The Spider Thief

by Laurence MacNaughton

  “It means I haven’t written you off just yet.”

  For once, his smile looked completely genuine. “I’ll take that.”

  She looked him up and down. After a moment, she made a decision and snapped the rifle’s safety back on. “Here, hold this. Let me get my shoes.”

  Chapter Forty

  Buried

  Cleo stared at the dull gray metal spider that crouched on the workbench. It looked exactly like the original gold spider, down to the faint lines radiating out across its fat abdomen. But it was the color of an overcast sky.

  Nearby, some of Prez’s crew swept wide brooms across the empty patch of floor where his printing presses used to be. Nobody told her what had happened to them, and she didn’t ask.

  Ash tossed jagged pieces of yellow rubber mold material into a trash bin. He stripped off his thick leather gloves and tossed them aside. “Not bad, huh?”

  She nodded her chin at the spider. “I don’t get it.”

  Ash picked up the spider and turned it over, tsking to himself as he picked out flat fins of metal that had leaked through the edges of the mold and solidified. He sorted through the tools on the workbench, then broke off the flashing with pliers and finessed the rough edge with a rat-tail file.

  “I cast the spider out of pot metal.” Ash leaned close and squinted at his work, then went back to filing. “It’s a junk alloy. Low melting point, easy to work with. You can melt it on your stovetop.”

  Prez’s voice cut through the warehouse. “The hell is going on here?” He marched over to the workbench, his limp slowing him not at all. He brandished a mirror-polished saucepan marred by a thick splash of gray metal.

  “Or in this case,” Ash muttered, “Prez’s stovetop.”

  “This a Williams-Sonoma pan, fool.” Prez slammed the pan down on the workbench with a hollow clang. “Two hundred dollars for this thing.”

  Ash remembered he still had the wad of counterfeit cash in his pocket, the one he’d woken up with. He dug it out, peeled off two bills, and dropped them into the ruined pot.

  “Yeah, that’s funny,” Prez snapped. “That’s a hoot, right there.”

  Ash sighed. “Prez, you’re a genius in more ways than I can count. Counterfeiting is only your most notorious area of expertise. Another one is your amazing affinity with animals.”

  Prez gave him a strange look. “Scuse me?”

  “I’m just saying if you can watch Moolah for me while I’m busy conning Andres, I’ll be forever in your debt.”

  Prez locked gazes with Ash. After a moment, the corner of his eye twitched. “Bet your ass you be in my debt.” He picked up his pan. “Gimme the rest of my money.”

  Without a word, Ash dropped the rest of the wad into the pot, then watched Prez limp away. He shook his head and went back to filing.

  Cleo hid a smile behind her hand. It was like watching kids bicker in the back seat. She leaned down close to Ash. “This thing is supposed to fool Andres?”

  “Pot metal’s mostly lead. Also some zinc, tin, other stuff. But it’s pretty close to the same density as gold, so this spider is almost the same weight as the real one. You couldn’t tell the difference with your eyes closed. Or if we somehow, magically, turned this one to gold.” Ash blew off the filings and set the spider back upright. “Hey, DMT.”

  “Yo.” The big guy lumbered over. “That thing finally ready?”

  “All yours.” With something like fatherly pride, Ash watched DMT carry it off. “You ever get a good look at DMT’s car?”

  “The Porsche? Sure. Why?”

  “It’s got gold trim. Doesn’t come from the dealer like that.” Ash wiggled his eyebrows. “DMT has an electro-plate machine in the back room. Said he could get this spider coated in a couple of hours, long as the zinc isn’t too bad.”

  “So you’re going to gold-plate a fake lead spider.”

  He folded his arms, looking smug. “And stick some fake emerald eyes on it and give it to Andres. And he’ll never know the difference.”

  “You know, one of these days, you might start to impress me.”

  “Might?”

  Cleo shook her head. “Where did you learn to do this?”

  “Ran a gold ingot scam once.” Ash swept the filings off the workbench into the trash. “Those Ukrainian gun dealers were pissed.”

