Bristol House (24 page)

Geoff bent over her sketch. “I see that you’ve managed to create the illusion of three-dimensional depth. Clever.” He turned back to the coffeemaker and retrieved a small cup of thick black brew.

Annie grabbed another napkin and switched to sketching speckled ovoids.

“Quail eggs?” he asked.

“Yes. Fascinating, but nothing to do with Weinraub.” She pushed the drawing away. “Geoff, I’m starting to think I’m going to have some pretty spectacular material to write up, whatever the
A
’s mean.”

“Could be. Two codes, the existence of some remarkable old Judaica—”

“But how”—Annie reached again for the napkin on which she’d illustrated the vanishing point—“does the stuff that happens at Bristol House fit in? Where does it all come together?”

“No idea,” he said.

“It can’t be a coincidence that all these things have happened at the same time. So where do they meet?” She grabbed another napkin, sketching so furiously, the lead in the pencil broke with an audible snap.

“Don’t worry so much,” he said, moving the stack of napkins out of her reach. “I get the feeling everything’s in motion. That it’s going to . . . sort of unfold. But not tonight.” He leaned in and kissed her. “Tonight I vote we go upstairs and forget about all this for a while.”

***

He was longer than usual in the bathroom. When he came out, he smelled of musk edged with grapefruit.

“If I knew your shaving soap smelled so delicious, I wouldn’t have admired the designer stubble so much,” she whispered, setting her palm against his clean-shaven cheek.

“Sometimes,” he said, “smooth is better.”

She had already learned he was an inventive as well as a thoughtful lover, but not how generous he could be.

At first she found it difficult to simply accept the gift he offered. Too many years of sex rather than making love. “Relax,” he whispered. “Ride the wave. Unless . . . do you want me to stop?”

“Please don’t.” And afterward: “That was wonderful. I’ve never . . . thank you.”

“My pleasure. Truly.” One knuckle traced her jawline. “Care to go again? I know a trick with ice cubes that—”

Her cell phone rang. It was on the table beside the bed, and she grabbed it and looked at the caller ID. “Weinraub.”

“Jesus, it’s nearly midnight.”

Annie considered for a moment, then flipped the phone open. “It’s late, Mr. Weinraub. I was sleeping.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Dr. Kendall.” She angled the phone, hoping Geoff could hear as well. He leaned in, then pulled back and shook his head. Annie clamped the phone to her ear. “Did you hear me?” Weinraub was saying. “I’m calling on an urgent matter.”

“What urgent matter?”

“I prefer not to discuss it by telephone. I will come and see you. I’m only a few minutes from Southampton Row.”

If she said she wasn’t at Bristol House, it would give him leave to have someone break in a second time. But her laptop was here at Geoff’s. Besides, the locks had been changed. “I’m not at home, Mr. Weinraub.”

Geoff made a face. Annie shrugged. Weinraub took a couple of seconds to reply. “I see. At least I presume I do.” She could all but see his thin lips pursed in disapproval and feel those hypnotic eyes boring into her skull. “Then it will have to be tomorrow,” he said. “I shall come to Mrs. Walton’s apartment at precisely eight a.m. Please be there.”

18

Even when her brain was pickled in booze, Annie never used an alarm clock. She could always tell herself to wake up at a specific time and hit it pretty much on the nose. She was in the shower at Geoff’s at two minutes past seven.

She’d crept into the bathroom as quietly as a cat and left him sleeping, but by the time she returned to the bedroom to snatch her jeans, the bed was empty and she could hear James Blunt on the sound system. The smell of coffee led her down the stairs.

“I’m sorry to get you up so early,” she said. “And I hope it’s okay that I borrowed this.” She was wearing one of his shirts, starched, as they all were, white, with a thin blue stripe and a small version of his three-letter monogram embroidered on the extradeep chest pocket. “My blouse,” she explained, “is decorated with orange-flavored beef.”

“
Saw an angel, of that I’m sure . . .
”

“That shirt looks better on you than it does on me. Keep it.” He poured her coffee and left her to add her own milk. “Will you eat some porridge if I make it? Oatmeal to you.”

Annie shook her head. “Much too early for food. But thanks for the coffee.”

