Key Weird 01; Key Weird Read online

  “He’s got something going on he’s not telling, and it’s driving me crazy!” She picked up one of her notebooks and threw it on the bed.

  “The man’s been sneaking around for years. Making his secret phone calls, meeting shady people here at the mansion, or flying off someplace without telling us where he’s going.”

  Carol inspected a well-chewed fingernail.

  “These days all he does is act coy and say he’s got plans, and all I do is walk around this freaking bedroom talking to myself!”

  ♦

  Carol had learned all she could about the man. There were notebooks full of information it had taken her years to collect. She knew more about the popular writer/guru than anyone. Not that that was a particularly good thing.

  Charlie Spider had first made a name for himself in the ’70s with his series of books on the occult, sorcery, and drugs. The release of the first books fit in well with the fledgling New-Age movement, and the popular writer fanned the flames of fame by remaining elusive and evasive through the ’80s while he continued to pump out another book every few years. He got away from the drug thing after the first couple books, and was one of the first to bring lucid dreaming out of the secret societies of the mystics and onto the shelves of neighborhood bookstores. His book Dreaming for the Easily Led gave some instruction on lucid dreaming mixed in with his usual fanciful tales of magic and sorcery. It was his biggest seller. The fact that it actually seemed to work a little made his growing legions of fans fiercely loyal to Charlie’s books, and overly forgiving of some obvious inconsistencies in his stories.

  Charlie was filthy rich by the time Carol moved into the mansion in the late ‘90s. He had a worldwide following and a big house full of young women he called Witchettes vying for his attention. Then the workshop tours started.

  Traveling around the country, then the world, appealed to Carol. It was a little like hanging out with a rock band. Actually a lot like it. Less music, but Charlie’s talks with some recycled stage magic thrown in drew good crowds. It gave the women something to do, and Charlie got to audition a lot of prospective Witchettes.

  Carol saw it all. While his books told of the powers available for the taking to anyone willing to live a life of abstinence, celibacy, and meditation, Charlie himself stayed busy boinking plenty of nubile young culties and partying as hard as humanly possible.

  Then it happened. The man was at the height of his game, and promising big things to come, when his body suddenly gave out on him. Charlie melted like the Wicked Witch of the West in a matter of a few agonizing days. The rapid decline and excruciatingly painful death of the man who for decades had alluded to immortality in his books was kept from the press and public by the astonished Witchettes and a thoroughly stunned Carol.

  “Charlie! How am I going to find out what you were up to now?”

  ♦

  “My God! I never dreamed he’d die! I just assumed he’d live forever!” Shasha seemed to be working herself into another crying jag.

  Heather was still in deep denial. “Maybe he’s not really dead. Maybe he’s just traveling in the next dimension! I know he wouldn‘t leave us here alone!”

  Several years of the good life with Charlie had left Carol with little tolerance for whiners, and a few extra pounds. Unlike some women, when Carol gained weight, it went to all the right places. Even so, her initial pursuit of spiritual virtue had long ago been replaced by an ongoing quest to lose 5 pounds. She took the trembling and detestably slender Heather gently by the hand.

  “Heather, honey, come with me.”

  They went for a private viewing of the famous guru’s frosty, withered corpse jammed in the basement chest freezer. Heather ran off to her room, in full shriek. Carol shrugged.

  Like the others, Carol was shocked that the old bird had checked out. But she was also pissed because not only would she never find out Charlie’s secret, she was also going to have to start doing things more demanding than choosing lunch menus or taking long baths. It just wasn’t fair.

  Having to deal with the body hadn’t been a barrel of laughs either. In fact, after Charlie started hanging out with the frozen pot pies, several of the women who helped Carol with the gruesome task cut out. Gretta, the former exotic dancer who had been with Charlie for years, said she was heading south. Nicki went back to live with her parents. Two others left without bothering to tell anyone where they were going. The remaining seven women got together for a strategy session.

  “Maybe we should call Charlie’s lawyer, see if there’s a will.”

