The Mountains Bow Down

by Sibella Giorello

  “We heard—”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me lights. And if you fool with them again, I’ll punch yours out.”

  “Right.” Jack smiled.

  I took out my credentials, which still carried photos of Ramazan and Serif. “Have you seen the one on the right?”

  She looked down, genuinely interested. “You mean there’s two of them? I thought it was one weirdo.”

  “They do look alike,” I agreed. “The one on the right, has he been here tonight?”

  “Yea-eh. Came and doodled with me lights. Check bick-stage.” She flicked her wrist, meaning backstage, then turned away because the flappers were stampeding toward us. The music shifted to rumba, and on the other side, more dancers rushed forward, dressed like torch singers.

  Backstage, I watched as the same flapper we saw on the stairs ran on tiptoes, her bare shoulders hunched like someone trying to be quiet.

  “Liza, you can’t possibly—again?” whispered another girl.

  “Shhh,” hissed the others.

  “She’s making us late!”

  “Her bladder’s infected, let it go!”

  The flapper jiggled the knob on a door with an Out of Service sign. Crossing her long legs, she laid an ear on the wood, listening. Then, with the desperate frustration of someone trapped, she yanked the knob with all her might, almost whimpering. The other dancers had disappeared into the dressing room, and when she raced after them, she was on tiptoes again, tap heels up, not disturbing the rumba on stage.

  Jack walked to the door, testing the knob. It was a simple lock, no dead bolt. When I pulled out my pocketknife, offering it to him, he slipped the blade into the lock, rocking the knob. After several tries, I pushed my keycard against the frame, pressing down as another flurry of dancers raced past us. Sock-hoppers, ready to rock around the clock.

  The lock popped. The small bathroom was dark and seemed empty. Two stalls and a double sink. No doors on the stalls. Toilet in one, urinal in the other. But over the urinal, a metal tripod stood as though using the facilities. And a framed poster was propped on the floor, demanding employees wash their hands. Where it was supposed to hang, on the wall over the white ceramic appliance, light was leaking through a two-inch hole.

  I stepped into the women’s stall. Same poster, but still hanging on the wall. I lifted it and found another hole, the same size as the other. When I leaned into it, I saw a rush of bright color. And I heard their voices now. Dancers, young women changing costumes. Running past in bras and panties. Jack was already at the sink. The mirror above was bolted to the wall, just as the posters should have been, for seaworthiness. Squatting down, I opened the doors on the double vanity. The cleaning supplies were scattered. I poked my head in. The back panel was gone. I felt cool air blowing up. Crawling in farther, sticking my head into the opening, I saw short two-by-fours running down into a small open area. A ladder of some kind.

  I backed out of the vanity.

  “Call the Dutchman,” Jack said.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  The Highway had shifted into an after-dinner frenzy. The long tunnel’s traffic was as backed up as rush hour, with more garbage cans and stacked carts of soiled napkins and tablecloths. Jack wasn’t helping. He stopped each one, pawing through, searching. For a video camera. Or even Ramazan.

  I hit Redial on my cell phone.

  Geert answered, “What now?”

  I turned my head away from the crew passing by and quickly described the tripod in the bathroom. “They’re filming the dressing rooms. And they made an escape route through an air vent.”

  Jack turned, rolling his hands at me, signaling hurry up.

  “We’re on the Highway, in pursuit.”

  “I’m coming down—”

  “Good, but where’s the best hideout down here?”

  There was a pause. “Cold storage. The freezers. They will be shutting down for the night.”

  At its middle, the Highway opened like a cross, splitting into two refrigerated wings. Jack ran left, I turned right. My feet splashed through warm water that smelled of bleach.

  In one corner, a man wearing rubber boots blasted a high-powered hose at the welded steel floor.

  “See anybody run through?” I asked.

  He smiled. “What I see?”

  As he reached down, twisting the brass nozzle to increase water volume, I felt a twinge in my gut. He kept smiling pleasantly and spraying the area. The air filled with bleached steam.

  I held up a hand, signaling him to stop. But he kept spraying.

