Golden Throat (Cable Denning Mystery Series Book 1)

by James P. Alsphert

  “Lucky it’s a big universe with a lot of room for mistakes, eh?” I quipped, looking out of the hotel window down to the street below. Of course none of it seemed real to me. I had suspended belief so much in the past few months that I really didn’t have any idea what I believed.

  “There was one very brilliant Chinese whose name comes down to us as Qin shi Tai Kang. He reportedly possessed great knowledge of transposition of matter into spirit and vice versa. When his progenitor race discovered the original Fen de Fuqin, it resided at the center of the known universe in a timeless, ageless zone known as The Forever. Now mind you, none of this was written. As in the Chinese language to this day, it is symbols that represent the words. Qin shi Tai Kang knew this and through revelation and divination, was able to duplicate in vibrational form, the meaning of the Fen de Fuqin. This miraculous piece of doing not only told of Creation’s origin itself, but why Creation occurred in the first place! Through his exceptional alchemy and magical powers, Qin shi Tai Kang fashioned a replica out of pure gold and ‘borrowed’ some of the direct energy of the original gyroscope of the cosmos to animate it with equal power and access to its parent.”

  The priest was transfixed. He stood in the middle of the room shaking his head in utter dismay. “How can such things be? Not even the Adamos Texts speak of this.”

  Jedediah reached to his little stand for a glass and took a sip of water. “So, to make a long story short, this precious was kept in sacred fashion in Qin shi Tai Kang’s dynastic clan until he could no longer perpetuate his life. Before he left, however, he fashioned some magic lotus seeds. One of those seeds would give birth to a female protectorate of the capsule, the immortal and sacred goddess, Nymphaea Nelumbo. So humans couldn’t get their hands on it, he wisely hid the precious on a dimensional plane once removed from this one. The lotus seeds were planted at the bottom of a dry Chinese lake and every time the drought was broken and the rains came, the Red Dragon Lady would be re-born from the lotus and stay in human form long enough to check on things and make sure all was well. If she did not go back to the bottom of the lake when the waters receded, she would be doomed to remain until the next cycle.”

  I was thinking of Lei-tao and realizing what a really extraordinary being she must truly be! For being such a babe and all, it was hard for me to imagine that she was possibly many thousands of years old. And she wasn’t even a human—but some kind of hybrid between a plant pod and a goddess!

  “So the Fen de Fuqin remained for many centuries undisturbed. Then a mischievous group of evil beings, the Erggarath, discovered by accident its whereabouts and stole it. The most powerful single Order on earth, the Oculus Pyramis Mandatum wrested it from the Erggarath. What no one knew at the time, however, was that if the capsule itself were confiscated, the core of it, known as the Tone of Creation could not follow. Therefore, no matter how one might try, without that property, the secrets cannot be ascertained by mortal means. So the Order did the next best thing. They microfilmed the exterior content of the golden capsule, which of course was a series of hieroglyphic-like symbols, and etched it onto a golden replica that contained every single detail of the capsule’s communicative symbols.”

  “So who stole the capsule from the Oculus?” the priest asked.

  “Ah, that would have to be my little Chinese girlfriend, Lei-tao,” I said. “She’s kind of the Virgin Mary of the Oriental set, pure, untouchable but, uh, shall we say, having the pre-possessing nature of a curious woman. Then, of course, I never evoked her wrath, which I hear gives her the reputation of someone you don’t wanna be around for a few hundred years.”

  “So, Mr. Denning, you obtained the capsule from this Red Dragon Lady?” the priest inquired.

  “Yeah, in a sort of roundabout way. Then a duplicate was made by one of her very clever little elves and I gave that to Ravna. Now we’re all caught up. Isn’t that nice? So, now all we have to worry about is the fury that will be set loose on us when the guys back at the ol’ Oculus get the bad news they’ve been duped.”

  “Indeed,” Dr. Penn mused. “Indeed…well, looking on the brighter side, maybe it’s getting near that time for many of us to cancel out of the old earth plane existence anyhow. What do you say, Cable?”

  “I don’t know. I think I’ll have to cross that bridge when I get to it. I’m overwhelmed enough. What about you? Well, Father Tortelli, did you find Dr. Penn’s tutorial a bit on the thick and unbelievable side?”

  He laughed lightly. “Yes, I—I guess you might say that. It’s not exactly a story one would hear every day now, is it?”

