Curial shook his head and tapped his foot. “I explain it to you and you promise to leave me alone?”
“Promise.”
“Fine,” said Curial. “My mom was really into art, okay? She knew I was a big fan of Michelangelo—”
“Not the wise cracking, pizza loving, turtle in a half shell right?”
Curial continued, “—and anyways, she wanted to show me this picture of the Laurentian Library vestibule. The vestibule was the entrance room that somebody would pass through before, in this case, walking into the main reading room of the library.”
Curial hesitated, remembering the first time he saw the vestibule, with its overly wide marble staircase and hand-carved stone treatments.
“Well, Curial? What do you think?” his mom had finally asked him.
He’d remembered feeling confusion. Here was Michelangelo, maybe the greatest artist in history, and yet, something about this vestibule just wasn’t right.
“It’s a beautiful marble staircase in a pretty room,” he had said, a little cautiously.
His mother had given him that quizzical look where her eyebrows would pinch together and her nose would scrunch up. She tapped on the picture. “Okay. I’ll give you that. But here’s why I’m showing you this picture, Curial. With art, sometimes the thing is just beautiful. It just is what it is. And sometimes, well, sometimes there’s more to it, and you have to read between the lines.”
“Read between the lines?”
She nodded and smiled. He missed her smile.
A snap in front of his face jolted him back.
“Earth to rich kid, earth to rich kid,” said Maurice.
“What?” Curial said.
“You spaced out there dude. You were saying something and then you went to lala land.”
“Yeah,” Curial returned to the book. “So look at this picture, think about all the amazing things you’ve ever seen Michelangelo the artist do.”
Maurice leaned over, squinting.
“Okay,” said Curial, “now tell me what you think of this vestibule.”
Maurice shrugged. “Honestly?”
Curial nodded.
“It’s not very good.”
“Be specific,” Curial said. “In what way is it not very good?”
Curial’s own thoughts immediately went to the utter perfection of the dome at St. Peter’s, or the beautiful simplicity of the David.
“Well,” Maurice said, outlining the vestibule with his finger, “this room, this vestibule, it’s not that big—but the staircase takes up the entire room. The whole thing appears crowded and stuffy.”
Curial smiled. “Good. Anything else?”
“Well, look at those stone brackets,” Maurice said, pointing to some decorative stone carvings jutting out of the side walls. “You’d think they have some kind of purpose, like to support something above them. But here, they look sort of splattered onto the wall for decoration. Like they have no purpose.”
“Excellent. And what feelings does this piece give you?”
Maurice shrugged. “Feelings? Dude, I thought we were talking about this picture.”
“Fine, like when you see the picture does it seem balanced and harmonious?”
“Uh, negatory, Doctor Vocabulary. The whole thing seems, I don’t know, scrunched.”
Curial was almost impressed. For a pick-pocket-idiot-skate boarder, Maurice was quick. “Well, I’m not sure you will be a first-class art critic one day, but that was actually pretty good. But now is the time for the one-million-dollar question. Why? Why would Michelangelo, possibly the most brilliant artist in history, have built something so scrunched? Do you think he was just having a bad day?”
Maurice tapped his finger against his forehead. “So you’re saying he did it on purpose?”
“Yep. My mom taught me that sometimes the thing is the thing itself, and sometimes you have to read between the lines.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
Curial pointed to a paragraph of text next to the picture. “The author explains how with this piece of art,” Curial began reading from the book, ‘Michelangelo was trying to get people to escape the darkness and confusion of their own ignorance by climbing physically, and then intellectually, toward the source of inspiration. The source of inspiration, in the case of the Laurentian Library, was of course its grand reading room, where people could access books. And the reading room itself, in sharp contrast to the vestibule, was simple, balanced, orderly, and beautiful.’”.
“Whoa,” said Maurice, “I didn’t understand any of that and I’m afraid if you keep talking, I’ll fall asleep.”
“You’re the one who asked.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a little sorry I did.” Maurice fished something out of his back pocket. It was a wallet.
“You also took my wallet?” said Curial.
Maurice made a face. “Yeah, you’d think a rich kid like yourself would be more careful with his stuff.”
“No, what I should do is call the cops.”
“And I believe that’s my cue to leave. Until the next time I can win a hundred bucks from you or get a boring art lecture.” Maurice smiled as he tilted his head, then he spun around and walked away and Curial was certain he had just met the most irritating person in history. He checked his pockets to make sure nothing else was missing, then he returned to the picture of the vestibule. As he did, he could hear, really hear his mom’s voice: Read between the lines, Curial. Somewhere in this picture was his mom’s next message.
He looked, stared, rotated the painting, tried to remember anything else she might have told him. Nothing. He blew out a sharp breath. What was he missing? What would his mom expect him to do? He stood the book up, leaning it against some other books, took two steps back, and studied the painting again. Seeing nothing in particular, he moved slowly forward—and something small caught his eye. But not from the painting. From the page opposite the painting, where there was printed text describing the piece of art.
