Quests of Simon Ark Read online

  The unearthly quiet of the villa on my previous visit had not prepared me for the bedlam which had broken out in the few hours since I’d left. Now there were cars parked everywhere, in a crazy unpatterned manner that reminded me of harbored boats after a hurricane. The sheriff’s car was back, as I’d expected, and now it had been joined by a state police car and a number of unidentified vehicles. At least two of them had press cards in the windows.

  A deputy sheriff met me at the door and asked what I wanted. I thought fast and flashed my membership card in the Overseas Press Club. Apparently that was good enough for him, because he stepped aside without a word. Inside the place was alive with reporters and photographers, popping their flash bulbs at every possible corner. A cluster of them had gathered in the big main room, where the stout Partell was standing on a chair examining a rack of antique Spanish swords. Beyond, in a sort of sitting room, I could see Delia Summer, deep in an old straight-backed chair, staring out the window in a state bordering shock. Juan Cruz was with her, speaking softly, but she seemed not to hear his words. I walked in and stood quietly behind them, listening.

  “Mrs. Summer, I know it is a difficult thing to grasp,” he was saying, “but your husband came to me a month ago. He was shocked by the sin and vice the Oasis had caused in its brief existence. He wanted to repent. He wanted to join the Brothers of the Blood of Christ and suffer for the sins of his life. Just a few days ago he told me he planned to sell the Oasis and give the money to the Church. He was a man repentant, Mrs. Summer, and you can be thankful he died that way.”

  I cleared my throat and he turned toward me. “Ah, you are the friend of Father Hadden and that man Ark. What can I do for you?”

  “Could I talk to you alone?” I said. Delia Summer turned tired eyes in my direction but seemed not to really see me at all.

  “I’m afraid the good sheriff will never let me completely out of his sight, but perhaps over in the corner …” He motioned me to the far end of the room, under a great red-draped painting of some Franciscan missionary whose name I didn’t know.

  “Simon Ark wanted me to ask you a question,” I began.

  “Yes?”

  “Were there any members of your Penitentes who were not present this morning?”

  A cloud of something—fear?—passed over his eyes before he answered. “There was one,” he said slowly. “The man who first introduced Summer to me. Yates Ambrose, the bartender at the Oasis …”

  “You think this bartender, Ambrose, might have sneaked in here while the others were tied to those crosses? The man was his boss—he might have had a reason for killing him.”

  The Mexican never had a chance to answer, because I saw Sheriff Partell bearing down on us with fire in his eyes. “Joe, show this bird to the door, and make sure he doesn’t get back in.” His orders were crisp and to the point, and the deputy he’d spoken to acted at once.

  Before I had a chance to say anything else to Cruz I found myself being propelled toward the door and out down the steps to the car. “Sheriff means what he says,” the guy told me. “Stay away or we lock you up.”

  I turned quickly at the bottom of the steps and only succeeded in sliding into the dust. I got up slowly like a fool. Whatever Simon and Father Hadden wanted me to find out, I surely hadn’t done it. Unless there was something about that bartender …

  I passed a careful eye over the scattered parking of cars and remembered the complete absence of them when we’d driven up this morning. But there were nineteen men—twenty, counting Summer—in that place and they must have come somehow. They sure didn’t walk.

  I started the station wagon and drove slowly around to the rear of the big mansion. As I’d suspected, there was another parking lot there, with some ten or twelve cars nestled under the roofs tiled overhang. Well, all of the Penitentes weren’t poor Mexicans.

  On second thought I took back that last part. Some of them might live at the villa—it was certainly large enough. But there was something in the sand that caught my eye and I swung the car to a quick stop. It was an odd type of tire track, a double tread mark made by a tire only recently put on the market. The rows of double treads ran over the other tracks, showing that it had been the last car in. And there was another set of them on the left, coming out of the driveway. I left my car where it was and walked the fifty feet to the line of vehicles. None of them had the double-tread tires. Somebody had come and gone after they arrived. I took a quick look for footprints, but that was hopeless. With a bit of hope I headed back to the car …

  The Oasis was picking up business as the afternoon dragged along, filling its parking lot with a variety of new and old cars. The one I was seeking was at the end of the line, one of the two that had been there earlier in the day. I jotted down the license number and went inside.

