The Sixteen Burdens (27 page)

“Now what?” she asked.

They walked back down the pier, their backs to the ocean. Gray felt for the Eye in his pocket.

“Now it’s my turn to be brave.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-S
EVEN

W
HEN
G
RAY
KNOCKED
on the door of Abuelita’s apartment, he saw a blackness swirl about him and a felt wave of fear run through him. He staggered backward, nearly knocking Lulu over.

Panchito looked through the peephole and then answered the door. He was wearing a dirty apron.

“Don’t worry,” Panchito said. “It’s just Elsie.”

“What do you mean?”

Gray and Lulu entered and saw Elsie lying on the couch, a damp towel over her forehead.

“She’s been coming around in fits and starts,” Panchito said. “Every time she does, we get struck with a bolt of fear. Poor Abuelita is going to have a heart attack before the night is through.”

Lulu knelt by her sister. She took her hand and gave her a big kiss on the cheek.

“She’s been able to send emotion through people without touching them?”

Panchito shrugged.

“She’s somehow stronger in her unconsciousness.”

Abuelita appeared from around the corner with a platter full of tamales.

“
Listos, mijos?
”

“You guys ready for dinner?” Panchito asked.

Gray hung his jacket on the coat rack near the door.

They cleaned up and the four of them sat around the small kitchen table, keeping Elsie in view. In addition to both chicken and pork tamales, Panchito’s grandmother had made black beans, rice, buttery corn on the cob, a small turkey and pozole, a savory hominy soup seasoned with chile and garlic. It was a small feast.

Abuelita bowed her head and said grace in Spanish, finishing with, “
Feliz Navidad!
”

Gray had lost track of the days. Was it Christmas Eve already? There was a small Christmas tree in the corner that had been there all week, but only then did he take it in.

This would be the first year in memory that he wasn’t at the Christmas banquet of the Emory Partridge Home for Boys. It was the one large meal they had each year, with a mishmash of food donated from the congregation of a local church. After dinner they would fight over a pile of donated used clothes, and would then open their one gift: a wooden toy carved for them by Emory Partridge himself. Even though the old man was too ill to visit, it was the one tradition he kept up. Gray imagined the effort took him all year to complete.

They passed plates around, and Abuelita loaded on twice as much food as anyone could hope to eat.

“How did it go?” Panchito asked.

Gray had pushed the memory of the afternoon out of his mind—the pleading look in Sugar’s eyes as she drowned.

“Sugar’s dead.”

Everyone looked up from their plates. He told them what had happened at the pier, trying to make Lulu’s part sound accidental. It was a story of victory, he supposed, but with every word he spoke, it felt more and more like failure.

Panchito plied Gray with questions, pulling out every detail imaginable of the incident. After talking long about it, conversation turned to the Eye.

“Did Mr. Hughes help you come up with a plan?” Panchito asked.

“We discussed possible solutions,” Gray said vaguely.

“Good,” Panchito said. “Once we rescue Mrs. Pickford, I have plans. I want to duplicate my talent in all of you so we can go to Mexico and find the person who killed my father.”

Gray stuffed a fork full of rice into his mouth. He had been dreading this conversation. He swallowed.

“Chito, we can’t keep Newton’s Eye.”

Panchito set down his fork.

“After all the work we did to get it?”

“We can’t risk the Eye getting into the wrong hands,” Gray said. “People have been killing for it for hundreds of years, ever since it was first made. The only option is to destroy it.”

The only option is for one of us to die.

“But we can defeat Atlas with it,” Panchito said. “We’ll gather together everyone we know, a whole group of them, and I’ll give my gift of courage to all of them. We could storm Atlas’s compound and save your mother without having the Eye anywhere nearby.”

“What you’re talking about is an army,” Gray said. “Say we do defeat Atlas. What does the army do afterward?”

“Anything it wants!” Panchito said.

“Exactly.”

Gray thought of Lulu, who had killed Sugar that afternoon with so little remorse. It had taken Panchito years to grow into his courage; he was still learning to temper it with restraint and compassion. Someone like Lulu had no filter. She was courage without consequence. Equipping a group of people would be like handing out hand grenades to a bunch of toddlers.

“Sorry,” Gray said. “We can’t use it. We have to get rid of it one way or another.”

Panchito pointed his knife at Gray.

“Why do you get to make the final decision? Elsie helped you find the Eye. I knocked out Mr. Fairbanks in Jack Siegel’s apartment, and Lulu stole it back. You wouldn’t have the Eye if it wasn’t for us.”

