Ringer (7 page)

Pasqual’s face glistened with sweat. His thumb hesitantly lifted the latch on the gold box and squeaked open the reliquary.

There in the golden light of the chapel of Nuestra Señora de Cortez, the boy beheld the stinky brown finger of Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra with the golden Hapsburg ring of Caravaca nestled in the humidor.

“Destino ganado!”
Pasqual whispered.

Subtitle: “Earn destiny.”

In the distance, there was a creak, a clang, and then footsteps.

Pasqual’s eyes went wide.

“Someone’s coming!” Bobbie squeaked, his face white as a sacramental cassock. “Hurry!”

Pasqual tossed the box back into the cabinet, folded the sepulchral cabinet doors closed, and scuttled back to his blond friend.

Footsteps approached, growing louder.

The boys darted out the door through which they had come.

On the opposite side of the chapel, a similar door opened. An old, stooped friar entered, closed the door behind him, and with obvious pain knelt to pray at the altar steps.

Thunder boomed.

A wind blew through the chapel, the candles flickering.

The unlocked doors to the sepulchral cabinet creaked slowly open.

The friar raised his gaze from his clasped hands to the sepulchral cabinet, eyes widening.

The golden reliquary humidor slid from its shelf, hit the carpet, and bounced down the altar ledge. At the marble floor, it popped open.

The shriveled brown finger of Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra skittered across the marble and rolled to a stop in front of the friar.

Without the Hapsburg Caravaca ring.

So how’s that for screenwriting? I believe the screenwriting manual has assisted me in providing cinematic drama to my story. To be brutally honest, if I weren’t dying soon, I would head to Hollywood, lock, stock, and barrel. Now get a load of this transition; I seriously doubt Sergio Leone could have done it better.

The amazed eyes of the friar, alight with chapel candles and flickering lightning, become the eyes of Robert Tyson Grant by the light of the cheap Chinese lantern in Mr. Lee’s on Mott Street, the flicker of lightning in the carp tank behind him.

“Robbie, are you all right?”

Grant’s eyes focus on Dixie. “I won’t give the Mexican my ring.”

Her mouth moved, but she had no words.

“Dix, find out how much he wants, but he cannot have the ring.”

Her blue eyes were fixed on his, and they narrowed. “So now it’s my turn. Why?”

“Because the ring is mine.
I earned it
.”

CHAPTER

TWELVE

THE FORTUNE-TELLER HELENA WAS GLUED
to
Let’s See if You Can Dance
on TV when there was a rap at her door. She had been so engrossed by her program, so titillated with the anticipation of Joey and Marissa’s pending tango routine, that she had forgotten to pull the shades on the shop windows. Normally she closed early for
Let’s See if You Can Dance.
She pushed a button on an ancient VCR, and it began to record her show.

Parting the beaded curtain into the foyer, she beheld Robert Tyson Grant and his golf umbrella at the shop door, rain pounding the sidewalk around him.

Helena flashed a wise smile and went to unlock the door.

“I was expecting you,” she said as he passed by her into the room. She sniffed. “But you stayed longer than you wanted to at the Chinese restaurant.”

Grant’s jaw dropped. “How can you know such things?”

She could know such things because the aroma of a Chinese restaurant is unmistakable, and it was on his clothing. Helena answered with a sad smile and gestured toward her parlor. “Please.”

Grant rested his umbrella against the wall and followed her through the beaded curtain. “Someone has come for the ring, Helena. I must know more about him.”

Ah, yes, this was the rich man with the ring and the Kewpie doll girlfriend.

She sat at the table, palms down on the red tablecloth. “I warned of danger. It is here. Sit.”

He sat.

“Give me your hands.”

He gave her his hands.

She clasped them between hers, eyes closed.

“Someone has come for the ring.”

“Yes!”

Often, once a customer was hooked, all she had to do was repeat what people told her in order to amaze them.

“It is important to this person, this man, and he comes from the north. No, the south. Yes, he comes from the south.” She peeked at the ring. “He has history with the ring … but you do not want him to have this ring.” Obviously whoever it was had a history with the ring, or why would he have come?

“Yes!”

“The ring, the ring … you have had it many years … and it came to you under dark circumstances.” She figured that someone, a relative perhaps, died and bequeathed it.

