by Ted Bell
“The pictures help, actually,” Hawke said, “I wouldn’t know the Mona Lisa from Lisa Marie.”
“Please, Alex. Spare me.”
Ambrose held up the book for closer inspection. He said, “An odd choice, I must admit. For a belated gift to the one left behind.”
Hawke smiled. “Somewhere in the heart of the Amazon lurks the last literate human being on earth yet to read the bloody thing. Did you ever get round to it yourself?”
“Like a lamb to the slaughter,” Ambrose said. “I rather enjoyed it. Anything at all to do with codes hooks me instantly.”
He was holding the book by its spine and shaking it over the desktop. Seeing nothing fall from the pages, he set it down and began leafing through the book slowly.
“Are you going to read it again?” Hawke asked. “Now?”
“Quiet,” Ambrose said, lost among some vast, shadowed hallways of thought.
“Are you onto something? Twitchy eyebrows. You’ve all the symptoms.”
“Perhaps I am.”
“What? Spill it.”
“Don’t you find it the least bit interesting, Alex, that the last book Zimmermann bequeaths to his wife has the word Code in its title?”
“Funny, that, now that you mention it.”
“Yes, isn’t it? Hand me the letter, will you, Alex? I left it over there on the table somewhere.”
Hawke retrieved the ambassador’s coded farewell message and handed it to Ambrose.
“We need a positive supposition here,” Congreve said, his eyes darting rapidly from letter to book. He was quickly running his finger down the page Zimmermann had filled with scrawled numbers.
“Namely?”
“That the letter and the book are connected.”
“Too simple. Too obvious.”
“The truth often is. That is, I suspect, why we haven’t cracked the bloody code, Alex. Humans naturally look for complexity where none exists. Whilst I, on the other hand, subscribe to William of Occam’s point of view.”
“Remind me about William of Occam again?”
“A mediaeval philosopher, Alex. His principle, widely known as Occam’s Razor, stated that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed. Confronted with a puzzle, reduce the entities required to explain it. In other words, Alex, choose the simplest path through the forest.”
“Ah, that’s it.”
“Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.”
“Exactly.”
“Yes. Assume for a moment the widow is not a polymath with multiple degrees in higher mathematics, nominism, or cryptography. Assume she’s an ordinary woman possessed of ordinary gifts, an average human being, just like you or me. But, also assume this letter and this book are not the loving farewell of a dying husband, but something far more…sinister.”
“Such as?”
“A program sequence initiator, for instance. You use the numbers to key in some kind of unstoppable electron virus to disable worldwide communications. Or launch a missile at London. Who knows? Doomsday scenarios are your bread and butter, not mine. I’m a simple copper.”
While Congreve spoke, he was rapidly flipping the pages of the novel.
“You’ve solved far more intricate puzzles than this one. Stick to your knitting, Constable,” Hawke said, sensing an excitement in Congreve’s expression he’d despaired of ever seeing this night. “Do you see anything in it? Any connection?”
Ambrose was studying the letter, repeating numbers under his breath, and then flipping back and forth through the novel.
“I’m looking, I’m looking. Ah. Yes. Here we go, here’s something. The book has one hundred and five chapters, plus a prologue and an epilogue.”
“And?”
“And, hold on a tick…yes…the cryptic farewell message has exactly the same, wait, yes, one hundred and five individual lines of numeric code!”
“Brilliant!”
“Thank you. But it doesn’t mean anything, yet.”
“Is there anything at the end of the book itself that resembles the code’s format?” Hawke leapt to his feet and moved to the desk to look over Congreve’s shoulder.
“Yes. Two short numerical lines appended at the end like some kind of coda. It’s a match.”
Hawke squeezed Congreve’s left shoulder vigorously. “You’ve cracked it, old slug! God bless you for a common genius after all. So, how does the bloody thing work?”
“You take the book, I’ll do the code. We’ll start with something simple. The ambassador’s first handwritten line is 001005005. Take a look at the book, Alex. First chapter, fifth paragraph, fifth word? What is it?”
