by Cameron West
The morning light blanketed us, its warmth soaking through the back of my jacket, massaging my tense shoulders. Underneath, I felt the cool steel of guns, waiting. In the distance, a lawn mower started up.
Ginny stopped about twenty feet in and knelt down to smell a cup-shaped, pinkish flower. I took two steps past her and turned around.
“I want to know about the fire,” she said to the flower.
The taste in my mouth switched from sweet to acrid. I inhaled deeply, deliberately, hoping the perfume of the garden would overpower the olfactory memory of curling smoke. A moment passed. Ginny pivoted, still kneeling, and looked up at me, her vitreous brown eyes owning me.
“No you don’t,” I replied weakly, my energy focused on prying myself from memory’s grip.
Ginny held out her hand and I helped her up. She pulled me close.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I whispered.
“Because I need you whole,” she answered.
Whole. My hand began to shake.She needs me. Whole.
We stood silently among the flowers, each one an offering to the caterpillars and the calendar. My eyes wandered over Ginny’s beautiful face.
A flock of birds flapped by overhead. She looked up for a second, then back at me.
“I know you’re scared,” she said. “Not as much of what’s out there, but of what’s in here.” She firmly placed her palm against my heart.
“There’s nothing in there,” I uttered, my eyes misting up.
“That July night in 1980,” she said softly. “You let go of that windowsill and never touched ground. You’ve been orbiting in the gravity of your own past, too terrified to reenter your own atmosphere. But, listen to me, Reb. This journey has forced you down. The Circles of Truth—they areyourtruth.You’rethe traveler. The twenty-circle path isyourpath. Wherever Leonardo meant for it to lead, it’s led you to me and it’s leading you back to you. I don’t know why, but I’m your Ginny, your earth.”
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back slightly. “Kiss me, Reb.” Her moist lips parted expectantly.
She was my ground—my soft place to fall. This . . . girl from the crowd outside the Danieli, the girl driving the boat in the lagoon, the da Vincian translator, the snorer, the drooler, the voracious Venetian.
My chest was warm where her hand had touched me. I felt giddy and grateful. I kissed her—a slow and gentle kiss; the tips of our tongues touched and the sensation lit me brighter than a shooting star.
“Un bacio,”Ginny whispered.
“One kiss,” I answered.
“I want to feel you inside me,” she said.“Now.”
The warmth in my chest spread south. Still holding my hand, she led me back down the path toward Same Time. I pulled my earlobe and grinned.
We emerged from the garden. A Japanese pickup truck with a metal mesh trailer full of landscaping equipment idled off the side of the main road, twenty yards away. Its doors were open, the back gate down, and two men were loading up a big John Deere riding mower. A new black Suburban with tinted windows was parked at an angle in front of the main house. Suburbanites checking in.Seventy-five yards down the private road to Same Time and Next Year, I noticed white smoke streaming skyward from Ginny’s brick chimney. I was figuring out how I was going to shoo Pop out of the room politely when I saw a man passing inside my open doorway; it wasn’t Pop.
My mind drew into focus. I glanced at Ginny out of the corner of my eye. She was looking at the ocean, humming the theme fromBeauty and the Beast. I unsnapped my jacket.
The landscapers’ tailgate slammed. The two cab doors closed one after the other and the truck pulled onto the road, slowly descending the hill toward the exit. I grabbed Ginny firmly by the upper arm; she quit humming midphrase.
“Ouch!”
“Ginny,” I said,“run to that truck right now and jump on the back.”
She looked at me, confused. “What?”
“Right now. Run as fast as you can.” I pushed her hard. She stumbled into a jog as the truck pulled away, her look of puzzlement morphing into fear. She lifted her skirt and began to run.
I crisscrossed my hands inside my jacket and drew out both guns, then moved across the lawn in the direction of the cottages, keeping one eye on Ginny.
She was hauling now, closing on the truck as it picked up speed. Twenty yards, fifteen. A few feet from the trailer, she took two big strides and jumped for it. Grabbing the top steel rail, she vaulted over it onto the springy tractor seat. The truck vanished around the bend.
