A screen door came out of the back of Bruno’s. The weak metal smashed into the assassin, turning the gun away and shoving him over.
A jaguar in the shape of a man followed the screen, lunging at the man with the weapon. Fists drummed like hail into the killer’s face until he tumbled into the ripped bags of reeking refuse.
The gun disappeared among the garbage piles.
When the man in black failed to rise, Bruno whipped around to face the student. One of the front tails of his button-down shirt had come free of his pants. The old man fixed it while the chemical rush gave his eyes fifty years of youth. “You okay?”
Alred looked at the second assassin, unmoving, his head lost in the rubbish. Stepping away from the corpse, warm water floated up between her eyelids as she glanced at Figeroa’s body.
Rubbing his worn and tender knuckles, Bruno said in a husky voice, the softest she’d ever heard from him, “Get out of here, girl. I’m phoning the police, an I gotta hunch you don’t wanna be here when they arrive.”
She stared at the old man, attempting uselessly to decipher reality. But nothing made sense. Why would anyone kill so much over an archaeological find? Is this what Stratford feared? No professor could afford all these hit men, no matter how strong the lust to steal the glory Ulman deserved. Someone wanted KM-3 bad. But how could they know about it?!? Nevertheless…Porter couldn’t be right about all this.
“Go!” said Bruno, moving to the cafe’s rear door, hidden in the dark. He shot her a serious look.
Alred left the alley, thinking about predator shadows and hospitals. She wondered what Porter had faced and what had resulted…
May 3
11:57 a.m. PST
“Alred! I didn’t think you’d be my first visitor,” said Porter. He looked around the white room with red brick walls, thankful he could smell Alred’s sharp perfume instead of the sanitized hospital he’d been in the last couple days, or the dirty earth scent of his new cell.
Squinting, Alred said, “You haven’t spoken with a lawyer?”
“Not yet. Guess they’re booked. Or no one wants to work my case.”
“You don’t know what I had to do to find you, Porter,” said Alred, pulling her overcoat tightly around her, though there was enough heat in the room to make a man think he had a fever. “How could you be in jail!?”
“My mom always said I had a knack of getting into things,” he said into the microphone through the glass sheet separating them. There was enough room at the top of the pane to slide his fingers through to touch hers. But the cameras would see, the guards would freak, grab him, strip him, and arrest Alred. Not that she would slip her fingers over the glass to meet his anyway. Porter longed to feel the warmth of someone. But he couldn’t call his family, especially his mother, so he phoned no one. And Alred looked beautiful for some reason.
“I didn’t want to believe it when they said you’d been shot. In the abdomen? How are the wounds,” she said, pointing with her chin at his shoulder. Porter’s right arm hung in a sling.
“Sometimes I think there are people out there who just don’t like me,” Porter said.
Alred smiled.
“You one of them?” he said, his eyes sparkling, but his smile nodding downward.
“If only you could read-”
“Ah!” said Porter, lifting a hand quickly. His eyes flickered toward the microphone standing like a perched cobra about to strike.
Alred grinned without emotion as she looked at the table.
“It’s a terrible thing to have something you wanna tell someone, isn’t it? When you can’t utter a word?” said Porter. They were no doubt being taped.
“You realize we’ve lost any chance of graduating,” said Alred.
“Sacrifice is an important part of life. Build’s character,” said Porter, but the thought hurt inside. “There must be opposition in all things. We’ve walked into places angels don’t even talk about.”
“I’m not so easily defeated,” said Alred.
“Oh really?” said Porter with a sigh. “You saying that for your own peace of mind? Because you don’t want to think you’ve moved your last chess piece and admit the game is finished?”
Alred smashed her lips together, but kept her eyes relaxed. She looked at Porter. “Isn’t there a Mormon prayer to help you out in court? May 5th is just around the corner.”
“I was baptized on that day,” said Porter.
“Well it will definitely be the day you begin your new life.”
“Am I guilty?” said Porter.
Alred stared at him. “Of many things. We all are. Plato quoted Socrates as saying everyone breaks the law just shy of the degree at which they might get caught.”
“I didn’t realize you read the classics?” said Porter with a grin. “What happens when these laws we’re supposed to follow are set by God?”
“You’re the faithful one. Why do I sound like the optimist?” said Alred.
Porter scratched the back of his head. “It can’t get much worse than this.”
“They could nuke the building,” said Alred.
Smiling, Porter said, “And I’d turn around and find myself in a happier place.”
Alred let her head fall to the right. Her red hair fell in quick waves from behind her ear. “You don’t think you’re headed for Hades?”
Leaning back in his chair, Porter rubbed his eyes with one hand. He sighed at the white ceiling and coughed into his left fist. “Have you come to discuss my beliefs? We have missionaries outside of prison walls who are more than happy to tell you about the afterlife.”
“I came…because…I knew you were alone,” said Alred. “You’re hurting.”
The light in Porter’s face faded and red pain took its place. “You know me so well?”
“You’d love it, you know,” she said, insinuating the new codex.
Porter lowered his chin to his chest. “I was on top of the world before I met you.”
“Tell me one thing, Porter.” Alred leaded close to the microphone, looked him hard in the eyes, and whispered with sincerity on her face like a painting of a lonely girl. “How can someone with your intelligence…honestly believe that a god exists?”
Porter focused on her pupils. “Alred, how is it that someone with your investigative capabilities and strategic learning skills does not put two and two together and realize that all I’ve been saying is accurate?”
“I really don’t see your church as much different than any other,” said Alred, pushing the soft auburn behind her ears. “I went weekly to Catholic mass long ago, and all I saw were formulas filling in blanks when answers weren’t present.”
“You would bring all this up when I’m at my weakest,” Porter said. He sighed and sniffed, rubbing his nose with the back of one finger. “Do you know why Mormons are called Mormons?”
“Porter, I think I know why you’ve been hunted,” said Alred.
“Would you be offended if I-”
“And I think it has nothing to do with religion.”
“Pardon?”
Alred studied him for a moment before opening her mouth again. What was she seeing? “I was attacked twice…by armed men insisting I give them-”
Porter lurched forward but kept his voice down. “You were what?!?”
“Porter,” said Alred with solid smoke in her eyes, “I know for a fact now that Ulman…is…dead. I’ve seen-” Alred looked at the microphone, “-terrible things.”
Sitting with his mouth hanging loose, Porter put the picture together in his mind. She’s seen…what. Ulman? Dead? Alred was attacked? After Porter was shot and charged with illegal possession of foreign artifacts? All while she’s been hiding KM-3? “And this has nothing to do with my church?”
“I did some checking,” she said, reaching into her black bag. “This kind of activity is not unheard of.”
“You’re suggesting…what?” said Porter.
“Remember Dr. Peterson at Ohio State? He publicly revoked his statements connecting Ulman’s find and the Old World-”
“When!” said Porter, leaning upward.
“There was no date,” she said, sliding the pages face-up toward the glass.