The Witch of Babylon

by Dorothy J. Mcintosh

  “Everything in Peter’s collection is gone. Is that right?”

  “As far as I’m aware. I sold all the items we’d cataloged.”

  “You should see the mess the records are in. That wasn’t just Hal’s doing—his mother’s files are totally chaotic too.” Tears drifted down her cheeks.

  I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to do. I moved beside her just to let her know I was there, not wanting to add any pressure. “What’s wrong?”

  “I wish Hal and I could have made a go of it. I really got my hopes up after Mina died. People said they could never get the two of us. But there was a side to him no one knew. He never tried to control me. He always appreciated my view of things and supported me, even if my choices ended up bombing.”

  Her head was bent ever so slightly. She rubbed her hand across her cheek as if to suppress her impulse to cry. I wrapped my arms around her, intending to comfort her. My consoling gesture quickly morphed into something else. Her breasts pressed against my chest. I buried my face in the rich silkiness of her hair, kissed her neck and then her lips. I tried to hold back on the steamroller of my lust, but any pretence of taking things slowly quickly vanished into thin air.

  She pushed me away reluctantly. “Look,” she said, “part of me would like to do this but I’m not ready. Hal isn’t even buried yet and right now I need some space. We won’t lose anything by waiting.”

  I muttered something in response about that being okay, even though the words clashed with my real feelings like a hammer hitting a windowpane. When she left to go back into the study I grabbed the bottle of wine and downed the rest of it, feeling rejected, although I knew I had no good reason to react that way. I attempted to focus on Hal’s game again but found myself drifting off.

  I’m not sure what woke me. It could have been the gusts of wind blowing raindrops in, pinging onto the floor. I checked the time: 9:15 P.M.

  I struggled over to the French doors. The terrace was dim and bleak looking, the remains of our food drowning on their plates. The candelabra had fallen, and a candle had burned a black hole into the tablecloth before it sputtered out.

  I closed the doors with a smack, almost falling on the slippery floor. I felt chilled and, to tell the truth, a shade embarrassed about falling asleep. I checked the powder room. It was clear. No Laurel. I called her name. She didn’t answer.

  Why were the lights out? I remembered lowering the family room lights, but I hadn’t turned them off. Laurel must have, seeing me asleep. I fumbled along the wall for the switch and flicked it on. A cold fluorescence flooded the blue white of the kitchen.

  Had she gone into the spirit room? When I opened the door the odor I’d noticed before wafted into the hallway, but the room itself was dark and empty. Along the corridor was a second set of stairs: in Mina’s social heyday, the staircase used by the domestics. It led to a vast upper floor of bedchambers, baths, closets, and anterooms.

  Laurel must have gone there, probably to avoid disturbing me. Finding no light switch for the stairway, I stumbled up. The wooden steps groaned. I emerged into the dark canyon of a hallway and stopped, cocking my head like a dog, listening for sounds of her.

  Hearing nothing, I called out again. My voice echoed and bounced off the walls like a mountain yodel. I moved ahead, hands outstretched, until I made contact with the wall. Using the wood paneling as a guide, I slunk down the hallway.

  A switch presented itself, and when I flipped it a series of antique sconces sprang to life. I proceeded farther, opening doors, calling Laurel’s name. It was clear that no one had ventured up here for some time. The place had a silent, empty aura. I brushed the ledge of the wainscoting; my hand came away coated with dust. My apprehension grew by the minute. I continued the search long after I knew in my gut she wouldn’t be found. When my brain finally caught up with my heart, a wave of sadness folded around me. I felt a sudden hatred for this place and wanted to get away from it.

  What had she done—fled into the rainy night? Surely she would at least have left a note if she’d already gone to New Haven. The first inkling that something had gone wrong presented itself when I went into the rotunda. I saw a narrow opening, a seam in the panels where the marble met a strip of wooden inlay. Of course. There had to be some exit other than the elevator. But unless you actually moved your hands over the surface, when the door was closed you’d never know it was there. It was wrong, the door standing open like that.

