by K. K. Beck
Quentin encountered Nick and Glen Pendergast in the main entry hall, just as they were running up the steps to the second floor. Sensing that this was some kind of posse and that they knew where they were going, he followed them. “Is everyone okay?” he asked.
Over his shoulder Nick explained that a huge vase had fallen at Nadia’s and Lila’s feet, and that they were investigating. Nick and Quentin followed the professor up the carpeted stairs leading from the main entry hall and down a long second-floor corridor to another set of steps at the far end of the house, presumably the servants’ staircase, which led still higher into the complex architectural mass that was Villa Vera.
* * *
“I thought I saw someone in the bushes outside my office,” said Melanie as they settled uneasily back down in the living room. She glared at Vince Fontana. “Mr. Fontana here seems to think the Mafia is after us.” He seemed not to have heard her and was browsing around the buffet, helping himself to chicken and wild rice.
Callie looked flustered and said, “Um, actually, that was me outside your office. I’m really sorry. I took this walk in the garden and I sort of mixed up all those glass doors to outside and I tried to get back in through your office. When I realized what I’d done, I was embarrassed and I just went back until I found the fountain again. I’m really, really sorry.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” said Melanie.
“I still think someone tried to kill me!” said Nadia.
“Or maybe me,” said Lila, sounding as if she felt left out.
“I suppose we’d better call the police,” said Melanie.
“Oh, please, no!” said Nadia. “If it gets out that the slaves of Kali-Ra are after me, the insurance company won’t let me do the picture. You know how they are.”
“The slaves of Kali-Ra? Like, for real?” said Callie.
Vince Fontana examined the wine label and poured himself a glass.
“She doesn’t mean literally,” said Melanie in a worried voice. “She’s gotten some letters from some crank. I’ve already called Tom Thorndyke because I heard Caroline here and thought she was a prowler. He’s on his way. But he’ll tell us to call the police, Nadia. I’m sure he will.”
Anxious for Tom to arrive and desperate to do something, anything, Melanie looked around at all the candelabra. Dining by candlelight was a pretentious affectation of Nadia’s, but in the present circumstances, Melanie also found it made the room look spooky. “Let’s turn on some real lights,” she said, then proceeded to bustle around clicking on the lamps and blowing out the candles.
High above them, in an atticlike space full of unused servants’ bedrooms, Nick, Quentin, and Glen had made their way to a door that led to the long balcony. Outside, the row of jars stood in silhouette, and Nick was startled by the sheer size of them. They must each weigh a ton. It was dark up here and the three men fumbled around, feeling their way along a space that by its narrowness seemed to indicate that the balcony and its huge jars were nothing more than decorative, like part of a movie set.
As their eyes adjusted, Nick was horrified to see Quentin lose his footing and lurch toward one of the vases. As he struck it, he gave out with an audible “Ow!” but the thing didn’t budge. Nick wondered if the row of jars was attached somehow to the railing. They would have to have sat there for seventy years or so through a whole series of earthquakes.
“There’s no one here,” said Glen Pendergast.
Nick, remembering Nadia’s wacky hypothesis that the slaves of Kali-Ra were after her, said, “Nadia Wentworth strikes me as kind of impressionable. Maybe it was an accident and she imagined seeing someone.”
“Someone was here all right,” said Glen, who had now reached the section of balustrade from which the jar had tumbled.
“How can you tell?” said Quentin. He was surprised. He wouldn’t have expected Fontana’s thuggy companion to have bothered to come all the way up here to terrorize people when he could have been perfectly effective at ground level.
“Just look at this!” said Glen, pointing at the railing. There, next to a large circle with a length of iron bolt in its center where the jar had once stood, sat a sandwich with one bite taken out of it. From the look of it, it was peanut butter and jelly.
They spread out into the abandoned servants’ rooms, turning on lights, checking rooms and closets, but no one was there. They certainly hadn’t encountered anyone coming up. “God, I wish we could have caught the bastard,” said Glen Pendergast fiercely as they clomped back downstairs. “We started too late. We stood around chatting and he got away.”
