The Book of Common Dread

by Brent Monahan

  "The best," Vincent assured. He watched the truck rumble down the street and disappear around the corner before taking the package into the kitchen and opening it. Wrapped in raw cotton was a brown glass jar, filled with a yellow-green powder. Vincent glanced at the counter, where the last delivery's jar stood, and did a double take. He picked it up and held it only inches from his eyes. The night before, when he had drunk his nightly dose, he was sure that one full measure remained for the following day. What lay in the bottom of the jar was perhaps a third of a dose. His eyelids narrowed, then darted around the room. This was not something Nick would do. At least he never had before. Vincent decided that he must have seen wrong, a trick of light or whatever. At any rate, with the latest supply arriving, what would be the point in Nick's stealing less than a dose of the old elixir? Vincent unstoppered the old and new jars, poured the few grains of old into the new and stirred them around with a spoon. Then he dug the spoon into the powder and extracted enough to flatly fill the spoon's bowl. He transferred the mixture to an eight-ounce glass, filled it with tap water and drank it down. He carefully pushed the stopper down onto the neck of the new jar and set it far back from the lip of the counter.

  Vincent went to the hall closet for his coat. He was unwilling to wait until after Mrs. Raymond's visit to leave the house. He needed fresh air immediately. He took to the sidewalk in a heavy, maundering manner, unable to expunge the missing grains of elixir from his thoughts. Several minutes later, he paused in front of a darkened antiques store, to look at the image he cast in the reflecting window.

  "They don't know anything. You haven't done anything they could catch," he counseled his agitated face, under his breath. "If you weren't damned clever and damned careful, you wouldn't have survived five hundred years." His jaw set firmly. "But from now on forget mercy. Forget it! Do exactly what they ask. And give them those fucking scrolls for Christmas."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  December 22

  There is more than one way of sacrificing to the fallen angels.

  -St. Augustine

  The telephone on Simon's desk rang. He could have sworn from the sound of its jangle that it signaled trouble. He toyed with the idea of ignoring it but knew that could lead to more problems. He answered with a cautious voice.

  "Simon, it's Lynn." Her tone was artificially "up." "How are you?"

  "Fine," he said, rolling back from the desk and pressing his palm ' against his forehead, as if to keep it from filling up with headache. "How about you?"

  "Oh, okay I guess. Listen, I have a present for you. It's monogrammed, so it's not the sort of thing I can return."

  Simon clenched his teeth and squinted. He saw precisely where the conversation was going.

  "That's very thoughtful."

  "I was something of a bitch about the J and J party. I apologize."

  "It's okay. You had every right to be angry."

  "I did, but that's not the point," she said. "When can we get together?"

  "Not till after vacation. I'm gonna catch a train tonight and visit my folks," he lied, knowing it was a poor substitute for firmly denying to her that there was any hope of reconciliation.

  "I see. That's nice. Well, I'll hold your present for you until you get back." She paused for a reply; when she got none, in a voice uncharacteristically subdued, she wished, "Happy holidays."

  "Happy holidays to you," he said. He replaced the handset gently on its cradle. Barry the account manager had evidently been gobbled up alive already, or else had preternatural antennae and had fled the web before becoming hopelessly entangled. Simon cursed under his breath. He looked at the reverend, bent assiduously over his beloved scrolls, wishing he could disturb the man and pour out his troubles. He decided against it, picked up a six-hundred-year-old hand-scribed manuscript of St. Augustine's The City of God and concentrated as best he could.

  ***

  Frederika walked through the doors of the Reference room and over to the foyer pay phones. She deposited her money and dialed a number by heart.

  "Vincent DeVilbiss," said the sonorous voice.

  "This is Frederika," she announced.

  "Yes. So good of you to call. How do you feel?"

  "I feel fine. Can I see you tonight?"

  "No, I'm sorry. I have several clients. But soon, my lovely one. Do you have your purse with you?"

  "Yes."

  "Open it and look in the bottom. You'll find a prescription bottle filled with a yellowish powder. Do you see it?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you remember the last time you visited, when I walked you to your car?"

  "Yes."

  "I slipped the bottle into your purse. I want you to pour one level teaspoon's worth of the powder into a large glass, fill the glass with water, mix and drink it. It will make you feel good and strong. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "You will do this every day at this time. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Thanks so much for calling."

  "You're welcome."

  "I'd be very pleased if you called me again tonight. Would you do that?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Now say good-bye."

  "Good-bye." Frederika listened for the disconnection, then hung up.

  She turned around and found herself confronted by Millie Townshend, one of the librarians who worked at the main desk.

  "Boyfriend troubles?" Millie asked, with a face as solicitous as her voice. Millie was not one of Frederika's major detractors in the library, but she had as much prurient curiosity as the next person and could not resist the chance to eavesdrop on the notorious younger woman's private life.

  "Yes," Frederika answered. A confused look animated her previously deadpan expression. "I mean… I don't know."

  Millie cocked her head in the attitude of a domineering nanny. "Are you feeling well? I know you had that bad cold."

  "I'm fine."

  "You look kind of out of it." Millie peered into Frederika's glassy eyes. "Is that cold medicine?"

