by Tom Rich
Sylvie nodded in agreement.
Felix looked the man over, obviously unsatisfied.
“He fucked up!” blurted Sylvie. “He pissed off the boss and had to come in to fix things on his off hours. That’s why he’s not in uniform. I was there when it happened.”
Felix shook his head. He looked as if he were going to smile. “You people will never learn that your lies do nothing but breed more of their own kind. And now it is too late for you.” He waved his pistol. “Where is this elevator?”
Everyone remained silent.
After a long moment Sylvie said, “Antony?”
Antony was shaking uncontrollably.
“Antony?” pleaded Sylvie.
“Over by the light,” said Lydell. He nodded in the direction he meant. “The dim light where all the cars is at.”
The door at the bottom of the steps whipped open. Jones Pelfry stumbled through and landed face first on the concrete. Two soldiers followed him in.
Aly’s heart plunged.
Pelfry had caught a glimpse of the Jaguar procession from the far side of the building. His curiosity aroused, he was making his way around when he was blindsided and put to the ground, then disarmed. He never heard his assailants.
“You know who this man is?” Felix said to Antony. “Perhaps he has the third part of the code?”
Antony kept his eyes on the floor.
Pelfry tried to rise. Two soldiers kicked him into submission. Felix pointed his gun at Pelfry’s head.
Aly felt she needed to say something about Jones’ identity. But would saying he was a cop help their situation? It might get Jones killed. Jones certainly didn’t look fearsome in the bright red sweatshirt he was wearing. The thing was bright enough to light up the night. His idea of a knight in shining armor? Aly remained quiet.
Felix waved his gun. Two soldiers pulled Pelfry to his feet. Another stationed himself by the door while everyone else moved toward the dim light.
When they reached the elevator Lydell, Pelfry, Antony, Sylvie and Aly were herded into a tight group and told to keep quiet.
Nomar and Felix conversed quietly.
Aly wanted Jones to start in with the speech about how the entire Indianapolis Police Department was on its way. Maybe even the National Guard. And that the gunmen should leave without harming anyone because if ever they were ever apprehended they would have an easier way to go. But Jones said nothing. Aly listened for the roar of a thousand motorcycles.
Nomar addressed the five captives. “We do not believe any of you can get us onto this elevator. That is most unfortunate for you.”
The lights above the auto corral came on. Automatic weapons pointed in every direction.
The same door opened that had sent Antony and Lydell beneath the station wagon thirty-two hours earlier. Jeffery Paxton stepped through. He allowed the door to clang shut, then looked up. He froze, then whistled a descending note. “Eeeeyeah.” Two beats. One of you would be Felix? Nomar, maybe? That you, guys?” He held up his hands. “I’m coming in, okay? I’m not coming in heavy.” He took a few easy steps.
Lydell Wade nudged Antony. “That girl with the yellow hair,” he whispered. “She the one went crazy on Marva Jenkins the other day. Something about a movie she making here. That what this whole thing’s about?”
Antony said nothing.
The garage swelled with the rumble of a high performance engine. Automatic weapons held everyone in place as the rumble grew louder.
“I’m in it now, ain’t I?” whispered Lydell. “They weren’t expecting me but I did good and now I’m in it.”
Headlights sharpened, then went out. It was Kenneth Fabritzi in Franz’s Porsche. A soldier was sitting in the front seat next to Breeze, the barrel of a pistol pressed against the film director’s temple. Four black Jaguars, fanned in an arc, prowled behind the Porsche.
The Porsche stopped. Felix approached, motioned to the soldier in the car with Breeze. The gun lowered.
Breeze withdrew his lanky frame from the car. “I told you who the fuck I am!” he yelled over the rooftop to the soldier exiting on the other side. Breeze slammed the door. “Mother fucker!” He immediately became ingratiating. “Fee-lix. Is this any way to treat an old friend?”
Nomar approached the scene, escorting Jeffery Paxton.
