The Templar Map

by K R Hill

  Nick did a quick search and found the rental agency was located across the bay. They drove over and rented one of the boats for the night. By the time they got back to the canal, colored lights were shining around the Queen Mary and the oil islands. And out past the silhouette of downtown, the Vincent Thomas Bridge was a ribbon of brake lights that faded into the night.

  Across from Sophie Devonshire’s house they pulled up to a small dock and tied the bow

  line. They removed cushions from the seats, placed them on the floor, and sat down so they might not be seen. Then they waited.

  After half an hour, Nick whispered: “We’re going to find that artifact, right boss?”

  “That woman at the diner called it Solomon’s Key.”

  “Maybe that’s why I couldn’t get information about it. I didn’t have the name.”

  “If her husband had it, we’ll find it.”

  “Was it bad that I shot that guy?”

  Dalton looked at Nick. “First time?”

  “Yeah.”

  A cold marine layer had rolled in off the Pacific. Out at the end of the jetty, where the bay opened to the ocean, a white fog moved toward them.

  “Don’t feel bad. If you didn’t shoot him, he might have shot you. One of the customers could have been killed. Maybe you contained the situation. He wasn’t carrying a combat rifle for nothing.”

  “Yeah.” Nick buttoned his coat and flipped up the collar. “Why don’t you and that Jax woman just get away? If I had a woman special like you say….”

  “She’s moved on, buddy.”

  Three hours passed. Nick fell asleep after a long battle of trying to hold his head up.

  Dalton shoved his hands into his pockets and waited. As the hours rolled past, some people hurried to their homes. A couple passed carrying groceries in brown paper bags. A man passed with a heavy briefcase over his shoulder. Around midnight, a man and woman, yawning, their hair messy from bed, pushed a stroller along the sidewalk. The baby in the stroller cried.

  Then, a few hours before sunrise Dalton watched a stocky dark figure walk up the sidewalk and stop. He wanted to turn on his phone and check the time, but Nick had eliminated that option.

  Dalton shook his head, focused his eyes and snapped awake. There was something familiar about the way the guy moved: decisive, like a hunting dog with the scent of bird in its nostrils. It was the bald killer from the office.

  Dalton slowly got to his knees, leaned over, and put a hand over Nick’s mouth and shook him.

  Nick’s eyes popped open. Dalton put a finger across his lips and pointed to the house. He took his hand away and whispered, “Our bald friend just showed up.”

  Nick leaned forward and touched the .45 clipped to his belt. “The guy from the office? Tell me I can shoot him. Where can I shoot him? In the leg, can I shoot him in the leg?”

  “No,” said Dalton. “This guy’s mine. We need to find out where the money is coming from. That’ll tell us a lot. Number one rule of detective work: follow the money.”

  There was dew on the hand-rails as they climbed the gangplank to the sidewalk. Dalton walked on tip-toes to Sophie Devonshire’s house. He looked about and grabbed Nick.

  “Where’d he go?” Dalton hurried to the gate, reached and opened it and crept along between the houses, his feet crunching on the gravel walkway. He hadn’t gone more than half the length of the house when a light came on upstairs. His instinct told him to get off the walkway, so he pushed among the bushes that lined the fence. There he squatted, with leaves touching his face, and something shoved against his ribs. After ten minutes, the light turned off, so he came out of the hiding place and walked on the grass to the tiny back yard, where he peeked around the corner of the house.

  A dark figure moved about a window. The intruder had a suction-cup device pressed against the window. It made the sound of cutting glass.

  Dalton got close enough to strike before the guy raised up.

  The second before the first blow hit him in the back of the head, the intruder turned. Dalton’s punch brushed his scalp.

  The burglar’s left hand came down on Dalton’s shoulder. At the same time, he tried to knee Dalton in the groin.

  Dalton jerked his leg up and blocked the knee, then shot both hands forward and tried to disable the guy with a thumb to his eye, but missed.