  The place was more like a morgue than a palace of pleasure, and I guessed that the word had gotten around. The same bartender, who must have been Yates Ambrose, was serving an occasional drink to the somber crew. But what really stopped me was the girl, Vicky Nelson. She was still there, in the same tight shorts, sitting on the same stool smoking her cigarette.

  Beyond the curtained partition waited a solid row of one-armed slot machines. There were a couple of green felt poker tables, too, and a cloth-covered bulge that might have been a roulette wheel. But these were quiet today, out of respect for a dead sinner. There were only the slots to greedily accept our quarters.

  Vicky and I played a while and then I asked her, “Ever hear any talk about Yates Ambrose and Mrs. Summer?”

  “You kidding? Not a chance! He couldn’t have gotten her with a fish net. Besides, he’s one of those religious nuts.”

  “A Penitente?”

  “Could be, for all I know.”

  “How come he works in a place like this?”

  “Who knows? Trying to convert Summer, I suppose.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re full of questions, aren’t you?”

  I handed her a couple of quarters. “Play for me. I’ll be right back.”

  Out in front the murmurers were still in force, holding their private wake for the late owner of the Oasis. I leaned on the end of the bar until I attracted Ambrose’s attention and I motioned him toward me.

  “Got a minute, Yates?”

  “Who told you my name?” He was still clutching the bar rag.

  “I’m a friend of Juan Cruz.”

  “Who?”

  “Cut the act. I know you’re one of them. Why weren’t you up there today?”

  “You must be crazy.”

  “Or maybe you were up there, huh?”

  “Look, mister, I don’t know anything about it. I belonged to the thing for a while, went up there a few times. I even told the boss about it and introduced him to Cruz. But I quit a couple of weeks back. That nut!”

  “Was the crucifixion bit a usual thing?”

  Ambrose nodded. “Every week or so. He had twenty wooden crosses in the basement room, and he’d tie us to them with horsehair cords. Sometimes he’d let himself be tied there too.”

  “Did each of you have your own cross?”

  Ambrose shook his head. “It wasn’t quite that organized. But Cruz never let us forget we were sinners.”

  “And you weren’t out there this morning?”

  “No sir! I didn’t go near the place.”

  I was pretty sure he was lying, but I’d never get anywhere with him. I thanked him and went back to Vicky Nelson.

  “Hi, girl. How’s things been in my absence?”

  She gave me a big smile. “I beat the thing out of five dollars with one of your quarters. Put it nearly all back in, though.”

  There was a stir of activity in the front and we poked our heads through the curtain. Delia Summer had returned and she was telling Ambrose to close the place up. “We’ll be open again after the funeral,” she told the crowd. “Go home now, and mourn my husband’s murder.”

  They murmured and moved, slo
wly filing toward the door. Mrs. Summer had regained much of her composure now, but I could see she was still a shaken woman. “We have to leave,” I told Vicky. “Come on.”

  “Leave? Where will I go?”

  “You must have a home somewhere. Where’ve you been staying?”

  She thought about that, the drink gradually beginning to cloud her vision. “A motel someplace. I don’t remember quite where. Can’t I come along with you?”

  “Girl, there’s fifteen years and a wife between us.”

  But by this time Delia Summer had appeared. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before today?” she asked me, frowning in concentration.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, we’re closing anyway, till after my husband’s funeral. You’ll have to leave.”

  I shrugged and helped Vicky gather up her quarters. As soon as we were out the door Delia Summer and Yates Ambrose began closing the place up, getting ready for the period of mourning. I wondered if anyone else worked at the place and I asked Vicky.

