The Book of Air and Shadows (42 page)

“I’m going to bed,” said Crosetti and slid off his bar stool.

“Not so fast!” cried Mishkin; Crosetti felt his arm gripped; it was like being caught in a car door. Before he knew what he was doing he’d grabbed his untouched cosmo off the bar and flung it into Mishkin’s face. Mishkin grimaced and wiped at his face with his free hand but did not let go. The bartender came around the bar and told Mishkin he’d have to leave. Mishkin shook Crosetti hard enough to rattle his teeth together and said to the bartender. “It’s all right. I was just explaining to this gentleman how to fuck my wife and he threw a drink at me. Does that seem right to you?”

The bartender now made the mistake of grabbing Mishkin’s arm, perhaps hoping to establish a come-along grip, but instead the big man let go of Crosetti and threw the bartender over the bar and into his brightly lit shelves of bottles. Crosetti was out of there on a run, nor did he wait for the elevator but ran up three flights of stairs and into his room.

The next morning,
Crosetti left the hotel very early and went to the British Film Institute on the South Bank, where he watched Jean Renoir’s
Boudu Saved from Drowning
and
The Rules of the Game.
He would have stayed for
The Grand Illusion
, but while he was in the lobby seeking a drink of water, someone tugged at his sleeve, and when he turned around it was Paul Mishkin in a leather coat and clericals. Crosetti thought he looked like an actor playing a priest.

“How did you know I was here?”

“Where else would you be? Not Madame Tussaud’s. Come on, there’s been a slight change of plans.”

“Such as?”

“We’re leaving for Oxford immediately. The car’s outside.”

“What about our stuff at the hotel?”

“It’s been collected, packed, and loaded. Just come, Crosetti. You can ask questions later.”

The Mercedes waited in the street and Jake sat slumped in the backseat, wrapped in a lined Burberry and muffler with a tweed cap pulled low on his head. Paul got into the shotgun seat (startlingly on the wrong side!) and Crosetti sat in the back as far as he could from Mishkin, who said not a word. The small area of skin visible above his collar looked gray and reptilian.

They drove out of the city through miles of wet brick suburbs, growing increasingly like country as they passed Richmond, and soon they were on a freeway. Crosetti noticed that Paul was checking the side mirror and inspecting passing vehicles with more interest than the average car passenger ordinarily showed.

“So, why the change of plans?” Crosetti asked when it became apparent after many miles that no one was going to volunteer an explanation.

“Two reasons. One is that there’s a couple of teams of people following us. They’re good at it, serious professionals, not like those jerks you were fooling with in New York. The second reason is that after Jake’s performance in the bar last night, he was asked to leave, and rather than find another hotel in London we decided to go to Oxford now, stay the night, and see our guy tomorrow morning.”

“I want to hear more about the professionals,” said Crosetti. “If they’re so hot, how did you find out they were there?”

“Because we’ve retained a firm of even more highly skilled professionals. Right, Mr. Brown?”

This was addressed to the chauffeur, who replied, “Yes, sir. They were on Mr. Crosetti from the minute he left the hotel this morning, and of course, they followed you from the Jesuit hostel to St. Olave’s. They’re in a blue BMW three cars behind us and a maroon Ford Mondeo in front of that white lorry in the outside lane just ahead.”

“Brown is a member of a highly respected and extremely expensive security firm,” said Paul. “It’s a good thing we’re made out of money.”

“Is there going to be a car chase?”

“Probably. And at least one substantial orange gassy explosion. Do you want to know what I found at St. Olave’s?”

“Clues to the location of the Holy Grail?”

“Almost. You’ll recall Bracegirdle wrote that the key to the ciphers was ‘where my mother lieth,’ and that his mother was buried in St. Katherine Colemanchurch. Unfortunately, St. Katherine’s, which survived the Great Fire, succumbed to the depopulation of the old City of London and the sad tide of unbelief and was demolished in 1926. The parish was united with St. Olave Hart Street in 1921, and so I went there.”

“Why you’re wearing your priest costume.”

“Right. Father Paul doing a little genealogical research. Apparently, when St. K.’s bit the dust the graves were moved to Ilford Cemetery, but there were also crypts beneath the church. In medieval times, you know, people were buried in graveyards until they decayed to bones, and then the bones were dug up and put in ossuaries, because obviously a small urban graveyard couldn’t possibly hold the dead of a parish for more than a few generations. And this crypt had a door, in which was a sort of window covered by a small rectangular brass plate, perforated to let in some light. The perforations were in the shape of a weeping willow tree. When St. K.’s was demolished, this plate came to St. Olave’s along with the other church valuables and memorabilia and was displayed in a glass case in the vestry.”