“Well, well, the whole gang is here,” said Breeze. “Grand. This truly is grand. Nomar, last time I—”
“Silence!” demanded Felix. He waved his pistol between Breeze and Paxton. “Which of you can get me to the artifacts?”
After a moment, “That would be me,” said Paxton. “I have the key card and the code to the thirteenth floor.”
Felix held out his hand. Paxton passed him the key card.
“I think it might be healthier for me if I worked the buttons and kept the code to myself,” said Paxton.
Felix lifted his pistol and shot Paxton through the left shoulder. The low concrete ceiling dampened the sharp crack.
“God damn!” screamed Paxton. He grabbed his wound.
“You have two healthy knees and two healthy elbows remaining,” said Felix. “Is going through life as a cripple worth keeping the code to yourself a short time longer?”
“Bad-ass,” whispered Lydell.
Paxton squeezed his shoulder. He unclenched his jaw and opened his eyes. “No charge for the artifacts, fellas,” he said with a grin. “This one’s on me.”
“Looks damn real,” Lydell said to himself.
“We hardly feel compelled to pay for what is already ours,” said Felix. “The code.”
“Yeah, they weren’t for sale,” said Paxton. He told Felix the code.
Felix inserted the card and punched in the numbers. He then addressed his captives. “Just to prove that we are not coldhearted men, I am offering you a choice. Those of you who wish to remain behind will receive a quick and painless death. Those of you who wish to accompany us? You will buy a few moments of life. But death for you will be not so pleasant. But who knows? Perhaps that will be enough time for one of the superheroes from your current mythologies to swoop down and rescue you.”
Aly saw something she thought she’d never see: both Fishhook and Hernandez laughing.
“The decision must be made immediately,” said Felix, funny time obviously over.
“Upstairs,” said Sylvie without hesitation. “Antony too, right?”
Antony managed to nod.
“Upstairs,” said Aly.
“I’ll go up,” said Pelfry.
All eyes fell on Lydell. He straightened, shifted on his feet. “I’ll take Batman. Spiderman. Whoever,” he said in his most bad-ass tone. No way the movie people would cut him out after a line like that.
The elevator door slid open.
44: Sac chic
Felix, Aly, Sylvie, Jeffery Paxton and two soldiers went into the elevator first.
When the door slid open on Kurtwood Franz’s temple, the soldiers braced themselves and pointed their weapons into the darkness.
Felix lowered the pistol he had to Sylvie’s head. He stepped out and found the unlit torch hanging next to the door.
“You have a lighter,” Felix said to Paxton, snapping his fingers.
Paxton reached his bloody hand into his pants pocket and drew out a Zippo. He wiped blood from the lighter on his shirt, stepped out and handed it to Felix.
Felix lit the torch. His eyes went immediately to the empty shaft next to the elevator. He muttered something in his ancient language.
Aly recognized the word “ol.”
Felix carried the torch through the cave lighting others in the first two alcoves. The soldiers pushed Aly and Sylvie from the elevator with their rifles.
The cave was all too familiar to Sylvie. She kept her head down, refusing to acknowledge the pull of the empty shaft.
Aly wondered about the sheer number of artifacts visible in the orange glow; had Dr. Arbanian been responsible for any of the looting? Not to mention her, guilty by a
ssociation?
“It is here,” Felix said to Paxton.
“Far end of the dungeon,” said Paxton. “Pardon me if I don’t point.”
Felix took Aly by the arm and pulled her through the temple. He lit torches along the way.
A final torch flared and…
Aly once again found herself in the presence of the Ch’ak of Ukit Took; its blade ominously raised.
“Do not look away from the object,” said Felix. He pulled Aly close, examined her eyes. “Now you tell me,” he said softly, slowly. “You tell me if this is the artifact you and Phillip Arbanian stole from us.”
Aly forced her eyes from the fishhook scar. “That’s it,” she said weakly.
“You can be so certain? Take a closer look.” Felix shoved Aly toward the ch’ak.
Aly had no doubts. But she made a show of examining the device closely.
Felix said into her ear, “Well?”
