Castro Directive (20 page)

It sounded vaguely like what Elise had told him, except she'd made it seem more ominous. He wondered why Andrews would locate the headquarters of Noster Mundus in Bayonne. Maybe he was planning on investing in a jai alai team, he thought wryly. Bayonne was located in the heart of the Basque region, and was where many of the top players grew up.

"Does that help you?" Tina asked.

"Sort of." He wasn't sure what to think of it. "Can I take it with me?"

She snapped the cover shut. "Reference only." She pulled out the manila envelope from the back of the book. "I made copies of both pages, plus the section on the crystal skull from the other book. And there are also copies of two journal articles by Redington in there. They are both about mythology, and one talks about the crystal skull."

"Good. I'll read them later. You're very efficient."

She smiled coyly. "I did not think you ever noticed. I am efficient and you owe me $2 for the copying."

"I'm buying you lunch. But if you insist…"

"Never mind," she said, darkly.

He ran a finger over the back of her hand. "I appreciate your help."

She reached for his hand. "You know, it has been awhile since we have spent an evening together."

She meant night, not evening, he thought, and slipped his hand away. "Tina, I don't think that's a very good idea. We're divorced, remember?"

She pulled her hand from his side of the table, suddenly indignant. "You do not have to tell me the obvious."

"Think about it. You and I are like a broken record that keeps playing the same notes over and over, and I don't think either of us likes the sound of it very well."

Her eyes narrowed again, and her lips tuned down as she drew back and glared. "How long did it take for you to come up with that cute line?"

He didn't answer her.

"There is someone else. I was right," she said accusingly.

"What I do is none of your business. That's what divorce means."

He thought for a second that she was going to cry. But then anger tightened her jaw, and he braced himself for an outburst. "Well, I have been seeing someone, too," she hissed. "And you can just get your own goddamn reference material from now on." She swept up the books and the manila envelope as she sprang from the booth.

"Hey, I thought that was for me," he protested, reaching for the envelope.

"I feel sorry for you," she scoffed, drawing away. "You have no feelings for people. You cannot even express the way you feel. You do one thing, say another. It is like you are hiding behind—" She shook her head. "Behind I do not know what." She turned and strutted out.

Pierce gazed glumly after her. Nice going. Get her mad and send her on her way. Her theatrics had captured the attention of the foursome at the next booth. He felt like explaining that they were just practicing for a play. In a way, it was true. The scene was a repeat of past performances. Another cycle was completed, and he knew what would follow, if he allowed it.

She would call him in a day, two days, or a week, apologize; or she'd just stop over and they'd tumble into bed. Or his resolve would weaken and he'd stop by the library to make up. That's how it had happened twice, no three times, since their divorce. Divorce wasn't meant to be another version of a bad marriage. He knew at least that much.

A
s soon as he left the restaurant, Pierce walked to the phone booth at the corner and dialed Elise's number from a scrap of paper in his pocket.

He wanted to talk to her about what happened to him last night, but he also wanted to get Tina out of his mind.

As the phone rang, he fiddled with the coin-return slot. "No one is in right now, but if you—"

He hung up on the recording, paused a moment, then lifted the bulky Miami phone book on his knee and looked up Bill Redington's home number. When he found it, he deposited another quarter and dialed.

A woman answered on the second ring. "Is Dr. Redington in?"

"I'm sorry. I don't expect him until late this afternoon. He's teaching a couple of class."

"On Sunday?"

"Yes. At the Coral Castle."

The tourist place?"

"That's right. In Homestead."

"Why there?"

"I'm just his wife." She laughed. "You'll have to ask him. He should be home about three. Can I take a message?"

"No thanks. I'll talk to him later." He rang off and glanced at his watch. What the hell. He didn't have anything planned this afternoon, and he wanted to talk to Redington about Noster Mundus. Besides, he was curious to find out why a psychology class would be held at the Coral Castle.

As he drove to Homestead down U.S. 1, he thought about the break-in again. Scarjaw could have killed him, but didn't. It seemed that getting Nicholas Pierce out of the way would have been the expedient thing to do—unless whoever was behind the break-in needed him. On one hand, Elise and Redington wanted him to keep track of Andrews. On the other, Andrews was using him to pursue Elise and Redington. The break-in, he decided, was simply a warning to him to watch his loyalties. But whose warning?

He glanced out the window at a clown waving to him in front of a car dealership. U.S. 1 stretched through South Miami like a bad dream, a garish commercial corridor devoid of character. The tropics had been buried beneath tons of concrete and only gradually did stretches of open, undeveloped land appear. He passed a billboard advertising the Monkey Jungle, then another for the Coral Castle. One more mile. He parked in the lot, walked to the ticket window, and passed $6 through the slot. He'd driven by the castle a few times on trips to Homestead, a town bordering the Everglades, but had never stopped. Now he felt strangely like a tourist on his home turf.

"Could you tell me where Professor Redington is holding his class, please?"

"Why didn't you say you were with the class? It's only two dollars." She pushed four ones back through the slot. "Go all the way to the back. It's in the garden, on the other side of the revolving door."

"Do you know when the next class is supposed to start?" She looked to the side, probably at a clock. "In twenty minutes, I believe, sir. He's just finishing up a class now."

"Thanks. Keep it." He shoved the four dollars back to the woman and walked away, following the sidewalk to the corner of the building where several people stood under a speaker listening to a tape recording about the castle. They were all about the same age, and they looked collegiate, so he assumed they were some of Redington's students who'd arrived early for the second class. Although he'd heard about the castle's history, he listened to the tape, refreshing his memory.

