Brooklyn Knight (19 page)

When Bridget’s eyes went somewhat wide with surprise, Judith scoffed, adding in a low whisper;

“Oh, like your brain hasn’t been flirtin’ with the idea of givin’ him a wink and sayin’, ‘Come hither.’ ”

Blushing, the redhead admitted;

“The thought had crossed my mind, if I remember correctly.”

“I’ll bet it did,” answered Judith, laughing softly as she did so. Reaching for the forms she did need the professor’s new intern to fill out, Judith added, “And let me just wish you good luck tryin’. I’ll tell you this much, the man ain’t gay, but he ain’t escorted no one from here home as of yet. And believe me, more than a few have tried.”

“It’s a shame,” said Bridget, not thinking about what she was saying. “He really does have a charming home.”

Judith’s eyes went wide to the point of comic exaggeration. Her one hand clutching the now-forgotten forms, she held her other out to point at the younger woman on the opposite side of her desk. Her eyes suddenly narrowing to coldly suspicious slits, she asked;

“You’ve been in this city one day, and you’ve seen the inside of Professor Piers Never-Does-Anything-But-Eat-Sleep-and-Work Knight’s home? Exactly which rooms did you see?”

“Nothing happened,” answered Bridget, her tone revealing she was slightly shocked that someone would think so.

Not ready to leave things at just the registering of the younger woman’s indignation, Judith demanded the whole story. Her insistence on getting all the details of the evening before was born
more out of disbelief than anything else. By the time Bridget had explained the set of circumstances that had led to her sleeping on the professor’s couch, the department head had been placated. Oddly enough, Bridget thought the older woman might actually have been relieved to hear the entire story.

As she finally settled into filling out the half-dozen various forms required to be on file in the museum’s human resources department, Bridget’s mind reviewed the past twenty-four hours of her life. Since her arrival in New York City, she had seen one of the greatest cities in the world from its highest point. After that she had enjoyed one of the finest meals she could have ever imagined in one of the most wonderful restaurants she had ever known.

She had also seen a man levitate, watched men get shot and then destroyed by an explosion, seen a walking wraith, been interrogated by the police, escaped the clutches of a being made of fire, learned that magic very possibly might be real, and slept in the home of a man many of her new coworkers apparently fantasized about on a daily basis.

Hmmph
, she thought.
Not bad. Now, I wonder what the second day’s going to turn out like?

After Bridget finished filling out the small booklet’s worth of forms the museum bureaucracy required, then came a tour conducted by Danielle. It was an exhaustive introduction, one that took the young woman from one end of the museum complex’s expansive basement to the other and then the width and breadth of floors one through six.

The tour had been designed to show newcomers as much of the Brooklyn Museum and its inner workings as possible. In Bridget’s case, her guide had taken into account the necessity of showing her charge the museum, especially as it might relate to her duties under Professor Knight. Although she might well be “borrowed” on occasion to help guide tours through the museum or do other general tasks, mainly she would be concerned with keeping her boss focused.

“The Big K,” as Danielle referred to Knight, “is a special case. He’ll keep you busy.”

“Taskmaster?” Bridget responded, obviously curious.

“No, not really.” The shorter woman paused for a moment, then added, “It’s more as if he has no real sense of time. I mean, he’ll ask you to work through the night on something, not because he’s one of those evil bosses … he just … gets caught up.”

After that, as Danielle continued the tour, marching Bridget first through the various exhibit levels, the special displays in the mezzanine, through the Beaux-Arts Court and the various upper galleries, she also led the newcomer to all the various offices and departments hidden behind the scenes. The round little woman knew Bridget’s day-to-day would be much more concerned with places like the study center, the on-site storage vaults, and the library.

Of course, Danielle also went out of her way to introduce the redhead to as many other staff members as could be found. By the time the finish of the workday arrived for the Human Resources staffer, Danielle said in a joking tone, “There you have it, all of our big, fat, marvelous workplace laid out before you. Now, come tomorrow you’re going to remember all of it and the names of everyone you met—right?”

