The God Collector

by Catherine Butzen

  Trying to shake herself out of her odd mood, she turned back to the tablet. “It’s not my job to figure out what’s going on in his head,” she said as the stylus tip swooped across the plastic. “I think I’ll settle for ‘he has issues’. So what does this have to do with me, Mark? You keep dancing around the issue.”

  “I think I can pin him, but I need some information first. It all relies on whether or not we’re on to him.” Mark laid the metal case on the workbench, its thud resoundingly dull and final. “If he is the one who robbed us, he’s going to skip town as soon as possible, and we’ll never get a chance to take him down. The Adlers have a reputation for being secretive anyway, so it’s hardly a sign of guilt if he doesn’t spend a lot of time outside. His business practically runs itself; he gets a bundle because it’s still his, but it’s not as if he needs to go into the office every day.” Yes, that was definitely disdain in his voice. “And I don’t have a legitimate reason to go see him myself.”

  She should have seen that coming. “And I do,” she said. Not a question.

  “I did see him hitting on you tonight, Theo.” Mark crossed his arms. “I need you to be the inside man. Woman. Go visit him, check on him, tell me if he seems nervous or knows we’re on to him.”

  She scanned Zimmer’s face, looking for any hint of an ulterior motive, but there was nothing that she could see. He looked worn and unhappy to even be in the position of making the request.

  “I could,” she said neutrally.

  Zimmer raised an eyebrow.

  “But it would still look suspicious as hell. He came on to me, sure, but I accused him of being the thief who tied me up and nearly destroyed my career and a bunch of other highly fragile things. Me just dropping in on him isn’t exactly believable.”

  “That’s where I mostly need your help,” Mark admitted glumly. “This isn’t exactly the kind of thing I planned on when I went into the security business. A honey trap—”

  “Make that a Trojan horse, Mark, or I’m out of this right now.”

  “Okay, Trojan horse. But there had to be a reason for you to visit him. Something you can tell him. Maybe you can apologize to him?”

  “It’s not going to happen, Mark.” She picked up the stylus again, gripping it hard enough to turn her fingertips white. “I know what I saw.”

  “Can’t you lie?”

  “No. I can’t. He has a bad habit of figuring me out.” A thought struck her. “What about a painting?”

  Mark frowned. “A painting? Like offering to do a portrait of him?”

  “Not quite.” Her mind was racing. She could get rid of it! A legitimate reason to put it and him out of her life in one cleansing moment. The thought made her feel warm inside. “I did a quick painting, in the days after the—you know, the loft thing. It’s complete shit, but it’s all about him, and he likes that.” It was hard to keep the bitterness out of her own voice. “I’ll bring it to him with a vade retro.” Mark raised an eyebrow. “You know, ‘get thee behind me, Satan’?”

  “Stick to English, I think. Confusing him won’t get us anything at this point.” Zimmer raked a hand through his hair, thinking. “That could work, Theo. That could really, really work.” His eyes were bright, excited as he smiled. He was almost grinning, an oddly boyish look on the man’s sharp face.

  Theo found herself smiling back.

  “Take him the picture. I’ve got a panic button for you in here”—he tapped the surface of the metal case—“but I don’t think he’ll try anything. I’d like to give you a bug to plant, but a paranoid bastard like that probably checks for ’em, and we don’t want to get caught out for illegal surveillance. The cops have me looped in and they’re following some separate leads; I don’t want the museum to lose his money because we did something careless. Just get him the picture, make with the evaluation and then skedaddle, okay?” The rough-and-ready façade had fallen away a little, leaving an excited, smiling man with a drawl in his voice and a light in his eyes.

  Theo couldn’t share his enthusiasm. It still sounded illegal to her, not to mention dangerous. But the opportunity to get rid of the painting? Maybe not vade retro, but closure. She liked the sound of that. Get it out of her life, get him out of her life, and leave the rest of it to the authorities.

  She’d left the picture in her spare bedroom, quietly drying on its easel. It should be done by now. A quick layer of clearcoat, then, and she could have this all over with.

