by R. J. Jagger
Cool, cool water.
Blood was in his mouth.
The taste was strange but not necessarily bad.
He didn’t mind it.
He’d earned it.
He sat up to see how far away from the road they were, which he guessed to be fifty or sixty or seventy steps, it was hard to tell. It was close enough that someone driving past could have seen the fight if they’d looked in this direction. They might have been able to tell that one of the fighters had long hair.
He didn’t remember hearing any cars during the fight.
That was good but not conclusive.
Obviously he wasn’t focused on the road.
Right now, in any event, there were no cars around. If someone had looked over they didn’t bother to hang around.
The biker woman was still on the ground, watching him with fearful eyes.
River walked over, extended his hand and helped her up.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, and headed for the road.
She fell into step.
Then she stopped and said, “Wait a minute.”
She went back to the closest man, pulled a wallet out of his pants pocket and stuck it in hers. Then she did the same with the other one, the one with the chain. She hovered over him for a second, narrowed her eyes and then dropped a mouthful of spit onto his face.
“Okay,” she said.
16
Day One
July 21, 1952
Monday Afternoon
Wilde silently backed out of the woman’s bedroom when her thrashing and moaning got sufficiently loud, then he tiptoed down the stairs, ducked out the door and was gone.
Back at his office, he drank coffee and had a smoke.
He still needed to talk to her.
Should he head over now and knock on the door?
He pictured it.
No, she was too fresh in his mind.
He wouldn’t be able to look her in the eyes.
So now what?
He struck a match and watched the smoke snake up. The sulfur smelled like sex and was just as addicting. He lit the whole book on fire and stared at the flames. They were always the same. They were predictable.
Secret St. Rain.
Who was she behind those haunting eyes?
Suddenly the door opened and a woman walked in.
It wasn’t Secret.
It wasn’t Alabama.
It was someone Wilde didn’t know.
Their eyes locked and in that brief moment, Wilde’s life got complicated.
If Secret was yin, this woman was yang. She was just as hypnotic but in a contrasting way. Her hair was black, her skin was sun-kissed gold, her eyes were mysterious and her lips were made for one thing and one thing only. She was older than Secret, somewhere around the twenty-seven mark, four years younger than Wilde.
A perfect age, actually.
She was conservatively dressed in a crisp white blouse and a black skirt that was tight but ended slightly below her knees. Her hair was up. She wore a simple gold necklace. An image flashed in Wilde’s brain of him ripping it off and licking her neck.
“I’m London Marshall,” she said. “I’m in trouble and I’m hoping you can help.”
Wilde tapped a Camel out of the pack and held it towards her.
“No thanks,” she said.
“You don’t smoke?”
“I do, but only when I’m on fire.”
Wilde smiled, lit the stick and blew smoke.
“So what kind of trouble are you in exactly, London?”
The woman exhaled, pulled an envelope out of her purse and handed it to him.
It was too light to be money.
“This is what has me in trouble,” she said.
“This?”
“Right. Open it up and look inside.”
17
Day One
July 21, 1952
Monday Afternoon
The man fixing sandwiches at Murphy’s Deli looked sideways at Waverly when she ordered an Italian sausage and said, “Is this for Sean Waterfield?”
Yes.
It was.
“Tell him he’s lucky, this is the last one left. Tell him I could have sold it ten times but was saving it for him,” the man said.
“I will.”
“I’m Murphy,” the man said. “Sean always gives me a 2-bit tip, 4-bits when I save him the last one. Did he tell you about that?”
Waverly wrinkled her forehead.
“No.”
“He’ll confirm it when you get back,” Murphy said.
“Okay.”
“You look like you’re not so sure.”
“No, it’s okay, I trust you,” Waverly said.
Back at the office, Waterfield was nowhere to be seen so Waverly walked into the guts of the place like she owned it. He turned out to be in a corner cubical with windows on both sides, hovered over a drafting table and marking a drawing in red pencil.
“Got your food,” Waverly said.
He took the bag, set it down and said, “There’s something wrong with this. What is it?”
This referred to the drawing, which was the size of a poster board and depicted the front view of a stately columned building reminiscent of ancient Rome or Athens. At the top in perfect letters were the words, New York Museum of Modern Art.
Waterfield was right, there was something wrong.
What it was, though, eluded her.
Waterfield broke the silence. “I’m thinking that maybe the windows are maybe just a tad too small. Another possibility is that it might be better if the front stairs had a broader footprint, extending another ten feet to each side. This area up here on the upper corner might be a bit too plain but I’m not sure how to jazz it up without making it too busy.”
He pulled the sausage out, took a bite and chewed as he watched her face.
