The First Face of Janus

by Valentine, Phil

  Crow looked first at Rosenfeld then back at Babineaux. “You’ve lost your mind.”

  “Have I? I had my suspicions before, but once I saw the quatrains you carry, I knew. There was no man in Montreal, just as I suspected.”

  “Bullshit,” Crow said.

  “It was all a lie you made up to cover how you really came into the possession of the quatrains.”

  “He’s playing you,” Crow said to Rosenfeld.

  “You do not know how long I have studied this man called Nostradamus,” Babineaux continued. “As you well know, The Prophecies was not his only work. He wrote other manuscripts, including Orus Apollo. The only known copy, written in Nostradamus’ own hand, is at Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. I have read it myself many times. One of the defining traits of Nostradamus is he wrote almost completely devoid of punctuation. I know his voice as well as I know my own. The quatrains you carry are unmistakably Nostradamus. And they, too, are devoid of punctuation. They are directly from the Unriddled Manuscript and no one would possess them unless they got them from someone with privileged access to the book.”

  “Don’t listen to this maniac,” Crow said.

  “Who are you working for?”

  “I’m not working for anybody.”

  “You may be a troubled man, monsieur, but you are also a determined man. Whomever you work for knew this about you when they hired you. They knew because of your mania that once you got your hooks into something you would never let go. It is what has made you a success as a writer. It is what makes you a success as an agent.” Babineaux looked back down at Rosenfeld. “He figured out the clues to Valencia a little too easily, did he not, mademoiselle? Poor Father Simonin unwittingly led him here. And then he conveniently met his demise.”

  “You’re lying!”

  Babineaux held Crow’s eyes in his. “Am I? You have become the perfect liar. It is part of your psychosis.”

  “Go to hell, Babineaux.”

  “Ah, I see I have touched a nerve.” He turned again to Rosenfeld. “Fantasy prone personality is what it is called, my dear. I am sure Monsieur Crow’s psychiatrist has told him all about it. It is what makes him such a brilliant writer of science fiction, but it is also what has caused him to become completely detached from reality, which made him easily pliable by his employer.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Crow said.

  “Oh, but I do. You see, your whole life is a fantasy. You live in a paracosm, a detailed imaginary world you have created in your mind as a coping mechanism. This paracosm makes your relationships complicated. You see people for whom you deeply care as flawless.” He gestured with the gun. “Mademoiselle Rosenfeld, for example. This was the mistake your employers did not anticipate.” He lifted her hair with the barrel of his pistol and let it drop. “She is quite flawless. You have developed feelings for her, I can tell. Your life may be meaningless to you, but her life is extremely important. They say that people like you are selfish, but I disagree. Right now you care more about her than you do for your own life. That is why you are going to tell me where the book is because you do not want to see her brains splattered all over this warehouse. Where did you run off to this afternoon, Monsieur Crow? Hmm?”

  “You know damn well where I was.”

  “You were at the cathedral, were you not? Searching for the Unriddled Manuscript. Did you have to kill anyone today?”

  “Sidney, this guy is a lunatic! He’s the one who told me about the cathedral. There’s not a shred of truth to anything he’s saying.”

  “Negotiations are over,” Babineaux said. “It is time to close the deal.” He pushed the muzzle up against Rosenfeld’s head

  “Wait,” Crow said.

  “The time for waiting is over. My client grows impatient. Now,” he steadied his stance and tightened his grip on the pistol, “tell me where the book is.”

  Marcus Foster inspected Crow’s car outside the warehouse, checked Babineaux’s Jag, then looked briefly to the darkened skies. The muffled sound of voices drew his attention. He proceeded toward the door with caution, his gun drawn. Thunder rumbled. The door was already open. He slid just inside the doorway and could vaguely make out two people at the other end, maybe a third.

  Rosenfeld’s eyes cut to the side, wide with panic. She whimpered through her sealed mouth. Babineaux’s .380 was pressed to her head, a caliber also known as a 9mm short, used in World War II by German officers in the form of the Walther PPK. Babineaux’s choice was a Beretta Pico, the thinnest .380 on the market, a firearm with a relatively short range but one that would make an awful mess at this close proximity.

