The Silk Code

by Paul Levinson

  Debbie touched my arm. “How about the three of us go to lunch, after you finish on the phone, OK? Mom tells me you’re working on a fascinating case!” She half whispered and mouthed the words in exaggerated motions, so as not to interfere with my phone conversation. Why anyone would think that would not interfere, I couldn’t say—

  “The important thing now is to try to stay on track,” Mallory was saying. “Gerry’s assistant is looking into this—let’s see what he comes up with. He seems like a good man: H.-T. Lum—”

  Debbie was still gesturing. She gave me another smile.

  I was barely able to return it. I could see already that the deaths in this case were getting less prehistoric.

  EIGHT

  I looked at the Neanderthal who looked back at me, across seventy-five thousand years at the Museum of Natural History. What could the brain that once inhabited that skull have been thinking when it was alive? Could it ever have imagined that, sometime in the future, some distant relation—maybe a descendant, maybe just a cousin far removed on a parallel line—would be staring at it, wondering what it was wondering?

  “Phil! Sorry I’m late.”

  I smiled at Debbie. “No problem—I was in good company.”

  She took in the crowd—men, women, children. Not a single one a Homo sapiens sapiens. Not a single one on our side of the glass.

  Debbie looked at my two bags, packed to go with me on my flight to London. “Can I help with these?”

  “No,” I said, and picked them up. “Let’s get the taxi.”

  We flagged a cab on Central Park West.

  “OK,” she said, after we’d settled in on the springy back seat, and I told the driver I was going to Kennedy. “Is it OK if I record you?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “What can you tell me, then, in the way of background about these events? You didn’t say much at lunch with Mom last week.”

  “Well, not much that you don’t already know, I’m afraid. Corpses were found in New York, Toronto, and London. There’s no apparent danger to the public—we’ve found no evidence of disease or foul play. But it’s still a mystery to us as to how the corpses got here—and who they were.”

  “But that’s always a question with ancient remains, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but usually you can tell something from the surrounding environment about who the people were—if they’re found buried in a copper mine in Peru, it’s a good chance they were Inca, that sort of thing,” I replied.

  “And nothing around the corpses you found—nothing on them—can give you and your colleagues a clue as to who they were? What about their clothing?”

  “Clothing was one of the first things we looked at,” I said. “And it’s glaringly neutral—no distinctive pollen, just shreds of fabric, possibly silk, and—”

  “Some sort of ceremonial clothing?”

  I shrugged. “Impossible to do more than speculate at this point. Maybe it was part of a burial ceremony—Neanderthals interred their dead.”

  “True,” Debbie mused. “Does the silk suggest some ancient Chinese connection?”

  “Possibly,” I said. “Neanderthals have been found in Central Asia, not too far from China down the Silk Road. But of course we have no evidence that knowledge of silk-making goes back that far, though it does go back a long way.”

  “OK,” Debbie said. “Let’s get back to the question of how the corpses got to London, New York, and Toronto. Is there any evidence they were hijacked out of a museum somewhere?”

  “None as yet,” I said. “It’s not the easiest thing in the world to smuggle mummies into major cities. And we’ve checked extensively with all the museums and universities that have any Neanderthal remains—none were reported missing.”

  “Perhaps they were uncovered recently, in some original sacred site?”

  “Well, maybe, but then what? Some benefactor distributed them to three cities without telling anyone?”

  “You have a best guess about this that I could quote you on?”

  “Honestly, I don’t have one,” I said. “That’s one of the reasons I agreed to talk to you. Perhaps one of your readers will be able to give us a push in the right direction.”

  “All right. Let’s talk about another aspect of this. Do you see any possible connection between the death of Gerry Moses in Toronto and this case?”

  I looked at Debbie. “No, not really. Not yet.”

  “Are you concerned that perhaps your life, and those of your colleagues, might be at risk here?”

  “In my line of work you’re always concerned.”

