“Apart from aliens, the American Secret Service and an island inhabited by dinosaurs, I don’t think so, Professor Sheng,” replies Harvey, shaking his head theatrically.
“All right,” breaks in Elettra. “What we do know is that we’ve wound up on the trail of something called the Ring of Fire, which seems to be really ancient … and that it’s hidden in Rome. We know that the professor had been searching for it for years and that he might just have found it in one of these places.” She shows the others the map of Rome with the various neighborhoods circled in red.
At that very moment, the phone rings.
Sheng yelps. Mistral snaps her sketchbook shut.
And an icy shiver runs down the kids’ spines.
* * *
“This must be it…” says Beatrice, pulling the Mini up to the curb.
Jacob Mahler slips out of the car door in a single nimble movement.
“Hey! Hold on!” protests Little Linch, who’s still crammed in the backseat. He grabs hold of the headrest and the roof of the car to hoist himself out. Once on the street, he uselessly tries to smooth out his rumpled suit.
“Couldn’t you get yourself a real car?” he complains to Beatrice.
“I’m already lucky I got this one back,” the young woman replies.
Jacob Mahler is looking at a gray four-story building. He raises his hand to point at a light coming from the apartment on the top floor.
“Someone’s still there …,” he says. “Perfect.” He takes the bow out of his violin case and brandishes it like a sword.
Beatrice quickly assesses the building. The news vendor in Largo Argentina told them about the professor’s nieces and nephews and where they were headed. It must’ve been a second home, based on what they were told by Little Linch, who’d been following Alfred Van Der Berger for a few weeks and had never seen him in that neighborhood. He was living in a studio apartment in the center of town, not far from the Caffè Greco. A studio apartment that had turned out to be completely empty, with the exception of a few changes of clothes.
“Would you look at this place?” protests Little Linch, squashing something under the heels of his boots. He tries to clean them in a snowbank, but in the end he gives up. “What a dump!”
Beatrice switches on her car’s blinkers. “Should we go up and take a look?”
Jacob Mahler shakes his head. “The two of us will go.” He nods to Little Linch, who follows behind him, trotting like a wild boar.
Beatrice doesn’t breathe. She glares at Mahler’s back.
“Keep the engine running,” the hit man orders her. Then he slides the tip of his bow into the lock, opening the front door, and walks into the building.
Little Linch follows him. He switches on a flashlight and turns one last time to look at Beatrice. “We’ll be right back, sweets. …”
After which he disappears inside.
15
THE TELEPHONE
ELETTRA LOOKS AROUND FRANTICALLY AS PROFESSOR ALFRED VAN Der Berger’s telephone rings over and over. It’s somewhere nearby, hidden behind the dozens of newspapers that fill the room.
Mistral dives down into a number of yellowed journals, pushes aside a folded-up map of Kilmore Cove, grabs an old telephone in black Bakelite and holds it out to the others. “Here it is!”
“Answer it!” Harvey says encouragingly.
“I can’t!” she protests. “It’s got to be a man’s voice!”
Sheng and Harvey look at each other. Harvey rips the receiver out of Mistral’s hands and shoves it up against Sheng’s ear.
“Hey!” the Chinese boy exclaims, taken by surprise. And then, immediately: “H-hello?”
“Professor, it’s Ermete!” It’s the voice of a man. A rather young man. Who’s rather worried. “Is that you, professor? I can barely hear you! Can’t you finally get a decent phone, for crying out loud?”
Sheng covers the mouthpiece with the palm of his hand in sheer panic, his eyes open wide. Elettra and the others gesture for him to keep going. “H-hello,” Sheng says robotically.
“Everything all right? You sound strange. What’s going on? I’ve been trying to reach you all week!”
“Everything’s fine,” Sheng says, trying to speak in the lowest voice possible. “I … was out.”
“I see. Anyway, listen …” The mysterious caller seems to be in an awful hurry. His voice is partially drowned out by the furious revving of a motorcycle engine. “I think I’ve figured out how the map works!”
