Altar of Bones

by Philip Carter

  She turned the photograph over and saw writing on the back. Mike and Marilyn and me at the Brown Derby, July ‘62.

  Marilyn … Zoe turned the photograph over, looked at it closer. The other woman in the booth had most of her platinum blond hair wrapped up in a scarf and she had little makeup on, but she looked like …

  My God, it is. It’s Marilyn Monroe.

  Had her grandmother actually known Marilyn Monroe? Known her well enough to sit in a restaurant with her? But then she had worked for a movie studio, after all…. Still, it just seemed so amazing.

  Zoe put the photograph into the sealskin pouch with the icon and the reel of film and stuffed it all back into her bulging satchel, then scraped back her chair and stood up.

  “Au revoir, monsieur,” she called out. She got no answer.

  But as she pulled back the purple curtain and opened the door to the courtyard, the front of the shop exploded into a symphony of gongs and chimes and tinkles and bells.

  19

  ZOE WOULDN’T have known she was being followed if it hadn’t been for the fire-eater.

  She came out of the wine bar back onto the Boulevard St.-Michel, as the old man had promised. A juggler and a man with a burning torch stood in front of a sidewalk café on the corner. The juggler tossed a balloon, a billiard ball, and a bowling ball from hand to hand, and he’d drawn quite a crowd. Zoe watched the street performance without really seeing it, while she tried to think what to do. She needed a hotel and some food. She needed sleep.

  At least for the moment it had stopped raining.

  She thought she saw what looked like a hotel farther down the block on the other side of the museum. She’d taken about a dozen steps toward it when from behind she heard a loud “Ooooh!”

  She whirled instinctively, to see the man with the torch pull it out of his mouth, then breathe a gust of fire, and the crowd went “Ooooh!” again.

  Zoe’s eye had caught a sudden movement farther down the street, though—a man jerking around too fast to look into the window of an umbrella store. His build was big and ropy, and he had a long brown ponytail, like the man who had attacked her with the chain in San Francisco.

  She pretended to watch the fire-eater, while he admired the umbrellas. He didn’t turn his face her way once, kept his attention right on those fascinating umbrellas no matter how many times the crowd oohed at the fire-eater’s antics. He was the man who’d killed her grandmother, she was sure of it. He’d followed her from San Francisco, followed her to the museum and then to the shop, just as the old man had feared.

  Zoe started walking again, just another tourist admiring the brightly lit bistros and shops, the cream stone buildings with their gray dormer roofs and lace iron balconies. She stopped at a newspaper kiosk and pointed to a copy of Le Monde.

  She dug into her jeans pocket for a couple of euros, then deliberately dropped them on the sidewalk. She bent over to pick them up, and as she straightened, she looked into the side mirror of a parked car.

  The ponytailed man was only a half a block behind her now, closing fast.

  The guy must’ve figured he was made because suddenly he gave up all subtlety, running full out now and right at her.

  He got within a couple feet of her and made a wild grab for her satchel. She swung around, slamming her elbow under his chin, and sent him reeling into a parked car.

  Then she gripped the straps of her satchel with both hands and ran.

  SHE DASHED ACROSS the wide street just as the light was changing. Behind her she heard the screech of brakes, horns, curses in French.

  The shops, the cafés, they were all open, full of people. Maybe she should run inside one, shout for help, for a gendarme, but it would be a nightmare. She didn’t speak French, and what could she tell them? The whole altar-of-bones thing sounded insane, and the icon … What if they confiscated the icon? She was the Keeper now, she couldn’t let them have the icon.

  She glanced back over her shoulder. She’d put a little distance between herself and the ponytailed man, but he was still coming fast. She had to lose him, but how?

  She ran faster, everything around her a blur of lights and faces. Couldn’t they see a man was chasing her? Ahead of her she could see the bell tower of a church, thought about trying to hide inside, then changed her mind. She could just as easily end up trapped.

