Ringer (6 page)

“Work?” the driver said.

“I am headed to Houston.”

“My crew is a man short.”

“I need transport to Houston. I have work in New York.”

The mention of New York seemed to impress Plate Face. “That is a long way. You have money?”

“Can you get me to Houston?”

“You come across last night?”

“I need a ride.”

“I know friends who can help. If you have money.”

“How far can you take me?”

“Not to Houston, but in that direction. And like I said…”

“Is there room in there?”

“There’s always room for another countryman.”

The passengers slid open the side door and helped Paco squeeze inside.

Lurching forward, the van rattled back onto the highway, heading east.

Paco was back on his way to New York.

Slowly.

CHAPTER

NINE

THE GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES WERE
still fresh on my mind when I exited the subway at Lexington and East Seventy-seventh Street and walked east. I had made the call to this woman Dixie and had arranged an appointment immediately. God was still on my side. Better to get this business with the ring completed as soon as possible.

The meeting location was near an esplanade, a raised pedestrian boulevard perched over the FDR Drive and the East River. The access to this esplanade was five long crosstown blocks east of the subway, at an East Eighty-first Street cul-de-sac. It was a nice day so I did not mind the exercise, but it was warm so my jacket was thumbed over my shoulder. When I reached the esplanade, a panoramic view of the East River lay before me. Fat power yachts and tour boats plowed the turgid green river, and glassy green apartment buildings across the channel on Roosevelt Island twinkled in the afternoon sun. I laid a course north along the esplanade through a steady stream of Rollerbladers and dog walkers. Benches faced the water to my right and were strewn with sunbathers.

Sturdy stone apartment buildings on my left soon parted to reveal a leafy park. As instructed, I exited into this park and curled down toward where the path encircled a statue. It was the statue of Peter Pan, a bad one. It didn’t look anything like Robin Williams.

I spotted her immediately, and she me.

With a thin waist and compact behind, she was in black slacks and a white wraparound halter that cradled her implants to wonderful effect. Her raven hair curled at her temples like little devil horns.

By the way her blue eyes inspected mine, I knew she was not displeased by my appearance. A little surprised, in fact.

I raised an eyebrow and took her hand. “I am Morty.”

“No you’re not.”

“No?”

She shook her head. “You’re cute.”

I cocked the other eyebrow, favoring her with a knowing smile. That was my way of disguising the displeasure of being called cute.

“Perhaps this is so,” was my reply, “but I can also be dangerous.”

I am so charming sometimes I can hardly stand it.

She shifted her weight to the other hip and curled her hand around my bicep. “I would hope so.” We began to walk slowly around the bad Robin Williams statue. “So you first. I have to be careful.”

“Very well. May I call you Dixie?”

“Mmm.”

“Well, Dixie, I have come from La Paz, Mexico, on a quest. Of course, I had no idea I would have the pleasure of expediting this quest with someone as fascinating as yourself.”

If Antonio Banderas is not available for this movie, I implore you to see if Benjamin Bratt or Jimmy Smits is still around. I suppose by now Erik Estrada is up on blocks in Pasadena.

She smiled to herself. “Go on.”

“This quest of mine is to make things right, to correct an intolerable situation that has gone on for far too long. I am not here to assign blame, let me be clear. That is not my place. Only God can judge men.”

“I see you are being careful, too. Let’s do be clear, though. How much do you want?”

“It is not money Father Gomez seeks.”

She knit her brow. “Gomez?”

“
Father
Gomez. He is the one who sent me, from the orphanage Nuestra Señora de Cortez. I know Robert Tyson Grant is a very generous and charitable man, but it is not charity I seek.”

“Ah, OK. So what will it take to make things right with
Father Gomez
?”

“Do you not even want to know the details of my quest?”

“Less I know the better. So we’re talking about a
donation
? Is there a size donation you had in mind?”

I took from my side pocket the box containing the finger and creaked it open. “This is the finger of a conquistador. Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra. It is very old, a religious relic, and it is very powerful. Yet it has been desecrated.”

Dixie wrinkled her adorable little nose, and her eyes betrayed concern, but she held her tongue. I continued.