  “Thanks!” I yelled, stepping around him. “I’ll try somewhere else!”

  I moved to the door he seemed to be guarding. My right hand automatically patted for my gun. Rats. I glanced back at the guy. His smile was gone. He laid the hose gently on the floor and raised his hands in surrender as Jack approached with a finger to his lips, telling the man to keep quiet.

  “No see nothing.” The guy backed away even farther. “See nothing!”

  Jack pointed down the Highway. The guy splashed across the wet floor.

  We stood on either side of the door, staring at each other. I waited for his signal, then he pivoted, ducking inside. I followed.

  It was the butchery. The long steel counters glistened with water. A shelf above held industrial-size rolls of white butcher paper and twine. Below that, magnetized strips displayed dozens of knives. On our right, three freezer doors were labeled for pork, beef, and chicken.

  Jack pointed to the knives. There was a gap. Judging from what hung on either side, a bone slicing cleaver was missing. Reaching up, Jack yanked two knives from the magnetic strip. He gave me the six-inch utility blade; he kept a ten-inch thing shaped like a machete.

  We stood on opposite sides of the first freezer door. A small square window was covered with condensation and I wondered how long Ramazan could survive in there. The cleanup guy was probably supposed to open the freezer after the threat passed.

  In exchange for—what?

  Porn?

  Jack signaled, reached out, and yanked the long chrome handle. The heavy door swung open. Cold air rushed out, smelling of heavy metals, the iron of beef blood. Jack jabbed his head—in, out, in— then gave the all clear. I stood up. Icy shelves stocked with brilliant red cuts, veined with fat.

  Quietly Jack closed the door and I crouched, scurrying under the window in the next door. But I never made it. The door suddenly burst open, striking the top of my head like a sledgehammer. White lights flashed in front of my eyes. I fell to the floor and heard my knife drop. Clamping both hands on top of my head, I tried to stand but lurched instead, blind with pain. Jack was yelling but the room was blurred. I saw two dark shapes, running, escaping through the pocket door.

  I staggered forward, bumping into the counter before I tripped over the threshold, splashing through the puddle outside. The world spun and the smell of bleach made me want to vomit. The hose was slithering like a snake across the wet steel, trying to release its hot water. Jack was calling my name. I placed one hand on the wall, moving toward the next room.

  Eyes watering, I pivoted toward his voice. I smelled apples. Fruit. Produce storage room. I blinked and saw Ramazan standing with his back to the shelves. The meat cleaver was raised, daring us to approach, and the lights played on the flat of the blade. In his eyes, in his cold pale eyes, I saw the predator’s sense of play. A shiver shot down my spine.

  “Raleigh?” Jack kept his eyes on Ramazan, not turning toward me.

  “Right here.” I stepped over the door’s threshold. The room seemed to shimmer. And I realized my knife was back in the other room.

  “Ramazan, we know about you and Serif,” Jack said. “He’s in custody. Put down the knife. There’s nowhere to run.”

  The moment was short. Ramazan lowered the blade in his right hand. His left came up, as if to surrender, but his fingers grabbed the edge of a box. It was above his head and he thrust it, slashing down with the blade.

  J
ack jumped back from the knife. The box flew forward and apples came pitched like baseballs. Jack and I both kept our arms up, guarding our faces, but Ramazan was flinging more boxes, oranges and limes firing through the air. Crouched to the side to avoid being hit, I saw Ramazan making a run for the door. I swung out my left leg, trying to tackle him. He swung the cleaver down, aiming for my knee.

  “Raleigh, let him go!”

  He jumped over the last of the rolling fruit and was leaping through the door when he reached back. His open palm slapped a bright red button beside the door frame. A siren screamed, earpiercing, as Ramazan yanked his arm though the opening. The pneumatic door slammed shut like a guillotine.

  I had both hands over my ears, pressing hard. But my eyes hadn’t quite figured out the sight at the door.

  The fingers splayed, twitching. It looked as disembodied as a glove. Then it turned red and blood poured down the door seam.

