Faerie Tale (23 page)

She quickly read it, then hit him in the arm, hard. “You shit. You let me prattle on and didn’t say a word.” She grabbed him and hugged him hard. “Congratulations.”

“Well, I haven’t agreed. They want some things—” She silenced him with a kiss. “Oh, shut up. That’s what agents are for. You’ll work out the details. I’m so proud of you, darling. The first publisher out of the bag and you get an offer.” She stepped away and said, “The money’s not great, but it’s not chump change either.”

“Well, you’ve got to remember, I didn’t exactly tear up the New York
Times
bestseller list with my books. My credits in film count spit in publishing.”

“Look, it’s a deal, as my father always says. Get the deal, then worry about the details.”

“Come on. We’re going out for dinner tonight.”

“Good idea.” She smiled and walked with her arm around his waist. Since the night of Gabbie’s assault, this was the first time Gloria felt relaxed.

“Help!”

Gabbie turned from hammering at the plank Jack held in place and they exchanged startled glances. Then Jack dropped the plank and they ran toward the front of the house.

They rounded the corner and discovered one of the workmen hanging from the lintel under the corner of the roof, while Phil frantically tried to right a stepladder the struggling man had kicked over. Ted Mullins was hurrying toward the accident. Phil held the ladder while Jack scrambled up and grabbed the man. Through gritted teeth the workman said, “My hand’s caught.” He managed to get his feet back on the ladder, but he was unable to free his hand.

Jack looked up and saw that one of the strange gargoyle-like carvings had twisted, capturing the workman’s hand like a vise. Jack said, “Give me a pry bar or a big screwdriver.”

Ted removed a very large screwdriver from the toolbox and handed it up. “Get ready to catch him,” said Jack as he levered the screwdriver between the carving and the next one. Then, with all his strength, Jack lifted up, using the large screwdriver as a lever, pushing the carving upward so the man could slip his hand out from between the clamping jaws.

The man fell away, caught by Phil and Ted. Jack inspected the carving. “It broke loose,” he observed. The carving had pulled away at the top, causing it to tilt for
ward. The lower part of the carving had struck a support beam under the lintel and the ugly head had cracked behind the alligatorlike jaw, but not broken free. If it had broken, the man would have simply fallen. As it was, the carving had caught the man’s hand, his own weight acting as the force to keep the hand pinned between the jaws.

“It’s like the damn thing bit me,” exclaimed the workman, wrapping his hand in a handkerchief. The skin had broken and the white handkerchief was stained red.

“You’d better have that looked at,” said Phil.

“I’ll take him to the hospital,” said Ted.

He took the man in tow and Phil looked at Jack and Gabbie. “That’s pretty odd.”

“It’s freaky, all right,” agreed Gabbie. “What was he doing there anyway?”

“The cables from the dish run into the house there.”

Jack looked. “I don’t see them.”

Phil showed him where the coaxial cable and the control lines ran up the support closest to the dish and disappeared into a hole at the base of the lintel. “They must run inside.”

Jack climbed back up the ladder. “These carvings are all set into a big piece of wood. There’s some new screws here.” He looked down. “See that pile of them down there.” Phil saw the dozen or so screws near the base of the ladder. “He was taking the last one out when the board shifted—strange, it looks like it’s been pushed from inside.” Jack unscrewed the last fastener and put it in his pocket. He grabbed the line of gargoyles.

“Careful,” admonished Gabbie as Jack moved the cumbersome piece of wood outward.

After several inches, Jack could see the cable. “They move along here,” he said, sighting along the board, “and run toward the parlor.”

“They come out there. Mullin’s put them back there for appearance,” said Phil.

“Tidy. But it does make checking for damage a pain in the ass.” Jack looked down the board; something caught his eye back under the roof. “Thought I saw something
moving. Ernie? You crawling around in there?” He squinted, as if trying to pierce the gloom by force of will. He looked down at Phil. “Got a flashlight?”

“Yes, I’ll get it,” said Gabbie.

Jack was left holding the long wooden facing with the odd carvings while she hurried inside. She returned and handed the light up to Jack. Jack shined it into the darkness. “Hello, what have we here? There’s something back in there.”

“What?” asked Phil.

“I can’t tell. Even with the flashlight it’s awful dark. And it’s a fair ways back.”

“How did you See it?” asked Gabbie.

Jack tossed back the flashlight. “I thought I saw something move for an instant. A trick of my eyes, I guess.”

