of the crushing
feeling so he could focus again. He didn't have the luxury of
long sultry afternoons to sort through his conflicting emotions.
He had a job to do, and right now he was acutely aware of
how much he had jeopardized that position. He rinsed himself
and hurried out of the shower to dress.

The bed was still made, and on top of it were the carefully
arranged scraps of the message. It was still trying to speak to
him, Mulder felt--its random voice perhaps not all that
random. He stopped buttoning his shirt to take up a fresh
sheet of Marriott stationery. "You must hear us..." he wrote
and tore the words loose, adding them to the arrangement.
These people, or this person, wanted Joshua to stop fleeing
the messenger and try to understand what was struggling to
be communicated to him. It shouldn't take much to make the
message clear, but the final words were just not coming
forward. Hopefully, the new papers and letters they had
gathered would bring the whole conundrum into focus.

Mulder finished dressing and made to leave. On the chair near
him was the book Joshua had bought him--the embossed
image of Johannes Brahms gazed kindly back at him like a
loving patriarch. He wondered what Joshua was doing right
now, sleeping? eating? seething? He hated that their affair
had to end so abruptly. It was going to be difficult not
spending the evenings with him. Mulder put on his coat and
tugged at the latch on his door. He paused, turning to look at
the book. Impulsively, he picked it up, tucking its solid weight
under his arm as he exited the room.

###

Scully was waiting for him in the hotel's restaurant for lunch.
Lunch was her idea. He wondered if it meant anything.

"Is Joshua all right?" she asked as he joined her at her table,
setting his coat with the book hidden in it on the ledge next to
him.

All right?

"Yeah, he's fine," Mulder answered bluntly, setting his napkin
on his lap and picking up the menu. It was an accurate
assessment. The man wasn't bleeding, at least not on the
outside. The menu's words blurred; he was feeling anything
but hungry right now.

"Are *you* all right?" she asked next, gently pressing. His
chest caught. Did she know? Was it obvious? The police report
put him in Joshua's room last night--she'd read that for
certain. But then, that was his assigned post. Who's to say he
didn't pass the night sitting up in an armchair?

"Yeah, I'll be okay. I'm just not pleased with myself. I made a
very stupid error last night."

Scully eyed him carefully; she looked worried. She was
waiting for him to close the menu and elaborate. He let the
meaningless entrees skim by his view before he just set the
menu down. "I've been completely wrong about how the Thin
Man chooses his handpuppets. I made the wrong connections.
I thought we were looking for weak-minded people. Your
autopsy must have been more accurate than we both thought.
There was nothing wrong with the valet--just as there was
nothing unusual about the state of mind of Andy Parsons."

"Until he inexplicably felt the urge to point his weapon at
Joshua," Scully added.

Mulder fingered the edge of his origami napkin. "Yeah. It
doesn't figure to me at all." He looked her in the eye, his voice
like steel. "I swear to God, Scully, he was aiming to kill. And I
all but placed the gun in his hand."

Scully reached out and touched his wrist in reassurance. "You
couldn't have known Andy would be dangerous. It was Joshua
who asked him to bring the weapon, Mulder."

The waiter made his way to their table and Scully ordered the
club sandwich. Mulder did the same, too disinterested in the
meal to choose for himself.

"There's something else, Scully."

Her expression changed abruptly--it almost appeared as if
she flinched. "What?" she asked.

Mulder was, for the moment, startled. She did seem to be
avoiding something. Their working conversations always ran
like this, dancing around the more important unspoken issues
at hand. She had seen them together in Joshua's room, and
now that Sonoma was a complete bust.....It didn't take a
finely-honed investigator to make the numbers add up.
Mulder continued with the case facts.

"When I interviewed Andy Parsons in the hospital, he told me
he'd never seen or heard of anyone matching the description
of the Thin Man."

Her posture eased. "Did he have an answer as to why he
wrote, 'The soldiers are coming,' on hotel stationery?"

"He had no memory of writing the words; although he did
identify the writing as his. After some time he told me he'd
been dreaming about soldiers marching up a snow-covered
road splattered with blood."

"What do you think it means?"

"I'm not sure, but I have an afternoon visit planned to the
offices of the Ukraine Liberator."

"More translations?"

 Mulder toyed with his flatware, lining them up more evenly.
"Yes, but more importantly, I want a translation of the events
that might be making themselves known through the
peculiarities of this case."

"You're still looking for connections to the famine?" she
assessed.

"I think history might be trying to repeat itself," he said, and
took a long swallow of ice water.
 

****************************

Marina Flat
2:30 PM
 

Joshua woke in the late afternoon. He laid on his stomach in
his bed with his eyes closed, trying to keep his gathering
mind from the temptation of replaying yesterday's memories.
He didn't want to remember what it had felt like to be
completely happy. Instead, he tried to focus on the emptiness
he felt, the emotional exhaustion hollowing out his chest.
There was nothing inside him, no more anger or frustration.
He was sick of crying himself to sleep. Perhaps his lover had
been right; there was something to be said for feeling numb.

There were heeled footsteps on his hardwood floor. He
opened his eyes and rolled his head to look. The young female
agent with the polished black sidearm was strolling near his
windows. It was always a surprise to wake and see who was
occupying his space, taking possession of it as if they were an
invited guest. They weren't. In fact, he'd had quite enough of
being "entertained" by the FBI.

Joshua sat up in his bed and rubbed his hands over his eyes.
The agent glanced his way and smiled politely.

"Look," Joshua said through his hands. "No offense, but would
you mind honoring a private citizen's request to be allowed
privacy in his own home?"

She looked confusedly at him. "I can step outside if you'd
like."

"I'd like it if you just left."

"I'll have to put a call in to Agent Mulder..."

Joshua groaned. "No. Look. Please just leave. I need to be
alone. Completely alone. You can understand that, right?"

"I'll need to check in first."

Joshua threw his sheets back and stood up, wearing only a
pair of undershorts. He made his way over to his kitchen bar
to lift the wall phone off the hook. "What's the number?"

Joshua dialed 411 when he didn't get an answer from her.
"Yes. Hello, I'd like the number for the FBI San Francisco Field
Office. Thank you. Please put me through.....Hello? Good
afternoon. This is Joshua Segulyev speaking......Yes, the concert
violinist. I'm, as of 2:30 this afternoon, calling off my assigned
FBI protection.....I know you don't know what I'm talking
about, but leave a note for Agent Mulder. Tell him...tell him
I've had enough."

