Pockets of Darkness (5 page)

Odd, scattered, chaotic thoughts bordering on the edge of madness. Albrecht had been a conflicted man. The longer Bridget focused on the items, the more she absorbed, and the more her own thoughts became muddled. She picked through the disorder. Albrecht was named Duke of Prussia by the king of Poland, to whom he paid feudal homage. Fluent in Polish, he had tried—and failed—to gain acceptance to the Polish senate. A protestant, he enjoyed the backing of some influential Polish Lutherans, and so believed he could ascend to the Polish throne. But that did not happen. In 1572, four years into his reign as duke, his thoughts became even more ambivalent, and those around him questioned his sanity. Albrecht died more than forty years later, crying out the name of his lost daughter.

“Eleanor.” A tear slid down Bridget’s cheek. She shook off the connection and went to the last table, a mix of more Russian and Prussian antiquities ranging in value from several hundred dollars each to several thousand, and …

A sudden sensation of giddiness threatened to drop her when her mind touched something valuable and out of place with the rest of the assortment. It was something very, very old.

***

Seven

Bridget fought off the lightheadedness and inched toward the very old thing, something carved from wood and sitting in the shadow cast by a black box inlaid with bronze. She pulled in a breath, feeling her lungs grow warm and her face absorb the heat that once beat down upon the carving.

“Wonderful,” she breathed.

It was a wooden shabti statuette, roughly seven inches tall, and Bridget was careful not to actually touch it with her bare hands. She didn’t want the oil from her skin to cause any damage, nor did she want to be overwhelmed by the images such intimate contact with something so old could give. That contact would wait for later, back in her brownstone, when she could savor it in privacy. She’d absorb just a smidgen of it now, a junkie taking a hit to tide her over until she could administer a proper fix. She moved her fingers to within an inch of it.

Talk to me
, Bridget thought.
Where did you come from?

She picked through a rush of images. This shabti had been placed in the tomb of Yuya, father of Tiye, who wed Neb-Maat-Re Amenhotep III.

A little more.

Centuries raced through her thoughts at a dizzying pace and she tried to grab the most important elements without being deluged. Buried in the Valley of the Kings, Yuya’s single-chambered tomb was found in 1905 and dated to the Eighteenth Dynasty. Yuya and his wife held political influence during Amenhotep III’s reign, and before that in the reign of Tuthmosis IV.

Titles tumbled from Bridget’s mouth: “Lord of Akhmim, Priest of Min, Master of the Horse, His Majesty’s Lieutenant Commander of Chariotry.” All those things Yuya had been called. The tomb, like so many others, had been plundered. But not everything had been taken. Shabtis, including this one, carved statuettes that were meant to animate in the afterlife as servants, had been left behind to be discovered by archaeologists and placed in museums.

This piece had been in a museum.

Bridget gulped in the dusty air of the warehouse and the pleasant scent of Dustin. His hands were on her shoulders, steadying her. Dustin was talking to her, but she paid no attention, she was lost in the images emanating from the shabti. Drunk on it, she couldn’t release the connection. Couldn’t? Wouldn’t. Didn’t want to. Wanted to take the precious shabti back to her brownstone and shut everything and everyone else out and delve deeper into ancient Egypt.

“Bridget!” Dustin raised his voice and broke through. “Are you all right?”

“Mom?”

Bridget tried to wave them off, but her arms felt like lead. So old, this magnificent piece, so filled with history and memory and pictures.

Bridget pressed for more. This shabti, made of cedar, had changed ownership several times, ending up at the Malawi National Museum in Minya, Egypt, and put on exhibit. She saw it in a display case, as clear as if she’d been in the museum.

“A little more,” she whispered, curious how it ended up in her warehouse in New York City. She heard chaos in her probing, a crowd, shouts, sirens, and whistles. It was August of 2013, and a riot was in progress outside the Minya museum. She watched armed thieves scurry in, break the case and steal the shabti, along with many other items. A jumble of news bits hit her like pellets from a scattergun. Looters had ravaged ancient sites and museums in that turbulent summer that year, stealing what they could carry away while demonstrators set fire to things all in a clash between Egyptian security forces and the supporters of the ousted president Mohamed Morsi. Bridget remembered the reports; hundreds died and thousands were injured.

In the bloody conflagration, this ancient piece within her grasp had gone missing. Bridget clearly saw the face of the men who had taken it—and the museum’s other treasures—registered their names and tried to remember every detail about them, every scar and feature, heard the protestors in the background, felt the calloused and careless hands of the thieves on the wood, then felt it pass from one hand to the next to the next until it rested in one darkness followed by another and another.

