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The tomb had been closed for millennia and yet it was a crime scene. When Dr. Jonte broke the seal on the final chamber door, he knew what should lay inside. It was depicted in Roman murals and medieval tapestries. In the chamber seventeen corpses would be interred in sarcophagi, sixteen of them flanking the nave, with one at the altar, a golden chalice sitting upon it.
There was no chalice, though. Everything else was exactly as Jonte had expected, but no golden goblet, not tarnished by age or somehow knocked from its place. It simply wasn’t there. Exacting examination showed the chamber had never been breached.
Years of theories and investigations would result in the conclusion that the original crime wasn’t in stealing the chalice. It was in the original description of the chamber, which the writer, giving into the inclination of all writers, exaggerated by adding something that wasn’t there: A golden chalice for the saints.
I didn’t need the umbrella or the trench coat, so both of them went under my arm as I pretended to study the lagoon while scanning for Russians. There was a part of me that was disappointed I didn’t see any. Imagining their black-clad presence and cold-climate ancestry struggling in the Mediterranean heat made me chuckle.
I realized I was spending a little too much time fantasizing about punching something. As much as I might like to see Sartre and Mitnick destroy one another, despite the lies that I had been telling Atwell and now Rotella, all of that had become complicated enough that I was losing sight of the simple thing Sophie wanted to accomplish. Get the girl out, reunite her with her boy, watch everything else burn down.
OK, that last part was a broad interpretation, but I couldn’t keep the smile from my face. That caused me to consider the motivations of everyone in this mess, which was enough to drive anyone mad.
I tried to put that out of my mind, watching over the sun-baked garden as the warmth and mist of the lagoon surrounded me, tempting me to sink in. In those sensations I found my vigilance floating in a memory of the Alhambra, an ancient Moorish fortress that had been sitting in Spain long before Cheryl and I visited it. With its palm trees and flagstone pathways and surrounding fountains, the botanical gardens reminded me of that place and I sighed, thinking of the peace I had felt there.
The memory pinged me with guilt as I wondered what Cheryl would think of Sophie and I. Bringing Sophie to mind produced an entirely different reaction, however, and I felt myself heat up. After a time, though, I realized I wasn’t sweating from lust, embarrassment, or shame, but that the sun had fully shed its winter coat, and my shaven head couldn’t take it. I headed into the pyramid.
Inside the greenhouse, the moisture of the lagoon and irrigation fountains misted the inside of its glass, muggy with a hothouse humidity. A path led through it a forest of the pinnate leaves, shrub fronds, and orchids. They created a canopy that covered the flagstone walks like a jungle, keeping the area cool, making staying out of sight easy.
There was no sign of Lanzo. With the vegetation obscuring my field of vision, I set myself on a roving patrol, hoping that I’d run into him at some point after his entry. Making these rounds, I found under the pyramid’s pointed center a clearing of diamond-shaped flagstones. A bench sat at each of its sides. Some caretaker of the place, recognizable by the brown uniform that matched the stone, disappeared into the jungle, either wanting to grant me privacy or wanting some himself.
Just looking at the benches reminded me of how much time I had been spending on my feet lately. I sat down, folding the trench coat into my lap like some kind of traveling blanket. I still felt sore from some of the bruises that had been left on me, the idea of another Russian catching me unaware the only thing that kept me from dozing in the wet heat of the garden.
When Lanzo emerged from the edge of the jungle into the diamond clearing, he saw me and walked over with the long strides of a young man who’s trying to establish his own confidence. He stopped in front of me and I lifted my head as if it weighed as much as a bag of hammers. Despite the temperature, Lanzo was wearing his black leather jacket, visibly sweating, the perspiration adding to the continual oiliness of his hair. Neither of us said anything immediately. This silence dragged on long enough that he reached into a pocket to fish out a cigarette.
The careful attention and maintenance that had been put into this place and the slight peace it had granted me made me stand and say, “You can’t smoke in here.”
The Corsican looked around at the garden, indicating the lack of anyone else, so I stepped closer, imposing my size next to his slighter frame. I repeated my words more forcefully.
