Scavenger Hunt Page 3

  Bea shared a hotel room with Joe. The Hosteria Via Rondine. Two twin beds with a small bathroom, a coffee table and a TV that mostly showed Spanish soap operas. She wasn’t bothered by sharing with Joe. She knew she could crush him if he tried anything. She was easily twice as strong as he was.

  Michael and Susan had a separate room down the hall. Theirs was a standard single room with a double bed. Michael even made a big deal of the sleeping arrangements, telling Bea in an interview that he wanted to fuck Susan at the bottom of the world. One day, maybe Bea would play that clip for Susan. For sure Cynthia would be airing that.

  But tonight was Joe’s turn to be surprised.

  He was lying down on his bed, still trying to catch up on sleep after the ridiculously long series of flights to get to Ushuaia.

  “Joe! Come here.”

  “What?”

  “Got something for you.”

  He sighed. Apparently he was sick of being interviewed already. Tough. Even now, everything she saw was being transmitted by her forecam to communications satellites 22,000 miles above the Earth. The feed was being monitored by Cynthia and Rick and about a dozen other editors and associate producers at the network.

  Slowly Joe climbed out of bed and rubbed his eyes like a little kid. When he yawned, it completed the picture. He was cute in a little boy kind of way, but Bea preferred men. Soldiers, wrestlers, firemen. Men with meat on them and the strength to dominate her. Wimps didn’t do anything for her.

  “What?”

  “Susan and Michael were just down at the water. Talking. Maybe they needed a break from fucking. Do you think of Susan doing that? Fucking Michael?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that again. What did you want to show me?”

  “Well, they still haven’t quite grasped the concept of the forecam. Nothing’s secret. Listen to this…”

  She played the clip. It showed Susan’s face from Michael’s perspective. Slightly off center, but Joe knew they could edit that. The sound was crystal clear, which surprised him, and even though they were talking in low tones and had the sound of waves in the background, he had no problem hearing them.

  “You know the rules,” Michael said. “We don’t all have to finish. Just you and me.”

  “Sonofabitch,” Joe said. “He’s trying to cut me out?”

  Susan replied, “We can’t do that. We’re a team. The three of us”

  “Jesus,” said Joe. “Michael just tried to fuck me over.”

  Bea clicked a button on the tablet just as they heard a knock on the door.

  Joe answered.

  “Hey, my man. We’ve got to chat a bit. Susan’s worried.”

  Joe moved back to let Michael and Susan walk into the room. Michael nodded to Bea and added, “After all, we’re partners in this thing.”

  Susan - Ushuaia

  It was only a few days since they’d left the television studio in New York but it seemed like so much longer. Susan was tired and worried and almost wanted to quit.

  But she couldn’t.

  Michael wanted this. He wanted them to traipse around the world to bizarre locations and somehow beat the other three teams. Just for the money.

  It might have been easier if he’d said he wanted the adventure, the fun, the challenge, the thrill of doing this with her. She might even have caught a bit of enthusiasm if any of that was the reason. Instead it was just greed.

  She yawned as she set up her tablet computer on the small coffee table in Joe and Bea’s suite.

  Michael couldn’t care less about her spreadsheet. That bothered her too. Somehow she’d been put in charge of finances, but he didn’t give a damn what she had to say. He’d wanted to fly direct from New York to Ushuaia, but four seats would have cost almost $3,000 more than going with the several hops they ended up with. She was the one who had to insist. Even so, the money situation wasn’t good.

  “Our money isn’t going to last,” she said. She was talking mostly to Joe, because she’d already told Michael, while they were sitting down at the ocean together.

  Joe stared at her in disbelief. “We had $50,000. That’s a lot of money. What do you mean it won’t last?”

  Susan opened her spreadsheet.

  “The plane fare was almost six thousand for the four of us. Hotel rooms while we’re waiting here is four hundred. The damned crooks with the helicopter are taking us for another six thousand. Throw in food for the week and the first leg of our journey will end up costing us more than thirteen thousand dollars.”