  Our cab went into the Midtown Tunnel…

  MALLORY SHUT OFF the telly in his office with a flourish via the remote. “Damn BBC. I told you they were trouble.” He nursed his scotch and scowled.

  “No harm done,” I said, sipping my warm lager and lime. “You agreed beforehand—we have to do something to shake this case loose a little. I talk to The New York Times, you get interviewed for the evening news.”

  Mallory sighed. “What’s galling is the fuzziness surrounding each of the victims—for all we know, the mummies and the missing porters are not the same people.”

  “Death is less certain than taxes—we both know that—despite what they say,” I said.

  Mallory gave me a crooked smile. “I think our best bet for getting to the bottom of all this is with H.-T. Lum, his being Chinese and all. Assuming, of course, that your silk hanky is significant.”

  “It doesn’t carbon date at thirty thousand years, that tells us something. But the secret of silk’s been out of China for a long time, so I’m not sure how especially helpful H.-T.’ll be with that.” I swallowed more lager.

  “Damned strange business,” Mallory said. “The whole thing’s probably a bloody hoax, is what it is.”

  “I don’t think it’s a hoax,” I said. “You know, we’re all chronocentric—most modern civilizations are. We think, we assume, as an unexamined given, that we’re the most advanced expression of humanity that’s ever been on this planet.”

  “The reverse of how they looked at things in the Middle Ages—and in Ancient times, isn’t it?” Mallory said. “In those days they thought they were the degenerate phase of a golden cat’s meow.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And I’m not saying they were more right than we are either. I’m saying we always misunderstand the past. Just as the future is likely to misunderstand us. What would future archaeologists make of our most advanced technologies, if they lacked the context to understand them?”

  “Hell.” Mallory polished off his scotch, winced a little, refilled his shot glass from the bottle on his desk. “They’d probably look at that telly over there, and not having any record of the bleeding BBC or anything like it, no video tapes or recordings of what was on it, would come to the conclusion that those screens were some sort of mirrors we all looked into in our vanity, wouldn’t they? And they’d be right in a way too, wouldn’t they?”

  I nodded. Mallory was one of those people who got more allegoric the more he drank. “And we likely stare with the same uncomprehending eyes at the relics of the past that are all around us. Genes are an incredibly complex information system—obviously. Who knows, maybe some greater intelligence lurks behind them—maybe they’re markers of someone else’s plans…”

  “Genes, and the organic technologies they propel,” Mallory said. He drank down his new glass of scotch, poured himself another, drank that down too, looked me straight in the eye. “You mean like those Amish farmers you tangled with last year.”

  “What?”

  “When Gerry Moses died, we instituted an immediate investigation of the principal investigators in this case. We’re very good at that, you know. It’s how we won the Second World War, in spite of our own intelligence agencies being riddled with traitors.”

  I started to object that American know-how had something to do with winning too, but decided to keep quiet and see just what he knew about that c
ase I’d discussed with no one but Jenna.

  “It’s not as if your discoveries in Pennsylvania were top secret anyway,” Mallory continued. “There are snippets all over the scientific literature.”

  “I don’t see the connection,” I said.

  “Biology. Hints of ancient biological savoir-faire—you don’t think the Neanderthals tie into that in some way?”

  He was doing what? Testing me? Well, I guess I deserved it—still, I was accustomed to being the driver, not the pedal to be stepped on, in an investigation…“Not that I can see, so far. The Amish business involved massive allergens. No trace of anything like that in the Neanderthal corpses—Dave Spencer is convinced our man in New York died of strictly natural causes.”

  “Allergens aren’t natural?”

  “Not in the way they were introduced in Pennsylvania,” I replied.

  “Fair enough, but Gerry Moses died of so-called natural causes too,” Mallory said.

  “Not so-called,” I said. “He had a long history of high blood pressure, and was over-weight.” I brushed my hand against my own bit of paunch, and frowned. Less veal, more sushi, that was the ticket.

