Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

I should point out here that it’s always a rewarding moment to encounter a house of modest appearance and discover that the occupants have done well. We had entered the dining room, which was furnished with leather chairs and a nicely-executed hand-carved table that would look good in my den. Two impressionist oils hung on the walls, and we found another one out in the hallway. They looked like originals, which presented a problem because they’re awkward to carry and you can’t be sure what they’re worth, if anything. I’ve taken a couple of classes in contemporary art, in order to upgrade my professional skills, but they tend to deal exclusively with the big names whose stuff hangs in museums.

“How about this?” said Toxie happily, surveying the furnishings. “We need a van.”

Hatch was big and easy-going. He was career-oriented in every sense of the term, and he took pride in the fact that neither he nor anyone accompanying him on an operation had ever been charged, let alone jailed. He was at an age when most people are starting to think about retirement, and in fact he talked about it a lot. He’d invested his money and I knew he could turn off the lights any time he wanted. But Hatch could never be satisfied with sitting on a front porch. “Gentlemen,” he said, maintaining the monotone he always used when he was working, “I believe we have just met the mortgage payment.”

We moved through the first floor. There was enough light coming in from the street to allow us to work. The house was electronically well-equipped. TV, stereo, blender, microwave, everything was state of the art. Rankowski had owned a substantial supply of electronics. In addition, there was good silverware and a set of Dauvier crystal bookends, a top-of-the-line Miranda camera and a Pavilion notebook. We found a tin box stashed in a cabinet in the dining room, under some folded table cloths. It contained about three hundred cash, some cheap jewelry, a pair of diamond cuff links, and a bundle of thousand dollar bonds. Toxie and I carried black utility bags. We put the cufflinks and the cash into the bags and left the rest.

I knew Hatch was trying to decide about the van. There weren’t many cops in this neighborhood, but anybody doing major removal at this hour would be fairly visible. “Maybe,” I said, “we should just take what we can carry and come back in the morning for the rest.”

“No.” Hatch’s eyes narrowed while he thought about it. “The county will be in here tomorrow. We’ll take what we can carry tonight and that’ll be it.”

“Whatever you say, Boss,” said Toxie.

“Wait a minute,” I complained. “We’re going to have to leave some nice stuff.”

Hatch’s eyes caught mine. “Carry it or forget it.”

There was an elevator in the rear. We got in and punched the button for the second floor. It lurched, whined, moved up, and shuddered to a halt. The doors creaked open. Long shelves loaded with books lined the place. We took a chance and used our flashlights.

A dozen sheets of paneling lay against one wall. The area was half-done. A newly-installed bathroom still smelled of fresh-cut lumber.

I wandered through the rows of books. “Might be some first editions,” I said.

Hatch shook his head. “If there are, it’ll take too much time to find them.”

I didn’t see any mysteries. In fact, most of the books were in foreign languages. Greek. Arabic. German. Some I didn’t recognize. There were a couple of English titles: Olympian Nights , which I figured was about sports. And The Coming of Apollo , which figured to be a history of the moon program.

Cardboard cartons were stacked along the far side. “You want to open these?” asked Toxie, cutting a hole in one. “It looks like Christmas stuff.”

Hatch waved it away. We had never, in our careers, found anything of value in a storeroom.

At the front, we opened a pair of double doors and looked out on a wide staircase. The woodwork had been recently varnished and it glittered in the moonlight.

We walked up to the third floor. Top of the building. Pushed our way in through another set of double doors.

We were now above the level of the street lights, which threw fragmented illumination against the ceiling. Two dim electric candles, mounted on either wall toward the rear, almost seemed to add to the darkness.

We turned on our flashlights and Toxie let go with an expletive. We were in a large single room, like the one below. But this was filled with rows of display cases. “It’s a goddamn store,” he said.

We kept our lights down so they couldn’t be seen outside. Hatch approached the nearest case, rapped his knuckles on it, looked into it, and shook his head. “Now isn’t that the damnedest thing?” he said.

I walked up next to him and looked in. The case came about hip high. Inside, a seashell that looked like satin had been placed on a cushion.

The case was fitted with a lamp. I turned it on and it highlighted the shell. Hatch extinguished his flashlight. “What’s so special about this thing?” demanded Toxie.

I broke the lock, lifted the top, and reached in, expecting to discover that it was maybe jade. But it was only a shell. We looked at one another and we were all thinking the same thing, that this Rankowski had beena nut.

The next display held a white flute, also on a cushion. But this time it made a little sense. The flute was made of ivory, and would go for a nice piece of change. Hatch picked it up, checked to make sure he hadn’t set off an alarm somewhere, and handed it to Toxie. Toxie put it in the bag.

We moved on and found a gold sundisk, about the general size and shape of a CD, except that a chain was attached. Toxie took out his loupe, screwed it into his eye, and checked it. “Might be,” he said. “Far as I can tell, it looks real.”

Into the bag.

He was beaming. “Boys,” he said, “I think we’ve hit the jackpot.”

Next up was a bushel basket made from balsa wood. Yet there it lay in a gleaming case, illuminated as if Jesus himself had carried it. Hatch shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of it,” he said. “It’s like treasures and trash.”

“This place,” said Toxie, “is starting to spook me.” Hatch and I traded grins because it doesn’t take much to spook Toxie. We found a coiled chain, maybe twelve feet long, made of dark blue and green fabric. There was a winecup engraved with laurel and people engraved on it who looked like Romans. And a quiver filled with silver arrows. We even found a bellows. I mean who today has any use for a bellows?

And there was a mallet that was nothing more than a shaved rock tied to an oversized handle with leather thongs. It didn’t look like something you’d have wanted to get hit with, but it wasn’t worth five bucks.

We saw something against the wall, covered by a tarpaulin. In fact, two somethings. The front one was a little bigger than Hatch; the other reached almost to the ceiling. We pulled the tarp off the small one, and Toxie made a funny sound in his throat. We were looking at a silver harp. Maybe eight feet high. Too big for anybody to use it, except maybe an NBA center. The crown was engraved with a winged woman. Hatch took a deep breath, grinned, and plunked the strings. Making any kind of unnecessary noise on the job was out of character for him, and moreover he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. But it almost sounded good. Hatch rarely looked happy. This time, he was enjoying himself until he became aware that Toxie and I were staring at him.

We had trouble lifting the other tarp and decided to come back to it later. We spread out through the room. Toxie found a water sprinkler that resembled a pine cone. Hatch called us over to look at a trident that was set in a case mounted on the wall. It was battered, about fourteen feet long, made of iron. “What the hell,” asked Hatch, “would anybody want with that?” We broke the case open and pulled it out. It weighed a ton.