Skorpio (14 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

"The Past"

Beadles felt the color drain from his face. The kid looked at him as if he were a scientific specimen.

"Come in the house and have some iced tea." Rory headed for the house not looking to see if Beadles followed. The interior was cool and dark and neat. Rory went into the kitchen.

"Have a seat," he said. "I'll be right there."

Beadles sat on the cloth sofa beneath the picture window looking out on the yard facing a big flat screen TV. A stack of video games and DVDs sat on the low coffee table along with the game yoke. The stacks were neatly divided. Games on the left, movies on the right. The movies included
The Dark Knight Rises
and
Watchmen
. The games included
Grand Theft Auto Palm Springs
and
Assassin's Creed 1776
.

Rory reentered the living room carrying two tall plastic glasses filled with iced tea. He handed one to Beadles and sat on a Barcalounger facing him. It creaked when the kid leaned back.

"My father said you'd come. He wanted you to know he was sorry for what he did."

"Did he say he saw me take something?"

Rory stared straight into his eyes, an unusually forward and confident young man. "No he never did. He never told me what it was but Liggett held something over him. I think it was a sexual assault charge from his early days there. Dad had a problem with the ladies. Or girls I should say."
The kid had a punctilious way of speaking.

Beadles' mind churned. Here was his accuser's kid telling him it was a put-up job. Blackmail. But it was just hearsay, not admissable in a court of law. Maybe in a civil suit. He could hire Panny. He could seek proof of Liggett's collusion. He could depose Rory. It would all cost a fortune and get kicked down the road for years to come. The university would muster public opinion against him claiming he was bitter and vengeful.

Something about it didn't make sense.

"Rory. Why would he kill himself because he cost me my job? Why not just come clean? Did he not want to hurt your mother?"

"Mom died two years ago. Drunk crossed the center-line and hit her head on,"

he said with no discernible emotion.

"I'm sorry. You mean you're living here alone?"

"That's right. Pop signed his power of attorney over to me so I can cash the checks."

"Was there a funeral?"

"No. I just buried him out back next to the dogs."

"I wish I'd got to know him better," Beadles said. "Was he a religious man?"

"My father was very old-fashioned. Although he was raised Baptist it didn't take and he always fell back on the old ways."

"Do you mean shamanism and Native American religion?"

"Yes," Rory said. He seemed poised, ready and intense. Beadles thought he might have a touch of Asperger's. "In other ways not so much. He understood I had to have a computer and internet access and spent a small fortune to bring it. But he never learned to use a computer."

"Are you his only child?"

Rory shook his head. "No. I have an older brother who's an attorney in Chicago. Brad got him the job with the university. It was far from home but he needed the money. My older sister Janet was here until yesterday. She works for a Kia dealership in Phoenix."

Rory looked at Beadles with an unsettling intensity, as if he were examining some rare artifact. "My father left a message for you."

Beadles felt his blood accelerate. "May I see it?"

"Like I said, Dad was old-fashioned. He didn't write things down. He told it to me so I could tell it to you."

Beadles pulled a spiral pad and a pen from his pants. "Go ahead."

"In the beginning there was the sun and the moon. There was no earth. Then the sun said I am lonely so he created the earth and all its peoples and animals. All the people were Indians. There were thirteen tribes. Twelve of them were good but one was bad. They made war for no reason and ate the flesh of their enemies. Their leader was a great warrior. The sun warned him not to eat the flesh of his enemies but he wouldn't listen. To punish him the sun took his wife. This made the warrior angry. He vowed to do everything in his power to affront the sun. He savagely attacked other tribes, often enduring great hardship to do so. He killed animals and left them to rot in the sun.

"Then the Spaniards came. The leader believed the sun sent them to crush his tribe. The leader attacked them but a traitor spoke to the Spaniards and told them how to trick the leader. The Spaniards said they could bring back the leader's wife, and because the Spaniards appeared to be gods--no one had ever seen a horse before--the leader believed them. The Spaniards found a young woman who resembled the leader's wife from a distance. When the leader went to meet her they seized him, gouged out his eyes, tied him to a wagon wheel and left him to die in the sun.

"But the leader had made a deal with the moon. The moon covered the face of the sun and in darkness the leader escaped. This made the sun mad. The sun caused the 13th tribe to scatter and die out and he cursed the leader to walk the earth for all eternity beneath a blazing sun accompanied by the lowliest of creatures, the scorpion and the snake. If any were to discover this tribe and seek to restore them to their rightful place in history, a scorpion would strike them down and the leader would walk again."

Beadles looked up from his pad in distress. "But I'm the one who sought to restore the Azuma! Why did the scorpion sting Rob?"

