by Nina Post
“Be careful with it. Use gloves.”
Cate tapped her pen on the table. “You mean, treat it as though it’s a priceless artifact that any museum in the world would die to get its hands on?”
“Point taken,” Benjamin said. “We’ll need to relocate the first book once we get it back from her, and then I’ll need to secure the other two in new locations. The creators of Zaanics specified that each of the books should be hidden in a place of study, a place of worship, and a place of healing. I have to move the books from their current locations to different versions of the type.”
“Where are the other two books now?” Cate asked.
“They’re in their current locations.”
“Are you being circumspect for the hell of it, Benjamin?”
Benjamin waved a hand. “It only matters where we relocate them. I have the first location secured. We just need to determine the other two locations.” He gave Cate a placating gesture. “Which you will know about. The second item is the Lyr poem. The third item is her training materials, and any notes from the translator she’s almost certainly hired to try and translate the Lyr poem, which is in thick Middle English.” Benjamin looked to Noah. “Noah, may I safely presume you still have the lists?”
Noah flinched, then blushed.
“Oh no,” Benjamin said. “Don’t tell me you lost them. Or, God forfend, sold them.”
“I would never sell them. But in a way, I did lose them.”
Benjamin put his hands over his face and rubbed circles on his forehead.
Noah almost frantically seized some salami and an olive and put them on his small plate. “When my father disowned me, I — ”
They both gaped at him. “What?” Cate said. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
Noah rolled a slice of salami around the olive. “You had enough to deal with at the time.”
“When did this happen?”
“During the party, just before I saw you.” Noah said in a quiet voice, waving the wrapped olive with two toothpicks back and forth in the air like it was a satellite. “My father called me and told me to meet him there, at your house. He confronted me with a letter and said that he’d wasted all the time he’d spent training me in Yesuþoh. He just assumed Jude was telling the truth.”
“Right, because Jude has so much credibility compared to you,” Cate said, then looked at Benjamin like he would know something about it. Maybe, she thought, she looked at him because she demanded something from someone. Some kind of explanation that would make some sense of fathers and their behavior.
“What letter?” she asked.
“Jude forged a letter from me that claimed I abdicated my guardianship of the VZ Yesuþoh,” Noah said in a matter-of-fact tone. “The letter stated that I was signing over my role to Jude, who would be a more suitable steward.” His face indicated he believed the opposite.
“Clearly,” Benjamin said, “both of you need to retain me as your legal representative against your families.”
Cate realized something with a chill. “That’s why you looked sad when I saw you,” she said to Noah, who shrugged a centimeter. “Of course you didn’t want to say anything right before our ceremony. I should’ve pressed it, should’ve asked you what was wrong.”
“I wouldn’t have told you.”
“No, you would have, eventually, but then I was gone for five years. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. Wow, I’m a shitty friend.”
Noah’s expression that said it was okay, but Cate was frustrated. Did they know her absence had nothing to do with them? “Don’t you think that would be an important part of catching up?” Cate asked, realizing the irony. “Like, I took up chess, I finally finished that Master’s degree, learned how to make osso bucco, and, oh yeah, my half-brother set me up so my father would disown me.”
Benjamin sat with his ankle crossed over his knee. “Are either of you familiar with the story of the sons of Jacob?” At their expressions, he gave a little shake of the head and a brief smile. “I was raised Episcopalian, of course — ”
“Of course,” Cate said, like she never doubted that for a second.
Benjamin crossed an ankle over his knee. “Are either of you familiar with the story of the sons of Jacob? Joseph was his father’s favorite.” He glanced at Cate.
“His brothers — I forget exactly how many but it was four or five full brothers and at least as many half-brothers — were jealous of him. Joseph’s brother Judah suggests that instead of killing their brother they instead sell him to the caravan of Ishmaelites who were passing by.”
Cate thought that was definitely something that siblings would do.
“And so Joseph was sold for twenty silver pieces and then taken to Egypt. The brothers dipped Joseph’s coat in goat’s blood and told their father, Jacob, that Joseph was killed by wolves.”
“Wolves, good one,” Cate said.
“Twenty years later, Joseph has achieved a measure of considerable success in Egypt, and confronts his brothers, who don’t recognize him.”
Noah nodded thoughtfully. “There are too many ‘J’ names in that story. The only thing more confusing would be George Foreman’s sons.”
“But they have nicknames,” Cate pointed out.
Benjamin waved his hand. “Anyway, take it as a cautionary tale. Or however you like. I was lucky enough to be an only child. Cate, do you know anyone who can open that safe?”
“Only the best safecracker in the world. Would he do?”
“Is he here in San Francisco?”
“He could be anywhere in the world right now, but it’s not like he would have to take a ship and then a covered wagon to get here.”
“How about the second best?” Benjamin asked.
“I only work with the best.” And the same people.
“We are at an impasse.”
“I’ll fly him here.”
“Really.”
“I’ll pay for it.”
