A Passing Curse (2011) (29 page)

“Did you get the vial from Ajax Rasmussen?”

“I’m not sure,” he said and picked up the book. “I’ll tell you the truth when you start telling me the truth.” Halloran didn’t speak. “You’ve been lying since I walked through the door.” Halloran now looked a little angry. On the verge of a pout. It was time to go.

20

Rusty tapped her foot outside a pair of tall green doors, five feet wide. Down the hall was another set of doors, red and embossed with Chinese dragons. One minute earlier a guard had led her to the green doors, knocked, and walked away.

She was still tapping her foot when she heard a far-off hiss of air, and the doors smoothly slid into the walls. Ajax stood before her dressed in a black suit, outlined against a raging fire. She was so startled at his sudden appearance that she didn’t notice him take her hands into his. “I’m glad you came.”

“You left a message that you wanted an update,” she said. His hands were smooth and cold. His eyes were bloodshot, the pupils narrowed to pinpoints. Was he taking drugs? Better yet, was he a killer? He reminded her of a Shakespearean actor, aloof, precise, nuttier than an outhouse rat.

He let go of her hands and pointed to a chair. The room would have been beautiful if not so dark. Heavy velvet curtains covered the windows. Dark wood, possibly mahogany, encased the room like the outside of an expensive casket. The carpet was black-green and thick. She felt like she was inside an elaborate movie set, like Ajax had scrupulously studied the script and was attending to his part with dedication.

“It’s been only two days since I saw you last,” he said, “but you grow lovelier with time.”

“Thanks.” The table had been set with white bone china plates and heavy silver flatware. A bottle of champagne rested in a silver ice bucket, ready to be opened. He twirled the champagne, pulled it out still dripping. He wiped the bottle with a white towel.

“How goes the excavation?” Ajax finally said as he peeled off the bottle’s foil wrapper, his fingers delicate, making the mundane task appear oddly intimate.

“The second skeleton disintegrated like the first.”

“Imagine that.”

“I’ve been trying to, believe me,” she said. “I found a third stake, and I believe there’s a third skeleton below it. For now, I’m leaving the bones in the dirt. I - ”

He didn’t let her finish. “Have you found anything else? Any artifacts? I’d be especially interested in any trinkets the Chumash made from California jade. They were quite the artisans, you know.”

She thought it funny he wasn’t concerned that there were no bones for his stupid museum, that two skeletons had literally evaporated.

“Artifacts?” he asked, prodding her. “I’d like to know.”

“A sandal and three stakes. That’s it.” Did he know about the whistle? Or the cross? Better yet, had he stolen the cross? He easily could have slipped it under his jacket before she caught him in her room.

“Really? Only that? I was hoping you’d found something nice for my little museum. I have three jade whales, but they seem lonely. A fourth would make a pod.” He had the bottle up and was reading the label. “Religious artifacts? Any crosses or rosary beads? Those are always nice.”

“Are the whales also whistles?”

He stared over his hands at her. “I believe so, yes. You can blow through them. Child’s toy really. No other significance. Why?”

“Where’d you get them?”

“I have buyers, people who find interesting things for me. Over the years I’ve spent a considerable sum for my treasures. Why so curious? Did you find a whistle?”

“You brought it up. I’m just wondering what you want me to find.”

“Only what is there,” he said.

“Have you ever bought anything from Professor Hamsun? Anything interesting? Have you bought any whistles? Trinkets? Amulets?”

“Hamsun?” His eyes sharpened. “Have you been talking to him?”

“He’s the local Chumash expert.”

“The man is a discredit to his profession,” Ajax pronounced. “He’s made some of my ancestors out to be lunatics. Ludicrous claims, of course, but I’d appreciate it if you not discuss my business with him.”

“I’m not discussing your business with him. I’m discussing our business.”

“I’d appreciate it,” he said again.

“Fine,” she said, wanting to say that Hamsun thought Ajax was the lunatic, not his ancestors. Hamsun thought Ajax was his own ancestor. “You’re not concerned about two skeletons disintegrating with no logical explanation?”

He put on a grin and said airily, “What can be done? Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. I’m sure you’ll find an explanation.” He popped the cork out with both thumbs, nimbly stopping the overflow with his right thumb. Once the champagne settled, he filled two glasses. “Which skeleton moved you the most?”

