Artifact: A Daredevils Club Adventure Part 22

These days she thought a lot about her own mortality.

Doubtless, this was related to Arthur's death. This would be her first Carnival without him. Wherever hewas, that was where she wanted to go. Not right away, of course, but ultimately. When it was her time.

Meanwhile, the annual celebration had to be endured.

In the gloom of dusk among the trees of the mountain, a light flashed ahead of her. Glancing at the odometer, she realized that she was nearing the location of her house call. She had been averaging no more than fifteen miles an hour. Even had she not recalled the location on her own, she was hardly likely to have missed the figure waving a flashlight at the side of the road.

She stopped the car and stuck her head out of the open window.

The messenger directed the flashlight's beam into her eyes. She covered them with one hand and, with the other, opened the car door.

"How's the patient?"

"Patient be dead."

The stranger, a masked male youth judging by the width of his shoulders, stepped into Peta's line of vision. He was quickly joined by a group, seven or eight strong, of Jab Jab Mola.s.si.

In the distance, she heard drumbeats, punctuated every now and again by the bleating of a goat. At the Grand E ' tang Lake, Mama Glo, the G.o.ddess of the river, was wors.h.i.+ped, especially during Saraka, the period of honoring the dead and appeasing evil spirits. Animals were sacrificed. The days of feasting and singing and dancing attracted Shango wors.h.i.+pers, who believed that the African G.o.d of thunder and thunderbolts punished troublemakers and rewarded his wors.h.i.+pers.

Heart pounding, Peta reached for her cell phone-and realized that she had left it inside the car. She felt for her belt and pushed the b.u.t.ton on the left of her beeper. It went off with resounding clarity in the night darkness.

A Jab Jab laughed and closed in on her. He removed the pager from her belt and tossed it into the trees.

"We have maldjo," he said, in a mixture of patois and English. "We have the evil eye."

"Maldjo," his buddies chanted. They were close enough that she could hear their breathing. Feel it. The smell of the cheap rum they'd been drinking mixed with the stench of tar and engine oil smeared across their bodies.

One of them tousled her hair from behind.

"You want my money?" Peta reached into her pocket, ready to give them whatever she had on her.

They laughed, quietly, and pressed closer.

One of them smacked his lips, as if antic.i.p.ating a tasty morsel. "This one's delicious. I gon' eat her a-w-e-l up."

Another stuck his head through the open car window. "Hey. Look-a what I found." He slid his body into the car and emerged with her medical bag. "Must be good stuff in here, me t'ink."

A hand tugged at her blouse, another at her skirt. She pulled away, into the arms of a third, who kissed her resoundingly on the mouth. What an idiot she was coming out here alone, at night, during Carnival.She was heavily outnumbered. They were young and they were strong and, judging by the alcohol on the breath of the one who had kissed her, they were considerably more than a couple of sheets to the wind.

If they decided to rape her, which seemed inevitable, there was nothing she could do. If she shouted, who would hear her?

Still, it couldn't hurt to scream. Maybe kick a few gonads.

"You want to use your maldjo on me?" She turned to face the one who had kissed her. Immediately she heard what she expected, the sound of one of the Jab Jab coming at her from behind.

Using all of the knowledge Ray had taught her, she kicked backward. Her foot found substance and one of the boys screamed and doubled over.

"You wan' it rough, b.i.t.c.h?" another youth said as he grabbed her by the hair.

She pummeled him with both fists and screamed at the top of her lungs.

A Moke rounded the corner and came to a screeching halt in front of them. Her would-be molesters froze in the vehicle's headlights as, crossbow in hand, Frikkie Van Alman jumped out of the driver's seat of his low four-wheel-drive jeep.

Immediately, the Jab Jab Mola.s.si scattered, shouting, "Sorry, man...mistake, man...sorry, man," as they vanished into the surrounding forest.

Peta took in a deep breath. "Great white hunter rescues damsel in distress," she said, trying to slow her rapidly beating heart.

