Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 02 - London Broil

by Barbara Silkstone

  “I have a weird feeling about Angus,” I said. “He’s always one step behind me. I think he’s after the Lost Boy.”

  “He’s a cop. That’s part of his aura – giving off scary vibes.”

  “Are you a member of some sort of secret society? Angus said you both belonged to the International Society for the Protection of Antiquities. What is that all about?”

  “He got me involved in the Society years ago. They turned out to be a bunch of smugglers. Angus’s father went to prison for his part in that gang. You misunderstood him. That’s old stuff.”

  Roger pulled me close. “Let’s just sit quiet and savor this moment. There will never be another one like it. Our quest may soon be over.”

  I wasn’t wrong. Angus was bad news, but I wasn’t up to arguing, not now. I leaned my head against Roger’s shoulder; he leaned into my lean. We were in the leaning thing when a chap in light slacks and a dark tailored shirt came careening round the building. He was followed by a security guard.

  Roger and Michael embraced doing the guy-back-pat thing. “Wendy, let me introduce you to my good friend from university, Sir Michael Wellington. We carried each other through Oxford.”

  After we shook hands, he said, “On with it then!” We followed him like ducklings to a side entrance where a second guard waited for us.

  Inside it was cool and smelled like history. The lights were on full. The antiquities contained in the church were beyond priceless, collected since before the eleventh century. I felt as if the royals and the saints were looking down on us, shocked at our trespass.

  “Where to?” Michael asked.

  “The Coronation Throne,” I said, my voice cracking. This was more than I had imagined. Real Estate Broker to Tomb Raider, Recovery Division.

  Roger and I followed Michael, and the guards followed us. The chair stood on a modern pedestal near the tomb of Henry V.

  Michael said, “Almost every monarch since Edward II in 1308 has been crowned while seated there.”

  Harp music played in my mind. Decorated with faded paintings of birds, foliage, and animals on gilt background, the chair was exquisite. The guard shined his flashlight under it.

  I grabbed Roger’s arm. There, in the beam of light, was the Lost Boy. We had it!

  The guard switched off the laser security and Roger moved forward in slow motion. He lifted the death Shadow of the last Lost Boy from under the throne. It was an eight-inch tall effigy made from one solid black diamond with jewel-encrusted vestments. It cast subtle prisms across Roger’s face. We locked eyes and smiled.

  One of the guards took out a handkerchief and handed it to Roger, who wrapped the Boy in it. He clutched it to his chest. Sir Michael stepped back looking proud as punch.

  “Wendy, may I borrow your phone again?”

  Roger dialed, waited. It rang and rang. “Anna? I have it. We’ll be there within the hour.” He clicked off and handed back my cell. We exchanged glances and then looked away, not wanting to expose our emotions.

  “I’ll drive you to the museum,” Michael said. “The guards will accompany us.”

  It was a relief to know we weren’t going by taxi.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, we pulled up in front of the British Museum. I popped out of the back of Michael’s car. Roger slowly slid out of the front passenger seat, taking way too much time thanking his friend. He held the Shadow wrapped in the handkerchief. I waited three stairs up, eager to get the Lost Boy off our hands.

  Something came behind me. It was large and smelled of fried fish. Chunky arms held me fast in a bear hug. “Sorry, Wendy.” It was Nobby Seemore back for more.

  I elbowed him in his plump tummy, but he held fast. Algy, sans the dreadlocks but still wearing most of his makeup, winged at me like a goofy gargoyle and grabbed the gnome from my mitts. The thugs took off galumphing down the marble stairs, Nobby tripping over Algy. Maybe that was how they always went down stairs. The orange-doored taxi sat at the curb at the corner. They sprinted toward it, clutching the garden gnome.

  “Idiots!” I yelled.

  Nobby blew me a kiss.

  Chapter 43

  Dr. Anna Hill, Chief Curator of the Ancient Egypt collection, greeted us in the darkened lobby accompanied by a contingent of security guards, a passel of assistants, and a covey of curators. I wondered if they all spent the night in their exhibits… We hadn’t given them much notice and yet there they stood, beaming.

