by D J Mcintosh
A couple of inches of water covered the floor. It smelled musty inside, almost putrid. The room’s contours were barely visible. Old oil drums had been stacked along one wall, the fuel they once held presumably running the machinery. I yelled for Strauss, my voice echoing in the cavernous space. Close to the back wall something rectangular stood on a kind of platform; as I approached, I could see it was a square frame draped by fringed velvet curtains with the name STRAUSS embroidered in gold. An old prop from his glory days? My better sense told me not to look behind them, but I’d come this far and had no intention of leaving now. I reminded myself again that Strauss had no motive to do me harm. I pulled open the curtains and staggered back in horror.
Twenty-Three
February 20, 2005
Erie Canal
A huge vertical block of ice glimmered blue-white as if it were lit internally. Strauss was frozen inside, his intense blue eyes open, his wrinkled hands held up defensively in front of his chest as though protecting himself from an attack, his old man’s skin, frozen pink. After a moment of shock I questioned what I was seeing. Another visual trick? It had to be. I ran my hand down the surface, expecting to find air, but instead I felt a rigid, cold surface. My fingers burned. I couldn’t pull my hand away. It was glued to the ice, like a kid whose tongue had stuck to a freezing iron railing.
“Best to look and not touch, Mr. Madison. Although I must admit, it is tempting.”
I wrenched myself around to see Strauss descending a staircase that seemed to be coming from a dark hole high up in one corner of the room. He carried some kind of implement.
“Get my hand off this fucking thing.”
“Why of course,” he said. “Child’s play.”
I shrank back when he climbed onto the platform and raised the implement. But when he flicked a button on its handle I could feel heat radiating from it. “My magic wand,” he joked. “Ease your hand away; otherwise your skin will tear.”
The ice melted rapidly around my palm. I pulled my hand free and shook it. “You bastard,” I said.
“I’m sorry you weren’t amused. This”—he waved his hand toward the ice block—“is pure entertainment. A well-known magician actually did encase himself in ice and almost died because of it. I lack that degree of commitment.”
I glanced around the room. “Why the hell are you living in this decrepit cave?”
“I prefer my own company. I find it discourages visitors.”
That was the understatement of the year.
Strauss put a hand on my shoulder. “Come, let me offer you more hospitable surroundings.”
I followed him up the stairs, apprehensive but determined not to show it, and saw that the dark hole was actually a black door. It opened onto a luxurious, open-concept space with a grand-looking kitchen separated from the main area by a bar. A partitioned-off corridor, I figured, led to the bedrooms. An attendant was busy at the bar.
Crackling logs in a fireplace with a brass and black granite mantel pumped out welcome heat. Plush carpets covered a floor of wide blond planks. The original factory floor, I guessed, refurbished. Large framed posters—advertisements for Strauss’s old magic acts—hung on the walls. The weak light on the canal cast rippling greenish reflections on the ceiling and pale cream walls. The effect was both beautiful and calming.
Strauss slipped out of his boots and I did the same. He looked at my soaking shoes. “I imagine your feet are pretty cold.”
“You’ve got that right.” I was still infuriated by his charade downstairs.
He took my overcoat, hung it in a closet, and reached for a pair of slippers.
“Sit there.” He indicated an old-fashioned armchair, one of two placed near the fireplace. “Harrison will bring us some coffee.”
As if on cue, Harrison began pouring our coffee from a carafe into steaming china mugs. He brought them over to us. “That’s fine now, Harrison,” Strauss said. The man nodded and went through to the room beyond, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
I waited until Strauss took a sip before I tasted mine. “You don’t warn your guests about the perils of getting in here?”
“Now that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?” He cocked his head and fixed his blue gaze on me, a flash of hostility quickly replaced with something more benign. That look echoed his attitude toward me at Gina’s séance. As though he had some personal gripe with me and hated me because of it. It made no sense.
“I gather you found my sculpture convincing?” He had a way of chuckling with all the mirth stripped out of it. “Done by a talented young artist, Jude Luscombe. He got his start in movie special effects and makeup. Taking representative art to the extreme, you could say. Like the anatomist Gunther von Hagens’s pieces, only without the gory internal details. Jude uses real human skin. Preserves it somehow.”
My stomach turned.
“From cadavers of course. All legit. A good likeness, don’t you think?”
“Yes. Especially encased in a block of ice with next to no visibility in the room.” I took another swallow of coffee and welcomed the heat in my throat. Strauss had taken advantage of me twice. It was time to turn the tables and give him a run for it. “I’ve decided to decline your commission.” I fixed my own gaze on him and saw his face grow pale. I liked putting him on the defensive for a change.
“May I ask why?”
“For one thing, being involved in your scheme is turning out to be hellishly dangerous. Tricia Ross was murdered two days ago and a guy tried to run me off the road yesterday. When that failed, he took a shot at me.”
“Someone shot at you? Heavens, why?”
“I think he wants Helmstetter’s artifacts. I presume Tricia told you about a man named Yersan?”
He gave me a measured look. “Yes. Very sad about Miss Ross. I understand the police believe it to be a robbery gone wrong.”
