Blue Labyrinth

“What’s your name, friend?” Pendergast asked. He kept the bankroll casually gripped in his hand.

“Cayute.”

“Well, Mr. Cayute, allow me to introduce myself. Bill Feathers, at your service. You’ve got some nice little things here. I’m sure we’ll be able to come to terms!” Pendergast picked up an old metal road sign for State Highway 111, propped up on two cinder blocks, being used as a small table. The paint was peeling and its surface was peppered with buckshot. “For example, this. You know, they hang these on the walls of steak houses. Big demand. I’ll bet I can turn this around for — oh, I don’t know — fifty bucks. What do you say?”

The gleam in the eyes grew brighter. After a minute, Cayute gave a quick, ferret-like nod. Pendergast duly peeled off five more bills and handed them over.

Then he beamed. “Mr. Cayute, I can see that you’re a man of business. I calculate this will be a most productive exchange for both of us.”

18

Within fifteen minutes, Pendergast had purchased five more utterly worthless items for a grand total of $380. This had had the effect of mollifying the highly suspicious Cayute. A pint bottle of Southern Comfort, produced from a back pocket of Pendergast’s jeans and freely offered, had the additional effect of lubricating the old codger’s tongue. He was a squatter, it seemed, who had spent some time in the area as a boy and then, when he’d fallen on hard times, had drifted back to Salton Palms after it had been abandoned. He used the “bungalow” as his base while foraging for things to sell.

With patience and tact, Pendergast inquired into the history of the town and the nearby Salton Fontainebleau, and was rewarded — in fits and starts — with anecdotes of the casino’s triumph and long, sad decline. It seemed Cayute had been a busboy in the Fontainebleau’s poshest restaurant, at the zenith of its glory days.

“My Lord,” said Pendergast, “that must have been a sight to see.”

“More’n you can imagine,” Cayute replied in his gravelly voice, draining the pint bottle and putting it to one side, like a collectible itself. “Everybody came there. All them Hollywood hotshots. Why, Marilyn Monroe signed her autograph on my shirt cuff while I was bussing her table!”

“No!”

“Accidentally laundered,” Cayute said sadly. “Think of what that’d be worth today.”

“Darn shame.” A pause. “How long has it been since the resort was boarded up?”

“Fifty, fifty-five years.”

“Seems a tragedy, such a beautiful building and all.”

“They had everything. Casino. Swimming pool. Promenade. Boat dock. Spa. Animal garden.”

“Animal garden?”

“Yep.” The man picked up the empty bottle of Southern Comfort, eyed it wistfully, replaced it. “Built it up out of a natural hole in the ground beneath the hotel. Just outside the cocktail lounge, it was. All jungle-like. They had real live lions and black panthers and Siberian tigers down there. In the evenings, all the big shots would gather ’round the balcony above with their drinks and watch them animals.”

“How interesting.” Pendergast rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Anything of value still inside? I mean, that is, have you explored the interior?”

“Stripped. Totally.”

Something else caught Pendergast’s eye, peeping out from beneath a tattered Sears, Roebuck catalog at least half a century old that lay on the floor, its spine broken. He picked it up and held it to the improvised window for a better look. It was a raw fragment of turquoise, veined in black.

“What a beautiful stone. Lovely markings. Perhaps we can come to terms on this, as well.” He glanced at Cayute. “I understand there’s an old mine nearby. The Golden Spider, if memory serves. Is that where you got this from?”

The old man shook his grizzled head. “Don’t never go in there.”

“Why not? I should think that would be the perfect place to search for turquoise.”

“ ’Cause of the stories.”

“Stories?”

Cayute’s face screwed up into a strange expression. “Folks said the place was haunted.”

“You don’t say.”

“It ain’t a big mine, but there’s some purty deep shafts. Lot of rumors.”

“What rumors?”

“One I heard was that the mine’s owner hid a fortune in turquoise somewhere inside. He died, the story went, and the location of the fortune died with him. Every now and then somebody would hunt around inside, but they never found nothin’. Then some twenty years back, a treasure hunter went exploring inside. Some floorboards had rotted out and he fell through them, down a shaft. Broke both legs. Nobody heard him bawlin’ for help. Died of the thirst and the heat, down there in the dark.”

“How awful.”

“Folk say that if you go in there now, you can still hear him.”

“Hear him? You mean, footsteps?”

Cayute shook his head. “No. More of a dragging sound, like, and crying out for help.”

“Dragging. Of course, because of the broken legs. What an awful story.”

Cayute said nothing, just looked wistfully again at the empty bottle.

“I guess that legend doesn’t seem to deter everybody,” Pendergast said.

Cayute’s eyes darted toward him. “What’s that?”

“Oh, I was wandering around outside the mine entrance earlier. I saw footprints, tire tracks. Recent.”

As quickly as the eyes had moved toward Pendergast, they moved away again. “Wouldn’t know anything about that.”

Pendergast waited for an elaboration, but none was forthcoming. Finally, he shifted on his improvised chair. “Really? I’m surprised to hear that. You’ve got such a good view of the mine from your residence here.” As he spoke, Pendergast casually removed the thick bankroll from his pocket.

Cayute didn’t respond.

“Yes, I’m surely surprised. The place can’t be more than a mile or so away.” And he slowly flipped through the tens, exposing twenties and fifties beneath.

“Why you so interested?” Cayute asked, suddenly suspicious again.

“Well, turquoise is a specialty of mine. And so is — not to put too fine a point on it — treasure hunting. Just like the fellow in that story of yours.” Pendergast leaned in conspiratorially, put a finger to one side of his nose. “If there’s activity at the Golden Spider, that would be of interest to me.”

The old scavenger looked uncertain. He blinked his bloodshot eyes: once, twice. “They paid me not to say nothin’.”

“I can pay, too.” Pendergast opened the bankroll, drew off a fifty, then another. “You can earn twice — and no one will know.”

Cayute looked hungrily at the money but didn’t say anything. Pendergast drew off two more fifties and proffered them. Another hesitation, and then quickly — before he could think better of it — the old man snatched the bills and stuffed them into his pocket along with the others.

“It was a few weeks back,” he said. “They came in a couple of trucks, all sorts of hustle and bustle. Parked outside the mine entrance and began uncrating equipment. I figured they were reopening the mine, so I walked over and said howdy. Offered to sell ’em an old map of the mine I got.”

“And?”

“Not the most amiable of folks. Said that they were inspecting the mine for… for structural integrity, I think it was. Didn’t hardly seem like it, though.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t look like no inspectors to me. And because of the equipment they were taking inside. Never seen anything like it before in my life. Hooks, ropes, and something like a… like a…” Cayute gestured with his hands. “Like one of them things a diver gets into.”

“A shark cage?”

“Yeah. Only bigger. They didn’t want my map, said they already had one. Then they told me to mind my own business and gave me a fifty to shut up about it.” The old man plucked at Pendergast’s sleeve. “You ain’t going to tell nobody about what I seen, are you?”

“ ’Course not.”

“Promise?”

“It’ll be our secret.” Pendergast rubbed his chin. “What happened then?”