  “Otto is not going to be very happy once you’ve killed off the only lead you have,” Crow bluffed.

  Babineaux looked mildly amused. “Very clever, Monsieur Crow. A name you have heard or seen. It means nothing. You know nothing.”

  “Can you be so sure?” Crow asked.

  “I can. You see, I am so sure that I am going to count to three and then I am going to pull the trigger and kill your little girlfriend. That is, unless you tell me where I can find the book.”

  Another bolt of lightning was followed quickly by a clap of thunder. The storm was upon them. Crow’s mind fled to where it normally retreated when his reality became too unbearable to face. He was sliding down the embankment and coming to rest on the flat rock by the tranquil sounds of rushing water. Wild imaginings of far-off places danced in his head, and he plucked them like apples and lay them in his basket.

  “One.”

  Crow dragged himself back up the embankment and into the moment. “Look, I have no idea where it is.”

  “Two.”

  “Don’t do this, Babineaux. It’s not going to get you anywhere. I’m telling you, I don’t know where the damn book is!”

  “Three.”

  “No!”

  The shot that rang out was almost completely silenced by the thunderbolt just outside. Both sounds bounced off the walls of the warehouse. Rosenfeld twisted in her seat with anguish. Crow’s scream came from a primal place of horror deep down inside of him, a place he never knew existed. The pain would not have been more fierce had he been shot himself.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Marcus Foster made his quiet exit out the same door he came in and disappeared into the wet darkness. Crow looked at Rosenfeld with sheer panic. A handgun like Babineaux’s makes a large hole. It also makes a helluva deafening racket at close range. Without ear protection, one’s ears would be ringing for several minutes. Crow’s hearing was perfectly clear. Babineaux collapsed backwards like a marionette with its strings severed. What Crow heard was not Babineaux’s Beretta. It sounded more like a gun at some distance, but his mind was still trying to process exactly what just happened. Crow looked down. Babineaux had a hole between his good eye and his black patch. Blood weeped from the small wound. His good eye was wide open. Crow stood there stunned for a moment, trying to regain his wits, then he whipped around to see where the shot had come from. All this within the span of mere seconds. He heard Rosenfeld’s struggles through the fog and pulled the duct tape from her mouth.

  “The shot came from back there,” she said.

  Crow untied her hands then her feet. “Yes, I know.”

  “I saw a shadow. They’re gone.”

  “Looks like we had a guardian angel. Someone wanted Babineaux dead as bad as he wanted that manuscript. You OK?”

  She nodded. “Who shot him?”

  “I don’t know, but we don’t need to stick around to find out.”

  Crow retrieved Babineaux’s cellphone from his coat pocket. He scrolled through the contacts. Dry cleaner, deli, grocer, nothing unusual. He scrolled down to the name ‘Otto’ and clicked on it.

  “Otto’s number’s blocked.”

  “What are we going to do?” Rosenfeld asked.

  “Well, we sure as hell can’t go to the police.” He began to wipe the phone with his shirt.

  “What are yo
u doing?”

  “Getting rid of my prints.” He slid the cellphone back into Babineaux’s inside coat pocket. “I don’t know if anyone heard that shot. If they did, we don’t need to be here when they show up.”

  “We’re just going to leave him?”

  Crow looked at her with an almost sarcastic smile. “Can’t take him with us.”

  They took a step for the door when Rosenfeld stopped. “My phone.”

  “Where is it?” Crow asked.

  “In his outer coat pocket.”

  “Damn, girl.” Crow reached inside the dead man’s coat pocket and retrieved the phone. “We can’t afford to be that careless.” He handed the phone to Rosenfeld and they hurried to the door.

  Crow looked around as they exited the building into the rain, making sure no one else was around. They felt safer once they were out of the elements with the doors locked and the car gliding away from the lifeless body of Phillippe Babineaux lying on the floor of the warehouse.

  “You sure you’re OK?” Crow asked.

  She nodded.

