Where Fortune Lies

by James Short

  Franklin gathered her up and held her like he had done when she was a child. He struggled to find comforting words. “Tom will be fine. He knows this town better than the rest of us put together.”

  Penelope became aware that the gash below his ear had begun to bleed again.

  “Oh dear.” She picked up her veil and with extraordinary accuracy and gentleness pressed it against the wound. She was still ministering to Franklin when Tom appeared with Jacinto and Thornton.

  Tom shook his head at the sight of Franklin and said, “In order to keep a better eye on the town and his men, Kurtz has taken over the church. He is also holding Reverend Culpepper and the reverend’s wife to discourage people like me from gunplay.”

  Jacinto spoke up: “With darkness and fog on our side, my friend, we can move quickly and get to the boat.”

  “The pistoleros are too spread out to find us and stop us, and once we’re on the water, well, I doubt Kurtz brought any sailors with him,” Tom said to Penny squeezing her hand.

  “Do you plan to sail all the way to China?” Thornton queried. “Giving Kurtz the slip here isn’t going to make him give up.”

  “Killing him will,” Penny said, ashamed of wishing she could see to aim a gun.

  “Unlawfulness of murder aside, it’s too risky,” Thornton said. “However we go about this, the whole town will suffer the consequences unless he has your corpse.”

  “Tom, your job is to get Penny to the boat,” Franklin said, breaking the silence following Thornton’s comment. “Sail up the coast to San Francisco. I have a friend in Chinatown who will help you from there on. Leave Kurtz to me.”

  “Meaning you’re going to kill him?” Tomàs asked.

  “On the contrary, I’m going to give him exactly what he wants—or at least what he thinks he wants. You just keep Penny safe, Tom.” Franklin then laid out his plan. “It’s really the only way,” he said to the stunned group.

  “That’s a fancy way to commit suicide,” Thornton observed.

  “Strength, timing, thick fog, and Jacinto’s special talents are what we need to pull it off.” Franklin alone seemed pleased with the odds. “Besides, Tom, if I read you right, you’re not planning to abandon your people here to Mr. Kurtz and his gunslingers—especially since you’re the cause of the mess they will be paying for.”

  “I could at least take Penny to a safe place,” Tomàs replied in a tense whisper.

  “How could you ever believe I’m going to let myself be parted from you?” Penelope exclaimed. “We either live together or die together!”

  Both Franklin and Tomàs could recognize the tone of unassailable stubbornness and realized they’d have to bind and gag her to make her submit.

  “So there you have it,” Franklin said. “An all-out gunfight or my plan.”

  “You’re depending on me being in two places at once,” Thornton argued.

  “Two places that are very proximate. I’ve no doubt you’ll do your part,” Franklin replied.

  “I can do what you ask,” Jacinto said. “But I don’t believe you fly away just like bird.”

  “In a manner of speaking, that is just what I will do,” Franklin confirmed.

  Philip paused in his telling. “You seem cold, April. Should we go back to the hotel?”

  “Not yet. Maybe, not ever. How did you learn all of this?”

  “Gaspar,” Philip lied. “He first approached me in Denny’s and told me that his father said the treasure was where an honest man would put it.” Philip laughed. “All I needed to do was to give up something of equal worth. I told him I didn’t want to work for nothing, but I was still curious.”

  “He really said the treasure was where an honest man would hide it?” April queried.

  “Yes.”

  “I think he was just trying to mislead you, unless… It does make sense.” April finished the conversation with herself of which Philip heard one half. “I need to go back to the museum, you know the one we visited on the fourth day, and talk to Augustus, the curator. If you’re right, then he might be that honest man. You can finish telling me the story on the way.”

  Rematch

  Robert Thornton Middleton arrived at cliff five minutes after April and Philip had left. He parked the car and sat trying to think through his next move when his cell phone rang.

  “Got him, Bob.” Robert Thornton Middleton’s uncle was the only person who called him “Bob.”

  “Who?”

  “Your Father Hornsby or Perkins. Your chess-playing phony priest thief. To me, he’s Aquino.”

