The Lost Ark

by J. R. Rain

  “Yep.”

  “Were his prints on the knife?”

  “No.”

  We were sitting in an outdoor café facing the beach. It was spring, and in southern California that’s as good as summer. Many underdressed women were roller-blading, jogging or walking their dogs on the narrow beach path. There were also some men, all finely chiseled, but they were not as interesting.

  Detective Hanson was a big man, but not as big as me. He had neat brown hair parted down the middle. His thick mustache screamed cop. He wore slacks and a white shirt. He was sweating through his shirt. I was dressed in khaki shorts, a surfing T-shirt and white Vans. Coupled with my amazing tan and disarming smile, I was surprised I wasn’t more often confused with Jimmy Buffet. If Jimmy Buffet stood six foot four and weighed two hundred and twenty.

  “You guys have anything else on the kid?” I asked.

  “You know I can’t divulge that. Trial hasn’t even started. The info about the knife made it to the press long ago, so that’s a freebie for you. I can tell you this: the body was found at one a.m., although the ME places the time of death around seven p.m. the previous night.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “A neighbor.”

  “Where were the victim’s parents?”

  “Dinner and dancing. It was a Friday night.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Who doesn’t go out and dance on a Friday night?”

  “I don’t,” said Hanson.

  “Me neither,” I said. “Does Derrick have an alibi?”

  “This will cost you a tunacoda.”

  “You drive a hard bargain.”

  I called the waitress over and put in our lunch orders.

  “No alibi,” Hanson said when she had left, “but....” He let his voice trail off.

  “But you believe the kid?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. He seems like a good kid. Says he was working out at the school gym at the time.”

  “Schools have janitors, staff, students.”

  “Yeah, well, it was late and no one saw him.”

  “Or no one chose to see him.”

  Hanson shrugged.

  Our food arrived. A tunacoda for the detective. A half pound burger for me, with grilled onions and cheese, and a milkshake.

  “You trying to commit suicide?” he asked.

  “I’m bulking up,” I said.

  “This is how you bulk up? Eating crap?”

  “Only way I know how.”

  “Why?”

  “Thinking of trying out for San Diego,” I said.

  “The Chargers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about your leg?”

  “The leg’s going to be a problem.”

  He thought about that, working his way through his tuna and avocado sandwich. He took a sip from his Coke.

  “You wanna bash heads with other men and snap each other in the shower with jock straps, go right ahead.”

  “It’s not as glamorous as that.”

  “Suicide, I say. What’s your dad think?”

  “He doesn’t know. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

  “I’m honored.”

  “You should be.”

  “What’s Cindy going to say?”

  I sipped my milkshake. “She won’t like it, but she will support me. She happens to think very highly of me and my decisions.”

  He snorted and finished his sandwich, grabbed his Styrofoam cup.

  “I can’t believe I was bribed with a shitty tuna sandwich and a Coke.”

  “A simple man with simple needs.”

  “I should resent that remark, if it wasn’t so true.” He stood. “I gotta run. Good luck with the kid, but I think it’s a lost cause. Kid even has a record.”

  “What kind?”

  “Vandalism, mostly. He’s a goner. Hear they’re gonna try him as an adult.”

  Detective Hanson left with his Styrofoam cup. I noticed he wasn’t wearing socks. Even cops in Huntington Beach are cool.

  3.

  Cindy Darwin is an anthropology professor at UCI. Her expertise is in the anthropology of religion, which, she tells me, is an important aspect of anthropology. And, yes, she can trace her lineage back to Charles Darwin, which makes her a sort of icon in her field. She knows more things about anthropology than she probably should, and too few things about the real world. Maybe that’s why she keeps me around.

  It was late and we were walking hand-in-hand along the Huntington Pier. From here we could see the lights of Catalina Island, where the reclusive sorts live and travel via ferry and plane. To the north, in the far distance, we could see Long Beach glittering away. The air was cool and windy and we were dressed in light jackets and jeans. Her jeans were much snugger and more form-fitting than mine. As they should be.

  “I’m thinking of giving San Diego a call,” I said.

  “Who’s in San Diego?” she asked. She had a slightly higher pitched voice than most women. I found it endlessly sexy. She said her voice made it easier to holler across an assembly hall. Gave it more range, or something.

  I was silent. She put two and two together. She let go of my hand.

  “They call you again?” she asked. “The Rams, right?”

  “The Chargers. Christ, Cindy, your own brother plays on the team.”

  “I think it’s all sort of silly. Football, I mean. And all those silly mascots, I just don’t get it.”

  “The mascots help us boys tell the teams apart,” I said. “And, no, they didn’t call. But I’m thinking about their last offer.”

  “Honey, that was two years ago.”

  She was right. I turned them down two years ago. My leg hadn’t felt strong enough.

  “The leg’s better now,” I said.

  “Bullshit. You still limp.”

  “Not as much. And when I workout, I feel the strength again.”

  “But you still have metal pins it.”

  “Lots of players play with pins.”

  “Have you told Rob yet?” she asked. Rob was her brother, the Chargers fourth wide receiver. Rob had introduced me to Cindy during college.

