September 30th

10:34am

An hour later the rest of the men were awake, including Iseri and the Captain. We left the apartment we’d broken into the night before and walked to the Grand Bazaar. Iseri had to leave but said he would find us in the Bazaar later. Gram and I sat at a counter drinking apple tea while the rest of men picked pockets in the crowd. Earlier that morning we watched them rob and beat to death two Chinese businessmen.

Gram received a message on his mobile.

Arthur,

Thank you for updating me on your progress. I’ve dispatched an associate of mine, Alexander Grealish, to Europe, in order to expedite your mission. I’ve been informed that the two of you went to University together. He has your information and will contact you within the next few days.

L. Murikai

 “Son of a bitch,” said the Captain.

On the way back to the counter, the men came upon two teenagers kissing behind a tent. One of the men hit the boy over the head and started going through his pockets. Another grabbed the girl and threw her to the ground. He flipped her on her stomach and got on top of her. He got his pants down to his knees before Gram ran up and punched him in the face. The man spit out a mouth full of blood.

Two of the other men attacked the Captain while the third pulled out a knife and came after me. He threw me to the ground and held the knife to my throat. I could feel the point on my neck as I tried to fight back. Gram came up from behind and broke the man’s arm, knocking the knife to the ground. Then he grabbed my hand and helped me up. He looked at my neck.

“You’ll be alright bud. Let’s go.”

We fought our way through the crowd to the front of the Bazaar. We made it to the street and were stopped short by a column of Turkish soldiers at the end of the block holding machine guns.

“Oh shit,” said the Captain.

A homeless man with his face covered reached out a filthy hand and grabbed my wrist. I realized quickly it was Iseri.

“Come with me,” he said. We followed him around the corner and down an alley.   

“What’s going on? Why are there soldiers everywhere?” asked the Captain.

“This morning two business men from Hong Kong were found murdered. Those guards are looking for anyone suspicious.”

“Yeah, it was your chicken shit friends who killed those guys, we saw them do it.” said Gram.

“They are not my friends,” said Iseri. “I have been following them for weeks, hoping to find some information about my…well that is another matter. Now is not the time.”

Iseri became quiet and walked away. Gram caught up to him.

“Iseri do you remember last night when I was telling you about the thing Lewis and I are looking for? The metal Koi? Do you know anyone who could help us locate it or at least give us some information about it?”

Iseri stopped walking and began to rub his temples.

“There is a man who owns a store not far from here,” he said. “He is a collector of information. I will take you to him.”

1:17pm

We walked down a long dark alley that fed into a dimly lit atrium. Women and children tried to sell us candy, old stereo equipment and brittle camera film. Four men were sitting at a table drinking apple tea and smoking from a hookah. Three of them were meek and wiry, with long veiny arms that reached across the table like the legs of a spider. The fourth man had a cup of apple tea resting precariously atop his colossal stomach. He held the mouthpiece of the hookah to his lips with hairy sausage-like fingers. Iseri walked over and said something to him in Turkish. The man gulped down the last of his tea and stood up from his chair. He gestured for us to follow him.

He took us behind the kitchen, past the dried lambs tongue and pickled eyeballs and led us to the end of another atrium filled with rolled up Persian rugs stacked floor to ceiling on both sides. We walked through a beaded curtain into his store.

There was a young boy sitting behind the counter reading a Russian comic book loaded with pictures of naked women. When he saw us come in, he threw the comic to the floor and pretended to be cleaning.

The store smelled like on old closet. On one side was an encyclopedia of military weaponry from Argentina, sitting neatly on a display case full of knives and jewelry, in front of a poster for “Gone with the Wind.” On the opposite wall hung three shiny metal hands with a sign above them reading “the Silver Hands of Nuada Airgetlam.” Next to that was a human skull on top of a pedestal with the name ‘Amelia Earhart’ inscribed below it.

There were stacks of books about the Great Barrier Reef and the Fall of Rome, Jewish Mysticism of the Ukraine and Life Magazine: The Year in Weddings 1888. The Captain picked up an enormous book entitled “The Federalist Papers” and began to flip through it. He dropped it down on the glass counter with a thud.

“Speak English?” he asked the storekeeper.

“I do,” replied the man.

