Return of the Magi

by P. J. Tracy

  Sanchez chuckled, then stuck his head out of the window, assessing the traffic jam. ‘We’re never going to get there at this rate. The whole town is headed to where we’re going. Hang on.’ He flipped on the lights and siren.

  ***

  Emil was riding a razor’s edge as he and the sisters trudged ever closer toward their very different ideas of a desert oasis. Not only was he on high alert for search parties at all altitudes, he had to pay attention to the barren lunarscape they were passing through, ever mindful of malevolent wildlife.

  He rewound to all those nature shows he’d seen in jail, trying to remember if there was anything in the desert that wasn’t poisonous. Probably those cute little cactus owls were okay, and the jackrabbits for sure. Everything else was pretty much sudden death waiting to happen.

  He looked up and saw an orange and lavender sunset fading from the sky, punctuated by a distant circling cluster of vultures, which he did not take as a good omen. Then again, at this point in time, vultures weren’t nearly as scary as low-flying aircraft. They’d gotten lucky earlier with the overhang, but the small, sheltering spine of rocks had disappeared behind them long ago. If those choppers came around now, there was no place to ditch, no place to hide, and three magi would be pretty hard to miss in the middle of an empty desert.

  For his third trick, he also had to keep an eye on Edith and Gloria and watch for any signs of dehydration or psychosis. Not that he had any plans on how to deal with either of those things if they happened – he didn’t see any pharmacies or spare strait-jackets lying around, and definitely no drinking fountains. By any calculation, his luck was on borrowed time, and so was he.

  ‘How are you ladies doing?’ he asked hopefully, over his shoulder, elated to see Edith and Gloria not only still upright but keeping a decent pace and gazing around with great interest, admiring things like tumbleweeds, sagebrush and the spikes of a lone saguaro cactus.

  ‘We’re just fine, thank you,’ Edith said brightly.

  ‘Yes,’ Gloria affirmed. ‘We’re enjoying our journey. It’s quite beautiful out here.’

  ‘That’s great news. Better yet, do you see what I’m seeing?’ He pointed ahead, where the outskirts of Vegas were finally coming into clear view. ‘We’re getting close.’

  Gloria grabbed her sister’s arm in excitement. ‘Look, Edith!’

  They both stopped and stared in awe. ‘The City of David,’ Edith whispered reverently. ‘I never thought we’d make it.’

  ‘Well, we’re not there yet, so we gotta keep trucking,’ Emil reminded them. ‘We’ve got maybe another half-mile to go, then we can –’

  Gloria gasped and clutched her heart, a stricken look on her face, and Emil felt the paralysis of a sudden certainty that she was going to croak right here and now, and he would be sitting on Death Row by next week.

  ‘What? What’s wrong?’ Emil was fluttering around Gloria, trying to get a read on her condition.

  ‘The gifts, Emil! We didn’t bring any gifts for the child! Oh, Edith, how could we have forgotten the most important part of the book?’

  Edith was now equally distressed. ‘Oh, no. You’re so right, Gloria, and this is all my fault. I totally left that out of my preparations. Whatever will we do?’

  Emil stepped back. He gave them both a little space and a hastily manufactured reassuring smile. He didn’t have a lot of practical skills, but the one thing he could do was think fast on his feet. ‘Hey, you two, relax, okay? We’re walking straight into a shopping mecca – we can pick up a few things along the way. Whatever you want, no problem, I’ve got you covered.’

  Gloria seemed to calm down a little, but she was still doubtful. ‘We’re supposed to bring gold, frankincense and myrrh.’

  Emil nodded confidently. ‘Tons of gold and frankincense and myrrh where we’re going. It’s all over the place. They probably even have vending machines on the street that sell it.’

  ‘Really?’ Edith asked.

  ‘Oh, yeah, for sure.’

  Gloria sighed and looked heavenward. ‘Well, that’s a relief.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Emil said, his voice a little shaky from his near-brush with disaster. ‘That is a relief.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  It was fully dark by the time Emil, Edith and Gloria finally reached Las Vegas. Unfortunately, they came into the city on the seedy side of town off the old Strip. Then again, they looked pretty seedy themselves after a night and a day in the desert, so maybe this was exactly the right way to enter Sin City. Or the City of David, depending on your point of view.

