Book of Secrets

by Chris Roberson

  I stood under the water for long minutes, just letting it wash over me. I had been running pretty much nonstop for the past few days on little food and even less rest, and the water felt as though it was pouring new life into me. I was waterlogged and pruned before I finally shut off the tap, but stepping out I felt revived, and a bit more ready to meet what the day would bring. Two phone calls and a bald monk with a videotape; whatever else came would have to be an anticlimax.

  I briefly considered stopping in at the offices of Logion before leaving town, but thought better of it. I had very little to show for my time except vague notions and unanswered questions, and given the growing tab for my endeavors I thought it best to wait to make my big entrance. Shaking the wrinkles out of my suit, I dressed and then stomped into my boots. I dropped a fresh pack of cigarettes into a pocket and took the time to gas up my Zippo. Then I shoved a couple of clean shirts and a pair of sundries into a suitcase and stood in the middle of the living room, trying to remember what I was forgetting. My eyes fell on the cardboard box laying near the couch, half open, the contents just peeking out.

  I hadn't expected to get any farther into my grandfather's stuff than that first magazine, but now my curiosity was beginning to mount. The never ending series of Taylors, the continuous mentions of one "Black Hand" or another… either it was all an elaborate hoax of the old man's, or else there was a long history of insanity here. In my own family? Or just some other crazy bastards who just happen to be named Taylor? Had my grandfather arranged to have the Black Hand Mysteries written in the forties just to add his name to this list of lunatics? Or was that what started him on the path in the first place, some unlikely and unlucky coincidence?

  Whatever the answer, the question had worked its way into my overtaxed brain, and I realized I wouldn't be content until I had the answer. Fishing around in the kitchen drawers, I came up with a roll of packing tape. I sealed up the box, and then put it next to the door by the suitcase. I figured I would regret having to carry it around on the trip, but knew I couldn't help myself. The key to my grandfather's obsession with all that nonsense was in the box somewhere, and the sooner I found it the better.

  The morning light was thin and feeble as I walked out the front door onto the porch, the suitcase under one arm, the cardboard box under the other. I locked the door awkwardly, the box balanced on my hip, and then stepped off onto the lawn. The grass was high and dry, the last colors of summer fading, and my boots disappeared from view with every step. I was reminded of my brother, and of the field near our grandfather's house, and I shivered like I always do.

  After dumping the case and box into the trunk, I sat in the driver's seat, trying to figure out how to kill the next three hours. Royce was off at work, and even if he wasn't I think I'd had about enough of his good-natured company as I could stand for one week. Michelle was working on the translation, probably at that very moment, and wasn't much for conversation with a project before her. Amador was holed up in a dark basement somewhere in Houston, spinning his electronic webs through the ether, and my brother was off in parts unknown, doing whatever it was he does these days. Janet had left town months before, doing some kind of Korean walkabout, and everyone else either thought I owed them money or thought they owed me money, and either way it made things strained.

  So I sat there in the car, in the dim light of an autumn Thursday morning, nowhere to go and nothing to do, with two mysteries circling like starving dogs in my thoughts. One old man's stolen property, another old man's senile obsessions. I lit a cigarette and started to drive.

  I meandered for a while, then moseyed, and ended by just tooling around. The stop and go of the traffic, the electric mantra of red-green-yellow, the slight squeal of my brakes as I stepped on the pedal, all had a soothing effect. I concentrated on the simple task of driving and tried to close my mind off to unanswered question. When I finally pulled to a stop, I was in front of the airport. I still had two hours until boarding time.

  Fuck it, I thought. I need a drink.

  I was beginning to think I had a problem, then realized that the magazine was still picking up all my bills, so maybe it wasn't such a problem after all. I lugged the chains I forged in life into the airport and through security and, once in the bar glowing with tasteless neon and "local color", dropped them under the table at my feet. I ordered up a screwdriver, then another for good measure, and settled back to watch the television, the volume turned low, trying to pick out the whispered confessions of the people on the daytime talk shows.

  By the time I got on the plane, all the questions were answered. The women who love too much and the men who wear their underwear had cleared it all up for me, and I hoped to enjoy the flight in peace.

  On the plane I dreamt, and in the dream I was on a plane. I sat on a big, wide first class seat, the leather smooth under my hand. In the seat next to me sat a man dressed all in gray, with a silvertopped cane in his hands. On his lapel was a silver pin of a rising sun. The pin caught my eye, and I had the distracted notion that it was actually the setting sun. Then the man spoke, and I lost track.

  "I wonder if I might borrow that?" the man spoke, pointing with the head of his cane towards my lap.

  "What?" I said, my eyes never leaving his. They were cold, gray, like tiny cannonballs frozen in ice.

  "Your magazine," he answered.

  Then I broke from his gaze and looked at my lap. There, resting across my knees, was an enormous leather-bound book, locked with a heavy metal clasp. On the cover was a silver disk. As I looked at it the silver disk began to change, and I realized it was the necklace Royce wore. I wondered where I'd seen it before.