  Despite the siren, despite a four-inch steel door between us, I could hear the bloodcurdling scream of the predator.

  Chapter Forty

  Hands placed on curvy hips, Nurse Stephanie guarded the operating room. For once, she wasn’t buying Jack’s charm. “One question,” he was saying. “I just need to ask him one question.”

  Behind the white door, Nurse Shannon was working alongside Dr. Coleman, trying to save Ramazan’s hand.

  “The man’s in shock,” said Nurse Stephanie. “He can’t speak.”

  “He can nod.”

  “He might lose that hand.”

  “That’s what happens to thieves.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

  “He’s from Turkey, they might just as easily cut off his hand. So this isn’t really a tragedy. It’s a consquence.” He smiled. “See my point?”

  “No.”

  “Just one question.”

  “This is a medical facility—he’s our patient.”

  “Ten seconds,” Jack said. “C’mon, Stephanie. Please?”

  She swiveled a hip, trying to dig in. But her towers crumbled under his smile.

  Jack said, “How long does the operation take?”

  She batted her big beautiful eyes. “Do I look like a doctor?”

  “You wanted to give me a shot.”

  “And the offer stands, despite your bad attitude.”

  I took a step back. Neither of them noticed. When I turned around, walking away, they remained locked in some flirting argument about amputation.

  The ship had two medical clinics. One served passengers, but the other one didn’t have sliding glass doors or a fancy circular desk. It looked like a standard physician’s office, where the doctor treated the staff. Kitchen burns, stomach flus. Sprained ankles and bladder infections. It’s where Letty would have gone after the pill was pushed down her throat.

  The small operating room anchored the two halves. It was equipped with state of the art technology, Geert said. Mandatory by law, since the ship was sometimes days from civilization. Dr. Coleman was a former army surgeon, Geert said. “He might even save the pig’s hand,” he added, with a disgusted twitch of the mustache.

  The circular desk sat empty now. Across from my mom’s room, the elderly woman lay on her husband’s bed, their hands clasped. He slept. She stared at the ceiling.

  I walked into my mom’s room. Her mouth was slightly gaped and almost looked relaxed. The scratches didn’t seem as enflamed. But her blanket and sheet were torqued from fitful sleep, leaving her teal-blue hospital socks exposed. I gently covered her feet, then leaned down to kiss the top of her head. The powdery scent in her hair mingled with something acrid, talc mixed with vinegar, and as I smelled it, all my worries rushed forward.

  I could not make her well.

  I stood, staring down at her, feeling the top of my head throbbing from the freezer-door punch. My thoughts felt cloudy, uncertain. As I reached out to touch her hand, Beethoven burst from my phone.

  “David?” She turned, mumbling in half sleep. “David, is that you?”

  My father.

  I flipped open the phone, cutting off the tune that David Harmon used to hum around our house. Just as quickly, she was gone again. Her mind retreated to its anesthetized land and I carried the phone out of the room.

  “Raleigh Harmon.” I leaned against the empty nurse’s desk.

  “Harmon, it’s me.” McLeod. “I just got off the phone with LAPD. I tried. It’s not much, but here you go.”

  I took a pen from the cup on the desk and tore a sheet of paper from a pharmaceutical company pad that recommended Nicoderm. As he spoke, I kept having to ask him to repeat his words. My head was thick with pain, my hearing distant from the siren that had screamed until Geert arrived and shut it off. He had rushed Ramazan to the medical clinic before we could find out if he was a contract killer or safecracker, or just another cheap pornographer. In the aftermath, Jack called McLeod twice, begging for information on these movie people.

  “I’ll start with the worst and move down the list,” McLeod said. “First, Vinnie Pinnetta. LAPD’s vice has him on a watch list. They think he’s moving stolen goods.”

  “What kind of goods?”

  “Name it. Italian suits, perfume from Brazil. Hijacked shipments at the Long Beach port. PD thinks Vinnie’s the front.”

  “Jewelry, gems, anything like that?”

