Chapter 9

The Circle Line Island tour wasn’t everyone’s solitude-of-choice, but for Peter Marcum, a cloudy June day in Manhattan was perfect to avoid the crowds.  Boarding at 10 AM, he migrated to his favorite corner aft where the ever- dependable seagulls awaited any and all who might venture that direction with a bag of bread scraps.  Idly pitching sour dough slices toward the wake brought smiles to the usual grim lines of his 50-year-old face. 

This was a particularly stressful week and Peter desperately needed some alone time.  Gcina hadn’t relayed anything new about emails from Sam, thus, after the initial message to start the Jared journey, communication had been nil.  It wasn’t that Purcell Publishing couldn’t afford the sometimes-costly eccentricities of Peter—he was, after all, responsible for seventy percent of their book success—but this obsession with Sam Brenner’s unfinished, unauthorized biography, ghost written by a Lawrence Tibbet, was reaching patience’ end.  Peter’s argument that Sam would eventually come out of the shadows to meet his son, and thus the completion of the book…well, that was a conviction Peter could not shake.  “It’s only a matter of time,” Peter would answer…over and over again to any and all of his doubters at the publishing company.  Now, with the cover finished, the promotion hanging in limbo, all that was left was that part of the book chronicling the years after his disappearance.

“Jesus,” the board had penned in their memo, “we don’t even have any proof he’s alive.  That one email could have been sent by anybody, for Christ sake.” 

Peter threw another handful of bread out to the feathered hunger now numbering twenty or so birds, bumping and nudging for position on the tasty morsels.  What the hell did they know, he thought.  He was betting on the belief that Sam Brenner had lived too healthy a life to die.  Not yet.  Even the Board’s continual reminder that the email Gcina received was anonymous, as far as they were concerned, fell on Peter’s deaf ears.  He chose to believe otherwise.  “He’s alive.  I just feel it,” had been his retort for the past few weeks, and he wasn’t budging.

Now, however, unless something happened soon, the Board was threatening to pull the plug.  They were already a couple of hundred thousand in the hole with ghost writing fees, advances, other labor and materials.  Then, there was the additional waiting time while teaser promotion for the book sat idle and couldn’t be published or announced pending more information on Sam.

Peter threw the last of the bread out to sea, reached in his pocket for his cell phone, and clearing his throat, speed dialed the “Vetting Department.”  It was time to bet the store.

***

The roar of the Harley came to a quiet idle, quiet as a Harley was capable of being, and Pump dropped his feet to the ground.  Straddling the saddle and looking across the road at Jared, he smiled.  “Hey, lonesome traveler, you look lost.”

After accepting the coincidence was just that, coincidence, Jared climbed on board and held onto the chrome handles, pressing up against a man he barely knew.  Not an everyday occurrence for Jared.  But there he was, riding passenger atop the “Beast” as Pump called his Harley.  Taking a long route back to town was all right, but Jared wasn’t sure he was going to be comfortable with Pump’s purpose for being in the desert; meeting his whacked-out-on-drugs brother-in-law, Taza. 

The three-mile ride to Pump’s destination gave Jared the time to consider what the sweat lodge had done to his thinking.  He felt different, but no revelation came either regarding his own mind, or that of his father.  His thoughts were scrambled.  What was this Sam Brenner all about anyway?  Why all this grab-bag treasure hunt shit?  And for a kid he hasn’t seen in God knows how long.   The desert air giving rise to the dust of the unpaved road gave him a few minutes appreciation, reflecting that the desert temperature was like air conditioning compared to the sweat lodge.

The air moved through his clothing and made his detoxed skin feel like mesh screening, circulation beneath the layered tissue seeming to prick new awareness into his thinking.  What is this feeling of transparency all about?

They pulled up to a side trail.  “Hold on,” said Pump, as if Jared could do anything else.  The Beast lurched onto the trail and, after completing a loose rock-strewn climb; they arrived at the top of a small hill of mostly rotted cedar and scree.  “We’re just about there,” yelled Pump as he surged down the other side and onto a flat area stretching a quarter mile in front of them.  As they drew closer to what appeared to be…

“Jesus,” Jared yelled into Pump’s ear.  “That looks like a cliff ahead.”

“Yup,” bellowed Pump over the roar of the Harley.

“For Chrissake, I don’t need to live out a Thelma and Louise trip!  Pump!  God Damn it, you hearin’ me?”

“Hell no,” screeched Pump with a laugh.

