Mister Max: The Book of Secrets: Mister Max 2

  Grammie waited.

  “I’ll tell you later, but it’s nothing dangerous. You don’t have to worry,” Max said, and, as he had known she would, Grammie took his word for it.

  Fire!

  Black night was just melting to an ashy gray dawn when a clanging of bells and a thundering of hooves woke Max from a dream in which he was wandering through the dark engine room of an ocean liner, trying to find the bicycle he’d left there. Figures came after him, tall, cloaked, dangerous. To be yanked up out of a nightmare—heart already pounding—and then jerked awake, dragged along behind only half-recognized noises—all this before there is enough light to see just what is going on …

  There was smoke in the air. Voices shouted from not very far off.

  Max was out of bed and standing by the window, already half dressed, before he understood that the fire was on another street. Not Thieves Alley, and not Brewery Lane, either. How distant a street he could not be sure, as he fastened his overalls and grabbed his work boots to go down to find his bicycle. There was no sound from Ari’s room.

  He sat on the back steps to lace up the boots. No light shone in Grammie’s house, so she, too, had slept through the commotion. In grabbing the nearest clothes, he had also, it seemed, picked up the straw hat that completed his gardener’s outfit, but he didn’t want to waste any time returning it to its hook by the door, so he jammed it onto his head and wheeled the bicycle through the gate to Thieves Alley. There, he mounted and rode off—cautiously, because the dark air was filled with darker shadows and he had only sounds to guide him.

  They led him in the direction of the docks and into the heart of the old city. He could distinguish voices now, the clamoring bells and horses’ hooves having been stilled, and he could see gray smoke, like a cloud against the darkness just ahead. When he turned onto Milk Lane he braked hard and jumped down, leaving his bicycle leaning up against a dark shop front.

  Flames turned the air orangey red and Max tasted smoke—the firemen were getting the best of the battle. People clustered across the street from a narrow, three-story building, with a sign hanging down from the door frame advertising used books, old maps, letters written by famous people, and a collection of rare editions. On each side of the shop, the buildings were made of brick or stone, so the fire was not going to spread, but the shop itself was wood. Old, dry wood that burned hot. The pump wagon stood directly in front of the doorway, its hose fat with the water two boys pumped through it, stooping and rising—one down, the other up, the other down, the one up, never stopping to rest. Water gushed out of the nozzle of the hose, which firemen were now directing in an arc, up to the second floor, to discourage the fire from spreading. Men and women—children too—passed buckets of water from the corner fountain to pour onto the ashes at the ground level of the building.

  Max joined the group of onlookers, an eye out to see if there was anything he could do to help. He couldn’t recognize any of the firefighters in their helmets and heavy coats, but he thought that one of the boys busy at the pump might be Tomi Brandt, and he was glad for his straw hat. An older couple, gray-haired and plump and dazed, stood off to one side, alone. Both wore night-robes. Both were barefooted. The woman had paper curlers in her hair, and the man kept an arm around her shoulders. They leaned into one another, like two fishermen’s shacks keeping one another upright. Tears ran down her cheeks. He looked grim. A woman wearing a night-robe and slippers, her hair neatly brushed, came up to give them mugs, probably full of tea.

  “What happened?” Max asked, of nobody in particular.

  “What’s it look like?” a woman answered, and “The usual,” a man said from behind him. “Those poor Nowells,” a third voice said, “just when it looked like things were getting better for them, now this.” An impatient voice responded to that remark, “He knew what he was getting into.”

  The crowd fell silent again, watching.

  Despite all the smoke and the unnatural color of the air, it wasn’t after all so big a fire. It was quickly brought under control and when the firelight faded, it left the air blue-gray with dawn. As a final preventive measure, the firefighters hosed the front room of the bookshop. Water poured over the shelves, soaking the books. They had broken through the display window on the street, so shards and splinters of glass lay all over the roadway, but the two boys had been set to sweeping it up. Close behind Max a woman’s sympathetic voice said, “At least, the apartments upstairs will be untouched, and that’s a relief because I don’t know that any of us have anything left to give in aid. I surely don’t, not a blanket nor flour—do you?”