  “I told them you’re holding a bracelet worth a small fortune. They checked the files. All that came back was a rock collector.”

  “Judy Carpenter.”

  “No, nothing on her. But you gave me another name. Sandy Sparks? He collects rocks.”

  The pen seemed to bobble in my fingers. “What kind of rocks?”

  “Don’t ask me, you’re the geologist. But somebody broke into his Beverly Hills mansion and cleaned him out. Home theater system, computers, his wife’s jewelry. And the weirdest thing was a bunch of rocks. LA says the rocks are worth over a million bucks.”

  “Benitoite.”

  “Say again.”

  I repeated it.

  “Never heard of it. Could it be worth that much?”

  “Depends. Any suspects for the robbery?”

  “None. No fingerprints, no sightings. It’s a dead trail. It was six months back and they’re getting ready to put it in the cold case file. Nobody’s even tried to unload the jewelry.”

  The stones.

  The stones were on the ship. “Was there anything else, sir?”

  “Traffic violations. Drug possession. Drunk and disorderly. You want those?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Sorry, Harmon.” He paused. “Probably seemed glamorous at first, working with those Hollywood types.”

  “A little.” I replaced the pen in the cup, folding the note.

  “We think they’re something special, movie stars. But they’re no different from anybody else. The problem is, they have so much affluence on the population.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot. You probably already have this. But LAPD says that’s not his real name.”

  “Who?”

  “Sparks. He filed an insurance claim for the rocks under his legal name.”

  “Lysander.”

  “Can you believe it? If that was my name, I’d change it too.

  Lysander Butz.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Butz.” McLeod spelled it. “Butz, Lysander Butz. Not exactly made for the movies.”

  Adrenaline tingled down my arm.

  “Okay, that’s it,” he said. “Call me when you get to Seattle. And, Harmon?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t give up. You’ll cross this huddle, just like you always do.”

  I closed the phone and considered the hurdles. Sparks filed insurance on the missing benitoite. Nobody tried to sell any of the gems. Until now. Until Vinnie walked into the jewelry store in Juneau and Skagway.

  I walked around the desk, searching for the forms. When I picked up the clinic log listi
ng patients and visitors, I searched back through the days, through names of people who came in for Band-Aids and sore throats and diarrhea and prescription drugs that were left at home. I searched until I found the man who came in wearing the phillumenist’s cap from Philadelphia. The old man we had passed, carrying away our evidence of the safe heist.

  Sandy Sparks’s dad. The man who needed Alzheimer’s medicine for his wife.

  And there it was.

  His name was Hermann Butz.

  My heart pounded at my ribs as I walked back to the employee side of the clinic.

  Jack leaned against the wall by the operating room door. A Ninja had arrived. The tall one, taking sentry for Nurse Stephanie who was nowhere in sight.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  Jack gestured to the operating room. “The doc called her in. Touch and go. Apparently Ramazan lost a lot of blood.”

  Expressionless, the Ninja pretended not to watch. I pulled Jack out of earshot, over to some waiting room chairs.

  “Sparks’s dad, do you remember how he looked that day on the patio,” I asked, “when he heard we were with the FBI?”

  “Scared,” Jack said. “But his wife’s a kleptomaniac.”

  I told him about the last name, Butz.

  “Is that a joke?”

  I shook my head and told him about the stolen collection of benitoite, and how Vinnie was on the LAPD watch list. “You think he stole the stones?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. But I know Claire’s wearing a lure, and I need to check on her.” I looked at my watch. Close to 10:00 PM. “The dad’s probably not at the party. Can you find him, see what he knows?”

  “You got it,” Jack said. “Where do you want to meet up?”

  “My cabin.”

  “Harmon, I’ve waited—”

  “Keep waiting. The purser gave me a list of places Ramazan and Serif were working. I checked for the name Sparks, not Butz.”

  Having woken from his drunken sleep, Milo struggled to focus on the glass in front of him. Arms braced against the Sky Bar’s neon rail, he stared down as the neon glow washed over his famous face, a blue color resembling the skin on his dead wife.