  “What do you mean, Uncle Gus, by ‘Got him?’” A note of exasperation crept into Middleton’s voice.

  “I locked him in the bathroom. I hear him trying to get out through the window now. Don’t worry, the window is very tiny and barred. A seven-year-old pigmy couldn’t get out through that window.”

  “Don’t be too sure with him. I’ll be there right away.”

  Middleton didn’t begrudge his Uncle Gus’s look of immense pride when he opened the door to the museum. In the presence of his beaming uncle, Middleton knocked on the bathroom door. “Perkins?” he called.

  There was silence.

  “Hornsby?” He ventured.

  Still no response

  “You might try his real name—Aquino,” Augustus suggested.

  “Aquino, I know you’re in there. I’m going to unlock the door. I expect you to throw your weapon down and then come out with your hands raised.”

  “I don’t have a weapon aside from a Swiss Army knife,” Aquino replied, from the other side of the door. “And I won’t put my hands up because it’s a silly gesture if you are unarmed. You have my promise I will cooperate so long as you don’t compromise my dignity.”

  “Imprisonment might compromise your dignity,” Middleton said.

  “No, on the contrary, considering that many of the best human beings who have graced this earth served time in prison. I will surrender the McBride’s jewelry and all the tools of my trade, however I won’t allow you to bodily search me. In fact, you will have to shoot me before you can do that.”

  “That doesn’t sound like cooperation to me. You must understand that an officer of the law can’t take the word of the suspect as to what he is carrying on his person.”

  “Well, then open the door and look inside,” Aquino responded. “I think you will agree that I’m cooperating to an unusual degree. I could have left ten minutes ago, but decided to stay.”

  “I find it hard to believe you’re giving yourself up willingly.”

  “How else could we have a chess rematch? So if you promise me another game tonight before you take me in, I’ll let you arrest me peacefully. Open the door. I’ll be standing by the sink with my hands at my side. If you can’t find it in yourself to trust me and try to search me, then you better shoot me first.”

  “Is he armed?” Middleton whispered to his uncle.

  “I would think not. He’s too cocky to think he needs to carry a weapon,” Augustus replied.

  “Okay, I promise a rematch.” Middleton unlocked the door and let it swing open. Aquino stood by the sink, regarding his arresting sheriff with interest. What surprised him was Aquino bore little resemblance to Hornsby or the Sonoran fieldworker except perhaps in height, and a bend at the end of the nose, although the noses of Hornsby and Ignacio were broader and flatter.

  Middleton approached cautiously. The toilet next to the sink had been removed; the surrounding tiles pulled up and neatly piled in the corner, and the drainage pipe pushed aside leaving a gaping hole in the floor. Maybe his thief could have fitted through it, maybe not.

  “Here are the tools of my trade.” Aquino threw a small backpack on the ground. “And the jewelry of the McBrides. All of it. I’m sure that they’ve added items to their insurance claim, but you’ll have to take my word they are lying.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Middleton tried to sound noncommittal.

  “If you hadn’t trounced me
so badly at chess, I would have never allowed you to arrest me. Remember your part of this deal is to give me a rematch.”

  Robert Middleton briefly tried to return Aquino’s dark penetrating stare, then said, “Whether it is beneath your dignity or not, I must handcuff you.”

  “Really.” Aquino held out his wrists. Middleton snapped on the cuffs.

  “I only let you handcuff me because I never have had many opportunities to demonstrate this.” He shook his hands, and the cuffs slid off. “If it makes you feel more comfortable I’ll keep them on.” Aquino slithered his hands back into the cuffs. “Do you happen to have a straightjacket? I haven’t had the opportunity to slip out of one of those in years. I can’t stop a bullet, although I once shot at a magician who claimed he could catch bullets with his teeth. You see, Detective Middleton, you will just have to trust that I’ll cooperate because I want the rematch.”

  “And then you’ll escape?”

  “Yes, after the rematch and we part company, I will most likely reject your city’s hospitality, but why should you worry. You have the advantage of surveillance cameras and guards and bars and bricks. You might even consider putting a GPS tracker on my ankle—the type that emits a loud beep when you remove it. That will make escaping an interesting challenge.”