  *

  The sun blazed down from a cloudless blue sky as the Galaxie trundled across a field of dirt. Yellow construction equipment dotted the area, along with stacks of long black pipe. Mountains of dirt broke the horizon like the backs of prehistoric creatures.

  Ash parked next to a shoulder-deep trench in the ground and opened the Galaxie’s trunk, pulling out a shovel, gallon jugs of bottled water, two huge bags of quick concrete, and finally a cardboard box holding the gold spider. It had flipped over, and its legs stuck up at an angle. Ash stood there, staring down into the box, like a starving man holding a platter of food.

  Cleo took it from him. “The spider looks dead.”

  Ash cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said absently. He picked up the shovel and jumped down into the trench.

  She stood at the edge as he began to dig. “You want a hand?”

  “Just keep an eye out, in case anybody calls the cops.”

  “Then what?”

  He paused. “Talk cop-ish to them.” He kept digging, grunting, until he had a hole big enough.

  Cleo bent down, holding the box. “Just don’t look at it, okay?” she said gently.

  He nodded. Averting his eyes, he dropped the box into the hole, then reached up for the heavy sacks of concrete. With a deep sigh, Ash ripped the top off of the first bag and dumped it, burying the gold spider in an explosion of gray powder. He stepped back while the cloud of dust cleared, looking pained.

  “You think somebody might dig it up?” she said.

  “Are you kidding? Three weeks from now, there’s going to be a Costco here. This thing is never coming back.”

  He dumped the second bag of concrete, then emptied the water jugs one by one, until the spider vanished deep beneath a thick gray pond.

  Ash climbed out and stood beside her, breathing hard. She put her arm around him, holding him close, and he leaned against her.

  She stared down at the muddy gray concrete. It looked thicker by the moment. “I feel like we should say something. A few words.”

  “How about ‘let’s go get my brother’?” Ash pulled out a cheap black phone. “Got this at Walgreen’s. Am I the only guy who buys these things who isn’t a drug dealer?”

  “Possibly.”

  He carefully punched in a number, then paced back and forth along the edge of the trench. A moment later, he froze. “Hey, Andres. Guess who?”

  Chapter Forty-one

  Justice

  Ash sat alone in the Galaxie at the bottom of the hill, watching time tick away on the dashboard clock. The dirt road stretched up ahead of him, a ribbon of tan in the light gold grass, broken by pine trees and the occasional wildflower.

  It didn’t feel much different from the last time he’d been here, chased by the green pickup. He kept trying to convince himself that this time, he had the upper hand. But it wasn’t working.

  It was so quiet here. He could hear leaves rustle in the wind all the way up the mountainside. He searched the rocks and trees above, but he’d lost sight of Cleo ten minutes ago. The path of bent grass where she walked was already vanishing with the wind.

  He waited another ten minutes and then turned the key in the Galaxie. It resisted starting on the slope, and for a moment Ash longed for modern fuel injection. On the third try, it came to life. He shifted into gear and headed up toward the ghost town.

  Windowless husks of buildings lined the main street, facing each other like rows of dry skulls. Empty windows stared at each other. Sun and rot had weathered the walls silver and black. At the far end, in front of the saloon, sat the black Trans Am, rippling in waves of heat.

  It faced the other way, so t
hat Ash was looking at its wide tail lights and spoiler. Through the back window, he could make out the silhouette of someone hunched in the back seat, silhouetted by sun coming through the open T-top. As he got closer, he caught a glint of refracted blue. Mauricio’s designer glasses.

  The driver’s door opened and Andres stepped out, his black suit jacket flapping in the wind, his dark hair ruffling. Ash parked the Galaxie a few car lengths behind him and waited.

  *

  Insects buzzed in the rocks around Cleo. The sun burned down on her, making her sweat into the liner of her Kevlar vest. The familiar shapes of the ghost town lay spread out on the slope below her, lifeless boxes of sun-bleached wood and empty windows. Andres’s black sports car sat out in the open, the gold bird gleaming on its hood. There was no sign of his two gunmen, but she was sure they were somewhere close by. Maybe waiting for her. The whole thing had the stink of a trap.

