Terrors (14 page)

“Roberto Cortez. He lives right here in Oakland. He’s into Columbian art, Mayan ruins, that kinda thing. He does paintings and
pottery in the old style. Mr. Vega hired him to decorate the restaurant when we moved from the old place.”

Browne took a sip of his drink. It was delicious. He dipped a corn chip in salsa and munched on it, then
washed it down with more margarita. “Cortez, huh? What’s he, some kind of a practical joker, putting a Crushers helmet on an Aztec warrior? Or is that guy a priest?”

“No, Vern. “A line creased Rudy’s brow. “Roberto is a scholar. He wouldn’ put nothing there that wasn’ authentic. Din’ you know the Aztecs played football? The Spanish learn’ the game from the Aztecs. The English learn’ it from the
Spanish an’ turn it into rugby, an’ it come back here to the States with the English an’ turn into American football. Tha’s why he put the Crushers helmet on that guy. Those Aztecs invented football.”

Vernon Browne shook his head. “That’s impossible.”

“No it’s not. I’m tellin’ you true, Vern. Roberto Cortez, he’s a real scholar. He wouldn’ make that up.”

“I’ll have another margarita, Rudy.”
Vern drained his glass and helped himself to a couple more chips. “No, that’s impossible. I’ll concede, maybe the Aztecs had a game something like football. I’ll even admit that it might be an ancestor of modern football even though I doubt it. It’s possible, okay. But you can’t tell me that the Aztecs wore football helmets. Not Oakland Crushers helmets.”

“Yes, sir, they did. They really did.
You wan’ me to make a phone call to Mr. Cortez, an’ you go see him? He’s a little suspicious of Anglos but I’ll talk to him. If I say you’re okay, he’ll prob’ly talk to you.”

Roberto Cortez lived in a subdivided Victorian on Sixth Street near the freeway.

Vernon Browne parked outside, sent up a quick prayer to whatever gods watch over Toyota Camrys, and rapped on the doorframe. He looked around,
trying to figure out whether the neighborhood was sinking slowly into slumhood or preparing itself for gentrification. The door opened and he looked into the face of a slim, olive-skinned man in his late thirties.

The man said, “You Browne?”

Vernon nodded. “You’re Cortez.”

A grunt. Then, “Rudy said you wanted to ask me some questions.”

Vernon nodded again. Cortez spoke English perfectly, he
thought,
without even the trace of an accent that Rudy Valdez’ pronunciation showed.

“Okay. Ask away.”

“It’s a little bit, ah—may I come in? I mean …”

“What is it? Rudy said you were interested in my murals. The ones at Vega’s Taqueria. What are you, an art collector? You got a commission for me? You’ll have to talk to my agent.”

“No. It’s nothing like that. I—can I come in?”

Cortez moved
out of the way. Browne stepped into the vestibule, waited while Cortez reached behind him to close the door. Cortez led the way upstairs and opened a door to a flat. Browne went in.

The heat of the day had saturated the apartment, but Vern could still appreciate the work that had gone into it. The furniture was either Art Deco near-antiques or modern reproductions; Vern couldn’t tell which. The
curved chrome, the plush upholstery, the geometric shapes and zigzag patterns suggestive of lightning were dizzying.

On a glass-topped table stood a rectangular radio covered with cobalt—blue mirrors. Its dial glowed a rich orange-yellow. Music came from concealed speakers in the corners of the room. Apparently, the old radio had been gutted and its insides replaced with modern components. The
music sounded like some kind of experimental classic, mostly woodwinds and percussion instruments, a baroque composition with Latin overtones.

“Villa-Lobos,” Cortez said, reading Vern’s mind. “That’s his
Choro
Number seven, 1924. He was a great admirer of Bach’s. That’s my wife’s tape. She’s playing first clarinet.”

As if on cue, a stunning blonde entered the room.

“Esther,” Cortez said, “this
is the fellow Rudy phoned about. He’s some kind of art expert.”

Esther extended her hand and Vernon took it. Despite the day’s heat, her skin was cool. She smiled at him.

“I’m not really an art expert at all. I don’t want to mislead you. I work for the Oakland
Journal
.”

“You’re a reporter?”

“Purchasing. Paper, ink, supplies. I just stopped at Vega’s for a cold drink, and I saw your husband’s
murals there.”

Cortez said, “I painted those years ago, Mr. Browne. When they tore down the old building, where the city jail is now, and put up the new one.”