  "Can I have that when you're through?" asked a woman's voice.

  I looked up and sitting opposite us was a woman and another man, both dressed in the same shade of gray. Both had the sun pin on their clothes, though these two also wore nametags. "HELLO MY NAME IS SAMEDI" and "I'M SALOME".

  "I… I'm not finished with it," I answered.

  Then the flight attendant came up and took our drink orders. She leaned over the gray man sitting next to me and asked if I wanted a drink. Then I saw that she had a gun in her hand, pointed at my heart. I realized that she wasn't a flight attendant at all, but a robber, and wondered why I hadn't noticed the mask.

  When I woke up, we were halfway over New Mexico. I felt fuzzy, wrapped in gauze, and the cardboard box in my lap was behaving entirely inappropriately. I managed to swallow twice and then blinked hard, trying to remember where I was. Involuntarily I glanced to my right, worried I would see the gray suit and the silver cane. Instead there was an unlikely looking man in a golf-shirt and sans-a-belt slacks, reading an in-flight magazine. I worked the box off my lap and onto the ground before I lost all respect for it, and then closed my eyes again. When the flight attendant came around to offer me a pillow, I checked twice to make sure she wasn't armed before shaking my head no.

  It'd been a while since I had been in Vegas, and stepping off the plane I was reminded why. Each time I came back it was a little less the town I remembered, and a little more Disney. It was getting to the point where, aside from the neon and a couple of street names, it could have been a different city entirely. Kid friendly and family safe, but the kind of place where Dean Martin wouldn't have even stopped for gas.

  Lugging my bag and the box through the airport concourse, maneuvering past the middle-aged housewives taking one last turn at the one-armed bandits before giving up and heading back to Kenosha, I found the rental car kiosks and arranged for transportation. I thought for a second that the girl behind the counter was interested, but then I joked about buying the insurance so I could run down children and old folks with impunity and that was over. She blanched, not getting the joke, and I decided to leave well enough alone.

  Maybe it was too little sleep, or the weird dreams I'd been having the past couple of days, but I felt disconnected as I started up the car and turned out to the main strip. Like watching a pretty bor
ing movie of my life, I was running on remote control.

  I checked into a hotel on the other side of town, far away enough from the action to be cheaper and with less tourist traffic, but without question still Vegas. There were slot machines in the lobby, and the keys to my room came with a handful of complimentary chips. I dropped my stuff in my room, put a fresh shirt on under my suit coat, and then headed back downstairs. At the hotel's café, I had the waitress bring me the white pages and the special, and after wolfing down what passed in Nevada for chicken fried steak, ripped the page I needed from the phone book and tipped her all my chips. On my way out, the waitress started to kick about the mangled phone book, but saw her tip and decided to let it slide.

  The doorman was happy to help out with directions, at least once I waved a couple of bucks at him, and so fifteen minutes later I was pulling into the parking lot of a rundown apartment building on the outskirts of town. Double checking the address, I locked up the car, and headed towards the rickety stairs to the second floor, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. I probably shouldn't have bothered. In a neighborhood like that, being inconspicuous only makes you stand out all the more.

  The lock on the door proved no problem, the work of a little over a minute. An antique 1.25" Mortise cylinder almost rusted through; I could have just shoved it open quicker, but professional pride demanded I do it the old-fashioned way. Tan would have been pleased. When I had finished, I pocketed the two slim picks and gently turned the knob. I wasn't prepared for what I found.

  Either Marconi was a bigger slob than even Tan let on, or someone had really worked the place over. Particle board furniture was shattered into splinters and dust, and the ceiling fan overhead had been yanked out by the roots. The doors were ripped off the cabinets in the kitchenette, the drawers pulled out and tossed across the floor. In the small bedroom, things were even worse. A stained twin mattress had been gutted lengthwise, its ticking pulled out, the stuffing lying in a carnage of synthetic fibers all around. Someone had been looking for something, and they had been thorough. From the looks of the casual damage to the walls and ceiling, though, they hadn't found what they were looking for, and had taken out their frustration on everything else left standing.

  I was poking around in the bedroom closet, trying to find anything still in one piece that might help me figure out who Marconi had been working for, when there came a knock at the door. It was followed by a gruff voice calling out, and then the sound of heavy footfalls in the living room. There are times when I regret my decision never to carry a gun. This was one of them.

  I make it a rule never to go into a situation I don't know how to get out of, but overcome by the destruction of Marconi's apartment I'd allowed myself to get boxed in. There were no windows back in the bedroom, no convenient ceiling tiles to push out of the way and crawl through, no sideboard vents. I was stuck. Seeing no other option, I straightened up, dusted off my suit as best as possible, and walked into the main room.

  The cartoon that stood there waiting for me screamed landlord. Sweat-stained undershirt, barefoot and Bermuda shorts, he was overweight, grizzled and balding. Smelling the stink of his cheap cigar, I wondered if guys like him were drawn into the property management field by genetics and cultural conditioning, or whether they got to looking like that only after taking the job.

