The Spider Thief (11 page)

“Wait,” he whispered, “don’t go in.”

She crouched, pistol in both hands, and stepped inside without a sound. She vanished around the corner.

Outside, on the street, a car horn blared. Birds chirped. Everything seemed so ordinary. Except for the dead guys on the floor.

Suddenly, one of them made a sucking sound. Ash jumped. He nearly bolted down the stairs before he saw the biggest guy’s chest slowly rise and fall.

Ash stared. The guy’s face was covered in blood, his eyes closed, but he took a strangled breath.

“Oh, God.” Ash stepped into the apartment, around the bloodstains, and knelt next to the guy. He reached out to help, but he didn’t know what to do. “Cleo!”

She came back around the corner instantly. “Rest of the place is empty. There’s a smashed-up video camera in the bedroom. No sign of Mauricio.”

“This guy’s alive.” Ash hovered over the big guy, afraid to touch him but desperate to help. “What do I do?”

“Call 911.” She holstered her pistol and knelt on the carpet, feeling his neck for a pulse. “He might be in shock. But he’s breathing. Help me elevate his legs. And we need a blanket.” Her eyes met his. “Don’t run.”

Before Ash could respond, his phone rang. He pulled it out. It was Mauricio.

Cleo held out one bloodstained hand. “Ash, don’t—”

He answered it. “Dude, where are you?”

“Ash?” Mauricio said. His voice trembled.

“I can’t talk. I’ve got a situation here.” Ash looked around for a blanket to put on the wounded guy. “You someplace safe?”

“Not exactly,” Mauricio said, distantly. “I’m with my . . . uncle. Andres.”

“Andres?”

Cleo froze, all her attention riveted on Ash. “Ash, give me the phone. Now.”

“Where are you?” Ash demanded. “What happened?”

The phone rustled. “Hello again,” Andres said, his voice thick and breathy.

A surge of fury rose up inside Ash. “If you do anything to hurt him—”

“Quiet. Listen to yourself. He is my nephew. Why would I hurt him?” Andres sighed. “You, however, you are not my family. I know what you want, Ash. You wish to break the curse of
La Araña
.”

Ash swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Do not play this game with me. You know the curse. You feel it inside you.” His voice seemed to come closer, through the phone, and fill Ash’s head. “It will not leave you, Ash. Never will you stop running. Always, you have this curse. Unless you bring her to me, the gold spider. Give her to me.”

“Let my brother go.” Ash’s voice shook. “He’s not part of this.”

“He is a part of me. He share my blood. But he also share the blood of your father, the traitor. So we will see whose blood wins out. Yes?” Andres grunted. “There is a factory, all closed up. A rubber factory. You know this place?”

“A rubber factory?” Ash repeated.

“Gates,” Cleo said. Her gaze met Ash’s.

Andres must have overheard her, because he said, “Gates, yes, is what it’s called. Building thirteen. Bring
La Araña
to me, this minute.” He hung up.

Ash stood there holding the phone, numb.

Cleo got to her feet, holding the big guy’s ankles in each hand. “Ash. Couch cushions. Now.”

Startled into action, Ash pulled the cushions off the couch and stacked them beneath the guy’s ankles.

She lowered his feet onto them. “Okay. I’ll help him, you make the call.”

Ash hesitated.

“Stay focused.” Her eyes were animal intense, like a cat stalking its prey. The force of her will nearly overpowered him. “You can’t keep running. This is bigger than you can handle.”

“I have to go,” he said.

“What if I tell you that you have to stay? What if I tell you that I won’t let you go, that I will stop you if I have to?” she said. “Would that change your mind? Or would that just make you run away again?”

Ash wanted to trust that she knew what she was talking about. He wanted to believe that if he called the cops, they’d help him. They’d step in and rescue his brother, arrest Andres. But something in his gut told him no. Involving the cops would be a deadly mistake. The anguish was more than he could stand.

“I’m sorry.” Ash dug the car keys out of his pocket. “But he’s my brother.”

Cleo called after him as he ran out the door, but he didn’t stop.

*

As Andres pocketed the phone, Lazaro duct-taped Mauricio to the creaky chair by the legs of his Dockers. Then he pulled off long strips of tape and fixed Mauricio’s wrists to the table, smoothing the tape down over the edges. When he was satisfied that Mauricio couldn’t budge, he stepped back.

