Book of Nathan (38 page)

I had a few more questions for Doc, but Albert Martone was
cruising the second floor on one of his quality-control inspections. The professor
was missing from his assigned post in the Registry Room. A split second before
Martone barged into the Hearing Room, Doc disappeared.

I saluted the head of catering and retraced my steps to the
Registry Room and table twenty-six. Paula Parsons gave me a smile. Or was that
some kind of I-don’t-like-to-be-left-standing-alone scowl? Impossible to tell.

“Sorry for the interruption,” I said after pulling out
Paula’s chair and seating her at the Sony table. “I’m afraid I’m going to have
to excuse myself again. Should be back soon.”

“You’re leaving again?”

Go to enough black-tie charity dinners, and you learn to
pick up the social nuances. Like who’s talking to whom, especially if it’s a
whispered conversation. Or who’s not seated at a power table. Then there’s the
vacant chair. If it’s next to someone like Paula Parsons, the chair becomes the
Tyrannosaurus at the table. Somewhere in the room, talk was already starting
about how Paula, whose beyond-bitch reputation was legendary, had just sent
another poor bastard running for the door.

I was on the stairway heading to the ground floor when the
United Way board chairman tapped the podium mike and welcomed seven hundred
fifty wealthy and hungry guests to Ellis Island. In the Baggage Room, I
literally bumped into the same young woman I had embarrassed earlier in the
evening. It was a full frontal collision that jolted out a gasp from each of
us.

“Sorry.” I tried disentangling myself from the lady. “Can’t
seem to stay away from you,” I chuckled but got nothing back. “Maybe you could
help me.”

She turned crimson. “I . . . I don’t know if—”

I fabricated a story about my friend, Osman Seleucus, who
cell phoned to apologize for missing the United Way dinner and to ask a favor.
Would I check the immigrant wall and find his namesake—a great uncle who had
made his way here from Turkey? The young woman waved to an eager-to-please
docent in charge of “immigration records and information.” A minute after
keystroking a wireless laptop, the docent scribbled a few words on a slip of
paper that validated what I already knew: that Doc Waters was a genius.

“Panel 561,” the docent said, pointing to what she had
written and giving me directions on how to get to the Wall of Honor. She
plucked a pen-sized flashlight labeled
Boeing:
Proud Supporter of United Way
from
one of hundreds of gift baskets to be handed out to guests when they left the
island. “You’re going to need this.”

I thanked her and headed toward the
Peopling of America
exhibit
that, I had been informed, was where I would find an exit to the backside of
the main building.

“Mr. Bullock—wait.” the United Way staffer called after me.
“They’ve started dinner.”

I caught the hidden message. Get back to the Registry Room.
Very likely, it was a Doug Kool order that had been ingrained in every United
Way employee handpicked to work the crowd. All guests should be in their seats
when the United Way messaging began. Anyone caught meandering the grounds at
the wrong time should be herded to their assigned table.

“Yes, I know,” I called back. “Won’t be long.”

Dusk was on its last legs. In a half hour, the island would
be dark except for the well-lit main building and the sliver of a new moon. I
should have suffered through the opening round of the dinner and waited for
total darkness before playing detective, I thought. Too late. Instead of eating
ginger salmon wontons with Napa cabbage and doing my best to tolerate Paula
Parsons, I stuck with my plan. The five-course dinner with interruptions for
music, dancing, and mini-speeches would stretch out another two hours before
the audience was served coffee, dessert, and Arthur Silverstein. That gave me
time to penetrate the banker’s defenses ahead of his speech to the faithful.

Outside the main building, I followed a paved path that ran
adjacent to the wall, an extraordinary stainless steel circular border that
rimmed a huge lawn and garden. It was a long, curved line of individual metal
panels each inscribed with hundreds of names. According to the docent, it would
take two or three minutes to walk to the section of the wall where I would find
what I was looking for. On the way, I unfolded the slip of paper she had handed
me and used the Boeing penlight to reread her note:

Osman Faruk Seleucus

Smyrna, Turkey, Asia Minor

I called Maurice to make sure he had made the ultimate
sacrifice by turning over his phone to Yigal Rosenblatt. I got my answer when
the lawyer answered.

“I don’t have a lot of time, so listen up,” I said. “I need
you and Twyla to go to the Research Library on the third floor of the main
building at eight fifteen. Wait by the library door, and I’ll either meet you
or call you.”

“Why? What are we supposed to do?” Concern was working its
way through Yigal’s words.

“Agree with anything and everything I say.”

“I should play along is what I should do,” Yigal murmured.

“Exactly. If I say you graduated from rabbinical school in
Brooklyn and run a temple in Poughkeepsie, then go with it. If I introduce
Twyla as your wife of eight years, don’t call me a liar.”

“Oh, I won’t,” Yigal pledged enthusiastically.

“Here’s the kicker. If I do bring you on stage, Arthur
Silverstein is probably going to be your audience.”

“Arthur Silverstein?”

“He didn’t get to be a billionaire by being stupid. So just
follow my lead. Can you do that?”

“I can do that,” Yigal assured me. “But why?”

“I’ll fill you in later. Is Twyla with you?”

“Yes. Yes, she is.”

“Let me speak to her.”

Yigal handed over the phone. “Hi, Bullet,” she squeaked. “I
found the most amazing
gown.
It’s a real beautiful red and they have this lady who does adjustments right
there in the trailer.”

“You wearing the dress now?”