  She looked back and forth between Michael and Joe. “That’s one week. We have to last for eight.”

  Joe pulled the computer closer to him and double-checked the numbers.

  “All the teams will have the same problem,” he said. “The producers must have figured out that this game can be played for the money they gave us.”

  “But look at this,” Susan said.

  She clicked her web browser icon, which opened up automatically to the RTV home page. The Internet connection would work anywhere in the world via satellite. She clicked to a site called Southern Helicopter.

  “They’re a new company in New Zealand. We could have gotten them to take us to Antarctica for under a thousand bucks. These guys are totally ripping us off.”

  Joe checked the excursion rates and saw that Susan was right. “Damn.”

  Michael said, “Don’t matter, we didn’t go that way. We came here. We don’t have a choice now.”

  “But we’ll have other choices in the future. We have to be a lot smarter. Check out things ahead of time instead of just taking the obvious way.”

  Joe clicked over to Expedia.com to check out flights from New York to Auckland. “More expensive.”

  Susan added, “Yes, but it’s still a lot cheaper when you count the helicopter. And we might not have been sitting around here for two days waiting for the copter to show up.”

  She stared at Michael. “We’ve got to save money, starting right now. Nothing fancy for food. McDonald’s will do just fine. We get one big hotel room when we can, instead of paying for two. And we’ve got to think about what we’re doing at each step along the way.”

  Michael nodded slowly. “We’ll get through this, baby.”

  Susan just stared. She so wanted to say, I don’t mind running out of money. It’ll get me home that much faster.

  Instead, she said, “We leave first thing in the morning to get the meteorite. When we finish, we need to go someplace close on our next leg of the race. What clue should we take?”

  They were all quiet. They’d talked about the clues lots of times, but they were all so vague they could be anywhere. Michael stared at Susan, who stared at Joe. Joe just threw his hands up.

  “It’s a crap shoot. Who knows?”

  Chapter 3: Team Hollywood

  Fernando - Six Months Earlier

  Fernando Santiago loved Los Angeles. The City of Angels. The city where he was born. The city where he expected to die. Today.

  The Fairfax building was one of his favorite places. He’d gone there many times starting when he was a little kid. It was right downtown, and when he was twelve, it seemed a million miles high. In reality it was twenty stories, but it was still his own private place. The elevator creaked these days and some of the offices were closed for renovations. They had been for years.

  The bottom floor had a newsstand and flower shop. There was a security desk there but in more than forty years of occasional visits, nobody had ever stopped him from walking right over to the elevator and taking it to the top floor. On that floor was a hallway, and at the end was a room labeled “Staff Only.”

  When he had been twelve, his cousin, Jose, told him about the door. God knows who told Jose. The door was never locked, and it wasn’t locked today. He walked through the door and found the creaky steps that led to the roof entrance that swung open above him.

  Fernando climbed onto the roof and closed the door. He was immediately hit by strong winds and stood s
till a few moments to be sure of his balance. Then he walked to the edge of the roof and looked at his city.

  Tall buildings surrounded him with bright lights. It was midnight and the calendar had just turned to October 12. His 56th birthday. Another year passed. Another year lost to that bitch.

  Brittany.

  He gritted his teeth as he thought of his wife — the beautiful 32-year-old blonde woman who had swept him off his feet three years ago. The amazing woman who had fooled him so well.

  Not anymore. Now it’s her turn to be surprised.

  The city seemed to glow with an ambient amber-brown color of light from the office buildings all around.

  There was no chance of seeing stars tonight. Or even the moon. It was a crap shoot in L.A. even on the best of nights, but tonight a light haze covered the city, a blanket to shroud his last day.

  Fernando walked to one corner of the building and found the ledge on the perimeter. It was exactly two and a half feet tall. He knew because he’d measured it when he was a teenager. He’d always wanted to stand on the ledge but he’d never had the courage.

