“I say we take a look at it over at my place first,” says Harvey.
The others think it’s a good idea. The train stops, the doors slide open and the voice over the loudspeaker announces the next stop. People get in and out of the train car, which soon continues on its way.
“I think we should cast the tops,” Mistral suggests as the underground rails squeal on the other side of the windows.
“To look for what?” asks Harvey.
“The top they stole from Vladimir,” Mistral replies.
“Yeah. Who knows where it is right now?” Harvey sighs.
“Each one of those tops is worth a fortune. Gold, precious gems …”
A woman sitting nearby turns to stare at them. The kids lower their voices.
“Do you think they might’ve killed Alfred and tried to scare you, Ermete and Vladimir just to get their hands on something they can sell?” Mistral whispers.
Harvey throws his hands up. “They obviously did, wouldn’t you say?”
“But don’t you think,” Elettra interjects, “that they want to use the tops on the map, too?”
“I don’t think so,” Harvey shoots back.
“I say Elettra’s right,” Sheng bursts out. “If they could, I bet they’d use the map. I mean, come on! What the professor left us belonged to the Three Wise Men, Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus! It isn’t just any map!”
Around them, a rare silence has fallen. But it’s only a matter of a second. After that, the other passengers’ superficial attention moves on to other things. At the next station, people get on and off, and the episode is immediately forgotten by everyone.
* * *
In Harvey’s kitchen, Mistral is the first one to notice there’s something in the tuxedo. “It’s something really thin … in the inside pocket.” She pulls out an old black-and-white postcard with rounded corners. Depicted on it are workers setting up scaffolding for a railway.
Harvey kicks the fridge door shut. “What is it?”
“Take a wild guess.”
“An old postcard of New York.”
“We got a lead, guys,” Sheng says in a low voice, rubbing his hands together.
Mistral turns it over. “It’s addressed to Agatha!”
“But he never mailed it.”
Harvey walks over to the table and hands Elettra a carton of milk. “That looks like construction being done on the subway,” he remarks, looking at the picture. “This guy here looks like the director of the construction work.”
“Maybe that’s the man who made that … that bridge,” Sheng guesses.
“Brooklyn?”
“Yeah, him. Brooklyn.”
“Brooklyn didn’t make the bridge,” Harvey points out. “It was a guy by the name of Roebling.”
“Then why didn’t they call it the Roebling Bridge?”
“Because it goes to Brooklyn.”
“Shh!” Elettra interrupts them. “Can’t we talk about that later, please? Mistral, what’s written on the postcard?”
“If I got this in the mail, guys,” she says, “I think I’d have a little problem understanding it.”
“Let me see.” Elettra groans, starting to read. “ ‘129, 90, 172, 113, 112, 213, 25, 73, 248, 11, 247, 71, 168, 142, 168, 128, 82, 82, 84, 140, 162, 81, 208, 27, 1, 25, 102, 212, 124, 172, 84, 212, 168, 171, 97, 75, 1, 107, 132, 15, 168, 186, 1, 233, 162, 212, 1, 162, 88. Star of Stone, two of four.’ ”
“And then?” asks Sheng.
“That’s it,” Elettra says.
Mistral takes back the postcard and double-checks it. “There’s nothing else,” she confirms.
“Should we call Ermete?” Elettra asks.
“This is right up his alley.” Harvey nods. “I’d say these numbers are some kind of code. A cipher, to be precise.”
“Meaning …?” Mistral prompts.
“Each number stands for a letter.”
“It’s easy, then!” Sheng exclaims. “One stands for A, two stands for B and so on….” They try it out, but the string of letters they come up with is incomprehensible.
“Maybe it’s not the right code.” Sheng tries again, but it’s no use.
“What do you guys think ‘Star of Stone’ means?”
“A meteorite,” Mistral replies without even thinking it over. When she notices the others gaping at her, she adds, “A shooting star, a bolide. What do you call it?”
