by Greg Herren
“And now you propose to drown the country in blood again.” I shook my head. “The Great Mother may be the Destroyer, but She is also the Creator. She cares not for the follies of humans, Mr. Rajneesh. She is eternal. She wants Her defilement avenged—but doesn’t care who rules Pleshiwar.”
“What do you know of the Great Mother?” he snapped.
“She has spoken to me.” I leaned forward. “I have seen Her sacred shrine in Pleshiwar. She came to me in a vision. Your mission will fail, Mr. Rajneesh.” I kept my voice steady as I formed the lie in my mind. “She told me so Herself. She has threatened to destroy the world if Her Eye is not returned. But if it is returned, She will again become Durga, the Creator, and all will be harmony.”
“Then it matters not who brings the Eye back to Pleshiwar, does it not?” His eyes burned into mine. He gestured to the paper. “Find the Eye, and bring it to me.” He slid a card across the table to me. “My number is on that card. Find the Eye, and your parents will go free. There will also be a reward.” He stood up. “Kali can be most generous when the mood strikes Her.”
He walked out of the coffee shop.
I sat there and looked at the items on the table, finally folding the paper back up and pocketing the phony eye. I walked out the back door and up the stairs. I let myself into the apartment. I could hear Frank talking on his phone in the living room. I walked in, and he gestured to me to sit down. “Okay, keep me posted,” he said into the phone and turned it off. “Well?”
“I have to find the Eye,” I said, my voice hushed. “He says he won’t harm Mom and Dad, but he won’t let them go until I do and turn it over to him.” I buried my face in my hands.
“What was in the box we found?”
“A phony stone.” I pulled it out and placed it on the table. “And this.” I tossed the paper next to it. Frank picked it up and read it. He put it back down.
“That doesn’t make any sense to me,” Frank said.
“Me, either. Where’s Colin? Or should I ask what you did with the body?”
Frank had the decency to blush. “Okay, I shouldn’t have hit him, but when he walked in, like he still lived here—I kind of lost my head.” He hung his head down. “But he went down and is following the guy you met with. He made a call, too—to the people who were supposed to be watching your parents.” He made a face. “He called them the Ninja Lesbians.”
“Oh, Rhoda and Lindy.” I picked up the paper and started reading it again. “What did they say?”
“He didn’t get them—just their voicemails.”
I looked at him. “Neither one of them answered their phones?” That wasn’t good.
“No.” He looked at me. “Seriously, Scotty? Ninja Lesbians?”
“It’s true,” I replied. “They work for the Mossad. He trained them. They’re supposed to be on our side. Israel doesn’t want terrorists having access to that uranium any more than Uncle Sam does.” I waved at the broken French doors. “They did that when they announced themselves.”
“Oh.”
My cell phone started ringing. I answered. “Hello?”
“Scotty, this is Lindy.”
I glanced at Frank. “We were just talking about you.”
“We just got Colin’s messages. But he isn’t picking up.” She went on. “His message doesn’t make any sense, Scotty. We’re watching your parents’ building right now.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” she said patiently. “I am telling you. No one has gone in or out of your parents’ apartment since we took up our positions. We are on the balcony across the street. We have a very clear view of the entrance. No one has gone in or out.”
I could feel a headache starting. “I thought you two were supposed to be crack agents,” I snapped. “Are you watching the staircase in the back?”
“Yes.”
I struggled to control my temper. “Didn’t you know there is an entrance to my parents’ apartment from inside the store?”
“Yes, Scotty, we know that,” Lindy responded. “I am telling you, your parents have not left their building. If they are being held—they are being held inside.”
“I’m on my way.” I hung up the phone. I picked up the note and folded it, placing it in my jeans pocket. “Come on, Frank. We’re going over to Mom and Dad’s.”
Frank grabbed his gun. “Let’s go.”