“Yes. It’s just—there’s a football player. In one of the paintings. An Aztec wearing an Oakland Crushers helmet.”

Cortez smiled. “Didn’t you know the Crushers took their logo and team colors from the Aztecs? That’s where football was
invented—in pre-Columbian Mexico.”

Browne shook his head. “That’s what Rudy told me. You didn’t just add that figure to the painting?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe something happened, somebody spilled something on it, rubbed the paint with their shoulder, whatever. You went in and touched it up, you put the helmet on that guy for a joke?”

“Nope.”

“I don’t understand.” Uninvited, Vernon sank into an Art
Deco easy chair upholstered in deep, dark blue plush. “I’ve been going to Vega’s for years. Since the old place. I eat there a couple of times a week, stop in for a drink in between. I must have looked at that mural hundreds of times. Thousands, maybe. Why didn’t I ever see the helmet before?”

Cortez laughed once, quietly. “People can look at a painting endless times and still find something
new in it. That’s one of the characteristics of good art. I’m really flattered that you finally spotted the football helmet. What do you think, Esther?”

Esther said, “Same thing with music. I’ve heard that Villa-Lobos piece hundreds of times, played it … God, if you count rehearsals, I don’t know how many. And I can still …”

“But I still don’t …” Browne stood up. “Football wasn’t …” he tried
again. “This has to be … I don’t know … some kind of joke … some kind of quirk … I just can’t …”

Roberto and Esther were both seated now. They looked over at him. Neither spoke.

“Excuse me.” Browne moved toward the door. “I’ll … I don’t … know…. I have to go home and think about this.”

“You don’t believe me?” Roberto Cortez asked.

Browne shook his head again. “It isn’t that. I can only … I
can’t explain it. It’s just too strange. It’s not your fault. I just have to …”

Outside Cortez’ Victorian, Vernon took a deep breath. He walked once around his Nissan Sentra. Nobody had touched it. That was a relief.
He held the key for a moment before unlocking the door. Something was strange. He felt mildly disoriented, almost dizzy, but the sensation passed. He climbed into the Sentra and
started for home.

But he couldn’t go home.

Instead, he drove back downtown and parked outside Vega’s Taqueria. Inside the restaurant the cashier smiled at him. “Want a table, Mr. Browne?”

He shook his head, stood staring at the mural. The Aztec
was
wearing a football helmet. Breechclout and feathers and an Oakland Crushers helmet. Vernon leaned closer. There was Roberto Cortez’ signature in
the corner of the painting. Beneath the
z
there was even a date. The mural was six years old. Browne could find no evidence that the painting had been altered.

Rudy Valdez was still on duty behind the bar. The place was a lot more crowded than it had been earlier, and Rudy was hopping to make drinks and change for bar patrons and to fill service orders brought from the dining room.

Vern waited
for a lull, then signalled Rudy over to him.

“You see Cortez?”

Vern nodded.

“What he tell you?”

“Everything you said. Everything you said.”

“How ’bout a margarita, Vern? On me.”

Browne shook his head. “I’ve got to work this out.”

“No you don’. It’s just a funny thing. You know Detroit Jackson? Colored fella, comes in here a lot?”

Browne waited.

“Sure you do. Old guy, got a gold tooth
right here, likes to talk a lot, drinks bourbon ginger. He says, when you get one of them funny memory things—you forget somebody’s name you seen every day for years, or you suddenly don’ know what day it is, you know Detroit Jackson, he says you been hit by a cosmic ray. He says they comin’ to Earth all the time, you can’ see ’em or hear ’em, but when they hit your brain they can knock a little connection
loose, you get a funny memory thing like that.”

Browne looked at Rudy.

“You wan’ that drink on the house?” Rudy offered again.

Browne shook his head. No.

“Whatta you think of that theory, Vern? Look, here’s a waitress, I gotta go now. Don’ let it worry you.”

Browne left his car at Vega’s, walked three blocks to the Oakland
Press
tower, headed for sports. He found Mort Halloran there, sitting
in front of his VDT, worrying over a story.

“You got a minute, Mort? You cover the Crushers for the
Press
.”

“Season’s been over for months, Vern. This is baseball season.”

“Yeah, but I have a football question.”

“You got a bet going?”

“Not exactly. Mort, how long have the Crushers been around?”