  Endless doubts ran through her, breaking her concentration. What if Andres had arranged this whole setup to catch her? Should she have called this in to Snyder? Why was she up here doing this all alone, breaking every rule of engagement she’d ever learned?

  She knew the answers to all of these questions. It was her only chance at getting justice for her father’s murder. It had all made sense in the dark silence of the night, but here in the blinding glare of daytime, alone on the ridge with only her rifle, it seemed absolutely crazy.

  Worse, it sounded a lot like suicide. What if something went wrong? What if someone got hurt? How would she get medical help?

  She might not make it back from this, she knew. Is this where she wanted to die, in the dry rocks above this long-dead town?

  Cleo listened to the wind rustling across the mountainside, stirring the tall grass and yucca. She searched the clear blue sky for some kind of a sign. A hawk, hopefully. A cloud, at least. Anything that she could read as a good or bad omen. But of course the sky was empty. She was on her own.

  When Ash pulled up in the red Galaxie, she put her eye to the sniper scope and watched. She had the rifle propped up on the rock in front of her, giving her a steady field of vision, but still the image shook slightly at this magnification.

  She watched through ruby-red crosshairs as the Trans Am’s door swung open. Andres stepped out, standing in plain view as if taunting her. As he buttoned his jacket against a gust of wind, Cleo settled the crosshairs on his skull. His sunglasses shone in the sun, motionless and insect-like. His black hair fluttered and then went still as the wind dropped. In this brief moment of calm, Cleo knew she could kill him where he stood.

  She had waited years for this moment. Andres in her sights. The safety off. Right now, nothing stopped her from delivering the justice that he so desperately deserved.

  A cold rivulet of fear coursed through her, frightened at this thing she had become. This vengeful creature. So ready to kill another human being. Even with all of the murders Andres had committed, did he deserve to be executed? And what gave her the right to pass that sentence, much less carry it out?

  All of these years, she never thought she’d hesitate when she had the chance. But now, finger hovering over the trigger, she knew she was changing. Here, now, in this moment. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but she knew she was no murderer. Not like Andres. And she knew she wouldn’t shoot unless she had no other choice.

  Right now, she had a choice to trust Ash. Trust that he would stick to the plan. Trust that he’d be able to coax Mauricio out into safety. Because that was her real goal here, she reminded herself.

  Not revenge. Rescue.

  But doing that meant trusting Ash with her life. The boy who had run away, only to come back as a crook and a professional liar. Could she place everything in his hands?

  If she fired now, she could take down Andres for sure, and hope for the best when it came to his gunmen. She didn’t know whether she could get Mauricio or even Ash out alive, but at least she had a tactical advantage.

  Or she could listen to the little voice inside her that told her to wait for Ash. If anyone could talk his way out of this, it was him.

  As Andres crossed the distance between the two cars, Cleo trusted her instincts and held her fire.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Crossfire

  Get Mauricio in the clear, Cleo had told him, over and over. She’d been very specific about that. Otherwise, I can’t cover you.

  Ash risked a glance up the mountainside, but all he saw was dry grass, yucca, and brown rocks. Cleo could be anywhere by now.

  Andres strode toward him, his well-heeled shoes kicking up little clouds of dust as he walked.

  Ash got out of the Galaxie. “Your spider’s in a safe place. Now let my brother go.”

  Andres stopped halfway between the cars. “You are not in a position to give any order.” He lifted one gloved hand. Lazaro stepped out of the shadow of the saloon, his giant revolver pointed at the Trans Am.

  Across the street, Salvador edged out from between two buildings, the sweat shining on his forehead as he aimed his assault weapon at Ash.

  “You’re bluffing.” Ash swallowed. “You’re not going to hurt Mauricio.”

  Andres didn’t answer. His mirrored blue sunglasses reflected the mountainside. Ash tried to stare him down, but it was like looking into the unblinking eyes of an insect.

  “So many times, you have run away from me,” Andres said. “You leave your hometown. You leave your friends and your family. And so today, you have nothing left.”

