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fiction: serial fiction
the crown: book two, chapter two
The tiny offices of Pyramid Enterprises were in one room at the ass-end of Southgate Mall, a less-than-busy shopping center on the city's south side, opposite the side with the Piggly Wiggly. Often overshadowed by the bigger and better populated Southland Mall across the street, heavily frequented by the teenagers and after-work shoppers, certain businesses less concerned with foot traffic allowed Southgate to remain operational and keep profits flowing into the pockets of the Terwilliger family, a landowning clan who'd been holding on to the property since it was a sprawling plantation, spitting distance from the Mississippi border.
Pyramid Enterprises was one of those businesses, and to be honest accountant John Underwood was pretty unhappy about coming down to the mall office more than once a week. John had been doing the accounting and general running for Pyramid Enterprises for twelve years, ever since a particularly troubling grand jury investigation suddenly disappeared with the help of a Pyramid Enterprises lawyer from Atlanta named Randy Gorman, who simply showed up one day, writs in hand. Gorman's only request was that John babysit some minor assets Pyramid had in Memphis, which took him so little energy he almost considered the effort to manage the land and employees free money.
At least until the day Tracy Archer showed up at his office smelling of cheap gin and ranting about donut sellers with tranquilizers. Since then, John had been coming by more often to check on her work and make sure she wasn't using the office for purposes more illicit than he normally approved of.
"That's what I get for hiring somebody I recognized from junior high," he muttered to himself as he unlocked the door, tucked away down a quiet hallway shadowed by reflected sunlight on that sticky afternoon. A half-smoked Marlboro Light hung from his lip loosely, and a stack of file folders from the Goldberg audit under the sweat-stained pit of his dress shirt. Jiggling the battered doorknob lock, John commented, "Stupid f***ing door ... never shoulda used the repair budget to get that jet ski ..."
Finally his efforts bore fruit, and the door creaked open on mismatched hinges. John slid in quickly -- there was a new storefront three doors down run by some shifty looking Serbians who were often gone but always watched him a little too carefully when they were around, and he had no desire to interact with them at all. He reached over to click on the light and paused to pull his cigarette from his mouth.
Turning around he saw what he always saw -- two plain desks, with "in" and "out" boxes sat atop unadorned desk blotters, his ashtray on one and Archer's most recent notes on the other. The scene held something new, however -- a lean, humorless man in a long black trenchcoat and black clothing, aiming a silenced pistol and a menacing glance at John.
"Don't talk," the grim man said with a thickly accented voice, waving the pistol towards a chair near the desks. His slick black hair shone in the flickering fluorescent light. "Sit. Listen."
John struggled to breathe normally, realizing he'd been holding his breath ever since his eyes came into contact with the weapon's barrel. This wasn't the first time John Underwood had found himself at the business end of a firearm -- years before, after he'd taken a numbers-juggling job for the Klan, he was treated to a hasty and unpleasant visit by some good ol' boys who learned about his Jewish grandmother from some Yankees he'd gone to school with. Being an accountant for people with flexible moralities came with certain occupational hazards, and John knew that, but something about this stranger -- clearly not even American, let alone a southerner, so a wholly unknown quantity -- made John fear that this account would end up in the red.
"My name is Nikolas Manos," the grim man said once John was settled. "You are an accountant for Pyramid Enterprises, and pay the rent for this office, as well as the house off Neely Drive, the payroll for a cleaning staff and the services of one Tracy Archer. This money comes from somewhere, as surveillance tapes and reports must return there. You will tell me where that 'somewhere' is."
Tracy's crazy story flashed through John's head, and he realized all too late that she was right, that the man in front of him, in fact, invaded the little house just two blocks away from the old Havenview Baptist Church and erased all signs of his existence.
"Lookie here, now," John began nervously, "we can talk this over. I can get my hands on a whole lotta money, and you can have all of it, but you gotta let me live ..."
"Mister Underwood," Nikolas said calmly, interrupting John's sales pitch. "Your father's name is Thomas, and he's sitting at home watching the Wayne Brady show right now, waiting for classes at Graves Elementary School across the street to let out so he can go out on his porch and make sure kids stay off his lawn." With a slight sigh, Nikolas continued, "Your life is not the one you should worry about."