Joshua hung up the phone in time to see the agent on her cell,
trying to get through to someone in charge of this ridiculous
situation. Joshua stepped past her and opened his front door
wide, inviting her to leave. She was still on hold when he
closed and dead bolted the door after her.

Alone again at last.
 

**************************

The Offices of the Ukraine Liberator
424 Harrison St.
3:22 PM

Johannes Brahms sat patiently in Mulder's lap as he waited in
a musty threadbare chair at the foot of a narrow staircase
which lead up to the Liberator's main office. Mulder's
forefinger idly traced the contours of the composer's long
beard on the cover. Brahms' proud romantic themes had
become the symbolic representation of Joshua's bond to his
grandfather. Mulder wondered what it was like to be so
connected to another person that you felt inspired to honor
them through art. Joshua's landmark recording of the Brahms
Concerto would remain preserved in digital audio on the back
of a CD, or whatever media lay in the future, forever. This was
perhaps why artists were determined to struggle so much.
Brahms, Beethoven, Bach--all these men had neighbors,
servants, cousins, maybe even wives and children that time
had all forgotten. The rewards of sacrificing one's life to art
was the diamond-solid trophy of immortality. Joshua, in the
interests of preserving those awards, had made himself their
proxy, one that would never be forgotten for his services.

"Agent Mulder?"

The gruff low voice of Leo Petrovsky shook him from his
musings. Mulder slipped the book into the packed evidence
satchel he'd hauled in with him and stood to ascend and greet
the stocky man again.

"You have more translations?" the Liberator's editor asked,
returning his handshake.

"Yes, but more than just words and letters. I need someone
who understands the heart and soul of Ukraine."

Mulder followed Leo through the dim crowded office that
overlooked the busy 101 freeway overpass and its occupation
of homeless and addicts within the dark concrete columns.
Mulder passed a set of plain brown cubicles stuffed with
three or four journalists and copyeditors speaking in foreign
tongues, before he and Leo entered a private office at the
back of the rented space.

Petrovsky's office was cluttered with clippings, newspapers,
posters, binders, broken pencils and wrinkled printouts. Leo
lifted a stack of unopened mail from a chair and offered the
seat to Mulder, while he took a seat behind the long desk,
vanishing under a load of paperwork. Petrovsky laid his thick
arms on the center of the desk and cleared a space like a child
starting a snow angel. Excess clutter slipped off onto the floor
and a nearby light table in a manila avalanche.

"There, now you are welcome to my office," he said. Behind
him was an outdated ceiling-to-floor poster that read "Free
Ukraine" in large spray-stenciled block letters.

"I'm here again because I'm still working this case, that quite
frankly, has me stumped," Mulder said, laying out the new
evidence from Joshua's grandfather's home. "I'm working
with a Russian/Jewish violinist of Ukrainian origin who we
believe is cursed, or being threatened by someone who would
like him to believe he's cursed."

Leo fingered the old letter and document Mulder had set
before him. He paused at the certificate.

"You have another birth announcement," he said, reading it
aloud. "This document sanctifies and consecrates the Christian
birth and baptism of Ivan Segulyev, son of Dimitri and Irina
Segulyev, 1912, in St. Sophia's Holy Catholic Church, Chutove,
Poltava Province. May the blood of Christ protect this child."
Petrovsky pushed the document back toward Mulder. "This is
one of the men in the photo with the thresher you showed me
the other day."

"Yes, it is," Mulder admitted. "It's also my witness'
grandfather, who, to the best of my knowledge, defected to
the US during the 1933 famine. I'm hoping this new letter
will shed some light on that history," Mulder said, touching
the letter from Alexander Kosynakov. "The author of this
letter has been sending written threats to my witness for the
past eight months. His name appears on both the synagogue
birth document and the register we brought you earlier. By
his handwriting, he also appears to be the farmer who kept
the log at the start of the famine."

Leo took the letter from him and opened a drawer, producing
a pair of petite reading glasses. He perched them at the end of
his nose, making his large head seem even larger. "That is not
likely," he said simply, beginning to read the letter.

Mulder was lost. "Why do you say so? We've had the
handwriting analyzed. It's a fact."

Leo grunted. "Perhaps it is a fact to your analyst, but not to
someone who knows 1930s Ukraine. Jews were forbidden to
own land. Kosynakov could not have been a landlord, or
'Kulak' as the Soviets liked to falsely label them. The word
literally means "fist"--someone who lends money to others,
holds them in their debt. They used the scapegoat term to
accuse and send millions of successful capitalist-minded
farmers and their families off to struggle for life in Siberia.
When I read the farming log, I could tell this landowner was a
good man, responsible for a small hamlet of families. From his
first recorded harvest it seemed to me that he had been
prosperous. Individual prosperity was like a sickness to the
communist revolution..." he paused as he read the letter.

"The man who writes this... He is making a statement to his
workers, or tenant farmers of his hamlet. He is stating that he
is leaving the 'savings' in the care of his 'brother.' It is not the
real blood-term for brother that he uses, but one that means
'alike in spirit.' He says that the GPU--the secret police--will
be coming for him. They do not care anymore that his father
was a war hero. He says that the land they awarded his father
for his valor in the civil war between the Reds and the Whites
is condemning him, that he is to be made an example of. He
hopes to...this is confusing to me...he is asking that the tenants
pretend to believe in him as a false man...wait! Oh, I see. He is
disguising himself and hoping that when he reaches Kiev for
labor assignment he will be returned once he has proven he is
only a common peasant."

Leo paused and rubbed the side of his nose, thoughtfully. "He
signs it by his false name, Alexander Kosynakov."

"So this landowner..." Mulder started to say, thinking it
through, "...falsified his identity in order to fool the officials in
charge of relocating him to Siberia into letting him go?"