"I am delighted to be of service," Frik said. "Perhaps you will allow this to make up in some small measure for the recent unpleasantness between us."

His casual air, combined with the apparent miracle of his timely arrival, told her instinctively that the whole thing had been a setup. a.s.shole, she thought. f.u.c.king immature a.s.shole.

She feigned more trouble catching her breath while she got her emotions under control. He might be an immature a.s.shole, but he was also dangerous and armed. "Are you talking about Simon, or about your performance at the airport?" Or Blaine, she thought.

"Both." He lowered the crossbow. "I've apologized to you about the incident at San Gabriel. I'm afraid Mr. Blaine got overzealous. He won't be causing a problem for any women for a while, I a.s.sure you. As for my little, um, tantrum at the airport. Blame that on my male ego. Whatever the reason, I'm over it."

"Am I supposed to say thank you for that, too?"

Frik made a weak attempt at a chortle. Then, never one for subtleties, he offered her the protection of his boat through the rest of Carnival.

Setup or no, Peta remained concerned for her own safety. For the moment, she decided, it was best to pretend friends.h.i.+p. She had little doubt that the same ego that Frik had blamed for the incident on the tarmac would persuade him that she was genuinely fooled by his attempt at charm.

She followed him back through town to the marina, recently renamed Blue Lagoon, where the a.s.segai was moored. The gate man let them in. They parked near the all-but-deserted bar and made their way down the narrow walkway to the boat.As always, the dogs, Sheba and Maverick, greeted their master energetically. He settled them down, then ushered Peta on board. She accepted a drink from his ample stock and they exchanged a few pleasantries as they seated themselves at the big wooden table that stood on the afterdeck. The image of Arthur falling asleep on this very table the night they'd saved him from the Communists, seventeen years earlier, entered her mind.

Drink in hand, Frik's tone went from solicitous to confidential. "I know what you think, Peta. You think that I had something to do with Arthur's death."

He waited for her to say something. Keep waiting, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d, she thought.

"You couldn't be further from the truth, you know. Arthur was my dearest friend. I would never have done anything to harm him and I will always miss him. Come, I have something to show you."

He took her into the s.h.i.+p's saloon and showed her the pieces he had of the artifact. They were resting in some sort of wire frame. She recognized the oddly s.h.i.+mmering surface of the pieces and marveled at how perfectly the piece she recognized from the undersea cavern, the one Blaine had taken from her, fit into what had to be the one Paul had left Frik. Intuitively, she could see where the little cups and nodules on her piece would fit, and how Arthur's, stuck in NYPD's Midtown North evidence lockup, would link neatly to all three.

"It may surprise-even shock you-to find out that I know you have a piece of the artifact," Frik said. "I saw it around your neck during the newscast, that G.o.d-awful night in New York."

What is your game, Frik? Peta thought. Why are you taking me into your confidence? "What do you want me to say about that?" she asked, mostly to buy herself time.

"I don't want you to say anything. I want you to give your fragment tome...forthe good of humanity."

Frik held out his hand. She stared at it. He had delayed this long to make his demand; why make it now?

Why not wait until New Year's Eve?

Clearly, the answer was that he had trusted her then and did not trust her now. She could think of at least two obvious reasons for that, one at the bottom of the sea and one up on the mountain.

"I don't have it on me," she said, and fingered her neck as if to demonstrate that the pendant was not there.

"Bring it here tomorrow. I'm having my usual carnival party after the parade. It wouldn't be complete without your presence anyway."

The last thing I need, Peta thought, is one of Frik's drunken parties. Then again, if she didn't accept, the little mob scene on the Grand E' tang road was likely to be repeated, sans the arrival of the white knight.

Humoring him, praying that Ralphie had the replica ready for her, she smiled congenially. "I could use a few laughs. I'll bring it with me tomorrow night."

35.

Feeling for all the world like one of Siegfried and Roy's caged white tigers, Ray paced around his Las Vegas penthouse. Even after a year of living in the apartment, its triangular shape, like that of the hotel beneath it, made him vaguely uncomfortable.