  Chapter Nine

  Pepy cast the wax men into the fire, and there was a great cry, and the armies of Kush began to melt as if they too were wax. And when they had melted into the sand, their blood watered the earth, and it became black and fertile. And so Pepy’s magic saved the lives of the people of the Nile.

  ~Excerpt from “The Deeds of Pepy”, Egyptian fairy tale, circa 2200 BCE (fragment)

  A gust of wind whipped up just as Theo got out of the cab, catching the broad portfolio and turning it into a sail. She staggered a little, struggling as the wind almost snatched it away. It figured—the damn thing had caused her so much trouble already it was just trying to get one last lick in before she could throw it out of her life. Growling in frustration, she dragged the portfolio back down and jammed it under her arm, mentally daring it to try anything else. Aki might put up with this bullshit from his paintings, but Theo was not in the mood.

  This was it. Ten minutes in and out. Drop the painting, try to gauge Adler for Mark, get the hell out of there. She was done with hallucinations, with being drugged, with people using her, with stolen antiquities, with nightmares about patrons turning to dust and with men who didn’t make sense and followed her through her dreams. She hadn’t gotten much sleep. Now, Theo was almost at the end of her majestically long rope and with the fraying knot in sight, she was ready to cut the whole business loose and pretend none of it had ever happened.

  Seth Adler occupied the top three floors of a medium-sized skyscraper not far from Michigan Avenue. Information on his personal life was surprisingly scarce (he didn’t even have a Facebook page) but from what Theo could gather from the museum’s own archives, the American branch of his family had made out like bandits in the aftermath of the Great Fire and owned loads of property in the Loop ever since. The man’s deceased father, Faruq Adler, had supposedly lived in the same building. She would quite literally be on the enemy’s home turf.

  She half expected a doorman in a fancy uniform, but there was only an echoing marble lobby, a set of elevators and several carefully placed security cameras. The elevator buttons for the first twenty floors were all marked inside like any other place, but at the top of the list was a black one with white lettering: Penthouse. Please Hold. The lens of another camera winked from the corner.

  It was a completely sensible precaution, but it annoyed Theo anyway. The world seemed to keep dropping obstacles in her way. She jammed her thumb down on the button and held it, ignoring the whir of the camera as it focused on her. After a moment, she planted her free hand on her hip and tapped her foot, a broad theatrical movement that substituted for other, less professional gestures.

  After a long, long moment, the camera whirred again. There was the barest hint of a jerk, a rumbling noise, and the car rose as smooth as butter. So unlike the rattling, old freight elevator at the museum. Being rich had its advantages, it seemed.

  All right, all right. Resenting someone for their elevator was pushing it too far. She took a moment to breathe deeply and did her best to tamp down on the unreasonable anger. Yes, she was here for a confrontation—that was enough to be worked up about, without seeing evidence of his guilt in building fixtures. This whole business had been beyond rough, but it was putting edges on her personality that she didn’t like.

  Professional, professional, professional. She used the word as a mantra. Whatever else had happened, Theodora Speer was a professional.

  The elevator glided to
a stop, and the doors slid open. Hoisting the portfolio bodily, Theo stepped out with it held between her and the world beyond, like a shield. She didn’t know what she expected—brushed steel and glass modernity? The heads of artists on pikes?

  After staring a moment, she lowered the portfolio and shook her head. Never let it be said that Mr. Adler didn’t know what he liked.

  Stretching ahead of her was an enormous gallery with inset ceiling lights and polished wood floors. The turn-of-the-century, inset bookcases and vaguely Art Nouveau fireplace spoke to a prior existence as something else, perhaps a library with a drinks cabinet and a mantel to display old regimental colors. But now the second floor of the three-story penthouse had been cut out entirely, leaving a broad, high-ceilinged hall that didn’t belong there. At the far end loomed a steel-and-glass staircase which descended from the third floor above and turned at midlevel to touch down facing the long gallery. An enormous window backed it, but the panes were tinted to keep out most of the sun.

  The bookshelves were half-covered by hanging cloths and the walls were cluttered with what looked like decorative weapons. Brighter-colored fingermarks on the wood betrayed the presence of dust, and the floor’s clearcoat was old and streaky.