“Somehow this finger has become separated from the gold Hapsburg ring bearing the cross of Caravaca. That ring is now on Robert Tyson Grant’s finger instead of this one. I seek to return the ring to the desiccated finger of my ancestor, Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra.”

Dixie released my arm and turned to me. “You mean to say all you want to complete your quest is that ring? The one Bobbie wears?”

“God willing. That is why I am here.”

“You’re here to right a wrong, to correct a
situation
that has gone on far too long?”

“You are as perceptive as you are beautiful.”

She stepped back from me. “You
are
cute and dangerous, aren’t you?”

“You will discuss this with Robert Tyson Grant?”

“Over dinner.”

“Ah, I see. My misfortune.”

“How so?”

“I have come all the way from La Paz and am a stranger here in New York. It would have been an honor to buy you dinner and discuss matters more pleasant than desiccated relics.”

“Slow down, cowboy.” She wagged a finger at me, but she was smiling. “Rope another calf, I’m spoken for.”

I shrugged. Never let a woman think you care.

“My error, then. As you are not wearing a ring, I would have been an idiot not to seek your company for dinner. Yes?”

Dixie laughed and began a retreat toward East End Avenue. “Enough, Morty! Save those charms for someone else. Where can I reach you?”

“I will call you tomorrow morning.”

I watched her retreat with interest, and sighed. How could I compete with Grant, a tycoon? Still, I would have to do better than Nancy.

CHAPTER

TEN

A PIZZA DELIVERY VAN IN
Midland, Texas, went missing, and was later found in Fort Worth, Texas.

The same day in Fort Worth, a man was robbed of one hundred and eighty dollars by a Hispanic male wielding a hatchet. This occurred in a Waffle House bathroom.

Paco was on his way to Memphis.

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

THE PICTURE WINDOWS AT MR. LEE’S
on Mott Street are filled with large fish tanks glowing with goggle-eyed carp and eels ripe for the menu. You might want to have your cameras focused on the fish and then pull out to see Grant navigating the rain-slicked narrow sidewalk, his golf umbrella towering over the Asian people crowding his way. June had just begun to heat up, which brings late-day thunderstorms to New York.

Mr. Lee’s was an ideal setting for a conversation about murdering Purity. It was a noisy restaurant, and most of the Asian patrons would not understand English well enough to understand what Robert and Dixie were plotting.

We find Dixie in a booth in the corner, her shapeliness packed into a blue silk Chinese tunic and her hair piled in place with chopsticks. She was the very image of intrigue. The booth was padded in red vinyl, and lit by a single plastic Chinese lantern rigged with gold plastic dragons. She kissed Grant on the cheek as he slid into the booth across from her.

“You look gorgeous,” he said, hoping she would keep that outfit on later until he could get her alone.

Dixie merely smiled and bowed to her man like she’d seen geishas do on TV. Tokyo and Beijing were all the same to her.

The waiter appeared. “Howyoo?”

“Very good, thanks. What wine do you have?”

“Wine? All kind.”

“What do you have in a white?”

“White? Vergood. For man?”

“What Scotch do you have?”

“Scotch? Vergood.”

The waiter vanished.

Robert clasped Dixie’s hands across the table. “So you met the Mexican, the one in the white suit?”

“I did indeed.”

“He wasn’t at all what I expected.”

“I know, Robbie, he’s so … gentlemanly.”

“I would have thought that he would have looked rougher, a little more like my gardener or something. He doesn’t exactly fly under the radar, does he?”

“Well, you know, maybe he finds it easier to dress down for what he has to do, so that nobody will recognize him.”

“But he’s our man?”

“Definitely.”

“Wine!” The waiter thunked a tumbler of white in front of Dixie and thunked a tumbler of amber in front of Robert. “Scotch! Take order?”

Dixie patted her menu. “Give us a few moments, sweetie.”

The waiter vanished.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Dix?”

“Chinese?”

“No. The Mexican.”

She patted him sympathetically on the cheek. “Buttercup, we discussed this over and over. Unless Purity happens to get herself killed—and Lord knows she’s tried—there really is no other way out of your predicament. It’s intolerable. You’ve tried your best, Lord knows. She’s a disgrace and besmirches your good name.”

