The Angel of Eden (16 page)

At breakfast the next morning the innkeeper shook her head and gave me directions to Strauss's place—another convoluted route but one that, for the most part, kept me away from the canal. The
rain had finally stopped, although it was still cloudy and even colder. Pleasant enough territory at the right time of year, it now felt like a freezing, watery hell.

Strauss lived on an isolated stretch of land. I had to take such a roundabout route that I found myself retracing territory I'd come in on. Bennet had told me Strauss had fashioned his home by converting a once bustling mill where grain was processed and packaged, then sent down the canal to New York. The outbuildings and silos where farmers stored their grain were long gone but the original red-brick mill remained. The canal banks up and down the state were littered with these reminders of past prosperity, many of them now sad derelicts, rust-belt victims of jobs sent offshore.

In summers when he was home, Samuel would often take me to the Great Lakes—Erie and Ontario. I remember being fascinated by the canal, where we'd often stop for a picnic lunch before driving on again. In those days it seemed a semi-tropical paradise. I'd chase the monarchs and viceroys that fluttered among the wildflowers, lie on my stomach to scoop up water spiders spinning on the canal surface, watch for leopard frogs or the white bodies of slow-moving carp weaving through the water. And yet, in my child's mind, the canal always gave me an eerie feeling. There was something about the still, flat water; when the sun was at its strongest it took on a poisonous green hue. For some time I'd even thought that's why it was called the Eerie Canal until Samuel laughed and corrected me.

The last stretch having taken me through a small forest of spruce and cedar dappled with white birch, I arrived at Strauss's place around ten. High chain-link fencing encircled the densely wooded property. I could see no sign of a house. Nor was there another car in the little gravel parking area. I walked up to the gate. The buzzer had a street number and a single name—strauss. When I pressed it I got no response. After punching it a second
time, the gate slid open and nearly caught me as I went through. A narrow asphalt path littered with fallen leaves and spruce needles led straight forward. Mist hung in the air and moisture, almost like a fine rain, dripped off the trees. My shoes hadn't entirely dried overnight and I shivered from the cold, pulling my now very wrinkled overcoat closer around me. Low-hanging cedar branches rustled ahead. As I looked toward the sound, I thought I detected movement and stopped in my tracks.

Another twist of the branches startled me. And then out from the trees came a flash of brown and white. A fawn. It couldn't have been more than a week old; it was still unsteady on its feet. It stared at me with its huge chocolate-brown eyes, flicked its big ears, and dashed off again into the cover of the wood. I gave an inward sigh and relaxed, continuing up the walk until I heard another noise close by. A huffing sound, one I wasn't familiar with. Something large crashed its way through the bush. The branches parted ahead. A black shape emerged, a blond snout, claws, small ears flat to its skull and beady eyes. The bear turned toward me and reared on its hind legs.

I practically swallowed my heart and ran, despite knowing I could never outpace a bear. The gate was locked. I reached the fence, the chain link still so wet that I couldn't gain purchase. I chanced a look behind: no sign of the bear. I calmed down a little.

And then it came to me: fawns were born in spring, not in the depths of winter. I marched back to the spot where it had appeared. The little brown-and-white spotted body danced in front of me again before it vanished. A few yards on, the black bear stood on its hind legs once more. I walked toward it and pushed my hand into its fur, feeling only a spruce branch and thin air. Strauss must be employing the most recent special effects technology. Coupled with my natural fear, the trick worked well.

Another fifteen minutes down the path and the trees gave way. A weak sun peeked out from the cloud cover. A flat-roofed structure came into view; it looked like all the other abandoned factory buildings along the canal. It was three stories high with potted and worn brickwork. There was no door. All the windows on the first floor had been boarded up on the inside. Water, several inches deep, lay on the ground surrounding the building. The canal glimmered behind it. I gritted my teeth and slopped through the water, soaking my shoes all over again. The front facing the canal had no proper entrance either, just a wide opening about the size of a double garage door. A low concrete ramp, green with slime, extended from the opening to the canal, only ten yards away. I hoisted myself onto the ramp and went inside.

A couple of inches of water covered the floor. It smelled musty inside, almost putrid. The room's contours were barely visible. Old oil drums had been stacked along one wall, the fuel they once held presumably running the machinery. I yelled for Strauss, my voice echoing in the cavernous space. Close to the back wall something rectangular stood on a kind of platform; as I approached, I could see it was a square frame draped by fringed velvet curtains with the name
STRAUSS
embroidered in gold. An old prop from his glory days? My better sense told me not to look behind them, but I'd come this far and had no intention of leaving now. I reminded myself again that Strauss had no motive to do me harm. I pulled open the curtains and staggered back in horror.

Twenty-Three

February 20, 2005
Erie Canal

A
huge vertical block of ice glimmered blue-white as if it were lit internally. Strauss was frozen inside, his intense blue eyes open, his wrinkled hands held up defensively in front of his chest as though protecting himself from an attack, his old man's skin, frozen pink. After a moment of shock I questioned what I was seeing. Another visual trick? It had to be. I ran my hand down the surface, expecting to find air, but instead I felt a rigid, cold surface. My fingers burned. I couldn't pull my hand away. It was glued to the ice, like a kid whose tongue had stuck to a freezing iron railing.

“Best to look and not touch, Mr. Madison. Although I must admit, it
is
tempting.”

I wrenched myself around to see Strauss descending a staircase that seemed to be coming from a dark hole high up in one corner of the room. He carried some kind of implement.

“Get my hand off this fucking thing.”

“Why of course,” he said. “Child's play.”

I shrank back when he climbed onto the platform and raised the implement. But when he flicked a button on its handle I could feel heat radiating from it. “My magic wand,” he joked. “Ease your hand away; otherwise your skin will tear.”