“Oh, certainly,” answered Bridget with a slightly sour humor. The redhead wished she could forgo propriety and reach down and rub her aching feet. Instead, she silently cursed her choice to wear heels that day, responding with a weak joke. “You’re Fred, aren’t you—or was that Bill?” Danielle laughed in response. Smiling wide, the older woman said;

“Don’t worry; it’s easier to get the hang of it than it looks. Besides, once the professor starts working you, you probably won’t see anyone else, or the light of day, for that matter, for years to come.”

“That’s certainly comforting.” Danielle chuckled, after which she gave Bridget a friendly hug, saying;

“Don’t worry; you’re going to be fine.”

The redhead hugged Danielle back, letting her know she thought she might just be fine at that, thanks to the thoroughness of her tour. After that, the older woman left Bridget in the central lobby to return to Human Resources so she could gather her coat and purse and such and head for New Jersey and home.

Still having no home of her own other than her suitcase, however, which itself had not left the professor’s spare bedroom, Bridget went off in search of her new boss. Deciding to try the obvious first, she was greatly relieved to discover Knight working in his office. Dropping herself into a chair, she kicked off her shoes, groaning in relief as she exclaimed;

“What a day!”

“I imagine your comment signifies that you have met the sturdy and wonderfully efficient Judith Johnson, as well as the rest of our delightful human resources flock. Most likely one of them was then charged with dragging you up and across the various lengths of our fine museum, from the fascinating art of the feminists’ era backward down through the ages to the artifacts of ancient Egypt. At the same time, I imagine, you were introduced to several score people, had your head thrust into a few hundred rooms, galleries, and chambers for up to ten, maybe even twenty seconds apiece.” The professor paused for a moment, then added drily;

“All of which you’re expected to remember on the morrow. Yes?”

Bridget’s only response was to nod and smile quietly. Fussing with papers on his desk, the professor told his assistant;

“Some good news—”

“I’ll take it.”

“I managed to keep the dogs of war busy enough so that they didn’t feel the need to summon you for further questioning, so that’s something anyway.”

“Something I appreciate,” answered Bridget honestly. Stifling a yawn, she asked how he had managed to do so as she tried to figure out how to rub her feet with any kind of propriety while wearing a pencil skirt. Continuing to thumb through the papers, folders, envelopes, and such piled over a foot high in his in-box, Knight responded absently;

“Well, it didn’t hurt that LaRaja and his people shared their transcripts of what you had to say last night with everyone involved.” When Bridget questioned the word “everyone,” the professor told her of the FBI and CIA coming on board with the case, as well as why. He then outlined the hours of questioning he had endured throughout all of the morning and half the afternoon, giving her the boiled-down essence of the entire affair.

“First off,” he said, “it seems the bozos—that will be my label for any and all of the knuckle-dragging cretins I had the pleasure to dance around endlessly with today—the bozos have decided to graciously believe what I have told them. You were an innocent bystander and I must be telling the truth because what else could make sense.”

“That’s good—yes?”

“Well, yes, I suppose—as far as it goes.” As Bridget simply stared, waiting for an explanation, Knight added, “What I mean is I’m fairly certain they have no further interest in you. The bill of goods you sold Detective LaRaja last night was enough for them all. For which, by the way, let me finally say, ‘Thank you, very much.’ ”

“Oh, please, Professor—it was no big deal.”

“Yes,” Knight responded. Looking up from his unending piles of paper, the professor’s normally reserved and calculating eyes went soft for a moment as he told her, “It was. You lied to the authorities, or at least forgot to tell them everything to which you were witness. Which in their humorless eyes is part and parcel of
the same thing. Either way, I greatly appreciate that, as I would hope you must know.”

“What else could I have done?”