  The assailant head butted him in the cheek, and Dalton groaned and recovered quickly and connected with an upper cut that caught the guy on the chin and sent him staggering back. As the guy stumbled, Dalton hit him twice in the head.

  The man dropped to his knees and aimed a pistol.

  Dalton too had drawn his weapon. “Where’s the money coming from? Why is that artifact so important?” he said in a low, angry voice.

  The man smiled and shook his head. “You don’t even know the story, do you?”

  Somewhere out over the city, he heard a helicopter. A moment later a bright spotlight swept over houses and trees and the backyard lit up like a bright summer day.

  A loudspeaker in the sky said: “This is the Long Beach Police Department. Lower your weapons.”

  “I think we will be seeing each other again, Mr. Dalton,” said the intruder. He ran to the fence and climbed over as the spotlight shifted about the backyard, as though the operator in the helicopter was trying to decide which man to follow.

  Seconds later he heard policemen shouting. And that was when he decided to place his weapon on the ground and raise his hands.

  “Police! Hands behind your head. Get on your knees.”

  Chapter 10

  Dalton sat in the ambulance in front of the house while an EMT treated the gash over his eye and dabbed his swollen lip with antiseptic.

  “Well, I see you met Uri.” Harvey Lowenthal paced back and forth at the ambulance doors and held his jacket open while searching his vest pockets. “I told you to listen, but I’m just some stupid FBI agent. What do I know?”

  Dalton looked past the agent to Sophie Devonshire. She stood on the corner surrounded by uniforms that asked questions and wrote down her responses. Even in the middle of the night, she looked good, wrapped in a silk robe, shiny black slippers on her feet. Her red hair hung in a ponytail over her shoulder and moved when she turned her head.

  Floodlights lit up several houses and the sidewalk. Two boats floated in the canal, their engines shifting from forward to reverse so they could stay in one spot and watch the show. Policemen walked about. Neighbors stood clustered together among squad cars. Every few minutes one pointed at Sophie Devonshire.

  “It looks like you’re real popular, Dalton.” Lowenthal flipped a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to a couple of SUVs, a group of men huddled around an open door.

  “That’s the Israeli government woman I spoke to earlier.”

  “Israeli government, my ass.” Agent Lowenthal signaled his assistant with a raised finger.

  The slim woman with short black hair, wearing a business suit, walked up and asked what she could help with.”

  “You want to show him what we got on Lizzie over there?”

  The woman agent lifted the tablet she was carrying, and typed and swiped a few times and held the screen in front of Dalton. “Liza Cohen has been arrested four times for trafficking in stolen artifacts. She works for Shelomo Ben Haim, a Tel Aviv mobster and arms dealer. His dirty little fingers are in quite a few pies.”

  “She has a good jab.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be some hand-to-hand whiz kid or something.” Lowenthal did his best imitation of Bruce Lee. His assistant blushed.

  “Am I supposed to crack a woman?”

  “In her case, yes. Half the things I’ve tracked in my career are probably hanging in her boss’s private collection. I’d give a year of paychecks to see her put away.” Lowenthal grumbled a thank-you to his assistant and gently pushed her aside. “Look, Dalton, I’m hanging my career on getting that artifact. I’m so close I can smell it.”

  After
the EMTs had poked and prodded, wiped Dalton’s face and stuck sutures on his eyebrow, and after several police officers had asked him questions and written down his answers, checked his license to carry a concealed weapon and the numbers on his gun, he was free to go.

  He wanted to get away from this scene, the lights and neighbors. He started to rush down the sidewalk. But then he saw Sophie Devonshire. She looked weak and afraid, and he wanted to help her. So instead of walking away and getting in his car and getting back on the road, back on the bridge into the city, he went over and put his arm around her.

  “Mrs. Devonshire, I’m sorry–”

  “It is Sophie, remember?”

  “Sophie—I’m sorry to ask more questions, but if we want to get past this, we have to know all the details of your husband’s life. Is there a house or an apartment that he frequented?” He walked beside her to the open front door.