  She twisted her head to snatch another look behind her and knocked into a hot-chestnut cart. She tripped, nearly fell onto her hands and knees. Pain shot up her thigh.

  She stumbled around a corner and onto a narrow street jam-packed with an outdoor market and throngs of shoppers. She cut around a fish stand and nearly fell again when her heel slipped on a piece of rotting kelp. She wove in and out among the marble-topped tables of a salon de thé, bumping into them, not caring.

  Her coat sleeve caught on the wheel of a wagon full of yellow flowers. She tugged, couldn’t get loose, couldn’t get loose … She felt panic, hot and terrifying, blur her eyes. She gave one more hard tug, and her sleeve pulled free.

  She looked behind her. Bobbing heads, so many heads, but she didn’t see him. She turned back around just in time to keep from slamming into a woman pushing a baby carriage.

  Suddenly he was there, lurching out from behind a rack of handbags. He was smiling at her and she’d never been so afraid in her life.

  Zoe made a little juking move. He bit, twisting right while she went left. He lunged at her, grabbing for her satchel again. She dodged to the side at the last second, and his momentum carried him into a pyramid of oranges.

  Zoe ran past him, leaped over rolling oranges, and darted in one door of a pastry shop, then out the other. She could hear a lot of yelling behind her, but she didn’t look back.

  ZOE RAN DOWN a street—no shops or cafés here, only a few people. Ahead she could see the lights of a bridge and a tourist boat below on the Seine.

  The street that followed along the river was wide, the traffic murderous. She raced across it just as the light changed, setting off a flurry of horns, shaking fists, and more French curses.

  I’ve lost him. Please, God, let me have lost him.

  She slowed to a walk, panting, her heart pounding in her ears as she took a crowded footbridge. She looked downriver and finally saw something she knew—the massive lit towers of the Notre Dame cathedral thrusting into the night sky.

  The cathedral would, surely, be full of tourists and tourist buses. Maybe she could sneak onto a bus and ride it to a nice big hotel with a staff who spoke English. And room service. What she wouldn’t give right now for some room service.

  NOT ONLY WERE there no tourist buses, the big square in front of the cathedral was practically empty of people, too.

  The floodlights cast the side streets in deep black shadows. She felt exposed out in the open, in the light, but the dark streets leading to who knew where seemed worse. She hadn’t lost him; she couldn’t see him but her skin crawled with the feel of him. She strained her ears, listening, listening …

  Running footsteps slapped the pavement behind her.

  Zoe ran.

  THE STREET SHE ran down spilled onto another bridge. A large group of Japanese tourists was crossing over, coming toward her. Zoe plunged in among them.

  But she was too tall. She could still see the ponytailed man, and if she could see him, he could see her.

  She wasn’t going to escape him. Maybe she should just toss him the satchel and be done with it. But the letter … they will kill you and all who come near you simply for knowing too much. The bastard had left his knife in her grandmother’s chest, but he could also have a gun. Would he dare to use it on a Paris street? Probably.

  A hand grabbed her arm, startling her so badly her heart jumped up into her throat. A smiling man got in her face, pointing to the camera he held in one hand. “Take picture?” he said. Zoe shook her head, tried to get around him.

  She looked ahead of her, toward the other end of the bridge. Another man stood there, just sto
od there as if waiting. For her. He was dressed all in black and it was too dark to see his face, but she was so scared of him she wanted to vomit.

  He took a step toward her, then another and another. He reached into his coat pocket and—

  A gun. He had a gun.

  She looked over her shoulder. The ponytailed man moved through the oblivious Japanese tourists like a shark, smiling, closing in on her.

  Zoe backed up until she was pressed against the wrought-iron railing. She was so afraid, so frozen with it, she couldn’t think. Please, God, please, what am I going to do? The ponytailed man was coming from one end of the bridge, and the man in black was coming from the other, and she had no where to go but …

  She looked down at the rushing, black, icy waters of the Seine. She was standing on a low bridge, and the water was running high, but it still looked like a long way down. Then she saw the bow of a barge, coming out from underneath the bridge, moving fast, with bound newspapers piled on it as high as a house.