“Can you tell me who he is? How he knows about the ring?”

“There is a dark history with this ring. This man is part of that history, a member of your family.”

“Well…”

“No, not your family, but a place where you once lived.”

“Yes, the orphanage.”

He had just given Helena a wealth of information to build on. “You do not know this man.” If he did, he would know why he had come for the ring, wouldn’t he? “But you must know someone who does know him. At the orphanage. Yes, the orphanage!”

“Yes, the orphanage! But who? Pasqual? I haven’t seen him since La Paz.”

“The man who has come is Bolivian.” Helena watched
Jeopardy!
so knew some geography.

“Bolivian?”

“Yes, he is from the south, from La Paz.”

“Mexico. La Paz, Mexico.”

“Yes, of course, how silly, I am very tired … he has come from Mexico … but you knew he would come, did you not?”

“Yes! But when I asked him to come, I didn’t think he was going to ask for the ring.”

He asked the Mexican to come?
“You had a business arrangement with this man. He is a contractor of some kind, a specialist…” Helena figured anybody from Mexico summoned by a rich white person had to be in the trades, maybe to stucco this rich guy’s house or something.

Grant pulled his hands away.

Aha.
There was part of the story he didn’t want her to know. Must be something illegal. Drugs, maybe.

Helena smiled sadly. “The ring, which was taken under dark purpose, has brought this upon you. The ring is cursed, and now so are you. This curse has been a great burden to you.”

“A curse? You mean Purity?” Grant blinked hard a few times. “Should I give him the ring? Will that lift the curse?”

“The curse is upon you, not the ring.” Helena did not understand that Purity was a name, so was a little confused.

“So if I give him the ring, the curse will not go away? My burden will remain?”

Helena jumped from her chair, eyes wild, and loosed a shriek that toppled Grant right out of his chair. Then she sank slowly to her knees, sobbing.

Grant scuttled next to her. “Helena, what happened? Are you all right? Are you OK?”

Helena’s sister, Abbie, appeared in the doorway, a behemoth in a tracksuit. She held up some dried leaves in her hand. “Stand back! Back, I say!”

Grant lurched backward and found his chair.

Abbie strode forward and crumpled the leaves over her sister, chanting as the shredded bay leaves rained onto the sobbing palmist. She paused and furrowed her brow at Grant. “Have you paid?”

“No, I—”

“You must come back tomorrow. She will be better then. Pay and go.”

Grant slapped a hundred-dollar bill on the table, grabbed his umbrella, and pushed out the front door.

Helena abruptly stopped crying. “Lock the door, Abbie.”

Abbie waddled over to the door and flipped the latch. When she returned to the séance parlor, Helena was at the table lighting a cigarette. “He’s a live one.”

“So I figured. What’s the deal?”

“He’s in some sort of shady business.”

“Him? He looks rich.”

“He is, but he is also up to something and has things to hide.”

“Ah. Cursed, is he?”

“Cursed real bad.” Helena grinned.

“Like I seen him before. Famous?”

“Not TV famous. Rich famous.”

“I think I seen him on TV, Lena.”

“That would be a help if you could ID him. When I mentioned the curse, he said something about the curse being purity. That make any sense?”

“No. So if I find out who he is, I get a cut of the cure, right?”

“I always need you when someone’s got a curse, don’t I?”

“Just checking. When?”

“No date yet. I figured I play him for another office visit before we cure him.”

“Not like you to leave the afflicted strung out.”

“He’ll be back tomorrow. For sure. Like I said, he’s got it bad. See if you can figure out who he is. Maybe check the Web.”

“I was just on Facebook when you had your attack.”

“OK, then.”

“If I find out who he is, what do I get? I should get more than a small piece of the cure.”

“Why?”

“If it’s important and we find out all kinds of stuff, it could be worth a lot of money.”

“Let’s see who he is first, then we’ll talk.”

“No way, Lena. Remember that other time?”

“What other time?”

“That woman. The model.”

“Seventy-five, twenty-five.”

“Fifty, fifty.”

“Seventy, thirty. Going, going…”

“Sixty, forty.”

“Sixty-five, thirty-five. Done?”