“Leave us,” Andres commanded. He put one of the giant soft drink cups in front of Mauricio, unwrapped the straw and stabbed it in. He pushed the cup closer.

As much as he hated to, Mauricio lowered his head and drank from the straw. The cold Pepsi helped ease the pounding in his head.

Andres pulled out a chair and sat down, folding one leg over the other. He settled back and waited.

Mauricio gulped down the soda and cleared his throat. “What are you going to do with us, me and Ash?”

“You and Ash. Is two different thing.” Andres wagged his finger. “You are my family, and you belong to me. Ash, no, I need from him
La Araña
. The spider. After that, what will happen?” Andres held up his empty hands. “Is not up to me. He is curse.”

Mauricio sucked down more soda. The cold bubbles stung the inside of his mouth, made him feel a little more alert. “Cursed?”

“Yes. Unless he give to me
La Araña
, he will die.” Andres shrugged. “This is not my doing. This curse could give him a, hmm, a heart attack, you see. Or maybe hit him with a car. The curse could even make a man shoot him for no reason. Even you.”

“Me?”

“You might shoot him. See? Is how the curse works.”

“So this spider,” Mauricio said, trying to puzzle it out. “What’s it look like?”

Andres looked surprised. “You have not seen her?”

Mauricio shook his head.

“She is gold.” Andres’s voice dropped to an awed hush. He held his hands out, fingers tensed as if he was gripping an invisible basketball. “She is beautiful. I find her in a temple, in Colombia.”

“You mean, like a statue?”

“Not just a statue.” Andres’s eyes grew wide. “She is every dream you ever have. With
La Araña
, you may have anything you desire. Anyone you command, they obey. Men, women, old, young, they become like babies to you. Without you, they cannot exist. You, they worship.” His face turned blissful for a moment. He sighed, and his expression went dark. “I have her once,
La Araña
. She was mine. And then, I was betray.”

“By my father, right? How did you even know him?”

Andres gave him a long, calculating look. Then he whistled, and Lazaro and Salvador came back into the room.

“This is the time,” Andres said. He got up and went down to the leather doctor’s bag on the far end of the table.

Mauricio’s heart beat faster. “Time for what?”

Salvador came around the table and put his hands over Mauricio’s fists, pinning them to the table, as if the duct tape alone wasn’t enough.

Mauricio started to sweat. “What’s going on? Hey, listen. I won’t run.”

Andres and Lazaro took an assortment of small objects and supplies out of the leather bag, including something that looked like a power tool. Lazaro ran an extension cord to an outlet in the far wall, then picked up the tool. It let out a metallic whine, not altogether different from a dentist’s drill.

Andres came closer and began to gently unroll the sleeve of Mauricio’s shirt. “One of my men, he lose his faith. I have to leave him behind. Without him, I have an ache in my heart. But now, there is you. Is not just luck that I find you.” He finished rolling up the sleeve and then wiped Mauricio’s bare skin with a cold, wet cloth.

“What are you doing?” Mauricio said. He couldn’t keep the fear out of his voice. “Please.”

Lazaro came up to join them at last, his long hair tied back. He adjusted the tool in his hand, and Mauricio realized it was a tattoo gun.

A spider tattoo covered the back of Lazaro’s hand, the ornate legs spreading down his fingers. He held the tattoo gun with a sure grip, the spider on his hand wrapped around it like a living thing. He touched Mauricio’s arm.

“No!” Mauricio struggled to get free. “Get away from me, you freaks!”

“Shh,” Andres whispered above the buzzing noise. “This is proper. This is holy. The first mark of
La Araña
. Today, you become one of us.”

The tip of the tattoo needle bit into Mauricio’s arm. He screamed.

Asbestos

Ash nosed the red Galaxie up to the open gate in the chain-link fence. Beyond, the factory stood in dusty silence. Massive brick buildings three and four stories tall sat crowded together, linked by rusted conveyor belts and sagging power lines. Red and blue graffiti splashed across the walls. Banks of dirty gray windows stretched high overhead. The windows had been painted over multiple times, in successive layers of green, blue, and tan. They looked diseased.

