by Tom Rich
“Out in a strip mall near Boomtownburg, other side of the river. It was the cowboy boot wearing, NASCAR loving, construction crew set. Only, judging by the size and showroom conditions of their pickups outside, these weren’t your average hammer swingers; these were the contractors themselves. We kept the blinds on the front window open so the trucks would be on display to everyone inside. Ever see a bar not closed off to the outside world?
“Anyhow, I got hired for the Happy Hour drive time shift. Short hours but good money. Especially from the guys sitting near my glass washing sink. I quickly learned how lucrative the downward plunging of a pair of pilsners on those twirling brushes could be. I don’t mean to brag, but I overheard one client say it looked like two Sumos going at it under a tarp. Even though most of them drank from the bottle or a shot glass, I kept those brushes busy. See, half of them were delaying the final leg to the wifey back at the homestead, the other half seeking peer group approval to not go home at all. I figured my act would help push them whichever way.
“Now, somewhere in the order of importance between their pride for their trucks and their mastery over their womenfolk, was their need to impress their peers with the amount of wheeling and dealing they did on their cells. Ohh, and did they love whipping out those jangly, obnoxious things. I’d say not quite as much as they loved their trucks, but certainly more than they loved their women. And that’s what prompted my idea.
“See, there used to be this tradition that whenever a bar phone rang, the bartender would yell out, ‘Who’s not here?’ That, of course, would set off a chorus of any number of obtuse explanations why someone wasn’t there. It kept me amused as a kid whenever Mom was working to find us a new situation. Each time the phone rang I’d hear the most outrageous excuses. And I mean in every bar in every town.”
“Alien abductions? That sort of thing?” asked the cute nerd.
“Only by the unimaginative. ‘Tell her I’m out picking up Mother Theresa’s slack,’ was a favorite when she died. Princess Di went down the same week, so there were all kinds of charitable projects shouted out, enchanted balls, the like.”
“Hiding dirty deeds from the queen?”
“Hmm. Hmm.”
“Celebrity deaths come in threes, you know.”
“Who’d I miss?” asked Trish.
“William Burroughs.”
“Ha! Good one. I do know who he was. Mom took me to a literary bar or two during her Lonely Professor Phase.”
“He was known for other things.”
“Don’t I know.” Trish winked. “Anyway, the tradition was universal. ’Til cells came along, that is. You know what a tradition killer technology can be.”
“A. G. Bell’s original invention killed off an even older tradition.”
“Oh?”
“Sure. The sad waif braving the dark and cold night to find daddy in the tavern and tug at his coattails to ask when he’s coming home.”
“Yeah, see, that only makes my point. Anyway, what I did was wait and wait for the right moment. It came on the Friday of my first—and last—week at Déjà Vu. The place was packed and they were drawing phones like it was go time at the OK Corral. Well, there was this one guy sitting at the bar, and I assumed his elbow had gotten tired from keeping up. It certainly wasn’t from hoisting a bottle. Anyway, he left the vile thing sitting on the bar top, which was what I was waiting for. I got into position.” Trish bent at the knees, held her arms forward. “Soon as it went off, I reached under the bar and drew out a hammer. I raised it high and brought it down with a mighty stroke.” She brought her fist down on the bar. “The phone didn’t fly into a thousand pieces like I’d expected. It flattened some. Crunched. A piece or two did fly off. But the act did create the silence I wanted. Man, even though it lasted only a few seconds, I lived a lifetime in that silence. Then I looked the guy right in the eye and said, ‘Now…I can hear you!’ I thought for sure that would be the origin of something as big as, ‘Who’s not here?’ Or even the waif you mentioned.
“But something was wrong. No one laughed. There was no backslapping, no repeating of my famous words. No movement at all, except for my boss hoisting a fresh box of pilsners onto the bar. I was frozen with my arm out, hammer on the phone. My boss came behind the bar. He took the hammer out of my hand. He said, ‘The man’s just waiting to hear the results of his little girl’s surgery from that clinic up in Minnesota. That’s all.’”