“Melanie or someone will have called the cops by now,” said Nick reassuringly. Something about the whole scene had given him a strange sense of déjà vu.
Quentin clutched the banister on the way down, feeling weak at the knees. Should he tell them about Fontana and his threatening chauffeur, who had been away from the car at the time the jar was pushed off the balcony? If he did, would the police grab him as an accessory to assault or extortion or something? It was all Maurice’s fault.
Margaret was right. He should just quit, start over somehow, get out of Maurice’s clutches. First, though, he had to pull together this deal, somehow or other, or Maurice was going to throw him to the dogs.
* * *
In his second-story bedroom, Duncan Blaine removed the headphones of his portable CD player, through which he had been blasting Mahler, and read over the scene he had just polished, eagerly scrolling through the lines on his laptop. God, it was good! It was the best damn thing he’d written in years. You could cut the sexual tension with a knife, yet it dealt with the ambiguities of sex in an insightful and sensitive way. It would be visually stunning, with an over-the-top operatic look that would work on many levels.
At the same time, it actually managed to be true to the repulsive spirit of that demented old hack, Valerian Ricardo, but with the addition of a humanity and wisdom the old boy had never suspected existed. Blaine thought dreamily that it was almost as if—he quickly pulled himself together and harshly suppressed the thought that something other had taken over and polished the scene in such an extraordinary way. God, he was starting to think like that old bat Lila Ricardo! There were no spirit guides or dead pulp writers doing his job for him. It had been his own skill and imagination that had fashioned that scene, polishing it like a precious jewel in the girdle of a goddess.
Like a precious jewel in the girdle of a goddess? Where the hell did that phrase come from? Maybe the ghost of Valerian Ricardo was trying to take possession of his mind. This material was definitely getting to him. He had to get a grip on himself.
He went to the window, flung it open and lit another cigarette, blowing the smoke out into the night because Nadia had made it very clear that her home was a smoke-free zone. He was now sober enough to know he’d been pretty drunk, but not too drunk to write the best damn scene of his life. Seized by a sudden panic, he turned to the laptop. He had better save his surefire Oscar material, and make a backup disk.
CHAPTER XX
PLUNGED INTO DARKNESS
The members of the attic expedition had just returned to the living room and the circle of expectant faces that awaited them there, when Nick suddenly realized where that feeling of déjà vu had come from. “God, that’s it, the jars! He was in one of the jars! It was in one of Uncle Sid’s books. The Nubian guy with the trained asp who steals the sacred dagger seems to have vanished but he’s in a big Moorish jar.”
“You’re right!” said Glen Pendergast. “The Cave of Kali-Ra ! Straight steal from Douglas Fairbanks in The Thief of Baghdad. Why didn’t I think of that? Let’s go!”
Suddenly, the room was plunged into darkness. There was a collective intake of breath and a few shrieks.
“We’ve got to get those candles going again!” said Melanie. Finally, Vince Fontana produced a lighter and began this process, joking about his early career as an altar boy. Their faces were now half-illuminated by flickering light, a
nd they instinctively drew together around the coffee table.
“I don’t like this at all,” said Melanie. “If the power is off that means the alarm system is off.”
“But someone already got in,” said Nadia. “We pay Tom Thorndyke all this money and look what happens.”
“I wonder where the hell Kevin is,” said Melanie. “Tom said he was a highly competent guy.”
“You mean the new pool man?” said Nadia. “What’s going on around here? People aren’t telling me things.” She looked around the room with an expression Melanie knew well. She was looking for something else to complain about and someone to pick on, so as to indicate that there was a gross pattern of inefficiency and disloyalty. “And who is this guy?” she demanded, pointing at a cowering Quentin. “Did we invite him here?”
