Notturno (9 page)

life?”

“As usual, nonexistent.”

“If I believed that…”

“Well, there are one or two,” she said and then told him

what she’d been up to. He concentrated on listening and filling

himself with nourishing food. After lunch they shopped some

more, and he made a solemn promise to find a charity and give

his yellow T-shirt right back. He kissed her cheek at the foot of

the Bonaventure Hotel and thanked her for the ride. They made

plans to meet again before he left Los Angeles, and as usual, she

begged him to consider moving.

“Not a chance. I like Washington. The sun here makes me

feel like beef jerky. I hate the traffic. The people are nice to look at, but not always nice—”

She cut him off. “Just call. We can shop again or go for

dinner. I’ll be seeing you.”

“Bye, Deana Beana.” Adin grinned at her. He went through

the revolving door, scanning the lobby idly. There was no sign,

nor did he expect one, of Donte. But that didn’t stop him from

feeling disappointed. He checked the desk for messages

hopefully, something he’d never done before, and on finding

there were none, he took his Barneys shopping bag and walked

to the bank of elevators. Outside his room, he nodded to a

couple in the hallway and used his card to enter.

Immediately he saw that something was terribly wrong. His

Pullman was on the floor, the clothes strewn like rags on the

bed, which had been made up by the staff. He could smell his

NOTTURNO
57

bottle of Bushmills, which lay on its side, dripping onto the

floor. He turned a full circle in a kind of panic and saw that the

hotel safe was open and his manuscript was gone.

Donte… Motherfuck…

Adin ran from the room and past the elevator, running

down all seventeen flights of stairs without giving it a thought.

He raced to the registration desk and demanded to see the

manager.

“Sir,” said the woman behind the counter. “I’m sorry, the

manager is—”

“I need you to telephone the
police
. My hotel room has been burglarized, and a very expensive document was removed from

my safe.” He stared at her as she dialed hotel security. A man in

a dark blue suit joined them moments later.

“How can I help you?” he said. “My name is Donnelly, and

I’m the chief of security.”

“I’ve been robbed. Room 1724.” Adin found he could keep

his statements clear and concise, and he didn’t blurt out,
I suspect
a vampire stole a priceless piece of gay erotica because he wrote it five
hundred years ago and he wanted it back.
He took a small amount of pride in that. Together, he and Donnelly took the elevator up to

his room, and Donnelly allowed Adin to show him around.

Donnelly telephoned the police, leaving the room and

completing his call discreetly in the hallway. He was a soft-

spoken man who didn’t seem remarkably expressive.

“Okay, sir.” Donnelly looked around the room one last time.

“Was the manuscript insured?”

Adin felt a surge of irritation. “Of course it’s insured, but

what difference does that make? You can insure the California

coastline, but if an earthquake causes it to drop into the sea, it’s not like you can use the money to make a new one, is it?” He

raked a hand through his hair.

“I understand you’re upset, sir,” said Donnelly quietly.

“We’ll do everything in our power to help you, but this looks

like it was done by professionals. I’m sorry. The police will be

here shortly.”

58 Z.A. Maxfield

Adin thanked him. As well as he could, he answered the

questions of the LAPD officers who got the call. They were

meticulous, and it seemed to take hours. Hotel security and the

officers finally left him, conferring with each other on the way

to the elevator. He watched as they got on and the doors closed

behind them. He was about to shut his own door when a shape

melted away from the wall down the hall. It proved to be

Donte, who came to him, a question in his fine brown eyes.

“What has happened?”

“As if you didn’t know.” Adin entered the room, leaving the

door propped open for Donte to enter behind him.

“What do you mean?” Donte asked.

“All right. I’ll play along. The manuscript is
gone
. The least you could have done is leave my Bushmills alone. You should

know better than anyone how much I’ll need it after I make the

calls I have to make.”

“Are you saying you think
I
did this?”

Adin laughed out loud. “When you first came to the airplane

bathroom, I thought,
actor
. You missed your calling. Or have you done that too? Oh, for heaven’s sake. Why are you still

standing in the damned hallway?”

“I
cannot
come in unless you invite me, Adin. You
know
this.”

Adin rolled his eyes. “I’m past worrying about minutiae,

Donte. You can drop the innocent act. I have to make some

calls.”

“I really,
really
cannot come in, Adin. Is there no one else who might have done this?”

Adin froze. “Donte, don’t do this to me. The manuscript is

gone, and if you have it… Well…maybe it’s not my best-case

scenario, but it’s not my worst.” He spoke quietly. “But if you

tell me you don’t have it, I swear by all that’s sacred, I’m going

to be sick.”

“I don’t have it,” confirmed Donte from the doorway, and

from the pain in his eyes, Adin knew it to be true. Adin rushed

to the bathroom and threw up. He washed his face and hands

NOTTURNO
59

and rinsed his mouth, and only then did he recall that Donte

was probably still in the hall, waiting.

Adin felt cold all over. “Come in.” He wrapped his arms

around himself to keep from shaking. “I’m sorry, Donte. I lost

your journal.”

Hands caught Adin’s shoulders. “It was stolen. It could have

happened to any one of the people who have had it over the

years. As a matter of fact, it was stolen from
me
in the first place. Which is why I’ve been trying to get it back.”

“Stolen from you? How?”

“Let’s just say I put my faith in the wrong mortal at one

time. I’ve regretted it for more than sixty years. Did it never

occur to you that I wouldn’t have let that journal out of my

possession if I’d had a choice?”

Adin shook his head. “What happened?”