The ice melted rapidly around my palm. I pulled my hand free and shook it. “You bastard,” I said.

“I'm sorry you weren't amused. This”—he waved his hand toward the ice block—“is pure entertainment. A well-known magician actually did encase himself in ice and almost died because of it. I lack that degree of commitment.”

I glanced around the room. “Why the hell are you living in this decrepit cave?”

“I prefer my own company. I find it discourages visitors.”

That was the understatement of the year.

Strauss put a hand on my shoulder. “Come, let me offer you more hospitable surroundings.”

I followed him up the stairs, apprehensive but determined not to show it, and saw that the dark hole was actually a black door. It opened onto a luxurious, open-concept space with a grand-looking kitchen separated from the main area by a bar. A partitioned-off corridor, I figured, led to the bedrooms. An attendant was busy at the bar.

Crackling logs in a fireplace with a brass and black granite mantel pumped out welcome heat. Plush carpets covered a floor of wide blond planks. The original factory floor, I guessed, refurbished. Large framed posters—advertisements for Strauss's old magic acts—hung on the walls. The weak light on the canal cast rippling greenish reflections on the ceiling and pale cream walls. The effect was both beautiful and calming.

Strauss slipped out of his boots and I did the same. He looked at my soaking shoes. “I imagine your feet are pretty cold.”

“You've got that right.” I was still infuriated by his charade downstairs.

He took my overcoat, hung it in a closet, and reached for a pair of slippers.

“Sit there.” He indicated an old-fashioned armchair, one of two placed near the fireplace. “Harrison will bring us some coffee.”

As if on cue, Harrison began pouring our coffee from a carafe into steaming china mugs. He brought them over to us. “That's fine now, Harrison,” Strauss said. The man nodded and went through to the room beyond, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

I waited until Strauss took a sip before I tasted mine. “You don't warn your guests about the perils of getting in here?”

“Now that wouldn't be any fun, would it?” He cocked his head and fixed his blue gaze on me, a flash of hostility quickly replaced with something more benign. That look echoed his attitude toward me at Gina's séance. As though he had some personal gripe with me and hated me because of it. It made no sense.

“I gather you found my sculpture convincing?” He had a way of chuckling with all the mirth stripped out of it. “Done by a talented young artist, Jude Luscombe. He got his start in movie special effects and makeup. Taking representative art to the extreme, you could say. Like the anatomist Gunther von Hagens's pieces, only without the gory internal details. Jude uses real human skin. Preserves it somehow.”

My stomach turned.

“From cadavers of course. All legit. A good likeness, don't you think?”

“Yes. Especially encased in a block of ice with next to no visibility in the room.” I took another swallow of coffee and welcomed the heat in my throat. Strauss had taken advantage of me twice. It was time to turn the tables and give him a run for it. “I've decided
to decline your commission.” I fixed my own gaze on him and saw his face grow pale. I liked putting him on the defensive for a change.

“May I ask why?”

“For one thing, being involved in your scheme is turning out to be hellishly dangerous. Tricia Ross was murdered two days ago and a guy tried to run me off the road yesterday. When that failed, he took a shot at me.”

“Someone shot at you? Heavens, why?”

“I think he wants Helmstetter's artifacts. I presume Tricia told you about a man named Yersan?”

He gave me a measured look. “Yes. Very sad about Miss Ross. I understand the police believe it to be a robbery gone wrong.”

“A
robbery
?”

“Her collection of Iraqi artifacts is missing. A small collection, but it included some valuable items.”

“Surely she didn't keep them in her house.”

“In her safe, in the bedroom upstairs. They must have pried the codes out of her before they killed her. Poor woman.”

“I'd like to get back to the reason for my visit. Thanks for the opportunity and the generous payment, but I must decline. Even if Helmstetter is still alive somewhere, no one will ever find him if he doesn't want to be found. By all accounts, including yours, he's a talented illusionist. If he'd wanted to vanish, he'd be capable of disappearing forever.”

Strauss couldn't keep the spark of excitement from his eyes. “You're right. He was as ingenious as his forebear, Faust. I've told you about the original Faust—and knowledge of him is relevant to understanding Helmstetter's character.” Strauss noticed my impatience. “Bear with me for a moment. As I said before, many believe Goethe modeled Faust on George Sibelius, who later changed
his name to Georgios Faustus Helmstetter. Heidelberg University records indicate that a man by that name was enrolled there for five years, beginning in 1483. Some believed Faustus to be a skilled fortune teller. But Trithemius, the author of my missing
Steganographia,
who was a contemporary and knew Faustus, loathed the man.”

Strauss reached for a book on the low table beside him, licked his thumb, and combed through the pages. Despite his age, he didn't need glasses. “Ah. Here it is. The letter where Trithemius expresses this opinion of Helmstetter.

“That man, about whom you wrote me … who dared to call himself the foremost of necromancers, is an unstable character, a babbler and a vagabond … continually asserting things in public that are abominable and contrary to the teachings of the Holy Church.”

Strauss looked up. “Rather churlish of the abbot, considering that he too dabbled in alchemy.” He snapped the book shut and laid it down. “Faust was last seen in Amsterdam when a group of Anabaptists took over the city and carried out a rampage of sexual orgies and killing. He disappeared in the melee. If he died there his body was never identified.”

I waited. I wasn't going to make this easier on Strauss.

“Helmstetter, like his fifteenth-century forebear, was a fortune teller who sought to know more than the future. He wanted forbidden knowledge, and I don't doubt that he'd make an unholy bargain for it. He's alive, somewhere. I know it. And I believe you have the skills to find him.”