Chase Baker and the Golden Condor: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 2)

by Vincent Zandri

  “Leslie!” I shout above the fire’s roar. “We don’t have time to wait for the fire trucks. We gotta get out now.”

  “We can’t just jump. We’ll die.”

  She’s right. We’ll smack the concrete pavement and explode like water balloons.

  I look down toward the street once more. That’s when I see it. There’s a series of balconies a couple of floors down. If we can somehow make it down to them, we’ll be safe. But how the hell can we get there without rope?

  I look to my left and see nothing but fire. I look to my right and see the same expanding fire. But at the same time, I see something else. The second set of floor-to-ceiling curtains. Miraculously, they have yet to catch fire.

  Bounding up to my feet, I go to the curtains, yank them off their hooks in one swift pull. The top portion of the fabric is on fire. But I stamp it out. As I suspected, the fabric is far too thick for me to tear into with my bare hands. I need something to at least get it started.

  Once again I pull out my pocket knife, dig out the blade, and proceed to make a cut in the top center of the long curtains.

  “Help me tear these in two.” I offer her one side of the curtain.

  Leslie goes back down onto her knees, grabs hold of a chunk of curtain.

  “Pull,” I say and together we turn one long curtain into two long sections of curtain. Then I repeat the process two more times with each separate section of curtain, making four long strips in total. That done, I tie each section of curtain to the other using secure sailor’s knots. In the end, I have about forty feet to work with, which should prove more than enough for descending two full stories.

  “I need something to tie off to.” I immediately begin looking around the fire-covered room.

  “There isn’t anything!” Leslie answers. “Chase, hurry. The heat is unbearable.”

  Wiping the sweat from my eyes, I look behind me at the broken window. It’s then I see the piece of vertical aluminum window frame.

  “That’s it,” I say, once more pulling out my .45, and shooting out a small concentrated area of glass that exists on the opposite side of the four-inch-wide piece of frame. The piece of glass disappears.

  Shoving the gun in my jacket pocket, I slide the topmost portion of curtain through the small hole in the glass and tie it off around the frame. I yank on it to make sure it’s secure and able to hold our collective body weight.

  “Let’s go!” I say, standing, the heat of the fire slapping me in the face.

  “You mean, like out the window?” Leslie swallows.

  “You got a better idea? We’re burning up.”

  Just then, a section of ceiling drops down onto the office floor, sending up an explosion of flames. Leslie screams.

  “Cover your eyes,” I insist, pulling her tight against my chest, wrapping my arms around her. Then, pushing her away, “We stay here, we die. We climb down to that balcony down below, we at least have a chance at staying alive. Take your pick.”

  She looks at me. There’s tears in her eyes. I can’t be sure if she’s crying or if the tears are the result of the fire irritating her tear ducts. Probably both.

  “We live,” she says.

  I grab hold of the curtain and position myself, posterior first, outside the window, my booted feet planted flat and securely against the stone wall like a mountain climber preparing to descend a cliff side.

  “Grab onto me, Leslie,” I shout. “Do it now!”

  She steps onto the ledge, looks down. Coming from down in Times Square, the collective roar of the crowd. We’re making quite the spectacle. Another section of ceiling drops and explodes. The wall to Leslie’s right collapses, sending a plume of fire sailing across the room. It blows Leslie into me, where she grabs hold of my chest.

  “That’s one way to get over your fear of heights,” I shout.

  “Just go!” she screams. “Before we both fall.”

  “Okay, baby, here we go!”

  Together, we begin making our slow descent, one hand-under-hand and foot-under-foot length at a time.

  “Hurry,” Leslie shouts. “I don’t think I can hang on for another second.”

  “You have to hang on, Agent. No choice.”

  An explosion comes from Leslie’s office as it reaches flashpoint. Looking up, I see the ball of flame that spews out of the opening in the glass. It’s then I know we’ve barely made it out alive. But then I can see that we’re not that lucky. The top portion of curtain-rope is on fire. It won’t take but a few seconds for the curtain to burn all the way through, sending us on a one-way ride to the pavement below.

