by D J Mcintosh
I looked at the side table where The Steganographia sat beside Samuel’s open journal, its beaten up leather covers a testament to all it had gone through. “Soon. Possibly tomorrow. If I do come then, it’ll be late in the day.”
“That would suit me just fine.” His voice had taken on a strange ingratiating tone very much at odds with what I’d experienced before. I didn’t trust it. “Hate to rush you. I’ll have a bonus ready for all your good work.”
“I’ll call to let you know when I’m arriving.”
He thanked me and hung up.
I poured myself a second bourbon. And after that, a third. There wasn’t much left in the bottle so I downed that too. I struggled over to my bed and crashed for the night. Around five in the morning I woke abruptly. When I tried to sit up, I couldn’t move. Minutes of dread passed by before my body came under my control again. I’d been wrong. The night terrors were back.
I got out of bed and opened a window in the living room, thinking the fresh air might help calm me down. Listening to New York wake up has always been a pleasure for me. My favorite time of the day. I’d often come rolling home from some party and instead of going to bed, sit and listen to the squeal of the trash trucks, the bang of an iron gate, cars zooming past, footsteps down the sidewalk— someone on their way to an early shift—and the reverential quiet in between. The day getting started. The great city readying itself for the deluge of millions, each one wanting something from it.
I closed my eyes, liking the feel of the cold air on my face. A stray dog yelped somewhere down below, probably in a contest for garbage with raccoons. Another yelp. A very familiar sounding one. I didn’t bother tugging on a shirt, just snatched my keys and raced down the stairs in the jeans I hadn’t bothered to take off.
A bedraggled black dog with a torn and dirty cast trailing from her back leg limped toward me. I scooped her up, almost crushing her to my chest. Her strange yellow eyes seemed to ask why I’d abandoned her. I was jubilant. Reuniting with Loki seemed to make a lot of things right.
Back in the apartment I gave her food and fresh water, Loki lapping it all up greedily. She’d lost weight again. I wondered whether she’d come here every night looking for me. I wound a clean bandage carefully around the torn cast, musing that now we both had bad legs. Then I carried her to the armchair in front of the window where she curled up contentedly in my lap. I put my head back. We both fell into a peaceful sleep.
Fifty-Three
March 19, 2005
When I woke up, two messages were waiting for me. I’d been holding out hope that I’d hear from Bennet, but other than sending me an email with all her pictures and notes, she hadn’t spared even one personal word. Diane texted to ask whether I was home yet. It felt good to be able to tell her about Loki.
I took Loki with me when I retrieved the contents of my treasure chest from the FBI. Back home, I restored everything to the vault except the cameo. It bore a beautifully carved head of a woman whose identity had always been a mystery to me—and now I was resolved to find out who she was. I scooped up Loki again and headed out to visit Evelyn.
When I arrived she lifted her arms from the wheelchair rests for a hug, only to drop them when she spotted Loki.
“This is the black dog you told me about?” she asked. “Will it bite?”
I laughed. “Nope. Loki will be quite content to settle down with the bone I brought. She’s very friendly.” I took out an antler bone, all the doggy rage these days apparently. Loki snatched it from my hands and retreated with her prize. We’d never had pets at home. I realized now that growing up in the place she did, as the daughter of a sheep herder, Evelyn regarded animals as strictly utilitarian.
“You’re shocking me,” Evelyn said. “What happened to your beard?”
I rubbed my hand over my gristled jaw. “Just thought I’d try it for a change.”
“Well, I don’t like it. Please grow it back.”
After I’d made us some mint tea in the alcove that served as her kitchen, I settled on the small sofa—the only seating in Evelyn’s one main room—as she wheeled her chair beside me. I launched into a sanitized version of my time in Turkey, feeling the lump in my throat swell at the prospect of talking about Kandovan.
“And where is your girlfriend—that Miss Bennet?”
“She stopped off in London on our way back. Visiting with friends.”
Evelyn sighed. “Easy to be any place in this world now, isn’t it?”
