Xolotl Strikes!

by William Stafford

  My skin was prickling. I could not shake the sensation that we were being followed. Certainly, we were being observed. The locals, people with skins of every possible hue, took a passing interest in us, and weighed us up with their eyes, working out whether we were worth approaching and trying to sell us something. For once, Cuthbert’s prickly clothes were welcome. No one was going to trouble a humble servant - and I’m sure no one was convinced that Miss Pepper was a lady of means.

  The sensation of being followed did not leave me. I expected Tommy to spring from the shadows at any second, or drop from a balcony or bough. Every clump of bougainvillea, every oleander tree, was him - until closer inspection revealed my foolishness. I said nothing of my apprehensions to Miss Pepper but tried instead to ape her intrepid swagger. The woman seemed fearless - and perhaps that’s the trick of it. If you can convince others that you possess absolute confidence and nothing will faze you, you may very well end up believing it yourself. Either way, I trod in her footsteps and kept my head erect, ready to look all-comers in the eye.

  On Bourbon Street, we came to a ramshackle establishment bearing the sign of a black cockerel. It was a public house, to be sure, but far short of English standards. No one does pubs like the English; everyone knows that.

  “I don’t see how a boozer is going to help us find an automobile,” I said but I may as well have not bothered. Miss Pepper was pushing her way through louvre doors. A cry of recognition went up. Miss Pepper was evidently well-known in this quarter and I do not believe it was for spreading a message of temperance.

  The interior could not have been more different from the tea rooms at Fortnum and Mason if it tried. There was one room, or salon, long and with a low ceiling. The exact dimensions were hidden from me, lost in pockets of impenetrable gloom. Hither and yon, pools of lamp- and candlelight transformed the faces of those around the tables into grotesque masks.

  The din was incredible. Voices engaged in ribald chatter strove to make themselves heard over the ‘music’ being perpetrated by a group of men. I don’t know the name of the piece they were playing with their clarinets, trumpets, double bass and drum kit, but I suspect it may have been called something like ‘Bad Day at the Abattoir’.

  Miss Pepper paid the cacophony no heed. A black man in a white tunic grinned and bowed low, sweeping aside a velvet curtain to reveal a private booth. Here, it seemed, the city’s harsh segregation rules were overlooked. Miss Pepper tipped him a coin from One-Eyed Helen’s purse and he withdrew. Miss Pepper ushered me toward the upholstered banquette that curved around the booth’s round table.

  “I always think, for this kind of thing, a modicum of privacy is advisable, don’t you think, Mr Mortlake?”

  I hadn’t the foggiest idea what she was on about but I was glad of the opportunity to rest what Cuthbert might refer to as my ‘plates of meat’.

  “What kind of thing?” I asked but Miss Pepper was engaged in welcoming a third party to our table. I could not see who it was until he was seated and the dim glow of the table lamp played upon his features. I let out a squeak of astonishment as I recognised the Machiavellian countenance of Hiram Trask.

  “Betrayal,” said Miss Pepper, with a sad little smile. “That kind of thing.”

  * * *

  “Now, look here-” I began. Hiram Trask shook his head.

  “I rather think it is you who ought to be looking here, Mr Mortlake. We can settle this like gentlemen in a calm and dignified manner or, if you insist on shooting your mouth off, I shall have to insist on shooting you period. Do we have an understanding?”

  He showed me the nub of a pistol. I understood that all right. Amid the general, riotous hubbub, the crack of a bullet would go unnoticed.

  “I’m sorry, Hector,” Miss Pepper wore a sober expression. “I truly am. But I needed you to help me get the king away from Daddy.”

  “I know that,” I said. “The bit I can’t get my melon around is this cosying-up to the villain business. Talk about surprise!”

  “The king is better served in the hands of Mr Trask.”

  I stared at the girl. This was not like her at all - neither was it an improvement.

  “What’s all this rot about the rotten old king all of a sudden? Not long ago he was just a box of bones.”

  Trask didn’t let her answer. He was keen to get the interview moving along. “There are two ways this thing can go,” he said in a tone that was reasonable and yet infuriating all at once. “You can walk away with your pockets full and your mouth shut, or...”

  He showed me his nub again, and I guessed the second option was not with my mouth full and my pockets shut.

  “You could be set up for life, man. You’d want for nothing. You’d never have to work again or write another of those dreadful books of yours.”

  That hurt! Clearly the fellow was deranged. Writers don’t write so they can stop writing. Writers write so they can keep writing.

  But to write in luxury! In an actual ivory tower in some exotic location while Cuthbert pandered to my - Ah.

  I’d seen the nub but here was the rub.

  “My valet,” I said. Miss Pepper shook her head sadly. Oh well, the fantasy of the luxurious lifestyle burst like a bubble in the bath. Probably for the best. The idea of a tower of ivory doesn’t seem fair on the elephants.

  “You could have a thousand valets,” countered Trask. “More boys than you can shake a stick at.”

  “I am not in the habit of shaking my stick at a lot of boys,” I said coldly. “Now let me tell you the way this is going to go. You may shoot me; I can’t stop you. Put a bullet in my brain or in my heart - that’s the surest way to stop me from penning another masterpiece - but if you do, you shall never know where I have concealed that box of old bones of which you both seem so inordinately fond.”