“I lost
all
my possessions when the Germans marched on

Paris in the Second World War. There was a man there I

trusted, a café owner named Philippe, in whose care I left my

things when I went to help some friends who were going into

hiding. Jews weren’t the only minority scorned by the Third

Reich. Two of my acquaintances were sent as criminal

incorrigibles to Mauthausen, an Austrian concentration camp,

and I believed I could get them back.” Donte sighed heavily.

“After failing utterly, I came back to Paris to find that Philippe

was collaborating in bed with a rather-dashing SS officer, and all

my things were gone. Sold or stolen or on their way to the

caches of art and precious gems and metals the Germans were

pilfering at that time.”

“Shit.”

“Indeed. When the journal came to light, I was beside

myself. I had the money, even, to buy it. I could have…” He

swallowed hard. “There was a problem, they said, with my

bank, and later I found that it had been hacked, specifically to

prevent
my
participation in the auction.” He shook his head. “I am understandably eager to find out why anyone would have

done such a thing.” Adin noted that Donte looked grim and

troubled.

60 Z.A. Maxfield

“I am so sorry.” Adin closed his hand around Donte’s cool

one without thinking.

“Thank you.” Donte smiled sadly.

“I have to make some calls.”

“I know. I’ll leave you to it.” He walked to the door. “I

heard you call my name again, you know? I heard it in my

heart.” He gripped the front of his suit jacket in his fist. “It’s

very strange, Adin. That has never happened to me before.”

Adin shrugged. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“I know.” He turned to the doorway, then looked back.

“You know I’m still hunting for the manuscript. I won’t give it

up if I get it back.”

“I know.”
I know.

“Then you should also know I won’t let anything—or

anyone—get in my way.” He took a step toward Adin. “Adin,

please! Go back to your home and file an insurance claim.”

“I can’t do that, Donte. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Donte took one long look back and left, closing the door

quietly behind him.

Six hours later, Deana burst through his hotel room door

like a rocket, latching onto him with her small self and clinging

a little. “Tell me you’re okay, oddball.”

“I’m fine, Deana. I was robbed while I was with you at

Barneys. The worst part was dealing with the police.”

“Were they rude?”

“No, of course not. It just took time I didn’t want to spend.

I’ve got a ticket to San Francisco tonight to speak with my

friend Edward, who brokers manuscripts and art from

legitimate sources. I think he’s got contacts that are not so

aboveboard. His partner is an insurance investigator. They

might be able to point me in the right direction.”

“What if someone just wanted it badly enough to steal it and

doesn’t ever want to sell it?”

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61

Donte immediately came to mind. “I can think of one

person who wanted it and
could
steal it, but I don’t believe he did. I need other ideas.”

“Why?”

“Basically, the people who collect these kinds of things

aren’t exactly James Bond, Deana.”

“You are.” She grinned.

“No, I’m not.” Adin shook his head. “But I can and have

kept myself out of trouble so far. The people who took this

manuscript were professional thieves. They took out the

security cameras on this floor and opened the safe. They

probably aren’t the kind of people who sit in clean rooms

translating sixteenth-century Italian love letters.”

“But you can’t rule it out.”

“Well, no. Of course, it’s always possible that Ned Harwiche

the third, who I am told I outbid for the manuscript by a very

narrow margin, has grown a couple and gotten his
Mission

Impossible
on to steal it from me. Somehow I doubt it.”

“Ned Harwiche. Isn’t he the one who favors a less-

masculine Truman Capote?”

“Yes. But he’s basically honest, I think. He does have the

money to send a large ninja army, though. He’s on my list. The

thing is…I really want this back.”

“Oh, oddball,” said Deana, making small circles on his back.

“How can I help?”

“I’m packing,” he said, “and then I’ll need a ride to the

airport. I’m checked out of here, and I don’t know when I’ll be

back.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. When it’s over, can we have a long

visit? Maybe a good weekend together somewhere in the

middle?”

Adin smiled at her as she removed the tags and folded the

clothes he’d purchased that afternoon. “Sure, that sounds really

nice.”

“You’ll be careful,” she said without looking up.

62 Z.A. Maxfield

“I promise,” he told her. “I promise you I will be very,
very

careful. I left some things with the dry cleaners here. Maybe you

could pick them up?”

“Sure.” She smiled and continued folding and packing until

everything was in his Pullman, ready to go. “My car’s down in

the parking garage.”

He hefted his case and took a last look around. “Good to go

then.”

“Where will you be staying in San Francisco?” she asked.

“The Kabuki.”

She frowned. “Do I know that one?”

“It used to be the Miyako, near the Japan Center. Next to

the plaza with the tower?”

“Oh… yeah.” The elevator arrived, and they entered it.

“They have Wi-Fi, so e-mail me if you need me, okay? I

have my laptop.”

“I thought you said your case was stolen on the airplane

from Frankfurt.”

Mention of that plane trip made a ruddy flush stain his

cheeks. “It’s weird, you know? I didn’t put my laptop or the

manuscript in it. I checked them. I had a feeling…”

“You’re fey, oddball,” she said, getting off the elevator with

him and heading across the parking garage. She pressed her

remote and her car chirped cheerfully.

“That’s Mr. Oddball to you,” he said, following her. After a

few steps he stopped, then turned, as he’d done in Frankfurt, an

entire three hundred sixty degrees.

“What is it, Adin?” asked Deana, her hand poised on the

handle of the car.

“Nothing,” he said. “Sometimes I get the strangest feeling

I’m being watched.”

“Look, maybe you shouldn’t go,” Deana said, looking at him

over the roof of her BMW.

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63

“I’m sure I’m just paranoid. I was robbed twice, after all. It’ll

take me a while to settle down.”

“I hope that’s all it is.”

“What else could it be? They’ve got what they wanted,” he

pointed out. He opened the trunk and put in his Pullman and