“Done.”

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

LET US CUT AWAY FROM
the smoky confines of the palmist’s inner sanctum to the briny exuberance of the sea crashing white froth on the dark sandy shores of East Hampton. The party lights of a lounge called El Rolo are visible beyond the dune. Lightning flutters on the west horizon.

El Rolo was a velvet rope place. If you were a man, you could only get in if you were accompanied by several beautiful girls or if you were famous and preferably both. Beautiful girls could get in even if they were not famous as long as their shoes were of the Prada equivalent.

You think I’m kidding, but Wilmer was the bouncer, and he had to know his shoes. Not only could he tell you the manufacturer of almost any woman’s upscale shoe, but he knew them by type: pump, mule, thong flat, espadrille, and even peep-toe slingback. He could even tell the cheap knock-offs, the Canal Street Specials sold in Chinatown back rooms. His job was as much as anything to keep out the riffraff and the paparazzi, so being able to tell a pair of Gucci cork wedges from Payless cork wedges was an important part of his job. That and being large enough to intimidate anybody on the planet. It’s a fact: Mike Tyson came there one night and got drunk. Wilmer threw him out. And I mean that literally. After taking a punch to the chest from the heavyweight champion of the world, Wilmer picked up Tyson and flung him out the back door into the dune.

It was closing time this particular night. Wilmer had provided drivers for about ten people so far. El Rolo provided drivers and follow cars to get people home safely and help keep them out of the tabloids for DUI. This pleased the customers and the local police, who did not like having to arrest their meal tickets but could not turn a blind eye to their crashing into trees, either.

Wilmer drew the chain across the driveway so nobody else could try to come in. The sign by the road was turned off, but that didn’t always stop Billy Joel from trying to come in for a nightcap. There were only four cars left. His drivers were all back now, and looking sleepy. So Wilmer went inside to assess who else was there that needed a nudge toward the door and a drive home.

There was a blond Dolce & Gabbana crisscross sandal with two brunettes, one a Ferragamo leopard-print platform slingback, the other a turquoise Christian Dior slide. No men.

“Excuse me, ladies, hate to bother you, but it’s that time.”

The turquoise Christian Dior slide looked sleepily up at him. “Thanks, Wilmer. Any drivers still here?”

“Sure, sweetheart. All three of you girls need drivers?”

“Not me,” said the Dolce & Gabbana. “I’ve been on smoothies all night. Can’t be puffy tomorrow for the shoot.”

“I’m OK,” yawned the Ferragamo, “but you better check on Purity.”

“Where’s she?”

“Oceanside.”

Wilmer squeezed out the back door to the patio. Nobody there, but he could see Purity with her blond pigtails sitting down near where the waves were breaking. So he made tracks—big tracks—down the beach.

“Purity?”

She turned, a bottle of tequila at her side and Prada ankle-strap thongs behind her in the sand. She was in cutoff jeans and a sleeveless man’s oxford shirt, open in front and exposing a yellow bikini top.

“Purity, it’s time to go home, sweetheart. I’ll get a driver for you.”

“Yeah. I have to get up tomorrow. Have to be in court in Manhattan.”

“Not for that joyride the other night.”

“No, another joyride, through Central Park, on a borrowed horse. Wilmer?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Come here.”

He stepped up next to her.

“Sit down, Wilmer.”

“No games tonight, Purity. We got to close up. I’ll carry you if you want.”

“Wilmer, what would you do if you wanted to kill someone?”

He shrugged and held out his hands. “I’d just kill them with these.”

“No. I mean kill them and not get caught, make it look like an accident.”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Who do you want to kill, Purity?”

“I’m just like saying. Nobody.”

“Depends. Can’t kill nobody in a car wreck if they don’t drive. Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you off to bed.”

“So you’re saying that it, like, depends. Like, if they drive a car?” She staggered to her feet.

“That’s right.” Wilmer picked up her shoes, then picked up Purity. She sat in the crook of his arm, reclining against his chest, and they started back to El Rolo.

“Would you hire a hit man?”

“Nah. Do not do that, Purity. Do not even talk about it. People who try that route always end up in jail. You want bad enough to kill somebody you do it yourself. That’s the rules.”

“There are rules?”