The Black Madonna

by Davis Bunn

  Emma did not speak again until they were waiting for the elevator. “I can’t get over everything I’ve done wrong.”

  Storm started to say how this was probably a normal part of grief, but the look on her friend’s face dissolved the words before they emerged.

  Emma stared at the closed doors and said, “You know about my folks.”

  “Yes.” Emma’s father was a dentist, her mother a Washington socialite. They had disliked Harry Bennett almost as much as they did their daughter’s profession. Harry had met them once and begged Emma never to make him go again.

  The elevator pinged. The doors slid open to reveal a half-dozen faces. Emma did not move. Storm wasn’t certain her friend saw them at all. They remained where they were.

  When the doors shut again, Emma said, “I’ve known for months that Harry and I needed to move on. Stop loving each other from six thousand miles apart. Give our relationship a chance to grow. Then I’d circle back to what I grew up with. And find another good reason to let things stay like they were. Now it’s all too late.”

  Storm waited until Emma had regained control, then took hold of her friend’s arm. “Maybe we should take the stairs.”

  THE SIGHT OF THE TWO women appearing together did not please the elderly dealer. “I was hoping to have a private moment with Ms. Syrrell.”

  “Until we discover exactly what is behind all this,” Emma replied, “Storm and I are joined at the hip.”

  Rausch inspected her carefully. “You think the death of your friend is tied to these items we’re bidding on?”

  “That’s an excellent question, Mr. Rausch. Here’s one back at you. Who precisely are you working for?”

  To Storm’s surprise, the dealer did not rebuke Emma for an improper query. Instead, he turned to Storm and said, “My son Jacob was most displeased to hear you were at the auction yesterday.”

  “I’m so glad to hear it.”

  “Last week I told him he was making a mistake, seeking to acquire your business. He assured me that you were on the verge of going under.” The gentleman looked as elegant as he had the previous evening, down to the silk handkerchief in his jacket pocket and the fresh rose in his lapel. “My son dislikes being proven wrong.”

  “He wasn’t wrong,” Storm replied. “I got a last-minute break.”

  “Honesty. What an original approach.” He gestured to the sunlit café. “Might I offer you ladies a coffee?”

  The stone terrace was rimmed by Venetian urns and iron latticework. Their table, shaded by a broad, square parasol, was set close enough to the edge for Storm to feel the Mediterranean’s chill. Their waiter wore a dark suit and bow tie. The china was Limoges. Aaron Rausch saw to their needs with the elegant ease of a man born to spend two hundred dollars on a breakfast he did not want. “No doubt my son would disapprove of our meeting like this as well. Even so, I am tempted to offer my own share of honesty. But first, I need to ask you a question. Who are you representing?”

  “I told you yesterday. I have no idea.” Storm hesitated, then admitted, “My deal came through Raphael Danton.”

  “I know of him, though we have never met. He has risen to the top of a new industry that caters to the whims of the ultra-rich. Most of his competition, I suspect, will vanish with the rest of the moneyed froth. But Danton is reputed to offer value for money, and his client list is legendary.” Aaron Rausch toasted her with his coffee. “I congratulate you on your eleventh-hour prize.”

  “He hired me because I was desperate. I get the distinct impression that Danton likes his staff to live in a state of permanent terror.”

  “Then he will be disappointed. You have far too much of your grandfather’s nature ever to bend. You would shatter into a billion pieces first. Which is what I told my son.” Aaron Rausch made a process of folding his napkin. “Very well. The answer to your question is, I represent a new client, one for whom we have never worked before.”

  “A Russian,” Emma said.

  “An extremely rich, powerful, and ruthless Russian. And that is all I am legally able to tell you.”

  Emma asked, “Does he have ties to the Russian secret service?”

  “What an astonishing question. However could I know such a thing, since all I am hired to do is acquire artwork?”

  “So he does.”

  “Were I to hazard a guess, I would say anyone this powerful must certainly have connections at the highest level of Russian society. These days, the line between the government and the new corporate oligarchy is so blurred as to be nonexistent.”

