by Tom Rich
“Why I think it’s an important film. Movies anymore are about other movies rather than about life.”
“The reason why so few saw the film. But forget that. As an officer of the law I’m wondering how you feel about authenticity. Any thoughts on how close I came?”
“The differences between realities in Los Angeles and Indianapolis are too vast for me to answer that.”
“Fair enough. And the differences between my take on reality and yours may render me ineffectual for your purposes, is my point. But as far as one small aspect of authenticity: I had a lot of people gunned down on that project. Surely how a man takes a bullet and falls is the same everywhere.”
“Never shot a man. Haven’t even seen it happen. Can’t help you there.”
“All those murderers you deal with?”
“Actually, most are apprehended during quiet, unexpected moments. Nearly all the rest who go to trial turn themselves in.”
“Looks like the last one you dealt with at least threw a few punches. Or are those facial bruises the result of your apocalyptic vision rearing its ugly head?”
“Something like that. When do I get my money’s worth?”
“I’m afraid ideas don’t come that quickly. And we’ve yet to go over all the details of your two murders.”
“I meant the irreverent sarcasm you promised.”
“It seems you’re not such the rube after all. I hardly think you’d be dazzled.”
“Try me.”
“I was just going to say that Indiana has enough abandoned wells to generate an entire season of ‘Lassie’ episodes.”
“Just a point of authenticity, Breeze. Cops never joke when the victim is a child.” “Actually, Jones, I stole that line from a man more callous than myself. I think you know who I mean.”
24: Mr. Literal
First there’s the briefest glimpse of skyline—there and gone in a flash—then the Cut in the Hill yields up the entire cityscape. Speed increases quickly on the steep decline toward the river. Before the highway was made less swervy at the top of the Cut, semi trailers would flip on the curve and wipe out entire carloads.
“Hard to believe people are dying to get there,” mumbled Aly.
“Pardon?”
The man sitting next to her in the shuttle from the airport was a sales rep from Precision Tool and Die of Minneapolis. He’d sounded off on the history of Cincinnati Milacron and its role in putting the city on the map for machinists worldwide. But he was incredulous over the fact that Greater Cincinnati International Airport was not even in Ohio. “It’s the hills,” Aly had explained five miles out from the terminal. “Not enough flat area for the big planes to land.”
He’d replied, “But its called Cincinnati Airport. It should be called Kentucky Airport. Or Bluegrass Airport. Something like that. It’s not honest.”
Aly had wanted to melt into the seat. She’d been out of the country only five months. Had civilization degenerated to the point where people now demanded the same precision from their language as from their machinery? Fine. Then let the machines crank out the lyrics from now on.
“I love this view,” Aly said. Being the gracious tour guide seemed the best way to deal. “You get all of downtown. Boats on the river. Paddlewheels.” She pointed. “There’s the baseball park. You can’t see it from here, but the other side of the scoreboard has a huge picture of a bat and ball. Just a bat and ball lying on the ground. At first I thought the picture was kind of a ‘so what?’ Then I realized it’s the bat and ball from Pete’s 4192. Man, how beautiful. They couldn’t have thought of a better way to…well, you know.” She cleared her throat. “That hill above the stadium is Mount Adams. It’s our little San Francisco. Out-of-towners love it. That ridge to the far left is the West Side. Not much for your tourist dollar up there. The low area running north is the Millcreek Valley. I live up there a few miles. That’s Covington we’re dropping into. Don’t you think its rooftops look provincial against Cincinnati’s backdrop.”
“Covington? Aha! That’s the CVG on my luggage tags. Now that’s sensible.”
Sensible would be knocking down the bridges and sealing up the city before the Twainists hooked up with the Mayanists and the rush was on.
Aly had never noticed how the “Welcome to Ohio” sign greeted you only when you were completely across the river. Trish must have been right about Kentucky owning it. Better not mention that to Mr. Literal. Anyway, she was home.
