Artifacts

by Bailey Bradford

  “It seems a good idea, but shouldn’t we involve the police?” Jonas asked.

  “We tried that and got nowhere.” Aldric swallowed. That sentence was a good description of what had happened between him and Darrell. “So let’s try again, and this time do better.”

  “If you’re absolutely sure,” Elliot said slowly.

  Aldric wasn’t, but he nodded anyway. “Let’s do this.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You’re great for business!” Enzo, the owner of the Spectrum Art Space, told Elliot, clapping him on the back later that afternoon and beaming at all the visitors wandering around the artifacts that Aldric, Jonas and Elliot had laid out.

  “Oh, I think business is good here as a rule. This static display of old trinkets is nothing in the grand scheme of things, which is why I very much appreciate you ceding us this hall,” Elliot replied to his friend.

  Aldric had supposed a gallery or art space owner would be older, and more of a businessman, like Elliot, especially with him being a buddy and the only reason they’d been given a venue for their pop-up exhibition. Or that he’d be wearing a suit and have a quiet, soft manner, like the curators Aldric had seen at the museum. Instead, the man had the ponytail, goatee and small rectangular glasses of a hipster, and the enthusiasm and energy of a middle-schooler.

  The space, part of the first floor of the Navarro Building downtown, was just as fashionable, with its different rooms showing a variety of exhibitions and displays, from immersive and experiential art to interactive installations, mostly by local artists and collectives. “The whole Spectrum,” as Enzo put it, making the reason for the choice of name clear.

  Aldric barely knew what the words meant or even if these fields of art were very different, and despite having taken quick peeps into the other rooms, with their neon lights and experimental music, was still not much the wiser. He could have spent longer in each space and had Enzo or even the artists themselves show him around. The multi-location virtual walk through an alternative San Antonio looked very interesting, if puzzling, but Aldric wouldn’t leave the Intrinsic Value artifacts display for long. He kept his eyes glued to the table in the middle of their room, the one holding the hexagonal box.

  Elliot touched his arm. “You can take a break, Aldric. We do have others to watch the items.”

  Aldric still couldn’t believe Elliot had hired a security guard to escort them from the store to the gallery when they’d conveyed the artifacts earlier, or that the same guard was here now, standing out like a sore thumb amid the much more colorfully dressed and animated visitors.

  “Is this how rock stars feel?” he’d asked, bemused, when he and Jonas had arrived with their boxes. By no means a confident, at-ease person, he’d been more watchful since the attack in the alley and the attempt on him at the mission. The idea that there could be someone lying in wait made him shiver. This is your idea, remember? he’d told himself both on arrival and at intervals throughout the afternoon, whenever he’d felt any prickle of suspicion or warning.

  “No. Thank you, but I’d rather stay,” Aldric replied to his employer. “After all, this was my doing. Well, my idea.”

  He couldn’t claim any credit for putting on the exhibition or drumming up the publicity for it that had attracted the steady trickle of visitors. He just hoped Elliot hadn’t had to spend too much money to get ads on the local radio to get the news out. Word of mouth had contributed as well, he supposed. There’d been people calling into Intrinsic Value since midday, curious to ask them about the ‘haunted’ or ‘cursed’ objects.

  The three of them had come up with the tale that accompanied the announcement of the one-time-only exhibition, and it seemed to have captured people’s imaginations. Elliot had been strict about them not using any untruths that they didn’t have to in their advertising of the event, and they’d only told one, but the description of the incidents surrounding the artifacts was gripping. Aldric felt sorry that Randa Buckman had been dragged into it—not just mentioned by name, as the widow of the deceased owner, but that a couple of reporters had tried to reach her too, to add to the story.

  “So it’s kinda like when they opened Tutankhamun’s tomb?” a woman was asking now, pointing at the boxes. “Only in this case, not disturbing the possessions but separating the owner from them unleashed the curse?”

  “It’s one theory,” Elliot agreed, his more formal, correct tone making the woman’s enthusiasm sound more breathless.

