The Amber Room (2 page)

Marv touched the knot of his tie with a manicured hand. “What I'm after, personally speaking, is
unique
. You with me? One of a kind. Stuff a museum'd take one look at and start picking their jawbones up off the floor. Something like the Wright brothers' first airplane.”

“I think that one's in the Smithsonian.”

“Yeah, I wrote 'em a while back. Offered to do my patriotic duty, help bail the government out, take the sucker off their hands. Didn't even get a reply. They got some nerve.”

“You're looking for the kind of item that nobody else has,” Jeffrey interpreted.

“See, I said you were a bright kid. Not just anything, though. No miniature Disney castle made outta silver-plated tongue depressors, you with me? It's gotta be unique, and it's gotta be
class
.”

“How about historic?”

“Yeah, sure, history's okay. But
mystery
is better. Like the long lost treasures of the great Queen Smelda. The solid gold throne of the ancient fire-worshiping king of Kazookistan. Stuff like that.”

“Last I heard, solid gold thrones don't come cheap.”

“Listen, kid. You bring me unique and class and mystery all tied up in one little bundle, the sky ain't high enough for how far I'd go.”

The Union Bank of Switzerland straddled the Paradeplatz, Zurich's central square, and was connected to the main train station by the mile-long Bahnhofstrasse. This central pedestrian boulevard was lined with the most expensive shops in all Switzerland. Jeffrey took great draughts of the biting winter air as he walked beside Betty and enjoyed playing the wide-eyed tourist. Fresh snowfall muffled sounds and gave the ancient facades a fairy-tale air. Streetcars clanged and rumbled, roasting chestnuts perfumed the air, passersby
conversed in guttural Swiss German. It was a good time to be alive.

As they walked, Jeffrey told Betty of his conversation with Marv. She was not surprised. “Marv was born about six hundred years too late. He imagines himself sitting in his mountain fastness, surrounded by suits of shining armor and all the treasures from his crusading days.”

“More like a prince of thieves,” Jeffrey offered.

“As it is, Marv has had to make do with thirty dry-cleaning businesses and half the garbage-collection companies in New Jersey. He sees himself buying respectability with his art.” She shook her head. “On second thought, he's probably better off living now. He can twist the secret knob and walk down the stairs that nobody but a builder, fifty or sixty stonemasons, and half of Princeton know about. Then he can sit in front of his latest acquisition and dream about a time when he'd have ridden off into the sunset in pursuit of stolen treasures and damsels in distress, and forget the fact that he'd probably have gotten himself killed. Romantics tend not to survive in romantic times.”

“I didn't know you were a cynic.”

“Cynic? Me?” Betty laughed. “I just don't like losing clients with more money than sense. They're too rare to sacrifice to the call of the wild.”

“Personally, I think the times we're living in are about as romantic as they can get.”

Betty arched an eyebrow. “You don't mean to tell me you're in love.”

“Afraid so.”

“How utterly charming. Who is she?”

“You'll meet her the next time you're in London.”

“Not the beauty you've hired as your assistant.”

He swung around. “How did you hear about that?”

“My dear Jeffrey, the price of success is that everything you do becomes the stuff of rumors. Is she as beautiful as they say?”

“I think so.”

“Marvelous. Tell me her name.”

“Katya.” Speaking the word was enough to bring a flush of pleasure to his cheeks.

“How positively delicious. A hint of mystery even in her name. You must tell me all about her very soon.”

“When are you coming back to London?”

“That depends on you. Do you have anything to show me?”

“We just got in a new shipment last month. No Jacobean pieces, but some excellent early Chippendale. I was going to give it over to another dealer. You know we don't often keep the English stuff. I could hold it for you, though.”

“Don't ever let an English dealer hear you call Chippendale ‘stuff.' They'll hand you your head. But I must say you are tempting me.”

“There is one other item. I have a friend, well, a dealer in London who comes as close as any dealer I know to being a friend—except you, that is.”