It was starting to get dark as we walked quickly over to the corner of Royal and Dumaine. Rhoda and Lindy were waiting for us across the street in their black outfits. I introduced them to Frank, and they quickly filled me in. They’d been in position since they’d left my apartment. Colin had instructed them to keep an eye on my parents—he was afraid the bad guys would try to use them somehow to get the Eye from us once we found it. “He didn’t tell you because he didn’t want you to worry,” Rhoda explained in her thick accent.
“I’m really really tired of not being told things for my own good,” I said, giving Frank a pointed look. He blushed. “So, you’re saying no one went in or out since you got here?”
“No,” Lindy said. “Some customers came into the store, but they were all accounted for—they all left. Your parents—we saw them right after we took up position, but we haven’t seen them since. They went up the back stairs with some bags—like they’d been shopping. No one else has gone up those stairs.”
“Then how did they get in?” I shook my head. None of this made sense.
“Over the roofs?” Frank asked.
We all looked up.
“Please tell me you watched the roofs,” I said quietly.
Rhoda and Lindy looked at each other.
The headache was coming back. “You mean to tell me,” I said, trying to keep my voice level, “that after someone killed Levi and dropped his body off of my roof, it never occurred to either of you that they might come after my parents the same way?” I wanted to scream at them.
“Of course we watched the roofs,” Rhoda said, her voice showing her offense. “No one came onto the balconies. Isn’t that the only way into their apartment from the roofs? Onto the balconies?”
I sighed. “I’m afraid not.”
“There is a door?”
“There’s a deck in the very center.” I groaned. It was in the middle of the second floor, and was completely invisible from the street. Mom had turned it into a little garden area, complete with misters for the summer since it was blocked from breezes on every side. “Didn’t Colin tell you?”
“Oh,” Lindy said softly. “We did not know.”
“If Colin didn’t tell you, it’s not your fault.” I shook my head. I’d get mad about it later. Now we had to rescue Mom and Dad. “Okay, it’s pretty safe to assume that they’re being held inside their apartment. We don’t know how many men are watching them, or how heavily armed they are.”
I pulled my phone out and looked at the image of my parents again. The chairs were pushed up against a wall. As I looked, I saw details I’d missed earlier in my shock. The chairs were from my parents’ kitchen table. The look in Mom’s eyes was pure fury. Dad just looked resigned. I felt another surge of anger.
“We can’t rule out the possibility they aren’t being held in their apartment,” Frank said. “Maybe they took them out over the roofs?”
“Only if Mom was completely unconscious. She would have fought them tooth and nail, you know that,” I disagreed, trying to think. I looked at the image again. “Besides, those are their kitchen chairs. They’re inside the apartment, all right.
“We can go up the stairs from the store,” I said. “If they didn’t search the house—and they came over the roofs—”
“Then they might think the only way in or out is the back stairs,” Frank said. “Makes sense. The door to the stairs in the hallway looks like just another door—if they didn’t look…”
“We cannot assume that.” Rhoda’s lips set in a tight line. “Assuming is the first step into the grave.”
“If they came
in over the roofs,” Lindy said, a smile starting to spread across her pretty face, “they won’t expect us to come in from the balcony.” She winked. “Rhoda and I can get up there easily.”
“Without attracting attention?”
“Posh.” She shrugged. “If someone calls the police, all the better.”
Rhoda grinned. “Yes, the plan makes sense. Lindy and I go over the balcony, we can move like ghosts—they will never hear us.”
“And Frank and I can go up the stairs.” It was starting to come together in my mind. “The shutters are all closed, but you can see through them—there’s enough room. Check all the windows and send me a text message.”
“Agreed.”
Frank and I went into the store. It was weird how normal everything in the store seemed, given that just upstairs my parents might be held hostage. Emily was working behind the counter. She looked up when the bell rang, and grinned. “Hey, guys!”
“Hey, sweetie,” I said, as Frank moved over to the door to the stairs. “Talked to Mom and Dad today?”
