by Al Macy
He looked remarkably like Sigmund Freud but without the beard. And without the scowl. Age fifty-eight, his perpetually happy expression was more like Captain Kangaroo’s. Yes, a mix of Freud and Captain Kangaroo. Perhaps the smartest man on the planet, he wore a lab coat, with reading glasses on a chain around his neck.
Trooping into the home portion of his residence, a cabbage-y but wonderful scent washed over us. I took in a deep breath through my nose.
“Sarmale?” I asked as we trooped into the kitchen.
Zaza shook his head. “Varză a la Cluj.”
“Ah.” I looked to Andrei, but he wasn’t reacting. He did seem a little more animated than usual—was it because I’d told him there was a surprise for him here?
Varză a la Cluj is made by sautéing pickled cabbage then cooking it with minced beef, pork, rice, onions, and other spices. It’s even better than it sounds, especially when served with a dark beer.
“It will be ready in thirty minutes.” He removed the lid and took a look. “Your package arrived.”
“Big and heavy?”
He took a breath. “I hope it isn’t what I think it is.”
“We can talk about it later. I … later.”
I made the mistake of putting my hand on Andrei’s shoulder to guide him into the lab. He flinched away but headed to the laboratory’s door.
The coziness disappeared as we passed through the door. This space more closely resembled a warehouse, with an uninsulated corrugated iron ceiling and windows high up on the wall. It was divided into two areas for Zaharia’s two research projects. The first was devoted to a device he was developing which would produce almost unlimited energy. In fact, his home and the lab were both being heated with a football-sized prototype of this apparatus.
The second area was devoted to—and this is going to sound fantastic—a time machine.
It seems incredible, but I’ve seen it in action. The time machine can only send things forward in time. Zaza has explained the paradoxes that tell us that travel back in time is not possible.
As I said, I’d seen it work. We’d sent mice, rabbits, and other creatures forward in time. At that point, there was no way to regulate how far ahead they traveled. All the creatures simply disappeared when Zaza flipped the switch, never to reappear. Perhaps they traveled forward ten years, forty years, a thousand years. Or maybe they were just gone. Zaza was working on that problem.
The wooden packing box sat on the cement floor between the two lab areas. I grabbed a claw hammer from the tool board and pried off the top and four sides of the box. Pulling away the excelsior revealed a blue safe. “National Security” was written in script at the top of the door. The dial sat somewhat above the center of the door, with a stainless steel handle below it.
I knew very little about safes. My Uncle Rizvan had had an impressive collection and tried to teach me the art of opening them without knowing the combination. It never took. I’m good with a lockpick, but if I encounter a locked safe on a job, I ignore it.
Zaharia came to the door. The Captain Kangaroo smile left his face, and he turned and went back into his living quarters.
“Zaza!” I called.
Andrei pressed the Yes button—ding, ding—dropped the board and went over to the safe. He started spinning the dial, staring off into space. The seller told me no one knew the combination. He was convinced that there was nothing valuable inside. Consulting a locksmith, he’d learned that the cost of breaking into it was likely to be greater than the value of the contents. I paid a good price for it and got a signed bill of sale. I was welcome to whatever I found inside. I promised I’d send him any items of sentimental value.
I followed Zaharia into the house. Andrei could be trusted by himself in the lab.
My uncle sat on a stool at the kitchen counter next to a bottle of tuică, a plum brandy. He poured it into two shot glasses but didn’t look at me.
I hugged him from behind, pressing the side of my head against his back. “Please, Zaza. Please see my point of view.”
He said nothing.
“Opening safes is only pleasure Andrei gets from life. Can deny him that? What are chances he will ever get together with criminals? You know him. Is just not going to happen. There isn’t a big demand for safecrackers at Pathways.”
I felt him give a single chuckle, like a small cough.
“Viva, what if criminals found out about his skill?” he asked.
I released the hug and climbed onto the stool next to him. “Is not going to happen.”
“How do you know that?”
“You have been to the home. He’s isolated there.”
“Have you seen the Star Wars movie?”
I frowned. Where was this going? “Yes.”
“You remember about the force?”
“Of course.” I downed my shot of tuică.
“I’ve always felt that there is some kind of force in our family. We—”
“But you don’t believe in that kind of stuff.”
He poured me another shot. “I’m not talking about anything mystical. It’s just that there’s a dark side of our family, like the dark side of the force, and a light side. We’ve done many good and wonderful things, but—”
“So, Rizvan and Flavius were on the dark side.”
“Yes. You don’t agree?”
“You know that without Flavius, our family would probably have … distrusă?”
“Perished.”
“Yes. We would have perished in the slums of Alba Iulia, without jewels he stole.”
“But what about—?”
I pointed toward the lab. “How would you have built the lab without those jewels? Without those, we’d have had no money to invest.”
“Please don’t interrupt, Viviana. What about the family he stole them from? Perhaps they were plunged into poverty. Maybe their family perished.”
“They were very rich. Perhaps didn’t even miss the jewels.” I said it with a conviction I didn’t feel.
“I raised you better than that, Viviana.”
We both took another shot of alcohol.
