“And this damned tattoo. Talk about being a marked man. Everybody stares. I was a private kind of guy. Now I’m a circus freak,” I said.
“And I tell you, colonel, that’s not me doing whatever it is that happens. These rages come over me like turning on a light switch. That’s not me. I’m not willing something to happen.
”Owens listened, nodding.
“So, you can tell your superiors to piss off. If they think they can use me as some kind of weapon, they damned well better know that I’ll aim whatever weird power I’ve got right back at them.”
I shocked myself. My mood had turned from wounded to threatening in a heartbeat. It was crazy. I admit, it was starting to—concern me.
“Sir… Sebastian. Take it easy,” he said. “I thought you didn’t believe you have any kind of strange power over people.”
I flushed.
“I don’t, but with everyone around me making like I do, I guess I… Shit, I don’t know what.”
“Look. No one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to. I won’t let it happen. You have my word,” he said.
“Colonel, your innocence is almost charming. You think you’re calling the shots here?” I asked.
“Well, yeah. I am, at least for now. It was part of my deal with General Brant’s group. You’re officially an army operation; I’m a marine. If I survive this meeting with you—and so far, so good—I can drop out any time. They’ve got no fallback. I’m a marine on TDY who just happened to get captured for a half-hour. I know that can be worse than facing death. That counts for something in the military.”
He raised his mug to his lips and stopped. “General Brant and his wife flew here from the States just to meet with you,” he said. “There probably aren’t a dozen people in the Pentagon who know about you or his mission.
“He comes to talk, and now, with a crushed larynx, may never speak again. His career is probably over, and the last mission in his record will show up as a failure. He won’t even rate a Purple Heart,” Owens said.
“I meant no harm. I —”
“Hold on. You want straight talk? Okay. I get that you want to be left alone, but, sir, that’s just not going to happen. I imagine the sheikh already explained why that won’t happen.
“We’re going to keep an eye on you. We have to, because we don’t know what you are or how you work. We’ll try to be unobtrusive but if we—I—think for a half-second that you might be used against the U.S., we will take you out. Somehow, somewhere, we will take you out.”
Chapter 17
Homecoming
Despite the occasional suspicion that I was being followed, I was living the dream, driving up and down the front range of the Rockies shooting photos of western wild flowers.
My V-8 four-wheel drive pickup truck sucked down gas like a dry camel slurping up water at the trough, but the camper mounted on back contained all the amenities of home: A narrow but long bed, table, fridge, nuker, propane two-burner stove, commode, and elbow-scraping shower. It beat camping and the V-8 engine gave it a lot more off-road power than a tourist RV.
For years I’d wanted to follow the wildflowers as they bloomed, from the Mexican border all the way north to Canada. Sarah and I had talked about doing it together, but that wasn’t an option now.
I drove where I wanted and stopped when I wanted. I bought gas and groceries late at night when fewer people were out and about.
Late-night shopping was no big deal; I didn’t sleep well without pills or booze. Too often I succumbed to one or both temptations. When I didn’t, the dreams came. Sarah wasting away. Johnnie, Chik and Sammy, their heads hanging from a pole. Machete man standing over me, blood dripping from his long knife. The old Dyak witch staring as she offered me a black orchid. And worst of all, Cecilia Brant, lying naked, mouthing Mike Owens’s warning: “Somehow, somewhere, we will take you out.”
*
All the New Mexico natives I spoke with—mostly grocery store clerks and gas station attendants—claimed the 90-plus degree temperatures were highly unusual for this time of year. Spring in the southwestern U.S. should be a time of dry, mild temperatures in the low eighties, with cool, inviting nights that call for a jacket or sweatshirt.
Abnormal or not, the unseasonable heat had brought out the wildflowers early, and I was trying to keep up with them before they wilted and died. The best light for outdoor photography comes with the dawn and reappears just before sunset. Often, I couldn’t afford to wait for the best light, and I found myself shooting long days under the glare of a fierce sun.
My dream was turning out to be a lot of work, and my new truck’s air conditioner struggled to keep up with the heat. In fact, I never would’ve stopped at the cowboy bar if it hadn’t been so damned hot. But the thought of an early afternoon ice-cold gin made me hit the brakes and swerve into the gravel parking lot at the intersection of nowhere and no place on the Dry Cimarron Highway in northeastern New Mexico.
The bar was dark as a cave, even after I took off my sunglasses. A weathered old couple in cowboy hats sat at a corner table, beer glasses half empty, not speaking to one another.
“Howdy. Welcome to nowhere.”
The bartender was a freckled perky young thing, exuding a cheery friendliness.
“What brings you out this way?” she asked.
“Well, I heard this place had the cutest bartender west of the Mississippi,” I said.
Just the sight of her smile changed my mood and made me feel years younger. Mood swings were routine now and something I was thinking about more and more often.
“Really? Just west of the river?”
She liked to flirt, too.
“Well, maybe it was west of the Appalachians,” I said.
“You saying there’s someone cuter in New York City.”
“No. I’ve been there. They’ve got nothing over you. I’m just repeating what I heard,” I said.