John sucked in his breath sharply, thinking about the old man, his ridiculous white combover unable to hide the freckled pate beneath, a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon in his gnarled hand as he grinned at the glowing screen.
"I don't want money, Mister Underwood," Nikolas continued conversationally. "I don't really even care if you report my presence to whoever you deal with in Pyramid Enterprises. I just need to know, and I need to know now."
"You'll kill me the second I tell you," John said anxiously, his breath ragged as he set the folders down on the floor. "For you to track down my dad ... I'm already dead, and so is he."
"There are no words I can say that will give you faith of continued existence, Mister Underwood," Nikolas admitted. "However, I can assure you that if you don't tell me what I want to know, seriously bad things will happen to you over a course of days before you finally die, and while dying you'll see me start to do those things to your father. That's a certainty you can count on."
John looked down at the matted carpet and weighed his options. Unable to think of a move here, he breathed deeply and acquiesced.
"Checks come from Pyramid Enterprises offices in Atlanta," John sighed. "I've been there, nice high rise building, looks really official. The tapes and all go to a security firm in Chicago, and they do some oversight on me, make sure I actually do the stuff to the property I say I will. That's really all I know."
"Who do you deal with in Atlanta?" Nikolas asked breezily.
"A lawyer, Randy Gorman," John replied. "Well, mostly I deal with Susie, his assistant, but he's my 'boss,' I guess you could say. Had me come down there one weekend to thank me for the way I run things, played golf with me, took me to dinner ..."
Nikolas nodded. "Are you certain you haven't forgotten to tell me anything, Mister Underwood?"
John looked up with some worry -- if this man believed lies were in play, he might get angry, and nothing good could come from such a perception. "I swear to you, that's all," John said in a pleading tone. "The security firm keeps an eye out ... if the house isn't checked every so often, they'll come looking. Same for the office here. That's it, I swear to you!"
Nikolas regarded John for a moment, as a scientist might regard a particularly mysterious microbe on a slide. The air was perfectly still in the square room, the faux wood paneling seeming as impassive as walls of stone. "All right, then," Nikolas said finally, his voice as unemotional as if commenting on mild weather, "you and I are going for a drive ..."
"... so you can dump me in the river, or in some field down in Southaven," John said morosely.
"On the contrary, Mister Underwood," Nikolas said with a wicked grin, standing up. "You're going on vacation. The Mediterranean climate will do wonders for your skin. You're going to love the island of Symi."
* * *
The elevator opened up several hundred meters below the city of Palembang, a decently sized metropolitan area in south east Sumatra. James grunted as he pushed the cart ahead of himself, the Hand of Glory now positioned in the middle of a lucite prison, somehow heavier than when it stood inside a safe with half-foot thick steel walls. Along either side of him, steel crates were piled more than thirty feet high, and he knew from experience that rows of them spread throughout the four square acres of this secreted storage space.
Tonya was already down amongst the rows, several yards in front of the elevator door, a welding mask perched atop her braids and an acetylene torch in hand. She smiled brightly as James approached.
"Hey lover!" she called happily. "Need any help with that?"
"Nah ... I'm good ..." James grunted, really amazed at the object. The Hand of Glory was a literal hand -- the wrist of it caught in a brass stand, it looked as though someone had taken an octogenarian, chopped from their left forearm, dipped the whole thing in solid gold and then dipped it in a mass of diamonds. As near as James could remember, that was very close to the truth.
As he slid the cart up to the open crate, James asked, "Explain to me again why this is so dangerous?"
"I've gotta remember to stop briefing you when we're cuddling," Tonya smiled, "you never remember any of it. The Hand of Glory was chopped from the dreaded necromancer Falun Shu in the third century BC. Falun Shu was bound by spirit to a demon of really ridiculous power, the sort which hasn't been seen on earth in thousands of years. In theory, someone could use the hand to summon that demon and create a kind of armageddon, as there's probably four groups of people in the world that would be able to stop him, and since I'm one, I might be asleep or having sex with you, and that'd never do." Lighting the torch, Tonya continued, "better to lock the damned thing away forever."
James shrugged and helped her shove the lucite cube into the crate's open maw. Satisfied that it was secure, she carried over the final wall of the crate and began to solder.
"Oh, this will get a lot lighter after it's in the dark a couple of minutes," Tonya chatted over the noise. "Visible light makes it increase in mass, for reasons way too goofy to go in to right now!"
