City of Dark Magic (13 page)

“Yes,” said the female officer. “My father often hunted here on the grounds of the castle when it belonged to the people.” Someone wasn’t so excited about the fall of communism, thought Sarah.

Max and Sarah stared in silence until the last police car crunched over the gravel of the bridge.

“Okay, what happened?” Sarah asked first.

“I think Sherbatsky might have left that in the stables,” Max said, nodding at the violin.

“Not
this
,” Sarah could have chucked the instrument at him. “You know what I mean.”

“Let’s take a little walk,” Max said. Sarah followed him out and down the steps into the garden, realizing en,

“There’s a bench over there,” he said, after a long moment. “Come and sit down with me?”

The thought entered Sarah’s mind that Max had hidden the body while she was upstairs hiding the camera. He might have killed Andy, she thought, walking along beside him in the darkness, the moon just beginning to illuminate the ghostly shapes of several dead apple trees. He might be about to kill me, she added to herself. But instead of saying that, she said, “Someone is fucking with us, big time.”

Max stopped. He sat down on a stone bench. He leaned over, elbows on his knees. After a moment of silence, he began talking to the ground.

“I was sitting in my apartment near Venice Beach one day. Happy,” he said. “Really happy, for the first time in a long time. I just wanted a year or two off, you know? Do my own thing. I had gone to Yale to please my father, but I should have known that nothing would please him. I thought I deserved a break. I grew up in California and I didn’t even know how to surf. I was always studying. So for the first time I had no responsibilities and I was good with that. Very good. So that day I was just getting stoned, about to go hang with the drum circle down at the beach, when the phone rang. It was my dad. It had been months since we’d talked. I was a disappointment to him. He had actually said that flat out, the last time we had talked: ‘You’re a disappointment to me.’ Except this time he was all happy. He said he’d just gotten a call from my mom’s family lawyer in Prague. The Czech government had declared our family to be the rightful heirs to the Lobkowicz holdings. They had been talking about it for years, but somehow I never thought it would actually happen, or that it would have anything to do with my life. But it meant a lot to my dad. See, my mom died when I was three and he never got over it. And so I guess this was like getting a piece of my mom back, you know? Something big he could do for her memory. He had booked us tickets to go to Prague. Me and him. You’d think I would have jumped at the chance, right? Reconcile with my father. Reclaim my heritage. But there were so many times when he had made me feel like shit. My whole life, really. So that’s what I did. I made him feel like shit. I looked out the window at the Pacific Ocean and told him I didn’t care about the fucking castles and he could go fuck himself. Except I didn’t think that would be the last thing I ever said to him. The next morning the police called. He had dropped dead of a heart attack on his way to LAX.”

Max started to cry. Whatever his recent past might be, he cried like an aristocrat. Silently, with no hiccoughing or snuffling. Sarah stood over him and thought about whether she should put her hand on his back or an arm around him, but she knew that nothing in the world could make Max feel less alone in this moment.

So she picked up the violin and played.

As she gently pulled the bow across the strings, Sarah was shocked by the sound coming from the instrument—this was no villager’s fiddle.

Her brain finally calmed as she lost herself in the opening of Berlioz’s
Symphonie Fantastique
. It began lyrically, sadly almost, the story of a young artist who in an opium dream falls in love with a woman he cannot have. She haunts him in a beautiful melody that becomes an idée fixe, an obsession, and then begin the elements of foreboding, of dangodiove with aer and the occult. Sarah had always found the piece to be a little over the top, but after tonight, she felt that Berlioz was right on the money. She played on, finding solace, courage, fortitude, and a kindred spirit in a piece of music written in 1830, a series of notes scrawled on the page that sprang from the imagination of one man, who was reaching out across time, through this violin, to tell her that he knew exactly how she was feeling, how strange and frightening and intoxicating life could be.

Eyes closed, she was building to the finish of the first movement, letting all the fear and adrenalin
e of the day pour out of her when suddenly she felt Max’s hands gently take the violin and bow. She opened her eyes to see him gazing back at her. He slowly placed his hand on her throat, and she could feel her heartbeat against his thumb. As they kissed, Berlioz’s music continued in her head, driving on toward the fourth movement, “March to the Scaffold,” and the last, “Witches’ Sabbath.”

Max, Sarah decided, may be many things, possibly even criminal things.

He was also the best kisser she had ever laid lips to.

