Bestiary (10 page)
Authors: Robert Masello
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers
“I’m still not following.”
“Mr. al-Kalli is the owner of the book! The man who is asking us to study and restore it.”
“Oh,” Beth said, at last making the connection. But the cover letter from Mrs. Cabot had never named the owner of
The Beasts of Eden
, and she wondered now if she should bring that up in her own defense.
The Beasts of Eden
, and she wondered now if she should bring that up in her own defense.
When Carter did. “Oh yes, honey, don’t you remember that you told me there was an exciting new project for you, but that the owner of the work had chosen to remain anonymous?” He turned to Mrs. Cabot. “Beth was very pleased”—he knew enough not to divulge to Mrs. Cabot that his wife might have shared any details with him—“but I thought she was purposely concealing the owner. Now I guess she wasn’t.”
Mrs. Cabot was momentarily stymied. “Oh yes, that’s right,” she conceded, “he
had
asked to remain anonymous.” Then, quickly picking up the cudgels again, “But I’ve just been told that he has decided to come here, quite unexpectedly, tonight. He expressly wants to meet you, Beth, as you will be the person in charge of the project.”
had
asked to remain anonymous.” Then, quickly picking up the cudgels again, “But I’ve just been told that he has decided to come here, quite unexpectedly, tonight. He expressly wants to meet you, Beth, as you will be the person in charge of the project.”
Beth wished that she’d been given more notice—it might have been nice to prepare some thoughts and a few remarks about how she planned to proceed—but she was pleased, too. The few photos she’d been given of the mythical creatures depicted in the manuscript had been striking, beautiful, and even, in a way, haunting. The fact that the book was of Middle Eastern origin—the information so far provided to her had been fairly sketchy—made it all the more intriguing. Not many manuscripts from that region had survived so well, and for so long.
“In fact,” Mrs. Cabot said, glancing up at the top of the stairs leading to the garden, “that’s Mr. al-Kalli now.”
Beth and Carter followed her gaze. A bald man, somewhere in his fifties perhaps, wearing an impeccably cut black suit, was standing with military rectitude on the top step, surveying the party as a general might survey a battlefield. He was flanked on one side by a surly teenage boy—Carter could see his scowl even from here—and on the other by a stocky man, clearly a bodyguard, who hung one deferential step back.
Mrs. Cabot raised a hand to signal their whereabouts, and the guard, spotting her, leaned toward his employer.
As Mr. al-Kalli approached, he took off his sunglasses and slipped them into the inside pocket of his suit coat; the waning sunlight glinted off his eyes, reminding Carter of the glittering obsidian on the beaches of Hawaii. His skin was a burnished gold, and the perfect dome of his head looked as if it had been buffed to a high sheen with a chamois cloth.
He introduced himself and his son, Mehdi—who shrugged and looked away—but said nothing of the guard, who now stood several feet back, his head turning slowly from side to side, taking in everything and everyone, in close proximity to his boss. Mrs. Cabot seemed flustered—odd, Carter thought, for someone whose job brought her into such close contact with the high and mighty all the time—but Beth remained poised and collected. One of the countless things Carter admired about her.
“I know quite a lot about you, Ms. Elizabeth Cox,” Mr. al-Kalli said with a slight smile.
“You do?”
“Oh yes,” he said. His voice was very smooth, and he spoke with an upper-crust English accent. “And all of it, I may say, is good.”
Beth put the back of her hand to her brow, as if in relief.
“It’s why I came tonight. I wanted to meet the woman who is going to take charge, as it were, of my family’s most precious possession.”
“From what I’ve seen of it,” Beth said, “it’s a beautiful piece of work.”
“Oh, it’s more than that,” al-Kalli said. “It’s the legacy of my family, it’s the source, some would say, of our . . . enduring.”
Beth didn’t know quite what to make of this, but she said, “We’ll take every precaution to make sure no harm comes to it.”
“I know you will,” he said. “I have had a thorough study of your career done—you graduated with highest honors from Barnard College, you did exceptional work in London, you have dealt, scrupulously, with some of the finest Old Master works in the world—”
He
had
done his homework, Beth thought, though his recitation was starting to give her the chills.
had
done his homework, Beth thought, though his recitation was starting to give her the chills.
“—and your previous monographs on medieval manuscripts have been both accessible and intelligent.” He glanced over at Carter, “And I don’t need to tell you how inaccessible, to the layman, many of these scholarly works tend to be.”
Now Carter found himself in the spotlight—and he didn’t know why.
“You, too, I know something about.” He listed several of Carter’s accomplishments—from the discovery of the Well of the Bones to his appointment to the Kingsley Chair at NYU, and on to his recent post at the Page Museum—before adding, “I do my homework, you see.”
His lips curled in a tiny, self-satisfied smile, as if he’d just performed a popular parlor trick. Carter sensed that he liked to do this, to gain the upper hand.
“You forgot to mention the fact that I won the American Legion Good Citizenship medal in my senior year of high school.”
“At Evanston Township High School,” al-Kalli replied. “You were also the valedictorian,” he added, and now Carter really was nonplussed. “But may I borrow Beth for a few moments?” he continued. “There are just a few things I want to go over with her.” To his son, he said, “Have something to eat, and Jakob”—to the guard—“make sure he does not drink anything but soda.”
Beth felt herself taken by the elbow and steered toward the less-tenanted portion of the garden. The Getty Center was built high atop a hill on the west side of Los Angeles, and from here it commanded a panoramic view of the city below. Sometimes, when Beth had been closeted all day in the galleries or the conservation lab, she would come out here just to breathe the air and look out into the far distance; she felt like she was exercising her eyes, giving them a chance, after hours of intensive work, to range freely over a great distance, all the way to the soothing blue of the Pacific Ocean beyond. Tonight, with the sun going down, the view was especially magnificent.
