Chapter 19: Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Part 19

EPISODE with JASON "SWINGO" JONAS, Continued

October, 2007

CHILLICOTHE, OHIO

2

The gravel parking lot is brightened only by a roadside light whose beam glistens the hoods and windows of the vehicles and through which falls the occasional bead of sleet. Four men run in a file toward the dimness at the far edge. The first is fifty feet ahead. The second keeps pace with him. The third tires, and the last is broad and slow.

Just before disappearing into the bushes and trees that fringe the lot, the leader - the man in the blazer - makes an unusual move, hopping as if injuring a leg and falling. He comes to a knee between two broad trees, a taut, glistening cable strung across the space between them. It could very well be that of the bike lock used at an interrogation in a central Ohio factory.

The first two pursuers trip over the wire and fall cursing. The third stops, puffing, at the edge of the undergrowth and surveys the situation. From behind one of the trees anchoring the cable, a shadowy arm swings something across his face.

****

Ten feet into the foliage and fifty from the nearest parked car, the bushes shudder. The conversation and the occasional light impact coming from them are so muffled that people leaving or entering the bar are unaware of them.

From the lamp over the parking lot, a beam of light drops through a gap between the branches. Now and then, something shiny appears and then disappears, rising from about eight feet in the air and then falling to disappear into the waist-high natural cover. It is something light and hafty in the arm of a human form, which swings it casually downward several times. It is wielded by the man in the jacket, his left sleeve torn at the shoulder. He holds something down with his foot.

"You were real tough when you thought it was one little guy, weren't you? One little guy that doesn't know how to fight." He taps his thin object a few more times casually. "Remember that about little guys. Right... Skeeter?" The name is punctuation to a kick.

Three men in a row are lying prone below him. Each one has an ankle fastened by a plastic handcuff to the cable that had tripped them. The man in the jacket has shed his wire-rims and is wearing clear sports frames.

"Ha. Skeeter's out," he says. "Good night, Skeeter. La-la land. He left you to do the testifying." He prods one of the forms below him with his telescoping self-defense baton. "Still with us, Terminator?" One of them moans. "Good. Now, who did you make the deal with?"

The standing man taps the baton downward again. The prone form shudders.

"I can't hear you," the standing form utters like a drill sergeant. He prods with his foot. He gets a moan. "Glad I have your attention. So, who?" A bit of whining responds.

"Any idea who either of them was?" More whining.

"That's about what I thought," says the man in the torn jacket. "They wouldn't be in a hurry to tell you. What did they look like? How can I track them?" He leans to listen.

"You expect me to believe that?" says the man in the jacket, whipping downward again. "Why wouldn't that have been the first thing you told me? How do they find their way around?" He leans again. A bit more whining rises from the wet, quivering grass.

"Any clue where they were from? Did they have accents?"

He leans down and listens. "Just pushed the envelope over to you and took the box?" he says. "That's just about equally crazy. How did you know what they wanted?"

The form below him shudders and weeps something.

"OK, I get that part. OK, we'll work on that. There can't be too many guys like that running around the state. Or anywhere else. Now we've come to another question, and I want you to think real hard before you lie to me. Don't make me come back after you."

The standing man waits for that to settle in. "Where did you find it?"

He leans down and listens again. "I know he can't talk now. But I think he told you."

He leans down. "No way." He shakes his head. "But which part of it? What was it near? You have to give me a landmark or something."

The man with the blazer shakes his head again. "Wild. Someday I may ask you how you pulled that off." With a click he collapses the self-defense baton into his hand and tucks the device into his coat pocket.

"Now this is real important. Did you find anything with it? Is this the only thing like that you had?" He leans down. He listens.

"OK, makes sense to me, too. We'll go back there and look. But you gotta tell me if you had anything else but just that piece, OK?" There is a mumble beneath him. "You're sure?" A groan. "You're sure?" Another groan.