  Max did, and he stepped up toward the older couple to offer anything they might need, but he heard the man—who must be Mr. Nowell—answer an offer, “No, I thank you, Cecil, and we thank your good wife as well, it’s very generous. But we’ll be fine here. The stairway goes up at the back of the building, which is unharmed by fire or water. It’s limited damage that’s been done, even if—”

  The friend, behind whose broad back Max stood, murmured something sympathetic.

  “People who know nothing about books,” Mr. Nowell said, anger in his voice. “Not even that they’re made of paper if you want my—”

  He fell suddenly silent and waited two or three seconds before continuing in a calmer voice, “We’ll gladly dine with you tonight, however. Won’t we, my dear?”

  His wife had stopped weeping but was still wordless with distress. She only nodded and tried to smile.

  Mr. Nowell went on, “It won’t take long to repair—just—”

  At that moment, Officer Sven Torson of the city police approached Mr. and Mrs. Nowell, and the friend slid back into the crowd. People began drifting away, disappearing into their own doorways. Max moved off, away from the bookshop owners. He didn’t want to run the risk of being recognized by the policeman, who had seen this Mister Max once before, and not all that long ago. He moved a few steps toward the ashes, to admire the fire brigade as they stomped down the last of the flames and raked through the coals. He shook his head, as if wondering at this calamity, amazed by it—at the same time being careful to stay close enough to watch and listen to Officer Torson’s conversation with Mr. Nowell.

  Mrs. Nowell remained silent throughout, but she clutched at her husband’s arm, kept close to his side, as if only there, with him, did she feel safe.

  “Bad luck,” Officer Torson said, and waited. He was holding his police cap in his hand, out of respect for the Nowells’ loss.

  “You could say that,” Mr. Nowell answered, after a while.

  “The rare books, though. Those you keep in the cellar, don’t you?” the policeman asked.

  “Where the walls are brick. They’re how I’ll be able to pay for repairs,” Mr. Nowell said.

  “It’s a lucky thing they weren’t harmed,” the policeman said, and waited.

  There was a long silence. The fire brigade began coiling up the long hose, talking to one another in ordinary tones, about how tired and hungry they were, about how they wished some of these fires would have the courtesy to start themselves up in daylight. Over the rooftops the rising sun silvered the sky.

  Finally, Officer Torson asked, “Any idea what started it?” His voice was casual, as if he were a neighbor and not an arm of the law. His eyes were fixed on the firemen. He asked his question almost carelessly, as if he wasn’t really interested.

  Max took a step closer to hear the answer.

  His movement drew the policeman’s attention. The policeman glanced at Max, and then looked again, more sharply.

  “I must have left a lamp burning,” Mr. Nowell said. “Maybe the wiring. Or mice. I might have been hearing mice in the walls.”

  Max was stepping away, head bent.

  “Excuse me? Sir?” Officer Torson reached out to put a hand on Max’s shoulder. “Don’t I know you?”

  Max wanted to deny it but Grammie had a lot of respect for this policeman, whom she had taught in grade school, so Max thought it m
ight be a mistake to try to put something over on the man. “Lady. Long ears,” he said, to remind Officer Torson of when they’d met. “Mrs. Nives, she is my friend. In her garden.”

  “Oh yes, now I remember. Are you still working there? In case it turns out I need to talk to you. Mister, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Max nodded as eagerly as if he really was glad to be recognized. “Mister.”

  That satisfied the policeman, but when Max turned away from the site of the fire, to reclaim his bicycle, he saw that Tomi Brandt was watching him from the edge of a group of firefighters. Tomi was too far away to have overheard, or so Max hoped. He pretended not to see his classmate and continued on his way, taking his bicycle by the handlebars, grateful that the new white top on its basket made it look like anybody’s bicycle. But he could feel Tomi’s eyes on his back. Before he could mount and ride off, footsteps sounded behind him, running footsteps, and a voice called, “Hey, Eyes! Eyes? Wait up!”

