A cheating wife.
He had been subconsciously ducking signals for months, but it was his wine cellar, oddly enough, that had tipped him off. The two of them—his wife and “Mr. Dick”—sampled from the collection routinely while doing it in his home, without the least bit of consideration for the value and rarity of the wines. If not for the latter, Pfeffer might have forgiven them the “it.”
No, that wasn’t true. The affair hurt him deeply, more deeply than anything ever had before. He had Mr. Dick’s license plate number, because he’d arrived home one day just in time to see the man drive off in a Saab. A simple phone call would get him a name and address. If he wished.
The question was, what would he do with them when he got them?
To his way of thinking, there was only one honorable way to treat a man who entered his home, drank his wine, and soiled his wife. But there was an obstacle to Pfeffer’s way of thinking, and it wasn’t ethics. It was the German judicial system, with which he was all too familiar.
Every time he thought of the two of them together and imagined what they did to each other, he got so upset he struggled to calm his breathing. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. His wife was the love of his life, and he had assumed the feelings were mutual. He could see the man’s hands reaching under her skirt. He could imagine her unbuckling his pants . . .
He snatched up the phone and dialed a München-Pullach number from memory.
“Bundesnachrichtendienst.”
“Reinhard? Is that you?”
“Gerd? Long time. Haven’t they given you a gold watch?”
“Not quite yet. Listen, I’ll be needing some sensitive materials squirreled my way.”
“Gerd, I’d do anything for you, even help you find the goddamn lost Tavernier stones. But I can’t give you anything that’s not on the register. What are you after?”
“The goddamn lost Tavernier stones.”
After a few seconds of static, Pfeffer continued: “And if you help me, all the notes I have on what your son Lucien did last year while vacationing on the North Sea coast . . . will disappear.”
The intelligence agent cleared his throat. “What is it exactly that you want?”
“Everything your people come up with.”
“And what Lucien did …”
“The world will never know.”
One of the houses on Rosenstockstrasse in Mainz, Germany, a Queen Anne with a hipped roof and asymmetrical cross gables, had delicately turned spindle work on its wrapped porch that was finally the shade of cornflower blue the owner wanted: the painters had gotten it right on the fourth try.
The owner, Frieda Blumenfeld, was just finishing her breakfast and beginning the long, impatient wait for her husband to leave. She shouldn’t have held her breath, however, because he discovered the newspaper under the dishes where she had tucked it and poured himself another cup of coffee.
No matter. She would gaze out the window until he was gone, pretending to be lost in thought.
She had a clear view of the house across the street, a Victorian that hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint in five years. A VW sat shamelessly in the driveway. She smiled; at least one neighbor’s finances were even more precarious than her own.
The houses on Rosenstockstrasse were old money mansions, vine-encroached trophies of an earlier generation, most of them ageing gracefully in the shade of large plane trees. Greek columns were common, as were full-width porches, balustraded balconies, and real working window shutters. The architectural styles were mixed but could be summarized as “eclectic stubborn dignity.”
Frieda Blumenfeld, the most eclectic, stubborn, and dignified resident of Rosenstockstrasse, felt that her most distinctive physical feature was her hair. It had grayed to the value of soft graphite and was highlighted with needle-length streaks of frost. She had long refrained from either dyeing or cutting it, and now it fell to her lower back in a ponytail bound in three places. She knew she was supposed to shorten it or shape it into a bun or otherwise act like an old lady. But she couldn’t bring herself to discard the one remaining vestige of girlhood.
The feature she didn’t like, and considered shortening, was her nose.
She fought to keep her chin from doubling and her butt from expanding, but the unforgiving cycle of seasons was winning the contest. In fact, her hair, nose, and cheerlessly pale blue eyes were combining to make her look like a witch.
A banker by trade, she had inherited a respectable sum of old money from her mother, from whom she had also inherited exquisite tastes. The money wasn’t enough to place her and her husband at the top of Mainz society, but it was enough to place them within its bosom.
Old money wore so much better than new money. People with old money grew up wearing it, whereas those who came upon it later in life never seemed to be able to make it fit. Nevertheless, some of the new-money people were flaunting the staggering size of their portfolios, pushing the blue bloods lower down on the guest lists.
In an effort to catch up to them, Blumenfeld had invested her inheritance, all of it, in a sure-bet commodities venture: chicken futures. Trouble was, the chickens had no futures. When the price of feed soared during a drought, farmers all over Europe massacred their chicks rather than raise them with feed that was more expensive than the price they, the chickens, would bring at maturity.
For nine agonizing days, Blumenfeld watched her commodity go limit down and her fortune erode. She suffered nightmares of hungry baby chicks chasing her around the bedroom, peeping incessantly, pecking at her with their nasty beaks. The consummate blow came when she was arrested for having embezzled her bank clients to meet a preposterous margin call and led out of her office in handcuffs.
The worst thing about prison was the food. She got used to the noise—to mentally ill inmates wailing all night long—but despite two years of training her palate, she never got used to the food.