  “And does the buyer they’re going to know about it?” asked her friend. “Or is that why he wants them? He collects macabre stuff?”

  “What makes you think it’s a he?” Aldric put in. This was the one thing they’d invented, that the goods were being shipped out of state first thing tomorrow, to a collector of curios who’d bought the whole lot. Aldric, thinking of Buck’s widow and how she’d cried on the phone the other day, had left a message at the Buckman estate telling her about the exhibition in case she hadn’t caught the announcements. She hadn’t been available to him or to give any comments to any reporters or journalists, so she might have been away. Her assistant had promised to pass his message on, however, and this way, she’d have another chance to see the items.

  “It’s good to see you interacting with people like that.” Elliot smiled at Aldric. “When you first started at Intrinsic Value, you were rather diffident at dealing with customers, remember? I recall you blushing and stammering when you tried to reply to questions about an item or its price, or even asking the customer to wait until I or Jonas were free to attend to them.”

  “And look at you now,” Jonas agreed. “You even gave a mini-interview to those high school kids wanting to include this in their assignment!”

  “Well, someone had to,” Aldric joked. Elliot didn’t like the limelight. When they’d been planning earlier, Jonas had suggested Elliot feature in the short video announcement about the Buckman acquisitions exhibition that they were putting on the store’s website and sending to customers via email, among other things, but he’d refused. He didn’t like having his photograph taken. Aldric didn’t know why, when Elliot was so distinguished-looking.

  He thought about what Elliot and Jonas had just said. It was true that Aldric felt more at ease than he used to, more comfortable not just in his skin, but about taking up space in the world. He was a determined person who could fight, despite the occasional stutter on his lips, the thudding of his heart or the shakiness in his limbs, when it came to something he really wanted.

  Something like Darrell. He’d put his foot down there and stood up for himself, because he wanted all of Darrell, and not just the bits Darrell gave him behind closed doors. And if that means I end up with no part of him at all? Well, tough. The thought was bleak and cold, but he’d have to live with it, and surely the feeling of loss that wanted to open up like a sinkhole at his feet and engulf him would lessen in time. Right?

  He wished Darrell were there, were with him on this, though. He held in a snort of laughter, imagining Darrell at this place, taking in the different exhibitions. He’d never seen Darrell at the gym but imagined him in that sort of setting, his biceps flexing as he worked with weights, or his lean glutes contracting and lengthening as he did squats. Darrell was proficient with a firearm too. Aldric had read the write-up about the recent Mafia arrests and the police officers’ roles in it, rereading the description of how quickly Officer Williams had drawn his weapon. It gave Aldric more fodder for his fantasies, picturing Darrell at the gun range. He tried hard not to think that fantasies were all he’d be left with, if Darrell remained closeted and never came out.

  Oh. Thinking about Darrell and the police had given him an idea. “Elliot.” He spoke quietly to avoid being overheard. “Instead of me having a break, what if we gave the security guard one?”

  “He’s due for one,” Elliot agreed. “Ah. I think I see what you’re getting at. That while the cat’s away, the mice…how shall I put it…might pounce.”

&nbs
p; It wasn’t that amusing, and the situation was far from a joke, but Elliot’s silly words brought a smile to Aldric’s face and he nodded. The tall, square-shouldered guard no longer being in the room changed the atmosphere, making Aldric edgy. Now, everyone approaching the collection of knickknacks, from cynical teenagers to curious adults, was a potential threat, and within five minutes, Aldric’s tense shoulders were aching.

  But nothing happened.

  Elliot looked paler and more drawn as the evening went on, and Aldric felt guilty and foolish. He caught the yawn Elliot tried to conceal and saw Jonas sneak more than one look at his watch. The foot traffic died off in their exhibition hall and the art space as a whole, the place becoming quieter.

  “Guys.” Enzo stood there. “We’re not far from closing time.”

  And we have nothing to show for it. “I’m really sorry,” Aldric started, and Elliot shook his head.