"It would seem so. Soviet authorities at that time had a
random criteria for crushing the peasants. One week, being
the son of a soldier could help you; the next, make you a
target. People kept birth certificates on them at all times,
trading them when being higher or lower born was to their
advantage...let me show you something," Leo said, reaching
behind him for a large book on the floor next to his computer
desk. He lifted it and set it down over the evidence with a
thud. He opened it facing Mulder, and flipped past page after
page of preserved newspaper clippings, yellowed with age.
The images that flipped by were horrible to see: men, women,
children and animals, bone-thin and dying. Piles of bodies and
mass graves flipped by as Petrovsky found the page he was
seeking. "Here," he said. "These were reports from Poltava
Province taken by Red Cross volunteers in 1934 when the
Soviet government finally allowed for relief efforts. The
statistics are sobering," he said, pointing to a box at the
bottom of the page. "Nearly two-thirds of the people living in
this province were missing, forcibly relocated, dead, or dying.
Chutove, the village your witness' grandfather came from,
was left abandoned."

"Wait..." Mulder said, leaning forward and touching the page
in front of him. At the top was a photo of Red Cross workers
feeding a line of emaciated orphaned children. One girl had a
bow in her hair that looked familiar to him. Mulder dug
through his satchel for the lock box photos and set them next
to the bound clippings on the desk. The sepia image of the
young girl found in Nanette's office, once so pretty with pearls
around her neck, was the same girl in the newspaper photo,
only older and sunken as she swallowed what the Red Cross
could deliver in the form of salvation.

"Nanette," he breathed.

"Who?"

Before he could explain, Mulder's cell rang. He answered it
quickly. It was the new agent filling in for Dillmont's shift,
calling to inform him that Joshua had kicked her out, electing
to refuse protection. Dammit, Joshua *was* more than
determined to get himself killed.

"Can you just keep an eye on him?" he asked. "Trail him; see
where he goes, if he goes anywhere. I'm in the middle of
something right now, but I'll try to talk some sense into him
later." She agreed and beeped off. Mulder sighed and slid his
phone back into his pocket.

"This girl," Mulder said, pointing to both photos. "She was the
last survivor from Chutove."

"You know her?" Leo asked, unbelieving.

"Yes. I'm certain it's her. She's a part of this case. Some of
these documents and photos were found in her home."

"If it is her, I would ask you to invite her to meet me for an
interview. I could help her and her remaining family, if she
has one...there are charities..."

Mulder remembered something. "Are you familiar with the
Recovery Foundation of Poltava Province?"

"Yes, I have heard of them. They do good work for terror-
famine survivors still living in Ukraine," Petrovsky said,
closing his book and removing it from the desk so he could
see the evidence again.

Mulder nodded his head, thoughtfully. "There's one more
translation I need from you," he said, reaching down and
lifting out a plastic evidence bag containing the charred bone
fragment. "A message from the dead."

Petrovsky took the bag in his hands gently, turning the bone
over inside the plastic so he could read it. He set his glasses
up higher on his nose. "It says, 'May he who bears my name
and all those who follow in blood be bereft of gifts or of
giving.'"

"Is it a curse?" Mulder asked.

"It could be. Many Ukraine peasants at that time still
practiced forms of pagan ritual. Did you find this wrapped
with a dead bird?"

Mulder felt elated. "Yes, we did."

Leo mulled the thought over in his mind. "I have heard of an
old pagan ceremony that passes a final wish along from the
dead to the living. As the deceased's body lies on a pyre,
certain incantations are recited. When the fire dies, a living
relative must inscribe the message on a remnant of his or her
body."

"This case I'm investigating, the witness has been attacked by
assailants who appear to be possessed by a spirit from
beyond the grave."

Leo shrugged, setting the bag and bone down. "I cannot
account for the acts of the living. It is only a tradition. It
means nothing to me. Perhaps it means something to your
witness?"

"'...he who bears my name and all those who follow in
blood...'" Mulder repeated. "It sounds like he was cursing his
own family. Why would he want to do that...unless..." The
image of Brahms flashed into his mind and Mulder reached
into the satchel for the book of composers, tapping the cover.
The pieces all began to slide into place, rapidly. The message
they had been reading, written across cell walls and
cardboard and paper, 'your name is not your own...we were
sacrificed for you...see where you came from...'

'...your name is not your own...'

Mulder glanced up at Petrovsky, whose eyes were wide with
expectation. "I need a sheet of paper and a pencil," he told the
editor. Leo rifled around his mess, producing both. Mulder
laid the paper over the book's cover art, and with the flat
edge of the pencil, took a rubbing of Brahms' long beard. "I
need your copy machine and light table," he said next, getting
to his feet.

Petrovsky set the rubbing on the copier just outside his office
door and Mulder instructed him to reduce it to 25%. Then he
made a 125% enlargement of the farm photo of the two men.
Copies in hand, Mulder assisted Petrovsky in clearing the
clutter from the light table near his desk. On the illuminated
surface, Mulder set the farm photocopy and then slid the
beard over the face of one man and then the next.

From the nose-up both men were virtually identical.

"It's what I suspected," Mulder said. "You can lose your name,
but you can't lose your faith, and Alexander Kosynakov knew
this was true."

***********************************

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
5:15 PM

The museum was getting ready to close for the evening and
Mulder had to argue with the security guard for several
minutes before he was allowed to enter and start up the
white and black tiled staircase to the exhibit halls.

The agent tailing Joshua told Mulder he was here, somewhere
among the scribbles and blotched colors of modern two-
dimensional art expression. Mulder stopped at the second
floor and stepped into the gallery, easing his way around
onlookers as they tried to catch a last glimpse of Warhol or
Dali before the 5:30 closing time.

He found his abandoned lover standing at the end of a long
viewing room, surrounded by onlookers strolling by slowly or
seated at benches. All of them were staring at a questionable
piece of artistic merit mounted on the far wall.

As if he had sensed Mulder's arrival, Joshua's gaze broke from
the painting and fell on him. The violinist's dark eyes tracked
over him once, from head to foot, and flicked away with
indifference, his attention once more focused on the painting.
Mulder found the slight to be just on the edge of insolent. He
should have known Joshua was not the type of man to be
refused--he commanded an audience by nature and wasn't
accustomed to being ignored.

Mulder squared himself and cleared the distance to stand
beside him.

"I'm surprised, Mulder. I didn't know you had an appreciation
for Klee," Joshua said with a hint of mockery in his once
welcoming voice.

It was irritating to be suddenly so ill-regarded. "I don't,"
Mulder said. "To me it's just a smudge of paint."