I scrambled behind some high bushes, my pulse throbbing in my ears, fingers tingling against the curves of the triggers. I sucked in sea air, filling my lungs for the fight. How many in the cabin, I wondered. After the party in the lagoon, after Milan, there’d be more than two, for sure.
How’d they find us? Damn! I made the reservation from the car phone. I wasn’t thinking. Think now. Money’s in the car, notes under my shirt. Get out of here.
I was a few feet from the Jag when I heard Pop’s voice cry out from the cottage. “You peckers are in a heap of trouble!”
I couldn’t let them hurt Pop.
“Shaddap, old man!” a gravelly voice yelled in a German accent. Glass broke with that shrill sound it makes when it hits a fireplace.
“That lamp cost two hundred smackers in ’68, sonny!” Pop shrieked.
I heard an “ooofff,” followed by Pop’s muffled, “Ho boy.” Two male voices chuckled.
A dark figure passed in front of the open side window of the other cabin—a balding man with an Aloha shirt, sporting a scrawny yellow ponytail. I recognized him from Venice: the guy piloting the yacht. Was Tecci in there? I hoped so.
I ducked low and reached the side of the cabin, pressed my body against the shingles, and tried to listen to the voices over the crash of the surf.
Somebody spoke in German to someone named Rolf. Another voice, a high one, said something I didn’t understand.
I slinked around back and squatted by the deck. The sliding glass door was closed, the drapes drawn. I eyed my boots mournfully, slipped them off, wishing they were sneakers. I crept up the stairs, hoping Rolf and his buddy wouldn’t see my shadow through the curtain and open fire.
I plastered myself against the house between the edge of the sliding glass door and the deck rail. With my guns shoulder-high, I reached a stockinged foot out and gave an Adirondack chair a tiny shove, then waited.
One of the men approached the door, mumbling. I held my breath. He pulled back the drapes and slid the glass open. He wasn’t holding a gun.
Stepping out onto the deck, his eye immediately took in the view.“Ser schön, Hans!”he shouted, admiring the panorama.
I stuck a Sig in his ear, whispered into it,“Guten tag, Rolf.”
He stiffened. I spun him around and stepped behind him. Hans was kneeling on the far side of the bed, the mattress jacked up in front of him. All I saw were two hands with dirty fingernails. I aimed my other gun midway between them.
I thumbed the hammer. Hans exposed a pockmarked face.
“How do you say ‘bang’ in German?” I said.
Then a third guy—a real muscleman—stepped from the bathroom, an Uzi slung over his shoulder. He caught sight of me and retreated. A second later, a barrage of bullets cut through the bathroom wall, taking out Hans, two framed watercolors, the telephone on the nightstand, and just about everything along the front half of my cozy cottage.
I yanked Rolf back onto the deck. He stumbled and threw his hands up, knocking one of the Sigs from my grip. It scuttled along the wood floor onto the lawn.
Pivoting, he threw a good right hook that landed on my chest andknocked me against the deck rail. He followed it with a left, but I blocked it, smacking him with the other Sig on his nose. He cried out in agony, blood spurting from both nostrils.
Mr. Muscles emerged from the bathroom, letting loose another burst from the Uzi which splintered the Adirondack chairs and caught Rolf in the
back. As his chest erupted, he plunged forward with a look of total surprise, smashing into me, sending me right off the deck.
Muscles ran toward me, a look of maniacal joy on his chiseled face. Rolling to my right, I heard Pop yell from inside Same Time, “ Goddamn you peckers!”
The big man fired another short burst, weeding the yard right next to me. I kept rolling. When the shots stopped, I aimed at his center and squeezed off three rounds. He fell back, crashing through the sliding glass door.
As I scrambled to my feet, I heard Pop’s assailants leave Ginny’s cottage and bang open the front door of mine. Before they could see me, I dashed up the steps to Ginny’s porch. Tucking the Sig into my pants, I hopped on the narrow wooden rail and boosted myself to the roof. Crawling like a lizard up the asphalt shingles, I crouched by the smoking chimney, assessing. Three down. Off in the distance, guests and employees were running in every direction. To my left, the Pacific yawned at the drama, spitting surf at ancient rock.