  Mallory nodded, fingered his empty shot glass. “OK, but you still should have told me about Pennsylvania, you shit. Coppers don’t like surprises—you know that.” He smiled.

  “I THINK THE Harris Tweed suits you, Sir. It’s durable—and it’s never out of style.”

  “Hmm…” I eyed myself in the mirror—I had decided to treat myself to a jacket and slacks with Savile Row tailoring before catching my flight back to New York at Heathrow—something I’d been meaning to do every time I’d been in London, but never had quite the time. After four nonstop days of meeting with Mallory and his people, inspecting the scene at the LSE, doing some research in the British Museum, and still no closer to a solution, I figured I owed myself this much. I buttoned and unbuttoned the jacket, looked at myself from side and full profiles. I am one of those guys who usually cuts a better image in my imagination than the mirror.

  “You don’t think it’s too, ah, professorial?” I asked.

  “No, I do not, Sir. There are many varieties of Harris Tweed—many subtleties. The one you have on has no elbow patches—it’s not particularly academic at all. And may I ask what your profession is, Sir?”

  “Science,” I said.

  “Of course. And may I say that I think the jacket you have on now suits that line of work very well.”

  I couldn’t help grinning. Why did I have the feeling that this fellow who looked and spoke just like Hudson the butler from Upstairs, Downstairs would have said the same thing if I’d told him I hauled fertilizer around for a living—

  “And may I take your measurements for the trousers now, Sir?”

  “Sure,” I said. The trousers were a shade of grey you could find only in England.

  “And will this be all, Sir?”

  “Yeah, I think so, thanks,” I said.

  “Well, then, might I recommend that you take two of these ties instead of the one? We do have a half-price sale on the second, they’re made of silk, so they won’t go out of style.”

  “Ah, I’m not sure I have any more room in my luggage—” Great excuse, I realized—who wouldn’t have room for an extra tie in their luggage?

  “Well, then, why not do what I always do in such circumstances, Sir. Just wear the tie home with you.” He put the tie in my hand—it was a beautiful off-grey color, with a thin thread of blue running through. He gestured to the mirror.

  I put the tie on—double-Windsor knot, the only kind I knew how to make—and smiled. It did look great—maybe it would bring me slightly better service from the stewardesses in the steerage section of the plane that was all the cost-conscious NYPD was ever willing to pay for. “OK. You talked me into it.”

  “Very good, Sir!”

  I could easily get used to such affirmation.

  “I’ll have this ready for you in forty-five minutes, Sir—that should leave you more than enough time to catch your plane at Heathrow,” Hudson said.

  “YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE. Would passenger Joseph Beiler please pick up the courtesy phone… Passenger Joseph Beiler, please…”

  The placelessness of airports…the food, the people, the announcements, the shops that seemed practically the same wherever the airport was…something about airports was a summary of life, and therefore not really like life at all.

  And I was feeling more and more at home in them…

  “Ta!” the woman behind the counter thanked me as I proffered a pound coin and waited for my change. The tea—as always in England—smelled delicious. I brushed my lips against the liquid—still too hot to even sip—and walked the cup carefully over to the row of phones that said they would welcome my credit card. They told the truth, and I put a call in to Jenna.

  “Hello,” she answered.

  “Well, I finally broke down and bought that new suit I’ve been threatening you about,” I said. “It should look great, if it doesn’t crush too much in the luggage—”

  “Good—I’m glad you called,” she interrupted.

  “Everything OK?” I asked, realizing that her voice sounded a bit stressed.

  “Yeah, I just got off the phone with Dave, and was trying to figure out how to get in touch with you—”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Well, I suppose it’s good news. Dave called to check what time you’ll be arriving—he wants you to call him as soon as you get back—he didn’t want to tell me anything more at first.”

  “But knowing you, you had no trouble wheedling it out of him,” I said, smiling. “So tell me the news.”