The best thing about prison was the sex. She was a lesbian married for the sake of convenience, the greater part of which was appearance. She had long come to think of males as superfluous to the planet.
She was still able to support the façade of wealth, but only because she owed no money on either the house or the car. The furniture was getting a little hairy, though. When one of her society friends recently suggested she splurge on a new living room arrangement, even giving her the name of a favorite interior decorator, Blumenfeld slipped and answered that she didn’t care to spend her money so frivolously. The society friend only stared back, her expression blank, her eyes blinking.
The car, a BMW that had cost as much as a small airplane, was three years old now, and everyone knew it. In another year or so, it would become a downright embarrassment.
Like her husband.
Finally … finally … he put the newspaper down, stretched and yawned, and stood up from the table. Moments later, he donned his hat and left the house.
Herr Blumenfeld had taken a job as a retail clerk in an art supply store downtown, and it was only a matter of time before one of their acquaintances discovered this tidbit and realized how bad off they were. “It’s just a hobby of his” wasn’t going to fly: Herr Blumenfeld was color blind and couldn’t draw a decent stick figure. The job was necessary, though, to pay for certain can’t-dowithouts such as maid service.
Frieda Blumenfeld required her husband to leave the house each morning through the back door and to instruct anyone who asked that he was out and about doing volunteer work— something perfectly acceptable for a wealthy, middle-aged man to do. But it was just a matter of time.
As soon as he was gone, she picked up the phone and dialed a number.
“Gebhardt.”
“Hallo, Mannfred. Ich bin’s. I have just read a most fascinating article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine.”
“I know which one you mean. I read it too.”
“Then you know why I’m calling.”
There was a long pause at the other end. “If you mean to ask whet
her I’m willing to devote my spare time to an enterprise that will almost certainly result in more frustration than satisfaction, more pain than profit … one that will toe the line of the law, cross the line, leave the line far behind … one that might even get me shot at … then yes, I think I know why you’re calling—again.”
“My dear Mannfred, you exaggerate.”
“Do I?”
“Perhaps you should have one of your morning drinks to relax you. It’s past noon somewhere in the world.”
“I’ve already had two.”
“Then a walk, perhaps.”
“To Switzerland?”
“Touché. You do pay attention, after all. There’s a partial reproduction of Cellarius’s last map on the back page of the features section. Did you notice anything odd about it? In particular, the runes decorating its margin?”
She heard the rustling of newspaper pages in the background.
“That one must have gotten past me,” Gebhardt said.
“Well, the world will soon notice, and it won’t be long before somebody figures out what they mean. By the way, it may not be obvious to you, but I am waiting for an answer.”
“You’ve already predicted what my answer will be, otherwise you wouldn’t have called.”
“That’s what I like about you, Mannfred. You know me almost as well as I know you.”
“When do you want to start?”
“Today. We begin by collecting information. And I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will anyway: don’t speak to anyone.”
“This will blow over in a week or so, you know. The press will tire of it, and everyone will forget.”
“Not everyone. Drop by this afternoon. I’ll have a list of tasks for you.”
“I have a job now, remember?”
“Quit.”
“And an opportunity to go straight. Today is Wednesday. I’ll come by Saturday and we’ll talk. If I like what I hear, we’ll talk some more. Now, if you don’t mind, I still have time for another beer before I go to work.”
“You owe me.”
Gebhardt remained silent.
“You owe me,” Blumenfeld repeated, “and I want the debt repaid. I need a complete facsimile of the map that appears in the newspaper. A partial won’t do. I’ll give you until Saturday, if you insist, but I cannot wait longer.”
After another lengthy silence, Gebhardt said, “I have a feeling I’m going to wish they’d burned him and scattered his ashes rather than stabbed him and buried him in a bog.”
“Nonsense. Have another beer. See you on Saturday. Auf Wiederhören .”
“Tschüs.”
Gebhardt had once told Blumenfeld that everything men did to improve themselves, they did to improve their chances of acquiring women, and thus spread their genes as widely as possible. Blumenfeld had a different opinion. She had a different opinion about most things, as a matter of habit, but this time it was a direct result of experience: she had served as Gebhardt’s alibi in defense of a brutal sexual assault.
That was the debt he owed her. And that was the danger he posed.
Following her release from prison, Blumenfeld had set out to restore her estate. Together with a partner, she involved herself in an elaborate sting, raising capital of her own by begging and borrowing from former business associates. The target was a wealthy Dutchman who would put up most of the money for the purchase of shipping containers in Bremerhaven. Containers she, Blumenfeld, and her new partner didn’t intend to buy.
It wasn’t until the Dutchman and Blumenfeld’s partner absconded with the money that Blumenfeld realized she had been the real target of the sting. She bore them no malice. To be sure, she hunted down the partner, who soon afterwards died in a house fire. She lost all track of the Dutchman. But she appreciated the lesson she had learned. “We” in every subsequent job translated to “me.”
She’d needed someone to start the fire. A prison acquaintance suggested a young, clean-cut associate named Mannfred Gebhardt. Problem was, Gebhardt was about to stand trial for sexual assault. Several people were prepared to testify they saw him with the victim, but nobody had yet offered to remember he was elsewhere when the victim was assaulted.