The shuttle pulled up to the Downtown Hyatt. Aly and Mr. Literal got out and waited for their luggage to be offloaded.
“So tell me about the nightlife around here,” said Mr. Literal.
Two suitcases appeared at his feet. Aly thought he’d said he was staying only three nights.
“Let’s see now, this is Thursday.” The driver handed over Aly’s backpack. She swung it up over her head, thrust her arms through the straps and brought the load down snug, all in a heartbeat. One of the truly beautiful advantages of traveling light: the move added a graceful touch to a sweet, sweet parting shot. “Most of us go to Floyds to watch the sheriff get his haircut.”
“Pardon?”
This guy. “Downtown is a bit slow during the week. Go back across the river. Or try the university area up in Clifton.” Aly pointed, “Five minute cab ride,” spun, “ten minute cab ride.” She shoved off.
“Hey! One more thing. I didn’t see any blue grass.”
Sucker! Aly looked over her shoulder. “They started that just to fool the Vikings.” And, out.
There was none of Tencho’s cash left for a cab ride home. But there was change jangling in her pocket. She pulled it out. “Hah! Quetzales. What are my chances of drawing a Guatemalan bus driver? None!” She’d walk the final six miles home.
Aly hiked through downtown and into the industrial corridor of the Millcreek Valley. She couldn’t get Mr. Literal’s puzzled look after her parting comment out of her mind. Perhaps her reference to naming green Iceland, Iceland and frozen Greenland, Greenland to fool the Vikings was too obscure. But that wasn’t what bothered her about her encounter with Mr. Literal. She’d hoped for some personal growth as a result of this trip; hoped to put an end to her smartass streak. Aly pictured herself hanging out with the local Goths in front of Northside’s tattoo parlor, fully pierced and inked, honing her sarcasm among appreciative peers. She shuddered.
What she needed was some token to symbolize her experience in Guatemala. A talisman from the ancient storyteller would have been perfect. She never did find out what his “sad chick” rant was about. But a tattoo of his words would work. A small one. In a place not normally visible. She touched her throat. Or Fishhook could have left a scar with his machete. She stopped, slipped off her backpack. She took out Arby’s Dodger cap. “Could get a beer can upside the head, this deep in Reds’ country. But it was his sacrifice that got me home.” She put on the cap, swung up her backpack and continued north.
Tencho had convinced Aly that leaving Guatemala was her only chance for survival. He’d said the two men he shot would have accomplices who would stop at nothing to get the Ch’ak of Ukit Took and the blank stela. Aly wanted to go to Tikal to explain what happened to Dr. Arbanian. But Tencho said the killers expected that and would be waiting for her. When she wanted to go to the American consulate, Tencho painted such a detailed picture of her country’s long history of assassinations and insurgencies and manipulations of the Guatemalan economy that Aly felt she could trust her government less than the killers. Instead, they hiked three more days after the encounter with the storyteller, then came to a road where Tencho flagged a ride to Guatemala City. He then bought her a plane ticket home.
“But you need that money to be with your family,” Aly had argued.
“They can wait a little longer. If you do not leave now your family may never see you again.”
No problem there: parents dead, no siblings. “Okay. So I get back to the States. You said those people will stop at nothing to get the artif
acts they think I stole. What saves me then?”
“I do not believe they have the resources to follow you. Not immediately. These are poor people and are not funded like terrorists. Leave here now and you will gain time. Think about all that Dr. Arbanian has told you. You could discover where he sent the artifacts and that could help you.”
“Will you do something for Arby? Get word to Tikal somehow? He never told me about his family. Tikal might know who to contact.” And, “I’ll send your money soon as I can. I owe people at home, but they’ll have to wait.”
There was another problem. Evaporating from the scene probably made her a prime suspect in Arby’s murder. Considering Tencho’s hatred of governments, how likely was he to step forward to talk to whichever one might come after her?
