Shell Game – Chapter 32 – Knockout

The inky-dressed stranger led Evan into the living room of Harold’s suite. Evan looked around for Harold and did not see him, but maybe he’d made himself scarce. There were at least two closed doors he could have been behind.

“You wanted to talk about the pearl,” the man in black said, sitting in the armchair opposite the front door, “so, let’s talk about the pearl.”

Evan quickly checked the best place to sit and not get approached from the back. Eye Patch had taken the best seat as all of his allies were behind him. The position also gave him a quick retreat in any number of directions. Every other seat had its strategic advantages and disadvantages. All things being equal, Evan decided it would be best to face the stranger eye-to-eye as it were and sat in the armchair opposite his host. It put his back to the front door but aimed his eyes toward the other closed doors in the suite. If something wicked were to happen, chances were good it would not come from the hotel’s corridor.

“Yeah, sure,” Evan said, “let’s talk about it. Just a couple of questions for starters. What makes it so valuable, and are there any more of them?”

The stranger grunted, “Let’s not get greedy.” He interlaced his gloved fingers and tapped his lips with his index fingers. After a moment, Eye Patch lowered his hands and asked, “What do you know about dimensions?”

“Dimensions?” Evan asked. “You mean like length, width, and depth?”

“Precisely. There are at least two more. What are they?”

Evan resented this game. He’d never been good at book smarts, especially science, and didn’t like to feel stupid. Plus, the look on the stranger’s face said it was an answer Evan was never going to guess. If Evan was going to lose at something, it needed to at least seem like a fair fight.

“Time,” Eye Patch said, holding up a long finger. “The fifth, well, that will take a bit more explaining, won’t it?” At this, Eye Patch chuckled to himself and shifted his weight. Evan leaned forward, resting his forearms on the arms of the chair.

“There is a place, a realm if you will, that exists, but you cannot easily get to. Not at least as far as I have seen. Certainly not by the means you have readily available. But I think we can both admit that just because you cannot see a place does not remove its existence.”

“I don’t follow.”

A smile spread on the stranger’s face. Name a city you’ve never visited. A faraway place you hope to see before you die.”
“You mean like France?”

The man’s eye brightened. “Yes, like France. Is it there even though you’ve never seen it?”

Evan coughed, “I think you’ll find my mind works better on practical matters and not so much the philosophical.”

“But let’s take it one step further,” Eye Patch said, “to other worlds than this one.”

“Hold on, mister. You’re not about to start talking to me about little green men and Buck Rogers and flying around on rockets, are you?” Evan said.

“Perhaps yes, perhaps no,” came the stranger’s sober reply. “The realm you live in is infinite as far as you are concerned, but so is the one I speak of. Travel between the two is, shall we say, tricky, but it is there all the same.

“In this other dimension, there is a kingdom or empire or… we don’t have those words, but it will do for now. Its ruler oppressed the other realms. One of those realms rebelled because it refused to suffer the injustice any longer. They waged war. A glorious cause. They purposed to remove this unjust tyrant from his unjust seat of power.

“The war lasted a long time; it’s still going on as far as I know. Both sides have suffered much. The other kingdoms of this realm have been forced to take sides in the conflict. There is no neutral zone.

“Amid this conflict, the tyrant’s daughter was captured while traveling from one place to the next. This princess’ name is Lillian. But let me assure you, Mr. Gold, that she is no princess like you find in your children’s fairy tales. Yes, she is to take the throne according to her people’s laws, yes, she is the offspring of the ruler, but she is more than both of those combined. Lillian is the chief strategist for the armies of her people. Any damage suffered by my people and the peoples that align with us has suffered ultimately by her hands. To capture her was not just a blow to the succession of her father’s rule but a pivot point to the momentum of the war. Having her in our possession was a great victory. So, you can understand that it was devastating when she escaped.

“We had tracked her whereabouts and captured her travel vessel. She was sneaking around in a generic-looking vehicle, and we overpowered it. However, when our army searched the craft, no Lillian could be found.

“The one in charge of the vehicle lied and said Lillian was not on board, that she had never been on board. He thought he was clever, but his eyes gave him away. I pressed this weaselly captain to give up her location on the vessel. He said he would rather die than give her up. A very noble stand, but I said I would not give him the honor of dying for his princess. No,” at this, the smirk returned to Eye Patch’s face, “his crew would. One by one, I told him, they would meet their gruesome end until he handed Lillian over to us.” The man in black sighed, satisfied with himself, “Even a fool can find wisdom once in a while. Seeing that it was better to hand over Lillian than that his whole crew should perish, the captain quickly told us where we could locate the princess. We searched the secret compartment where she hid but found nothing inside but a white sphere.”

“The pearl,” Evan said.

“Very good, Mr. Gold. Very good.” The stranger’s one eye narrowed. “Yes, given that her powers are extensive and well beyond a normal creature’s, she was able to transform her normal appearance into that of, what you would call here, a pearl. Once her disguise was discovered, she was easily captured and placed in a container from which she could not escape. And, because we didn’t want the captain suddenly to rediscover his bravery and come after us, our forces decided to destroy the vessel, crew and all.” At this, the corners of the stranger’s mouth curled into a proud grin.

“Once onboard my army’s vessel, Lillian started to act up, which is understandable. I would have been disappointed if she hadn’t. She got into the crew’s minds, got the weakest of them to make harmful adjustments to the controls on her container. She convinced him to free her. She caused a great deal of mayhem while onboard.

“In the end, I had to abandon my ship. It was destroyed. And Lillian was once again on the loose.

“Not wanting to fail in my assignment, it took some doing, but I was able to locate her jump from our dimension into this one. She is a clever girl and embedded herself in a collection of rocks and debris about to enter your atmosphere. I noted that she landed near a coastal forest. She wormed her way, through water paths, inside the caves of a mountain. It took some doing, but I located her and re-captured her.