The Harley came to a sliding stop just feet away from…

“Yup.  Quite a cliff,” said Pump.  “Makes Thelma and Louise look like kid’s stuff.  C’mon.  Over here for the real thrills.”  Pump pushed the kick stand down and they climbed off.  As they made the short walk to a small indent in the edge of the precipice, Jared said, “Shit.  This is a cliff.”

“And a half,” answered Pump with another laugh.  “We only go down about thirty feet.  The rest of the nine-hundred feet could kill ya.  Just follow me.”

They walked a few paces along the edge until Pump leaned down and gave the top rung of a rope ladder a tug.  “Yup.  Still holdin’ solid.”

Jared starred down.  “A rope ladder?  To where, for God sake?”

“To my hermit brother-in-law.”

Jared stepped back.  “Maybe you’re goin’ down there, but…”

“Sure you are.  You’ve just lived through a Pakwa session.  You can handle this.  C’mon.  Piece-a-cake.”  Pump turned, stepped over the edge onto the ladder.  “Twenty-five feet, tops.  Just hold on and step down the rungs.  You know how to climb a ladder, don’t you?”

“Yeah, you crazy fuck.  Know how to run from stupidity, too.  I’ll walk back.”  Jared turned and started back toward the bike.

“Now that’s real stupidity.  Twenty-three miles in this sun…no water…you’ll wish you were lounging in the sweat lodge ‘fore you get very far.”

Jared turned back and glared at Pump.

“You can stand up here if you like, but you probably won’t see history this hidden ever again.  Taza’s cave’s never been discovered by the bureaucrats in Washington, so Parks Department’s in the dark.  C’mon.  Jesus.  I’ve only got one hand and that’s enough for me.  You got two, plus that nasty ass LA attitude should keep you alive.”

Jared shook his head and walked over to the edge again, looked over and shook his head once more.  “That ledge down there.  That the twenty-five-foot place?”

“Hey, you’re not blind with fear yet.  That’s it.  See ya at the bottom,” said Pump.  “And just so you know, this rope is nylon climbing rope, not some rotting hemp.  Won’t break on ya.  You can even use Taza’s cantilever rig.  He’s got some fears too, you know.   Just snap the carabineer onto your belt.  That boulder on the other end of the that rope to your left ain’t gonna let you kiss the bottom-bottom.”   He disappeared.

Jared stepped over to the ladder.  “Gotta be nuttier than my old man,” he mumbled to himself, as he clipped the carabineer to his belt, noticing his belt was loose.  Fucking sweat took some pounds with it.  He cinched his belt, stood for another few moments, letting the updraft from nine-hundred feet down cool his sweating body.  His shoe met with the first rung.   

***

Charles Dunn stood in the elevator watching the buttons light up as he sped to the thirty-ninth floor.  A man accustomed to surprises, he remained calm, even though an appointment with Peter Markum usually meant he had a right to be tense.  With slight betrayal of his controlled demeanor, he glanced at his reflection in the brass-paneled doors.  His Versace necktie boasted a perfect knot.  Feeling the need to stretch his neck, he wound his finger down and around, proving his collar a bit tight.  Missing the many workouts at the gym the past few months was the source of his primary stress.  He prided himself with the “Bond” nickname, and was determined to lose those extra few pounds this month.  Definitely.  Unless Peter had other plans.

He stepped out on the thirty-ninth floor and made his way to the reception desk, where a glamorous blonde, worthy of a “Bond” flirtation greeted him.  “Mr. Dunn.  Nice to see you.  Right on time.”  She nimbly fingered the keyboard, alerting Peter that his appointment was on the way.  “Mr. Markum will be pleased.”

“Miss Stewart, your beauty is still second only to your…”

“Efficiency.  I know.  You keep me reminded,” she said as her model’s dream five-foot nine frame stood.  “What would I do without you?”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about remedying that.  Perhaps after the appointment over a martini…or two.”

She smiled.  “Why two?  It only takes one for you to be dangerous.”

He smiled back.  “Like I said, you are efficient, and with good judgment.”

She escorted him through the glass sliding door to an Ebony and Teak paneled hallway leading to Markum’s corner office.  Her kimono style dress, fashioned to cover from neck to ankle, left much to the imagination.  Dunn’s favorite kind of imagination.  Knowing his weakness with women, he maintained a vigilant professional facade in their presence…most of the time.

She knocked, alerting Peter who released the door latch electronically.  She pushed open the nine-foot double doors and gave a nominal nod of her head to Peter, who remained seated behind his desk.  As Charles made his way forward, she excused herself and backed out as Peter activated the closing of the doors.

