by Jeff Lindsay
Katrina marched into the museum with her spine straight and her head held high, ready for any hostile confrontation at all—and so she was completely unprepared when she was blindsided by a huge, warm hug from her brother Tim the second she walked in.
“Kat!” he said, almost yelling. “Oh. My. God! My sister, the tabloid queen!” He laughed, nearly squeezing the life out of her. “Oh Jesus, I am SOOOOO happy to see you! Are you okay?” And before she could say a word, or even breathe, he lowered his voice confidentially and said, “I knew there was something wrong with that Michael of yours. I never trusted him, and I always— But, Kat, seriously, couldn’t you just divorce him? But you always did take things to extremes.”
“Tim, for God’s sake,” she finally got out, “let me go! I can’t breathe!”
Tim stepped back but held on to her shoulders. “God, Kat, I called a hundred times—I was so worried!”
“My phone is evidence,” Katrina said bitterly. “They won’t give it back, and I—” She bit her lip to keep from telling him the truth. He guessed it anyway.
“You didn’t call me because you thought I would get all Erik on you, right? For shit’s sake—you know me better than that!”
“I do,” she said. “I’m sorry, Tim.” And then she gave him back a hug. “Next time I’ll know better,” she said, and they both laughed.
They walked into the boardroom arm in arm, chatting happily. Tim wanted to know all about Randall, and was it just a marriage of convenience or True Love? And then of course all the more personal details—things Katrina wouldn’t tell him no matter how much he wheedled.
The happy bubble burst for both of them as they stepped into the boardroom. “I’m so glad you two can laugh,” Erik said from his place at the head of the long, polished oak table. “And, Katrina”—he said the name with such distaste it must have hurt his mouth—“I admit I’m surprised you would even show your face.”
“Don’t be such a prick, Erik,” Tim said before Katrina could speak. “Your sister has been through a terrible ordeal.”
“And whose fault is that?” Erik said coldly.
“You’re acting like the Taliban,” Tim snapped. “In this country we do innocent until proven guilty, remember? Especially with your sister!”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Katrina finally managed to put in. “Can we stop acting like family and get to business?”
Tim snickered. Erik stared at her but finally nodded once. “Very well,” he said, still in frigid tones. “Despite the distractions, we certainly have a great deal of important business today. The crown jewels arrive in—” He paused, frowned, looked around the room, and then sighed heavily. “Where is Benjamin?”
Katrina looked around the room. Her cousin Benjamin Dryden, known as Benjy by everyone but Erik, was missing. As curator—which meant he was in charge of special events like this one, too—he was expected and even needed at this meeting.
“Anyone, please,” Erik said, quite cranky now, “where on earth is Benjamin?”
* * *
—
I’d been watching Benjy Dryden for a couple of weeks now. Not 24/7, of course. I couldn’t do that and still get everything else done, and there was a lot of “everything else” right now. But I’d kept one eye on him. I knew his habits, his routines—I knew pretty much everything about him. I do my research. I don’t like surprises. If I overlook some factoid about a person or situation and it later turns out to be important—that pretty much guarantees a surprise. And it won’t be a good one.
So I knew Benjy. I even knew a few things about him I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want anybody else to know. And the bottom line was I had decided that Benjy was just the guy I’d been looking for.
First off, Benjy was family—not my family, of course. No, Benjy was Eberhardt family, which was the important thing. Benjy’s dad had married Priscilla Barclay, who was Erik Eberhardt Sr.’s sister. So Benjy was a cousin. Not in the direct line, but close enough that he had a big chunk of old Ludwig’s money set up in a trust fund. Like way too many people with a trust fund, Benjy coasted and let the money do the work. He had no ambition, no drive, no real interests except looking at paintings and getting high.
And because he was an Eberhardt, he could do that and get by just fine. In fact, his life had been a total picnic so far. He’d been a five-star party boy at Andover. Money and family got him out with a diploma and into Yale, where he cranked it up a notch for his first two years. He took Party Hearty to a near-lethal level. It looked like Benjy was going to be one of those guys who flames out early and ends up dead at forty. But Benjy got lucky.
They say that different people wake up at different times in their lives. I’d have to say from my experience that’s only partly true—most people never wake up at all. Anybody who does, there’s always some kind of trigger moment that rocks the cradle hard enough to snap their eyes open. They look around and it’s like, Shit—I’m alive?! And everything is different after that.
But not everybody. Most people spend their lives asleep, not even aware that this is it, a one-way ticket, you don’t get another chance. And before you know it, the ride is over and you don’t have another quarter. You’re gone, and you never really knew you were there.
That was Benjy. Sound asleep, with both feet solidly on that path to permanent unconsciousness. Sometimes literally, because Benjy went through booze and dope at a rate that only a trust fund party boy could sustain. He was a cinch to be voted Most Likely to End Up a Middle-Aged Zombie. If he lived that long.
But then came spring semester of his sophomore year. Benjy was only about two pop quizzes away from flunking out when he took a survey course in modern art.
Magic happened.
Sitting in the dark lecture hall—stoned, of course—and looking at slides, in what was probably going to be his last semester at Yale, Benjy Woke Up.