“The … map?”
“The map, professor! We’ve been studying it for months! Yesterday I was reading the comics when it dawned on me. It’s just like you said, naturally. It’s incredibly easy to use and incredibly old! Do you understand?”
“Incredible …,” echoes Sheng, not knowing what else to say.
Elettra sticks her head up near the earpiece, trying to listen in. “Ask him what it is,” she mouths.
“I mean, no …,” says Sheng. “I don’t, really.”
An engine is roaring. “Listen,” the man continues, “I don’t have time to explain this in detail right now, but I’m convinced: it’s not Roman and it’s not Greek. The writings on the side of it were added later on. And I’ve deciphered some of the engravings on the back. They’re all from a later period. I’m telling you—that map was made far before the times of Christopher Columbus, Seneca or Alexander the Great!”
“Hmm … very good …,” affirms Sheng sheepishly.
“Excellent, I’d say! Listen! If what I’m saying is right, we’ve got to try it out as soon as possible! When can we meet?”
“Um … well …”
Elettra whispers something in his ear.
“Tomorrow, at the latest,” replies Sheng.
“At my shop? Is that okay?”
“At your shop,” Sheng agrees. Then he looks at Elettra, who opens her eyes wide, imploringly. “Hao!” he exclaims. “But at your shop … where, exactly?”
“In Testaccio, of course! At the Regno del Dado!”
Elettra looks at Mistral, who’s already making a note of it in her sketchbook.
“Excellent,” mumbles Sheng.
“I’ll see you there. And remember to bring the tops!”
The instant the stranger hangs up, Sheng shuts his eyes, lets go of the phone and falls backward to the ground, which makes the whole room rattle like a drum.
Mistral kneels down beside him. “You were great!”
“It was nuts … Hao!” cries Sheng, casting a glance at Harvey, who raises both hands to excuse himself for having sneaked the phone over to him.
The boy gives them a recap of what was said during the call and then gets back up, raising a cloud of dust.
“Now what?” concludes Harvey.
“Now we go have that pizza!” answers Sheng, rubbing his belly. “We get a good night’s sleep and tomorrow we go see this guy to ask him what he’s found out about the map.”
“Do you think we can trust him?”
“I guess so.”
“But what if he was actually … one of them?” insists Harvey. “Maybe the phone call was just a trap.”
“You see traps everywhere!” Sheng protests. “What do you two think?”
Mistral agrees with Sheng. Elettra, on the other hand, has her doubts.
“In any case,” says Harvey, going to sit back down on the bed, “once we know how the map works, then what do we do with it?”
“We use it to track down the Ring of Fire …,” Sheng begins. “The professor wrote that to get to the Ring, first you’ve got to figure out how the map works. And if this guy’s figured it out … then our problem’s solved.”
“Which, just to be precise, isn’t even our problem,” Harvey underlines. “I mean, it wasn’t until you, Elettra, had the bright idea of accepting a briefcase from a total stranger.”
“That’s not exactly how it went,” the girl protests. “Or should I remind you about how we all met?”
“Your dad messed up t
he reservations.”
“And our birthdays? And the blackout?”
“And my yellow eyes?” adds Sheng.
Elettra shows the others the map of Rome with its seven circles. “The professor knew all about it. Take a look! He indicated the exact neighborhoods where the lights went out. And listen to what he wrote: ‘It will begin on December twenty-ninth.’”
Harvey purses his lips. “So what?”
“So,” Mistral breaks in, “all of this ties in together, somehow. …”
“But we’re here, all four of us. And we didn’t get here by chance!” exclaims Elettra.
“Oh, no? How did we, then?”
Sheng looks over at Mistral and frowns. “He’s a little slow, isn’t he?”
“I’m just trying to be rational,” Harvey snaps, “since none of you here seem to want to be. If we keep going on like this, without stopping to think for a single moment, we’re going to risk losing touch with reality. That is, we’ll risk ending up just like the professor. And Nero.” He points his index finger at his temple and twirls it around. “We’ll go nuts. And maybe that’s what ‘they’ do. They make you go nuts.”
