The Shroud Key

Prologue Florence, Italy October 2012 “You stole my wife!” That rather inflammatory accusation is lobbed from a fully grown man who, despite his God-given gender, is most definitely screaming like a girl. A high school math teacher, to be precise, who’s attempted two back-to-back roundhouse swipes at me and whiffed miserably. “I did not steal your wife,” I insist in as calm and unthreatening a voice as I can possibly muster under the circumstances. “Your wife stole me. Get it?” Here’s the deal: I’m standing outside the Duomo Cathedral in beautiful, scenic Florence, Italy. No, that’s not right. I’m not standing. More like I’m dancing, dodging the punches and swipes of this paunchy, Dunkin Donut fed middle-aged American. The American wants me dead. Dead and buried. Yet, I feel terrible for him. His chubby face has gone heart-attack red, eyes swollen with tears and rage. His horrified wife looks on as do a crowd of tourists who have come to the Duomo to witness some glorious Renaissance history but instead have managed to acquire free ringside seats to a brawl between a walking tour guide and one very jealous husband. How did I get here? How did guiding these nice mid-western white-bread Americans result in my pulling the rope-a-dope inside one of the most sacred piazzas in the world while in the distance the polizia alarms blare, and the crowds of Japanese gawkers look on in smiley faced astonishment? The sad truth of the matter is this: I did it by being me. Chase Baker, former sandhog turned bestselling thriller writer, s***h private investigator, s***h tour guide, s***h full-time screw up when it comes to some of the more attractive female clientele. So what harm can come from a little innocent flirting? Just ask the man desperately taking swings at me, trying to knock my teeth down my throat. Maybe this isn’t the first time easy love has come my way via a tour client, and this isn’t the first time a jealous husband has wanted to hurt me over it. It’s just that this is the first time things have gotten physical in public, with potential clients looking on. So then, like a freshly dug grave that’s caving in on all sides, I suddenly find myself way in over my head. But then, this rather sensitive situation is not entirely my fault. For example, it’s not my fault that the woman in question rang my doorbell at midnight last night, waking me from out of a sound sleep just to “chat” and drink a little Chianti together. Not my fault that I’m still the same not-entirely-worse-for-wear Renaissance man I was the day my now ex-wife walked out on me holding my infant daughter in her arms, shouting, “You don’t want a marriage! All you want is a plane ticket to anywhere but here!” What is my fault, is my having answered the door for this exceptionally attractive tourist in the first place. Better that I simply rolled over and ignored the ringing doorbell. Better that I shut out the image of her lush blonde hair, jade green eyes and legs so long and firm they began at her feet and ended somewhere inside her shoulders. Better that I reminded myself of her marriage status and then simply dozed cozily back to sleep. But, of course, what made things worse is that the lovely tourist woke the dog. And once Lulu, your two-year-old black and white pit bull is awake, half the residents on the Via Guelfa are awake from her barking and carrying on. Dragging myself out of bed, I ran my hands over my short hair and down my scruffy face. I stretched myself one way and then the other, feeling the solid muscles in my back and arms tense up. Opening the shutters onto the cool spring night, I felt the cool air touch my naked skin, and I laid eyes upon the blonde apparition thumbing my buzzer. “It’s midnight, Mrs. Doyle,” I said out the open window. “I’m closed for business.” In the background, I could make out the noise of some revelers returning from the bars near the Piazza Del Duomo, their boot heels slapping against the cobble-covered roads. “I just want to chat,” she said, smiling, her alcohol-soaked voice sounding sultry and sexy in the night. In her right hand she gripped a five Euro bottle of Chianti which she raised up as an enticement, like she required an enticement with those eyes and everything that went with those eyes. “Look, Chase. I brought refreshments.” I felt my heart beating. Felt my blood flowing through my veins. I glanced down at Lulu who was standing just a couple of feet away on the smooth wood floor of my five-hundred-year-old third-floor apartment. “What should I do, Lu?” I whispered. “You know what you should do,” the pit bull said with a wag of her tail. “You should go the hell back to bed. Get up bright and early in the morning, work on your new book, then get in a quick run before having to meet your group at ten for the Duomo tour. That’s what you should do. Don’t forget, you need the dough-ray-mi.” “Yah,” I agreed, gazing back down onto the blonde goddess dressed in short black mini-skirt, black lace tights and knee-length leather boots. “I should go back to bed, shouldn’t I?” “But you’re not going to do that are you, Chase?” Lu added. “As usual you’re gonna listen to your d**k, unlock the door for this lonely but very married tourist, invite her into your world. You’re gonna drink her wine until it’s almost gone and then you’re gonna get naked. From that point on I gotta be forced to listen to your moans and groans and bed-board banging when I should be getting my rest. But then, what the hell do I know? I’m just a stupid dog. I don’t even know I’m alive.” “You sure you’re just a dog, Lu?” “If it looks like a dog, smells like a dog, barks like a dog …” “Most dogs don’t talk human speak.” “Most dogs ain’t gotta live with you, Chase. And you’re making all this dialogue up in your head anyway.” “Thanks for reminding me, Lu. Thought I finally lost it for a minute.” Working up a grin, I inhaled a deep, satisfying breath, and decided, “What the hell?” That’s when I proceeded to jump down into the rabbit hole. “Okay, Mrs. Doyle, I’m gonna let you in. But just for an hour. Long day tomorrow, remember? The Duomo tour