  Perhaps it was the piercingly clear Mediterranean light. Or the fact that Storm’s sorrow was so pungent as to strip away even this man’s veils. “My guess is, you didn’t stop by this morning because of any deal we made yesterday or some vague desire to help us out. You’re here because you’re worried. Terrified is probably a better word, isn’t it, Aaron? This guy you’re working for isn’t just a new source of business and profit. You’re frightened he might actually bring you and your house down. You don’t know why you’re scared. But you’re enough of a pro to know that sometimes you have to go with your gut. And right now, your gut is saying, run.”

  He did not want to respond. But his discreet calm slipped as he moved in and said softly, “I have never covered our back so carefully. My lawyers are growing rich from my fears over this one client.”

  “Why did you flinch when Storm asked you yesterday about the Amethyst Clock?” asked Emma.

  “My client is convinced that it exists.”

  “A clock that stops time,” Storm said.

  “I have told him that such myths circulate around our profession. Most have to do with curses, though not all. But this . . .”

  “He won’t listen to you?”

  “He is obsessed with locating this clock. And now you show up, representing another buyer who also believes in its existence.”

  “More than believes,” Storm replied. “I’m being paid a hundred thousand dollars up front, to be taken from my commission, when I locate this item and acquire it. Not if. When.”

  Aaron Rausch leaned back in his seat. Storm half expected the man to warn her about competing with him and his realm of contacts and his power in the industry. Instead, he turned and spoke to the sea and the lapping waves. “My father fled Odessa and the pogroms during the chaos surrounding the Communist revolution. He fought his way up from pushing a rag cart to owning a Park Avenue establishment. When I was very young, he told me stories about those dark times when the Angel of Death swept over his beloved city on the Black Sea. His own parents were butchered by Cossacks. He escaped only because his uncle, a rabbi, had a dream. In that dream, he saw a horde of wolves pour from the bowels of the earth, with fire in their nostrils and teeth like bloody swords. My grandfather scoffed at the rabbi’s dream. But it terrified my father, who was only eleven at the time. My grandfather was a wealthy merchant and would not leave everything he had spent a lifetime building up. But my father’s fear was so great, his parents decided to let him go with the rabbi. My father’s last image of Odessa, as they fled across the sea in a fisherman’s dinghy, was of flames devouring the city while the people screamed and the Cossacks howled like demented wolves.”

  A sudden gust of wind caught the terrace’s square parasols and flapped them hard, like a fleet of sails changing course. “My father used to tell me it was vital to remember lessons of our past. How else could we prepare when our security is stripped away once again? I had not thought of this tale in years. Now, since this new client has appeared, I think of little else. My son is concerned that I may be . . .”

  “You’re not wrong,” Storm said.

  “Two days ago I was confronted by the CIA,” added Emma. “At least, I’m assuming they were from Langley. They monitored a call I made to Storm. They wanted to know the same thing you do. Who had she represented at that Palm Beach auction.”

  “Manalapan,” Storm corrected.

  “Wherever. Later that aftern
oon, I was swept up by a Polish priest representing the Vatican and the outgoing Israeli ambassador. They reported . . .”

  Storm watched Emma’s features tighten in her struggle for control. Storm finished, “They said Harry Bennett had been murdered. They think his death is somehow tied to all this.”

  “Forgive me. I don’t understand. Why is the Israeli ambassador involved?”

  When Emma found it difficult to continue, Storm went on. “Harry was killed in Hebron. He was there working on some project for the Israelis.”

  Emma’s words sounded strangled. “Harry was helping to track down a ring of counterfeiters. The ambassador was concerned that the Russians might somehow be using the counterfeiters to reinsert themselves into the region.”

  “I hope you ladies will believe me when I say I know nothing of this whatsoever.”

  “Would you tell us if you did?”

  “You have my word.” He glanced at his watch and waved for the waiter. “I must go acquire items for clients who do not frighten me like this Russian. Then I shall speak with my son. Who will once again tell me that I am worrying over nothing. And while he scoffs, I will hear the wolves howling and see the flames devouring our life’s work.”

