The Ezekiel Code Read online

Angela was amused by the story and felt a little guilty that she found some pleasure in knowing he was… available. She looked at him across the desk. His deep brown eyes seemed to draw her in. “I see,” she said. “I’m sorry about your wife. I know what it’s like. I mean I know what you were going through.”

  He nodded, recalling Angela’s own story about losing her husband. Angela sensed that he was feeling a bit uncomfortable. “Well,” she said, graciously changing the subject. “So you want me to look for that book?”

  “Book?”

  “The numerology book.”

  “Oh! Sure. What the heck. I’m curious now.”

  “Okay, I’ll look for it tonight.”

  “Great! Hey, what are you doing for dinner?”

  The question surprised her. Oh my god. A date? The very thought scared her. She shrugged, trying to appear unmoved. “Warmed up leftovers, probably.”

  “Oh, come on! How about having an award-winning pizza with me at Mario’s down the street? My treat.”

  Angela tightened up . Is he just being friendly? What’s happening? Then she shook her head. “Thanks, but I think I should probably just head home. I have a lot of homework to get done before class tomorrow morning.”

  Banyon smiled, trying not to show his disappointment. “All right. Maybe another time.”

  Angela stood up to leave and Banyon walked her out to the front door. Glancing out, they could see the evening sun had vanished behind the tall buildings leaving a sharp chill in the air.

  “Oh!” she said. “My jacket. I must have left it in your office.”

  “Wait here,” he told her. “I’ll get it.”

  He walked into his office and found her jacket hanging on the back of the chair. He picked it up not realizing, at that moment, a folded piece of paper slipped from the pocket and settled just under the chair. He returned to find Angela waiting for him at the front door.

  “Here you go,” he said, helping her on with the jacket.

  “Thanks Father.”

  “Ahem!”

  She smiled, teasingly. “Zeke.”

  “There you go,” he said with a grin. “See you tomorrow afternoon?”

  “I’ll be here.”

  He watched her walk up the street and then called out to her, “Bring the book if you find it!”

  “I will!” she said, turning just briefly to wave goodbye.

  Back in his office, he took another look at the curious scribbles on the desk pad. He still didn’t know what to make of it. After finishing a few minutes of bookwork he decided to take himself up on his own offer of Pizza at Mario’s. His treat.

  He donned his coat and pushed Angela’s chair back to where it had been, next to the wall. Looking down, he noticed the small piece of paper on the floor. He picked it up, unfolded it and recognized Angela’s handwriting. It was a simple note:

  Seattle Gospel Mission

  198 Post Street

  He figured it wasn’t important. Probably just a note to herself, he decided. He crumpled it up, tossed it into the wastebasket and headed off to Mario’s. Sitting alone at a table by the window, staring out at the darkened street, waiting for his double pepperoni pizza with extra cheese, his wandering thoughts suddenly came to a screeching halt.

  “198 Post Street? 198?” he muttered aloud. “One plus nine, plus eight is… um… eighteen, and one plus eight is -”

  “Nine,” the waitress said as she delivered the pizza to his table.

  “What?” he said, a little startled. He hadn’t noticed her approaching. She laughed. “I’m sorry. I just happened to hear you doing some math.”

  He looked at her as if she had just said something profound. “It is nine, isn’t it?”

  “Unless they’ve changed it,” she chuckled. “You never know with all that so-called new math and all.”

  He barely caught the joke. He wasn’t really listening. His mind was on the address of the building where he worked. What the hell is this? he thought to himself. Got to be just one of those odd coincidences, all this nine stuff.

  He removed a slice of pizza from the platter. Just as he was about to take a bite, he looked down at the rest of the pizza. He counted the number of slices. There were seven on the platter and one in his hand. That’s eight, he smiled to himself. Then, aloud, he said, “Damn good thing!”