  "You a friend of Marconi's?" the sweat stain asked warily, eyeing me up and down.

  I thought quickly for a clever story and, failing miserably, did the best I could. I was too tired for this.

  "His cousin," I said in an East Coast accent. "Sal Marconi. In town for the funeral."

  I stuck out my hand and he limply accepted, drawing his hand back as soon as was possible.

  "Funeral, huh?" he said. "Didn't think enough people gave two shits about Marconi to pay for planting him."

  "Well," I said serenely, every bit the grieving relation, "we may have had our differences, but Gian was still family, you know?"

  "Sure, sure," he answered, apologetic. "No offense."

  "None taken." I motioned at the destruction around us. "Did Gian always keep his place like this?"

  "How the fuck should…" he began, then calmed himself and clamped down on the cigar. "Nah, he was a slob, but nothing like this. It was all tore up when the cops came by the other day to check things out, and they said it looked like there'd been a break in."

  "You don't say."

  "Yeah, but with his TV all busted up like that and nothing stolen, I figure it for a bunch of kids out for some fun. You know? Saw the place was empty, and decided to have a party." He paused, shifting his eyes. "I must have been away that night, 'cause I would have heard if something was going on."

  "I'm sure you would have," I said, nodding. I was also sure that blanketed in the fog of vodka I smelled on his breath, he most likely was "away" most every night.

  "Even so," he continued, "somebody's gotta pay for this mess. Marconi didn't keep any insurance, and the cops say that there's not enough left in his bank account even to cover his parking tickets, so I'm out a months rent right there, too."

  "I'm sure that the family can work something out," I said, "cover any outstanding debts."

  At that, he brightened up considerably, and probably would have shook my hand again if I'd let him.

  "Alright, then," he said eagerly. "I figure with the clean up costs, and the rent, and the charges for repairs, minus his security deposit, it should come to…" He wrinkled up his forehead, trying to impress me with his mathematical prowess. I got ready for a big number. He didn't disappoint.

  I promised him the family would cut him a check for the full amount as soon as the funeral services were done, and had him write down his mailing address on a sheet of shredded newspaper. I was all set to leave, figuring I'd overstayed my welcome and was only risking trouble, when he grabbed my arm and steered me out the door.

  "Come to think of it," he said, suddenly my best friend, "I got a package here for Marconi the other day. After the cops were here. I was going to mention it but… well…" He stalled, waiting for me to finish up for him, to get him off the hook. I didn't.

  "Anyway," he finally continued, squirming, "Marconi was always sending himself stuff when he was on the road, signature required, and those fucking delivery guys were pounding on my door all hours with shit for him. One week it was eight o'clock in the morning, on a Monday no less."

  I shook my head in sympathy.

  "Anyway, I always handed the shit over when he got back, and the bastard never once even thanked me." He looked at me guiltily, and added, "May he rest in peace."

  "I'm sure he will," I answered.

  The package turned out to be a Fed Ex mailer, stuffed full and mailed a week before. I thanked the sweat stain for his time, and promised to send him the check in a few days. He bobbed his head so much he looked like he belonged on a dashboard, and waved at me from the doorway as I made my way back to the car.

  I waited until I was back at the hotel and safely in my room before I opened up the package, letting the contents spill out onto the bed. I was surprised to see a neat bundle of large denomination bills, a couple of matchbooks, and what looked to be pages torn from a ledger book.

  I counted out the bills, coming to at least ten grand. It seemed that Marconi didn't like to travel with a lot of cash, though I was impressed by his faith in the good name of Federal Express. The matchbooks came from the seedier topless bars in the Houston area. The ledger page, scrawled in a shaky hand and smelling of spilt beer, was a list of numbers and names, added up with a tally at the bottom. If this was a record of Marconi's debt, it was no surprise he'd run into trouble. On the credit side, he had listed one number, a big one. It wasn't enough to cover all his expenses, but it made a good start. Out along side the big number, in block letters, was a name: LUCETECH.

  I lit a cigarette with a match from one of the books, and stared long and hard at that name. I wasn't sure if I'd found a missing puzzle piece, or if thing
s had just got a whole lot more complicated.

  I managed to nap for a couple of hours that afternoon, waking in a cold sweat only once or twice, and by the time the sun set I was up again and ready to roam. I had nowhere to be for another twenty-four hours, so I had time on my hands, and thanks to the foresight of the dear departed Mr. Marconi, I now had money to burn.

  Other people might have thought twice about spending a dead man's money, even a dead crook's. I might even have, at one time. But the way I looked at it, the money was doing Marconi no good as it was, and if I turned it in to the cops they'd have to impound it and wouldn't even get to enjoy it. I could have turned it over to the landlord, but I didn't expect for a minute that he'd have given the package to me if he'd thought there'd be cash involved. Any way I jumped, the money would just be causing someone trouble, so it was best I keep it with me, and see to it the cash found a good home.