The Medici Dagger

“All three of ’em,” I answered. “I’ve got to figure out the Circles of Truth. Without Ginny’s help. I’ll need Mona more than ever now.”

“I could go for Mona myself right now,” he said. “Or a doughnut.”

“Ginny’s a mountain tiger.” My tongue was thick with alcohol.

“Mountain tiger? What kind of bullshit is that?”

I was in the clouds with Ginny when Pop mumbled, “Doughnuts and mountains.” Then he hiccuped. “Nerts!” he swore. “I hate the hiccups.”

“What’d you say?” I asked, picking up one of the pages of Leonardo’s notes.

“I said, ‘Nerts, I hate the hiccups.’ ”

“No,” I said, staring at the Circles of Truth. “You said ‘doughnuts and mountains.’ Doughnuts and mountains . . .” Searchlights flickered in my mind, illuminating what?

“Yeah, well, you know, tequila’s good,” Pop said, his speech slurred.

I pointed to the Circles, excitement prickling as the outline of a concept emerged. “Say these rings here were tossed onto a mountain; you know, like that Fisher-Price kid’s toy with the different-colored plastic doughnuts in graduated sizes?”

“Yeah, sure. Look like dildoes with the rings off.”

“The point is that the plastic rings are parts of a puzzle. A simple puzzle. In order to solve it, the kid has to line them up in the right order so they’re touching. Do you get me? The doughnuts . . . have to touch. They have totouch.”Thrill radiated through me.

“Hold it,” he said, trying to catch my wave of Cuervo insight. “What’re you saying?”

“Here,” I said, tapping the page. “Maybe Leonardo’s rings are all pieces of the same circle, only sliced apart and shrunk to ever smaller sizes, and each set of ten of them makes up one complete Circle of Truth, whatever that is —a code or something. So in order to solve it you have to blow each inner ring up until they all touch, forming one circular message. Two in this case, because there are two sets of them. I’m on to something. I know it.”

Pop let out a gush of air that smelled like turkey and tequila.

“I think maybe you are. Hard to tell, though. I’m pretty much in the bag.” He closed his eyes, laid his old head back. “In the morning I’ll take you to Mona’s.”

“Do you know if she has a scanner?” I asked.

Pop folded his hands over his belly. “Course she’s got standards, Holmes. Got high ones. She’s seeing me.”

fourteen

Idreamt I was a fresh cruller in a brightly lit case in a doughnut shop, clad in nothing but a sugar glaze, lying back, feet crossed, hands covering my groin, in a line of other crullers. Outside the case, a crowd of people looked in, pointing at me, singling me out. Mean-looking, wavy- haired men in zoot suits; women with full lips and hats with netting over their faces; children with comic books and cowlicks, eyeing me with lip-smacking hunger.

The crullers to my right were perched up on sugary elbows, gawking at me: Krell, the maniacal treasure hunter; Tecci with his wriggling wraparound snake; ring-polishing, coldhearted Beckett.

To my left, Mom and Dad reached glazed hands out to me. Next to them was Ginny, also reaching—to take me in her arms. And next to her was Leonardo—the only one not looking at me. The Dagger was between his teeth, and he was wearing a harness attached to a long rope. He slowly pulled it, eyes on something above him at the top of the case. I tried to see what it was, but couldn’t make it out. It surprised me that he didn’t seem to care he was a cruller.

I heard the sound of water splashing and momentarily panicked. If you’re a cruller and get soaked, it’s all over.

More water, like the drip from a turned-off hose. Then singing— terrible singing. A cross between Ethel Merman and a wounded raccoon. It was Pop crooning “It Had to Be You.”

I opened one heavy eyelid, facedown on the sleeping bag. The doorwas open, Pop standing at the edge of the front porch, zipping his pants. He’d been serenading his dick. Behind him, the morning coastal fog spread out like dingy carpet.

“Top of the floor to you, Pop,” I croaked.

“Morning, Reb. You hungry? I brought some breakfast from the inn.” He waved a finger at a round picnic basket.

Springing up, suddenly fully awake, I asked him, “You went to the inn? Any sign of Ginny?”

“Afraid not. Manny the landscaper, he said him and Kurt just about crapped in the truck when she jumped onto the tractor. They pulled over right away to find out what the heck she was doing up there, and while they’re pumping her for information, they hear gunfire. So they hop in the cab and take off, and don’t look back for a couple of miles. When they do, she’s gone.”

“Damn,” I said. “She could have spent the night in the woods, for all we know. Or Tecci could have snatched her.”

“Don’t go thinking the worst,” Pop said. “It won’t help.” He sat down in the rocker beside me, handing me a biscuit. I chewed it absently.

“Do you think it’s possible she could have found her way to Mona’s?” I said.

“Shit, no. I’d have heard about it. Did she have any money?”

“Some.”