Then I was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The evening was dark; ghosts swirled through the mists of the ancient city. After awakening in Carolyn’s bed that morning, I had excused myself to walk back to the hotel, and spent the day exploring the downtown area, encountering an old Spanish hospital, with all the saws and buckets necessary to saw off mangled arms and legs. The wooden floor was covered with old bloodstains.
Now I was going back to Carolyn’s house, taking an isolated road.
There were few streetlights along this old road, about three blocks from the Castillo de San Marcos, the old Spanish fort from the 1600s, very close to the site of the first Spanish landing. How old was this road?
Probably one of the older ones, though it had been repaved very recently. My imagination was ripe—I could see many figures darting through the nearby trees and yards—some wore Mayan dresses and carried knives, while others drifted around in Spanish armor.
I was sorting through the complications of my life as I walked. That was probably why I didn’t notice someone following me. Only when I realized that all the other ghosts were gone did I look around me and see the one slinking in the shadows half a block back.
Was it Raxka in her current incarnation? It must be. But why was she stalking me? As I recalled my dreams, I realized that each of them, until the ones of the last week, had taken me back further and further into the depths of time. After I’d discovered the wall in Mayapán where I had carved my daughter’s name and the date, I had begun having the series of dreams ending with our deaths in the Sacred Cenote. I remembered Dr. Winkles saying that it seemed my dreams were taking me backward in time to a point where it all began. Was that why she had begun to hunt me through the ages? Because I had killed her?
But she had also killed my daughter and me, so why her continued hatred of me through the ages?
As the figure darted behind a tree, I also found one to hide behind, where the streetlights were dim. I waited but heard nothing.
In a few moments, I could hear faint footsteps in the leaves. The footsteps quickened, and as the figure moved under a streetlight, now only ten feet away, I could easily see that it was Carolyn.
“Why are you stalking me?” I asked. “I was heading for your house.”
A brief jerk of surprise hit her but passed quickly, and she said, “Good. There are some things we need to talk about tonight after dinner. I’ll try to get my mother to go to back to her house early.” Then she whirled and left, and I went back to the hotel.
Dinner that night didn’t appeal much to me. I ordered some kind of fish, paying hardly any attention to its identity. Carolyn and her mother ordered chicken.
I drank three glasses of eighteen-year-old Dalmore scotch, the flavor of the sherry casks it was produced in seducing my tongue. I savored the taste, sliding it around in my mouth, trying to avoid talking to either of my companions. I felt isolated. My previous job had kept me a loner, but the feeling was stronger now that I was with Carolyn and her mother. I didn’t like the feeling, especially after the closeness I’d felt the night before.
Carolyn’s mother ordered a glass of dessert wine, then gave us her leave.
Silence filled the table after her departure. Carolyn turned to me, reached for my hand, and said, “Let’s go outside to talk.”
We walked out the back door of the hotel restaurant to the pool deck, an expansive area surrounding four separate pools. We found a distant corner, where the edge of the deck approached the sea, extending almost to the breaking waves.
No one was near.
“What do you think is going on?” Carolyn asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re smart enough to understand the question,” she replied.
I thought for a moment, avoiding an answer. But what the hell? She might think I was crazy, but I needed to see what she had to say.
“Are you trying to get me to admit that I’ve been having dreams where I’ve been haunted by a crazy Mayan ghost woman for hundreds of years?”
My bluntness caught her by surprise. She actually flinched, then smiled sadly. “I knew something was bothering you.”
“Why? I’m a very straightforward guy.” Of course, as I said this, I realized I hadn’t been very forthright with her. I’d never mentioned the dreams.
Her eyes avoided mine. “Tell me about your dreams.”
I did.
“And you think you’re being haunted through time?”
“Makes no sense, does it?”
“I’m not sure what to think.”
“Except that I’m crazy?”
“Before now you never said or did anything to make me think that.”
“But now you’re about to change your mind?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But I can tell you’re thinking it.”
“I must admit I’m a little concerned.”
“So, is it true?”
“How could it be? And how would I possibly know?”
“Well, even if I’m not being hunted in previous lives by a madwoman, someone has definitely tried to kill me in this one. Through the years, my enemy has always been a woman, and I know somehow that my killer is a woman in this time too.”
“So, you believe the dreams are true?”
I studied her in the faint light of the evening but could not read any particular emotion on her face. “I don’t know what I believe. It makes no sense, but my dreams seem so real. And when I’m in them, I sometimes feel as though I’m dreaming of the future, the here and now. It’s hard at times to understand which is the dream, the present or the past. But it’s a fact that someone has tried to kill me several times.”
Frowning, Carolyn said, “Obviously, this is a problem you need to solve. Otherwise, one of these attempts on your life will be successful.”
