City of Lost Dreams (7 page)

SEVEN

N
icolas Pertusato woke up in a very comfortable bed at the Ritz. The woman next to him was snoring. Nico studied her, curious. She lay on her back, but her large breasts pointed skyward in defiance of all gravitational law. Silicone. Nico lifted the sheet and inspected her pubic hair, or, rather, the lack of it. Just a narrow strip. It was definitely the twenty-first century, then.

Nico lay still for several minutes, running through an internal checklist in his brain. He reminded himself of the current day of the week, month, and—most important—year. For extra credit he named the phase of the moon: waxing gibbous. He cataloged the state of his physical health. Remarkably, he was not hungover. After leaving Soane’s he had gone to another pub, perhaps two, and he remembered picking up a wallet and also—more vaguely—this creature.

Nico sat up.

Why had he been so despairing yesterday? Really, looked at in the proper light, the whole thing was actually . . . interesting.

Someone had been alchemy shopping all over London. That in itself wouldn’t be so surprising—there were millions of crackpot theorists around, on scavenger hunts for the Holy Grail or Excalibur or Bigfoot. It was entirely possible that someone had conceived a quest for the Golden Fleece. But someone knew that
Nico
was looking for it, too. Someone had sent Saint John to Nico’s restaurant of saints. Someone had left a dwarf figurine in place of a medicine chest. No wonder he hadn’t been able to find anything of John Dee’s that traced back to the Fleece.

Who was his antagonist? Anyone who could connect him to the Fleece had been dead for hundreds of years. And even then, the only people who knew that he had briefly held the book could be counted on one hand.

Sarah knew. But Sarah wanted nothing to do with alchemy, even though she had a PhD in it. What did she call herself? A neuromusicologist? Please. An alchemist by any other name would smell as sulfurous. Max? Max was desperate to find the Fleece, not to use it, but because he believed it was part of his family’s duty to protect it. Secret Order of the Golden Fleece, sworn protector knights, and so forth.

Anyway, to work. Nico still had a few tricks up his sleeve. His opponent might have temporarily gained the upper hand, but now Nico was invigorated. Inspired. There was nothing like having a worthy adversary to liven things up.

Sherlock Holmes had needed a Moriarty to bring him out of his chronic ennui.

And so had he.

Nico hopped out of bed, took a bath, and decided a shave was really in order, as he needed to look respectable for today’s plan. He had just lathered up when his evening companion stumbled through the door, collapsed in front of the toilet, and heaved. Nico soaked a towel in cold water and handed it to her.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, in quite cultured tones, closing the lid and then sitting on it. She was a lovely woman, but Nico turned his attention to his chin. He hadn’t shaved in about fifty years. He didn’t get five o’clock shadow. He got half-century shadow.

“Last night was quite an experience. I’m beginning to remember it now. You are incredibly . . .”

“I know,” said Nico.

“Oh.” Nico could see in the mirror that she was staring at his naked back. She leaned forward and touched him. “I remember. Your scar. Got in a fight with gypsies, I believe you said?”

“I never fight with gypsies.” Nico examined his teeth. “Nor should you, if you ever come across one. No, this was self-inflicted, I’m sorry to say.”

“You stabbed
yourself
in the back?”

“It seemed funnier at the time,” Nico conceded.

“Also . . . your wrists.”

Nico glanced down at the very faint white lines that marked his wrists.

“What if I told you I couldn’t kill myself even if I wanted to? What if I told you I was immortal because of a scientific experiment gone awry, that for four hundred years I’ve watched all my friends die, everyone I loved or cared for, while being unable to die myself?”

“I would assure you that this is a delusion. Not common, maybe, but one I’ve seen before, with varying specifics. I would tell you that such delusions can be treated.”

Nico looked at her and she laughed shyly.

“I’m a social worker. My name is Lucinda, in case you’ve forgotten. Lucinda Smythe-Crabbet.”

He had forgotten. There were just too many names. And this creature had three of them. And a title, he now recalled.

