The Faceless One (28 page)

It was a whale.

Stan cried out then, at the sheer monstrosity, the sheer impossibility of it. He raised one hand to his mouth and bit down, trying to force himself to wake up. He drew blood and gasped, but the apparition remained.

It was a humpback whale, which Stan had seen only in nature specials. They were spectacular and ugly, he had thought, huge and blemished with barnacles and scars. Dinosaurs held over from some cataclysm, creatures he was grateful were not land-based.

The whale raised its head weakly and bellowed, the song a terrible trumpeting of
loneliness and pain.

The car vibrated with the cry of it, and Stan screeched to a halt just twenty feet from its massive bulk. He got out of the car even though he would be sending up alarms to the Big Boss.

Shit, even the Big Boss might stop for this.

He saw that many of what he had taken for barnacles were actually blisters, rising on the dulling gray flesh like bubbles in tar, bursting at last to release a yellowish fluid that ran down the once-sleek sides.

It pained him to think of something from cool ocean waters literally blistering in the hellish place. The idea that it was one of the planet’s more intelligent creatures made it all the worse, and he felt a kinship with it, as if both of them were the victims of a god whose chief qualities were a childish malevolence coupled with terrible power.

The whale bellowed again, its cry like something out of a primeval forest. Whatever poetry its song might contain, it was lost on the harsh profanity of land.

Stan covered his ears, weeping at the sheer wrongness of what he was seeing.

Knowing he must proceed, he jumped into the car and started to drive around the creature. The stench of it filled his nostrils; it was rotting already. No wonder the thing was suffering. The heat was cooking it.

Stan slammed on the brakes and got out of the car. He couldn’t let such suffering continue. His kid had told him whales were as smart as people. He might not stop the Big Boss, but he could stop this suffering.

He climbed up onto the hood of his dust-covered car and pulled his service revolver out of his waistband. He had stuck the gun there when he had changed at the Texaco station, and had pulled it by reflex. He leveled the revolver at the thing’s eye, and it regarded him calmly.

Its thoughts seemed to touch him in that moment, and he felt them both sliding and dancing through cool green seas. He felt a joy he would have thought impossible in this place and was grateful for this glimpse into something so innocent.

He hesitated, then saw that scorpions were swarming over it, along with large red ants.

Stan fired once, and the whale’s eye imploded, a thin, clear fluid leaking down from the hole in its head. It shuddered, then was still.

He got into his car, smiling for the first time in hours. He swung around the thing, hoping to get on the road before the Big Boss registered the delay.

The Buick swung out into the sand and sent up dusty plumes, rooster tails like spray from an earthbound speedboat. He drove around the tail of the thing, wondering if anyone had reported it yet. Killing whales was a crime. He guessed they might add it to his list at the trial.

This made him giggle, and he began to laugh shrilly as he drove toward the highway. Two counts of murder one and the death of a whale in Oklahoma. He continued to laugh until the
car became wedged in the sand, its wheels spinning uselessly.

He rocked the car back and forth, his laughter now turned to little moans of fear as he smelled the aroma of cloves.

The Big Boss was coming.

And he was stuck by the side of the road.

The 110 or Pasadena Freeway was one of the oldest freeways in Los Angeles. Small, merely two lanes wide, it undulates through areas thick with trees and once-proud Victorian homes. The on-ramps were designed for an earlier age, when cars were not routinely hurtling along at speeds in excess of seventy miles an hour.

George drove them on the old road and marveled at how nicely the rental car handled. He was glad not to be in one of those tin pieces of junk known as “an economy car.”

Jimmy was quiet. He held the yellow flyer in his hand and gazed unseeingly out the window. George had thought the whole trip was going to turn out to be a wild-goose chase. Now he wasn’t so sure.

If they hadn’t gone to the library, they wouldn’t have found the flyer. It seemed to George that this Raven character liked people to dance around a bit before he gave them any help. Jimmy said a person had to have a lot of patience and a sense of humor to deal with Raven. George thought Raven kind of sounded like a jerk, but he didn’t say that to Jimmy. He guessed a person could make an argument that his own god was a trickster, impregnating an unmarried virgin, then having his son sold out by one of his friends and nailed to a cross. Seemed like a convoluted way to forgive people, he guessed, but it was his religion, and it brought him comfort. He wasn’t about to tell Jimmy his gods were silly or outrageous.