He put the board back in place and quickly returned the one screw holding it up. Hurrying down the ladder, he said, “Mullins will want to check the cables, so I’ll leave it like I found it.”

“What about that thing you saw? Can you fish it out?” asked Gabbie.

“It’s pretty well back. Even with a broom handle I couldn’t reach it.”

“Well, how did it get there?” wondered Phil.

Jack regarded the roof line. “That’s the boys’ room up there?”

“Right.”

“Can we take a look around there?”

“Sure.” They hurried inside and up the stairs. In the boys’ room Jack went to the window and looked out to judge his location relative to the porch roof. “I think about here,” he said, pointing at where the wall met the floor.

He moved a toy chest and inspected the wall below the window. After a few minutes, Phil and Gabbie joined him. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, until Phil noticed an odd depression near the base of the wall. “Give me that screwdriver,” he said.

Jack and Gabbie watched as Phil put the screwdriver in the indentation and pried upward. A section of the
floor moved just enough to slip his fingers under the side, three boards cut to fit so closely they looked one with the rest of the floorboards. The lid was an odd one, for the boards were of unequal length, the trap lid cut along the natural lines of the boards so no unusual seams could be seen. “Well, I’ll be go to hell,” said Phil.

Jack grinned. “There’s a lot of this in these old houses. They were built before the government insured banks. Most folks down home can show you where great-grandfather hid what little they had from the Yankees. You wax them a few times to fill the cracks and you can run your hand over them all day and never find them.”

Phil shined the light down and the beam fell upon a pouch or packet of some kind. Jack reached in and gingerly removed what appeared to be a wrapped bundle of papers. “Treasure maps, do you suppose?” said Phil.

Jack observed the package. It was a white-flaked bundle of some sort of cloth. “Let’s get it down to the study.”

They took it downstairs and put it on the desk. Jack regarded the white substance on his hand and said, “I think this is wax.”

Phil was gingerly poking at the cloth. “Feels pretty brittle. Must be old.”

“Maybe not.” Jack rubbed the flakes between his fingers and smelled the residue. “Paraffin,” observed Jack. “It’s used for waterproofing. Only problem is it burns really well. We used to dip matchsticks in it in the Boy Scouts.”

“I didn’t know you were a boy scout,” said Gabbie in a teasing manner.

“Lots of things you don’t know, darlin’,” Jack teased in return.

“Can we open the package?” said Phil.

“I think,” answered Jack. “It’s the wax that’s brittle, not the paper or whatever.” Jack’s guess turned out to be correct, as the wrapping turned out to be light oilcloth. Inside they found several documents.

Jack and Phil scanned them and Gabbie said, “What is it?”

Jack shrugged. “They’re all in German. All I managed
was a C minus in high school, and that was a while ago. Can you read kraut?”

“Only Spanish and then pretty badly,” admitted Gabbie.

They could hear the sound of a car in the drive. Gabbie looked out the window and said, “We’re saved. It’s Mark.” She ran from the room.

Phil glanced at his watch. “He’s a little early.”

Jack smiled. “I like a man who knows how to time his entrance.”

Mark and Gary entered the room, Gabbie at Mark’s side. Jack glanced at them, then did a double take, noting with some discomfort the manner in which Gabbie clung to Mark’s arm. Since they had begun regular therapy sessions, Gabbie had started to speak a lot about Mark. Jack struggled to put aside an unreasonable stab of jealousy.

Gary said, “Gabbie says you found something interesting.”

Phil indicated the pile and Mark picked up a paper. He quickly scanned it and handed it to Gary. One after the other, they looked and then laughed aloud. “This is wonderful!”

“What is it?” asked Gabbie, excitedly jumping up and down.

“Fredrick Kessler’s records. The old scoundrel was a con man.”

Gary pointed at a paper. “He was, to put it bluntly, a swindler.”

“What?”

Gary said, “I’ll have to read these carefully, but it seems he had odd transactions going on with several banks at the same time. And if I’m not mistaken … humm …”—he compared three different papers—“… he was using the same collateral for all three loans.” With a toothy grin he said, “And I do believe that sort of thing is frowned upon.”

“At least by the banks,” said Mark. Then his smile vanished. “Look at this.”

Gary did so and whistled. “I’ll be damned. That’s unbelievable.”

“What?” asked Gabbie, delighted with the find.