Aly shivered from Fishhook’s breath brushing her neck. “It’s not a fake.” She pointed. “The four slightly raised spots on the stone counterweight? They’re an exploded glyph. Four ninths of a glyph, actually. The other five fragments are on the bottom of the stela.” She pointed at the slab of stone that bore only the name of the ancient astronomer at its top. “Draw the nine fragments on a piece of paper. If they match up to form ‘Ukit Took,’ that’s what you came for.”
Felix ran his hand across the stela. The stone slab was slightly shorter than him, slightly wider, and would take at least two men to tilt back its heavy weight. He turned to Aly. “How many know about this exploded glyph?” His long, curving scar made it look as if his face belonged etched onto the stela.
“Myself and Dr. Arbanian, is all I’m aware of. Look, if he told Mr. Franz, or whoever helped get it here, I don’t know. I didn’t know the artifacts were removed from the temple until….” That entire day flashed through her mind: her hike to the village, the phone call to Trish, being stuck in the tree, the cold steel of the machete resting against her neck inside the dark, dank pyramid; the severed fingers and tongue on Arby’s cot! “…until that day I met you. Arby told me about the glyph only because he was excited that it suggested Ukit Took would usher the Fourth Creation into the Fifth. The device bearing the four pieces of his name takes off his head to send him into the Underworld. And the stela, with five pieces, tells what happens down there. Four leading into five.”
Felix looked unimpressed. “Who assisted in the removal of the artifacts?”
Aly shook her head. “I have no answer for that.” They stared at each other. They stared so long that everything about Felix disappeared except for the scar: the glyph announcing Aly’s demise. Aly steadied her eyes. She didn’t move a muscle.
Finally, after a period of time Aly had no means of measuring, “And the bones,” whispered Fishhook.
“Bones?”
His eyes darkened. “That would have rested below the ch’ak.”
Aly shrugged. “Don’t know, Felix. Didn’t see them, didn’t hear about them. Maybe when the time came, your man couldn’t pull the trigger.”
“There is no end to your impertinence.” His words lashed at her.
“The blade was up.” The strength in her voice surprised Aly. She toned it down. “The blade was up when we found it. Just like you see it now. Check it. It’s as sharp as…” She let out a laughing breath. “Sharp as the day it was made.”
Twenty seconds passed. Without taking his eyes from Aly’s, Felix raised his arm and pointed across the room.
~ ~ ~
Aly found Sylvie, Pelfry, the young man she’d given Pelfry’s NBA tickets to, and the man they’d encountered on the landing seated crammed together in the alcove nearest the elevator. Six soldiers stood guard with their weapons across their chests. The man with the wounded shoulder stood several feet away. He wavered slightly, but seemed not too weak from his wound.
“Sit,” Felix said to Aly. He pointed to the spot next to Sylvie.
The elevator door slid open. Nomar pushed the tall man from the Porsche into the room. His mouth was bleeding. He exposed several broken teeth when grimacing from being shoved.
Felix pointed to the spot next to the wounded man. “Stand there.”
The tall man complied.
Nomar said nothing. He merely looked at Felix, who looked across the room. Nomar went where Felix’s eyes directed him.
When Nomar returned from viewing the Ch’ak of Ukit Took, he and Felix fell into a debate. Two of the six soldiers were brought into the discussion. Felix sent two others to gather small artifacts. These were passed around and examined.
Pelfry leaned across Sylvie. “I thought you said these people weren’t funded,” he said quietly to Aly.
Aly whispered, “That was before I knew about the Gomez brothers.”
Pelfry sat back and took a long look at the two men obviously in charge. “They don’t look like brothers,” he mumbled to himself.
“They’re not,” whispered Sylvie. “Neither one’s named Gomez, either. People call them that because…just because that’s something people do.”
“Any idea what they’re talking about,” Pelfry asked Aly.
Aly kept her eyes on Pelfry. “They keep nodding and pointing to the empty shaft. Obviously it’s an ol. And they’re using the word k’ulel an awful lot. You remember?”
“The life force that flows through all things,” recalled Pelfry from their conversation that first time he drove Aly from Cincinnati to Indianapolis.
