Ringer
Page 5
She stepped back from me. “You are cute and dangerous, aren’t you?”
“You will discuss this with Robert Tyson Grant?”
“Over dinner.”
“Ah, I see. My misfortune.”
“How so?”
“I have come all the way from La Paz and am a stranger here in New York. It would have been an honor to buy you dinner and discuss matters more pleasant than desiccated relics.”
“Slow down, cowboy.” She wagged a finger at me, but she was smiling. “Rope another calf, I’m spoken for.”
I shrugged. Never let a woman think you care.
“My error, then. As you are not wearing a ring, I would have been an idiot not to seek your company for dinner. Yes?”
Dixie laughed and began a retreat toward East End Avenue. “Enough, Morty! Save those charms for someone else. Where can I reach you?”
“I will call you tomorrow morning.”
I watched her retreat with interest, and sighed. How could I compete with Grant, a tycoon? Still, I would have to do better than Nancy.
CHAPTER
TEN
A PIZZA DELIVERY VAN IN Midland, Texas, went missing, and was later found in Fort Worth, Texas.
The same day in Fort Worth, a man was robbed of one hundred and eighty dollars by a Hispanic male wielding a hatchet. This occurred in a Waffle House bathroom.
Paco was on his way to Memphis.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
THE PICTURE WINDOWS AT MR. LEE’S on Mott Street are filled with large fish tanks glowing with goggle-eyed carp and eels ripe for the menu. You might want to have your cameras focused on the fish and then pull out to see Grant navigating the rain-slicked narrow sidewalk, his golf umbrella towering over the Asian people crowding his way. June had just begun to heat up, which brings late-day thunderstorms to New York.
Mr. Lee’s was an ideal setting for a conversation about murdering Purity. It was a noisy restaurant, and most of the Asian patrons would not understand English well enough to understand what Robert and Dixie were plotting.
We find Dixie in a booth in the corner, her shapeliness packed into a blue silk Chinese tunic and her hair piled in place with chopsticks. She was the very image of intrigue. The booth was padded in red vinyl, and lit by a single plastic Chinese lantern rigged with gold plastic dragons. She kissed Grant on the cheek as he slid into the booth across from her.
“You look gorgeous,” he said, hoping she would keep that outfit on later until he could get her alone.
Dixie merely smiled and bowed to her man like she’d seen geishas do on TV. Tokyo and Beijing were all the same to her.
The waiter appeared. “Howyoo?”
“Very good, thanks. What wine do you have?”
“Wine? All kind.”
“What do you have in a white?”
“White? Vergood. For man?”
“What Scotch do you have?”
“Scotch? Vergood.”
The waiter vanished.
Robert clasped Dixie’s hands across the table. “So you met the Mexican, the one in the white suit?”
“I did indeed.”
“He wasn’t at all what I expected.”
“I know, Robbie, he’s so … gentlemanly.”
“I would have thought that he would have looked rougher, a little more like my gardener or something. He doesn’t exactly fly under the radar, does he?”
“Well, you know, maybe he finds it easier to dress down for what he has to do, so that nobody will recognize him.”
“But he’s our man?”
“Definitely.”
“Wine!” The waiter thunked a tumbler of white in front of Dixie and thunked a tumbler of amber in front of Robert. “Scotch! Take order?”
Dixie patted her menu. “Give us a few moments, sweetie.”
The waiter vanished.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Dix?”
“Chinese?”
“No. The Mexican.”
She patted him sympathetically on the cheek. “Buttercup, we discussed this over and over. Unless Purity happens to get herself killed—and Lord knows she’s tried—there really is no other way out of your predicament. It’s intolerable. You’ve tried your best, Lord knows. She’s a disgrace and besmirches your good name.”
“Let’s not forget every time she pulls a stunt Grant Industries stocks dip.”
“How many times has she been arrested?”
“Twelve in this country. Four in Europe.”
“Rehab?”
“Six.”
