Book of Secrets (12 page)

  We started at the house next door and worked our way down, notepads and Bic pens in hand. We asked the people who answered the door where they had been Tuesday afternoon and early evening, whether they had seen a fat kid in a parka, and if they had seen any suspicious persons or activity in the neighborhood recently. This last was standard operating procedure, learned from studying the moves of TV cops. It never elicited any kind of response, but it was good form, and we included it in our questioning as a matter of course.

  By noon, we had canvassed the houses on both sides of our street, and half of the next block over. Our notepads were both blank except for a brief line on each, "MR. ANDERSON SAW FAT KID IN AFTERNOON, MON? TUES?" That was as far as our investigation took us. Deciding it was time for a break, but not wanting to head back home until our assignment was through, we cut between two houses and down an alley until we came to the Creek.

  The Creek – really nothing more than a hint of a trickle that meandered down a slight slope and disappeared into a drainage ditch – was a favored spot for afterschool explorations, snow ball fights during the brief Texas winters, and dirt clod fights in the summers. On either side was an empty grassy area, about ten yards wide and running the length of the block, only slightly slanted and perfect for frisbees and touch football. By the end of the summer, and continuing into the first freeze, the grass had usually grown to an alarming height, and hid all the toys and bicycle parts lost there over the preceding months. This being the beginning of December, and the first real cold snap still weeks away, the grass rose to at least two feet and reached easily up to our waists.

  Slogging our way through the brown, swaying grass, we made it to the edge of the water and found a dry spot to sit and eat. We munched on our sandwiches, and each opened a can of grape soda we'd secreted from the kitchen. We talked about the facts of the case as we knew them, about the plots of the comics we'd bought the week before, about the possibility of life on other planets and whether we could fly their space ships if we came upon them in the road. In the end, we decided that there was a strong possibility that Ricky had left town, that Superman could in fact beat up the Hulk, and that if the spaceship was a Viper from the Battlestar Galactica we could most likely fly it. Having concluded our important business, we figured we might as well finish up the day, and if we hadn't found Ricky by dinner time file the case under Unsolved.

  Finishing off our cans of soda and lobbing them downstream at the drainage ditch, we headed back towards the street through the open field. A few yards in, my brother noticed a cloud of flies hovering in midair like a balloon. It was then that the smell hit us, and I was reminded of dog we'd found the summer before, lying half flattened in the middle of the road, caked with dirt and with
something
still moving around inside. We had touched it with a long stick, and then the something came spilling out, millions of them, squirming out blind onto the hot tarmac. It was that kind of smell.

  We continued forward, cautiously now, plowing through the grass with our arms out in front of us, our eyes glued to the ground. It was six paces before we found it, before we almost walked right over it. In that first moment, I wasn't sure what it was, and I bent to pick it up. It was a little white creature, with four or five legs, and I held it for a long moment before my brother snatched it out of my grasp. We both looked at it, and as we did the legs began to resolve into fingers, the little creature into a hand.

  I'd like to say that it was my brother that threw up first, and the smell and sound of it caused me to follow, but I can't say for sure. All I know is that we were running all the way home, my head turned to one side, his to the other, crying and vomiting all the way. Hanging in front of each of us, burned into our retinas, was the image of that hand, and that arm, laying all alone in the grass, and a couple of yards away, the hint of something else.

  It was Maria who called the police and went down to the Creek with them while we cowered at the kitchen table, gulping down water and shivering despite the warm air. It wasn't until she got back that she noticed the blood on our hands and hurried us to the sink to scald it off. We hadn't said a word since the police had arrived, only occasionally glancing at one other, our faces blank.

  It was all over the news for a few days, and Ricky Young's name was added to a short list of children who had been found mutilated and abandoned around and about central Texas over the previous three years. Reporters came around to the house once or twice, but they were quickly dismissed by our grandfather who told them there was no story. Meanwhile my brother and I hid upstairs, numbly flipping through the stations on a little black and white television. Maria sat stoically in the kitchen every night for a month, her eyes on the back door, one hand perched on a telephone, the other grasping the handle of a large kitchen knife. After a while, when there were no other child murders to report, the story was quietly dropped.