“Mrs. Pickford trusted me to find it,” Gray said. “This is my responsibility.”

“I’ve known her longer than you have!” Panchito said. “If you’re worried about who we choose to use the Eye on, we’ll be careful. We’ll take our time with who we pick.”

“We don’t have time!” Gray said. “Atlas is waiting for a response from me. They might even come here when Sugar fails to show up.”

“All the more reason to use it!”

A pearly white strand of energy swirled about them, and Gray felt a wave of serenity rush through him. It lasted only a moment.

Elsie was asleep on the couch, but some part of her was responding to the argument.

“I don’t want you manipulating my emotions,” he said to her.

“Me either,” Panchito said.

Elsie didn’t move.

“Lay off,” Lulu said. “It’s not her fault, you nudniks.”

Lulu walked over to her sister and plopped down next to her like a guard dog.

Abuelita had watched the whole scene in silence, unable to participate. She grabbed Panchito’s hand.

“
Hay una razón por la cual estás aquí. Tu padre creía en tu destino.
”

“Yes, Abuelita, I have a destiny,” Panchito said. “To find my father’s killer.”

“No,” she said. “
El águila no pierde tiempo cazando moscas
.”

Panchito grimaced at whatever she had said.

“What did she say?” Gray asked.

“The eagle doesn’t waste time hunting flies,” Panchito said. “She means it’s a useless pursuit trying to avenge my father.”

“You have responsibility,” she said in her heavy accent. “Not to father. To them.”

Abuelita took Gray’s hand and put it on top of her grandson’s.

“Friends,” she said.

Panchito ripped his hand away.

“We’re not friends. No one is friends with Gray. Just the way he likes it.”

Gray stood.

“It ain’t friends I mind. It’s you in particular, fatso.”

Panchito reached out and grabbed the Eye around Gray’s neck, then thrust Gray backward so that he stumbled.

“If we’re not friends,” he said, “then there’s no reason for you to be here.”

Gray wasn’t going to try to grab the Eye back. Panchito had grown strong, and Gray knew he would be no match.

“
Muchos gracias
,” he said to Abuelita. “
Feliz Navidad
.”

She started to protest, but Panchito put his hand firmly on her arm. Gray walked to the coat rack by the door and grabbed the tuxedo jacket he had arrived with. He took his fedora, which he hadn’t worn since before the movie premiere, and pulled it on. There was nothing else.

He walked out the door, down the stairs, and out into the night. It had grown cold, and he had nowhere to go.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-E
IGHT

P
ERSHING
S
QUARE
LOOKED
to Gray like a movie set version itself, an empty shell of what the plaza usually was. Everything was in the right place and in the right proportion, but it was utterly vacant. The grand fountain wasn’t running. The leaves of the palm trees weren’t rustling. Not a single soul occupied its benches or pathways.

Gray felt like the only person in the world.

After finding a park bench that was sheltered by some bushes, he sat down. There was an old newspaper abandoned on the bench. On the cover was a story about Chaplin, detailing his history with women that stretched as long as his career. There were the famous actresses he had dated, the pretty girls he had cast in his films, and, of course, the two ex-wives, neither of whom lasted more than three years. To Gray it was consistent with a man who had trouble taking anything in life seriously, even his relationships. The story, however, twisted Chaplin into a man who considered women to be expendable. Was it such a stretch to believe that a man who disposed of women’s affections so easily could also dispose of their bodies?

Gray lay down on the wooden slats of the bench. The stars above were sharp and bright in a way unique to brisk winter nights. He pulled the stiff jacket around himself, closed his eyes, and willed his mind to become as vast and empty as the night sky.

But he wasn’t the night sky. His mind was full and racing with thoughts. Nor was he the Los Angeles River, rough and devoid of life. The heart he once considered shriveled and useless was tender and susceptible to hurt. And he wasn’t a Studebaker, speeding alone down an empty highway. There were others, trying desperately to catch up and keep pace, if only he would let them.

He had friends, or at least he used to have friends.

He thought about that word for a long time, letting it roll around in his mind. Before he knew it he was asleep.

Gray awoke late in the morning. The sun was up, but he was still shivering in the shade of the palm trees. No one had bothered him; no policeman had ordered him to move along. It was Christmas morning. Everyone had somewhere else to be.

He sat up and found a rotten banana in the trash can next to the bench. It was unpeeled, at least. He ate it, then ditched the silly looking tuxedo jacket into the trash and left the park before anyone could harass him.