“Worst of all, she’s besmirching the memory of her mother. Does such a soulless being, bereft of remorse or conscience, have a place in God’s world?”
“When people hear the name Grant, they think of Purity Grant first, not Robert Tyson Grant. Makes me look like a fool.”
“Well, it just has to be done, for you, for the stockholders, for us. I love you, Bobbie-kins, but there have been nights when you’ve been too angry about Purity to make love to me.”
Grant’s face went red at the thought of the temporary impotence he’d suffered due to Purity. “Does the Mexican know it has to look like an accident of some kind?”
“We didn’t discuss details. Yet.”
Robert replied with a confused cock of his head.
“Robbie, we only got as far as the donation.”
“Donation?”
“He’s using a charity as a dodge to make the fee look like a donation, which of course is perfect for us—the fee would look like any number of our other donations to orphanages. Only he doesn’t want money.”
Robert paled as his mind flicked through possible alternatives.
“Robbie, it’s nothing bad.” Dixie squeezed his hand, and turned it so that the buttery cross of Caravaca glimmered in the cheap Chinese lamplight. “He wants your ring.”
Grant pulled his hand away, thumbing the ring of my ancestor. “Why?”
Dixie laughed, briefly. “Robbie, who cares? You know how much money he could ask for? To take out Purity?”
“He must have said something about why he wanted it.”
“Well, darling, he had that story about an orphanage, in Mexico, and some sort of relic.”
Lightning flickered in the carp tank, the thrum of thunder in the distance.
Grant drifted back from the lamplight, his eyes glassy. “La Paz.”
At this point, our camera zooms dreamily into Grant’s eyes: La Paz, La Paz, La Paz …
From the dark mists and murk of Grant’s memory emerges the chapel tower of Nuestra Señora de Cortez against the night sky, a flash of lightning in the distance, the bells chiming midnight.
OK, so in reality the Nuestra Señora de Cortez bells stop chiming at nine, but only people in La Paz would know this. It’s much spookier with the bells chiming midnight, I think.
Inside, the chapel is alight with dripping candles, lightning flickering across the stained glass windows, illuminating the visages of dour and pious saints.
The camera looks slowly down to a heavy wooden door in the corner, which slowly croaks open to reveal eyes. The door croaks wider open, and we see that the eyes belong to two boys, one blond and thin, the other black-haired and of Spanish descent, their faces orange in the candlelight.
“Pasqual, I do not think we should do this,” the blond gulps. “Let’s get back to the room before we are discovered.”
“We are on a quest, Bobbie—do you not remember?” says the Spaniard.
“You are on a quest.”
“Yes, I am on a quest, and you said you would come to help fulfill my destiny.”
“This destiny you speak of is in your head.”
Pasqual winked at Bobbie. “You have to earn your destiny, Bobbie. Does it matter where it comes from? Come on.”
The two rascals slipped out of the doorway and ducked between two pews. Reappearing in the center aisle, the boys scampered to the altar, at the base of the pulpit.
“Thi
s is crazy, Pasqual. We’ll go to hell for this!”
“What does the church need it for? The ring will help me find my destiny, and I will help you find yours.”
Bobbie watched as the Spaniard crept up through a gauntlet of candles, toward the altar, and to the carpeted sacramental steps.
Flickering stained glass saints loomed above the boys. Candlesticks and chalices on the altar rattled from a boom of thunder as the Spaniard crept toward the sepulchral cabinet in the altar’s base.
His fingers curled into the iron rings of the cabinet door and pulled.
The cabinet doors rattled but did not budge.
Back at the base of the pulpit, Bobbie was so frightened he fought back tears.
With a bent piece of wire, Pasqual’s trembling fingers worked the ancient iron lock.
Metal clanked, and the sepulchral cabinet doors jarred open.
Thunder boomed in the distance.
Candlelight wobbled into the dark recess of the cabinet to reveal a golden box, a shimmering reliquary.