“Good,” said Gram. “I’m looking for a decorative bronze carp, with smooth black stones for eyes. Ever hear of such a thing?”

“Certainly,” said the storekeeper. “I have the most exquisite collection of jewelry in all of Istanbul.”

“It’s not really jewelry I’m looking for. It’s more of an antique. It’s very old, came from China. Does that make sense?”

“This is made from real gold. It comes from Arabia.”

The storekeeper held up an ugly pendant shaped like a horse.

“No, I need something specific. It’s a fish…a Koi, it’s Asian, you know?”

The storekeeper put down the horse pendant and picked up a handful of pearl necklaces.

“Your wife would love these pearls. I will make for you a good price.”

“Look Jack, I’m not looking for a damn necklace,” said the Captain. “Lewis, hand me your journal.”

I handed him my journal and he flipped to my notes from the British Museum. He showed it to the storekeeper; pointing at the lines he wanted him to read.

“It’s called the Koi of Hungwa. It was built in Beijing in 1419. It ‘s a bronze carp with smooth dark stones for eyes.”

The Captain scrolled down the page.

“See here? It was brought to Istanbul in 1424. After that, we don’t know what happened to it. Is this something you can help us with?”

The man’s eyes moved feverishly as he read my notes.

“What is this part here where it says ‘any command the Emperor whispered to the Koi came to be’?” he asked. “Or here where it says ‘enemy ships were destroyed by waves the size of mountains’?”

“That’s nothing. Just folklore. It doesn’t mean anything,” said the Captain.

The storekeeper looked at Gram with dark, suspicious eyes.

“I can help you. My brother-in-law is a book dealer and has a great knowledge of history. Allow me to borrow this journal and I will see what information I can find for you. In the mean time, feel free to look around my store.”

“Certainly,” said the Captain, “but the kid goes too.”

He turned to me and smiled.

“Alright Bud, don’t let that journal out of your sight.”

“Sure Captain,” I said trying to smile.

October 8th

It’s been over a week since I wrote my last entry and today I’m struggling to concentrate. My head hurts and I keep finding bits of dried blood in my hair. Gram is in the bathroom gargling warm salt water. His mouth won’t stop bleeding. The past week has been awful. I feel lucky to be alive. I will start from the beginning.

(a week ago)

I followed the storekeeper down dark narrow hallways, past shelves so crowded with books that they leaned over you ominously. Rooms fed into one another like a maze. Walls had been constructed out of salvaged plywood and sectioned off the store like a shantytown. I cut my elbow on the sharp edge of a Coca-Cola sign that was bent in half, with one side was nailed to a bookshelf and the other to a moldy wall. The floor was covered with overlapping Persian rugs, worn so thin you could see the white thread showing through. Eventually I could feel the cold hard lumps of fresh soil under my feet and realized we were no longer in the main building, but in the empty lot next door.

A heavy oak door with a bronze knocker shaped like the head of an Incan warrior blocked the entrance to the storekeeper’s office. He fumbled through his wad of keys until he found the one he was looking for. Before he opened the door, he told me I must wait outside. When I protested, he reached into his pocket and handed me a piece of candy that was melting out of its rapper. Once he went inside I threw the candy on the floor and lit a cigarette.

When we caught up with the Captain an hour later I was too embarrassed to tell him that I had let the journal out of my sight. He and I spent the rest of the day rummaging through boxes of books, magazines, periodicals, letters and old photographs.

That evening we were eating kebab sandwiches with Iseri when I noticed that my notes from the British Museum were missing. When I told Gram what happened he was furious.

The next morning we confronted to storekeeper about the missing pages. He said didn’t know what we were talking about and suggested that Iseri took them. The Captain’s questions became more aggressive. The storekeeper smiled and offered us some apple tea. He asked if we wouldn’t mind waiting while he went back to his office. Perhaps he had taken the pages without realizing it he explained.

“You had better come back with those missing notes,” said the Captain.

I was smoking a cigarette in the courtyard when soldiers stormed into the atrium. One of them saw me and signaled the others. They plowed through a group of chairs as they charged in my direction. I dropped my cigarette and ran back into the store. Gram was standing by a bookshelf reading. I grabbed him by the shoulder and told him to run. One of the soldiers fired his gun and it hit the shelf just above the Captain’s head. We sprinted through a series of rooms to the back of the store trying to find an exit. We came to a dead end, so we doubled back and went through another series of rooms. When that led nowhere, Gram took a step back and kicked in the plywood wall to the right of him. We stumbled over the broken wall into the next room.