“No,” said Melanie. “He represents something called Maurice Fender Associates. Look, we’ll talk about this later. First of all we have to—”
“I know that outfit,” shrieked Lila, pointing at Quentin. “It all becomes clear. He tried to kill me because he stole the copyright and I know it. He pushed that jar over!”
Just then, Kevin came into the room with a powerful flashlight. He still waddled, but his wimpy persona seemed to have vanished. “Sorry, folks,” he said. “We had a problem but it’s under control. I want everyone to stay right here until I get back. I’m going to get the lights back on and reset the alarm and I’ll let you know what happened.” He went over to Nadia and put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re out of danger, Ms. Wentworth.”
“Someone was up there on that high balcony and tried to kill Nadia! We found a partially eaten sandwich up there,” said Glen Pendergast frantically.
“There may be a guy in one of those jars up on the balcony,” said Nick.
“There was someone up there in a jar,” said Kevin. “But I’ve taken care of him. The police are on their way to pick him up.” He turned to Glen Pendergast. “And I’m afraid that was my sandwich. I didn’t even drop it after I heard the crash, I was running so fast. I’ll tell you all about it when I come back. Remain calm.” He sprang out of the room toward the kitchen with a light step.
“Thank God!” said Melanie. “I thought he was kind of a jerk, but he seems to know what he’s doing.”
“Well, he’s not very attractive,” said Nadia sulkily. “He has a bad haircut and he just breathed peanut butter in my face.”
“So that was his sandwich and he got there before us,” said Glen Pendergast. He sounded disappointed he hadn’t made the collar personally.
“Where’s the guy he caught and who is he?” demanded Nadia of no one in particular. “I’d like to see the bastard for myself.”
Quentin began to tremble and sidled over to Vince Fontana. “May I speak to you for a moment?” he whispered. “It’s about your chauffeur.”
“Bruno? What about him?” he said in a loud voice.
“Crooks,” continued Lila, pointing at Vince and Quentin. Nick thought she was looking particularly witchlike by candlelight. “They’re conspiring, like when they stole Valerian’s copyright.” She turned to Callie. “You’re part of it, aren’t you?”
Just then Duncan Blaine, carrying a Bic lighter in front of him, stumbled into the room. “What the hell’s going on?” he said. “I just lost the best scene I’ve ever done in my life. This place is under a foul curse, I tell you!”
As he said this, the lights came back on. Duncan Blaine was horrified to realize that his last utterance, which by flickering candlelight had seemed within the scope of sane conversation, hung in the air like the most wretched example of Valerian Ricardo’s prose.
Fortunately, no one seemed to have paid the least bit of attention to him. He headed quietly to the black lacquered liquor cabinet in the far corner of the room.
“I don’t get it,” Nadia was saying. “Why is anyone talking about the rights to Kali-Ra? It’s in the public domain. Right, Glen?”
“As far as I know,” he said.
“Look,” said Melanie decisively, “we can discuss this later. Meanwhile, it looks like we might have had some maniac running around loose. Let’s concentrate on that first, shall we?” She turned to Quentin and Vince Fontana and said icily, “I can’t help but notice that you guys were threatening me just when this happened.”
“Hey!” said Vince. “I wasn’t threatening you. I was tipping you off. Don’t mess with Quentin here come negotiating time. It’s healthier.”
“There’s nothing to negotiate,” said Nadia. “Is there?” She turned to Melanie.
“That question aside,” said Quentin nervously, “I’d like to make it perfectly clear that I’m not sure what Mr. Fontana was getting at. I do not represent him. He is a friend of the person I do represent, and insisted on coming here tonight, for some reason of his own that is obscure to me, but please don’t think that he represents in any way the views or interests of the client I am representing. In addition, let me state unequivocally that if his chauffeur, Bruno, has tried to harm or frighten anyone here, it is completely without my knowledge or consent.”
Just then Rosemary came in rubbing her shoulder. “That Bruno’s got a real touch,” she said.
“Did he hurt you?” demanded Melanie, rushing over to her, and looking at Quentin in angry horror.