Blumenfeld sometimes wondered to what extent she could excuse Gebhardt’s precipitate nature by attributing it to the abuse he had received as a child. An uncle had tied him to a bedpost and had his way with him, even going so far as to invite friends over to share the treat.
But the girl Gebhardt had assaulted was underage. And every deed had its penance, regardless of the circumstances that brought it about.
SEVEN
THE NEXT MORNING, JOHN took the day off and visited the campus of Franklin & Marshall College. It was the first time he had ever taken a day off from work, and the request surprised Harry Tokuhisa.
“You’re not sick,” Harry clarified.
“No, sir.”
“And nobody died.”
“No, sir.”
“You just need to take care of … personal matters.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well.” He signed John’s leave slip grudgingly, as though it were an execution order. “As soon as you’re able, tell me what’s really the matter.”
“Yes, sir.”
Like most private universities, F&M relied heavily on endowments. And like most private university libraries, the Shadek-Fackenthal Library bore the burden of its donors’ legacies. The pride of the library was one of its annexes, the Erwin Raisz Institute of Mapping Sciences.
Some 30,000 individual map sheets, most printed before 1900, constituted the heart of the collection. They filled long aluminum cabinets stacked to the ceiling of one of the building’s underground floors. Nearly one hundred pre-nineteenth-century globes populated a single room. The globes looked so much like round-headed people waiting for medical appointments that students usually referred to the room as the “waiting room.” Officially, it was the Amos Lithgow Room, in honor of the institute’s chief benefactor, though even some of the officers of the university were unaware of the name.
The building had cost Mr. Lithgow fifteen million dollars and the college its open-air tennis and basketball courts. The glass-and-steel construction was a new look for F &M, one not welcomed by every alumnus.
John Graf, a visiting alumnus clutching a sheet of paper covered with symbols he did not understand, decided to try his luck at the main library building. He thought he would have the best chances with a history librarian on the third floor. But the only staffer present took one look at the symbols and suggested he try the math department instead.
The math department was on the second floor of Stager Hall.
“You say you’re a writer?”
John smiled despite himself. It wasn’t really a lie; wasn’t everyone a writer?
“Yes,” he said, “I’m researching an article about the Tavernier legend, and I was hoping you could give me some advice.”
“Who do you write for?” Dr. William Moulton, a mathematics professor who happened to have his office door open, seemed genuinely intrigued. John allowed his hopes to rise.
“Well, I’m freelance, actually.”
“Oh. Have you published any books?”
“Not as yet.”
“Oh. I’m a sci-fi buff myself,” Moulton explained, leaning back in his chair. “The trouble is, nobody wants to write mathematical science fiction. They just want to write about combating aliens and exceeding the speed of light. The best science fiction, I think, would be based on mathematical concepts, for example non-Euclidean geometry. I just don’t understand why nobody’s doing it.”
John sighed. “I don’t either. Certainly everyone would want to read stuff like that.”
“Well! There’s a niche for you, a wide open one.”
“Too bad I wasn’t very good in math.”
“Yes. That’s a necessary—but insufficient—condition.” He slapped his thigh and started to laugh, but caught himself when he realized h
is visitor didn’t share the humor. “Now then, what was it you wanted me to look at?”
John handed him the creased and wrinkled page. He had arranged the runes from the border of Cellarius’s last map in rows of twenty-five characters each:
“The library sent me,” John said. “They thought, being a mathematician, and mathematicians being interested in ciphers, you might be able to make something of this.”
Moulton looked at the sheet and frowned. He turned it sideways, then upside down, and continued the quarter spins until it was right-side up again. It quickly became clear to John that the man had no idea what he was looking at. But the examination continued another full minute for John’s benefit.
“I’m afraid not,” Moulton finally confessed. “There are too few characters—I count only 275—to do a decent frequency analysis, a character association analysis, and so on. There’s software available for that stuff, but you’ll need a lot more ciphertext than you have. Is the solution in English—do you know?”
John shrugged.
“Oh, well. Have you tried the people at Fort Meade?”
“What do you mean?”
“They’ve got a secret underground cryptology operation going on there. Most mathematicians who are into this kind of thing end up working for the government and never publish anything. But they’ll tell you the same thing I’m telling you: without a decryption code, you’ll have to come up with a whole lot more ciphertext to conduct any worthwhile analyses.”
Moulton slowly handed the paper back, then looked at his watch and yawned. “Was there anything else?”
Before leaving campus, John stopped by the cafeteria in the Steinman College Center. From his table near the window he was just able to see the blue-capped spire of Hensel Hall next door. Although Hensel Hall served mainly for musical performances, it reminded John of a chapel, and its presence had always comforted him. The spire, visible from off-campus, was an F&M landmark.
He had taken the crumpled sheet out of his pocket and was gazing absentmindedly at the runes when someone sat down across from him at the table. He looked up to find Dr. Joseph Quimby, one of his former history professors, smiling in greeting.
The Tavernier Stones: A Novel Page 5