  I called her cell and got her voice mail. My email showed a new message, sent minutes ago from an unfamiliar address. No text, just a video attachment. What I saw put the fear of God into me.

  Twenty-three

  The video opened with a gray and grainy background, everything out of focus, then cleared up and zoomed in on Laurel. They’d bound her to a standing pipe in a room with tiled walls and floor. There was no audio. The film had the jerky, amateurish quality of a bad wedding video. Her body had slumped, her head lolling as if her neck was broken. I tried to see if I could detect the rise and fall of her chest, anything to give me a scrap of reassurance. Someone off camera must have issued an order because she jerked her head up. Her face was white and slack, in her eyes a mixture of dismay and terror. She spoke but I couldn’t tell what she said from the movement of her lips.

  I bolted down the stairs, falling a couple of times, not even feeling it. I had the presence of mind to straighten myself up right before the exit to the lobby. Gip would not be on the desk. I pushed open the door and gave the night doorman a nod. “You know Laurel Vanderlin?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Did you see her go out?”

  “Almost an hour ago, yeah. Her friend took her to the hospital. I asked whether I should call emergency, but the friend had a car right outside. A good thing because she had trouble making it that far.”

  “Her friend. A fairly hot-looking blonde?”

  “Can’t really say. Why? Don’t remember who you were with?”

  He kept a poker face but I could tell what he was thinking. A threesome done up with a lot of booze and designer drugs that had gotten out of hand. He’d seen it enough times before. He watched me every step of the way out the lobby without saying another word.

  I ran for blocks up Seventh Avenue. The rain came in sheets; I didn’t care. I needed to raise a shield between me and this last terrible hour.

  When my lungs began to sear every time I reached for a breath, I took shelter under an awning. Every inch of me was wet, my clothes plastered to my body as if I’d gone swimming in them, water streaming down my face. The image of Laurel in that room drilled holes through my brain.

  I stumbled along, hardly aware of where my feet were taking me. The cascade of horrors paraded in front of me like ghouls from a graveyard—the car crash, Hal’s murder, Shim and Eris hunting us, the grinning jester, and now Laurel. Every one of my actions had a dark edge. My brain exploded with anguish.

  My cell went off. Another email. Short and to the point.

  Meet us at the High Bridge water tower tomorrow at 9 P.M. Laurel for the engraving. She’ll die if you bring the police.

  I wandered around, desperate to figure a way out of the situation. I ended up sitting in a pocket park; the benches were wet from the rain but I barely noticed. Even at night, the smokers were out in full force, leaving a trail of butts under every bench. A guy next to me dressed in a smart pinstripe suit threw his still-burning cigarette on the ground, picked up his briefcase and helmet, and walked over to his motorcycle. A stone-black Ducati S4R, splendor on two wheels. He straddled it and revved the motor. I’d have given anything to be able to take off into the summer night like him and leave the cesspit of my life behind.

  The High Bridge was built in the 1840s to hold a pipe bringing fresh, clean water from the Croton River into Manhattan. The oldest surviving bridge in Manhattan, it had fallen into decay and was closed after the cops caught kids dropping rocks onto the Circle Line boats. I’d seen photos of it and thought at the time how m
uch it reminded me of Roman empire architecture. Originally built of stone, the classical series of arches spanning the Harlem River conjured up images of the ancient aqueducts bisecting the Tiber valley. Underneath the flat surface, an enclosed hollow ran the entire length of the bridge to carry the pipe. In those days, even the most functional spaces were beautifully designed, and this one had elaborate pillars and arches.

  The tower stood at a desolate point in the park. Someone had been murdered there last year. Walking into that situation would be tantamount to strapping myself into an electric chair and pulling the lever. I had to find some other way to negotiate saving Laurel.

  A rumble of thunder sounded as I entered the Waldorf. The earlier rain had made no dent in the humidity; the air was thick with oppressive heat like the inside of a volcano ready to blow.

  In my room, I rooted around in my bag looking for the gun. I needed all the help I could get now.

