Book of Secrets

by Chris Roberson

  Sew Eduard than he left that plece

  Cladde in livrey al of blake,

  An toke him to the grene wode,

  To fyghte for al mens seke.

  An from that daye onne,

  In evry cornere of the lande,

  The people loved an nobles feyred

  The name of the Blake Hande.

  SIXTH DAY

  I woke folded double in the cramped seat as the bus pulled into the station in El Paso. I'd slept a little, fitfully, dreaming in Middle English, but didn't feel at all rested. Coaxing my aching muscles and groaning joints into motion, I managed to climb out of the seat, get the bag, book, and box arranged in an awkward hold, and stumbled from the bus and out into the stale morning air. It was just past dawn, and already I was remembering why I didn't like El Paso.

  Not bothering with a cab or rental car, I hoofed it the few blocks from the bus station to the nearest flea bag motel. I checked in under the name of Richmond Taylor, and lugged my things up rickety metal stairs to my shoebox room. The bed looked like it had been used as a prop in one too many professional wrestling bouts, and the sink in the bathroom wouldn't stop dripping, but the air conditioner seemed to work and the door locked solid.

  Dropping my things unceremoniously on the floor and stripping to the waist, I struggled hard against the urge to a) shower, b) shower and then sleep, or

  c) screw the shower and go right back to bed. I didn't feel like I'd really rested in days, which I hadn't, but my nagging conscience told me I had important things to do before I even thought about rest.

  First, I had to call Tan and give him a heads up that he might be expecting trouble. He'd known it was coming, naturally, having passed me the invite to the auction and given me the skinny on Carerra. Still, it was only good form to let him know that I was out of it, and that there was a chance there might be some ill will directed his way after vouching for me. Ill will, to say the least.

  The phone rang at Tan's place a good six times before anyone answered, which was unusual enough in and of itself. More unusual still is that it wasn't Tan who answered, a first.

  "Hello, who is this?" came a frantic voice on the other end of the line, a woman's and in no mood for niceties.

  "Who is this?" I echoed, and then added. "Cachelle, is that you?"

  "Spencer, baby, I'm so glad you called," she answered in a rush. "I've just been worried sick, sick I tell you, and I didn't know what to do. The doctors are no good, and the police are even worse. I oughta throw a hex on the whole lot of them, watch me if I don't."

  I settled back on the bed, cradling the phone against my shoulder, and pulled off my boots.

  "Slow down, Cachelle," I said. "Take it slow, from the top. Where's Tan?"

  Cachelle let out a heavy, rattling sigh and continued.

  "Tan's in the hospital, sugar, and he's in a bad way. Somebody broke into his place late last night and made a mess of him and his rooms. I heard the crashing around and called the cops, but by the time they showed up whoever it was had already gone. That ambulance took its own goddamned sweet time to get here, pardon my French, and I'm surprised Tan didn't just up and die on us before we got him to the hospital."

  Two questions were jockeying for first position in my head, waiting to jump.

  "How is he?" won the race by a nose, with "Who did it?" following close behind.

  "Well," Cachelle answered, breathy, "Tan is… well, he could be better, sugar. They've got him all hooked up to monitors and computers and wires and tubes, and they're breathing for him and pushing his blood around and listening to his insides, but he hasn't woke up yet. They don't know for sure yet if he will, or if he does whether he'll still be… still…" Her voice broke, and I didn't have the heart to make her go on for a second. I just sat on the edge of that crappy bed, one boot off and the other on, naked to the waste and unable to feel a goddamn thing. I was numb, empty, and I could hardly hear her talking for the noise all the screaming thoughts in my head were making.

  I steadied myself and tried for a follow-up.

  "Okay, Cachelle, I know." I was trying to stay calm, trying not to blow up and set her over the edge. "Do the police know who did it? Did they get them?"

  "No, no, no, they don't know who did it, they don't have any damned idea," she wailed. "Somebody just busts into somebody's house and messes them up like that, and the police don't even know where to start. They were asking me if I knew who did it!" She snuffled loudly into the phone. "Then there was that note this morning, and they didn't even know what to do with that."

  "Note?" I repeated. "What note?"

  "I found this note this morning on his bed stand, right next to his hospital bed, and it hadn't been there fifteen minutes before because I'd looked. I'd been up in that room with Tan all night, and I know I didn't put it there."

  "What did the note say? Do you have it with you?"

  "No, the police took it, ignorant know nothings, but I can see it still like it was right in front of me, I don't think I'd ever forget."

  I pulled a ballpoint and a spiral out of the side of my suitcase, and propped the spiral open on my knee.

  "What did the note say, Cachelle?" I repeated.

  "It said, 'They were able to break your bones, but we can hurt you worse.' And it had a phone number across the bottom. The police tried calling it or tracing it down, but nobody answered, and they can't even figure out who has that number."

  I took a deep breath, and held it.

  "Is there any chance you remember the number?"

  "It's burned in my eyes, Spencer; I couldn't forget it if I tried." Then she rattled off the numbers, a tollfree 888 prefix and the full seven digits.

