Ringer (5 page)

As soon as her subjects said to themselves
How could she possibly know that?
they were hooked. Magicians are not magic: They succeed because people, down deep, want to be fooled, even skeptics. I am not sure why this is so. Perhaps it explains hypnotism, and maybe gambling. You know what they say: There is an idiot born every moment.

Helena drew the lovebirds into the dark séance parlor, a grotto humming with the green glow of the crystal ball. They sat across the mystical orb from Helena, her lined face on one side, Grant’s chiseled jaw and silver hair on the other.

Mysterious violins whined from a hidden speaker as Helena stared at his ring. Well, she could see very plainly it had a cross on it, and that it was solid gold. From Grant’s clothing, manicure, teeth, and haircut, she knew he was wealthy. The gold ring was old. It was unlikely that a man would wear an old ring unless it was a family ring of some sort. It was not from Cartier or Tiffany.

Helena took his hand. “This ring is very old, and it carries a spirit.”

Dixie clutched Grant’s arm. “I knew there was something about that ring!”

“Silence!” Helena hissed at Dixie but kept her eyes on Grant. “You were married, but she is gone now.” She read his face, the glint of extra wetness in his eyes, the tightening of his jaw. “She is no longer with us, here on this earth. You loved her very much. I am sorry.”

Again, any rich man of this age has likely been married if he is not gay, and just as likely he will be divorced at least once. Of course, it was easy to see that Dixie was not his wife—they were too playful.

Grant was now doubly hooked, his eyes fixed on hers so she could detect how his pupils dilated when she guessed correctly.

“It was very difficult … a long illness … the doctors did not prevail.” Helena knew the odds were in favor of illness over accidental death. That was an easy one—the more hits she could rack up, the more she could explore other areas and risk guessing wrong.

She tightened her grip on his hand. “There is a child!”

Helena could have guessed wrongly, even though the odds were that a rich man who was married had created heirs. If so, she would have seen a dulling in his eyes and could reverse herself
: No, not a child, but someone you care for very much, and sometimes see as a child. Perhaps not a young person but an old person.
What were the chances that someone like Grant had no children or any elderly relatives?

Grant’s eyes tightened:
There is a child.

“You are very concerned about this child. It is a boy!” He blinked, and Helena covered her eyes. “No! The child is willful like a boy. A girl, blond, very pretty. She is troubled.”

Show me a rich girl that is not willful, and a father who does not think his daughter is pretty.

Based on Grant’s age, she knew the girl had to be at least a teenager, a tender age of unfortunate choices and equally unfortunate consequences. Blond? Grant’s hair still had a hint of light brown in it, so it was just a matter of guessing that his daughter had light brown hair also. By extension, Helena guessed that a rich man’s daughter would likely have her brown hair dyed blond, or streaked so that blond was not far off the mark.

“Damn!” Grant was amazed.

“You have argued. Bitterly.” What parent does not argue with his teenager? “You worry about this child, about what will become of her. She is of great worry to you. Sometimes to the exclusion of all else.”

Grant suppressed a wince, remembering his impotence episode with Dixie.

Helena figured she had banked enough hits with Grant to go out on a limb, so she held up his ring hand in the glow of the crystal ball. “There is much danger here. The ring!”

Grant and Dixie were wide-eyed in the green glow of the orb.

“This ring has spirits, ancient spirits from your family.” Oops. “From a very old and religious family, from far away. You are not religious, but bear the ring for a different purpose. It was given to you under important circumstances, and you wear it as a badge … you feel it brings you good fortune … but this ring does not belong to you, and the spirits in the ring will bring you misfortune. The ring has helped you this far only to make you fail at the worst possible moment. You will soon be making important decisions, choices that will be influenced by the ring, by its history. There is much danger.”

“Holy cow!” Dixie gasped.

“This woman!” Helena’s eyes were ablaze, a trembling finger crooked at Dixie. “She is part of this danger, but also the solution. You must keep her close. But not too close. Do not tell her all or you will lose all.” Of course, what had she said other than the girlfriend might or might not have something to do with whatever it was that might or might not happen? Theater, palmist style.