  We followed Dr. Anna down to the basement vault, our footsteps echoing off the stone walls and marble floors. I’d never been in a museum at night. I took mental snapshots of all I was seeing so I could pull the memories out and fondle them in years to come.

  Roger and Anna went inside the reinforced room; the rest of us peeked in the door. The archaeologist and the curator carefully unwrapped the last Lost Boy and placed him in the velvet case with his brothers.

  Dr. Anna hugged Roger. He blushed. They turned and faced the group clustered at the doorway. We all applauded. I thought I saw tears in Roger’s eyes, but maybe they were in mine.

  When he returned to my side, he whispered, “Thank you.”

  I squeezed his arm.

  “You and I,” he said, “are just passing through history. This is history.”

  ***

  We left the still-cheering museum crowd fifteen minutes later and got in Michael’s car to go to Roger’s flat. It had been the wildest twenty-four hours in my life. Roger dialed the Met and explained his problem with the misplaced Darcy. I smiled when he described her as a large, delusional female resembling the late Anna Nicole Smith, well past her centerfold days. He clicked off and handed me the phone.

  “The Met will get someone on it right now. They’ll call round to all the London hospitals with psychiatric wards,” he said.

  I took his hand and squeezed it. In return he squeezed my thigh.

  At one in the morning, we stumbled up the stairs to Roger’s apartment. By virtue of his aroma, he won the right to be the first to shower.

  “You smell like a mummy.”

  “Better than being a mummy. How about saving on water and showering with me?”

  “Didn’t you hear me say you smell like a mummy?”

  Roger threw me a tired air kiss and walked into his bathroom.

  Hildy and Holly were sound asleep in their blanket nest; their soft goose-snores were comforting. I poured two water glasses of scotch. Thirty minutes later Roger hadn’t emerged. Concerned, I poked my head in the door. He was asleep on the floor, hair wet, a towel around his waist. I roused him by tapping his cheeks.

  “Whatever Veal slipped me is still in my system. I can’t stay awake,” he said as he struggled to stand. Just then Hildy and Holly rushed at Roger, their web-footed waddle making that peculiar sound I’d come to love. They entwined their spindly grey necks around his shaky knees.

  “If these birds aren’t gone by Christmas, they are dinner!” he said, fighting off their fowl caresses.

  “Go sit in the corner,” I said to the girls.

  I walked Roger to the sofa and we sat down. “I’ll make us a nice cup of tea instead of scotch.” I slipped my hand behind his shoulder and drew him close. He still smelled faintly of sarcophagus, “Sweetie, Victor gave Darcy some truth serum. Something called 3Ts. Maybe that’s what he slipped you.”

  “Bloody hell! Mixing something like that with her medicines for schizophrenia could have destroyed her mind.”

  I hugged him again. He found my lips, nibbling then kissing. My emotions bubbled near the surface like magma preparing to erupt from a volcano. His towel came loose and fell away, which did nothing to discourage our plans.

  “Roger, we’re not alone.” Two sets of black beady eyes watched us intently. “Hang on, I’ll get rid of them.”

  “All I do is hang on.”

  I went into the kitchen, grabbed a bag of popped popcorn from the counter, spilled it into a dish, and walked to the patio. The geese followed me like two over-si
zed puppies. I set the dish down. While Hildy and Holly gobbled the food making little goose sounds low in their throats, I stepped into the flat and closed the sliding screen behind me.

  Roger was watching me return, so I sashayed an exaggerated hip sway and grinned. I knelt on the sofa and kissed him. I was slipping out of my top while trying to stay lip-connected when there came a pounding on the door. We looked at each other as we both said… “Darcy.”

  Roger tied the towel around his waist, went to the door, and looked through the peephole.

  “It’s Angus.” He opened the door before I could stop him.

  Detective Chief Inspector Angus Black burst in the room. “Where is it?”

  Clueless, Roger patted Angus on the back, “Are you okay? Want a drink?” He pushed the detective toward the sofa. “Tell us what happened with Veal. I take it he pulled a gun?”

  Angus remained standing, his green eyes fixed on me. “Where the bloody hell is it?”

