“Well, see, that’s good,” he said.
“Yeah,” I agreed, my brain clearer now. “If Tecci or Krell were up here, they wouldn’t be lurking around on Highway One. They’d be in some hotel nearby, not cruising the coast road, right?”
“I suppose so,” Pop said. “They’d be waiting for word from those peckers you laid out. You’ve got to think positive. Now turn around so I can check my knitting, make sure you’re not getting infected.”
I let Pop take off the bandage. “Looks clean. I believe I missed my true calling. Should have been a tailor.” He removed fresh dressings from the first-aid kit and applied them.
Think positive, Pop had instructed. I was positive I didn’t knowwhere Ginny was. I was also sure I’d had some sort of insight into Leonardo’s Circles last night. I desperately wanted to find her, but didn’t know where to look. I had to do what I could, not what I wanted. And what I could do was try to unravel the code.
That meant Mona.
Pop had driven back from the inn in his Range Rover. I slipped into the rear seat and lay down out of sight, knowing better than to show my face. We headed down Highway 1, me feeling a tad queasy. I never liked riding in the backseat, even sitting up, and certainly not with a hangover. When we got off the main drag, Pop instructed me to hop up front, which I gladly did.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Ukiah Road on the way to Comptche. Be at Mona’s in a minute.”
“How’d you get to know her, anyway?” I asked, watching the scenery—tall, wise trees, happy squirrels with plenty of holes to climb into and not many tires to get squashed under.
“I know all the babes around here,” he said, with a sideways grin. “I was a regular Sir Galahad. Plenty of steel in the little jouster. You know, making merry with the old maidens. Dispatched ’em all forthwith at one time or another. But none of ’em come close to Mona. Now she’s a diamond, all right. I mean a night-sky-star kinda winker. That doesn’t quite get the point across. She’s celestial. That’s it! Mona’s celestial. Don’t you think? Even if you were a youngster last time you saw her, you must have known that.”
I remembered Mona, clogs clopping up the streets of the old neighborhood. She always paused at the house next door, if the lady was outside, to compliment her on the scrawniest yellow rosebushes in all of Berkeley. There was definitely something celestial about Mona. And I was the guy who hadn’t responded to her cards.
“Yeah, Pop,” I agreed. “Celestial.”
“Damn tootin’,” he said. “Okay, here we are.”
He pulled up a steep gravel driveway within feet of a tiny sky blue house with dark shutters. The front screen opened and out cameMona, plumper than before, with long silver hair that used to be brown. She wore a flowery dress and cork-soled denim sandals.
I felt a flutter in my belly, a tug on my heart.
Pop jumped out of the car like he was eighteen and made his way up the porch with a sprightly step. Mona kept her eyes on me as I followed. Pop hugged her tenderly, then stepped away from her as I approached.
“Reb,” she said, hands on her full hips.
“Sorry I’m a day late,” I said self-consciously, stopping in front ofher.
She cupped my face with age-spotted hands.
“You’re not late,” she said. “You’re right on time.” Then a look of sorrow crossed her face. “I feel guilty, as though I let Martha down. I tried to—”
“I saved your cards,” I told her. “Every one. You didn’t let Martha down. I did.”
“Well . . . now is no time for regret. You’ve come to me with great urgency. And after some terrible trouble at the inn. Tell me how I can help.”
Her little house was filled with the scent of freshly baked cookies. Mona guided us upstairs to a small, brightly lit office adorned with framed logos of what I guessed were local businesses. I pulled the two pages of Leonardo’s notes from my backpack and handed them to her without a word.
She held them gingerly, staring at them with a puzzled look. “Oh my Lord,” she gasped, her eyes opening wide. “Are these what I think they are? Am I holding something of Leonardo da Vinci’s? Is this . . . could it be . . . the Circles of Truth . . . the Medici Dagger?”
“I can’t explain the whole story now, but—”
“You owe me no explanation,” she said, studying the Circles. “Just tell me what you know about them.”
“They’re some sort of code Leonardo devised to send a message. They go together somehow. I know that. Maybe they’re a symbolic alphabet. Remember your Sherlock Holmes?”
“The Dancing Men!”
I told her about the insight I’d had the previous night and explained that I wanted to eliminate the spaces between the rings, enlarging each one until they all touched, forming a solid image.
Mona understood instantly. She examined the pages, looking from one to the other. Then, spinning in her chair, she switched on her computer and flatbed scanner.
“Let’s find your dancing men, shall we?”
First Mona scanned Ginny’s translation and each page of notes just to have them on disk, then captured the image of each Circle. Next, focusing only on Circle One, she scanned the rings of the design individually and put one within the next. I watched carefully as her fingers worked the mouse, clicking and dragging.
When Mona finished, all the rings touched. We sat shoulder to shoulder searching for a pattern, an obvious design, symbols— anything. No dancing men. Nothing distinguishable.
I was surprised at the level of my disappointment. As if Leonardo would invent something simple.