“How very kind you are, sir.”

“Andrew has a piece I really think you'd like. It looks like an early Jacobean sideboard. American.”

That stopped her. “You're certain?”

“Reasonably. I think it was originally done as a church altar.”

“Then hold it for me.” She resumed her stroll. “If you're right, Jeffrey, you may have yet another excellent find to your credit.”

“And if I'm not?”

“Then there is no harm done, none whatsoever. Jacobean from either side of the ocean is still a highly sought-after commodity.”

“How high should I go?”

She shook her head. “I believe this is an admirable opportunity to raise our level of trust another notch or two.”

“You want me to bid on it for you?”

“I want you to secure it for me,” she replied firmly. “All I ask is that you use your best judgment.”

Jeffrey was visibly rocked. “Thanks, Betty. A lot.”

“You are most welcome, my dear. I believe we are marking the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship. I do not count many as true friends. I'm pleased to include you among them.”

They walked on in companionable silence until Jeffrey asked, “Was there any special reason why Marv hit on me about the big-ticket items?”

Betty smiled at him. “You'll be pleased to know that Alexander's mystique is now being attached to your name.”

“You're kidding.”

“Where did you go for almost a month this past summer?”

“I can't answer that.”

“Of course you can't,” Betty answered smugly. A puff of ice-laden wind funneled through the closely packed buildings and painted frost on their cheeks. She pulled her fur-lined collar tighter. “It certainly is bitter out here, don't you think?”

“You're changing the subject.”

“Marv is what you might call perpetually hungry. He is far from dull, despite the impression he might give. You don't rise to the top of the New Jersey garbage heap without being remarkably agile and intelligent in a rather base way.” Betty pointed toward an art gallery's front window. “Do you have time for me to pop in here for a moment?”

“Of course.”

The shop's interior was stifling after the icy air. They shed coats and mufflers, stamped warmth back into their feet, denied the attentive saleswoman's offer of assistance, strolled around the spacious rooms.

“They occasionally come up with some real prizes in here,” Betty explained. “I like to stop in whenever I can.”

“Marv treated my discovery of another new find as a real possibility,” Jeffrey persisted.

“Lower your voice,” Betty said softly. “There have been
rumors. All of a sudden, everywhere I go I'm hearing tales right out of my children's storybooks. Nazi spoils popping to the surface. Bankrupt Eastern European countries selling off things the world hasn't heard of for centuries.”

“What kind of things?”

Betty turned a sparkling gaze his way. “Treasures, Jeffrey. Mysteries in gold and silver. Hoards of legendary kings and queens.”

She patted his sleeve. “You will remember your friend if you ever stumble across one, won't you?”

CHAPTER 2

The place held that certain smell of an all-night tavern, one distilled to an ever-stronger proof the closer the hour crawled toward dawn. The establishment had no name—bars such as these in former East Germany seldom did. It was a single vast chamber in a run-down district of Schwerin, and possessed all the charm of a subway.

Everybody smoked. Many patrons stayed with the cardboard-tipped Russian fags said to be packed with sawdust and droppings. Others bit down on acrid-smelling cigarillos fashioned by wrapping shreds of Black Sea tobacco around straw as crooked as the fate that drew the patrons here. They spoke from throats filed down with metal rasps. Laid over the fumes like plaster off a trowel was the smell of unwashed bodies packed too closely together for too long.

The only Western import was Jägermeister, a foul, seventy-proof brew of roots and herbs meant to soothe an overstuffed belly. Here it was sucked from tiny one-shot bottles wrapped in coarse paper, taken between drafts of good East German beer. Jägermeister was the perfect companion for boilermakers, since it both numbed the belly and zapped the head with lightning-bolt accuracy.

