by Jean Rabe
She knew other ways into this building, but tonight she craved the physical activity and the heady danger of the climb. Her skin itched with the anticipation of what she might find—another shabti, a piece of jewelry, a bowl, or maybe a death mask … anything that might have been taken from the Malawi National Museum or Yuya’s tomb, something valuable because of its age and significance, but more because of the images she would read from it.
Dear God, let it be another shabti. Let Egypt’s misfortune from all those riots be my gain.
Bridget’s target was on the tenth. There were only two apartments to a floor, and Bridget knew she had the correct side. The Internet was a marvelous thing, and a quick search on it had yielded various blueprints, notes about security, floor plans, a listing of tenants, and even pictures of the views from many of the windows. The Internet had also provided a little bit about the apartment occupant: Elijah Stone, forty-six, independent investment consultant. Born in Connecticut, Stone previously worked as a stock broker, operations manager for a NYC securities firm, and served as public relations director for a Manhattan medical device research corporation.
The sounds of the city came muted to her as she climbed, deadened by the cocoon of stone and the hour. Always there was traffic, but not a lot on the street at the moment. From her perch she spotted a New York Times van pass by, followed by a Greyhound bus. The scent of the belched exhaust was cut here, and the air did not smell too tainted. She breathed deep.
Scaling ten floors was not a terribly daunting task; even with her bruised ribs she could do this in her sleep. Bridget kept herself in shape by an unorthodox exercise routine that included regular hikes to the eighty-sixth floor observation deck of the Empire State Building. She even competed in the annual Run-Up, and held back just enough so she wasn’t one of the fastest times; she didn’t want her picture in the paper. One thousand five hundred and seventy-six steps, the lower third taken two at a time. Occasionally she would also jog up to the observation deck on the one hundred and second floor at the very top, but that stairwell wasn’t always open, and she wasn’t about to pick the lock in such a public place for the two hundred and eighty-four additional steps.
Ten floors by scaling the wall tonight? It was not so onerous, and yet it held a shade of risk to keep it interesting.
Her muscles bunched as she pulled herself up. She used her arms, letting her legs hang free. Bridget relished the burn she started to feel. She seldom burglarized apartments anymore; she’d done that often enough in her youth. Now, more the businesswoman, she made arrangements for illicit shipments and orchestrated elaborate heists wherein she rarely got her fingers dirty. But she retreated to her old ways every once in a while, like now, when the promise of something special was too irresistible to leave to one of her men.
A little more than a year ago she’d been lured into an apartment at 740 Park Avenue when she’d heard one of the tenants had purchased an intact Babylonian vase, a serious prize that was now in a place of honor in her study. The city’s wealthiest lived at 740—once the Vanderbilts, Chryslers, Rockefellers, and now the people of new money: Schwarzman, Wang, Perelman, Koch, and Bronfman. This building on Eighty-Fifth wasn’t in 740’s class, and did not have as elaborate security, but it was out of the reach of the average New Yorker nonetheless. Apartments here started at $12,000 a month. The man she was going to rob had some money.
The burn in her biceps increased as she passed the fourth floor and headed toward the fifth. The ache in her side intensified. She’d glanced at her plate-sized bruise before heading out. It was a mix of purple and yellow, a sidewalk chalk painting that had been caught in the rain. Dustin had tried to get her to see the doctor, but she’d been injured worse before.
Past the sixth and toward the seventh.
Bridget had waited until Tavio came to pick up Otter before coming here. Tavio’d been handsomely dressed and smelling of too-sweet cologne, not a hair out of place, and offering a quick comment about rushing over after an “engaging dinner date.” It was a jab, a “see what you’re missing” poke meant to fester. He always came well groomed to pick up their son. It used to hurt and leave Bridget in a sullen funk for a few hours. But she’d gotten past it some time ago. Tavio probably knew his appearance and gentle digs didn’t get to her anymore, but continued them anyway out of habit or lingering spite. Tonight, Dustin had answered the door and snaked his arms around Bridget’s waist.