The hold of the ship that brought it here? Yes, but more.

Its recent black surroundings did not have the feel of a ship.

The blat of a horn flittered at the edge of her thoughts. A ship’s horn. Then a different sound, persistent. Honking. A jarring sensation. Foreign cursing.

The lurching of a damnable New York City taxi!

The darkness that had most recently cocooned this shabti had been the trunk of a cab.

“Mom?”

Bridget’s throat had gone desert dry. She swallowed and worked up some saliva and broke the connection with the shabti. She was slammed by the sensation of awakening from a three-day bender. “This piece, this little statue … it came with the shipment from Genoa today?”

“No, boss. Not that piece. One of Marsh’s buddies lifted it from some rich dude’s apartment on Eighty-Fifth. Marsh told him maybe you’d want that little statue for your antique shop, told him you like the old stuff. Ugly as hell, ain’t it? Marsh was supposed to be here tonight, but I heard he had to go to the hospital and—”

“Marsh isn’t feeling well,” Bridget said, making a mental note to call and check on him later, pay the hospital bill and hope the concussion wasn’t serious. “Marsh’s friend. The one who brought this. What is his name?”

“Harold. No, Harry. That’s it, Harry.” He scratched his head. “Didn’t get a last name for certain, though I remember it was a color. Black, brown, gray. Should’ve paid more attention. Sorry. He was a scruffy fellow. Dropped it off an hour ago. I gave him two hundred for it. I wasn’t going to give him that much, but he kept dickering. Just an ugly piece of wood, but he wouldn’t take less. Said there was more Egyptian—”

“Find this Harry Black, Brown, or Gray for me. Now. I want the address of the apartment.”

Perhaps some of the other items stolen from the museum in Minya were also in the Eighty-Fifth apartment that Harry had plundered. Perhaps there were more ancient treasures to be had.

She loved very old things.

***

Eight

Bridget selected the darkest spot in the alley and scaled the wall. She used titanium hand claws, similar to Shiobi Spikes or what lumberjacks favored, but sharp enough to bite into the mortar between the bricks and give her purchase. The building was one of several prewar apartment complexes in the area. Its front had been given a serious and elegant facelift. The side in this alley had been left to deteriorate.

She knew other ways into this building, but tonight she craved the physical activity and the heady danger of the climb. Her skin itched with the anticipation of what she might find—another shabti, a piece of jewelry, a bowl, or maybe a death mask … anything that might have been taken from the Malawi National Museum or Yuya’s tomb, something valuable because of its age and significance, but more because of the images she would read from it.

Dear God, let it be another shabti. Let Egypt’s misfortune from all those riots be my gain.

Bridget’s target was on the tenth. There were only two apartments to a floor, and Bridget knew she had the correct side. The Internet was a marvelous thing, and a quick search on it had yielded various blueprints, notes about security, floor plans, a listing of tenants, and even pictures of the views from many of the windows. The Internet had also provided a little bit about the apartment occupant: Elijah Stone, forty-six, independent investment consultant. Born in Connecticut, Stone previously worked as a stock broker, operations manager for a NYC securities firm, and served as public relations director for a Manhattan medical device research corporation.

The sounds of the city came muted to her as she climbed, deadened by the cocoon of stone and the hour. Always there was traffic, but not a lot on the street at the moment. From her perch she spotted a
New York Times
van pass by, followed by a Greyhound bus. The scent of the belched exhaust was cut here, and the air did not smell too tainted. She breathed deep.

Scaling ten floors was not a terribly daunting task; even with her bruised ribs she could do this in her sleep. Bridget kept herself in shape by an unorthodox exercise routine that included regular hikes to the eighty-sixth floor observation deck of the Empire State Building. She even competed in the annual Run-Up, and held back just enough so she wasn’t one of the fastest times; she didn’t want her picture in the paper. One thousand five hundred and seventy-six steps, the lower third taken two at a time. Occasionally she would also jog up to the observation deck on the one hundred and second floor at the very top, but that stairwell wasn’t always open, and she wasn’t about to pick the lock in such a public place for the two hundred and eighty-four additional steps.

Ten floors by scaling the wall tonight? It was not so onerous, and yet it held a shade of risk to keep it interesting.

Her muscles bunched as she pulled herself up. She used her arms, letting her legs hang free. Bridget relished the burn she started to feel. She seldom burglarized apartments anymore; she’d done that often enough in her youth. Now, more the businesswoman, she made arrangements for illicit shipments and orchestrated elaborate heists wherein she rarely got her fingers dirty. But she retreated to her old ways every once in a while, like now, when the promise of something special was too irresistible to leave to one of her men.