  "What?" Frederika stared blankly at the prescription bottle in her hand. "Yes. It's my medicine."

  Millie decided not to pursue her tack. She gestured at the phone just behind Frederika. "You have to make another call?"

  "No. I'm sorry." Frederika stepped out of the way.

  "Well, take care."

  "Yes, I will." Frederika continued back to her desk. She wondered why Millie was the third person to inquire after her health. She wondered only for a moment, found she could not remember what she was thinking about and returned to her work.

  ***

  Simon paused again from his document evaluation to watch Reverend Spencer's unusual antics. Until this afternoon, the old scholar had been as disciplined as a monk, sitting hour after hour at his stool, occasionally reaching for a reference book but otherwise reading and writing, reading and writing, reading and writing. Two hours earlier, when Simon returned from lunch, he had found Willy pacing in front of the scrolls, eyeing them as if they had magically transformed into the National Inquirer. Suddenly, Willy gathered up the reams of translations and hurried out of the room. Half an hour later he returned, burdened with three times the paper he had when he left. Simon watched with curiosity as Willy separated the sheets into three stacks, placed one stack into a large manila envelope and sealed it. He brought the envelope to Simon's desk and laid it directly atop the book Simon was evaluating.

  "That guard who died here…" Willy said, abruptly.

  "Tommy Wheeler. Yes?" Simon said.

  "How long ago was that?"

  "Ten days, I think."

  "And the rare-book alarms went off," Willy continued.

  "Right. They think Tommy kicked out at one of the emergency switches. Why?"

  "You won't be here tomorrow or Christmas Day, I expect," Willy said, evading the question.

  "That's right," Simon replied. Agitated did not adequately describe the way Willy looked and acted; he became agitate
d over all sorts of petty things. Unnerved was more like it, Simon thought.

  Willy's bushy brows scrunched together. "When will you be in the library next?"

  "Tuesday."

  "Very well. If I don't come in by ten o'clock on Tuesday, open this and read the passages I've marked in red. This is a copy of everything I've translated; it's important that you have it all. The pages I'm talking about are toward the back."

  "I don't understand," Simon told him. "Why are you doing this?"

  "Insurance," Willy answered, patting the envelope. "I'm not going to say another word, Simon, because you'd think I've lost my mind. I already feel like the world's greatest paranoid."

  "What do I do after I read the passages?"

  Willy sighed. "Good question. Make sure the information gets to as many sources as you see fit. Use your best judgment. I've made another set. I'm sending it to Dr. Mustafa Elmasri, at the University of Athens."

  "He's the one you worked with in Iraq?"

  "Yes. He's actually more qualified to translate the scrolls than I."

  "If you don't come in Tuesday, where will you be?" Simon asked.

  Willy pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "God only knows, Simon. God only knows. Do you have a safe place to store the envelope outside of this room?"

  "Yes." Simon lifted the package. It felt heavier than it should have, given the amount of paper inside.

  "Then hide it there."

  "You can trust me-"

  "I know I can," Willy interrupted.

  "I mean with whatever you're worried about."

  "That's okay." Willy hoisted an artificial grin. He patted Simon on the shoulder. "Just humor a crazy old man. It's really nothing. I'm sure I'll see you Tuesday." He turned toward the scrolls. "I'm locking them up for the day; want to get right to the post office."

  Simon looked at the clock on the wall. It was barely past three o'clock. For the first time since he started the translating, Willy was quitting early. That, even more than the old man's unnerved condition and cryptic words, worried Simon.

  ***

  The Conrail locomotive's headlight winked around the bend in the distant gloom, heading north. One by one, the dozen people on the Princeton Junction platform came out of their private thoughts and collected their belongings.

  "Is that our train, Dad?" Liam McCarthy asked.

  Martin saw that the train traveled on the track nearest their platform. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was 5:05, precisely when the local was scheduled to stop. "It must be. Ian! Nora!"

  McCarthy's other two children ran from the edge of the platform, where they had been hunting up stones to throw. Martin McCarthy shook his head. Being dressed in some of their best clothes had not deterred them in the slightest. When they were also at his side, he handed each of them a ticket.

  "Now remember: Aunt Polly stayed late after work to get you. The last stop is Penn Station. You get off and go up any of the stairs into the lobby. She'll be standing near the overhead sign that lists all the trains."

  "What if she's not there?" Nora worried out loud.

  "Ian's got my telephone number at the office. That's where I'll be. I'm sure everything will be fine." He put on his most confident face. "Okay. Here it is."

  The train groaned and hissed to a halt. The twins, eleven, would have been mortified if their father had helped them with their luggage, so he took Nora's suitcase in one hand and his daughter's dirty little paw in the other. He herded all three onto the train and into seats. The boys seemed satisfied when he lovingly tousled their hair, but Nora insisted on throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him for all she was worth.

  "I love you, Daddy."

  "And I love you, Beanbag." Since his wife's recent death all three children had shown frequent signs of anxiety, checking for assurances of his love and that he, too, would not disappear. "See you all tomorrow night," he promised, backing down the aisle. Liam offered a thumbs-up sign. Nora's lower lip protruded slightly.