  Ash shrugged. “Okay, so, maybe not the best laid plan. But people change. I’m done running.”

  “No. Once you have been cursed, always you are cursed.”

  “See, that’s the thing.” Ash risked taking a step closer. “I used to think I was cursed, and if I got too close to anyone, they’d die. The biggest thrill I had in life was getting rich off of crooks like you.”

  Andres didn’t react.

  “I stayed away from the people I cared about, but it didn’t protect them. They still got hurt. So, curse or no curse, what’s the point of running anymore?” Ash took another step. Now, they were only a few yards apart. “But just learning to stick around wasn’t the biggest thing I figured out in this whole mess. You want to know what was?”

  “That we are all connected,” Andres said. “All of us.”

  That startled Ash. “Well, actually, yeah, that was pretty much it.”

  Andres shook his head, the tiniest amount, side to side. “You cannot run from the web that connects us all. Why do you think it is my men you tried to swindle, hmm? Why do you think I find you when I did, a coincidence?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t play the lottery much.”

  Andres clucked his tongue. “No, no, no. With La Araña, there is no coincidence. Once she has a taste of your soul, you are connected to her always. But you have angered her, and that is why you must die. The curse of La Araña destroys all who fail her. Your father, who take her far away from the temple, he was kill by La Araña, through me. I did not want to kill him, you see. Once, he was my friend. But when he betray the spider, he must die. Like you.”

  “And what about Mauricio’s mom?” Ash said. “Did she have to die, too?”

  “Selena?” Andres’s brows furrowed, creasing his forehead. “My beautiful sister, it break my heart to this day that she betray La Araña. She had pass away long before I find out where she was gone to. I find her grave, I weep so many tears I can see nothing.”

  “But what if you’d found her while she was still alive? Would you have killed her, like you killed my parents?”

  Andres gave him a dismissive tilt of the head. “Do not ask me such nonsense. She was my family.”

  “Mauricio’s your family, too. You planning on killing him?” Ash risked taking one more step closer. Now they were almost at arm’s length. “If we’re all connected, Andres, then it doesn’t make any sense to hold on to Mauricio anymore. Even if you let him go, he’ll come back, right?”

  �
�Is true. Everyone is connected. The web of La Araña is unbreakable. And through the spider, they are connected to me.” Andres seemed to stand a little taller. “Through me, the reach of La Araña is not confined just to Colombia. She can be everywhere. She can be with everyone. I will bring her to the world, so that everyone will know her bliss. Everyone.”

  “Well, bully for you. Everyone needs a stretch goal. In the meantime, I’ll just take Mauricio with me and we’ll step out of your way.”

  “You think Mauricio will go with you? You, who La Araña has cursed?”

  Ash dropped the sensitive act and put an edge in his voice. “If you want the spider, Andres, let my brother go. Now.”

  “Oh?” Andres turned and spoke over his shoulder. “Lazaro! Take mi sobrino away.”

  “Sì.” Lazaro crossed over to the Trans Am and opened the driver’s door.

  “No, wait!” Ash shouted.

  Lazaro froze, looking to Andres for direction. Andres just stared at Ash, waiting.

  “Fine. Here, take your stupid statue. And good luck with the whole world domination thing.” Ash stalked back to the trunk and unlocked it. The lid swung open with a faint creak. Ash stepped back. “Now let Mauricio go.”

  Andres’s shoes made a soft crunch in the dirt street as he walked over. He gazed down into the trunk, his face impassive, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses.

  As the moments ticked by, Ash’s heart pounded. Could Andres tell the difference? He gave no sign.

  The dry air in Ash’s throat threatened to choke him. He tried to swallow, but he couldn’t. His gaze ticked back and forth between Andres and the shape of Mauricio in the back of the Trans Am.

  A gust of wind picked up, blowing Andres’s hair. “All this time, I was sure you will try and trick me,” Andres said slowly. “But no. You are a man of your word. That’s unexpected.”

  “Stranger things have happened. So there you go, take it. Knock yourself out.”