The Brotherhood of the Wheel (31 page)

“How's your arm?” Lovina asked. Heck pushed up the sleeve of his black thermal T-shirt. The bite was still there, red and swollen, but the black veins were all gone.

“Good to go,” he said, rubbing the wound, but he wondered again why he was still here and not dead like Gil Turla.

The connection on the pay phone was tinny, and it was hard to hear Layla's voice above the occasional electronic outbursts from the coin-pusher game near the entrance to the
TRUCKERS ONLY
shower and bunk rooms. There was also the music from the jukebox in the restaurant. Currently, it was “Six Days on the Road,” by Dave Dudley. Jimmie jammed a finger in his ear and pushed the receiver closer to his other ear. Layla was telling him that Peyton's monosyllabic boyfriend was already history.

“So Christian is already past tense, huh?” Jimmie said, and smiled. “Good. How are you feeling, baby?”

“Well, the precious little angel has discovered he can use my bladder as a speed bag,” Layla said. “I've been doing the hundred-meter pee dash for the last day or so. I think he's getting restless, Jimmie.”

“You tell him to hold on, now,” Jimmie said. He glanced over at the booth and saw Heck and the Louisiana cop, Lovina Marcou, laughing and talking. He glanced up at the clock; it was late, almost 3
A.M
. “I'm sorry if I woke you up.”

“I always keep the phone right here when you're on a run,” Layla said. “Especially
those
kinds of runs. Are you okay, Jimmie? You sound tired.”

“It's been a rough day,” he said. “This thing I'm nosing around in—it may be bigger than I thought.… I'm okay, sweetheart, please don't worry.”

“I do when I know you're holding something back on me,” Layla said. Jimmie could see her on her side, in their bed. She'd be on the left side of the bed, even though she could roll over and have all of it to herself. It was force of habit. He slept on the right, near the door, even when she wasn't there, and she slept on her side, the left.

He wanted to talk to her—to tell her, that was why he had called her. After the shit they had just been through, after watching a good man die in a horrible way, he needed her, but it was cruel and selfish and unfair to lay all that on her when she was already fretting.

“It's … been a real bad day,” he finally said. “I want to talk to you about it, but I'm gonna wait till I'm in that bed with you, okay?”

“Okay,” Layla said. “You and Ale's stepson getting along? He showed up not too long after you rode out.”

“Well enough,” Jimmie said.

“Don't like the sound of that,” Layla said. “He seemed like a sweet kid, Jimmie.”

“Uh-huh,” Jimmie said, glancing back at the table. “Sweet. That's the first word that leaps to mind for me, too.”

Layla laughed. “Well, you boys behave, now.”

“I always do,” Jimmie said. “I love you, honey.”

“I love you, too,” she said. “Get some rest, baby. Talk tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Jimmie said. “You call me if there's anything happening with the baby, and you tell Peyton to stay close to home right now—”

“Jimmie…” Lyla said.

“Don't ‘Jimmie' me,” he said. “She needs to be close to help you and in case anything … happens.”

“We still have about three weeks, honey,” Layla said. “I'm okay, baby.”

“Just be careful,” he said. “Please.”

“You, too,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said. He hung up the phone and wished for the millionth time today he was home with her. The juke had switched over to “Superstition,” by Stevie Wonder. Jimmie punched a special code into the touch pad of the pay phone. You could enter this code into any public pay phone in the world and reach this line. He had memorized the code years ago but seldom had to use it. It rang once. There was no greeting, just a single beep.

“The wheel turns,” Jimmie said. He knew that some machine, somewhere, was analyzing his voice and making sure it was him.

“Confirmed, Paladin,” the voice said. It was female, and Jimmie was pretty sure it was a machine, too. “How may we assist you?”

“I need help with something I've never run into before,” he said. “Black-Eyed Children. Can you get me a Builder, a research expert? I need one out in the field. We've already lost a Brother.”

There was a pause, longer than normal in a human conversation. It reminded Jimmie of waiting for the ATM to spit out your money and receipt.

Finally, the voice replied. “We will connect you with a Builder who can help you, Paladin. They should make contact with you in the next seven days.”