  “Glad you like it,” the waitress said as she passed by his table with an armload of dishes. But again he wasn’t paying attention. He was still thinking about that nine thing. He thought back to the incident with the clock on the wall… all the words and phrases with nines on the calendar pad… now the street address of the shelter. He chuckled to himself, amused by the string of coincidences. Weird, he thought. Why is this happening? What does it mean?

  3

  Hey there, Tom!” Angela said as she walked in the front door of the shelter. “How are you on this fine Monday afternoon?” Old Tom, the African-American bluesman, was sitting on the floor putting a new string on his guitar. “What’s so fine about it?” he grumbled without looking up. “It’s Monday. I hate Mondays.”

  Angela laughed. “Really! And why is that? I would think one day is about the same as another for a free spirit like yourself.”

  “Free spirit? Me?” he said, still not looking up as he twisted a tuning peg on the guitar. He plucked a couple of strings and tilted his head, listening intently to see if they were in tune.

  “Ain’t nothin’ free, lady. Not even my spirit. And I’ll tell you what’s wrong with Mondays.”

  He looked up at her as if he were about to let her in on something at least as important as the state of the economy or global warming. “All they serve here on Mondays is bean soup.”

  Angela laughed. “And what’s wrong with that?” she asked. “I hear it’s pretty good and hey… it’s free!”

  “Not hardly,” he said, returning attention to his guitar.

  “Not hardly what? Not hardly good or not hardly free?”

  “Both,” he grumbled. “Well, okay, it ain’t bad but it ain’t free.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He looked up at her again. “You ever spend a night in a room full of people who all had bean soup for dinner? If that ain’t a price to pay, I don’t know what is.”

  “I see,” she chuckled. “Not that I’m not enjoying this pleasant conversation but, just to change the subject, have you seen Zeke today?”

  “Father Banyon? He’s been holed up in his office all day. Not like him. Maybe he ain’t feelin good or somethin’.”

  “Really? Well I’m going to go check on him.”

  As she headed down the hall toward Banyon’s office she could hear Tom singing a blues version of the old Carpenter’s tune, Rainy Days And Mondays. But he, of course, changed the words. She distinctly heard him crooning, “Bean soup and Mondays always get me down” . She knocked on Banyon’s door. “Zeke?”

  “Angela! Come in!”

  She walked in and found him sitting at his desk holding what looked like a beaded necklace in his hands.

  “Close the door and pull up a chair,” he said. He draped the object over his hand and held it up for her to see. “Do you know what this is?”

  “Um, yeah, it’s a rosary, isn’t it? Catholics use them to say prayers or something. Right?”

  “Something like that, yes,” he said, staring at the rosary as he slowly rolled it around between his fingers. “You know what the address of this building is?”

  “Sure,” she said, puzzled as to why he would ask. “198 Post Street.”

  “Add that up,” he said, still fiddling with the rosary.

  “Add what up?”

  “The numbers in the address. You know. Cross adding, like you told me.”

  She thought for a moment. “Um… eighteen.”

  He finally looked up at her but he didn’t say anything.

  “Oh.” she said. “One plus eight. It’s nine.”

  He stood up, rosary in hand, and turned, gazing blan
kly out the window behind his desk.

  “Remember the alphanumeric value of my name?”

  “Um,” she hesitated. “I don’t remember. But I remember it reduced to nine. So what are you getting at?”

  Still staring out the window, he asked, “You know what my birthday is?”

  Angela shrugged. “You want me to guess?”

  “No. I’ll tell you. It’s September the 9th, 1962.”

  “So?”

  “So, think about it. What’s September? It’s the ninth month. I was born on the ninth day of the ninth month.”

  Angela lit a cigarette and shifted in her chair. “You’re not getting weird on me, are you?”

  Banyon returned to his chair. “You know what the digits in 1962 add up to? I’ll tell you. They add up to eighteen.”

  “Reduces to nine,” Angela said, beating him to the punch.

  “Exactly. My birthday is nine, nine, nine.”

  “What are you telling me?” she asked. “You are getting weird on me, aren’t you?”

  “You know your Bible very well?”

