Terry Bisson - Charlie's Angels

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CHARLIE'S ANGELS

by TERRY BISSON

Knock knock!

I never was a deep sleeper. I sat up and buttoned my shirt. Folded the blanket and dropped it behind

the couch, along with the pillow. You don't want your clients to find out that you live in your office; that

suggests unprofessionalism, and unprofessionalism is the bane of the Private Eye, even (and especially)

the...

Knock knock! "Supernatural Private Eye?"

I dropped the Jim Beam into the drawer and opened the door with my cell phone in hand, so it would

look like I had been working. "Can I help you?"

"Jack Villon, Supernatural Private Eye?"

She was somewhere on that wide, windswept chronological plain between thirty and fifty that softens

men and sharpens women, especially those with taste and class, both of which she appeared to have in

abundance.

"It's Villon, not Villon," I said. "And..."

"Whatever." Without waiting for an invitation, she brushed past me into my office and looked around

with ill-disguised disgust. "Don't you have a necktie?"

"Of course. I don't always wear it at eight in the morning."

"Put it on and let's go. It's almost nine."

"And you are...?"

"A paying client with no time to waste," she said, unsnapping her patent leather purse and pulling out a

pack of Camels. She lit a long one off the short one in her hand. "Edith Prang, Director, New Orleans

Museum of Art and Antiquities. I can pay you what you ask, and a little more, but we have to hurry."

"You can't smoke in here, Mrs. Prang."

"It's Ms. and there's no time to waste," she said, blowing smoke in my face. "The police are already

there."

"Already where?"

"Where we're going." She closed her purse and walked out the door without answering, but not before

handing me two reasons to follow her. Each was printed with a picture of a President I had never had the

good fortune to encounter before.

-<*>-

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Terry Bisson - Charlie's Angels

"Now that I'm on retainer," I said, folding the bills as I followed her out onto Bourbon Street, "perhaps

you can tell me what this is all about."

"As we go," she said, unlocking a sleek BMW with a keychain beeper. The 740i. I had seen it in the

magazines. Butter leather seats, a walnut dash with an inset GPS map display, and an oversized V-8 that

came to life with a snarl. As we roared off, she lit another Camel off the last. "As I mentioned, I am the

Director of the New Orleans Museum of Art and Antiquities."

"Didn't you just run a red light?"

"Two years ago, we began a dig on the Gulf Coast of Mexico," she continued, accelerating through an

intersection, "opening a pre-Columbian tomb."

"Wasn't that a stop sign?"

"We made a remarkable find -- a large statue in nearly perfect condition, which the natives knew of by

legend as the Vera Cruz Enormé, or Giant. We contacted the Louvre..."

"The Louvre?" We were approaching another intersection. I closed my eyes.

"Our sister institution was called in because the statue had rather remarkable features for an artifact

from the East Coast of Mexico. As you can see."

She was handing me a photograph. I opened my eyes just wide enough to see a picture of a statue, half

again as tall as the man standing next to it. Its bulging eyes, hunched shoulders, and feral, sneering face

looked familiar.

"A gargoyle?"

"Indeed," said Prang. "Very similar in fact to the gargoyles on the cathedral of Notre Dame."

I was beginning to get it -- I thought. "So you assumed there was a supernatural connection?"

"Certainly not!" Prang spat. "Our first assumption was that this was perhaps created by the French

during the brief rule of Emperor Maximilian in the nineteenth century. A forgotten folly, or hoax."

"You're supposed to slow down for the school zones," I said, closing my eyes again.

"But even then, it would be of great value, historically. The Enormé was placed in a warehouse, under

guard, since Mexico is rife with thieves who know perfectly well the value of antiquities, even bogus

ones."

I could hear sirens. Though I am no friend of the cops, I rather hoped they were after us. Though I

wondered how they would catch us.

"That was almost a month ago, the night of the full moon. The next morning, both guards were found

with their heads missing. The Enormé was back in its tomb."

"I see," I said. "So you realized you were dealing with an ancient curse..."

"Certainly not!" Prang said, over the wail of tortured tires. "I figured somebody was trying to spook

the peasants so they could blackmail us. I spread around enough cash to keep the authorities quiet, and

crated the Enormé for shipment to New Orleans."

"You covered up a murder?"

"Two," she said matter-of-factly. "Not hard to do in modern Mexico."

The BMW skidded smoothly to a stop. I opened my eyes and saw that we were in the parking lot of

the museum. I never thought I would be so glad to get out of a 740i, after only one ride.

Prang paused on the steps to light a new Camel off the old. "The Louvre is sending a specialist to look

at the Enormé, which arrived here yesterday."

I followed her through the museum's wide front door. We raced through the halls and down a short

flight of stairs.