Bridget noted that Tavio’s eyes flickered with a hint of indignation aimed at the young man. It hadn’t helped that Otter had volunteered what a wonderful cook Dustin was and announced he was bringing home leftovers of the “best-ever birthday cake on the planet.”
Bridget had waited another two hours, losing herself in Dustin’s considerable charms, then left him to sleep, dressed in charcoal clothes, and took the subway.
Now to the eighth floor.
The climb tugged at her sore muscles, the burn spreading around her back and into her arms and becoming uncomfortable. Bridget continued to let her arms do all of the work, pausing when she heard a horn honking down on the street and making sure no one was coming into this alley. Sound carried even this high up in the gap between buildings, and she didn’t want to be caught doing her Spiderman impersonation.
At the ninth floor she felt snowflakes dust her face.
One more, she told herself. One more floor.
One floor later, she pulled herself up on a three-inch-wide concrete ledge and to a narrow window that she knew from the Internet floor plans opened above the kitchen sink. Rich, paranoid New Yorkers often had alarms on their balcony doors, but practically no one this high up rigged their windows.
Bridget discovered that Elijah Stone, the lone tenant of this apartment, was no exception. The window she chose was safe, not even locked.
It was dark inside. At 1 a.m. on a Monday morning, Bridget had not expected the occupant to be awake. A quick and quiet search revealed a man sleeping alone in a king-sized bed, conveniently wearing a full-face CPAP mask. The sound reminded her of Darth Vader or a white noise machine, a constant airy whoosh. As the man exhaled, the volume rose slightly and made a harsher hiss. Middle-aged, a little heavy, hair thinning; Bridget thought the man looked sad and worn.
The apartment smelled of vanilla and apples and was large. Bridget knew from the floor plan it was two thousand square feet. Three bedrooms, three fireplaces, everything done in light, creamy colors that shouted money and refinement and seemed not to be the residence of someone who spent a lot of time here. There was no clutter, the knickknacks relatively few and tastefully arranged. Everything modern, she realized; nothing at first glance appearing obviously old—very old—like the shabti Marsh’s friend had picked up here. But then no doubt such a treasure would be hidden.
She tugged off her gloves and moved silently throughout the rooms, kept her breathing shallow and stretching out her fingers, brushing them against cabinet drawers and closet doors, searching for a hint of something ancient. A large silver candlestick on the dining table called up the image of a young woman on her wedding day when Virginia was a colony. If she could not find a true treasure in this apartment, she would take the candlestick for her trouble—the silver alone put its value at $1,700.
All the while she listened to the CPAP, setting its dull and routine rhythm to memory. If Elijah Stone roused, Bridget would know it because the sound of the machine would change, and she would dive for the window. Other sounds whispered in, just a hint of traffic and wind teasing the panes, someone moving around in the apartment upstairs.
There were only a half-dozen books on a narrow floor to ceiling bookshelf in the office, most of the shelves empty or holding odds and ends: a souvenir shot glass of Niagara Falls; a bikini-clad woman with long blond hair and big turquoise eyes smiling out of a silver picture frame; two shiny black coffee cups with the Café Grumpy logo, a commemorative Lucite block with a ghostly image of the Twin Towers etched on it; and another picture frame with a middle-ag
ed man in a business suit—Elijah Stone—standing next to an elderly woman in black slacks and a sequin-dusted red sweater, a Christmas tree in the background. Nothing of value or particular interest. She turned, and then spun back.
The thickest book on the shelf managed to catch her attention. She touched the spine: printed a little more than a century ago, it was volume two of a Masonic history set. A very old man with slicked-back white hair flitted in Bridget’s mind, likely the previous owner. The book was the most interesting thing she’d encountered so far, but not especially valuable, and not worth her time right now as it would no doubt sit in her shop too long to bother with.