  “Yes.”

  “What does he think?”

  “He thinks it’s a good idea.”

  We stopped walking and leaned over the heavy wooden rail. The air was suffused with brine and salt. Waves crashed beneath us, whitecaps glowing in the moonlight. A lifeguard Jeep was parked next to us, a quarter into the ocean on the pier. All that extra weight on the pier made me nervous.

  “Why now?” she asked finally.

  “My window is rapidly closing,” I said.

  “Not to mention you’ve always wondered if you could do it.”

  “Not to mention.”

  “And you’re frustrated out of your gourd that a fucking leg injury has prevented you from finding this out.”

  “Such language from an anthropologist.”

  She sighed and hugged me around my waist. She was exactly a foot shorter than me, which made hugging easy, and kissing difficult.

  “So what do you think?” I asked.

  “I think you’re frustrated and angry and that you need to do this.”

  “Not to mention I might just make a hell of a fullback.”

  “Is he the one who throws the ball?”

  We had gone over this precisely one hundred and two times.

  “No, but close.”

  She snuggled closer, burying her sharp chin deep into my side. It tickled. If I wasn’t so tough I would have laughed.

  “Just don’t get yourself hurt.”

  “I don’t plan to, but these things have a way of taking you by surprise.”

  “So are you really that good?” she asked, looking up at me.

  “I’m going to find out.”

  She looked away. “If you make the team, things will change.”

  I hugged her tighter. “I know.”

  4.

  I was in a conference room at the Orange County jai
l in Santa Ana, accompanied by Charley Brown’s assistant, Mary Cho. We were alone, waiting for Derrick Booker to make his grand appearance. Mary was Chinese and petite and pretty. She wore a blue power suit, with the hem just above her knees. She sat next to me, and from our close proximity I had a clear view of her knees. Nice knees. Cho was probably still a law student. Probably worked out a whole lot. Seemed a little uptight, but nothing a little alcohol couldn’t fix. Was probably a little tigress in bed. She wasn’t much of a talker and seemed immune to my considerable charm. Probably because she had caught me looking at her knees.

  The heavy door with the wire window opened and Derrick was shown into the conference room by two strapping wardens. He was left alone with us, the wardens waiting just outside the door. The kid himself was manacled and hogtied. Should he make a run for it, Pope John Paul II himself could have caught him from behind.

  Mary Cho sprang to life, brightening considerably, leaning forward and gesturing to a chair opposite us.

  “Derrick, thanks for meeting us,” she said.

  He shrugged, raising his cuffed hands slightly. “As if I had anything better to do.”

  Which is what I would have said. I stifled a grin. I suspected grins were illegal in the Orange County jail. Derrick sounded white, although he tried to hide that fact with a lot of swaggering showmanship. In fact, he sounded white and rich, with a slightly arrogant lilt to his voice. He was good looking, with strong features and light brown eyes. He was tall and built like an athlete.

  “I have someone here who wants to speak with you,” said Cho.

  “Who? Whitey?”

  I raised my hand. “That would be me.”

  Derrick’s father owned lots of real estate across southern California, and Derrick himself had grown up filthy rich. He was about as far from the ghetto as you could get. Yet here he was, sounding as if he had lived the mean streets all his life. As if he had grown up in poverty, rather than experiencing the best Orange County had to offer, which is considerable. I suspected here in prison he was in survival mode, where being a wealthy black kid is as bad as being a wealthy white kid. Except that he had the jargon wrong and a few years out of date, and he still sounded upper class, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

  “My name’s Jim Knighthorse.”

  “Hey, I know you, man!”

  “Who doesn’t?” I said. “And those who don’t, should.”

  He smiled, showing a row of perfect white teeth. “How’s your leg? Saw you bust it up against Miami. Hell, I wanted to throw up.”

  “I did throw up. You play?”

  “Yeah. Running back.”

  “You any good?” I asked.

  “School is full of whities, what do you think?”

  I shrugged. “Some whities can run.”

  He grinned again. “Yeah, no shit. You could run, bro. Dad says wasn’t for your leg you’d be in the pros.”

  “Still might.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “What about the leg?” he asked.

  “We’ll see about the leg,” I said.

  We were silent. Derrick was losing the ghetto speak. His eyes had brightened considerably with the football talk. We looked at each other. Down to business.

  “You do her, Derrick?”

  “Do her?”

  “He means kill her, Derrick,” said Cho. “He’s asking if you killed Amanda Peterson.”

  “Thank you, assistant Cho,” I said, smiling at her. She looked away quickly. Clearly she didn’t trust herself around me. I looked back at Derrick. “You kill her, Derrick?”

  “Hell, no.”

  His arms flexed. Bulbous veins stood out against his forearms, disappearing up the short sleeves of his white prison attire. I could see those arms carrying a football.

  “Why should anyone believe you?” I asked.

  “Give a fuck what anyone believes.”

  “They found the knife in your car, Derrick. Her blood was on the knife. It adds up.”

  He was trying for hostile bad-ass, but he was just a kid, and eventually his emotions won out. They rippled across his expressive face, brief glimpses into his psyche: disbelief, rage, frustration. But most of all I saw sorrow. Deep sorrow.