“No, no. We had a bite to eat and I mentioned some of my aches and pains and he straightened out that kink in my back and got rid of the pain in my shoulder. What happened to the lights, anyway? And before that, was someone screaming a while back? I was down in the laundry room, but I swear I heard someone scream.”
Before anyone could answer her, Kevin came back in carrying his flashlight and giving everyone a reassuring smile. “The breaker just tripped. It should be fine now. And the police are on the way to pick up the intruder I captured. Also, the alarm is reset.” He frowned. “I’ll have a talk with Tom about how he got in. There must be a weakness in the security system somewhere.”
“Well, who the hell is this guy you caught? Is he the guy who was writing letters to me?” demanded Nadia.
Kevin shrugged. “Can’t say what his motive is. The fact is that when I put a choke hold on him, he passed out. It happens sometimes. But his vital signs are normal.”
“What!” said Melanie. “Didn’t you call for medical help? Where is this guy, anyway?”
Nadia looked alarmed. “Yeah. I mean, if the guy croaks can he sue?”
“The dead can’t sue,” said Quentin. “But his heirs could.”
“The police are arranging for medics,” said Kevin brusquely. “Excuse me for a moment.” He unclipped a walkie-talkie from his belt and listened to it for a while. “That’s Tom. I’m meeting him out by the gate and we’ll take a look around the grounds and see if there are any indications of how this individual gained entry. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
“When the police get here, where shall I tell them the intruder you caught is?” asked Melanie, slightly bemused.
“He’s under restraint in the garage,” said Kevin, bounding off again, clearly happier in his role as a security specialist than as a pool man.
“I feel very uneasy about this whole thing. I mean we can’t just leave some guy trussed up in the garage, can we?” said Melanie.
“Never mind that,” said Nadia in a menacing tone. “I need to talk to you privately.” She turned to her guests. “The rest of you can eat dinner or whatever,” she said. “Melanie, you come with me.”
“Let me wait for Tom,” said Melanie.
“I am feeling majorly stressed out,” said Nadia through clenched teeth. “I need to talk to you now.”
The two women left, and Duncan Blaine sidled over to Callie. He had produced a couple of gin and tonics and he handed her one. “What the hell is going on?” he said. “The lights go out and next thing I know Rambo the pool man is running around taking charge. You seem like an intelligent girl. Tell me all about it.”
Callie began to fill him in and
Nick went over to where Lila was haranguing Vince Fontana and Quentin Smith. “I was just about to prove that you guys were crooks when my husband’s books went out of copyright. So now are you saying they’re back in?”
“Are you Mrs. Ricardo?” asked Quentin. “Did you inherit the rights?”
“I sure as hell did,” she said. “He died intestate and I am his sole heir.”
“Well,” said Quentin in a kindly tone, “sometimes when there is some area of dispute, and the courts would take a long time to sort it all out, the wisest course is for both parties to compromise a little. My client might well consider an offer suitable to you that would allow him to negotiate directly with Ms. Wentworth’s production company. Do you have a lawyer, Mrs. Ricardo? I can draw up something for you to sign. Maybe we can work out some arrangement agreeable to both parties.”
“I’m not sharing with anyone,” said Lila. “Valerian wants me to profit from his genius. Nadia understands that. You’ll get the rights to his works over my dead body. I guess you already tried once tonight, but you missed.”
CHAPTER XXI
THE HEIRS OF KALI-RA
Back in Melanie’s office Nadia was pacing the floor. “What does Uruguay have to do with it? This is America. Since when does Uruguay tell me what kind of a deal I can make?”
“The Uruguay Round,” explained Melanie, consulting the memo George had just faxed over. “In 1994, President Clinton signed the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. It was part of an international trade agreement.”
Nadia scowled and looked as if people were deliberately keeping things from her. “I don’t get it,” she said in a threatening tone.
Melanie shrugged. “Uruguay is the place where they met to negotiate, I guess. Like the Treaty of Versailles or the Congress of Vienna or the Diet of Worms.”
