Chapter Sixteen

Alex was mildly surprised that Mr. Darcy answered the phone.  It was about one o’clock in the morning, and he’d half expected he would just have to leave a voice mail and talk to Mr. Darcy first thing during normal business hours.  Also, so far as Alex knew, he only had Mr. Darcy’s office number.   Did that guy ever go home?

He wanted to ask, but figured that he’d probably just get another evasive answer.  Anyway, there were more urgent matters at hand.

“So Victor had you brought back to his home?  That’s unusual,” Mr. Darcy said.  “And he examined the artifact that was in the parcel and then gave it back to you?  Well, that’s a bit of good luck for us, I suppose.”

“Yes, he said it didn’t suit his collection,” Alex said.

“Interesting,” Mr. Darcy said.  “So he’s either an ignorant collector of things that tickle his fancy, or else he knew exactly what he was looking at and wanted nothing to do with it.  In which case, he’s no fool.”

“Yeah, about that,” Alex started to say.  Two of the people he’d encountered while dealing with this delivery had wanted to get the odd little box far away from them.  And John McElroy had said something about secrets.  What kind of secrets could a small decorated box contain?

Before he could ask the question he wanted answered, however, Mr. Darcy interrupted him. 

“Come straight over to the office, please.  I’ll take the parcel off of your hands tonight,” Mr. Darcy said.   “Please take extra care, I wouldn’t want you to have any more misadventures this evening.”

Alex ended the call, put the keys in the ignition and started the Cutlass.  This time it came right to life after cranking for just a second or so.  Alex, being mindful of how much power there was on tap directly under his right foot, backed out of the parking space a little more gingerly than was probably necessary.  But, like Mr. Darcy had said, he didn’t want to have any more misadventures today.

As he drove towards Mr. Darcy’s office, he was acutely aware of the fact that Victor and his crew knew which car he was driving.  He kept a keen eye on his mirrors, checking to see if he was being followed.  Just before he arrived, really, just a couple of blocks away from the office, it occurred to Alex that Victor’s goons may have put some kind of tracking device on his car.  If so, he could be leading them straight to Mr. Darcy’s office.  And so far as Alex was aware, Victor didn’t know about Mr. Darcy.  And he’d been unusually willing, at least with the gift of hindsight, to just let Alex leave despite not giving him any information, or anything else of value.

Alex drove right past the office, and continued on for a few blocks before maneuvering his way back into a little residential area.  He parked there, and walked the rest of the way back to the office.  Better safe than sorry, he figured.

It took him longer than he’d expected to get back to the office.  Alex realized he must have parked closed to a mile away.  That was OK, but it meant he was going to have a long walk back to the car again.

Alex was amazed at how dead this part of town was at two in the morning.  It was a little unsettling.

He arrived at Mr. Darcy’s office unharmed.  When he walked in through the front door, Mr. Darcy came out to greet him.

“Good evening, Mr. Minor,” Mr. Darcy said.  He checked his watch then, and said, “Well, I may as well say good morning instead.  Come in, come in.”

He led Alex back into his office, and offered him some coffee.  Alex gratefully accepted the offer.  It had been a very long day, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to stay awake unassisted.

Alex set his bag down on the floor in front of him. He pulled out the cardboard box, its tamper-evident tape quite clearly tampered with, and handed it to Mr. Darcy.

Mr. Darcy immediately opened the box and removed the artifact inside.  He unwrapped the silk covering the decorated box, quickly inspected the box and the silk, then wrapped the silk back around the box, and put it back in the cardboard box Alex had received it in.  He put the whole thing in a drawer in his desk, which he then locked.

Alex noticed Mr. Darcy had seemed unusually nervous handling the box.

“So, what’s the deal with that box, Mr. Darcy?  The guy I picked it up from didn’t seem to want anything to do with it.  Victor Steel was clearly glad to be rid of it.  And you don’t seem particularly glad to have it here either,” Alex said.

Mr. Darcy sat back in his chair and looked at Alex for a moment.  It seemed like he was evaluating him.

Finally, he said, “Mr. Minor, are you familiar with the legend of Pandora’s box?”

Alex blinked once or twice, wondering where this conversation was going, and said, “Yeah.  It had sickness and plagues and stuff in it, right?”

“It contained all the evils of the world,” Mr. Darcy said, “until it was opened and they were released, except for the spirit of hope, who remained inside.”

“Hope is an evil?”

“Yes, don’t you think so?  Nothing extends suffering quite as well as hope,” Mr. Darcy said.  He chuckled slightly.

“I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Alex said.  “Why did hope stay in the box?”

“Well, scholars and philosophers and know it alls have been arguing over that for ages.  And your guess is as good as mine on this one,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Oh,” Alex said.  “OK, so what does that legend have to do with the box I picked up today?”

“Mr. Minor, this is Pandora’s box,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex paused for a second, and looked at Mr. Darcy carefully.  Then he said, “Yeah, right.”

Mr. Darcy shrugged.

“So, all of the evils of the world were crammed into that little box?  And the spirit of hope is still in there?” Alex said.

“Yes and, forgive the turn of phrase, but, I hope so,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Forgive me for saying it, but that box seems a little small to have held all the evils of the world,” Alex said.

“Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it?  My business isn’t to have late night debates about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, it’s to sort out problems for my clients.  This particular client wanted this particular box, which just so happens to be none other than Pandora’s box,” Mr. Darcy said.