  “It was a good idea. Just because nothing came of it doesn’t negate that. At the very least, we had some publicity for the store. I anticipate a good number of walk-ins as a result of this. Curiosity is a great motivator.”

  “Thank you. Look, I’m happy to pack away if you two want to go?” Aldric offered. It was the least he could do.

  “If you’re sure?” Elliot beckoned the guard over. “I feel relatively easy about it, as you’ll have Mr. Smith here standing watch.” He checked that the man knew his instructions for removal and transport of the items.

  “Well, see you tomorrow,” Jonas said, as he too took his leave. “Sorry it didn’t work out, Aldric.”

  It didn’t take long to clear away the curios. It wasn’t as though each had to be carefully packaged in bubble wrap and nestled into its own box that was then filled with packing peanuts. Mr. Smith, if that was his real name, helped, and even let Aldric sit up front with him in the van he was driving to transport the goods to Elliot’s safe deposit place.

  Downtown was lively and loud, and Aldric realized they were just north of it, in the ‘gayborhood’, when he saw two guys walking along holding hands, one pointing toward a bar and his slighter taller boyfriend shaking his head and indicating another, across the street. Aldric wondered who won and thought they probably both had. This was Darrell’s neighborhood. He must go to the bars and clubs around here, hooking up—and discarding. Aldric turned away from the window. He didn’t go to this area much and now he’d make sure he came even less.

  They drove through the city in silence until they were out of the downtown area.

  “These antiques. Artifacts. Goods. I’d have thought they’d be in a bank vault, or somewhere…not here,” the guard said as they arrived off San Antonio’s north side, before the Hill Country. He spared a glance for his passenger. “You do know it’s kind of isolated out here, right?”

  Even if he hadn’t, he could have worked it out, but Aldric just shrugged. “As long as the place is secure.” He hoped it was, because, for him, the evening wasn’t over. “Nothing came of it.” “It didn’t work out.” Elliot’s and Jonas’ words replayed in his head, and Aldric added ‘Yet,’ to them, because he still had plans.

  Shrugging, the guard pulled into the dirt lot in front of the building. Aldric hadn’t known what to expect of a safety deposit facility, his imagination veering from a state-of-the-art fortress with crisscrossing laser beams to a row of self-storage units in a yard behind a metal gate. This was big and looked like a warehouse. There were only a couple of other vehicles in the shadowy lot, at the back where employees would park.

  “Thanks,” Aldric said when Mr. Smith took most of the artifacts from the van. He juggled his armful of stuff with the main door keycard and pad to enter the code. He’d memorized it along with the one he’d need for the Intrinsic Value room, when he found it. Mr. Smith scanned the barely lit foyer inside.

  “Should be a guard,” he commented, pointing a foot at the desk and chair.

  “He must be on his rounds?”

  The twist to his companion’s lips suggested the guard was making use of a more comfortable chair somewhere. Aldric had worked night shifts along with day shifts and had used the former to catch up on sleep, for all he should have been busy. Someone to show them to the depository would have been useful, and someone to turn on the lights even more so.

  Elliot’s storage room, when they found it, was bigger than Aldric had expected. It had two or three shelves on each of its three walls, running most of their length, and high steel shelving units were fitted across the room in tiers, leaving narrow aisles between each one. They reminded Aldric of library stacks. He’d been in nearly empty libraries, when sounds were amplified and echoed, but none had been this cold or this creepy, making him shiver on entry.

  “Thanks. I have to unpack these and, erm, catalog them,” he told Mr. Smith, hoping the guy wouldn’t ask how or why, or worse, what were the mysterious-looking shrouded objects on the higher stacks. “Mr. Douglas doesn’t expect you to wait. Thanks again.” He nodded when the man asked him if he had his own transport. Saying nothing isn’t telling a lie.

  It got colder and darker and much more frightening once he was alone, the door closed via the keypad, sealing him in the windowless space. Every squeak and scurry had him tense and every rustle and thump made him retreat behind another row. This was stupid, just like his other idea had been stupid. He glared at Buck Buckman’s former possessions where he’d arranged them on a side shelf, spread out in a long row from the middle to stretch to the back of the room. He’d become obsessed with these puzzle boxes ever since he’d been attacked. A natural reaction, maybe, but stupid. No one was coming.

