James Steimle - The Kukulkan Manuscript

The fire spit sparks.

“They said you would arrive, but I didn’t expect you so soon,” Peterson said with life in his voice, as if he were addressing one of his students and not a thief.

“I know why the others were killed,” said Porter. “I know the truth, and I’m not turning my head.”

“There is nothing for you to see,” Peterson said with eyebrows raised, flipping the cane under his right arm. He took up the codex and inspected a new tear with his fingers.

“You know there’s more than ten years of investigation on that desk and you say-”

“That’s all behind us now,” Peterson said.

Porter stood breathless. “What?”

“Do you play chess, Mr. Porter?” said the professor hanging his cane on his arm. He took up the maps.

Porter didn’t say anything.

“Sometimes…you have to sacrifice a piece,” said Peterson.

“They’re pushing you, professor. I know about it. I can vouch-”

“You don’t have a clue as to what I’m saying,” said the professor. Dr. Peterson smiled, his skin tight as if he’d had a facelift or two. “Sometimes it’s…best to play a game that way. Keeping the end in mind, of course.”

The professor looked back at the fireplace.

His hand shot away from his body.

The codex dropped.

Starving, the fire attacked like golden hyenas over a sick wildebeest. The bark pages arched in pain, but the fire kept coming, biting, chewing. The ancient characters on the cover disappeared in mists of darkness. The book melted and began flying through the chimney to heaven in chunks of floating ash as Porter and the professor watched.

“Stay where you are,” Peterson said, lifting his cane as Porter took a step.

Porter stopped, his mouth loose, his eyes sagging out of his skull, his fingers trembling.

The maps went next, burning entirely and then soaring away in pieces.

“You’re…a…scholar,” Porter said in disbelief, his eyes still on the fire. “ Who could make you do this?!?”

Peterson smiled, but Porter sensed pain behind his eyes as the professor took up his journals and set them neatly inside the overheated hearth. “Oh, my dear Mr. Porter. We probably would have been friends one day, you and I, under different circumstances. For you to come all this way… so quickly…”

“Who is making you do this!” Porter said, keeping his voice down so as not to draw any more attention.

But the door had already opened again, and the young lady stood looking at the professor. “Everything all right in here?”

Peterson gazed at her with his eyes unfocused, the typed pages in his murdering hands now screaming to the world’s subconscious for help. “All is well, Cerina. Please give us some time together.”

She closed the door as Peterson tossed the pages of his manuscript into the raging torrent of heat.

“ They have no name,” the professor said.

“That can’t be true. I want to know who’s behind all this. It’s illegal!” Porter smelled the smoke of the sour bark.

Peterson grinned, his face flickering with yellow and orange firelight. “It’s all been against the law, Porter, you have to know that.”

“Is it the FBI?” Porter said. “Why would they be involved?!”

“They aren’t, to my knowledge.” He chewed his molars together. “You would do well to forget about them, young man.”

“I never will,” said Porter, his cheeks trembling.

“If they had a name, it would be a metonymic displacement for professional obfuscation,” said Dr. Peterson. “You will never find them, for they do not exist. Erase your name from their blackboard, Mr. Porter… You’ll live longer.”

Porter stared at the professor. “You’re letting me go?”

“At your age,” said the professor with a look upward as he thought, “I may have worn your shoes and matched your footsteps. I have nothing against you. But if you do not look away, they will ponder what reason you should remain on the planet… Get out.”

“I-”

“The conversation is over, Porter, I have been cordial enough.” Peterson pulled on the handle off his cane revealing a long blade of thin metal no longer hidden in the wood.

He pointed the short sword at the student.

“It’s an antique,” said the professor. “Handy. Its forgotten existence in this modern world makes it priceless for someone like me. Do you like it?”

“I won’t stick around for it,” said Porter, his face cold limestone. He felt numb in the warm room.

“Bad joke, Mr. Porter.”

“Not much left to do,” he said, leaving the room. “Everyone’s made sure of that.”

“On the contrary,” came the British accent behind him. “If you’re that obsessed…I’d start looking for Dr. Ulman. He sent me an unfriendly e-mail last week.”

Porter turned slowly. “Ulman’s…alive?”

“Unsigned, of course, but I know the fool too well.”

Porter stared at the professor who glanced at the fire with aching eyes.

“Question is,” said the Englishman quietly, “can you find him…before they do?”

James Steimle

The Kukulkan Manuscript

April 30

9:40 a.m. PST

Click-click-click-click-click.

Alred shoved her way through the glass door into Bruno’s cafe. Whether or not Porter wanted to see her, Alred would tell it all, even if she had to slap him to get his attention.

There wasn’t anymore time.

She didn’t understand the reason why, but her intuition, her female sixth-sense that something hung out of balance, raised her blood-pressure.

Tapping the old man in the thin T-shirt, she said, “Bruno, I need some help.”

Click-click-click-click.

Rubbing the ends of a mustache reaching for his beardless chin, the boxer turned and said, “My pies are the answer to everything!”

“I need to find John Porter.”

“Hasn’t been in today,” said the owner of the cafe, cleaning the table again. “Why should I be doing this stuff?!? Where’s that girl!” he said to the kitchen.

“Someone has tried twice to kill him,” said Alred. “He’s hiding out, and he’ll want to speak with me.” A little exaggeration. She meant Porter would be glad by the end of their conversation. Well, she hoped Porter would feel that way. But it was too complicated to tell Bruno.

The old man laughed a gritty chuckle, but his eyes jolted when she insinuated attempted murder.

Someone shouted, “Brussels sprouts, Brassica oleracea!”

“You’ll eat what I give ya and like it!” Bruno said to the student with the friends and about two-thousand flashcards.

They laughed.

He looked at his task of wiping down the next table. “Running from you, eh,” Bruno said to Alred. “Don’t sound like he’s that interested!”

“Do you know his whereabouts? Porter said you had the up-to-date facts on everybody who frequented your place.”

“I’ve the stomach of an elephant,” he said, taking up a black tray of filthy dishes and turning to the kitchen, “not the memory of one.”

Click-click-click-click. Click.

Outside of Bruno’s, Alred sucked in the salty air of morning. She stared for some time at a wooden telephone pole papered with cheap advertisements and pictures of lost dogs, cats, and kids. The storm had not subsided, but allowed the presence of a silent marine layer of high fog from the coast. Stratford wasn’t that close to the water, but few hills stood to block the recent chaotic winds.

She looked at the brown portfolio in her right hand.

Click-click.

Where would Alred be if she were a crazed Mormon who’d just lost all chance of graduating after seven years of worthy work?

She had to talk to Porter.