"It's not an image that you're supposed to see--it's more of a
feeling--an impression spoken in simple color--orange, blue,
surrounded by black. You look at it and although it might not
be clear, you get a feeling for what it's trying to say."

"That must be the artist in you, Joshua, because I can't see
anything but a waste of wallspace."

"Keep watching. It takes time to see."

"I'm afraid I don't have that kind of time right now. I need to
speak to you."

"I'm sorry, Mulder," he said, almost bored. "I'm looking at art
right now."

"The museum's closing. I'll wait for you outside."

###

5:38 PM

Joshua was the second-to-the-last person to leave the
museum before they closed and bolted the doors. The
floodlights came on, lighting the museum's lipstick-tip-shaped
skylight from within like a giant black and white seeing eye.

He nodded once to Mulder and crossed 3rd Street to head into
Yerba Buena Gardens city park. Mulder followed patiently as
Joshua kept a few paces ahead of him, stalling the inevitable.
This time, Mulder's reach for the musician's elbow made
contact and Joshua whipped around to face him, drawing his
arm away.

"Joshua," Mulder said with frustrated sympathy, "I wish you
could realize that I never intended to hurt you. I'm only
trying to do what's right to protect you."

Joshua's eyes reflected his hurt and doubt. He folded his arms
and rocked on his heels like a marathon runner anticipating
the gun. "No, Mulder, I was rather under the impression I'd
been *dumped*."

Mulder was at a loss at how to proceed. He took a deep
breath, trying to find a way to be firm, but honest. "It's not
for lack of wanting, Joshua. This is about keeping you safe.
This is about my responsibility to you. It surprises me now
little you seem to fear for your own life."

Joshua's reply was strangely defensive. "What makes you
think I'm not afraid?"

"Because you're refusing protection and wandering about the
city without a shred of defense. You refuse to wear a vest
despite all our recommendations..."

"I don't see where the FBI's recommendations have done a
hell of a lot to protect me lately. I'm strongly considering
acquiring a gun. I may be a lousy shot, but it beats living like
a walking target."

Mulder held his tongue. Joshua had a point and he knew it. If
Mulder could blame himself for incompetence, so could
Joshua--even if it was out of spite. "I'm not here to pick a
fight with you. I've made a major break in your case, if you
care to hear about it."

Joshua pouted indignantly as he thought it over, staring at the
cascading fountain wall behind them. Presently, curiosity won
over anger and he nodded for Mulder to proceed.

"I found out that in 1986 Nanette sent a package containing a
Ukrainian pagan curse to your grandfather. Scully and I found
it in his trunk, inscribed on a human jawbone along with a
letter. He had kept it there in your old home, hidden."

Joshua seemed quite disturbed by this. "What did the curse
say?"

"That any family bearing the Segulyev name would be
cursed--that you would be bereft of 'gifts or of giving.'"

The vestiges of anger fled Joshua's demeanor and he relaxed
his enforced arrogance. It seemed he did still feel the need to
be protected. "Then why was my father cursed?"

"I don't think the bad luck so much fell on him as it did your
mother."

Joshua looked like he was trying to make it all add up. "She
said she wasn't in control of her life. Papa was. I suppose it
made sense that his farm was never successful. It ruined him
and in turn, ruined her." He eyes narrowed and he looked to
Mulder. "Why Nanette? How do you know it was her who sent
the curse?"

"Because according to pagan tradition, a living relative of the
deceased must pass their message on to the living, completing
the workings of the ritual. It has to be her, Joshua; she lived
with this man, the Thin Man, on his farm with her mother and
aunt. He was her uncle by marriage. After the famine, when
help arrived, he must have been returned from forced labor
in Siberia. When he saw everyone was dead and gone, he felt
the need to curse the only member of his extended family
who'd escaped."

"Nanette?" Joshua asked, confounded.

"No, she survived by sheer will. I saw a photo of her, a child
clinging to life. She survived. It was your grandfather who
escaped, along with your infant mother."

"But...who was my grandfather to this man? A brother?"

"No, I think he was a close friend who helped work the land
with him, a serf."

Joshua blinked a few times, thinking. "I hate myself for
admitting this, but I've felt for a long time that Nanette hasn't
been completely honest with me. In the field office she told
me she had arrived in America 'filled with bitterness' toward
my grandfather. I suppose she was jealous he had made it
away from that godawful place."

"I think Nanette has held the key to this mystery for a very
long time. We should both go talk to her."

Joshua looked uneasy. "I wish we could. She's left town."

"What?"

Joshua looked saddened. "I went over to her home this
afternoon. She's gone--cleared out. I guess she's been more
guilty for what's happened to me than she's let on. If she's the
one responsible for activating this curse, then I can
understand why the letters upset her so much. She didn't
bargain that they'd come after me...my God...all this did begin
just after my father's death, didn't it?"

Mulder nodded his solemn agreement. "That would seem to
be the pattern--the sins of one generation passing to the
next."

Joshua shrugged. "I don't follow. Whose sins? My father's?"

Mulder shook his head slowly, wondering if now was the best
time. He needed Joshua's trust if he was going to be able to
help him understand. "There's something else, Joshua. And I
don't know how you're going to take it."

"What?" he asked quietly.

"I believe Nanette was trying to stop the curse herself. She
was paying back an old debt with your mortgage money,
trying to appease the spirits of the dead, only it didn't work."

"She said something to me about paying 'them' back. I didn't
understand what she meant. What debt?"

"There was a letter with the curse from a man who traded
identities with your grandfather in order to try and fool the
Soviet officers who came to take him off to Siberia. Only his
ruse failed on both accounts."

"What do you mean?"

"Where the Thin Man gained a new identity, so did your
grandfather--one that he used to escape and has kept himself
hidden behind even in death, until now."

"I don't follow..."

"Your grandfather's birth name was Alexander Kosynakov, a
poor Jewish serf who worked for Nanette's uncle, who in turn
was born to land-owning Catholic parents under the name
Ivan Segulyev. Some point after your grandfather became
Ivan, he stole the $60,000 village treasury and bribed his
way to freedom, leaving his countrymen to die of starvation
in their homeland. The money was intended to bargain for
food and he took it under his false identity in order to save
himself and your mother."