Realizing there was, in fact, someone there to stop him, Lanzo turned his gaze from the garden to me. His eyes suggested he was considering how our initial encounter might have gone if he hadn’t been handcuffed. However, his desire to cooperate overrode his masculine prideand he said, “Let us go outside.” We strode outside, the near confrontation giving me a small shot of adrenaline to wake me.
Lanzo walked to the railing around the lagoon and lit his cigarette with a pink disposable lighter. For some reason the action made me want to pick him up and toss him into the water, but instead I looked out over the pond, making sure we were alone before I said, “Things are moving fast.”
“Oui. You said that.”
I breathed slowly through my nose, calming myself in the face of what felt like disrespect towards his elder, a man trying to help him, and his physical superior. Lanzo wisely deciding to say nothing more. “Mitnick,” I continued, “wants to meet me tomorrow afternoon. We need to have everything ready by then.”
Lanzo bumped himself off the railing with a thrust of his hips and, for a moment, I thought I could understand why Nika, or any girl, might find him attractive. But then he ruined it by speaking. “Let us go talk to le hommes.” I almost corrected him with ‘the Idiots’, but just nodded and followed Lanzo as he headed out of the park.
Not far, we made our way to the Augustin north-south bus stop. This close to the ocean, I could smell the tides mix with the downstream of the river. Out of whatever pathetic sense of operational security I could maintain, I kept quiet while we waited, trying to appear as the clueless American. When the bus arrived, a few tourists exited the coach. Judging by the looks the skinny, smoking Corsican and his hulking companion received, I didn’t do a very good job.
The air-conditioning and padded seats of the bus were welcome, especially as it was crowded. While I had been busy, tourist season had truly begun. In that crowded coach, we traveled down a narrow parkway, the bus windows leaving a narrow, sun-bleached view of the city. With every pothole we ran across, it reminded me of traveling down the narrow canyons of a desert city in a crowded humvee. It didn’t take long before my imagination conjured shattered windows and scorch marks left from explosions.
That illusion was gratefully interrupted by a German couple, fair-haired as they were smiling, embracing one stereotype while shattering another. They got on, a baby strapped to the mother’s chest like some kind of suicide bomb. The father was trying his best to keep the child entertained, playing peekaboo, as the woman held onto a commuter pole. The simple joy of the father and child made me smile until I saw the fatigue of the mother, a woman clearly not accustom to the heat. She had a long day ahead of her.
I stood, then rapped Lanzo lightly with the back of my hand and said, “Get up.” Not accustomed to taking directions he hot back irritation. I just gestured again for him to move and, with an expression of frustrated disgust, he did. The vacancy created, I gestured at the Germans to the seats. The woman hardly noticed until her husband pointed to the empty bench. An undisguised relief came over her, and the family moved to sit down, both of the parents nodding their thanks. I nodded back, then pushed Lanzo towards one of the exits, hoping we’d be getting off the bus soon.
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It had been a long time since Lee had been happy. And she felt ungrateful for being unhappy, because she knew how lucky she was. She was successful at her chosen profession after decades of hard work. Her husband was a loving man who tended their house and child. Their child was a precocious boy that had all of his parents’ talent and, unfortunately, their unhappiness.
This, perhaps, bothered her most of all. A guilt had settled onto her unhappiness as she felt it had infected her family. Particularly her son, who could smile so sweetly that it broke her heart when he could see through her facade.
She should be grateful, and she knew it. She didn’t feel grateful, though, and that only dug her further into the hole of her disquiet. As an actress Lee had worked hard to be successful, and gotten lucky, an essential combination in such a competitive field, and now she was making enough money that Keb could stay at home to work on his painting and watch Robi. Now she felt like the lynchpin to their fragile existence.
It was on days that things were their worst that she rose before dawn, while Keb and Robi were soundly asleep, strapped on big sunglasses despite the dim light, and took the train to the day’s shoot. She could have called for a ride, but without the make-up or clothes that wardrobe would layer her in, she’d feel as ugly on the outside as she did on the inside. Like that, she’d crowd into a train with people who looked mostly as surly as she felt, in the hopes that it might make her realize how much better she had it. It never worked.