“Still no idea what Weinraub wants?” They’d kicked that around for twenty minutes after the call came the night before. Then, without answers, they’d drifted off to sleep.

“None,” Annie said.

“
My life is brilliant. My love is pure.
”

Geoff gripped a mug of coffee with both hands—honoring his prohibition against espresso first thing in the morning—rested his elbows on the granite counter, leaned toward her, and deposited a quick Java-flavored kiss on her lips.

“I owe you,” she said. “I won’t forget.” He looked puzzled. “Last night,” Annie said. “You never got your turn.”

“Ah, last night.” Another coffee-flavored kiss. “Rule number one,” he said. “No score keeping. We’ve got plenty of time.”

“For the ice cubes?”

“Definitely time for the ice cubes.”

According to Sidney O’Toole, the danger never disappeared.
You can step back from the abyss, Annie my girl, but it’s always there waiting for you.
Well, Sidney did not know everything. She was not going back to hell. Four sober years were going to become five, then six, and eventually sixteen or even sixty. That Geoffrey Harris seemed as sure of her balance as she was joyed her heart, but what she said was, “It occurs to me that if the woman who wrote me from Breisach is correct, then Weinraub may not know anything about the code in the documents.”

Geoff considered for a moment. “Not so. According to my mother and Rabbi Cohen, the code existed in the German documents, but it had been changed, presumably to make it more obscure, in the English translation. Even if Weinraub lifted some research papers that already existed and told you they were the work of his Shalom Foundation, it’s likely he and his people did the English translations that were meant for you. He covered up the code because he wanted to. So he knew it was there.”

Annie considered. “You’re right. And we know for sure he has the contents of my laptop.”

“Ninety-nine percent sure,” Geoff corrected.

“That’s sure enough. So . . . the stippled code proves there were people identified as Jews in London in 1530, and to that extent it validates the Jew of Holborn story. But according to Weinraub, he’s never been in doubt about that. He wants me to find something else, the source of the Jew of Holborn’s gifts. Where he got such things.”

“Dare I say it again—Indiana Jones.”

“Without the jungle,” Annie said. “Except I’m a girl, so it has to be Lara Croft.”

“I agree about the girl part.” He trailed one finger down the open neck of the blue and white shirt.

Annie grabbed his hand and kissed it, then pushed it away. “What did Weinraub achieve by having someone break into my place? I still don’t know the source of the loot, and there was nothing about it on my laptop.”

“He couldn’t have known that in advance.”

“But he gave me three months to do the job. How come he took a risk—sending someone to burgle my laptop while I was sleeping had to be a risk—this early in the game?”

“Now that,” Geoff said, “is a damned good question. What’s the new urgency?”

“I have no idea,” Annie said, “but I’m thinking about it.” She got up and went around to the kitchen side of the counter to refill her mug. The large schoolhouse clock that made an analog fashion statement on the soffit above the counter said twenty to eight. “I have to go.”

“Let me come with you.”

“We’ve been all over this. Bringing you with me would be a dead giveaway that I’m onto something and you’re involved. As you pointed out sometime past, you are not exactly a nonentity, Mr. Geoffrey Harris.”

“But Weinraub—”

“—is not any danger to me. If he wanted to harm me, he would have someone do it, not come to where he’s arranged for me to be living and do it himself. That is insane.”

Geoff nodded agreement, but he did not look happy about it.

Dom Justin

From the Waiting Place

Suspended as I am between shadow and true light, I am given to understand that the sin is in the breaking of the vow. Still I shiver to tell of my misery in that time. And for the woman—I shiver also for her. She moves in and out of my sight, and sometimes I cannot find her, but on this occasion when she appears, I sense darkness and evil surrounding her. And the threat of annihilation.

•

Annie arrived at Bristol House at five to eight. The early mail had already been delivered. Four envelopes lay on the floor. Annie stooped to pick them up while simultaneously switching on the radios in what had now become an automatic gesture. Two were advertising circulars. The others were letters bearing foreign stamps. A closer look revealed that one was from Metz and the other from Offenburg.

Bingo, she thought. The two-for-one special. Except that at that precise moment the doorbell rang. She had time only to shove the letters in her tote before buzzing her employer in.

***

“I realize it’s early,” Philip Weinraub said. “I hope this is not an inconvenient time. There is some urgency.”

