by Linda Stasi
“Oh geez, just what I don’t need—my neighbors. I only saw them an hour ago. Don’t encourage them,” I warned Dona.
They saw us and waved and of course came right over and hovered. I wasn’t going to ask them to join us. Dona and I only had just so much time together and I didn’t want to share it.
I could see Dona the fashionista was intrigued, however, with their getups—they’d apparently had a post-lunch change of clothing—and she was encouraging them to sit down rather than making them go away. Raylene was now done up in a pair of wide-legged orchid bell-bottoms, a deep purple crushed velvet jacket, a sequined black cloche on her head, and a four-thousand-pound cross with what looked like genuine—huge—diamonds, rubies, and emeralds.
Dane had somehow turned his long gray ponytail into braids and was wearing a Crayola-blue corduroy suit with an open-neck, wide collared blue shirt with giant patterns of star systems embroidered into it. He even had a walking stick with a silver dog’s head. When I looked closer I saw the dog was baring its teeth. Jesus.
The Judsons, as I feared they would be, were equally intrigued with the gorgeous Dona. After sticking their heads into the stroller and coo-cooing Terry, they informed Dona about the dangers of preservatives in hot dogs and asked her why such a gorgeous woman would think of drinking Diet Coke (apparently rotting from the inside out wouldn’t matter to someone who looked like me).
They finally left, after eating up ten minutes of my time with Dona.
“How cute are they?” she gushed to my great annoyance.
“Cute? They look like folk singers from the land that time forgot,” I sniped back, uncharitably.
“Adorable,” she scolded, “but I will give you that they are kinda buttinskies.” After another ten minutes, Dona split and headed back to her desk at Fox News, and I strolled Terry home in the brisk air. It was enough to put him out cold for the rest of the afternoon, and time for me to work my sources on the phone. Yes, after a stint with monks and nuns on last year’s story I actually had relic sources! Even so, I came up empty.
At six thirty-five Donald, bless his rotten heart, showed up to babysit. I handed him step-by-step baby care instructions, as well as the Judsons’ numbers in case of an emergency—as though they could do anything that he couldn’t.
“Don’t drop him, don’t feed him a sandwich, or give him a beer,” I said on my way out as Terry giggled as though he knew what I had said. “He had a long nap, so he might not go down for the night until like eight thirty.”
“Got it.”
As I waited for the elevator—the hallway outside my apartment is not as brightly lit as it could be—the Judsons were again just coming home. Their insane-people outfits did however add enough brightness and festivity to light up the hallway like a Christmas tree in a dark window.
Geez, it’s getting harder to avoid these two than Starbucks.
“A date or chasing that story, Brenda Starr, Girl Reporter?” Dane quipped.
“Same story.”
“The cursed papyrus?” Raylene asked. “We read about it, after we saw you in the park.”
“How did you know it was papyrus? I didn’t mention it on purpose in the story.”
“Oh, you didn’t? I could have sworn you did!” she said, exclamation point.
Dane jumped in, tapping his ridiculous dog-head walking stick for emphasis. “Well, some other reporter must have mentioned it! I’m afraid your friend the fireman could be leaking like one of his fire hoses. You’d better stop that leak or you’ll lose out on another much-deserved Pulitzer.”
I should never have told them about my near loss. Nosy bodies!
She changed the subject. “Dane and I were at the U.N. lecturing on alternative food sources in third world countries. Cockroaches are full of protein, ya know.”
He added, patting his stomach, “Too many hors d’oeuvres with the ambassador, I’m afraid,” Dane added tugging on Raylene’s arm.
Ambassador?
They hurried away as casually as though they’d said, “A big day of bingo down at the senior center.”
Concerned that Roy had leaked, I cabbed it to El Quijote, home of the twenty-six-dollar lobster.
El Quijote has been on Twenty-Third Street in Manhattan since Jesus was in swaddling Pampers. Its old booths and brown-and-white murals of Don Quijote, and paella are strictly a secret for locals.