Trish stood up straight. “What could I do. I shuffled out of there mumbling how I wasn’t really a bad person. I called early the next day and was damned glad to get the answering machine. I left a message to use the tips I’d left behind and whatever check I had coming to buy the little girl a gift, or a new phone, whatever, and never went back.”
The cute nerd said, “And you saw yourself as being punished for trying to influence a bar’s personality.”
“At the time I saw it as punishment for straying outside my five mile limit.”
“Relatively small area. I mean, if you plan on working until sixty-five, you think it’s possible forty new bars will open within that limit?”
“Plan is to stay here forever. Clove’s having me take over here when the time comes. There’s even an apartment waiting upstairs for me.”
“Done roamin’.”
“Yep. Where I’m meant to be.” Trish twirled the towel then wiped a spot to the cute nerd’s left. “So. Tell me what interests you.” She wiped a spot to his right.
“You asked for it.” The cute nerd then launched into his lecture on psychotropic drugs.
Nearly an hour later: “The shaman ingests the plants in order to see currents of energy the rest of us can’t. I’m concerned that actually believing in the rituals involved is essential. Personally, I think it’s essential to use plants grown in the region where the currents are being sought. Maybe not. Whatever works is mostly what I believe.”
“So, what are you?” Trish couldn’t suppress a grin. “A junior shaman in training?”
“Pretty obvious I’m a novice?”
“Shoes gave you away.” She made a token gesture of looking over the bar top. “Noticed them when you came in.”
He checked his feet, perched on a rung of the stool. “Oh. Well, anyway, I believe the planet gave us those plants in order to experience energies that connect us with alternate planes of existence.”
“Could be. If you believe all that Carlos Castenada shit. There are also the purely recreational uses.”
“I’m new to this area. So I thought I’d stop in here, maybe…?”
“Uh huh. Stereotyping, are we? Because I’m a bartender, I know all the dealers?”
“Just if you hear anything. Maybe you know somebody who knows somebody.”
“Uh huh. Okay. And how do I know you’re not a cop?”
“Actually…I am a cop.”
Trish leaned in and whispered, “You probably don’t realize it, but you just blew your cover.”
A sheepish grin spread as his reply.
Trish was close enough to smell the bock beer behind the red ale behind the Belgian white behind the pale ale he was now drinking. She turned rigid. “You are a cop! Look, mister, I’m no informant, see. And no bribe is going to make me one. Even if I knew any dealers. And I don’t!”
“But—”
“And I don’t have any record you can hold over my head. Go ahead and look.” She took a step back and made a vampire-repelling cross with her fingers.
“What if I told you helping me out might save lives?”
She pushed her cross forward. “Right. Maybe speed does kill. But that’s totally the prerogative of the user.”
He tilted sideways, dis-aligning himself from the cross. “Not what I mean. First of all, I’m not a narc. I work strictly homicide. Second of all, I’m way out of my jurisdiction. Out of state, even.” He drew out his badge and held it up.
Trish looked long enough to see Homicide and Commonwealth of Indiana. “Uh huh. I’m supposed to
believe you’ve got a killer shaman on the loose in Indian-no-place and you want to reel him in with mushrooms on a string that I score for you?”
“Not at all.” Acknowledging her cross trivialized his resolve. He straightened on his stool, spilling beer in the process. He leaned forward. A running stream soaked into his shirt. He looked at the bar towel in Trish’s hand. “There’s a child killer at large. Two nine year olds dead. One eight, actually. You must have seen it on the news. It’s gone national.”
“See any televisions?” Her right arm lifted and pointed behind her, the towel dangling high. “No! One of my top ten reasons for working here.”
He made a quick scan of the obvious places for barroom televisions. “We have almost nothing to go on. I’m just looking for alternative methods for catching him.”
“Catch him? Nothing to go on, but you’re sure the killer is male? You saying a woman isn’t smart enough to get away with murder?”
“There, that’s what I’m talking about. Nobody sees every angle at once. Even the most obvious things can slip past the experts.” He nodded at the towel, now dangling inches away.