  Zoe didn’t think, didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the railing with both hands and vaulted over it. She hung by her fingertips for one long, agonizing second.

  Then she let go.

  SHE HIT THE bundles of newspapers hard, driving all the air from her lungs.

  Finally her chest heaved and blessed air came rushing in. She lay there, shuddering, praying she hadn’t broken anything, afraid to move and find out. Then she smiled. She’d jumped from a bridge and landed on sodden piles of Le Monde, and she’d survived.

  Maybe, just maybe, some toapotror magic was going on here. She still didn’t move, though, even after it began raining hard, splashing her face, getting in her eyes, up her nose. She shifted one leg, then the other. Thank God her arms worked, too. She felt as if her chest had gone through her back, but nothing was broken, and she smiled again.

  She sat up slowly and looked back up at the bridge, fading now into the distance, the rain veiling it, but she could still see the ponytailed man where he stood at the railing, looking down at the river. The man in black was gone.

  I’m alive, you bastards, I’m alive. The Keeper’s alive and she’s still got the icon.

  Then her euphoria died as she saw the streets and buildings float past her. Where was the barge going? Would it stop even once before it got all the way to Le Havre?

  The river flowed between quays, sheer and steep as cliffs. About every twenty yards, shallow steps carved into the stone laddered up to the street. But to get to them, that was the thing. The water whipped by, fast and cold and treacherous. She had a horrible feeling she’d used up her share of luck.

  Okay, think. The barge wasn’t going down the river on its own. She saw the green glow of an instrument panel through the window of a small pilothouse. Somebody had to be inside doing the steering. Maybe whoever it was would put her ashore, or more likely he’d have a radio and he’d call the gendarmes and she’d probably be arrested, but at this point she didn’t care. At least the cops wouldn’t shoot her, she hoped.

  She pushed to her feet. The newspapers were wet and slippery and squished beneath her feet so that she wobbled and staggered with every step.

  Suddenly the door to the pilothouse crashed open. Zoe opened her mouth to shout a hello and screamed instead when a huge black mastiff burst out, teeth bared, snarling.

  She turned and ran, the dog right behind her, growling, snapping at her heels. He got her pant leg, but she jerked free. She didn’t even think about it. She leaped over the side.

  20

  SHE PLUNGED deep, deep, then shot back up, gasping, her lungs on fire with the hideous cold.

  The satchel’s strap was strangling her. She struggled to pull it off over her head, choking, swallowing water, then got it off at last. The satchel was supposed to be waterproof and the icon was wrapped up tight in the sealskin pouch, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She held it up as best she could out of the water while doing a lame sidestroke with one arm. The current was fierce, pulling her downstream.

  She looked up to see how far she was from the quay and the steps. Too far, and past the steps nothing but sheer stone as far as she could see. Maybe the steps stopped here. Maybe this was the end of it for her. No, no … She kicked out hard with her legs, trying to burst free of the vicious current.

  She saw the steps coming up fast, then suddenly she was sweeping past them. She flung out her hand, barely caught the bottom one. Her fingers slipped. She grabbed again, held on this time with all her strength, which wasn’t much now. She was cold, so cold she couldn’t breathe.

  She clung to the step with numb hands while the rushing river pummeled her. She knew she needed to get out of the water now, but she was so cold and so tired.

  She looped the satchel’s strap back over her head and hauled herself up the narrow, steep steps hand over hand. She climbed over the lip of the quay and fell flat on her face. She lay there, shivering to her bones, black water streaming off her. She didn’t want to move, but she had to. She simply had to, no choice.