“True.”
We sat in the darkness for a while. On the eastern horizon the moon was creeping up, still close to the full moon it had been two nights before.
Lune was the Mayan word for moon. Ix-Chel was the Moon Goddess, also the goddess of fertility once upon a time.
I stared at the large yellow orb now fully visible just above the distant ocean. Did I have Ix-Chel to thank for the many Emes I’d had in the past, though they all had different names.
Wondering where Eve was, wanting desperately to find her, I knew she wasn’t the madwoman after me, and I suddenly knew that we were meant to be together.
“Where will you go now?” Carolyn asked.
“To find Eve and her mother.”
“How?”
“I have powerful friends in useful places,” I said.
“I hope you realize what you’re getting into.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
My first plan was simplistic: I would let them—or at least one of their thugs—find me.
I didn’t want Carolyn to be hurt, so I told her I was leaving St. Augustine, checked out of my hotel, and found a dumpy little room in another hotel close to the beach to move into, but didn’t tell Carolyn. She didn’t seem that upset to say goodbye but did say she hoped to see me again sometime soon. We left our next rendezvous open.
I wandered the streets of the old city for two days, visiting tourist attractions. I didn’t really expect my enemies to be here, but they had followed me in the past, so I gave it a try.
But no one approached me. And I sensed no followers.
Time to leave. I had a backup plan, not as simplistic.
I booked a flight to New York.
I had thought when I left the city six months before that I would never see Anthony Simone again. Now I needed a favor. How would he respond?
Anthony Simone had been investigated at least ten times by every state and federal agency with an interest in racketeering, smuggling, and murder. No charges had ever been filed, though each agency maintained active files voluminous enough to fill a dozen servers. I was part of the reason no charges had been filed. For that reason alone I hoped he wouldn’t throw me out of his fortress in South Brooklyn.
The security officer in the main lobby knew me well and gave me no trouble, nor did the bodyguards at the elevator on the fifth floor. But the gorilla outside his inner sanctum and the secretary were both new, and my entreaty for an appointment was not given a fair evaluation.
“Mr. Simone has a full schedule today,” smirked the secretary.
“He’ll see me if you tell him I’m here,” I said quietly, anger beginning to grow.
The secretary sighed. “What did you say your name was, again?”
“Scott Remington.”
“You don’t have an appointment. I’m sorry.”
“Try the list you keep in the upper right-hand drawer of your desk.”
She frowned but didn’t ask how I knew about its existence. She pulled it out and examined it. “I don’t see your name here.”
“It should be.” Obviously, he had expunged me after I resigned.
The secretary lost her patience with me at this point. She took off her reading glasses and glared up at me, her narrow eyebrows raised and her pupils pinpoint and angry.
“Look, I don’t know who you are, but you have until I count to three to leave this office.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then Michael will escort you out.”
“And if I don’t agree to be escorted out?”
“Then heaven help you.”
A naive woman. But more power to Michael. He’d convinced her of his invulnerability. Too bad he was wrong.
Still, I didn’t know what to do. I could force my way in. But I had no desire to hurt Michael. He was just doing his job.
“If you will just tell Mr. Simone my name, I’m sure he will make room for me in his schedule.” Would he? Probably, but he had not been happy when I’d suddenly quit.
“I’m not going to bother him,” she said loudly. “Michael, escort this man to the elevator.”
“I’m not leaving without seeing Mr. Simone,” I said softly.
A sneer appeared on Michael’s face. He relished the idea of taking me apart. Fortunately for him, the door to Anthony Simone’s office opened at that time and the King himself stood there, frail and old as I remembered him, with an aura just as mesmerizing. He stared up at me with rheumy, weary eyes.
“Scott. I should have known you were the source of the commotion.” He turned his gaze to his secretary and then to Michael. “I suppose you were trying to stop him from entering.”
The secretary nodded, anger still brewing in her eyes.
“Be glad for Michael’s sake that I came out when I did,” Anthony Simone said sternly.
Surprise replaced anger in the secretary’s eyes and the anger jumped to Michael.
“I woulda had no trouble with him,” Michael spat. “I was just gonna do my job.”
“Part of your job is to stay alive,” Simone said, walking back into his office, motioning me to follow him.
No more words came from Michael. It was clear he did not want to further offend his boss, but the way he kept glancing at me made me think that he still wasn’t convinced that I was all that dangerous.
I followed Simone in, closing the door after I entered. I took one glance at Michael’s face as the door shut. It was white with rage.
I closed the door behind me and waited until Simone wobbled over to a cluster of blue leather chairs and a sofa. He sat down in one of the chairs and motioned for me to do the same.