There was a single shelf, decorative and attached to the wall over a widescreen television. Two items on it: a blown-glass paperweight with a purple blossom in the center and a baseball. The latter brought the scent of popcorn and dirt when Bridget touched the plastic sphere that held it and probed. The visage of a smooth faced black man came to the front. Bridget saw this very ball coming hard at the man. A crack and the ball sailed across an outfield carpeted with summer-parched grass. The man was fast, wheeling around the bases as the ball was snared and hurled back. “Safe!” Bridget heard an umpire shout. “Twelve seconds that took!” someone on the bench called. “Inside the park home-run for Papa!” a woman in the stands hollered. The umpire handed the man—James Bell was the batter’s name—this ball. Years melted and the man, old now and sitting in a dingy apartment in St. Louis—the famous arch was visible through the window behind him—signed the ball and mailed it to a fan. “Cool Papa Bell,” the signature read. He’d been a legend in the Negro leagues, Bridget registered. The ball wasn’t the relic she’d been searching for, but a treasure nonetheless. Bridget put the ball in her pocket and moved on. She could sell it for nine hundred in her shop when she was finished enjoying all of its summertime memories.
A glance at her watch. She’d been prowling for nearly fifteen minutes. Too much time. She looked to the kitchen window and saw the snow coming down a little harder. The ledge would be slippery. Time to go.
One more pass, she decided. One more. If Marsh’s friend had gotten a shabti here, there had to be something else, right? Something Harry Black or Brown or Gray had missed. She returned to the bedroom, fingers twitching in time with the CPAP. First to the closet, then to the bureau, the nightstand, and then the bed; all of it one more time. One more. Bridget froze. The bed.
Beneath the bed.
She crouched and reached under it, the fringe on the comforter tickling the back of her hand. She had the sensation of being watched, yet a glance confirmed the man was still sleeping. Next, she had the more welcome sensation of desert heat and a dry wind. The shabti hadn’t been the only thing from Egypt in this apartment. Indeed, Marsh’s friend Harry had missed something.
She stretched farther, careful not to move the comforter, holding her breath and stealing herself for … there! A dizzying rush suffused her, images of dark-skinned men with shaved heads and wearing symbols of Ra and Horus. Her fingers closed on the handle of a satchel, and she fought against the ancient glimpses that shot behind her eyes. Bridget forced the pictures down, and slid the case—a battered, oversized briefcase—out from under the bed.
It was heavy, promising something very interesting inside.
The leather looked old and carried the pong of dead fish, but Bridget didn’t care about the smell. What an amazing thing it must hold! A treasure from the time of the pharaohs. She wanted to delve deeper, to look inside this very instant and run her hands over whatever it was, get high on the history of the object and trace its passage through the centuries. She stopped herself from reaching for the clasp.
Time for the discovery later, she thought, back at her brownstone. If she lost herself to the history here, she could well get caught.
The CPAP machine continued its sonorous accompaniment.
Bridget left the room, then the apartment, strapping the heavy briefcase to her back and climbing down the wall into the darkest part of the alley. The snow was coming harder still, mixed with ice pellets, so cold it was like shards of glass striking her face. She squinted through it as she hurried to the nearby subway stop at Eighty-Sixth and Broadway.
“Wait,” she told herself as she settled onto a cold plastic seat. “Wait. Wait. Wait.”
Bridget would force herself to not open the briefcase until safely back at her brownstone in Fort Greene. Then she would see what slice of the past she’d managed to lift from the tenth floor of the building at Eighty-Fifth and West End.
***
Nine
Locking herself in her study, Bridget sat cross-legged on a large golden-beige rug—an over-dyed Turkish oushak woven in 1910. She valued it at only $6,990 because one end of it was faded and frayed. Sometimes she meditated on it, palms against the nap and using her psychometry to draw out images of the long-fingered women who had deftly fashioned the flower and vine patterns and who she imagined to be her friends. Watching them weave soothed her, and the climate during the time the rug was woven was lovely and so far removed from New York City’s winter. This morning, however, she kept the weavers away and fixed her gaze on the smelly briefcase.
She concentrated.
Oddly, she could not date the satchel; conflicting pictures danced behind her eyes. Likely a patchwork of hides—parts of previous garments and purses recycled and dyed to the same dull-brown shade, a myriad of faces from previous owners. Running her fingers over the leather, she felt it rough in some places, smooth in others, thicker along one side. Why a moneyed man like Elijah Stone in the Eighty-Fifth apartment would own it was a puzzle. Perhaps a hand-me-down from a relative kept only for sentiment’s sake. Or maybe it was a convenient pick-up from a resale shop in which to hide something of great value. She saw flashes of Elijah, the man’s manicured hands holding the case, but she was not interested in him at this moment, just in the treasure inside.