Waiting on the platform on a particularly bleak Wednesday, she heard someone call her name. There was a young man there, handsome in a sort of bland, sandy way, that somehow, without the make-up, without the lights and perfect camera angle, smiled with the recognition of a fan. She smiled back, feeling her soul retreat behind the walls of her cynicism. Would this one fawn over her, make demands, or become irate when Lee inevitably had to extricate herself from the exchange so she could get on with the business that had made her famous to begin with?
This young man, though, just smiled at her through bright brown eyes and said, “Love your stuff. You should be really proud of yourself. You’ve made a lot of people very happy.” Lee stood, mouth closed, not sure what to expect next, afraid such kind words be followed by some demand or request.
This one, though, continued to smile and let his words sink in as the train’s doors opened. With nothing else, he wished her, “Well, keep up the good work.” He stepped onto the train, the pneumatic doors closing behind him, leaving Lee on the platform with the knowledge that, for some people, she had made the world a brighter place.
When Lee arrived home, she hugged her husband, hard.
Keb was at the kitchen sink, washing up whatever pile of dishes had accumulated in the course of a day feeding their child. He let out an exhalation that became an exaggerated groan as he realized he was in the grip of his wife’s enthusiasm. He smiled over his shoulder at her, her face buried in his back. “Hi. How was your day?”
Lee loosened her grip enough to look up at her husband and share the grin with him she’d been wearing the entire ride home. “It was the best day I’ve had in a long time.”
“Really?” Keb tried to keep the surprise out of his voice, grabbing a towel. “You certainly worked late enough.”
Lee let go of her husband to begin unwinding her scarf, walking to their dining table. “I know, I’m sorry, but things just clicked today.”
Keb tamped down envy, putting his thumb on that gremlin as he dried his hands. “No trouble. I got Robi fed and he’ll be down to work on his homework in a bit. You can help if you’ve got the energy.”
“That sounds great.” Lee surprised Keb again with her answer. She usually came home drained.
Happy to see his wife happy, but curious, he asked, “Something different happen today?”
“Yah. It was the strangest thing. A fan come up to me at the station.”
Keb slowed the process of drying his hands, unsure of how to proceed into the potential minefield of his wife’s fame. “Oh? And how did that go?”
“He was lovely. He didn’t yell, ‘Hey! Are you famous?’ or hit on me or demand a selfie or autograph or just keep talking and not shut up. He just said I’d made a lot of people happy and I should be proud of myself.” As she struggled out of her coat, Lee’s back was to her husband, so she didn’t see the slow change to questioning on his face. “And then he just told me to keep up the good work. That’s it!”
Placing her coat down, Lee turned to her husband, about to expound on this last part, when she stopped, seeing that he was covered in splashes of primary colors. These were not the hues he usually worked in, nor was the untidiness. For an abstract painter, Keb was meticulous. But here he was, looking like he’d been involved in a finger-painting riot.
“What happened to you?”
Keb looked down on his smock, his curiosity about the stranger displaced by his own mess. “Oh, yeah. Me and Robi worked together in the studio today.”
“What?” A small jealousy stabbed at Lee. “You never let Robi in your studio.” Or me, she didn’t add.
Keb finished drying his hands, embarrassed by this truth. He guarded his time in his studio, never letting his wife or son in when he was trying to do serious work. He shrugged sheepishly, an action that Lee always found endearing from such a large man. “It’s strange, I had a similar experience today.”
“How do you mean?”
“We were playing at the park.” Keb paused, frowned. “Well, Robi was playing and I was watching him from a bench.” Keb left out, ‘Feeling sorry for myself,’ instead continuing with, “And this guy sat down next to me and bummed a smoke.” Lee clucked, unhappy at the habit, but Keb plowed on. “Then Robi hurt himself on the swing and I did the Dad thing.” Lee held her tongue, frustrated by Keb always minimizing how good he was at ‘The Dad Thing,’ but not wanting to turn this into another fight. Keb thought he kept the secret of his own unhappiness, but Lee knew. Thus, the cigarettes, the time alone in the studio, so many other little signs.
“Anyway, when I got back to the bench, the dude had this big grin on his face and told me what a great Dad I was. I don’t remember exactly what he said. Which is a bit weird, because I sat on the bench and thought about it a long time.” Keb’s expression took on the same wondering cast it always did when he ran into something strange in the city.