Hawke flipped rapidly through the book, searching for Chapter One, and then quickly running his finger down the page. “Ah, here it is, fifth paragraph, fifth word…Reckoning. That’s a good start…and I must say, Constable that you have a remarkable ability to, when all seems lost, stick to your—”
“Ah! There you are!” a cheery voice called from the doorway.
Hawke and Congreve looked up from their fevered study of the Da Vinci Code and the accompanying message.
“Pippa!” Ambrose almost came out of his chair with delight.
Hawke slipped the folded letter inside the novel and snapped it shut. Then he slid the book under some loose papers on his desk.
“We’ll finish our literary discussion later in private,” he murmured to Ambrose. Congreve nodded his agreement.
“Ah, Pippa,” Hawke said, “Here you are.”
“I was wondering where you two had run off to! My last night in Key West after all. Hullo, Alex.”
“Have a good time, did you?”
She giggled, slightly tipsy, and said, “I danced and danced, really.”
“Ah, lovely,” Ambrose smiled wistfully at the girl, seemingly at a loss for further dialogue.
“At the Hot Tin Roof?” Hawke said.
“No, some little dive called the ‘Varoom Room.’ ”
“Ah,” Alex said, instantly running out of conversation as well. Finally, he looked at Congreve and said, “Your fiancée, Diana, loves to dance, does she not?”
“We are not engaged, Alex. We simply have an understanding.”
The little minx did look rather fetching posed in the doorway, Alex thought. She had her blond hair up in rhinestone combs and it now fell in a few stray wispy curls about her blushing cheeks. She was wearing red, a sheath of silk under a red satin shawl, and it was, Hawke saw uncomfortably, an inspired choice. Her cups runneth over, he saw, despite making every human effort not to notice.
Hawke dragged his eyes away, looking pointedly at Ambrose. “Well, I’m for bed then.”
“So early, Alex?” Congreve said. “A tinge of autumn in the air, is there? Hmm.”
Hawke looked at him. “What?”
“No need to get snarky, old sausage,” Ambrose said, chuckling into his brandy snifter.
At that moment, Tom Quick entered the room.
“Skipper, you asked to be informed the minute Wally arrived back from Cancun. Pulling up at the dock right now.”
“Thanks, Tom, I’ll be right down.”
“Wally?” Pippa asked, twirling a red satin evening bag by its strap, “Who’s he?”
Alex said, “Not a ‘he,’ Pippa, a ‘she.’A new boat. You’ll see her in the morning before you leave.”
“Can’t I see her now?” Pippa asked, smiling at Hawke from under her long lashes.
“You certainly cannot. There’s a good deal of preparation to be done before dawn,” Hawke said. He was anxious to get his first real look at her and get feedback from the crew just returned from a quick shakedown cruise to Cancun. The first radioed reports from her new skipper, Gerard Brownlow, were encouraging. She was blisteringly fast and very seaworthy. Armed, she’d be lethal in a fight.
“A quick nightcap after all that preparation, Alex?” Pippa asked shyly, her long lashes lowered.
“I think not. Good night, Constable. And I
wish you a very good night as well, Miss Guinness. It’s been a pleasure having you aboard. Most helpful. A pleasant homeward journey.”
“Pity about him,” Pippa said as Hawke crossed the room to confer with Tom Quick. “You’re not going to bed, too, Mr. Congreve?”
Ambrose said, “Well, I suppose I could be persuaded to have just one more brandy. Just the one, mind you! Don’t be naughty.”
“We need to crack that code, Constable. Tonight, if possible.”
Ambrose said, “I’ll read the thing straight through, Alex. Soon as I’m finished, I’ll ring you up. First light too early?”
“Not at all.”
“Code?” Pippa said, plopping herself into Alex’s still warm chair. “What code?”
“The Da Vinci Code,” Alex said, pausing at the door, “Read it?”
“Not yet.”
“You and Mrs. Zimmermann,” Alex said on his way out.
48
GUNBARREL, TEXAS
H omer crouched down on the forlorn pile of bones and waited. He was hiding in a rear corner of the trailer. He was up against the rear door, about four feet below where the top would have been if it hadn’t rusted out. He had his gun out and he was breathing hard. His shoulder burned like the devil and was bleeding pretty good now out of the exit wound. Hadn’t hit bone, just muscle. He’d stuffed his bandanna in the little hole but what he needed to do was tie it off. He could hear the man outside, maybe a hundred yards away.