“So I don’t help you get drugs and, it’s like, ‘Buy this used car or I’ll kill this puppy,’ sort of thing? Only I’ll be aiding and abetting a child killer?”
“I’m not trying to pressure you with guilt. I just want to cover all the angles. I believe murder causes a disruption in the naturally occurring energy field that encompasses the murder site. Think of the crime as disrupting that energy. Like how a factory spewing toxins adversely affects the life around it. Picture?”
“Boy, do I have someone you need to meet.” Trish twirled the towel.
“I just need a little help seeing the source of the pollution.”
“By snorting? Or shooting up?” Trish mimed pushing air out of a syringe. “No, those are probably for nabbing shoplifters and people using the accounts of a game without the expressly written permission of Major League Baseball.”
“By using hallucinogens the planet produces naturally. Seeking crimes against nature via the products of nature. I admit I’d be playing it by ear.”
Trish softened a bit. “Say I do fall for your gimmick. Why here?”
“Cincinnati is far enough away that I shouldn’t stumble into someone I know. And I can get back to Indy in a reasonable amount of time if I’m called to a crime scene.”
“Sirens blazing the whole way across I 74?”
“The most obnoxious hundred miles since Sherman.”
“Ha ha. No, I mean why this bar?” Trish dangled the towel.
“I like the name. Fits nicely with what Hemingway said about being here when the world ends. You know, how everything comes to Cincinnati fifteen years late.”
“Guess how much time we have depends on who you read.”
“I don’t get—” The phone in his jacket went off. “Excuse me. This is Pelfry…Uh huh…Right…Yep…Okay…First thing tomorrow.”
“Official police business?” Trish wanted to slap herself for sounding interested rather than sarcastic.
“I know how outrageous this whole thing must sound.”
“Better investigating through psychotropics?”
“I’m not claiming it will work. I—shit!” The phone again. “This is Pelfry…Let me get back to you…Okay, twenty minutes.”
Pelfry tucked away his phone and pulled something from a different pocket. “A picture from one of the funerals.” He unfolded the clipping and pointed. “The parents of the second victim. I’m surprised…don’t you ever see a newspaper?”
“Hardly. Don’t care for the way reporters barge into funerals.”
Pelfry refolded the clipping. “I can understand why you’re reluctant to talk about this where you work. Maybe I can buy you a drink somewhere else when you’re off.”
“Stereotyping again? Just because I’m a bartender, I drink?” Trish snapped the towel.
Pelfry pulled his damp shirt from his chest. “Well, no, but—”
“By the same token, you probably think all bus drivers catch the bus to work. When you’re thinking about bus drivers, that is.”
“And you seem to think all cops want to do is bust dopers. By the same token.”
“I think you’re getting hip to my M. O.”
“That sort of thing is my job.”
“Okay, well, you don’t have to pull your hair out over it.”
The cute nerd took his hand from his hair and offered it. “Jones.”
“Ooo, code names. Okay, Jones, I’ll be Smith.” She tossed him the towel.
10: Machete
They came upon the pyramid suddenly, as if it had thrust itself from the Mayan Underworld intent on blocking their path. The larger pyramids, even those that towered above the trees, created the same effect of suddenly rising from the earth when encountered after a trudge through the jungle. But this one, small as it was, and covered with twisted vines and clinging undergrowth, seemed to Aly to be in mid-jump; not completely out of its Underworld hiding place.
Dr. Arbanian had cleared a three-foot wide path up the thirteen steps to the top of the pyramid. In the week since Aly had last been, the path had overgrown to a strip as slender as her foot. It was as if whatever ancient hell this pyramid presided over was trying to pull it back under, away from the eyes of humans, away from the passage of time. Aly’s heart sank when she realized the blank stela that had stood at the pyramid’s base a week earlier was gone.
Hernandez and Fishhook stood motionless. Their eyes moved from the base to the peak and down again. Aly thought if there was a time to bolt this was it, so transfixed were they. But she now had thirty-five kilometers on her legs for the day. And these guys were built for jungle travel. Besides, what was she guilty of?