  “I don’t think we’ll take the suggestion of the GPS anklet because that assumes you can escape.”

  “It does. Now, let’s get my Miranda rights over with. Anything I say may be held against me, et cetera, et cetera. I have a right to an attorney present, et cetera, et cetera. I confess to fifty-eight burglaries over the last ten years. I will give you the details if you wish, although that will be a tedious waste of time. What you might find interesting is that I also confess to over a thousand break-ins. I could have cleaned out your beloved Solvidado several times over if I had not exercised commendable self-restraint. Will you interrogate me on the break-ins also?”

  “I’ll make sure we will interrogate you on all your crimes including impersonating a priest,” Middleton said, trying to paste on his face the expression of professional dislike.

  “Why do you think I was impersonating?”

  “Father Hornsby and Father Perkins—two of your false identities.” Middleton sensed that Aquino was about to make an objection so hurried to the next question. “What happened to Mrs. Ives?”

  “I believe she may be jumping off a cliff about now.”

  Robert Middleton remembered the cord with the hangman’s knot on the floor of the hotel room. “Why didn’t you try to stop the poor woman or, at least, inform me immediately?” he said angrily.

  “Well, I was locked in a bathroom. Anyway, my deal with Mrs. Ives was I would not stop her if she went along with me to try to find the Deering treasure. I ministered to her most of the night, showing her the great world beyond self-pity. If she still doesn’t think life worth the effort, then she has my prayers. I leave it to God to negotiate with her free will.”

  “According to Hal who called to see whether you came by, you were using the young woman for an experiment in communicating with the dead,” Augustus added.

  “Please, Gus, I have never engaged in that sort of superstitious nonsense,” Aquino replied.

  “Do have an idea where she’s going to jump?” Middleton asked.

  “Point Partida, where else? If you’re going to stop her, I’d like to come along.”

  “I was just there.” Middleton shivered. “She must have jumped before I arrived.”

  “Let’s hope not. Take me along. I might be of use.”

  Aquino requested to sit in the front seat. Middleton, not willing to dispute the point, acceded.

  The drive took less than three minutes. A distant street lamp cast a garish green glow on the bare rocky point that jutted out over the ocean. On arriving, Aquino vaulted out of the car. He sprinted to the cliff, flattened himself on his stomach and moved forward until his head and shoulders were dangling over the edge. Middleton followed on hands and knees and, shining a flashlight on the black wet surfaces, strained his eyes staring down to make out what he could.

  “I can’t be sure,” Aquino said. “It’s still too dark to see anything. Hand me the flashlight.”

  Middleton passed it to him and asked, “Is there a way to the bottom?” Then he couldn’t help adding, “I thought you were tired of her.”

  “Do you have rope in your car?” Aquino put down the flashlight and rubbed his eyes. “If it’s long enough, I could reach the beginning of the rockslide. If her body isn’t there, then I could climb down and look in the tide pools.”

  Middleton, always thoroughly prepared, found a coil of rope in the trunk of his car.

  “You go or I go?” Aquino asked. “Either way you’ll have to trust me.”

  “You first, Perkins, Hornsby or Aquino?”

  “When I’m not wearing the cloth, I prefer my secular name.”

  “Your real name?”

  “All my names are real.”

  Aquino quickly attached the rope to the footings of a cement bench and descended as easily as a spider sliding along its silken thread. Stopping near the bottom, he used a hand to explore a niche in the rocks. He pulled out a bundle, and then he continued down. Middleton followed, unwilling to demonstrate less agility than his prisoner.

  The ocean was oddly flat, and the smell was more like rotting grass or plowed earth than the usual odor of brine and seaweed. Aquino jumped from rock to rock, searching the tide pools and crevices. When Middleton caught up with him, Aquino had spread out part of an old rope cargo net into a rough approximation of a chess board. He had also collected thirty-two stones, sixteen dark and sixteen light, which had a vague similarity to chess pieces. The dawn light was beginning to creep across the sky.

  “Shall we play?” Aquino asked.

  “We are supposed to be searching for a body,” Middleton asserted.