* * *

Jimmy was lost in thought, wondering still where he was going. The museum seemed an important step though he wasn’t sure why. Maybe Raven would be there, albeit in some guise. He knew he was supposed to just move on, following the twists and turns Raven laid out for him, but it was difficult. He was old, and the last of his village.

He was grateful that George had agreed to drive him to the museum. He had offered to take the bus, and George had flatly refused. He knew George had his doubts about why they were here, but he was a loyal friend.

They took Exit 43, and a Lexus behind George angrily honked because George slowed to
negotiate the turn. George flipped him off, but the Lexus had already sped on toward Pasadena.

“Look at you,” said Jimmy.

George grinned. “I may be slow behind the wheel, but I’m quick on the draw, Cochise. You remember that.”

“There may be Indians up at the museum. Maybe you should lay off the colorful nicknames.”

“What do you want me to call you, Chilly Willy?”

“You could always go with Jimmy,” he said.

George let out a snort.

“Damn, call you by your Christian name?”

“I’m not Christian.”

“Damn straight. Jesus rode into town on an ass; he didn’t try talking to it.”

“I’ll bet he did when no one was looking.”

“Now you are talking out of your ass, which is a whole different story, Cochise.”

Jimmy chuckled. One thing about George—he could always make Jimmy laugh.

They drove up the hill to Museum Drive.

The Southwest Museum was a large, mission-style building constructed in the early 1900s. It featured collections of artifacts relating to various tribes of the Southwest, as well as those indigenous to the Pacific Northwest.

George parked the car in the lot. As they approached the museum, George nudged Jimmy.

“You let me do the talking, Tonto. I’ll get us a discount.”

“George, it’s a museum.”

“I didn’t live this long to pay full freight,” George replied.

They entered the cool interior.

As it turned out, admission was free, which George found disappointing. His good mood was restored when the pretty girl at the admissions counter told him that, even if there had been a fee, she would have let him in for free because he had such a nice smile.

“You are shameless,” Jimmy admonished him quietly.

“And you’re jealous,” said George grinning widely.

Behind them was the entrance to the exhibit. As they started toward it, Jimmy glanced to his left. He could see a large painting of beavers done in the Haida style, strong and distinctive shapes in red and black on wood. A docent was near the entrance to the main exhibit. She smiled pleasantly as they approached. Jimmy pointed to the Haida painting in the next room.

“What’s in there?” he asked.

“That’s the permanent display of artifacts from the Pacific Northwest,” she said.

“Anything from the Tlingit?” he asked.

“Usually,” she said, “but we moved the more interesting pieces into the ‘Heroes’ exhibit. There are a couple of Tlingit rattles that are particularly beautiful.” Her eyes were large and bright. She looked at Jimmy curiously.

“Are you Tlingit?”

Jimmy nodded. He looked at her name tag, which read,
SIENNA OROZCO
.

Sienna smiled.

“Then our exhibit may make you a little homesick,” she said.

“Ms. Orozco, I’m homesick every day.”

She nodded, patted his arm, and gestured into the main hall.

“Safe journey,” she whispered.

He and George walked into the exhibit. The entrance had been fashioned to resemble a large cave that angled to the left. The cave had been left over from an exhibit on Paleolithic tribes, and the museum had not seen fit to change it. Although the artificial cave was very unlike the one Jimmy had entered so long ago, he still had a profound sense of déjà vu walking through it.

The entrance to the exhibit proper was flanked by two large Haida totem poles. They featured figures of Bear, Raven, Killer Whale, Salmon, and Seal. Jimmy lightly touched one of the poles as they entered, feeling the power still resonating within its stout structure.

There were various cases lining the room, each containing artifacts behind glass. Illumination came both from track lights and from sunlight streaming in through skylights in the curved ceiling. For all the light and the textured eggshell walls, the place seemed dark, somber.