“As long as it’s soon,” Benjamin said. “I can’t sleep knowing that Gaelen is trying to get the first book translated. She’ll be demanding the other two books anytime now.”
“Of course.”
“You’ll also need an art forger,” Benjamin said. “Do you know of one?”
“No, but my crew can find a good one.”
She noticed that Noah was giving her a look she couldn’t interpret.
Benjamin continued. “We’ll need to make exact replicas of everything and replace Gaelen’s copies with the fakes. The replica of the book will be the most challenging task, because of its age and extraordinary craftsmanship.”
Cate shook her head. “How can we possibly get a fake made in time?”
“The copy only needs to be passable right now. We’ll also need a replica of the poem, and maybe the lists, too. But we have to hold off her suspicion for as long as we can.” He pushed out of his chair. “Would you mind taking care of that?” He gestured to the plate of antipasti. “I’m up entirely too late.” Benjamin gestured for her to follow him. “Cate, I have something for you.”
She followed him into his home office. “I thought you’d like to have this.” He pulled something out of a file folder and handing it to her. It was a photo of her father, maybe twenty years ago, looking stately and handsome. She glanced at the photo then closed the folder. It hurt too much to look at it.
“Thanks,” she said, then hesitated. “Benjamin, your parents, are they still … alive?”
He squinted. “My parents? Yes, they’re still alive. Why?”
“Since we reconnected, I just realized how little I really know about you, that’s all.”
“There’s not much to know. Just your typical New England family.”
“Do they ever visit you?”
“Not for years.”
“Do you ever visit them?”
“We don’t really get along. Why?”
“I just realized I don’t know much about you. Not really.”
He smiled. “You
know all you need to.”
Once Cate got back to her hotel room, she called Argos. Her father had been sleeping hard when she left Benjamin’s house, but before she left, she pulled up the covers over his shoulders, though she was hesitant to even touch him, wary of waking him.
“The job was a bullseye,” Argos said, referring to the one they wrapped up just before she left Istanbul. “We’re still celebrating. Well, they are. I’m not much good at celebrating.”
“Neither am I.”
“You see your family?” Argos asked.
“Yeah.”
“How’d that go?”
“As well as you’d expect.” She paused. “I got something new. I need all of you here.”
“When?”
“Now. I’ll fly you out. I need Vulcan to do his magic. And I need you to find me an art forger.”
I know of a few. There’s one who’s supposed to be real good, I’ll see if I can get in touch. I think he’s in France. Won’t come cheap, though.”
“That’s okay,” Cate said. “As long as he can do medieval documents and binding. Are you still in Istanbul?”
“Nope. France. Vulcan said he wanted to go to Euro Disney, of all things, so the next I know, we’re paddling a boat around a pond in the freezing cold. He’s odd-turned, that one.”
“Check your inbox for the tickets. And make sure Vulcan and Merc are on board.”
“Will do. Talk in a few hours.”
The phone rang again almost right away. She thought it could be Argos with something he forgot to say, but didn’t assume it was.
“Cate, your father’s not in the house. And his car’s gone.” Benjamin was clearly nervous — not a common occurrence. “He left a note. Actually, he wrote it on the wall. Pears for your heirs.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cate asked.
“It’s a seventeenth century English proverb about looking after successive generations,” Benjamin said. “Walnuts and pears you plant for your heirs. The English varieties of pear trees take many years to mature and give fruit, so you plant them for your heirs, not for yourself.”
“I’m going to the Lyr building, then.”
The Town Car service was available 24/7, and at three in the morning, there wasn’t a lot of competition for a booking. Cate got dressed in a hurry, grabbed her bag, and ran down the stairs to the lobby. The car was there right on time, seven minutes later.
“Good morning, Paul,” she said, recognizing the driver.
“Good morning! Cate, right?”
“Right.”
“Where are we going? Airport?”
“No, the Financial District.” She gave him the address of the Lyr building as a starting point.
The rain had started again.
Aaron Lyr normally preferred to keep a distance from the city. He never walked its sidewalks, never experienced the city outside of his car, which often had a driver. He took the car directly from his home (back when he had one), or the office (back when he had one) to wherever he was going. But he was a changed man. Now all he wanted was to get the hell away from the house he found himself in when he woke up, away from Belvedere Island and those people. The rain knew he was there. It was trying to break him or at least cow him, but he would not be cowed.
“I am Aaron Lyr!” he bellowed, but it was lost in the wind that gusted through and around the tall buildings of the Financial District. He didn’t think he was far from the Lyr building, but the dafoh was thick as chowder and obscured the places that would tell him where he was. He trudged down one long alley that opened onto a main street. He didn’t know which one.
He missed his daughter. Did she ever think about him? Would she care what happened to him? Would he ever see her again? A hard ball formed in his chest when he thought about how he turned his youngest’s honesty into a battle he had to win, damn the consequences. He stepped into a pothole filled with rain and lurched forward twisting his ankle. He landed on his wrist and felt a searing pain. He stayed there, face contorted, and rolled to his side, hand resting on the asphalt.