“Not to put ideas in your head, but you could have done any manner of other things. For one, you might have acted like some brainless ninny and started caterwauling to the police that you thought you saw me levitating, that you suspected I somehow caused the deaths of the intruders. You could have made mention that you saw a fifth figure with the others that appeared to be a ghost or a hologram, that whatever it was, it was this thing that caused the explosions, after which it disappeared without a trace.”

“Yeah, and have them cart me off to the loony bin.”

“Here in the big city, it’s not politically correct to use such terms,” Knight told his assistant only half-jokingly. “You have to say ‘escort me to a restful and therapeutic mental health facility.’ ”

“Oh, okay—I’ll make a note of that. And if they just decide to cart me off to a federal detention facility?”

“I’ll send you a postcard.”

Bridget pushed against the back of her chair, needing to feel her spine solidly against something. Stretching her arms up and over her head then, she let out a noisy yawn, one that went on for longer than the professor would have thought possible. When she caught him staring at her, she asked;

“What?”

“Nothing. Just impressed with your lung capacity.” Several quips came to Bridget’s mind, but she pushed them aside, asking instead;

“So anyway, what else did they say, or ask, or whatever?”

Knight gave up trying to sort through the monstrously large pile of things in his in-box. Giving over his full attention to Bridget instead, he ran through the entire list of points brought up by the “bozos.” He did not have much in the way of new things to tell
her. The only piece of information previously unknown by either the professor or Bridget had been the existence of Hamid Bakur, as well as his ties to the variety of terrorist organizations the FBI agent had listed. Knight also told Bridget of the quandary over why Ungari would travel all the way to the United States when there seemed to be no need for him to do so.

“Did you come up with any ideas on that one?”

“No,” answered the professor honestly, his tone somewhat depressed. “And I must admit the whole thing has me fairly stumped. We went around in circles on that one for almost two hours, and in the end all our great minds found they had generated no worthwhile ideas whatsoever.”

“So they gave up on it,” asked Bridget hopefully. Shaking his head, Knight told her;

“Not hardly. Apparently one or the other of our bozos was able to get a bead on Ungari. He should be arriving at JFK sometime in the morning.”

“Are they going to arrest him?”

“That was my first thought as well, but it seems they’re going to meet his plane, and then have him shadowed to see what he does. If I heard it all correctly, they plan to slip some kind of device into his cell phone when he comes through customs so they can listen in on his calls.”

“Hmmph, our fascist government at work.”

“Oh?” Knight opened both his eyes wider than normal, taking on a slightly comical doe-eyed-innocent look. When his assistant snorted in response, immediately questioning his patently phony visage, the professor told her, “Well, my dear, I’m just hoping you don’t disapprove of our government’s tactics in this case.”

“And exactly why not, good sir?”

“Because it’s pretty much what I did to them.”

Less than half an hour later, Bridget and Professor Knight found themselves at another of his favorite restaurants. This time it was New Corner of Brooklyn, an out-of-the-way Italian place nestled in the shadow of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, one specializing in a quiet atmosphere and family-style dining. And although the menu featured a cuisine almost diametrically opposed to the one the night before, their meal was not all that different an affair from the one they had shared the previous evening. The chefs were just as talented, the waiters equally experienced. The decor proved to Bridget to be charmingly inviting, and their wait for both a table and service was so brief as to be practically unnoticed.

New Corner was an extremely low-key restaurant, one often used by many of its clientele as a decompression chamber. The place was nicely isolated in an extremely quiet residential neighborhood on the borderlands of Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst. The surroundings seemed to soak
up much of the daily chaos of the city, relieving its patrons of their stress. Thus, the fact that the pair in the corner booth were not enjoying themselves as they had the evening previous was in no way the fault of the establishment.

Rather, too much had changed in both their lives in an extremely brief span of time for even the Corner to heal their wounded spirits in the span of a single meal. Delightful to the palate as their meals turned out to be, neither was in a mood to celebrate, to ask revealing questions or chatter about much of anything. They were worn-out—too tired to eat and too upset to talk about it. Finally, however, in an attempt to play the grown-up in their relationship, Knight asked, “How’s your scampi?”