It was Krauss who finally resumed the questioning. “This gift, was it for her to wear when the two of you—”
“Lord, no,” I disavowed in a flash—I wanted to keep some dignity in this whopper. “I wear it for Morgana. She’s a difficult woman to ah, to satisfy . . . in certain ways,” I said sheepishly, pleading my bogus case. “I love her very much . . . I always did. And I want to make her happy . . . and fulfilled her, so to speak. Now that I am getting older . . . well, let’s just say that I am not the athlete that I once was.”
“And why the dark oak color?” suspiciously asked Luger.
“It was always a fantasy of hers,” I embarrassedly answered in a whisper.
“What is that you say?” barked Luger.
Purposely, avoiding eye contact with Luger or Krauss, I said, “It’s a fantasy of my wife’s.”
“A fantasy?” muttered Luger.
“Yes, a fantasy,” I reluctantly confirmed with obvious annoyance.
“Oh!” said Krauss, “A fantasy. Yes, I see.” Displaying a growing winsome smile, she briefly glanced at Chester and then back at me. “Good for her. But there is fantasy, and there is reality, Mr. MacKenzie. There is a difference; is that not so?”
Krauss’ comment started me thinking about things that I didn’t want to think about—then or now. And I was sure Chester didn’t want me thinking about those things either at that time—or at any other for that matter.
“On this subject,” I said, “I don’t think I’m the person to say one way or the other.”
“You are smarter than I thought,” said Krauss.
“Thank you,” I said with a boyish smile.
“Your wife is a lucky woman to have such an understanding husband.”
“There, I must disagree. I am the lucky one,” I said with honest pride.
“Let’s see,” interrupted Luger, “if your luck holds out, Mackenzie.”
I didn’t like what that implied.
“Mr. MacKenzie, please, explain how this receipt got into the rare books room.”
“As I said, I can’t. I don’t know how it got there.”
“So, you want me to believe that someone from a sex boutique in Boston went into the rare book room at the college, stole the documents, and mistakenly left a copy of your receipt of a . . . a sex toy?”
“What other explanation do we have?” I bluntly replied. “I can tell you, without reservation, that it is difficult for me to believe it, but there it is. I can’t think of any other explanation.”
For the second time during this impromptu gathering, everyone around me became unusually quiet and just looked at each other bewildered. Sensing an opportunity, I took a chance to ‘brass it out,’ as it were, and to get myself out of there.
“Well,” I said matter-of-factly, “I wish I could have helped you more with this problem of yours. But, as you know, I have a luncheon to go to, and I don’t want to be much later than I am already. Chester, may I use your phone?”
Holland seemed surprised by my question. “Phone? You want to use my phone?”
“Yes,” I said. “I don’t have a phone, as some of you know. I want to call Morgana so I can arrange to get picked up and taken to my uncle’s luncheon.”
“Well, I don’t know . . . I guess so.” Chester started to pat himself down.
“Unless one of these fine gentlemen who brought me here wants to give me a lift?”
“I thought I had it on me,” mumbled Chester, still on the quest for his cell. “I don’t have my phone.”
“Is this your mobile?” Fordor said with a blue-encased smartphone in hand.
“Yes,” said Chester, a bit bewildered as he took the phone from his guest. “Thank you.” As Morgana’s boss was about to give me the phone, Luger stayed his hand.
“Mr. MacKenzie will be staying a little longer,” declared Luger.
“Am I?”
“I think, Mr. Mackenzie,” cautioned Luger, “that you really should not leave us at this time.” Luger walked to Chester’s desk, which was a few steps away from me to my right. He began to casually examine a bronze paperweight of St. George and the Dragon.
“Why shouldn’t I leave?”
Luger held the brick size statue in his palm and felt its weight. “We have another matter to discuss with you.”