“Yeah. And remember how the royals filled their temples with k’ulel by bloodletting and head chopping?”
“Gross,” said Sylvie.
“I think they’re deciding if this place is worthy as an actual temple,” continued Aly. “Or if they can make it legit if it’s not already.”
“This is all starting to make too much sense,” said Sylvie. “And I have to pee.”
“What is? What’s starting to make sense?” Pelfry asked Sylvie. “Talk to me.”
“Woody and his movie.”
“Woody. Your boyfriend? Kurtwood Franz? What movie?”
“I didn’t believe it,” said Sylvie. “Breeze? I thought he was just messing with me. And that bitch on that morning show? ‘PMS Indianapolis?’ No. There’s just no way. Woody’s going to be down here any minute to straighten this whole thing out.” She reached over Pelfry and nudged Antony. “Hang in there, Antony. This will all be over soon.”
Antony stared straight ahead.
Lydell nodded. He felt proud of Antony for capturing the fear of the situation: an important counterpoint to the other characters being so badass.
“Okay, now tell me how you two ended up with these people,” said Pelfry.
“They came into Clove’s,” said Aly. “They came into Clove’s and stabbed one guy and shot some others and dragged us out of there.”
Sylvie nodded. “Just like she said.”
“Okay. Okay. Trish?”
Aly said, “They whacked her in the head, Jones. She was out cold when we left. I have no idea how she is.”
“Okay. Let’s all stay cool. We can get out of this if we keep our heads.”
Aly slumped at the unintentional pun. “Those are the guys who cut up Dr. Arbanian,” she said.
“Could be,” said Pelfry. “Or possibly they’ve come to get whoever got to Arbanian first. Those other two standing there. Any idea how they figure in?”
“The guy they shot is Jeffery, Woody’s driver,” said Sylvie. “The other one is Kenneth Fabritzi. He’s my director.”
“Uh huh,” said Pelfry. “All right. That would be Jeffery Paxton?”
“Cripes, Jones,” said Aly, “you busy solving a case or trying to get us out of this? And what’s with the stupid sweatshirt? You look like Robin Redbreast.”
“Gazpacho,” said Pelfry.
“What?”
“I had an incident with some gazpacho.”
“Cripes.”
Pelfry nudged Antony. �
��How you doing, son? They hurt you?”
Lydell leaned across Antony and winked at Pelfry. “He out, man. I mean, his eyes is open, but he gone. He just cold and shaking.” He winked again.
Felix drew the debate to a conclusion. The six soldiers fanned out to face the five seated hostages.
Felix drew himself up to Jeffery Paxton and stared into his eyes. “You are this killer of children I have been told about.”
Paxton didn’t move, didn’t flutter an eyelash. After a full minute he lowered his hand from his wound, said very slowly, “That was not me, Felix.”
The stare down continued.
Finally, “Your movie man friend got carried away,” said Paxton “Part of his plan for framing the rich man so he could get the girl back.”
“That’s not true!” blurted Breeze. His long frame tilted forward but he forced himself to stay in formation. “I was in Oregon when all that came down. Both times. Felix—”
Felix aimed his pistol between Breeze’s eyes to shut him up.
“I know it was your people who took Xaman from the limo that night,” said Paxton. “I recognized your cars just now when they came into the garage. Okay, you know I got something on you and you do what you have to. But I did not kill those kids.”
Aly leaned over Sylvie and whispered to Pelfry, “And neither did Franz?”
“So it would seem,” Pelfry replied.
“And not Alvaro Xaman, either?” said Aly.
“God, you think Woody killed somebody?” said Sylvie. “He may be a real asshole but he’d never kill anybody.”
“Cripes.”
Felix lowered his pistol and stepped back to size up the two men. One was known to have done eleven years in prison without uttering a word about the people for whom he had taken a fall. The other was an arrogant fool who would not meet his eyes and was generally thought to be the one who started people calling he and Nomar the Gomez Brothers. He turned his back.
One second passed.