Rory shrugged. "I'm only telling you what Dad told me."

"What was this leader's name?"

Shrug. "He didn't say."

"Was the tribe the Azuma?"

Shrug.

"Why did Anatole tell you this? What does he expect me to do with the knowledge?"

"He said it would be better if you let the past stay buried."

***

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

"Earl"

The room smelled of Pine-sol but it was cheap. Get your kicks on Route 66 the song said but all Summer got was a cheap motel room with a window looking out on a baking sheet parking lot. The old highway lay parallel to the Interstate a half mile away. But oh what a difference a half mile made.

Summer had headed south from Grampa's with no particular destination in mind, looking for a place to hole up and get her bearings, try to make sense of what the old man told her. Modern Summer said Grampa was full of shit. All that Native American mumbo jumbo. Good for tourists, not good in the real world. If Ned Lead were such a great medicine man why wasn't he rich? She knew for a fact that at one time he'd been quite the ladies' man, that he liked fast cars and fine living.

He'd lived up that box canyon as long as Summer had known him.

OId Summer not so sure. Grampa was the only one offering advice and encouragement. She'd seen some strange things in her life, not the least of which was Grampa himself, who had to be in his nineties. She needed to sell Vince's shit, get a grubstake, and find her champion.

She took a shower and headed across the street to Cowboy Bob's Bar and Grill, with a thirty foot Cowboy Bob out front waving to the passing traffic with his articulated forearm. It was five-thirty. A Coors sign shined neon blue in Cowboy Bob's big front window. Pick-ups and choppers in the parking lot.Ol' Waylon was on the juke as she entered.

It was twenty degrees cooler in the bar. Behind a rustic podium a lithe Indian girl wearing a flannel cowboy shirt with the sleeves rolled up, her long black hair in a ponytail, smiled.

"Eatin'? Follow me."

The dining room was past the bar. Four burly bikers turned on their stools to watch them pass. The dining room was period Western with framed Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers posters, the inevitable steer horns, old branding irons and a bragging wall with photos of celebrities who'd dined there. The waitress seated Summer beneath Clark Gable.

"My name's Fiona and I'm your waitress. Don't mind those fools at the bar. They're harmless. Want a drink?"

"Fiona, bring me a rum and coke, heavy on the rum."

"I hear ya, hon. One Cuba Libre coming up."

Summer looked at the rustic menu. She was famished. Fiona returned with her drink and a glass of water. Summer ordered the barbecued pulled pork sandwich. She sank the drink and ordered a second one when her order came.

She had almost finished her sandwich when a bulky object filled the door to the dining room. One of the bikers, hair exploding from his head, black leather vest, blue-tatted arms. He stopped a few feet away hands at sides like a repentant schoolboy.

Summer slid her hand into her front pants pocket and fingered the Beretta.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Weren't you dancing at Dante's last week?"

Summer experienced relief and even happiness. "Why bless your soul, yes I was."

Now he didn't know what to say.

"What's your name, sweetheart?"

"Earl." He brushed his massive beard aside to show her the word Earl stitched on the black leather in red thread. "Me and the boys are cruisinn' the southwests. Spent a week in Vegas losing money."

"Sit down, Earl. What's your club?"

Earl pulled out a chair and carefully lowered his 300 lbs. into it. Fiona came over. "Get you somethin', Earl?"

"I'll take another Guinness, Fi." He turned back. "Big Wheels. Back home got my own construction company. Pour concrete."

"Gotta card?"

Earl grunted and reached behind him, seizing the outsized Harley wallet and hauling it in by the chain. He handed her his card. Fitzroy Concrete. Earl Fitzroy, Fernando, MO.

"Do you have a card?" Earl said. Summer noticed his buddies craning their necks, sick with jealousy.

Of what, boys? Talking to a pretty woman?

"You got a boyfriend?" Earl said immediately coloring. "I mean a card! Do you have a card!"

Summer trilled with delight. As if. "I'm fresh out."

"I mean if I was to come back this way again would you have dinner with me?"

"I might. Now's not a real good time for me. I got an ex boyfriend on my tail's meaner than a rattlesnake."

Earl puffed up. "Oh yeah? I'd like to see how mean he is."

"You are a sweetheart."

"Can't stand to see a man bully a woman. That's what we're all about, the Wheels. People think we're a bunch of violent drug-dealing savages. Because of Hollywood. But we're just a bunch of decent, hard-working guys who like to ride bikes. It's nuts."

"I know what you mean. A lot of people think that because I dance at a place like Dante's, that makes me something else."

Earl shook his head. "I would never think that."

"You're a gentleman."