Joshua stood with his mouth slightly open, trying to gather in
what Mulder had just told him. He didn't speak for several
long moments, and Mulder wondered if it bore repeating.

"How, in God's name, did you manage to draw that
conclusion?" Joshua finally said with some effort.

"It's all in the evidence. I can show you piece for piece how it
all fits together. The switched identity had me thrown for a
while, but the handwriting has remained constant. The Thin
Man, Ivan Segulyev, is cursing the man who stole his name,
his daughter who was named Segulyev from birth, and
finally, you, the grandson who chose to keep his grandfather's
name. 'Your name is not your own...' the writings have said,
'see what you will not see.' You are not the grandson of a
Russian immigrant. By Alexander's birth record you are, on
your Mother's side, Ukrainian."
 
Joshua held up his hand as if to halt him. "I want you to stop
and think for a minute about what it is you're trying to say to
me."

Mulder squinted into the late afternoon sun. "I believe,
Joshua, that your grandfather betrayed his countrymen. It's
these spirits--this man Ivan, who died in 1933 of starvation,
who wants you to understand what I'm saying, to accept it.
'See what you will not see.' I'm sorry, but they want you to
understand your grandfather wasn't all what he seemed."

When Joshua spoke his voice was controlled and cold. "That
man, Ivan or Alexander, or whatever his name was, I don't
care...my grandfather did everything for me--*everything*.
He took care of me; he loved me; he gave me music; he taught
me what is sacred in this world; and he saved my hands,
Mulder, so I could be a violinist. I owe him my life and I
wasn't here for him when he lost his. I will *never* forgive
myself for that. Not ever. Don't stand there as my friend and
tell me I need to see him for who he was because I *did.* He
was a man of God, and you and the rest of the world living or
dead can go to hell for saying otherwise."

"I'm only trying to help you."

"Are you?" he asked bitterly, his voice continuing to rise in
anger. "So far all you've done for me is to try to lay the blame
on everyone I've ever loved."

"That's not true, Joshua."

"Yes you have! Elise, Nana, my grandfather--where does it
end? You've run down the short list of people who have ever
cared for me. I won't flatter myself into thinking you'll blame
yourself next." Joshua turned his back on him and began to
walk briskly away.

Mulder called after him to stop.

Joshua spun around once, his dark eyes reflecting betrayal.
"Just follow your own advice, Mulder, and leave me the hell
alone."

Helpless to prevent him from leaving, Mulder watched Joshua
cross the park and disappear into the public traffic of Mission
Street.

************************

Marina Flat
7:04 PM

When Joshua reentered his apartment it was dark. He'd been
out walking in the city evening, wandering like he had
wandered that late afternoon from Davies Hall not over a
week ago. He was punishing himself again, or maybe in
reality, trolling for danger. All he knew was that he wanted
free of the stagnation he was feeling, as if his legs were
trapped in ice. He was threatened and yet no one could
protect him; he had become as deeply moved by love as he
had ever known in his life, and yet he was shut off from the
object of his desire. He had faced him today knowing he no
longer belonged to him, and most likely never did. Joshua felt
older, used up--while all along his career was fading. Soon, no
one would remember who he was or what he had wanted to
accomplish in life. All he had ever wanted was to feel loved,
and the only person to ever make him feel that way was now
outrageously accused of being the origin for the threats on his
life.

Joshua crossed the darkness to the violin. It was waiting,
lying in repose on the back of the piano. He lifted the slight
instrument and it nestled close as he pulled the bow over the
strings. At once, music filled the vacuum in his soul and
coated over the newly cut wounds. What he chose to play was
sad, yet moving--a Brahms' sonata in major--a happier key,
yet written with such solitude, it moved deeper for its
attempt at joy. Often, in a long minor passage, a composer will
turn to major for a few bars to carry the emotions farther. An
idea occurred to Joshua and he switched over to play the
Mendelssohn cadenza. It was in E-minor, but adding an
augmentation to major, here, right here, changed the meaning.

Joshua paused, setting the violin down, thinking. He had a
performance tomorrow night and the next, the last two shows
at Davies, and then he'd be on to Southern California. He
wanted to advance himself in some way, to leave this city
with a gift its citizens would all remember. Joshua went to his
shelving and opened a bottom drawer, fishing around for
ledger paper. He found an old unused pad and took up a fist
full of sharpened pencils. He clicked on the halogen light,
casting an eerie glow over the piano's sleek black  coat. He sat
at the bench and flipped open the key cover, playing the first
several bars of the cadenza. The piano came more slowly to
him, but it allowed his mind to grab any note easily, finger by
finger. He struck an F-major chord and after a few
exploratory notes, paused for a pencil and scribbled the
phrase across the ledger lines on the blank music paper,
filling it with notes, with life.
 

****************************************

*********************************

Chapter Sixteen: Lies

*********************************

Marriott Hotel
8:45 PM

It was forty-five minutes past his watch. Only tonight, Mulder
wasn't watching anything, not even TV. Alone in his hotel
room for the first decent hour in a week, Mulder lay back on
the bedcovers, staring at the ceiling. The carefully arranged
message phrases were stacked neatly on the bedside table
near him next to an unopened pack of sunflower seeds. He'd
lost his taste for this case, the search--even the seeds failed to
interest him. The zest he once held for his job was
languishing. The revival he had felt the last few days and
nights was all but snuffed out. Depression and a sense of
aimlessness covered him like a thin stale hotel blanket. He
felt cold again, yet didn't have the interest to get up and
shower. Instead, he let his eyes trace the hairline cracks in
the ceiling. He'd order in dinner, but the thought of sucking
down tepid noodles was nauseating to him.

He missed Joshua, terribly--more than he had thought
possible. His whole body hurt with missing him. He'd close his
eyes, but the inviting image of Joshua lying back naked
before him would materialize in his mind's eye. He missed
everything about him: the smell of his hair and skin, the color
of his dark blue eyes when they were regarding him
thoughtfully, the way he sometimes snored softly if he was
sleeping on his back. Mulder missed his laugh, his
conversation, his incredible back massages, and God help him,
he even missed his cock--the way the head grew taut and
reddish when aroused. He missed the sounds Joshua made
when he kissed him, but most of all, he missed the sound of
the violin. The company of music followed Joshua everywhere
he went, welcoming those who were close to him. Mulder
tried to remember how peaceful it had felt listening to Joshua
sitting at the end of the bed after they'd made love, playing
the violin into the darkness of the flat.