  Or so he told himself until he couldn’t anymore, because the metallic noise had been the main door opening, the short thumps had been footsteps and the rattling at the depository door was someone trying to open it. Aldric grabbed a lamp base to use as a weapon and stood to the side. When the metal door rattled in its frame, the result of whoever was outside trying to force it open, Aldric, his heart thumping like a kettledrum, hit the command on the keypad to open the door. Hoping for the element of surprise, he raised his weapon, prepared to hit whoever was breaking in over the head, only for his hands to freeze near his shoulder.

  “Darrell?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Aldric! He’d been right. Darrell lowered his gun but didn’t holster it. He pushed himself inside the lock-room, taking Aldric with him. “How does this door lock?” he snapped, relief making him brittle. He’d been thinking about Aldric, and him and Aldric, and him without Aldric, almost constantly. And yet now that he was here, in front of Darrell, Darrell was still groping his way through the mental fog of the last twelve hours. “Well?”

  Wordlessly, Aldric reached for a button on the keypad and the door jerked sideways from the frame, closing the entrance to the room.

  “Before you ask me how I’m here, I heard it on the news. There was no one at the gallery place mentioned and the store was deserted, and when they said the goods would be kept at a safety deposit for one night, I remembered Elliot mentioning the place. So I knew you’d be here.” Darrell hated that he was still speaking in short, jerky sentences and that what they were here for had nothing to do with his feelings, with the things he knew he had to talk about. Or perhaps it does, in some ways.

  Working out what Aldric had planned had put years on Darrell. He had no idea how Aldric and the rest of the Intrinsic Value people had been able to organize this so quickly, but they had. “‘Are you brave enough to brave a curse?’” he quoted, mimicking the inane blonde newsreader.

  “How did you get in?” Aldric asked.

  “The guard’s mooching around the parking lot and all it took was a flash of my badge. He told me which unit.” Darrell slid his gun into the holster at the small of his back and wiped his hand across his mouth. He hadn’t realized how scared he’d been until he’d caught sight of Aldric’s tangle of soft brown hair and big brown eyes on the other side of the door. Had it really only been this morning that A
ldric had left him standing by the side of the road, having delivered his ultimatum? It felt a lot longer. “Why?” he asked.

  “Why this? I thought it would work. Flush Nick Buckman out.” Aldric waved a hand at the room. “It was stupid. Is that why you’re here?”

  “Nick B—?” Yeah, that wasn’t the important part of what Aldric had said. “Not because I think you’re stupid, no. You’re not. You’re very intelligent.”

  “Like, I’m the sensitive, artistic one?”

  Darrell shook his head in incomprehension. “I couldn’t let you be in danger. And not because I think you’re weak and that I’m strong.” He struggled for words, to put into speech all the things he’d been brooding on since Aldric had left him, his words hurting like blows. “Jesus, Aldric! I didn’t want to be doing this. I need more time.”

  “To string me along? Tell me that you’re working on things, that I have to be patient, to understand, to wait?”

  That would be the weak way to deal with it. “More time to get my shit together. To find the words to tell you that although we haven’t known each other long, I care about you. Very much, and…and I find you fascinating. And frustrating. And a whole bunch of other things that I have to say to you. But now, now that I’m with you, and you’re here with those big brown eyes and that stubborn jut of your chin…”

  Aldric rubbed his chin, as if testing it. “Now, what?”

  “All the thoughts left in my head about you are revolving around this.” Darrell reached out a hand to Aldric’s and slotted his fingers through Aldric’s, then held it, loosely, as if testing their fit. It was good. He squeezed, and Aldric squeezed back, the contact warming Darrell through. Darrell uncurled his fingers and steepled them, Aldric copying him, fitting his palm against Darrell’s, never breaking their bond.

  “Your thoughts are about holding hands with me?” Aldric blinked. “Like—”