“Moved me?” He handed her a glass. She drank. “I did see something odd today after I found the third stake.”

“Something odd?”

“A girl. A teenager. I saw her pointing at this house, your house. She was screaming. She was fifty feet away from me, in the trees.”

“Screaming what?”

“I didn’t hear her, not clearly. It was like she was accusing you.”

“Me?” Ajax brought his hand to his throat but quickly recovered, even managed a smile. This was definitely not in his script. “You really saw this girl?”

“I didn’t imagine her.” She thought about the first girl she’d seen, the Indian princess, how similar the two girls looked, both pointing to the mansion. Had they been warning her about him?

“Where’d she go? Did you call the police?”

“She disappeared,” she said. She had brought the whistle. What would Ajax think if she started blowing it in his face? Would he laugh? Or, better yet, would he run away? Would the princess appear again? Was the whistle part of Ajax’s collection? And, if so, how had it wound up in the hands of a skeleton? “Who was she?”

“The girl? How would I know?”

For some crazy reason, she was positive he did know. “Let me rephrase the question: Who would be pointing at your house in the middle of the afternoon and screaming?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Ajax said and pressed his hands together. “There are a lot of crazy people in this town. Who knows? Maybe she was pointing at something else? A bird or a plane?”

“Maybe she saw Superman.”

He shrugged and looked around, looking eager to change the subject and at the same time looking sly. “By the way, have the police found out who murdered Father Ramon? It seems very bizarre, killing a religious man like that.”

“They had me locked up for it.”

“What?” Ajax Rasmussen asked, sitting up, properly shocked. “That is absurd. And you didn’t call me? I’m very sorry, but you should have called.”

“I didn’t want to bother you.”

“The police in this town,” he said, “thinking that someone as bewitching as you could be a murderer. I’ll have a little talk with the Chief.”

She bet he’d talk to the Chief, probably tell him what a good job he’d done. She wondered if Reese was right, if Ajax had set her up, more importantly, if Ajax had a thing for her. “Ramon and I had been arguing, a heated debate, according to witnesses. The Chief assumed, since my sickle was the murder weapon, that I’d done it.”

“The killer stole your sickle.”

“That’s what I said. It didn’t impress the Chief.”

“Tell me if the Chief bothers you again,” Ajax said proudly as if he had actually accomplished something. He slapped his hands together. “Good. Now then, we must keep our eye on the goal. And I assure you the Chief will not bother you again.”

“That’s what you said about Father Ramon. Right before he was killed.”

“Did I?” Ajax said. “I’m sure the Chief will survive my predictions. In any case, let us keep an eye on the prize.”

“There’s a prize in all of this?”

“Alexander the Great,” he said. “I’m convinced more than ever that you are the person for the job. After all, you wrote the paper. You are the expert.”

The flames in the fireplace were two feet high but made no noise. The room felt cold. “I figure at least a year of research and then six months of preparation before I set up the first tent in Pakistan, before I move the first rock.”

Ajax nodded, but seemed perturbed. “Why so long?”

“I wrote the paper years ago, student research that I’m surprised ever got published. Most scholars agree that Alexander died in Babylon in 323 b.c., that he was cremated or mummified in honey and wax, no one is sure, that Ptolemy stole the body and buried him in Alexandria…I’ve already explained it to you.”

Ajax held up his hand. “But you think Perdikkas, the general to whom Alexander ceded power on his deathbed, knowing that Alexander’s body would become a symbol of power, allowed Ptolemy to steal a substitute body, and had the real body shipped secretly to Pakistan to what he hoped would become his new capitol in the west. He built a temple at Arysur to house the remains.”

She nodded. “But I have no proof. I have an obscure legend from the Kalash people of Pakistan. Arysur is in the middle of the Hindu Kush mountains. As far as accuracy, it would be like finding Treasure Island after reading Stephenson’s book.”

“But the Kalash tribe is real. They still speak Greek and pray to Zeuz and Apollo. Kalash means lapis lazuli in old Greek…”

She let him drone on, as if he needed to convince her how much he believed in her, in the project, but the more he talked - the more he tried to sell her own idea to her - the more she realized it was a dream. He had no intention of finding the Temple of Arysur. It was all a con job, she felt, and Ajax appeared to be reveling in his performance as salesman.