  It was gone. Had someone alerted security to search for it? If so, I was dead meat; they’d have called the police by now. If someone had complained security would have to act, but it was unusual for a hotel to invade a patron’s privacy. And who’d have told them? No one had access to my room. I quickly changed and made my way over to the Zakars’.

  Ari gave me his usual enthusiastic welcome when he opened the door. “Ah, John, we wondered when we’d see you. We expected you hours ago. Tomas gave up waiting and went down to the bar. Where is Laurel?”

  “They’ve taken her, Ari. What in God’s name am I going to do?”

  He sank down on the couch and put his head in his hands. “It is bad. You may not get her back, I fear.”

  “What a fucking bastard Hal was for doing this to us.”

  Ari raised his head. “Yet it is done. We just go forward, that’s all. But I’m afraid there’s something else I must say.” He got up and went into his bedroom and returned with a plastic bag.

  I wondered what was coming next.

  Ari cranked open the window and asked whether I’d mind if he smoked. He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a little silver dish with a flip top. A portable ashtray. He got out his package of Gitanes, selected one, and lit up. Holding the cigarette sideways between his thumb and his forefinger, he took a steep drag and blew the smoke out with a sigh. Then he opened the bag, reached inside, and brought out the gun.

  “Tomas found this in your suitcase. You don’t have permission for it; we saw that the serial number was filed off. He’s very angry you kept it around us.”

  “Are you kidding me? He had no right to go through my things. How did he get into my room, anyway?”

  “He should not have. But it’s also wrong for you to keep it when you are with us. Tomas is here on false papers. If we’re together and you’re caught with this, or even worse, if you use it, there will be terrible trouble for everybody. Tomas disabled it anyway. You can’t use it any more.”

  “What I choose to do is none of your business. And, I might add, because of the decisions your brother and Samuel made, Laurel could die.”

  “I agree, but we’re all bogged down in this, this … mire now. I’m trying to do what I can to pull us out. The only reason I came here was to watch out for Tomas, and now I have to fly to London early tomorrow. I don’t want to leave unless I know there is peace between the two of you.”

  “You didn’t answer me. How did he get into my room?”

  “Trying to survive in Iraq through two wars and much treachery in between can be a great motivator to learn skills people like you have no need for.” He put the bag down on the bed beside him.

  “Why do you have to go to London?”

  “I’ve made more progress on the story I told you about. That is also the problem—it’s been a little too successful. Some highly placed officials in the U.S. government got wind of it. Serious threats have been made against me, and I’ve been called back to London. They want me to take some time off until I’m reposted.”

  “Your bosses are ditching the story then?”

  “No. They’ll probably look for some local freelancer who’s less well known than me to cover it, someone who can dig things out without being as noticeable. They want to protect me.”

  His cigarette had burned halfway down. He sighed and stubbed it out in his ashtray. “What’s happened to Laurel, you see horrors like that every day in Iraq. People kidnapped, blown up, killed for no reason at all. Just before I came over here another reporter and I left Baghdad to cover a story in al-Nasiriyah. Heat like a furnace and pretty much a wasteland on that trip. Often we’d meet American supply vehicles going like bats out of hell.

  “About twenty minutes after we passed one of the convoys we saw something ahead. At first, just a glimmer by the side of the road like a piece of white cloth flapping around. Closer, we could tell it was a teenage boy wearing a dishdasha. The boy would take a few steps into the road and then waltz back, like there was some invisible line he couldn’t cross. All the while he was crying. Shrieking, actually. Crying and waving his hands.

  “Our driver braked hard. A dark lump lay in the center of the road, a little girl, what was left of her anyway. She’d been hit full force by the convoy. We found out later that when she’d seen the supply trucks coming she’d run up because a couple of days earlier, soldiers had stopped to give them candy. I doubt they even knew they’d hit her. They travel incredibly fast to avoid attacks. Her brother was terrified to go to her out of fear that the same thing would happen to him.”

  The murmurs of thunder grew closer. I thought about closing the window. “I guess you’ve learned to cope with danger. You know what to watch out for. I got into some scrapes when I was younger, but nothing remotely like this.”

