The Magdalene Cipher (34 page)

“Until the
Apocryphon
surfaced,” Dunphy said
.

“Precisely. And, of course, when the same heresy was brought to light in the
Apocryphon
,
that light had to be extinguished, as well—and so it was. The cult was ruthlessly suppressed until, in the end, it was no more than a secret society, a conspiracy on the run.”

“But a conspiracy to do what?” Dunphy asked
.

“Bring on the millennium,” Van Worden replied. “What else?”

“And how did they expect to do that?” Dunphy asked
.

“Once the prophecies were fulfilled, it would be a fait accompli.”

“And these are the prophecies—”

“—in the
Apocryphon
,
a” Van Worden replied
.

“You mean, about the grain encrypting itself,” Dunphy said. “And the skies—”

“So you know them!” Van Worden exclaimed
.

Dunphy shrugged. “I've seen references to them.”

“Of course, not all of the prophecies were so . . . poetic. Some were quite specific.”

“Like what?”

Van Worden shrugged. “ ‘These lands will then be one,' ” he said
.

“That's specific?”

“As specific as these things get. It refers to a time when the European nations will be united—a single country, as it were. And there's the business about Israel, as well: ‘Zion reborn in the aftermath of the ovens.' Pretty remarkable, wouldn't you say?”

Dunphy nodded
.

“Inasmuch as the prophecies are also prescriptions,” Van Worden added, “the Magdalene Society would seem to have been one of the first Zionist organizations in Europe. Maybe
the
first.”

Dunphy nibbled a bit of Stilton, then washed it down with the Clocktower. “So what happened to it?”

“Until I heard how Schidlof died, I'd thought its only remnants were the black Virgins that you see in churches like Montserrat.”

Dunphy and Clem looked at each other. “What do you mean?” Clem asked
.

Van Worden shrugged. “They're statues of a black Madonna, sometimes with an infant—who's also black. The Church won't talk about them, but they're everywhere in Europe.”

“So why is she black?” Dunphy asked
.

Van Worden laughed. “Her blackness was like a code. Because it's not the Virgin Mary holding Jesus—it's the Magdalene, with Mérovée in her arms. It's one of the last vestiges of a secret church—the Merovingian church that the Vatican tried to destroy.”

Dunphy got up from his chair and walked to the railing. The sun was off to the right, setting behind plumes of smoke that rose from a factory's stacks on the Thames's north shore
.

“You said something about the way Schidlof died,” Dunphy asked. “What did you mean?”

“Just that when Schidlof called to ask about the Magdalene Society, I told him they'd gone out of business long ago. He suggested that they hadn't, and I agreed to meet with him—but only as an academic courtesy. I was sure he was wrong. But when I read about the way he died, and where he was found—in the Inner Temple—I realized I'd been wrong.”

“How? What was it about his death that made you think—”

“It was a ritual murder. It's the way the Lodge has always dealt with its enemies. I could name a dozen men who've died that way, going back to the fourteenth century, and every one of them was a threat to what you call the Magdalene Society.”

“But why?” Clem asked. “What are they after? What could they possibly want
today
a?”

“A European throne for Mérovée's descendants.”

“Descendants?!”
Dunphy exclaimed. “How is anyone supposed to know—”

“There are genealogies,” Van Worden told them. “Napoleon commissioned one. For all I know, there may be others.”

“Napoleon?!”

Van Worden made a gesture. “He was overthrowing the Bourbons, and I think he found it useful to paint them as the usurpers of an older dynasty. Certainly, it was convenient: Bonaparte's second wife was a Merovingian in her own right.”

“But that was two hundred years ago,” Dunphy said. “Are there any Merovingians left?”

Van Worden frowned. “Dunno,” he said. “For that, I think you'd have to ask Watkin.”

“Watkin? Who the hell is Watkin?”

“Genealogist. Lives in Paris. Knows who's who.”

“Really!” Dunphy said
.