  It’s taking all my strength, but I keep on descending past the set of windows on the thirteenth floor where a group of office workers are screaming through the glass, “You can make it! Go! Go! Go!”

  Why the hell they haven’t evacuated the building is beyond me.

  Then we make it past the glass until we reach more exterior stone wall, and finally, down onto the balcony, where Leslie and I collapse onto one another, the now burnt-through curtain separating from the window frame above, floating down upon us, gently covering our bodies like a blanket I might lay out over my daughter before kissing her goodnight.

  “I’d forgotten how much fun sex can be with you, Chase,” she exhales after a time.

  “I always make a point of pleasing my agent.”

  Just then, the sound of fire engines. Finally.

  “’Bout time,” Leslie says. “This is for saving my life, Chase Baker.” She leans over me, plants a big wet kiss on my parched lips. The doors behind us slide open and a team of reporters begin flashing away. Behind them comes a team of firemen.

  “Get back!” they shout. “These people are injured.”

  Leslie pulls herself off of me, holds up the hand that houses her engagement ring as if to say, “Don’t shoot!”

  “Hope the gynie isn’t paying attention to the live news at noon,” I say.

  “The news is always on in his office,” she says with a smirk. “Oh well, shouldn’t come as a shock to him that he’s not the only one who gets to play around.”

  “Looks like you’re still not the marrying kind. We have that in common.”

  “Wish we didn’t have it in common.”

  “Look at it this way. You would’ve been bored spending the rest of your life in the lap of luxury.”

  But Leslie doesn’t laugh as the fireman helps her up off the balcony floor and leads her into the safety of the building. A hot New York literary agent who’s just lost her business and her cheating beau in the time it takes to read The End.

  2.

  Leslie and I are stuffed into the back of an EMT van which is headed to the nearest medical center. She sits directly across from me, looking more dejected than injured, elbows planted on her knees, her face propped up by her hands, her multi-carat engagement ring sparkling in the brilliant sunlight that, on occasion, shines through the windows, bathing the back bay in late spring’s radiant warmth.

  “So much for the Leslie Singer Literary Agency,” she laments into her hands, her eyes now gazing down at her bare feet, neither her sexy black pumps nor her sheer, dark, thigh-high stockings having survived the fire. “I should have never allowed you to light up.”

  “Come on, that’s no way to talk. You’re the hottest agent in town. You’re friends with the famous.” I smile for effect. “Plus, you must be insured. You might end up making a profit in the end.”

  She doesn’t look up. She doesn’t move.

  “Leslie,” I say, as my smile dissolves. “You are insured, right? The Bertelsmann boys would never give you a lease without the proper insurance in place. I mean, I guess I never should have set a lit cigar down on the edge of your desk. At least, not immediately prior to engaging in wild sex atop it.”

  She’s not moving, her eyes still locked on the top of her red, pedicured toes.

  “You’ve got to keep up with your payments in order to be insured, Chase,” she mumbles into her h
ands. “I’ve been walking a financial tightrope for ages now. Why do you think I’ve stayed engaged to a cheating fiancé for all these months?”

  My heart aches for my agent.

  “Do I get to ask why you didn’t bother to pay your insurance payments?”

  She looks up at me with her big, brown eyes.

  “You have to be flush to do that.”

  “Leslie, you’re one of the hottest agents in the business.”

  “Correction. Was one of the hottest agents in the business.”

  “I don’t get it. What gives?”

  “Take a look outside the window.”

  I shift in my seat so that I can look outside the side-panel window onto the many stores, eateries, bodegas, bars, and more that make up the pumping heart of mid-town Manhattan.

  “Keep your eyes glued,” she insists.

  “Okay, what exactly am I looking at?”

  “Keep looking. I’ll tell you when we come to it.”

  The EMT van travels a full stop-and-go minute before my neck starts to ache. I turn back to her, pulling up the collar on my bush jacket, making sure it’s buttoned, wishing my black T-shirt had made it through the fire unscathed.