It was at this point of my visit that I inadvertently said something which really got things cooking. To this day, I can’t explain why I said it. Maybe it was seeing Luger manipulate the figure of St. George slaying his flying reptilian foe. Or perhaps the sainted knight on horseback reminded me of my last conversation with my uncle, or I may have been just very, very tired. I can’t say for sure. But something ignited deep down in the catacombs of my subconscious, and it was ready to explode. Whatever the burning reason was, I just blurted what came to mind.
“Well, what do you want to discuss . . . the weather, dragons, Shakespeare’s plays? Or how about one of his characters like—Hotspur?”
#
CHAPTER 28
“Hotspur?” said Luger. In an instant, Chester’s guest lost his aura of self-confidence. He put the paperweight back on the desk, then growled something in a language that he shared with associates, which I was not versed in. Nagy grabbed my arm while his mate, Fordor, whispered into Chester’s ear and hustled him out of the room.
“Where are you taking Chester?” I asked, instantly regretting my inquiry.
“You need not worry about Dr. Holland,” said Luger. “Mr. Fordor wants to talk to him privately in the next room about a sizable donation to the college. Now, tell me, what do you know about Operation Hotspur?”
Well, that was a piece of info that I didn’t know. Hotspur was an operation? I immediately wondered if this “Operation Hotspur” was related to the “Hotspur” that Katzeneinbogen mentioned to me at Uncle’s wake.
“Operation Hotspur? Nothing. I was talking about Hotspur, Sir Henry Percy, the Shakespearean character. He is one of my favorite minor characters from the Bard’s canon. I taught many lessons about his significance in Shakespeare’s tetralogy.”
“I didn’t ask for a literary symposium, professor,” curtly remarked Luger.
“He’s a high school teacher,” corrected Krauss.
“Retired high school teacher,” I added.
“I’m not interested in your friend Henry Percy,” said Luger with a huff.
“Hum, well, in that case, I can’t help you. Now, it is really time for me to go—”
“This is not the time to play coy,” snarled Luger. His mouth tightened; his eyes narrowed as he fixed his gaze on me. “You will stay until you tell us what you know.”
“You can’t keep me here,” I said—though I wasn’t sure of that.
“No one is keeping you here,” said Luger in a chilling and unctuous fashion. “But it would be in your best interest for you to stay and tell us what you know about Hotspur.”
By this time, I had no doubt that I was being threatened. With what, I didn’t know, and I really didn’t want to find out. Yet, Luger’s question did pique my interest.
“Let me ask you something,” I said, clenching my right hand into a fist at my side. “How can I tell you anything about your Operation Hotspur if I don’t know what you are talking about?”
“I am not stupid,” answered Luger. “We have proof that links you to the missing papers, and you just spoke of Operation Hotspur. I don’t believe that you know nothing.”
“Actually, you mentioned ‘Operation Hotspur.’ I only said the name, Hotspur.”
“I don’t have time for your nonsense.” In a fit of frustration, Luger again picked up the brass statue, and with fire in his eyes, slammed it on the desk. The sound of bronze meeting oak gave all those in the room a start, even making my heart do a double pirouette.
I took a deep breath and resumed my attempt to bluff my way out. “I know time is important to you; it is for me, too,” I said as calmly and empathically as I possibly could. “You have a p
lane to catch, and I have a luncheon to attend.”
Luger was about to speak, but Krauss intervened. “Richard, maybe we all have been going about this the wrong way.”
“How so?”
“There are things that we are not at liberty to discuss relating to the Steinmetz Papiere and the associated map. All I can tell you is that these items have . . . international significance and their mysterious disappearance are of great concern to several powerful and interested parties.”
“Really?” I said, feigning innocent acceptance and concern.
“Yes. What I have just told you is quite true and was told to you in confidence.”
What Krauss told me may have been true, but deep down, I was confident that it wasn’t the complete truth—not by a long shot.
“And,” I asked, “this Operation Hotspur is somehow linked with the missing documents?”