Helena smiled gently, pleased with herself. Was she a smokin’ hot palmist or what? These two were about ready to keel over. She’d earned her fee. Best not to risk a repeat visit from these customers. With a gasp and a low moan, Helena slumped and fell from her chair to the soft carpet.

Dixie lurched to Helena’s side. “My goodness! Robbie, call 911!”

Helena awoke suddenly. “No! No! I will be all right. It is you who must beware! The vibrations, they were very strong … the child … the ring … I cannot see any more tonight. You must go! That will be sixty dollars, please.”

Robert and Dixie paid and left.

In the cab, Dixie was beside herself.

“Robbie, where did you get that ring?”

“I told you, it is a family ring. I don’t know its history.”

“Like Helena said, I do not think you’re telling me everything.” Of course, this was true. What man actually tells a woman
all
? “You have to get rid of it!”

Grant laughed, unconvincingly. “She was very good, that palmist woman—but Dixie, darling, that was acting. You do not really think…”

“She knew about Purity, about what a thorn she is in your side. How did she know about that?”

“Dix, she could have guessed, I do not know, but it’s an act. A good one … but that’s how they stay in business. Believe me, you’re getting too worked up about this.”

Grant did not manage to bed Dixie that night; she was too upset by Helena. He went home and drank Scotch from a decanter, and then slept … but not well.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

NO, I DID NOT BRING
Nancy back to my hotel.

She brought me back to her apartment. To be brutally honest, the evening was not all that I had hoped. Believe it or not, once I was naked, all she wanted to do was pose me. Yes, like a statue, and while I stood there naked she danced to flute music. This unsatisfactory perversion was new to me. Perhaps worse, even when I did kiss her, she did so with her teeth closed. Have you ever heard of anything so infuriating? Nancy was one of these overly coy women you hear about that frustrate men to the brink of insanity. She kept calling me her muse. I am not even sure what “muse” means. Anyway, I came up with the idea of her posing naked with me so I could have a better shot at moving things along toward the bed. No success. I finally succumbed to the nebbiolo, dove into her bed, and slept. The new day found Nancy still dancing to flute music in the living room. I think she may have been on drugs of some sort, but I cannot say for sure. Her muse managed to slip out unnoticed.

Which was why I was late the next morning in my holy mission. I had to go back to my hotel first and put on a fresh suit and, of course, pick up the humidor with the finger inside.

I entered the glass tower of Grant Industries on Sixth Avenue at 11:30
A.M.
I left at 11:40
A.M.
The large guard told me nobody is even allowed beyond the lobby without an appointment. So he lent me his phone, and I called up to the offices and was told that Mr. Grant was in meetings all day. When they asked my business, I told them I was La Paz gentry, and that I came at the behest of the Catholic Diocese of Guadalupe, on business of a personal nature. She said that I should call back later and they would see if they could schedule me.

My first attempt had not gone as well as I hoped it might.

On the street, I turned the corner and went into an inexpensive restaurant called the Red Flame. At 11:45 in the morning you would think such a place would be empty. You would be mistaken. I had to go all the way around the side to what looked like an open booth at the end next to the wall, but there was a placard there that read:
RESERVED
. Exasperated by my sexual misadventure, by my failed attempt to meet Grant, and now by finding reserved seating in a diner—of all things—I straddled a stool at the counter and ordered a coffee and grilled cheese.

I resolved to shake off my encounter with Nancy—I could not stumble over such things in my holy march toward reuniting the ring with the finger of my ancestor. How could I have known that Nancy would be so relentlessly coy?

So I would call Grant Industries that afternoon and see. Perhaps Grant would see me, thinking I was there for a charity of some sort. I was an idiot to think that he would handle charitable institutions himself, but I did not know at that time about the rich and their chummy charities. Nor had I any reason to believe that Grant knew the ring came from La Paz, much less that it belonged to my ancestor, much less that it came from a desecrated relic and holy shrine.

The grilled cheese was excellent. You know, they do not make good grilled cheese in La Paz, or anywhere that I have been in Baja Sur. A quesadilla is not the same thing.