  “At night a few dealers and stick men come in,” she said. “Glen Summer hired them in Vegas.”

  “And Sheriff Partell winks at all this?”

  “He sure does, near as I can see. Maybe Summer was paying him off.”

  One of the remaining cars in the lot apparently belonged to Vicky, but in her condition I could hardly let her drive it. She was beginning to sober up a bit, and I figured I could drive her around in the afternoon air for a while. “Climb in,” I said, holding open the station wagon door. “You can stay with me a little while and then I’ll bring you back here to your car.”

  “You’re nice,” she said, climbing in.

  I headed back toward Father Hadden’s church, because I was anxious to report my progress—or lack of it—to Simon. It wasn’t until I pulled up in front of the place again that I remembered Vicky’s costume. I couldn’t very well produce her in Father Hadden’s rectory in those shorts.

  “Stay in the car,” I told her. “I’ll be back.”

  “You’re going into church?”

  “There are worse places, believe me. I’ll be back.”

  Inside, Simon Ark and Father Hadden were still sitting at the table, just as I’d left them. Empty coffee cups told me the hours had been talkative and thirsty.

  “I’m back. You two get everything solved?”

  Simon peered at me through the lengthening afternoon shadows that were quietly stealing into the room. “We have had an interesting talk. Did you learn anything?”

  I started at the beginning and told them everything that had happened, especially about the tire tracks that appeared to be from Yates Ambrose’s car. “Simon, I think he went out there this morning, took off his clothes and put on his black hood and killed Summer with the sword. It’s the only solution as I see it.”

  Simon smiled a bit, as he often did when I was becoming positive about some theory of mine. “It is hardly the only solution, my friend. But perhaps we may learn something tonight. Perhaps your idea of Father Hadden communicating with the dead was not so bad after all.”

  I shot a glance at the priest, but his face did not change expression. “You mean …?”

  Simon nodded slightly. “Father Hadden has explained his problem—the problem that originally brought us to Santa Marta. It does indeed appear that he is able to form some sort of communication with the dead of this parish. In fact, the good Father believes he can reach anyone whose confession he ever heard during life.”

  “Fantastic! Do you believe this, Simon?”

  “There may be some truth to it. At times God moves in strange ways.”

  I turned to the priest. “You’ll actually do it? Hold a seance or whatever they call them? Tonight?”

  Father Hadden nodded reluctantly. “Mr. Ark is most persuasive. I will do as he wishes.”

  “Who’s going to be here for this, Simon? Just the three of us?”

  “On the contrary, my friend. I hope to have a great many people present—as many as possible. We will start by inviting the good Sheriff Partell.”

  That even brought a laugh from me. “You’ll never get him down here. And if you did, he’d never sit still for anything as crazy as this.”

  “Perhaps he would,” Simon mused. “Perhaps he would. In any event, I will go out now like the servant in the Gospels and assemble some guests for our gathering. I shall return by nightfall.”

  “Oh—say, there’s this girl in Father’s car, the one I told you about …”

  Simon nodded. “She may want to join us, too.”

  I couldn’t quite picture Vicky Nelson sitting at any table that didn’t have drinks on it, but I supposed there was always a first time. “You’d better get her some clothes first,” I warned him. “She hasn’t got many on now.”

  And when Simon had left I sat for a time in silence with Father Hadden, as the sun finally began to vanish behind the meager line of shrubs and cactus in the distance. “Mr. Ark is truly a strange man,” he said at last.

  “You’re right there, Father,” I agreed. “I’ve known him for twenty years, off and on, and still I don’t really know him.”

  “Do you believe what he says about his past? About back there—in Egypt?”