  I gave him a palms-up shrug. He was going to go ballistic when he found out the last Lost Boy was in a vault with his brothers.

  He shoved Roger onto the sofa. My archaeologist turned to me. “We seem to bring out the worst in people.”

  “Angus, tell him,” I said.

  “I’m after the last Lost Boy.”

  Roger turned to me with a stunned look, “You were right!”

  “Your detective friend has also gone over to the dark side. It’s getting crowded over there.” I stood ready to rumble. “Detective Black, I’m guessing Victor Veal was unarmed?”

  Angus took a menacing step toward me. I jumped over the back of the sofa.

  “Nice trick with the lawn gnome. Only now you’ve really chafed my bum. I want that Lost Boy and I want it now,” he said.

  Roger’s eyeballs spun trying to follow the conversation – what with lawn gnomes and cop’s bums.

  Inching my way along the back of the sofa, I managed to grab a bronze bull from an end table. Valuable or not, it was a good heavy weapon. But it would be a big mistake to pull an unloaded bull if he was still armed. I hoped Angus had turned over his gun after shooting Veal.

  “Angus… we’ve already returned Thirteen to the museum. The deal is done and the last Lost Boy is out of play.”

  “Err!” The cop roared as he swung his fist. Roger ducked and his towel fell off. It was the equivalent of mud wrestling for a female audience. It might have been fun to get on video, but it was going to get bloody soon. Angus was raving when he took his final lunge at Roger.

  Loud honks filled the room as Hildy and Holly burst through the patio screen and flew at Angus in a flurry of grey feathers and yellow beaks. They nipped his butt and pecked his nose. He flailed at them and they scattered, leaving a trail of white droppings that wasn’t popcorn. They huddled near the pantry door, goose-mumbling while they regrouped.

  I stepped up to the plate or in this case the back of Angus’ red head. I wound into a batter’s stance, but then fearing murder charges, I held my swing. Hildy and Holly attacked again, this time both going for his face. I slammed the bull into his calves. He fell to the floor screaming. I shooed the geese away from his head.

  Roger flopped on his sofa, holding his head. “Did we just attack a Met detective?”

  “We’ll sort that out later. Now let’s tie his hands and call the meat wagon to get this nut job out of here.”

  Twenty-minutes later, Angus exited on a stretcher, wearing a set of sturdy metal handcuffs.

  Chapter 44

  Roger and I fell asleep side by side on his bed, exhausted and fully clothed, and slept till noon. I looked at him and smiled.

  He smiled back. “You look like something I once dug up in the Sahara,” he said.

  “And you wonder why you’re not getting any action.”

  “That was a compliment.”

  I rolled out of bed and picked through my suitcase. I pulled out my black jersey dress, sandals, and cosmetic bag.

  “Stop! Bad goose!” I yelled to frighten Hildy who was scampering off with my purple ribbon top. She snapped her beak at me. Hildy was the delinquent in our set of geese.

  “Showering,” I said to Roger who was up and working on the coffee maker. The warm water eased my aching muscles. I’d done some serious damage to my fingers sliding that sarcophagus lid, and I pulled a tendon in my wrist while clocking Angus with the bronze bull. This Tomb Raider stuff was demanding. I ran a comb through my hair, patted some lotion on my face, and flooded my eyes with drops.

  I stepped over the goose poop as I worked my way to the kitchen. “Girls you have to do better. Use the newspaper.” Hildy and Holly cocked their heads in mirror images of each other as if to show they were trying.

  Roger sat at the table, both hands cupped around a mug. I poured myself some coffee and joined him. He scrunched up his eyes and frowned. I wanted to kiss those eyes and lips.

  “I keep thinking about the look of betrayal on Angus’ face when the Met came for him last night. I had to turn him in.”

  “That was a look of murder, not betrayal. He would have killed us both if he’d been armed.”

  “I had no idea he was still caught up with those people in the Society. If I were a better friend, I would have known. I would have stopped him.”

  Walking up behind him, I leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “Roger, you can’t protect everyone all the time. It’s not possible.”

  He’d lost more than a good friend in Angus; he’d lost faith in his ability to save the people he cared about. Benny was a mentor and friend, as well as a client, and he was gone. And Darcy was still missing.

