by Unknown
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 an
swered, "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 acted 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.
My grandfather only mentioned my summer away once, a short while after my return. I'd just shown up a few days before school was to begin that semester, looking no worse for wear, and went back up to my room. Maria, for her part, couldn't stop fawning over me and scolding me mercilessly, by turns, while Patrick was a little jealous of my little adventure, which he'd been afraid to come along on, and more than a little worried about how the old man might react. At the dinner table that night, my grandfather hadn't said a word about it, just demanded I pass him the green beans and that was that. I was home.
It was a week into the school year when, on my way up to my bedroom after school, the old man called me into his study. He was sitting behind his big desk, the piles of papers and books that only grew larger and taller with every passing year almost hiding him from view, while I stood waiting, my backpack in hand, shuffling my feet. I was scowling, I'm sure, offended at this interruption in my daily routine.
"There are roads," the old man finally said, his hands folded on the desktop in front of him, "paths a man must choose to walk down. The road we walk is what defines who we are, how we see the world, and how the world sees us. Every man should be free to choose his own path, free to choose the person he will be. That is, unfortunately, not always the way of things. There are forces in this world which conspire to restrict our choices, or unduly influence us one way or other. These forces are the very face of evil. In my experience, all that is good and true is a natural extension of individual liberty, and anything impinging on that liberty is an aspect of evil. There comes a time for some of us when the struggle against these forces, the attempt to eliminate these figurative 'road blocks,' not for ourselves alone but for others, becomes the highest calling. To insure the liberty of others – their freedom of choice – becomes the path that we walk, and defines who we will be."
I must have pulled some face, or else rolled my eyes at the length of his oration, because the old man shot out of his chair, slamming his bony hands against the desktop.
"Understand," he barked, "that everything I have done is for your own good. I chose the path I walk long before you were born, long before your mother was born, and I will walk it until the day I die, though slower now and with less strength. It is anathema to my very existence to force a way of life on you or your brother, to choose for you the life you will lead. I have only presented you with options and equipped you with the skills I think you will need, so that when the time comes you will be able to choose wisely, with open eyes and an open mind. For me that choice came early in life, and for others it comes much later. For you…"
He paused, rubbing his spotted hands over his wide forehead, sighing.
"I don't know what you will someday face,"
the old man continued, "but I know that most likely I will not be there with you. The choice you will make, the choice your brother will make, those belong to you. Your choices, in the end, are the only things that are truly yours. When you decide, try to remember the things I have taught you. Maybe then I will still be with you, at least in part."
He stopped and stood staring at me, his expression surprisingly tender. When he hadn't spoken for a while, I shifted uncomfortably, slinging my backpack over my shoulder.
"Am I dismissed?" I snarled. I sounded nastier than I'd intended, and regretted it almost immediately. I tensed, expecting reprisal.
"Yes," the old man said wearily, slumping back into his chair. He waved a hand towards the open door. "Go on, get out." He propped an elbow on the armrest of the chair, his face shielded behind his hand.
I left, quickly, and stomped up to my room. It would be the last time the old man spoke more than a few sentences to me in a row, though he tried that one last time.
It was the night of graduation, years later, and I was ready to go. I'd written back and forth to Tan, since that summer, planning out when I would come back and what I would do once I got there. Tan had been giving me little exercises to do, summer study before the first day of school, a list of books and articles as long as my arm to study up on. I'd passed my senior finals, perhaps not with flying colors but passed nonetheless, and I was done with high school. The things I felt I couldn't live without I'd packed in one suitcase and two small backpacks; everything else I just considered dead weight. I had a bus ticket in my pocket for a six o'clock Greyhound for New Orleans. By the next day, I'd be back at Tan's, on my way to a life of cat burglary.
I made one more pass around my room, making sure I hadn't forgotten anything, slung the backpacks one over each shoulder, and hefted up the suitcase. Turning out the lights one last time, I was out in the hall and down the stairs, ready to roll.