  “No, it ain’t…so savor it…you may never hear one like it again. Now that the Fen de Fuqin is safe and sound back home, what’s your next step?”

  “I cannot say. I will report exactly what you have told me here. I personally think it’s resolved and we should make no further effort to procure the object—even if we could.”

  “I hope your superiors…feel the same way, Father Tortelli,” Jedediah mused. “It would be tragic for a new search to get underway. It is always costly in many ways, not to mention the people who die needlessly on such a quest—more or less like the search for the Grail, isn’t it? An endless, ruthless crusade—and for what? Plunder? Glory? History?”

  Jedediah and I shook hands with Father Carlo Tortelli and let him out into the hallway where his two companions awaited.

  “Son-of-a-bitch, Jedediah—where do all these people come from? It’s like we’ve got no secrets from anyone!”

  “We don’t. Secrecy in the universe is also an illusion. Come on, Cable, relax…and enjoy the evening. It’s later than you think.”

  He had me draw up a chair closer to him and spoke in low tones. “I saw the lake, Cable!” he whispered. “It really does exist. The area is beautiful, with green plains, meadows, rolling foothills to the East—and dozens of lakes, really. But there is one about two miles from Qinghai Lake—one that strangely goes dry, mysteriously drains away its waters, then when the rainy season is abundant, refills.” He motioned me to go to a dresser and open it.

  “That strange greenish thing.” I took out a roughly disc-shape seed pod about the size of a silver dollar. It had symmetrical holes in which, it seemed, to hold the actual seeds themselves. I brought it to Jedediah.

  “Now…this little gem, Cable…Nelumbo Nucifera…has the outstanding ability to control her temperature, just as warm-blooded creatures do.”

  “Wha—what the?” I remarked. “How can that be, my dear Dr. Penn?”

  “Who knows? But that is why Lei-tao remains relatively warm when she incarnates.” He studied my eyes. “Now I know what you’re thinking. How can a plant also become a human in form and function?”

  “Yeah, something like that. For God’s sake, Jedediah, I held her, kissed her,

  had Tantric sex with her and felt all the things humans—”

  “—you what?! Cable, you’ll kill her! She was never meant for your use as a

  common sexual creature in this dimension!”

  “Well, sorry about that, but after the second kiss she didn’t seem to mind.

  She just told me regular sex was taboo, that’s all.”

  “Damn, don’t you young bucks know how to keep it in your pants? Not all of life is having sex like a damn jump-lizard on a warm fence, you know!”

  “If you knew Lei-tao like I know Lei-tao—”

  “—it doesn’t matter. Keep your hands off, Cable. Believe me, you’ll destroy her—and in doing so, upset the dimensional balances.”

  “Okay, okay, Jedediah. No more touchy-touchy, I promise.”

  “Good. Now,” he continued examining the Nelumbo Nucifera pod with me.

  “Notice carefully, all the seeds are present in the greenish pod. Lei-tao’s seed pod, however, is red and if examined carefully, one will find a single seed missing."

  “Now don’t tell me, that is our absentee little Red Dragon Lady doing her thing back at the ranch with the Tone of Creation.”

>   “You needn’t be so smug, Cable. This is serious. We didn’t create this vast cosmos, but whoever and whatever did, knew what they were doing. When Lei-tao restores the Tone of Creation to the capsule, things will hum again like they’re supposed to in her realm. Maybe even ours.”

  “I doubt that. Humans always find a way to fuck things up, or haven’t you noticed?” He ignored my snide comment and continued.

  “So, when I saw the red pod at the bottom of the lake, I left it there but not before discovering that one seed was missing. If that one becomes lost or destroyed, Lei-tao has many ‘sisters’ in the other dormant seeds that will take her place.”

  “You mean Lei-tao is a clone of herself?”

  “Yep, many times over.” I rubbed my head.

  “More than I can take in one night, Jedediah. So, how about that relaxing and enjoying you were talking about? I’ll stay until Polly comes back. I know she works hard and tirelessly for you. You’re lucky to have her as aid and companion.”

  “To be sure, Cable, to be sure…and speaking of which, I must tell you what’s in my heart. Sometimes an old man indulges in the moment because it doesn’t matter if he embarrasses himself anymore. It’s about this haunting vision I keep having about your exquisite Latina, your Adora. I keep feeling her heart. It aches for you. You are like the water that feeds her, my good, young man. She will wither and perish if someone like you doesn’t nourish her. Some women were born to be loved and are the best companions in the world. She is such a one.”

