The Medici Dagger

flush of excitement tingled my toes. “What’s next in the layout if they’re outer inner?”

“Well, outer inner would be one, ten, two, nine, three, eight, four, seven, five, six. The next would be number two in the third from the largest size.”

I fished through the transparencies until I found it, stuck it under the pile, poked the pin through the center and spun it clockwise, thirty-six degrees past where the first one had stopped. The marks connected with the others. I swallowed hard, feeling my Adam’s apple rise and fall like a pile driver.

Mona sat down next to me, a look of fascination on her wrinkled face. “Leonardo wrote a message, sliced it in horizontal pieces, put them in a circle, and spun them.”

To Pop she shouted, “Rodney Norcross, get your old self up here. Don’t miss this!”

I heard Pop creaking up the stairs as I rifled through the transparencies till I found the fourth-largest ring. I attached it to the others, spinning it another thirty-six degrees. It fit!

Pop entered the room carrying a tray of sandwiches. I started singing to the tune of “La Cucaracha”: “I’m a gen-ius, I’m a gen-ius, I’m a really coo-ool duuude. I’m a gen-ius, I’m a gen-ius, and that’s a winning attitu-u- ude.”

Pop and Mona laughed as I fished out the fifth-sized ring with a clammy hand, stuck it on the back, and spun it what I thought was thirty-six degrees past the fourth ring, or one hundred and forty-fourdegrees. Yow! I sang my little tune again. Pop grabbed Mona and danced to it.

I was doing it. It was working out.

I dug out sixth-position #8, laid it on the back, fanned it out so it was at one hundred eighty degrees and . . . and . . . nothing. I moved it back and forth in small increments. Still nothing.

Pop and Mona stopped dancing.

“I only have the top half of the words,” I said, thoroughly deflated. How fast I had fallen from grace. Pluto to Pittsburgh at the speed of stupidity.

Mona picked up the pad and read, “One-ten-two-nine-three, rings one through five, top half of a line. Try the same thing with Truth Two.”

They went together as the others had.

“By jingo,” Pop howled, “you got the outer halves of two messages. Nice work. Now all you have to do is solve the inside.”

I puzzled it out. “The inside of Truth One should be eight-four-seven-five-six, but number eight doesn’t work. They obviously go together some different way. What way?”

“Reb,” Mona said, “what were you thinking about when I told you to close your eyes?”

“The combination lock.”

“Go back there. Say aloud what you see, any pattern you detect.”

I shut my eyes and drifted.

Up and down, light and dark, high and low. Happiness and sadness, strain and relief, man and woman, lift and separate.

Antonyms rained on me like wedding rice. My mind arrived back at the chained-off road to the Baby Face Nelson Suite as I unlocked the padlock. “Right, left, right, pull down, success,” I said. “Right, left, right. Leonardo said ‘back and forth, one to the other.’ ”

I opened my eyes. “Back and forth. That’s it! Number eight from Truth One, Mona. I need it in the sixth size.”

She quickly handed it to me.

Back and forth.

I attached it to the five sheets of Truth One already connected with the pin, but this time I spun itcounterclockwise. Nothing. “I’m wrong,” I said, dejection dripping from my tongue. “I can’t get it. I’m not the mighty traveler. I’m nothing.”

“Shh,” Mona said, kneeling down next to me. “You also said ‘one to the other.’ ”

I listened to her words—Leonardo’s words. Of course. It had to be. Onecircleto the other.

I grabbed #8 from Circle of Truth Two and attached it to the sheets of Truth One. I spun it counterclockwise, making little adjustments. The piece fit! I quickly attached rings 4-7-5-6 from Truth Two to Truth One, fanning them out counterclockwise. They all connected. I was holding a circle of Leonardo’s words.

Somewhere in the distance I heard Pop say,“By jingo,” but I was no longer in the room. I was on the path with Leonardo.Wewere the dancing men. I repeated the process with Truth Two. The inner circles of Truth One fit counterclockwise with the outer circles of Truth Two.

I was holding a second complete circular sentence.

I had done it! Two sentences in Leonardo’s backward script, from two separate notebook pages. Two circles, twenty rings, 720 degrees, outer inner, back and forth, one circle to the other. Leonardo’s complex mind, his stunning intellect, at play. The twenty-circle path. The path to the Medici Dagger.

“Iamthe mighty traveler,” I said to Leonardo.

“But what do they mean?” Pop asked.

“I’m going to find out. And when I do I’m going to tell you. Ginny,” I said, my mind suddenly filled with her.

Pop said, “Oh nerts, where’s my memory—Iowa? I just talked to Mary at the inn. Said she got a weird call from