We found ourselves in the storekeeper’s office. He was sitting at his desk talking on the phone. In front of him was a pile of papers including my missing journal pages.

“You son of a bitch,” said the Captain as he grabbed the papers and handed them to me. I stuffed them in my journal.

Gram kicked in another wall that led to a hallway with an exit door. We ran down an alley to the back of the building where we were met by another group of soldiers. They handcuffed us and threw us in the back of a truck.

The soldiers linked us to the dead businessmen found in the Bazaar three days earlier. We were taken to a cellar and interrogated for hours. They punched me in the stomach repeatedly causing me to vomit blood. The soldiers held Gram down and pulled out one of his teeth with a pair of greasy pliers. Then they punched him in the spot where the tooth used to be. When they left the room, I looked over at the Captain. His eyes were wild.

We sat there in that room tied to chairs, bleeding. I held back tears and tried to think of something pleasant. I thought about a girl I met in the pub from Mauritius, who took me by the hand and led me through the back door into the alley. She kissed me with warm soft lips. She ran her fingers through my hair and whispered in my ear. My heart raced and I could feel the warm blood in my veins. My mind was far away.

I looked up at the Captain and remembered where I was. He saw me looking at him and smiled. His teeth were stained with blood.

“The first time I got locked up I was fifteen. My parents were killed in ‘68. I left the Carolinas and headed north to West Virginia. I wandered into a small factory town. I was hungry but had no money. The local sheriff and his boys caught me going through someone’s garbage. They beat the hell out of me and threw me in jail.”

“How long were you in there?” I said.

“Weeks man, months probably. They used to come around late at night and spit beer at me. Sometimes they’d drag me out of the cell and take turns kicking me in the stomach. Other times they’d sick the dog on me.”

I started shivering and was unable to stop.

“One night I escaped. I ran off into the woods, away from that devil town”

Gram paused and spit out a mouth full of blood. He looked me in the eyes.

“What I’m trying to tell you here Lewis, is that things may be bad, but we’re gonna get out of this. Believe you me. I want you to know that.”

This made me feel a little better, but not much.

“What happened after you escaped? Where did you go?” I asked him.

“I went back to that town and I killed that son of a bitch sheriff… That’s what happened.”

They kept us tied to those chairs for five days, occasionally feeding us stale bread.

I woke up when they untied me from my chair. I tried to stand but fell over. The chair where the Captain had been sitting was empty. Two soldiers picked me up off the floor and marched me out of the cellar to the back of the house. One of them knocked me on my knees and the other held a gun to my head. My mind raced. I thought of my childhood in the Philippines and of London and the F. Scott, the Captain, Peoria and Tom. I thought of my mom rolling cigarettes and the stories she told me of my dad. I remembered holding her in my arms as she took her last breath, telling me to run. The man who took her from me, his voice was like gravel. I wanted to scream but couldn’t.

I could feel the tip of the gun pressed hard against the side of my head. I looked up and saw a hand with an enormous knife come from around the soldier’s shoulder and expertly slice his neck open. Blood poured from the gaping wound. I got to my feet, but was tackled by the other soldier. Gram ran up with a shovel and knocked the soldier off me. I watched as he hit the soldier again and again with the shovel until the man stopped moving. He grabbed the dead man’s gun and turned to me.

“Get up bud.”

“We must leave now,” said Iseri as he cleaned the blood off his knife by pulling it across the bottom of his boot.

“Wait.” I said.

I ran back into the police station and found my bag was sitting on a desk next to the Captain’s mobile. My journal was still inside, along with my wallet, which was now empty. Luckily Gram keeps a wad of cash in his boot, which the police neglected to search.

We ran through a patch of woods to the main road. There was a truck parked in front of a refueling station that said “El Gallo Kosher Meats.”

Gram ran up and pointed the gun at the man filling up the truck. Iseri said something to him in Turkish and the three of us got in. We drove off leaving the man standing there holding the nozzle.