The crowd kept itself carefully segregated. Hotel porters, security, police, and prostitutes all gathered up by the counter, where the coffee machine blew clouds of steam like a patient locomotive. The professional drunks huddled together at the two tables flanking the door; they were blasted by icy wind and snow flurries every time someone entered or left. The tavern's far side was held by the taxi and truck drivers, either off duty or on break or unable to sleep beyond the routine of catching naps between rides. They kept their backs turned to the rest of the world and talked in the tones of those most comfortable with secrets.

The one they called Ferret sat as usual between the two others, his head buried in a sheaf of papers. His eyes were so poor he read with his nose almost touching the page. Those who knew him said it was because he rarely saw the light of day.

He had the body of a worm and the mind of a camera—whatever the eye scanned the memory never lost. In days gone by he had used this mind to protect his body, shielding himself behind the strength of others who used his abilities for gaining and holding power. Now the power holders were disgraced, either in hiding or in prison. It was only a matter of days before the investigators started working one rank further down and came upon Ferret.

The majority of the Communist overlords had held on to power so long they had not believed the cowed East Germans would dare take it back. Ferret had watched the first mob gather before the Stasi headquarters in Leipzig and had known differently. He had listened to the mob sing freedom songs and spent the long night hours stuffing files with any possible importance into boxes and bags and wastebaskets. Hauling them down to the loading platform and stuffing them into the city maintenance van had been the most strenuous exercise Ferret had done in his entire life.

He had driven the entire next day, stopping only when darkness and exhaustion forced him to pull off the narrow, rutted excuse for a road and sleep. Every passing car had jerked him awake, foggy-brained and panic-stricken, but his hunch had paid off. The police had been too overwhelmed with concern over their own future to worry about a dilapidated van and a few missing files.

The second day of driving had brought him to Schwerin, the capital of the former East German state known as Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Ferret had used a set of false identification documents, prepared years before for a contingency just such as this, to check into a lakeside resort with a walled-in parking area. The following day he had bribed his way
into a filthy cellar storage room turned into an illegal studio apartment—no ventilation, no windows, a one-ring cooker plugged into the overhead light socket, bathroom one floor up via an outside stairway. With the eleven-year apartment waiting list, this was the only room available anywhere and his only because he had Western marks to slip the landlady.

In the old days, Ferret's official title had been that of
Prokurist
for the Local Workers' Council in Leipzig. It was as high a position as the Ferret could manage and still maintain his invisibility, but
Prokurist
was pretty high indeed. The
Prokurist
was the man with power to sign—that is, the power to approve checks, authorize contracts, organize budgets. Ferret had kept his position by making no decisions at all, only furthering the decisions of those who knew the value of a Ferret and courted him with the dedication of a love-addled Romeo.

What the title did not say was that the Ferret was also the Stasi's local mole.

It had been a perfect match—the secret police whom everyone feared, hated, and refused to speak of, and a man who preferred invisibility to all other powers. Ferret had fed Stasi the information it used as fuel. The Stasi had shielded Ferret with its might.

Until the night Ferret saw his carefully constructed world go up in the flickering flames of a hundred thousand candles.

“Had the belly pains again this morning, I did.” Kurt, the man at Ferret's right, was a former Stasi spy, and Ferret's contact in the secret police. He and numerous other mid-level henchmen remained safe from the West German prosecutors simply because there were so many of them. Those who were being picked up tended to be the targets of strong grudges, and those who could be found. Kurt was not immune to grudge holders, but a set of false documents and a different name kept him safe. For the moment.

“Spent three hours sitting in line at the clinic,” Kurt
complained. “Probably caught the plague or something. You should have seen the lot in there. Pathetic.”

The third person at their table was not impressed. Erika, as she was now known, was the former assistant chief jailer at the notorious Dresden women's prison. Like Ferret and Kurt, she was now just another bit of flotsam washed up on the new tide of democracy.

Erika pinched the Russian cigarette's filter, pressing the cardboard tube into a tighter hole to restrict the bitter smoke. She motioned toward Ferret, speaking as if the little man were not there. “Take a look at those old papers. What's he working on?”