Roy, in jeans, an NYFD T-shirt, and sneakers was already sucking down sangria at the bar when I got there. He looked shaken. Roy is a big guy—six three or four, red flattop, tats with the names of all his brothers who died on 9/11. He’s also a real looker except for the fact that hard drinking since his “retirement” was beginning to show. That plus years of abuse as a kid had all added up to make Roy look like a lumberjack with a cross to bear—which is why women were hitting on him all the time. I always told him that taking himself out of our side of the game was a blow against womankind. He himself had had just one semi-long-term relationship—with another firefighter who’d died at Ground Zero. The death of his guy, and his other friends and colleagues, kind of did him in. He was never the same after that.
We grabbed a booth and I took his hands in mine. I could tell just by looking at him that he hadn’t leaked to anybody, so I didn’t even need to ask. The waiter brought over a bowl of chips and salsa and we ordered another pitcher of sangria, which means, appropriately enough, “bleeding.”
“Hey lovey, what’s wrong—I mean besides your father dying and finding out that you’re sitting on a cursed gold mine? You looked kinda banged up.”
“Ah, dealing with a lot. I didn’t think about him dying, ever. It’s a lot to swallow. Freedom and fury at the same time.”
I cocked my head questioningly. He took a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket. “And crazy shit. This is nuts but my old man had this clutched in his hand when he died. The funeral director gave it to me, along with his socks. Jesus. Rigor mortis had set in so they found it when they were doing whatever they do to bodies.”
It was a crumpled-up Post-it Note with an inscription: المنتصر يملكه العالم ان
I recognized it as Arabic from my tours for The Standard in Iraq.
“And then there’s this thing called the Voynich Manuscript,” he added.
“What the hell is the Voynich Manuscript?”
“Beats the shit outta me; some kinda old book. When I went back to the house to look for his papers that the undertaker needed, I saw that he’d left another Post-it Note on the book’s binding—in his office on the shelf. It’s real old and it’s full of writing and weirdo drawings of plants, astronomical charts, and bathtubs with tiny naked people. Who knew he ever looked at anything but a ledger?”
“And the mysterious tube he spoke of—the one holding the bazillion-dollar relic?” I asked, the reporter in me worried that Morris had lied. One last mean-spirited jab at his hated son.
“Yeah, a brass tube. But I couldn’t find it,” Roy answered glumly before lighting up. “Until”—he raised his eyebrow and leaned forward—“I pushed on the back of the bookshelf there—where the Voynich Manuscript was—and saw that the wood was buckled behind it, and sure enough. It was a fake back. I popped it out with a screwdriver and found it back there. Has the same writing on it.”
He reached into his old canvas messenger bag and pulled the tube halfway out. It was an ancient-looking brass tube about two inches in diameter. It looked sort of like the pneumatic tubes department stores and giant libraries used to use to send money and requests from floor to floor. On the top was the matching inscription: المنتصر يملكه العالم ان
He passed it to me under the table. Turning toward the wall so it couldn’t be seen, I turned it over in my hands and tried to unscrew the caps on both ends. No go. “It’s sealed solid. How can you even get into it without breaking it?”
“Don’t know, but I’m thinking that if it’s got those old papers in it, they could crumble if it’s not opened in th
e right environment.”
“Ya think?” I said sarcastically.
“I don’t know, but right now,” Roy whispered, turning to see if anyone was watching us, “that’s not my main concern. Right now my main concern is hiding it.”
“Hiding it. Of course, but we also need to get it opened by an expert and get it appraised.”
“I don’t want to keep it in the old man’s house and I don’t want to hold onto it in my place.”
“Why not your own apartment, for heaven’s sake? Who’s going to try to break in? You’re seventy feet tall and built like a brick shithouse.”
“I swear from the time I left to the time I went back to my old man’s house, someone had been in there. Things were moved, some stuff knocked over. So I don’t trust my place or his.”
“You’re getting crazy. You locked up your father’s house when you left—right?”