She shook her head. “No, but I know they’re home.” She went back to her Vanity Fair. “I’ve heard them moving around up there.”
“Great.” I unlocked the door, and Frank and I moved up the stairs in the dark. When we reached the top, we paused and listened, not hearing anything inside.
My phone vibrated. I flipped it open. The screen lit up.
Two men, main room. Two minutes go in.
I watched the clock on my phone, sweat running down my face. The seconds seemed to last an eternity.
Finally, two minutes passed. I turned the key in the lock and kicked the door open just as there was the sound of breaking glass in the living room. Frank and I flew into the living room just as I heard the muffled spit of silenced gunshots.
I turned on the lights.
Mom and Dad were in chairs, up against the wall.
Two men lay on the floor in pools of spreading blood.
Lindy and Rhoda were grinning.
I ran to Mom and Dad. I took off Mom’s gag as Frank took off Dad’s.
“It’s about time.” Mom said. “What took you so damned long?”
I gave her a big kiss as I checked to make sure she wasn’t injured. Relief flooded through me. “You know,” I said, giving her a hug once Lindy cut her ropes off and she stood up, “we really need to have a talk about your tendency to be taken hostage.”
Chapter Fifteen
THE CHARIOT
Victory, success through hard work
Venus closed her notebook and stood up. “Seems like old times, doesn’t it?” she said with a vague smile as she stood up. “Bodies at the Bradleys’.” She shook her head. “No offense, but I’d kind of hoped that wasn’t ever going to happen again.” Her phone rang, and she moved away from us.
We were all sitting around in the Devil’s Weed. Emily had closed and locked the doors a few moments after we all trooped downstairs, while I called Venus. The Crime Lab was upstairs, doing their job, and the coroner’s van was just outside, parked on the sidewalk. We’d closed all the shutters after we got tired of being gawked at by passersby.
We still hadn’t heard from Colin, which gave me a weird feeling of déjà vu. This was how that horrible Mardi Gras case had wound up—Mom and Dad being held hostage, a shoot-out in their apartment, and then no word from Colin after the police arrived. He’d been long gone, and that had been the last we’d seen of him until I walked into Mom and Dad’s last night—was it just last night?—and saw him sitting there in his bloody bandage.
I took Frank’s hand and squeezed it just as Venus walked back in. “We’ve picked up Abhwesar,” she said. “He’s claiming diplomatic immunity, of course—apparently he’s somehow attached to the Pleshiwarian embassy—but the State Department is contacting the ambassador, and he’s safely behind bars.” She whistled. “The two men upstairs are apparently the only thugs he had left in the country, so it looks like you’re all safe.”
I let out my breath in a sigh of relief.
“You think Colin’s already on his way out of the country?” Frank whispered to me.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I mean, who knows? They didn’t get the Eye, and if that was his objective, his work here is done.”
“Where is the Eye?” Mom asked. “I don’t get it. Why did Doc go to the trouble of making that riddle that led to a phony stone?”
“I don’t think we’ll ever know, Mom.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the piece of paper Abhwesar had given me. “Abhwesar said this was in there with it.” I handed it over to her and Dad. “Can you make any sense out of it?”
Mom read it and shook her head. “No, it doesn’t really seem to say anything.”
“Maybe he never had it here in New Orleans,” Rhoda said slowly. “No offense, but that never made any sense to me. Why would he do that? Why wouldn’t Blackledge take it and keep it safe somewhere?”
That had been bothering me all along. When it just seemed that three American GIs had decided to steal it, it sort of made sense that one of them would keep it. But now that we knew they had been Blackledge agents, it didn’t.
“Probably the only person who can answer that is Angela Blackledge herself,” I said slowly, “and I think it is pretty safe to assume we’ll never know.”
“Maybe the whole thing was a subterfuge of some sort,” Dad replied. “Maybe the stone was never really stolen in the first place? Maybe the whole thing was set up to topple the theocracy, and Doc was a decoy, trying to draw out the enemies of the current Pleshiwarian government.” When we all looked at him, he shrugged. “Hey, I enjoy a good conspiracy theory. I still don’t think Oswald acted alone.”