  I spread my palms flat on the table. “Frankly, he’s never told me too much about it. Just that he’s lived a long, long time. Occasionally, when the dark winds of night are passing over the moon, I even find myself thinking that perhaps he actually is over fifteen hundred years old …”

  The priest nodded. “One could believe it, very easily. He spoke of other things this afternoon, of a strange Coptic priest in the first century after Christ, who wrote a gospel glorifying the Lord. The words were devout but hardly divinely inspired. The Fathers of the Church denounced it as a fraud, and the Coptic priest lost everything. He was in a unique if impossible situation—his writings had been holy praises to God, worthy of a place in Heaven, but the deceit he’d used in circulating them as a fifth gospel made such a reward impossible. It was a situation even baffling for the Almighty, and this man could be sent neither to Heaven nor Hell. He was doomed to walk the earth forever, until such time as God would decide his fate.”

  It was the first time I’d ever heard the story, and I wondered if this really was the strange secret of Simon Ark. “Did he tell you the name of this work?”

  “It has come down to us, in a greatly altered form, as The Shepherd of Hernias. There is such a book. I am familiar with it.”

  “And why would he tell you these things?” I asked.

  “Perhaps,” said the priest slowly, “perhaps even a man as powerful as Simon Ark needs help sometimes. Perhaps he did not come solely to help me.”

  “But why does he seek Satan, Father?” I asked. “Will the finding of the devil somehow break the spell of this curse that haunts him?”

  But the priest only shook his head. “That I do not know, I do not even know if these words he spoke were true words. He was perhaps only telling me that the ways of God are often strange and unbelievable. He was only telling me that the fantastic, the supernatural, is possible on this earth—if it is God’s will.”

  “And?”

  “And he told me to accept this strange power of mine-accept it and turn it to God’s uses. He told me that tonight I must attempt to contact the spirit of Glen Summer …”

  “But aren’t such things as seances against religion?”

  “He says that some good can come even out of the bad. Though the end may never justify the means, surely at times circumstances must dictate the wiseness of fools and the foolishness of wise men.”

  “And so Simon thinks the killer will give himself away at the seance?”

  The priest shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? I assure you I have never done anything like this before. My … spirits have always come in private before.”

  “Well, I’ve seen a few of these things in the movies. Everyone sits in a circle and holds hands, or something like
that.”

  Father Hadden nodded. “I suppose we must duplicate the expected conditions.”

  “Could I have a cup of that coffee while we’re waiting?” I asked him. “I suddenly remembered I’ve had mighty little to eat today.”

  “Surely. I think I even have enough food for us.”

  And that’s what happened. I ate there with the priest while Simon Ark roamed the streets of Santa Marta, seeking out those we needed for the final act of the little drama.

  And presently, as the night shadows slipped slowly across the plain, Simon returned with Sheriff Partell in tow. “I must be crazy to even come here,” he was protesting. “Am I supposed to believe this big-deal priest is goin’ to conjure up a murderer for me? I’ve already got the killer locked up, and it’s that guy Juan Cruz, believe me!”

  But Simon took the renewed attack with a slight smile. “I have not yet been able to convince the good sheriff that we will need the presence of Mr. Cruz as well.”

  “The hell you will!”

  “Consider, Sheriff Partell, if you do not arrive at a quick and satisfactory solution to this case, the state police will move in very soon. There are already some of them around. They will move in, and ask questions, and soon they will begin to wonder about your connection with the Oasis …”

  “Damn it, I have no connection with the Oasis!”

  “When a wide-open place like that operates in a town as small as this, the sheriff must have a connection with it.”

  “I looked the other way, that’s all I did! Are you going to crucify—” He stopped as soon as the word was out of his mouth. “Are you going to hang me just because I let people do what they wanted to do? It’s a free country!”

  I could see that Simon had him on the defensive, and he pressed his advantage. “Freedom to violate the law is not found in any constitution,” he pointed out. “It would be to your advantage to cooperate with us.”

  “I’m here, ain’t I?” the sheriff growled. “How the hell much else cooperation do you want?”

  “We want Juan Cruz,” Simon answered simply.

  “Nuts! He stays in his cell.”

  “You haven’t actually charged him with anything yet, you know. You can only hold him a few more hours.”