Michael Gruber - The Book of Air and Shadows

“Mother, that’s insane!” cried Donna. “We should call the police now and turn this whole mess over to them.”

“Darling, the police have other things to worry about besides secret letters and attempted kidnap. I’ll let Patsy know what’s going on, but I’m sure she’ll agree. The cops can’t possibly put a twenty-four-hour guard on everyone in this family. We have to figure this out ourselves, which we’re perfectly capable of doing. Besides, my Irish is up. I don’t like it when bums try to muscle my people. When that happens I muscle back.”

At this, both of Mary Peg’s children stared at her, and for the first time in many years recalled certain mortifying events of their childhood. All the Crosetti children had gone to school at Holy Family down the street, and were part of the last generation of American Catholic children to be educated at least in part by nuns. Unlike the parents of all their friends, Mary Peg had taken no guff at all from the sisters and had often appeared in the chalky hallways to rail against some injustice or inattention or incompetence she had detected in their relations with her children, and continued despite all their pleas to stop. Yet at some level, they still believed that anyone who could take on a fire-breathing eleven-foot-tall Sister of Charity could handle any number of mere gangsters.

“Why don’t you begin, Mr. Mishkin?” she said.

“Jake,” said Mr. Mishkin.

“As in Chinatown ,” said Mary Peg.

“I certainly hope not,” said Mishkin, withdrawing a small diary from his breast pocket. “Let’s see. October eleventh, Bulstrode arrives at my office, seeking some intellectual property advice…” And he told the whole story, except the dirty parts, ending with his conversation with Osip Shvanov, and his denial of involvement with any rough stuff.

“And you believed him?” asked Mary Peg.

“Not at all. He actually asked me about the ciphered letters. The people who just tried to kidnap you tried it because they want something you have, which can only be those letters, which you tell me you have not been able to decipher.”

The three Crosettis shared a quick look among them, and after a pregnant pause Crosetti said that they had not, and explained why, after which Mary Peg said, “Albert, you understand what this means?”

Crosetti said, “No, I don’t,” a temporary lie, this, to ward off dreadful knowledge.

“Well, it’s very clear to me,” said his mother. “There were only two people still alive who knew that the ruined books contained a set of ciphered letters, you and this Carolyn person, and the only people you’ve told are completely reliable-”

“Oh, right! What about Klim?”

“… completely reliable, which means that this Rolly woman has been behind all of it from day one.”

“Uh-uh.”

“No, really, Albert, face facts! Who got you to sell to Bulstrode? Rolly. Who disappeared to England right after you sold to Bulstrode? Rolly. Bulstrode must have found out something in England, and they were probably together when he found it. Then he comes back and he’s tortured to death to reveal whatever it was, and how could whoever did it know what he found out? Rolly!”

“Mother, that is so…so completely off the charts. You assume that Carolyn’s the perpetrator here on zero evidence. She could just as easily be another victim. She could’ve been tortured too, and that’s how whoever it is knows about the ciphers.”

“He’s right, Ma,” said Donna, as her natural defender’s personality emerged. “We just don’t know enough to speculate about the guilt of Carolyn Rolly, although unless the leak comes from Allie indirectly, the source of knowledge about the ciphers has to come from her. Meanwhile, this is clearly a criminal matter and-”

Bang.

The sound came from the street, and the three Crosettis knew immediately what it was, because they were not a family to ever say “I thought it was a firecracker or a car backfiring.” In the next seconds a fusillade sounded from the street. Everyone stood up and Mary Peg made for the cordless phone sitting on an end table. Now came breaking glass, the sound of heavy feet, and three big men charged into the room, all of them carrying large 9 mm semiautomatic pistols. One of them shouted at Mary Peg to drop the phone. She ignored him and continued to punch in 911. When the operator came on she gave her address twice and said, “Shots fired. Home invasion,” before the phone was torn from her hand and a big man grabbed her around the neck and held a gun to her temple.

T HE F IFTH C IPHERED L ETTER

My lord I have not had message from you these five moneths & what shal I doe? W.S. saith he will not give hys plaie of Mary to anie hand but my lord of Rochester’s owne or onne of hys house. Shal I steale it of hym & sende? Mr Wales is dead this weeke, found stabbed in Mincing Lane. From London 2 ndDecember 1611 Restyng y rLordships moste loyal & obd tserv tRichard Bracegirdle.

After Shvanov left I used the cell phone to call Miriam. She was, of course, out and with her own cell phone switched off (I have never once, in more than twenty years, connected with my sister on the first try), so I left a somewhat frantic message. Why? Because no one is supposed to know Dad but the three of us? Ridiculous, but there it was, a feeling of dread.

Around ten thenext morning I received a cell phone call from a woman named Donna Crosetti, who said she was representing her brother, Albert, in the matter of certain papers fraudulently obtained by the late Bulstrode. I replied that it remained to be seen whether any fraud had taken place, but that I would be happy to meet with her, or Albert, to discuss the matter, all the while thinking that it was odd for a lawyer to be representing a family member, and odd too was the venue she proposed, a house in Queens rather than a law office. After we had arranged the meeting for that evening, I dialed the number she had called from and was surprised to find it a Legal Aid office. This is yet another indication of how nuts I was then, as in my right mind I never would have agreed to such a meeting.

Meanwhile, my diary helps not at all, as I was now cut loose from my normal office routine. My appointments were cleared indefinitely, which turned out not to be such a good thing. People in stressful jobs are often told to take a rest, but sometimes it is just that stress that has held them together, like the proverbial ancient biplane kept in the air with rubber bands and baling wire, without which it falls from the sky. So, now, in unaccustomed idleness, all the little wheels started to wobble loose or jam up. I paced. I flicked channels. I watched pigeons and traffic out my window. I had a massive coronary…

What it felt like for a moment, but which was only the start of panic: short breath, sweats, tingling in arms, a little dyskinesia. The cell phone buzzed its simple factory-installed tweedle and I grabbed for it like life itself and it was Omar, and would I be going out today? Actually, I would. I had the usual number of friends and acquaintances around town, but there was only one person I thought I could go to after getting fired from my job for malfeasance, which was my wife. So I cleaned myself up, dressed casually but with care, checked my image for corporal signs of depravity, found many, took a Xanax so as not to fret about these overmuch, and away we went uptown. More dummheit ! I always forget that my wife understands me.

I believe I mentioned that Amalie runs a financial newsletter out of a small office in our town house. This is somewhat misleading, because there is also an actual office full of gnomes down on Broad Street, and in other offices scattered throughout the planet in the time zones that matter to international money. My wife visits these as infrequently as she can get away with, because it is her fancy that she is a simple wife and mother with a paying hobby, as if she were crocheting pot holders instead of running a multimillion-dollar enterprise. It is something of a joke in the financial district, I am told, but it turns out (ask Mike Bloomberg) that after a while one’s financial information empire more or less runs itself, and the founder’s main responsibility is to resist kibitzing.