"I'll take that for now," says the man in the jacket. "But it's really going to go bad if you make me come all the way back here after you, OK? You do get that?" He gives a few light taps on the breast pocket that holds the antenna-weapon. He leans down. "I can't hear you," he says again in the sing-song voice.

Something below him emits a high, wobbly groan.

"Skeeter!" the standing man says as if greeting a long-lost friend. "You back? Glad we get a chance to talk. You know, you sound like Scooby-Doo. Going to start calling you that. Scooby-Doo. That ought to be your new name. Scooby-Doo. I want to make sure you know this, too, Scooby-D, OK? You have no idea how much it's going to hurt if I have to come back here, OK, Scooby?"

He takes a bit of high warbling beneath him to be an assent. "Hey, Scooby, while we're on it... Your buddy told me something interesting about those two guys you sold the item to. You notice anything unusual about them?"

The slender fellow bends to listen again. "Well... At least your stories tally." There is a bit of new whining in the grass, and he lights up as if with joy. "Monkey-boy! You back with us, too! We got a full primate house!"

He taps the folded protection-device in his coat again and notices the tear in the left sleeve. "That was my favorite jacket, you fuck!" he says, delivering a moderate kick. One of the three forms whimpers.

"That cost me more than your truck is worth. Jungle-boy." He delivers another kick. "Gonna call you Cheetah next time I see you. That's your new name. Right outta the Tarzan movies. You better answer to it if you see me coming. Cheetah. You better come running over like I got a banana for you. Are you Cheetah now?" Another kick. "Good. You remember that."

He steps toward the parking lot, then turns back. "And if you feel like telling the cops one little guy kicked your three asses for you, go right ahead. See what they do."

3

The man in the jacket stands under a broad tree in the shadows of the lights of the parking lot. He speaks into a cell phone.

"The item is gone. The jaw is gone. The ape sold them to different buyers, or at least he thinks he did. Different people, anyway. He didn't tell the first buyer about the second piece. If the big picture ever comes clear, I think these guys are gonna be in trouble, so we might want to keep an eye on them."

The man in the jacket listens a few seconds. "I haven't got much of a lead. This was a very bizarre exchange. Couple really weird little old guys making the first trade. You'd think they'd both be in the same freelance antiquities club we've been after. Based on what they paid, I think we could narrow the field down pretty easily. Let's find out who the high-rolling collectors are. You have to have some connections in the colleges. The archaeological association probably has a good idea how this one could have shook out."

****

EPISODE with JASON "SWINGO" JONAS

October, 2007

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport

CINCINNATI, OHIO

Two men sit beside each other at an airport bar. One is the medium-sized agent last seen conducting interrogations. Dressed as if for a hike in the woods - rugged footwear, a fishing shirt, cargo pants, and a black fleece Columbia vest - he sprawls sideways in his perch, watching the runway through the broad picture windows. The other, a much bigger man, wears a close-fitting Nike track suit. His elbows rest on the bar as he texts. Long-haired and goateed, he bears a facial resemblance to the rocker Gregg Allman in his twenties.

From the way they lounge with each other and say little, these two give the impression of old friends. The big man's phone chirps, and he listens a minute, saying almost nothing. "Looks like somebody's a step ahead of us on that missing item," he says to his companion when the call ends. His accent could be that of the American southeast. The smaller man beside him looks straight ahead toward the bottles behind the bar and takes a meditative sip of his Molson Canadian.

"Your buddies from Mayberry got a little surprise visit," says the big man. "Somebody strung them up and started stripping Slim Jims. It didn't get too far, so I presume one of them gave up the goods."

"Skeeter," says the smaller man. "He'd have been singing like Sinatra in about two seconds."

"Only so long," says the big man. "Somebody sliced their throats. A really fast move with a really dull item. Might have been a butter knife or even a six-inch ruler. The lab thought the perp might have been a martial artist. That say anything to you?"

"I think it says we're done playing Ohio whack-a-mole."

"Bop the Buckeye," says the big man, checking the screen of his phone.

The other stands and shoulders a pack. "Bout that time," he says, over the sound of a jet landing.