Jimmie had been expecting this, and he tried to contain his irritation. “No, no, no. Look, I know you guys don't get out much, but in the field things move a lot quicker than seven to ten business days, okay? I need help now. My team and I will be in Memphis, Tennessee, by 9
A.M
. We'll be at a private club called TCB tonight. Have your expert there or I'll go find my own. The wheel turns.” He slammed the phone down and walked back to the booth, shaking his head.

“You look pissed,” Heck said.

“Yeah,” Jimmie said. “I am. The damned Builders have no clue about fieldwork, none.”

“What's a Builder?” Lovina asked. Jimmie slid into the booth beside her, his gut bumping against the table. He grunted a bit and adjusted himself to get comfortable. He took a sip of his coffee and found it cold. He motioned for the waitress with his cup.

“That's a long—”

“Don't say ‘That's a long story,'” Heck said. “You've been telling me that for days now! Come on, tell me what the hell is really going on, Jimmie. Don't I have a right to know what weird shit I'm signing up for?”

Jimmie looked over at Lovina, then back at Heck. “Some things,” he said, “can't be discussed with—”

“Listen,” Lovina said. “I was ready to drag both your asses to jail. Now, I saw some very, to quote, ‘weird shit,' back there, and I admit this case has been getting freakier and freakier as it's gone along. Now, you convince me that you're really the good guys and I'll share all the info I've got on my end of this case, and you share yours.”

Jimmie frowned. The waitress came and refreshed his coffee. Everyone was quiet until she walked away.

“This secret is old,” Jimmie said. “We each swear to defend it with our lives. My wife doesn't even know half the things I've run into out here on the Road. She sleeps better because of that. I can't just spill it to every person I come across, Investigator Marcou.”

Lovina sighed and looked down at her glass of soda. “Nobody back home knows I'm here,” she said. “I get caught, I'll lose my job, my shield. I'm here because … because a long time ago evil people took my sister off the street, just plucked her like a flower. No one saw anything, no one knew anything. Not too many people even gave a damn. They … did things to her, used her. Tortured her, raped her, sold her to other sick sons of bitches.”

“Shit,” Heck said. It was the quietest Jimmie had ever heard his voice, the gentlest.

“I'm so sorry, Lovina,” Jimmie said.

“I found her,” Lovina said. “I was a uniform cop, not too long back from Afghanistan. I almost lost my job—hell, I damn near lost my mind. Do you have any idea how guilty you feel sleeping when someone you love is out there, lost, in pain, and you have no idea how to reach them, where they are?

“I pushed as far as I could, and then some more. I made … bargains, promised to keep secrets, and I have kept them. I lost a lot of friends, made a lot of enemies; I turned over every rock until I got the truth. It turns out it was a whole damn secret club. There was an old police report—from over a century ago. It had been passed around from NOPD cop to cop like some kind of holy grail, or something. A New Orleans police inspector named John Raymond Legrasse led a raid out to the bayou in 1907. Fifty people rounded up, a few killed resisting—Cajuns, Acadians, Creoles, Poggie, swamp folk—all of them had been performing rites to … some … thing out in the bayou for as far back as people had lived out there. I found out they were still around, still trafficking in flesh, still sacrificing.

“Eventually, after months, they sacrificed her to their sick fucking god and left her in an abandoned building, figuring Hurricane Katrina would wash away all their sins.”

“Did you catch them?” Jimmie asked. Lovina gave him a strange look. She looked down again, the way she had during her whole story.

“Yes,” she said. “Every fucking one of them.”

The jukebox was playing “The Grand Tour,” by George Jones. Everyone was quiet for a moment, letting the chaotic sounds of the Road Ranger wash over them.

“When it was done,” Lovina continued, “I couldn't be a cop in New Orleans anymore. I'm good at burning bridges. I was lucky enough to get my job with CID because of a very decent man, a good friend. He knows I have a thing for missing people, especially kids. He indulges me as much as he can, but I've stuck my neck out good and long on this one.”

“So you're up here freelancing,” Heck said. “Off the grid.” Lovina nodded. “Cool,” he added.