Again my mouth spewed out something that struck a nerve. Luger slammed his hand on Chester’s desk and started muttering, God only knows what. Krauss countered his outbursts with a few phrases of her own in their shared tongue. This evolved into a brief and heated discussion that ended with Krauss throwing her hands into the air.
“Mr. MacKenzie,” asked Luger as he straightened his tie, “how much money do you receive as a retired high school teacher?”
“What was that?” I replied.
“I hear and read that American teachers are undervalued and underpaid. I can only imagine what their small retirement checks are like.”
“What does this have to do with—”
“Let me finish, please.” With his hands behind his back, Luger stepped towards me in the manner of a sea captain on a sailing ship’s deck. “How much would you need, let’s say, to expedite the missing documents back into the college’s possession and to keep silent about this matter? After all, what good would the papers be to you? No collector would buy them since they are stolen. And if the map is a fake, a fraud, then none of the missing items will have any monetary value at all.”
“You all still think that I know the whereabouts of the Stoner Papers?”
Luger and Krauss remained silent. Luger nodded his head.
“And, if I understand you correctly, you are offering me money . . . for what?”
“To be blunt,” said Luger, “we are offering you an incentive for the return of the documents to the college. No questions asked, no prosecution, no charges pressed.”
Out of natural curiosity, my first inclination was to discuss how much these folks were willing to pay for the missing treasure, but I didn’t.
“I didn’t take the papers, and I really can’t help you.”
“You realize no matter how your uncle got possession of the Steinmetz Papiere, they weren’t his to give. They were stolen.”
“My uncle?”
“Stop this act of yours,” said Luger. “Your uncle is a link to the papers going missing in the first place.”
“Wait, wait. Who is the legal owner of the papers if it wasn’t my uncle?”
Luger and Krauss looked at each other for some silent clue about what to say next.
Krauss took up the task. “There is presently some discussion about that very subject. The important point is that the papers didn’t belong to your uncle, and they don’t belong to the college, nor to you.”
“Does Chester know about this ownership problem?”
Again Luger and Krauss looked to each other for guidance.
“Not entirely,” said Krauss.
“Not entirely?” I said, with some alarm. “Don’t you think he would have a right or a need to know?”
“There was no need to bother him,” said Krauss, “if the documents and map were proved to be forgeries. And if they were genuine, I am sure something could be worked out with all interested parties to their satisfaction.”
“And that is why your friend Luger here is so concerned,” I concluded aloud. “He represents one of the interested parties.”
“Yes,” answered Krauss with telltale hesitation.
I looked Luger straight in the eyes. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you interested in these documents?” I asked, sensing that, for some unknown reason, that I unexpectedly had acquired the high ground in the conversation.
“Because,” said Krauss, “I am a scholar of history.”
“Your claim to be involved in this matter, on the surface at least, makes sense. But how about you?” I said, pointing at Luger. “Why are you in this? You are not a historian. By your own admission, you said that you’re a businessman and a diplomat of sorts.”
Luger’s eyes burned with rage, but he spoke in a deliberate and controlled fashion. “What I am to this endeavor is not your concern.”
“I just thought that I’d ask. Well, how about that phone?”
Luger’s face grew red. Krauss went to his side and tried to calm him down.
“You,” said Luger in a huff, “are making things difficult.”
I hadn’t a ready reply, but as things turned out, one wasn’t needed.
At that precise moment, two men entered the room. One was from the pair who were meandering about Chester’s front lawn when I arrived. The appearance of the other fellow was a total surprise to me.
“Signor MacKenzie!” happily exclaimed Baldewiw, ignoring his escort.
“Firmino?”
“ Ah, good. You are here. You must go with me to your lunch. Your wife is waiting. She sent me, si.”
I was confused. Firmino wasn’t at the funeral or at the cemetery. When did he speak to my wife? “Morgana sent you?”