“Help me,” he wanted to yell, but it came out a rasp. “Cate. My Cate. Forgive me. I made a terrible mistake.”
He got an image of Gaelen, then put Cate in her place. His mind tricked him into thinking that his youngest daughter was working at Lyr Logistics and was there right now. He pushed himself up with his left hand and slowly stood. Even the slightest of movements popped dark stars in his vision and made him whimper. He cradled his right wrist in his other hand and kept walking, determined to find the Lyr building, certain he would find Cate there.
The only thing that mattered in the world was seeing Cate again. He’d had dreams of following her and almost catching up to her only to see that she was so far away he would never reach her.
“Remember when I used to sing to you?” he said to no one, stopping by a dumpster, hand on the corner. Was he going to faint? When had he become such a frail old man?
He sang a piece of the Zaanics song about the onion who cried because it made the person cutting it cry. When Cate was a child, he would sing it to her if she was upset.
“I wanted to protect you from all of it,” he muttered. Cate was his mirror, showing what he recognized in himself but suppressed, expressing the same things he feared. He didn’t want to burden her with the language. He didn’t want to put her to work in logistics. Gaelen was aggressive. She could take it, and he wanted it to temper her. If she was hardened by her duty of the language, by working in the business, it wouldn’t really matter. “I wanted to protect you.”
“Hey man, who you talkin’ to?” Someone behind him.
“Not you. Mind your business.” Lyr kept walking.
“This alley be my business.”
“And I am leaving this alley.”
“No you ain’t,” Lyr heard, then felt a burning, explosive pain in his upper back. The current CEO of the alley pushed the former CEO of Lyr Logistics against the wall to the left and patted him down, coming up with a wallet.
“Gimme your watch, man.”
Lyr couldn’t respond, couldn’t move. How could his life have come to this? Hadn’t he provided well for everyone he cared about? Hadn’t he protected them?
The man, who had foul body odor, yanked Lyr’s good wrist and took off the watch his father had given him as a graduation gift.
Then the man ran off.
Lyr reached up and tried to feel around the back of his shoulder. When he held out his good hand, two of his fingertips were sticky and warm with blood. His blood. “Cate,” he said in a groan, and kept going.
She was in his old office. He knew it. And if he could just get there, if he could just see her, then everything would be set right.
If he had to die, so be it, but he had a burden on his soul he felt a desperate need to lift.
“Could you please wait here for a few minutes?” she asked the driver, Paul.
“Sure thing,” he said. “If you don’t see me when you get back, I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’m not sure if I can park here.”
“That’s fine.” She opened the rear passenger-side door.
“If you don’t mind me asking — ”
“I’m looking for someone,” she explained.
“I see. Bad night for someone to be out.”
She pulled up the hood on her rain jacket and ran out of the car toward the Lyr building. After running three loops and looking behind hedges and concrete pillars, her certainty that her father would have come here now seemed woefully misguided. The question now was whether to keep looking for her father here, or go back to Belvedere Island.
A figure walked toward her, tall but stooping, gait unsteady. Probably one of San Francisco’s many drunk panhandlers, she supposed, and kept her distance.
But there was something about him …
And he was talking.
She tried to get close enough to listen but far enough away that she wouldn’t get knifed.
He wa
s singing:
Yepachenawnæ vavernon
Desoh recenaw cor
Ternoh pocra yoþilnon
Wa cornoh recenaw
She recognized the song, or thought she did — and then it hit her that the words were Zaanics.
It was the onion song, about a girl who cuts an onion and cries, which upsets the onion. The onion tries to cheer her up, but she doesn’t notice, which made the onion cry.
It was her father.
Cate watched, frozen in place, as he unsteadily walked up the steps to the front entrance of the Lyr building.
He lost his will or his energy halfway up the steps, where he collapsed.
She ran to him. Oh god, his wrist is broken. Cate looked him over for other injuries. When she lifted his shirt and sweater, she reeled and put her hand to her mouth. Someone knifed him. It filled her with a white-hot anger, and she wanted to find whoever did it and —
“I made a mistake. A horrible mistake.” He started to cry, and her fear and nausea curdled into a tight ball of panic. She remembered one day after her mother drowned, when she was nine, peeking into her father’s study and seeing him cry. It was the most alarming, unsettling thing she had ever seen, and this was hardly any different.
“We have to get you to a hospital, right now.”
He looked so much older, so much smaller. And weak.
“Forgive me. Cate.” He was talking to her but didn’t seem to register that she was actually there.
She crouched in front of him and wrapped her arms around his lower back, avoiding his injury. “Daddy, I have a car waiting. I’m going to ask him to help me take you to the hospital, okay?”
“Cate …”
She ran to where the car was supposed to be and waited. “C’mon, c’mon.” A couple of minutes later, though it felt more like ten, the car pulled back in. The window rolled down.
“Everything all right?”
“Could you help me get my father into the backseat? He needs to go to the hospital.”
“Yeah, sure.” Paul immediately turned off the engine and hurried out to follow her.