  I gave Cachelle the number of the hotel and asked her to call me as soon as she knew more. If she couldn't get me at the hotel, she should call my home number and leave a message, and I'd get back with her as soon as I could. Cachelle insisted we pray together before hanging up. I couldn't argue, and once we'd done our Amens she was off to try to clean what was left of Tan's place. It was the only thing she could think to do, and to be honest I was kind of wishing I was there with her to help. The only thing I could think to do was to call that 888 number, and I would have taken cleaning up over that in a heartbeat.

  It took half an hour of planning and replanning, but in the end I figured out what had to be done. Still on the edge of the bed, still with one boot and no shirt on, I punched in the first of two numbers I needed to call and crossed my fingers. I just hoped he was back in town, and that it was still early enough that he hadn't left for work yet.

  "Yeah," came the groggy voice on the other end of the line.

  "Amador," I sighed. "Great. Stay right there, I'm going to call you back."

  "What? Do you know what time it is?"

  "Early," I answered. "Now don't go anywhere."

  "I've got to talk to–" I heard him say, but I clicked off the line before he could finish.

  Next up came the hard part. I pulled a cigarette from my suit coat, lighting it with my Zippo, hoping to soothe my nerves, or least give my hands something to do. Cradling the receiver against my ear, I punched in the 888 number and held my breath. My hands were shaking, so much so that the smoke rising up from the cigarette jetted into tight spirals that almost circled back on themselves above me. It occurred to me that I was putting myself in a considerable amount of risk for a single story, but realized at this point it wasn't even about J. Nathan Pierce anymore, or shady land deals, or any of it. I just wanted answers.

  The line rang once and then clicked on. I heard silence on the other end.

  "H-hello," I said, putting my bravest face forward.

  "Mr. Finch," came the answer, a man's voice like nails on a chalkboard.

  "That's me," I answered, trying for glib, "who are you?"

  "That's not important, Mr. Finch. I assume you received our… message?"

  I tightened my grip on the receiver, white-knuckled and sweaty palmed.

  "
Don't touch my friends again," I barked, "or I will find you and kill you myself."

  The voice on the other end laughed mirthlessly.

  "Charming, Mr. Finch," he said, "but hardly germane. You have something we want, and to be quite honest we'll do whatever we like to you or your friends until we get it."

  I forced myself calm, aiming for collected and reaching just short of "not panicked," which would have to do.

  "What's in it for me?" I blustered. "I've been through a lot of trouble to get this thing."

  "You'll go through quite a lot more if we don't get it, Mr. Finch. What's in it for you is the continued well being of yourself and your friends. Need I point to a certain Mr. Marconi as a rather unpleasant object lesson?"

  That clinched it. I just hoped my plan would work.

  "Alright, what do you want me to do?" I answered. I was trying to put a hint of desperation into my tone, and found I was hardly faking at all.

  "We would like to meet, Mr. Finch, to arrange a transfer of the item from your care to ours. Where are you now?"

  "California," I lied. "Los Angeles."

  Again the mirthless chuckle, and chills ran down my spine.

  "A nice try, I suppose," he continued, "but I'm afraid the Caller ID on your phone places you squarely at a hotel near the center of El Paso, does it not?"

  Now I was panicking for real, all thoughts of acting gone. I snapped back open my Zippo and held it up to the phone.

  "Hear that?!" I shouted, rolling the wheel and setting up a flickering banner of flames. "That's my trusty all-weather lighter, and if anyone fucks with me here I'll introduce it to your little book club member and see how well they get along. Do you get me? I'll fucking burn it if you come near me!"

  "Calm yourself, Mr. Finch," he answered. "No one would dream of intruding on your privacy. Shall we arrange a more neutral location to meet, then? At some later time?"

  I breathed deep, relieved. So far it was going fine.

  "Tomorrow night, six o'clock," I answered firmly. "San Antonio. In front of the Alamo. It's then and there, or nowhere, and I burn the damned thing right now."

  The voice on the other end of the line sighed dramatically.

  "Very well, Mr. Finch," he answered reluctantly. "Tomorrow night at six o'clock in San Antonio. We shall speak further then."

  "Don't forget," I shot back, leaning forward, trying to regain a bit of my lost self-respect. "The Alamo."

  "I shall remember," he answered, but I got the impression he hadn't caught the joke.

  I paused only to relieve my overburdened bladder, which had threatened to give way at least twice in the course of the conversation, before calling back Amador at home. The way he answered, you would have thought it had been years.

  "Shit, Finch, what the hell is going on…?" Amador began, practically shouting before I cut him off.

  "Hang on, Lover, I've got to run something down for you quick, and then you can say whatever you like. This thing that started with Marconi has gotten really messy, really quick, and I've ended up with something that these fuckers want. I've arranged to meet them tomorrow night in front of the Alamo to hand this shit over, and I'm pretty sure once they lay hands on it I'm going down like a shot. They've already put Tan in the hospital, beat half to death, not to mention Marconi, and I don't really think they'll have that much problem with adding me to the list. I need you to pull whatever strings you can, get the Feds there in force, and pick these fuckers up before they pick me off. The Bureau'll be able to solve a string of murders and beatings, and I'll get to go on breathing. What do you say, man, can you do that for me?"