“I’m a firefighter for God’s sake. I know how to secure a place.”
“Right. Sorry. So couldn’t the mortician’s guys have knocked stuff over?”
“Possible yeah, probable no, since I was there. I didn’t see them move anything. Keep it for me, will you?” he said.
“Oh, and this was back there, too.” It was an ancient, really ancient-looking key. Like something you’d see in the Mesopotamian exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was corroded over in green crust—so it must have been brass—a few inches long, with a round circle on top that had points inside the opening, on top of a long shaft that had designs along it. The bottom part, the part that fit into a lock, had three intricate half-inch-long protrusions—two with teeth facing up and one with teeth facing forward. The key was pretty heavy considering its size.
“What’s it go into—some kind of door or something?”
“Beats the shit outta me, but he hid it for some reason. That’s why I don’t want to leave it there. So you’ll keep this stuff for a day or two?”
“I don’t know…”
“Please, Ali,” he said, taking my hand again.
“Well, all right. If you really need me to. But I don’t have a safety-deposit box in my apartment, you know.”
At that we both cracked up. “That’s exactly why I want you to keep it! Who knew bank managers could steal from them?”
“I don’t think they can. Morris was in cahoots with someone…”
“Clearly. But whoever it was, it ain’t good.”
“Agreed,” I said, putting it into my oversized shoulder bag. “I’m sure I can find someone to have a look at the tube thing. The Standard’s librarians have research on everything. They’ll find me someone. If we can open it. An expert.”
“If there is such a thing…”
Then I remembered that of course I knew someone, and I smacked the side of my head. “Duh. I might know a guy.”
“You’re kidding,” he said, grinning and shaking his head.
“Remember that priest, Father Paulo, that I traveled with last year—the guy from the cloning story?”
“The old guy?”
“Yeah. The old guy. He’s a horrible snob, but a brilliant scholar of ancient religious artifacts. He’d for sure be able to help. He’s our backup—in case.”
“OK,” Roy said. “I knew you’d know a guy. Or for sure you’d know a guy who knows a guy,” he said, holding my hand, then dropping it and picking up the giant menu. “Let’s order. Everything. I’m starving.”
We got lobsters and another pitcher of sangria. “Here’s to being a wealthy man!” He toasted to himself and we clinked glasses, although I was seriously uncomfortable toasting to the fact that we were celebrating a death.
As we chowed down, Roy reached into his jeans pocket. “Oh and there’s this … I forgot. It was taped to the side of the tube.”
“Anything else you forgot?” I said, shaking my head. “You’d never make it as a reporter. You’re like a clown with magic pockets. You keep bringing stuff out of ’em.”
He handed me a tiny manila envelope, the kind that stamps would fit into. “May I?” I asked before opening it.
“Sure. It’s an earring.”
I shook it out onto the table and sure enough a small, antique-looking, post-back, ruby stud earring—just one—fell out. I picked it up and turned it around.
“Too bad there aren’t two. Probably worth something as a pair. But what do I know? Was it your mother’s?”
“Not if he gave it to her it wasn’t. As far as I know he never gave her anything of value.”
“Your grandmother’s?”
“Possibly. But there’s only one, so I guess it kind of doesn’t matter.”
“I guess … but who knows? Everything matters sometimes. You want me to hold on to this, too?”
“Sure. I’ll just lose it.”
“Maybe you want to get your ear pierced?”
“Nah. I’d feel like the Village People.”
“Was there a gay Village People fireman?”
“Weren’t they all gay firemen?”
Switching subjects, I asked, “So what are you doing about funeral arrangements?”
“Tomorrow at nine. You’ll be there with me, right?”
“Of course. Where?”
“Here’s where it gets even weirder. My father, the good Jew? Get this: he wanted to be buried in a Catholic cemetery.”
“What the eff?”
“It’s in his papers. He converted to Catholicism, which is news to me, and had his lawyer certify that he wanted to be buried in that cemetery in Queens. Bought a plot there—a single plot, mind you—my mother’s in the Jewish cemetery. He didn’t want to be cremated or put into the plot at the Jewish cemetery next to her, which is probably a blessing. He wanted to be buried at St. John’s.”