And who else knew about the artifacts that were the motive for murder? Would anyone at Tikal believe they existed? Phillip Arbanian was considered a loose canon among the Mayanists. How much of a lunatic would she look like ranting to American authorities about a self-operating guillotine and a stone slab where the future history—or non-history—of the world was supposed to appear?
The backpack seemed to double in weight. “Why not give in and hang with the Goths?” She tugged on the straps and wriggled the pack higher on her shoulders. “With my connection to a primo end-of-the-world prophecy, I’d be a damn hero among those nihilists.”
A shroud of quiet hung over the factories and machine shops and warehouses on Spring Grove Avenue. At least a few of the businesses should be busy with second shift activity, Aly thought. She glanced over her shoulder. Daylight was fading fast, yet there was no glow over downtown.
And there were no cars.
Nor any trucks idling in the center of the avenue waiting for a bay door to open.
The avenue was empty.
Aly reached the S curve where a short connecting street ran up to Colerain Avenue. Colerain was always jamming with vehicles this time of day. She stopped and watched the traffic light at the intersection change from red to green. Not one car passed. “It’s a Thursday in November,” she mumbled, “but I didn’t think it was Thanksgiving.”
She passed in front of the firehouse at the end of the S curve. She needed an engine to roar out and clang down the road to assure her the city hadn’t been abandoned. No immediate disaster obliged her. Further along she came to the halfway house that always—always—had guys out front smoking. The front steps were empty.
A long straightaway stretched before her. Low buildings of corrugated steel lined both sides of the avenue. Their perfect alignment reminded Aly of the Mayan penchant for lining their buildings with the four cardinal points. An empty stockyard on her left broke up the symmetry.
Half a mile further along was a steel plant large enough to swallow any ten of the neighboring buildings. There were always sparks flying inside that behemoth, and huge cranes swinging and lowering tons of product onto flatbed trucks. But all the massive bay doors were down. And the building was silent.
Aly passed beneath a rusting train trestle. She stopped on a low bridge crossing the Millcreek. To the west, in the dimming light, a long, tree covered ridge reminded her of Guatemala. She imagined a caravan of people in brightly colored clothing coming along Spring Grove and taking her up the hill and into the woods. Beyond that hill would be more tree-covered hills: trees filled with fruit and howler monkeys and long tailed Quetzals.
The dusky sky now looked like smoke: smoke from the story circle around the campfire from a few nights earlier. Spirits rose in that smoke. The spirits of kings who were builders as well as oppressors. And people who flourished under those kings. And people whose loyalty to a king was bested by the ferocious will to be who one was meant to be. And the sparks rising from the fire, in their brief lives, carried into the sky the souls of children who didn’t make it.
The twin spires of a church on Beekman Street brought Aly back into her city. She looked down at the Millcreek. Tires littered the shallow water. More tires lined the muddy banks. She’d gone for weeks at a time in Guatemala without seeing an automobile. Now, back in her world, it seemed the absence of cars was a sign that some disaster had taken place. And everyone was gone. And the graveyard of the Millcreek was the only evidence they’d existed.
Dusk deepened toward night. The far end of the ridge faded. Aly felt hollow. Too much left undone. Too much to confront now that she was home. But old problems, such as her Cultural Integration Services debacle, seemed insignificant compared to finding justice for Arby. She stared at the Millcreek.
Something moved on the water. A crease in the darkness bent slowly into a graceful curve. A leg lifted beneath the curve.
A heron, stepping lightly.
“Will wonders never,” said Aly.
With one stroke of its wings the bird lifted and glided fifty yards to a far bank where it landed among cattails and weeds. It slowly faded along with the light.
Aly hummed a few notes from a haunting melody she knew. She sang: “White bird…um, umm…on a stream of sludge… No, that would be one for the Goths.” She shook that away. “White bird, you have gone away…but the People say, you’ll retur-urn. Yeah. White bird, will come back someday, so the People say—”
Suddenly Aly had the overwhelming feeling she’d been given a second chance. But for what? CIS? For life itself, I came so close to being killed inside Ukit Took’s pyramid.