  I squirmed in my seat. Behind the seeming toughness of my look I knew what Jedediah Penn was talking about. I had felt it as well, but kept shoving it down because it was something I couldn’t face…something I had pushed away…a lamb I had sacrificed at the altar of relationship in this world. I’m sure I wasn’t the first or last who would make such a decision to maintain the moral equilibrium in our so-called “Western Civilization.” So, I ask…just how ‘civilized’ was abandonment—or leaving part of your heart with someone when your real truth lay just beneath the surface, knocking at your chest, telling you that maybe you turned left instead of right?

  “I know what you mean, Jedediah. What would you do if you walked in my shoes? Don’t you think I’ve tortured myself over it again and again? Out of sight, out of mind ain’t what I feel about Adora Moreno, doc. I told you, if it weren’t for Honey, I’d play it for keeps with Adora. But it’s too late for that now, why torture myself….”

  “But that’s just it, Cable. You will torture yourself all of your life. One day you’ll look back and wonder how you let her get away. It’s like having a glove that fits you perfectly, but then just tossing it away because you don’t know what else to do with it.”

  We talked for a while and I watched the old man fade away into the land of snooze. When Polly Parker returned, I hugged her silently and slipped out into the night.

  Tomorrow always came too soon.

  Chapter 13

  I’D KILL ANYONE FOR YOU

  Some tomorrows don’t come around so good. They start out with a bitter taste in your mouth and something in your gut keeps making you nervous and coffee and cigarettes just make it worse. Even the music you hear has a sour note or two in it and somehow you know something’s up. Around 9:30 a.m. when I called in, I was instructed to attend the aftermath of a homicide. I was supposed to put my siren on but I just took down the address and with my new rookie patrolman in tow, one 26 year-old wet-behind-the-ears fellow named Davie Spivak, I started out from Alvarado near Broadway. He was nephew to a noted trumpet player, Charlie Spivak, who recorded and played around the clubs back east with noted dance bandleader Paul Sprecht. But young Davie was not too musical and like a lot of the Ukrainian immigrant families, the new rookie took things pretty seriously.

  We drove up to 1225 Manzanita Street off of Fountain Avenue. For some reason I noticed the County Coroner’s vehicle had arrived ahead of us. I looked over at my spindly young fellow officer. “So, Davie, this is your first murder. Rule one. Expect anything. Humans can be cruel to each other. Sometimes you might think the dead person deserved what he got, other times you’ll think the whole world’s an unjust merry-go-round and nothing’s fair. Lump it and do your job, okay?”

  He looked at me with wide eyes. “Sure, Cable. Lead the way.”

  We walked up to a single little house with a broken down white-washed fence that had known better days and knocked on the door and the coroner’s assistant opened it. A pretty young blonde was sitting on the sofa blubbering, her head in her hands. The assistant led me into a tiny bedroom. On the floor sat a white, bloodstained bassinet. There inside lay the morning’s horror, the one my nervous gut had been warning about since I got up. This reminded me of what I had just finished saying to Davie Spivak. People stink. An infant child lay naked on a blanket of drying blood, both of its arms and head cut off and placed recklessly on top of the remaining corpse. The smell was that of old blood and feces and it overwhelmed the room. Instantly Officer Spivak put his hand to his mouth and ran back to the patrol car. I turned and walked slowly into the small living room where the woman sat, whimpering. The coroner’s assistant informed me that the woman had admitted she had killed her baby. Just then the coroner showed up. He was a burly man with small spectacles and always looked like he had a five-o’clock shadow. But Frank Nance knew his stuff. He summoned me outside.

  “Hello, Officer Denning. I noticed your new man’s a bit out of breath in the patrol car. Did you frighten him?” he joked.

  “Naw, he’s just not used to dead babies being dismembered, that’s all.”

  “Oh, gees…” he said as he looked into my sullen face. “You’re not kidding…” He took his bag and walked into the forbidding little room. I followed until I stood at the transom. He bent down over the child’s temporary coffin. “What kind of twisted mind does these things, Denning? I’ve seen it a hundred times in my career, but I’ve never gotten used to it. I just don’t understand.”

