The Ludwig Conspiracy (14 page)

“Don’t worry about that, Herr Lukas. We’ll just have to make our respectable bookseller into a different kind of guy.” She looked him up and down. “Did I mention that you and David, my cute ex-boyfriend, are exactly the same size?”

T
HE KING LAY
, eyes closed, on a gently rocking waterbed, wearing padded leather headphones and listening to the overture from Wagner’s
Tannhäuser.
The bed was carved entirely from oak, with an elaborate Gothic canopy over it. The door to the house’s chapel stood ajar, displaying the triptych of the altarpiece before which the king knelt to pray every morning before going about the tiresome duty of making money.

The Royal Highness had accumulated a great deal of it over the last few years, far more than the few million Ludwig had had at his disposal. But like Ludwig himself, the king took no real satisfaction in hoarding it, raking it in, having it to command. Money was only an abstract entity enabling one to live more and more entirely in one’s own dreams. The last step to that goal was the book. Its secret was the last stone in the mosaic. Once that was in place, nothing would be as it had been before. If it had turned up at any other time, who knows, perhaps it would have changed the history of the country. Perhaps it might yet do so.

The book . . .

The king’s annoyance mingled with Wagner’s blaring horns and trumpets. Not that there was doubt about acquiring Theodor Marot’s account. The king was, however, getting impatient. It had been too long a wait already. That damn professor had pulled a fast one, and now the antiquarian bookseller had simply vanished.

The king licked dry lips and turned up the volume of the music. At least the man couldn’t go to the police. If he did, he’d risk spending the rest of his life in prison, without any of his beloved books. The Excellency smiled. The antiquarian bookseller’s actions had proven no problem to anticipate. It was so easy to see through people.

Planting the hat and coat was a stroke of genius. Both items of clothing had still been in the car after Gareth and Gawain had dispatched the professor. Gareth had only to plant them, bloodstained as they were, in the bookshop, and after that, a well-placed phone call had been enough to bring the cops out like a swarm of angry bees.

The Royal Highness gave a thoughtful tilt of the head. In spite of everything, that scrawny man could be dangerous, as Gareth’s death had shown. The king would never have believed the bookseller capable of killing one of the strongest knights in cold blood, but at least it had put this Lukas under more pressure. Soon he’d come scurrying out of hiding like a mouse out of its hole, and then they must strike.

The king thought for a long time, finally removing the headphones and pulling a velvet cord beside the bed, eliciting a faint ringing.

Only the best man would do for this job.

Mere seconds later, the door opened, and a giant entered the king’s bedchamber. He was more than six feet tall and built like a heavy, antique item of furniture. Unlike the other knights, he did not wear a tracksuit jacket, but a black tailored suit, with an equally dark leather coat over it, giving him the appearance of a panther with a matte gleam to its fur. His black hair was tied back in a braid, his full beard was trimmed to perfection, and there was a jagged scar the length of a man’s finger on his right cheek.

“Majesty?” he asked quietly, his voice like the growling of an old bear.

“We still have this . . . problem,” said the king. “Gareth has failed, and the others don’t seem up to the task. So I’m sending you, Lancelot.”

“What are your orders, Excellency?”

“Find the book. And make sure that bookseller keeps the secret to himself. We can only hope he hasn’t solved the riddle yet.”

“Everyone knows that dead men tell no tales.”

The king nodded and moved to put the headphones back on.

“The man’s obviously gone into hiding,” Lancelot growled. “Any leads on where I can find him?”

“He’s surely crept into some mouse hole or other,” the king said, waving off the question. “Maybe he’s with that woman. How should I know? Check his friends, his family, his background. He can’t have dissolved into thin air, can he? And use our contacts with the police. They could know something.”

Then eyes again closed and headphones back on, the king hummed along to the aria from act two of
Tannhäuser.

Lancelot bowed stiffly, like an old oak bending in the wind, and, following the old court ceremonial, walked backward out of the room. No one could say the king wasn’t barking mad, but the pay was good. Damn good. Lancelot had already worked as bodyguard for several millionaires, had been a security advisor in the Congo and for Blackwater in Iraq, but his present post looked like it would wind up being the most lucrative in his career to date—and possibly his last. Another year in The Royal Majesty’s service, and Lancelot would finally be able to afford the stylish forty-foot yacht he coveted. Then he could set off, never to be seen again, for the Caribbean, where he intended to spend the rest of his life with bare-breasted blondes and a large supply of well-chilled daiquiris.