A little more than a year ago she’d been lured into an apartment at 740 Park Avenue when she’d heard one of the tenants had purchased an intact Babylonian vase, a serious prize that was now in a place of honor in her study. The city’s wealthiest lived at 740—once the Vanderbilts, Chryslers, Rockefellers, and now the people of new money: Schwarzman, Wang, Perelman, Koch, and Bronfman. This building on Eighty-Fifth wasn’t in 740’s class, and did not have as elaborate security, but it was out of the reach of the average New Yorker nonetheless. Apartments here started at $12,000 a month. The man she was going to rob had some money.

The burn in her biceps increased as she passed the fourth floor and headed toward the fifth. The ache in her side intensified. She’d glanced at her plate-sized bruise before heading out. It was a mix of purple and yellow, a sidewalk chalk painting that had been caught in the rain. Dustin had tried to get her to see the doctor, but she’d been injured worse before.

Past the sixth and toward the seventh.

Bridget had waited until Tavio came to pick up Otter before coming here. Tavio’d been handsomely dressed and smelling of too-sweet cologne, not a hair out of place, and offering a quick comment about rushing over after an “engaging dinner date.” It was a jab, a “see what you’re missing” poke meant to fester. He always came well groomed to pick up their son. It used to hurt and leave Bridget in a sullen funk for a few hours. But she’d gotten past it some time ago. Tavio probably knew his appearance and gentle digs didn’t get to her anymore, but continued them anyway out of habit or lingering spite. Tonight, Dustin had answered the door and snaked his arms around Bridget’s waist.

Bridget noted that Tavio’s eyes flickered with a hint of indignation aimed at the young man. It hadn’t helped that Otter had volunteered what a wonderful cook Dustin was and announced he was bringing home leftovers of the “best-ever birthday cake on the planet.”

Bridget had waited another two hours, losing herself in Dustin’s considerable charms, then left him to sleep, dressed in charcoal clothes, and took the subway.

Now to the eighth floor.

The climb tugged at her sore muscles, the burn spreading around her back and into her arms and becoming uncomfortable. Bridget continued to let her arms do all of the work, pausing when she heard a horn honking down on the street and making sure no one was coming into this alley. Sound carried even this high up in the gap between buildings, and she didn’t want to be caught doing her Spiderman impersonation.

At the ninth floor she felt snowflakes dust her face.

One more, she told herself. One more floor.

One floor later, she pulled herself up on a three-inch-wide concrete ledge and to a narrow window that she knew from the Internet floor plans opened above the kitchen sink. Rich, paranoid New Yorkers often had alarms on their balcony doors, but practically no one this high up rigged their windows.

Bridget discovered that Elijah Stone, the lone tenant of this apartment, was no exception. The window she chose was safe, not even locked.

It was dark inside. At 1 a.m. on a Monday morning, Bridget had not expected the occupant to be awake. A quick and quiet search revealed a man sleeping alone in a king-sized bed, conveniently wearing a full-face CPAP mask. The sound reminded her of Darth Vader or a white noise machine, a constant airy whoosh. As the man exhaled, the volume rose slightly and made a harsher hiss. Middle-aged, a little heavy, hair thinning; Bridget thought the man looked sad and worn.

The apartment smelled of vanilla and apples and was large. Bridget knew from the floor plan it was two thousand square feet. Three bedrooms, three fireplaces, everything done in light, creamy colors that shouted money and refinement and seemed not to be the residence of someone who spent a lot of time here. There was no clutter, the knickknacks relatively few and tastefully arranged. Everything modern, she realized; nothing at first glance appearing obviously old—
very old
—like the shabti Marsh’s friend had picked up here. But then no doubt such a treasure would be hidden.

She tugged off her gloves and moved silently throughout the rooms, kept her breathing shallow and stretching out her fingers, brushing them against cabinet drawers and closet doors, searching for a hint of something ancient. A large silver candlestick on the dining table called up the image of a young woman on her wedding day when Virginia was a colony. If she could not find a true treasure in this apartment, she would take the candlestick for her trouble—the silver alone put its value at $1,700.

All the while she listened to the CPAP, setting its dull and routine rhythm to memory. If Elijah Stone roused, Bridget would know it because the sound of the machine would change, and she would dive for the window. Other sounds whispered in, just a hint of traffic and wind teasing the panes, someone moving around in the apartment upstairs.