  Emil looked around at the low-rent casinos and strip clubs, the triple-X dives that sold rooms in fifteen-minute increments, and the desperate, last-chance gamblers crowding the narrow sidewalks as they moved from one establishment to another, hoping they’d find the one slot machine that was just a pull away from the next big pay-off. No way he could leave the sisters alone out here while he ducked into one of those places to use a phone, and he wasn’t about to drag them into a flesh show.

  Edith was looking around in awe, like a little kid at her first carnival. ‘I never imagined the City of David would have so many lights.’

  Emil wondered what they would think of the swanky new Strip with the palatial casinos, gardens right out of Babylon, the dancing fountains at the Bellagio. He almost wished he could show them. ‘It gets a lot better than this. We came in on the wrong side of town.’ He looked back at Gloria, who was lagging again, stopping every few feet. ‘Come on, Gloria, pick it up. We’ve got a ways to go.’

  Gloria gave him a glassy look. ‘What? Oh. Sorry. I don’t know why I’m so tired.’

  Edith linked arms with Gloria. ‘You’re tired because we’re walking too fast. Emil, you have to slow down.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we can’t slow down. The bus station’s another few blocks and I’ve got to find a pawnshop on the way.’

  Gloria tipped her head, confused. ‘We have to take a bus to find the child?’

  ‘You’re not taking anything anywhere. You’re going to sit on a bench while I call Nurse Griffin and have her pick you up … Edith? Where do you think you’re going?’

  He watched in horror as she dragged Gloria with her toward a sleazy motel where a skinny meth-head-looking guy was standing at the door smoking a cigarette. He sized up Edith and Gloria menacingly as they approached him. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Is the child here?’ Edith asked.

  ‘No kids allowed.’ He looked askance at their dirty, disheveled costumes. ‘You look like you spent the night in the desert.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, we did,’ Edith said, with great importance as she shook sand off her robe. ‘It was a small sacrifice for the reward that awaits us.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, your reward isn’t here, so keep walking. There’s no room. We’re all booked up.’

  Gloria lifted her chin imperiously. ‘We know that. It’s in the book.’

  Emil jogged up from behind and pulled them back, redirecting their course. ‘Come on, come on, we’ve got to keep moving. This guy can’t help us.’

  Gloria was wringing her hands. ‘But how are we going to find the child? The glow is everywhere.’

  Edith took her sister’s hands and patted them gently. ‘Don’t worry, dear. We will be shown the way.’

  Emil dropped his head and pressed his temples, trying to ease the headache that was drilling him right between the eyes. ‘Yeah, we will be shown the way, so just keep those feet moving, okay, Gloria?’

  After walking a couple of relatively uneventful blocks, Emil’s tattered nerves were starting to settle. The sisters were passively following him and the bus station was getting closer with every step. On the downside, Gloria was moving more slowly by the minute, but they’d be resting soon enough.

  But on the next block, his feeble Utopia crumbled as they ran into another obstacle – some raggedy homeless dude with long, straggly hair and a filthy overcoat that dragged on the ground. He was pushing a grocery cart whi
le he swilled from a bottle of wine.

  The man stopped in his tracks when he noticed the magi costumes and pointed at them. ‘Hey, you look like someone I know.’

  ‘Can you tell us where the child is?’ Edith asked hopefully.

  He tipped his head curiously, drained the bottle and tossed it into his shopping cart. ‘Okay. Yeah. Sure I can. You got something for me?’

  Emil put himself between the sisters and the homeless guy. ‘Now wait a minute, you two. This character doesn’t know where any child is. He just wants a handout.’

  ‘I do too know where the child is.’

  Emil sneered at him. ‘Oh, yeah? What child?’

  ‘The one they’re looking for.’

  ‘Oh, you’re really slick.’

  Edith touched his arm. ‘Emil, don’t be rude.’ She turned back to the homeless man. ‘What can we give you?’

  ‘You got something to drink?’

  ‘Of course!’ Before Emil could react, Edith had shoved her hand into the backpack Emil was carrying for them, pulled out the last can of Ensure and handed it over.

  The man regarded the can skeptically. ‘That’s all you got?’