That word from last night still lingered in his mind, like a moth trapped under a lampshade.

Friend.

His friends would be in danger as long as Atlas pursued them. And the pursuit wouldn’t end until Atlas obtained Newton’s Eye or until it was destroyed. Only he knew how to do it. Only he had the means.

Pickford herself had told Gray that he was a dangerous tool. Hughes had called him an aberration.

The strange iron forged of darkness

Will precipitate the destruction of them all.

Perhaps the destruction was not because of something he would do, but something he would fail to do. Maybe this moment was his purpose, and all that stood between life and death for the others was Gray’s willingness to act.

One Artifact born to destroy another.

Even so, he doubted he could go through with it.

He decided he had to tell someone. Not Elsie or Panchito—they would stop him. He wanted to tell someone who couldn’t do anything about it.

Chaplin.

He walked down the nearly empty streets of Downtown, heading north. The article in the newspaper said that Chaplin had been moved to Lincoln Heights Prison, north of Chinatown.

Gray crossed the Broadway Street Bridge, over the trickle of river, and approached a rectangular concrete building, a tombstone with windows.

There was a gate at the entrance with a guard half dozing.

“I’d like to see someone.”

“Today? But it’s Christmas.”

“Yeah, what better time to visit?”

He pushed a clipboard over to Gray and had him fill it out. The guard seemed determined to do as little as possible on the holiday.

The guard inside the jail wing, however, seemed determined to do as much as possible to bring holiday spirit to work. He was a fat man with a brown beard on its way to becoming gray. A Santa in training. When Gray entered, he was humming along to “Winter Wonderland” on a radio behind him, thumbing through a
Life
magazine.

He peeked over the magazine at the sound of Gray’s approach.

“Well, Merry Christmas to you, young man!”

“Thanks. You too.”

Gray looked at his name tag—Officer Blythe—which was decorated with a reindeer sticker.

“I’m here to visit someone. Charlie Chaplin.”

The man clicked his tongue and frowned.

“Sorry, that’s a high-profile detainee. No visitors.”

“He’s my uncle, and he has no other family nearby.”

Blythe shrugged, and he seemed genuinely apologetic.

“It’s for his protection. Lots of reporters trying to get in.”

Gray looked up at the decorative twinkle lights that lined the lobby, draped loosely along the top of the wall like garland. Another strand of lights lined the front desk, then wound around a sad potted ficus in the corner, which sagged under the weight of them.

It was as cheerful as a prison lobby could be.

“Nice lights.”

Blythe beamed.

“Aren’t they the monkey’s eyebrows? Technology today. The bulbs are cool enough to touch. Warden says I’m bound to blow a fuse but I don’t care. He’s not in today and it’s Christmas.”

Gray nodded in agreement.

“Lousy that you gotta work.”

“We’ve split the normal shifts in half so we all just have to spend a few hours here,” Blythe said. “Dinner should almost be ready by the time I get home. The kids have agreed to wait to open their gifts, though it wasn’t easy.”

“Family is important on a day like this.”

Blythe nodded vigorously.

“Yessir. Today of all days.”

Time to close the deal.

Gray made his saddest face, the one he had perfected from years of selling maps.

“Uncle Charlie won’t see anyone today. How horrible for someone, even a criminal, to be alone on Christmas.”

Blythe gave Gray a knowing look and pulled a fat ring of keys from his belt.

“You’re lucky this wing is empty of staff right now. Come on.”

They walked through two locked doors and entered a cell block.

“Down this corridor,” Blythe said. “Second to last on the left. Should be the only occupied cell down that aisle. Five minutes is all I can offer.”

Gray nodded. The corridor was dark with low ceilings. At the second to last cell, he saw Chaplin lying down in a tiny cot, covered with a threadbare blanket. His face was to the wall and his salt-and-pepper hair looked matted and stringy.

How did his hair get so long so quickly?

Gray cleared his throat.

“Mr. Chaplin.”

He didn’t respond.

“Mr. Chaplin!”

The man stirred, then finally rolled over.

“Sorry to wake you. Merry Christmas. I just wanted to come—”

The man sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. It wasn’t Chaplin. He was roughly Chaplin’s age and build, but his hair was longer and he had black, sunken eyes.

“Who are you?” Gray asked.

The man offered a smile full of fetid, crooked teeth.

“I’m Ch-Ch-Charlie Ch-Chaplin. Who are you?”

