The Charlie Parker Collection 2

  I cleaned out the cuts on my arm, although I could not quite trace the chain of events that led to my receiving them. I still had a sense of vertigo, a dizziness that left me feeling uncertain on my feet, and I could not rinse the taste of sweet wine from my mouth.

  I offered my visitors coffee, but they expressed a preference for tea. Rachel had left some herbal tea behind the instant coffee. It smelled a little like someone had taken a leak in a rosebush. The bearded cleric, who introduced himself as Martin Reid, winced slightly when he tasted it, but he persevered. Clearly, those years spent following his vocation had endowed him with a degree of inner strength.

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  “It wasn’t too hard to connect you to the events in Brooklyn,” he said. “You make quite an impression wherever you go. We learned a little more about you from Mr. Neddo in New York.”

  Neddo’s involvement with these men was a surprise. I had to confess that Neddo now unconditionally gave me the creeps. I couldn’t deny that he had an extensive knowledge of certain matters, but the pleasure that he derived from it was troubling. Being around him was like keeping company with a semi-reformed addict whose ambition to stay clean was not as urgent as his love for the narcotic.

  “I think Mr. Neddo may be morally suspect,” I said. “You may become tainted by association.”

  “We are all flawed in our own way.”

  “Maybe, but my closet isn’t filled with Chinese skulls fresh from the executioner’s gun.”

  Reid conceded the point.

  “Admittedly, I try not to delve too deeply into his acquisitions. He is, nevertheless, a useful source of information, and you have reason to be grateful to him for informing us of your visit to him, and of the path that your investigation is following. The gentleman on the road didn’t look best pleased by our intrusion into his business. If we hadn’t arrived when we did, it could have turned very ugly. Or in his case, uglier.”

  “He certainly isn’t a looker,” I conceded.

  Reid gave up on his tea. “That’s terrible,” he said. “I’ll still be tasting that on the day I die.”

  I apologized once again.

  “The man on the road told me that his name was Brightwell,” I said. “I think you know a little more than that about him.”

  The younger priest, who had introduced himself as Paul Bartek, looked to his colleague. They were both Cistercian monks, based in Europe but staying for the present in a monastery in Spencer. Reid had a Scottish accent, but Bartek’s was harder to identify: there were traces of French and American English, as well as something more exotic.

  “Tell me what happened on the road,” said Reid. “What did you feel?”

  I tried to recall the sensations I had experienced. The memory seemed to intensify my nausea, but I persevered.

  “One minute he seemed to be leaning against his car, and the next he was right in my face,” I said. “I could taste his breath. It tasted like wine. Then he was gripping my arm and dragging me toward his car. He made those cuts on my arm. The trunk opened, and it looked like a wound. It was made of flesh and blood, and it stank.”

  Reid and Bartek exchanged a look.

  “What?” I said.

  “We could see both of you as we approached,” said Bartek. “He never moved. He didn’t touch you.”

  I displayed the cuts for them.

  “Yet I have these.”

  “That you do,” said Reid. “There’s no denying it. Did he say anything to you?”

  “He said that I was hard to track down, and that we had matters to discuss.”

  “Anything else?”

  I remembered the sensation of falling, of burning. I did not want to share it with these men because it brought with it a sense of great shame and regret, but something told me that they were trustworthy, even good, and that they were ready to provide answers to some of the questions that I had.

  “There was a sense of vertigo, of descending from a great height. I was burning, and there were others burning around me. I heard him speak as he was dragging me to the car, or as I thought he was.”

  “What did he say?”

  “‘Found.’ He said I was found.”

  If Reid was surprised by this, then he kept it hidden well. Bartek didn’t have his friend’s poker features. He looked shocked.

  “Is this man a Believer?” I asked.

  “Why would you say that?” said Reid.

  “He had a mark on his arm. It looked like a grapnel. Neddo told me that they marked themselves.”

  “But do you even know what a Believer is?” said Reid. There was something skeptical, almost patronizing, in his tone that I didn’t care for.