  ‘Yes, that’s all we got,’ Emil snapped, but Edith was too quick.

  She pulled the backpack off his shoulder and turned it over to the bum, who snatched it up greedily and started digging through the meager contents. ‘We don’t have anything else. Will you tell us where the child is now?’

  He opened the Ensure can with grimy fingers and took a swig. ‘Down that way about ten blocks, you can’t miss it … Man, this stuff is disgusting.’ He turned and ambled away, his cart clattering on the sidewalk.

  Emil threw up his hands in frustration. ‘Oh, this is just great. Are you happy now? You gave everything you had to some drunk and what did you get for it?’ He turned to face the women, and felt his stomach bind up in panicky knots. Gloria was suddenly sagging against Edith, trying to stay upright. ‘Hey, you don’t look so good, Gloria.’

  ‘Emil’s right, dear. You need to rest.’

  ‘No. We have to press on.’ She stumbled forward, Edith supporting her.

  Emil watched in complete exasperation as the sisters continued walking. After a few seconds, he chased after them, the long skirt of his costume tripping him. ‘Would you two be reasonable? Listen to me! Gloria, you’re going to kill yourself. Edith, look at her! You can’t let her do this!’

  ‘We have to do it, Emil. It wasn’t easy for the first wise men, either.’

  Gloria nodded weakly. ‘No, it wasn’t. Of course, they had camels.’

  In disbelief, Emil watched the sisters walk away. ‘Okay. Okay. You want to kill yourselves, fine. You want to drop dead in Vegas, fine. I got my own problems …’ He winced when he saw Gloria stumble and drop to one knee. Edith pulled her up and they kept struggling forward.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he muttered, racing after them. ‘You two, stop, stand right here, and don’t you move one muscle!’ He looked around desperately, then jumped into the street and flagged a passing taxi.

  The cabbie rolled down his window, eyeing Emil’s costume with mild interest. ‘Where to?’

  ‘I got a real sick woman here! An elderly woman! Can you take her to the hospital?’

  ‘Sure. Show me the money.’

  Emil’s jaw dropped. ‘What? What? I’m telling you I got a sick elderly woman dying on the street and you want to see the money before you take her to the hospital? It’s Christmas Eve – what kind of a man are you?’

  ‘Five fifty to the hospital. Without tip.’

  Emil was shifting on his feet frantically. ‘Listen, I don’t exactly have cash …’

  The cabbie shook his head and put the taxi into gear.

  ‘WAIT! WAIT!’ Emil yanked the gold band off his finger and handed it over. ‘Eighteen carat gold. That worth a ride to the hospital, you cheap bastard?’

  The cabbie examined the ring for a few moments, then squinted at the engraving on the inside, frowning. ‘Is this on a hot sheet somewhere? Because I am not going to be trying to pawn something on a hot sheet and end up with that kind of trouble.’

  Emil glowered at him. ‘It’s not on a hot sheet.’

  ‘So who’s Moses Rice?’

  Emil looked back at the sisters. Gloria’s knees were buckling again and Edith was trying to prop her up. ‘He was my grandpa. Are you going to take us to the hospital or not?’

  The cabbie followed Emil’s gaze. ‘Yeah, okay. Get the old ladies in here.’

  He let out a shaky breath. ‘Thanks. And don’t mention the hospital, okay? They think they’re going somewhere else.’

  ‘Whatever. Hurry up. I don’t have all night.’

  ‘Who does?’ Emil snapped, as he draped Gloria’s arm over his shoulder, lifted her by the waist, and carried her to the cab. She was a wispy little thing, a hundred and five pounds at most. Emil had thrown iron around in prison a lot heavier than her.

  Once he got her settled in the backseat, he crawled in next to her and felt her forehead. ‘How are you doing, Gloria?’

  ‘Much better now that I’m off my feet. But I am a bit cold.’

  Emil caught the cabbie’s eye in the rearview mirror. ‘Can you turn up the heat, man?’

  He nodded and adjusted the vents. ‘She’s pretty sick, huh?’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. You got any water up there? I think she’s dehydrated.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Anything to drink or eat?’

  ‘This is a cab, not a food truck.’

