The next morning, The Daily News had a splashy cover story, Drug Hit on Sutton Place. Precious metals dealer, Nascio "Buddy" Cruz was found dead in his East Side penthouse with three other men, "business associates". They had been shot "execution style" and mutilated. The News did not go into detail but it was evidently some Colombian voodoo thing that marked the men as thieves.
We'd gotten hard-boiled running up the room service bill at The Waldorf. Still, we were appropriately somber for thirty seconds. Then we packed up our menagerie and went home.
There was never any mention in the paper of Teddy Dexter.
*****
Echo had gotten sentimental about Fred and he was The Dalton brothers leader. I felt I owed him my life, exaggerating not a bit. If Fred hadn't been there, Teddy might have taken the shot and killed Echo and the bystanders to boot. But we finally agreed that Fred deserved lots of open space and professional care.
I made telephone calls the next day until I found a woman who ran a farm for wayward animals and old plow horses. I strapped Fred into the passenger seat of Echo's BMW roadster and feeling silly but taking care that I wasn't followed smuggled Buddy Cruz's pit bull to a farm in New Jersey.
The woman's name was Maxine. I gave her the dog's medication and outlined his history for her: drug addict, ex-fighter. She'd seen much worse and much stranger.
"You wouldn't believe the things people will put animals through. What's his name?"
"Fred. But you can call him what you like. I don't think he knows from 'Fred' anyway."
"I like Fred," she said, "Once he associates it with dinnertime, he'll answer to it. Eh, Fred?"
I unbuckled Fred but he didn't want to get out. He acted just like the punch drunk ex-fighter that he was. I could picture him as a greeter at Caesar's Palace, slobbering hello onto a celebrity's shoes.
"You have his treats?" Maxine said.
"He likes chocolate."
Maxine reached into her pocket and pulled out the remains of a Baby Ruth candy bar.
"What the hell," she said. She unwrapped it and held it up. Fred sniffed chocolate in the air and started to drool great big ropey strings of slobber all over the leather seats. But he wouldn't get out. He looked at me, straight in the eye and moaned softly. I understood him completely. He was tired and battered by life.
And he wanted me to take him home.
I gave Maxine a five thousand dollar donation for the farm anyway.
When I let him into the apartment on Central Park West, his friends the Dalton Brothers were there to welcome him back. He flopped onto the floor with a groan and let them clean his face.
The warrior come home from the wars and, finally, at peace.
*****
The beautiful people and the Museum fat cats were already drifting from the limos into the Metropolitan Museum. I ascended the grand and mighty front stairs and slipped in with the Best and the Brightest, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. I only had to flash my invitation once, so well did I imitate one of the ruling class in my tailor-made tux.
We formed a disorderly phalanx and jostled through the columns to the right, past the Tomb of Pernebi and the tomb that Prince Raumekai stole from some poor schmo, with its carved scenes of gathering food for the afterlife. Then we shuffled on through low-ceilinged corridors of sarcophagi and mummies, the machinery of immortality, all the exhibits detailing the Egyptian preoccupation with the most human condition of all. Death.
It's claustrophobic, the weight of untold centuries, and when the stream of well-dressed humanity finally deposited me in the Sackler Wing, the space of the great hall was liberating to the soul. To my right, a fifty foot wall of glass showed the shadows of Central Park and the full moon just starting to wane. Then I saw over the heads of the crowd across the dramatically lit hall that she was standing alone on the elevated terrace before the ancient Egyptian Temple of Dendur. Echo is a performer and she was wearing a fragile white linen gown that had been creased by an expert to give it that Nineteenth Dynasty look. The temple might have been brought to New York for just this moment, in which Echo could show the crowd what eternity is really all about.
I snagged two glasses of champagne from a waiter's tray and made my way through the partygoers and the potted palms, over a pathway that bridged the flowing water representing the Nile, up the stairs and across the terrace until I was pressed close behind her, wrapping my arms around her and presenting the champagne. She sighed, took a glass and relaxed against me.
"You look very serene up here." I whispered in her ear.
"I do feel strangely at home whenever I stand right here. Don't let go," she said pulling my arm tighter around her. "I'm experiencing an existential moment."
We were looking through the tall-pillared gateway written over with hieroglyphics to the temple beyond.
"Oh, Jackson. Right now it feels like we won't ever die."
"That's because you're a goddess."
"What a thing to say."
"Stating the obvious."
She put her head on my chest and sighed.
I held on tight.
So we stood, fused together like a statue, high above the crowd in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, home at last on the front porch of the temple of everlasting night. And I remembered:
Only try to shoot the moon when you're holding the Ace of Hearts.
###
A Note from Dan:
Well, that's the end. If you read this far God bless you and thank you for your time. Below is my bio and a little about my other books.
Dan Ahearn is a novelist and playwright living in New York City. His new thriller for Young Adults, Dark Beach, is available on Wattpad. His first novel, Bad August, was published by St Martin's Press. His second book, Black Light, published by Dell, was nominated for the Shamus Award. Look for them on Smashwords.
Bad August - https:\/\/www.smashwords.com\/books\/view\/242188
Black Light - https:\/\/www.smashwords.com\/books\/view\/234431
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