  NINE

  HARRY ENDURED ANOTHER TWO SESSIONS with the Palestinian cops. He had no idea how much time had elapsed, because he was basically awake long enough only to eat a little and get another injection and give the cops his blank stare, then he was gone again. The hospital staff swiftly grew accustomed to Harry’s silence and continued to address him in Arabic. As long as his face remained bandaged, Harry hoped he could hold to the safety of anonymity.

  His ward held about three dozen beds. The clinic was both decrepit and spotlessly clean. The equipment was mostly from another era, metal beds and rickety chairs and poor lighting and cracked flooring. The smells were pungent and reminded Harry of prison.

  The fourth time he awoke, the cops didn’t return. He could move more easily and was able to reach for the cup unaided. But he choked trying to drink laying flat. A woman seated beside the next bed spoke to him. When Harry responded by coughing again, she used the hand crank to raise him up.

  Harry nodded his thanks. The woman wore the traditional colored scarf and black overgarment. She carried a sorrow that was all her own. Harry assumed the kid she tended was maybe ten or eleven years old. This time of day, most of the ward’s beds were surrounded by multiple family members, who fed and soothed and pleaded whenever one of the harried hospital staff came within range.

  Harry fell asleep sitting up and awoke to find the pain had eased. He decided it was time to try to rise from his bed. Which required dislodging several implements from various veins and regions that were never meant to hold such probes. By the time he had finished unplugging himself, an attendant hovered at his elbow. The guy supported Harry as he tried to stand. Several of the family members surrounding nearby beds offered encouragement. When he made it unsteadily to his pins, he did a little royal wave and earned himself a round of applause. He made it across the hall to the restroom, but by the time he got back to his bed he was ready for another numbing dose. He drifted away to the sound of Arabic murmured with tragic love.

  When Harry next swam back up to wakefulness, the ward was dark. The whimpers and the half-muttered dreams and the closeness of strangers reminded him of other wards where he’d wasted too many days. Only this time, the window didn’t have bars. Harry spent a while wondering if he could ever escape from who he’d once been. Then finally he drifted away again.

  Harry dreamed about being lost in the Hebron night. He ran and ran but always wound up right back in the same maw of that dark alley. The drug held him down, caging him. He heard the night beast breathing, lurking in the shadows across the Hebron street. The beast drew a breath so massive his own lungs became trapped in the airless vacuum of a closing tomb. Then once again the explosion ripped the world apart.

  Harry opened his eyes. He took an unsteady breath and shoved away the cordite funk. His thirst was all-consuming. He rolled slightly in the bed and reached for the side table. The glass was beaded with sweat and glowed softly in the morning sun. He carefully gripped the glass and brought it back, every move in slow motion. His pain was perhaps a little better this morning, but he could still detect its muted growl.

  The hour after he woke was endless. There was no emergency button by these hospital beds. Harry knew the nurse wouldn’t make her rounds yet because he couldn’t smell the coffee, and she always arrived a few minutes before breakfast. The ward’s scarred walls did not hold a clock. The previous morning Harry had seen how other men had watched the sun crawl across the floor, marking the minutes in grim anticipation. Harry had heard them sigh their relief when the metal cart rattled its way down the outside corridor. He would just have to wait with the others.

  Harry drained his glass and retraced his gradual hand movements back over to the side table. Which was when he noticed the kid.

  The boy in the next bed was mostly skin and bones, scarcely half a pound above being a runt. He had the refined features and the ancient eyes of someone much older. Right now, the kid looked terrified. His lips were drawn back from his teeth and he panted as he watched the ward’s empty doorway.

  A faint noise echoed down the outer hallway, growing like the roar of a cresting wave. Harry heard several men arguing with a nurse, with the doctor’s voice somewhere in the mix. Several other bedridden men swiveled concerned gazes from the doorway to the kid and back. Harry recognized the been-there, done-that expressions of guys in the know.