“Did you see it?” asked Crosetti.

“No. According to the curate I spoke to, someone broke into the church last summer and swiped it. Didn’t take anything else, just the plate. I suppose we have to refer to it as the grille now. One other interesting thing. Shortly before it got ripped off, a young woman visited the church. She was taking rubbings of church brasses and asked if there was any furniture or brasses from St. Katherine Colemanchurch on hand. The curate showed her the various things and she took a number of photos and a rubbing of the crypt window plate. A few days later the thing was gone.”

Jake Mishkin stirred, cleared his throat. “Miranda,” he said, at nearly the same time that Crosetti said, “Carolyn!”

T
HE
S
IXTH
C
IPHERED
L
ETTER
(F
RAGMENT
2)

I
n the days following the Evening of Death I arranged our trip, which included my family as well as Crosetti. Amalie likes to spend the holidays in Zurich, and while she could have chartered a plane by herself, she took my offer of a lift, and I only had to cry a little and make her feel sorry for the trauma I had just been through, besides which it was a considerable savings, and like most rich people, Amalie prides herself on small economies.

Cops-no problems there, but no information either. The captured thugs just laughed at them when asked who they worked for. The firm-happy to see me off for a nice rest and delighted to let me use the flight card for some minor legal work in London. I did not tell them I was going to visit the heir of Bulstrode.

Went to see Paul, nice conversation about killing, wanted to weep but resisted with help of 2 mg Xanax. He volunteered to come along, to, in his phrase, watch my back. I'd never heard this used literally before and I laughed, then reconsidered. I inquired after his sacred mission. No
problem, God would watch over, and besides he wanted to spend Xmas with Amalie and kids, he deserved a vacation from the fields of the Lord. So I agreed. From time to time, as then, I acquire the notion that my brother actually loves me, that I am not merely a contemptible nuisance. This always inspires a kind of nervous fear, I don’t know why. Omar wanted to come too, but he is on all the terror watch lists and this makes it inconvenient for him to cross borders. But he said he would pray for me.

Next morning early we picked up Crosetti at his hut, made sure he had copies of ciphers, just in case. He said the originals were with a reliable pal of his at NYPL, behind bronze doors, good move. Met the others at Teterboro, was wound up tight, unpleasantness with little asshole cursing into cell phone, approval from waiting room but Amalie stared in dismay. What? I snarled. We had words. On plane: the usual fine service and, as luck would have it, the flight attendant is Karen “Legs” McAllister, and both of us are acting cool as sherbet in the circumstances, although we have been several times to the Eight Mile High Club on past flights. Amalie naturally sniffed this out. How? Do I leave spoor on women? Does my face betray me all unknowing? Anyway, we had a crying jag, silent heaving, the worst, she shrugged me off, couldn’t bear it, I went aft, tossed Crosetti out of his seat, and talked to Paul.

I recall complaining about the wife, a tedious stanza I shall not relate and him listening and then somehow we were talking about Dad and Mutti, and who was the least and most favored son, a familiar trope of ours on the few occasions when we talk about our mutual past, and we merrily recalled an incident in which Paul, aged around seven, had broken a precious Meissen figurine, and Mutti took after him with the hairbrush, our usual instrument of discipline. This was, by the way, not one of your cheapo drugstore plastic models, but a solid chunk of Deutsche maple stuck with boar bristles from the Schwarzwald, a weapon suitable for seizing Jerusalem from the Saracens. On this occasion Paul was attempting to escape by running around the oval dining room table, shrieking hysterically, Mutti in pursuit, uttering threats in German, with we smaller kids watching in fascination. After we had milked this one of its warmth, I happened to remark that, unlike him and Miriam, I had
hardly ever felt the hairbrush, me being the good son. He looked at me strangely and said, “Yeah, she used to beat you with her hand. In the bedroom.”

“What’re you talking about? She never touched me.”

“You really don’t remember this? Almost every time Dad punched her out, she’d pick a fight with you and take you into the bedroom and lay you across her knee and pound your bare butt with her hand, and you’d wail like a lost soul, and then she’d hold you on the bed and rock you and murmur endearments until you stopped. Miri and I used to watch it through the keyhole. She used to call you
mein kleines Judchen.
”

“Oh, bullshit! You’re making this up.”

