A Passing Curse (2011) (33 page)

“Good for you. I’ve been fighting all my life. Will you join me in a drink? A little spot of the good stuff to warm the night. If you don’t mind?”

“You bet,” Lung Butter Bill said, warming up to his new friend.

Ajax tapped his cane and Ted quickly brought a wicker basket from the trunk, set it on the ground, and walked back to the car. From the basket Ajax handed Bill a martini glass.

“What you got, friend?”

“Call me Ajax.”

“What sort of hooch?”

“Bloody Mary?”

He smiled as Ajax filled his glass. The silver shaker had been packed in ice, its sides misted. Ajax filled his own glass. “What shall we drink to?”

“I haven’t toasted in a while.”

“To the night.”

“To the night,” Bill said and they both looked to the moon. After he was finished he held his glass for a refill. “A bit salty for me.” He tasted his lips. “Beefy.”

Ajax filled both glasses again. “I add a little bullion, for body.”

Bill licked his lips after the second glass. “Well, sir, I liked it a lot. Where are you from?”

“From the night,” Ajax said and they both laughed. Before he left, Ajax gave his new friend one hundred dollars. Lung Butter Bill was so happy that it was no problem for Ajax to drop the empty vial into his jacket pocket and a little something extra, something to give the curious mind something to think about.

Thomkins dropped them off at the hotel and promised to meet Reese at the mission in the morning. Reese warned Thomkins to wait outside the room if he was early. He told him to go carefully. Do nothing without checking with him first.

“You were really enjoying yourself,” he said when they got in the room. He’d felt jealous watching other men watching her, emotion he was uncomfortable with. He felt like a teenager because of it.

She kicked off her shoes and loosened her belt. “What do you mean?”

“Yelling and waving money around like a drunken sailor,” he tried to keep his voice neutral. “Everyone was staring at you.”

She flopped on the bed with her hands behind her head, defiant and amused. “They were staring at you, mostly. They thought you were a cop.”

“I was a cop.”

“Well, quit acting like one, loosen up. It’s like having your dad tag along,” she said and laughed a little. “And you aren’t off the hook, yet, by a long shot, Mr. Detective.”

“What hook?”

“My gold cross.”

“I told you who has the cross you stole from the mission. And where’s my fifty? Thomkins gave you back a hundred dollar bill. I’m not as rich as Ajax.”

“Now you’re worried about fifty bucks?” She got up and sat down in front of Ramon’s book, still open on the writing desk. “I’ll get change for you tomorrow.”

“I’m not worried about the money.” He didn’t know why he was worried about any of it, her having a good time or the rest of it, unless he was starting to care about her. He opened two bottles of Heineken. “I’m glad you had a good time.”

She took a long drink, turned to the front of the book, and studied what looked like the table of contents. “There are portraits in the back.” She turned to the back, came to the pictures of long dead local celebrities. She flipped through the pages until they both saw a familiar face. She pointed to the name under the picture, a somber looking priest wearing a round hat with a flat brim. “Father Delgado.”

“Ajax in a funny hat,” he said, suddenly glad for the diversion. He did not like being the jerk. He shouldn’t have mentioned the money or her having fun. He massaged the back of her neck.

“Creepy old Ajax. And what’s he doing in a two-hundred-year-old book dressed like a priest?”

“It only looks like Ajax,” she countered. “Ajax is not creepy. He has a classical face.” She moved his hand to her shoulder blade. “Ah, right there. Use your thumbs.”

“Classical?”

“Classically handsome. Straight nose. Regular features. Deep eyes. Ajax mentioned he had a great-great uncle, a priest in Santa Marina. That explains it.”

“Likely story,” he said, looking at the portrait again. Ajax could have sat for the portrait. It was that close.

“A family resemblance,” she said, “nothing more than that…move down a little on my spine, there, that’s it.”

He slowly massaged the area between her shoulder blades. When he hit the right spots, she sighed. “A lot of people look like their great-great uncles,” she said.

“I don’t have a great-great uncle.”

“Everyone has one.”

“Do you look like yours?”

“My great-great aunt maybe. But I don’t know what she looks like. I don’t have any pictures. She was probably some dour thing wrapped in a corset.”

“See. He also looks like a guy I used to see on late night TV, Raul Pavoni, an actor in the thirties. I think he died young or couldn’t make it out of the silent films.”