“Let’s not forget every time she pulls a stunt Grant Industries stocks dip.”

“How many times has she been arrested?”

“Twelve in this country. Four in Europe.”

“Rehab?”

“Six.”

“Worst of all, she’s besmirching the memory of her mother. Does such a soulless being, bereft of remorse or conscience, have a place in God’s world?”

“When people hear the name Grant, they think of Purity Grant first, not Robert Tyson Grant. Makes me look like a fool.”

“Well, it just has to be done, for you, for the stockholders, for us. I love you, Bobbie-kins, but there have been nights when you’ve been too angry about Purity to make love to me.”

Grant’s face went red at the thought of the temporary impotence he’d suffered due to Purity. “Does the Mexican know it has to look like an accident of some kind?”

“We didn’t discuss details. Yet.”

Robert replied with a confused cock of his head.

“Robbie, we only got as far as the donation.”

“Donation?”

“He’s using a charity as a dodge to make the fee look like a donation, which of course is perfect for us—the fee would look like any number of our other donations to orphanages. Only he doesn’t want money.”

Robert paled as his mind flicked through possible alternatives.

“Robbie, it’s nothing bad.” Dixie squeezed his hand, and turned it so that the buttery cross of Caravaca glimmered in the cheap Chinese lamplight. “He wants your ring.”

Grant pulled his hand away, thumbing the ring of my ancestor. “Why?”

Dixie laughed, briefly. “Robbie, who cares? You know how much money he could ask for? To take out Purity?”

“He must have said something about why he wanted it.”

“Well, darling, he had that story about an orphanage, in Mexico, and some sort of relic.”

Lightning flickered in the carp tank, the thrum of thunder in the distance.

Grant drifted back from the lamplight, his eyes glassy. “La Paz.”

At this point, our camera zooms dreamily into Grant’s eyes:
La Paz, La Paz, La Paz …

From the dark mists and murk of Grant’s memory emerges the chapel tower of Nuestra Señora de Cortez against the night sky, a flash of lightning in the distance, the bells chiming midnight.

OK, so in reality the Nuestra Señora de Cortez bells stop chiming at nine, but only people in La Paz would know this. It’s much spookier with the bells chiming midnight, I think.

Inside, the chapel is alight with dripping candles, lightning flickering across the stained glass windows, illuminating the visages of dour and pious saints.

The camera looks slowly down to a heavy wooden door in the corner, which slowly croaks open to reveal eyes. The door croaks wider open, and we see that the eyes belong to two boys, one blond and thin, the other black-haired and of Spanish descent, their faces orange in the candlelight.

“Pasqual, I do not think we should do this,” the blond gulps. “Let’s get back to the room before we are discovered.”

“We are on a quest, Bobbie—do you not remember?” says the Spaniard.

“
You
are on a quest.”

“Yes, I am on a quest, and you said you would come to help fulfill my destiny.”

“This destiny you speak of is in your head.”

Pasqual winked at Bobbie. “You have to earn your destiny, Bobbie. Does it matter where it comes from? Come on.”

The two rascals slipped out of the doorway and ducked between two pews. Reappearing in the center aisle, the boys scampered to the altar, at the base of the pulpit.

“This is crazy, Pasqual. We’ll go to hell for this!”

“What does the church need it for? The ring will help me find my destiny, and I will help you find yours.”

Bobbie watched as the Spaniard crept up through a gauntlet of candles, toward the altar, and to the carpeted sacramental steps.

Flickering stained glass saints loomed above the boys. Candlesticks and chalices on the altar rattled from a boom of thunder as the Spaniard crept toward the sepulchral cabinet in the altar’s base.

His fingers curled into the iron rings of the cabinet door and pulled.

The cabinet doors rattled but did not budge.

Back at the base of the pulpit, Bobbie was so frightened he fought back tears.

With a bent piece of wire, Pasqual’s trembling fingers worked the ancient iron lock.

Metal clanked, and the sepulchral cabinet doors jarred open.

Thunder boomed in the distance.

Candlelight wobbled into the dark recess of the cabinet to reveal a golden box, a shimmering reliquary.

Yes, it was the humidor.