  “That makes two of us, Frank.” I turned and went to sit down across from the distraught young woman. “Ma’am, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you a few questions. Are you up to it? I mean, we can—”

  “—I did it! I killed my own baby today, okay?”

  I took a deep breath. I sat there wondering how the pieces to this puzzle would fit together. For instance, what motivates a lovely young woman, who couldn’t have been over twenty-five, to kill her own flesh and blood? What goes on inside that mind? Is it temporary insanity—or were the screws loose to begin with and society just never caught it? I went over to the phone and got the department. In cases like these, if the suspected perpetrator was female, then a female police officer was summoned to the location to take her to a county facility other than the main jail. “Yeah, send me Officer Rosario if she’s available. This is patrolman Cable Denning, badge #71416.. Yeah—of course—if it wasn’t homicide I wouldn’t be making this call. Yeah, 1225 Manzanita Street—the coroner’s already here. Okay, swell…soon as you can, I gotta get back on patrol.” I hung up and looked down at the lady on the couch who now was drying her eyes on her sleeve.

  “Will they kill me? If they do, I guess I deserve it…”

  “Maybe. You see, ma’am, our laws are full of things they call extenuating circumstances. So it’s up to the judge and jury.”

  She looked up at me, soft blue eyes reddened with tears and the unbearable emotion that now sat behind them seemed to speak to me, tell me I did it, I did it, I did it…and yeah, I’m glad I did it even though I’m in pain and I’m divided and don’t even know what the hell I’m doing or where I am! But I did it! So now punish me and let me die! She looked down at the dirty, coffee-stained rug. “I killed his baby…because it wasn’t mine…it was his—and he did it, he got me pregnant so I couldn’t see Randy anymore.” Then she got this sick, twisted smile on her face. “But you know, I fooled him. I killed his baby, to clear the way for me to be with Randy. Then I’ll have Randy’s baby—
and—and we’ll—we’ll be happy! I know he’ll want me even more now. He didn’t like me as much when I was carrying my ex-husband’s kid. Now he’ll want me, free and clear. You know, that’s just so swell, and how I like it with Randy—free and clear. And guess what?”

  “You tell me, Miss…what?”

  “I’d kill anyone for him. He’s going to take me to Chicago where his folks want to meet me—and we’re gonna dance, whoop it up, go out and have fun, dine in the best places—and find a nice place to live.”

  “Yeah, that’s swell,” I said, just keeping the conversation as loose as I could until Officer Rosario arrived.

  Then she looked at me more intensely. “You don’t believe me, do you? You’re a cop. To you I’m a murderess, huh? But I’ll be famous for a week or so, won’t I? Nobody ever paid much attention to me until I met Randy. He sells shoes. Travels a lot. He’s gone right now on the train to Salt Lake City. Then he’s coming back for me. I told him it’d all be over when he got back and we could go away. That made Randy happy. He wants me. I can tell. He wants me to have his baby. You see, I kept my word, didn’t I?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Donna…Donna Corson…of course that’s my maiden name. I would never use his name again.”

  I studied her face. “I…I don’t know what to say to you, Miss Corson. But you’ll have to go somewhere for detention.”

  “What’s that? Will Randy find me there?”

  “Oh, yeah, he’ll find you there alright. I don’t think you’re gonna be movin’ to Chicago anytime soon, however.”

  “As long as Randy can stay with me—can he stay with me there?”

  Just then Officer Alicia Rosario appeared at the door. She was a pretty big woman with a tough look. I liked her, though, because she never let emotion get in the way of her job. I introduced her to Donna Corson and let her take over. I quietly walked out of the little house and stood on the porch, listening to sparrows sing in a palm tree across the way. I lit up a Lucky Strike. I glanced into my patrol car and saw my new rookie sitting there upright, looking straight ahead out the windshield. Some guys are cut out for this life, but a lot aren’t. Attrition rates among young cops during these years were pretty high. On the surface it was a glory job, but once you got a taste of the underbelly of society, you’d be hard put to justify the existence of human beings at all in this cock-eyed world. For the most part they were self-serving, gave nothing back to the soil they took their sustenance from, and pretended to be some brand of ‘civilization,’ daring to emulate the ideals philosophers and religionists had scribbled down for centuries. So far, no society had found a way to be part of the natural world without taking from her or to live in harmony with one’s neighbor without the ugly head of war peaking up over the brouhaha of human kind pretending to be ‘better than’ the simple roots they came from.