The silence was getting to him, but he knew he'd have to
admit defeat, reassimilate into his previous existence, by
turning on the TV--so he picked up the old book Joshua had
given him and opened the cover, turning the pages lovingly
with his fingers.

There was a knock at his hotel room door. He set the book
down with a sigh. "Yeah?"

"Mulder, it's me. Can I come in?"

"Scully...I'm resting...Can you...?"

"It's urgent, Mulder; I need to talk to you."

Reluctantly, he opened the nightstand and slid the book in
next to the Gideon Bible. Shutting the drawer, he rose,
shuffled to the door, opened it, and immediately turned to
flop down on the bed on his back. He left her to close the door
after her. "What is it?"

Scully came and sat next to him on the bed, setting her hand
on the bedspread near his thigh. She had an unreadable
expression on her face as she looked down at him. "I need you
to explain something to me," she said and produced a blurry
black and white photograph from her pocket.

Mulder felt his stomach twist as he took it from her. It was a
police surveillance camera still of Joshua's front entry. It was
a photo of him pressing Joshua up against the stucco wall,
kissing him.

"Shit..." was all he could think to say and turned the image
over, laying his hand over it against his stomach. He couldn't
look at her; the image hurt more than one way. "How long
have you had this?"

"A few days, since Monday afternoon when the two of you
went to Sonoma." Her voice wasn't angry, but it was cool,
distant, as if she had been rehearsing this encounter. Two
days...

Mulder swallowed, dryly, and looked up at her. "What do you
want to know?"

Her lips trembled for a second and then stilled as she pressed
them together, determined not to let him see how this had
affected her.

"Are you sleeping with him?"

"Yes."

"How long?"

"Since..." Mulder had to stop to clear his throat. "Since his
birthday, last Friday...but I ended it. After Sonoma, I ended
it."

She nodded, crossing her arms and shifting, taking a breath as
if the worst was now over. "You know, Mulder, I took your
advice the other day. On my 'day off' I went to the zoo to look
at all the 'cool stuff' and I was standing there watching the
chimpanzees swinging upside-down from ropes and old tires
and I realized something. I realized I had been going about
this case all wrong. Maybe it's the years we've spent together
that have made me doubt myself, but I knew suddenly why
this case was eluding us so badly. We weren't looking at it the
right way--we were avoiding the most obvious and blatant
solution, and it almost sickened me how easily all the facts
and evidence just came together. But I still doubted myself
and I probably wouldn't have followed through on my
suspicions...until I got a call from the Hall of Justice and Lt.
Jarvis pulled me into his office. He told me they'd set up a
video still camera in front of Joshua's flat after the night he
was stabbed by Harris. He said there were photos you and I
probably wanted to keep just between the two of us and that,
since I was your friend, I might want to tell you to watch
yourself. I can't tell you how nice he was about it. It surprised
me, and I took the photos and thanked him...I actually
thanked him for being discreet. He said, well, this is San
Francisco...and I..."

She stopped herself, holding her hand over her mouth. It
seemed she knew she was babbling and if she wasn't careful,
about to cry. "I knew it, Mulder. I saw it happening right
before my eyes, but I wouldn't believe it...dammit, Mulder,
how could you?"

Mulder felt his body gearing up to do the weeping for her. He
shut his eyes. "I'm sorry, Scully. I made a mistake. I've hurt
you, and I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you..."

She brushed her hair back from her cheek and stifled a dry
sob in a hard swallow. She held her head down, trying to
collect herself. "There's more, Mulder. If you're ready to hear
it."

Mulder blinked and nodded faintly for her to continue.

"Once I had the evidence of your affair, I decided to pursue
my assumptions privately, to take this investigation in a
whole new direction, alone. I went back to the beginning, to
Philadelphia and Alice Schmidt. Alice had many aliases
between 1996 and 1998, but one of them was Mary Baker.
Mary Baker spent most of this year living at Faraday Halfway
House on Hampshire Lane in Philadelphia, the same street
Joshua lived on during the first half of this year--they were
practically next door neighbors.

"I looked into Harris next. According to his arrest record,
Harris has been a vagrant living within two to three blocks of
Davies Symphony Hall for the past ten years. Twice, he was
arrested for assault near the stage door and parking garage.
Then I found that the valet, Thomas Philmaker, had been
parking cars for the War Memorial Opera House and Davies
Symphony Hall for nearly five years. According to subsequent
interviews conducted by the SFPD with his co-workers, I
learned that the night of the crash, Thomas was the valet who
parked Elizabeth Allen's car--occupied by both Elizabeth and
Joshua when they arrived together for the performance. And
I think we both know how long Andy Parsons has been
working for Joshua as his driver and occasional body guard..."

She paused a moment, waiting for his reaction. "I understand
where you're heading with this, Scully, but all of that is
circumstantial. Joshua's lived in these cities off and on for
years."

She lowered her eyes and tugged at a piece of bed cover,
gaining stamina. "There's more..."

Mulder set both hands on his chest, feeling his heartbeat
quickening.

"We both know Joshua voluntarily admitted himself to a
therapeutic center in Vermont after his grandfather's death
two years ago. Yesterday, I managed to get his former analyst
on the phone. She was reluctant to divulge specific
information, but the center he attended wasn't an official
licensed program, either. She was able to tell me that during
his stay at Appassionata, Joshua's personality profile showed
a strong leaning toward pathological misdirection
commensurate with his childhood neglect. He lied a great deal
about his past and present situations to her. When he was
admitted, he told the general staff that he was a painter from
New Jersey who had suffered a bout of deep depression. It
wasn't until a month after he'd left the program that she'd
learned who he really was through newspaper clippings."

Mulder opened his palms, in a shrug. "But he could have told
them those things for any reason. Maybe he didn't want
people to know who he really was--to protect his reputation."

"Possibly, but if Joshua's been trying to protect his reputation,
then why did he grant a private interview the day after the
Philly bomb incident with Nick Stabler, staff writer for the
Philadelphia Inquirer--the man who wrote Joshua's curse
story?"

"What?"