He shrugged. “Hey, don’t believe me—ask Miri. We thought it was weird even then, even compared to the normal freak show that was our home.”

“You think I
suppressed
this abuse? God, how unbelievably trite! And this explains all my current problems on the love and family front?”

“No, the explanation is that God has given you free will and you have decided to use it to sin, rather than abandoning your monstrous pride and submitting yourself to God’s will. Since you asked.”

Or something to that effect, a style of discourse that goes right past me. The other interesting thing from that conversation is that somewhat later I musingly asked Paul why our parents had ever hooked up in the first place, and he looked at me strangely again and said, “You really don’t know?”

“A wartime passion, I always thought. They never talked about the feeling part, though.”

“No kidding. You never thought it was strange that a Nazi princess would choose to marry a Jew? And a very Jewish Jew at that.”

“The mysteries of exogamy?”

“No, she was just being a good Nazi.”

I must have shown puzzlement because he said, “Look, they took this master race business seriously. The
Herrenvolk
have the right to conquer everyone else because they’re strong, yes? And who is the chief rival for world domination?”

“The Russians?”

“No, the Russians are cattle. The Jews are the only rival race. They control Russia and they control the western powers, especially including the United States. The war was fought against the Jews. And the Jews won.”

“What? The Jews were destroyed.”

“They won. They lost six million, sure, but they got back to Jerusalem, and the Germans lost
seven
million. And the armies that beat Germany into the ground were controlled by the secret machinations of the Jewish race. You never got this from her?”

“Never.”

“Lucky me, then. It follows that since the Jews conquered, it was the Jewish race that was superior—sorry about the camps—and it further follows that it behooves an Aryan maiden to join her loins to those of the superior breed. It all makes perfect sense, if you happen to be crazy.”

I have to say that this had never occurred to me, and neither Paul nor my sister had ever brought it up. My parents fought like fiends, of course, but I had woven a romance around this, which I got from the movies. People fell in love, they had children, the man was unfaithful and the wife threw plates, at which point the man reformed and realized that home was where the heart was, or else he left, and the mom found a new and better husband (Robert Young) and turned the bad old husband away when he came crawling back, or (even better) he died.

After what seemed like a very long interval, nor did the plane drop from the sky, I said, creakily, “So what’re you saying, Paul? That we’re phase two in the plan to breed the master race? I thought that mongrelization was what they were trying to avoid.”

“Yes, but they were fascinated by mutts and the idea of breeding. They even saved Aryan-looking Jewish kids from the ovens and gave them to good Nazi families to raise, which they shouldn’t have done at all if they really believed their racial purity line. And all that skull measuring they did and the Mengele experiments with twins…”

I recalled something he’d just said and interrupted. “What did you mean by ‘lucky me’ just now?”

“Oh, just that Mutti gave me and Miri the blood lecture, which apparently you didn’t get. I mean, did you think I figured all this out myself?”

“She
told
you she married Dad to advance the racial theories of the Third Reich?”

“Not in so many words, but we were often told that the Nazis lost because they were too pure and noble and so she was sacrificing herself to inject some sneaky-smart Jew genes into the mix. I mean, didn’t you think that the peculiar assortment of physical characteristics in our family had something to do with the way she treated the three of us? Oh, right, you kind of forgot some of that. In any case, we were disappointments in the
Übermensch
department, although of unimpeachable Aryan appearance: I was a thug and Miri was a whore, but you were, so to speak, the golden mutt who would make all of it worthwhile. That’s why she killed herself. The two of us were out of reach and she didn’t want to distract you from your studies with having to care for an old lady.
Ritterkreuz mit Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillianten
for heroic Mutti. You look surprised, Jake. You never figured this out?”

“No, and I want to thank you for bringing it to my attention. We should have more of these brotherly talks—I feel so terrifically
up
now. Gosh, and what a shame Mutti didn’t stick around to see the prodigal return in glory to judge the living and the dead. She would’ve been so proud!”

Paul ignored my sarcasm as he almost always does and replied mildly, “Yes, I’ve always regretted it. Are we finished with this, by the way? Because I have some thoughts about your present situation.”

After that, we talked strategy, and he developed his idea that the whole thing was a con and what that meant for our actions while in the U.K., and I thought he made sense. Of course it was a con. Wasn’t everything?

