“Yes, but I don’t want the people in it to be studying me.”
“Oh. I’m sorry; that hadn’t occurred to me.”
“That’s why you hired me,” Parer said. “Where is it?”
“Just ahead, on the left,” Gonor said.
Parker looked out the window and saw it as they drove by. A narrow building of gray stone, it was set back from the sidewalk and separated from its neighbors by narrow alleys on both sides. A black wrought-iron fence, waist high, ran across the front of the property, with carefully tended grass and trees behind it, flanking the walk up to the building itself, which was four stories high. The windows on the first two floors were barred. The front door was massive dark wood, and on the stone wall beside it was a square plaque, unreadable from here. The place looked well cared for but empty. The rest of the buildings on the block were either quiet residential hotels or old town houses converted to discreet offices.
“All right,” Parker said. “Turn right on Lexington.”
“Why not go back?” Gonor said.
“In traffic like this,” Parker told him, “there’s no way to be sure you’re not being followed. You’ve been followed in the past, sometimes by Hoskins, sometimes by General Goma’s people. So maybe you’re being followed now, and if you are we don’t want them to know we’re interested in that museum.”
“Good,” said Gonor.
The light at the corner was green. Manado made the turn. Parker told him, “When you get to Twenty-third Street make the left. Go over to Third Avenue and then south. When you get to Twelfth Street circle the block to the east and keep an eye on the rearview mirror, see if anybody follows you around.”
“Yes, sir,” said Manado.
Parker said to Gonor, “Tell me about this building.”
“It’s a museum,” Gonor said. “Three floors of African artifacts, from shields and spears to wooden dolls. And a fully-equipped apartment on the top floor.”
“That nobody’s ever lived in?”
“It was planned to have a full-time curator,” Gonor said, “but there was never any need for it. And lately, since Dhaba became independent, the museum has been virtually closed. We have a notice on the front door saying the museum is open by appointment only and giving my office phone number to call. There are still occasionally scholars of one sort or another interested in having a look. When one of them calls, either I or one of my staff will come by, unlock the place, and show the visitor around.”
“That’s the only time anybody goes in there?”
“We have a commercial cleaning service, which goes through the display rooms once a week. Also a grounds- keeping service, but they don’t actually enter the building.”
Formutesca twisted around again to say to Parker, “The museum isn’t exactly the liveliest place in town.”
“It was a bad idea to begin with,” Gonor said, “and is now outdated as well.”
“But Patrick Kasempa is living there.”
“Yes. I discovered them almost by accident over a month ago. An anthropologist from the University of Pennsylvania had asked to see some items in our musical instrument department. He spent most of the afternoon. It was getting dark when we left, and that evening I realized I’d left a pipe behind. I went back for it, and there were lights in the top-floor windows. We had been looking for the Kasempas for two or three weeks before that, ever since our friends at home had let us know about the plot, so I waited around to see if anyone appeared. Within half an hour Lucille Kasempa came walking down the street, apparently returning from shopping.”
“Did she see you?”
“No.”
“It’s just the two of them in there?”
“Not at all,” Gonor said. “Patrick Kasempa is one of four brothers, all of whom disappeared at the same time. My guess is the other three are in there with him. On guard duty, you might say.”
Parker nodded. “How many ways into the building?” he asked.
“Well, the front door,” Gonor said. “And a back door, of course; the Fire Department insisted. But it is metal and very securely fastened on the inside. There was a fear of burglaries, the building being empty so much of the time.”
“What’s in back?”
“Not much of anything. At one time it was arranged as a small garden back there with some outdoor sculpture. But it wasn’t authentic; the sculpture was metal casts from wood originals, the flora was wrong and so on, so it was given up.”
“How do you get out there? Just through the house?”
“Yes.”
Formutesca said, “There’s a fence at the back, a wooden fence about eight feet high. If you wanted to, you could come through a building on Thirty-ninth Street and over that fence.”
Manado said, “Sir?”
Gonor said, “What?”
Manado was looking at Parker in the rearview mirror. “We are being followed,” he said, “by a white Chevrolet Corvair containing two men. I can’t make them out clearly.”
“Go around a few blocks,” Parker said. “Lose them.”
