The 26th Letter

by Larry Flewin

  My man in the cheap suit wasn't in a hurry either. After the visit was over, he slapped his cap back on, pulled out the wad she’d just given him, and started counting it. That done he headed for home, right past me. I nabbed him and shoved him up against the tree. He didn’t do a thing except go along for the ride, like he was used to being kidnapped off the street.

  And for good reason, he was probably illegal as hell. Without papers he was working low and lying lower, making just enough to scrape by and maybe put a little aside for a cold winter’s day. Freedom had its price and he would be paying that debt off forever. Thank you Michael was probably his favourite prayer.

  His lapels fit my hands perfectly and I pulled him close enough to count the whiskers on his face. He stared at me, eyes wide open, along with his cigarette stained lips.

  "Alright pal, listen up and listen good. I seen you talking to a lady just about a minute or so ago. Who was she?”

  "She not say, sir,” he babbled. “She just ask about graveyard. Where I work. Please I go now?" He looked like he'd seen a ghost. All he wanted to do was go home to the wife and kiddies. Tell them a tall tale about how hard he worked for them, how much they owed him, and wait for dinner to be served. Instead, he was being pestered by not one but two complete strangers in less than an hour. He probably didn't mind the first. She was a gorgeous number that had probably tipped him a year’s wages just for being such a nice guy

  "Not yet, slim, which graveyard. Where do you work, exactly? Did she say why she was interested." He was shaking like a leaf now, his mouth opening and closing like a fish on a hook. I pushed him back, lit a pair of smokes and offered him one. He took it carefully, as if it might explode, and stuck it between his lips. A few puffs and he seemed to calm right down.

  "So tell me, junior, what did she want. I'm not a cop or nothing. I just got an interest in where she goes and what she does is all. So, how about it."

  “You not police?”

  “No, no I ain’t. I just wanna know what the lady wanted to know is all.”

  “Yeah yeah. She ask do I work here. I say yes. She say where you work. I say over there.” He pointed down the road.

  “What’s down there pal, church, graveyard?”

  “Church.”

  “Okay, that’s a good start. What church exactly. You Catholic or something?”

  He looked offended. “No, no, I not Catholic I from Ukraine. Is Orthodox. Church is Saint Vladimir of the Holy Cross. I work there, dig grave, cut grass. I tell lady that. She very happy, she pay,” he said.

  “So I noticed. Tell her anything else?”

  He kept nodding and puffing and talking, which was a good thing. I wasn't exactly in the mood to beat it out of him. It had been a long day, and all I wanted to know was which direction to go in. If he was right, I was about to be joined by the rest of the search party. Seems the leash had been just long enough for them to stay out of sight, but they appeared to be running out of patience.

  I interrupted the story of his life just long enough to show him the picture of my guy and deal him another smoke. He nodded excitedly, saying that he was the guy the lady had been asking for also. She didn’t have a picture but she knew enough details for him to figure out who he might be.

  As for him yes, he actually knew Mr Zane. He was a regular, every Sunday for mass, and then afterwards for confession with Father Dimitri. Are you sure that's the right name I asked? Oh, yes sir. Turns out he was a quiet little guy who contributed generously to the widows and orphans’ funds, always visited one particular place out in the yard behind the church hall.

  “I working there when he come day and ask me if grave was for such and such family. I say yes and he give me money to go away while he pay respects. He say he is family from old country, wants to find his family who come here already.

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, buddy," I said, "back it up. I got the regular part. Where is St Vladimir’s. Is it near here? Do you know which hole he was looking at?"

  "Oh yes, sir," he said. "Is right down there a little. I tell lady I remember which place Mr. Zane visit. I know which one."

  "Could you show me which one? Now?"

  "Oh yes sir! You come right away, I show you. Is not far."

  "Are you sure you know which one it is?"

  "Oh yes sir! I am assistant digger man. I know where they all are. I must know, it is big place."

  "Did she know that, too? Is that what you told her? I asked, not trying to sound too interested, or scared.