“You can’t be serious! I know that place. In fact I did stories about it when John Gotti died. You know who else is buried there?” I asked, still shocked that old man Morris, who wore a yarmulke half the time, had gone Catholic.
“Besides a bunch of my buddies from my ladder company who died on nine eleven?” he said, fighting back tears.
“Yes,” I said, putting my hand over his. I could feel him shaking. Roy really did still suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome. He was afraid he’d even go postal one day, so he was on meds and seeing a shrink. “Well, Morris will be in interesting company. They’re all there: Lucky Luciano; Governor Mario Cuomo; John Gotti; Geraldine Ferraro, the first female VP candidate; and even Robert Mapplethorpe, everybody’s favorite homoerotic photographer.”
“He’d hate knowing he’s in the same hallowed ground as both a Democrat and a ‘faggot,’ as he liked to call me.”
I, too, was glad the S.O.B. was dead. Terrible to even think of all the sadness he had caused.
“Waiter,” Roy called. “Please, another pitcher!”
The waiter brought another pitcher of sangria. “I’m letting you drink another pitcher, but I’m not letting you drive home. I’ll get you an Uber. Drink up, buddy.”
We were both dying to know what the hell was in the tube—was it the missing pages from the Gospel of Judas? Would they still be intact? And what about the Armageddon curse and the business about the resurrection code? Were they just some superstitious stories Morris had cooked up in his aged mind or were we talking about real danger here? But whatever it was it would make a helluva story, maybe even a book. Oh man. I was so back in the game. Too bad I was so dumb in so easily dismissing the danger.
We talked until eleven, when I knew I’d be wearing out my Donald favor so I put Roy into an Uber, gave the driver his address in Astoria, and kissed him good night.
Roy’s father’s old Buick was parked in front of the restaurant, so I offered to drive it to my apartment building and put it in the garage there overnight. Instead of meeting him at the cemetery, I’d pick him up in the morning and we’d drive there together.
“Here’s to dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse,” Roy said.
“Here’s to
dying old and looking as good as possible,” I answered, kissing him again through the window.
“I’ll be out in front at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Don’t be late.” I realized I’d have to take Terry to the cemetery, which wasn’t my favorite idea, but that was the only option. I watched the car drive off, Roy sticking his hand out and waving good-bye through the window as the car traveled farther away from me down Twenty-Third Street.
5
“Honey, I’m home!” I jokingly called out to Donald as I opened my front door.
Oh shit. The friend from hell was there with him.
“Hello to you, too, Larry,” I dripped sarcastically, throwing Donald a look. His friend dopey Larry had shown up, apparently to keep the boys company—emphasis on “boys.”
I surveyed the mess that the two man-boys and one baby had made.
“Hey, Ali,” Larry said. “I didn’t smoke anything.”
“Good for you!” I said, not knowing how the hell one was supposed to respond to such an announcement.
Donald picked up his camera equipment—he’d come straight from work—and tapped his chest to make sure he hadn’t lost his Marlboros while caring for the baby.
“I got some good genes,” he said. “The kid is fearless.”
“I’m afraid to know what any of that means. Was everything all right? Baby didn’t give you any trouble?”
“Aside from stinking up the joint, no.”
“You sure that was the baby?” I asked, eyeing Larry, who had the same satisfied look on his face as dogs do when they fart and wonder why everyone is running for cover.
“Babe, I really appreciate you pitching in at the last minute like this…” I said, kissing Donald on the cheek as he tried to turn my mouth to his. “Jesus, Donald. Not in front of the child,” I joked, meaning dopey Larry.
“How’s Roy?” He showed me a photo he had of Roy on his camera. “The freakin’ guy was all over the news today.”
“Really?” I snarked. “It’s my story—remember?”
Larry chimed in, “That guy, he’s the fairy fireman, right?”