“A robbery?”
“Her collection of Iraqi artifacts is missing. A small collection, but it included some valuable items.”
“Surely she didn’t keep them in her house.”
“In her safe, in the bedroom upstairs. They must have pried the codes out of her before they killed her. Poor woman.”
“I’d like to get back to the reason for my visit. Thanks for the opportunity and the generous payment, but I must decline. Even if Helmstetter is still alive somewhere, no one will ever find him if he doesn’t want to be found. By all accounts, including yours, he’s a talented illusionist. If he’d wanted to vanish, he’d be capable of disappearing forever.”
Strauss couldn’t keep the spark of excitement from his eyes. “You’re right. He was as ingenious as his forebear, Faust. I’ve told you about the original Faust—and knowledge of him is relevant to understanding Helmstetter’s character.” Strauss noticed my impatience. “Bear with me for a moment. As I said before, many believe Goethe modeled Faust on George Sibelius, who later changed his name to Georgios Faustus Helmstetter. Heidelberg University records indicate that a man by that name was enrolled there for five years, beginning in 1483. Some believed Faustus to be a skilled fortune teller. But Trithemius, the author of my missing Steganographia, who was a contemporary and knew Faustus, loathed the man.”
Strauss reached for a book on the low table beside him, licked his thumb, and combed through the pages. Despite his age, he didn’t need glasses. “Ah. Here it is. The letter where Trithemius expresses this opinion of Helmstetter.
“That man, about whom you wrote me … who dared to call himself the foremost of necromancers, is an unstable character, a babbler and a vagabond … continually asserting things in public that are abominable and contrary to the teachings of the Holy Church.”
Strauss looked up. “Rather churlish of the abbot, considering that he too dabbled in alchemy.” He snapped the book shut and laid it down. “Faust was last seen in Amsterdam when a group of Anabaptists took over the city and carried out a rampage of sexual orgies and killing. He disappeared in the melee. If h
e died there his body was never identified.”
I waited. I wasn’t going to make this easier on Strauss.
“Helmstetter, like his fifteenth-century forebear, was a fortune teller who sought to know more than the future. He wanted forbidden knowledge, and I don’t doubt that he’d make an unholy bargain for it. He’s alive, somewhere. I know it. And I believe you have the skills to find him.”
“Well, why did Helmstetter want to disappear? Do you know what his motivation was? Surely not the measly ten thousand dollars he stole from you.”
“He had the best of motivations. He knew I’d kill him if I ever found him again.” Strauss blinked rapidly. I sensed he was genuinely upset at the thought of my abandoning his mission. “If you found Helmstetter, or at least were able to tell me what happened to him, I promised to reveal your true birth story. I gather you no longer care about that?”
“I can’t imagine how you’d know anything about it.”
“You were born in Kandovan—I know that and much more.”
A sledgehammer slammed into my brain. That Evelyn had grown up there and concealed that fact from me, put together with the shaky story she and Samuel had given me about my own origins, had started to form a picture. Strauss had just confirmed my suspicions. “I’d like to hear the rest.”
“That was promised only if you completed the commission.”
“Who told you where I was born?”
“Tricia Ross. It’s one of the reasons she recommended you for the job. Your brother let the information slip in an unguarded moment when they were in Baghdad together.”
This did not ring true. Samuel never had unguarded moments. And Tricia couldn’t have recommended me for the job—she hadn’t even known my last name when we spoke on the phone the night before her death. I decided not to call him on it. He wouldn’t be any more forthcoming if backed into a corner. “That’s interesting but it doesn’t change my mind.”
“Perhaps this will convince you then. What if the FBI is told you stole those antiquities from Iraq I showed you?”
“That would be a little difficult, since they aren’t in my possession.”
“You happen to be right—for now. But you’ve witnessed my abilities with sleight of hand. Success in magic depends on manipulating perception. People see what they’re expecting to see. You’ve been to Iraq—twice. You had a tablet, a stolen object, in your possession—as you call it. You’re an antiquities dealer. When my objects are found on your premises, it wouldn’t be a big jump for authorities to conclude you were tempted. And I can make those arrangements anytime I wish. The FBI might eventually conclude you’re innocent of the charges. But not before the whole thing has cost you money for lawyers, given you a gigantic headache, and smeared your professional reputation. Because I’d make the accusation public.”
I set my cup down, stood up, and paced over to the window. I took a minute to look out at the canal, the waters sluggish in the weak light, trying to keep a rein on my temper. “One question: Helmstetter mentioned an intention to travel to Eden. Do you have any idea what he was referring to?”
“My assistant was interested in loci of power, and like Buddhists and indigenous people, he believed transformations were possible only in certain geographic locations. He became convinced Eden not only once existed but could still be found. I think that’s what took him to the Middle East.”
“He thought he could find Eden in Kandovan?”
“That’s two questions, Mr. Madison. I’ll leave it for you to discover.”
I didn’t want to spend another minute in Strauss’s company. “I’m leaving now. No thanks for your hospitality.”
“By all means.” He didn’t bother to rise from his chair. “I look forward to your reports.”