  Then the kid whimpered.

  Harry didn’t need a translator to understand that sound. He also knew he shouldn’t add himself to the mix. His own situation was beyond precarious. But he couldn’t just lie there and let it happen.

  Harry flipped back the covers and pushed himself erect. His body shrieked a massive protest as he shuffled to the next bed. Harry pulled back the kid’s covers, revealing bandage that covered the boy’s entire abdomen. The kid gave another whimper, this one with words. Harry bent down and slid his arms under the kid, who gripped Harry around the neck.

  Harry figured this next maneuver would push his pain beyond the redline.

  He heaved and swiveled and dumped the kid in one swift motion, trying to get it all over and done before the beast struck. He almost made it. The kid spoke more words, probably asking Harry what safety there was in moving one bed closer to the entrance.

  Harry couldn’t have replied even if he spoke the language. The only way he had made it this far was by holding his breath. He turned back to the kid’s bed and stripped off the sheets, bundled them together with the pillow, and plunked them down on the kid. He crawled back into his bed. The kid finally got it and made himself smaller still, curling into a ball that compressed the sheets to his middle. Harry used both arms to lift his right leg and drape it over the kid and the bundle. He flipped the covers back over them both. His right leg was now propped into an elevated position.

  Harry opened his mouth. Breathed. And moaned as the pain attacked.

  The clamor in the hallway was accompanied now by sharp footfalls. Leather soles. Cop shoes. Three blue shirts appeared in the doorway, struggling against two nurses and the doctor. A pair of men in dark suits and sunglasses and tieless white shirts paraded behind the cops, utterly disconnected from the racket. They scanned the ward. One of them barked an Arabic bullet at the doctor.

  Which was when the nurses and the doctor turned and saw the bare mattress.

  Harry was not acting when he reached out a hand, the fingers rictus curled, begging for another dose of ice in a syringe.

  Instantly his call was taken up by another man, followed quickly by four others. Five. Six. All of them beseeching the group, drawing the newcomers’ attention away from the doctors and nurses gaping at an empty bed.

  Being surrounded by people in pain did not faze the two men in suits. Which only confirmed Harry’s initial impressi
on. Their title might have been detective or secret service or special branch, but in reality they were the Palestinian version of serious trouble. One of them pulled a photograph from his pocket and did a slow scan of the room while his partner argued with the hospital staff. The guy then showed the photograph to the doctor. The doctor and the nurses only included him in their slanging match.

  Finally the men signaled to the cops and retreated. The doctor followed them out, his protests gradually diminishing with the footsteps. One nurse scurried out the door. The other sat herself down on the empty bed. She leaned forward and lifted Harry’s bedcovers. Harry held up one finger. Wait. He could still hear the cops arguing with the doctor.

  Only when the other nurse reappeared with the rattling metal cart and took aim straight for his bed did Harry allow his hand to drop.

  THE NURSE AND TWO ATTENDANTS shifted the kid back to his own bed, then treated Harry to his morning injection. The dose might have been smaller, gradually reducing his dependence on the ice canoe. Or maybe he was growing accustomed to the glacial rush. Then again, he had put his body through some serious strains, and maybe the pain was strong enough to shout down the drug’s call to oblivion. Whatever the reason, that morning’s injection did not put Harry under. Instead, he sort of floated away.

  His eyes were slitted against light that stayed too bright even when the nurse drew the curtains. A fly settled on his forehead and tracked across his face. Harry was not bothered enough to shift and make it leave. People came and went. The light swung from east to west. The shadows changed shape. Then he must have drifted off, because the next thing he knew, he was back in the dream, fleeing through the Hebron night but always winding up trapped in that alley.

  Only this time Harry stopped running.

  He stood there in the dark, his chest pumping from the sheer bloody terror of knowing what came next. But waiting just the same.

  Then it happened just like he knew it would. Boom. The blast carried the same roar he felt every time the injection wore off. He opened his eyes and lay there staring at the ceiling. For once, trying to hold on to the dream rather than push the fear away.