  Carol was the oldest at 29, and slightly more stable than the others.

  “I do remember he mentioned something about a will once.”

  Sara had been with Charlie the longest. She spoke so rarely it got everyone’s attention whenever she did.

  “You know, one of the ways he controlled us was by never letting us have much money, he took care of all the financial stuff himself. I bet there’s money hidden here in the mansion somewhere. I say we tear the place apart and find it!”

  Sara had a wild look in her eyes none of the women had ever seen before. Carol thought of a caged animal sensing freedom.

  “Good plan Sara, let’s do it!”

  The Witchettes started to fan out for the search when Heather spoke up.

  “We can’t do that! Charlie wouldn’t want us snooping around like that!”

  Six sets of eyes narrowed and stared at Heather. Carol put an arm around her fellow Witchette’s shoulder.

  “Heather, dear. Maybe you want to go down to the freezer and ask Charlie’s permission first? No? How about you start with his bedroom then while I call the lawyer.”

  Finding a double fistful of hundreds under some sex toys in Charlie’s sock drawer seemed to awaken some long dormant instincts in Heather. She organized and lead the hunt afterwards. The library needed a meticulous search. The grounds needed to be dug. An attic. Basement.

  Carol made an appointment with the lawyer, then gave Charlie’s room another look. She went for the big piece of Mayan pottery that was Charlie’s change jar. Easy enough to dump it on the bed. A few coins caught a good bounce and ended up on the floor. Never one to let any amount of easy money get away, Carol crawled under the bed and was trying to retrieve a dime from a crack in the floorboards when she realized one of the boards was loose.

  “And what do we have here? Under your bed, dear Charlie?”

  A loose board, then another. It took Carol a while to get all the stuff out of the secret compartment, but it was worth it. She had found what they were looking for. A manuscript for another book, stock certificates, photo albums of a lot of old Indians, stacks of crumbly little notebooks, an ancient-looking wooden pipe, small bags of dried God-knows-what, and a locked metal strongbox the size of a phone book. Carol slipped the box into her room and hid it under the mattress before she brought the other women to Charlie’s room to check out the haul.

  ♦

  Dark. Creepy. Cold. After everyone was asleep that night, Carol snuck down to the basement and went through the pockets of Charlie’s withered, frozen corpse, and found the key. It took a couple of good belts of brandy back in her room before her hands stopped shaking enough so she could open the box.

  Gold. Shiny. Warm. Though she had never seen them before, Carol knew what the two hand-sized gold idols wrapped in velvet were. Charlie talked about the Chacmools of the Ancient Ones at the workshops, but she assumed they were more of his metaphorical power-object bullshit. She didn’t think they really existed. She was wrong.

  The idols were solid gold and had a woman’s head and what looked like an animal’s body. Carol tried to remember what Charlie had said.

  “When the Golden Chacmools are placed on the body of a dreamer, that person will be immediately transported to a world of infinite power and knowledge!”

  Or maybe transported to a plane of the dream wisdom of the Ancients. Whatever it was, Carol was pretty sure Charlie said you needed three Chac
mools to get off, and there were definitely only two in the box. The only thing else in there was one of those locking diaries, and Carol wasn’t about to go digging through any more frozen dead people’s pockets. Get some sleep, then cut the diary open in the morning. If they got screwed on the will, she could always sell the gold for some quick cash and cut town.

  Carol held the heavy little idols, one in each hand. There’s nothing like the look and feel of gold to bring a smile.

  “I wonder where the third Chacmool is this very minute.”

  ∨ Key Weird ∧

  7

  St. Augustine Pays Off for Taco Bob

  “Easy work and hard rocking!”

  I wasn’t always in mind to work on a fishing boat, but it seemed like a mighty good way to get some water under my feet and make some much needed pocket money. The map I’d found mentioned Jacksonville and on south a ways had a lot of marinas, so that’s where I headed.