Who would think to look for a relic inside this piece of junk? A common thief would not have looked, and Bridget had only been drawn to it because her senses honed in on something very old. She would throw the briefcase away in tomorrow’s trash. But at the moment, the briefcase was a box of Cracker Jacks, and she was going to find the prize inside.
The clasp was curious, tarnished silver with bronze inlay. Looking from one angle like a twisted face, from another like a gang symbol. She dismissed it; the clasp and the briefcase were not important—only the contents mattered. She unhooked it, opening the case and not yet letting herself look inside.
Savor this. Go slow.
She closed her eyes, fingers hovering above the opening, trying to block out the smell of dead fish which she attributed to the leather rotting and which had somehow gotten stronger. Her mind bore in.
Just a taste at first. Tease me.
Again she felt the heat of the desert. Bridget welcomed it; the imagined warmth helped to shake off the cold that had seeped into her bones from the climb up the apartment building wall. She had never physically been to Egypt, but her mental forays there because of her psychometry felt as real as if she’d stood on the sand long centuries ago. She owned several objects that had been culled from the Valley of the Kings, each precious because of the images stored, none obtained through legal channels. Each had given her many hours of pleasure as she absorbed the rare histories. It was like experiencing multiple and significant lives, a child’s game of “let’s pretend” become reality.
What are you, very old treasure? What? What?
Stone. She could tell that much, that the object inside was carved stone. The briefcase had certainly felt heavy strapped to her back, hinting at something substantial.
From which dynasty?
She couldn’t tell that, despite her initial probing, and so she finally reached in, hands grasping and pulling out a limestone statue about thirteen inches tall. It was thick and had filled the entire briefcase. She automatically registered a value: one-point-two million, though to her such a trea
sure was without price.
How had Elijah Stone come to own such an interesting, valuable thing? And why hide it in a hideous briefcase rather than set it out to be admired? To own a thing and not be able to look upon it was foolish. In the same instant she asked the question, she answered it. The statue, like the shabti, had been stolen from the Egyptian Museum; her quick reading of it revealed that. Of course its new owner would hide it, at least until it could be displayed somewhere without fear of being recognized as an important antiquity. Or perhaps Elijah Stone was a smuggler or trafficker in goods like Bridget and had intended to resell it. One-point-two million would be a key haul for just one piece.
“It doesn’t matter how you came to be in that apartment,” Bridget said aloud. At least it did not matter at this moment. The important thing was that she held this wonderful, ancient relic. This piece of the past belonged to her now. Later, much later, she might check into this Elijah Stone. The man’s source for very old things might need to become Bridget’s source.
So beautiful in its simplicity, this statue.
She placed it reverently between herself and the briefcase. It was a rendering of a man in a wrap-around skirt in marvelous museum-quality condition. The man was seated in a high-backed chair that could have represented a throne. His garment was short. In the Middle and New Kingdoms men wore longer skirts or pleated ones, so this piece dated to the Old Kingdom, she was certain. About twenty-four hundred BC, Bridget placed it, probably the beginning of the Fifth Dynasty. She would narrow it down to the precise year it was carved much later. The statue was made to show elaborate jewelry and a headpiece, marking the figure as wealthy.
Who posed for this treasure? She pressed.
She drew out an image of a stately man, sun-bronzed and reasonably handsome and sitting regally still for the carver. Bridget felt the carver’s hands run over the stone before making the first chisel cuts. It felt like a lover’s caress.
“Kanefer,” Bridget pronounced as she looked outward from the chunk of limestone. She nearly succumbed as a weakness washed through her; psychometry magic often exacted a physical price. She trembled like she was about to suffer a seizure, her teeth grinding together as she fought for breath. The sensation of the intimate contact with something centuries upon centuries old was amazing, and Bridget drank it all in, steadying herself and taking in more and more until she nearly lost consciousness.