“Yes, that is what she did. Again let me express to you, I am so saddened about your Uncle. My prayers are for you and your family.”
“Thank you,” I replied while not understanding why my newly made Vatican acquaintance was anywhere near Chester’s house.
“Signore Luger, it is good to see you again. You still have your bodyguards, eh?” continued Firmino in more than his usual clumsy English, “What takes you to Vermont?”
“I may ask you the same thing,” coldly answered Luger, waving his hand gently.
Firmino’s escort tucked away his gun, which I hadn’t seen when he came in.
“Grazie, Signore. . . . And may I have mine?”
Luger gave a slight affirmative nod. Firmino’s escort promptly gave him a handgun which Baldewin speedily put away under his jacket.
“Grazie . . . And my mobile, please.”
“You will get it back when you leave,” said Luger.
“You trust me with my gun, but not my phone, eh?”
“As you were saying, why are you here?” asked Luger.
“Of course, I am in the States because I am a member of the security planning team. We are doing work for the upcoming trip by His Holiness.”
“The Pope is coming to Vermont?” Luger asked.
“No, no. The Pope will be going to New York City to speak at the UN.”
“You are a long way from New York City,” said Luger.
“You are many kilometers away from Budapest, are you not?” countered Baldewin.
As the two foreigners engaged in a verbal fencing match, I thought I had become an Alice behind some strange international looking-glass. Nothing that Baldewin or Luger said seemed to relate to the circumstances of their present meeting. They talked as if they were friendly adversaries from opposing soccer teams.
Luger’s brow deepened as he asked, “You know Mr. MacKenzie?”
“Ah, si. Richard was with his brother, the local sheriff, when I reported to him of my arrival in town.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Ah, si, it’s a professional courtesy.”
“And you fetching MacKenzie, was that professional courtesy too?” Luger asked with skepticism.
“Of course. Everyone else was busy with funeral arrangements and duties.”
“Again, why did you come here to Vermont of all places?” said
Luger.
“As I said, I am stationed in New York, and I had a few days off from work. So I think to myself, I want to see a part of the real America. So, I come to Vermont on a mini-vacation. I want to eat cheddar cheese, taste real maple syrup, to see the famous Green Mountains, but they aren’t green now. Though I must say, the mountains are breathtaking in the autumn. They have so many colors. They are . . . awe-inspiring.”
At this point, I was so confused. I had no idea what Firmino was talking about. But since he could be my only conveyance to get away, I played along.
“And you,” asked Firmino, “Signore Luger, why are you here in Vermont?”
“I am here because of charity obligations,” flatly answered Luger.
“We are in the process,” interjected Krauss, “of coordinating some large corporate donations to the local college.”
Baldewin eyed Krauss with a smile. “I am sorry; we haven’t been introduced. I am Firmino Baldewin of the Corpo della Gendarmeria dello Stato della Città del Vaticano, presently attached to overseas security.”
“I am Dr. Vera Krauss. I am helping Mr. Luger with the donation arrangements.”
“Charmed.”
“What a coincidence it is to meet you here?” said Luger with suspicion.
“It is, ah, how one says in English, very serendipitous?”
“I last saw you about six months ago.”
“Yes, I was attached to a special detail investigating irregularities in the Vatican banking system.”
“Has that investigation come to a conclusion?”
“It’s still ongoing. But I cannot say any more about it.”
“I understand.”
“Well, Signore MacKenzie,” said Firmino as he turned to me, “we must be on our way. People are waiting for you.”
“Yes, you are absolutely right about that,” I eagerly agreed.
“We are not finished with our discussion, Mr. MacKenzie,” responded Luger.
“I think he is,” countered Baldewin.
“We still have the matter of the receipt and the missing documents,” said Luger.
“Yes, is there any chance for some kind of special arrangement?” added Krauss.
“I wish that I could be more helpful,” I lied.
The Hotspur Affair: A Richard & Morgana MacKenzie Mystery Page 25