October 8th

We had been locked up for over a week. When Gram turned his mobile back on, he had seven new messages from Tom. The first few were calm, with Tom sending regular updates about his progress repairing the Mechanical Gills on the F. Scott. However as he continued to leave messages with out getting any type of response, his voice became more and more irritated. I listened in as the Captain played Tom’s last message.

“…and if you’re out at the fucking bar Gram, I swear to God I’ll walk away right now and you can come get the sub yourself.”

After a few tries, the Captain got Tom on the phone and was able to explain what had happened to us. I could hear the irritation in Tom’s voice turn quickly to concern.

“It’s all right Tom. We’re ok,” said Gram into his mobile. “Bastards ripped out one of my teeth and the son of a bitch won’t stop bleeding but other than that we’re fine.”

He paused for a moment.

“Lewis? Yeah he’s ok too. I think he pissed himself while we were in there but yeah, he’s fine.” The Captain began to laugh.

“Asshole,” I mumbled to myself. I was sitting in the cabin of the truck between Gram and Iseri, who was driving. I reached over and rolled down the passenger side window. I pulled out the pack of Gallos from my shirt pocket and lit one. Iseri, gestured with his right hand that he wanted one too, so I lit a second cigarette and passed it over.

According to Gram, Tom had finished repairing the F. Scott. He and Peoria were somewhere off the coast of Portugal, on their way to meet us. It would take them at least five days to reach Turkey. I threw my cigarette out the window, leaned my head back and fell asleep.

I woke up sometime after midnight. We were driving south along the Gallipoli peninsula. I was cold so I rolled up the window. Gram was asleep. The radio was on and a voice was speaking in Turkish.

“What is he saying?” I asked Iseri.

“He’s saying the Chinese Navy opened fire on a civilian cargo ship from Romania this afternoon,” said Iseri.

“Why?”

“Supposedly they were attempting to smuggle guns through Istanbul to the fighters in the south, in Yalova.”

“Do you believe that?” I asked.

“No.”

A little after four, we were just outside of Eceabat, a small fishing village on the Dardanelles Strait. We abandoned the truck in the woods and walked the last six kilometers into town as the sun came up. We walked up to a nearby inn when Gram stopped all of a sudden. He looked at Iseri.

“All I have on me are Rubles. Will they take Rubles?”

“They’ll take whatever money you have,” said Iseri.

We got a room with a sloped ceiling and two twin beds. It was small but clean. Gram gave Iseri some money and sent him out for supplies.

While the Captain was in the bathroom gargling salt water, I started looking through my notes to make sure everything was still there. Tucked between my notes from the museum was something I’d never seen before. It was a letter written in Spanish on brittle paper, stained with blood. I scanned it into the Captain’s mobile and translated it into English.

This is what it said:

July 5, 1546

I carefully folded up the letter from del Herrero and continued to look through the papers we took from the storekeeper. I found a hand drawn map tracing Zheng He’s route on his final voyage. His ships sailed past India, around the Cape of Good Hope, up the West Coast of Africa, to a small, unnamed landmass in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There were notes written in Mandarin so I attempted to use the Captain’s mobile to translate them. However the calligraphy was too bizarre for the phone to read fully. Instead I was only able to translate a few words:

Petrified Forrest
Black Rock
Eyes of the Sea

I remembered seeing the term Eyes of the Sea when I was researching the Koi of Hungwa at the British Museum. Emperor Zhu Di had a vision in his sleep where the Sea came to him and said:

“Take my eyes and build for me a fish that will control the tides of the ocean, the wind that blows the sails and the waves that break upon the shore. Do this and you alone shall be my master and I will do your bidding.”

The Eyes were described as being:

“each the size of a walnut, smooth as silk and dark as the bottom of the ocean.”

Further along in my notes I wrote:

“The Koi of Hungwa was presented to the court. The two dark stones were secured in place as the eyes. The Sea kept its promise. Any command the Emperor whispered to the Koi came to be. Enemy ships were destroyed by waves the size of mountains, while no ship from the Empire encountered another storm at sea. Zhu Di crushed his opponents effortlessly and for 5 years he was Emperor of the World.”

There were also notes at the bottom of the map that I attempted to translate. This is what I came up with:

Center of the World
Ancient Storm
Earth Split
Bottomless Canyon
No Water

The last thing I found in the storekeeper’s papers made my blood run cold. It was a hand-traced duplicate of the parchment my mother gave me the night she was murdered. She told me it was very important and that I should never show it to anyone. A man was coming for it but I mustn’t let him have it. I asked her who this man was and she said he went by the name of Edward Spines.

