Star of Stone

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

  The taxi is waiting outside. It’s noisy and looks like a big beetle.

  “Charles de Gaulle airport,” Mistral says, getting into the backseat.

  Ermete stops a few houses down from his place on Thirty-fifth Avenue in Queens. Something’s not right. Something’s wrong with his house.

  The light.

  He didn’t leave the kitchen light on.

  He leans against a lamppost and waits. For ten long, long minutes, nothing happens. What if I actually did leave it on? the engineer wonders, riddled with doubt.

  Just to be on the safe side, he waits ten more minutes. Then, once he’s convinced everything’s okay, he crosses the street and opens the front door.

  His doubts are confirmed.

  “There you go,” he says under his breath as he walks inside. “They were here.”

  His apartment is a total wreck. Scattered all over the floor are papers and notebooks. Suits, socks, shirts. His comforter ripped off the bed and slashed in two, the pillows gutted. Foam rubber everywhere. The drawers dumped upside down. The closet doors wide open.

  Ermete shuts the door behind him. He’s unusually calm. If the robbers found what they were looking for, it’s over. It’s all over.

  He steps over his things strewn around on the floor and walks into the bathroom. His toiletries have been opened and dumped into the sink. His toothbrush is on the floor. The shower mat is crumpled up. He looks at his reflection in the mirror and smiles, immediately reassured.

  Then he leaves his apartment, goes out onto the street and keeps walking until he finds a pay phone. He checks the time. “They should be here by now,” he mumbles. He slides a coin into the slot and dials the number.

  “Mandarin Oriental Hotel, good evening.”

  “I have a message for Elettra Melodia, Sheng Young Wan Ho and Mistral Blanchard,” says Ermete, listing them. “Tell them it’s a bad idea for us to meet. A very bad idea. My apartment is a wreck. A total wreck. Tell them I’ll be in touch. Good night. And good luck,” he concludes before hanging up.

  To be on the safe side, he calls Harvey’s house and leaves a brief message: “Ciao, Harvey! It’s me! I know we were supposed to meet, but believe me, we better not! I’ll call you as soon as I can! Bye-bye!”

  Suddenly nervous, he stares at the lights glowing in his apartment, not sure what to do. Should he check into a hotel or stay here? The people who trashed his place might come back. If they came back, how would he handle them?

  He tries to calm down. In gangster movies, this kind of break-in is almost always meant only to scare someone. It’s intimidation, a way to say, “We know who you are and where you live.”

  “What the hell!” Ermete grumbles, heading back home. “I’m not leaving!”

  Sitting in the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental, Harvey checks for the millionth time the notes he jotted down on a piece of paper:

  They Know Ermete.

  They’re Following Me.

  Clues: The Crow and the two Women.

  can Vladimir Askenazy be Trusted?

  what does the Ring of Fire do?

  did I Really Hear Dwaine’s Voice?

  A bit of commotion by the reception desk makes him look up. The first thing he recognizes is Elettra’s black hair, then Sheng’s colorful gym shoes, and finally Mistral’s graceful, heronlike profile. With them is the lady from the Domus Quintilia, who’s arguing with the bellhop. Actually, more than arguing; she’s waving her hands around and pointing at a canary yellow suitcase that’s fallen to the floor.

  Harvey smiles. He crosses off the last line of his notes and then, just to be on the safe side, he rips it off and tosses it into a wastepaper basket.

  He heads toward the reception desk, feeling unusually cheerful.

  He can’t wait to hug his friends again.

  It’s the fifteenth of March. And all four of them are together again.

  9

  THE BUYER

  “THIS IS THE PLACE,” HARVEY EXPLAINS, LEADING ELETTRA, SHENG and Mistral to the door of the antiques shop. It’s the morning of March sixteenth, and they’re on a dark street lined with grim-looking cement and brick buildings. The little sign in the window shows that the shop is open.