“I am,” bubbled Twyla. “You won’t believe how good it
looks.”

“Terrific,” I said. “In about an hour, Yigal is going to
take you to the third floor of the main building.”

“Mr. Martone says I have to give the dress back by nine
thirty.”

An interesting picture—Albert Martone and Twyla Tharp
discussing high fashion.

“Shouldn’t be a problem. Just don’t take the dress off until
after we finish our business.” Had there been more time, I would have said the
same thing to Yigal.

“What business?” Twyla inquired.

Good question. “You’re going to jog someone’s memory.”

“I am?” Twyla sounded genuinely pleased. “How, Bullet?”

“Just by being you.”

I ended the conversation. A minute later I found Osman Faruk
Seleucus at the bottom of the middle column on panel 561. Now what? I was
staring at the name of a dead Turk wondering if this search was nothing more
than a waste of time. There was, of course, the possibility that the disk might
be hidden somewhere in the vicinity of the panel. But the metal wall and
adjacent cement sidewalk didn’t offer much in the way of a hiding place.

I searched for something, anything that would lead me to
Henri Le Campion’s CD. The Wall of Honor was a continuous lineup of metal
teepees, each mounted on a concrete base with one plate facing the main
building and the other the harbor. I ran my hand beneath the overhang where the
panels met the base. Nothing. Stepping back, I made another scan of the walkway
and everything within two or three yards of the panel. The more I looked, the
more I was certain the only hiding place for a computer disk was underneath the
overhang of the plate I had just inspected. I went flat on my back and peered
upward into the narrow gulch that ran from one side of the plate to the other,
using my fingers to do a second examination of the seam between steel and
cement. This time, my effort paid off. A two-by-eight-inch plug popped free and
clanked to the pavement. I pointed my penlight into the narrow opening.

Henri Le Campion’s disk, if that’s what it was, was wrapped
in plastic and tape. The CD looked as commonplace as anything you would find in
a music store except this one was labeled:
Bk.
of Nath. Trnscpt.
I opened the case. The realization that
I was holding what could be the key to freeing Miklos Zeusenoerdorf gave me a
rush. At the same time, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the disk had its own
bad karma. I did my best to push aside the negative vibrations and
congratulated myself for getting the best of
Quia
Vita
and the Almira Society. They had paid millions to own what was lying in the
palm of my hand. Next question—now that I had the disk, what was I going to do
with it? Ten seconds later, someone else gave me the answer.
         
 

For a man the size of T Rex, Thaddeus Dong was remarkably
agile. I hadn’t seen or heard him maneuver along the opposite side of the wall
while I was searching for Seleucus. And when he pulled himself up and over
panel 561, I was too stunned to move.

“Stay where you are!” The index finger of Dong’s left hand
was aimed at my nose and his right hand locked on the grip of a Glock .45
jammed behind his waistband. When it was obvious I wasn’t about to stand, he
fished a cell phone from the pocket of his tux jacket. “He has it.”

During the past few days, I had cheated serious injury or
death twice. Maybe because each incident was unexpected, I’d had no time for
fear. Tonight, the situation was different. Thaddeus Dong had the look and
temperament of a ruthless killer. His phone call told me someone else would
issue a live or die order. Not that it mattered. Whether acting on his own or
following orders, Dong was the type who could pull a trigger and feel no
remorse about sending a slug through my skull.

I made a quick scan of the walkway and lawn that had mostly
been swallowed by darkness. There was no apparent means of escape. Dong’s size
and the likelihood he knew how to use a pistol made it pointless to consider a
dash back to the main building. Maybe there was a way to dupe death a third
time, but to figure that out I needed a better view of my options. I leaned to
one side and shifted my body weight to my right knee.

“Stay down!” snarled Dong. He used one meaty hand to shove me
hard. I landed back on my ass.

Dong loomed over me silently for a couple of minutes. A
clack of footsteps broke the stillness, and it wasn’t long after that Arcontius
walked into view, his weird body a silhouette against the distant glow of lower
Manhattan.

“Question, Mr. Bullock,” Silverstein’s right-hand man said.
“Did you underestimate me? Or did I give you too much credit for being smarter
than you really are?”

Smart is something one doesn’t feel when parked on his butt
looking up at two men who had caught me completely off guard.

“From the second you stepped off the yacht, my people have
been watching you,” Arcontius said. “You didn’t make a move without our knowing
where you were or what you were doing.”

I was stuck on “my people
.”
How
much of an army did the Almiras Society have? The night had turned cool, but I
couldn’t stop sweating.

“By the way—ditto for the two imbeciles you brought with
you.”

Which imbeciles
?
I thought. Doc and Maurice or Twyla and Yigal?

Arcontius answered my unspoken question. “We convinced
Albert Martone that both your men needed to be put in time out. They’re getting
some much-needed occupational retraining.”

Doc and Maurice were now on the sidelines, which wasn’t good
news. At least they were safe—a few hours of hard labor under Martone’s
watchful eye was a lot better than floating facedown in New York Harbor.

“What’s this about, Arcontius?” I asked, trying to mask my
growing panic.

“It’s about what you’re holding,” said Arcontius. “You’re
going to give us the disk, and then we’re going to take a stroll.”

Dong leaned forward, plucked the
Book of Nathan
CD from my hand and told me to get up. When I stood, Arcontius ordered me to
surrender my cell phone and Boeing flashlight. I did what I was told. Dong gave
me a fast body check to make sure there was nothing else worth confiscating.