  “Not as well as you, I’m sure,” she said, grinning. “Why?”

  “The Book of Revelation. Thirteenth chapter, eighteenth verse. Eighteenth verse! Keep that in mind.”

  “Got it. Eighteen. Reduces to nine.”

  “Right. Now hang on a second.” He reached into the desk drawer and pulled out a Bible. He opened it to Revelation, 13th chapter, 18th verse and read aloud. “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man. And his number is six hundred threescore and six. ”

  “Oh, yeah,” Angela said. “I remember. The Antichrist. Six, six, six.”

  There was a moment of silence as he let that sink into her head.

  “Oh!” she said. “Three sixes is eighteen which reduces to nine!”

  Banyon smiled. “Right. And my birthday is nine, nine, nine.”

  “Yes? And?” Angela replied, not sure where he was going with this.

  “Think about it, Angela. Visualize those two sets of numbers in your mind. Three nines is three sixes upside down!”

  She gave him a sideways glance. “Um, you’re not going to tell me you’re the Antichrist, are you?”

  He laughed. “No, I don’t think that’s likely. But you have to admit it’s all a bit strange, isn’t it? I mean, an ex-priest with a Biblical name whose birth date is the number of the Beast upside down? I mean, what are the odds? Let me bum a cigarette.”

  She slid her Marlboro’s across the desk. “Well,” she said, “you’re not really an ex-priest, remember? You have to actually become a priest before you can become an ex priest. But I’ll admit it’s curious all right. So what do you think it all means? Couldn’t it just be coincidence?”

  “That’s what I kept trying to tell myself. But as I studied that verse in Revelation I kept thinking about the coincidence of the number eighteen. You know? The eighteenth verse? So I thought, well if the number eighteen has something to do with this, maybe the number thir- teen does too.

  “Thirteen?”

  Banyon nodded impatiently. “Yes!” he said. “Thirteenth chapter! So, anyway, guess what I found?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “Look here,” he said, motioning for her to scoot her chair up closer so she could see what he was writing. He scribbled out the equation: 13 x 18 = 234. “See that?” he asked, tapping it with his pencil.

  “Yeah… oh! Two plus three, plus four is nine!”

  “But that’s not all,” he said. “I didn’t know what 234 could mean, if anything. Other than being another nine number, it didn’t seem overtly significant.”

  “Overtly significant,” she repeated.

  He glanced up at her, not sure if maybe she was mocking him. He cleared his throat and continued. “But I was thinking about the mirror images of the three sixes and the three nines. And, I don’t know, it just occurred to me to reverse the 234 which of course is 432.”

  “So?”

  “So, guess what 234 plus 432 is?”

  Angela did the math in her head. “Oh man! It’s 666!”

  Banyon smiled. “Bingo! The number 666 is encoded in the very numbers of the chapter and verse in which the number of the beast is mentioned! Whaddya think about that?” Before she could answer, he went on. “Then last night while looking for something in my closet I came across this.” He handed her the rosary. “I’ve had that for years. It’s a standard rosary. Nothing special about it, but check it out. Look how the beads are arranged on each strand. Every rosary is like that.”

  Angela examined the rosary. She found that each strand consisted of beads strung in a pattern of five groups of ten beads, with a single bead in the space between each of the five groups for a total of 54 beads.

  “Well…?” Banyon said, prompting her for a comment.

  “Fifty-four,” she said in a rather bewildered tone. “Nine.”

  The look on her face made him chuckle. “Yes,” he said, finally. “Nine.”

  “Does this mean something?” she asked.

  “Hah!” he laughed. “That, my dear, is the question that kept me up all night. What the hell does this mean?”

  “Oh!” she blurted suddenly. “I almost forgot!” She reached into her purse and pulled out a tattered old paperback book. “Here you go,” she said, handing it to him.

  “You found it!” he said excitedly as he read the title. “NUMEROLOGY: A Beginner’s Gu- ide. Cool! Can I hang on to this for a while?”