  But Theo’s eye was drawn past them. Gallery had been the right word, it seemed—what she had at first taken for pieces of random furniture resolved themselves into wood-and-plexiglass museum cases, a dozen or more on each side of the room.

  Gripping her portfolio, she moved closer. The cases were filled with ancient junk.

  A glance showed her a jade sword hilt with its blade long rusted away, a half-rotted straw basket with a brownish stain on the bottom, a folded piece of gray-green cloth marked with what looked like a heavily stylized X in undyed gray and an iron circlet with crude thorns cast into the metal. A few feet over, a crest of the Emperor Valerian was sitting on the remains of what looked like a fourteenth-century Mongolian saddle, while a mummified monkey gazed sightlessly out with its back to Theo.

  She tried not to stare, but it was hard. It was as if Seth Adler had opened an encyclopedia at random and picked items from whatever culture his finger landed on.

  The walls were more organized, but only slightly. The hanging cloths were actually faded banners, and racks of polearms and swords hung alongside them in what seemed to be a vaguely chronological order. The arrangement was broken up at irregular intervals by mounted pieces of stained glass or wrought iron. Art was random and, for the most part, unfinished and uncoordinated. On the north wall, what looked like a Mies van der Rohe original sketch clashed rudely with a graceful sumi-e painting of a galloping horse.

  It was massive, and it was schizophrenic. Wealthy amateur collectors typically focused on one or two specific eras and favored large, impressive pieces that would justify the money spent. This, though, was like something compiled by a hoarder, with no distinction between trash and treasure. He might well be the kind of enthusiast who saw the worth in the old. She couldn’t imagine just one man choosing to display it all.

  Was it a family obsession? If so, the other Adlers must have been as strange as Seth, and maybe even stranger. She was glad she’d never met them.

  Not that there wasn’t genuine treasure mixed in, which made it all the more odd. Collecting random junk was one thing; Theo had seen stranger stuff on TLC. But the jade hilt or…she moved closer, curious despite herself…yes, a small pouch of coins, open to display the unmistakable profile of Gaius Julius Caesar, were items actually worth keeping. There were tapestry squares, clay hieratic tablets, an ornamental gauntlet with a twelfth-century Venetian prayer etched right into the metal.

  Footsteps yanked her out of her reverie. A dark shape was coming down the stairs, oddly quiet despite the oh-so modern floating-glass steps. Theo tightened her grip on the portfolio and firmly reminded herself why she was even there. The panic button was a reassuring weight in her pocket, and the broad portfolio formed a shield between her and the owner of the history junkyard. She was ready.

  She wished she’d brought her sketchbook. Theo Speer’s Jerk Descending a Staircase.

  At least the jerk in question wasn’t as neatly groomed as he used to be. The formerly put-together Seth Adler had come apart at some point: shirt rumpled, tie loose, shades of gray bleeding into the background like overthinned watercolors. His shoulders hunched slightly, but his head was up and there was a distant cast to his features.

  “Miss Speer,” he said. Finally he’d gotten it right. “Can I help you?”

  Theo shifted, keeping the portfolio between him and her. “I want to show you something.”

  “I’m fairly sure you’re required to only contact me through my lawyer,” he said, stopping a step or two above the floor. “After all, you made it very clear at our last meeting that you wanted nothing more to do with me.”

  She noted his words. He seemed ruffled, but not panicked, as far as she could tell, with no obvious signs of being about to skip town. Mark would be happy to hear that. “It’s pretty simple, Mr. Adler,” she said softly. In the cold gallery, surrounded by ancient things, some of the fire had gone out of her stomach. Her words echoed from the walls. “I need to get something off my chest. Once I’m done, you’re never going to hear from me again.”

  “Do you mean that?” he said. His gaze swept over her, noting the portfolio and the hard set of her jaw, and he moved a step or two closer. Theo let her grip loosen, and the edge of the portfolio thudded against the floor.

