I put my hand on the doorknob. It wasn’t locked. Worse andworse. I turned it, nudged it. She’d oiled the lock and latch and hinges sothat the door eased away from me without a sound. Also without an explosion — I’dhalf expected a booby trap to blast me the length of the hallway and outthrough that broken window, more plastique.
“That’s a beautiful hawk, John. I’m flattered that you choseher.”
Her voice froze me. She sounded sad.
“Come on in. I made a fresh pot of coffee.”
And she had. I could smell it, such a contrast to the tenementreek of the hall and neighborhood — Sumatran, she liked it better than Kona orBlue Mountain. Tastes vary. I caught a hint of whisky in the aroma, not heavy.
I shook my head, holstered my SIG, and retrieved the secondcrutch. If she wanted to kill me, I was already dead. Might as well get throughthe pain of dying and be done with it.
I swung the door full open, letting warmth and light floodinto the hallway, crutched inside, and closed the door behind me. A heavy door,not original, it showed some serious locks and bolts.
A different world waited inside — bright, austere, almost likea monk’s cell with simple minimal furnishings and white walls, fresh clean air,a sense of isolation from the world. She had a living room, kitchen-dining roomwith what looked like the original 1920s stove and refrigerator with thecooling coils on top. Painted glass-front cabinets that were antiques by now. Icould see through a door to a bedroom with narrow barracks-style metal bed anda plain white enameled wardrobe to match. Monastery, all the way.
And Sandy, sitting at the plain kitchen table with a steamingmug of coffee in front of her and another by the second chair. I could see bothher hands. I didn’t see a gun.
I didn’t know what to say. The whole scene read like apainting by Dali, things that didn’t fit this building and the streets outside,didn’t make sense to the eye or mind, nothing like I’d scripted for our final battle.She sipped coffee. She looked up at me. She looked like she’d aged ten yearsovernight and might never smile again.
She had her spotting scope set up by the window, on a tripod.Instead of talking, I crutched across to it, glanced out, and saw one of thoseincongruous slashes of wild land you can find in the heart of many cities. Aravine cut across behind the building, probably a culvert’s outfall for someburied stream, edges too steep for building and tangled with brush and scrubbytrees and discarded shopping carts and wind-blown trash. I’d been right aboutthe kind of place she’d find for hiding.
I bent to the scope, giving her a clear shot at my back if shewanted to take it. It took me a moment to focus through the lens, and then Isaw a mound of dirt on one side of the ravine, with a worn hole down intoshadows above it. Den mouth. I spotted a discarded beer-can nearby and used itas a gauge to measure the size by eye.
“Foxes?”
I felt her nodding behind me, don’t ask me how. We’d knowneach other for decades. “They raised three kits this year. A car hit thefourth.”
I straightened up again and kept looking out the window, notconfronting her. “What was John Doe carrying?”
“Ilias Bycheck.”
I turned around, awkward with the crutches, startled. Shenodded at me, at the obvious connections, and took another sip of coffee.
“Janos Bycheck’s cousin. And the family came from hill clanswhere you trust the sons of yourfather’s brother. Three brothers, the eldest kept the family home and land,second son came to America and raised a bent FBI agent, third son went into theOrthodox priesthood. Rose to head a monastery, abbot we’d call him, and learneda secret.”
“Janos Bycheck is dead?”
She nodded.
“Any chance they’ll ever find his body?”
She shook her head. You never know with bodies, but I trustedher judgment, her experience. If the Bureau thought their bad boy had run awayand hid, it could make sorting out this mess considerably simpler. If theyfound him murdered, that would be something else again. But she hadn’t answeredmy original question.
“What was he carrying?”
“It’s in the china cabinet.”
Her apartment layout had a closet to one side of the archwaybetween the kitchen and the living room. On the other side, they’d built in achina cabinet, glass doors showing the shelves above, solid doors hiding theplates and bowls below. You kept fancy stuff on display to show youraspirations or ancestry, things you actually used out of sight. Different ageand customs.
Part of the monastery look, she hadn’t bothered with “fancy.”She had some plain glassware, simple white dishes, heavy mugs for coffee. Andin the middle of that mundane stuff lay a gold medallion with a thick goldchain.
I opened the cabinet and took it out. Old. Heavy. Not justgold — the medallion, pendant, whatever, was a ring about as broad as my palm,with a thick glass crystal insert. Cyrillic lettering ran around the face ofthe ring, worn by centuries, I couldn’t tell what language but apparentlybroken into words by stylized fish, that ancient Christian symbol folks haveglued to the trunks of their cars to proclaim their faith to all and sundry.Murky brown stains of age and handling obscured whatever the glass protected. Iheld it up to the light and peered through it.
I could feel thecenturies of this thing — feel power, feel generations of worship. Whateverthis thing actually held, people had thought it was genuine. That builds, yearafter year, century after century, until you can’t tell the difference betweensome real object and a fake that enough people thought was real. Show Malcolm Ridge’s forgery to enough people,get them to believe in it, I wouldn’t have been able to sense the fake.
Something curved, several somethings, thin and fragile, showedagainst the light. I first thought they might be hair, but they seemed toothick, too rigid. Sharp at one