He took a chance and put the gun down a second so he could wind a tourniquet around his upper arm. He wound the bandanna tight, clenched the knot in his teeth and pulled. Hurt like a bitch, but he felt the bleeding ease up instantly.
“Shitfire!” the man on the ground said. Must not have seen the tangle of wire fencing Homer had ripped down. Sounded like he’d tripped over it and gone down hard. It was a heavy thud; he was a big man. When he got up, his steps were slow and heavy.
He had a smoker’s hack and the sound of his cough was getting closer. Homer couldn’t figure out why the sound of the man’s gunfire hadn’t brought all the outside security lights on and more folks streaming out of the big brick warehouse building. Then he got it. Except for the Yankee Slugger that had pulled inside, the building must be empty. The smoker out there was all she wrote.
The lone night watchman.
Who was watching what, exactly? A junkyard?
No. Something really, really interesting, that was what. Somebody had put serious money into that fancy electric sliding door. And then paid a lot more to make the whole building look old and weathered. And, invisible to anyone who happened to take a detour through a forgotten hole in the wall called Gunbarrel, Texas.
“Hey. You in there, asshole?” Smokey said, between hacks. “You still alive and kicking?”
Voice sounded familiar. Homer didn’t say anything. He picked up a bone. It was surprisingly heavy, a leg bone, thigh maybe, and threw it hard across at the opposite sidewall of the truck. It made a hollow clang, more of a thonk. Two loud shots instantly rang out. Jagged, magnum-sized holes appeared in the trailer’s aluminum siding. This was at the other end of the big open truck, right where the bone had bounced off.
“Throw the gun out,” Smokey said. He was standing now near the rear of the truck. Maybe six feet from where Homer was hiding. The voice was starting to sound more and more familiar, but it was so hoarse he still couldn’t place it.
“I ain’t got any gun,” Homer said, his voice sounding like it was on reverb.
“Shit. You said you was a lawman. Toss out your damn gun. I could just set out here, couldn’t I, podnuh? Jes’ let you starve and rot in there, y’-know. Ain’t nobody ever going to find you in there, Lone Ranger. I promise you that damn much.”
“I’m hit.”
“I figured you was.”
“Need a doctor.”
“Where’d I catch you?”
“Arm.”
“Bleedin’ pretty good?”
“I guess.”
“Yeah? So throw out your fuckin’ six-shooter and we’ll talk about getting you over to the Emergency Room.”
Homer picked up another bone. It was smaller than the first one he’d thrown, only about a foot long. Rotted black cloth had stuck to one end of it, embedded in a knobby joint. Part of the person’s shirt, maybe. There were still some pieces of people’s clothing mixed in with all the bones. Lots of sandals. He tied more black rags tight around the bone. Didn’t look that realistic. Had a good heft to it, though.
“You win. I’m throwing out the gun.”
“I’m waitin’.”
“Here she comes.”
Homer sailed the bone high and long with his pitching arm. He hoped to get it all the way to those tall weeds outside the wire fence. Then he might have a chance. Either the guy would go look for it in the weeds and leave the ladder unguarded. Or, being fat and lazy, he just might take the easy route and believe what he wanted to believe. That he’d seen a gun go flying over his head and now he had an unarmed kid trapped in a forty-foot long coffin that was half-full already.
Most people, in Homer’s limited experience, believed what they wanted to believe.
“Smart kid,” Smokey finally said, still huffing and puffing just outside the truck doors. “Okey-dokey, son. I’m coming on up that ladder.”
Homer heard a grunt and felt the noticeable dip of the man’s weight on the bottom rung of the ladder. Big guy, all right. Heavy. He’d have one hand on the ladder and the gun in the other. Gun in the right hand most likely, if you trusted the law of averages.
Homer pressed his cheek against the cold aluminum siding as the smoker slowly mounted the steel ladder. He was crouched in the shadows. The ladder went up the right side nearest him. He could see the top rung. When they saw each other’s faces, hell, there wouldn’t be more than six feet between them.