and the ‘David’ in the Academia. You’re paying me big bucks for this.” “Oh, good one, Chase.” Lu, moaning under her breath. “Real smooth.” “Back off, Lu. Daddy’s got a date.” A wide smile plastered on my face, I sprinted out of the bedroom to the front door. Unbolting the door, I leaped down the stairs to let her in … … Ten hours, thirty-three minutes, and sixteen seconds later, I find myself wrestling. Only I’m not naked and the person I’m wrestling with is most definitely not a jade-eyed blonde beauty. I’m grappling with the overweight husband of said jade-eyed beauty. A one, Mr. Robert Doyle. “I knew you were with her last night when I rolled over and she was gone,” screams the red-faced faced man, as he tries to trap me in a bear hug. “I knew it the moment you set eyes on her you’d try and get in her pants.” I shove the far softer Doyle away, hold up my hands in surrender like I want no part of fighting him. And I don’t. He’s my client after all, and by the looks of his physical constitution, only two heartbeats away from a major coronary. “She came to me, Mr. Doyle. Last night at midnight when I was asleep.” “That supposed to make me feel better, Chase Baker?” In the near distance, the wailing sirens growing louder. So is the crowd that surrounds me. “Fight!” someone barks. An Australian. “Don’t just dance like a couple of Sallies.” Australians love to fight. “Yah, punch his lights outs!” someone else shouts. A Japanese man. Sounds like, “Punch his whites out!” But I really don’t want to go all Russell Crowe on this man; don’t want to punch his lights out. He’s just angry, confused and hurt. Doyle takes another swing at me, and another. This time he connects with my right jaw, sending a shock wave of pain into my head. It also flicks a trigger. My defensive trigger. The one that brings out Chase Baker the Survivor. The one that’s been triggered in bars and Irish pubs the world over. Istanbul, Athens, Cairo, Rome. You name it. I’ve tossed my fair share of punches and swallowed a few too. But this is the first time it’s happened while working. “Chase, don’t you dare hurt my husband!” cries the suddenly concerned voice of Mrs. Doyle. She’s still looking mighty choice in her black mini skirt and leather boots. She did her share of screaming last night in my apartment. Now she’s screaming once more. Only difference is, she’s changed her tune entirely. Her eyes are filled with tears and she’s clutching her face with her pretty little hands. I’m the bad guy now. Like last night’s little midnight affair was all my idea. “Don’t you dare hurt my husband you big bully!” Her face is a combination remorse, fear and hatred for herself over what she’s done. I know the look all too well. I’ve seen that face before on a dozen other too-attractive-for-their-own-good girls whose husbands have just discovered the worst thing they can possibly imagine: That their pretty little trophy wives are also pretty little cheats. My head is ringing like the Duomo bell. I feel slightly out of balance. So much so that I don’t see yet another punch coming. This one connects with my other jaw. The crowd roars in approval. If the first wallop triggered a survival mechanism, this one sparks rage. “Sorry, Mr. Doyle,” I say, “but you leave me little choice.” Taking a step into the bigger man’s body, I lead with an uppercut that travels through the math teacher’s soft underbelly all the way to his spine. I then quickly follow up with a left hook to the lower jaw and just like that, it’s lights out for Mr. Doyle on the cobblestones of a breathtaking Renaissance treasure. It’s also precisely when the polizia arrive. They jump out of their white and blue Fiat squad car, grab me by my weight-trained arms, demand that I drop to my knees. How’s the old saying go? It’s not the angry man who punches first who gets caught. It’s the sucker who punches last who eats the crap sandwich. “Hey, he started it!” I shout. But what I really should be doing is pointing at Mrs. Doyle, insisting, She started it! The polizia don’t want to hear it anyway. This isn’t the first time they’ve picked me up for brawling and it certainly won’t be the last. They push my arms up over my head in the opposite way God intended for them to be pushed. The pain causes little flashes of white light to explode in my brain as I feel the steel cuffs being slapped over my wrists. “You big bully!” shouts Mrs. Doyle as she slaps me across the face. Then, dropping to her knees over her out-cold husband, “Oh my sweet darling, are you okay?” “Let’s go, Chase,” one of the blue-uniformed cops insists in his Italian-accented English. “You’ve got yourself a front row audience with Detective Cipriani … Vai, vai.” “Does this mean I’m under arrest, officer?” I say as they painfully yank me up onto my feet. “Si,” the other cop says. “It means your ass is glass.” “Grass,” I say. “It’s ‘ass is grass.’ Why don’t you learn to get it right, Pinocchio?” I feel the quick fist to the gut, and it’s all I can do not to double over. “Why don’t you learn to shut up, Chase?” the cop says. “Silencio.” “Good idea,” I say through gritting teeth. “I should learn to shut up and you should learn to speak English … The international language of choice the world over.” Together the cops drag me to the squad car where they thrust me into the back seat, slamming the door closed. An EMT van arrives on the scene then, the medical technicians immediately exiting the vehicle and going to work on the still prone Doyle. Meanwhile, the cops hop back into the front of the cruiser. As the cop behind the wheel pulls away from the piazza, I catch one more glimpse of Mrs. Doyle. She’s still kneeling over her husband. I shoot her a smile, like, Thanks for last night. But she returns my glance with a glare that would ice over Dante’s Inferno. When she raises up her right hand and flips me a manicured middle finger, I realize I should have listened to my dog, Lu, and not my other head. “I’ll never learn,” I whisper to yourself. “Oh well, at least Detective Cipriani has nice cigars.” I contemplate smoking a fine Cuban cigar all the way to polizia headquarters.