  “He’s bluffing!” scowled Miss Pepper. “It’s in the left luggage office at the station.”

  “Is it indeed?” I smirked.

  “Damn and blast!” roared Hiram Trask - along with a few more choice epithets to boot. “We’ll give you the money. Tell us where it is.”

  “Oh, so from buying my silence, you’ve moved on to paying me to blab.”

  “Spill it, Mortlake!” snarled the red-head.

  “I’ve never liked you,” I told her. It stung her like a slap in the face. “But my terms are these: you shall have your box of bones when my valet is restored to me. Unharmed, I might add.”

  “Ridiculous!” said Trask. “Why are you so attached to one man?”

  “It’s called loyalty, old bean. I should very much like to be attached to him again.”

  We had reached something of an impasse. After a few minutes of sitting around that table, glowering at each other, I ventured to ask what was so damned important about those old bones. Trask remained tight-lipped. He sent a warning glare to Miss Pepper, who cast her gaze down to her hands, which were wringing in her lap. She looked altogether wretched but I had no sympathy for her. Siding with the villains! She would get her comeuppance, I was sure.

  “The king, named for the god Xolotl, is vital to us,” she said, despite black looks from Trask.

  “To what end?” I prompted. “Don’t bother kicking the lady’s shin under the table, old boy. You may as well tell me everything if you’re planning to puncture me with that peashooter. You wouldn’t want a fellow to come back to haunt you because you left the business unfinished.”

  Trask muttered some dark imprecation, but then he nodded so Miss Pepper could continue.

  “There is a ritual,” she said, “that predates the Aztec civilisation. It predates the Mayans too, possibly - that’s not important. Correctly performed, the ritual endows the participants with eternal life - or vastly extended longevity, at the very least.”

  “Piffle!” I scoffed.

  �
�You can’t say that!” she cried.

  “Of course I can, and I’ll say it again. Absolute bloody piffle, old girl. Think about it: if this ritual of yours is the real deal, why aren’t we knee-deep in these Aztec and Mayan fellows, eh? All of them older than a conker tree and ruling the world! Where are they all, eh?”

  Miss Pepper gaped. She could not answer. Trask, on the other hand, was not so easily dissuaded.

  “The ritual has never been successfully performed,” he said in a tone that suggested he was addressing a tiresome idiot - how ungallant to think of Miss Pepper in that way! “Back then, they did not have the proper ingredients.”

  “Ah,” I hadn’t thought of that. “Old Xo-what-not wasn’t quite ripe enough, I suppose.”

  “Something like that,” said Trask. “The bones of a mummy must be ground into a paste and that paste suspended in a potion - the bones of an anointed king are required for the ritual of everlasting life.”

  “Stands to reason,” I said. I can be rather sarcastic when the occasion warrants it. “And you two want to live forever?”

  “It has long been Man’s dream,” said Trask. His eyes were alight with some kind of fervour. The man was clearly out of his box.

  “I thought that was flying.”

  “Yes!” said Miss Pepper. “Don’t you see, Hector? We can make Mankind’s greatest dreams a reality! Immortality and the power of flight!”

  “I think you’re a pair of crackpots.”

  “That’s what they called the inventor of the postage stamp,” said Trask.

  “I’m quite sure they didn’t,” I said. “Honestly, just shoot me, damn you, and let’s have an end to all this nonsense.”

  Miss Pepper’s face had caught Trask’s fire. “Hector, you must understand! I want to live long enough to see my invention take off - in both senses of the term. I want to stick around to develop it further. I want to contribute! I want to see where it will take us. Around the world! To the moon, even! And further!”

  “Madam,” I tried to pour cold water on her zeal, “You are still young. You have decades ahead of you.”

  “It’s not enough!” she struck the table with her fist. “I don’t want decades; I want centuries!”

  “Oh, now you’re just being greedy.”

  “Join us, Hector! Think of all the books you could write throughout the millennia!”

  “Now, wait a minute!” said Trask, paling at the thought. “That offer’s not on the table. It’s the king for the valet, nothing more.”

  “And you,” I looked him squarely in the eye. “Why do you want to stick around forever? What are you afraid of missing out on?”

  Trask’s lips curled in a smile that was more of a sneer. He snickered. “It’s like you said, Mortlake. I want to rule the world.”

  “Good luck with that,” I got to my feet. “But without that mummy, you’re scuppered.”

  Trask pushed back his chair. The pistol was in clear view now over the table. I raised my hands in a half-hearted, half-mast kind of fashion.

  “Let’s not be hasty,” said Miss Pepper, also standing up. “Hector, you don’t want him to shoot you. You want to be reunited with Cuthbert.”

  “Well, if that’s not going to happen, I may as well get myself shot.”

  “And Hiram, you don’t want to shoot Hector, do you?”

  “I could be persuaded,” smirked Trask. “But I’d much rather he gave up the box.”

  “Oh, very well, very well,” I made a show of capitulation. “I shall take you to it. And then you shall take me to Cuthbert. Do we have ourselves a bargain?”

