I trotted up the side streets along Via Arenula. At Vittorio Emanuele I hailed a taxi cab, and ten minutes later, near the Esquiline hill, I was knocking on an apartment house’s red-lacquered door.
After repeated banging, it finally cracked open, and a shrew wrapped in a shawl peered out, hair askew, eyes popping, looking almost comically unhinged. “Tu?” Spewing a stream of disparaging Italian, she started to shut the door.
I pushed in past her and leapt up the stairs. “I’ll wait ‘til he gets back,” I declared in Italian, then barricaded myself in Vincenzo Accidi’s room.
[IN PERSIAN:]
“DEAD.”
The word stunned Mahbood. “You’re certain?”
I struggled to contain my swelling rage. “Yes. They killed him.”
“Who?”
“The Hindi, she’s dead. The American—”
“I’m having trouble hearing you…that noise—”
I moved away from the fountain. “Duran escaped.”
“You gave chase?”
“Of course.”
“You need to be careful. He may be armed—”
“My brother has been killed. You ask me to be careful?”
“I ask you to remain calm, think this through.”
Calm. Like Arshan. The remembrance of Allah.
“Did you say something?”
“No.” I started heading back.
“What happened to the African?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“What about Duran? Any idea where he is?”
“No,” I said. “But I’ll find him.”
“Listen to me. You must not return to his apartment—”
“I’m going back to the car.”
“Leave it. We’ll—”
I ended the call and shut off the phone. No more orders from Ali Mahbood. I knew what had to be done. And what I needed to do it.
6.
Rabbit Hole
VINCENZO WAS THE CLOSEST I had to an actual friend in Rome. A 34-year-old Italian adolescent, he still lived under his mother’s care in the same room he’d grown up in. Doting, disapproving, she cooked his meals and did his laundry, while he ran the travel business inherited from his father. That’s how I had met him, through my work as a guide in Rome. He accounted for more than half of my referrals.
The imp was out, as I’d expected, but I knew he’d soon be back. Vincenzo would never submit himself to an entire night with a woman; he deemed anything more than a roll in the hay an unacceptable long-term commitment.
His computer glowed with a photograph of the current Italian heartthrob, the actress and singer Violante Placido. I sat down before this goddess and Googled “lotus, drug.” This brought up a list of links to Nymphaea caerulea, the Blue Lotus, which apparently had been used by the ancient Egyptians to induce an ecstatic state, and was also a candidate for the addictive flower on the island of the ‘Lotus Eaters’ in Homer’s Odyssey. But the plant had only very mild psychoactive properties, certainly not worth killing people over. In addition, the color was wrong, and it turns out the Blue Lotus is not a lotus at all, but rather a species of water lily, a different plant entirely.
After chasing these fuzzy lotus links down a few more rabbit holes, I searched for Maya Rakshasi again, skimming lists of sales reps at Indian textile companies. This got me nowhere, of course. If she was a traveling saleswoman, why would she carry a loaded semi-automatic? And even if she did actually carry it for protection, why would she also carry a silencer? Why, indeed, had she used the silencer?
The flower peddler was even more puzzling. Had he been looking for the lotus as well? Who had he been following, me or Maya? And had the men in the Mercedes been following us all?
Your flower boy, the man had said into the cell. Who had he been talking to?
I searched the Web for the kind of knife the two Middle-Easterners had brandished. An antique “Indo-Persian dagger” appeared the closest to it, while the swirling pattern I’d seen in the blade resembled “Damascus steel.” The steel’s secretive history intrigued me. The forging technique originated in ancient India, and in the Middle Ages was further refined in the Muslim Middle East, where the wavy-patterned, stormy steel took on its Syrian moniker. But it was the smelting process developed in Persia that created the most coveted “Damascene” blades. Swords and daggers of supreme sharpness and strength, they garnered an almost mythical reputation among the invading Crusaders.
Most curious of all was this: According to modern metalsmiths, the secret to producing this type of “true” Damascus steel was lost nearly 300 years ago. No one knows exactly how the deadly blades were made.