I took her hand. “Yes, Evie. Listen, I went somewhere else too. Not just Turkey.”
I drew in a deep breath. “I went to Kandovan. I met your brother, sister, and father. I know everything.” Before she could react, I leaned over and folded her in my arms. I could feel a tremble run through her frail body. She cried softly for a few minutes and then sat back. She took a tissue out of her pocket and wiped her eyes.
“How did you know enough to go there?”
This time I lied, not wanting her to know I’d looked through her things. “Strangely enough I was sent there by a client to retrieve a rare book. I ran into Alaz Nemat and he saw the mark on my jaw. It reminded him of his sister’s baby. So we began a conversation and one thing led to another.” I avoided mentioning my experience in the salt caves or in the garden but said I’d fallen ill while in Kandovan and her sister Marya had very kindly looked after me.
I held out the beautiful cameo with a woman’s face etched in profile. “I think this is a picture of my mother. It’s you, isn’t it?”
She’d seen it many times before and glanced at it now. “No, John. You are wrong.”
“It’s all right, Evie. You can tell me now. Knowing this makes me very happy.”
But Evelyn wasn’t listening. “You said you were sent to Kandovan for a rare book. What book?” she said sharply.
“The one George Helmstetter stole from his employer, written by a sixteenth-century scholar named Trithemius.”
She turned pale. This time I worried I’d gone too far. “It’s okay. We can talk about this some other time if it upsets you too much.”
She sighed then looked up at me. “No. I should say it now. Keeping secrets is not good. Samuel tried to tell me that. But I insisted because … I made a promise to hide the book and … to keep another secret.”
“A secret?”
Now it was her turn to give me some solace. She patted my arm. “You said that Marya cared for you when you were taken ill. Did that not strike you as strange?”
“Why would it? She was a kind woman. I think she just felt sorry for me. They were overjoyed to hear about you. Marya especially.”
“John,” she said sternly. “Although you are family, you’re a stranger, a male, and worse, an American man from the West. Even an older married woman would not be allowed to touch you like that or be alone with you.”
“They’re not Muslims.”
“No, their codes are even stricter that way. Yet there is an exception.”
“What are you trying to say?”
Evelyn’s voice trembled. “If she was your mother—that would be allowed.”
I thought back to Marya’s steadfast care, sitting up night after night no matter how tired she was, her glances when she thought I wasn’t looking, how tender they seemed. Her sadness when she knew she was seeing me for the last time.
Loki whined and came up to me but I barely noticed her. “God, Evelyn. I had no idea. You’re my aunt then?”
She turned her kind, dark eyes on me. “Not of the blood, no. I was an orphan. My parents died of influenza one very cold winter. The Nemats took me in when I was six and raised me as their own. I owe a great debt to them for that.”
“Did you know about my father?”
She cast her eyes down then. “Yes. The village men killed him. In a cruel way. They were going to come after Marya, too; she had to flee from them. And they planned to end your life, you, just an innocent baby. They feared you because of that mark on your jaw. They said it was a
n evil mark and that it showed you were the same as your father. Marya pleaded with me to take you away and save you. I put on a heavy scarf that hid most of my head and wrapped you in a serape. Alaz rode me out on a horse. Marya would take another route. Go through one of the mountain roads and join us later. But she was not fast enough and they caught her. They beat her very badly but they did not kill her, because the baby was gone.
“After that, I knew you would not be safe even in Tabriz and we were not sure whether Marya would live. I fled to Mosul with you and met Samuel. He fell in love with you—and me. The chance to come to America seemed like a dream. And that is how it went.”
Again, I reeled. The world seemed to wobble on its axis. “I am as much your son as hers, Evie,” I finally managed to say. “You raised me.”
She smiled then. “Yes. That is how I wanted it to be. I am so lucky compared to poor Marya.”
I remembered Marya’s scarred face and felt sick at the thought of what they’d done to her. “Why did you never get in touch with them again, once you were safe in New York?”
“What do you mean? I did! Every letter was sent back. They didn’t want to know about me—or you.”
