Chase Baker and the God Boy: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 3) (3 page)

“Just like Rajesh. Like the
historical Jesus, I have seen him heal the blind by applying an eyepatch of mud
created of loose earth mixed with his own saliva. I’ve seen him cure a malignant
tumor just by laying his hands upon it. I have seen him create many loaves of
bread from one single loaf. You just don’t forget such instances, Mr. Baker.”

“Have you seen the kid turn water
into booze?” I smile. “Now, there’s something I’d like to see.”

The man just stares at me, like my
comment is entirely inappropriate. And I suppose it is. In any case, I find
myself biting down on my bottom lip. Something I always do when nervous, or my
interest is entirely piqued, which it most definitely is.

“So what’s the end all to this, Dr.
Singh? Why did you rescue me from my lovely afternoon of drinking beer and
playing cards if you wanna call it that? Why are you telling me all this?”

“Mr. Baker, I have read your books
and also read about your exploits in Egypt and the Amazon Jungle. I know what
you are capable of both as an investigator and as a man who fears nothing.”

Raising my hands, making a time-out
T.

“I am most definitely not fearless,
Dr. Singh,” I say. “Christ, I don’t even like to fly…Damn, sorry about the
Christ reference.”

He issues the subtlest of smiles. A
man not without a sense of humor, but also a man who takes pride in his dignity.

“It is okay. I do not consider my
boy the modern Christ. Instead, I consider him the gifted flesh of his very
mortal parent’s flesh, and they love and miss him so very much.”

My truth detector lights up. “What
do you mean they miss him?”

“In answer to your question of why
you are here with me now,” he says, “Rajesh is missing. Gone. Kidnaped by those
who wish to abuse his power for their own dark purposes.”

“Who precisely?”

“The Thuggee and their
black-hearted God, Kali.”

I get up from the table, push in my chair.

“Look, Dr. Singh, I know precisely where this is going. Like
I told you, I’m good with finding missing people, and I’ve even been known to
dig up an archeological relic now and again. But I do not, will not, battle a
satanic cult that will string me up and dissect me alive as easily and
thoughtlessly as cooking up some chicken tandoori on the grill. Only thing that
distinguishes the Thuggee from ISIS is they’ve been around far longer and have
perfected their killing techniques. If my history serves me right, they were
responsible for the slaughter of more than two million innocent souls before
the British put an end to them in the mid-nineteenth century.” I start walking
on Via Guelfa towards my home. “Thanks for saving my ass at the bar and thanks
for the coffee, but I’m not your man. You need the fucking
Expendables
…excuse
my French times two.”

“Mr. Baker!” he shouts, so loud his
voice echoes off the old stone and stucco-faced five-story buildings.

I turn to find him standing by the
table. “There is something I’m not telling you that might change your mind.”

“What exactly is that?”

He stares not at me, but into me.
His eyes not blinking, drawing me into their powerful gaze like he managed to
do with psycho-Calum only minutes before.

“Elizabeth,” he says. “Elizabeth
Flynn.”

The name hits me like a
sledgehammer to the head. A name that goes with a face I’ve tried my damnedest
to forget about over the last five years.

“How do you know that name?” Gravel
in my voice, profound heaviness in my heart.

“Let’s go someplace and talk more.
This is not the place.”

A car passes. Then a motorbike.
Following that a truck. Foreign exchange and Junior Year Abroad Students fill
the sidewalks with their school bags slung over their shoulders. The bells
inside Giotto’s Tower in nearby Piazza del’ Duomo are tolling the five o’clock
hour. They toll for me. Ominous rings to say the least.

“Elizabeth,” I say, the name
slipping off my tongue like warm water. It’s a name I have not uttered out loud
since the day I left her on a train platform in the Varanasi station, but a
name I have no doubt spoken countless times in my mind and in my sleep. It’s
also a name I heard again, just last month, in a disturbing letter that I
received at my Florence address. But now, this…

“I can lead you to her probable
whereabouts.”

“But that’s impossible, Singh. She’s
dead.”

“No one dies, Mr. Baker. Not
really. Perhaps we should talk more.”

The cobbles beneath my feet feel
like they’re turning to liquid. This conversation is creepier and creepier with
each vowel uttered.

Don’t do it, Chase. Don’t take
the bait…Don’t…You…Do…It!

“Follow me,” I say, my mouth
suddenly gone dry. So much for resolve. Chase the weak and the whipped.

As Dr. Singh approaches me, I turn
away so that he doesn’t see the tears welling up in my eyes.

It’s a three-minute walk to my second-floor apartment on Via
Guelfa. But in that time, I relive an all-too-short lifetime of memories with
Elizabeth. Our meeting in Paris. Me just coming off a particularly difficult
dig in Turkey, having assisted in uncovering an underground city in the
Nevsehir Province and trying to make an overdue novel deadline. Her trying to
work up cash for her one and only project: The precise location of the
legendary Golden Kali Statue.

The statue was said to be important
not only as a priceless piece of man-sized gold statuary but also for the map
it supposedly contained on its upper back. Legend has it that the map
illustrates the exact whereabouts of the infamous India blue diamond deposit. Folklore
to be sure. Hell, maybe even fantasy. But a fascinating prospect all the same.