Something was out of place.
Curial moved his face closer to the page. There, between the first and second line, was a tiny handwritten number: the number ‘4’. And then Curial spotted another, between the second and third lines of text: a ‘0’.
Could his mother want him to literally read between the lines?
Curial scanned down the page: sure enough, between each line of text and the next was another number. He pulled out a scratch pad and furiously wrote them down in order. Along the way was a period, then some more numbers, a comma, a dash, then more numbers. Finally, when he reached the bottom of the page, he looked at what he’d written down.
40.8009833, -73.9587055
And this time, Curial recognized the numbers at once.
Chapter Six – Coming Together
Curial had worked enough with mapping programs to recognize Global Positioning Satellite coordinates. He took out his phone and punched the GPS coordinates into Google Maps; a red dot popped up at the northwest corner of Central Park in Harlem. A coffee shop on the other side of Frederick Douglass Circle.
Café Amrita.
That didn’t necessarily click, but the GPS coordinates were unmistakable. His mom wanted him at, or very near, that coffee shop. As he left the library, he found Mike eating a hot dog outside.
“Is that one of those vegetarian hot dogs I’ve been hearing so much about?” Curial asked, shaking his head.
Mike wiped mustard off the edges of his mouth. “I just had to try it, to see if in fact this was the finest hot dog in New York.” He pointed to the sign on the front of a nearby vendor stand: Police Dogs, New York’s Finest. “I’m sorry to say that I’ve been bamboozled. There are at least two hot dog stands better in Manhattan alone. And Queens? Don’t even get me started.”
“Well, we’re heading to the northwest corner of Central Park. Think they’ll be any hot dogs for you to judge there?”
Mike hustled around the car and opened up the driver’s
side door. “Curial, you know me. I won’t like it, but my stomach’s ready for duty anytime.”
Fifteen minutes later, Mike was off in search of another hot dog stand at the end of the park while Curial walked to a spot on the sidewalk just in front of Café Amrita. Three sets of white double doors were open, and the rich smell of ground coffee drifted outside.
Curial studied the simple sign written on the awning above the doors. He looked at the sidewalk. At the shops next to the Café. Mom had left a clue for him at this place, he was sure of it. He just didn’t know where to look.
He went inside and ordered a white chocolate mocha, then sat down at a small brown table against the wall and relaxed while he sipped his coffee. Why did his mother want him at this coffee shop? What was so special about Café Amrita? He had spent a lot of time with his mother, but she’d never taken him here. Never even mentioned it.
He looked at the other customers and the people that worked here. Did they know his mom? Maybe he could show them her picture? He made a few people uncomfortable with his staring before, finally, about to give up on the coffee shop, he walked to the back in order to use the restroom. On the way he passed a community bulletin board, and something caught his eye.
A sign above the community bulletin board said Between The Lines.
Curial spun around and found the nearest barista.
“Excuse me,” Curial asked, his heart beating a little faster. “Why does it say Between The Lines above your bulletin board?”
The woman was grinding beans into a cup. She shrugged. “No idea. That’s just what our bulletin board has always been called.” She rolled her eyes. “Our manager thinks it’s cute. He tells people to go read between the lines for what’s going on in the neighborhood.”
Curial thanked her, then went back to the board. There was a mess of things pinned and taped to the board. Business cards for cleaning services; a photo of a lost poodle; a few concert flyers; a bicycle repair shop advertising their services; three flyers from people looking for a roommate. Nothing that looked like something his mom would have wanted him to see.
But Curial’s mom had been gone for more than six months. Anything she had pinned would probably be gone by now. Which means she wouldn’t have pinned it.
Curial realized his mom wouldn’t have given him a clue so temporary. So he lifted up the flyers, peeking at the board underneath, until, in the middle of the board, under a flyer for home painting, he found it. There, in black permanent marker, was the elegant handwriting of his mother. He removed the painting flyer and pinned it on a different part of the board, then studied the words in front of him.
Among the ranks and files of the park
Your quest begins in the dark
The gospel writer you will find
And you’ll be checked by the blind
A riddle. His mom loved riddles. Dad loved numbers and financial statements and discussions of the Federal Reserve; he never saw the point in doing the New York Times crossword or the books of riddles mom would do late at night in bed. But Mom loved them.
Curial’s mom had taught him to approach riddles kind of like art. Ask yourself what comes to your mind first. Your gut reaction. Then hold it off to the side. You might use it—you might not. Then go over the riddles several times as a whole. Then isolate the chunks.
His first impression was that the rank and file of the park could either be the normal people who walk through the park every day, or maybe the bums that live in the park. That the dark part of the park would be hidden in the trees somewhere. That the gospel writer must refer to something related to the Bible, and that whatever he did would have something to do with being able to do it with his eyes closed.
But those gut reactions didn’t make any cohesive sense. So Curial went slower and deeper.