  “My aunt’s going to the top of the Empire State Building,” Elettra tells them, reading a message on her cell phone. “She says there’s even a sign on the ground floor that tells you what the visibility is like.”

  “Hao! Cool! Why don’t we go up in the Empire State Building, too?” Sheng suggests, a hopeful look on his face. “Just like King Kong!”

  “Maybe later on. I think we should do some interviews for your father,” Elettra reminds him. “Otherwise, he won’t be very happy he sent us all here, don’t you think?”

  “No, no, he’d be happy anyway,” Sheng jokes.

  “How many families do we need to meet?”

  “Around ten, at least.”

  “This isn’t going to be quick.”

  “No,” Sheng replies sheepishly. “But it won’t be so bad, either. We can split up.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t,” Elettra says. “Your father wants to know if the families on the list are okay for Chinese kids. And I don’t see many Chinese kids among us.”

  “Oh, thanks for the help!” Sheng bursts out. “Well, that means that once we get out of here, if there aren’t any problems …”

  “Exactly. You said it. If! If there aren’t any problems,” Harvey grumbles.

  “One thing at a time. First let’s try to learn something about this top,” Mistral says, following Harvey into the shop. “Then we can do some sightseeing.”

  The moment the bell over the entrance jingles, Vladimir comes out through the little doorway with the bead curtain. “We’re closed,” he says before recognizing Harvey. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “These are the friends I told you about,” the boy replies, making three brief introductions.

  The antiques dealer clasps his hands together hesitantly. His fingers are bandaged. Then he flips the sign in the window from OPEN to CLOSED and turns the key in the lock a couple of times.

  “Come with me, please. And be careful,” he says, stepping back to the beaded curtain. He escorts the kids down the hallway into what remains of the back room. The glass ceiling has been sealed up with a tarp held in place with duct tape. Vladimir points at the shards of glass and the objects that are still strewn on the floor. “I was trying to put everything back in its place, but it’s not easy all alone. Watch your step and don’t touch anything. There’s glass everywhere.”

  “Any news from the police?” Harvey inquires.

  “I didn’t call them.”

  “Why not?”

  “I haven’t had the time. Come … let’s sit down back here. These chairs are still in one piece. At least, I hope so.” He accompanies them to a little makeshift sitting room amid the furniture in the back of the shop.

  Resting on Harvey’s chair is a terra-cotta flowerpot with a small, withered primrose plant. The boy distractedly strokes it with his finger, moves it to a shelf beside him and takes a seat.

  Sinking down into the armchair facing the kids, Vladimir looks like a giant hunched-over grasshopper. His honey-colored eyes peer at Elettra, Sheng and Mistral, one by one. He looks for his spectacles and perches them on his nose. “Harvey told me that you … well …”

  “I told Mr. Askenazy that each of us has a top identical to the one stolen from him,” Harvey explains. “And I described the symbols engraved on ours.”

  “Do you have them here with you?” the antiques dealer asks.

  “We brought pictures of them,” Elettra replies, handing him photos of three tops.

  “Magnificent,” Vladimir remarks, looking them over slowly. “May I ask how they came into your possession?”

  “They … they aren’t exactly ours,” Elettra says.

  “Somebody gave them to us,” Mistral explains.

  “To take care of,” Sheng finishes.

 
; “What about yours, Mr. Askenazy?” Elettra asks him.

  “It was in a crate of items from Iraq. That’s where the ancient Chaldeans lived.”

  “Have you already told the person who asked for it that it was stolen?”

  The man shakes his head. “No. That’s another thing I haven’t managed to do. Actually, to tell you the truth, it’s been a long time since I heard from him.”

  “Then how’d he reserve it?” Sheng asks.

  “I have a file with the names of various collectors. There are those who want to be notified whenever I receive a Russian icon. Some are interested only in vases from the nineteen-thirties, others in ancient Assyro-Babylonian relics….”