Waverly looked for what was wrong.
It wasn’t coming to her.
She pulled the change out of her pocket and handed it over. “Murphy said that was the last Italian he had and he saved it for you. He said you give him a 50-cent tip when he does that.”
Sean wrinkled his face as if bitten.
“Got me,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Murphy, he got me,” Waterfield said. “We have a little bet going. He’s winning.”
“So he was leading me on?”
Waterfield smiled.
“Yeah, but don’t worry about it,” he said. “Tell me what’s wrong with this design.”
Waverly refocused on it.
Then she said, “I guess the thing I don’t understand is that if it’s a museum of modern art, why does it look like something ancient instead of something modern?”
Waterfield hesitated.
Then he said, “It’s in the same era as the other art buildings on the same grounds. It’s meant to match.”
“There’s no law that says it has to, right?”
“If you mean zoning laws the answer is no, but the general rule is that you try to blend in new architecture with the existing architecture.”
Waverly shrugged.
“In that case you’re asking the wrong person,” she said. “I would have made it modern.”
Waterfield popped the cap off the RC, took a long noisy swallow and looked out the window as if staring at everything and nothing.
The window was open.
A pigeon landed on the ledge and strutted with an eye on Waterfield’s sandwich. He broke off a piece of bread and held it in his hand.
The bird hesitated.
Then it darted in, bagged the prize and flew off.
The corner of Waterfield’s mouth turned up ever so slightly.
“You’re a dangerous woman,” he said.
The words took Waverly by surprise.
“How am I dangerous?”
“You’re dangerous because you’ve only been here five minutes and you’ve already set this project back two month
s.”
“I did?”
“Yes, you did. And thank you for that.” He kissed her on the cheek. “I want to take you to supper tonight.”
She smiled.
“We could go to Murphy’s and stiff him on the tip,” she said. “Get even.”
“Do you see what I mean about you being a dangerous woman?”
She shrugged.
“I won’t deny it.”
18
Day One
July 21, 1952
Monday Afternoon
The two dead bikers posed a problem, and so did the third one-the live one-for that matter. River didn’t want to be a person of interest in the killings even though everything he did was in self-defense. He didn’t want the cops snooping around in one part of his life where they might accidentally stumble on another part. Equally important, he didn’t want to be associated with that particular corner of the universe. He still wanted to use the graveyard tonight and needed to keep his name a hundred miles away from it.
The biker woman could ruin everything.
She could go to the cops.
Ordinarily he wouldn’t be too concerned about it, but he’d punched her in the face and killed her boyfriend. She might seek revenge any way she could.
More to the point, she might bring a gang back to hunt him down.
He could eliminate that problem by killing her.
Instead he decided to keep her close until he could get a better read.
As they walked back to the road he said, “You got a name?”
She did.
“Tatt.”
“I’m not talking about that,” River said. “I’m talking about a real name.”
“That is a real name,” she said.
River shook his head.
“I’m not calling you Tatt,” he said. “From now on until you answer my question, your name’s Susan.”
“What’s it matter? You’re going to kill me anyway.”
“I’ll be honest,” River said. “That’s going to be up to you.”
The next hour was busy. They drove the choppers three miles down the road and into the terrain on the opposite side of the road where they couldn’t be seen from the asphalt in a hundred years.
No one saw them.
They walked back.
A few cars passed and a few startled heads turned at the sight of people out in the middle of nowhere on foot, but no one stopped.
Now they needed to bury the bodies.
That was a problem.
River opened the trunk and found nothing even remotely capable of digging except perhaps a tire iron.
He closed the lid, opened the passenger door for the woman and said, “Get in.”
“Where we going?”
“To my place.”
Underway, he lit two cigarettes, handed one to the woman and said, “Thanks for not darting off on the bike.”
“It’s not like I had a choice.”
“Sure you did,” he said. “You could have made a break for it.”
She flicked ashes out the window.
“You had the faster bike,” she said. “We both knew that.”
River smiled.
“You’re smarter than I thought.”
“Tell me something,” she said. “If I would have made a break for it, would you have killed me?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”
She nodded.
“Fair enough.”
River took a long drag, blew smoke and said, “The more I think about it, we’ll bury them tonight after dark. You never told me which one of them you were with.”
“The asshole.”
“The one with the chain?”
“Yeah, him.” A pause, then she said, “My name’s January, if you’re still interested.”
River looked over to see if she was messing with him.
“January? Like the month?”
Right.
That.
“January James,” she said. “You can call me Susan though if you want.”
“January’s fine,” River said. “Actually, I like it.”