I took out the parchment and compared it to the duplicate. They both had the drawing of a fish on one side, but the back of the original was covered in notes in a dozen different languages. The back of the duplicate was blank. My heart was pounding.

Gram came out of the bathroom.

“You look like a deer in headlights,” he said.

“Here,” I said as I handed him Zheng He’s map and the letter
from del Herrero. I didn’t mention anything about the duplicate

October 10th

I’m so bored. There is nothing to do in the room. Iseri doesn’t say much and there’s no booze. All I can do is stare out the window and smoke cigarettes. I can’t stop thinking about that duplicate the storekeeper had of my mother’s parchment. What’s the connection? After she gave it to me, I never looked at it. It just reminds me of that awful night.

October 12th

Gram received a message from Tom.

Good morning Captain,

Tom

We ran out of food and cigarettes so Gram sent the Innkeeper’s son to the store. When the boy came back he stared at us nervously.

October 13th

The Captain woke me up in the middle of the night.

“There is a lot of movement downstairs,” he said. “We need to leave.”

He cocked his pistol and opened the door. We ran down the hall, to the stairwell and onto the roof. I peered over the edge and saw army trucks parked outside the inn. We jumped from roof to roof until we got to the end of the street. Iseri broke a window and one by one we climbed in. We found a stairwell that took us to the ground floor. I could see the river from across the plaza, some fifty meters away. Gram tried calling Tom but he didn’t answer. He left a message on his voicemail telling him where we were.

The sun was up and I went to light a cigarette but Iseri stopped me before I could. He pointed to Gram who was looking out the window. Three soldiers were walking towards us. When the first one walked in the door, Gram put the pistol to his head. The two soldiers behind him saw this and opened fire. Gram fired three shots as we burst out the front door.

We crossed the plaza under a hail of gunfire and hid behind a maintenance shed on the loading dock. Gram tried calling Tom again. This time he answered.

“Hey man, how close are you? We are in a bit of a situation here.”

“Not far Captain. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

The soldiers were making their way across the plaza towards us. When they were twenty meters away Gram fired the pistol to hold them back. He turned to me and smiled.

“Oh, we’re in the shit now bud.”

After ten minutes of silence, the soldiers began to creep towards us again, weapons drawn, fanning out around the maintenance shed.

There was no escape. We had them on all sides. Gram fired two more shots. I sarcastically asked Iseri if I it was ok for me to smoke a cigarette.

Gram received a message on his phone from Tom.

I’m here.

The F. Scott surfaced at the end of the concrete loading dock. The hatch opened and Tom waved us over. We ran down the dock to the sub and Tom helped us aboard. Gram got off two more shots before he closed the hatch. You could hear bullets ricochet off the shell of the F. Scott as we began to dive.

The United States Navy built the F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1883 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Originally named the Norfolk, it was one of two submarines designed by Benjamin Strickland of Hampton Roads, Virginia. Strickland’s other submarine, named the Suffolk, was sunk during the Spanish American War. In 1910 the Norfolk returned to New York and was outfitted with a diesel engine, making her faster and safer. However in 1917 she was sunk off the coast of England by a German U-boat.

During World War II, the British government drudged up the Norfolk and repaired her. They strengthened the hull and fortified the bow giving her the ability to ram other ships. They mounted machine guns on the deck and renamed her the F. Scott Fitzgerald.

In 1984 Captain Gram bought the F. Scott for scrap during the Great Recession of the Thatcher administration. (his favorite toast is ‘Cheers Maggie!’) For six months Tom worked as a tech contractor for the British Military. During that time he managed to stockpile an impressive collection of decommissioned hardware, which he used to build a massive computer system that he later installed in the sub. (the whole thing looks ridiculous, but it works)

The F. Scott is eighty-six feet long from bow to stern with a beam of approximately thirty-two feet. Both the galley and the mess hall are located at the starboard bow, while the Captain’s quarters are at the stern. One of my jobs on board is to switch out the jugs attached to the bottom the Mechanical Gills and drag them up to the mess hall once they are full of drinkable water. We keep the cupboard in the galley full of dried noodles, corn beef hash and preserves. There is a big bag of rice under the stove, next to a jar full of drippings. Tom loves to fish so the fridge is always stocked with trout, grouper or mahi mahi, wrapped in newspaper. The Captain keeps a stash of bacon in the freezer, which is off limits.