The story was a strange twist on an old plot: a man's dedication to building a monument in memory of his great love—in this case, the young woman who spurned him. In 1913, Edward Leedskalnin was a twenty-six-year-old stonemason living in Latvia and engaged to a girl of sixteen. But the night before the wedding, his young love told him he was too old for her. Heartbroken, Leedskalnin left his homeland and wandered through Canada and the United States for several years. By 1920, he had de- veloped a mild case of tuberculosis and moved to South Florida for the climate. Here, he bought an acre of land for twelve dollars and began carving large blocks of stone from the four-thousand-foot-thick bed of coral rock below him. Using only primitive, handmade tools and with no helpers, Leedskalnin, a hundred-pound, five-foot-tall elf of a man, mined, shaped, and moved eleven hundred tons of coral rock. And it was all dedicated to his lost love.

So love moves coral rock, he thought. Why not?

When the taped history had run its course, he passed through an arch in the castle's coral wall. Inside was a courtyard filled with massive rock tables and chairs, towers and stairs, a stone sundial, a well, and an open-air, coral rock bathtub. Perched atop the far wall was a crescent moon, and spheres like planets. He joined a tour group in progress and heard the guide saying that Leedskalnin worked on the Coral Castle only when alone, usually by lantern at night. "Whenever people came around, he would simply sit down and stop working until they left."

A young man, probably one of Redington's students, raised his hand. "You said that the whole tower is one solid piece of rock and weighs more than twenty-eight tons. How could he raise it by himself? Even if he had hoists, he would need help."

The guide, a rotund, middle-aged man wearing a Greek sailor cap and a two-day growth of gray-speckled whiskers, smiled. "That's an intriguing mystery, isn't it?"

He led the group along the back wall and stopped where a block of coral rock was inset in an oval hole in the wall. "This door weighs nine tons." He pushed it with one finger, and it revolved on a central axis. For an instant, when the door was perpendicular to him, Pierce caught a glimpse of Redington talking to a group of students who were sitting on a lawn. "It's actually on its second set of gears," the guide continued. "One day several years after Ed died, the old ones underneath broke in half and the door fell over. It took six men and modern tools to put the door back up after they made new gears for it. One of the engineers who examined Ed's holes in the door said it would take a laser beam to drill them."

He led the group over to the well and explained that Leedskalnin had no electricity or running water. Yet, he had developed a coral rock water filtration system and heated water in his own solar heating system. "He was truly ingenious. And virtually everything here is impregnated with the memory of his Sweet Sixteen. From the valentine-shaped table to the sixteen steps leading to his tower."

They moved over to an L-shaped coral rock near the side wall. Water percolated in a shallow pool on the horizontal surface, and embedded in the upright slab behind it was a trail of shells leading from larger ones at the bottom to the center, where smaller shells formed a vague face. "When Ed himself led tours, he always walked right by here and never said anything about this one. I call it the Bubbling Altar. The water is funneled up through a lead pipe from the spring below and drains back down. Notice the shells leading up to the human face. Some people have said it's symbolic of the evolution of man."

Pierce stared at the altar a moment as the guide pointed to the larger of the two towers. He talked about the stonemason as if he were a dear, old friend. "Ed lived a very ascetic life in his tower. He slept on a swinging bed made of burlap and metal."

"Did his Sweet Sixteen ever find out about the castle?" a young woman asked.

The guide nodded solemnly. "That's a sad story. After Ed died, the family who took over ownership of the castle located the woman. She was a widow in her sixties and still living in Latvia. She had heard of the Coral Castle, but had no interest in seeing it, even if her trip was paid for. A heartbreaker to the end."

As the group headed up the steps to the tower, Pierce saw a stream of students with notebooks filing into the castle through the revolving door. The class was obviously over. A moment later, Redington entered the courtyard accompanied by several students. His half-moon glasses hung over his chest from an elastic band, which disappeared beneath his ponytail, and he carried a thermos bottle under his arm. He stopped at the valentine table, and the students grouped around him.

Pierce ambled over and stood a few feet away from the group. Redington was comparing coral rock to the unconscious mind when he saw Pierce staring at him. The professor looked blankly at him, as if he couldn't figure out where he'd seen him, then scowled. He excused himself from the students and moved over to Pierce.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he said gruffly. A shock of white hair hung over his forehead, which was pimpled in sweat.

Pierce decided to confront him with the break-in. He could be as direct and caustic as Redington. "Someone broke into my place last night. You know anything about it?"

"Why would I know anything about that? You think I did it?"

"I know who did it. I just don't know who put him up to it."

Redington ran a hand through his hair. "You drove all the way out here to accuse me of sending someone to break into your house? You think I was responsible for the break-in at Dr. Simms's house, too?"

Pierce lifted his sunglasses, balancing them on his head and revealing his shiner. "I want some answers. That's all. The same guy who broke into my place killed Loften."

"I don't know what to tell you, except that you're lucky you're still alive."

"Tell me this. Why were you and Elise's father involved in a group called Noster Mundus?"

Astonishment flickered across Redington's features, then melted away as he glanced around and noticed students looking his way. Pierce thought that he was about to deny knowing what he was talking about. Instead, he said: "I have a class now, but sometime soon we should talk about it."

Redington turned away, Pierce fired another question. "I hear Elise didn't talk to her father for several years. That true?"

Redington glanced back. "I think you should talk to her about that matter. It's none of my business."

"I will." He followed Redington toward the rear of the castle, where Redington's second class was gathering. "By the way, why are you holding your class here?"