  “Always do.” He wasn’t wearing shoes, she noticed; his footsteps had been quiet for a reason. Even shoeless, though, he was a good six inches taller than Theo, and it did nothing for her temper.

  “After you robbed the museum, I had an idea.” Adler opened his mouth, possibly about to deny it, but she kept talking right over him, “I know, I know, habeas corpus and I don’t see any evidence that you habe the corpus, but you can’t tell me what I did and didn’t see. The good news for you is that artists are supposed to be insane, so nobody will pay any attention to me. So I wanted to get rid of this”—she nudged the portfolio with the toe of her boot—“because to be honest, it’s probably the best and worst thing I’ve ever done, and having it around is scaring me. I want it gone.” She swallowed.

  “Th—Miss Speer,” he said softly. His expression was still tense, his posture stiff, but his hands were tightening on nothing and there was a strange note in his voice. “I’m not sure I can help you get rid of—”

  “You’re not helping me get rid of it. Think of it as taking responsibility for what you did.” Theo snapped open the clasps on the edge of the hard-shelled case, the clicks of metal on plastic amplified ominously by the echoing gallery. It felt good, protective, like loading your revolver while the man in black was riding up Main Street. “Weren’t you the one talking about being repelled by mummies? Well, you inspired me.”

  The case fell open and Theo, in one swift movement, snatched up the canvas and turned it to face Seth.

  She’d done some more work on it. It was still crude, but its lines were a little crisper, its form a little more realistic. It had been easy to make the mummy; Theo had whole sketchbooks full of her exhibition work. The man himself had been harder. There was a point, it seemed, where even purple ochre failed.

  “Enjoy,” Theo said shortly, shoving it into his hands. A lump was rising in her throat, and she knew she had to get out before she said something she would regret. This was over. “If you want another one like it, call my agent.”

  There was a yelp and a curse—rolling and guttural, some language she couldn’t place—as Adler almost dropped the canvas. Theo turned on her heel, her cheap boots leaving black marks on the floor. She could hear his breathing, harsh and echoing, half-muffled by the painting that had been thrust into his chest. Served him right.

  She made for the elevator, not quite running but definitely not walking either. It wasn’t th
at far. She could make it.

  “Theo?” His voice had an odd note in it, half-angry and half-questioning, but she ignored it. Keep walking, keep walking, she chanted to herself. Like seeing your ex in the supermarket—don’t stop to talk or you’ll wind up in a world of uncomfortable. Pretend you don’t hear.

  “Theo!” Louder this time, tinged with something like fear. Her steps faltered unwillingly. “Theo! What did you do?”

  Heart racing, she clenched her hands by her sides and turned. Some part of her expected to see him bearing down on her… But no. He’d halted in his tracks and dropped the painting. It lay facedown on the floor, quite innocuous, but Seth Adler was backed away from it with wide eyes.

  “What did you do?” he repeated. With the blood draining from his face, he looked almost gray with fear. “You could have killed me! Get rid of it! Get rid of it now!”

  He fumbled in his pocket, and Theo was about to retreat when she saw the lighter.

  Paints were horribly flammable, and that wasn’t the least of it. Her heart raced as she remembered where she was: dry air, cloth hangings, varnished wood floors…and in the middle, an oil-soaked bomb in the form of the best and worst work of her life. And Seth Adler about to set it off.

  Moving faster than she knew she could, Theo bounded forward and slapped the lighter out of his hand. It went skidding across the floor, the metal making comical little plinking noises as it bounced off the hardwood.

  Adler recoiled from her, and Theo stumbled. His hand flashed out to catch hers and she gasped, lashing out with her other arm. Her short, ragged nails dug into the back of his hand. He let out a grunt as he lost his hold, and Theo lurched forward to land on her knees on the hardwood. Footsteps thudded as Adler retreated hastily.

  “Dammit,” she breathed, bracing her hands against the floor. “What was that?”

  With an effort, she sat back on her haunches. Adler came into view, moving gingerly. His face was twisted up in some kind of expression she couldn’t quite name, but she thought there might be guilt there. He held out a hand, but she ignored it and staggered up on her own feet instead.