“You are not! Who are you?”

The man grabbed the bars, his fingernails yellow and dirty.

“I’m Ch-Charlie Chaplin, they says. Who am I to disagree?”

There was something familiar about the man, something from a dream or a memory.

“Who said you was Charlie Chaplin?”

“They says I’ll get to s-s-stick around a little longer. Maybe even get out someday. I don’t care what name they call me. Come closer.”

The man reached his hands through the bars. Gray saw his forearm, which had a faded, blurry tattoo of a snake running up and down it.

“You’re Rattlesnake James!”

The man let forth a hiss at the sound of his name.

“I thought you were being executed,” Gray said.

The man inside the cell shook his head.

“Rattlesnake James is being executed today. Right now. Poetic justice, the judge said.”

Gray remembered reading that all of James’s wives had been killed on Christmas Day.

“But you’re here,” Gray said.

“Because I’m not Rattles-s-s-snake James.”

“Then who is?”

The man let forth a high-pitched giggle that sent shivers down Gray’s spine.

Oh, Mr. Chaplin!

Gray ran back down the hall toward Blythe.

“Where are the executions?”

The guard looked confused.

“In the prison wing. That’s where everyone has gone. I volunteered to stay because I think it’s a rather gruesome thing to watch and—”

“SHOW ME WHERE!”

Blythe fumbled nervously to unlock the jail wing door and get back into the lobby. He started to show Gray down a long corridor to another wing of the building, but the fat man was too slow. Gray ran ahead.

“I’ll find my way!”

He ran as fast as he could down a long corridor. He stopped at another guard post with a door next to it. The guard at this desk had none of Officer Blythe’s Christmas spirit.

“Stop,” the guard said. “Who are you?”

“Messenger,” Gray said. “I got a pardon. From the judge.”

Gray had kept his one map with him. He pulled it from his back pocket and quickly flashed it before putting it back.

“Let me see that,” the guard said.

“Only the warden can open it,” Gray said.

“The warden is off today,” the guard said. “It’s Christmas.”

Through the narrow window inset into the door, Gray caught a glimpse of Chief Barry Stoker.

“The warden or Chief Stoker,” Gray said. “I gotta deliver it to one of them personally.”

Gray held eye contact, hoping the guard wouldn’t notice his ragged clothes.

“You better be back out here in two minutes,” the guard said, unlocking the door. “Or I’m coming in for you.”

“You think I wanna be working on a holiday?” Gray said.

He slipped inside, past a pair of guards as they turned to talk to each other, and ducked into the room Stoker had entered. It was crowded with some prison guards but mostly policemen.

Gray wove his way through rows of chairs, which were set up in an arc facing the far end of the room.

In the back, on a small platform, was a wood and metal chair. Strapped to the chair was Chaplin, flipping an imaginary coin with his fingers. He had on a thick blindfold that obscured half his face.

“Mr. Chaplin!” Gray hissed.

He turned at the sound of Gray’s voice.

“Gray!” Chaplin said. “You’ve come to see me off.”

“They can’t do this! It’s a mistake!”

“They can do it. And it’s most definitely not a mistake.”

“But your luck. Surely there’s a way.”

“They were going to hang me, but the trap door kept getting stuck. Then they thought to shoot me, but the firing-squad rifles are locked up, and no one seems to have the key. So finally they moved me inside to this chair, which is old but seems to be working just fine. Like you said, even luck runs out.”

“This is Chief Stoker’s doing.”

Chaplin nodded.

“Just because a man is stupid doesn’t mean he can’t also be corrupt.”

A hand grabbed Gray by the collar. Stoker.

“What are you doing here, boy?”

Gray turned to him.

“Why are you doing this? Rattlesnake James is the real killer.”

Stoker cast a furtive glance around and lowered his voice.

“Rattlesnake James will see justice soon enough. Charlie Chaplin, with all of his expensive lawyers and important connections, would get off scot-free. I’m not going to let that happen.”

“You can’t hide this. People will know!”

Chief Stoker shrugged his shoulders apologetically.

“It was a horrible mistake. A clerical error. They look surprisingly alike.”

“You’ll get fired for this. Even go to jail yourself.”

“Me? The warden is in charge of executions. But that old crumb didn’t want to give up his Christmas to be here, so he delegated the job to his error-prone staff. I imagine he’ll regret his decision come tomorrow.”

Gray made a run for Chaplin but Stoker hooked his arm around him in headlock.