The Stirlings and the Missing Statue

But The Bad Guy Gets One Too...

He knew it wouldn't have mattered, killing the girl. He'd have to reinvent himself for all the trouble he'd had in Mexico. He'd have to ensure that no one ever even knew he'd been in those forsaken places he'd been forced to visit. Too many people had seen him, even talked to him, for the Mr. Steach persona to survive the ordeal. Unlike his identity, the girl hadn't needed to die—it was just more convenient.
Getting the statue through any kind of customs agent's inspection would have been impossible and the soon-to-be-former Mr. Steach had no plans (not that his plans had mattered much on this caper) to carry the thing around in his suitcase. There was no chance he'd be riding the burro back to where his hateful rental car was probably still sinking into the marsh, and the beast had even started to attract its own attention—lost and separated from its flock, his brays across the empty field where he wandered had become incessant. With the statue tucked under his arm and already a mile away from the base of Cerro Gordo, Steach had started his hunt for a mode of transport that would better suit him.
At that point in the week, there weren't many tourists about, and, since the area was more recently known for mysterious disappearances, there weren't many tourists to begin with at all. Another mile down on his destroyed shoes, blisters blooming on his toes, Steach came to a farm that appeared to be owned by a larger kind of conglomerate. Signs featuring the farm's brand of mezcal advertised tours and tastings for incoming tourists—a small travel bus wrapped in an American tourist agency's logo was parked in a paved lot outside of the farm's distillery building (if Mr. Steach could have thought to call it a building).
A group of young people—Mr. Steach supposed that they were all under thirty given the amount of layered, trendy clothing the women wore, and the men's long hair coiffed into under-turned buns—stood around the wheel for mashing the roasted agave hearts. The Maestro Mezcalero demonstrated for the tourists as Steach made his approach from behind them to the bus. It was empty of people—even the driver had joined the group under the overhang to watch the process—but there was more than enough left behind in the seats to suit Steach's purpose. His own stench had become unbearable at that point and while he couldn't have hoped for a full wardrobe change and a place to refresh himself, he traded in his blood-stained shirt for a blue flannel shirt and his tattered (once very expensive) oxfords for a pair of sandals printed with the Mexican flag. His trousers were dirty and torn in many places, but unless he'd wanted to wrap himself in a serape, the shirt and sandals would have to do. He'd topped off the visit to the bus with a swipe of a woman's wallet, left carelessly buried in the bottom of a large satchel, and then deciding that he could make use of the linen bag as well. He'd dropped the statue in the bag which was painted in vibrant colors and what Steach believed to be indigenous-inspired patterns. As he passed through the aisle again, he picked whatever food items he could find on the seats: soda in glass bottles, Gatorade in clunky plastic, half-eaten bags of chips, and, miraculously, a wrapped sandwich from a hotel's convenience store. He'd added those to his new bag and hopped off the bus without ever catching a single eye from the tourists, driver, or Mezcalero.
Looking about as destitute as possible, Steach had continued further south until he reached the next farm—this one less grand and without a popular brand behind it—where he was able to pull a small sedan out of what he assumed was an employee parking lot, though the dirt and gravel was so rutted, he could barely drive through it. The keys hadn't been a problem—he'd been stealing cars of various kinds ever since he was a teenager and the older model he'd found was no challenge—and the employee to whom the car belonged was likely deep in one of the agave fields going about their work. He'd debated whether it was necessary to retrieve his cases or if he should simply cut his losses, but the small bits of information left behind needed to be collected or destroyed. Back to the village where he found the vault, collecting his things, then finding himself a way out of Mexico with the statue. That was the new plan. Although he was seriously reconsidering his natural ability to conceive a plan.
Driving away, once again, and leaving the bulbous yellow car behind under the cypress, Steach was becoming confident once again. There was plenty of petrol in the little car he'd stolen, the car itself was innocuous and had been given good care, his things had been unmolested in the time since he'd left them, and the woman's wallet he'd found had been heavy with local currency. Once on the major roadway to Oaxaca, Steach had even felt a sense of relief in that the statue, one of two objects of his desire, sat on the car seat next to him. He'd pulled open the drawstring of the bag and pulled the statue, head first, through the opening. The gilding was flaking around where the jewels in San Luis's crown had been removed some time ago; the single clear crystal that he would have to further examine in the future to determine its type, glinted as the centerpiece of the crown—magically restored. Not magically, his inner thoughts had argued with him. His second voice couldn't tell him how the jewel had escaped its burial and affixed itself to the statue, but the voice inside him was absolutely sure that it wasn't magic. There's no such thing.
The woman's cash paid for the nicest room in the best hotel Steach could find that didn't require a credit card number for renting. He'd supplied a fair deposit instead and pulled his odorous and bloodied body up the stairs to his room. Before the sun set on his final full day in Mexico, he was relaxing in a full-size bathtub and drinking a tart sangria the hotel's concierge had procured for him for a tiny sum. Another gratuity offered to the man gained him a set of traveling clothes from a boutique nearby. The clothes delivered the following morning and fitting comfortably over his frame—the concierge had nearly gotten his perfect sizes even when Steach had only given him his European measurements—Steach was like a new man. The statue he'd procured through theft, kidnapping, and even murder still peeked out of the bag he'd left in the chair by the window and proved that he was still the same wretch as before, but at least he had no longer smelled like tunnel refuse, marshy mud, and body odor.