She placed a cold draft beer in front of me with a grin on her face. It was not what I’d been dreaming of, but it did look cold, the mug all frosted. I knocked back a big swig. I didn’t want to offend her; she was too much fun.
“I hope you come back this way again. We don’t get much in the way of conversation.” She glanced toward the old couple.
“That seems hard to believe with someone like you around,” I said.
“Believe it. Cowboys. The occasional Indian off one of the reservations. That’s about it.”
I glanced at her left hand and saw no wedding ring.
“So why stick around?” I asked.
“My dad’s got cancer. This is his place. But it won’t be long. Then… who knows?”
Her mention of cancer brought back memories. I frowned. Another mood swing.
The bar door banged open, blasting the place with heat and light; three cowhands unsteady on their feet stumbled in, demanding beer.
The girl handled them smoothly, welcoming them to nowhere and placing the first beer on the counter before even one of them managed to land onto a bar stool. The old couple seemed to awaken, took in their surroundings, drained their glasses, and hustled out. Maybe I should have followed them.
The cowboys, lean and in their twenties, ignored me, focusing their energy on the girl. One grabbed her hand as she set down the third beer, spilling liquid over both of them.
“Aw, look what you done, darlin’,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” she responded. “House pays for all the beer I spill.”
“Well, maybe we don’t want just free beer. Maybe we want a free kiss. How ‘bout that, boys?” he said, far too loudly for the circumstances.
The two others hooted and egged him on.
“Give ‘er a kiss, Roy. Show ‘er what a man feels like,” one said.
“Yeah, Roy. Then I got ‘er next,” the third drunk put in.
The girl played it cool. I admired that and wondered how she put up with it.
“How can I clean up this mess and refill your glass if you
keep holding onto my hand?” she said.
“Screw the beer. Let’s see whatcha got,” the leader said, reaching for her blouse.
She tried to pull away, and a button popped off her plaid shirt, showing a no-frills white bra underneath. Now she looked concerned.
The cowboys laughed. I sighed.
“Let her go,” I heard someone say.
The cowboys stilled and turned toward me.
“You say somethin’, old man?” the leader said.
“Let the girl go. Drink your beer and hit the road.”
“You hear that, fellas, ugly beat-up old man telling us what to do?” the leader said.
He thumbed his weathered hat back on his head and craned his neck my way.
“And what’s that on your face? Tattoo artist lose his glasses? Aiming for your ass and he hit your face?”
The trio brayed.
I could feel my right cheek heating up.
“Advice. I’m giving you advice. Take your party elsewhere,” I said.
“What if we don’t want to?”
The girl, her hand still trapped under the grip of the cowboy’s paw, tried to intervene.
“It’s all right, mister. Cowboys work hard and party hard. Isn’t that right, boys?”
The leader looked at her and swung his opened palm across her face. The sound echoed like a shot, and the girl fell backward, held up only by the cowboy’s death grip on her hand.
“Shut up, bitch.” He addressed the others. “Here. Hold ‘er arm. Don’t let ‘er grab for anything under the bar.”
The middle cowboy grinned and snatched her arm with both hands.
“You show him, Roy.”
“Old man, you’re gonna be in a world of hurt,” the top asshole said to me.
“You’re drunk,” I said. “And even when you aren’t drunk, you’re stupid. Leave the girl alone. Drink your beer and get out.”
Roy swiveled off his bar stool and stood up. Without another word, he rushed at me, a handful of bar seats away.
Days later, I was still foggy about what happened next.
The girl told the sheriff’s deputies she thought I might have said “Shit,” or maybe it was “Sit.” I raised my left hand as if that could stop the rushing drunk. And it did, she said.
Are you sure? The deputy asked her.
Oh, yeah, she said. The older man just stuck out his hand and the cowboy went down, face first. He hit the floor and never moved again.
What about the other two? The deputy asked.
They let go of her, she recalled, and got off their stools. The old guy looked real hard at them, and they fell over, too, before they could even take a step toward him.
She said she didn’t know who frightened her most, the cowboys or the older guy.
The deputy pursued the point. The older gentleman never touched any of them, is that right?
Just looked at them real, real hard, she said.
She recalled the weird tattoo on his face, would never forget how it seemed to get darker, but no, the older guy didn’t touch them. Just kind of held out his hand and stared at them real hard.
I should have remembered details like that, but I didn’t. It was as though I hadn’t been there.
Chapter 18
Invitation
I awakened in a cell that smelled of stale beer, vomit and disinfectant that had stopped trying. But no flies buzzed my eyes, and no cockroaches skittered along the edges of the floor.
The deputies had asked me to come along peacefully. That much I recalled, and I had agreed. I had even handed over the keys to my truck and asked them to drive it to wherever they were taking me.
Now two cops in different shades of khaki entered the cell area. A rotund stereotype of a jailer who’d spent too many years guarding a desk carried a set of keys in one hand and rested other hand on his holstered weapon; the other, a string bean about my age, held a paper coffee cup in each hand.
The cop with the key unlocked the door. The other one entered. The key cop locked the door and left.