“I confess, however, that I was hasty in my pursuit and did not come with the proper equipment to contain a criminal as powerful as Lillian. And the way into this dimension is much easier to find than the way out. My preparations to work the transport back to her trial and execution took much longer than I hoped. Somehow, she escaped me again. This time she managed to convince a hapless fool to slip her into one of his pockets. The fool had gotten himself lost inside the mountain caves. I would have killed him outright, but he tricked me. I can only assume with her help. She’s a trickster, I assure you, Mr. Gold. She used him to escape me.”

At this point, the stranger stopped and eyed Evan. “Do you believe any of my tale so far?”

Evan shrugged his shoulders, “Doesn’t much matter, does it? You believe it, and it’s unlikely I can convince you differently.”

Eye Patch chuckled, and then his face became grave, “Agreed. It is difficult to change someone’s experience only with opinion.” He continued his account, “Well, it was difficult to track her. For a long time, she managed to elude me. However, she keeps making the same mistake over and over.

“What is that?” asked Evan.

“She keeps removing her disguise and making herself known. If she stays in her pearl form, there’s no way for her to leave, you see. She must find an ally, someone who will help her escape from this dimension to the other. Each time she reveals herself, the power that that takes, I’m aware of it.” Eye Patch looked unblinking at Evan. Evan did his best to remain calm.

“This is how I picked up her trail in a different mountain range. She was at that point possessed by a man named Plumb. A fool if ever there was one. I don’t know if she tried to get his help or someone else, but I know he had possession of her.

“I tried to convince him to relinquish Lillian to me, but he wanted far too much money. He had no idea the amount of power he possessed. I would like to have killed him then and there, but as you well know for what has transpired in this little town, the killing of Plumb would have called too much attention to itself. Believe it or not, Mr. Gold, I prefer to keep a low profile. I deeply regret the amount of attention recent events have directed to my activities. You and I both know we can discover more from the shadows than in the full light of day.

“So, I did the next best thing I could think of. I hired associates who could offer the funds to Plumb but swindle it away from him at the same time. None of my associates knew the true nature of what they were hired to accomplish. Only to protect my interests, you understand.

“Some of my associates seemed to be more successful than others at the art of underhanded negotiation, but all of them betrayed me in their own way. And now, according to them, Lillian is once again out on her own. Plumb does not have her, I assure you, and my associates, at least those I’ve been able to talk with, claim not to have her either. But I have a feeling someone is lying.”

Evan leaned forward on his knees, “So,” he rubbed his stubble, “this is all just a simple matter of multi-dimensional kidnapping. Am I right?”

Eye Patch pursed his lips and shook his head. “Kidnapping implies she is innocent. Lillian is guilty of a host of crimes for which she will be tried and justly executed.”

Evan looked at the stranger for a moment and then leaned back into the chair. “Yes, well, to be fair, I’ve only heard your side. It’s easy to convince me she’s horrible from your angle, and I’m willing to believe you, don’t get me wrong, but I’d need to hear her side too, you see?” Evan leaned forward again. “So, if I can jump to the end a bit, you think Claire possesses the pearl, possesses Lillian, I mean?”

The man in black shrugged. “Perhaps. She is the only associate I have not been able to contact personally.”

“Was Jason Charles working for you?”

Eye Patch nodded.

Evan nodded in return.

This time the stranger leaned forward, “She has it?”

Evan shrugged his shoulders and rubbed his chin. “She might. As you probably know, she’s not one for telling the unvarnished truth.”

The stranger hummed a low growl in his throat. Then he asked, “Do you know where she has it?”

“No,” Evan said. At this, the stranger got visibly irritated and set his glass down hard on the side table.

“You said you did know!”

“I said I knew how to get it. When the time is right. Assuming we’re all talking about the same thing.”

The stranger examined Evan for a moment. “You do?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“When the time comes.”

“When?”

“When I’m good and ready.”

The stranger retreated into his thoughts for a silent minute. “Do you know where Miss Porter is at this moment?”

“Let’s just say she’s safely tucked away.”

“How soon till, as you say, the time comes?” asked the stranger.

“A couple of days, I would guess.”

The stranger sat back, then forced a pained smile. “A couple of days then. You’ll bring me Lillian, then.”

“And I get paid,” Evan said.

Fire flashed in the stranger’s eye. Evan scoffed, “You didn’t expect me to do this out of the kindness of my heart, did you? Look, I don’t much care about your war. We have enough troubles of our own here. And I don’t do detective work for charity neither.”

Then Eye Patch said, “If you produce Lillian for us, you will get your reward.” He stood up, removed the glove from his right hand, and held it out to Evan. Evan took it, and the two of them shook on the arrangement. A pain like icy knives ran up Evan’s arm as the wound on his right hand contacted the stranger’s palm.

“Something the matter?” Eye Patch asked.

“No,” Evan said, rubbing his hand, “just an old war injury.”

“Yes. I have many.” The man in black turned and called out to Margo to show Evan out. Evan spied his right hand. The mark Lillian left was glowing angrily. Evan jammed his hand in his pocket as Eye Patch turned back to him and said, “Now, as a sign of good faith, why don’t you return Margo’s items to her. You can imagine, it’s hard to walk around without a weapon when you are so used to having one.”

Evan eyed the stranger and Margo with suspicion, but not wanting to cause a scene that would invite the police to look harder at what was going on, he reached in his pocket and pulled out Margo’s pistol. He handed it back to her; then, Margo examined it briefly. Realizing Evan had removed all the bullets, she smacked Evan across the side of his head with the broad side of the gun. Evan crumpled to the floor in an instant.