“Zaza,” I said. “What about me. Am I on the dark side?”
He took a deep breath and looked straight ahead, his vacant stare reminding me of Andrei. “You know I’ve tried to turn a blind eye to your activities. It hasn’t been easy. I do not want to interfere with your life. I vowed that after I finished raising you, I would not interfere. But if I don’t give you some … feedback … who—?”
“You know is compulsion, yes? Cleptomanie.”
The muscles in his jaw tightened. “That is no excuse. Everyone has urges. Animals do, humans do. But we can fight them.”
“Is not so simple.”
“No?”
“No. Is compulsion, not just urge. Have been reading about it. Is like cigarette smoking or—” I picked up the shot glass “—alcoholism. Is part of me, unfortunately.” I blinked back tears.
“Are you trying to fight this compulsion?”
“Yes.”
“Try harder.”
We were both silent for a while. This felt so harsh from the man who was usually so loving.
“When was your last … job?” he asked, his tone softer.
I looked away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You didn’t have anything to do with that statue, did you?”
“What? From the museum?”
“Da.” He held his breath, as if fearful of what he’d find out.
“No. Of course not. I don’t steal from muse—that wasn’t me.” Someone had stolen an Oscar from the Walt Disney family museum. The statue had been awarded for Disney’s 1933 short subject, The Three Little Pigs. I didn’t take it. I was sure he believed me. I’d never lied to him.
“You know that there’s more involved than the monetary value of what you steal, yes? It’s traumatic to learn that a stranger has entered your home. And those jewels may have had great sentimental value.”
I did know that. Once, I had stolen jewels from Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic swimmer who had played Tarzan in the movies. When I got home, I was horrified to see that among the things I’d scooped up was one of his Olympic gold medals. I immediately mailed it back to him, careful to leave no fingerprints on the package.
The silence stretched out. Uncle Zaharia was the most important person in my life. I wanted him to be proud of me. I heard a noise behind me and turned. Andrei had entered the room.
“Did you open the safe?” I asked him.
He had his board but made no move to push a button. I rushed into the lab. The safe stood open, its contents undisturbed. I kneeled down and took a look, admittedly with a little jolt of excitement. Part of the fun of a job is not knowing ahead of time what you’ll find. Like the unwrapping of a present.
I looked it over: an expired passport, a pile of photographs, souvenirs, social security cards. Nothing valuable. I would take those things back to the man who’d sold me the safe. No, wait. That could result in questions about how I’d opened it. I’d mail them back.
CHAPTER FOUR
On a Saturday morning, only three days after flying home, I settled in at a table at the Marina branch of the San Francisco Public Library. Its most interesting feature was the exposed I-beams that held up the vaulted ceiling. I had once traversed a beam like that, hanging from my hands and swinging like an orangutan.
The smell of old books and a homeless man hung in the air. The patrons—and of course, the librarians—were quiet. Good thing, because I had a headache. I’d recovered well from jet lag—I always found that it wasn’t much of a problem with flying east to west.
I’d resolved to send the Portensia diamond back—if I could find it again. Was that part of my “trying harder”? Not really. It wasn’t the value of the items I stole that was important to me, it was the thrill of the job. It was just a souvenir, something that let me reexperience the job. For example, to relive the moment I unlatched the handcuffs. I usually kept a souvenir or two from each job. But maybe souvenirs made my problem worse.
I’d read that serial killers kept souvenirs. Hmm.
Time to get to work finding Bolton. He’d said, “I draw things for commercial purposes,” so perhaps he’d have an ad somewhere. I checked the yellow pages for San Francisco and several neighboring districts. Nothing. His clothes had looked expensive. Maybe he didn’t need to advertise.
I wasn’t good at this, or maybe there just wasn’t enough to go on. I spun my wheels for another hour or so and did some other reading. Then I gathered my stuff and went next door to a diner. I sat at the counter. The effects of my Turkish coffee had worn off completely.
Soon after I received my coffee and two fried eggs, a giant of a man came in and sat on the stool next to me. He was well built, like a wrestler or a bodybuilder. I stole a quick glance. Strangely, his face was bordered by coal-black … what was the word in English? Cotlet de berbec? Mutton cutlets? … ah, mutton chops. I had never seen those in real life, only in pictures from the early 1900s.
His nose was long and thin, not unlike my own. A tweed driving cap covered his head. He wore a light-tan shirt, with an unusual collar, buttoned tight against his neck. His tan plaid pants were held up with suspenders. Was this guy in a play or something? He was no older than thirty-five.
“Is this not a superb place for taking morning refreshment?” he asked me.
Strangest pickup line ever. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. “How so, sir?” If he could talk strangely, so could I. Maybe my coffee was kicking in too hard.
He had a booming laugh, like the Jolly Green Giant. “You mock my manner of speech. Richly deserved. My attention has been frequently drawn to my custom, but I am hard-pressed to avoid speaking as I do. Habits are not easily dispatched, and mine are particularly resilient.”
Strangely, I knew what he meant. I know English pretty well, but the way I speak it has gotten to be a habit.
“You are not actor?” I looked around to see if there was anyone else dressed like him. No one.