  He no longer needed to be brave. He just needed to do what he had to do.

  He thought of standing on the granite ledge with his shoes, but he worried he might slip. He tugged off his wingtips and peeled off his socks. The rooftop was cold beneath his feet.

  Brittany wouldn’t approve of him taking his shoes off.

  Then he surprised himself by undoing his shirt and placing it with his shoes and socks.

  What the hell, he thought. Let’s go for it.

  He unzipped his pants and folded them, placing them on his shirt. Finally, his boxers were added to the pile of clothes.

  He couldn’t have articulated exactly why he wanted to be naked. He just did. It felt like freedom. Freedom from her, freedom from nature, freedom to do what he wanted for once.

  There was a small pillar in the southeast corner of the building, where the ledges met. The pillar extended up an extra few feet and had a small gargoyle on top. He held onto the pillar and climbed up. Once he had his balance he stood and stared.

  The ledge was eight inches wide, so his feet didn’t completely fit. He held his arms out and didn’t look down.

  The wind kept battering him and for a moment he imagined trying to fly from the roof, glide on the winds to land gently on Wilshire Boulevard far below.

  Why tonight? Why should tonight be the last straw? Even he couldn’t answer that. She’d been so awful for so long.

  The lies.

  The misrepresentations.

  The shame.

  The humiliation.

  And the fucking bitch knew that he knew about it all. She just didn’t care. She just kept smiling, knowing if he divorced her, she’d take half of everything he’d worked his whole life for.

  He’d never let her have it. He’d die first. His suicide note was in his pocket, explaining everything she’d done to ruin his life.

  And now she had the gall to suggest they go on some fucking television show? What the fuck was that about?

  It was about ten million dollars, of course. Money was all she cared about.

  Fernando took a deep breath and lowered his head. Slowly. Carefully. Until he was looking straight down.

  Two hundred feet. Below, he could see cars and buses and ants that must be people. He couldn’t hear any of the traffic. Whatever noise they were making was lost in the wind.

  The ants moved so slowly. Wilshire was six lanes wide at this point. He didn’t want to land on a car, but in the scheme of things, that wasn’t a big concern. He just wanted it over.

  His legs were about two feet apart. The wind bit into his body, and it felt wonderful.

  The biggest surprise when he’d looked down was that he had an erection. First time in… who knows?

  Fucking reality show. Supposed to be the splashiest of all time.

  The most dangerous.

  Fernando felt his knees buckle and without thinking he grabbed the gargoyle. He wobbled and would have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed it.

  And then he had a thought: Wouldn’t it be better to die with thirty million viewers watching? He could make sure they’d all know it was because of Brittany. All the ants on the street below would know exactly what she’d done to him.

  For the first time in months, Fernando smiled.

  Brittany - Copper Canyon, Mexico

  Copper Canyon was a series of twenty interconnected canyons that amount to four times the size of the Grand Canyon.

  The place was huge.

  And Brittany was worried they were lost. After all, Fernando and Carlos were acting as the navigators. Sometimes she wondered how the brothers managed to find their way out of the bathroom.

  They had actually thought they were going to be headed to Arizona on the trip, and that seemed like a sensible way to start the hunt. Since they lived in L.A., they’d visited the Grand Canyon several times. Fernando wanted to go there on their honeymoon, but she nixed that. She wanted Hawaii, and of course she always got her way.

  In the RTV studio, the monitors had all the clues listed and brain-child Carlos was the first to point. He blurted out, “Carved by rivers,” and then he turned and whispered to Fernando, as if she wasn’t even there. Fucking ass. No wonder he was just a butcher. At least Fernando had a real job. He’d wondered if he should leave his dental practice for the time he’d need to be away to film the show, but Brittany pouted and just said everything would be fine. He should just get Rosa to reschedule everyone.

  Besides, she knew they’d win and she’d take her share and vamoose. She’d been stuck in this fake marriage long enough.