Lovina looked at Jimmie. “So if what you're telling me is true, Aussapile,” she said, “then we're up here for the same thing—to find out who is hunting and hurting these children and stop them. I promise you, on my sister Delephine's grave, that's what I want, and I can, and will, keep your secrets. You can trust me, Jimmie.”

Jimmie looked from Lovina to Heck, then nodded. There was a tiny gap of relative quiet in the Road Ranger. The jukebox clicked and began to play “Nights in White Satin,” by the Moody Blues.

“Okay,” Jimmie said. “You ain't gonna believe this, but have you two ever heard of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon? They're also known as the Knights Templar.” Jimmie paused as if for dramatic effect. Heck and Lovina looked at each other and then back at Jimmie.

“Sure,” Lovina said. “Who hasn't? I watch the History Channel.”

“Yeah,” Heck said. “You talking like that Dan Brown–Da Vinci shit, right? I hate to break it to you, Jimmie, but Tom Hanks and his ponytail knows your secret, too.”

“I knew this was going to be a pain in the ass,” Jimmie said, rubbing his face. “A lot of the myths and the conspiracies about the Templars—that stuff was put out by the Benefactors as a smoke screen, a diversion from the truth.”

“Does this have anything to do with that dude with the weird hair who talks about UFOs,” Heck said, grinning, “'Cause I freaking love him!”

“Look, do you want to hear this or not?” Jimmie said. Heck raised a hand and nodded, still smiling. “Do either of you smart-asses happen to know what the Knights Templar did, exactly?”

“Weren't they money lenders?” Lovina said. “They were, like, the first modern bankers, if I recall correctly. They invented checks.”

Jimmie nodded.

“And they were into some freaky shit with Devil worship, too,” Heck added. “The occult.”

“Before all that,” Jimmie said. “Before the power and the wealth and the mysticism, before they were feared and hated by the most powerful forces in the world, they were nine knights, too poor to afford their own horses. Nine knights drawn to a distant place to take up a quest. They were brought together to carry out the mission of protecting the pilgrims and the merchants who traveled the roads of the Holy Land from brigands and highwaymen who preyed on and slaughtered the helpless. The Knights Templar guarded the roads and defended all who traveled them.

“Now, they didn't stay poor for long, that's for damn sure. They became more powerful than any nation, any king. They possessed political, financial, and military power. They began to explore mystical powers from the dawn of humanity—some say from the time before humanity. Eventually, they grew too big for their britches, and they were taken down by their enemies, hunted to extinction by King Philip IV and Pope Clement V in the early 1300s.”

“Where did you learn all this shit?” Heck asked.

“The History Channel,” Jimmie said with a smirk. “But, seriously, I learned it the same place I learned Latin, from my dad. He learned it from his dad, and so on back. We're taught the story, the language, the codes.” He took a sip of coffee and then continued. “The Templars were powerful enough and had enough spies to know what was coming, though. They held a secret conclave on the eve of King Philip issuing warrants to arrest the order's leaders. The meeting was quite a barnburner. Many groups within the order had different plans, different views, on how the Templars could survive. Finally, a plan was created—actually, more of a philosophy. It was decided that the goals of the order were more important than the order itself. The assembled agreed to hide the treasures of the order and bury and squirrel away as many of its political and occult secrets as possible. The Knights Templar did dissolve that night and was replaced by three new organizations, three philosophical orders, each committed to keeping the goals and the spirit of the Templars alive in their own fashion. They were the Builders, the Benefactors, and the Brethren—each is a spoke on the ‘wheel.' Each group's leader agreed to aid one another and to work together to achieve their common goal.”

“Which was?” Lovina asked.

“The protection and betterment of all mankind,” Jimmie said.

“Seriously?” Heck said.

Jimmie gave him a stern look. “They had other options,” he said. “They were powerful enough to assassinate Philip, to have the Pope ‘fall ill.' They had the money and spies to rule the known world, and the occult power to rule beyond this world. They didn't do any of that, though. They opted to slip into the shadows and keep doing good works. I know it sounds hokey as hell these days, but it's true. They were, and still are, the good guys.”