I steamed down the pathway back to the rental car. Neither the bear nor the fawn put in an appearance on the return route. Strauss’s magic apparently didn’t work in reverse.
When I reached the garage in Utica, I saw they’d done a great job replacing the windshield. “Expensive little toys,” the mechanic said after handing me the bill.
The Thruway had mercifully reopened. I reached my apartment around six in the evening, angry and frustrated. It was a warm homecoming on the other side. Loki rubbed up against my leg, overjoyed to see me again. I asked Bennet why she hadn’t warned me about Strauss’s lair. She confessed she’d never visited his home but met with him only when he came to New York. She was appalled to hear about his threats and did her best to smooth me out. Strauss had trapped me; I felt like a fox twisting in his snare. I had no doubt he’d make good on his word if I didn’t follow through with his plans.
And I couldn’t get Tricia’s sightless eyes out of my mind.
Twenty-Four
February 21, 2005
New York
The next day I hatched a plan. The task Strauss had set me was impossible—and what would be the end point? How long would he persist in holding a so-called theft over my head? The solution was easy. Give him what he wanted: an account of Helmstetter’s fate and, ideally, the book. Simple, really. I’d manufacture both.
Despite his wiles, Strauss had a big Achilles’ heel: his passionate hatred for Helmstetter and the fervent desire to pay his former assistant back. He’d kept that animosity alive for thirty-five years. And when people let that kind of anger control them, their judgment lapsed. That gave me an opening. I took my cue from something he’d said: “Give people what they expect to see.” Well—I would do just that.
First, I learned all I could about Trithemius, who was born Johann Heidenberg in 1462. Caught in a terrible blizzard one night, he sheltered in the Benedictine abbey of Sponheim, decided to stay, and eventually took monastic orders. Remarkably, one year later, Trithemius became its abbot at the age of twenty-one. A Renaissance man, he was highly regarded as a magician, man of letters, and adviser to nobles. He studied the occult, numerology, and the Kabbala and transformed the poor abbey into a center of learning, expanding its library by thousands of volumes. His most famous work, The Steganographia, purported to be a record of angel magic. A covert masterpiece, it was one of the first demonstrations of cryptology—and was banned for three hundred years. The code Trithemius devised was finally broken by Thomas Ernst, a German professor, five hundred years after the book was written.
It would be impossible to duplicate the entire book convincingly—Strauss would inevitably spot the ruse. But a few pages? That was feasible. I’d tell him it was all that remained of his book. No original copies were known to exist; Strauss had said his edition was published in 1792. The NSA’s National Cryptologic Museum had some of Trithemius’s works but not the right one. I eventually learned that a copy was available for viewing in the Library of Congress.
I called a friend in the antiquities business who enjoyed a passing acquaintance with Alice Jacobs, a rare-books authority who’d strayed, becoming one of the most skilled book forgers in America. After years of success, she’d been caught, not through any fault in her work but because her ex-husband reported her. A plea bargain landed her a short term in prison; afterward, she moved from New York to Pennsylvania. Rumor had it she still dabbled in forgeries. She was my choice to duplicate the pages—if I could talk her into it. I suspected dollar bills might do the trick. The beauty of it all was that I’d be using Strauss’s own money to dupe him.
Inventing a credible story about what had happened to Helmstetter presented a greater challenge. For that, I’d have to go to both Pergamon and Kandovan. There was no other way I could gather enough convincing information. Traveling to Pergamon would be a breeze; Kandovan, next to impossible.
I also needed to find out more about Yersan. Since he was an antiquities dealer, one of my contacts would surely have heard of him. I emailed a query to a couple of colleagues.
Avery Mandel called me late that afternoon. “I’ve done business with the guy, John. What do you want to know?”
“Not sure exactly. I had a run-in with him. Is
he on the level?”
“No. But he’s cagey about it. Always looking for any edge he can use to jack up a price. Which is fair enough, I guess. We all do it. He makes a lot of money.”
I filed that away. So far it confirmed my suspicions. “Anything else?”
“Not directly, but there’s rumors.”
“I’m listening.”
“Yersan can be vicious if you get in his way. Word has it a former business partner died when he crossed him. Nothing they could ever prove and maybe I’m wrong. But still. And he subscribes to some esoteric clan. He’s called a magi.”
“Come again?”
“Traces back to the Medes. Fifth century B.C. Iranian. They’re followers of Zoroaster. Fragments of that community live in Iranian Azerbaijan. They still practice it. He travels back and forth from there to America a lot. That’s about it as far as I know.”
Mandel had been very helpful. I thanked him and clicked off. What he’d told me made it all the more apparent that if I were to travel to Iran I’d need expert security—someone who knew the territory. Nick Shaheen, who’d grown up in Baghdad but was of Persian descent and spoke perfect Farsi, would have been my man of choice had he not died in the Iraq war. I still missed him. He’d been a good friend to me and a protector. All I could think of was to try contacting Nick’s man, Ali, who at least might recommend someone else. I had Ali’s cell number, but that was from over a year ago. Still, it was my only alternative, short of hiring some security firm blind, which I was loath to do. That night I texted Ali asking that he contact me.