“I hope you like your coffee black and lukewarm, Mr. Arnett. That’s the way the sheriff of this county drinks his, so that’s the way everyone drinks it.”
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“Bad enough to make a man wish for a carton of fake cream and a handful of sugar.”
“Worth a try,” I said.
We sipped, grimaced and stared at the paper cups. The cop spoke first.
“Mr. Arnett, you seem remarkably calm for a man in your position. And you slept soundly all night long. Why is that?”
“Why is what?” I asked, sipping the tepid brew.
“How can you sleep so well in a jail? Usually only the drunks sleep in jail, and a lot of them sober up real quick. Being in a locked cell has that effect on most people. You spend a lot of time in jail?”
I looked around at the bare walls and bars.
“I’ve been in worse places,” I said, recalling the Dyak hut.
“So it would seem. You want to go over what happened yesterday afternoon?”
“What’s to go over?” I said. “I was drinking a beer. Three drunks came in, harassed and assaulted the young lady tending bar. They seemed to fall over in a stupor. Deputies arrived, asked me to come with them. Here we are.”
“Here we are indeed. Well, those boys didn’t fall down dead drunk. They fell down dead. I don’t think that young girl did anything to cause those deaths. You were the only other person in that bar. You see where I’m heading?” he asked.
“Not really. I’m near-sighted,” I said.
“Near-sighted,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s pretty good. I will be unusually candid with you, Mr. Arnett, because I am very perplexed and a little bit unhappy.
“I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night either. I had to drive 100 miles up from Albuquerque to get here. And I had to wake up my district supervisor, and he had to wake up the commander of the state police.”
“Mmm. Sometimes life is like that,” I said.
“Yes, but that don’t mean I like it. To continue, I have one roughed up, but otherwise uninjured, twenty-four-year-old female bartender and three dead bodies with no marks except where they hit the floor. The young woman said she never touched them and you never touched them. How do you suppose they died?”
“I’m not a doctor. I have no clue,” I said.
“There’s the problem,” he said. “I don’t either.”
He shook his head as if perplexed. I was not fooled.
“You see, what I do have is an email from the FBI fingerprint identification division. It directs all inquiries about you to a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps. Why would that be?”
“No idea,” I said. “Did you ask the FBI or the marines?”
“I did, as a matter of fact. Because of our border issues, we have a very good relationship with our federal brothers. They were quite short with me. Call the military, they said. And then they hung up. I could tell they didn’t like it either,” he said.
“I’m a lieutenant in the New Mexico State Police, and I’m not accustomed to having people hang up on me.”
I sipped my coffee and said nothing. The state cop continued.
“I called the Marine Corps and eventually got a Colonel Owens on the line. No one else, not one single person, would tell me why I should talk to the colonel. That colonel seemed familiar with you. And when I told him what had happened, he didn’t seem the least bit surprised. He wasn’t even curious.”
The state cop eyeballed me real hard.
“He just wanted to know where you were and when we would be releasing you. I took umbrage at the assumption that I would be letting you go. I have three suspicious deaths and really only one suspect.”
“Are you suggesting that I’m a suspect?” I said.
“I believe the term of art these days is ‘person of interest.’ You most definitely are an interesting person. If you were in my place, what would you do?”
“Oh, that’s easy, Lieutenant,” I said. “I’d wipe this day from my mind, and I would never look back.”
*
The State Police cop offered to let me out if I promised to stay in town; the alternative was to remain in the jail cell but have ample access to my cell phone.
I surprised him when I elected to stay. I was used to the odor by now; the place was air conditioned; the only other inmate slept quietly in his cell; and I did not plan to spend another night.
Mike Owens answered my call on the first ring.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said.
“I figured.”
“What’s your status?”
“You tell me. I’m still in jail, but the cell door is open, and I have access to a real bathroom and the vending machines. The sheriff likes his coffee awful.”
I swirled the dregs in my newest paper cup and decided not to finish them.
“You got a lawyer?”
“Not yet.”
“Want me to get one for you?”
“Nah,” I said. “I’ll give them til noon local time to file charges. After that, I plan to walk.”
“You think they’ll let you?”
“You think they can stop me?” I asked.
“Don’t you get hostile now,” Owens said. “That won’t solve a thing.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The silence stretched out between us like a rubber band.
“You going back to taking pictures?” Mike said.
“It’s the only plan I have.”
“Your good weather might be ending soon. Big storm off California. Looks like they could get some rain and a lot of snow in the mountains.”
“I can’t change the weather so I don’t worry about it. I’ll shoot until I can’t anymore. Wildflowers with a dusting of snow can make some very pretty pictures.”
“You might need a shovel to dig those flowers out. They’re talking feet of snow, not just a dusting.”
“That’s what hotels are for.”
“Look, I told you in Abu Dhabi I wanted you to meet my family. An old college friend of my wife’s has invited us out to Aspen to ski after the big storm. I’ve got a ton of leave time coming to me, so we’re going to do it. Good bonding time with my boys. You interested in joining us?”
The Mark of the Spider: A Black Orchid Chronicle Page 11