Aly heard a car on the bridge. She looked over her shoulder. “Finally.” The car was black and dignified; like something that would take mourners to a service. It came from the same direction as she, and was heading into Northside.
Aly had lost her song. She crossed the bridge.
Two blocks later she stood in front of the sign welcoming her to Northside. Someone had gone to the trouble of maintaining plants around the sign. The small plot looked hopeful against the backdrop of a building abandoned by a tire company. The painting of the two Indians that were the company’s logo was chipped and fading. Aly had never noticed before, but the three-story tall Indians were laughing. “Maybe they’re fading in, not out.”
Almost home. Two blocks to go.
Aly stopped. “Here’s something new.” Where once was an old house, “Huh. Looks like somebody put a bar in there.” She rattled the coins in her pocket. “What are my chances of drawing a Mixologist Guatemalan? None, that’s what.” A foot lifted. “But if this is where Trish works, I should at least…” Her foot went down. “Nah, I’ll see her when her shift ends.”
A sign above the door blinked on.
“Coo-wool. Neon. That’s a first for Northside.”
A cocktail glass tilted back and forth in the quiet night. A small globe representing the drink’s garnish tumbled in the glass to reveal the Eastern Hemisphere, then the Western, blinked off, blinked back on.
“Clove’s End of the World Café,” Aly read aloud.
25: Soren Kane
Pelfry dialed Kenneth Fabritzi’s cell phone.
Breeze answered on the first ring. “I don’t know how you got this number, but I’ve had it with all you Clampetts bothering—”
“You gave it to me. This is Jones Pelfry.”
After a pause, “Sorry, Detective. I saw the local number, I thought you were from the Indy film board. A different inbred cousin calls every hour with location suggestions for my rustic barn scene. My time here would be better served by scrapping Penance and doing a nine-figure production of Green Acres. What can I do for you?”
“Yeah, Breeze, sounds like this is not a good time.”
“Not at all, Jones. I can spare a few minutes. Fact is, the plot you asked for has already written itself. At least the core idea.”
“Any idea is a start.”
“What we have is a megalomaniac billionaire who believes he can gain ultimate power by understanding and exploiting an ancient Mayan prophecy. The man gets in touch with the prophecy by performing ritual sacrifices in a secret location, hence your detached blue head. A persi
stent detective discovers that location, a struggle ensues, which the detective wins, and the world is saved.”
“Yeah. Not exactly what I was looking for.”
“You work in a car chase or two and some splatter. There’s no end to the entertainment value of blood gushing from wounds. Especially a freshly severed head.”
“I think you misunderstood. What I’m interested in is a plot line for the murdered boys.”
“Yes, well, their ritualistic murders would make a nice side story. Of course that would blow the secret location idea. Are we tying them in only because of what I said he said about ‘Lassie’ and the wells?”
“I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
“Not at all. But that was only the commercial version. Care to hear the artistic; the one nobody would pay to see?”
“Maybe I—”
“Location is not so much an issue in this version. It’s more of a states-of-mind story. Altered states? So it could take place anywhere. First off, the evil rich man has become evil only because of his years of contact with the Mayan doom prophecy. He originally intended to use his findings to save the world but, well, you can gloss the story of his conversion to evil in your own fertile imagination. Now, the man has been laboring completely on his own over the years because there is so much potential for blackmail, him being so wealthy. So when he does begin committing his ritualistic sacrifices, there’s no one to tie him to the crimes. Except, that is, for an imaginative detective who, of course, has done his research on Mayan sacrificial rituals. Meanwhile, he’s accessed the evil man’s vision via hallucinogens. But the drugs take the detective only to the edge of the vision, so he increases the dosage. As he does he becomes ever more obsessed with bringing down the evil man. Eventually the detective is driven mad, and that’s how it ends. No one sees if the world is saved, or if it ends horribly, or if the evil man is evil at all.”