He just had to track down that book and the infuriating little bookseller.

If he’d read the man correctly, the bookseller had not crept away to hide in a mouse hole. One thing that Lancelot had learned in his years of training was that a man who killed his opponent in cold blood didn’t hide; he went on the attack. Not to mention that this Steven Lukas seemed to be as inquisitive as a weasel.

Lancelot rubbed his old scar. It always itched when something aroused his hunting instinct—like some ancient animal. Finally he patted the holster under his leather jacket, where he had his semiautomatic Glock 17.

The knight smiled a chilly smile. This antiquarian bookseller shouldn’t present much of a problem. He could already smell the beach, and those daiquiris.

“N
OT A BAD LOOK ON YOU
,” Sara remarked, searching for a music channel on the car radio. “Makes you seem younger, anyway.”

“Oh, shut up,” Steven grumbled. “I feel stupid enough already, thanks.”

“Hey now.” Sara was swaying in time to a Nirvana song as she passed a honking Ford station wagon. “My dear ex-boyfriend David may have had the intellect of a twelve-year-old, but his clothes were always top quality.”

“Sure, if you like hooded sweaters and jeans so low that the waist is at my knees. And will you please switch off that damn radio before they broadcast my description again?”

“Anything you say, sir.”

Sara turned off the radio, and Steven stared out the window, where his weary, unshaven face was reflected in the side mirror. He wore Ray-Ban sunglasses with silver lenses, and above them a baseball cap with the New York Yankees logo. He had changed from his white cotton button-down shirt into a T-shirt with the dates of all the gigs from Bon Jovi’s most recent tour printed on it. Over that, he had a well-worn leather jacket with shoulder pads, and instead of his corduroy pants with their neatly ironed creases, he wore torn blue jeans. He looked like an American backpacker visiting Germany with the sole aim of getting blotto at the Oktoberfest.

“I’m dressed for a damn nightclub,” he muttered. “What does this famous ex-boyfriend David of yours do for a living?”

“He’s a reporter for a trend magazine,” Sara replied. “You have to look the part. It’s kind of like a uniform.”

“Oh, wonderful, I knew that was your type.” Steven pushed the cap well down over his face as a car came toward them on the other side of the road. “I guess I’d better interview myself. Antiquarian bookseller turns deranged murderer. It would make a great headline.”

“Don’t make such a fuss, Herr Lukas,” said Sara, switching into fourth gear. “It really doesn’t look so bad. It’s even kind of attractive, if you want to know the truth. And it does its job. I mean, did anyone give you a second look in that drugstore?” She winked at him. “What’s more, I think that jacket suits you much better than your boring old suit.”

“Just because I was born in the United States doesn’t mean I have to look like some spoiled prep schooler,” Steven complained.

“Are you really American? Don’t let the girls know. They’ll think you’re some kind of rock star and be all over you.”

“Very funny, Frau Lengfeld. You’d better concentrate on the road.”

They had stopped at a small drugstore to buy him a toothbrush, shaving gear, and deodorant. The girl at the register had smiled at him, and the few women who looked at him did so with obvious approval. Reluctantly, Steven had to admit that his transformation into a man in his midthirties with a midlife crisis aroused more goodwill than anything else in most people. All the same, he felt simply . . . 
wrong.
This wasn’t him, and he was sure that others would sense it sooner or later.

“Only another hour to Linderhof at the most. Three-quarters of an hour if I speed.”

Tires squealing, Sara turned onto the Garmisch expressway and merged into traffic, which was not too heavy now, in the early afternoon. The fall sunlight shone in through the windshield. Linden and beech trees with their leaves turning color rimmed the multilane road, the Alps were bright on the horizon. They were driving straight toward the mountains, which looked as if they were only a few miles away. They had soon left the city behind them, and the onion domes of village churches appeared rising out of the sea of leaves on the trees.