* * *
Steach, or McCallan as he was calling himself now, sat on the balcony of his seaside home in the middle of the day and without a single thing to worry him. The sun was shining, broken through a bank of white clouds that was passing along the shoreline, the wind was strong and sweetened with jasmine. It pulled on the long linen drapes at the edges of the balcony and filled the large room behind him with gentle warmth.
* * *
His previous identity dissolved in a fiery end back in London and his new neighbors in a new Mediterranean city finding his practiced Scot persona intriguing, he hardly even thought about the six months he was removed from the ultimate debacle in Mexico. After his exodus from Mexico, word began to filter through the various communities to which he was connected—beyond the dark web and into the arms dealers, cartel heads, and smugglers that comprised his nefarious network—that Mr. Steach was burned. Thanks to a news article or two about missing children suddenly reappearing and locals having seen a man befitting his description and being involved, he'd needed an extreme exit from his previous life.
"I should have checked she was breathing," Steach had told himself when he read the news article himself.
He was traveling by private boat, again, but he'd been able to catch up on the news of the world around his scheme with a stolen laptop he procured at an unguarded study-group table. The student's battered computer revealed the truth of the current situation in San Luis Amatlán with just one keyword search. The girl had survived but had no memory of the man who had been seen with her.
"See, it didn't matter that you failed to exterminate her," Steach told his inner voice. "You were seen by someone else entirely. And, look here! Even the little brat at the market is getting involved. How they got his story..."
The updated article had pointed to three other witnesses that had come forward to speak of the strange gringo who had robbed a grave, stolen a rental car, and, as it seemed, stolen a burro as well—all to kidnap a girl. The article itself linked to others regarding the previous disappearance of the girl's brother and even historical disappearances from several decades before Steach had even stepped foot on Mexican soil.
It'd taken some work, but the collection he'd enjoyed keeping in the home of the old woman—since discovered in her burned sarcophagus—had been successfully transplanted to his new-to-him villa. The statue, shipped ahead of his departure from Mexico by way of a black-market transport contact, was the new centerpiece—he kept San Luis on the mantle above the fireplace but glued to the wood—just in case.
* * *
The bottle of Bordeaux, emptied of its original contents which had been replaced with sand from the beach below his new home, kept the door to the kitchen open and plans for McCallan's next caper sat on the island's marble countertop. Down below the balcony and across the sculpted lawn to his private dock, a boy in a fishing boat drifted by. McCallan kept his eyes trained on the boy in the boat, both of which were almost specks from his view from up high. The boat drifted around the curve of the coastline where the trees obscured McCallan's view and the tension in his shoulders relaxed. Wandering children still gave him second thoughts about his security.
His next scheme was again in a far away place, outside of the comfort he felt in Europe, and again in a country he'd never visited and to which he'd never deigned to assimilate. The relic was unobtainable, but largely ordinary and, like San Luis, thought lost to years of myth and legend-telling. Further still, this relic, an item thought to belong to a orthodox hieromonk and was used to ward off Baba Yaga. McCallan had second-guessed his idea to pursue yet another mystical object, but the draw of the unobtainable won over again.
McCallan finished his mezedes and had drained the small decanter of ouzo he'd started the day with—his daily delivery of fresh foods changed often due to the day's catch or the market's selection and the inclusion of the bottle was an excellent surprise—and he pushed himself up from the chair with some effort. Stronger than the drinks he was used to, the ouzo had affected his senses inasmuch as he nearly pitched forward onto his face. He righted himself and balanced his empty glass on the platter next to his chair before he stopped long enough to steady his balance. He belched and the spicy meat and cheese he'd eaten to combat the toll of the ouzo threatened to emerge once again.
His father—Gideon's father—had been a day-drinking fiend, and often caused his children more than just embarrassment, given the family's societal status. McCallan had done so much in his life to distance himself from that reality that the mere thought of his bearded and pot-bellied father drinking himself into an abusive stupor was enough for McCallan to swear-off drinking again for a good amount of time.
"Dinnae wantae be mah da," McCallan told himself in the accent he'd chosen for his new persona. He tried his best, even drunkenly, to stay in character at all times.
He closed his eyes and let the jasmine-scented air caress his face. The breeze was warm for the end of the month ahead of the fall season, but it was a comforting change from what the weather would have been like back in London at this time of the year. If he hadn't gone to Mexico, he might've still been using the home as his base and the Steach persona might've still been alive and well. Annoyed with the memory, he spun around dangerously on his feet and nearly jammed his bare toes into the wooden legs of the side table. He glared through the open balcony doors at the statue, to curse its existence one more time.
San Luis, corrupted by the greed of everyone who'd come to take him and make him more beautiful, might've glared back at him with his painted eyes. He, or it as the former-Mr. Steach would have insisted, would have remained there, perched over the fireplace until its new owner found something more beautiful or more interesting to take its place. But the statue of San Luis wasn't waiting around for that to happen.
The mantle was empty, its only treasure gone with bits of gilded clay left glued to the wood. San Luis had returned home.