So what were these “Indo-Persian” knives—fabricated copies? Perhaps they were genuine antiques. Either way it spoke to the strangeness of these men, their odd anachronism, drawing Damascene daggers from beneath their Hugo Boss. But still it told me nothing of who the men were, or why they seemed so intent on the lotus.
I fell back on Vincenzo’s bed and stared bug-eyed at the ceiling. My thoughts swirled like that stormy steel, my head awash in wine and dread. The rush of adrenaline had barely subsided, and my heart still rattled in my chest. I worried about what I should tell the police, and feared I’d be arrested when they found the link to Dan.
Over the years, my brother had compiled a lengthy criminal record. At least four different arrests in four different countries: once for attempting to smuggle ayahuasca out of the Amazon, once for possession of DMT snuff, once for selling fake antiquities in Mexico, and finally for suspicion of murder in Greece. Only in the latter case had he actually been acquitted.
Yet Dan could hardly be labeled an outright criminal. He was an eccentric, autodidact intellectual, a self-described “Dionysian libertarian” who disregarded laws he felt intruded on his freedom, in particular the freedom to explore his own psyche. His illegal “experiments” were conducted, he claimed, purely in the interests of science. They focused on the interface of consciousness and matter, the emergence of the disembodied mind from the brain. “Mapping the boundary of the human soul” is the way he grandly put it. Reality-altering chemicals were his primary tools of research, but in recent years his inquiries had turned more academic: historical and anthropological analyses, ethno-botanical pharmacology studies, readings on the origins of ancient religions, and experiential research into Eastern mysticism.
All of which I had hoped would finally keep him out of trouble.
After our last disaster—the aforementioned Night of the Furies—I myself had sworn off the use of anything illegal. Normal, everyday consciousness seemed plenty scary enough. I still indulged in wine, of course, to lull the inner autocrat and loosen inhibition, but even there I stayed within the bounds of moderation. “Nothing in excess”—words of caution carved on the Temple of Apollo, where we’d heedlessly embarked on our Furies misadventure. And nothing, of course, meant everything—not just drink and drugs, but food, money, lust, love, greed, hate, fear.
Fear.
I tried to calm myself. Too much fear befuddles. I needed clarity to think.
On the wall beside the bed hung a framed portrait of Jesus. Like me, Vincenzo had been raised Catholic, and like me, he no longer practiced. His mother had probably hung this picture to admonish her dissolute son. The image was a familiar one: the long, soft, flowing locks, the handsome, gentle countenance, the otherworldly halo hovering magically over his head. The human face of God. I’d seen essentially the same picture from the time I was a kid. There was something reassuring about it, even a bit entrancing, and for a moment, gazing into that all-forgiving face, I completely forgot myself.
Perhaps my situation wasn’t really all that bad. At least not with the police. I knew in all likelihood they would slap me with a fine. Might even try to deport me. Or lock me up in jail. At the very worst I’d be implicated in murder. But surely the risk I faced with them was less than I faced with the drug gang. The gang had a man on the streets with a knife, a man
determined to kill me. He was the real danger.
I had to go to the police. It was foolish to think I wouldn’t. Except for failing to file some paperwork, I’d actually done nothing wrong. I decided I would tell the cops exactly what had happened. The minute Vincenzo returned I’d have him drive me down to the station.
I relaxed on the bed, breathing deep, repeating the same thought like a mantra: I got away. It’s all right now. I’m okay. I’m safe. The adrenalin shock that had fuelled my run gradually subsided, and a heavy weight of exhaustion seemed to press me into the bed. Gentle raindrops ticked against the window. I turned and gazed at Jesus until my eyelids fluttered shut.
IT WAS THERE. Under the passenger seat. Right where Arshan had placed it less than half an hour before.
Barely half an hour! Alive, sitting beside me! Calm, unflappable, chain smoking cigarettes, dropping wry remarks. Now he lay on that roof in the rain—just there, above the street—dead, bleeding out his heart, no one there to mourn him.
