Grim Shadows

FIVE

LOWE STARED AT THE blind man. “You want me to . . . ?”

“Your sister-in-law is a spirit medium, I’m told. A real one.”

According to Winter and Astrid, yes. Aida was channeling spirits on stage at one of the North Beach speakeasies, the Gris-Gris Club, when Winter first met her. She now worked out of a shop in Chinatown, holding private séances, performing exorcisms—that sort of thing.

Did Lowe believe in her ability? He didn’t have any reason not to. If he saw it with his own eyes, he supposed he’d be swayed into a definite yes. He’d experienced some strange things in his life, the djed amulet’s unexplainable power being one of them.

“Your sister-in-law can channel my wife’s spirit,” Bacall said. “You can talk with her, ask her about the map. Start there.”

“Why don’t you do that yourself?”

“She wouldn’t tell me when she was alive. I seriously doubt she’d do so now.”

“What about your daughter?”

“I don’t want Hadley involved in this. Not at all. If you accept my proposition, I’ll tell her you’re hunting down old friends for me. She doesn’t need to know about her mother’s betrayal.”

“Her mother hiding the pieces from you?”

A pause hung in the air. “Yes. All she needs to know is that I’m purchasing the amulet base from you. End of story. That’s not negotiable.”

Well, it certainly spoke to the man’s trust of his own family. Then again, who was Lowe to judge another man’s secrets? Especially not one who was willing to pay him.

“The payment I’m offering is generous,” Bacall said. “Twice what the Alexandria stele sold for at auction last year. I’d wager you won’t find a museum that will give you that price, nor a private collector. And I’m willing to offer something else to sweeten the pot.”

“And what would that be?”

“Due to my declining health, I’m retiring my post here soon. The board of trustees will vote on my replacement in a month. If you find the hidden amulet pieces for me, I’d be more than happy to make sure your name is the only one considered for the job. It pays well, and puts you in a position to be sponsored if you want to continue digging. And if you don’t? Well, it’s a cushy desk job with a bit of status.”

A lot of status. Enough that he’d never have to dig in that godforsaken desert again, which was tempting. Then again, he wasn’t particularly excited by the prospect of being cooped up in an office, day in and day out.

“Think about my offer,” Bacall said. “Our director is throwing our annual Friends of the Museum party this weekend. James Flood’s widow is hosting it at her mansion on Broadway—just a few blocks down from your family home, I believe.”

“Yes, I know the place.” The Flood’s marble palace. He drove past it all the time.

“Dinner, coats and tails, an orchestra,” Bacall said. “Great chance to rub shoulders with donors and people who could help your career. I’ll get you an invitation.”

He glanced at the door Hadley had slammed, wondering if she’d be attending this soirée. Maybe he should stop fantasizing about erotic carnival sideshows and her interest in clocks, and concentrate on figuring out exactly why her father was offering him a small fortune served on a silver platter.

After all, there was always a catch.

• • •

Hadley stared out the window in her father’s office, watching Lowe chat with one of the groundskeepers. Rather animatedly, at that. All smiles and laughter. Did he strike up friendly chats with every stranger he stumbled across during his day?

“Everything all right, my dear?” her father asked as he switched on a desktop radio.

Other than her complete and utter humiliation? Not really. Why in God’s name had she said . . . that? “Just seeing what the weather looks like.”

“It’s going to rain. I can feel it in my knees.”

“Mr. Magnusson took the amulet with him?” She didn’t sense it anymore, so he must have.

“He’s going to arrange storage for it until the paperwork arrives from the Egyptian Ministry.” Her father fiddled with the radio dial, fine-tuning the signal until he was satisfied with the clarity of the music, some old-fashioned ragtime number.

“How did he get the thing out of the country without the paperwork?”

“Hmm? Oh, I don’t know. His uncle is a fast talker. The whole family’s filled with criminals and con artists.”

“Why do you trust him, then?”

“Because I made him an offer he can’t refuse, and people like him sell their loyalty to the highest bidder.”

She moved the curtain to get a better view of Lowe. He was tipping the brim of his cap at grumpy old Mrs. Beckett, who looked up at his face when she strolled into the building and smiled like he was St. Peter and she was trying to cheat her way into heaven.

“What will you do with the amulet once you have it?” she asked her father. “Donate it to the museum?”

“Not sure.”

A lie if she’d ever heard one. When Father had first insisted she meet Lowe at the train station, he told her he’d attempted to find it himself when he was younger, and that it was a lifelong dream to finally own it. He wouldn’t go to so much trouble if he didn’t have plans.

“By the way, I invited Mr. Magnusson to the party this weekend. Perhaps I’ll ask Miss Tilly to play escort.”

Her stomach tightened. “He’s interested in Miss Tillly?”

“She’s a lovely woman. Who wouldn’t be?”

Who, indeed. Why this bothered her so much now, she didn’t understand. Lowe had paid her a couple of rude comments and touched her hand, and now her brain was sending proprietary signals to her heart? Ridiculous. “I hardly think you’d want to offer up your favorite secretary like she’s some kind of prostitute.”

“Don’t be vulgar, Hadley. Jealousy isn’t becoming.”

“I’m not jealous.” But she was, stupidly. And before she could control her emotions, the Mori specters spied into her thoughts and rose up from the floorboards to childishly shove the radio off the desk. Static crackled through the speaker after it hit the floor.