SIXTEEN

S
arah enjoyed the early-morning high-speed ride back to Prague in Max’s red Alfa Romeo convertible a lot more than the trip out to Nela in the Skoda with Eleanor. The car was incredible. Max told her it was a 1930 6C 1750 Gran Sport that his grandfather had raced as a young man. It looked like new, which gave riding in it a weird time-warp feeling. She might have enjoyed it even more if she wasn’t holding a priceless violin in a blanket. In the early-morning light she had examined the instrument and found its mark:
Grancino, anno 1699
. Worth more than her mother’s house. And yet another item that belonged to the man in the driver’s seat.

The night before, despite the electricity generated by the kiss, Max had shown her to a cot in what he called “the Blue Room,” and had discreetly disappeared to some other part of the castle. This morning in the car, he was all business, and so was she. Max said he would develop the film from the camera, and Sarah offered to pay a visit to Sternberg Palace where Andy worked, to see if she could find out anything. Max handled the interminable traffic jam that was Prague center with reckless style and Sarah clutched the Grancino to her chest.

When Max spun the sports car through the castle gates it was still early enough that the hordes of tourists had not descended. The massive verdigris bulk of St. Vitus Cathedral looked a little forlorn in the morning light.

“I’ll leave you here,” Max said. “Do you have my cell number?” He took out his phone and then frowned. “I know this will sound paranoid,” he said. “But I think my phone is tapped.”

“What, by the government or something?” Sarah raised an eyebrow.

“I have enemies,” Max said, cryptically. “We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

“Semaphore flags?” Sarah quipped.

“Meet me in front of Powder Tower at four p.m.,” Max said, seriously. “Try not to be followed.”

Before Sarah could even begin to odiovf Powder form a sassy retort to this, Max sped away. Sarah walked slowly to the palace, where she handed the violin over to an ecstatic Miles, who greeted it like a lost child. She changed clothes and stopped in the kitchen briefly to snare a croissant and some coffee. She could simply call Sternberg Palace and ask for Andy, but then she’d have to trust whatever they told her, and besides, her Czech wasn’t good enough to inquire about anything more complicated than an order of potatoes. No, she would amble over to Sternberg like any other tourist, take in some paintings, and look for an opportunity to do a little covert sleuthing. The whole thing might look a little less suspicious if she took someone with her.

Suzi. Sarah didn’t doubt her ability to take care of herself, but in a pinch she wouldn’t mind having a lesbian who could twirl firearms watch her back. She walked up the staircase to Suzi’s weaponry room and tapped on the door.

“Have you ever seen anything more bee-yoo-tee-ful in your life?” Suzi greeted her, ushering her inside.

At first Sarah thought Shuziko was referring to Nicolas Pertusato, who sat cross-legged on the floor atop a small cushion. But then she realized Suzi was indicating the table where an incredibly long gun of some sorts was displayed.

“Seventeenth-century Spanish long barrel rampart,” Suzi crowed. “Doesn’t it make you just wet yourself? I swear to God it makes me hot just looking at it.”

“It’s loaded,” said Nicolas, from the floor. “So be careful.”

“He’s joking,” Suzi giggled. “Help me move it, though? I have to clear this room for the painters. I found the most gorgeous red. It’s gonna make you want to hump the guns, I swear. I’m taking over the Delft china guy’s room until they finish.”

“There’s a Delft china guy?” asked Sarah, donning a pair of cotton gloves.

“Arrives tomorrow,” Suzi explained, issuing orders as they lifted the gun. Nicolas trailed behind them as they moved into the adjacent room. “But I’m thinking china doesn’t take up much space so we can share.”

“Yeah, and firearms and china make a great combo,” Sarah said. “Listen, you want to do a little sightseeing with me while your room is getting painted? I thought I’d go look at the Sternberg collection. Get a little culture.”

“Cool.” Suzi gave the gun a final loving caress and leered at Sarah. “And afterward we could go for some Cream & Dream.”

“I really hope you mean ice cream,” Sarah laughed.

“I think the two of you require a chaperone,” Nicolas piped up. “And I know the collection well. I’d be happy to act as your guide.”

Perfect, Sarah thought. Suss out the deal with Andy and get to know the little man a little better. Plus, Shuziko did seem a little overstimulated.

•   •   •

“T
his, as you can see, depicts the Rape of Helen.” Nicolas gestured at the large oil painting in front of them.

“Rape?” Suzi snorted. “She looks more like she mot the larg’s getting goosed.”