“Never expected to see you again,” he said.
“I didn’t say goodbye to you; I merely resigned my job.”
Simone waved his hand in frustration. “It is the same thing, my son, the same thing.”
“Not to me,” I replied. “I will always think of you as my father.”
He looked at me with a hard sadness in his eyes. “The Family cannot separate as you have done and still be related.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“It was your choice.”
I was silent for a moment as I tried to keep in check the emotions welling up inside me. I had hoped for a better reception. I had hoped that time would have eased the pain of my retirement, but before I walked into his office, I knew that was not to be. In his own way Simone was a fair and just man, but his makeup did not include a great deal of sympathy. The Family was everything. It was to be served and protected against the forces that were always trying to destroy it. The law, other Families, the new generations of drug dealers trying to move into Family territory—threats were everywhere. From Simone’s point of view, my retirement made it harder to enforce his wishes. And it probably did.
“I depended on you,” said the Don. “I needed you.”
“You have other enforcers.”
“None as skilled as you.”
“Almost.”
He shook his head. “No, not even close. You made death look like an act of God. I could say to my enemy, “May God strike you down,” and the next morning he would be found dead of ‘natural causes,’ with no sign of foul play. It struck fear in their hearts. You were the best.”
I couldn’t argue with him. I was the best. There were ways to kill a man that left no trace. If he wanted someone shot, he didn’t need me, though I was the best at that as well. If he wanted someone hit by a car, he didn’t need me either. There were plenty of men capable of carrying out a contract like that. But if he wanted a man killed in such a manner that it didn’t look like a contract, then he did need me. People might suspect my hand in the death, but no one would ever be able to prove murder, much less that I was involved. I had been the best. When I lost my enthusiasm for the job two years ago, I became dangerous, not only to myself but to Anthony Simone as well. Six months ago, I’d retired.
He finally sighed. “You were practically my son. I raised you. I cannot turn you away now, no matter how angry you made me. Why have you come back?”
I pulled the picture of Eve, her mother, and Eme at the dinner table out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Do you know who these people are?”
For just an instant I saw a flash of something in his eyes, then he recovered, and his emotionless face returned. He shook his head.
Why would he lie to me? But I dared not challenge his word. He lived by his code of honor, and to accuse him of lying would mean the end of what little welcome I had here.
“I met them on a cruise.”
He said nothing.
“I think the old woman is the leader of a group of thugs, and they keep the young woman and her daughter prisoners under her orders.”
A strange look came over his face, but still he said nothing, so I went on. “They’re trying to kill me. I don’t know why.”
He avoided my gaze and looked out the window. “I do not understand how I can help you. None of them are familiar to me.”
Again I didn’t challenge him, though he was clearly lying. I tried silence myself, to see if he would add anything. He didn’t, and I was finally forced to ask, “Do you know anything about this company?” I handed him the business card Manuel had handed me on his boat.
“International Labo
r, Inc., Buenos Aires.” His tone was flat, subdued. Fear rode his voice like a phantom.
“I think this company is related to my troubles.”
“Why?”
I told him.
He stared at the card for a while, then handed it back to me. “I have never heard of the company.”
What could I do? I knew he was lying again. I even suspected he knew that I knew. But he avoided my gaze and continued to stare out the window. What did he see? The future or the past?
“I was hoping you could help me,” I told him in a frustrated voice.
Still he said nothing.
I stood up, knowing that I would probably never see him again. I couldn’t, not after being turned away like this. I had offended him when I retired, but this was worse. Something about the people at Eve’s table had shut his mouth. I didn’t know what that might be, but I was going to find out. I had to. They were trying to kill me. If he wouldn’t help me find those who wanted me dead, then all ties between us were broken.
Knowing this, he looked up at me one last time, his eyes old and tired. There was a deep sorrow in them, and I knew he believed my search would lead to my death.
“Thank you for your time,” I said stiffly.
He flinched, the formal goodbye wounding him more than he could reveal. But when I turned and walked to the door he finally said, “Be careful, my son. Be very careful.”
Then I was completely on my own for the first time in my life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
North Americans, particularly those from the United States, regard Argentina as primarily Spanish in language and culture. If they think hard enough, they might remember that a large number of Germans fled there after World War II and they might expect to find a small German contingent. Such a belief is no truer than believing that the United States is composed entirely of English and Indians. Emigrants from many other countries rushed to settle in Argentina in the late 1800s.
Anthony Simone’s grandparents emigrated from Sicily, where they had grown up near Palermo. He was the nearest thing to family that I had, so I thought of myself as being from Sicily as well, though in truth my ancestry was unknown. I had little memory before age nine when I went to New York to live with Simone.
The Hauntings of Scott Remington Page 14