  Amador let out a long sigh on the other end before answering.

  "Sure, Finch," he finally said, "of course, I'll make the call right now and get the shit lined up. But I told you something like this was going to happen, didn't I?"

  "Don't pull that nagging shit on me right now, okay, Amador, I am just not in the mood for it."

  "Alright, alright," he answered, "but I think this thing is already messier than you know."

  "What are you talking about, man?"

  "It was just on the news," Amador answered. "J. Nathan Pierce was found murdered this morning; shot to death in his own home."

  There was no hope for sleep after that. I finished up with Amador, giving him the details on the time and place of the meeting, and numbly hung up the phone. Half undressed, I paced back and forth in the motel room for a while, one foot bare and the other booted, before finally stripping down and going through the motions of a listless shower. The water-flow was tepid and weak, but I hardly noticed.

  Back out, I didn't even bother to get dried off before I got dressed again, and grabbed up the Lucite case. I cracked it open, and dropped the heavy book out onto the bed. The silver disk on the cover caught the light, and shifted like mother of pearl when the book was moved. It was set into the leather of the cover, the curved edges overlapped by the material around it. I was able to pry the metal clasps loose, and flipped the book open to the first pages.

  Where was Michelle when I needed her? I couldn't make the writing out at all. It was all little swirls and lines, maybe Greek, but it could have been Klingon shorthand for all I knew. I flipped a few pages ahead, carefully, the delicate pages rustling like dried leaves as I moved them. The handwriting seemed to change every few pages, the types of letters or alphabets changing every few more. The writing was so small and tightly packed that my vision swam just looking at it, and I felt a headache coming on. I flipped to the end of the book and found the last sections written in an alphabet I recognized, at least, though I couldn't make out the words, followed by a bunch of blank pages. This was getting me nowhere. I needed motion, needed to get my feet moving, or I'd burn myself out from all the pent up frustrations.

  Dropping the book back into the Lucite case, I took it into the bathroom and hid it above the ceiling tiles over the toilet, sliding them carefully back into place so that everything looked kosher. I didn't really think anyone was going to track me down just yet; the threats I'd made about burning the thing seeming to have the desired effect, but still it made sense not to take any chances. I stomped into my boots, grabbed up cigarettes, lighter and room key, and was out the door.

  Three old men haunted my steps, two dead and the other just barely alive. Two that shaped my childhood, made me the man I was, and one who had played Roadrunner to my Coyote for months, my very own white whale. All that was over now, I realized, any story long gone. Whatever land swindles or dirty deals Pierce had been mixed up in had somehow paled in comparison to the growing pile of corpses around that damned Lucite-encased book. The publishers of Logion wouldn't be too happy about that, I figured, but I decided I didn't much care. All of this had stopped being about the story a long time ago, for me at least, and now I just wanted the answers. What was this book, and why was it so important to these people? What did this Lucetech outfit have to do with it, and if they were one of the groups at the auction, who were the other people? Who was the voice on the other end of the phone, the ones who had put my mentor in the hospital? And who had been the one to call me in the first place, to put me onto the book's trail?

  I didn't have any of the answers to the questions I'd started with the week before, and now had a few dozen more piled on top. My head was swimming in riddles and mysteries, but one thing kept forcing its way back to the forefront. Tan laying in that hospital bed, barely alive, Pierce full of holes in his spacious and well-appointed home, and my grandfather dead and buried.

  How had my grandfather died? I hadn't asked, and no one had mentioned. I'd assumed it was just old age, just his worn out body finally giving up the race and moving on to greener pastures (or under them). He'd looked so old, one foot in the grave already the last time I'd seen him, that it was a shock he'd made it as long as he did. And when had been the last time I'd seen him? Had it really been over ten years?

  It had not been, in retrospect, my most shining hour. To be honest, I'd ac
ted like a spoiled brat, but it was years before I realized it, and by then it was much too late.

  After the first summer I'd spent in New Orleans with Tan, when I'd just turned fourteen, I was forced to return home to San Antonio to finish out high school. Tan, who seemed to have no ethical problem training me in the art of cat burglary, balked at harboring a runaway. So it was back to the house on Crescent Row, back to breakfasts in the kitchen with Patrick and Maria, and the stony silences and occasional outbursts from my grandfather.

  Still, things had changed at my grandfather's house after that summer. I'd left off the training regimen the old man had drilled us with all those years, and the old man left off forcing me to follow it. I still worked out, running and doing free weights, but only because they were the sorts of skills Tan had insisted were vital to a burglar's success. I did well enough in school, too, I suppose, again following Tan's advice. Tan had taken a more holistic approach to the art of crime than most, I guess you could say, and considered the uncultured thief little better than a cutpurse. A true thief, he always said, had to be an artist as well as a craftsman, and that demanded literacy and an appreciation for the finer things. I swallowed it all, naturally, considering how impressionable I was and how impressive Tan had seemed.