Fishhook sheathed his machete. The two men spoke in Mayan. Hernandez pointed up the trail with his good hand. Fishhook shook his head. Hernandez shoved Aly from the clearing and back onto the trail. Fishhook withdrew his machete and swung it into the bottom of a sapling. He would have hit her had Hernandez not pushed her away, so small was the clearing at the front of the pyramid. Fishhook hewed his way along the pyramid’s base. He kept low, brought the machete hard with his right and tossed growth aside in a counter motion with his left.
The men had doubts about this being the place that they wanted, thought Aly. They’d expected to find the blank stela in front. Fishhook was hacking his way around looking for it. The stone slab weighed too much for Dr. Arbanian to have dragged it up and into the pyramid. But somehow it was gone.
But they have me!
Hernandez shifted restlessly. Fishhook reached the corner of the pyramid. He reared the machete over his head and brought it down at the base of a stalk with a whoosh. The blade stuck. He snapped the small tree and freed the blade, then disappeared around the corner. Aly heard hacking and leaves rustling for several minutes. Then nothing.
Aly glanced sideways. If only Hernandez would say something. Or sit to rest. That might break the ice so they could talk. She sensed that Fishhook had a power over Hernandez that kept him from smiling and chatting like any other native in touch with the vibrancy of this land. Perhaps with Fishhook out of earshot Aly could make Hernandez into an ally. But she couldn’t find the words. The light in the clearing deepened toward dusk.
The rustling of leaves finally broke the silence. A few minutes later Aly heard the hack of the blade hitting wood. Finally she heard the whoosh. Then Fishhook was standing in the clearing, the machete at his side.
Aly had heard these men converse in both Spanish and Mayan. Now they communicated with eyes only.
Fishhook sheathed the machete. He leapt onto the front of pyramid and climbed like a jungle cat; disappeared into the sun—a flaming ball in its evening descent—now hanging just above the pyramid.
Aly looked away from the glare.
Hernandez continued to gaze upward. The bright light igniting his skin seemed unable to find his dark eyes.
�
��Do you…?” Aly couldn’t believe she’d uttered the words. Or had she? The man showed no reaction. She looked where he looked.
It was as if the blazing sunlight had bestowed movement upon a gargoyle: Fishhook stepped from the glare and moved to the very edge of the pyramid, looking not of flesh and blood, and devoid of heat and emotion. He gazed across the treetops.
Tropical night was descending quickly. Aly realized they’d brought no lights for getting back. Dr. Arbanian kept the one small kerosene lantern inside but—Why didn’t Fishhook bring Arby out?
Hernandez nudged Aly, raised his right hand. He had no index finger to point with: only the small disc of a hand with two fingers at the bottom.
Aly went to the base of the pyramid. Her other encounter she’d been able to plant her hands and swing her legs up each riser. But the growth had come back so thoroughly that she had to pull on vines to bring herself straight up each step.
Why would they want her up there if Fishhook couldn’t question her in English? Aly knew the ancient Mayans tied sacrificial victims into tight balls and bounced them down the steps of the larger pyramids. And they chopped off heads and ripped out still beating hearts on top of those things.
Each step up Aly paused, trembling, and looked at Fishhook. Each step up he grew taller in the sharpening angle. Each step up his scar deepened. Each step up he narrowed like a shadow being consumed by the sun. Then there was only a face held fast to the tree line.
One more step to go. Aly stood directly beneath Fishhook. She looked up. There was only the glaring sun.
Aly felt herself falling away from the world. She brought a hand to her brow and dropped to her knees. When her eyes adjusted from the intense glare, Aly found Fishhook’s eyes directly on hers. He was squatting, his right hand extended. He was offering to help her up the last step.
The small act of chivalry changed everything. Aly now understood that language was not an issue. Only her seeing what he saw when looking over the trees could communicate what Fishhook wanted. Which was fine with her. She would gladly gaze over the treetops, accept whatever lesson he had to teach about foreigners taking artifacts from his land. She’d squint hard, looking back a century for every step she’d climbed.