Peter, being germ conscious and one who never shook hands, stood and gestured for Charles to sit on the down-feathered couch that spread along one wall.   “You’re looking well.  Gained a couple though, right?”

The couch, covered in soft natural goat skin, allowed Charles to sink deep, enjoying a luxury he seldom was given time to have for his own.  “Well, if I wasn’t a vetting machine, 24/7, these pounds would have a chance to…”

“Well, our vetting department has sniffed out many a lie and many a truth, but this is a bigger challenge, Charles.  I’m going to give you the chance of your life,” Peter said as he lowered himself in an equally luxuriously covered Moon chair.  Cradling him with its arched back rising above his head, providing another facet of Peter’s obsession for protection, even if only in decorator design, he leaned back, crossed his legs and pointed to the folder atop the coffee table of solid Italian marble.

Charles picked it up and thumbed through the pages.  He smiled.  “Sam Brenner, eh?  The department thought that might be what this meeting was about.”

“It’s time to raise the stakes and stop waiting,” quipped Peter.

Charles looked up.  “Meaning?”

“Mr. Tibbet, you’re familiar with him, right?”

“Yeah.  The ghost writer on the Brenner biography.”

“Yes, well Charles, our little Tibbet story ends in Zermatt, where Sam disappeared, and I need you to vet that little detail.”

“Vet he disappeared?”

“Yes.”

“What’s to check.  That’s been common knowledge for years.  Witnesses and…”

“Witnesses,” interrupted Peter as he pointed at the folder, “witnesses that merely swore he was in a climber’s bar and a hotel one day, and never seen again…in Zermatt…at the base of the Matterhorn…and…he was a climber.”

Charles thumbed through the folder’s research and stopped.  “Right here.  You’ve had these people questioned, certified their testimony, and…”

“And never talked to anyone other than them.  Wouldn’t hurt to hit on some mountain guides in the area, especially at the bar in question.”

“Peter…I don’t get it.  Why are you talking to me.  Interpol, FBI and the friggin’ CIA couldn’t turn up anything more.  This is history…1991 history.  He’s not been heard of since.  You got your book covering him up ’til then.  What more do you want?  And a climber’s bar?  Twenty years later?  Who the hell is going to remember…”

“I think he’s alive, Charles.  He might even have climbed his way into Italy.”

Charles fingered the folder.  “Even if he is alive, and…’climbed his way into Italy?’  How the hell…you don’t expect me to find him, do you?”

“You’re the best in the department.  You’ve vetted where everyone else feared to tread…twelve years of it.  You’re batting a thousand.  Of course, I expect you to find him, or at least pick up the trail from Zermatt.”

“Why?”

“Why? Just because the richest man in the world disappeared doesn’t guarantee sales.  Not in this market today.  Hell, I’ve never counted on this book going out ’til we find him.  That’s the real story.”

“Peter, with all due respect…”

“Save the platitudes, Charles.”  Peter reached in his breast pocket and pulled out an envelope.  “Here.  You’ve got two days to wrap up your affairs.  Inside there are air tickets, itinerary, rental car—your favorite—Jaguar.  Even arranged for you to pick up a new next year’s model XJ in Bern.  Should accommodate your tastes quite well.  Don’t forget, however, only way into Zermatt is by train.  But that should only be for a few days.  You’ll find some leads.  You’re the best.  Oh…”  He got up and retrieved a smart phone from his desk.  “Take this.  Satellite coverage so you can reach me anytime, anywhere.”  He lifted another identical phone.  “Just like mine.  Twins.  Have a good trip.  Don’t forget your folder.  I’ve emailed your laptop with all the rest of the files.”

Charles rose, still a bit dazed by the speed of the meeting.  “Why now?”

“Why now, what?”

“Why didn’t you do this a long time ago?”

“Well…that’s another story.  Suffice it to say, I’ve had reason to think he would come out of hiding.  But…time is running short, so…Charles Dunn to the rescue!  Shake the bushes, Charles.  Shake them hard!”

“And if I find him?”

Peter smiled.  “Call me.”

Peter hit his button to open the doors.

“Call you,” repeated Charles, a bit of sarcasm in his voice.

“Yes, Charles.  And do nothing more.” 

Charles nodded, raising his satellite phone as he exited.

As the doors closed, Peter smiled and cheerfully said, “Have a fun trip, Charles.”