The plane landed.
We drove to London, in a limo supplied by Osborne Security Service, the security firm Paul had engaged. The driver, one Brown, was an agent of said firm and according to Paul an ex-SAS
piano wire artist. He did not impress me, being rather slight and weaselly in appearance. At the hotel I had rather too much to drink—understandable under the circumstances, I believe—and went to bed. In the morning, far too early, I awoke to a crushing headache, a foul, dry tongue, and my brother, dressed in his clericals, with the information that we were moving immediately. Apparently, his security team had spotted some bad guys and we needed to shake them. I allowed him to get me together and in short order we had picked up Crosetti, who seemed to have turned into a hostile little twerp overnight. He was barely civil on the ride to Oxford.

I may have dozed but awoke to Paul’s voice describing something he had found at some church in the old City. He thought it was the grille Bracegirdle had used to encipher the letters, which I suppose was a major find, but, frankly, I could not work up much interest at the time. I am a man of settled habits, as I believe I have indicated, and zooming around in cars in foreign parts holds no attraction. I noticed young Crosetti’s eyes were shining, though, and I might have drifted back to sleep were it not for Paul’s mentioning that this grille had been swiped by a young woman. Who else could it have been? I dismissed out of hand Crosetti’s opinion that it could also have been Carolyn Rolly. The crime had Miranda’s prints all over it: the innocent come-on, the inveigling into the confidence of the perhaps lonely curate, the swift, violent denouement…Miranda! I didn’t even bother to argue with him. I recall thinking that we have the ciphers so she had to come to us with her grille, and I recall a sense of anticipation such as I have rarely known, like a kid on the way to a carnival.

We approached the outskirts of Oxford as it was, getting on toward noon, and I was growing hungry. I mentioned this to Paul and he told me that we were to meet Oliver March in a country pub. Shortly after this information passed, Brown started to drive like a lunatic, swerving across four lanes of the M40 at the last moment to shoot onto the A40 and then quickly leaving that for a local road, just west of Oxford.

Crosetti asked him if he were trying to lose our pursuers and Brown replied, “No, just one of them.” After this we roared down smaller
roads, throwing up rooster tails of water and mud and tossing us all around unmercifully. I caught a look at my companions, who seemed to be enjoying the ride, and perhaps also enjoying my increasing discomfort. Then, after a particularly jarring turn down what looked like a farm track, Brown halted the car, leaped out, popped the trunk, and dragged from it a long black nylon bag. I left the car too, staggered over to a low fence, and was sick for a good long time. When I recovered, I heard the sound of an approaching vehicle and looking in that direction saw our Brown under a bare roadside willow, with a huge exotic-looking rifle propped in a crotch of that tree and pointing down the road. A blue BMW drove toward him at speed and when it was about a hundred yards away he shot it. Its engine made expensive breaking noises and the car rolled to a stop, with steam rising from its hood. Brown put his rifle back in its bag and noticed me standing there goggling and dabbing at my mouth with a handkerchief.

“Are you all right, sir?” he asked.

“I’m fine. Did you just shoot somebody?”

“No, sir, just the vehicle. This is a Barrett rifle, sir, nothing like it for stopping a car. Father Paul wanted some privacy for this meeting.”

I stared at him and he took my elbow. “We should get back in our car now, sir.”

We did and drove off down some more little roads until we came to a perfect little English village, whose name I have quite forgotten: Dorking Smedley? Inching Tweedle? Something like that; and pulled up in the yard of what looked like a coaching inn off the cover of a fancy biscuit package: thatched roof, black Tudor beams, heavy, purplish, leaded glass, the kind of place Dick Bracegirdle used to frequent for a pint of malmsey. We all trooped inside except for Brown, who waited with the car, talking into a crackling radio.

Inside it was dim and cozy, with a fire in the grate. A large man with unfashionable red sideburns was behind the bar, and when he saw us he nodded and gestured to one side, where there was a door. Through the door was a small room with a gas fire and a battered round table in it, at which sat a slight, handsome man in his late fifties wearing a tweed
jacket, a tattersall shirt, and a black wool tie. He stood when we came in, and Paul made the introductions and we all shook and sat. This was Oliver March, the companion. Another evidence that Paul has taken charge of this expedition. I didn’t mind. I felt like one of those great black bladders of industrial chemicals one sees in barges in the harbor, inert and massive, pushed about by little tugs.