Moolah sat in the Galaxie’s front seat, sniffing the air. Then he lowered his tail and hunkered down on the floorboard.

Ash couldn’t see any signs of life. No cars, no lights, nothing but the gate in the chain-link fence standing wide open, like a giant-sized live animal trap. He gave the engine a little gas and rolled through.

Rather than head down the main strip between the rows of buildings, he turned and crept along the gravel-strewn blacktop that led through the maze of back lots. Patches of green grass grew up through the cracks. The walls were surprisingly clean back here, as if the graffiti artists had simply given up before they got this far.

He passed a break between buildings. The sun shone down on the bricks on one side, leaving the other in shadow. A red door, its paint faded to pink around the edges, stood propped open. It boasted a faded
NO
SMOKING
sign, and the caged light bulb above it had long ago turned cloudy. On the wall, a faded yellow sign read
BLDG
. 13. Streaks of rust ran down from the rivets in the corners of the sign.

He paused, then kept driving. As far as traps went, that one wasn’t hard to spot. No doubt, they’d be waiting for him inside that door. The best plan he could reckon would be to hide the Galaxie somewhere in back, then circle around and find another way into that building.

The alley eventually opened up into a storage yard. Hundreds of wooden pallets had been stacked here, some on edge, some flat. All were bleached silver from years of exposure to the intense Colorado sun. A toppled crane of some kind blocked off half the lot, its thick steel cable coiled on the ground like a mountain of rust.

He parked alongside the building, ready for a quick getaway. When he turned off the engine, the silence settled on him like a weight. Even though the factory complex sprawled through the middle of the city, hedged between the railroad and the interstate, the huge buildings ate up the noise of the city and left only the sighing of the wind. A gust whispered through the yard, picking up dust.

He got out of the car and shut the door. “Moolah, stay.”

The dog whined.

Ash pointed his finger. “Bang.”

But the dog didn’t want to play. He just laid his head down on his paws, giving Ash a worried look.

“Tell me about it,” Ash muttered. He left Moolah there and headed along the brick wall. The alley was littered with scraps of old lumber and unidentifiable pieces of corroded metal. He stepped over the shriveled remains of a cardboard box. It had long ago disgorged the dozens of steel spikes it once contained, now orange with rust.

He crept the long way around the building. He kept his head low, even though the lowest windows started ten feet off the ground. He rounded the corner and spotted the gunmen’s green pickup.

He pulled back, heart pounding, and did another slow peek. The truck sat empty in the sun, its dirt-streaked windshield reflecting the light. Nobody was there. No sign of Andres’s black Trans Am, either.

An idea struck him. He sneaked back and picked up one of the rusted spikes, six inches long and still sharp, then crept to the corner again. Throwing worried glances over each shoulder, he darted around the corner and knelt down behind the green pickup.

One quick jab to the tire and it started hissing its way flat. He moved quickly, piercing all four tires. He stepped back and admired his handiwork. No way was he going to get chased by this truck again. Dusting his hands off, he moved on.

A cracked loading dock sat along one side, hosting a single empty steel drum. Bushes grew up around the edges, healthy and green. Coffee-colored stains washed down the cinder-block walls. Every window was boarded up, even the windows in the metal double doors. One of the doors had been jimmied open a few inches. He listened, hearing nothing, then eased his way in.

Inside, just enough light seeped through the dirty windows to reveal the silhouettes of massive machines, like sleeping giants. Nearby sat the gutted remains of a forklift with chipped yellow paint, and a wide pool that could have been oil or water, he couldn’t tell. The place smelled like a damp basement.

He crept through the cool shadows, trying to minimize the noise of his boots on the concrete floor. He worked his way through the maze of machines and pipes. Catwalks weaved through it all, linked by ladders and steep metal stairs. Here and there in the distance, round lights and gauges glowed softly, as if someone had forgotten to turn them off all those decades ago.

A muffled groan came from up ahead, along with the scrape of a chair against the floor. He froze, searching the shadows for any sign of movement. Nothing.

A sliver of sunlight came through the open door of a nearby room. He peeked inside the single door and saw Mauricio slumped on the table, his arms duct-taped down, one forearm swaddled in gauze.

Ash glanced around the still warehouse, checking to make sure that no one was behind him. He stepped into the room.