A painting came up on screen. Benjy didn’t look up until the instructor droned out the name of the painting. It was The Great Masturbator by Salvador Dalí. Benjy snickered at the title, looked up, and froze, his mouth hanging open. Dalí is supposed to be surrealism, I know. His paintings don’t usually mean anything to most people. But to Benjy it was pure enlightenment. Something about that painting spoke to Benjy like nothing else ever had. He looked at the slide, and suddenly everything made sense. Benjy Woke Up.
He bought a reproduction of The Great Masturbator and stared at it for hours. It was even better after a few hits of dope. And that painting led him to other things that, weirdly enough, turned out to be just as compelling. Benjy was hooked on modern art.
It would be a sweet story if Benjy’s new awareness turned his whole life around. It would also be a fairy tale. But he did cut down on booze and partying, and he brought his grades up. Enough so he could finish out Yale, go on to grad school, and take a master’s in art. And when he was finished, he was a natural for a cushy job at the family museum.
Now in his thirties, Benjy had worked up to the noble position of curator. He was in charge of maintaining the collection, Acquisitions, and Special Events. Of course, his assistant did most of the work. Benjy was still a lazy-ass party boy with no ambition. And he still liked pot, especially White Rhino. He’d go up on the museum’s roof a couple of times a day for a smoke.
That’s how I found him, of course. On the roof, getting high. And that’s how I took him out.
I knew what time he’d be up there. It was simple: as soon as the dope from his last trip up there wore off. And I knew something else, too. He turned off all the security on the roof before he went up—cameras, sensors, alarms, everything. Natural enough. He didn’t want anybody to know what he was doing. That part didn’t work too well. It was an open secret at the museum. Mr. Curator Benjamin Dryden was a doper, a true old-fashioned stoner, and he went on the roof to light up.
So I knew he’d be there. Even so, ev
en with the security system off, he didn’t make it easy. That’s good. Like I said before, I don’t like easy. So when I slipped up onto the roof and saw Benjy, I knew I would have to work a little harder. That made me feel a lot better about it.
He was sitting in the middle of the roof with his back to a stanchion. He had a fat spliff in one hand and a gold hip flask in the other, and he looked just mellow as shit.
So instead of cat-footing up behind him, I went racing over to him in my best synthetic dither. And Benjy, being totally whacked on Rhino and bourbon, just stared at me with his jaw hanging.
“Did you hear that scream?” I said, sounding as urgent as I could.
Benjy blinked. What else would he do? He was high as a kite.
“I think it came from over here,” I said, and I quick-stepped over to the edge of the roof. I peered over. “Oh my God!” I said. “Oh, holy shit! Jesus, that’s terrible!”
That did the trick. Benjy lumbered to his feet and hurried over. “What?” he said. “What is it?”
“Somebody must have fallen—there’s a body in the street!” I said.
Benjy leaned over, blinked, searched for a long stoned moment. I looked at him in profile. There was a big clot of crusty wax in his ear hole. A big red pimple had bloomed on his neck. But his haircut hung just right, like it cost a couple hundred dollars, and it brushed against the collar of a shirt that cost even more. He looked just like what he was: rich, spoiled, useless. He’d done nothing his whole life except take with both hands, like he had a right to anything and everything. He was everything I hated.
I took a breath . . . and I felt the Darkness wrap around me.
“Do you see it?” I asked.
“No, I don’t see anything,” he said. “There’s no body down there.”
I put a hand on his back and pushed. Benjy went over the edge and all the way down.
I watched him fall. Then I watched him hit.
“How about now?” I said.
CHAPTER
23
You won’t believe what happened today!” Katrina said breathlessly to Randall as she rushed in the front door of the house.
“Um, let’s see. You went to a meeting? Oh—and they ran out of petit fours! My God, the inhumanity!”
“Randall, stop—this is serious!” she said, hanging her jacket on the rack in the front hall.
“Oh, I’m sorry. You should have said so.” Randall came to attention and made a very serious face. “Seriously—what happened today?”
“My cousin Benjy,” she said, hurrying on into the living room and sitting urgently on a settee. “He died! Benjy is dead!”
“He died at the meeting?” Randall said, sitting next to her. “Right there at the conference table?”
“What? No, of course not,” Katrina said. “He was up on the roof!”
“The meeting was held on the roof?” Randall asked, rubbing a hand through his beard, half genuinely puzzled.
“Stop it, Randall, of course not,” Katrina said. “The meeting was in the boardroom where it always is. Benjy was on the roof—he never made it to the meeting.”
Randall was looking at her with real curiosity now. “Why was Benjy on the roof?” he asked. “Instead of at the meeting?”
“He goes up there to get high,” she said. “Oh—I mean he went up. He’s not going to— He’s dead, Randall!”
Randall shook his head. “I’m sorry, this is— He died from getting high? Was it an overdose? Or poison dope?”
“Randall, the man is dead! My cousin!”
Randall put a comforting hand on her back and rubbed in small circles. “I’m sorry. Were you fond of him?”