  "Of course,” he nodded, "She know everything I tell you.”

  Swell. That meant she'd definitely gone to get the cavalry. It was getting long towards evening and I knew Michael he wasn’t much of a night owl. He’d get a good night’s sleep and be back at daybreak, which didn't leave me much time. This part of the hunt had to be wrapped up in one helluva hurry.

  I did have the advantage of being first on the scene and something like a twelve-hour head start, but this wasn't going to be a cakewalk. I was going to have to work pretty damn hard, pretty damn quick, and do it in the dark to boot. Maybe if I couldn't see what I was doing, then maybe grave robbing wouldn't seem that bad an idea.

  I was done with Mr. Nervous. He had no reason to lie, not with some big goon like me leaning all over him, and his Sunday dinner sticking out of his pocket. He had been paid well enough, but was it worth getting me upset over? He probably didn't think so. He was just staring at me and trying not to breathe too loud, just in case I might want to take his tongue away.

  I smiled, stuffed his money deeper into his coat pocket, took him by the arm and dragged him along. The place he pointed out was just around the corner. Another one of those million-acre collections of crosses stretching off under the trees as far as the eye could see.

  Now I should have dragged him in there with me so he could show me exactly which one. Instead I hesitated, debating whether I could actually find it on my own. That cost me, the second I let go of his arm he was long gone. Either he was more afraid of graveyards than I was, or my look was more potent than I gave it credit for.

  Now I didn't know exactly what I was going to be looking for, a full-sized grave with stone pillow, a marker with flowers, or what. But I knew what the next piece of the puzzle was. Just like last time it was a name, his name, leading off with the twenty-sixth letter of the alphabet. That’s how I’d found him in the first place, and how I was going to find him in the last place. There couldn't be all that many markers out there with a zee on them.

  What I was really looking for only one man knew, and he was long gone. He'd left all of us enough information to get us this far, and now the last laugh seemed to be his. They had gone to a lot of trouble to beat it out of him and bury him in the grave of his living room. They had cheated him out a life he had tried so hard to build and enjoy. All I’d done was ease his final moments, and get the one clue they had missed, the cross. It pointed the way, this way.

  Even in death the Zane had managed to cheat us all from his grave. Pointing the way without really pointing all the way, and then laughing at us all the way to the bank. From the beginning he’d known the value of the secret he’d been keeping. And he’d also known that his life had depended on it staying a secret. At least until he could figure out a way out of the mess it had drawn him into. And he’d almost made it.

  How he’d made it all the way out here, loot and all and undetected, was a secret all by itself. Once discovered he had been killed for it. But even at the end he had managed to keep the secret by telling one and not the other.

  CHAPTER TEN

  We had been set against each other, Michael and I, with only half the information we each needed, and not a hope in hell of sharing it. Michael was a tough customer, deadly when he had to be, which was almost always, and friendly when he wanted to be, which was almost never. He had to be laughing up his sleeve at me right about now. Watching from a distance as I raced around town, spending hi
s money on his treasure hunt for him, and solving the crime even before it had been committed.

  And yet the last laugh was going to be mine. After it was all said and done, I was still one clue and twelve hours ahead. Which means I could still do what I had always dreamed of doing, dying happy and drunk on a warm beach somewhere.

  This was gonna be good, I was going to double dip Michael. For once in his life, he was going to get a poke in the eye, both of them. I savoured that thought and stepped out into the early evening ready for anything.

  As I strolled through the grounds, a chill wind came outta nowhere and froze me to my bones. I cursed, hunched up my shoulders, and shoved my hands into my pockets. Was this Darius laughing at us, playing us for the fools we probably were. Was this really just another damn puzzle, set up to confuse me and annoy Michael. Darius had died pointing the way without really pointing the way and yet here I was.