He stalked through what he thought of as the great room, with its sixty-foot-long wall of tempered, tintedgla.s.s, its twelve-foot ceiling and comfortable groupings of chairs and sofas.

Trying to clear his mind, he took in the view.

The windows and sliding door at one end faced west across his private helipad to Palace Station Casino and the mountain ranges beyond it. He could just make out the bloodred rock formations of Red Rock Canyon at the corner. The main wall of windows faced southeast, giving him a perfect view of Circus Circus and the rest of the Strip, with the Sahara across the street at the easternmost corner. If he stepped right up to the gla.s.s, he knew, he'd be able to look down at the head of the fifty-foot-tall lizard that appeared to be cras.h.i.+ng out of the hotel's outer wall. The latest battle between his stuntmen-performers and the animatronic beast should just have finished. Inside the casino, the creature's tail would have stopped its periodic waving just below the ceiling.

He prowled down the back hall past the guest rooms, and ended up on the balcony off his own bedroom. From that vantage point, he could look northeast at Stratosphere Tower and downtown, and he could see the glow of the spinning neon Daredevil Casino sign on the nose of a replica of a s.p.a.ce shuttle that jutted at a steep angle out of the side of his hotel's tenth floor, with the tail and cargo doors angled away from the building. It looked as if the building were the shuttle's external fuel tank and the craft was separating on its way toward the stars. The sides of the shuttle had dozens of viewing ports; the nose cone was gla.s.s, allowing tourists to get a one-of-a-kind picture of themselves suspended against the Las Vegas skyline. In what would have been the cargo bay, Ray's high rollers could enjoy a five-star meal served in a mult.i.tiered restaurant. Each table was set against the cargo doors, which were made of specially tinted gla.s.s, creating the perfect setup for patrons to see the Stratosphere and the lights of downtown.

All very impressive, Ray thought, yet nothing in the spectacle of his hotel, or Las Vegas itself, held his attention. The Daredevil Casino was already showing a huge profit, enough for him to seriously contemplate buying land to build the Rig, an idea that had stayed with him since his visit to the Valhalla; yet he felt edgy. Restive.

What he really needed to cure his restlessness was a new stunt job.

No, he thought. The way he felt was only partially due to his lack of a film job in the offing. More likely it was a symptom of withdrawal after the jungle battle against Green Impact. He had long since admitted to himself that he was a risk addict, and this sitting around was making him itch for the rush of adrenaline he'd felt as the bullets flew and explosives roared through the Delta Amacuro swamps.

Perhaps, he thought, he should coin a syndrome for what ailed him: danger deprivation syndrome. DDS.

Sounded painful and impressive.

He pa.s.sed through the dining room, where he could see northwest over his hotel's thrill rides, and reentered the great room from the corner.

Walking through the apartment's main room, past the recessed security screens that allowed him to watch the action downstairs, he opened the door that led to his private lab, a windowless, environmentally stabilized room in the middle of his penthouse. It always amazed him how cramped the lab felt, though he knew it to be as big as his bedroom, which comfortably fit a California king-sized bed, a separate sitting area for very private conversations, and an anteroom for his morning workout equipment.

His lab, on the other hand, was crammed with storage cabinets along the wall on both sides of the door.

In the middle of the room stood a giant table covered with metal frames and cables and bits of equipment he hadn't put away. To his right, a Peg-Board took up half of the wall, with tools and safety equipmenthanging from seemingly random hooks. Below that, more storage cabinets held larger pieces of equipment and supplies. The left-hand side of the room held his desk and file cabinets. Several dry-erase whiteboards hung above them, filled with reminders about appointments and notes about Frikkie's strange artifact. The left half of the back wall was taken up by a giant screen.