  “Son of a bitch!” he said. “That was way too close.”

  “What do we do now?”

  Crow looked over at her. She was still trembling. “We’re going back to the room and regroup.” The rhythmic beat of the windshield wipers couldn’t wipe away the awkwardness between them. “It was all lies, you know,” Crow finally said.

  He didn’t have to explain what he was talking about. Rosenfeld nodded.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “Total nonsense. I mean, think about this. You’ve heard me talking to my publisher. He’s the one who sent me to Montreal. I didn’t even want to go. I was just minding my own business when—”

  “It’s OK,” she said.

  The silence returned.

  She looked up at him. “Did you find anything at the cathedral?”

  “Yeah. I found the defender of the rock.”

  “What is it?” Rosenfeld asked.

  “It’s not a ‘what.’ It’s a ‘who.’”

  “A who?”

  “Yeah, this little guy who lives underneath the cathedral. His name is Alejandro. He’s been sharing information with Simonin and Delacroix and others. They apparently have this little network where they trade information about the First Facers and the Custos Verbi.”

  “And?”

  “And he didn’t have a lot to go on. He thinks he’s been monitoring two First Facers at a local cafe, but I’m not sure it’s anything more than his imagination. He said they used the word ‘presages’ in the context of war.”

  “Presages?” Rosenfeld asked. “Like Nostradamus?”

  “Yeah. Alejandro is going to text me a transcript of the conversation.” Crow felt the frustration of not adequately rebutting what Babineaux had just spouted off about. “I’m a frickin’ novelist, for Chrissake. I’m not some secret agent.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t let that crazy asshole get inside your head.”

  “Crow,” she turned to him, “I get it. Sounds like he’s gotten into yours more than he did mine.”

  They arrived back at the Hotel Las Arenas and locked themselves in their suite. The trauma of Rosenfeld’s abduction began to sink in. She sat cross-legged on her bed and wiped tears from the corners of her eyes. Crow sat down beside her and searched for the right words.

  “Look, I’m sorry I got you into all this.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said. “It was my bright idea to cozy up to that monster.” She looked up and fought back more tears.

  “Hey, come here,” Crow said. He held her in his arms. “It was a good plan. Neither of us saw that coming. We just have to be more careful.”

  “Damn. I had such a vibe about him,” she said. “Why didn’t I go with it? I just thought I could use my charm and get anything we wanted out of him. Boy, was I wrong.” She wiped her wet cheek with the back of her hand.

  Crow gently moved away. “We’re assuming he was working alone here in Valencia,” Crow said, “but we do know he’s working for Otto. If Otto can’t locate Babineaux pretty soon, we also have to assume he’ll send others.” Crow’s phone vibrated. He looked down. “It’s Alejandro, the little guy from the cathedral.”

  “What’s he say?” Rosenfeld asked.

  “He sent a text of the conversation between the two supposed First Facers.” Crow scrolled through the text on his phone. “I don’t see anything here that’s really unusual. Yeah, they say ‘presages’ and ‘war’ in the same quote, but that’s about it.”

  “Let me see.” Rosenfeld took the phone from Crow.

  “They talk about knights and fortresses and the guy’s cousin,” he said. “They even mention Hitler, but nothing really stands out.”

  “Hitler?” she asked. “Seems a little odd.”

  “You’re not going to tell me Nostradamus predicted Hitler, are you? Because ‘Hister’ in the quatrains refers to—”

  “The lower Danube River. What do you take me for, some idiot?” Rosenfeld said. “What sticks out to me is this business about monsters presaging war.”

  “But it’s true.”

  “No, I know that, but there’s something familiar about that phrase. I just can’t place it. Does Alejandro know who these people are?”

  “No,” Crow said. “Just two people his associate at the cafe thought were First Facers. You know, it might be absolutely nothing. And if that’s the case, we’re wasting valuable time.”

  “OK, well let’s review what we’re relatively sure of. A wedding. Probably tomorrow. A royal wedding of some sort, if Delacroix was right. The quatrains say people are going to die. Important people, we assume.”

