The Palace Guard (21 page)

“Were you indeed?”

“Indeed I was, or might have been. He invited me to his pad while we were having that drink. I only managed to save myself by declining with thanks.”

“Did you have to thank him?”

“It seemed the courteous thing to do. He was paying for the drinks. Just think, if I’d accepted, he wouldn’t have let the boys use his pad and he wouldn’t have had to seek solace with Lydia, poor thing. She’s still hanging on, by the way. I just spoke with the nurse. Now nip down to the corner and get Brooks his root beer while I break the news to Mrs. Sorpende that she’s being stood up.”

Mrs. Sorpende took the blow bravely, making reference to the fact that when duty whispers low, ‘Thou must,’ the youth replies, ‘I can,’ and expressing the opinion that Mr. Brooks Kelling showed a delightfully youthful exuberance of spirit. Sarah had to agree even as she wondered what further mess her cousin’s exuberance was about to get them into.

After dinner she retired to her bedroom promptly on the half-hour, put on an old pair of pants and a jacket she usually wore for things like cleaning out the gutters at Ireson’s Landing. She sneaked down the back stairs, collected Brooks’s ham sandwiches, root beer, and a bottle opener from the kitchen, and met Bittersohn by stealth in the back alley. He had his car and they lost no time getting to the palazzo. Precisely at nine, they were crouched in front of a small oblong window set into the foundation of the palazzo and conveniently screened by a high privet hedge.

“This is it, my love.” Bittersohn poked at the sash and the window swung noiselessly inward. “I’d better go first to catch you in case there’s a big drop at the bottom. Are you sure you can manage?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sarah told him scornfully. “I’d go down belly-bumper if it weren’t for the root beer.”

“The hell you would.” He inserted his long legs in the small aperture, lay flat, and vanished into blackness. Sarah heard a swish, a thud, then a muffled “Next, please.”

Sarah poked her feet through as he had, murmured hysterically, “If Cousin Mabel could only see me now!” took a firmer grip on the sandwich bag, and shoved off.

A second later Bittersohn had her in his arms, root beer and all. “Are you okay?” he whispered.

“Yes, fine. Where’s Brooks?”

“Right here,” hissed her cousin. “Did you bring the sandwiches?”

“Yes, and a rousing Godspeed from Mrs. Sorpende, though she’s sorry to miss the angleworms. Are you starved?”

“Ravenous, but I don’t care to eat in the coalbin. Too gritty. Follow me and don’t make a sound.”

Walking flat on the soles of his feet, Indian style, Brooks led his cohorts up the basement stairs, through the Donatello Wing, and straight toward the Grand Staircase. “We’ll have to risk it,” he breathed. “There’s no other way.”

“Where are we going?” whispered Bittersohn.

“Third floor. Sh-h!”

He shoved them into the refuge of an alleged cathedral stall as footsteps pounded toward them on the tiled floor. The watchman passed within six feet of them and vanished through the door to the basement they’d just left.

“Timed that just right.” Brooks chuckled softly. “Now we make a dash for it. Keep close to the balustrade.”

He charged upward like Great-uncle Nathan Kelling at San Juan Hill, Max and Sarah at his heels. They reached the Titian Room without incident. “And now,” said Brooks in hushed but firm tones, “let’s have those sandwiches. We’re safe for exactly sixteen minutes and thirty-two seconds. Ah, I see you remembered the bottle opener. Anyone for root beer?”

“I’d rather have a clue as to what this is all about,” said Bittersohn.

“So should I,” Brooks replied through a mouthful of ham. “I can only tell you that Dr. Aguinaldo Ruy Lopez was back again this afternoon in a different guise. Casing the joint, I believe it’s called. He had an odd-looking chap with him and from an injudicious word this other fellow let drop in my hearing I deduced they were plotting to break in tonight. I don’t know what they’re up to, but whatever it is will apparently take place here in the Titian Room.”

He refreshed himself with a swig of root beer and deployed his forces. “Sarah, you get back into that sedan chair out in the Grand Salon. Maintain a vigilant lookout. As soon as you detect any sign of activity on the stairs, put your hand up to the rear window and wave this handkerchief of mine. It has a luminous monogram. Bittersohn, you lurk behind that suit of spurious medieval armor in the corner by the door.”

“Oui, mon capitaine.
Where will you be?”

“Up there.” Brooks pointed to the massive overhanging hood of a fifteenth-century Italian fireplace.