  “April either changed her mind or chose another cliff. By the way, your great grandfather, James Thornton, did he ever catch the gold fever? Was he one of those who stayed in Solvidado to look for the treasure?”

  “From what I heard, my great grandfather thought the treasure hunting was more bunk than sense. The size of the treasure grew every year in people’s imagination until it began to rival the treasures of El Dorado.”

  “Where would an honest man hide a treasure?” Aquino posed the question which seemed to be bothering everyone.

  “Take it from a police detective: honest men don’t hide money that isn’t theirs.”

  “So if the gold isn’t hidden, why can’t we see it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Middleton replied.

  Aquino sighed, then said: “I feel invincible tonight. I’m certain I can mate you. By the way, your great grandfather never looked for the treasure because he probably knew where an honest man would put it. He also probably knew why this old net I’ve made into our chessboard would have been hidden in a niche in the face of the cliff—a not unrelated question, I believe.”

  On the Night in Question

  The chess game at the base of the cliff ended predictably with a win for Robert Thornton Middleton. Aquino hadn’t taken into account an obstinate pawn that insisted on sacrificing itself for great profit. The end of his nose twitched when he admitted, “Maybe chess isn’t my game.”

  Middleton didn’t reply. He only confirmed that Aquino wouldn’t attempt an escape on the way to jail. If Middleton had been a greater devotee of the truth, he might have shown Aquino how his gambit would have succeeded. The series of moves as he reasoned them out had a surpassing logic and loveliness. However, as always, duty before art.

  Aquino felt some satisfaction that poor Middleton wasn’t able to disguise the effort it cost him climb up the sixty feet of rope. He still felt querulous not only because of his defeat but also because he couldn’t figure out why the net had been hidden—actually carefully folded—in the crevice. He suspected it had to do with the stolen gold.
Ideas he could barely give any credence floated to the surface of his consciousness, then dissolved. He heard hooves and saw the dim forms of the pursuers in his mind’s eye. He brought the net with him when he followed Middleton, but on reaching the top of the cliff, it came apart in his hands. With a shrug and the thought, Vanity of vanities, Aquino dropped the remnants back down.

  Jacinto had revealed to Philip how the old cargo net fit into the puzzle. He did so begrudgingly perhaps because the information could not have come from anyone but a ghost.

  “God be with you, Franklin.” Jacinto bowed his head slightly as if he were saying a prayer.

  “God be with you, Jacinto,” Franklin replied. “I much prefer my part to yours.”

  “Ah, my friend, some labor of love is not so pretty, but it is still love, and the dead make no complaint.”

  “Franklin…” Penny couldn’t finish the sentence. He took her hands and kissed them. “Franklin, thank you, thank you.”

  “Franklin…” Tomàs began.

  “There’s no other way, Tom. You take care of Penny. I take care of Kurtz.”

  First Thornton and Jacinto left, exiting through the ruined ballroom and out the door, one half of which had been torn off its hinges. A few minutes later, Tomàs and Penelope made their escape out the back. Tomàs heard an odd sound like a child’s laughter as he passed through the kitchen, but was soon distracted by the problem of putting Penelope on a horse

  “I have so much wanted to make friends with you,” Penelope told the shifting and stamping animal, trying to pat its nose. Mounting was awkward, but gamely she lifted her skirt and was achieved on the second try. She leaned tight into Tomàs as they rode down a back trail.

  Madeleine Boller had heard them arrive—the thief and her daughter sneaking through the kitchen door. The thief leaving. Thornton and Jacinto tethering their horses out front, Franklin on foot. The thief returning.

  It was funny. They seemed to have forgotten her existence. Even if they had glanced into the parlor they might not have noticed the shrunken old woman as still as a waxwork in the chair. She heard their voices upstairs and knew they were plotting the escape. She was careful to make no noise, but when the sheriff and that terrible fat brown man walked past her, she had trouble containing her joy at her own cunning. They rode away. Next came the thief and her daughter, easily discerned because of the lighter footsteps. She bit her arm to stop herself from giggling. They rode away also. Finally came the one she was waiting for—Franklin.