  Max was Bartolomeo and the name meant nothing to him. He lifted a leg over the seat of his bicycle, ready to mount, but Tomi hadn’t gone away. Max pulled the brim of his hat down lower.

  Tomi Brandt stopped right in front of Max, making his square figure an obstacle no bicycle could ride over. “Bartolomeo, isn’t it?” he asked in a friendly voice. His freckled face wore its usual smile, despite being grimy with smoke, and sweat had slicked his hair flat on his scalp. “You came to see the excitement?”

  Max shrugged, staring down blankly at Tomi’s rubber boots, as if he hadn’t understood what the boy had asked him.

  “You live around here?”

  Max waved a hand in the general direction of Thieves Alley. “Live there. Near to here.”

  “My name’s Tomi,” Tomi said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “We met at the fire station. You remember that, don’t you?”

  Max nodded.

  “That’s why I’m here, but what about you? You didn’t start it, did you?” Tomi laughed.

  But Max had already looked up, startled. The last thing he wanted was for a gardener named Bartolomeo, who might be riding Max Starling’s bicycle, to be suspected of arson. “Came to help,” he said, and looked down again.

  “Hunh,” Tomi said. He had a hand on the handlebars so Max couldn’t leave. Max waited, straddling his bicycle.

  Finally Max asked, “You fireman?”

  “No, but I will be. For now I’m an apprentice.”

  “Work is good,” Max commented, then realized that he shouldn’t know that word, apprentice. “I work now. They want me. Soon,” he said.

  “Where are you working?” Tomi asked.

  “Big house. Palace,” Max told him.

  “I don’t believe that. The royal family has its own gardeners.”

  “Near big school,” Max said. That was safe enough, because the Hilliard School was on a street lined with homes of the wealthy or—in the case of the two sisters who had briefly sheltered Sunny—the formerly wealthy. “Old ladies,” he said, and held up two fingers. “Three.”

  “You mean mansion,” Tomi said. At the blank expression on Max’s face he smiled, but explained, “A really big house? That’s a mansion, not a palace. A palace,” he continued, “is much, much bigger than a mansion.” Grinning, he spread his hands far apart.

  “Mansion,” Max repeated stupidly. He didn’t like the way Tomi was looking at him and he also didn’t like the teasing tone in Tomi’s voice. Why would he block the path of a gardener who barely spoke the language? Tomi had never struck Max as a bullying type. He was rough-and-tumble but not unkind—the opposite, in fact. So what was the unspoken thing that was so amusing to Tomi?

  Max was afraid he might know the answer to that question.

  “Need to go,” Max said. “I work,” he said.

  Tomi stepped back. “I know about work,” he said.

  Max mounted and pedaled away, more slowly than he wanted to and more awkwardly than he had to, as would someone who was new to bicycle riding.

  “See you around,” Tomi called after him, and added, as Max came to the corner, “Max.”

  Max didn’t look back, but once around the corner and out of sight, he started to pedal furiously, which was all he could do with the burst of alarmed energy this new danger set off in him.

  The Mayor’s Job

  • ACT I •

  SCENE 4 ~ SUSPICIONS

  Max went home by an indirect route, in case Tomi might be following, as much worried by Tomi’s terrier-like concern for justice as by the danger of discovery. If Tomi suspected that something dishonest had happened, he wouldn’t stop trying to find out the truth. Tomi was the kind of person who didn’t sit back and wonder. He’d do something to confirm his suspicions. So, in case he was being followed, Max rode through the Bishop’s Gate out into the New Town, across the park and in front of the Hilliard School to a decrepit mansion at the end of that road, where the bushes were overgrown and the two elderly ladies within seldom looked out the window. There he waited, hidden behind a large rhododendron, until he was sure no one suspicious—that is to say, Tomi Brandt—was coming along the road behind him.

  Satisfied that he was unobserved, he returned to Thieves Alley, where he sat down to write to Carlo Coyne, asking the young ferryman to meet him Tuesday evening, in front of the Starling Theater. Then he waited for Ari to wake up.