  I held out my hand for Trask’s. He pocketed the pistol and we shook. I tried to increase his discomfort by holding his hand over the table lamp where the air was at its hottest but we were surprised by the opening of the curtain.

  It was Washington Melville.

  “There you are,” he grinned.

  “Hello, Melville,” I nodded. He gave me a cold look.

  “Not you.” He turned to Trask. “I’ve got the trunk, boss. I had to wait until Left Luggage was closed, but I’ve got it all right.”

  “Good man,” said Trask.

  I stared at the railwayman. More betrayal? Was there a single American one might trust?

  Melville smirked at me with a complete lack of remorse.

  Damn it! Damn them all! Miss Pepper must have recruited him while I was busy with Tommy on the roof of the train.

  Quick as a flash, I picked up the lamp and dashed it on the table. The resulting conflagration proved enough of a distraction for me to get out of there. I plunged into the crowd, struggling through the revellers to find an egress. Jostled, elbowed, shoved and squashed though I was, I had never felt more alone in all the world.

  Oh, Cuthbert! Where are you now?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alone in a strange city! Feeling utterly forlorn! How was I to rescue my Cuthbert now? I couldn’t very well walk the rest of the way to Mexico, could I?

  I trudged the length of Bourbon Street and its neighbours, heedless of where my legs were conveying me. I left behind the lights and noise of the main thoroughfares and wandered through a residential district of rather grand townhouses. I wasn’t really taking anything in. I could just as well have been dragging myself around Kensington for all I was aware.

  Except...

  There it was again. That sensation of being followed...

  It was all I needed: Tommy to leap out and rip my throat open with his canines. If indeed it was Tommy...

  I forced myself to be more alert and to shift myself a lot more quickly and put whoever it was through his paces.

  The nicer houses gave way to smaller ones. The streets were less well kept too. I had entered the district where those who swept the posh streets lived, not where they plied their trade. I hurried past women who were just standing around, baring rather too much flesh for my liking, and stinking the night air up something rotten with their cheap perfume. What they were up to, I cannot say, for I ignored all their invitations to join them. What their husbands must think, I can’t begin to imagine!

  My pursuer did not stop to engage these ladies in conversation either. I could hear him - he was gaining on me.

  I ducked into an alley and pressed my back against the wall, holding my breath against the rank smells of the night.

  Less than a minute later, my pursuer arrived. He walked past me, panting for breath. I had taken it out of him, apparently.

  I stepped from the shadows and grabbed the fellow from behind. He struggled –which is only natural, I suppose - but I was the stronger man. I pushed him against the wall and pressed my forearm against his throat.

  “Now, sirrah! You will tell me who you are and why you have followed me across half of New Orleans!”

  The fellow made some gurgling sounds in his craw. His eyes signalled wildly. I realised I had better release a little of the pressure I was exerting on his windpipe. The fellow gasped and choked.

  “Oh, Mortlake, you nincompoop! You damn near killed me!”

  I recognised the voice before what scant moonlight there was allowed me to see the features.

  “Professor Pepper!” I exclaimed, for it was he.

  * * *

  We repaired to a quiet, little bar down by the docks. Here I nursed a white rum while the professor made an account of himself.

  “My daughter is a fool,” he began and I did not feel inclined to contradict him. “And so are you, come to think of it.”

  “How so?” I like to know why a fellow is calling me a fool before resorting to fisticuffs about it - the fellow may turn out to have a point.

  “Stealing the mummy like you did.”

  “And how do you propose we should have stolen it?”

  �
��You needn’t have stolen it at all. You should have told me all about your troubles.”

  “And you would have let us have it?”

  “Not on your life! My daughter has gotten herself entangled with some dangerous people. People who are dabbling in things no man has business knowing. What know you of the cult of Xolotl?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “For clarity, you did say ‘cult’?”

  He nodded.

  “Not much,” I confessed. “By all accounts, he was a good king and now they want to drink his remains. Some kind of immortality ticket.”

  “So, you know quite a bit.” The professor took a hearty swig, finishing his rum. Then he snatched up my beaker and downed its contents as well. “Our friend King Xolotl was named after a deity.”

  “Yes... but what of that? I believe these days Mexico is knee-deep in chaps called Jesus.”

  “Let me tell you something about this particular god. You need to know what we’re up against.”

  He whetted his whistle with a gulp of rum and began.

  “You see, Xolotl was the twin of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent. Not the identical twin, of course! Oh dear me, no. He is often depicted as a skeleton or a dog-headed man, and sometimes with his feet on back to front. You would know him if you saw him. Why a dog? Well, dogs are famously faithful, aren’t they? The Aztecs believed a dog would carry your soul to the afterlife - Didn’t stop them eating the critters though, did it? Xolotl is a guard dog of the sun. When it sets at the end of each day, he guides it through the underworld so that it can pop up again the next morning. The thunder is his bark and the lightning - well, I suppose you could say that is his bite.

  “There is the story that Xolotl brought bones from the underworld and from those bones were created the first humans. Again, the association with dogs, you see, because dogs dig up bones.