  She struggled to her feet, staggered forward, fell to her knees, and crawled up a dirt ramp to the street above. Saw a lamppost and crawled to it. She wrapped her arms around its iron base, shuddering. Her wet clothes felt like a shroud. She was cold, so cold, but she wasn’t going to give up now. She wasn’t about to die. She wasn’t. She needed more toapotror magic, though, and didn’t she deserve it? After all, she’d kept the icon safe from those two men, and a killer dog, and a mad dunking in the Seine.

  She dug deep, pulled herself up. She was shaking so hard her eyes blurred. The icy rain thickened, and wasn’t that just perfect, the wind driving it sharp as needles into her face.

  Through the bare branches of a tree on the corner she saw a light shining in a window with red-and-white checkered curtains. A restaurant? Please, God, let it be a restaurant. Because there would be a phone inside. Or someone willing to call her a taxi. She needed to hide somewhere, anywhere, it didn’t matter so long as it was warm and she could get herself together again until she could catch a plane home. She wanted to go home. Home. It sang in her like a mantra.

  She took a staggering step, then another, aimed for the tree and that beautiful light beyond it.

  A man’s shadow crossed in front of her, looming out from behind the tree’s thick trunk. A big man, dressed all in black. The man from the bridge.

  He was on her in a second, so fast she didn’t have time to scream. He poked the barrel of a gun in her ribs.

  Slowly, Zoe looked up into a pair of familiar blue eyes. What in hell was he doing here?

  “Sergei,” she said, but she was so cold, her teeth chattering so hard, she hadn’t even understood herself. She said it again, clearly this time, “Sergei.”

  “Give it to me,” he said in her ear. He sounded out of breath, and for some reason that really made no logical sense, that made her feel better. She hoped he was good and cold, too. She hoped he was freezing his balls off.

  “Give me the film, and then you’re coming with me. Nice and quiet.”

  The film?

  She was really losing it because that made no sense at all. Why did her mother want the film and not the icon? And what about the ponytailed man? He’d killed her grandmother. She knew to her soul her mother hadn’t known about that, but suddenly he shows up in Paris with Sergei? Something was very wrong here. Her brain squirreled around, she was too exhausted and cold to make sense of it.

  He pushed the gun harder into her side. “Have you fallen asleep? Give me the film, and don’t even think about trying any more comic-book heroics. My God, I still can’t believe you actually jumped off that bridge and didn’t break your neck. And then you added stupidity to insanity by jumping off the barge and into the river. I thought I was going to have to go in after you, and that, lady, would really have pissed me off. So quit pushing your luck and give me the damn film.”

  The film, the icon, it didn’t matter. She was the Keeper and the Keeper kept.

  Zoe fu
mbled with the satchel, tugged at the zipper, tugged again. He grunted with impatience and leaned forward to pull it out of her shaking hands—

  She rammed her elbow straight into his chin, so hard she heard his teeth crack together. Then she pivoted on the ball of one foot and lashed out with the other, kicking him square in the gut.

  The air whooshed out of him. He staggered backward, holding his belly. But before the thought Run! could even enter her head, he had his gun back up and pointed at her chest.

  “Don’t move,” he said. “Don’t you dare fucking move another inch, and Jesus God, woman, that hurt. I ought to shoot you now just for the hell of it. Give me the film.”

  He saw the intent in her eyes and took two more steps back. But he kept the gun pointed at her chest. It wasn’t fair. She was alone and soaked to the bone, her legs felt like lead, and she was so cold she was beyond bearing it. She was going to walk to the restaurant and call a taxi, and if he didn’t get out of her way too bad for him because she wasn’t born yesterday. If he was going to shoot her, he’d have done it by now.

  “You want it so bad, cowboy”—she beckoned to him with her curled fingers—“then come and get it.”

  He raised his face to the sky. “Why can’t things ever be easy?”

  “What? You don’t think you can take me one-on-one? Why don’t you give your ugly partner with the ponytail a jingle then? Maybe he can drop on by and give you a hand.”