  “Give it to me straight, Agent.”

  “You happen to see a single bookstore while you were looking out the window?”

  “Come to think of it. Not a one.”

  “Ten years ago you couldn’t go half a block without seeing a bookstore, or a record store, or a video store. Sometimes you’d find all three times two on a single block. Now they are all as rare as a hailstorms. Maybe rarer.”

  Her words are like a light slap to my forehead. Why, as a writer, have I never noticed this rather sad phenomenon before now?

  “Jeez, Leslie,” I say. “You’re right.”

  “Writers are dropping agents faster than landlords are cancelling the unpaid leases on independent bookstores.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s the digital age, Chase. Writers, songwriters, filmmakers, even video game designers are all DIYing it now. Cutting out the publishers altogether. And when the publishers get cut out of the loop, guess who quickly becomes an anachronism?”

  “The deal-making literary agent.”

  “Exactly. Listen, I’m not saying I’m not making a living. But I’ve got a half dozen young ladies in my office who depend upon me. So when it comes to payday, I can either make out their paychecks or pay the insurance.”

  “You choose to pay them first. Why not cut down on staff?”

  She purses her lips, glances down at her feet. “My heart goes out to them.”

  “Well, one thing’s for sure, Sister Mary Leslie, you’ve got a heart of gold, but you’re a shitty businesswoman. Do yourself a favor. Marry the rich gynie, even if he does dip his wick elsewhere.”

  “Thanks for the shitty advice. But it’s a moot point anyway. I just got snagged kissing you on a balcony. The headline is probably all over Manhattan by now: Famous literary agent and famous writer nearly burn to death while getting laid.”

  We come to a sudden, jarring stop. The driver lays on his horn, then hits the sirens, then hits the horn again.

  “Hell is going on?” I say, sliding out of my seat and opening the back bay door. I step out onto the shiny steel back bumper and make a quick survey of the situation. Up ahead on the narrow side street, a garbage truck is blocking all vehicular traffic.

  “Thank God neither one of us is dying,” I whisper, patting the Peru letter that’s still stuffed in my chest pocket with my hand. Then, poking my head inside, “This is where I get off, Leslie.”

  I jump off the bumper, careful not to land on the front fender of the yellow cab that’s pulled up on our tail.

  “Chase,” Leslie shouts. “What the hell are you doing? The hospital. We need to be checked out for injuries.”

  “I’m fine. Besides, I’ve got work to do. You said it yourself. It’s either pull the typewriter back out or make a dismal return to sandhogging. Time to write another book.” Once more slapping my chest pocket. “Who knows, this letter in my pocket might just hold the secret plot to my next bestselling novel. Or at the very least …”

  I’d finish my sentence if only the cabbie pulled up onto the EMT van’s tail doesn’t lay on his horn.

  “Jesus,” I shout, as I turn, pull out my .45, aim it at the windshield of the yellow cab. The turban-wearing cabbie goes wide-eyed, holds up his hands in surrender. Then, turning back to Leslie, I stuff the gun back into my pocket.

  “Or at the very least what, Chase?”

  “Or at the very least, it might hold the secret to my future fortune and fame.”

  Shutting the bay door, I hop onto the cab’s hood and make a flying leap onto the sidewalk.

  Chase Baker, superhero.

  3.

  Taking it double-time in the direction of downtown, I slip into a bodega where I purchase a black T-shirt that has the words NEW YORK CITY printed on the front in bright white letters. I pay the exorbitant twenty-five-dollar fee, then redress myself right on the spot, the Chinese vendor standing behind the counter shaking his head the entire time.

  “What’s the matter?” I say. “Never seen a grown man get dressed before?”

  “No dress in public,” he says in his heavily accented voice. “If you do that in my country, you get arrested.”

  “Welcome to New York,” I say. “Anything goes.”