  Our grandfather only mentioned the incident once that I can recall. That first night, once Maria had showered and scrubbed us both for hours and then locked us in our rooms, her weeping all the while, he came to our room long after dark.

  My brother and I both sat on the floor near our beds, our knees up at our chins, staring wide-eyed at the opening door. Grandfather just stood there in the doorway, immaculately dressed in his coat and hat, and disarmingly calm. He looked at me, then my brother, and then back again, and nodded his head three times slowly.

  "There are many dangerous people in the world," he said firmly, and then turned and closed the door. We later heard the front door open and close, and the car started and driven away. We didn't see him again until the next night, and he never mentioned it again.

  I didn't sleep for a week. All thoughts of fighting crime were gone. I never wanted to leave my room again.

It was late afternoon when I finally pulled into a spot on Guadalupe, across from the University of Texas. I dodged the teenage kids on the street begging for change or cigarettes, and crossed the intersection to the campus.

  It was finals week, if I was reading correctly the expression on every student's face I saw. Aside from a few sorority sisters rushing to the undergraduate library, an Asian couple discussing Shakespeare in low tones and an Indian engineering student asleep on his textbook, the West Mall was deserted as I made my way to the liberal arts buildings. Clustered together in a defensive fashion, like the deans and profs had circled the figurative wagons to stave of the attacks of irrelevancy from the business and engineering departments across the campus, the buildings housing the liberal arts had a certain rustic, old world charm. Like hairy armpits on women, or the Black Death. I barely ducked a flying dialectical necessity coming up the stairway to the central building, and narrowly missed being smacked in the eyes by a moral imperative as I skirted my way around the philosophy department. Like most ivory towers, it was dangerous to visitors.

  The Department of Middle Eastern Studies was squirreled away in a corner on the third floor of the saddest of the buildings, just past the broken water fountain on the left. The bulletin board in the hall out front advertised guest lectures from professors who were simply ordinary on their own distant campuses, and notices about invitations for ordinary professors to lecture at distant schools. There was a film series of Socialist Feminist Cinema from Jordan, and a question-and-answer session with the Deputy Secretary of the Coalition to End Genital Mutilation in Yemen. I was sorry I'd missed that.

  The wooden door creaked on its ancient hinges as I entered, and I stepped into the familiar aroma of stale air, dusty books, and a hint of patchouli. Behind the reception desk was a young woman in a tight-fitting tank top, Italian wrestler pants and more tattoos than the Ninth Fleet. She looked up at me around her eyebrow rings, and ran a hand over her close cropped scalp. I watched her take me in a single glance – the rumpled suit, the scuffed boot, the eight dollar haircut – and I could just tell she didn't approve. I might not have been the Man, but she could tell I was on a first name basis with Him.

"Yes," she snarled. "Are you lost?"

  I have uncanny luck with receptionists. It never fails.

  "I'm here to see Michelle Orlin," I answered.

  She sneered.

  "
Doctor
Orlin is grading exams," she said, "and can't be disturbed. I'm sure,
if
you have important business, she can arrange to see you some
other
time."

  Behind her was a half-opened door, and before I could answer it swung wide and a flurry in faded denim and paisley came bounding into the room.

  "Spencer!"

  I smiled, catching the receptionist's eye.

  "I thought I heard your voice!" The flurry came into focus, all five foot eight of her, her long tangled hair spinning around her like a nimbus.

  "Howdy, Michelle," I said.

  She hurried around a chair and came up to lock me in a bear hug. For someone so slight, she had a pretty mean grip.

  "How the hell have you been?" she asked. "I haven't seen you since… New York?"

  "Sounds about right," I answered, gently pushing her to arm's length and looking down into her eyes. "So you reconsider that offer yet?"