There was more to the puzzle. A
kind of key that accessed the interior of the statue. And Elizabeth was in
possession of it. But what secrets the interior of the Kali Statue held, nobody
knew. Without the statue, the key was nothing more than a useless piece of
ancient jewelry. It wasn’t a key in the traditional sense, but instead a four-inch
long by one-inch wide piece of bronze with dozens of diamond chips embedded
inside it. Elizabeth had discovered it, of all places, in a family-run antique
shop in Rome, Italy. She purchased it for two-hundred Euros, the owner having
no idea of its real worth. But if it were the authentic key to the true Kali
statue, then its value was potentially priceless.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Way ahead.

As I approach my apartment, I spot
several young couples seated at a little round table at an outdoor bar,
drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, engaged in passionate conversation with
smiles on their faces. Smiles that tell me their future is unwritten and, from
the vantage point of their tables, entirely rosy. As it once seemed for
Elizabeth and I, when we first met.

She already occupies a stool inside
the sparsely populated Paris Ritz Bar Hemingway when I come in for a late afternoon
’76er, one of my favorite summertime cocktails. She’s chatting it up with Colin—the
bar’s tall, semi-bald, white jacket-attired proprietor—while I ask her if the
seat beside her is taken.

“By all means,” she says in an
American accent, brushing back shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair.

My old friend, Colin, who’s
emigrated from a Welsh farm to devote his life to mixing cocktails and even
writing about them in magazines like
Travel and Leisure
, shoots me a
smile and starts mixing my drink without asking for my order.

“And how is the writing progressing
today, Chase?” he asks while carefully placing cubes of ice into a tall glass
with silver tongs. “Or are we still recovering from sandhogging in those nasty,
arid foothills?”

Looking up, I see the many
photos of Papa Hemingway that adorn the cherry wood paneled walls. Papa battling
marlin, shooting pheasant, drinking martinis in this very bar during the Paris
liberation of ’44, flirting with adoring women and, of course, typing away at
his beloved Remington portable. How is it he made everything that’s hard in
life, look so easy?

“Little of both, Col,” I say. “I
don’t know what’s harder, beating my head against a Turkish rock ceiling or beating
it against a typewriter.”

He places the worth-every-penny twenty
euro drink before me. “This will help cheer things up a little.” Leaning in to
me, whispering for my ears only. “And kill the nasty little black bug up your
arse.”

The woman turns to me, then
peers at me with hypnotic green eyes.

“Now there’s something you don’t
witness every day,” she says. “A man who gets to hang around beautiful Paris
and still find reason to complain.”

My face fills with the red blood
of embarrassment. Stealing a swallow of the cold, effervescent, lemon-lime,
champagne and vodka-laced drink, my outlook suddenly turns optimistic once
more.

“You’re absolutely right,” I say.
“My apologies for bitching on this beautiful day in the city of lights. Trust
me, I’m not normally this charming.”

She holds out her hand.

“Elizabeth,” she says.

She’s wearing a lightweight
linen shirt and the open sleeve gently glides down her forearm to her elbow
when she lifts her hand. She’s also wearing a half-dozen silver bracelets that
jingle musically when they collide with one another.

I take the hand in mine, feel
its softness, smallness, and warmth. I also notice her calluses. For as
beautiful and put together as she is, this girl is no stranger to getting her
hands dirty. Take it from one who knows.

“Chase,” I say out the corner of
my mouth. “Chase Baker.”

“This is Elizabeth’s first trip
to Paris,” Colin says while wiping out a glass with a white bar rag. “And since
you, the local Renaissance Man, are also a licensed tour guide, I thought perhaps
you’d like to show her around a little. That is your license is good in Paris.”
The wink that follows is so subtle, I come very close to missing it altogether.

“You asking or telling?”

She sets her hand on my forearm.
“Now I’m totally embarrassed. You’re probably way too busy, Mr. Baker.”

“I just might be way too
expensive. And please, call me Chase. Mr. Baker was my dad.”

“Money’s no object,” she says
with a wink. “Us anthropologists just pick it off the trees on our college
campuses back Stateside.”

“Anthropologist,” I say. “So you
are not just Elizabeth, but Dr. Elizabeth.”

“Academically speaking.”

“Tenured?”

“My own corner office, a key to
the faculty lounge, and unlimited access to the copier and fax machines.”

“In that case, you’re on.”

I feel her fingers on my arm,
inhale her rose-petal scent. For certain, she’s younger than me. Maybe even by
ten years. But that doesn’t seem to matter. All I know is that I’m immediately
attracted to her. And perhaps our meeting inside the Paris Ritz bar could be
considered mystic karma at work.

“What time shall I pick you up
tomorrow?” I say, stealing another generous sip of my ‘76er. “And where?”

She relays the name of her hotel
and what time she’ll be ready.

“Pleasure to meet you, Doc,” I
say, finishing my drink.

“Pleasure’s all mine,” she replies.
Then, “And, Colin, it’s quite the pleasure being served by a master drink mixer
and matchmaker.”

“Pleasure’s all Mr. Baker’s.” He
smiles.

Exiting the bar, I feel slightly
tipsy, but also lighter than air. Like a teenager who just asked a girl to the
prom…a beautiful girl who said
Yes
.

The next day is bright, pleasant,
and not overly warm, even for summer, as if God has personally scripted it for
us. I meet her at the Place de la Concord end of the Tuileries and together we
walk the gravel footpaths that separate the green gardens, slowly revealing
little tidbits about our lives. Me, the man with too many jobs…the sandhog, the
private detective, the walking tour guide, and the novelist. Also the man who
is divorced.