  I kept my voice low and even. It took a lot of effort.

  “I don’t like it when someone assumes my ignorance, and by implication dangles the promise of enlightenment in front of me,” I said. “I don’t even care for it when people tease dogs with treats, so don’t overstep the mark here. I know what they’re looking for, and I know what they’re capable of doing to get it.”

  I stood and retrieved the book that I had bought in South Portland. I threw it to Reid, and he caught it awkwardly with both hands, splaying the pages. I spit a volley of words at him as he examined its pages.

  “Sedlec. Enoch. Dark angels in corporeal form. An apartment with human remains yellowing in a pissfilled bath. A basement decorated with human bones, waiting for the arrival of a silver statue with a demon trapped inside it. A man who sits placidly in a burning car while his body turns to ash. And a young woman’s skull, trimmed with gold, left in an alcove after she’d been murdered in a purpose-built tiled room. Are we any clearer now, Father or Brother, or whatever it is you like to be called?”

  Reid had the decency to look apologetic, but I was already regretting my outburst in front of these strangers, not merely out of shame at my own loss of temper, but because I didn’t want to give anything away in my anger.

  “I’m sorry,” said Reid. “I’m not used to dealing with private detectives. I always tend to assume that nobody knows anything, and to be honest, I’m rarely surprised.”

  I sat down once again at the table, and waited for him to continue.

  “The Believers, or those who lead them, are convinced that they are fallen angels, banished from heaven, reborn over and over in the form of men. They feel that they are incapable of being destroyed. If they are killed, then they roam in noncorporeal form until they find another suitable host. It may take years, decades even, before they do so, but then the process begins again. If they are not killed, then they believe that they age infinitely more slowly than human beings. Ultimately, they are immortal. That is what they believe.”

  “And what do you believe?”

  “I don’t believe that they’re angels, fallen or otherwise, if that’s what you’re asking. I used to work in psychiatric hospitals, Mr. Parker. A popular delusion among patients was that they were Napoleon Bonaparte. I’m sure that there was a good reason why they favored Bonaparte over, say, Hitler, or General Patton, but I never really cared enough to find out what that might be. It was enough to know that a forty-year-old gentleman from Pakistan who weighed two hundred pounds in his bare feet was, in all probability, not Napoleon Bonaparte; but the fact that I didn’t believe he was whom he claimed to be made no difference to him. Similarly, it doesn’t matter whether we go along with the convictions of the Believers or not. They believe, and they convince other weaker souls to go along with that belief. They appear particularly adept at the power of suggestion, at planting false memories in fertile ground, but they and the people with whom they surround themselves are no still less dangerous for being deluded.”

  But there was more to them than that. The circumstances of Alice’s death provided clear evidence that these individuals were infinitely more unpleasant, and more powerful, than even Reid was prepared to acknowledge, at least here, and to me. There was also the matter of the DMT, the drug found in Alice’s
remains and in Garcia’s body. It wasn’t just force of will that bound people to them.

  “What did he mean by telling me that I was ‘found’?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “That’s your prerogative.”

  I let it go.

  “What do you know about a company called Dresden Enterprises?”

  It was Reid’s turn to be surprised.

  “I know a little. It’s owned by a man named Joachim Stuckler. He’s a collector.”

  “I’m supposed to meet him in Boston.”

  “He contacted you?”

  “He sent one of his flying monkeys to make the arrangements. In fact, he sent three flying monkeys, but two won’t be taking to the air again anytime soon. They tried to play clever too, incidentally.”

  Reid looked uneasy at the implied threat.

  “I’d remind you that we are also stronger than we appear, and that just because we wear collars doesn’t mean we won’t try to defend ourselves.”

  “The men who stomped Stuckler’s envoys are named Tony and Paulie Fulci,” I said. “I don’t think they’re good Catholics, despite their heritage. In fact, I don’t think they’re good anythings, but they take a certain pride in their work. Psychotics are funny that way. I have no qualms about setting the Fulcis on you, assuming that I don’t decide to make your lives difficult myself, or hand you on to someone who makes the Fulcis look like missionary workers.