  Sophie Devonshire pushed him away and stepped back. “Mr. Dalton, I’m not sure I like what you’re implying. My husband and I were close. He didn’t have another woman. I would’ve known. Is that what you are trying to ask?” She closed her eyes.

  “There are hard questions I have to ask. I ask, and we move along. That’s how it works. You hired me to find that artifact and to find out if your husband had another life. If I’m going to do that, I need to look through his things.”

  Before she could respond, a police officer walked over and asked for her signature. Men and women cops crossed the lawn and one by one they climbed in their cars and drove off. The ambulance too pulled away, and since the helicopter had long since disappeared, there was nothing more for the neighbors to look at, and they went home.

  When they were finally alone, Sophie and walked into the house. Dalton closed the door and flipped the lock.

  “I believe you asked about my husband.”

  “Yes,” said Dalton. “Did he have any storage containers? Warehouses? A property that needed his work quite a bit? A favorite get-away?”

  “My, you are persistent.” Sophie Devonshire hurried around the room. Even though the drapes were pulled and the blinds closed, she walked from one window to another, checking them, tugging the drapes to fully cover the windows. “I just hate the neighbors watching. I thought I’d have some privacy here on the island.”

  After she checked the windows, she stopped in the center of the dining room and touched the table. “Yes, Mr. Dalton, my husband spent a lot of time out of the country. After he passed, I was searching through his papers and discovered there were several days here and there over the years when I thought he was abroad or in another state, when he was actually in the small house we keep up in San Pedro. I guess it was his home away from home. We didn’t go there more than a few times, so I was quite surprised to find receipts from various services around San Pedro: a plumber, electrician, lawn mowing, an architect.”

  “I need to get in there. Do you have the keys or passwords?”

  She sat on the sofa and cried into her hands. “I don’t know. I wish I’d never seen that artifact.”

  From atop a steamer trunk wet bar, Dalton opened a bottle of twenty-five-year-old scotch, and poured two fingers into a glass, walked over and touched Mrs. Devonshire on the shoulder. “I know it’s early morning, but I think you need this.”

  “Thank you.” She drank half and turned the glass in her hand. “It’s not that someone I loved is gone. What hurts is the empty places left in my life that were once filled.”

  Dalton set beside her. His shoulder touched hers. “That’s the hardest thing. You have to learn to fill those voids. You can’t stop and think about the other person. You find something to do when you feel the pain coming, and you don’t ask any questions. You just go and do it.”

  “Sometimes I feel so weak, like I don’t want to try.” She leaned against him and cried again.

  “It’s okay. I got you. Just let it out.” Jason Dalton wrapped his arm around her.

  ***

  He met Nick in the Starbucks in Belmont Shore, a trendy suburb where the beautiful people, carrying tiny dogs in bags, strolled the shopping street wearing the latest fashions. It was the only place he could think of that was busy so early, and having people around meant safety. He hurried past the line of shiny choppers parked in front of Starbucks, wondering for a second how the owners earned a living, pushed open the front door, and took his place in line. With his drink in hand, he moved to a high metal table against the wall.

  Nick raised his chin from a laptop. “This is a hell of a case, right boss?”

  “It’s a storm, that’s for sure. Those particle samples you sent out—did you get word back?” Dalton sipped his coffee.

  “First things first,” said Nick and pushed a white plastic bag across the table.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a burner phone. We’re going to buy a new one every other day. New rules. Don’t look at me that way. You pay me for my computer skills. The guys tracking you are high tech, so we adapt, right?”

  Dalton pulled a box from the bag and opened it.

  “Okay,” said Nick. Now, back to that sample I sent out: the guy texted me thirty minutes ago. It sounded like he was jumping up and down, he was so excited. We’re heading over there.”

  “You can tell that from a text?”

  “It’s a millennial thing. Don’t try it. You might get hurt.” Nick tapped his phone and raised it above his head. “I just need directions. I hate this cheapo carrier.” He smiled and looked around the café, then asked Google for directions.

  Dalton removed the plastic lid from his coffee and sipped. “I don’t have to ride in your flower-power bug, do I?”