“Yeah, it’s called a meteorite,” Elettra confirms, “but why’d you think of a meteorite, of all things?”
“I don’t know. It just seemed obvious to me.”
“It could be anything,” Sheng objects.
“Such as …?”
Nothing else comes to the Chinese boy’s mind. He twists his lips, thinking, and then gives up. “I guess you’re right.”
“In Rome, the professor left us clues on how to track down the Ring of Fire,” Mistral says calmly, “and it turned out to be a mirror. Now he’s telling us about a star of stone….”
“Which could be a meteorite,” Elettra says, finishing her sentence for her. “Why not? Harvey, are there any meteorites here in New York?”
“There’s a massive one over at the American Museum of Natural History,” he replies. “But, please, let’s not jump the gun, here! We still don’t know what the Ring of Fire actually is or what it’s supposed to do. Or what really happened when Elettra looked into it. Besides, we’ve got a top to look for. Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to track down the Star of Stone just yet.”
“I agree,” Sheng says. Then, noticing the amazed look on Harvey’s face, he adds, “No, really. Let’s move cautiously this time instead of throwing ourselves into this headfirst, risking our necks. Also because we aren’t alone, and they know about Ermete … and maybe about Harvey, too, at this point.”
“So what do you say we should do?” asks Mistral.
“Let’s try working with Ermete to figure out what’s written on this postcard. But most importantly, let’s get ourselves a New York street plan and …”
Use the map, a voice says in Harvey’s head. The moment he hears it, the boy’s eyes grow wide and he looks around, scared.
“What did you say?” he asks the others. “Did you say we should use the map?”
Sheng shakes his head. “No, but I was just about to suggest we do whatever the tops tell us to.”
Harvey rushes out of the kitchen.
“What’s up with him?” Sheng asks the two girls.
They hear him run up to his room, rifle through his dresser drawers and come back downstairs, his gym bag slung over his shoulder. He’s sweating, a haunted look in his eyes. “Sorry,” he says, “but I’ve got to go.”
“Hold on a second,” Elettra says, stopping him. “What are we going to do with the tops? Where’s the map, Harvey?”
“I don’t have it,” he replies, heading toward the door. He passes by the grandfather clock and stops in his tracks, as if in a trance. “But here’s what we can do: I’ll stop by and pick it up after I go to the gym. We can use it tonight. At the hotel.”
Everyone agrees with his plan. They quickly walk out of his house, leaving Harvey behind to lock the door. Sheng and Mistral walk out ahead, while Elettra waits for him to pocket his keys.
“What’s up with you?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Maybe you should’ve left a note about the tuxedo for your mom.”
“Too late now.”
They make their way through the garden. The first leaves have appeared on the highest branches, and the little path that crosses through it, heading toward the gate, is lined by patches of little light blue flowers. Spring is in the air. Once they’re out on the street, Elettra turns to look at Harvey. “Can I come with you to the gym?”
“If you want.”
13
THE LOCKER
“YOUR TRAINER’S REALLY NICE …,” ELETTRA COMMENTS A COUPLE of hours later. She’s walking southbound with Harvey among th
e hordes of cold, shivering people on Church Street. The skyscrapers in lower Manhattan tower around them like the glass pipes of a massive underground organ. The air is filled with the smell of dirt and gasoline. The trees are dark skeletons. The grass in the flowerbeds is scrubby.
Harvey grimaces, feeling his rib cage.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not as much as my pride.”
“You landed a few punches yourself. How long have you been training?”
“Two months.”
“That’s a little early to consider yourself a real boxer, don’t you think?”
Harvey doesn’t answer her. They reach Barclay Street and keep going straight, walking slowly.
“Olympia said you weren’t concentrating,” Elettra continues. In her mind, she can still see Harvey’s very brief match in the ring. Him against Olympia, a woman made of muscles, swiftness and intelligence. A legend. “She hit you hard to make that clear to you. In fact, she did more than just hit you. I’d say she gave you a real pummeling.”