James smiled as she worked, watching her. The leather apron and welder's mask couldn't quite hide her smooth elliptical splendor, squeezed into denim jeans and a thick gray turtleneck sweater. She shrugged off the occasional sparks that landed on her hand, and he believed he could almost see her skin healing as quickly as it had been burned.
In a few moments, the welding was done and the crate was sealed. Tonya stood up, turned off the torch and set it down, reaching for a bronze placard in her apron pocket. She slid it into place on an open section of the crate's lid, and it held fast. "HAND OF GLORY" it read in bright friendly letters, carved into the bronze.
"We can put it away when we get the Zyca rings we'll need to handle the castoroides ohioensis," Tonya said absently, taking off her apron. As she set it down, James sweetly wrapped his arms around her waist, and brought her close.
"Hey, pretty lady," James purred, his smile wide and pleasant.
"Hey, love ... what are you so happy about?" Tonya asked quizzically, her head tilted right to observe him.
"I'm the luckiest guy in the world, is all," James returned. "Fabulous riches, amazing adventures, super powers, and the sexiest woman in the world, all mine."
"You forgot bullets flying at you, blood vendettas on ... three continents now, and of course the wonderful fact that I'm older than dirt," Tonya smirked, curling her arms around his neck.
James stared deeply into her eyes, his embrace sure and delicate. "For you, I'd take 'em all twice a day and four times on Sunday."
Tonya returned his gaze, and they stood silent amongst the sealed crates of impossible things for a moment. "I love you so much," she whispered, brushing her left hand across his shaven head.
"I know," James smiled, always happy to bring an Empire Strikes Back reference into play. "I love you too, Tonya."
Neither could tell you where the line between not kissing and kissing was, but without any preamble or slow fade into it, their lips pressed against one another gently, tongues slowly gliding over each other like waves at high tide, his fingers dug deeply into her braids and cupping her head, willing themselves together as one.
When they finally pulled apart -- minutes or years later, it was hard to tell in that moment -- James said, "So what's this castor-blah-blah thing we're gonna go deal with?"
Tonya rolled her eyes and said, "I'll tell you later -- c'mon, if we rush we can catch the ram fight at tonight's festival."
"Race you!" James laughed, floating off the floor and zooming towards the elevator door. Tonya chuckled and said, "One day I'll tell him I have a remote for that thing, and there's no other way up ... but not today." Snickering to herself, she strolled leisurely along the several yards to the elevator, where James was pushing the button furiously.
* * *
The streets of Palembang were filled with revelers, and a parade dominated the main strip of the city. The enthusiastic people who'd helped secure the plane talked excitedly about what festival it was, but Tonya (who spoke flawless Bahasa Melayu but translated very little of it) only told James that it was an excuse to party and he should smile and not touch anything. He figured that, on her timeline, it might not be worth the energy to explain anything to him, as he wouldn't be around long enough to enjoy it, so mostly James enjoyed being dumb muscle and absorbing as much of what was happening as possible. In order for them to not attract too much attention, Tonya had dived into a burka that covered her from head to toe, and demanded that James walk a little ahead of her. He found this ridiculous, but they walked through the thin avenues towards the large stadium where the ram fights were to be held, glancing here and there without a care in the world.
When Tonya's PDA buzzed, it surprised her -- she hadn't scheduled anything outside of the spectacle they were to see, and it could only mean someone was contacting her. She pulled it out of the camera bag she kept strapped to her waist ("It's like a mini utility belt!" James remarked one day) and tapped at the screen with the stylus.
"What's up, T?" James asked absently, watching a group of dancers cavort along his path.
Furrowing her brow as she read, she said, "It's an email ... mmm."
"Mmm?" James returned, not very curious but being polite. The group of dancers -- young males, dressed colorfully -- had his attention with their movements.
"Some things in Europe that were supposed to be ignored suddenly attracted some attention," Tonya said absently, biting her lip. "Kind of like smelling rain, it's a sign of something on its way."
James turned to regard her, realizing that something was amiss. "Whatever is coming, Tonya, we'll face it together."
Her eyes shone brightly at him, a smile clearly gracing her face beneath the fabric. "It's just a storm, baby," she said with an almost imperceptible fatigue in her voice. "I've been watching them come and go forever."
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