19
Day One
July 21, 1952
Monday Afternoon
Wilde took another look at the mysterious woman and got pulled into her eyes momentarily before he broke away and opened the envelope. Inside was a wrinkled, dirty piece of paper. He unfolded it and found some kind of handwritten picture.
“What is it?”
“It’s a map.”
“A map to what?”
“To tombs.”
“Tombs?”
Right.
Tombs.
“Where’d you get it?”
The woman spotted the coffee pot on the credenza and said, “Can I buy a cup?”
Wilde got her fixed up. She took a noisy sip and said, “What do you know about the pyramids in Mexico?”
“I thought the pyramids were in Egypt.”
“They are, but there are some in Mexico too,” she said. “There was a civilization that lived in central Mexico, about twemty-five miles from where Mexico City is located today. The best guess is that it began somewhere around 200 BC and ended in the 7th or 8th century, meaning it was around for almost a thousand years. Who they were remains one of the biggest archeological mysteries today.”
“How do you know all this? Are you an archeologist?”
“Not officially,” she said. “Officially I’m a lawyer here in Denver. I work at Colder amp; Jones.”
Wilde nodded.
He’d heard of them.
They were one of the bigger firms in Denver with offices on the upper half of the Daniels amp; Fisher Tower over on 16th Street.
That meant she had money.
She could afford his services.
“Unofficially,” she added, “I dabble with the ruins down in Mexico. I don’t have any official archeological training but I tag along with whoever will have me. I’ve spent two or three months a year down there for the last four years. The site itself is enormous and largely unexplored, even to this day. There are two large pyramids. One’s called the Pyramid of the Sun and the other’s called the Pyramid of the Moon. They’re located some distance apart. Running between them is a long street, for lack of a better name, that’s called the Avenue of the Dead. There are a number of structures on that street and, indeed, structures emanate out in all directions for some distance. It’s probably the biggest archeological site in the world and 90 percent of it is still virgin. Most structures have yet to be entered.”
“Interesting.”
“They call it Teotihuacan. Can I have some more coffee?”
Sure.
No problem.
Wilde liked her voice. Every sentence was a melody, every word a note. The movement of her lips was pure sex.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and conclude that this map has something to do with that archeological site,” Wilde said.
London smiled.
“Good limb climbing,” she said. “Like I said before, almost nothing is known about this civilization. The biggest mystery of all is what brought it to an end. We do know that almost every prominent wooden structure was burned to the ground. Some think the city was conquered and burned down by enemies. Others think that the lower class got repressed to the point of revolution and burned down their repressors. Still others think that it was nothing more than an accidental fire that spread from building to building. No one really knows.”
Wilde lit a cigarette.
“This is actually sort of interesting,” he said.
“When you really get into it it’s absolutely fascinating,” London said. “In a very slow kind of a way, but fascinating nonetheless. Last year, they began to work into the interior of one of the pyramids. Not much progress has been made yet, but what they found so far was the remains of humans, together with birds in cages and various other animals in cages. The thinking is that these were all sacrifices that took
place during the construction.”
“Sacrifices for what?”
“The usual,” she said. “To the gods, whoever they were, to make the construction go smooth or whatever. Most civilizations evolving during that time frame did the same thing. The Romans and Egyptians are the best examples.”
Wilde blew smoke.
“Skulls and dead birds,” he said. “What a way to go, be sacrificed to some god who doesn’t even exist.”
London nodded.
“Exactly,” she said. “They might have been enemies who were taken prisoner. Some day it will all get figured out. Anyway, over the years I started to come up with a theory.”
“What theory is that?”
“A theory that this civilization, although it was advanced enough to flourish and exist for a long time, was still barbaric at heart,” she said. “Pyramids don’t get built because everyone thinks it would be a nice idea. They take a tremendous amount of labor. That level of labor generally means there is a lower caste of slaves. When you have that kind of social structure, that means that there’s someone at the top-a ruler, someone in the nature of a king or queen or pharaoh, one after the other, century after century.”
That made sense.
“People like that acquire wealth during their tenure,” London said. “The riches rise to the top.”
“Right.”
“Are you following me?”
He was.
He was indeed.
“When the riches rise to the top, the ruler starts to worry about the afterlife,” London said. “They want to be sure they appease the gods that are going to play a role in what happens next. That means temples and gifts and sanctuaries. We’ve seen that in Egypt in all the pyramids that have been found in the Valley of the Kings.”
“Okay.”
“Here’s the interesting thing,” London said. “This entire archeological site has almost no structures of prominence that would indicate a king or queen was buried there.”
“What about the two pyramids?”
London nodded.
“Right, we have those, but that would only account for a few, assuming there are tombs inside, which is almost certain. So, where did all the other kings get laid to rest?”