But her focus right now had to remain on al-Kalli, who was busy telling her what methods he wanted employed to restore the manuscript, what methods he definitely did not, and what information he hoped to glean from her study of the manuscript. She also had the distinct impression that he just wanted to spend a bit more time in her company, making sure of his decision, getting a feel for her. Everything he was telling her could just as easily have been written in a cover letter or introductory document—indeed, she was sure it had—but al-Kalli seemed to want something more than that. He was like a climber who wanted to make sure of his partner before a difficult ascent. Can I rely on you? Are you trustworthy? Although she knew he wasn’t actually putting his life in her hands, she sensed that he wanted her to feel that way.
When he had finished, Beth said in her most reassuring tones, “It’s an extraordinary manuscript, and there’s no better place than the Getty to have this work done.” She felt like a summer camp director taking responsibility for someone’s child.
He studied her face, as if reading it for any further clues. And then, apparently satisfied, he put his sunglasses back on and clasped his hands behind his back. Turning his gaze to the fading gold of the horizon, he said, “I will have it delivered to you.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE CAR, A Mercedes-Benz limousine, looked like any other of its kind—long and black, gleaming and powerful. But this one had a secret: It was built to withstand almost any attack. Its entire chassis—posts, columns, door frames, roof—had been buttressed with high-hardened steel, reinforced fiberglass, and ballistic nylon; under the burgundy-carpeted floor lay a bomb-suppressor blanket. The tires were equipped with “run flat inserts”; the front and rear compartments housed satellite global phones, klaxons, and loudspeakers (to call for help, or to negotiate with terrorists if necessary); the windows had been transparently armored with a layer of dense ballistic glass, laminated to a sturdy inner spall shield of resilient polycarbonate. Overall, the car maintained a B-7 armor level, enough to survive even a concerted assault.
Mohammed al-Kalli always wanted only the best—especially after what had happened to his family in Iraq.
Even Saddam Hussein had thought twice about taking on the al-Kalli dynasty. Not only because of their inestimable wealth and influence, but also for a reason less rational, less plain. Saddam, like all Iraqis, had grown up hearing the stories, listening to the legends of the al-Kallis’ strange powers and even stranger possessions. As a youngster, he had listened no doubt to the warnings about what happened to bad children (the al-Kallis got them!), and to the tales of what befell anyone who crossed the family in any way. There were rumors of dungeons and torture chambers, of terrible rituals, deadly sacrifice, and, finally . . . of creatures beyond imagining.
For years, Saddam had bided his time, and he had even done a bit of business with the al-Kallis now and then. But eventually his avarice and his ego had gotten the better of him. Whether it was at Saddam’s express order or not, al-Kalli never knew. It could have been a lower-level functionary who sought to curry favor by perpetrating what his leader had only wished. But either way, a plan was put into action. A celebration was to be held at one of Saddam’s many palaces, and the al-Kallis were all invited. Mohammed had no desire to go, nor did his wife, his brothers, his children, but the invitation was more of an order than a request. So, in the interest of keeping the peace and observing the political realities, Mohammed had acceded.
The celebration was in honor of some trumped-up event in the grand and mythical history of Saddam’s family—as Mohammed recalled it, Saddam had traced his lineage back to Nebuchadnezzar, or maybe it was the Prophet himself—and the al-Kallis had dutifully come from their own various palaces and compounds. The event was expectedly lavish, sprawling over a dozen acres, with more than a thousand guests. There was a Western orchestra playing Beethoven and Wagner under one immense, air-conditioned tent, while in another Middle Eastern music, and a bevy of belly dancers (reputedly handpicked by Saddam’s son Uday) held sway.
At first, all went well. Mohammed, who’d been suffering from a stomach flu, had simply sipped club sodas, while his family, assembled on a special dais reserved for honored guests, had dined. But even then, something had struck Mohammed—the waiters who were serving at their table were not very efficient. They did not seem used to this kind of work; in fact, they looked more like soldiers. But then, he thought, perhaps all of Saddam’s staff looked like this.
It was only when his wife began to look pale, and dropped her soup spoon on the table, that Mohammed began to grasp what was happening. His younger brother had also stopped eating. His daughter suddenly gasped and groped for her water glass. The waiters stood, with napkins badly folded over their arms, around the rim of the tent. Mohammed stood up, took his son, Mehdi, who was sitting next to him, by the hand; fortunately, Mehdi never ate soup. One of the waiters stepped into his path, but when Mohammed said, “My son must use the bathroom,” the man stood aside. Mohammed saw him flash a look at one of his superiors, undoubtedly wondering what to do, but Mohammed was able to walk slowly, as if he had not a care in the world, out of the tent.
Once outside, he lifted his son, then just a child, into his arms and raced for the limousine that had brought them. The driver was smoking a cigarette and lounging in the shade, but when he saw them, he instinctively knew what to do. He leapt into the car, started the engine, and drove right over a potted palm to get onto the driveway again with the car pointed toward the main gates. Several people had to jump out of the way. The car jolted to a stop and al-Kalli and his son threw themselves into the backseat. They slammed the door, and the car hurtled off in a cloud of dust.
But by the time they had reached the main gates, the sentries had been notified, and as guests screamed and ducked for cover, the soldiers opened fire on the racing car. Mohammed ducked down, covering his son’s head with his hands, as the windows exploded; slivers of glass shot through the car. Bullets thudded, with the sound of hammer blows, into the doors. The driver swerved, keeping his head down, and the car drove straight into one of the sentries, who was thrown over the hood, his automatic weapon still firing in the air.
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