“Want to know what I think?” Mistral says, cutting him off. “I think we should get out of here and go have some pizza. We can always talk it over later on.”
And without waiting for the others to follow her, she walks out of the room.
The three kids left in the room look around. Harvey leafs through Mistral’s sketchbook, admiring her talent. There are drawings of the four of them at the Caffè Greco, the Hertziana library, the columns in Largo Argentina. “I’m not interested in chasing after a secret like this, guys,” he concludes, shutting the book and resting it on his lap. “And I don’t feel like being chased by a gang of mysterious … ‘thems’ … who are out to get me.”
Elettra’s face is full of disappointment. “If that’s what you want, nobody can force you to stick with us.”
Harvey gets up from the bed. “Exactly. I think we should let things slide for tonight. Forget about the map, the weird guy on the phone, the Ring of Fire. … It’s all crazy. There’s nothing solid here to—”
Harvey stops in midsentence.
Someone’s coming up the stairs.
* * *
“Do you guys hear that, too?” he asks the others in a low, small voice.
“Where’s Mistral?” Sheng asks, looking around.
“Mistral?” whispers Elettra.
No one replies. The three kids freeze beside the professor’s bed, listening. Distant cars. The perfectly still air of the apartment. The refrigerator in the kitchen humming and then kicking back into action with a gurgle.
“Mistral?” Elettra whispers again.
A noise. Harvey grabs her wrist.
Elettra nods. She heard it, too. Something clanging against the railing outside.
Footsteps on the stairway.
Someone’s coming.
Elettra peers out through the bedroom door and gives a start. Mistral is on the other side of the hall, as still and pale as a ghost. Her round eyes are open wide with fright.
Elettra lies down on the ground and peeks over the threshold, toward the front door to the apartment, which they left open.
Her heart in her throat, she sees the beam of a flashlight dart across the stairway.
Sheng crawls up to her. Harvey stays behind them, crouching down.
“They’re coming up here …,” whispers Elettra.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
They listen to the footsteps.
There are at least two of them.
Whoever they are, they’ve reached the last flight of steps. Elettra waves Mistral over, but the girl shakes her head and points down at her feet. Drawn on the floor right beneath her is a red circle.
The flashlight has reached the top floor.
The first person to appear in the doorway looks like a vampire. He’s all dressed in black, is tall and thin, has totally gray hair and is holding a violin. Hobbling behind him is a sort of two-legged whale holding the flashlight and dragging his feet as he clings to the railing.
“It’s them,” whispers Sheng. “They’re here.”
The tall, thin man stops at the doorway and slowly raises his violin, tucking it between his shoulder and his chin. Gleaming in his right hand is a bow. He rests it gently against the strings and begins to play a gripping, hypnotic melody, which flows through the professor’s apartment like honey. They’re delicate, perfectly rounded notes. Slow and sweet, they creep their way around the books and gently caress the kids’ ears.
Elettra feels her eyelids go heavy. She blinks once, twice, and then closes her eyes. When she opens them again, the music from the violin surges. The man kicks the door, smashing it against the wall.
He’s inside.
The music glides along, following him down the hall. The notes speak of sleepiness, of tranquility, of perfect calm. Elettra struggles to keep her eyes open. Beside her, Sheng is already fast asleep. A sudden, terribly deep sleep. Harvey’s on the professor’s bed, his head hidden beneath a pillow.
“I don’t want … to sleep …,” the girl insists, digging her fingernails into the palms of her hands until they almost start bleeding. Her wrists feel weak, drained, and her eyes are heavy. “You’ve got to stay open …,” she tells her eyes stubbornly. “You’ve got to stay open. …”
Just when her strength is about to abandon her, the music comes to an abrupt halt. Elettra can see Mistral taking a step down the hallway. She’s pressing her hands against her ears, crying, “Stop! Stop!”