It was obvious to Annie he had no interest in whether his arrival was convenient. He was pretty much ignoring her, walking quickly around Bea Walton’s drawing room, examining the pictures one after the other as if he were in a gallery. The art was mostly old and worthy, but Annie had made a careful inspection and found nothing special. “It’s not a problem, Mr. Weinraub, but—may I ask what the urgency is?”

He ignored her question, instead continuing his inspection of Mrs. Walton’s paintings and photographs. “Not these,” he muttered softly once. Then, abruptly turning to her: “What is your schedule for today, Dr. Kendall? I have often wondered exactly how historians do their work. Shall you be spending hours looking at musty old documents?”

“Old documents are seldom musty, Mr. Weinraub. If they are, they don’t last long enough for historians to examine them. Mostly, if they’ve survived, they’re carefully kept in conditions that prohibit must.” And if what he wanted was an hour-by-hour work log, he didn’t have to arrive at Bristol House at the crack of dawn to claim it.

“Yes, I see.” He had stopped beside a pen and ink sketch of an old street. “Ah,” he said, leaning in to read the engraving on the small brass label embedded in the bottom of the frame, “York, 1826. That’s in Yorkshire, isn’t it?”

“I believe so.”

“Miss MacPherson, my secretary, mentioned that her aunt had a remarkable sketch of London. Have you seen a sketch of old London in the apartment?”

“No, I haven’t. Unless you mean the mural.” She regretted the words as soon as she spoke them, but there was no way to call them back.

“That’s it. I remember now.” His eyes were alight, and he was bouncing up and down on his toes. The thought that flashed through Annie’s mind was that he was dancing with excitement. “A mural of old London. That’s what Miss MacPherson said.”

“It’s in the bedroom.”

She hated taking him into the room she slept in, but there was no choice. Weinraub followed her down the hall and into the bedroom. Morning light illuminated the wall covered by the dense black and white painting. He took a step back so he could take it all in. “My word,” he murmured. “How remarkable.”

“Yes, it is. Sort of
Where’s Waldo?
on steroids. At least that’s how I always think of it.”

“Do you know the period?”

“Mrs. Walton mentioned that it had been painted by a man who lived here between 1930 and 1959. I think the mural is contemporary with the city as it was over that time.”

“As late as that.” Weinraub sounded disappointed. “You’re quite sure there’s nothing from earlier times?”

“Not that I know. Did your secretary suggest it was earlier?”

“I don’t remember. Perhaps I just formed a mistaken impression.” Weinraub spent another few moments looking at the dense overlay of black and white scenes: backing up, then moving in closer, tipping his head back and trying to see the details close to the ceiling, moving to his right and to his left. After four or five minutes, he gave up. “Impossible,” he muttered.

He clearly had not found Waldo, or whatever it was he’d been looking for.

“Remarkable nonetheless,” he said. “Do you think, Dr. Kendall, any of those trees”—Weinraub nodded in the direction of the painted wall—“might be almond trees?”

“I have no idea. I’m not sure I know what an almond tree looks like.” Annie’s astonishment showed in her voice.

“I’ve seen them in southern Spain,” Weinraub said. “Pink flowers. Very pretty.”

“Well, southern Spain is a warmer climate than London, so—”

Weinraub cut her off with a gesture and left the bedroom.

Annie followed him into the hall. He was moving toward the front door, finished with her apparently. “Mr. Weinraub, what exactly did you want to see me about?”

“I simply wish to impress upon you the need for moving quickly to a conclusion of this affair. I suggest you see if you can uncover anything in the Tudor documents about flowering trees. Almonds in particular.” He paused, fixing her with his hypnotic stare. “Flowering almond branches are often depicted on both ancient and modern Judaica. On
mezuzot
particularly.”

***

“Weinraub is fixated on almond trees. He seemed to think they should be somewhere in the mural.” She had phoned Geoff within minutes of Weinraub leaving.

“He knows about the mural, and that’s what he wanted to talk about?”

“Yes, he knows about it. But he didn’t just want to talk—he wanted to see it. He was looking for an almond tree.”

“That’s . . . the mural’s all about London, right? I don’t think there are almond trees in London,” Geoff said.