A glint of copper caught Jimmy’s eye off to the right. In that case was a collection of rattles. The one that had caught his eye was an almost flat disc embossed with a grinning face, eyes of polished abalone glinting under the track lights. One eye was light green, the other dark blue. The disc was bound to a wooden handle. Such a rattle could be a very powerful summons if used correctly. Next to it was a wooden rattle, carved to look like Raven. The Trickster was colored in red and featured a prone and grimacing man bound to his back. The man on the rattle might have been him; even the cast of the features was similar.

It made him anxious to see these things displayed without reverence and in such bright light. Many of the objects in the room, even those he had little knowledge of, were meant for use in sacred rituals and ceremony. They were to be glimpsed only under special circumstances and only in the possession of a shaman or chief. To see them laid out like pinned insects was a travesty. No, it was more than that, it was an abomination.

He was surprised at the depth of his anger. In a way it was invigorating, like a fire coursing through his system, making him feel energized.

He looked around the room, seeing an older couple gathered in front of a display with mannequins in ceremonial dress. He walked toward the exhibit, feeling a strange urge to do so.

The display had figures in the garb of shamans from various tribes.

In the center was a Tlingit shaman, dressed in his traditional regalia: Chilkat cloak, its goat wool dyed to depict two eagles gazing at a wolf, its fringe still intact; a headdress of cedar and ermine, its carving of eagle and human accented with sea-lion whiskers and inlays of abalone; and an octopus bag, a sort of four-fingered pouch shaped like its namesake, and beaded to depict the four seasons. The workmanship on all of it was beautiful and made Jimmy feel a great loss at the ways he had abandoned.

He noted that all of the mannequins featured the same stern plaster face, as if the same man was overseeing the Sacred for all peoples.

And then it occurred to him: This is why he was there, to take this sacred costume and confront The Faceless One.

It was an insane notion, but there was wisdom in it. There was no way he could hope to battle such a being without the proper preparation. To face such an ancient evil in everyday dress was unthinkable. He would be killed before he said a single word.

Now that he knew why he was there, he had to figure out the “how” of it. There was no way the museum would let him borrow the clothing for his task, and it was evident from their lack of respect that they did not believe in his gods. These were people who put fast-food restaurants near sacred sites and turned sacred texts into amusement parks and computer games.

He would have to steal them. There was no other way.

He looked for George. The two of them would have to “case the joint,” as they used to say, trying to find its weak spots.

George walked around the exhibit, letting Jimmy take it all in. The museum was nice and cool, but he had little interest in the exhibits. He would rather have been at a bar or a movie, or somewhere watching pretty girls, but Jimmy needed to be there. George wondered what the staff of Golden Summer was up to—surely they had been missed by now. He knew Fred wouldn’t snitch on them, but he wondered how far someone like Nurse Belva might go to track them down. For such a pretty young thing, she could be very tenacious.

Jimmy walked over to him, looking much more animated than when he arrived.

“Let’s grab a cup of coffee,” Jimmy said.

George needed to use the restroom, so Jimmy walked around the museum while George did his business. He wandered aimlessly, trying to let whatever forces might be watching guide his steps. He found himself near the entrance. He glanced out the glass doors, then noticed an electronic panel near the front door. The cover of the panel was latched shut; there was no lock. Through a window in the cover, he could see indicator lights for various windows and doors, as
well as a touch pad. It was the central control for the museum’s alarm system.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Jimmy turned and saw a young man. He looked Hispanic and wore a bolo tie that featured a turquoise-and-silver firebird. The name tag on his denim shirt read
JESUS GUERRERO
.

“I’m just waiting for my friend to come out of the restroom,” Jimmy said, smiling pleasantly.

Jesus smiled back.

“Oh,” Jimmy said, “is there a coffee shop in the museum?”

Jesus shook his head sadly. “There are a couple of vending machines outside.” Jesus looked around, then lowered his voice. “I’d stay away from the coffee, though. Tastes like weasel piss.”