  Hiding in the open was always the harder play to make, but it was the one thread in this whole deal that made sense. There was just one cross out there with his name on it and all I had to do was find it. And if I was really lucky, find the buried treasure before someone else found it and buried me instead. I was gonna fill my pockets with doubloons and pieces of eight, drag it home and add it to the pile under the floorboards. My but wouldn't Gran be proud of me, saving money for my old age.

  Seeing a regular cross here and there brought back a time that came to me in my dreams once in a while. Usually when I was too drunk to care, but not too tired to wake up screaming. I didn't think about the past too often, how many friends I’d lost, how many goodbyes I’d missed. The war had been the kind of experience that made men of boys and turned them into civilised killers. All nice and neat looking on a map, and even more so from behind a trench wall. But once over the top, even the bravest didn’t always come back.

  I gave my head a shake, wiped my nose on my sleeve, cracked the top of my scotch, and wandered around, keeping one eye on the road ahead. I didn't want to have an accident now that I was this close to the end. This late in the day the place was empty, no doubt even good Father Dmitri had gone home. It meant I couldn’t tear through the church registry and save myself some shoe leather, but there was nobody around to ask any stupid questions or call a cop.

  There were names here with stories to tell that no one would. Some were long, some were short, and some were actually kinda funny. Little sayings carved on them or drawn on them, and other dumb things that the dead won’t give a rat’s ass about. What did they care that you missed them now?

  I was only interested in one part about one dead guy and I didn’t miss him even a little bit. My stomach didn't mind being pickled every so often. Made it forget about the food that it needed, and that I couldn’t always afford. Somehow made me feel more spiritual, although I think it was more the hunger doing that. These days a lot of people were living on faith because it was all they had to go on. I just hoped the man upstairs understood that and was still making allowances.

  Next thing I knew, the moon had gone under some clouds, my scotch had gone under my belt, and rapidly joining them both was any hope of finding the last resting place of the Darius Zane. There weren't too many zees to cross off the list, but that was the problem, there weren't too many zees period. Lots of everything else but very few of the 26th letter. I was gonna have to go over this whole damn place with nothing more than my booze laden courage to light the way.

  Swearing replaced singing right after I figured that out. It just might take me twelve hours to find the damn thing after all. I tried crawling around, walking around all bent over, which dropped me to a crawl anyways, and feeling them all up. But unless it was wearing a bra, or glowed in the dark, I wasn't going anywhere fast. My beach began to fade into the sunset.

  My smokes were not far from joining it, when I stumbled into a new subdivision. Here the work felt and smelled a lot more recent, some of it no more than a long black heap. The stones seemed newer, the lettering sharper, and more of the words, at least the ones I could make out from an inch away, were in English. My hunch hadn't included any kind of spelling bee. I used up another of my shrinking supply of chances and staggered on.

  I didn't know it, but my body had had enough for one day, and it probably wasn't much past midnight. I couldn't exactly see, and my feet were having a hard time keeping up with the rest of me. It was straight over one heap, and then another, and then my feet connected with something solid and I went down face first.

  When I'd had enough dirt for dinner, I woke up. I wasn’t sure where I was, but I hoped that it was where I had been last seen. It took me awhile to find my feet, and make sure my body was still attached to them. After my eyes told me that up was still in the right direction, I managed a sitting position, and brushed myself off. My only good suit was not doing too well anymore, but then neither was I. Scotch, tobacco, and a long, hot, summers day had taken their toll. I had no idea how long I had been out for, but it was dark and cold

  I could barely focus in on where I was, let alone what it was that had tried to kill me. My hands told me it was a shovel, the long-handled kind that seemed to be the tool of choice for digging holes worldwide. I'd used enough of them in my time and wasn't in a hurry to start up again. Shaking my head didn't help me to see things more clearly, it just got the dirt in my hair to fall down my neck. The only other light in town now was the pain between my eyeballs, the dull, throbbing kind.