Yes, it was the humidor.
Pasqual’s face glistened with sweat. His thumb hesitantly lifted the latch on the gold box and squeaked open the reliquary.
There in the golden light of the chapel of Nuestra Señora de Cortez, the boy beheld the stinky brown finger of Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra with the golden Hapsburg ring of Caravaca nestled in the humidor.
“Destino ganado!” Pasqual whispered.
Subtitle: “Earn destiny.”
In the distance, there was a creak, a clang, and then footsteps.
Pasqual’s eyes went wide.
“Someone’s coming!” Bobbie squeaked, his face white as a sacramental cassock. “Hurry!”
Pasqual tossed the box back into the cabinet, folded the sepulchral cabinet doors closed, and scuttled back to his blond friend.
Footsteps approached, growing louder.
The boys darted out the door through which they had come.
On the opposite side of the chapel, a similar door opened. An old, stooped friar entered, closed the door behind him, and with obvious pain knelt to pray at the altar steps.
Thunder boomed.
A wind blew through the chapel, the candles flickering.
The unlocked doors to the sepulchral cabinet creaked slowly open.
The friar raised his gaze from his clasped hands to the sepulchral cabinet, eyes widening.
The golden reliquary humidor slid from its shelf, hit the carpet, and bounced down the altar ledge. At the marble floor, it popped open.
The shriveled brown finger of Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra skittered across the marble and rolled to a stop in front of the friar.
Without the Hapsburg Caravaca ring.
So how’s that for screenwriting? I believe the screenwriting manual has assisted me in providing cinematic drama to my story. To be brutally honest, if I weren’t dying soon, I would head to Hollywood, lock, stock, and barrel. Now get a load of this transition; I seriously doubt Sergio Leone could have done it better.
The amazed eyes of the friar, alight with chapel candles and flickering lightning, become the eyes of Robert Tyson Grant by the light of the cheap Chinese lantern in Mr. Lee’s on Mott Street, the flicker of lightning in the carp tank behind him.
“Robbie, are you all right?”
Grant’s eyes focus on Dixie. “I won’t give the Mexican my ring.”
Her mouth moved, but she had no words.
“Dix, find out how much he wants, but he cannot have the ring.”
Her blue eyes were fixed on his, and they narrowed. “So now it’s my turn. Why?”
“Because the ring is mine. I earned it.”
CHAPTER
TWELVE
THE FORTUNE-TELLER HELENA WAS GLUED to Let’s See if You Can Dance on TV when there was a rap at her door. She had been so engrossed by her program, so titillated with the anticipation of Joey and Marissa’s pending tango routine, that she had forgotten to pull the shades on the shop windows. Normally she closed early for Let’s See if You Can Dance. She pushed a button on an ancient VCR, and it began to record her show.
Parting the beaded curtain into the foyer, she beheld Robert Tyson Grant and his golf umbrella at the shop door, rain pounding the sidewalk around him.
Helena flashed a wise smile and went to unlock the door.
“I was expecting you,” she said as he passed by her into the room. She sniffed. “But you stayed longer than you wanted to at the Chinese restaurant.”
Grant’s jaw dropped. “How can you know such things?”
She could know such things because the aroma of a Chinese restaurant is unmistakable, and it was on his clothing. Helena answered with a sad smile and gestured toward her parlor. “Please.”
Grant rested his umbrella against the wall and followed her through the beaded curtain. “Someone has come for the ring, Helena. I must know more about him.”
Ah, yes, this was the rich man with the ring and the Kewpie doll girlfriend.
She sat at the table, palms down on the red tablecloth. “I warned of danger. It is here. Sit.”
He sat.
“Give me your hands.”
He gave her his hands.
She clasped them between hers, eyes closed.
“Someone has come for the ring.”
“Yes!”
Often, once a customer was hooked, all she had to do was repeat what people told her in order to amaze them.