There were only a half-dozen books on a narrow floor to ceiling bookshelf in the office, most of the shelves empty or holding odds and ends: a souvenir shot glass of Niagara Falls; a bikini-clad woman with long blond hair and big turquoise eyes smiling out of a silver picture frame; two shiny black coffee cups with the Café Grumpy logo, a commemorative Lucite block with a ghostly image of the Twin Towers etched on it; and another picture frame with a middle-aged man in a business suit—Elijah Stone—standing next to an elderly woman in black slacks and a sequin-dusted red sweater, a Christmas tree in the background. Nothing of value or particular interest. She turned, and then spun back.

The thickest book on the shelf managed to catch her attention. She touched the spine: printed a little more than a century ago, it was volume two of a Masonic history set. A very old man with slicked-back white hair flitted in Bridget’s mind, likely the previous owner. The book was the most interesting thing she’d encountered so far, but not especially valuable, and not worth her time right now as it would no doubt sit in her shop too long to bother with.

There was a single shelf, decorative and attached to the wall over a widescreen television. Two items on it: a blown-glass paperweight with a purple blossom in the center and a baseball. The latter brought the scent of popcorn and dirt when Bridget touched the plastic sphere that held it and probed. The visage of a smooth faced black man came to the front. Bridget saw this very ball coming hard at the man. A crack and the ball sailed across an outfield carpeted with summer-parched grass. The man was fast, wheeling around the bases as the ball was snared and hurled back. “Safe!” Bridget heard an umpire shout. “Twelve seconds that took!” someone on the bench called. “Inside the park home-run for Papa!” a woman in the stands hollered. The umpire handed the man—James Bell was the batter’s name—this ball. Years melted and the man, old now and sitting in a dingy apartment in St. Louis—the famous arch was visible through the window behind him—signed the ball and mailed it to a fan. “Cool Papa Bell,” the signature read. He’d been a legend in the Negro leagues, Bridget registered. The ball wasn’t the relic she’d been searching for, but a treasure nonetheless. Bridget put the ball in her pocket and moved on. She could sell it for nine hundred in her shop when she was finished enjoying all of its summertime memories.

A glance at her watch. She’d been prowling for nearly fifteen minutes. Too much time. She looked to the kitchen window and saw the snow coming down a little harder. The ledge would be slippery. Time to go.

One more pass, she decided. One more. If Marsh’s friend had gotten a shabti here, there had to be something else, right? Something Harry Black or Brown or Gray had missed. She returned to the bedroom, fingers twitching in time with the CPAP. First to the closet, then to the bureau, the nightstand, and then the bed; all of it one more time. One more. Bridget froze. The bed.

Beneath the bed.

She crouched and reached under it, the fringe on the comforter tickling the back of her hand. She had the sensation of being watched, yet a glance confirmed the man was still sleeping. Next, she had the more welcome sensation of desert heat and a dry wind. The shabti hadn’t been the only thing from Egypt in this apartment. Indeed, Marsh’s friend Harry had missed something.

She stretched farther, careful not to move the comforter, holding her breath and stealing herself for … there! A dizzying rush suffused her, images of dark-skinned men with shaved heads and wearing symbols of Ra and Horus. Her fingers closed on the handle of a satchel, and she fought against the ancient glimpses that shot behind her eyes. Bridget forced the pictures down, and slid the case—a battered, oversized briefcase—out from under the bed.

It was heavy, promising something very interesting inside.

The leather looked old and carried the pong of dead fish, but Bridget didn’t care about the smell. What an amazing thing it must hold! A treasure from the time of the pharaohs. She wanted to delve deeper, to look inside this very instant and run her hands over whatever it was, get high on the history of the object and trace its passage through the centuries. She stopped herself from reaching for the clasp.

Time for the discovery later, she thought, back at her brownstone. If she lost herself to the history here, she could well get caught.

The CPAP machine continued its sonorous accompaniment.

Bridget left the room, then the apartment, strapping the heavy briefcase to her back and climbing down the wall into the darkest part of the alley. The snow was coming harder still, mixed with ice pellets, so cold it was like shards of glass striking her face. She squinted through it as she hurried to the nearby subway stop at Eighty-Sixth and Broadway.

“Wait,” she told herself as she settled onto a cold plastic seat. “Wait. Wait. Wait.”

Bridget would force herself to not open the briefcase until safely back at her brownstone in Fort Greene. Then she would see what slice of the past she’d managed to lift from the tenth floor of the building at Eighty-Fifth and West End.

***