"I called Stabler yesterday and he played back part of the
taped interview for me. Joshua told us a reporter had
overheard him mentioning the curse in general conversation.
I heard the tape, Mulder; he told the man point blank he
thought he was cursed."

Mulder felt doubt like a sickness beginning to take over him.
"But what about the Thin Man and the handwriting?"

"Has anyone other than Joshua ever provided a confirmed
sighting of this man? Harris reacted to the sketch, certainly,
but I think a man with his level of mental degradation would
have reacted to a photograph of Barney."

"But he said...Harris said he'd seen the Thin Man..."

"He said those words right after you spoke them, Mulder. He
was parroting you."

"But Alice...?"

"Alice sees pink elephants on a regular basis. The valet is
dead so we can't ask him, but Joshua's driver--you
interviewed him--you told me he claimed he'd never seen a
thin man."

Mulder shook his head faintly, recalling how Joshua had
woken him in the night, pointing into the dark, asking him,
"Can you see him? Can you see him?" All Mulder had seen
was an open door.

"But why would Joshua run himself in front of a car, Scully?"

"Because he planned it that way. He'd seen the valet earlier
when he'd parked the car. They could have had a plan, an
exact time for him to exit the rear door, knowing full well that
you would follow him. You saw him get up during the
performance, didn't you? How convenient that the two of you
were seated so far apart, yet within full visual contact of one
another."

"He coerced a man to drive himself into a wall? That's suicide,
Scully."

"Maybe the crash was an accident? A plan gone horribly
wrong? Maybe Joshua has skills in hypnotic suggestion? I
checked into his college records. Joshua took several courses
in abnormal psychology and altered states of consciousness at
the San Francisco State extension. Two of those courses dealt
with hypnosis, in great detail."

"Which would explain the handwriting..." Mulder said weakly,
still not wanting to believe it. "But Scully," he said in
argument, "what's his motive? Why would he manipulate
people to attack him, or pretend to attack him, over and over?
What would be the point? He hates the publicity this case has
given him. He asked me to lie for him to the SFPD, to tell them
*I* was following the Thin Man out of the opera to keep
himself out of the crash investigation."

Scully leaned forward slightly, trying to clarify the issue. "He
asked you to lie so there would be an official state and
Federal record of an officer of the law confirming the
existence of this specter he *invented* from an illustration in
a Russian book of fables."

That one hit hard. Very hard. Mulder struggled to a seated
position, shaking his head numbly while she continued.

"Joshua announced his motive the first night we met him,
Mulder. He told us his fear--his fear of being forgotten as a
violinist now that he was turning thirty. And despite what
Joshua has said, I think we both know that in the
entertainment industry, there's no such thing as bad press."

"But...?" Mulder found he had no reasonable rebuttal to give.
He just stared at her in shock as she continued.

"So far all that this so-called 'bad press' has cost Joshua is a
few Gala cancellations that were quickly resold. Don't forget,
he managed to land himself a new world tour contract last
week from an orchestra association that had previously
passed him up.

"We've been played, Mulder. Both of us. You and I. He's been
leading us blindly down the fine edge of Occam's Razor. Look
at the preponderance of the evidence--the simplest
explanation is usually the correct one. There is no phantom
killer, Mulder--as much as you want to believe it--only a sad
and confused man, desperately trying to save his fame."

Mulder crossed his legs under him and lowered his head into
his hands, trying to think. It was all making too much sense
and the working of it was making him feel sick and
lightheaded. "This can't be right, Scully. I *know* Joshua. He's
not responsible."

"You'll ignore all the evidence against him because you say
you know him? How long have you known him, Mulder? A
week? Ten days? Are you saying you can know everything
about a man just because you've fucked him?"

He looked up at her, feeling a flash of defensiveness. "Scully..."

"I'm sorry, Mulder. I'm sorry I have to tell you like this.
People are not always what they seem. You and I should
understand that by now."

"What about the money, Scully, and the famine, and Joshua's
grandfather and Nanette...?"

"A complex and tragic history story, but ultimately just a
fancy wrapping to fold around a simple lie. I think it's not
hard to imagine Nanette's been a conspirator in this plot from
the start. Joshua took me to her home, and led me to her
office. He wanted us to find those papers--they both did.
Nanette didn't forge the letter to his accountant releasing the
mortgage money. Her writing exam proved she's not capable
of forgery. Joshua must have sent the letter himself."

"Why would Joshua steal his own money?"

"To throw authorities off. Hypnosis may work on some, but
money works on everyone and Joshua has nearly three
million dollars of it."

Mulder looked into her eyes, pleading with her to stop before
he was forced to believe it. "But he's been so good to me,
Scully. You don't know; he's made me trust him. Why would
he go to the trouble to do that if he was only planning on
using me in a plot for his own gain?"

Scully reached out and placed her hand on his knee, trying to
calm him. "I think that you were the one thing Joshua didn't
expect--a bona fide paranormal investigator--the only man in
the FBI with the skills and background necessary to see any
holes in his plan, to find the faults in his self-executed fable.
He seduced you, Mulder. He knew how to get to you."

Mulder shook his head, lowering his voice to a miserable
whisper. "It wasn't like that...it was..."

"What did he tell you, Mulder? That he believed in aliens?
That he saw ghosts? That he was cursed? haunted? I know
you, Mulder. I know how easily you fall for that."

"What are you saying, Scully?"

Scully reached for the photo, holding it up for him to face. He
flinched, not wanting to look at it, not wanting to remember
how good, how alive, he had felt that night. "Joshua is a
private citizen. SFPD must seek permission to post
surveillance on private property. Joshua knew about the
camera, Mulder. Did he stop you deliberately within its
range? What did he do--lose his keys?"

Mulder heard a moan come up from the base of his gut.
"Shit...shit, shit, shit..." he was on his feet, pacing the room as
it swam in a furious blur before his eyes. He was feeling all
the ugliness of the world from America to Ukraine thundering
into his right arm as he punched his fist through the
wallpapered drywall near the bed.

"Fuck!"

"Mulder!" She was on her feet, pulling him away from the
wall and back over to the bed. "Sit down. Jesus, you're
bleeding. Let me get a towel."

She brought a dry towel from the bathroom and carefully
wrapped his torn hand in it. He hissed and muttered
obscenities under his breath as she bound the wound with ice
from the nearby bucket. "This is going to swell..."