  As he explained it first to Ari and then later in the day to Grammie, at the city library, the problem was that Captain Francis knew who Max Starling was. “But you can always fool me,” Ari said. “Starting from that crazy dogcatcher uniform you put on, I’m never sure it’s you. Until …”

  “Until what?”

  “Until I get a look at your face. And see your eyes. I’d ask Pia. She’s got a lot more imagination than I do,” Ari advised.

  Grammie’s advice differed. “This one is too risky,” she said. “You’ve been riding that ferry since you were first able to walk. I remember, I had to grab you when you tried to climb over the railing.”

  “I don’t think I would have done that,” Max said in the lowered voice he always used in the library.

  “I was there,” Grammie told him. “I saw it. I’m an eyewitness. You better turn Captain Francis down, even if the money would, I admit, be welcome. It’s just too risky.” And that was that. She’d had her say. “Now scoot, Max. Who knows who’s watching me waste my working time with chatter.”

  The note Max had left off at the Bendiff mansion on The Lakeview asked Pia to meet him after the midday meal, so he stopped to see Joachim, even though it wasn’t a lesson day and even though he knew full well that Joachim preferred to think only about line and shape and color and shading. He didn’t expect the painter to have any ideas for disguises, but Joachim was always glad to eat a lunch that Max would prepare for the two of them. Max brought bread and cheese and grapes out to the garden, where Sunny slept in a patch of sun-warmed grass. Joachim ate without speaking, staring at a half-finished painting of a long-tongued blue iris. He put his glasses on to see it clearly and then took them off to see it as only color and line. Max offered no opinion on the subject and left without himself saying more than four words, having washed the plates and replaced them on the kitchen shelves. “Hello” was one of the words, “Here’s lunch” were two more, and the last was “Goodbye.” Joachim just raised an inattentive hand and removed his glasses. The dog, at least, padded to the garden gate beside him for a final rub on her strong shoulders before Max left.

  Pia was at the opposite end of the talkative yardstick. She gave him her complete attention and the benefit of all of her thinking, whether it had to do with his question or not.

  “You have to try the gooseberry custard tart, I’ve always wondered what that would taste like,” she told him while asking Gabrielle to give her one of the croissants with a thick filling of sweet dark chocolate.

  Max would have preferred the croissant. He was about to point that out to her, but she asked, “How can I help yo
u?” and despite his irritation at her assumption that he needed help, he explained his difficulty.

  “Well,” Pia said, without any hesitation, “your eyes are … They’re not weird, not exactly, it’s just … I’ve never seen eyes that strange color, like … almost like the lead in pencils, not really human but … Not animal, though, that’s not what’s wrong with them and actually, they’re nice eyes. Just … weird. How about a mask? Like a robber wears, the ones that look like raccoon faces? Or, we could cut holes out of a piece of cloth and hang it down over your face, from under a hat, maybe. You don’t have a beard yet, or even any mustache, so that’s no good. How old are men when they start to grow beards and mustaches anyway? I think my brother is starting one—the second brother, he’s fifteen, not the oldest one, Sandor’s still as smooth as an egg and it makes him furious. So do you like the tart? Can I have just one bite? My father wants Gabrielle to offer it on the first month’s menu. They’re going to change the desserts every month, to use what’s in season. Do you know what he got?”

  Max was thinking about masks. “No, what?”

  “He got a letter from the King, well, one of Teodor’s secretaries, asking when B’s would be opening and if there will be a room where the King could dine privately. With his family, the letter said. He likes to go out among his people.”

  “How is it ‘out among his people’ if they’re in a private dining room?” Max wondered. The kind of mask Pia suggested wouldn’t hide his eyes; in fact, it might draw attention to them.

  “It’s because my father’s businesses are so successful,” Pia went on. “Everybody knows him. It’s funny, everybody knows him and nobody knows you. Except maybe this ferryboat captain. I remember him, from when we went to deal with Madame Olenka. He stared at me.”