“Hello, young lady,” whispers Jacob Mahler.
Behind him, Little Linch teeters on the landing like a whale hypnotized by the singing of sirens at sea.
Mistral removes her hands from her ears and shakes her head. “No more music … no more,” she groans.
An evil smile crosses over Jacob Mahler’s face. He lowers the violin and the bow to his sides. “So you’re the sensible one in the group, are you? I’ll stop playing, I promise. But don’t start crying, all right? Because I hate people who cry.” He takes two steps toward her and adds, “Besides, there’s no reason for you to.”
At the other end of the hallway, Elettra’s lying on the ground. Her eyes are shut, too heavy to open. The music, which is stuck in her head, has made her too groggy to move. Sheng’s mouth is wide open and he looks like he’s about to start snoring. Harvey is motionless, his head still hidden under the pillows.
The floor trembles threateningly.
Elettra instantly stiffens, as if she were falling into the void. Just like when, sometimes, as she’s falling asleep, she suddenly feels like she’s losing her balance.
She opens her eyes.
Mistral is talking.
“Please …,” the French girl says, staring at Mahler as he walks toward her. “What do you want? We haven’t done anything. …”
“You haven’t done anything. True. But I want something from you.” Jacob Mahler’s cynical gaze studies the walls and columns of books without showing the slightest bit of surprise. “So I’m going to ask you this just once: did you take it?”
“What?” asks Mistral.
“My briefcase.”
“N-no.”
“ ‘No’ because you didn’t take it or ‘no’ because you don’t want to tell me?”
Mistral looks around. She sees Elettra and Sheng lying on the floor in the bedroom. “No, because the briefcase wasn’t yours to begin with,” she replies.
Elettra shuts her eyes.
“Very well, then …,” Jacob Mahler says calmly, raising his violin again.
“No!” groans Mistral, instinctively clapping her hands over her ears. “No more music!”
“Where is my briefcase?” the man asks, taking two more steps into the apartment.
Lying on the ground, Elettra feels her body trembling. But immediately afterward she realizes it’s not her body that’s tremb
ling … it’s the floor.
Jacob Mahler has noticed something strange. His voice has become slightly tense.
“Listen …,” he says. “I know you took it, you and your friends. … So go call them and give me back my briefcase.”
Mistral stubbornly shakes her head.
“Why on earth,” the man continues, “is a sweet, sensible girl like you in a terrible place like this? What did you come here to do, hmm? If your parents found out, I think they’d be very angry. …”
“I’ve only got my mother …,” replies Mistral, backing toward the dining room. “And she never gets angry.”
Jacob Mahler smiles, but it’s as if his smile is trying to hold back a river of rage ready to burst forth. “You’re lucky. Why don’t we make a deal, hmm? You tell me where you’ve hidden my briefcase … and I’ll let you go back to your mother. What do you say?”
“I don’t have the briefcase. …”
“Well then, who does?”
“Nero,” replies the girl, challenging Jacob Mahler with a resolute stare.
16
THE FLOOR
THE APARTMENT FLOOR IS SHAKEN BY A STRONG TREMOR. A FEW books tumble to the ground. Elettra wakes up with a start. Harvey’s beside her, his hand resting on her shoulder. “How much do you weigh?” he asks in a hushed voice.
“Why?”
“I figured out what all those numbers by the door are. They’re—” A second tremor, this one stronger than the last one, makes him lose his balance and fall down on top of her. The apartment walls let out a long groan. More books slide to the floor.
“Help!” yells Sheng, waking up with a start and noticing that the floor in the room is lurching. Elettra looks out into the hallway. The walls of books are billowing out like sails. A horrible noise echoes beneath them, followed by a metallic creak, like plumbing being ripped apart.
“It’s a trap, you see?” says Harvey, trying to get back to his feet. “The second column kept track of the professor’s weight. The first column is the weight that the apartment floor can still support!”
A third tremor.
“And how much is that, right now?” asks Elettra, her eyes open wide.
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