Spellbinders Collection
Page 108
"It was the same. The drop of gold on the bottom of the snake. Hand poured, very old. It'll bring you a hundred or more American in Stockholm."
Saarinen stared at him for a moment, then burst into a fit of bellowing laughter, banging the bottle on the tabletop. "Well, I'll be a son of a whore!" he shouted, brimming with mirth. "I'm going to make a dollar or two. Wonderful."
Riesling won the hand and scraped in his winnings. Saarinen handed him the deck. "Fucking Polacks'll tell you anything," the captain said, lighting another cigarette between bursts of wheezing laughter. "You should have heard the maniac. Psst. Psst." He performed an elaborate pantomime of a man whispering secrets as he scanned the horizons for unseen law officers. Riesling smiled. "Been in the family for years, he says. Belongs to the Undead One, he says. Shot by a Russian colonel. Buried in a rock slide. Dug up and buried again. Risen from the dead, yet!" He chortled. "Pretty good, eh? The Polish Jesus Christ."
Riesling dropped the card he was dealing. His fingers froze suspended in midair.
The Grandmaster had been killed in a rock slide.
"Excuse me," Riesling said, pulling the cards back to him.
Scowling, Saarinen picked up the dropped card. It was a deuce. He tossed it back with a grin. "Just checking."
Riesling said slowly, "He didn't happen to mention how he got the medallion, I suppose."
"Oh, he had an answer for everything, that one. Said his son found it buried outside the house where this vampire or whatever, the Undead One, lived. With the village whore, no less!" He guffawed so hard that tears streamed down his cheeks. "On my mother's grave, I swear that's what he said. Mary Magdalene, no doubt. I had to give him the money after that." Hooting, he drained the bottle with a vengeance and rummaged behind the sink for another.
"How long did he have the amulet?" Riesling asked.
"Well, maybe it was four years," Saarinen said. He belched loudly as he returned to the table with a fresh bottle of vodka. "He said he was afraid to sell it because the Russians might find out he had it. But he'd sell it to me because I was leaving the country."
"And the dead man?" Riesling asked.
"You mean the Undead One?" Saarinen said mockingly. "Remember? We're talking about a Polack vampire here."
"What happened to him?" Riesling said as he made a show of looking at his cards.
Saarinen lowered his voice into the hushed tones of a storyteller unfolding a tale of horror and death. "The Russian colonel," he said. "He came looking for the Undead One, and the vampire vanished. The Russian killed the whore in a rage. No one ever saw the Undead One again. The Polack swears the grave was empty."
"You're right," Riesling said lightly. "Another fairy tale."
Saarinen leaped from the bench. "There's Gogland." He pointed to a speck of land ahead, barely visible through the porthole. He ran to the companionway and shouted, "Cast your nets!" to the men on deck. Then he blustered from the cabin as the sailors above threw out the fishing nets.
In a few minutes he returned, bleary from the blast of morning sunlight. "For the sea patrols," he said. "We won't stay here long. No fish." He winked and sat back down heavily in front of his cards. "New deal," he said, shoving them aside.
Riesling gathered up the cards again.
"Not that I don't trust you, my friend," Saarinen said.
"I understand."
"You think it's worth a hundred American? I got it for five hundred zlotys. What's that? Twenty American, I think. That's the first time I ever made a profit on a Polack. You know, my brother married a Polack. That's why I have to go there."
Riesling dealt. With a grunt, Saarinen put his feet up on the table and rested his head on the sink behind him. "Rising from the dead," he muttered. "Speaking English. Playing chess. Must have been drunk out of his mind."
"What's that?" Riesling asked sharply.
Saarinen raised by twenty. "Drunk. Drunk, I said."
"You said chess." Suddenly Riesling was shivering.
Saarinen smacked his lips sleepily and grinned. "Who knows? Maybe in Poland, Jesus Christ is an English-speaking vampire chess player. If you've got your own pope, you can do anything."
Riesling tried to steady his hands. "Saarinen, I want that medallion," he said. With a start, the captain brought himself out of his doze. "I'll give you two hundred dollars for it."
Saarinen took his time answering. He appraised the American slowly, his smiling eyes taking in the clenched jaw and sudden outpouring of sweat. "Sentimental reasons?" he asked.
Riesling worked to keep his face a blank. "The dead man had relatives," he said. "They'd like to have it."
"Ah, yes, for the relatives." The captain stroked the sooty growth on his chin. "Quite a large sum, my friend. The necklace must be a valuable object. To you, at least, eh?"
His smile faded. Riesling's Hammerli pistol was pointed directly at his face."Two hundred dollars," Riesling said.
Saarinen spread out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "My friend," he said soothingly. His satyr's smile returned. "Make it three."
About the Authors
Warren Murphy is the author of the long-running satirical action/adventure series, The Destroyer, on which the movie Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins was based; the Trace series of detective novels which spawned the television series Murphy’s Law; and a number of other books, stories, and screenplays. His film credits include The Eiger Sanction and Lethal Weapon II. His work has won a dozen national awards, including two Edgars and two Shamuses. Learn more about Warren at www.WarrenMurphy.com or www.DestroyerBooks.com.
Molly Cochran has written and ghostwritten 25 novels and nonfiction books, including the Edgar-winning bestseller Grandmaster and The Forever King, recipient of the New York Public Library award for Books of the Teen Age, both co-written with Warren Murphy, and the nonfiction bestseller Dressing Thin. Her most recent novels are Legacy and Poison, published by Simon & Schuster. Learn more about Molly at www.MollyCochran.com.
Also by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy
Grandmaster
High Priest
The Broken Sword
World Without End
Writing as Dev Stryker:
Deathright (Cochran)
Endgame (Murphy)
A Wilderness of Mirrors (Cochran)
By Molly Cochran:
The Third Magic
By Warren Murphy:
The Red Moon
The Ceiling of Hell
The Trace series
The Digger series
The Razoni and Jackson series
Scorpion's Dance
Jericho Day
Mis Bidwell's Spirit
Leonardo's Law
Destiny's Carnival
Visit Molly online at www.MollyCochran.com.
Visit Warren online at www.WarrenMurphy.com.