Dorothy Mcintosh - The Witch of Babylon

“Pick up any goodies? I’m always in the market, as you know.”

“Nothing that would interest you.”

He feigned disappointment. “The rumor mill suggests you’ve met with some hard times. This business can be flighty, like women. You think you have things in hand and they end up deserting you.” He paused to give me time to fully appreciate his wit.

“I’ll manage. Thanks for your sympathy anyway.”

“I know this is a delicate matter, but if you’re inclined to dispose of anything from Samuel’s collection, I’d like to be helpful.”

Translation, you’ll get a quarter of its real worth.

“Actually I’m doing everything possible to keep his collection intact. That’s what Samuel would have wanted.”

He mistook my words. “Ah, the entire body of work. Well, we’d have to consider a lower sum for that kind of volume.”

“Phillip, I have no intention of selling it.”

With an exaggerated flourish he stretched out his thin arm to look at his watch. His shirt cuff rode up, exposing liver spots and gray hairs sprouting on fish belly–white skin. “I’d love to have a good long chat, but I’m expecting a client. He’ll be arriving any minute.”

“I’m your client, Phillip.”

A frown creased his brows and high, shiny forehead. “I thought you just turned me down.”

“What I meant was, I arranged the meeting. The name was Bernard White, I believe.”

“He’s supposed to authenticate an object for a buyer. How do you know that? Are you representing the buyer?”

“There is no Bernard White. A bit of witchcraft on my part. I made the whole thing up.”

He dropped the phony patter. “You bastard. I delayed two other bidders because I thought your phantom client would give us a better price. You’ve wasted my valuable time. Get out of here.” I suppose that was the moment my impression of the man underwent a permanent change. A kind of instant shift, the way the sun at dawn will suddenly pop over the horizon, revealing the landscape as it really is. The dilettante disappeared; inside lurked another personality. I recognized him in a few of the wealthiest collectors who’d crossed my path. Men, always. A ruthlessness at their core.

I started walking toward his office. “Why don’t we go into your office for that long chat?”

“I see no need for that.” With undignified haste he hurried toward the door and stood in front of me, arms folded, like a bull terrier guarding its bone.

“I know she’s in there, Phillip. I’ve been waiting across the street for over an hour. I saw her come in.”

“That’s none of your business, John.”

The door creaked open. Phillip glanced anxiously behind him then stepped aside. Laurel entered the room. “Don’t be silly, Phillip. He obviously knows.” There was a hint of tension around her eyes, but that was the only sign of stress. She’d dropped her hippie look and now resembled an Upper East Side matron—expensive fitted jacket, pencil skirt that stopped just short of her knees, Christian Louboutin pumps. A choker of opals and small rose-cut diamonds hugged her throat.

A burst of rage at seeing her nearly got the best of me, but I held it in and tried to concentrate on my end goal.

“Who would have thought, Laurel, your new career choice would be major crime?”

Phillip, ever the gallant, jumped in to defend her. “I don’t think sarcasm is called for. You can leave now.”

“I’ll go when our business is concluded.”

Laurel patted his arm. “Nothing will be achieved by quarreling. There’s no point ending up with bad feelings.” Bad feelings? After all the deaths she’s caused, what version of reality is she working with?

Phillip opened his mouth to object but thought better of it. He went to the front door and punched a code into the locking mechanism on the wall. A lattice-like grid of brass dropped down over the front window. He ushered us into his spacious office, a plush affair. Furniture designed by Gehry, a Bakhshaish rug covering most of the floor, and a Tintoretto resting on an easel in a corner of the room. A flat-screen TV mounted on the wall opposite his desk was probably a marketing aid for his sales.

“Nice bling,” I said to Laurel.

She fingered the necklace. “An heirloom from Mina. Frankly, I think it suits me better.”

An heirloom she never wanted you to have.

Phillip closed the door and went to his desk. He got out a bottle of Rabelais cognac and poured snifters for the three of us.

“So,” I said, “a lot of this is guesswork, but I’ll bet I’m pretty close to the mark. Hal hung around on the fringes of the alchemy group but never made it as a central player. I suspect he didn’t know everyone’s identities. Ward was Saturn; Eris, Venus; and Lazarus, Mars. Shim was too damaged to become a full member. You, Phillip, were Mercury. I’d thought Jupiter at first, but you don’t have the creativity to run the whole show. Mina, the witch, was originally Jupiter. When she died you saw an opportunity, Laurel, and took over.”

She fiddled with her necklace again. “Guess I’ll have to take compliments wherever I can find them. How did you figure it out?”

“Eris had a Venus tattoo, and then in the Baghdad hotel room Ward rolled up his sleeves, revealing a tattoo on his arm too, a lowercase h with a cross on the vertical. The symbol for Saturn. You’d told me Hal was Saturn. In his letter to me Hal indicated five opponents. If he was Saturn, that meant he’d have to be including himself as one of them. A little too obtuse. Knowing Mina well, even if your relationship was conflicted, you were in an ideal position to control events. You were living in her house for Christ’s sake! Gip told me Hal had never planned to get back with you. He just agreed to let you stay at the Sheridan Square location temporarily, that’s all. Staff know every move the residents make. That’s how they keep their jobs.

“Once I got back to New York, a friend of mine broke the barriers hiding your identities and confirmed everything. So you had the connection with Ward, not Tomas. How did Ward fit in?”

“That preposterous man,” Phillip snorted. “Fancied himself some sort of grandee when he was no more than a cook and bottle washer for us. I’d occasionally broker some of his sales, that’s how I got to know him. He took all that alchemy business seriously, as did his band of criminals. Can you imagine? Shim, the monster Eris traveled with, actually blew himself up trying to make gold from lead. Did Ward show off his private ‘museum’? A mixed bag, the stuff in there. Several of the manuscripts were rare and he had a few nice Near Eastern objects, but in the main, it was pretty low grade, a good portion of it counterfeit.”

Flattery always worked with Phillip. “Smart of you, then, pitching Ward’s group first against Samuel, then Hal, and finally me, while you two hid behind them. And Tomas’s talented plan to annihilate them in Iraq took them permanently out of the picture. On home ground Tomas had a much better chance of defeating them. Once they were dead, nothing could be traced back to you. Quite impressive.”

“That is conjecture, Madison,” Phillip said. “You have nothing to base it on.”

I sipped my cognac and savored the subtle flavours. “Hanna Jaffrey, who I learned was much closer to Ward than he let on, failed to steal the engraving after Samuel discovered it. Lazarus and Shim eventually dealt with her. Lazarus tried to steal the engraving from the Baghdad museum during the looting, but Samuel had anticipated that so you missed out a second time. It must have been tremendously frustrating not to get it after so much effort.

“When my brother died and I was incapacitated in the hospital, you conscripted Hal to search our condo. That’s when everything really spun out of control. Hal lied. He said he’d found nothing, intending to sell the engraving and keep the proceeds for himself. Did he know what he really had?”