  “Stefan Antonescu walked into Bobst Library about three hours ago.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right,” Jenna said. “That librarian you interviewed tried to get in touch with you, and they put her through to Dave. Antonescu says he was down with a nasty case of the flu, and was recuperating over at a friend’s house.”

  “Jeez,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Jenna said. “And Dave, as you might expect, was making noises about turning this whole thing over to the Museum of Natural History—says you and he and the Department have more pressing crimes to work on than some mummy that hasn’t even been reported missing.”

  “Damn, the typical syndrome,” I said. “Something bizarre turns up, and as soon as you start to examine it, it melts away like ice cream off the stick. Dave is sure this new guy is really Stefan Antonescu?”

  “No,” Jenna said. “There’s no DNA or even fingerprints on file for the original Stefan.”

  “And of course the new Stefan’s DNA won’t look anything like the mummy’s,” I said. “Well, Antonescu showing up doesn’t explain Gerry Moses. And what about the other mummies?”

  “Dave said he was going to check,” Jenna replied. “I thought you were writing Gerry off as unrelated natural causes.”

  “I go back and forth,” I said. “Jeez!” A man who made New York derelicts look like royalty almost bumped into me—

  “I don’t blame you for being upset, sweetheart, it’s aggravating—” Jenna said.

  “No, it’s not that,” I said. Now the man was starting to veer into me again. He had dark, deep-set eyes, and a thick, filthy beard. I extended my arm, spilling my tea. “Hey, take it easy, buddy,” I said, trying to keep him at arm’s length.

  “Everything OK?” Jenna’s voice said through the earpiece, now a few inches away.

  “Yeah…” I tried to say back to her. But the derelict suddenly swiveled and shoved me against the phone bank with a powerful hand. I managed to push part of his shoulder away from me, but his other hand had something very sharp that ripped through my jacket—

  “Hey!” another voice shouted, and two, maybe more people fell on top of me and the derelict, knocking us all to the ground…

  I rolled over and looked up to see a bobby getting to his feet, and no sign of the derelict.


  “Good thing I happened by, Sir,” the bobby said. “That bloke with the knife looked like he was ready to cut your heart out. I got a quick glimpse of it—looked like some sort of glass, transparent to our metal detectors. You and he have a row about something?”

  “No.” I shook my head and stood up. “Never laid eyes on him before. Where’d he go?”

  “He won’t get too far, don’t you worry,” the bobby said. “I’ll call in his description to airport security. I also got his wallet, must’ve fallen out of his pocket in the scuffle. Pretty thick bill-fold for someone who looked like—Hold on, are you all right? Looks like you’re bleeding a little.”

  I followed his gaze down to my shirt, which was indeed sporting a slow mushroom of blood in the stomach area. I patted it. “Just a surface cut, nothing serious,” I said. “By the way, I’m with the NYPD.” And my legs folded like soggy cardboard…

  “We’ll have help for you here in a few seconds, Sir, don’t you worry,” I heard the bobby say.

  And at the edge of my fading vision, I could see the phone I’d been talking on to Jenna, hanging now like a useless broken arm at the end of its coiled wire…

  And damn, the blood was going to leave a stain on my new silk tie…

  NINE

  “You daydreaming, Doctor?” Sheila Jameson, my nurse, finished taping up the new bandage. “It looks quite good for a wound just two days old.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I was trying not to think about my stomach. It made me wince to even think about not thinking about it.

  “That hurt?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “It will, don’t worry,” she said, and smiled. “You still have some drugs in your system, so you’re feeling a bit better than you should. But you’re on the road to recovery.”

  Jenna and Mallory walked in. Jenna ran a cool hand over my bandage, kissed me, and frowned. Nurse Jameson left, closing the door behind her.

  “She says it’s healing OK,” I said, and squeezed Jenna’s hand. “Shouldn’t have happened in the first place—my reflexes are usually sharper.”