“I didn’t see it coming.”
“Olympia says whoever lowers their guard gets hit.”
“That happens to lots of people,” Harvey replies, stopping beside a large open area.
Elettra looks straight in front of her and is left speechless. A sudden silence overwhelms her thoughts and squelches all her enthusiasm. She feels as if she were walking on eggshells or, better, on tissue paper. “Is this it?”
“Yeah, this is it.” Harvey nods.
Ground Zero, the empty expanse of the World Trade Center, the place where the Twin Towers once stood. Bulldozers are working below street level like big mechanical worms. A tall metal fence surrounds the entire block. The names of the people who lost their lives are written there in white lettering.
“Do you feel that, too?” Harvey asks, starting to walk around Ground Zero.
“What?”
“The earth below all this.”
Elettra nods. “It feels thin, like it isn’t even there. Like it’s incredibly fragile.”
“It isn’t fragile. To me, it’s like it’s constantly talking. There’s something I need to tell you. It may sound crazy, but I heard a voice talking to me before, back at home. I think it was Dwaine’s. But here, there are hundreds of voices.”
“What are they saying?”
“Nothing,” Harvey replies. “They’re crying.”
The two kids walk around the perimeter of Ground Zero, heading toward Battery Park, at the southern tip of the city. Toward the sea. Once they spot the first age-old trees, they turn left, heading over to a big square building whose granite facade is protected by four colossal female statues.
“We’re there,” Harvey points out, crossing the street.
“What is this place?”
“The National Museum of the American Indian.”
“And who are they?” Elettra asks, nodding at the statues.
“The four continents. America looking ahead, Europe surrounded by its old symbols, Asia in meditation and Africa still sleeping.”
“Four women.” Elettra smiles. “Some cultures believe that everything connected to the Earth is female.”
“You bet. But then, what are we guys here to do?” Harvey asks, walking into the museum.
Inside, the building is imposing and majestic, with large columns and tall, tall ceilings. Whirling around the marble rotunda are murals of ships crossing the bay. Harvey doesn’t stop to look at them. He doesn’t even slow down. He makes his way across the atrium, turns into a hallway that leads to a guarded office and waves.
“Hey, Miller,” the guard on the other side of the window says. “Need a hand with something?”
“I just wanted my key.”
The guard pulls open a drawer, finds a key with an orange tag on it and hands it to him. Then he glances over at Elettra, who’s standing a few feet behind him, looking up. “Your friend’s cute.”
Harvey jingles his key and goes back to Elettra.
“Why did we come here?”
“To get the map,” the boy replies.
“It’s in a museum?”
“A good friend of my father’s works at the museum. I love coming here. It’s so peaceful. Besides, they’ve got lockers, and they’re guarded. It was the best place to leave it.”
They reach a row of metal lockers. Inside the one Harvey opens up is the professor’s briefcase. Seeing it gives both of them a strange sensation.
“I haven’t even touched it since I got back here.”
“That feels like years ago.”
Not sure who should take it, they both reach out a hand at the same time. They start laughing. They’re standing very close to each other. Elettra’s hair smells like shampoo. Harvey’s fingers are still covered with the acrid smell of his boxing gloves.
They kiss.
It’s only an instant, and neither of them could say who closed their eyes first or who it was that kissed the other one. But they kiss, barely touching their lips together. Lips that will be tingling for hours.
They don’t say a single word until they’ve walked out of the museum. Harvey smiles. Elettra’s quiet. Both of them knew that sooner or later it was bound to happen. Ever since Rome. Ever since the first time they saw each other in the snowy courtyard of the Domus Quintilia.
Their hearts are racing.
It’s one more secret they’ll need to keep.
* * *
Later on, Harvey and Elettra meet up with Sheng and Mistral in the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental. They choose two isolated tables beside an enormous picture window looking out over Columbus Circle and Central Park. Linda Melodia hovers around them, suspiciously eying the room before resolving to go upstairs to sleep. “Don’t stay up late, understood?” she reminds them for the millionth time.