Really, Nico thought, after bidding Lady Lucinda a fare-thee-well outside the Ritz, he had always acted rashly when it came to women. You would think that after a couple of centuries he would have gotten this under better control, but no, humans were built to be irrational and could evolve only so far, no matter how long you lived. You might get past one or other of the big three—desire for love, fear of death, belief in God—but not all three at once. Buddhist monks came close, and Nico had met some severely autistic children who had surpassed the human condition, but Buddhism required intense meditation (which he was far too Epicurean to practice) and the other was denied to him by virtue of his genetic makeup, imperfect and frozen as it was.

 • • • 

A
t eleven a.m. Nico presented himself at gate A of the east wing of Blythe House, the massive Victorian building that had once been a National Savings Bank and was now used as storage for the spillover collections of a number of museums. The red and white brick edifice was topped with coils of barbed wire. From the outside it looked like an insane asylum. The inside was even worse: dirty glazed yellow tile, crumbling staircases, dimly shadowed corridors. But it had quite a lovely, cheerful staff, and all one needed to gain admittance to have a look at a certain object from the Wellcome Collection was an appointment. Once buzzed in, Nico made his way to the porter’s office, presented his credentials, and received a yellow plastic visitor’s pass. He was met by a Miss Ponds, who was delighted to show him the object he had requested.

“I expect you’ve been to see the permanent collection at the Euston Road museum?” she chirped. “It’s wonderful. But of course, it’s only a tiny portion of what Henry Wellcome gathered during his lifetime. He had agents all over the world hunting down artifacts, curiosities, medicines, tools, anything to do with the human body. Most of this would seem very primitive and wrongheaded to us now, of course. But it’s a fascinating glimpse into the history of medicine. There were over a million objects in the collection, you know.”

Nico did know. He had been an agent for Henry Wellcome in the early 1900s and had once spent a harrowing six months in Khartoum in his employ. Henry had been the first to market medicine in tablet form to the general public, and his pharmaceutical company had made him immensely rich. The man had been obsessed with immortality, was totally without a sense of humor, and had bizarre notions of temperance, insisting that none of his employees touch alcohol. Despite all that, Nico had rather liked him. Like most true eccentrics Wellcome had fewer prejudices about the differences of others, at least other
men
, and had treated Nico well, even making one of his custom medicine/tool chests in just his size. He still had it.

Miss Ponds was punching a security code into a door. Security here was very good, no need for cameras in any of the individual rooms, which was lucky for him. Miss Ponds gave him a pair of plastic gloves and they stepped inside a narrow cell lined with shelves.

“Now, let’s see . . .” she said, bending down. Nico whipped a syringe out of his pocket and stuck it firmly into Miss Ponds’s conveniently upturned ass.

“Oops-a-daisy,” she said, before collapsing on the floor.

Nico ran his eyes over the shelves. He had requested to look at a particular specimen: a stuffed ram’s head mounted on wheels. The top portion of the head opened up to reveal a compartment. In fact, Nico had no interest in this object, which he felt was obscene, and not in the way he usually found pleasant. No, he was after something a bit older, something he had given Henry from his own personal collection, as a joke, and to make up for all the things he had bought with Henry’s money and never handed over.

“The box is late seventeenth century,” he had told him, presenting it. “You can see that it contains some sort of powder within. The man who sold it to me swore it was
electuarium mithridatum
.”

Actually, the box contained the crushed bones of an elk that had belonged to Tycho Brahe. Albrecht had been his name. As much as an elk can be an asshole, Albrecht had been an asshole. Henry had been delighted with the box, and with what he thought was the acquisition of a sample of the seventeenth-century antidote against poison and infectious diseases. According to the Wellcome Collection database, the box was housed in this room, as item #7963.

Yes. Here it was, neatly tagged and with the false description of the contents lettered in tiny script. Holding his breath, Nico carefully opened the jar. The powdered remains of Albrecht had survived.

Score one for the dwarf,
thought Nico. He could manage a fair bit of alchemy with genuine seventeenth-century elk bone. Particularly when the elk in question had died while under a massive dose of beer and Tycho’s Westonia. God knows where Albrecht had thought he was when he fell down the stairs to his death. Cavorting with mastodons, perhaps.

Nico pocketed the box and replaced it with one of his cards:

Removed for curatorial purposes.

“Mhmm,” mumbled Miss Ponds. Nico bent to her side and helped her to her feet. “What happened? Did I faint?”

“It seemed as if you were going to.” Nico dusted, perhaps a trifle too enthusiastically for Miss Ponds’s taste, the knees of her skirt. “Perhaps you bent over too quickly.”