  I head back out of the store and continue toward downtown on foot. For a brief moment, I consider heading straight for Gramercy Park, where Ava lives with her mom and stepdad. But then just as quickly it dawns on me that she’s still in school. I am, however, hungry. And when I spot a familiar corner diner I head inside, plant myself on a free stool at the counter, and order coffee, a plate of eggs over easy, and an order of lightly buttered wheat toast.

  “What, no home fries?” says the tough, salt-and-pepper-haired waitress.

  “No home fries.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause they suck.”

  She cracks a hint of a smile and leaves.

  When she comes back with the coffee, she flips over my coffee mug and pours me a fresh cup. At the same time, I reach into my chest pocket, pull out the letter, set it down onto the counter beside the white coffee mug. Sipping my hot coffee, I stare at the address while trying to think about who I know down in Lima. I’ve been to Peru twice, both times as a sandhog. The first time, I was barely out of college and working for my dad’s excavation company. The second time I was working for myself.

  On the first dig we were going after a large dish supposedly made of solid gold and decorated with a thousand precious jewels including a blue diamond. Legend had it that the dish had been shipped over from Spain along with Pizarro and countless other treasures. The dish was said to be hidden somewhere in the depths of the Cuzco Cathedral.

  We never did find the precious treasure, even after a full week of government-supervised digging. What we did find was a firefight in the form of some local Incan bandits who subscribed to both the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and the pro-Cuban Shining Path Movement. One late afternoon as we were packing it in, the terrorists invaded the site, guns ablazin’ and MRTA bandannas wrapped around their faces. Turns out they were hoping to steal the priceless object for their own as payback for the Spanish conquistadors who unrightfully invaded Peruvian soil from the Incans while raping the women and pillaging the homes. As luck would have it, no one was killed, but the conflict was enough for the government to shut us down and send my dad and his crews packing back up to the US.

  The second time I went to Peru to dig, the MRTA and the Shining Path were all but history thanks to new, stricter Peruvian anti-terrorism laws. Our mission at the time was to unearth the many mummified remains that were slowly being exposed due to the hastily retreating glaciers in the Andes Mountains.

  I personally excavated a girl of about fifteen who had been brought up to the mountain by a local priest and her pa
rents in order to offer her body and blood as a sacrifice to the Gods. When I removed the lid of the heavily constructed straw basket, she revealed herself to be a beautiful young woman with thick, dark, braided hair, rich olive skin, big eyes, round face, and luscious lips. She was wearing traditional colorful robes and fur, lace-up boots. In one hand she held a bag of coca leaves and in the other, a bundle of flowers, the petals of which were still attached to the stems. After careful examination we could see that she’d been hit on the back of the head with a blunt object in order to render her unconscious. She was then left out in the elements to freeze to death. I recall shedding a tear as we loaded her tiny, but near perfect, six-hundred-year-old body onto a truck bound for the Cuzco museum.

  Even with having worked those two sites in and around Cuzco and Lima, I still can’t recall anyone I know well enough to be sending me a personal letter. That said, I steal another sip of coffee and decide once and for all to cut to the chase. Using the butter knife as a letter opener, I slide the blade inside the glued flap and slice it open. Setting the knife back down, I pull out the single piece of letterhead, the name Peter C. Keogh III gracing the top.

  I look at the words written on the plain white, expensive stock.

  “Meet me at JFK International for drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Gate 14B. Four o’clock. Don’t worry about finding me. We’ll find you.”

  It’s signed PCK III.

  My food arrives. The waitress sets it down, asks me if I need ketchup for the home fries.

  “I didn’t order home fries.”

  The waitress shoves a little pencil behind her ear, says, “Consider the home fries on the house. Now you want ketchup or not?”

  “Sure, seeing as they’re on the house and all.”

  “Everybody thinks they’re Jim Carrey,” she says, grabbing hold of a fire engine red squeezable ketchup bottle and slapping it down in front of me. “Bon appétit.”

  She walks away. Cutting a piece of egg and hot smooth yolk with my fork, I then set it onto the triangular edge of buttered wheat toast. Raising the toast to my mouth, I bite it off. The eggs are hot and delicious. I guess I should be nicer to the waitress.