I heard someone sit at the reserved table behind me. This I had to see: What kind of man reserves a table at the Red Flame Diner? Some rich, entitled bastard, no doubt.

Sure enough, he looked the part: steel gray hair, wide jaw, three-piece suit.

I turned back to my grilled cheese and took a bite.

The crunch of the toasted bread became the strum of harps in my head. I looked again. Yes, it was Robert Tyson Grant at the table behind me, inspecting the menu nervously. I stood.

“Señor?”

He glanced up at me, then back to his menu. “I’ll have the Caesar salad, hold the anchovies. And an iced tea.”

“Señor Grant, I am not your waiter. My name is Martinez. I have been sent from Mexico.”

You could have stuck an anchovy in his ear and he would not have looked more surprised. He gulped and said, “You’re here.”

“Yes, as you can see. I left a message with your secretary that I was here. I do not know if she gave you the message, but—”

“Gentlemen?” A rather pretty blonde stood over us waiting for our order. An actress, I thought.

Grant just stared at her, unable to speak, so I spoke for him. “He will have the Caesar salad plate, no anchovies, and an iced tea. My food is on the counter, there, I was waiting for my friend here and did not know this was his table. Just the same, I will have another grilled cheese, rye and American this time, and another coffee.”

The waitress left us, and Grant was staring at me like I would surely burst into flame. Helena’s insights into his curse from the previous night had made him jumpy.

“Is something wrong, señor?” My focus shifted to his right fist and the buttery gold ring bearing the cross of Caravaca.

“You called my secretary?” His eyes blinked rapidly. “But we were to meet here.”

“Yes, so we have, which is good fortune as we have a very important matter to discuss.”

“Look,” he began in a whisper. “I’m not used to this sort … this sort of thing. My reputation … this is very delicate. In fact, call this number; ask for Dixie, she’ll arrange everything.”

With that he jumped to his feet.

“Señor, please, stay and enjoy your salad.”

“Not at this time, thank you.” He strode from the table and out the front of the restaurant.

I said to myself, “That went well.”

Except that the rich guy stuck me with the tab for his Caesar salad and iced tea. Even so, the second grilled cheese was actually better than the first.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

DIXIE WAS RIGHT. PACO WAS
not punctual. In fact, even as I sat in the Red Flame enjoying my second grilled cheese, the Headhunter was still in Texas. He was lucky to have even been that close to New York.

The border crossing had gone wrong when the pickup truck stalled in the desert. Border patrols spotted their flashlights as Paco, the driver, and four other men tried to coax the truck back to life. They were rounded up and put into a school bus with fifty other illegals. Paco had tossed his bag of guns into the scrub, but when he was patted down the gringos missed the hatchet in the small of his back. That is how the Honduran farmers he grew up with carried their hatchets home, tucked into the back of their pants, blade nestled between their shoulder blades, where scar tissue and calluses formed to protect them from the edges.

At a transfer point near the border, Paco ducked back under the bus and scuttled behind a portapotty. As his countrymen were being herded by flashlights into a set of new buses, Paco skipped off across the dark desert, headed for a parking lot. He had to climb a fence to get there, but he found haven in the bed of a pickup truck next to some roofing supplies under a bed cover.

He awoke hours later when the owner of the truck drove out of the parking lot. Paco had no idea where he would end up, but when the truck stopped, it was at a convenience store. The driver was inside buying coffee when Paco crept from under the cover. The amber glow of a Texas dawn warmed him as he headed east along the highway.

After an hour’s walk, the sun high, he heard a truck pulling onto the shoulder behind him. He expected the border patrol, but saw it was a van packed with migrant workers. The driver motioned to him. Paco knew he could not walk to New York. He needed to get to Houston, soon, to catch that bus. Since he’d ditched his bag with the guns in the desert before the border patrol grabbed him, he had no weapons and did not know what he would do to kill his target.

So Paco shambled over to the car window, where the driver’s round scarred face shone darkly like a hammered brass plate. They spoke in Spanish, naturally, so you will want to use subtitles.