The men in the family, she meant. They’d decided the bastard son was best forgotten. If the price was leaving Marya in the dark about my fate, so be it.
“Why not tell me this long ago? Or at least when I asked you about my parents.”
“Marya made me promise. The magician beguiled her. She fell in love. After, she was ashamed. And I thought it was better you didn’t know you were born into a tragedy.”
“But then why go to all that trouble to hide the book?”
“Marya believed it to be magical. Helmstetter put that idea in her head. She was afraid that if she destroyed it, bad fortune would come to her.”
“It did anyway.”
“But you inherited one gift from your real father, so perhaps there was a little good in his soul after all.”
“What was that?”
“The medallion in your treasure box. The green-colored one with the picture of a vulture on it.”
So Helmstetter had taken the medallion from the salt caves, and it had found its way to me.
I showed Evelyn the picture I’d taken of Marya and Alaz the day before I left the Nemats. She gazed at it for a long time. I promised to frame it for her. Through her tears she told me how grateful she was that I’d given her her family back.
I got up to go soon after that. All the emotion had exhausted her. I leaned over to give her a kiss and closed the door quietly on my way out.
Fifty-Four
On the cab ride home my mind still churned over what Evelyn told me. “The sins of the father” reverberated through my brain. I felt remorseful about Marya, although she could have told me herself. Perhaps she preferred it that way. What had happened to her so long ago likely still festered in her heart. It certainly did in mine. Samuel and Evelyn had been more than good substitute parents. For that I was grateful.
I stopped off at the apartment to get some supplies for my drive to Strauss’s place. I also texted Alice Jacobs to tell her I no longer needed the pages she was working on for the reproduction and would send her a check for whatever she’d already done. Then I tucked The Steganographia into my jacket pocket and scooped up Loki. I wanted to get away, to drive, to listen to music. The long trek to see Lucas Strauss suited perfectly.
As I approached the Porsche I called Strauss to tell him I was on my way. I spread a bath towel on the passenger seat beside me for Loki to lie on, put Coldplay on the iPod, and headed for the Thruway.
It was much colder now than my first trip out. Ice tinged the pools of water left over from the flood; the fields were white and stiff with frost. But the Thruway was clear and dry and I made very good time. I arrived at Strauss’s place just as the afternoon began to slip into twilight.
This time the buzzer worked; Strauss’s voice sailed over the intercom. “Glad you’ve arrived safely, Madison. The gate will open momentarily.” His voice carried a jovial tone, although it sounded as if he had a frog in his throat. Living above that damp, dark first floor probably wasn’t a great idea for an elderly man. I clipped on Loki’s leash and we headed through the wood along the path to the house. She held herself tensely as we walked, hackles raised and tail down, clearly feeling more anxious the closer we got to the house. No fawns or bears this time, though; I guessed Strauss had pulled the plug.
The magician waited for me inside the gloomy, cavernous main-floor room. He had on an old fedora and a Burberry scarf wrapped around his neck. “Just got back from my walk,” he said, touching the tip of his hat. Loki growled at him.
Strauss jumped back at the sound and glared at the dog. With her black fur, he hadn’t noticed her in the dim light. He frowned. “I can’t allow that creature in here.” His voice croaked. “Apologies,” he continued, “I’ve come down with a sore throat.”
I tightened my hand on her leash. “Then we’ll conclude our business outside. When I was away, I almost lost her. I’m not letting her out of my sight.”
“All right,” he said, “but keep the damn thing leashed and close to you; I don’t want it anywhere near me.”
In the living room upstairs, what had seemed an elegant, smartly appointed space felt cheerless now, despite the fire burning in the grate. Only one light was on and the blinds were shut. Strauss groaned slightly when he took his seat near the fire and put his hand to his back. “These old bones trouble me greatly in winter.” Reflection from the firelight flickered over his features, distorting them. “I’m afraid it’s just you and I tonight. My man Harrison is off today.” He coughed a little and wiped his lips with a tissue.