  Nick stood up. “No. You can call Uber if you get your phone working.”

  Google spoke every time they turned or approached a traffic light. The guy lived in Signal Hill, a small city surrounded by Long Beach. For decades it had been a no-man’s land of cliffs, creaking oil wells, tumbleweeds rolling down the street, and coyotes. During the eighties the ugly fields began to change. Developers and oil companies capped the wells and hauled in clean soil and built trendy, gated communities, filled with cookie-cutter shiny houses.

  As they drove up the hill, Nick picked up his phone and read, “I am near Shell Hill with a running group.”

  In the distance a group of men and women, a few wearing jogging suits, others dressed in T-shirts and gym trunks, stretched their legs on the guard rail and did calisthenics. A mile behind them, a jetliner was gliding down onto a runway.

  Nick pulled to the curb and they got out and walked toward the runners. An Indian man in his thirties with messed up hair and twenty pounds of extra weight around his gut trotted over, shaking his hands in the air.

  “Are you Nick?” he asked with an Indian accent.

  Nick held up his cell phone, revealing the man’s text message, and said he was.

  “I work at the university lab and analyzed those samples you brought for me. This is incredible because they date to five-hundred years BC.” He shook his arms about and wobbled his head.

  “Whoa, buddy, take it easy.” Dalton grabbed his arm. “It’s okay. Just tell us what you found.”

  The guy put his hand on his chest and breathed heavily, as though he’d just run a sprint. “Okay, okay, like I said, I analyzed the sample in the vial you gave me, but the most fascinating part is the history of the object in the photo. In all my life I never dreamed that I, Singh, would come across such a fabulous piece of history. And I have it all written down for your benefit if you would like to come back to my apartment, I would be happy to show you what I found. It is a relic that people have been fighting for centuries, and it is here in the city. It is so exciting.”

  “Why are you so excited?” asked Dalton.

  “Can you not see? Did you not hear the words I just spoke?”

  “I heard, but–”

  Nick turned a circle and said, “Oh man, boss, I’m sorry. I thought this guy was legit.”

/>   “Legit,” shouted the Indian man, slapping one hand onto the palm of the other. “I have a PhD in Philology and can prove to you that that artifact is a map.”

  Dalton pulled Nick away and whispered: “The guy is crazy. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Crazy?” shouted the Indian man. “No, sir, I am a respectable scholar. Look me up on your Google. Go on. That is a map to one of the world’s most fabulous treasures. You got me involved in this, now you have to protect me or send me back to India. I saw people sitting in a car outside my apartment this morning. How do they know about the map? All I did was ask a few colleagues about it online. You must hide me. I need protection.” He kept pulling his T-shirt from the folds of his belly.

  “Okay, Mr. Singh. Take it easy.” Dalton patted his shoulder. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, okay? Why don’t you take us to your place and show us what you found?”

  Mr. Singh waved to his running group. Two of the women shouted goodbye and said they’d see him next time.

  ***

  He lived above an old industrial building with concrete walls and a rollup garage door that faced the street. Once they parked, Mr. Singh led them up a rusting staircase, fumbled with his keys, found the correct one, and pushed open the door. Once they crossed the threshold, he closed the door and shoved a two-by-four under the doorknob and wedged it against the floor.

  “Serious lock,” said Dalton.

  Mr. Singh rushed across the apartment to a Persian rug. Atop the rug stood two sawhorses that held a plywood desk. A laptop sat in front of a padded chair at one end. Around the chair lay computer circuits and an old monitor.

  The one-room apartment smelled of curry and was large enough to fit eight cars. A row of metal lockers, covered with old decals, lined the wall in the kitchen area. Facing those stood an old knee-high soda pop refrigerator.

  “It’s right here.” He pulled a thick encyclopedia from a shelf and opened it at a paper marker. “After I carbon dated it, I did some research. There’s only a few references to it through history, and it’s difficult to separate myth from fact. But that photograph looks very similar to what was called Solomon’s Key. And Solomon’s Key was supposed to be a map to Solomon’s mines.”