The pain radiating from his knuckles was somewhat calming.
It was helping him to focus not on the mess with Joshua, but
rather on the steadfastness of Scully, his friend and partner,
the only one he could really trust. He was feeling the tears
coming now, the tears of shame. He didn't give a shit--there
was nothing to hide from her.

"I've been an idiot, Scully. A first-class, gold-medal-winning
asshole," he said.

She looked up into his eyes, wiping a tear from the side of his
nose with the type of forgiving expression a mother reserves
for her awkward child. "I won't argue with that," she said
with a faint smile.

"You're right about me, Scully; I'm a sap. I fall for anyone who
will look me in the eye and tell me they believe in all kinds of
shit I've been chasing for ten years--Joshua, Diana, they're
both the same. They see that weakness in me and they use it
to get me to doubt you and I fall for it every single goddamn
time."

Her sad smile grew as she held his bleeding fist. "Keep going,
Mulder; you're on a roll."

"I've been angry with you, Scully. Frustrated, fed-up. And it's
not because you haven't been a loyal partner; it's because
after all these years, and everything we've been through
together and seen, you still don't believe in any of it. And for
some reason I can't seem to get my head out of my ass long
enough to realize that doesn't matter, because like you said,
you believe in me," he said earnestly, leaning closer to her,
right into her familiar light-blue eyes. "You've always
believed in me, from the start, and when all the fires and
abductions and betrayals have torn the rest of my life apart,
when everything has been laid to waste, I find you there,
standing with me, ready to move on."

He must be doing well, he felt, because he could almost see
the heavy wall that had been building between them these
past months crumbling around them. Despite everything he
had just been through in the last ten minutes and the
throbbing in his hand, he felt relieved, better than he had in
months. She was smiling at him again, her sincere gaze of
acceptance beginning to blur with tears of her own.

"I think I'd like to accept your apology now, Mulder, and get
your fist to a doctor before you become too decrepit to be my
partner. We have a case to solve."
 

************************

Marina Flat
8:35 AM
Wednesday
 

Joshua was seated at the piano scribbling onto a music sheet
when Mulder entered. He didn't look up or acknowledge him.
He played a few notes, frowned, and reached up to the flat
top of the piano to begin erasing.

A blurry black and white photograph was slipped over the
sheet, catching eraser debris like flypaper. It was a shot of
them at night, kissing just inside the front entry. He sighed
and looked up. "What's this?"

"Why don't you tell me?" Mulder's voice was like lead. He had
a pissy look about him that made Joshua want to slap him.

"Nice shot; can I keep it?" he said, pushing it aside to blow the
eraser dust off his page. Mulder's hand came down to push
the photo firmly back toward him.

"I'm not here to play games with you. I want answers." God,
his tone could be so cold. Joshua should have known it took a
steely heart to survive like Mulder had for so long. He'd have
some sympathy if he wasn't in just about the worst mood of
his life right now. The cadenza was going nowhere. He'd spent
most of the night working on it and now the morning was
growing old. Joshua could see the knuckles on Mulder's right
hand were bandaged. What had he been up to, punching
walls?

"So they got a shot of us. Big deal. It's not illegal to kiss a man
in California, thank God."

"You knew you were being surveilled, and you didn't bother
to tell me?"

Joshua set the eraser down and looked past Mulder to the far
end of his flat, bright with morning sunlight. "I have exactly
nine hours to finish this cadenza. Would you mind if we took
up this spat at a later date?"

"Yes, I would mind. I need an explanation. Were you trying to
entrap me?"

"What?" Joshua pushed back from the piano and stood up, not
really trying very hard to hold in his rising fury. The man had
no right to accuse him of entrapment.

"You *were* informed. You gave permission."

Joshua shook his head, exasperated. "I suppose I did. I don't
know; I was rehearsing. I didn't think..."

Mulder had his hand set on his hip, perhaps unintentionally
displaying his holster. He nodded his head with no little
malice. "You didn't think...This is my *job,* Joshua. You are a
protected witness."

"Ah, fuck!" Joshua kicked the piano bench over in one
brusque move, slamming it onto the hardwood floor. He
turned away a few paces, then circled to face Mulder again.
"That's a very convenient way to look at it."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Joshua began to pace back and forth, keeping the piano
between them. He shook his head again and again. "No, no, no
I tell myself. Don't do this to yourself, Joshua. Leave the
straight ones alone before they come back to beat the shit out
of you."

Mulder's stance seemed to ease a bit. His voice was not so icy.
"Is that why you think I'm here?"

Joshua laughed coldly. "Of course it is. You got off; your dick
settled down and now you're thinking with your bigger head
again. Time to go slap the violinist around for corrupting you."

Mulder looked away from him, distressed. No, Joshua had to
admit to himself, maybe that wasn't why he was here, not
consciously anyway.

Joshua took a breath, forcing himself to calm a notch. "So
who's seen this?"

Mulder still didn't look at him; his voice sounded defeated.
"The police surveillance officer, Lt. Jarvis...my partner."

Joshua looked hard at him. Mulder knew very well he
wouldn't lose his job over this. It wasn't very convenient, and
he should have perhaps thought to tell him, but from what he
knew of Mulder's case history, he'd done much worse.

"This is about your partner, isn't it?"

Mulder reacted like he'd been slapped. "No."

"Why don't you do us both the courtesy of being honest for a
change?"

Mulder just stared at him, tightly, while his mind tried to grip
what truths or lies were being spoken between them. Finally,
his shaking hand came up to wipe across his lower lip. It
seemed guilt had won after all. Guilt and shame. "Joshua..."

"You were the biggest mistake I've ever made. Get the fuck
out of my home," Joshua said in anger, pointing to his front
door. "I don't ever want to see you or hear you say my name
again!"

Mulder looked down, lowering his head. He looked like he
might either fall over or run. God, this man was a mess.

A silence hung between them for several moments while the
traffic continued to breeze by a few stories below.

"I'm sorry," the agent whispered. He took one last glance at
Joshua and the black and white photo, before he turned and
walked from the room.

Joshua waited until he heard the door latch before sweeping
his arm over the back of the piano with a muffled shout,
sending his unfinished composition fluttering across the floor
with one glossy, blurred, 4X5 image.

*************************************
Chapters 17-18

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