He went back to the first line:
Among the ranks and files of the park
Okay, that was strange. Normally you think of the phrase “rank and file”—which, Curial knew, referred to the common people. But “ranks and files” was a different phrase—and so it must be different on purpose. In riddles, the subtle differences mattered. Something about this phrase gnawed at his brain, but he couldn’t quite make sense of it. So he moved on:
Your quest begins in the dark
Now this could mean a couple of things. Either it referred to the fact that he was “in the dark” and didn’t know much about the Romanov Dolls, or it meant he was supposed to start the quest under the trees or in a cave. He puzzled over that for a few minutes, then continued on to the next line:
The gospel writer you will find
The more he thought about this line, the less it seemed like the Bible itself, and more like a clue to a name. Maybe Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. But why? Was there something inside the park that was named for one of the gospel writers? He knew the park pretty well, but nothing about the gospel writers’ names rang any bells.
Finally, Curial examined the last line:
And you’ll be checked by the blind
He shook his head. This one made no sense at all. What could it possibly mean to be checked by the blind?
Checked, checked, checked. The only way that “checked” might make sense was in hockey, and he couldn’t think of what kind of hockey reference his mom would use. She hated hockey, and football, and any of the normal sports. The only sport she truly loved was…
Chess.
Checked.
That was it. That’s the other way in which he knew the word “checked.” As in “checkmate.”
And then something else made sense, like pieces of a puzzle falling into place. If this had something to do with chess, then he understood the reference to ranks and files. Ranks and files referred to the rows and columns of a chessboard.
Somehow, this clue was supposed to lead him to the chessboards that were often set up inside the park. The park he was staring at through the window of the coffee shop.
Central Park.
Curial left the coffee shop, crossed Frederick Douglass Circle, and found Mike a hundred yards away, testing a chili cheese dog.
Mike gave Curial a thumbs-up. “This dog gets the Mike Douglas Seal of Approval.”
“Mike, are there any chess players down on this end of the park?”
A bit of chili spilled down Mike’s chin. He nodded toward the park as he wiped it up with the side of his hand.
“There’s a group of serious players who meet not too far from here. By the way, on a scale of one jelly donut to ten jelly donuts I give this hotdog a—
But Curial never heard him; he was already gone, jogging into the park. Within minutes he saw a group of men off to his left, gathered around a few small round metal tables, playing chess.
For some reason he couldn’t begin to understand, his mom was directing him to these chess tables. He considered the line about his quest beginning in the dark. Even though trees surrounded the tables, plenty of sunlight came through—this spot wasn’t really in the dark. He considered the next line, about the gospel writers. He decided to look for any evidence of something, anything, named after Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. He nodded at a man who was contemplating his next chess move, and walked over to examine a plaque at the base of a tree.
In memory of Megan Dolan, the plaque said.
That’s when something in the hum of the chess conversation caught his ear. A name.
Mark.
Curial turned toward where he thought the conversation was coming from. A skinny black man, wearing sweats and a hoodie, was playing against a wide-shouldered, barrel-chested white man in a big orange Hawaiian shirt.
Curial listened in on their conversation, and heard the skinny black guy call the big white guy “Mark” again. He wandered closer, and was surprised when the white man called the black man “Luke.”
Well, there’s two of the gospel writers. But maybe that was just a coincidence.
The skinny guy saw Curial watching them and gave him a friendly no
d. “You play?”
“A little,” Curial replied, embarrassed to have been caught snooping.
“Good, then you’ve got something in common with Mark here. He plays a very little brand of chess.” Luke laughed and slapped his knee.
Mark grunted and leaned in closer to the chessboard. “Shut up, before I beat you over the head with my king.”
Mark grabbed his pawn and started to move it, but then his eyes lifted up to Luke, who was shaking his head slowly back and forth. Mark put the pawn back, grabbed his knight instead, and moved quickly. Luke laughed again.
“Excuse me, guys,” Curial interrupted before Luke started his own move. “You mind if I ask you a question? Did I hear you right, Luke and Mark?”
Luke grabbed his queen and nodded. “Yep, just like the gospel boys.”
This had to be it. “You wouldn’t by chance know a woman named Caroline Diggs?”
They looked at each other and frowned.
Mark scratched his chin while examining the chessboard again. “Does she play chess down here?”
“Honestly,” Curial said, a bit disappointed, “I’m not sure. Just thought someone around here might know her.”
Luke shrugged.
“You know kid, there’s a guy that’s been around here a lot longer than us. Knows everyone.”
“Who?”
Luke pointed a long gangly finger. “That guy over by the tree, with his back turned.”
“Thanks. What’s his name?”
The skinny guy smiled. “Matthew, of course.”
Curial’s heart quickened as he walked toward the man. Matthew was black, graying at the temples, and Curial could hear his laugh from about thirty feet away. Then Curial saw something and stopped.
Leaning against the tree next to the man was a long, skinny white stick. The kind of stick used only by certain people.
Teenage Treasure Hunter Page 4
