Dancing on the Head of a Pin (8 page)

“Here we are,” he said, bringing the conveyance to a graceful stop.

Karnighan opened the door and stepped out into a lobby of sorts. It too was decorated in dark wood, framed paintings of considerable value hanging on the walls. Directly to the right of the elevator exit, there was a large safe door that seemed totally out of place with the stylings of the room.

“You’ve piqued my curiosity,” Remy said, eyeing the heavy steel door.

“I wish you could have seen them,” the old man said as he slid back a panel in the wall to reveal a hidden keypad. Karnighan punched in a code.

Remy could hear the door-lock mechanisms start to hum, whirring and clicking into place. Then came the sound of a bolt sliding back and the vault door slowly, silently began to open.

“This way, Mr. Chandler,” Karnighan invited, passing across the threshold. “I can’t tell you how sad it makes me to come into this room now, knowing that my most prized possessions have been taken.”

Remy joined the man inside the room. It was much larger than he would have guessed. Display cases of varying sizes filled with weaponry of all kinds lined the walls. There were guns of every conceivable size and shape from as far back as their invention. There even appeared to be an area designated solely for hand grenades. And there were weapons from older times as well: swords, spears, knives, and axes, as well as maces, helmets, and suits of armor.

“Wow,” Remy said as his eyes danced around the room from one of the cases to the next, objects of bloodshed from the dawn of man to the present on display here, a history of violence.

“Do you think?” Karnighan asked, leaning on his cane. “Over the years I’ve lost my objectivity.” He looked around the room, trying to see it as Remy did.

“All I can think of is what’s missing,” the collector said with a sad shake of his head.

“And what is missing, Mr. Karnighan?” Remy asked.

The old man made his way toward an empty waist-high case, the lights within still lit, as if displaying nothingness.

“Weapons,” Karnighan said, his voice much softer as he looked down into the case, as if hoping he’d been mistaken, that his beloved possessions were still there. “Some of them were just that, but there were others . . . so much more.”

Remy could hear the emotion in the old man’s voice—it was almost as if he were talking about missing loved ones.

Not too long after, Remy and Karnighan sat in a study upstairs finalizing their business over coffee.

“So you’ll have the documents sent over to my office?” Remy asked as he brought the delicate china cup down from his mouth to the saucer he held before him. The coffee was good, some of the best he’d had in a while.

Karnighan had just taken a drink of the scalding liquid, waiting to swallow before answering.

“Yes, of course. I’ve kept detailed records of all my acquisitions over the years,” he said, carefully placing the cup and saucer on a table beside his chair. “My records are currently in a bit of disarray because of the renovations, but I’m sure I’ll be able to gather them up by this afternoon and have them couriered over to you.”

The old man winced as he crossed his ancient legs.

“So I guess it’s safe to say that you’ll take the case?” he asked with a cautious smile.

Remy nodded. “Of course. It’ll be two hundred and fifty dollars a day plus expenses, if that’s agreeable?”

The old man reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and removed a check. He unfolded the piece of paper and looked at it before handing it to Remy.

“I took the liberty of writing this up before you arrived.”

Remy stood to take it from him. “That’s very generous,” he said, glancing at the amount.

“An advance, plus a bonus for your anticipated hard work. There is more where that came from, Mr. Chandler. It may seem pathetic to you, but I’ve come to realize that without these items my life seems suddenly meaningless.”

Remy listened to the man as he refolded the check and placed it inside his own shirt pocket. “I’ll do everything I can,” he told the old man. “There are no guarantees, but I won’t stop working on the case until all possible leads have been exhausted.”

“Very good, sir. I believe we understand each other perfectly.”

Karnighan struggled as he attempted to stand.

“No need to get up,” Remy told him. He approached the collector and again extended his hand. “I’ll see myself out.”

Remy bid the man good-bye, leaving him to finish his coffee, when a question that he had been meaning to ask Karnighan again rose to the surface.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, stopping momentarily in the doorway of the study. “I was wondering, Mr. Karnighan, where was it that you heard about my agency?”

The old man smiled, china cup in one hand, saucer beneath it in the other. “I really don’t remember, Mr. Chandler,” he said, taking a careful sip of his beverage. “But whoever it was, spoke very highly of your abilities.”

It wasn’t quite the answer he was looking for, but it would do.

He left the house and started toward his car, spying the guard dogs watching him from an open area that ran alongside the house. He wondered how Karnighan kept them from running away, or from getting into trouble with neighbors, when he noticed the thick collars around their necks. An electric fence, he guessed. A brief electrical shock would be transmitted through the collars if they wandered too far from the property.

Then he had an idea and wandered back over to the animals.

“Luthor, I’ve got a question for you,” he said to the pack leader.

The dog came over to him, again looking for some attention, with which Remy obliged him. How could he refuse?

“When your master’s things were stolen, do you remember seeing anything or maybe hearing something out of the ordinary?”

“No,”
the dog said, eyes closed with pleasure as Remy rubbed behind his ears.
“That’s why bad dogs. Useless. Master say useless.”

Daisy and Spike tried to muscle in on Luthor’s attentions, the pack leader turning his square head to growl at them. The pair whimpered sadly as they backed up.

“That’s not true; you’re very good dogs,” he assured them. “Your master is just upset that somebody was able to get inside and take his things without you knowing. Are you sure you didn’t notice anything?”

The dog pressed his cold, wet snout to Remy’s hand.