“And over here,” Nicolas continued, unperturbed, “a marvelous Last Supper by Jacopo da Montagnana. Note that the disciples and Jesus are all correctly brown-skinned.”

They made a pretty odd threesome, Sarah thought. But Nicolas was a good guide. And she was grateful for Suzi’s unorthodox approach to art appreciation.

“A superb portrait of Scipio Africanus,” Nicolas intoned.

“Those boots are totally in now” was Suzi’s comment. “Hey, Nico, how come they always show Mary with her right boob out?”

As they moved up the stairs to the second level, Sarah tried thinking of a way to discreetly inquire about Andy. The usual number of museum guards were posted about, but most of them were extremely grim-looking Czech matrons.

“I find this one a little frightening,” said Nicolas, pointing to St. Sebastian suspended by his wrists. “I remember my university friends and I used to play a most amusing drinking game: Who died worse, St. Sebastian or St. Jerome?”

“Where did you go to college, Nicolas?” Sarah asked. Sebastian was pierced by an arrow and this reminded her, once again, of Andy.

“Yale,” Nicolas said, smiling up at her. “Among others. But call me Nico. Everyone does.”

“Is Yale where you met Max?” Sarah ran her eyes over a portrait of St. Francis, looking like hell. Religious art was pretty depressing, Mary’s perky boobs aside.

“Oh, it was before Max’s time.” Nicolas waved a tiny hand. “It was a hundred years ago! I’m a relic, really.”

Sarah hung back as Suzi wandered into the next room, willing Nicolas to stay with her.

“I was wondering,” Sarah asked softly. “About that box you gave me? Sherbatsky’s box with his toenail inside?”

“It was not Sherbatsky’s toenail,” Nicolas said. “That would be most improper.”

“I know it wasn’t. Nicolas.” Sarah put her hands on her hips, emphasizing his name. “I think it’s a drug of some kind. What does it do? And why were Max and Professor Sherbatsky doing it?”

“You should ask Max about that,” Nicolas whispered. “I haven’t tried it myself. Now, in this next room, you will see a lovely Van Haarlem
Conversion of Saul
,
AND
, you’ll notice, two dwarfs bring up the rear of this little processional. Isn’t that yellow hat just divine?”

It was in the last room that Sarah found her mark. Suzi had collapsed gratefully into one of the chairs in the center of the gallery, and Nicolas perched beside her, pointing out details of the Rubens painting: St. Thomas getting whacked by various oily scoundrels, their crazed eyeballs highlighted gruesomely in white. Lounging in the corner was a young man, suited in the Sternberg Palace uniform. He locked eyes with Sarah and smiled. Bingo.

“You have enjoyed visit?” he asked in halting but serviceable English. “The Brueghels, you see? The people are so tiny. I think it funny.” The young man glanced at Nicolas and turned beet red. Sarah gave him a reassuring smile.

“I was supposed to get a tour by my friend who works here,” she said. “But I guess I got the date wrong or something. I haven’t been able to get in touch with him.”

“Oh yes?” the young man replied, as if scripted. “Who do you know working here?”

“Andy Blackman.” Sarah lowered her voice. “He was in charge of installing the new security system here? An American, like me. Maybe you know him?”

“Yes!” The young man smiled broadly, clearly delighted to help. “Of course. Mr. Andy Blackman. He trained me. He is great guy. We listen to music and jam together. Old stuff. Rolling Stones, right? Classic.”

“Did you see him yesterday?” Sarah asked.

“Yesterday I am not working,” the guard apologized.

“Do you know how to get in touch with him?” Sarah tried to keep the urgency out of her voice. “Is there an office number I can call?”

“I check for you.” The guard smiled. “I return in one moment.”

Sarah sat down on a small chair. Shuziko had slumped down in her chair and appeared to be dozing. Nicolas swiveled around and surveyed Sarah keenly.

“Are you tired?” he asked, anxiously. “I fear I have talked too much. Some people get very sleepy in museums.”

“I’m fine,” said Sarah.

“You are m
ore than fine,” the little man said, his bassoon voice trembling with vibrato. “You are magnificent. I should very much like to be alone with you.”

Before Sarah could respond to this somewhat alarming proposition, the young guard scurried back into the room. He handed Sarah a piece of paper.

“Mr. Andy Blackman return United States yesterday,” he said. “A family emergencies. This is e-mail to be reaching him. I hope this is helpful to you.”

“Thank you, yes,” Sarah said, pocketing the paper.