Duckwalking across the roof, I moved silently toward the hubbub emanating from my shot-up cabin.
I was at the edge when the two guys who’d laughed at Pop stepped onto my deck, side by side. The one on the left had a shock of red hair with a lot of goop in it. He gripped an Uzi with both hands, poised to fire.
The guy on the right wore wraparound sunglasses and a porkpie hat. He was packing a silver automatic with a black rubber handle. Though I had the edge on them, I didn’t want to shoot them. Not yet. I needed to talk to them first.
Just then, someone near the main house shouted, “There, on the roof!”
The two guys looked off toward the source of the sound, then started to turn toward me. I jumped, and the three of us tumbled to the deck floor, amid the remnants of chairs and broken glass.
I scrambled to my feet. Red stayed down, but Porkpie was made of strong stuff. He’d lost his gun, but took a swing at me that landed square on my jaw. I fell back and tripped over Mr. Muscles’s legs sticking out from the living room. My shoulder blade hit the jagged glass of the broken sliding door.
I lurched forward and threw a straight jab at Porkpie’s grim face. Blocking it with a forearm, he spun to back-kick me in the stomach; I saw it coming and lunged at him to close the distance.
His kick was still partially in the chamber, but the force of it, combined with my forward motion, sent us through the railing onto the grass.
I leapt to my feet and reached for the Sig, but it had fallen onto the ground next to Porkpie. Behind me on the porch, Red was on his knees pointing his gun at me. I saw his finger squeezing the trigger, knew I’d had it.
Then I heard the sound of a gunshot from off in the woods and Red collapsed. Three more rounds kicked up the grass and dirt around Porkpie as he rolled over and out of the line of fire.
He picked up my Sig and pointed it at me, grinning.
A millisecond later, a yellow streak smashed him in the back of the head with a fireplace poker. Porkpie crumbled like dry cake, his hat flopping off when he hit the turf.
Pop flashed me his pearly white dentures. “Better’n Mickey Mantle,” he chuckled.“Huh, Holmes?”
I looked back to the woods where the shot had come from. Nothing but the diminishing rustle of retreating feet on leaves and branches.
Thanks, Archie.
thirteen
Ifelt Porkpie’s wrist for a pulse. He had one.“Did I crack his melon?” Pop asked.
I checked and shook my head.
“Aw shucks. You know that bastard punched me right in the pancreas? And look at my place. Jeepers! What the hell did these fellas want, Holmes?”
“Pop, Ginny’s gone and the cops are going to be here any minute.”
“Damn tootin’, if they don’t get lost on the way over. Now what the Sam Hill . . . ?”
“I’ve got to get out of here,” I said, heading for the Jag, forgetting my boots and guns.
Pop grabbed my sleeve, stopping me cold. “Holmes,” he said gravely. “You look me in the eye.” He gave me the discerning gaze of a wise old man—a good man who’d carved maybe sixty Thanksgiving turkeys, seen wars, buried friends. He said sternly, “Tell me something good. Right now.”
“There’s almost two million dollars in the trunk of my car,” I said.
Pop raised his wiry silver brows, held my stare and my arm.
“No,” I told him. “I’m not a thief.”
He let go of me. “Well, then I’m stumped,” he said, smoothing my sleeve.
“Here it is fast, Pop. I’m trying to do the right thing for Leonardo da Vinci.”
“Leonardo da Vinci! Why, he’s older than me! You joshing me?”
“I’m telling you the truth, and I’ll tell you the rest later if you help me get out of here.”
He peered at me a half-second, then grinned. “Well, that’s gotta be a hell of a story. Hot damn! I guess you’ll be needing the Baby Face Nelson Suite now. Get your stuff—what’s left of it.” He looked down at my stockinged feet. “Starting with your hoofs.”
My boots were waiting for me by the deck steps. I slipped them on and searched the yard for my guns. I located them in the freshly mown grass.
I raced into Same Time and Next Year and grabbed our belongings, while Pop stayed outside to guard Porkpie. I had everything in the trunk in less than a minute.