“Mmmm . . . hang on. I may have something for you.” Van Worden got to his feet and went inside. Dunphy and Clem could hear him rummaging around in what sounded like a filing cabinet. Finally, he came back out, holding a magazine that was open to a story. “That's the chap,” he said, handing him the magazine
.

Dunphy looked at the byline—
Georges Watkin
a—and then at the article's title: “The Magdalene Cultivar: Old Wine from Palestine.” “Fucking hell,” Dunphy said. “It's
Archaeus
.
a”

Van Worden looked surprised. “You've seen it before, then?”

“I had a copy for a while,” Dunphy told him. “But I lost it.”

“Well, old Watkin might be the answer to your prayers,” Van Worden told them. “Then again, knowing Watkin—he might be praying in a different church entirely. If you go to see him, you'll want to tread carefully. . . .”

Chapter 27

They spent the evening on the train, traveling aboard the Eurostar from Waterloo station to the Gare du Nord. Arriving a little after nine that night, they took a cab to the Latin Quarter, then walked a few blocks to the Île St. Louis. There, they found an elegant small hotel on the Quai de Bethune. The reservations clerk turned a skeptical eye on Dunphy, whose broken nose suggested trouble—but the clerk was at least as smitten with Clem as he was suspicious of her lover. Over the muttered grousing of the concierge, an emaciated woman whose rouged cheeks made Dunphy think of the circus, a suite was found for them on the third floor
.

And why not? It cost five hundred dollars a night
.

“We'll take it,” Dunphy said, and paid in advance with cash
.

It was a surprisingly large suite for Paris, with ocher walls, Berber carpeting, and black-and-white photographs of jazz musicians hanging from the walls. Clem drew a bath for herself, while Dunphy stood at the open windows, sipping from a bottle of 33, gazing across the Seine at the Left Bank. It seemed to him that he was at eye level with half the rooftops in Paris
.

Before long, clouds of steam were billowing through the doorway to the bath, and the air filled with the fragrance of Badedas. In the background, Dunphy could hear the water running in the tub and, just over it, Clem's voice humming an old Stealers Wheel tune. He remembered the words from the movie:

Crossing the room to the bath, Dunphy leaned into the doorway. By now, Clem was fully reclined in the tub, manipulating the hot- and cold-water faucets with her toes. Blissed out
.

“Clem, darlin',” Dunphy said
.

“Hmmm?”

“I have to go out for a while.”

Her eyes snapped open. “What?!” Her feet dropped into the water, and she sat up amid the bubbles
.

“I have to call Max. And I don't want to do it from here.”

“But—”

“It may take a while, so . . . don't wait up.”

Before she could argue, he turned on his heel and left
.

It took him almost an hour to find a newsagent who sold international phone cards. Dunphy bought one for a hundred francs, and walked a block until he found a pay phone next to a shuttered
boulangerie
.
It was a quarter after eleven when the call went through
.

Max answered on the third ring with an exhausted mumble. “Unh?!”

“Max!”

“Yeah, okay . . .” The Russian sounded sleepy. “Who is it?”

“It's Harrison Pitt, Max!” Dunphy said. “Your old pal.”

There was a short silence in which Dunphy could hear the wheels turning in the Russian's head. Then: “Yeah, sure, Harry! How are you?”

“I'm fine—”

“You're fine?”

“Yeah, but . . . I don't want to stay on the phone too long, okay?”

“Yes, of course—I know how busy you are!”

“Good. So, has anyone been to see you about me?”

“Just that once. I told you—”

“I don't mean that,” Dunphy said. “I mean after the last business we did.”

The Russian's reply was instantaneous. “No. There is nothing.”

If Max had hesitated, even for an instant, Dunphy would have hung up. Instead, he said, “Good.”

“What you need?”

It went against the grain to say it on the phone, but, “I want to buy a gun.”