This would be a nice trip,
Steven thought,
except that I’m wanted for acts of torture and demented murder.

His eye fell yet again on the small military-green rucksack on his lap. It contained, wrapped in a plastic supermarket bag, the little wooden box with the photographs, the lock of hair, and the diary. He had also brought his notepad with the decoded part of the story. For a moment, Steven was tempted simply to fling the bundle out of the window. The wretched diary had blown his life apart like a category five hurricane. But curiosity won out, as well as that strange feeling that he still couldn’t explain. It was almost as if he were tethered to the book.

Steven stared out the window. What could be so secret that Theodor Marot would code it twice over?

“Oops, looks like we have a problem.”

Sara’s voice jostled Steven from his thoughts. Before he could say anything in reply, he saw that a backup of traffic had formed on the tree-lined expressway ahead of them. Several hundred yards away, he saw a rhythmically flashing blue light. The drivers ahead of them had wound down their side windows and stared ahead curiously. Steven’s pulse shot up at once.

“They’re looking for me,” he said. “First that description over the radio, now this. I must have been crazy to go along with your loopy plan.”

“It could be anything,” Sara said, trying to reassure him. “Maybe it’s only an accident. Anyway, your own mother wouldn’t know you in those clothes.”

“And suppose they ask to see my ID, then what?”

Sara did not reply to that, and the car drove slowly toward the blue light. By now they were close enough to see that it was indeed a police checkpoint. A uniformed officer was standing by the roadside with an illuminated baton, directing vehicles over to the hard shoulder, where a police cruiser was parked. Through its side door, which was open, Steven could see police officers checking IDs. Sara’s Mini inched closer to the checkpoint.

“Oh God, I won’t get through this,” Steven said. “This is the end.”

“You just do exactly as I tell you,” Sara said calmly. “Take off those sunglasses and smile like a redneck from Alabama. That shouldn’t be so hard, seeing as you’re American. Okay?”

Steven closed his eyes and swore under his breath. Then he did as she said. His smile felt as false as a smile at a funeral. Foot by foot, they approached the officer with the baton. He let the car in front of them through, and then it was their turn. Sara rolled the window down and hailed the police officer.

“What’s going on?” she said indistinctly, as if she were chewing gum. “The Oktoberfest ended weeks ago. Still checking for drunk drivers?”

The officer said nothing but sternly inspected the interior of the car.

“Where are you going?” he finally asked, in an official tone.

“Into the mountains,” Sara cheerfully replied. “Going to show my American friend here the Alps.”

“Hi. Any problems with the car?” Steven spoke in English, with the broadest Southern accent he could summon, and raised a hesitant hand in greeting. His smile froze as the police officer scrutinized him. For a moment the man seemed about to say something; then he suddenly bent forward and pointed to the license plate.

“Your registration runs out in three months,” he said sternly, turning to Sara. “Mind you see to it.”

“I will. Have a nice day.”

The art detective stepped on the gas, and soon the blue light behind them was only a distant blinking. For a long time, neither of them said anything.

“That . . . that . . .” Steven stammered at last. “Well done! How did you manage to keep so cool?”

“Cool?” Sara stared at him in horror, and only then did Steven notice the pallor of her face. “I was so scared, I almost threw up. I haven’t been that nervous since I ran into a police patrol with five glasses of prosecco inside me outside a Munich nightclub!”

Involuntarily, the bookseller smiled; obviously Sara wasn’t quite so hardboiled as she made out. “Anyway, you’re certainly cut out to be a detective,” he said at last. “Or do you learn that kind of thing in the mean streets of Berlin’s Wedding district?” He leaned back, breathing deeply. “I can do without a repeat performance of that little incident.”

They drove in silence along the expressway as it led, like an endless gray ribbon, past woods and meadows. To their left, the little river Loisach wound its way through a hilly green landscape, dotted with stables, hamlets, and barns; they were a good deal closer to the Alps now.

“I’ve been thinking about the amulet that man, Bernd Reiser, was wearing,” Sara suddenly announced. “I’ve an idea the swan acts as a kind of signal to those who wear it. As a symbol of recognition, showing that they’re loyal to the king.”