  “While I was waiting for you earlier I checked all the venues I could think of. Palaces, churches. If there’s a royal wedding tomorrow, they’re sure keeping it quiet.”

  She frowned then shook her head.

  “What is it?” Crow asked.

  “There’s something familiar about that conversation,” she said. “I just can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Hell, I can’t even think straight any longer.” Crow rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Hey,” Rosenfeld said softly. “Simonin and Delacroix have been murdered. Did it occur to you that your little friend at the cathedral might be next?”

  “Yeah, I actually did think about that. Seems death follows me. I told him to be very careful. Said he wasn’t worried about it. He’s no match for whoever killed his friends.”

  Rosenfeld’s phone vibrated.

  “Who’s that?” Crow asked.

  “My friend, Romain, in Paris.”

  “You say he was none too impressed with Philippe Babineaux?”

  “He said he was mal élevé.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means ill-bred, crude.”

  “And we found out the hard way. What’s Romain say?”

  She looked down at the text. “‘No Otto in our files,’ he says. ‘Might be an alias. We have lots of straw buyers who love their privacy.’ Another dead end.” She typed in a few words with her thumbs then put her phone on the bedside table and rested her head on a pillow facing away from him. “I don’t know what else we can do.”

  He got up to leave.

  “Crow,” she said, looking at nothing in particular in the other direction. “What do you fear?”

  Crow smiled and sat back down. “Well, I was scared to death Babineaux was going to kill you tonight.”

  “I appreciate that, but that’s not what I mean. I mean what do you fear long term?”

  Crow thought about the question for a moment. “Irrelevancy.”

  “Irrelevancy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Explain.”

  Crow rubbed the stubble on his cheek, looked down, and said softly, “I fear the time that’s coming when I no longer matter. I know it happens to everybody. It’s different ages for different people. There comes a time when you’re no longer living, you’re ju
st existing, because you just don’t matter anymore.”

  Rosenfeld let his answer soak in. “Is that what drives you?”

  He thought for a second. “No,” he said looking up. “It’s what chases me.”

  Rosenfeld was silent.

  “What do you fear?” Crow asked.

  She closed her eyes slowly then opened them as she formulated her answer. “The future,” she said. “This trip has taught me one thing, that I don’t get out enough,” she chuckled through a tear. “I’ve spent most of my life with history, living in the past. It’s so much easier, so much more convenient. Everything’s nice and tidy. I know how it’s going to end. There are no surprises. I don’t like surprises. I like to be in control. Can I tell you something?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “You’ve helped me realize that I haven’t really been living my life. I’ve just been reading about it. I haven’t been taking chances. I haven’t been putting myself out there. I’ve just been playing it safe. I know this may sound crazy, but I almost died tonight,” she turned to face him, “and I’ve never felt more alive in my life.”

  Crow smiled and patted her on the arm. “You’ve been through enough for one day. Get some sleep.”

  He pulled a blanket up over her and walked back to his room. He couldn’t turn his mind off. He took the tablet and poured back over all the information. He searched again and again for wedding listings on the Internet that fit. Nothing. His eyes began to glaze over. He didn’t find anything unusual or even remotely important. He gave up for the night and headed for the bath. He disrobed and slipped into the opulent shower. The appointments at the Hotel Las Arenas Balneario were exquisite. Italian marble was everywhere in the bath. The Matouk Milagro Egyptian cotton towels were a perfect complement to the ornate gold fixtures. Crow let the hot water cascade over his tired body. He began to feel the stress wash away. All of the events since Sunday replayed in his head. He closed his eyes and relaxed.

  The opening door of the shower startled him but just for a moment. Stepping inside to join him in all her splendid nakedness was Sidney Rosenfeld. He had never seen anything so exquisite. The water beaded as it hit her shoulders. She placed her slender hand on the back of his head and gently kissed him with her voluptuous coral lips. A feeling of elation flooded over him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her down her neck. Her wet hair matted to her caramel skin. Babineaux had been right about one thing, Crow thought. She is, indeed, absolutely flawless.