Below the mess hall there are five cabins and a bathroom with a pressure operated toilet. We keep a plastic bucket on board for when the toilet doesn’t work, which is often. The engine room is in the back along with the Mechanical Gills, which supply breathable air to a dozen auxiliary tanks.

Midship is the control room where we spend most of our time. Below that is the hold, which we use mainly for storage. Attached to the control room is the library where Gram keeps his massive collection of books. He’s been collecting them for most of his life beginning with a copy of “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” by Mark Twain, which he stole from a nursing home when he was nine.

By the time Gram purchased the F. Scott, she had been stripped of any guns or furniture. The seats in the control room were all salvaged. There is a row of Boeing 747 first class chairs in the back that we got from British Airways. Tom says they originally came from the Concord, and are the actual seats where Jim Morrison and Elvis Presley met and hatched the American’t album. (I think he’s full of shit, but you can never tell with Tom.) The rest of the chairs vary in shades of leather. Some are bolted to the floor, some aren’t. I make sure to rub them once a week with oil so that they don’t crack from the heat. Gram keeps a record player with all his records in the library. He keeps a smaller player in his cabin. Tom built a sound system enabling the Captain to play his records throughout the entire sub. (unfortunately) His favorite music is soul and R&B, particularly anything put out by Motown.

Our first destination after we leave Turkey is Venice.

Chapter 21

October 18th (Venice)

Saint Mark’s Basilica is separated into five domes, each with its own set of archives, dating back as early as 423 A.D. Peoria has spent the past five days going from dome to dome researching the name Francisco del Herrero. When she got back to the sub tonight, Gram was sitting at his desk with his Elvis mug reading the paper.

“Hey darlin,” he said when she walked in.

“Hazte cojer!” she said as she stormed by him.
The Captain looked at me with puzzled eyes.

“What’s got into her?”

“I think she’s mad that you didn’t help her in the archives. She’s spent the past five days all by herself wandering the Basilica, and she hasn’t found anything.”

“Oh,” said Gram. “Alright, go find Tom and tell him we leave for Barcelona.”

“When?” I asked.

“Tonight.”

October 19th (Barcelona)

“Arthur! How are you?”

The Captain and I were sitting at a table in the middle of La Rambla drinking sangria when a tall, slim, bearded man in an expensive looking suit approached us. He sounded like he was from North London. His hair was slicked back and curled at the bottom. He looked like an asshole.

“Alex. Good to see you,” said Gram unenthusiastically. “Murikai told me he sent you. How did you find me?”

“I tracked your mobile,” said the man.

He placed a smooth black plastic rectangle the size of a cigar box on the table next to Gram’s clunky green military mobile that had been dropped a hundred times. He pulled up a chair and sat down.

He reached across the table and plucked a shrimp off a plate of paella that was sitting in front of the Captain.

“Arthur, I don’t see much of you lately. Where have you been?”

“Around. We don’t go to the same places.”

“Not anymore we don’t, no.”

“We never did Alex. What do you want?”

“You aren’t going to thank me for recommending you to Murikai?”

“No.”

The man adjusted himself. He crossed his legs and leaned his elbow on the table.

“Arthur, I want you to know that I’m here if you need me. Understand that I gave you this little job and I can take it back just as easily.”

He turned around and pointed with his thumb across the street. Scotty and the rest of the Yul Brynners were walking towards us, picking food off people’s plates and smashing wine glasses as they made their way to our table. One of them kicked over a bin, spilling rubbish all over the street. I jumped out of my chair but the Captain grabbed my shoulder and pushed me back down. They pulled over chairs and sat down around us.

“I brought some associates from London. I believe you’ve met Scotty and the boys, correct?”

Scotty smiled and waved to the Captain.

“Yeah, I know him,” said Gram. “He’s a crap pool player.”

“I’ll be taking my whiskey back,” said Scotty.

“It’s bourbon,” said the Captain. “And you ain’t getting shit back.”

Peoria walked up with Iseri. She froze when she saw the Yuls. One of them stood up and pointed at her.