  "Where are they getting off?" the kindly-looking conductor asked Martin, as the scientist stepped back onto the platform.

  "Penn Station."

  "I'll watch over them," he said, but before Martin could voice his thanks, the man had redirected his attention to signal the waiting engineer.

  The passenger train moved away, sparks jumping brightly between its pantograph and the overhead wires. In the minute between the train's arrival and departure, night seemed to have dropped over Princeton Junction like an indigo curtain.

  Martin waited until the train's red lights disappeared before quitting the platform and picking his way through the car-crowded parking yard. Only a few gaps showed in the long lines of metal roofs. The rush of weary, home-bound commuters would not begin for another few minutes. Meetings and seminars up and down the East Coast forced Martin to take a train about twice a month, and he was relieved that he never needed to worry about the severe lack of parking near the station. A few years back, he had done consulting work for POM Laboratories, which sat just across from the train station. The company president had invited him to park in their private lot whenever he needed.

  POM Laboratories lay dark and still. As Martin walked by the front of the building, he took the time to examine the notice on the door. The company had closed at 3:00 p.m., in preparation for their holiday party. At the back of the building, the parking lot was completely empty, but for Martin's Honda Accord.

  Martin opened the car trunk and took out a blanket and pillow. He would not return to his empty house this night. Since the robbery and Dieter Gerstadt's death, he had felt increasingly ill at ease and vulnerable. For a few days he told himself that the two misfortunes had been nothing more than coincidence. But then two facts occurred to him. The first was about Dieter's smoking habits. For years, Martin had been after his collaborator to give up cigarettes. Finally he had won a concession from Gerstadt; the old boy had stopped polluting their laboratory with nicotine and had promised he would stop smoking in bed. Gerstadt had many faults, but if you could nail him to a promise, he kept it. The second fact was that Martin's neighborhood had occasionally had daylight burglaries, but never one during the night. It was the sort of neighborhood where husbands and wives both worked, attracting teenage thieves with drug habits to feed. They would find a house without evidence of an alarm system, smash a window and go in. But this robbery, with the cut phone lines, carefully etched-out glass, and lack of fingerprints, had the earmarks of a professional second-story man's work.

  The trouble was, no such robber would exert such effort or take such a risk to loot a middle-class home. It looked to Martin more like the work of a spy, searching for materials on his research. Many governments would pay dearly to know the details of his and Dieter's work. Fortunately, or unfortunately, neither Martin nor Dieter kept records of their work at home.

  So Martin had changed his family's holiday plans, sending his children ahead to his brother, going so far as to bring all their presents to his office that morning so he would not have to enter the house alone. He planned to call his contact at CIA headquarters as soon as he reached his office, to see if they should investigate the break-in and the mysterious fire. Then he would finish the grant proposal, which required posting no later than the last day of the year. Whenever he became too tired to keep working, he would put his blanket and pillow on his office couch and sleep, confident in the protection of the physics building's many locks and patrolling security guards. He and his children would return home only when an agent of the federal government gave them an all-clear call. Maybe he was being paranoid, but then again maybe he had been luckier than Dieter and should not ignore his intuition. Better safe than sorry.

  Martin climbed into the Honda, started the engine and tuned in the local classical radio station. He backed around to exit the lot, shifted gears and only turned on his headlights when the car began to move forward. When he toed the accelerator, the engine responded quickly, thrusting the machine toward th
e driveway.

  Without warning, a human figure darted into the headlights. Martin jerked the wheel to the right, but the figure jinked that way as well. Then she was on the hood loudly, rolling up the windshield and off the roof. Martin jammed on the brakes. He had hit a middle-aged woman wearing a gray raincoat and carrying a shopping bag. With his heart thumping in his throat, he reached for the door handle.

  Then Martin paused. What was the woman doing behind POM Laboratories? How could she have missed seeing him coming, the only car in the lot? Was he being set up? He reached behind the passenger's seat and grabbed the heavy metal locking bar he used to secure his steering wheel when he left his car in unsafe places. Then he reran in his mind's eye the woman flying over his car and felt supremely foolish. He threw open his car door and rushed out.

  The woman lay in the posture of a broken doll, about twenty feet behind the car, unmoving. The contents of her bag were strewn about, barely visible in the red glow of his taillights. As Martin approached, he was relieved to see she was not covered in blood. Coming even closer, he saw that she looked Scandinavian, paled-skinned with wiry blond hair and angular features, big-boned and probably in her mid-fifties. One raincoat pocket hung almost completely ripped off, but the woman showed no visible sign of injury. He knelt beside her.

  Simultaneously, the woman's eyelids popped open and her arms thrust out toward Martin. Subconsciously primed, he tumbled backward out of her reach, rolling away, then coming to his knees. Before he could rise, the woman was on him, soundlessly. He whirled around and caught her in the grimly set jaw. It was a well-delivered blow, and he expected to see her crumble from the pain of dislocation. Instead, after her head rocked back, amber eyes glaring, she grabbed his hair roughly and thrust him toward the asphalt. He resisted with the manic energy of panic, but she threw her weight upon him and thrust again. His face smacked down hard, and his body lost all tension.