William Rabkin - A Fatal Frame of Mind

“If you try to escape, you’ll be dead before your second step,” an English-accented voice said in his ear. “Is that clear?”

Since he was gagged, Gus assumed the speaker didn’t need him to answer with anything but obedience, but he nodded anyway. He felt himself being led a few feet from the van and then through a door. After a few more feet, one of the men shoved him hard, and he fell backward. Fortunately there was a chair to catch him. He could feel his bonds being adjusted, and he knew he’d been tied to this chair, too. At least it was padded, which was a huge relief after the van’s floor.

After a minute, Gus heard scuffling footsteps, and then the sound of a body falling into a soft chair. Then he felt hands touching his face, and his blindfold fell away from his eyes, followed seconds later by his gag.

He looked around quickly to see that Shawn was on one side of him and Kitteredge on the other. To his huge relief, the professor didn’t seem to have been beaten too badly. There were bruises on his face and a small trickle of blood from his lower lip, but compared to what Gus had imagined he might have just come back from a spa.

“Are you all right?” Shawn whispered.

“I’m fine,” Gus whispered back. “Professor?”

“Nothing a couple of Band-Aids and some lidocaine won’t fix,” Kitteredge said. “Fortunately, Polidori’s men don’t seem to have studied much of the history of torture. If they had, they might have tried some of the more arcane techniques, such as the Black Lady of Monmouth or-”

Gus was vaguely aware that Kitteredge was still talking, but he’d stopped making sense of the actual words after the professor said the name “Polidori.” Even after all that had just happened, he couldn’t believe he was actually at the heart of a conspiracy that had existed for hundreds of years, if not longer.

If it was really true, the conspirators had certainly found the perfect spot for their headquarters. An enormous warehouse, it was crammed full of what must have been the fruit of centuries of looting. There were statues in marble and bronze, stacks of paintings in gold frames, and furniture from every period of history scattered around the floor. There were so many pieces, each one of unimaginable historical and financial value, that there was hardly a square foot of unoccupied floor space.

“Want to put money on this?” Shawn said quietly to Gus.

“On what?” Gus said, glancing over to see that Kitteredge was still lecturing on the history of torture.

“Who comes in to question us,” Shawn said.

“You already know,” Gus said. “It’s Polidori. The man you said was a hallucination.”

“Of course he’s going to call himself Polidori,” Shawn said, ignoring the fact he’d denied the man’s existence only hours before. “That’s got to be the code name. Like James Bond’s boss. You don’t really think they keep finding people who are named M to run the spy agency, do you?”

“What makes you think that isn’t his name?” Gus said.

“First of all, if you’re running a global conspiracy, you probably don’t want to put your own name on the letterhead,” Shawn said. “More importantly, it would violate the rule.”

Part of Gus wished a heavy statue would fall on Shawn before he could finish. But another part welcomed this discussion as one last bit of normalcy before they became the Cabal’s latest victims. “Which rule?”

“Think about it,” Shawn said. “Have we met anyone named Polidori throughout this whole case?”

“One of the masked guys was called Chip,” Gus said. “I assume he was Professor Kitteredge’s former student, Chip Polidori.”

“If they’re masked, they don’t count,” Shawn said. “But since you seem to be so unclear on the concept, the answer is no. No, we haven’t met anyone named Polidori. Which means that it’s a fake name used by someone we’ve encountered along the way. The most obvious choice would be Flaxman Low, but any idiot could have figured that out ages ago. It could be that Hugh Ralston guy from the museum. But what would be really cool is if it turned out to be Lassiter. No one would ever see that coming.”

“Because it wouldn’t make any sense,” Gus said. “Lassie is not the head of a secret, worldwide conspiracy.”

“Don’t be so quick to judge,” Shawn said. “Have you ever seen him and this Polidori in the same room together?”

“I’ve never seen Polidori at all,” Gus said. “And neither have you.”

“We’ll see about that,” Shawn said. “Very soon.”

Across the warehouse, a door opened and three figures stepped in. Gus tried to make out their faces as they came through the maze of furniture and artworks, but there was always something in the way.

“Last chance,” Shawn said. “Ten bucks says it’s Lassie.”

Gus ignored him as he tried to peer through the dusty air to see the faces that were approaching them. Even Kitteredge seemed to have realized that he was not in a classroom and had given up the lecture. For a moment the only sound in the warehouse was the shuffling of feet around furniture.

And then three men stepped from behind a Second Empire armoire. The two in back were clearly the subordinates. They were barely out of their twenties and looked comfortable in their workers’ coveralls.

It was the man in front Gus stared at. He had a round face with a pronounced nose and ruddy cheeks. A bowler hat sat jauntily on his head, and his immaculate, pinstriped suit now had a carnation in its pocket. He looked like he was well past fifty, but he had been so well tended, it was difficult to tell.

Gus quickly catalogued the other details he could see-the folded umbrella under one arm, the briefcase in the other hand, the blue-and-red tie done in a perfect Windsor knot.

But all the details were swept away by the most important fact about this man: Gus had never seen him before.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” the man said, his posh accent accentuating his cheerful smile. “I am Charles Polidori, and I’m very pleased to welcome you to my establishment.”

Gus heard a gasp from the chair next to him.

“It is you, Polidori,” Kitteredge said. “After all these years.”

“Surely it hasn’t been so long,” Polidori said. “It seems only yesterday young Chip went off to university. Imagine, I tried to talk him out of going to the States. We have far better institutions here, I said. Imagine how foolish I felt afterward.”

“Who are you again?” Shawn said, peering closely at Polidori’s face.

“I apologize if I didn’t speak clearly enough,” Polidori said. “Charles Polidori. This is my son, Chip”-he turned to his left to introduce the taller of the other two, and to the right for the other-“and this is my assistant, Leonard Goldstone.”

Shawn squinted. “Are you sure we didn’t catch you embezzling from Aunt Kitty’s Soul Food last year?” Shawn said hopefully.

“I can’t say I know what that is,” Polidori said. “But I’m certain I’ve never been accused of embezzlement.”

“Nothing that trivial,” Kitteredge growled. “Only crimes against humanity.”

“I prefer to think of my enterprise as bringing unseen antiquities to a new audience,” Polidori said. “In today’s case, it is to be Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur. As soon as you provide me the final clues to its location.”

Shawn closed his left eye and studied Polidori with the right. “You weren’t the guy who stole the ponies from the petting zoo, were you?” he said.

“I haven’t set foot in the United States in twenty years,” Polidori said.

“Except to murder Clay Filkin,” Gus said. “And frame Professor Kitteredge for the crime.”