Archie’s directions were precise. A hundred yards past the elevation marker, I saw his sculpted bear. It looked more like a fat woodenmonkey. I could picture Archie out there on a summer day with the McCullough, yanking the saw cord, brrrrmmm, bup bup bup, bzzzzzzzzzz, whoops, fuck it, bzzzzzzzzzz, whoops, fuck it. Hacking on the helpless pine, sweat dripping onto the saw’s rubber grip. Not exactly Michelangelo chipping away everything that wasn’t David.
I drove down the long driveway till I spotted Archie’s Hummer parked in front of a big A-frame cabin. The lights in the house were out; smoke drifted up from the chimney toward the pregnant yellow moon. I parked, grabbed the box of transparencies and notes, and groaned my way out of the car.
Then someone grabbed the back of my jacket and put a gun to my head. Instantly I dropped to the ground like a sack of stones, catching my assailant by surprise. I scissored his legs and he went over, his silver gun glinting in the moonlight.
Grabbing his gun hand, I twisted hard. I heard an ugly snap and a cry just before a bolt of lightning hit my neck and time stopped.
When I came to, I was sitting in a steel and leather chair in front of the hearth in Archie’s living room. A nicely built fire crackled on the grate. When the heat reached a little air pocket in one of the split logs, it made a pop and sparks flew against the glass fireplace doors. The sound echoed in my head like a boom from the “1812 Overture,” and was accompanied by considerable pain, which flared from my left eye back to what I assumed was a good-sized lump behind my ear.
Off to my right a familiar throaty female voice uttered, “Reb.” I felt comfort, as though a soft blanket had been fluffed over me.
I painfully inched my head toward the sound. Only four feet away, Ginny sat in an identical chair.
A hand with manicured and polished fingernails touched her shoulder. She shivered in response.
“See, honey?” an ominous voice said. “I told you he’d be back.”
My eyes followed a black kidskin sleeve up to a shoulder, to a collar,-to the tattoo of a serpent. The snake seemed to undulate with each carotid throb.
I elevated my gaze to meet a harsh chin, then a sneering mouth and the tip of a Roman nose, then two black eyes seizing my stare.
“Flame Boy,” Tecci called out, like a long-lost pal. “We meet again on terra firma.”
The sound waves rippled down my spine, shuddering me fully awake. I took in the sight of Nolo Tecci, his disturbed face angular and Picasso.
Memory’s ghosts sprang from their cots, their long arms reaching-—the blaze, the screams, the falling ceiling. The sea horses on the doctor’s tie reared, whinnying at the sight of the serpent in their path. Liquid fury flash- flooded my senses. I lurched forward, but my wrists and ankles were tightly bound to the chair with box twine.
Tecci let out a pull-the-wings-off-a-fly laugh. Ginny wasn’t tied down. She made a move toward me, but he squeezed her shoulder harshly, forcing her back into her chair.
I steeled myself, sucked in a long breath through my nose and let it out slowly.
“Where’s Archie?” I asked.
“Taking a little nap,” Tecci answered. “He’s a big one. Made a nice heavy-bag for my men. Gave them an excellent workout. By the way, my guy out in the driveway? I think you broke his wrist. He’s in the kitchen, wrapping it in ice. He doesn’t like you as much as I do. Hey, Jocko,” he yelled, “are you a little upset with Flame Boy?”
An angry voice from the other room called, “I’m gonna break his fuckin’ neck, Mr. Tecci. Just give me a minute.”
Ginny gasped. Nolo dug into her shoulder again and turned his head toward the doorway. “Quiet now, Jocko. You’re upsetting Ms. Gianelli.”
I noticed the reflection of the flickering fire on Tecci’s polished loafers. He looked down at them, too.
“You know, Flame Boy, labor’s pretty cheap. The Krauts, the Wops, everybody’s cheap. That’s because they’re ignorant.” He shouted in Jocko’s direction again, “You’re incredibly stupid, aren’t you?”
There was no answer from the kitchen. Nolo stomped the floor twice like a stage manager giving a cue. Jocko appeared in the doorway, a strong-looking guy with a blocky chin and male-pattern baldness, wearing a white Polo shirt smeared with dirt. His wrist was wrapped in a checkered towel. He cradled it delicately.
“Aren’t you stupid?” Nolo prompted.
“Yeah,” Jocko acknowledged reluctantly, eyes downcast. Then he disappeared into the kitchen.
“That was a very good answer, don’t you think?” Nolo said, smiling at me. “Do you think that was a good answer, Ms. Gianelli?”
Ginny looked at me with fear. “Yes.”
“It was a good answer, wasn’t it, Joey?” Nolo spoke to someone behind me.
“Good answer,” a deep voice replied.
“Do you like it, Lon?” Tecci said to someone off to my right, just out of view.
“I like it,” he answered, sniffling like he had a cold.
Nolo picked up a handful of transparencies from a small pine table next to Ginny. The sheets were a total mess, most of them bent. They must have gone flying when I hit the ground.
“By the way, Flame Boy,” Nolo said, sifting through them, “I really appreciate these righteous rings. The question is, how do they go together and what do they mean? Look at all of them.”