“That one I can answer. Nineteen thirty-seven. Played at Tynan Field in Emeryville. Barely survived
playing to empty bleachers and the players’ families for the first ten years. Won the Western Conference in ’48, lost the playoff to the Brooklyn Dodgers, 14 to 11. Won the conference again in ’53, beat Philadelphia for the championship, 42 to 12. Moved to the Coliseum in ’60. You need the modern stuff, or that enough?”

“I mean—how did football get started? Didn’t the college game come from English
rugby? About a hundred years ago?”

“Oh, you mean the
really
early days. Yeah, but the English got it from the Spanish and they got it from the Aztecs all the way back in the fifteenth century. It’s an old, old game. Crushers took their logo from some Aztec team, I think. You want me to dig out their press book for you? This a heavy bet you got going, or what?”

Browne walked away without another
word.

At Vega’s he was starting to climb into his car when he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Rudy?”

“You okay, Vern? I’m off shift now, jus’ goin’ home.”

Vernon shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I was wrong. Everybody says you’re right. About the football thing, I mean. The Crushers helmet on that Aztec in Roberto Cortez’s painting.”

“You still upset, though, aren’ you? I can tell.”

Browne leaned on the roof of his car. “Yeah. I guess it isn’t really important, but—it keeps bothering me. I mean, you think you know what the world is all about, right? I don’t mean like a chemist or a philosopher, but you know certain things. And then one of them is all wrong. All different. I don’t know. Am I the only one out of step? Everybody knows that the Aztecs played football except me. I
never knew that. I always thought—never mind. But how can that happen? How can that be? How did I walk around all my life, the only guy who didn’t know that?”

Full night had fallen but the air was no less torrid, no less heavy. The Vega’s Taqueria parking lot was brightly illuminated to discourage car thieves and vandals. Rudy’s hispanic features looked pasty and flat in the artificial glare;
Vern knew that his own lighter skin must look like a dead man’s.

“Maybe you should see a doc,” Rudy advised. “Or a priest. Say, I know a priest who’s a shrink, too. He’s a real MD, a psychiatrist. And a priest. You Catholic, Vern?”

Browne shook his head.

“Well, he’s a nice person. Very approachable. You can go see him anyhow. You wan’ me to give you his name? You wan’ me to call him for you,
like I called Cortez? I don’ mind, Vern. You’re my friend; I’m a little bit worried about you.”

The church was called Santa Maria de Aragon. It was small and slightly run-down, on a street of wooden houses and small
bodegas
. The bulletin board on the patchy lawn was in both English and Spanish.

Vernon Browne locked his De Soto convertible and stood looking at the canvas top. He hoped nobody
would try to rob the car by slashing the cloth. There was nothing to steal in the car, but a petty criminal might try anyway. Or some angry kid might put a knife through the canvas as an act of sheer vandalism.

Well, he couldn’t do anything about that.

The church was open, quiet, almost empty. A few parishioners were scattered in the pews, mumbling and fingering rosaries or meditating quietly.
Vernon wasn’t sure what to do. The nearest person to him was a vaguely familiar looking woman. She glanced at Vernon, crossed herself, and hurried out of the church. Vernon looked after her. Was she the woman who had stood in front of the mural at Vega’s? He wasn’t sure, and now she was gone.

He approached another, older woman and asked if she knew where he could find the priest. In heavily accented
English accompanied by vigorous gestures she directed him down a hallway to a little office.

Father Nuñez was a short, wizened man wearing a threadbare black suit. He looked up when Vernon knocked at the door.

“Did Rudy phone you? Rudy the bartender at Vega’s? He said you were a psychiatrist as well as a priest and I—”

Father Nuñez smiled and gestured Vern to a chair. “Please. Rudy
phoned me.
What can I do for you, Mr. Browne? Is this a spiritual problem or a medical one?”

He held a thin hand toward Vernon. As they shook hands, Vernon wondered how old the priest could be. His grip was thin but vigorous; his skin seemed to be made of a million fine lines.

“I’m not sure, Father—Doctor. Does it matter which title I call you by?”

“Whatever makes you comfortable, Mr. Browne. My first
name is Alejandro. Use that if you prefer. Or just Alex. It doesn’t matter. But if it’s medical, you see—well, I hold a degree in medicine and a diploma in psychiatry, but I don’t really practice. I’m not even licensed by the State of California.” He spread his hands, taking in their surroundings. The office was shabby, the thin carpet as threadbare as the priest’s black suit.