  I got into St. Augustine early afternoon, parked by a statue of an early Spanish explorer, and started in on one of my specialties – walking around and looking at stuff. There were some mighty nice boats in the marina, and I spent some time just taking in the sights. I got to talking to some fellas on one of the charter boats, and they told me about a boat that might be hiring on some crew. Things were looking good.

  Headed over to the far end of the marina and found the boat all right, an older 36-foot Hatteras Sport Fisherman, the “No Quarter.” Didn’t seem to be anyone around, but there was a Help Wanted sign on the dock.

  “Hello! Anybody there?” As soon as I said that, a couple of eyes and a big nose surrounded by a generous amount of jet-black hair and beard popped out of the cabin door. The eyes squinted down, giving me a hard look. Fella had a real low, gravelly voice.

  “Arrr! Who goes there? Friend er foe?”

  “Friend, I reckon. Fella over the other side of the marina said I might could get a job here crewing for a day or two. Said to ask for Captain Black.”

  He was quick for a little fella with a bad limp. He moved kinda sideways like a crab, more of a scuttle than a walk. Was up on the dock giving me the eye head to toe and all around while I just stood there. Finally he pulled himself up to his full height and squinted up into my face.

  “So you want to do battle with the monsters of the deep, do ye? Crash through the towering seas and spit in the devil’s eye?”

  “Uh, well, I do need a job.” I was beginning to think the man a bit peculiar. He hacked and spat, gave me another close-up squint.

  “Ye got yer clothes on right side out, and ye ain’t scratching like ye got the lice. Yer hired. Be here smartly, five a.m.” Captain Black disappeared back in the cabin just as quick, leaving me wondering a few things. Like pay. But at least I had a job.

  ♦

  The next day was one to remember. The Jolly Roger flags on the boat and Captain Black dressed like a pirate during the job interview the day before should have tipped me off. I’d never heard of a Pirate Cruise before, but the Hendersons and Halls from Ontario had. Those folks told me they’d booked Captain Black over all the other charterboats because of his pirate motif. So off we went for a day’s fishing.

  The Captain and his nephew Orville had on their pirate outfits, and wasted no time getting wasted on rum on the way out. The Canadians thought it was great fun, those two drunk on their asses, shouting an impressive collection of seafaring obscenities to everyone aboard. Not having been out on a boat that big before, especially out of sight of land, it was a might disconcerting for yours truly seeing the people supposed to be running the boat stewed to the gills. It was not like me to be sober when there was an opportunity to be otherwise, but under the circumstances I elected to keep a clear head, just in case.

  But my fears of shipwrecks and men overboard were thankfully unfounded. What actually happened in between all the pirate histrionics was some fine fish catching. Captain Black kept a bloodshot eye on his collection of electronic monitors while at the helm, and called out orders.

  “Thar she blows, Orville! We got bait clouds at ten fathoms! Man the port rods ye scurvy dogs!”

  “Aye, ye old bastard! Cut er back some, we got fish ON!”

  And Orville would grab a bent over rod with line screaming off the reel and hand it to one of the Canadians in the fighting chair before stumbling and falling hard. Each time the Captain would reverse engines at just the right moment to throw his inebriated kin off balance so he’d smack the deck. The Captain thought this was hilarious.

  “Mind ye step, ye scallywag! Ye got sea legs like a girly!”

  Which would send Orville raging into the cabin after his hysterical uncle. Then I would help the people with the fish, while those two threw vile curses and boat accessories at each other.

  We landed several nice Kingfish and even got one jump out of a big Sailfish before starting back in. The day’s fishing success was cause for breaking out even more rum, and we eventually found the right marina in the right town after only three tries.

  Captain Black abandoned ship for the bars as soon as the “No Quarter” bumped into its home berth with Led Zeppelin blasting from the ships loudspeakers.

  “Ye sorry excuse for bilge rats be puttin’ the knife to the fishes whilst I attend to the barroom wenches! Aye, it’s a pirate’s life for me!” And off he staggered down the dock with his sideways walk, pausing only to take a kick at a slow moving dog or tourist. I went below to turn the music down, and found Orville passed out on the floor of the cabin with his head in the head.