  “I don’t know what you think is going on here, but let me explain it for you. The young woman who was killed was called Alice Temple. She was the cousin of one of my closest friends, but ‘cousin’ doesn’t explain the obligation he feels toward her, just as ‘friend’ doesn’t communicate the magnitude of my debt to him. We’re looking for the men responsible, and we will find them. You may not care much for my threats. You may not even be troubled by the possibility of being stomped by six hundred pounds of misplaced Italian American pride. But let me tell you something: my friend Louis is infinitely less tolerant than I am, and anyone who gets in his way, or holds back information, is playing with fire, and will get badly burned.

  “You seem to be looking at this like it’s some kind of intellectual game with information as the forfeit, but there are lives involved, and right now I don’t have time to trade with you. Either help me now or get out and accept any consequences that arise when we come looking for you again.”

  Bartek looked at the floor.

  “I know all about you, Mr. Parker,” said Reid, haltingly at first. “I know what happened to your wife and your daughter. I’ve read about the men and women whom you’ve hunted down. I also suspect that, unknowingly, you’ve come close to these Believers before, for you’ve certainly destroyed some who shared their delusions. You couldn’t make the connection, and for some reason neither could they, not until recently. Perhaps it is to do with the difference between good and evil: good is selfless, while evil is always self-interested. Good will attract good to itself, and those involved will unite toward a common goal. Evil, in turn, draws evil men, but they will never truly act as one. They will always be distrustful, always jealous. Ultimately, they seek power for themselves alone, and for that reason they will always fall apart at the end.”

  He smiled a little sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I have a tendency to wax philosophical. It is a consequence of dealing with such matters. Anyway, I know too that you have a partner now, and a little girl. I don’t see any trace of them here. There are dirty dishes in your sink, and I see in your eyes that you’re troubled by things that have nothing to do with this case.”

  “That’s none of your business,” I said.

  “Oh, but it is. You’re vulnerable, Mr. Parker, and you’re angry, and they’ll exploit that. They’ll use it to get at you. I don’t doubt for one moment that you’re prepared to hurt people who frustrate you or who get in your way. Right now, I don’t think you’d even need much of an excuse to do it, but believe me when I say that we were being cautious in our answers for good reason. Maybe you’re right, though. Maybe the time has come to be honest with each other. So let me begin.

  “Stuckler has two faces, and two collections. One he displays to the public, and the other is entirely private. The public collection consists of paintings, sculpture, antiques, all with ironclad provenance, and above reproach in both taste and source. The second collection betrays his origins. Stuckler’s father was a major in Der Führer Regiment of the Second SS Panzer Division. He was a veteran of the Russian front, and he was one of those who later carved a bloody trail through France in 1944. He was at Tulle when they hanged ninety-nine civilians from lampposts as reprisals for attacks on German forces by the Maquis, and he had gasoline on his hands after the slaughter and burning of over six hundred civilians at Oradour-sur-Glane. Mathias Stuckler followed orders, apparently without question, just as might be expected of one of the army’s elite.

  “His other role was as a treasure seeker for the Nazis. Stuckler had a background in art history. He was a cultured man, but as with a great many cultured men, his taste for beautiful things coexisted with a barbarous nature. He helped to loot the Hapsburg royal family’s treasures from Vienna in 1938, including what some fool believed was the spear of Longinus, and he was a favorite of Himmler’s. Himmler had a particular passion for the occult; after all, this was a man who sent expeditions to Tibet to seek the origins of the Aryan race, and who used slave labor to renovate Wewelsburg castle to resemble Camelot, complete with round table. Personally, I don’t think Stuckler believed a word of it, but it gave him an excuse to loot and to acquire treasures for his own gratification and reward, which he set aside carefully as the opportunity arose.

