He made no secret of his obsession. He had named his theater after the stone.
Now, as he sat in the empty, high-ceilinged room, passively watching the wriggling figures on the screen, he wondered how Feinstein could possibly not know about the Prairie. Was he telling the truth?
David took the number 23 trolley northbound on Eleventh Street, got off at Cliveden, then headed south on Germantown Avenue. It was midday, and the sidewalks were filling with people steered by hunger and motivated by short lunch breaks. He walked along the streetcar tracks, pretending to keep his balance on one of the metal strips, until a car honked and forced him onto the sidewalk.
Stay out of my way in the search for you-know-what.
David knew what. But the Prairie? What the hell was that?
Germantown was a dump. The Germans, right on the heels of the Indians and the deer they hunted, were long gone. And the charm of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century architecture had been obliterated by twenty-first-century trash and graffiti.
Stay out of my way …
He arrived at Tien Chau’s, an unsanitary Vietnamese restaurant where several riffraff were loitering out front. He had always found it ironic that some of the dirtiest places in the city served some of the city’s best food. As he was about to enter the restaurant, the riffraff suddenly pulled revolvers and pointed them at him.
“Put your hands behind your head,” one of them commanded. “Lay down on the ground. You have the right to remain silent.”
TWELVE
MANNFRED GEBHARDT HAD DISCOVERED an easy way to steal books from libraries: just throw them out a window, then snatch them from the bushes on the way back to the car.
Bookstores were more challenging, but he had solved that problem too: slit the covers off with a pocket knife while pretending to browse, thus removing any magnetic security strips that might be present, then simply walk out of the store with the signature-bound pages in hand. If the staff didn’t perceive a book was being stolen, a book wasn’t being stolen. Perception was the better part of reality.
One helpful bookseller recommended an encyclopedia of gemology recently published by the Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig. He also informed Gebhardt that the last copy had walked out the door just seconds before he walked in.
Gebhardt found the woman in an alley a block away, strolling smugly with the fat volume tucked under her tiny arm. Moments later, the book was his. He didn’t feel guilty about her injuries; she should have taken him up on his offer to buy it.
The richest source of materials was the library of the University of Heidelberg, famous for its mineralogy department as well as its index of all the world’s notable gemstones. Since the Heidelberg Library yield would be great, Gebhardt could not merely toss the stuff out a window. The more you wanted to profit from crime, the more crime you had to commit.
Late in the afternoon, while the Hauptbibliothek was still open, he passed through the gothic façade into the arched and marbled foyer, figuring none of the staff—government employees, all—would linger after closing time.
The university and library were Germany’s oldest. Founded in 1386, the collection had grown in healthy spurts but had also been seriously damaged during the wars, taking one step backwards for every two forwards. Now it contained more than three million volumes, and if Gebhardt had his way, it would suffer yet another incremental setback.
He found a bathroom, entered one of its stalls, and stood on top of the toilet to punch out a ceiling tile. Then he climbed up above the ceiling, out of view. At thirty minutes past closing time, he would simply climb back down and search the library for relevant materials. He would have all night. It was easier to break out of a building than into one.
At five minutes past closing time, a janitor conducted a walk-through. Gebhardt, peering through a hole in the tile, watched him check the stalls to make sure they were empty.
He cursed Blumenfeld for assigning him this task. He predicted, nonetheless, that she would be happy with his work. So far, he had found no less than twenty-three distinct books on the subject of famous, notable, and collectable gemstones, especially those on display in museums around the world. They needed to gather these sources, Blumenfeld had argued, before others got the same idea and exhausted the supply.
Exactly why they needed to gather them—what they would do when they found the ruby everyone was looking for—she didn’t say. But Gebhardt had learned not to question her. Too many times had he seen her eyes roll and her head shake condescendingly, and he worried that his temper might get the better of him the next time it happened.
He felt as out of place stealing books from libraries as a boxer might feel crocheting an afghan. His solution to the problem of the lost Tavernier stones was more direct and simple than hers: when the stones were found, take them away from the person who found them.
The janitor banged around a while before going home, so Gebhardt had time to feel remorse for what he had done to the driver who cut him off on the autobahn while he was enroute to Heidelberg. The driver had switched on his rear fog lights in response to Gebhardt’s high beams, neither of which impaired vision during daylight.
Despite the effort, no feeling of remorse came over him. The fool should not have stopped and gotten out of his car.
At least, John noted, there was plenty of room to park. Not that three empty spaces in a row would make it any easier for him to line up his Ford Galaxie 500 collinearly with the other cars parked on Volta Street. He was the worst driver in the world with a driver’s license. In fact, there were people who had never earned a license who were better.
Hell, there were animals who could claim greater proficiency.
He aimed for the center of the three empty spots, screeched to a halt, and climbed out to evaluate. The front right tire was up on the curb and the left rear bumper poked out into the street. But there was still enough room for other drivers to get by, if they took turns. Not bad, he thought.