  Vladimir wearily gets up from his chair and begins to rummage through a series of containers piled high with file folders, shuffling through them with his long, skeletal hands. “Here we are,” he finally says, pulling out a sheet of paper. “Mr. Alfred Van Der Berger.”

  On hearing that name, the kids jump in their seats.

  “Do you know him?” asks Vladimir.

  The four exchange uncertain glances. They’ve already had a long discussion about what tactics to use with the shop owner, and they’ve come to the conclusion that they should try trusting him, at least partially, as long as they’re very careful and avoid telling him too much.

  “Not really …,” Harvey replies slowly, sensing what everyone wants him to say. “But he’s the one who gave us the tops.”

  “When was that?”

  “A few months ago, in Rome. He asked us to keep them for him, but then …”

  After a moment of awkward silence, the antiques dealer adds encouragingly, “But then?”

  “Then … let’s just say he never came to get them back.”

  Vladimir Askenazy sits down again. “I don’t understand.”

  “He died,” Mistral explains.

  “He didn’t just die,” Sheng says. “They killed him.”

  The man shakes his head, feigning disbelief. “For what reason?”

  “Maybe for the same reason those women broke into your shop. Somebody wants to get their hands on these tops. At any cost,” Elettra says.

  “Do you have any idea who that might be?”

  “We were hoping you could tell us,” Elettra says.

  “But how?” asks Vladimir, a helpless look on his face.

  Elettra wrings her hands. “Alfred Van Der Berger might have told you about someone or something that … that he was terrified of. When he gave us the tops, the professor was running away from someone.”

  Vladimir rests his right index finger on his temple, still looking shocked. “As far as I remember, he was a perfectly calm person. He would talk about the most unbelievable topics, and you might even say he had his head in the clouds, but … no, he never spoke to me about any danger or anything that frightened him.”

  “We think the tops can be used to discover something really important,” Harvey ventures to say. “We just haven’t figured out what.”

  Vladimir Askenazy shakes his head slowly. “In any case, it’s strange that you met him in Rome, of all places. Alfred Van Der Berger wasn’t Italian.”

  “But he’d lived in Rome for years,” Elettra explains. “He had an apartment there.”

  “Actually, he had two of them,” Sheng points out.

  “One-twenty-two East Forty-second Street, Chanin Building, apartment fifty-seven,” Vladimir Askenazy reads from his file.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s his address,” the antiques dealer explains, showing the kids Professor Van Der Berger’s sharp, angular handwriting. “Here in New York. In Manhattan.”

  The moment the four friends have left, the antiques dealer returns to the back room, picks up the pot of primroses that Harvey moved off the chair and goes back to the little desk in the front of the shop. Both impressed and amazed, he brushes his pale fingers over the two little yellow flowers that have sprung up among the leaves.

  He bends over, sinks down into a chair, rests both the vase and his elbows on the desk and cradles his head in his hands. He sits there, motionless, his head pounding, not seeing or thinking anything. When he finally catches his breath, he releases his grip on his head and grabs the phone. He mechanically dials the country code for Italy, the area code for Rome and a phone number he knows by heart.

  10

  AGATHA

  THE SKYSCRAPERS ARE DISAPPEARING INTO THE CLOUDY SKY LIKE endless towers. The kids walk along, their eyes turned upward, staring at the thousands of windows overlooking the streets. Each intersection they come across is like an intricate puzzle made of mirrors. Manhattan is a city of glass that rises up, connecting heaven and earth.

  Talking nonstop, Harvey, Sheng, Elettra and Mistral are walking briskly among the hundreds of other people who are walking briskly. They tell each other details of what’s happened over the last few months and share their ideas, suggestions and fears.

  Finally, they reach a towering, narrow building with two friezes running across its facade. Bronze birds and fish are frolicking among geometric terra-cotta designs in a lush patch of stylized blossoms. The entrance of Grand Central can be seen nearby, as well as a Starbucks.