“But, I don't have guns. I can make
license
for gun—any country—the Vatican, even—no problem—”

“I know that, Max. But what I mean is, I need a name. Do you know anyone in Paris—”

“Hang on.” There was a low clatter as Max laid the phone down on a hard table. Then the noise of wooden drawers opening and closing. A muffled curse. The same clatter. And then, “Okay, is good guy. Ukrainian, like me. But fruitcake, okay?”

“What?”

“He's fruitcake!”

“You mean, he's crazy?”

“No. Gay. This is problem?”

Dunphy shook his head, forgetting he was on the phone. “No, it's not a problem. What's his name?”

“Azamov. Sergei Azamov. He is towel boy—”

“What?”

“Towel boy,” Max insisted. “You can find him at Chaud le Thermos. You know the place?”

“No,” Dunphy said. “I don't know the place.”

Max cackled. “Just checking,” he said. “It's on the Rue Poissonnière, around corner from subway stop. I think they call it Bonne Nouvelle.”

“So this guy—what? He works nights?”

Max laughed. “What you think? At this place, is
only
nights.”

It took Dunphy a while to find a cab, and when he did, he couldn't bring himself to say exactly where he wanted to go. So he told the driver to take him to the Metro at Bonne Nouvelle
.

It was almost midnight when the cab left him off, but he found the bathhouse right away, led to it by a trail of discarded latex gloves. The building was a dilapidated brown-stone with blackened windows and a crumbling cement stoop that led up from the sidewalk to a crude iron door. Beside the door was a sign, like the ones you see outside rural churches, with little white plastic letters spelling out the day's homily against a black background. The sign read:

A middle-aged man with too much hair, wearing boots, jeans, and a canvas tank top, sat outside, smoking a cigarette in conversation with an Algerian boy who didn't look old enough to drive. They glanced at Dunphy as he passed, but said nothing
.

As Dunphy entered the building, he was met by a wave of humidity and the not unpleasant smell of steam. Just inside the door, an old man sat behind a battered wooden desk, reading a W. H. Hudson novel in translation
.

“C'est privé,”
he said
.

“I'm looking for someone,” Dunphy told him
.

The old man flashed his dentures. “Isn't everyone?” he asked
.

Dunphy acknowledged the jest with a smile. “Sergei Azamov.”

The old man nodded. “You aren't the police,” he said
.

“No,” Dunphy replied
.

“Because you don't look like the police.”

“Thank you.”

“He's downstairs, but first you must become a member.” He pushed a ledger toward Dunphy. “One hundred francs.”

Dunphy counted out the bills and signed the ledger
.

Eddie Piper Great Falls—USA

The old man slid the money into his desk drawer, took out a stack of membership cards, and filled one in with a ballpoint pen. When he was done, he handed the card to Dunphy and gave him a couple of folded white towels. “Locks are extra,” he told him. “You should get one.”

“What for?” Dunphy asked.

“Your clothes.”

“That's okay,” Dunphy replied. “I'll try to keep my pants on.” Then he turned and walked slowly downstairs. As he did, the air thickened even more, so that after a few steps, he was beginning to feel claustrophobic. It was hotter here, as well, and badly lighted, and it didn't take a minute for the sweat to break out on his forehead. Reaching the ground floor, he paused at the bottom of the steps and squinted into the gloaming.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and when they did, he found himself standing in a small locker room. There were a couple of dozen lockers against one wall, some benches, and a bank of individual showers with cruddy plastic curtains. Past the showers was a sauna and, beyond that, a large steam room.

A short man with a perfectly sculpted body emerged from the steam room with a towel around his shoulders and padded softly into the sauna. A naked man in his fifties, with a sizable paunch, walked past with his hand on the nape of a Clark Kent lookalike, replete with tortoise-rimmed glasses.

Now what? Dunphy wondered, feeling hugely overdressed. Then a sigh rose up behind him, and turning, Dunphy saw a man lying prone upon the wooden bench, his only accoutrement the towel under his head. On the floor beside him was a can of Crisco and a copy of
Blue Boy.