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Terry Bisson - Charlie's Angels

"And then, last night..."

"What happened last night?"

"You're the Private Eye," she said, pushing through a door that said AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL

ONLY. "You tell me."

We came out in a large, ground floor lab with one wall of windows. The windows were smashed. The

room was crawling with cops. There was a sickening, slightly sweet smell in the air.

Two uniformed cops wearing rubber gloves were standing over a crumpled wad of clothing and flesh

by the door. Two forensics in white coats were taking pictures and making notes on handheld computers.

I joined them, curiosity and nausea fighting within me. As a private eye you see a lot of things, but

rarely a man with his head pinched off.

Nausea won.

-<*>-

"Our former Security Exec," said Prang, nodding toward the headless body on the floor as I returned

from throwing up in the men's room. "He was keeping watch over the Enormé after it was uncrated last

night. I rushed you here so you could learn what you can before the police totally muddy the crime

scene. I didn't tell them what happened in Mexico. I don't want then confiscating the Enormé before we

learn what it is."

"I see," I said.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Ike Ward, the city's shoot-first-and-ask-no-questions Chief of Police

walked over, scowling at me. "I don't need a ghost-buster underfoot. This is a crime scene."

"Mr. Villon is our new Security Exec," said Prang. "He'll be representing the museum in the

investigation."

"Just keep him out of my way!" Ward said, turning his broad back.

"You didn't tell me you knew Chief Ward," Prang said after he had stalked off.

"You didn't ask. Nor did you tell me I was an executive."

"It's an interim appointment," she said. "But it gives you a certain standing with the police."

I took advantage of that standing, following at a seemingly respectful and hopefully non-antagonistic

distance behind Ward's homicide squad as they examined and secured the crime scene, in their fashion.

The broken windows faced east. Through what was left of them, I could see a spray of glass on the

parking lot, telling me that the window had been smashed from the inside. Someone had apparently

gained access, then knocked out the window so they could get the Enormé out, into a waiting vehicle.

Probably a truck.

I went outside. There was a smear of blood on the asphalt, then tracks that faded as they crossed the

parking lot toward the street.

They weren't the tire tracks I was looking for. They were footprints. Prints that chilled my blood, or

would have, had I really believed in the supernatural that was supposedly my specialty.

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Terry Bisson - Charlie's Angels

Huge, three-toed footprints.

-<*>-

Back inside, I watched Ward's forensics scoop my predecessor up into two bags, one large, one small;

then I located Prang, who was busy opening her second pack of Camels.

"We need to talk," I said.

"Upstairs."

Her office overlooked the parking lot. I took her to the window and showed her the footprints.

"So it's true," she whispered. "It's alive!"

I have never figured out why people want to believe in the supernatural. It's as if they find the

existence of the irrational somehow reassuring. "Let's not jump to conclusions, Ms. Prang," I said. "Tell

me, what exactly was the Aztec legend of the Enormé?"

"Olmec," she corrected. "The usual stuff. Full moon, headless victims, human sacrifice, etc. We did

find a pile of bones in the tomb, mostly of young girls. According to the legend, the Enormé had to be

fed once a month. A virgin, of course." She smiled and lit yet another Camel. "So I felt safe. I thought it

was all a tale to scare the simple-minded. Until now."

"And now?"

"You tell me, you're the private eye. Aren't you supposed to have a hunch or something?"

"I'm hunchless so far," I said. "Though I'm certain this is some kind of hoax. An elaborate and deadly

one, to be sure."

"Whatever it is," said Prang, "I want the Enormé back. Hoax or not, it's the find of the century, and it

belongs to my museum. That's why you're here. Unless we find it before the police, I'll never get it back."

"They see it as stolen property," I said. "And we can count on Ward to keep the press away from those

footprints, at least until he comes up with an explanation. He doesn't like to look stupid."

"Neither do I," Prang pointed out. "So where do we begin? What do we do?"

"We begin," I said, starting for the door, "by figuring out where we would hide a statue if we wanted

people to think it was a legendary monster come to life. Then we go and get it."

"Wait!" said Prang. "I'm coming with you."

-<*>-

New Orleans's cemeteries are called the "Cities of the Dead," because they are all tombs, in long rows

like little stone houses. No one is buried in the ground because the water table is so high.

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TerryBisson-Charlie'sAngelsCHARLIE'SANGELSbyTERRYBISSON©2001byTerryBissonandSCIFI.COM(August15,2001).Knockknock!Ineverwasadeepsleeper.Isatupandbuttonedmyshirt.Foldedth\eblanketanddroppeditbehindthecouch,alongwiththepillow.Youdon'twantyourclientstofindou\tthatyouliveinyouroffice;thatsuggestsunprofess...

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Terry Bisson - Charlie's Angels

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