“It’s a notation from a bank president, ah, a Mr. Schmidt at German Manufacturers Trust of New York, that certifies he’s seen the gold that’s used for collateral.” He quickly searched through the other documents. “See, there are several others. This is from the First German American Bank of Brooklyn.”

Gary said, “All these bankers had German names and all the documents are in German.”

“That was common enough,” said Mark. “Immigrants like to deal with their own people. Bank of America was founded as the Bank of Italy in San Francisco years ago.”

“Could they have had connections back in Germany?” wondered Gary.

“I don’t know, but it’s a possibility. Maybe mutual business acquaintances from the old country. German-American banks with offices in both countries, perhaps. Anyway, one thing is certain: That old swindler used the same gold several times as collateral for loans.”

“How could he do that?” asked Jack. “Didn’t the banks check to see if there were papers out on that gold? Or take possession of the gold?”

“Things were a lot looser before the big bank collapses during the Great Depression,” observed Mark. “Back then they sort of shot from the hip. Without much government control, banks could be anything from stuffy old countinghouses to fast-and-loose investment cartels, playing the stocks or commodity markets with the investors’ savings. There was a lot more potential for abuse. Banks used to go bust regularly.” Mark continued looking through all the documents and at last said, “But there’s still nothing that tells us what he did with the gold.”

“Maybe he sold it off?” said Jack.

“If he had, I’d expect him to have left a record.” He indicated the bundle.

Gary nodded. “He seems to have been fastidious in everything else. These records could have hung his butt if the banks had found out before he paid off his notes.”

Gabbie seemed disappointed. “I hoped for a treasure map.”

“And I hoped for something to tie Kessler in with all the odd goings-on in Germany at the turn of the century,” said Mark. “Still, this is another piece of the puzzle.”

“Maybe there’s another secret hideaway around here somewhere.”

Gary grinned. “Want to play treasure hunt?”

“You four can if you want. Gloria and I are having dinner in town,” said Phil. “As you are all here, I’ll tell you now. I got an offer for my book.”

The announcement was met with general congratulations all around, and Gloria, who had been in the shower, shouted down from the second-story landing, “What’s going on down there?”

Phil shouted back to her, “Come on down. We’re having a party!”

“Not until I put on more than a bath towel. Wait until I get dressed!”

A few minutes later, Gloria entered wearing a robe, her hair still damp from the shower. “What’s it all about?”

“Treasure maps and lost gold,” said her husband with a happy little dance around the desk. “Tales of corruption in high circles. Bankers in league with mysterious Germans.” Mark and Gary began to laugh loudly. “Scams to make a patent medicine salesman blush. And secrets of the ages, wonders and terrors, all wrapped up for a grand adventure.” Kissing her lightly on the cheek, he added in bright spirits, “And celebrating a true miracle, an editor who recognizes genius when he reads it.”

Gloria smiled. “So it finally hit you.” He grinned back and kissed her again. Then she hugged him tightly. Over her shoulder she said, “Well, I guess we have a party. Gabbie, call the pizza man. Jack, break out the beer.” She shrieked in mixed pleasure and annoyance as Phil bit her neck and patted her on the rump. “You animal!” As Gabbie left the room, she shouted after her, “And find the boys!”

Above, in the narrow space between the ceiling and floor, the Bad Thing moved. The package had been discovered and the master would be pleased. Things were always better when the master had been pleased. The simple creature, evil in most ways, truly desired to please the master. And the master had been wroth when he had discovered the Bad Thing had attacked the boy under the bridge. And the Bad Thing didn’t like it when the master was angry. He had not wished to ignore the master’s will, but the boy had entered his lair, and he had smelled so fresh and young, so warm and tender. For a moment the Bad Thing shuddered in pleasure, remembering the warm, wet scent of Patrick’s blood. Then it remembered the master’s displeasure and the pain and its shudder became one of fear. With a soft sound, like a baby’s sigh, it moved like a spider through the secret crawl space between the floor above and ceiling below, hanging upside down most of the way. At the lintel, at the corner below the boys’ room, it pushed aside a narrow board and squeezed out, scampering down the drainpipe. It didn’t like being about in the light, for the daylight made it remember vague images of a time long forgotten, when the Bad Thing had been young. Such memories hurt. And the light gave it few places in which to hide. But the afternoon was waning and the shadows were growing longer, so it could reach the woods safely. Besides, it considered, nothing in the house posed a threat. Nothing there could harm it. Nothing.