“You’ll kill yourself,” Sarah protested.

“No, I shan’t. I did a test run this afternoon.” He swarmed up the carvings like a middle-aged rhesus monkey. “Can you see me?”

“You blend in with the decor.”

“Good. Now, you both understand what you’re to do?”

“No. What happens when they get here?”

“We rely on the inspiration of the moment. Would you mind handing me up another sandwich?”

“I hope they don’t track us down by the odor of delicatessen,” Sarah muttered.

“No fear of that with ham, I believe. Pastrami would have presented a risk. Now, if I may just have what’s left of the root beer? Good girl. Take the bag with you into the sedan chair and mind you don’t rattle the paper. Places, everyone.”

Sarah scuttled back to the sedan chair and settled herself in the same place where she’d struggled to pin her sari back on, praying that the dust in the cushions wouldn’t make her sneeze at the wrong moment. As the eternities ticked by, she realized she could have sneezed her head off and it wouldn’t have mattered. After an aeon or two, the watchman trudged by on his rounds, not even bothering to glance at the chair. Sarah reached stealthily into the bag, extracted the last ham sandwich, and ate it.

At least it was fairly warm in the chair, and the seat wasn’t too hard. What with the stuffiness and her exhaustion from the previous night’s activities, she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. She relaxed against the musty cushions for just a moment, felt herself slipping off the seat, and sat up with a jerk. Had she actually dropped off to sleep? Poor Max must be having screaming fidgets by now.

Then she heard a clatter on the stairs and a voice from somewhere below saying, “Like I told you, man, it’s a breeze.”

S
ARAH HELD COUSIN BROOKS’S
luminous monogram to the dusty glass and waved frantically, though surely the two lurkers in the Titian Room must have heard the commotion on the stairs, too. The invaders were making no effort to be quiet. They must know they had nothing to fear from the watchman. Either they’d tied him up or—Sarah hoped to heaven they’d only tied him up.

She saw a yellowish glow from some sort of light they were carrying. Now she could tell who they both were. One was Lupe, as she’d expected. The other was Bengo, the painter who’d fluffed Rembrandt’s cat. Bengo was staggering under the weight of what looked like a huge suitcase. Lupe bristled with an assortment of long, slender, rodlike objects with blobs on their ends. Were they planning to erect an abstract sculpture? Was this merely some far-out joke?

No, they wouldn’t be doing a thing like this just for fun. Lupe wasn’t that sort. And they were going into the Titian Room, as Brooks had thought they would. Following the dim light, Sarah could make out a shadow detaching itself from the suit of armor in the corner and sneaking after the two. Her heart froze. All she could think was, “I must love him terribly. I couldn’t be this scared if I didn’t.”

What if they had guns? What if Cousin Brooks took a notion to leap Tarzan-like from the medieval carvings and capture them, and failed? Sarah remembered too well what Joe Witherspoon’s body looked like falling past her eyes to land among the hyacinths. But the gargoyles all stayed put and she began to relax a bit.

Whatever were they up to in there? She could hear thuds, crashes, altercations in an outdated gibberish that consisted mostly of the words “like,” “man,” and “dig.” She could see that yellowish light bobbing around. It must be an ordinary flashlight with something tied over the lens to make the gleam less noticeable from outside. Gradually curiosity got the better of caution. Sarah opened the well-oiled door inch by inch and eased herself out of the sedan chair. Her foot struck the paper bag and she pulled back in terror, but the rattle of paper must have been too faint to be heard above the racket Lupe and Bengo were making.

She wasn’t the only one who’d got tired of sitting still. Slowly, noiselessly, one of the effigies was moving down off that towering mantel. Cousin Brooks had once remarked that he could get within two feet of a hermit thrush, shyest of birds, without causing it to twitch a tailfeather. Now she believed him. Well, if he was getting into the action, so was she.

Grateful for her dark clothes, old sneakers, and the obscuring veil of coal dust she must have acquired on her way down the chute, she slithered into the Titian Room. Brooks neither turned his head nor made any start of surprise, but reached out for her elbow and steered her into the shadow of the immense carved fireplace. Now she had a ringside view of the action.

The Titian Room was being transformed into a photography studio. The bulbous objects turned out to be floodlights on metal tripods. They had been set up in a semicircle around the huge “Rape of Lucrece.” A professional box camera that must have been in the big case stood in front of the painting. At the moment Lupe’s head was under a black viewing cloth and Bengo was holding the hooded flashlight to illuminate the canvas.