  “After the war, those treasures found their way to his son, and that is what we believe forms the bulk of the private collection. If the rumors are true, some of Goering’s art collection has also since found its way to Joachim Stuckler’s vaults. Goering attempted to send a trainload of stolen art to safety from his hunting lodge in Bavaria toward the end of the war, but the train was abandoned and the collection disappeared. A painting by François Boucher, stolen from a Paris gallery in 1943 and known to be part of Goering’s trove, was quietly repatriated last year, and Stuckler was reputed to have been the source. It seems that he made inquiries about selling it, and its provenance was discovered. To avoid embarrassment, he handed it back to the French, claiming that he himself had purchased it some years earlier under a misapprehension. Stuckler has always denied the existence of a secret cache, and claims that if his father did manage to assemble such a trove of looted items — and he has publicly stated his belief that this is a lie — then its whereabouts died with his father.”

  “What happened to his father?”

  “Mathias Stuckler was killed in 1944 during an incident at the French Cistercian monastery of Fontfroide in the Corbière Hills. The circumstances have never been fully explained, but a party of SS soldiers, a number of civilian liaisons from the University of Nuremberg, and four Cistercian monks were shot to death during a confrontation in the monastery courtyard. Stuckler was doing his master’s bidding, but something unexpected occurred. In any event, the treasure at Fontfroide was denied him.”

  “And what was the treasure?”

  “Ostensibly a valuable fourteenth-century gold crucifix, various gold coins, a quantity of gemstones, two gold chalices, and a small jeweled monstrance.”

  “It doesn’t sound like the kind of haul that would drag the SS up a mountain in the face of an advancing enemy.”

  “The gold was a decoy. The real treasure lay in a nondescript silver box. It was a fragment of a coded map, one of a number placed in similar boxes during the fifteenth century and then dispersed. The knowledge contained within them has since been lost to us, which might have been for the best if the boxes too had been irretrievably lost.”

  “Careless of you to mislay your own statue,” I said.

  Reid flinched slig
htly, but otherwise gave no indication that my awareness of the Black Angel and the story of its creation was perhaps greater than he had anticipated.

  “It wasn’t an item that the order was anxious to display,” said Reid. “From the beginning, there were those who said that it should be destroyed utterly.”

  “Why wasn’t it?”

  “Because, if one believes the myth of its creation, they feared that any attempt to destroy it would release what lay within. Those were more credulous times, I hasten to add. Instead, it was hidden, and the knowledge of its whereabouts dispersed to trusted abbots in the form of vellum fragments. Each fragment contains a great deal of ancillary information — illustrations, dimensions of rooms, partial accounts of the creation of the statue you mentioned — and a numerical reference alongside a single letter: either D or S, for ‘dexter’ or ‘sinister,’ right or left. They are units of measurement, all taken from a single starting point. Combined together, they are supposed to give the precise location of a vault. Stuckler was trying to assemble the map when he died, as many others before him had tried to do. The Fontfroide fragment disappeared following the attack, and has not been seen since.

  “You know that the statue is rumored to lie buried in the vault. That’s what Stuckler was attempting to recover, and that’s what the Believers are also trying to locate. Recent developments have given their search a new impetus. A fragment of the map was found earlier this year at Sedlec, in the Czech Republic, but has since disappeared: stolen, we assume. We believe that a second went missing from a house in Brooklyn some weeks back.”

  “Winston’s house.”

  “Which is how you came to be involved, for we now know that two women were present in the house when the killings occurred, and were subsequently hunted down in the belief that they were in possession of the fragment.”

  “That’s two pieces, excluding Fontfroide.”

  “Three more pieces, one from Bohemia, one from Italy, and another from England, have been missing for centuries. The contents of the Italian section have long been common knowledge, but the rest are almost certainly in the wrong hands. Yesterday, we received information that a fragment, possibly the missing piece from Fontfroide, may have been acquired in Georgia. Two veterans of World War Two were found dead in a swamp. It’s not clear how they died, but both were survivors of an attack by SS soldiers near Fontfroide, the same SS soldiers who were subsequently killed at the monastery.”