I sat in the armchair nearest the door. Despite Strauss’s orders, I let the leash drop. Loki parked herself at my feet, her ears perked up and her hackles still slightly raised. I gave her a pat to show her she had nothing to fear.
Then I looked up at Strauss. “This shouldn’t take long.”
“No, indeed not.” He smiled and his cold eyes fixed on the dog again. “Have you had that animal for long? I suspect not. Am I right?”
“A few weeks, that’s all. I guess you could say she strayed into my life.”
“Strange,” Strauss mused. “How fitting you’d choose a black dog for a companion. Faust’s familiar was a dog. A black stray, too. What do you make of that?”
His dallying was getting on my nerves. I’d only just arrived but wanted to get out. Loki growled again, perhaps picking up on his hostility. I reached down to calm her with another pat. “It’s all right, Loki,” I said.
Strauss’s teeth showed when he attempted to smile. “Loki? You named her after the Norse demon? Most apropos. Canines haven’t always been regarded as a friend to man, you know. They were associated with the underworld; the superstitious believed they haunted byways and bridges to draw the unwary into danger.”
“May we get on with things? It’s a long drive back and already late in the day.”
His gaze shifted to his desk, a contemporary design made of tempered glass with chrome drawers. A matching cabinet stood against the wall behind it. “I understand your trip proved hazardous. You almost died?”
It was my turn to frown. “Bennet told you that too?”
“Yes. We had a long phone conversation yesterday.” Strauss paused. “My promise has been fulfilled, as I believe you now know your true birth story. Although it didn’t sound like the warmest of family reunions.”
My face reddened in irritation. Bennet had no business discussing my personal affairs with him. “That means you know about Helmstetter too? That he was my father? Bennet shouldn’t have said anything.”
At the mention of Helmstetter’s name, his jaw tensed and his lips formed an ugly line. “Please don’t blame Bennet. I knew all along he’d gotten a child off a local woman and the calamities that followed. I only discovered you were that child when Tricia Ross inadvertently let it drop.”
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br /> I could feel my temper building. Loki whimpered, sensing my dismay. “How did you find out about Helmstetter and my mother?”
Strauss brought the tissue to his mouth again, coughed, and wheezed as he took a breath. Then he loosened his scarf, fumbled with the buttons on his jacket, and undid the top two. The metal buttons gleamed in the firelight. “I went to Kandovan myself on Helmstetter’s trail two years after he absconded with my possessions. It was too late. By then he was long dead.”
“What the hell. You didn’t bother to tell me any of this? You said you’d found out only recently that Helmstetter traveled there.”
“No. I eventually pried the information out of his mistress about where he’d gone.”
“So the whole thing was a charade—risking my life to send me over there when you already knew Helmstetter’s fate.”
His gaze settled on me again. “Not at all. You returned with the book, did you not? And would you have gone over there just to retrieve the volume for me? The inducement of learning about your birth story provided a necessary incentive.”
“It was all a sham.” My mind went back to Bennet’s cold shoulder at the Van airport.
“You knew Bennet all along, didn’t you? She told me that, you know. She was aware of all this, wasn’t she?”
“I was well acquainted with her parents, yes. I knew her from the day she was born.” He gave me a sly smile, and waited for his words to register.
The reality began to dawn and he saw it written on my face. I barely heard his next words.
He nodded slowly. “Yes. Bennet’s mother was my former assistant, the woman who married Helmstetter. Shortly after she discovered he had a mistress, he abandoned both women. He left her broken and bitter. She remarried soon after and gave birth to Bennet a year later, but never really recovered from Helmstetter’s betrayal. Bennet would come home from school to find her mother half out of it from drink. Eventually the marriage broke up, and Bennet was left to cope with her mother as best she could. She grew up with Helmstetter’s phantom hanging over her head. It ruined her childhood.” He tapped his fingers absentmindedly on the chair arm. “I insisted that Bennet not tell you. If it’s any solace, she resisted that—strongly—before she gave in.”