“We’ll just play a game for a while and be right up, Auntie.”
Linda’s face is red from the wind. “I went up in the Empire State Building!” she says, which she has already told them.
“Auntie …” Elettra tries to cut her short.
“And tomorrow we’re visiting the Statue of Liberty together, aren’t we?”
“Yes, I promise,” her niece replies. “Tomorrow morning. But now, would you please just let us play?”
Linda Melodia lets out an exaggerated yawn. “How long is your little game going to last?”
“You don’t have to guard over us like we’re on a field trip,” Elettra says.
“Who’s guarding over you?” Aunt Linda asks with a fake tone of innocence. Then she yawns a second time. But instead of turning around and heading toward the elevators, she spots a free armchair nearby, sinks down into it and nods off instantly.
“Now what do we do?” exclaims Sheng, worried about Elettra’s aunt being only a few yards away from them.
“Let’s cast the tops anyway,” Mistral suggests.
Sheng nods. “You’re right. The best way to hide something from someone is to do it right under their nose.”
“Let’s use the map,” Harvey repeats aloud.
They place the ancient map of the Chaldeans on the table. It’s a wooden rectangle with an endless series of lines, its outside marked with dozens of inscriptions. One can only imagine the meaning behind all the symbols, the scribbles, the markings, like those left on desks at school. It’s thanks only to Ermete’s patience and knowledge that the kids were able to give any of those letters a specific meaning. They’re the names of the important people who owned it before them: the Magi kings, Christopher Columbus, Marco Polo. But also the mathematician Pythagoras, the philosopher Plato, the historian Seneca and the legendary Leonardo da Vinci. A perfectly simple object, but the map irradiates energy even through the cloth protecting it. It’s both light and extremely heavy at the same time.
“Something dawned on me while I was in the shower,” Mistral says, pulling out her wooden top.
“You finally figured out how to adjust the showerhead, too?” Sheng jokes, riflin
g through his ever-present backpack in search of his own top.
“It’s about Agatha’s photo …,” the French girl continues.
“What’s that?” asks Harvey, unusually involved in the conversation.
Sitting on the opposite side of the table, Elettra looks at him while trying not to look at him. She can sense he’s playing the same game. They wish they could spend some more time alone together. But they listen to Mistral and try to focus on the topic at hand.
“The three men were all different ages, and if you ask me, I don’t think they could’ve been classmates.” Mistral makes a quick sketch of the photo and then points her pencil at the man in the center. “Alfred’s in the middle, the second of the three, but on the bottom left you can see the shadow of the photographer with his hand raised.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Harvey says.
“Judging from the shadow, the photographer was a man, too,” Mistral continues without missing a beat. “So there were four of them, and written at the bottom of the postcard was ‘two of four.’ What came to my mind was that there might be four postcards.”
The kids exchange excited glances. “That’s a good idea. We need to go back to Agatha’s place and have her give us the photo,” Elettra says.
“I can go there early tomorrow morning,” Harvey proposes.
Mistral stares at the map, fascinated. She’s the only one of them who wasn’t at the Regno del Dado, because she was being held prisoner in the Coppedè district, kidnapped by Jacob Mahler. “So how does it work?”
“It’s crazy, actually,” Harvey replies.
“That’s not true,” Sheng protests. “All you need to do is think and concentrate.”
“In Rome, we were thinking about you,” Elettra adds. “About how to find you.”
“So while you were thinking about me, the tops showed you the place where I was locked up?”
“Not all of them did. Only the one with the dog and the one with the whirlpool,” Sheng specifies.
“On the other hand, the top with the eye led me to the gypsy woman and then to the Ring of Fire,” says Elettra.
“But why?” asks Mistral.
“ ‘What difference does it make which road you follow as you seek the truth? Such a great secret is not to be reached by a single path,’ ” Sheng says, quoting the professor’s notebooks. “But what’s the secret we’re talking about now?”
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