“Oh. Oh, how strange. I’m so sorry.”

It took a few minutes before Miss Ponds’s composure was restored, and then a dull half hour while he pretended to admire the ram’s head snuffbox and make a few notes.

Nico exited the building and hailed a cab.

“Heathrow,” he told the driver.

EIGHT

S
arah strode through the Naschmarkt, searching the stalls for a glimpse of Bettina. Had she not left town after all? Was she following Sarah? What game was this woman playing? Another message arrived.

There is something in the refrigerator of my apartment that must be returned. Use maximum discretion. No police.

Whatever was in the refrigerator, Sarah was guessing it wasn’t leftovers.

What is it? And who do I return it to?

But the return message read only:
Paniglgasse 18. The concierge will let you in. Tell no one or I will not help you.

How do I know you will help me?
Sarah texted furiously. This wasn’t what she had imagined would happen in Vienna. This wasn’t how scientists operated. . . . This was as bad as fucking Prague!

I can save your friend. Do this for me. I will contact you tomorrow.

 • • • 

S
arah got directions to Paniglgasse, which wasn’t far. It was a lovely residential street, with nothing sinister about it. An efficient Viennese mom unloaded two strollers and a standard poodle from a smart car while her somber towheaded children in wool coats with velvet collars waited like tiny sentries. Sarah tried to be reassured by this as she walked through an arched entrance into the courtyard of Bettina Müller’s Neo-Baroque building. A large golden retriever lay protectively across a doorway, and at her approach sat up and barked. This action was followed by the opening of a ground-floor-level apartment door and the appearance of an exceptionally tall and thin old man, bald, his trousers belted slightly below the region of his armpits. He stood glaring at her like an Austrian eagle. Sarah introduced herself in German.

“Yes!” he interrupted sternly. “I am Herr Dorfmeister. Frau Doktor Müller has told me to expect you and that you would be picking up a package.”

“Yes.”

“I will give you the key.” He frowned. “I have been instructed to do so.”

It occurred to Sarah that it was probably a good idea to make as many friends as she could with people who knew Bettina Müller. She needed allies. Or someone to run screaming to if Bettina’s refrigerator contained a human head.

“Herr Dorfmeister, what is the name of your dog? She is very beautiful.”

The transformation was magical. Herr Dorfmeister melted. He patted Sarah on the shoulder. He smiled. He introduced his dog, very formally. Her name was Candy, after Candice Bergen, whom Felix Dorfmeister admired as a great actress, particularly for her work in the television show
Murphy Brown
. Sarah was familiar, of course, with
Murphy Brown
?

Sarah, who had no idea who Candice Bergen was, smiled agreeably and, when Candy brought Sarah a mangled tennis ball, instituted a vigorous game of fetch in the courtyard. Apparently thoroughly charmed now, Herr Dorfmeister found the key and showed her to where the old cast-iron elevator was and how to work the doors.

“Apartment 6,” he said. “And Frau Doktor Müller asks that you not let the cat in under any circumstances.”

Sarah entered Bettina’s apartment to the sound of gentle tickings, whirrings, buzzings, and clickings. She saw that the kitchen was directly to the right of the entranceway, but Sarah needed a sense of who this woman was, and decided to explore. She moved into a large, high-ceilinged room and revolved slowly in the middle of it, her eyes wide.

She was surrounded by clocks. Clocks of all sizes and shapes. Clocks in brass, silver, gold, pewter, porcelain. Long case clocks and smaller mantelpiece clocks mounted on shelves. Clocks surrounded by carved figures, clocks with swinging pendulums, clocks that showed the movements of the planets, pocket watches mounted in glass cases. The actual furniture of the room was IKEA utilitarian and very light on personal ornaments: no photographs; no figurines or mementos. More shocking to Sarah was the absence of books.

She looked over the rest of the apartment and found a small room that seemed to be used for random storage and laundry, a large bedroom, and a bathroom. The bedroom and bathroom showed signs of normal use: all the closets contained clothes and shoes and the bathroom cabinets were crammed with cosmetics and unguents. Bettina used a heavy perfume, something with a lot of musk in it. The bedroom had a giant flat-screen TV and huge Bose speakers. And about a hundred more clocks. Not all of them were functioning, but the ones that were seemed to be working harmoniously with one another. Their tickings gave the apartment a strange sort of pulsing vibrancy. Like being surrounded by heartbeats, Sarah thought. No. Like being
inside
a heartbeat. It wasn’t unpleasant. It was actually kind of . . . soothing. The apartment was very stuffy, though. She was sweating.