I took the paper back from Mom, and read it over again.
To whom it may concern:
You have made it this far, but your quest still has another step before you find what you truly desire. The stone in this box is but a clever reproduction; it is not the holy stone that you seek. Consider this a reward for a job well done.
But where is the real Eye, you are asking yourself. Where, indeed, could it be? It was taken for a reason. It was not stolen to be sold, or given as a gift. It was not stolen for power, it was not stolen for riches. Rather, it was stolen in order that a people might be able to be free.
Freedom is something to be fought for, to spill blood for. It is not something to be held in your hands, but something intangible to always strive for, It is a state of mind, but even should the shackles be taken away, it is not a guarantee that other shackles will not take their place.
The Eye should not be returned until there is more than a promise of freedom. Promises can be empty words spoken.
The Eye will not return to Pleshiwar until the shackles are gone for good.
I shook my head again. It didn’t make any sense to me.
“Whatever anyone wants to believe about the afterlife, I hope wherever Doc is, he’s burning,” Mom said. “All that talk about freedom—it sounds like some right-wing militia tract.”
“But it says you have one more step before you find what you desire,” Frank said. “So this message has to be a clue of some sort to where he hid the Eye.”
I stood up. “Well, maybe after a good night’s sleep, we can give it another try,” I said. I started to put it in my pocket, but Venus snatched it out of my hands.
“Evidence.” She smiled at me as she put it inside a plastic bag, and marked it. “You have the phony Eye?”
“It’s back at my apartment,” I replied.
“Well, I’ll give you a lift over there,” she said. “I need to take it in. It’s evidence.”
“All right.” I gave Mom and Dad a hug. I said good-bye to Rhoda and Lindy.
“I suspect our paths will cross again,” Lindy said with a wink. “It’s been fun working with you.”
I just smiled. “No offense, Ninja Lesbians, but I hope I never see you again.”
“None taken.” Rhoda winked at me
. “But we can be quite fun when we aren’t working.”
I laughed. “There’s no doubt in my mind about that.”
Frank and I rode back with Venus in silence. When she pulled up on the sidewalk in front of our gate, she said, “I’ll wait here.” As I started to shut the door, she added, “But if you’re not back down here in ten minutes I’m coming up with my gun blazing.”
“Don’t even joke about it, Venus,” I replied. “If there’s anyone up there, I’ll throw them off the balcony myself.” I slammed the door.
I unlocked the gate, and we went down the back passageway. Millie was folding the clothes we put in the dryer after we’d gotten back from the cemetery. “Scotty, how many times have I told you about leaving your clothes in here?” she snapped, but her features relaxed when she saw Frank. “When did you get here?” she asked, giving him a rib-crushing hug.
“It feels like a million years ago,” he replied. “Sorry about the clothes.”
I kept climbing the stairs. “Millie, we’ve got a lot to tell you. But one thing—I need to have some glass replaced in one set of French doors.”
She just gave me a quizzical look.
“Later, Millie, I promise. I have to get something for Venus right now. She’s waiting.”
Frank gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Come on, Millie. Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you everything. And I am dying for a cup of coffee.”
“Anything for you, Frank dear.” I heard the door close behind them.
I unlocked the door and walked in to the apartment. It was blessedly silent, thank You, Goddess. I walked into the living room, and there it was, sitting on the coffee table where I’d left it. I put it my pocket and went back out to give it to Venus. I walked around to the driver’s side. She put the window down, and I handed it to her. “Thanks for everything, Venus.”
She took it and put it in her jacket pocket. “Well, I have to say, things aren’t dull when you’re around.” She laughed.
“Well, no offense, but I’ll settle for dull for a while.” I started to walk around the front of her SUV when she called after me, “Nice work, Bradley.”
