Chapter 10:Nelson Bush

The window that Nelson Bush was staring out had a startling view of the bay, but he didn't really notice the sights. He was lost in his thoughts. It's finally started. Everything is in play, he was thinking. The City on the Bay will never be the same will it? I will never be the same. This was complicated- not what it seemed to be but beautiful in its own way.

He had closed his office door, as he always did when he was absorbed in research. Lately, he had stopped catching lunch with his coworkers. They bored him. Their lives were filled with petty concerns. The stock market. The Giants and 49ners. Where they were headed on vacation. They had such shallow, simple middle-class dreams. His were soaring. He was like the moguls thinking up their new, new things over in Silicon Valley.

Anyway, that was all in the past. Now he had a secret. The biggest secret in the world.

He pushed his business papers to the corner of his desk. This is the old world, he thought. The old me. The bore. The worker bee.

He unlocked the top left drawer of his desk. Behind the usual personal clutter was a small gray lockbox. It was barely large enough to hold a packet of three-by-five inches cards.

This is my world now.

He though back to the Hyatt. The bride's beautiful porcelain face, the blossoms of blood on her chest. He still couldn't believe what has taken place. The gasp of her last breath. And his, of course.

What were their names? Oh Jesus Christ, he'd forgotten. No, he hadn't! The Harry's. They were all over the newspaper and the TV news.

With a key from his chain, he opened the small box. What spilled out into the room was the intoxicating spell of his dreams. A stack of index cards. Neat and orderly. Alphabetically arranges. One by one he skimmed through them. New names.... Dorothy...Elijah....Darlington..Hannah.

All the bride's and grooms.