  “Sure. Keep it as long as you want. But right now I have to get going. It’s getting late.”

  He thanked her for the book and started to get up from his chair.

  “Don’t get up,” she insisted with a smile. “I can see myself out.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yup. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”

  As soon as she was gone he sensed something, something he hadn’t noticed before in the comfortable confines of his shabby little office. It took him a minute to realize what it was. Rather than sensing the presence of something, it was more like the absence of something. He looked around. Nothing seemed to be missing. As he thought about it, he slowly began to recognize what he was feeling. For the first time in a long time - a very long time - he was aware of being alone. I’ll be damned, he thought to himself as he glanced at the chair where, just moments ago, Angela had been sitting. I’ll be damned.

  That night Banyon settled into bed with a cup of herbal tea, a note pad, a pencil, and the book he borrowed from Angela. He found the book interesting but somewhat disappointing. It didn’t provide the kind of information he was hoping for. He was anticipating something a little deeper, maybe even profound. Then again, it was exactly what the book’s subtitle said it was: a beginner’s guide. Still, he was left with the impression that the author of this book approached the whole subject as if it were not much more than just a form of entertainment. As recently as only a few days ago he would have agreed. But now, given his recent experience with the strange coincidences regarding the numbers, especially the number nine, he wasn’t so sure. The book did, however, provide some interesting tidbits of information about the number nine and the symbolism attributed to it. He learned, for example, that the number 9 is often considered to represent the planet Mars as well as the idea of conflict or aggression and also represents male energy. Curiously - but as he probably should have expected - the number 6 was the opposite of 9. The number 6 represented female energy, love and the planet Venus. He was starting to get a feel for this numbers thing in a way that struck him as odd. He couldn’t really explain it but he was feeling as if he could almost sense if a word had some connection to this whole weird nine thing, as he now called it. He had that feeling when he read about the comparisons between the number 9 and the number 6 and the planets they represented. It was becoming instinctive. He was immediately compelled to calculate the alphanumeric value of the names of the planets, Mars and
Venus. He was amazed at what he found. Another one of those reversal things, he mused to himself.

  The word Mars, he figured out, had an alphanumeric value of 51, which reduced to 6. On the other hand the word Venu s had a value of 81 which reduced to 9. Interesting, he thought. The planet symbolized by the number 9 has the alphanumeric value of 6, while the planet symbolized by the number 6 has the alphanumeric value of 9. As he pondered over this curiosity, he could hardly wait to tell Angela about it. He read a little more until his eyes grew tired and he soon drifted off to sleep with the book in his lap. As he slept he had no idea that somewhere in the world men in positions of power were talking about him - and about Angela. One of those men - a man in priest’s clothing - was lo-oking at the snapshot of Angela. “Who is she?” he asked. “Does she have any connections to Densmore or McClintock?”

  The man who snapped the photo shook his head. “We don’t think so. She’s just a college student. Good-looking babe, eh?”

  The priest slid the photo into his desk drawer. “Thank you. You can go.”

  4

  The next day at the shelter, Banyon anxiously waited for Angela to arrive so he could show her what he’d discovered about Mars and Venus. This business of mirrored numbers and the idea of opposites like the Mars-Male/Venus-Female thing intrigued him. He felt like he was on to something but he had no idea what it might be. He simply found it all very curious. The morning passed slowly. There was plenty of work to be done but he couldn’t keep his mind on any of it. Trying to help out in the kitchen, he found himself stirring a large pot of soup on the stove for five minutes before Jenny, one of the volunteers, pointed out to him that he’d forgotten to turn the burner on.

  “Mr. Banyon,” she said, trying to be tactful, “I think we’ve pretty much got things under control right now. You probably have other things to do.”

  He caught the intent of what she was implying and he had to laugh. “Okay, I can take a hint.”

  He was just about to exit the kitchen when he heard Jenny calling after him. He thought she may have felt that she offended him and was about to offer an apology. He turned toward her and was about to tell her it was okay but she spoke first.

  “The apron,” she said.