Брэд Мельтцер - The Fifth Assassin

“Beecher—”

“ He wouldn’t leave us! ” I explode. “It wasn’t his choice! So for you to come here—to… to… to make a fake letter like that… I knew you were a monster, Clementine! But to use my dead father to manipulate me like that.”

“I swear on my life, I’m not manipulating—”

“ You’re a liar! It’s always a lie! ” I shout, shoving the sheet of paper back in her hands. She tries to hand it back, but I push it toward her. “ You lied about Nico! You lied when you first approached me. And then all that crap about having cancer and how you’re dying? What’s not sacred, Clementine? What won’t you lie about? It’s like the bullshit wig you’re wearing right now! ” I shout, grabbing at her phony blonde hair.

“Beecher, get off!”

“Why? What’s wrong with some truth for once?” I grab at her hair again, this time getting a grip on it. It goes cockeyed on her head. “What’s wrong with revealing the true you—?”

I yank the wig from her head. But instead of revealing short black hair, she… she’s…

Completely bald.

56

I’d say eighteenth century—y’know, if I were a guessing man,” the Diamond said.

Tot’s good eye narrowed. “Daniel, don’t do that. You never guess.”

“Agreed. And I never said I was guessing here,” the Diamond teased, waving the color copies that held pictures of the old playing cards, and tossing them onto the nearby light table.

Tot didn’t care for show-offs. But he did care that when the Archives had to manually reweave the frayed corners of the original Bill of Rights, Daniel was the only man trusted to do the job. In the world of document preservation, no one was tougher than the Diamond.

“I’d date them to somewhere in the 1770s, maybe 1780s,” the Diamond added. “But if you had the actual cards—or even that missing ace of spades…”

“What’s so important about the ace of spades?”

“That’s where cardmakers used to sign their work. Think of the cards you played with when you were a kid. The ace of spades used to have the company’s name on it: US Playing Card Company , or the guy on the old bicycle, or whoever it was that made it. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it’s where the printer signed them too. Depending on the year, though, these cards you have here might even date back to the… Hmmmm.” Spinning on his heel, the Diamond headed for the corner of the room, toward a bank of map cabinets and storage units. He stopped at one that held two stereobinocular microscopes and an array of tools and brushes, all lined up in size order, of course.

“By the way, she said yes ,” the Diamond added, pulling open the lower drawer of the file cabinet. Tot knew who he was referring to. The only thing that the Diamond loved more than old artifacts: Tot’s officemate. Rina.

“We’re going on a date. A real one. Next Tuesday night.”

“Tuesday night?” Tot asked. “Tuesday nights aren’t dates.”

“It’s a date. Whatever you said to her, it worked. I owe you and Beecher big.”

Tot hadn’t said a word to Rina. Neither did Beecher. But in the world of the Archives, where nerdy librarian love was far more common than people thought ( You like old books? I like old books! Let’s date!), Tot knew better than to get in the way.

“Where do you think I should take her?” the Diamond asked. “Are wine bars still considered cool?”

“Daniel, can we please focus here? You were saying about the ace of spades…”

“Of course, of course,” the Diamond said, kneeling down at the open bottom drawer of the cabinet and fingerwalking through the hanging files. Toward the back, he opened one and rummaged through it. Tot saw what was inside. Tons of loose…

“Playing cards? Is there anything you’re not hoarding down here?”

“You kidding? I’ve got Thomas Jefferson’s left shoe down here. If you put it on and it fits, you get to be President.”

“Daniel…”

“Playing cards. Got it. Anyway, most of these are from that exhibit we did on cards a few years back—back when Bill Clinton was playing hearts all the time. Turns out, he wasn’t the only card player. Back in World War II, the government used playing cards to send secret maps and messages to our POWs in Germany, since cards were one of the few things the enemy let them have. If the tax stamp was crooked on the pack, that meant it was a fixed deck. So our troops would soak those cards in water, then peel them apart, revealing secret maps to help them escape,” he said, pulling out a nine of clubs that had been peeled open. “In fact, years later, in Vietnam—”

“Daniel, I know that playing cards have been used throughout history. What’s this have to do with the ace I’m looking for?”

Still kneeling at the file drawer, the Diamond stopped, staring up at Tot. “Tot, you know I never mind helping you, especially in these cases I know you can’t tell me about. But don’t talk to me like I’m some college-kid researcher.”

Tot took a deep breath, staring at the peeled-away nine of clubs. “I apologize, Daniel. I’ve just… It’s been one of those days.”

“Is this like before? Are you and Beecher—? You hunting another killer?”

Tot didn’t answer. He’d known the Diamond for years, for decades even. But he never talked openly about the Culper Ring. Or about the Ring’s real history and all the things he didn’t even share with Beecher. As always, though, the Diamond never missed a detail.

“Tot, if you’re in danger, I can help you.”

Tot stared back at him. “Sorry, you were about to say something. About my missing ace of spades…?”

The Diamond shook his head, knowing better than to argue. “Y’know, Tot, you’re the reason people don’t like the elderly.”

“Do you have the information or not, Daniel?”

Reaching into the back of the file folder, the Diamond pulled out one final item—a single old playing card in a clear case. It had sharp corners rather than modern rounded ones. Yet what made the weathered ace of spades so memorable was the familiar symbol on it: the hand-drawn American eagle with wide wings and a lowered head.

Tot’s chest tightened as he studied the image. It was the same eagle from the pack of old cards they had found on Marshall. The eagle from Guiteau’s tattoo. And the same eagle that was the symbol of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a group that Tot’s mentor swore didn’t exist anymore.

“Like the magician says,” the Diamond added with a grin. “Is this your card?”

57

Clementine steps backward, her bald head down, her hand shielding her eyes.

“Clemmi, I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

She looks up. It’s her glance that interrupts me.

To see her like this, so pale, with no hair. Her face looks longer.

In my hands, her wig feels dead, like a mound of straw. I hand it back. Holding it, she just stands there as I stare.

“You really have cancer.”

“I told you, Beecher. Not everything’s a lie.”

The light in the living room reflects off her forehead. Her bald head looks so small. So fragile. And though she stands up straight and offers a half-smile, it’s like looking at any woman in a cancer ward. Since they have no hair, you can’t help but focus on their eyes—and then all you see, imagined or not, is the vulnerable sadness within them.

“Have they given you a prognosis?” I ask.

She shakes her head. I expect her voice to be quiet. It isn’t. “No one knows what it is. They said they’ve never seen anything like it. That’s why I’ve been searching so hard for”—her jaw shifts off center and she again hands me the letter from my father—“for Nico’s files. That’s how I found what your father wrote. The s—”