Homer’s finger tightened in the curve of the trigger. He blinked a few times, and tried to swallow. He hurt. Cold sweat was stinging his eyes. He’d never killed a man before. Never fired a shot with his service revolver in the line of duty. He wasn’t even much of a shot. Smokey was almost to the top, grunting and wheezing. He saw white fingers curl around the top rung.
Homer Prudhomme, looking at his shaking gun hand, thought to himself, Son, you can’t win with a losing hand.
Eternity passed. His hand suddenly stopped shaking.
“Hey,” Smokey said, near the top rung now. “Where the fuck are you at, boy?”
He could see the slotted top of the man’s cowboy hat. The top half of his face, his eyes.
“Hey! You hear me? I said. Where. You. At?”
“Waiting for you,” Homer said and fired twice at the whole head and shoulders now silhouetted against the dark blue sky.
The man’s head exploded and his body fell away, his fingers finally peeling off the top rung. There was a thudding sound like a big sack of potatoes hitting the dirt. Homer got to his feet and began stacking bones in the corner so he could climb out of this death trap.
He dropped to the ground beside the body. It was face down in the weeds, dead still, except for the right leg which was splayed out at a bad angle and twitching.
He got a hand under the shoulder and managed to get the man turned over onto his back. There was just enough of his face left to recognize him.
The man he’d killed? Mr. J.T.Rawls.
He waited to feel something. Fear, he guessed. Didn’t happen. Justifiable self-defense during a murder investigation? The man was going to shoot him, no question about that. He shook his head, trying to clear it of anything but the facts of his developing case. Mr. Rawls, bigshot Chevy dealer, had himself a little sideline business, seemed like. Mexican Midnight Auto Supply? No, something a whole lot bigger than that.
But, what?
49
H omer half expected the rear door of the warehouse to be hanging ajar, but it wasn’t. Rawls was dead as dirt, but he’d padlocked the door behind him when he’d come o
ut to check out the noise outside. Homer walked around the building again and figured out the only way inside was still the fire escape ladder.
He reached up and pulled the ladder down, not worrying about the screeching noise anymore. You could make all the noise you wanted in a ghost town with a population recently dropped down to one. He went up the steps and climbed through the open window, shining his mini-flashlight inside first and seeing nothing out of the ordinary. It was an empty room, probably used to be an office. An overturned wooden desk was in the center of the floor.
There was single bulb hanging from a wire in the center of the room. Homer turned the switch but it was either burned out or there was no power. He saw a wooden chair facing the window. Scuff marks on the windowsill where J.T. parked his boots. Rawls was a rich man. Yet, this had been his office. His half-full Cowboys coffee mug was sitting on the seat where he’d left it when he’d heard something outside.
Or, maybe Rawls had his fancy office somewhere else in the building. Maybe he’d just been walking around having a smoke and stepped in here. Walked over to the window to get a little air.
On the floor around the upturned desk were some girlie magazines and some porno stuff. He picked one up. It was a calendar with a naked girl in a tire swing. The year 1988. At the bottom were the words, Courtesy of Rawls Chevrolet. J.T. had himself a dealership down here a long time ago. Never told anybody about it. Must have been successful though, size it was.
He dropped the calendar among the paper cups, and other garbage. Some old Burger Boy and Krispy Kreme sacks and wads of dirty paper napkins. The room still reeked of tobacco and the old sweat-stink of the dead man.
Homer thought he heard something beyond the closed door and stood stock still for a second. It was a faint, humming noise, like heavy machinery moving deep inside the warehouse.
He moved quietly over to the door and pulled it open.
He had no idea what he expected on the other side but it certainly wasn’t what he saw.
Which was nothing.
The whole building was empty inside. He was looking at a big empty box at least a hundred feet long, fifty feet wide, and four stories high. No floors. No windows. No staircases. No nothing inside. There was a roof up there overhead. Corrugated aluminum. The arched steel beams that supported it seemed to be fairly new. And the featureless brick walls were freshly painted white floor-to-ceiling on all four sides. There was a narrow steel catwalk beyond the door and he stepped out onto it. He was about twenty feet above the ground floor.