The Angel of Eden (10 page)

“We'd like to know more about Strauss too,” I said. “I've only just met him.”

Morrow folded her arms and leaned against a bookcase. “I've never met him myself, but the stories are legion. He came from a New Orleans family who ran a drama troupe; they traveled all over the country. Strauss was pressed into acting at an early age.”

“New Orleans? He has no trace of that accent,” Bennet said.

“No. He was ashamed of his family—they weren't much more than burlesque performers. Strauss was actually quite brilliant; he was accepted into Harvard on scholarship to study psychology, and that's when he managed to drop his accent. Nowadays you'd think he was a Boston Brahmin.” Morrow pointed to the Houdini banner. “But he never lost his dramatic flair. He was a born showman, like Houdini. He chose to become primarily a mentalist, using traditional magic mostly to warm his audience up. His reputation for psychic powers grew to the point where people would shower him with money for private sessions.”

“Strauss claims his assistant betrayed him,” Bennet interjected. “Do you know anything about Helmstetter's apprenticeship?”

“People say Strauss grew jealous of his talent. And ultimately, Helmstetter was the only person to get the better of Lucas Strauss. I can't tell you much more. Why don't you take a seat and I'll bring you what I've found in our archives.”

Once Morrow was out of the room Bennet glanced at me, put a finger to her lips, then hurried over to the register we'd signed and quickly flipped through it. She ran her finger down a page and let out a breath, shut the register, and returned to her seat at the table. She leaned over and whispered, “Interesting!”

“What?”

“Yersan paid a visit here two days ago. Clearly he knows more about Helmstetter than he let on. Pretty suspicious.”

Morrow returned just then with a large folio, a file of letters, and a poster encased in a double sheet of clear plastic. The poster advertised a show at Milwaukee's famous Oriental Theatre. Morrow spread it on the table in front of us. It showed the theater's interior, a baroque banquet of soaring pillars, luxuriant draperies, stained-glass chandeliers, porcelain lions, and elaborate frescoes. It looked
more like a maharaja's palace than a Milwaukee entertainment hall. Pictured center stage was a much younger Lucas Strauss wearing a black bowler and tux, releasing a pack of cards that appeared to float in the air. Morrow pointed to the image of a man standing stage left behind Strauss. “George Helmstetter,” she said.

He had dark, slicked-back hair, a goatee, an aquiline nose, and a trim figure. Like an old-fashioned dandy, I thought. Assuming an exaggerated pose, he held a curved, bejeweled dagger, no doubt to advertise Strauss's next act. It was hard to say why, but as Yersan had remarked, I sensed an aura about Helmstetter, a menacing presence. Perhaps it was the way he carried the dagger, as if he were at ease with it, as if he'd enjoy using it for real.

Bennet sat very still beside me, her eyes transfixed by the image. I suspected she found Helmstetter as troubling a figure as I did.

I looked up at Morrow. “May I take a photo of this?”

We positioned the poster under the strongest light and I snapped a few pictures on my phone, then set it aside and opened the folio. It turned out to contain bound copies of
The Conjurer
magazine.

“There were only eight issues,” Morrow said. “The first was published in 1975.” She flipped through one of them until she got to an article entitled “The Lost Magicians.” It discussed what had become of young illusionists who'd never achieved the success predicted for them. Several paragraphs were devoted to Helmstetter, brimming with phrases like “a soaring talent,” “a singular magician,” “one whom accomplished conjurers heralded.”

“This piece was written by Veronica Sills, an entertainment reporter. She was in love with Helmstetter,” Morrow said.

Bennet's head jerked up. “But he was married.”

I couldn't hold back a laugh. “That isn't much of a barrier.”

Morrow closed the book and patted the file. “Last year, Sills
donated her personal papers associated with Helmstetter to the library. I'll leave you to peruse them. Look for the years 1968 and '69. This was no ardent fan whose feelings got out of control. Some of the letters will leave you in no doubt that he encouraged her romantic notions in every possible way.”

“Last year? Is she still alive?” I asked.

“Far as I know. She lives in Harlem.”

“Do you think she'd agree to meet with us?”

Morrow seemed to have warmed to us. “I'll call her if you like, and see.”

We looked through the letters and notes, the exchanges between Sills and Helmstetter. I was surprised that Veronica Sills had included them; some contained intimate, explicit descriptions of their lovemaking. Hardly fare for public consumption. Had she done this as a kind of payback?

Bennet read alongside me. “What a cheating pig he was,” she muttered. “I wonder how many other women he was stringing along?”

But it was the last letter that stood out explosively, like a lit match cast into an oil slick. A short note in Helmstetter's hand:

Darling Veronica,

The flight to Istanbul was turbulent and unpleasant, made all the worse by the knowledge that you and I will be parted for some time to come. I write to you from my hotel room overlooking Pergamon. Will I meet the angel of the underworld tomorrow when I venture into those ancient caves? For that is what my studies lead me to believe is possible.

It's been a lonely enterprise, the years of work I've poured into esoteric pursuits. Impossible to share with any colleagues who would simply laugh at my endeavors. It is for that reason,
especially, that your loyalty has sustained me.

If I am to be disappointed in my quest tomorrow I will depart Pergamon.