I twisted off the silver cap and sniffed the musky scent. The odor evoked a vision. Rivers of milk and honey flowing beneath the Eternal Garden, where a drink from the bottomless spring drew one nearer to Allah. I quaffed from the goatskin in keen anticipation, eager for the blessings that would soon pour down upon me. Laying my head back, I closed my eyes, waiting for the words to come, the prayer Arshan would whisper.
“The gates of Paradise lie beneath the shade of swords. In the remembrance of Allah, the heart will find its rest.”
The remembrance of Allah. His gift to us on earth. A taste of the sweet Paradise awaiting us hereafter.
Already I could feel it, descending like the rain. Suffusing me with certainty. Filling me with strength.
The killing of this American would be the start of bliss.
“Jack! Pronto!?”
I flicked the windshield wipers. Across the street a loudmouthed drunk banged on Duran’s door. “E mio, Vincenzo!” His call echoed down the street. The transom remained dark.
Behind him loitered two spike-heeled raggaze, impatiently tugging their earring hoops and brushing back rain-soaked hair.
“Jack!”
I watched. And waited. It is not every day you see the hand of God at work.
7.
Loca
LEATHER SOLES ON CREAKING WOOD.
I leapt from Vincenzo’s bed. Someone was creeping up the stairwell. Had I fallen asleep? Had the killer tracked me down? My heart pounded frantically. I looked around for another way out. In the bathroom I knew there was a window. I wondered if I could jump.
Out in the hall, a woman giggled. It was cut off by a “shush” and a man’s pleading whisper.
I snapped open the door.
One wore black mesh stockings. The other had raccoon eyes. They peered from behind Vincenzo, who gaped at me in surprise. “Jack!” he whispered. “Lei é qui!”
“Si,” I sighed. “You woke me.”
Vincenzo ushered the women inside and quietly shut the door. I noticed their hair and clothes were soused, and realized it must be raining.
“We look for you,” he said in English, pushing back his damp locks and tossing down his keys. “I bring my friends to meet you.”
“Look for me? Where?”
“Everywhere. Accidenti, oy!” He lifted my chin and winced at my throat. “You no use electric?”
“What time is it?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Two? Three?”
Dance music blared.
“No, piacere!” Vincenzo charged at the raccoon lady, who had inserted her iPod into his dock and was trying to find the volume. He lowered it for her and—avoiding any mention of his mother—patiently reminded the girl not to awaken the loca (crazy woman) in the rooms below.
The girl pleaded. I interrupted. “Vinny. Did you go to my apartment?”
The raccoon defied him and turned up the juice.
“Si, you no answer your phone—”
“Veeencenzo...” The stockinged woman tugged him away, entwining herself in his arms.
“Did you see anyone there? Vincenzo?”
He turned as they danced. “Light was on. But door is locked. We are knocking, knocking, but no answer. So, I bring ladies here.”
Raccoon Eyes had taken my hand and was dragging me onto the floor. Her hair a sopping mop.
“Did you see a man?” I asked her. “A man in a suit with a beard and moustache?”
She gazed at me without answering. Her dark eyes floated in pitch-black pools that bled down over her cheeks.
Vincenzo danced beside us. “She likes you, Jack!”
The ghoulish woman’s drunken dance would frighten off the devil.
“Vinny, listen—”
He suddenly held up a hand to silence me, cocking his head to a sound. Then he reached over and turned off the music.
Someone was knocking at the door downstairs.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
The stockinged woman asked if we had woken up the loca. Vincenzo shushed her and listened at the door.
I hurried to the window and scanned the cars below. Under a street lamp half a block away, falling rain splashed on a parked black Mercedes.
The pounding at the door grew insistent.
I grabbed the keys off the table. “Where’d you leave your car?”
His mother was answering the door downstairs. A man’s voice calmly replied to her ravings.
Vincenzo flicked an accusing gaze at me. “Polizia?”
“Worse,” I said. I locked the door to the stairwell. “Tell me where you parked your car.”
“Around corner. On Capocci.”
“Grazie.”