He laughed again, flagged the waitress over, and ordered a piece of pie and coffee. He removed his hat and stuffed it in his pocket. “No, not an actor. Are you a gymnast or a rock climber?”
I squinted. “Why do you say that?”
“Your musculature is well developed. I’d have proposed a career as a dancer, since even your small movements are made with grace. However, the muscles of your upper body exhibit an especially robust mettle. I noticed that even those in your hands distinguish themselves.”
“Is this some kind of a come-on?”
He frowned and tilted his head. “Forgive me, I—”
“Because if it is, is the strangest one I’ve seen.”
“I’m sorry. ‘Come-on’ is not an idiom with which I’m familiar.”
I looked into his eyes. He seemed genuinely confused. I said, “Are you flirting with me?”
He laughed and flushed a bit. “Ah, I see now. Although you certainly deserve to have a come-in, that was in no way my intent. I notice things and make conclusions, not always warranted. It is part of my job.”
“What kind of job?”
“Shall I entertain you with some more conclusions, some of which are specious.”
“Specious?” It was my turn to frown.
“Sorry, it is a word rarely used. It means superficially plausible but, in point of fact, wrong.”
“Okay. Knock yourself out.”
He took a large bite of pie—lemon meringue—and a gulp of coffee. “You are an organized person. Meticulous.”
“Because?”
“Your handbag has many different pockets. You are dressed casually, yet everything matches. Your makeup was neatly applied, not a hair is out of place. You are Romanian, or possibly from the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and you drink too much—”
“Hold on. How did you know where I’m from?”
“Well,” he said. “Your manner of eating, the way you use your fork, marked you as a European, and your accent tells me you grew up speaking Romanian. Romania or MASSR?”
“Romania. But I do not drink too much.”
“Too much coffee. You drink too much strong coffee.”
“How do you figure that?” I asked.
“You had a headache. When first I caught sight of you, through the window, you were massaging your temples. You put an ice cube in the coffee and gulped it down as soon as the waitress put it in front of you. I’m inferring that you had a caffeine-withdrawal headache.”
“Maybe I was thirsty.”
He pointed to the water glass. “And yet you haven’t had any water. You went for a workout this morning then had Turkish coffee and cold cuts for breakfast.”
That set off alarm bells. Were the police keeping an eye on me? “Have been stalking me or something?” I put some money on the counter in case I needed to make a quick exit.
“Please, Viviana, do not be alarmed.”
I gritted my teeth and growled, “What’s going on here?”
“Forgive me, I’m showing off, another habit I am undertaking to quash. When you took out your wallet to pay, your driver’s license was clearly visible.”
The waitress came by with the coffee. “Things okay here, hon?”
I nodded and took a breath. “How did you know what I did this morning?”
“Most Romanians like Turkish coffee. My impression is that you can’t get it strong enough for your tastes. Nor for your headaches.”
“Workout?”
“You had two eggs as a snack. Either you felt you deserved them after your vigorous routine, or you were genuinely hungry. Combined with the state of your muscles—”
“Cold cuts?”
He smiled and took another bite of pie. Shook his head.
“Come on.”
“That idiom again.” Now he was smirking.
“Tell me how you knew what I had for breakfast.”
“Forgive me,
but it was your breath. Combined with the knowledge that cold cuts are commonly consumed for breakfast in Romania.”
“I have bad breath.”
“No, not bad. When I climbed onto the stool, I was momentarily close enough to catch the scent. I’m sorry if I alarmed you. I was out of line.”
I pointed to his empty plate. “Did you work out this morning?”
“I did not. I warned you that my conclusions aren’t always viable in that they often suffer from exposure to the light of day. Ofttimes they must be revised. May I buy you a piece of pie? This was delicious.”
He ordered a second slice for himself—pecan—and I had the meringue. And more coffee. My headache was gone.
“So, Sherlock,” I said. “I’m deducing you are some kind of detective.”
“A private investigator, yes.”
“Divorce cases? You find people who have been cheating.”
He shook his head and swallowed. “No. I eschew those. I work for attorneys mostly, gathering evidence for presentation in court.”
“I am searching for someone.”
“A sociopath?”
“What?”
He pointed to my library book on the counter, Sociopaths: The Monsters Among Us.
“Oh, no. That’s unrelated.” I slipped the book into my handbag.
After wiping his hands on his napkin, he slipped a business card from his pants pocket and put it by my plate. “I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself properly. My name is Samuel Ticknor. Would you like help finding this person?”
“Are you PI equivalent of ambulance chaser?”
He chuckled. “It does seem that way, doesn’t it? Are you interested?”
“Maybe.” Was it a coincidence that I ran into him just when I was concluding that I couldn’t find Bolton? I replayed the sequence of events that put us there. Yes, just coincidence.
“You’re very rich,” he said.
I smiled. “Here we go again. What makes you think that?”
“You didn’t ask how much my services cost. Although you have a lot of money, you didn’t work hard for it, perhaps you inherited it.”
“Okay, how much?”
“If you have to ask, you can’t—”
“Funny. But you’re very wrong, I didn’t inherit my money.”