  I did my best, cleaning and icing down the day’s catch for our sunburned and wobbly clients before hosing down the boat and putting things back in some kind of order. The Canadians ended up all smiles, and trucked on off with their fish after giving me a healthy tip.

  The next day was more of the same with four folks from Dayton. Somehow, Orville and the Captain managed to get even more grog-bombed, but we caught fish again, and with my help coming in we found the right marina on only the second try.

  I got another nice tip that day, so I didn’t too much mind the next morning when some weather moved in and a seriously hungover Captain Black informed me fishing was off for a few days. Orville was in his usual place on the floor, half inside the head, and the Captain seemed to be slowly losing a battle with gravity over a plate of breakfast. I wanted to thank the man for giving me a job and invaluable fishing experience, but he was snoring in his grits before I could get it said.

  ♦

  Since I was a bit concerned about my truck standing out in a parking lot full of little rice-burner cars and SUVs, I’d found a place to park in a secluded alley behind a fish house. But I wasn’t surprised to see the bottoms of some very large boots sticking out from under my truck. I approached cautiously, knowing where there’s one Dalton, there’s soon two.

  “Morning, Lenny.”

  “Morning, Taco Bob.” I noticed a busted car jack under the front bumper of my truck; Lenny was too big to fit under otherwise. I took a look under at the unmoving Dalton.

  “Lenny, I imagine that engine block resting on your forehead smarts a bit.” I winced and looked again at the jack that had given way.

  “It’s not bad, I had worse.”

  “So Lenny, I kinda got an idea already, but just to clear things up for me, what is it you’re doing under my truck?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just cutting the brake lines, maybe a bomb.”

  “I see. George around?”

  “He run off to get another jack, get this motor off my head. He should be back soon, then we’re going to breakfast. I’m getting mighty hungry.” I noticed metal snips on the ground.

  “You cut any brake lines yet, Lenny?”

  “Nope.”

  “Bombs?”

  “Nope. George has some hand grenades. Should blow up real good!”

  “I’m sure. Look, Lenny, how about I get this truck off your head, and we call it off for today so you can get some breakfast?”

 
; “Uh, yeah! You think that will be all right with George?”

  “He’s probably getting hungry himself by now. You just hold still while I unlock the truck here, get the jack out from behind the seat.”

  Thinking about George and hand grenades, I was able to get the truck jacked-up in record time. I started pulling the man-mountain out by the ankles.

  “Damn if you ain’t a mite heavy, Lenny!” I got him drug out, and while I was getting the truck down off the jack, that mass of humanity sat up rubbing on a greasy bolt imprint deep in his forehead.

  “Thanks, Taco Bob. I was getting a bit of a headache there.”

  “Don’t mention it Lenny. Be seeing ya.”

  I had hold of the doorhandle, about to make good a speedy departure, when I head a metallic click on the pavement right behind me. Kinda like the sound you’d expect the pin from a hand grenade to make. My reflexes somehow judged the height and angle just right when I spun around with the jack handle, and caught a surprised George Dalton square in the side of the head.

  As he went down, the grenade came loose. I dove after it, and did a scoop and throw any outfielder in the Big Leagues would have been proud of. I got to my feet, jumped in my truck and roared off just as the grenade went off under somebody’s van.

  Judging by the way George and Lenny were staring at the burning van as I went around the corner, I surmised it was theirs.

  ♦

  After a quick stop at a hardware store, I headed south along the coast and found a place to park for the night just the other side of a little town called Flagler Beach. Though I hated to do it, I spray-painted over the artwork on the sides of my truck. It had to be the reason they kept finding me.

  I drifted off to sleep listening to the surf from inside my truck camper, and had a dream about coconut trees and manatees. Try as I might though, I still couldn’t remember to look at my hands in my dreams, and count my fingers.

  ∨ Key Weird ∧