That was Keb, unable to take praise, but Lee asked. “What did you think about?”
“Oh – just that I’ve been silly, keeping Robi out of the studio. It’s not that I don’t need time to myself. It’s just most of the time these days I’m experimenting, so what does it matter if he’s there?” Keb smiled at his wife. “Robi is an agent of chaos anyway, so why not introduce that? Couldn’t hurt, right? It’s not like my art has has been selling.”
“Keb…”
“Oh, don’t ‘Keb’ me. I’m not feeling sorry, myself. It’s true. When we came home I brought Robi into the studio and we painted together for awhile. It was great fun.” He gestured to his paint-covered smock. “And he’s got a great eye for color.”
“That’s fantastic!”
“It is.”
“Then…why do you seem sad?”
“Oh, I’m not,” Keb shook his head. “It’s just…do you know how long it’s been since I’ve enjoyed painting?”
Lee laughed loud. “I do!” Thinking of how similar her own day had been, she added, “I guess we all need our own sandy, pale boy to show us what we’ve been missing.”
Lee’s chain of chuckles stopped with Keb’s question. “What did you say?”
“Oh, it’s just today on the set went really well…”
“No, I mean about a sandy, pale boy.”
“Oh! The stranger on the subway — “
Keb interrupted. “Was about this tall? Sandy hair, pale face? Bright green eyes?”
Lee side-eyed her husband, his hand held up at the height of her stranger. “I think he had brown eyes…?”
Husband and wife stared quizzically at one another, forming questions when they noticed Robi standing at the door of the kitchen. He was staring at them with his knowing eyes, the ones that made Lee always think of that ‘old soul’ phrase she disliked so much.
Bundled in his small arms were a ruler, glue, scissors, and batches of colored paper, all promises of a school project. Instead of greeting them, though, their son smiled. “I saw someone like that today. I know you say not to talk to strangers, but he was just nice and then left.”
Lee and Keb stared at each other. At the same time, they turned to their son and asked, “What did this person look like?”
——————————————————————————————————
Lee stared into the violet eyes of Aggie McPherson trying not to feel foolish. Not only was her story difficult to convince herself of, but the detective had stared at her throughout the telling with a kind of indifferent intelligence that made Lee uncomfortable.
“That’s all very interesting, Ms. Sinnoh. But I’m not sure how I can help.”
Lee continued to stare at Aggie, thinking about the pebbled glass on the door with its stenciled words, Aggie McPherson, Spectral Analyst, and wondered what she had come here expecting. “Well, I knew I couldn’t go to the police. What was I going to tell them, ‘Hello, my family is being stalked by a polite young man who says the nicest things?’ I don’t want to think about if the tabloids got ahold of that.”
Behind her desk, the diminutive detective smiled mischievously. “No, I suppose not. So let me ask, do you think you or your family are in danger?”
“Well…no.”
Aggie stood up and moved around her glass and steel desk, revealing small, well-shined shoes at the bottom of herwell-tailored suit. She sat in one of the chairs across from Lee, facing her without the barrier of the desk between them. Still she had the smile, but there was a kindness to it that hadn’t been there before. “Mrs. Sinnoh. May I call you Lee?”
“Of course.”
“What I can tell you is that Slakterquay has had stories of this young man, in one capacity or another, for quite some time. If you were to spend time combing the city, you’d eventually find a number of strangers with similar stories, meaningful positive messages delivered to individuals in a time of need by a young man matching a strikingly similar description.” Lee watched Aggie, realizing the detective may have conducted this search. This was only confirmed when she added, “I’ve even heard rumor he’s an angel.” Aggie’s smile fell away. “But you don’t believe in angels, do you?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.” Aggie slapped the arms of her chair and stood up, moving to stare out the window behind her desk, the city, bifurcated by its river, behind it. “So what would you like to know? You’re not in danger. You’re encounter with him has assisted you and your family. What else is there?”
Lee thought about that. Aggie let the silence stretch on, giving her client all the time she needed. Eventually, Lee said, “I suppose I want to know if he’s happy. Or at least OK.”
“You’re worried about him?”
“Well, yes. It doesn’t seem possible that he could have spoken to all of us in the same day. It almost feels like he would have had to be in multiple places at the same time.”