  Edith crawled into the cab, leaned across Emil, and stroked her sister’s cheek. ‘Everything’s going to be all right, dear. Just rest.’

  Gloria smiled weakly.

  Emil jerked his head up when the cabbie slid the Plexiglas safety divider open and passed back a bottle of Gatorade and a Snickers bar. ‘This was supposed to be my dinner,’ he complained.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  To Emil’s incalculable relief, Gloria made an astonishing recovery once she had some food and liquid inside her. She’d shared part of the treasure with Edith and, by all appearances, the sisters seemed pretty much their old selves, carrying on a running commentary about the lights and sights outside the window. They were tough old gals, tougher than they looked.

  Emil took off his fez and wiped his brow. Their heavy costumes had been great out in the cool night air, but with the heat cranked, he felt like a lobster in a pot. To make matters worse, the sisters started fussing and brushing at their robes, stirring up a dust storm.

  Emil sneezed into his sleeve. ‘Can you two just wait five minutes and do that outside?’

  ‘Emil, we can’t possibly visit the child looking like this. We’re a fright.’ Edith started on his robe now, dislodging even more sand in the closed cab.

  He stilled her hand, feeling the ropy burn scars against his palm. For a brief moment, she wasn’t Edith anymore, she was just a little girl caught in a fire, watching her sister burn to death. He tried to shake off the disturbing image, but it lingered on the fringes of his consciousness. ‘We’ll get fluffed and buffed once we get there, okay?’

  Edith gave him a distraught look, and when she spoke, her voice was a pitch or two higher than it normally was. ‘But we won’t have time, Emil. The child is waiting for us.’

  Emil felt another nasty knot of panic form in his stomach. Oh, man, he was in it deep. Up until now, their delusions had been an abstract concept to him, a harmless idiosyncrasy that was mildly amusing. But he was beginning to understand that it was their absolute, incontestable reality, sure as he knew the sky was blue. And what was going to happen when they realized there wasn’t a child and their delusions shattered?

  ‘We’ll have plenty of time, Edith,’ he reassured her, hoping he sounded convincing. ‘We’re not going to be able to see the child right away anyhow.’

  ‘But why not? We’re dignitaries. They can’t possibly keep us waiting.’

  �
�Well … uh … first of all, there’s going to be a lot of red tape. There’s a lot more of it now than there was two thousand years ago. Regulations, stuff like that. It could take a while.’

  Edith nodded. ‘I never thought of that. I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘So just sit tight, okay? Be patient.’

  ‘Yes, we can do that.’

  Emil sagged back in the seat and closed his eyes. This was maybe going to work out, after all. He’d get to the hospital fast, drop the ladies off at ER, call Nurse Griffin, then pawn Ralph’s Rolex for some road money.

  They’d made good time for the first five minutes, but once they turned onto the main drag, traffic was crawling. Emil cracked open his window and sucked in the exhaust fumes they were idling in, which was just slightly better than breathing sand. At least Gloria still looked good and alert.

  ‘Are you feeling better, dear?’ Edith asked her.

  ‘Much better. This is so nice.’ She leaned forward and patted the cabbie’s shoulder. ‘Bless you, young man, for driving us. I don’t think I could have walked another step.’

  Emil snorted. ‘Oh, right, he’s the Good Samaritan is what he is.’

  ‘I’m Gloria, and this is my sister Edith, and you’ve already met Emil, of course. He takes care of us.’

  ‘He takes wonderful care of us,’ Edith agreed.

  The cabbie gave Emil a dubious look in the rearview mirror.

  ‘I just can’t imagine what we would have done without him,’ Gloria prattled on, making Emil nervous.

  ‘Gloria, settle down, you’re getting all red in the face. Hey, man, why aren’t we moving? What’s all the traffic about?’

  ‘Everybody in town’s lining up for that kid.’

  Gloria smiled and clasped her hands to her heart. ‘Oh, of course!’

  Emil’s heart skipped a few beats. ‘Kid?’

  The cabbie turned a corner and nosed up to the curb. Emil leaned forward to get a better look out of the windshield. His eyes widened and his mouth sagged open. Just ahead, there were police cars with lights flashing, roadblocks, television news crews, and hundreds of people in a long line outside the hospital.