  At first, things had seemed perfect. He was well off, had a great job, and wasn’t that bad to look at. She liked his dark skin and his moustache. When she took the job working for him, it was supposed to be temporary, a way to escape her miserable life as an exotic dancer. It wasn’t long before she realized that marrying him would give her the money she really wanted, much more than being his receptionist would.

  She’d have to put out for him, but she could handle that. At least for the first couple years.

  Fuck, where are we?

  They’d rented an RV with a driver in Chihuahua City, not far from the Canyon. That was two days ago. The driver only spoke Spanish, which she’d never learned, so the brothers did all the talking.

  Freaks.

  Yesterday, she’d kept asking Fernando to show her on the map where they were and he’d point to a general area. “Here,” he’d said the last time she asked.

  “How do you know? There’s no signs or anything.”

  He just shrugged and didn’t answer her.

  They drove on sandy paths that may or may not have been intended for cars. All around them, brown and orange cliffs rose up from the ground and their shadows buried them in darkness, even at mid-day.

  “I just know,” Fernando finally said.

  She knew something was different these past few months with him. He’d started arguing with her, talking back, instead of just meekly agreeing with whatever she wanted. Thank God, this sham of a marriage was almost over. As soon as she had the prize money in her hands, she would be gone.

  The RV was costing $1,000 per day to rent. Two days out meant at least two days back. She vaguely wondered who was tracking their money. They only had $50,000, and it had to last eight weeks…

  The RV stank, maybe of urine, but she didn’t want to know for sure. Something wasn’t right with the air conditioner. She needed them to stop every couple of hours so she could get out for some fresh air.

  It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon when the driver pulled over and stopped the RV.

  “Here,” he said. It was the first English word she’d heard him say.

  Carlos pumped his fist in the air as if they’d actually accomplished something. Even that simple act bothered her. He was such an idiot.

  He flipped open his computer and waited for the satell
ite connection to be established.

  Brittany took the opportunity to hit the bathroom and brush her hair. This was sure to be edited into the show, and she needed to look good.

  When she came back, Fernando, Carlos, and the cameraman, Steve Howard, were standing outside. She joined them, standing by Steve. No point standing with the brothers while they chatted away in Spanish. That was just to annoy her, she knew.

  Fernando turned to her. “The GPS devices are activated.”

  “Oh!”

  She looked at the bland gray band that circled her wrist and held it up as if to read the time off a watch. A bright red arrow pointed ahead and to the left.

  “Get the sticks,” called Carlos. “And we should take water.”

  Fernando retrieved the sticks and rope from inside the RV. They didn’t know what they were for, only that they needed to take them to wherever they were going.

  Brittany turned to Steve and smiled. She wanted to be sure all the viewers knew how fucking happy she was.

  Fernando - Copper Canyon

  The canyon seemed endless. Canyons, he knew. Plural. It was a spider web of canyons with one long snaking, main canyon that had side channels running off in all directions.

  The GPS signal had guided them into one of the channels. This wasn’t like any GPS device Fernando had ever heard of. It was more like a signaling device that told them when to turn in a particular direction. Now it had carried them into a small side channel after they’d been walking for two hours.

  His legs hurt and his mouth was dry. They’d brought water but God knew how long this hike was going to be, so Carlos and he had decided early on not to drink too quickly. Of course Brittany was having none of that and drank whenever she wanted.

  She hung back behind Carlos and him, walking with the cameraman, Steve Howard. Well, he’d get sick of her soon enough.

  Thank the Lord, it wasn’t too hot. Not much hotter than New York this time of year… not even sixty degrees. Weird to think of a Mexican desert not being stifling, but it was winter here too.

  They reached another side canyon and their GPS pointed to the right. This channel was different, though. There was a four-foot-wide pathway that curled upward and around the cliffs. Fernando could only see a portion of the path before he lost sight of it. The path was at an angle of about thirty degrees. Awfully steep.