“You killed me best mate girlie, split his skull in half…. I’m gonna slice you open and fuck your insides.”

Iseri cracked his knuckles and grunted.

“I’d like to see you try you bald twat,” said Peoria.

Alex smiled. He turned to the Captain and stared at him with fierce eyes.

“Once you’ve found this Koi fish for Murikai, you be sure to come talk to me first. If you don’t, we are going to have a problem. Do I make myself clear?”

He stood up and his tone became pleasant.

“And I shall be sure to give Naomi your regards tonight at dinner.”

He pushed his chair back into the table and turned to leave. The Yuls followed him, each one snarling at Peoria. They crossed the street and were gone.

“Who was that Captain?” I asked him.

Gram leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath.

“Well…If I’m Motown, then he’s Stax Records.”

“What the hell is Alexander Grealish doing here?” said Peoria. “And what are those idiot cowboys doing with him? And what was that shit about Naomi?”

“Forget it darlin’…Did you find anything about this del Herrero guy?” said Captain Gram.

“They wouldn’t let me into the library because I don’t have a Soviet stamp on my passport. However I did buy this off a vendor.”

She dropped a brightly colored children’s book on the table entitled “Las Aventuras Fantásticas de Francisco del Herrero.”

“These books are everywhere,” she said. “He’s some kind of local hero here.”

I started looking through the book. It depicted del Herrero as this heroic conquistador, traveling the world in search of adventure.

This is what I read:

¡Durante la época dorada de España, Francisco del Herrero era nuestro explorador más grande!

(During the Golden Age of Spain, Francisco del Herrero was our greatest explorer!)

Él navegó de su hogar en Barcelona al nuevo mundo en busca de aventura.

(He sailed from his home in Barcelona to the New World in search of adventure.)

Mientras que cruzaba el Atlántico, su nave fue cogida en una tormenta en el mar, pero Francisco del Herrero era sin miedo.

(While crossing the Atlantic, his ship was caught in a storm at sea, but Francisco del Herrero was unafraid.)

Él braved ondas el tamaño de montañas y vino a un bosque aterrorizado en el medio del océano. Era en esta selva prehistórica que él luchó los cangrejos del albino del monstruo que amenazaron destruir su nave.

(He braved waves the size of mountains and came to a petrified forest in the middle of the ocean. It was in this prehistoric jungle that he battled the monster albino crabs that threatened to destroy his ship.)

De nuestro héroe navegó a México, en donde él luchó en la guerra de Chichimeca. Él derrotó al salvaje Chichimeca y fundó la ciudad de Zacatecas. Él gobernó Zacatecas por treinta años y fue amado bien por su gente.

(From there our hero sailed to Mexico, where he fought in the Chichimeca War. He defeated the savage Chichimeca and founded the town of Zacatecas. He ruled Zacatecas for thirty years and was well loved by his people.)

Pero la aventura nunca era lejana. Un día Francisco del Herrero consideró un gran pilar gris en el cielo, elevándose sobre la ciudad.

(But adventure was never far away. One day Francisco del Herrero saw a great gray pillar in the sky, towering over the town.)

“Esto es una muestra de dios!” él dijo. “Encontraré el origen de este gran pilar, porque me llevará seguramente a una nueva y mayor aventura!”

(“This is a sign from God!” he said. “I shall find the origin of this great Pillar, for surely it will lead me to a new and greater adventure!”)

Él sacó el polvo apagado de su armadura y afiló su espada. En el amanecer la mañana siguiente, él y sus hombres dejaron Zacatecas y marcharon al norte en el desierto, pero nunca fueron oídos de otra vez…

(He dusted off his armor and sharpened his sword. At dawn the next morning, he and his men left Zacatecas and marched north into the desert, but they were never heard from again…)

I handed the book to Gram.

“A petrified forest in the middle of the ocean? Giant albino crabs? A gray pillar from God? Captain have you ever heard of anything like this?” I said.

He thumbed through the book, pausing at the page with the giant crabs.

“I don’t know what the hell this damn book is talking about. But I do know that this is our guy. Peoria get me everything you can find with Herrero’s name on it and meet me back at the F. Scott. We leave tonight.”

“Where are we going Captain?” I asked.

“We’re going to Mexico bud.”