  The kids pull open the large front door and find themselves walking on marble flooring. On the walls are big clocks, futuristic mailboxes and bronze decorations depicting the life of the man who built the building. The elevator doors are the color of the sea at sunset. The kids breathlessly sneak past a bored-looking doorman and go up to the seventeenth floor.

  “This seems a little different from the professor’s apartment in Rome,” Mistral says, almost whispering, amazed by so much opulence.

  “Hao! Let’s hope it doesn’t meet the same fate,” Sheng adds with a nervous giggle.

  It only takes the elevator a few seconds to reach their floor. On the ground is the same marble flooring as in the lobby. Elegant wall lamps line the hallway.

  Apartment fifty-seven.

  “This is it,” says Harvey, stepping up to the door. No name is written beside the doorbell. The kids look around.

  Silence. No one. Just other closed doors.

  Elettra reads the names on the other doorbells. “Whisper, Allmond, R.G.”

  “Then somebody lives here.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Easy. Let’s see if anybody’s home,” Sheng suggests. Before the others have the chance to stop him, he rings the bell.

  “It’s no use,” Harvey jeers, pointing at the closed door. “It’s empty.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The professor died in Rome,” the boy shoots back. “It isn’t very likely he’ll come open the door, do you think?”

  “Who is it?” asks a delicate female voice just then, as the door opens slightly. A blue eye scrutinizes the kids from right below the door chain.

  “Hello there!” Sheng cries, shoving Harvey away. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am. We’re looking for Professor Van Der Berger.”

  “Oh, you don’t say!” the woman exclaims, peeking out from behind the door. “Might I know why?”

  “I’m … I’m his nephew!” Sheng replies, saying the first thing that comes to his mind: the excuse he already used in Rome.

  The woman looks him up and down for a long moment through the crack in the door. Then she concludes, “I don’t believe you.” With this, she slams the door in his face.

  “Hey!” protests the Chinese boy, who barely manages to save his nose.

  Mistral rests her hand on his shoulder. “ ‘I’m his nephew’? What a brilliant idea!”

  “Maybe that’s his wife,” Harvey guesses.

  “His wife?” Sheng exclaims, stunned.

  From inside the apartment, they can hear the door chain rattling as it’s slid through its frame and then the door being unlocked. A moment of silence. And then, finally, the door opens wide.

  Standing before the kids is an elderly woman wearing a pair of big tortoiseshell glasses
and a cream-colored dressing gown, beneath which are black-and-white polka-dot leggings. She leans against the doorframe and stares at the four friends with a mix of skepticism and amusement.

  “In any case, since I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands lately, you might as well go ahead and explain to me exactly what it is you’re doing here.” She steps away from the door and waves them into the apartment. “If you want, I can make you some tea. Do people still drink tea these days?”

  “That would be very nice, ma’am,” Mistral says gratefully, gesturing to the others to behave just as politely.

  Inside, the apartment looks like a picture frame shop. Every square inch of the walls is covered with black-and-white photos and framed newspaper clippings. There are frames in silver, gold, dark wood and light wood, frames in crystal, ivory and coral. Ethnic frames and frames covered with synthetic fiber.

  The lady of the house walks the kids into a living room with spectacular picture windows looking out over the street and the other buildings. The view is breathtakingly beautiful. The furnishings in the room, on the other hand, look like they’ve seen better days. A worn-out zebra-skin rug is laid out between a peach-colored sofa and two sunken-in armchairs with striped upholstery and ripped fringe. Lampshades sagging under the weight of time cast eerie glows on a vast array of crystal knickknacks.

  “Please, make yourselves comfortable,” the woman says hospitably.

  A cat statue is sitting in the center of a low, octagonal coffee table. The kids take a seat around it hesitantly while the lady of the house disappears into the kitchen, shuffling her feet. “So you’d be Alfred’s nephew, then,” she says to Sheng as she bustles about at the stove. “What about the rest of you?”

  “I’m sorry. I lied. It was only a joke,” Sheng apologizes at once, trying to make amends. “I just told you the first thing that popped into my mind.”