“Raul Pavoni? Was he any good?”

“A cross between William Powell and John Barrymore,” Reese said. “Ajax also has a painting of a lady cutting off a guy’s head with a sword, and that guy looks like Ajax.”

“He does?” she asked. “I haven’t seen it.”

“It is a big house.” He didn’t mention that the lady also resembled a composite of Richard Lamb’s victims. Especially Melissa Cunningham. He remembered twisting Melissa’s ear before she died. He shut his eyes.

She touched Delgado’s face. “It’s still not an exact match. It may just be a family resemblance. A likeness. That’s all.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said. “Because if you’re not, then Ajax is a few hundred years old. Anyway, I’ve looked at thousands of mug shots trying to match suspects and after a while every picture starts looking the same, especially when you’re tired.” He licked the edge of her ear.

“Did you just lick my ear?”

“You don’t mind?”

“I liked it,” she said, but continued to ignore him. When he touched her hair she moved his hand away and rolled her eyes, slightly. “I’m busy.”

“I’m trying to seduce you and you read a book? How would you like it if a guy was watching television while he was trying to get things going with you - ?”

“Get things going?”

“On top of you.”

“As long as he stayed hard,” she said and he had to laugh. He sat on the bed and drank. She was definitely something. He wondered how much of it was bravado and how much of it was common sense.

“What do you think of Thomkins?” she finally asked.

“He’ll be fine. I guess. For a cop in Santa Marina, he’s fine. A good kid, actually.” He realized now that he wouldn’t help Thomkins pursue his dream of becoming an LA cop. He wouldn’t be responsible for Thomkins completing his delusions, for Thomkins getting killed in some back alley.

“He thinks a lot of you,” she said without looking up from the book. “He idolizes you. He told me he wants to be like you. I hope he doesn’t start imitating you. Two of you is more than I can handle.”

“I’m not so sure about the idolizing part. Thomkins doesn’t know any better. He’s still young and he’s still looking for his way. What about you?”

“Idolizing you? Not yet.”

“I’ll try harder.”

She smiled and looked up from the book. “I know a girl, a substitute teacher, she’s twenty-three and smart. She’s good looking and, you know, a sense of humor - ”

“Whoa,” he said. “Are we talking double date?”

“Why not? She was my assistant, and she just broke up with her boyfriend. I could call her. She could drive down for the weekend. Thomkins seems lonely.”

“Thomkins is at an awkward age,” Reese said. “He’s not exactly sure what he wants to do. He’s been thinking about joining the LAPD. That’s pretty awkward.”

“I’m at an awkward age.”

“You’re not lonely.”

“I forgot. I’ve got you,” she said. “Still, it might work. Thomkins and Hilda has a ring to it and I think they’d look cute together. It would be nice - ”

“Hilda?” he said. “I hope to hell that’s not short for Brunehilda. Brunehilda Thomkins?”

“She’s German.”

“Great. We could all go to a cockfight,” he said glumly. “We could invite Ajax.” The idea of a double date with Thomkins seemed depressing. He was surprised Rusty fancied herself a matchmaker.

“Dinner and a movie first,” she said. “It might cheer both of us up.”

He kissed the top of her head. “You never told me why you became an archeologist. I think it fits you, being outdoors, looking back in time, trying to fit the past together from old bones.”

Her face perked up. “I want you to listen to something.” She stood and pulled a green cylinder from her pocket. The same one she had palmed at the jail, to keep him from seeing. She put the cylinder to her lips and paused. Something crossed her face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said quickly and handed him the cylinder. “It’s a charm stone, a whistle carved from California jade hundreds of years ago, maybe longer.”

“It looks like a whale.” He turned the whistle over in his hands. He noticed Et El Hoc carved along the side. “In his office, Ajax has glass cases filled with junk. Sandals. Skulls. A carved doll. He has three pieces like this. I didn’t know they were whistles.”

She took the whistle. “He has three like this? Yes, I remember him telling me. The whistles were fairly common.”

“There were originally four,” he said. “The velvet was dark where the fourth one had been.” She looked at him strangely and he wondered what was scaring her.

“Listen.” She closed her eyes. She touched the whistle to her slightly chapped lips. He watched her hesitate, as if the whistle might explode. The first sound was a long screech until she got the pitch right, then the sound smoothed out to a low hum. She stopped. She looked around the room.