  She smiled devilishly and chucked me a light tap on the chin.

  "Still trying to make an honest woman of me, huh?" She stepped back and crossed her arms, cocking her head to one side. "I know I don't have to remind you of the one flaw in your master plan."

  "I'm convinced I could straighten you out, baby," I replied, "just give me half a chance."

  I could feel the receptionist's every orifice clench from where I stood and resisted the temptation to see for myself. I resisted, and failed. A quick glance her way and her gaze showed me the million ways she was planning on emasculating me. I had a notion, and ran with it.

  "I'm not selfish, you know," I directed at the scowling tattoo, "I'll share her with you if you want."

  Michelle slugged me in the arm and managed a frown for all of five seconds.

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah," she scolded, "God's gift to women, scourge of the lesbian."

  I just shrugged.

  "Come on back."

  She turned and started back for her office. I followed, pausing briefly to blow a kiss to the receptionist. She practically convulsed with rage, but kept her seat.

"Okay, Spence, what's this all about? I know you didn't just come to shoot the shit."

  Michelle, one of only two people in the world I let call me "Spence", was leaning back in her chair, her knees folded up to her chin, one arm resting over them. Her free hand pulled at her tangled hair, teasing out the knots one bit at a time. On the desk in front of her were stacks of exam books, a few dozen stapled groups of paper, and a half-dozen ash trays full to capacity. Smoking had been regulated right out of state buildings years before, but since few of the University officials had any idea where the Middle Eastern department was, much less visited, Michelle figured she was safe.

  I sat back in the antique wooden chair, the thing I came to show her resting on my knee. I lit up a cigarette and started in.

  "Okay, okay, you got me. I need help, and I think you're the only one who can give it to me." I took a drag on the cigarette and let that sink in.

  "The
only
one?" she asked. "Or the only one who's still speaking with you?"

  "The only one," I answered simply. "I don't need someone to post bail, or do my laundry, or feed my cat–"

  "You don't have a cat," Michelle interrupted, her eyes narrowing.

  "I need help only you can give me," I finished.

  She leaned forward in her chair, dropping her feet to the floor.

  "This should be good," she said.

  "I hope so."

  Like a corny magician at a birthday party, I reached down out of her line of sight behind the desk and brought it back up with the plastic bag, which I'd kept out of her view up till now. Inside, untouched, was the ancient and yellowed paper with all the tiny markings. I dropped it unceremoniously on the desk in front of her and sat back. I watched her eyes widen.

  "What is that?" she asked, her voice breathless.

  "I don't know, babe," I answered. "I was hoping you would tell me."

Fifteen minutes and a half-dozen cigarettes between us later, Michelle had at least part of an answer.

  "It's old," she pronounced. I was beginning to wonder if I'd come to the right place.

  "And...?" I prompted.

  "It's very old," she added. "Very, very old."

  I sighed and stubbed out a cigarette.

  "Fascinating," I drawled.

  "I mean it, Spence, this is really a find. Based on the grammatical structures, the syntax, even the penmanship… I'd place it at Eighth, Ninth Century tops." She still hovered over it, a magnifying glass in hand. Her last cigarette, untouched on the ashtray, had burned to the filter.

  "Yeah, but what is it?"

  "Um, paper," she said, sarcasm dripping.

  "Okay, short questions. Language?"

  "Definitely Arabic."

  "O-kay," I said. "And it says…" I paused, waiting for her to jump in.

  "What, all of it?" she asked. "Do you know how long it took me to do my translation of the
Rubaiyat
? And that was after two years of studying the grammar and vocabulary. This isn't a menu, Spencer; I can't just recite it to you." I watched her glasses begin to slip down her nose, but she was so worked up she didn't even notice.

  "Do you have a general idea?" I asked calmly.

  "Sure." She paused and held the paper up to the light, still sheathed in plastic. "Where did you get this?" she breathed.