Aggie shrugged. “Perhaps he was. But I think you’ll have to accept this as one of Slakterquay’s more benevolent mysteries.” She walked back around her desk, extending a hand with well-polished nails.
Lee took her hand gently, standing as she did, unaccustomed to being the tallest person in the room. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Ms. McPherson.”
“It’s just Aggie. Given the discretion I’m sure you’d like, let’s just stick to first names, Lee.”
Lee smiled, happy at least one of her desires satisfied. “I suppose – have a nice day?”
“You as well.”
When Lee left, Aggie returned to her desk and picked up the sole framed picture on it. It was of a pale young man with brown hair and bright hazel eyes. She stared at it for a long time. “Come back to me, you idiot.”
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The coven had come together and debated the matter at length and, at times, with great ardor. After much discussion, the three witches decided they had enough of the Prince and it was time for a lady to show him his place.
Who to send, though? The witches were elderly and preferred to spend their time reading and in quiet contemplation. The Prince, however, had committed too many crimes to be ignored, so they examined his wrongs for a suitable subject.
Among his philandering, plundering, payoffs, and seizures of property, the sisters found a young lady, once happy on her family’s farm. Taken from it by the Prince when he had confiscated the land she, like the rest of the house, was separated and sold into slavery. Since then, the back-breaking and dirty work she was ordered to do hid her grace and beauty. Her true name had even been lost in the brutal transaction of her bondage, her new owners only calling her Ash for the perpetual dirt that now covered her. In short, for the coven’s purposes, she was perfect.
The three witches began visiting her at night and, while she was frightened at first, she came to view them as surrogate parents, for they taught her so many things. They reminded her how to sing and dance, to charm, and taught her how to read and write, of magic and alchemy. All of them, together, spent a year in preparation, the magic of her new godparents keeping all of this secret from the women who held her in slavery.
Then one day close to a royal ball celebrating the Prince’s conquests, they provided her with a final gift, an outfit of grandeur as beautiful and durable as Ash herself. The illusion of the formal dress hid many things besides Ash’s identity; a bandoleer of flintlocks and daggers, many pockets with vials of explosives and noxious agents. Her shoes, as exquisite and shining as a crystal goblet, gripped the floor like a spider and their heels struck with as much venom.
Between its radiance and Ash’s beauty, no one questioned her presence at the ball. She waltzed in, alone and unannounced, and the servants made way for her. And who could blame them? She carried herself with the calm confidence of any noble. Any courtier who saw her was quickly charmed. She was light on her feet, an exquisite dancer, a fluid conversationalist, well-read and well-spoken, so no one suspected she was one of the kingdom’s many slaves.
The witches’ gifts, and all of the training and learning done in secret, would have been for naught though without the will to wield them. Once at the ball, with its grandeur and splendor, dancing with the Prince’s charming sycophants, Ash herself could have been lost in the illusion. The woman she had become, though, remembered the girl she had been and held the Prince in her mind’s eye. She remembered the evening that he roughly awakened her, hands pulling her from her bed, while the burning of her family’s farm lit the scene through her bedroom window.
The Prince, having done such many times, did not recognize the girl he had sold into slavery, but only saw a beautiful stranger ripe for the taking. She demurred at first when his seneschal delivered the Prince’s desire for a dance, saying she was not worthy. But when she saw the hungry look in this eyes, she agreed.
Once close to the Prince on the ballroom floor she fluttered her eyes coquettishly, giggled modestly at his compliments, danced him out into the center of the gallery, and slid the first dagger between his ribs. When the red of his blood stained the floor, all realized the assassination and gasps echoed forth. Ash only smiled a razor grin. After all, the now screaming nobles had sworn fealty to the Prince, were the power structure that allowed such a man to rule. They were, of course, the reason she had brought all those explosives.
The next day, in the burned remains of the castle, amongst the crumbled stone and charred wood, the kingdom’s constable, Inspector Pleasling, only found one clue. It told him nothing about how such destruction had been wrought. It was a small, miraculously unbroken, glass shoe.
For the note to Nika to work as intended, it would need to contain a day, a time, and a place. At that moment, I had none of those.