  “We,” Ari said. “We’re in this too. You’re not alone—don’t forget that.”

  “Even so, I’m caught up in something I don’t fully understand. My life has been threatened more than once and now God knows what they’re doing to Laurel. I thought I’d figured out Hal’s hiding place this morning—a mausoleum at the Trinity cemetery where his mother was interred—but I couldn’t get into it. I have to follow Hal’s game through to the conclusion, whatever that is. To be honest, I can’t even finance the rest of the search.”

  Ari reached over and rested one of his big hands on my arm. “I can’t promise it will end well, but I’ll do everything possible to make it so. Don’t worry about money—we’ll take care of that.”

  I looked closely at him. “Where’s all this cash coming from? You’re a journalist, Tomas is an anthropologist. Someone else must be funding you.”

  “A portion was donated.” His gaze swept away as if he was keeping something from me.

  Laurel’s warning flag about terrorism resurfaced. “Who?” I insisted. “Is it some militant group? I need to know or I won’t continue.”

  Ari pulled out another cigarette and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, not lighting it. Buying himself some time, I figured, trying to formulate a story I’d accept. He smiled. “We Assyrians have enough on our hands just trying to survive. We were glad to see the end of Hussein, but now more and more of our people have to flee the country. It is becoming very dangerous for us. The money does not come from us.”

  He studied my face. I got the impression he was trying to decide whether I could handle the truth. “Samuel gave us the money. It came from him.”

  Lightning flashed right outside the window. I felt as though it had just struck me. “That’s impossible. My brother didn’t have that kind of money.”

  “He sold some things, from what I understand.” Ari hesitated. “I believe your property, the condominium, was one of those things. To an investor in Dubai. That’s what he told us. Apparently the purchaser agreed to a long closing, four or five months.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “He intended to tell you. I guess he never got the chance.”

  I could see from his face that he was telling the truth. After all, he had no reason t
o lie. With Samuel I’d always had a special reserve of trust. Ari had just blown that to pieces.

  A strange hiss whistled through the air. On its tail, a bright arc of lightning illuminated the night with a cold luminescence, as if a floodlight had suddenly been trained on the window. Ari rushed to close it. I sat, dazed by this new information. I’d lost Samuel, and possibly Laurel, and now the home I loved had gone with them. I put my head in my hands. My grief gave itself a voice and blew out of me in jagged sobs.

  Ari didn’t try to quiet me but moved closer. He waited until I calmed down and brought a towel he’d dipped in cold water. He handed it to me with a sigh. “It seems I’m always the one to deliver the bad news. No wonder I decided to be a journalist.

  “You’ve always thought of Samuel as a little naive, haven’t you?” he said. “You think Tomas maybe talked him into the whole scheme. That is wrong. Samuel spearheaded it from the beginning. He was well aware of the hazards and made it very clear if anything happened to him we could rely on you in his place.”

  “I can’t imagine why he said that.”

  “Are you giving yourself enough credit? Sometimes the people we’re close to see strengths we don’t even know we have. Tomas proves that to me all the time. Think about it. We stand a good chance of recovering the engraving thanks to your efforts.”

  “I’m not sure I have the guts to carry on with this. For the last two days I’ve been constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering when the next attack will come. It’s pure luck I’m still alive. By tomorrow night, Laurel may not be.”

  “Let me give you something.” Ari reached inside the collar of his rumpled jean shirt and pulled a chain over his head. A golden charm dangled from one end. I could feel the warmth of his skin on the metal when he handed it to me. One face of the medallion was embossed with a winged disk, Assyria’s most famous symbol.

  “A ktiwyateh. An Assyrian talisman. The emblem of Shamash, god of the sun,” Ari said. “It’s protective. We Assyrians have lasted for over four thousand years, so it’s proved its worth. Before you laugh, it’s kept me safe through two wars, three gunshots, and numerous near misses. There’s a bullet with my name on it somewhere but so far I’ve escaped it. So the medallion has been tried and tested. I want you to have it. We’re bonded now. Brothers in arms?” He paused, then continued.