“What’s wrong?” he asked again. “When you blew the whistle you acted like something would happen. You hesitated. Like you were spooked, ready to run.”

“Something did happen,” she said. “You heard the same sound that someone heard two hundred or two thousand years ago. Think of that. A link to the past.”

“It hurt my ears.”

“A connection to another world,” she said. “An old world, maybe a dead world to some people, but a new world because we’ve never been there.” She paused. “I didn’t tell you the whole story.”

“The mission?”

She nodded. “Curled in skeleton number two’s hand.” She handed it back to him. “See the initials? The little ones on the other side?”

“You tried to re-pack the dirt around the fingers. You tried to hide it.”

She nodded. “You noticed.”

What else wasn’t she telling him, he thought, and ran his index finger over the engraving. “Et El Hoc on one side and PKH on the other?”

She told him about Hamsun finding the whale years earlier and engraving his initials. She told him about the Sok-su-uh. She told him about Et El Hoc - To fear the creature - probably carved into the whale by the original artist, an Indian holy man, a shaman. She told him the whistle would summon an Indian princess, killed by the Sok-su-uh, who would return to this life for revenge, to kill the Sok-su-uh. She told him about the Chumash believing that Father Delgado, Ajax’s look alike and long lost relative, was the blood eater, the Sok-su-uh. She told him about Ajax’s reaction to Professor Hamsun’s essay.

“Is that all?” he asked.

She hesitated. And then, with a grimace, seemed to make up her mind. “I’ve been seeing things. When I first blew the whistle, a girl appeared. An Indian girl. When I touched the third stake, I saw her again, this time dressed in modern clothes. She pointed to his mansion. She screamed.”

“You saw her twice? Can you identify her?”

“The girl wasn’t there.”

“If you saw her, she was there,” he said. “That’s why you didn’t want to blow the whistle just now?” he asked, thinking, it wasn’t any worse than him carrying silver bullets. “You thought the girl would appear? The girl who’d kill the Sok-su-uh? Kill Ajax. Did she tell you to kill Ajax?”

“Command hallucinations?” she asked and shook her head. “No little voices in my head.”

“You wouldn’t tell me anyway.”

“I wouldn’t? I just told you I’m having visions. I’m not only seeing things but I’m hearing things. Screaming. I’m seeing ghosts. What’s the difference? I’d tell you if a hallucination was telling me to kill the richest man in the world.”

Neither of them spoke. He finally asked, “Hamsun didn’t pull a switch? The whistle you found was the same whistle he found in 1963. You’re sure?”

“I believe him.”

“You have an explanation?”

“Nothing I want to think about now.” She put the whistle in the dresser drawer and began undoing the buttons of her shirt. He touched her hands. “Let me do that.”

Thomkins parked the forlorn Ford one block down from the mission. He slipped along the street, staying in the shadows of oak and juniper. He moved cautiously. The streetlights were bright and he didn’t want a citizen reporting a prowler. The fog came finally, obscuring the full moon.

He was still feeling good about Jedi winning. He’d liked being with Rusty and Reese. Tomorrow he’d ask the Chief about keeping Jedi at his house. He didn’t want to go behind the Chief’s back too much. If he had something to show for tonight, a good clue maybe, the Chief couldn’t say no.

He walked across the parking lot and into the mission, its stucco walls bleached bone gray in the cool air. He passed a few curtained windows dimly lit, late night readers, probably, but he was sure that most of the padres were asleep. So far, so good.

He was almost to the spiral staircase when he heard the scrape of sandals. He ducked behind a hedge. Someone walked from a doorway directly toward him. The figure stopped three feet away. A priest. Except for sandals, he was naked and oddly white.

Thomkins turned his head, remaining absolutely still. He heard a long sigh and splashing. He felt mist on his arm and closed his eyes. He stifled the urge to vomit. If he stood, he’d give the priest a heart attack. The priest would peg him as a Peeping Tom or worse.

He blocked out the wine-smelling urine. The sound of it hitting the dirt. And then it stopped, another long sigh, the sound of the sandals flopping. The door shutting. The click of the lock. Damn perverts. His midnight creep was falling apart.

He wiped his forearm on his pants. He stayed crouched for several minutes, wanting to leave, but deciding to finish what he’d started. Reese had warned him, but here he was. He’d show Reese he was not just another rookie. He made his way up the stairs. If he saw another naked priest he’d shoot him.