“It is important to this person, this man, and he comes from the north. No, the south. Yes, he comes from the south.” She peeked at the ring. “He has history with the ring … but you do not want him to have this ring.” Obviously whoever it was had a history with the ring, or why would he have come?
“Yes!”
“The ring, the ring … you have had it many years … and it came to you under dark circumstances.” She figured that someone, a relative perhaps, died and bequeathed it.
“Can you tell me who he is? How he knows about the ring?”
“There is a dark history with this ring. This man is part of that history, a member of your family.”
“Well…”
“No, not your family, but a place where you once lived.”
“Yes, the orphanage.”
He had just given Helena a wealth of information to build on. “You do not know this man.” If he did, he would know why he had come for the ring, wouldn’t he? “But you must know someone who does know him. At the orphanage. Yes, the orphanage!”
“Yes, the orphanage! But who? Pasqual? I haven’t seen him since La Paz.”
“The man who has come is Bolivian.” Helena watched Jeopardy! so knew some geography.
“Bolivian?”
“Yes, he is from the south, from La Paz.”
“Mexico. La Paz, Mexico.”
“Yes, of course, how silly, I am very tired … he has come from Mexico … but you knew he would come, did you not?”
“Yes! But when I asked him to come, I didn’t think he was going to ask for the ring.”
He asked the Mexican to come? “You had a business arrangement with this man. He is a contractor of some kind, a specialist…” Helena figured anybody from Mexico summoned by a rich white person had to be in the trades, maybe to stucco this rich guy’s house or something.
Grant pulled his hands away.
Aha. There was part of the story he didn’t want her to know. Must be something illegal. Drugs, maybe.
Helena smiled sadly. “The ring, which was taken under dark purpose, has brought this upon you. The ring is cursed, and now so are you. This curse has been a great burden to you.”
“A curse? You mean Purity?” Grant blinked hard a few times. “Should I give him the ring? Will that lift the curse?”
“The curse is upon you, not the ring.” Helena did not understand that Purity was a name, so was a little confused.
“So if I give him the ring, the curse will not go away? My burden will remain?”
Grant scuttled next to her. “Helena, what happened? Are you all right? Are you OK?”
Helena’s sister, Abbie, appeared in the doorway, a behemoth in a tracksuit. She held up some dried leaves in her hand. “Stand back! Back, I say!”
Grant lurched backward and found his chair.
Abbie strode forward and crumpled the leaves over her sister, chanting as the shredded bay leaves rained onto the sobbing palmist. She paused and furrowed her brow at Grant. “Have you paid?”
“No, I—”
“You must come back tomorrow. She will be better then. Pay and go.”
Grant slapped a hundred-dollar bill on the table, grabbed his umbrella, and pushed out the front door.
Helena abruptly stopped crying. “Lock the door, Abbie.”
Abbie waddled over to the door and flipped the latch. When she returned to the séance parlor, Helena was at the table lighting a cigarette. “He’s a live one.”
“So I figured. What’s the deal?”
“He’s in some sort of shady business.”
“Him? He looks rich.”
“He is, but he is also up to something and has things to hide.”
“Ah. Cursed, is he?”
“Cursed real bad.” Helena grinned.
“Like I seen him before. Famous?”
“Not TV famous. Rich famous.”
“I think I seen him on TV, Lena.”
“That would be a help if you could ID him. When I mentioned the curse, he said something about the curse being purity. That make any sense?”
“No. So if I find out who he is, I get a cut of the cure, right?”
“I always need you when someone’s got a curse, don’t I?”
“Just checking. When?”
“No date yet. I figured I play him for another office visit before we cure him.”
“Not like you to leave the afflicted strung out.”
“He’ll be back tomorrow. For sure. Like I said, he’s got it bad. See if you can figure out who he is. Maybe check the Web.”
“I was just on Facebook when you had your attack.”
“OK, then.”
“If I find out who he is, what do I get? I should get more than a small piece of the cure.”