Earl cleared his throat. "Well, sorry to interrupt. I just had to say hello. You need any help, that fool shows up and you want some protection, don't you hesitate to call. I mean that. We're gonna be rattling around the Four Corners for awhile."

Suddenly Summer rose, stepped up to Earl and kissed him on the cheek. "You take care now."

Embarassed but pleased Earl rumbled back to his buddies.

My champion
.

Fiona brought the bill. "Was he hittin' on you?"

"Naw. He's cute."

Summer left a generous tip, went out through the side door to the parking lot so as to skip the boys and returned to her motel room. The black satchel from the Camaro lay on her bed. She opened it up. She took out the map. She moved the satchel and spread the map out on her bed. It was made from some kind of animal skin, very thin with a fine but strong texture. The ink was faded along the folds. The map was almost three feet square and hand-painted but not crude.

Whoever had drawn the wadis, the mountains, the flats and certain geological formations was a skilled artist. She aligned the map with north at twelve o-clock. She was unfamiliar with the landmarks. In the northeast quadrant was a drawing of an unusual butte surrounded by a radiant pattern of squiggly lines.

It was labeled "Shipapu."

***

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

"Luca"

Luca Bonamici ran Luca's Limos. He also owned Fernando's out by the airport. Vince had bounced for him and driven limo. He'd never got in the deeper stuff although Luca offered. He was about to get in the deep stuff now.

Vince pulled the gray Hummer into Fernando's parking lot at three in the afternoon. The strip joint looked drab in the merciless sun, its neon stilled, windows dark. Vince went around the back where Luca parked his Corvette. The delivery door was open. Vince stepped inside. It smelled of booze, sawdust and stale jism. There were several private rooms in the back which Luca used for all sorts of things.

Luca was expecting him. Vince waved to the dude stocking the bar and went through the main room to Luca's office in the back, up three steps.

Luca sat in his black leather and teak chair, hands behind his head, thick black hair smoothed slick with brilliantine, a Costa Rican guitar the size of a toilet paper tube jutting from his mouth. Vince thought Luca watched
The Godfather
too much. Real hoods looking to Hollywood to learn how to behave.

"What I can do you for, Vince. Have a seat. Want a cool one?"

"Yeah sure. Why not?"

Luca pressed on the intercom. "Manny, bring us a couple of that new whatchamacallit, that new micro beer."

"Odell's?" chirped the intercom.

"That's it." Luca waited patiently puffing.

"My girl ran out on me. She stole some shit."

Luca's thick monobrow arched. "A good-lookin' guy like you? Why would she do that?"

"Maybe I hit her too hard. I don't know."

Luca shook his head. "Vinnie, Vinnie, Vinnie. What's with you and the ladies? You've got to treat 'em nice!"

"I know. But look, Luca. I need some help finding her. She don't know what she took. She took my car and the shit was in the trunk."

"Wha'd she take?" Puff puff.

"An old map. Like 17th century or something. I got a buyer lined up and everything. I need help finding her."

"So you say."

"Map's worth a hundred gees."

The eyebrow humped. "So you say."

"Come on, Luca. You know I'm a stand-up guy! Help me find her and I'll cut you in for twenty percent."

"Fifty."

"Come on, Luca! This is my one chance to score big. You've already made it. All I"m asking for is a little help finding her. You're plugged into those hackers, right? Face recognition hardware and all that shit?" Vince reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a series of photographs of Summer. Some were from her dance portfolio. Others were personal.

Luca picked them up and puffed. "Beautiful girl. I think I seen her before. This the one dancing at Dante's?"

"Yeah."

"Fucking Dante didn't know what he had. Forty."

"Thirty," Vince said. Luca stuck out his hand.

"You got a rifle?" Vince said.

"You don't ask much, do you?"

"C'mon. No blowback. I promise."

Luca stood and walked to a closet door at the back of the room, opened it, rummaged around. Vince heard dull clanking. Luca returned with a

Remington 30.06. "Sorta fell into my hands. Of unknown provenance."

"Perfect," Vince said, taking the rifle and sighting through the window at the passing traffic.

Luca turned back to the cabinet, withdrew a black windbreaker, tossed it to Vince. "Check this shit."

Vince looked at the windbreaker. It was XXL. It said Zobel's on the breast in white script. "What?"

"Check the zipper pull."

Vince found the molded plastic zipper pull and started playing with it. A tiny black nylon key popped out. "What the fuck?"

"It's a handcuff key! Ain't that the shits? I bought a couple dozen to give away. That's for you. Hope you don't need it. You got to get your own scope, though."

"No prob. Thanks, Luca."

Luca sat and puffed. "Just remember. We got your picture too."

***