  Then the moon was back, adding to the brightness of the stars I was still seeing. I got to my feet carefully. There was nothing holding me up but the ground and I wasn’t anxious to renew the acquaintance. It had to be my lucky day or else my guardian angel was a night owl like me. I continued to stumble my way across half the homes in the neighbourhood when my feet found a basement under construction and dumped me into it.

  A rough pair of hands hauled my ass out of the hole, swearing to beat hell out of me and telling me to get lost. I was just as surprised as he was but too stunned to do much more than mumble and grumble while he tossed me around. And if that wasn't bad enough, his breathe could have melted cement. Whatever he'd eaten for dinner was stuck to his lungs like bacon flavoured wallpaper.

  One sure way to cure a burning brain is to interrupt a grave robber at midnight, especially one you know. Michael wasn't supposed to be here until daybreak but one of his goons was already hard at it. And by the looks of it, for some little time already. Guess Father Dmitri hadn’t finished his dinner.

  "Hey, hey, hey, buddy, easy on the suit. I only got one." I tried hard not to throw up.

  "Yeah, so sue me. Get outta here, ya bum, I got work to do. Go sleep it off somewhere else."

  "Okay, okay, just gimme a second. I gotta find my stuff."

  He had me by the lapels, out of the basement, and up on my feet in a heartbeat. There we were, nose to nose, bacon to booze, and a fortune in gold under our feet. Playing dumb seemed to come naturally to me. He thought so too, gave me a shove, and when I didn't move fast enough for him, gave me a kick that left me in a heap on the ground.

  "Will you get the hell outta here," he growled, bending down and going for my suit again.

  "Okay, okay, just lemme up for a minute. I gotta find my bottle." Now I wasn't about to leave this bozo alone. I'd come too far in this race to let Michael win just like that. I had to hand it to him though. Never thought he'd try to steal a march on me and send one of his boys out in the dead of night like this. Guess he was as anxious as I was.

  I crawled back over to the edge of the hole, making like I was too hurt to get up. I had to know what was in there. If he was anywhere near close to finishing.......well, I couldn't let that happen. He had a lamp on the other side of the headstone. It shed just enough light to turn the world into shadows and ghosts. Enough to show me that he hadn't found anything, and that he was alone.

  "Come on, come on, I ain't got all night", he grumbled impatiently, "Get it and get lost."

  I
pulled myself up into a sitting position and tried to fall into what he was digging but no dice. Powerful hands grabbed my lapels, yanked me to me feet, and tossed me off into the dark like yesterday’s garbage. I stumbled back into the light just as quickly, shouting some song or other. I had to see what was in the hole.

  “Aw fer crissakes, will you get outta here!” he roared. He threw down his shovel and went for me. I danced out of the way.

  “Hey hey hey buddy, what ya doin’. How ‘bout a little drink jus’ you an’ me. Got a little somethin’ right here”, and I waved my empty mickey at him. I dodged a fist aimed at my nose and then another aimed at my gut. I bobbed and weaved around the hole, desperately trying to get a look into it. I picked up his shovel on the third trip around, intending to brain him with it, but all I could manage was a half-assed line drive. He grabbed the other end.

  "Hey! Leggo,” I yelled, tugging at my end good and hard. He was bigger and heavier but I had a good grip and gave it all I had. We danced around the grave, pulling and pushing at each other like some carnival act. Having bruised ribs and a brain on fire didn’t help, it was all I could do just hang on. I went down on my knees at one point, then there was a good solid yank at the other end and I went face first into the hole. That brought an explosion of pain I could have done without, and what was left of my dinner.

  Arms like tree trunks yanked me out of the hole and stood me up straight.

  “I told ya before pal, get lost,” he growled, shaking me like a rat. He pushed me away hard this time. I staggered backwards, arms flying as I tried to keep my balance. A stone cross stopped me, letting me regain my balance. I took a deep breath and moved towards him more deliberately now, trying desperately to think of a way to slow him down. I had to see what he was doing. Which didn’t seem to bother him much until he realised his dance partner was armed. As he reached for his, I got close enough for him to get another look at me.