“Not really,” Katrina admitted. “He was kind of a borderline black sheep? But he was family, and I’ve known him my whole life.”
“I’m sorry,” Randall repeated. “How did he die?”
“What? Randall—he was on the roof!”
“Is it a very dangerous roof?” Randall asked.
“He fell!” she said. “Of course it’s dangerous!”
“He fell—OFF the roof?” Randall asked.
“Yes, of course.”
He nodded. “I guess that would do it,” he said.
“He must have been so high, he just—I mean, he was probably looking at the lights, you know, after smoking pot? And he must’ve lost his balance, and . . .” Katrina stopped and took a ragged breath. “Anyway,” she said.
After a pause, Randall, still rubbing her back, hesitantly said, “And, um, aside from that—how was the meeting?”
She stared at him, and then, in spite of herself, she giggled. “Shit,” she said, holding a hand to her mouth. “I mean, I shouldn’t—poor Benjy was just . . .” She got herself under control, sighed. “Anyway, with Benjy dead, the museum has a little problem. Because the Iranian crown jewels are coming, and—did I say that part of Benjy’s job was Special Events?”
“You did not say that,” Randall said.
“Well, so we need somebody very experienced in the art world—and we need them now! Because time is running out and there’s so much to—I mean, Benjy liked to do everything at the last minute, so . . .”
“So the last minute is very soon?” Randall asked.
“Practically yesterday,” Katrina said. “And it usually takes weeks and weeks to find the right person for a museum job.”
“Well, I’m sure the right person will turn up,” he said soothingly.
“And of course, technically,” Katrina said, “it has to be somebody in the family. That’s the tradition. Family. Either a blood relative or, you know, by marriage? So that makes it a lot—oh!” Katrina put a hand to her throat and literally bounced into the air. She turned in midair and launched herself at Randall. “Oh, Randall! Of course! I should have thought of it right away!” She hugged him with excitement.
“Thought of what?” he said.
Still holding his shoulders, she leaned back, beaming. “I know the perfect person!” she said. “Oh, Randall, of course! It’s perfect!”
“Slow down, Katrina,” he said. “What’s perfect?”
“YOU are!” she said triumphantly.
“Thank you, I like to think so, but what . . .”
“For the JOB, Randall! You are perfect for the job!”
Randall could only stare at her.
* * *
—
No,” Erik said. “Absolutely not.”
“Just talk to him, Erik,” Katrina said. “Give him a chance to—”
“I said no, and I mean it,” Erik said. “I will not let some fortune-hunting guttersnipe take an important job at the museum!”
“‘Guttersnipe,’ for God’s sake,” Tim said. He’d come along to give Katrina moral support. “Listen to yourself, Erik—you sound like Grandfather!”
“I choose to take that as a compliment,” Erik said. “Grandfather would never have let some penniless drifter get close to this priceless collection. And I will NOT be the one to grant access to this museum to some . . . adventurer . . . whose only qualification is that he’s hypnotized Katrina into this ridiculous marriage!”
“This marriage has kept me out of prison, Erik,” Katrina said, starting to get angry in spite of her vow not to.
Erik stared down his nose at her. “Well, perhaps it would be better if you—” he began.
Tim jumped to his feet and leaned over the desk to go nose-to-nose with his brother. “Erik, if you finish that sentence, I swear to God I will thrash you,” he said with quiet anger.
Katrina could see a parade of different emotions march across Erik’s face. For a moment she thought he would take his brother’s threat as a challenge. But in the end, Erik’s overwhelming love of dignity won out. He simply shook his head and said, “All right, Timothy. Sit down.”
Tim
lingered for a moment. But he finally let a breath hiss out between his teeth, and he sat.
While her two brothers faced off, Katrina had recovered her cool. And now, as evenly as she could manage, she said, “I’m just asking you to talk to Randall,” she said. “See for yourself that he is completely qualified to, to, take on this job.”
“He’s nothing but a scam artist,” Erik said stubbornly. “After your money.”
“You don’t know that,” Katrina said.
“I think I do,” Erik said. “What else could he want?”
“Don’t be such an asshole, Erik!” Tim snapped.
“I’m not actually hideous,” Katrina said. “And Randall hasn’t taken a penny from me so far.”
“All the better to take it all later,” Erik said.
“Jesus Christ, Erik, you—” Tim began. Katrina put a hand on his arm and stopped his outburst.
“Erik, you’re being completely unreasonable,” she said.
“I don’t think you are in any position to comment on anyone being unreasonable,” Erik said.
Katrina mentally gritted her teeth and forced herself to go on calmly. “I met Randall because he is an expert on art. He stopped me from buying a fake Hans Hofmann. That’s over a million dollars in savings, Erik.”
“Well, but still,” Erik said, but Katrina knew she’d scored a point with her penny-pinching brother.
“Remember what Dad used to say?” Tim said. “Don’t let prejudice and ignorance make business decisions for you.”
“Yes, that’s true, but I don’t think Father would have—”
“Randall knows what the job requires, and he can do it,” Katrina said. “He’s talked to Benjy’s assistant, Angela, and even looked over Benjy’s records—”