I headed back to the phone near the cathedral. I kept an eye out for Russians, feeling like I was dragging a long shadow behind me through the sun-bleached streets of Old Town.
Visiting the phone booth so many times in such a short period made me wish Atwell had setup more than one dead drop. He didn’t, though, so I performed the increasingly ridiculous charade of making a phone call while writing out a note. After far too much contemplation I only wrote, “Meeting with Mitnick and Rotella.” After a moment, I added, “Stay away from the Night Governor.” I hadn’t yet told the lie about Atwell saving Sartre by setting the fire, so I wasn’t sure what kind of reception he’d get if they ran into each other. And I might need Atwell yet.
I stood at the telephone, paralyzed by the speed in which things were moving. I hadn’t expected the meet with Mitnick to happen this quickly. I decided there wasn’t enough time to wait for the Idiots to sleep off their hangover. I had an idea of where Lanzo might be, though, so that would have to do.
I was about to point my feet to the nearest tram station when I remembered Brick and Whip interrupting my meet with Moreau at his scooter shop. If one of them had told the Russians about my working at the casino, it was possible they would have mentioned the shop. As unlikely as it might be, it was there, and Moreau had already demonstrated a willingness to leave me to my fate.
I thought about this until I picked up the receiver to call information. I got the number Petit Moto Moreau and dialed. In a surprisingly short amount of time, Moreau picked up, the creaking in his bones coming out in his voice. I didn’t waste any effort on trying to make small talk, but had the decency to speak in French. “I need to speak with Lanzo.”
I could have dropped a depth charge into the silence that followed. Eventually, words bubbled up in return. “He is asleep.”
“Wake him up.” The urgency I tried to channel sounded hostile, so I followed with, “It’s important.”
Moreau either didn’t want to speak to me or took me seriously because the line went quiet. I stood and began to sweat, telling myself it was the growing morning heat. My hand was growing damp against the receiver when a voice came on that sounded like a hangover that had been baking on the beach. “What?”
“Things are moving fast,” I repeated the phrase into the phone. “Meet me at the botanical gardens as soon as you can.” I gave Lanzo a moment to process this, then asked, “Do you understand?”
He said “Oui,” and I hung up.
Stepping away from the telephone, I looked down the alley at the tall onion domes of the cathedral. There was a time in history such a place might have acted as a sanctuary, that the institution itself would have held enough authority that even men who could have breached its walls wouldn’t have dared to do so. Now though, less than two decades into a new century, I could only imagine men like Sartre and Mitnick breaking down its doors if what they wanted what was inside. Atwell would probably cheer from the sidelines. The city might have been held together with some kind of holy authority back when it was just Old Town, but now it was held together with greed and sunshine. Neither church nor government garnered much respect anymore and, looking at a structure created by the last Czar, I couldn’t help but feel like I was waiting for the next round of executions. It was just a question of which side of the firing line you were on.
I shrugged out of navel-gazing and double-timed it to the nearest tram station. I took one west, hopped off before I hit the periphérique.
In Grenoble, I headed south. Walking past the black-armored gendarmerie I wondered how fast they could respond if I lifted the visor of one of their helmets and punched the cop underneath it in the face. There was something about their hidden stares that provoked the idle curiosity and a part of my brain gleefully imagined the chase I could lead them on before they caught me and beat me to a bloody pulp. If I knew I was going to get caught, I might as well lead them into a local museum and cause as much havoc as possible. The image of running down the uniformly white halls of one of Old Town’s historical institutions, though, reminded me too much of an old palazzo in Venice. The thought of the real violence that happened there took the fun out of my fantasy.
By the time I had arrived the sun was out in full force, banishing any cloud from the bluebird sky. The grounds of the botanical gardens were an oasis of well-tended palm trees and shrubs crowding around a glass pyramid greenhouse at its center. The vegetation grew right up next to its honeycombed walls as if the structure had pushed itself out of the ground like the plants surrounding it, making it look like an abandoned set from some sci-fi movie. It was built between the ocean and a lagoon, limiting the numbers of approach. With its wide walkways, these were easy to surveil from the raised platform that was the greenhouse’s entrance. This was added to by the lack of tourists. With the beaches, casino, and glamor of Old Town to compete against, not many people visited.