“But you have no patente.”
“Non ti turba. I know how to drive.” I gripped his shoulder. “Do not tell him I was here. Understand?” I looked at the women. “You never saw me.”
The man was coming up the stairs.
I scurried into the bathroom and shut the door. Vincenzo turned on the music. In the darkness I climbed into the claw-foot tub and closed the shower curtain. Rain battered the window. As I struggled to open it, I heard the man knock.
Vincenzo, gallantly delaying, called out over the music, asking who it was.
Seconds later, the women shrieked as the man busted open the door.
8.
Spider
THEY SAY IT ISN’T THE FALL that kills you, it’s the landing. The alley below was paved in stone. Dropping from the windowsill, I smacked down hard and rolled. My ankles survived, but my elbow was crushed. Cradling it, I hustled off, limping down the lane.
The black stone teemed with rain. In the rush I slipped and fell again, landing on the goddamn elbow. I struggled to my feet and hurried to the corner. Glancing back at the bathroom window, I saw the light had been turned on. I didn’t catch him looking out, and worried that he’d already spotted me.
On Capocci I dashed right past Vinny’s Alfa and had to double back. The Spider was jammed between two sedans and pressed up against the wall. My hands shook uncontrollably as I aimed the key in the door. It wasn’t even locked—they’d been too rushed in the downpour.
The windows started fogging up the second I got in. I searched for the button to lock the doors. Listening for footsteps, all I could hear was my own frantic breathing and the clamorous patter on the canvas roof. The locks finally thumped in place. The radio blared when I turned the key, and the wipers rapidly swiped. As the windshield cleared, I glanced up the street.
Empty.
Unable to see out the back, I dropped the stick into reverse and proceeded to crinkle the bumper behind me. It set off a bleating alarm. Panicking, I shifted too fast and banged the fender in front. When I turned to back up once again, a shadow filled my window.
I gasped. Behind the fogged and rain-glazed glass, the blurry, bearded figure jerked my door handle. Then he struck the windowpane, and something metal cracked it. I shifted into gear. Shattering the taillight in front of me, I whirled out in
to the street.
The Spider fishtailed as I straightened the wheel, and the man leapt onto the hood. He hammered down his dagger, smashing the stock into the windshield. The butt of the handle busted through and lodged itself in the glass. In the rush I glimpsed its golden crown. It was shaped in the form of a lotus.
I swung the wheel, stomped the pedal, banked a corner hard. The man rolled twisting over the hood, but clung to the planted dagger. Climbing back, he grasped the wiper, inadvertently bending the blade.
My view turned blearily liquid. His blurry body loomed.
I slammed hard on the brakes.
The Spider shuddered to a sudden stop. The dagger popped loose, spraying glass, and the man flew onto the pavement. I jammed the stick back into reverse, then spun the wheel and floored ahead, barreling into the downpour. The spastic windshield wiper screeched. The street ahead looked empty.
In the rearview mirror, a shadow appeared. It filled the oval window. Suddenly the Spider jolted. I held to the wheel and plowed ahead fast, wipers screeching madly. Then I heard a ‘pop’ in the canvas overhead and found myself staring at steel.
For a second I thought it was an optical illusion, a glint of reflected light from the rain or a crack in the fractured windshield. But suddenly I recognized the Damascene blade, its bold arc slicing canvas. The blade ripped toward me. I ducked my head aside as it razored past my ear.
The car careened. I held the wheel. The blade withdrew abruptly, then pierced the roof again, this time plunging inches from my face. I pressed my head back as it sawed another slot, angling in a “V” toward the first.
The cuts connected. The flap blew open. Thrusting down through it came the killer’s clawing hand.
He grasped at my face. I ducked aside and spun the wheel, skidding a blind corner and pounding over a curb. Headlights swam, horns blaring. The man ripped still more canvas as he slid down over the side. Rain pelted my face. I squinted past the screeching wiper into a glare of headlights and a blaring wall of sound. My car had entered a thoroughfare on the wrong side of the street.
The Assassin Lotus Page 3