“Yes,”
the dog said in between snuffles.
“Strange smell.”

Daisy and Spike were now sniffing Remy’s pants, and he reached down to give them each a scratch before Luthor noticed.

“What kind of strange smell? Can you describe it to me?”

The rottweiler looked up, his dark brown eyes deep and soulful like Marlowe’s.

“Like you,”
the dog said, a spark of realization in his eyes.
“Smell like you.”

K
arnighan had done as he’d promised, delivering the paperwork by courier by the time Remy had left the office that afternoon.

It hadn’t been such a bad day, catching up on phone messages and sorting out bills. Remy had left his office with a sense of accomplishment, more connected to his work than he’d felt in quite some time.

But it didn’t end there; he’d returned home, got Marlowe fed and walked, made himself a quick bite to eat, and put a fresh pot of coffee on. In the old days, Madeline used to call this
getting the bug
. It happened when a case slowly began to worm its way into Remy’s life, when there was something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on that made it so he couldn’t—or didn’t want to, really—think of anything else.

He believed the Karnighan case was going to go something like that.

The man certainly had been telling the truth when he said that he’d kept detailed records. There were pages and pages of notes, and even photographs of the stolen weapons, some beautifully crafted, others crude and primitive in their execution. The notes were painstakingly detailed, describing the origins of each piece, the name of the craftsman, and in some cases, who had owned the particular dagger, sword, or spear over the span of centuries.

Remy found himself lost in the pages and time periods, remembering snippets of his own past when weapons such as these were carried with as much ease as a designer purse or an iPod.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed as he flipped through the extensive records. It was a low-throated
woof
that interrupted his deep concentration. Noticing the stuffed monkey on the floor by his desk chair first, Remy angled himself around to see Marlowe waiting at attention, tail wagging eagerly.

“Is this your monkey?” Remy asked, leaning over to snatch up the brown-furred primate from the floor. He held it out toward the dog, giving it a bit of a wiggle. Marlowe flinched, stomping his paws down on the hardwood floor.

“Want me to throw it?” Remy asked. He knew that was exactly what the dog wanted, but he thought he’d play with the Labrador’s head a bit.

He made a move as if the throw it, the dog taking off, waiting for the stuffed animal to fall, but it never did.

“Hey!”
Marlowe said, turning around to check him out.

Remy still held the monkey and gave it another shake.

“Tricked ya,” he said.

“No trick ya,”
Marlowe grumbled, coming back to stand before him. He tried to pull the monkey from his hand. Remy let him get a grip before he started to pull. The Labrador growled in play, enjoying a good tug-of-war as much as retrieving things.

This went on a bit, the animal pulling with all his might, his growls getting louder and more excited as he tried to yank the stuffed animal from Remy’s hands.

With the help of the stuffed monkey, Remy drew the Labrador closer, leaning his own face in toward the growling animal. “This is a blast, but I’ve got to get back to work,” he told his best friend.

Marlowe released the toy, jumping back, ready to fetch.

“No, play,”
he said, his tail wagging furiously. Now that he had gotten a taste, he didn’t want to stop.

“Maybe later,” Remy said, throwing the monkey into the corner of the room. Marlowe leapt across the floor, his nails clicking and clacking on the hardwood as he went in pursuit of his prey.

Remy turned back to the notes, surprised to see that he had actually made two separate piles.

“More play now!”
Marlowe demanded, attempting to shove the stuffed animal beneath the arm of the chair and into his lap.
“Monkey! Crazy monkey! Throw! Pull!”

“What did I say?” Remy grabbed the monkey from the dog and tossed it over his shoulder, never taking his eyes from the two stacks. The dog took off again after the toy as Remy began to examine the piles. One contained most of the information on the weapons, but the other he had no recollection of ever seeing, never mind making a separate stack.

He sensed that Marlowe had returned and ignored him, pulling the smaller stack that he had made over for a closer look. It contained the information on four specific weapons. He removed the photos, lining them up in front of him on the desk—Japanese katana, a medieval battle-axe, an intricately etched Colt 45, and the beautiful simplicity of twin daggers.

What was it about these particular weapons that seemed to so interest him?

Marlowe sighed, dropping his seventy pounds to the floor beside Remy’s chair with the stuffed monkey, depressed that he’d been rejected.

“Sorry, buddy,” Remy apologized. “But I’ve got to figure this out.”

He picked up the photograph of the Japanese sword, staring at it before carefully reading the notes that accompanied the fearsome blade. According to the information, the katana was created in the year 1565 by master sword maker Asamiya.

“I know that name,” Remy muttered, leaning back in his chair. Marlowe lifted his head, thinking that maybe it was time to play again. “Where do I know that name?”

It wasn’t long before he remembered.

Remy wasn’t sure how many years ago it was, but he was certain that it was no more than three or four. Francis had returned from one of his out-of-state assignments with something that he couldn’t wait to show to his friend. The special something had been a Japanese sword crafted by Asamiya, supposedly the greatest Japanese sword maker who had ever lived.

He looked at the photo of the sword a bit longer before stacking it with the other information and placing everything back inside the envelope in which it had been delivered. What he had to do, then, was obvious. If anybody could give him some insight on these weapons, it was Francis.

He pushed his chair back and stood up, reaching over to turn off his desk lamp.

Marlowe was already standing, limp monkey dangling from his mouth, the anticipation of more playtime twinkling in his dark brown eyes. But what Remy was about to ask the animal was even better than playtime.