The kitchen had all state-of-the-art appliances. A half-drunk glass of wine and plate of rice and vegetables in congealed sauce sat on the table next to take-out cartons. Sarah turned to the refrigerator. An Einstein magnet held a schedule of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra to the door. Several dates were circled, including one for the coming Friday.

Sarah opened the door. No food, not even shelves, which had apparently been moved to make way for a large white box.

A box large enough for, in fact, a human head. Maybe even two.

It wasn’t terribly heavy. Sarah set it on the floor and loosened the lid. Inside, she found a rather beautiful golden model ship with a clock on its prow. It was elaborately constructed, with little figures on the deck and furled masts and everything. The whole contraption sat on wheels. It looked old. And valuable.

Stolen? Bettina was obviously an obsessive clock collector. It was hard to imagine a dangerous black market for clocks, but Sarah knew that art smuggling was big business, and this thing was definitely art. It would account for the secrecy.
No police
.

Why had Bettina put it in the refrigerator, which she couldn’t even lock? Sarah’s mother, who cleaned houses for a living, had once told her about a client who kept her diamonds in the freezer. Was it something like that? Or because it was really hot in Bettina’s apartment and the heat would damage the clock? Sarah threw open the kitchen window to let in some fresh air. There was nothing on either the object or the box to indicate where it came from, or where Sarah should return it. This was going to be tricky.

Sarah sat down at the table, trying to re-create Bettina’s evening in her mind. She had returned home from work, enjoyed a little pad Thai, and then she had gone to the ball. To meet her accomplice in trafficked goods? To get in a little waltzing? Sarah had thought the woman seemed thoroughly spooked and she had—according to Nina—jumped on a train before receiving a message that her lab had been broken into.

Was Sarah being set up? Or had Bettina gotten into something way over her head and was hiding out now?

Out of the corner of her eye Sarah noticed a thin gray cat sitting on the windowsill, staring at her. Crap! Herr Dorfmeister had said something about not letting a cat in. The animal gave her a triumphant glance and streaked straight across into the hallway, where it began furiously scratching at one of the closet doors. Sarah managed to get the cat by the back of its neck, holding it out at arm’s length. The feline attempted a few wild scratches on Sarah’s arm before she tossed it back out the window and shut it.

Okay. She needed to move smoothly, swiftly, and in a planned direction. First thing was to find out where this contraption belonged. Sarah pulled out her phone, took a few pictures, then began searching the Internet. It turned out that the item was pretty unique, and that the combination of “ship clock gold” was all it took.

It belonged in the British Museum.

The person with obvious museum connections was Max, but Sarah was reluctant to involve him. There were limits to what you wanted to do for your ex. And he might tell Harriet, and Bettina had told her to tell no one. Nico was another obvious choice, but Nico was better at stealing than returning.

It would be better to get it into the hands of a local museum curator somehow, someone who would be able to see it safely restored to London. Sarah thought about whom she could ask for help without implicating them.

By the time Sarah had repacked the ship and found a bag under Bettina’s sink to put it in, it was all settled. She had texted Alessandro, asking only if he knew anyone in the museum world in Vienna, and he had suggested Renato, a second cousin of his whom he had never met but who was a Facebook friend and worked at the Kunsthistorisches, Vienna’s gargantuan art museum. Within a couple of minutes, Sarah and Renato were also Facebook friends, and she sent him a message asking if he would advise her on an “art-related problem.” Renato messaged back that he was working late at the museum this evening, but could meet her at nine, in Maria-Theresien-Platz, and they could go for a drink. Anything for a friend of a Facebook friend/cousin/Italian.

Social media, plus nepotism, plus nationalism. Fifteen minutes, a couple of messages, and she was in.

And so Sarah set off across Vienna, carrying the ship in a bright yellow BILLA supermarket bag. She hoped she looked like a local on her way home from shopping, and not like a newly minted art thief.