Ray sat down at his desk, tapped a key to wake up his computer, and swiveled around to stare at the computer model on the wall screen. It was a three-dimensional image of what the artifact would look like when put together. After Frikkie had sent him the surface dimensions and other characteristics of the piece Simon had died finding, Ray had updated the model. Now it looked a lot like a strange geode, roughly spherical but with odd b.u.mps and depressions. The figure-eight section from the original a.s.sembly Paul Trujold had discovered stuck partway out on one end. He thought irreverently that it looked like Mr. Potato Head with only his nose attached.

The telephone rang, startling him out of deep contemplation. He leaned back in his chair and automatically picked up the receiver, without twisting to look at the caller ID. There were fewer than a dozen people to whom he had given this number anyway, and several of them were dead, so they no longer counted.

On the phone, dogs barked in the background. He recognized them as Sheba and Maverick.

"Yeah, Frik."

"We have to be subtle. I'm calling from Grenada. I'm here for Carnival."

"When you're king of the universe, the first thing you can do is change the Grenadian phone system." Ray was only half joking.

"Peta just left," Frik said, apparently unconcerned by Ray's biting comment. "I told her that I saw the piece of the artifact around her neck during the newscast in New York. She's bringing it to me tomorrow."

Ray was silent for a little too long. What on earth could have induced Peta to agree to that? he wondered.

"Are you there?"

"I'm here."

"You sound surprised. I was sure you knew that she had one." Frik sounded hugely pleased with himself.

"McKendry is still on the job searching for Selene to get the pieces Paul sent to her."

"That leaves Arthur's," Ray said without thinking.

It was Frikkie's turn to be surprised. "What do you mean, Arthur's? I didn't know that he had a piece.

How do you know? Why didn't you tell me before?"

s.h.i.+t, Ray thought. He'd been so surprised by Frikkie's knowledge of Peta's piece that he'd a.s.sumed the Afrikaner would also know about Arthur's. He said as much over the phone. "I guess it's true what they say about a.s.sumptions."

Ray glanced across at his door, as if he'd momentarily forgotten that he was alone in the penthouse.

Swiveling all the way around, he unlocked the top drawer of his desk and took out an odd-shaped blue-green object."d.a.m.n it! I must have that piece, Ray."

"The NYPD has it, Frik. No way to get it out."

"I'll pull strings. You'd be amazed at what a large enough donation to the Policemen's Fund can buy.

They'll be glad to help me."

As Ray turned the piece over and over in his hands, it reflected the light from the wall screen. Playing with it as if it were a worry stone, he watched as it seemed to warp the light such that its own image, and not the rest of the model, was visible like an afterimage on the irregular surface.

"I tried that," he said. "Remember, I have a lot of friends in that precinct. I've done more than my share of filming there. They won't release it to anyone other than Peta. She signed a priori for Arthur's effects."

Peta would feel safe as long as Frik thought she was the only one with access to Arthur's fragment, Ray thought. He needed her to be fearless.

"Peta said something about going to New York on her birthday as a kind of statement. Since she's being so cooperative, why not ask her to retrieve the piece from the precinct and bring it along to Vegas at New Year's?"

The Afrikaner's frustration seemed audible, even before he said, "I can't wait that long."

"What's so almighty urgent?" Ray was aware of the rush he was getting from the conversation and happy to discard his recent ennui. "She'll bring Arthur's fragment here on New Year's Eve. You'll be lucky to have Selene's piece by then anyway."

"I suppose you're right," Frik said, though to Ray he didn't sound entirely convinced. "By the way, have you been able to work anything out with your computer models?"

"Not that I could say over an unsecured line if I had, but no. I know its shape, and I know the reactions from Paul's notes. Other than that, it's a complete mystery."

"Well keep working on it, would you." If possible, Frikkie's voice seemed to hold more frustration than before. "As for the other matter, I suppose you're right. I can wait for New Year's Eve to get the other pieces. I want the whole Daredevils Club there when we put this together and find out what it really does."

I bet, Ray thought, but all he said was "Good-bye." He hung up the phone and held Arthur's piece between thumb and forefinger. Angling it, he tried to line up the fragment with the image on the wall screen. As the images merged in his vision, he felt his head swim, and a wave of nausea overcame him.