After that it is on to Eden.

I leave the softest kiss on your lips until I see you again, George

Fifteen

W
as the reference to Eden meaningful at all? Could Helmstetter be using it as a form of code to hide his real destination? Or was it an in-joke between the two of them, a mistake to read anything more into it? I took the letter over to Morrow and pointed to the Eden remark. “Do you have any idea what he means here?”

Morrow read the sentence and shook her head. “No. Strange thing to say.”

Perhaps Helmstetter
had
meant it seriously. The Adam and Eve cylinder seal he sent to his wife was, according to myth, set in Eden. Maybe he thought he knew the original garden's location. There are all kinds of odd personalities gullible enough to believe they can find the path to immortality, I reasoned, or that the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, and the Holy Grail actually existed. But the clever, ambitious man Lucas Strauss described sounded too cagey to get caught up in fanciful ideas. And yet he'd claimed a direct
connection with Faust. I hoped his former lover could shed more light on all this.

After another half hour leafing through the files, we found nothing more relating to Helmstetter. Morrow said she'd connected with Veronica Sills, who agreed to talk with me. I gave Morrow my card, thanked her and we left the library. Bennet was uncharacteristically silent on the way to the subway. She trudged along with an angry expression, hands stuck into her pockets, her bag swinging from her shoulder. “What's bothering you?” I asked.

“The man was evil. You can see it on his face—those cruel lips. The poor wife probably suffered horribly when she found out he was in love with another woman.”

“You don't know that. Why are you so sensitive about it?”

She sighed. “I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon at the library putting an outline together and then go to see Strauss this evening and try to persuade him to give me an advance. Then I can get out of your hair.”

I nodded, appreciating her efforts to get back on her own feet. “Where does he live?”

“On the Erie Canal, west of the Adirondack Forest Preserve. He bought an old industrial property there when he retired from show business.”

“That's a long drive, Bennet.”

“I know. Can I stay with you tonight? I won't be back until really late. If I can pry some money out of Strauss, I should be able to find somewhere else in a couple of days.”

Without waiting for a response, she waved goodbye and headed uptown.

On my walk home, questions swirled through my mind. Why had cylinder seals and a Ubaid-era statue ended up in northern Iran, so far away from the archaeological sites in southern Iraq? How had Helmstetter come to possess them? I didn't believe he'd stolen them from Yersan's family. Not in the manner described, anyway. And what did the allusion to Eden in Helmstetter's last letter to Veronica Sills mean? Was it a lovers' code or a real location? How did Trithemius's book of angel magic fit into it all? I needed to talk it all over with someone, and Tricia Ross seemed the logical choice.

When I called, she said I'd be welcome to come by that evening at seven. In her seventies but still energetic, she'd substantially reduced her teaching load and worked now primarily as a graduate adviser; she spent only a few days a month at U of Pennsylvania. She lived on Long Island, an easy drive after rush hour.

Meanwhile, I stopped by Barnes & Noble to see if I could find anything about the search for the Garden of Eden. One title looked promising:
Legend: The Genesis of Civilization
by historian David Rohl. Leafing through it, I could see it contained fascinating observations about the early Mesopotamians.

I arrived back at the apartment to find Loki's bowl upended and water spilled all over the kitchen floor. My makeshift barrier was in pieces; somehow she'd managed to breach it. A suspicious puddle stained the living room carpet and spots of blood were on the hardwood. The vet had stitched up a couple of cuts on her rump; I feared they may have broken open in her struggle to get out of the kitchen. Loki couldn't possibly have escaped the apartment—but where was she? After a frantic ten minutes I found her cowering under my bed. I coaxed her out with some tidbits of meat and held her until she stopped trembling, cursing myself for having left her alone.

Only then did I notice my desk. My laptop was missing. I set Loki down and opened the file drawers. They'd been searched, and
hastily from the look of it. My papers were askew. No effort had been made to straighten them. I made it a practice to keep all my important documents on a flash drive. Ever since my old apartment had been vandalized, I'd stowed my flash drive and passport in a hollowed-out book—a photographic journey of Italy. It sat on one of my lower bookshelves. I pulled it out, thankful to see both were still there. My really precious items—the contents of my childhood treasure chest, along with the rare book I'd rescued featuring precious illustrations by de Ribera—were in the wall safe. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw the safe was intact. As far as I could tell, nothing else had been touched. The thief was after information.

And I had a pretty good idea who it was.

I grabbed my phone and called Bennet. “It's John. Keep an eye out for Yersan. I think he's just broken into my place and lifted my laptop. I'm worried he might try to threaten you.”

I heard her suck in a breath. “He's upping the ante pretty fast then.”

“If it's him—yeah. This is going beyond some scam; I think you may have been right about him. He's got another agenda.”

Next I called down to the security guard. He said the only non-resident allowed upstairs in the last several hours was a florist's delivery man with a bouquet for someone on the third floor. The man had provided ID. I asked him to check whether the flowers had been delivered. A few minutes later he phoned back to say that no one had received flowers.

I considered calling the police and then rejected the thought. They wouldn't bother with a simple break-in and the deductible on my insurance was more than the cost of a new laptop. I imagined Yersan was searching for evidence as to who owned the artifacts.