“What about this pecker?” Pop asked, kicking him.
“He’s coming with me,” I answered. I picked up his brown hat and stuck it on his head. “We’re going to have a little chat.”
Pop helped me drag my still-unconscious prisoner over to the Jag. Together we hefted him into the passenger seat.
Pop gave me the combination to a lock that barred a road leading to a cabin at the far end of the property. He said he’d keep an eye out for Ginny and point her in my direction, and he’d come by later after ironing things out with the police.
I pulled down the driveway, leaning forward to keep my sore shoulder blade away from the seat. As I made a left onto Highway 1, I could hear the sound of sirens wailing from the south. I worried about Ginny, wondered where she was.
Following Pop’s directions, I headed north a quarter of a mile, then pulled off to the left by a chain suspended between two moss-covered trees that blocked what looked like an old logging path. I got out of the car and opened the combination lock. It was just like the one on every gym locker in the world.
The rounded steel in my hand, the ridged black plastic dial and small, indented white lines and numbers, felt so familiar to me.Touching them stimulated something more powerful than school memories, but I couldn’t stop to let the thought coalesce. The lock opened on the first pull.
Back behind the wheel again, I drove twenty feet down the overgrown path, stopped, then ran back to replace the chain.
Porkpie was slumped against the seat, just coming to, when I returned to the car. I pulled out one of the Sigs and stuck it in his face, keeping one eye on the barely discernible road and the other on him. I wanted to pounce on him, break his neck with my teeth, tear him apart, and howl with fury.
For a full five minutes I drove through weeds, shrubs, and assorted fauna at a pace that barely kept the speedometer needle bouncing off zero. Porkpie was fully awake now, eyeing me like a rabid Doberman.
We emerged from the woods and entered a little field, at the edge of which stood a small, one-story, split-log cabin. Tiny porch, one window on either side of the low door, fieldstone fireplace, and a lopsided lean-to shed. An inch behind the cabin was a hundred-foot cliff and the cold Pacific—the classic Hollister House view. I stopped the car and turned off the motor. The surf resounded against the rocks below.
“I’m going to get out and come around,” I told Porkpie. “Put your hands on your head. If you move, I’ll shoot both your knees.”
His contemptuous eyes followed me to the passenger door. Opening it, I stepped back and instructed him to get out. He obliged. The crook of my arm was stiff from holding it in one position.
>
I told him to put his hands down.
He lowered them, clenching and unclenching.
“Tell me where Krell and Tecci are,” I demanded.
Porkpie reached behind his head to touch the lump, winced, and hunched down like he was going to be sick. He dry-heaved once, and, as he straightened back up, threw a lightning-fast front-kick at my hand, knocking the gun into the web of tall grass.
Positioning himself in a karate stance, he whipped a roundhouse kick that I barely pulled away from. In a fluid move, he shuffle-steppedin and launched another right at my chest. This time he connected, sending me flying backward about six feet past the house, knocking half the wind out of me.
I grabbed my gut and felt for the other Sig, but before I could get it out he was on me, driving a heel into my ribs.
I covered up, rolled, and scrambled out of the way and to my feet. He closed the distance again and threw another kick that connected, propelling me closer to the cliff and the angry ocean below.
“A kickboxer against a stuntman,” he hissed, grinning at me through yellow teeth. “Let’s see some stunts, boy.”
Again I reached for the gun; again he drove his foot into my aching gut. I stumbled backward almost to the edge of the precipice, arms out, gasping for breath. Slipping on the rocks where the field gave way to the cliff, I struggled to regain my balance. I couldn’t catch my wind; my diaphragm was paralyzed.
“Ready? Action!” Porkpie shouted, setting up for the kick that would send me over the edge. As he threw his leg out, I dropped to one knee, ducked, and punched him right in the sack with everything I had. He grabbed his crotch and cried out. I put a hand on the ground for support and swept his feet out from under him. He fell back, his hat falling off, and slipped on the same rocks that had almost gotten me the moment before.
Arms flailing, Porkpie tried desperately to stay upright. I reached for the gun. As I pulled it from the rig, he slipped and tumbled silently off the cliff.