He was disappointed in South Philadelphia, to say the least. Narrow row houses elbowed for frontage, each distractedly clutching its whining air conditioner like old women lugging noisy, unwanted children on their hips. Windows were boarded up, even on houses still inhabited, and garbage spilled liberally onto sidewalks from untied plastic bags. And if the cars that were parked on the curbs ran at all, they didn’t run downtown, where they were safer anyway from theft than ridicule. A 1950s central business district had drifted out of the mainstream of city life and was struggling now like a salmon too weak to fight the current.
The house at the address Dr. Bancroft had given John looked no better or worse than its neighbors; all were vying to be the first to tumble down. What would he say to the current resident if David Feinstein no longer lived there? More to the point, what would he say if he did?
There was no sound when he pressed the doorbell, and no one answered his knock.
He paced up and down the sidewalk a couple of times, trying to look as though he were expecting someone. What to do now—come back another time? No, he had waited through yesterday, the Sabbath, and had fidgeted all day at work today, watching the clock. It had taken too long to get to Volta Street in the Philadelphia traffic, not even counting the times he got lost; he didn’t want to make the drive again.
He went back to the door and knocked again. Then, yielding to the urge he had always heeded in the English world, he turned the knob. The door opened.
“Hello? Hello?”
The living room was incredibly narrow; a large beanbag chair almost spanned its width. Comically, the chair was bleeding beans.
“Hello?”
He heard noises coming from the rear of the house and followed them. In the bedroom, a woman was on her knees with her back to the door, rummaging through a dresser drawer, cussing loudly and creatively.
“Hello?”
The woman looked up, startled.
“I’m sorry, but your door was open, and no one answered when I knocked.”
She scrambled to her feet and fixed her hair. “Aren’t you supposed to read me my rights?”
John laughed nervously. “No, I’m not a policeman, if that’s what you mean. My name is Graf.” He handed her a business card. “I’m looking for someone named David Feinstein. I don’t even know whether he lives here anymore.”
“Then you are from the police.”
“I swear to you, I am not. Just look at the card.”
She did, then cast her eyes back at him suspiciously.
“I’m a cartographer. I was told a man named Feinstein lived here. He’s supposed to be a gemologist. Do you know him? Was he the previous tenant?”
“Yes, Feinstein is the name of the previous tenant.”
The woman was regaining her composure. John had thought she was attractive at first, but now he realized he was in the presence of a great beauty.
“Can you tell me where he lives now? I would really like to find him.”
“He moved out last night.”
“Last night?”
She eased the dresser drawer shut with one leg. “Yes, last night. You want his new address?”
“Please.”
“It’s on Eighth and Race.”
John made a note. “And the number?”
“I don’t know the number. It’s the Roundhouse, the only building on Eighth and Race.”
“The Roundhouse being …”
“Philadelphia police headquarters.”
“Oh. He’s in jail?”
“Where, in all likelihood, he will remain for some time to come. If he’s lucky, Mr. Freeman’s—excuse me, Feinstein’s—carcass may someday be eligible for parole.”
By now the woman had completely regained her composure. She seemed polished, even professional. If John hadn’t met her under the present circumstances, surprising her while she rummaged through a drawer of undergarments in a ramshackle house on a slimy street, he would have guessed she was a fashion model. A top fashion model.
“I’m an ex-acquaintance of Mr. Feinstein’s,” the woman explained. “I’m just here to fetch some personal belongings.”
She was standing with one leg in front of the other and a hand on her hip, obviously posing. She was strikingly good looking, knew it, and knew John thought so too.
“Thanks for the information,” he said. “Sorry about the intrusion.”
“Not at all.”
“You just missed him,” the duty sergeant at the Roundhouse told John. “We released him twenty minutes ago.”
“That’s in keeping with my luck so far.”
“You want some advice?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t know why you’re looking for this guy. If you’re a private detective, fine. But if you’re a cart—, a cart—”
“Cartographer.”
“Cartographer, right.” He snorted. “That’s a good one. I’ll have to use it myself sometime.”
“The advice, sergeant?”
“The advice is, this guy’s rotten to the core. We had him in here a while back for selling fake emeralds as the real stuff.”
“I know about that one.” Bancroft had told him about it—labgrown crystals glued into matrix and passed off as genuine.
“Okay, let’s see if you know about this one: he once did a daytime job in a jewelry store. Tied up the salespeople in a back room and proceeded to fill bags with merchandise. When a customer came in, Feinstein—or Freeman, whatever—sold the guy an engagement ring, for cash. Right there in the middle of the robbery. Conducted a goddamn sale! He was so proud of himself, he didn’t even pocket the money, he left it in the cash register. We’d probably still have him now for that job, but none of the witnesses would identify him in a lineup. Seems he has charisma. So we had to let him go. If I were you, I’d keep my distance.”
“You had him in here again today.”