“Yo, Sergei!” Dunphy bellowed at the top of his voice. “Sergei Azamov! I'm looking for Sergei ‘the Ukrainian' Azamov! Has anyone . . .”

It took about three seconds for Azamov to appear. He came out of a room from somewhere in the back, looking as if Dunphy had just pissed on his tires.
“Qu'est-ce que tu fous?”
he demanded, striding up to Dunphy like a bouncer in a bad mood—which, in fact, he was.

Dunphy raised his hands. “Friend of Max's,” he said.

Azamov stopped about six inches from Dunphy's nose. He had stringy long hair, glittering blue eyes, and a diamond earring. “Who's Max?” he asked.

“Setyaev. I was told he was a friend of yours.”

Azamov looked him up and down. “What happened to your nose?” he asked.

Dunphy shrugged. “A guy hit me.”

Azamov smiled. “You should take karate. Learn how to defend yourself.”

“Good idea,” Dunphy said. “I'll do that.”

“You know, Max owes me a lot of money,” Azamov told him.

Dunphy turned his palms toward the ceiling. “Maybe I can help with that.”

Azamov stepped back. Then he turned, leaned down, and smacked Crisco man on the butt.
“Dégagez,”
he ordered. With an irritated look, the man got to his feet, picked up the can of grease, and shuffled off into the next room. “What are you looking for?” Azamov asked in a quiet voice.

“I need a gun,” Dunphy told him.

The Ukrainian winced. “A gun could get me in trouble. Why don't you get stoned instead?”

“I can pay what it costs,” Dunphy assured him.

Azamov cocked his head one way, then the other. “What kind of gun?” he asked.

“Something I can carry around,” Dunphy told him. “But big enough to knock a guy down the first time.”

Azamov nodded thoughtfully.

“You got something like that?” Dunphy asked.

“Maybe. When do you need it?”

“Right away.”

Azamov shrugged. “You know I'm gonna call Max, don't you?”

“I don't have a problem with that,” Dunphy replied. “You want his number?”

Azamov shook his head. “Where you staying?” he asked.

Dunphy told him.

“Okay. If I can get something, I'll come by tomorrow. Early afternoon.”

The Ukrainian was as good as his word. He got to the hotel at one o'clock, carrying a new leather briefcase. Clem was out, looking at a Matisse exhibition in the Pompidou Center. Zipping open the briefcase, Azamov took out three bundles of cheesecloth, one of which was larger than the others, and laid them on the coffee table in front of Dunphy. “I need two grand for it,” he said. “Briefcase included.”

“Is that francs?” Dunphy asked.

Azamov smiled. “What do you think?”

“I don't know,” Dunphy answered. “It depends on what's in here. Could be a starter's pistol.”

“It's not,” Azamov told him.

Dunphy picked up the largest bundle, which was remarkably light, and slowly unwrapped it. Inside was the opposite of a starter's pistol: a Glock-17 with a four-inch barrel. He worked the slide, sighted in on a picture of Dizzy Gillespie, and squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession.
Click! Click! Click!

“What's with the trigger?” he asked.

“It's only got a three-pound pull,” Azamov explained. “A woman had it. She wasn't very strong. You want me to adjust it?”

“No, it's okay,” Dunphy replied, removing the cheesecloth from the other bundles. Inside each was a fifteen-round clip of nine-millimeter cartridges.

“I know it's expensive, but—you can see, it's not crap. It's a good tool.”

Dunphy nodded and got to his feet. Walking over to the dresser, he took a wad of bills from the top drawer and counted out two thousand pounds in one-hundred-pound notes. Then he handed them to Azamov.

The Ukrainian took the money without counting and shoved it into the pocket of his leather jacket, as if the bills were so much Kleenex. Then he got up to leave.

“Did you talk to Max?” Dunphy asked.

Azamov nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I woke him up. He was pissed.”

“And what did he say?” Dunphy asked.

“He told me to tell you, ‘Be gentle.' ”