  “Because... ” He stopped, swallowed, looked away. “Because we were going to get married.”

  “Married?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “How old was she?”

  “The same.”

  “Anyone know about the marriage?” I asked.

  He laughed hollowly. “Hell, no. Her dad hates me, and I’m sure he doesn’t think much of me now.”

  “I wouldn’t imagine he does,” I said. “You have any theories who might have killed her?”

  He hesitated. “No.”

  “Was she seeing anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “You were exclusive?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She loved me.”

  “Did you love her?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer immediately. The silence that followed was palpable. The ticking of the clock behind us accentuated the silence and gave it depth and profundity. I listened to him breathe through his mouth. The corners of his mouth were flecked with dried spittle.

  “Yeah, I loved her,” he said finally. He swiped his sleeve across his face, using a shrugging motion to compensate for his cuffed wrists. The sleeve was streaked with tears.

  “That will be enough, Mr. Knighthorse,” said Cho. “Thank you, Derrick.”

  She got up and went to the door. She knocked on the window and the two wardens entered and led the shuffling Derrick out of the room. He didn’t look back. I got up and stood by the door with Cho.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I think you’re secretly in love with me,” I said.

  “I think you’re secretly in love with yourself.”

  “It’s no secret,” I said.

  We left the conference room and moved down the purposefully bare-walled hallway. Perhaps colorful paintings would have given the accused false hope.

  “The kid didn’t do her,” I said. “No one’s that good an actor.”

  She nodded. “We know. He’s going to need your help.”

  “He’s going to need a lot of help,” I said.

  “Let me guess: and you’re the man to do it?”

  “Took the words right out of my mouth.”

  5.

  On Beach Blvd., not too far from my crime-fighting headquarters, there is a McDonald’s fast food restaurant. McDonald’s is a fairly well-known establishment here in Huntington Beach, California, although I can’t vouch for the rest of the country since I don’t get out much. This McDonald’s features an epic two- or three-story plastic playground, an ATM and DVD rentals.

  Oh, and it also features God.

  Yes, God. The Creator. The Lord Of All That Which Is And Is Not. The God of the Earth below and the sky above. The God of the Moon and the stars and Cher.

  No, I’m not high. At least, not at the moment.

  Oh, and he doesn’t like me calling him God. He prefers Jack. Yes, Jack.

  Again, I’m not high.

  Let me explain: Not too long ago, while enjoying a Big Mac or three at this very McDonald’s, a homeless man dressed in rags and smelling of an overripe dumpster sat across from me. He introduced himself as God, and later, by my third Big Mac, I almost believed him.

  God or not, he offered some pretty damn good advice that day, and I have been coming back ever since.

  Today, by my second Big Mac and third re-fill of Coke, he showed up, ambling up to the restaurant from somewhere on Beach Blvd. Where he came from, I don’t know. Where he goes, I still didn’t know. Maybe Heaven. Maybe a dumpster. Maybe both.

  As he cut across the parking lot, heading to the side entrance, I noted that his dirty jeans appeared
particularly torn on this day. Perhaps he had had a fight with the Devil earlier.

  Jack went through the door, walked up to the cashier, ordered a coffee.

  “Hi, Jim,” he said, after he had gotten his coffee. He carefully lifted the lid with very dirty fingers and blew on the steaming coffee.

  “God doesn’t like his coffee too hot?” I asked. I had been curious about this, as he always blew on his coffee.

  “No,” he said simply. God, or Jack, was an average-sized man, with average features: His hair was of average color and length (neutral brown, hanging just above his ears), his eyes of average color (brownish, although they could have been green), and his skin was of average tone (perhaps Caucasian, although he could have passed for Hispanic). In short, the man was completely nondescript and nearly invisible to the world at large. He would make a hell of a P.I., actually.

  Jack finally looked up from his coffee and studied me with his neutrally-colored eyes, squinting a little. I felt again that he was looking deep within me, into my heart and soul. While he was reading my aura, or whatever the hell it was he was doing, I looked down at his coffee: It was no longer steaming.

  “How’s your day going, Jim?” he finally asked me, sipping from the cup, using both hands, cradling the thing carefully, as if it were the Cup of Life.

  He always asked me that, and I always said, which I did now: “Fine, Jack. How’s it hanging?”

  “Some would be offended to hear you speak to God in such an irreverent, disrespectful manner.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Hell, I’m even offended. Can’t you tell?”

  He laughed softly.

  “As they say, I broke the mold with you, Jim. And they’re hanging to the left. They’re always hanging to the left. Isn’t there anything else you want to ask God?”

  “Sure,” I said. “For starters, how do I know you’re God?”

  We were mostly alone at the back of the seating area. Behind me, kids played in the massive two-story jungle gym. Such jungle gyms didn’t exist when I was kid. Lucky bastards.

  “You have faith, Jim. That’s how,” he said. He always said that to me.

  “How about for a lark you perform a miracle.”

  “You’re alive and breathing,” he said, sipping his coffee. “Isn’t that miracle enough?”