He continued his mantra, “…Kandahar was named for Alexander. I know what all the other historians think, but it will make our discovery all the sweeter. No one has found Alexander’s remains, because no one has looked at Arysur - ”

“ - One and a half years is optimistic,” she said, cutting him off. “Two years before the first shovel gets screened is my guess. If I even find the site.”

Ajax rubbed his hands together. “I can’t wait to get started.”

“Then, why don’t we?” she said. “What’s so important about bones at the mission? And since, as you said, you don’t really care about the bones, what’s so important about a few artifacts?”

He poured her more champagne, which, backlit by the fire, looked strangely molten. The rose on the table was jet black and his ring, a large ruby, blood red. “I have a month don’t I? A month before I have to pay you a million dollars?”

“I haven’t seen the contract, yet.” Nor, she thought, the first dime.

“My lawyers are busy drawing it up,” he said cheerily. “As we speak.”

“A month from two days ago,” she said, and as she said it, wondered why he was acting so nonchalant about a million dollars, even if he was a billionaire. She probably wouldn’t see a penny, much less a dime. She thought about walking off, leaving him here in his fancy casket, with his fancy talk about Alexander, but she felt caught. Reese was right. She wanted to know what Ajax was up to. Better yet, what was he hiding? “The sixteenth.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Exactly, my dear.” He picked up a small silver bell from the corner of the table, and swung it back and forth. The bell hardly made a sound, but the doors opened, and the same guard who had shown her in now entered with a domed silver platter. He set the platter down like he was delivering the day’s receipts, like he’d done it a thousand times before, and casually walked out, his pistol riding high on his hip.

Ajax removed the dome revealing two plates. He handed her the plate with grilled fish, probably halibut, a potato, and two pats of butter. His plate held a large sausage, curving and burned, a sprig of mint, and nothing else.

Her halibut smelled light and buttery, a hint of thyme. Coming from his plate she caught a perfume of heavy musk, as if the cook had used a bottle of cologne to mask something long dead.

“Did you know that people in town think you store blood in your house?” she asked. “A lot of blood.”

“What of it?” Ajax picked up a steak knife, pinioned the sausage with a large silver fork, and deftly sliced off the end.

“Not only have I been finding strange things at the mission, but strange things have been happening in town. Take Father Ramon. He bled to death. Hung upside down. Another man was found dead, also drained of blood, behind his store. He just happened to sell vampire games and clothes.”

“Do you think I had anything to do with the deaths?”

“There’s been talk.” Of course, the only people in town accusing Ajax of murder were Reese and Hamsun, not exactly the most credible sources.

“There’s always been talk.” Ajax laughed and pointed the steak knife at her. “My blood is donated. I don’t have to drain the local citizenry. I keep a minor amount of blood in my laboratory for experiments. It’s kept refrigerated on a diet of glucose. It’s all very legal, I assure you. Oh, the locals have tried to force me to give up my small lab, but so far….”

“You feed the blood?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “The red blood cells are still alive. They cannot regenerate, that is, make new cells, but they are very much alive. A transfusion of whole blood is the most exquisite form of cannibalism. Whole blood is a living tissue.”

“Funny way to put it.”

“Transfusion is the highest form of cannibalism, because the red blood cells are alive and vigorous while most cannibals, the civilized ones at least, cook their meat.”

He sliced the sausage lengthwise, splitting it open. A trickle of blood snaked across the plate.

He spoke faster. She ignored him and cut open the potato. She added a pat of butter but it did not melt. The potato was stone cold.

“…whole blood can be stored for years, but that process includes glycol and deep freezing. I keep an emergency supply here but the - ” Ajax paused as if he’d lost his train of thought before continuing. “ - I mean the freezing and other chemicals added take away from the freshness. The real money is in the component trade: the platelets, the plasma, red blood cells by themselves, the anti-coagulants from the seventh fractionating of the blood. It’s saved countless hemophiliacs in this country.” He lowered his head and spoke into the plate. “I know what the neighbors say, the people, they’re all jealous. I’ve put up walls, yes, but do they know what it’s like to kill the sun everyday? What if they had to kill the stars?” He paused and looked up at her, “The stars.” His chin dropped to his chest, his eyes on the plate. He’d run out of gas.