Now Lupe’s head emerged from under the cloth. “Okay, man, we’re in focus. Now you see why we boosted this stuff from the camera store?”

“Man, you got smarts like it’s goin’ out of style,” Bengo replied in awe and reverence. “How you get all them brains in one skull, like?”

“You an operator, you operate. Now, man, we get us some feelthy peectures in like living color of this fat broad with the big boobs. Then you paint us a copy on that big canvas we been antiquing out on Leroy’s roof.”

“I dig, man. Then we sell the copy.”

“No, man. Then we come back here with the copy, put it in the frame like, and boost us a genuine Titian.”

“Cat daddy,” breathed Bengo, “you are ba-ad!”

“Man, I hear you talkin’. Now plug in them lights an’ like watch the birdie.”

“What if the fuzz spot the lights through the window?”

“Who cares? We be long gone while the fuzz still huntin’ for the doorknob. Like plug ’em in, man.”

“Like where?”

“Like in the outlets. Ain’t you got no smarts?”

“Man, I got no outlets.”

“What you mean, no outlets? Even Leroy’s pad got outlets.”

Brooks pulled Sarah closer to the fireplace as the conspirators’ flashlight made a frantic circuit of the baseboards and walls. She could feel his wiry little body shaking, and thought at first he was having an attack of nerves. Then she realized her cousin was overcome with silent hilarity, and she remembered why.

When the palazzo was erected, Madam Wilkins had reluctantly installed a coal furnace as a necessary concession to the rigors of Boston winters. In other respects, she’d been a stickler for authenticity. The Medici didn’t have electric lights and she wasn’t having them either.

Brooks got himself under control at last, cleared his throat, and stepped put into the light. “Bengo is quite right, Dr. Ruy Lopez. There are no outlets. But don’t worry. I came prepared.”

The explosion of his miniature flash gun caught the pair open-mouthed. Bittersohn leaped out of the gloom and grabbed them in a double armlock. Lupe struggled in vain to get free. Bengo, however, had not bathed in many moons. His skin was so greasy that he managed to slither away.

“Get that camera,” yelled Lupe.

Sarah shrieked as Bengo made a dive for Brooks, but that resourceful gentleman merely stuck out his foot. His attacker sprawled flat on the authentic Venetian flagstone floor. She picked up the dropped flashlight, stripped off the old sock that covered the lens, and gave them a better light. Now she could see Max Bittersohn holding Lupe six inches off the floor and shaking him into passivity. Brooks was seated comfortably on Bengo’s shoulder blades, holding out a little box of safety matches.

“Be a good girl, Sarah, and light the candles in those sconces. We may as well have some illumination as we chat over the events of the evening.”

“I ain’t rattin’,” Bengo gasped.

“I am,” said Lupe. “Anything you gentlemen want to know, I be happy to sing like the dinkey bird in the amfalula tree. Maybe we could like work out a deal.”

“You’re in no position to deal.” Bittersohn gave Lupe a final shake and set him down with a thump.

At last the dealer was able to get a look at the man who’d caught him. “You?” he gasped. “Fuzz? Man, that ain’t cricket.”

“Tough toenails, cat daddy. Now talk. Who put you up to this?”

“Nobody, man.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Man, if I had somebody to rat on, you think I wouldn’t? It was like inspiration. It just come over me, man.”

“While you were playing Dr. Aguinaldo Ruy Lopez to make a sucker out of Max Bittersohn, right?”

Lupe smiled and said nothing.

“Who hired you for the Ruy Lopez act?”

“What’s in it for me if I tell?”

“There might be quite a lot if you don’t.”

“Man, you don’t have to get nasty. I said I’d sing, didn’t I? It was Lunchless.”

“Lunchless who?”

“Like Lunchless. Man, you know. The fat old cat with the notes. Bernie’s baby-sitter.”

“Are you referring to Nicholas Fieringer, who arranges the concerts Bernie plays in?”

“Man, what I just say? Lunchless comes up to me and says, how I like to make half a yard? I say I like it fine. Like green is my favoritest color, man.”

“Did Fieringer tell you why you were to do this impersonation?”

“Man, who needs to know? Anybody offer me long bread to wash my neck and speak Spanish for a while I don’t ask no questions, man.”

“Even though it meant coming to the place where your uncle had just been murdered?”