“OK,” Alex said.  “So who’s the client?”

“Mr. Minor, you’ve already been kidnapped twice by people who were presumably after exactly that kind of information.  Are you sure you really want to have an answer you need to keep secret?” Mr. Darcy said.

“Hmm,” Alex said. “I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way.  OK.  So what’s next?”

Mr. Darcy smiled, and he said, “I know this is going to be tough for a man of action such as yourself, but I’m going to need you to lay low at the farmhouse until I have another out of town assignment for you.  It seems like Victor Steel has taken a keen interest in you, and I’d prefer if you didn’t lead him around to all of our connections.”

He then reached into his drawer and pulled out a rather thick envelope, and handed it to Alex.  It was stuffed with hundred dollar bills.

“How much is in here?” Alex asked, shocked.  It was more than he’d received for recovering the spearhead, for sure.

“One hundred thousand dollars, plus an extra one hundred dollars for your per diem expenses while you were in Albuquerque,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Who the hell is this client, and was this box really worth this much money?” Alex said.

“I don’t think you know how dangerous the assignment you were just on really was, Mr. Minor,” Mr. Darcy said.  “As to how much the box is worth, well, it’s beyond priceless.  And our client is a person of considerable means, with a considerable interest in keeping the box out of harms way.”

“Wow,” Alex said.  He realized that at the moment, from his last three assignments, he’d earned enough money to pay for a small but decent house, in cash.

He had a funny thought then.  “How many more legendary items are floating around out there, being collected by mysterious people with unusually large bank rolls to fund their collections?”

“Just about all of them, I’d say,” Mr. Darcy said. 

“So the holy grail is sitting on some guy’s bookshelf somewhere?”

“Well, presumably the person who possesses it at the moment is keeping it in a fire safe, but basically, yes,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Excalibur?”

“Most recently purchased by a tinpot dictator of a tiny nation for an obscene amount of money from its previous caretaker, and so on and so on going back to Arthurian times,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Is your whole business dealing in antiquities and legends?” Alex asked.

Mr. Darcy laughed, “Not at all.  You’ve just had a couple of coincidental tasks dealing with them.”

Alex was still trying to wrap his head around the experiences he’d had in the last twenty four hours or so.  He’d gone to Albuquerque, picked up a weird old box that was apparently a legend in its own right, bumped into a crazy coffee shop owner, nearly gotten into a fight with a pro-wrestler, kidnapped and knocked out twice, and then given a very heavy envelope full of cash.

He was pretty impressed with himself for having managed to grow up and become completely awesome.

Alex had reached the street he where he had parked the Cutlass, and was looking forward to getting back to the farm house and getting some rest. 

It was still very quiet, which made the fact that there was a black Cadillac parked and idling behind the Cutlass extremely obvious.

So he had been tracked.

Alex turned around and walked away as casually as he could manage, hoping that he wasn’t drawing any attention to himself.  There really wasn’t anyone else about, so if the person or people in the Cadillac happened to look, he’d be seen for sure.

As soon as he could, he got back off of the street he was on, and ran to put another corner or two between him and the Cadillac.  When he stopped, he looked around and listened as closely as he could for the sound of a car, or people on foot following him. 

It seemed like he’d gotten away unnoticed this time.

Now he had to figure out what the heck to do.  Someone was sitting there right behind the Cutlass, so until they went away, he wasn’t going to be able to go back to the car.  And once he was there, he was going to have to try and figure out where they’d put a tracking device, and remove it, before he tried driving anywhere else.  He figured that his chances of finding that tracking device were pretty slim in the dark, considering that he didn’t know where to look or what it would even look like.

He could try to find a hotel, but he might be in for a long walk.  He hadn’t noticed any on his walk to or from the car the first time.

Alex realized he was going to have to try calling Mr. Darcy again.

“Damn it,” Alex muttered.  He really hated having to ask for another ride, especially since it meant it was very likely that someone was going to have to be woken up and sent to pick him up.

On the other hand, walking around on the street for the rest of the night, carrying one hundred thousand dollars in cash didn’t seem like the best plan.  Getting robbed would be bad, but even getting noticed by the police would be unlikely to turn out well.  Most of the time, the kind of people carrying thousands and thousands of dollars in cash and the kind of people the police are particularly interested in.

With a sigh, Alex pulled out his phone and tried calling Mr. Darcy.

Mr. Darcy answered on the second right.

“Mr. Minor,” he said.  “Let me guess, there was someone waiting for you at the Cutlass and you need a ride.”

“Wow, how did you know?” Alex said.

“It was a safe guess,” Mr. Darcy said.  “I’m sure it occurred to you as well that it was very odd for Victor Steel to just let you leave once he had you right there in his house.  I’m sure he knew you’d be delivering the box shortly, and he wanted to know where you were bringing it.  I hope you parked a good distance away from here.  I’ve just gotten this place the way I like it, I’d rather not have to move again for a while.”

“Yes, I parked about a mile away,” Alex said.  “I had thought it was a possibility that I’d be tracked, but I didn’t think it would actually happen.”

“Well, all is well, Mr. Minor.  Tell me where you are, and someone will be along to pick you up shortly,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex told him roughly where he was, and then tried to relax as he waited. 

About fifteen minutes later, a powder blue Camaro rolled to a stop in front of him.