  He pulled me closer and planted a tasty kiss on my mouth. This time I was more than ready. I returned kiss for kiss while unfastening the belt on my dress. Roger stood and we continued the kiss. Now we were getting somewhere.

  My cell phone rang, doing its Pink Panther thing. “Hold that thought,” I said as I put my finger to Roger’s lips. I grabbed the phone from the kitchen counter. The caller ID read Unknown, which meant the States.

  “It’s me. Treanna.”

  She sounded so sad.

  “Are you still helping your friend?”

  “I am. He needs me a bit longer.”

  She hesitated. I thought perhaps she was going to hang up. “What’s his name?”

  I imagined this was about keeping me on the line. “His name is Roger.”

  “Can I talk to Roger?”

  “Sure.” I handed the phone to Roger who was groaning from caller-interruptus. Eyebrows raised in question, he took the phone.

  He listened for a moment, then clicked off.

  “What did she say?”

  “‘Please send Wendy home. I need her more than you do.’ Then she hung up.”

  My lips found his, and my hands held his face as I attempted to kiss away his hurt feelings. I’d just gotten into the sexier bits, when Roger’s phone rang.

  “Please ignore it,” I mumbled into his chest.

  “I can’t. It might be about Darcy.”

  “You just said the D-word.” I pushed him away.

  He held up his hand to hush me. “I see. In Wandsworth? I know exactly where it is. No, she has no family. I’ll take responsibility. I understand.” He hung up.

  I waited, although I was full of questions. “They have an unidentified woman in the Black Tower Mental Asylum. She fits Darcy’s description. I have to go.” Roger looked bewildered as he went into this bedroom and closed the door. Standing outside the door, I felt lonely for the first time in my life.

  Twenty minutes later Roger stepped from his room. He looked as if he’d aged ten years. “I’m coming with you,” I said and tucked my arm into his. He called for a taxi and we went downstairs to wait.

  He sat in the corner of the cab with no body contact. I tried to lighten the mood. “We could write a book. How to Save the World Between Lunch and Dinner.”

  “I’ll have a think on it,” he said.

  “Kick ‘em in t
he balls every time they get to their knees,” I mumbled nonsense, knowing he wasn’t paying a lick of attention to me.

  We’d been traveling in silence for about twenty minutes when Roger spoke. “You understand what this means? I’ll have to take Darcy in. She has no one else.”

  “Don’t jump to the rescue yet. We don’t know how bad off she is.”

  My emotions were tied in a Gordian knot. I shivered, despite the inadequacy of the cab’s air conditioner in fighting heat steaming from the pavement.

  Chapter 45

  We arrived at the Black Tower Asylum just after two o’clock. The hospital was quiet, except for the occasional scream. We went through metal detectors to get to the reception desk encased in thick glass. The lady behind the desk looked as if nothing could faze her. She ran our IDs under a scanner and returned them to us.

  “Dr. Sigmund is expecting you. Take the elevator to floor nine.”

  We walked down a long hall to a bank of steel-door elevators and rode up in silence. While the concern on Roger’s face was breaking my heart, I remained fully alert, prepared for an assortment of psychos I was sure would jump into the elevator brandishing knives. A soft ding announcing our arrival at the ninth floor took me out of my worry trance.

  The door slid open, revealing a Geppetto-like man, concern written on his apple-doll face. “I’m Dr. Sigmund,” he extended his hand. Roger shook it. I made note to remind him to wash it later. Hospitals are the germiest places.

  The doctor pulled us to the side of the corridor and spoke in a low voice. “The patient, Miss X, was in a state of hysteria when the police brought her in. We’ve had her sedated for almost a week. She’s not been able to remember who she is.”

  Roger frowned. “If you keep her zonked, how do you expect her to remember her name?”

  The doctor shook his head. “The patient is delusional and imagines herself to be Cleopatra. She’s expecting Mark Antony… the Roman… not the singer… to liberate her.”

  The plot was thickening like a pot of week-old curry. My archaeologist was going to have to take in his archaeologist… leaving me out in the heat. We’d see about that.