“And had to let him go again. Although we picked him up yesterday on an anonymous tip, reinforced by his record, of course, it turns out the jewelry store he was supposed to have robbed—one on Sansom Street—had not reported anything stolen. I’m only telling you this because you’re a detective. Sorry, a cartographer. Anyway, I went to the store myself and spoke to the assistant manager, Mr. Bowling, personally. There had been no robbery, he assured me. And nothing whatsoever was missing from the inventory.”
That evening, Sarah walked to Broad Street, carrying one small suitcase, and hailed a cab. “Penn Center Station,” she told the driver.
The car sped up Broad into the dancing lights of downtown Philadelphia like a soul gleefully escaping purgatory. As the driver circled City Hall to JFK Boulevard, Sarah tried to decide just where it was she intended to go.
New York City was the place to launch—or in her case, relaunch—a modeling career, but she had her heart set on someplace warm. Atlanta sounded good. It was big and it was warm. Maybe she should first find out all the places the trains did go, then pick one of them.
She descended into the station at JFK and Sixteenth and wandered through the maze of restaurants and shops until she found a ticket window. With the entire contents of her wallet laid bare on the counter, she was about to ask, How far will this get me? when it occurred to her how cliché the question would sound.
Just as she was opening her mouth to speak, a hand clamped down on her shoulder. She whirled around. It was David.
“Don’t go just yet,” he said. His face registered an earnest calm she had never seen before.
“We’re finished, David.”
“Stick around a little longer,” he implored. “Zimmerman gave me a clue. And I just figured it out.”
THIRTEEN
JOHN OFTEN VISITED LANCASTER Cemetery to work out problems. He liked to wander among the granite and marble monuments, some weathered and faded, some listing, some fallen, and sit on tree stumps that broke the textural monotony of quiescent graves.
The cemetery clipped a squat rectangle from the north side of town, truncating streets and flattening the topography within its boundaries. But only on a map: it hardly existed for most of the living, who skirted it hurriedly to avoid an unsettling reminder of their final destination.
As if to symbolize the breadth of the journey, Lancaster General Hospital was across Lime Street to the west, and an elementary school, a junior high school, and a high school were clustered a quarter of a mile to the east. On their way home from school, children ran their hands along the cemetery’s spiked iron fence, playing it like a harp.
The Winterbottoms, Ramsey (1865-1933) and Rosalie (1865- 1936), were buried near the circular walkway in the middle of the cemetery. It was the oldest real estate on the grounds, where august families had long staked claims to choice plots, and where vacancies were rare and few of the living bothered any longer to stop by. John wondered what the Winterbottoms would think if they knew that he, born more than four decades after Rosalie’s death, was their only regular visitor.
On Tuesday the problem John needed to work out was one the like of which he had never experienced before: he was dwelling more than he thought he should on finding a lost cache of legendary jewels.
It was wonderful that Johannes Cellarius had been found—no argument there. Now he could receive a proper burial, and historians might even figure out who killed him and why; age-old questions were about to be answered. Perhaps more importantly, Cellarius had come to the attention of a public that was otherwise apathetic about maps.
Mysteries had never before appealed to John, nor stories of treasure hunts, adventure and danger, or anything to do with lust and greed. His Amish upbringing had programmed him to work hard and live simply. He had never paid any attention to the lottery; why should he care about some missing rocks, however valuable they may be?
The superficial answer was clear: because of their historical connection to Johannes Cellarius. Because Cellarius cared about them. But there was more to it than that.
He knelt next to the Winterbottom monument, dug his fingers i
nto the soil, and breathed in the damp, musty odor. He rubbed the soil between his fingers and felt its gritty texture, that magical combination of minerals and humus that were gifts from the earth and all the former life it had nourished. The sensation triggered memories both dear and painful. He had a choice to make, and making it would be painful, too.
Since most Amish activities—work, play, dining, worship, haircuts—took place in the home, John felt lonely in his tomb-like row house on Nouveau Street. He missed the hectic bustle of an Amish homestead. The chatter of women in the kitchen. The squeals of children playing in the barn. The laughter that rose almost as one voice from the gathering of people who shared a common crucible.
At the same time, he still wanted a taste of what the outside world had to offer. To what extent, he wondered, would searching for the lost Tavernier stones provide that?
The Amish didn’t draw from Social Security because they didn’t pay into it. Instead, they integrated security into their social structure. No matter what calamity might befall a family—illness, fire, bankruptcy—the community would intervene on its behalf. It was more secure than English society, more secure even than the military or any other well-funded social unit. It provided a sense of place, an identity, a purpose. In short, a home.
In what way could the lost Tavernier stones possibly address any of those?
The Amish had been tied to the soil for centuries. Indeed, they saw it as a biblical mandate: “Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken” (Genesis 3:23). John longed for the smell of crops at harvest time, the smell of the soil after a spring rain, even the smell of manure in the barn. Home, he had learned, consisted of everything he had ever taken for granted.
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