Her father jumped. “What was that?”

“I bumped into it,” she said, quickly snatching up the radio as she counted internally and turned the dial to find the station again. “It’s nothing.”

His shoulders relaxed. “I just want to keep him close until the sale of the amulet goes through, and Miss Tilly can introduce him to all the curators. I don’t think she’ll mind. She mentioned he was quite tall and uniquely handsome.”

Oh, did she, now? Was that Miss Tilly’s polite way of accommodating his broken nose in her assessment? Admittedly, Hadley had been surprised to see him clean-shaven and wearing a decent suit, though the dramatic brown boots that laced up to his knees were a little much. He looked like he was dressed for cavalry duty or hunting quail on horseback.

And why had Father asked a secretary her opinion about his looks instead of asking Hadley? Well, she supposed that was typical. Half the time, she swore he still thought she was a ten-year-old girl. If she told him Lowe had pressed his body against her underclothes, he’d expire from shock.

What do you want, Hadley?

She took one last look out the window. Lowe had finished his chat and was now straddling a bright red motorcycle. Why didn’t this surprise her? Guess the riding boots were for a horse, after all—a mechanical one. The engine was so loud, it rattled the closed window.

He tugged his cap down and tapped the kickstand with his boot. My goodness, the man was nicely constructed. He took her breath away. Just a little.

Maybe a lot.

Because as he sped out of the parking lot, she felt unmoored.

And she wished she could’ve been on the back of that motorcycle, riding away with him.

• • •

Lowe took back roads from the museum to the Fillmore District and parked Lulu in an inconspicuous spot. Since the Great Fire, the neighborhood had become home to an eclectic mix of immigrants and working-class families. He’d spent the first ten years of his life in a row house here before his father’s fishing business moved them closer to the Embarcadero.

The block he headed down was the center of the city’s Jewish community; Russian Jews and Eastern Europeans owned most of the businesses here. He passed a Hebrew school, two kosher butchers, and several cigar shops before stepping into a movie theater alcove, where he stood in the shadow of the ticket booth for a minute—just to be safe.

No one was following.

The euphoric scent of freshly baked rye bread wafted from Waxman’s Bakery as he strode to the curb and waited to cross the busy street. Hopefully if any of Monk’s men were trailing him, they’d seen him enter the museum earlier and assumed he left the amulet there. He tried to relax, but his mind drifted back to Hadley, which distracted him from what he should’ve been watching: the place he was headed.

Out of the corner of his eye, a flash of yellow darted from the delicatessen sitting catercornered and across the street from him. He turned his head in time to see Stella Goldberg bounding down the sidewalk in a buttercup dress.

For a moment, he was smiling at her plump face as the four-year-old girl silently ran down the sidewalk to greet him. Then he looked up and saw the obstacle in her path.

Two workers were hauling some sort of industrial fan up the side of the building with pulleys and ropes. The square fan was the size of a car hood, and from the way the men were straining, it was heavy. A foreman stood by, directing their efforts while shouting to another man on the roof.

The foreman saw Stella. He shouted for her to stop.

She couldn’t hear him. Stella was deaf.

Unaware of their presence or the danger they posed, she plowed down the sidewalk beneath the rising fan, which dangled from the ropes a story above. And in her haste, she tripped over one of the worker’s outstretched feet and fell facedown on the sidewalk.

Her ragged cry echoed off the building.

The man whose foot over which she tripped lost his balance. The rope slipped through his gloves. The fan plummeted several yards, its shadow growing larger over Stella’s tiny body.

Lowe lunged off the curb and dashed across the road, his own hearing temporarily stunted by the blood pounding in his ears. His long legs carried him out of a Flivver’s path on one side of the road—just barely. He reached the sidewalk in a leap. The foreman was grabbing the slack rope.

The pulleys squealed.

Someone was shouting.

Lowe didn’t look up. Just leaned down and scooped her up as the fan dropped—

Inches above the sidewalk. That’s where they stopped it. She was one extended second away from being crushed.

Lungs burning, he squeezed her against his chest, a ball of yellow flounce, dark curls, and fragile limbs. Her arms clung to his neck, her heartbeat like a hummingbird’s.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” he assured her, speaking against her head so she could feel it.

As if a switch flipped somewhere inside her, she stopped sobbing.

A gaggle of women poured out from a nearby shop, shouting in distress. Stella peeled her tear-damp face from his shoulder and panicked when she saw the chaos surrounding them.

He held a hand up to the bystanders. “She’s fine. Don’t scare her.” He ducked his head to catch her gaze and smiled. “Close one, old girl. You nearly had that last hurdle.”

She gave him a toothy smile.

“There you go, right as rain.” The workers lowered the fan to the sidewalk with a boom that shook the soles of his shoes. He adjusted Stella’s weight onto his right hip and sidled around the downed fan. “You recognized your Farbror Lowe—and after six months away. Such a smart girl. Now then, let’s find your papa before these men drop the damned thing again.”

“That kid could’ve injured my man,” the foreman shouted as his workers looked on in silence. “You’re lucky we didn’t drop this thing or you would’ve paid to repair it.”

Lowe kept his face calm for Stella’s sake and spoke through a tight smile. “You’re lucky I don’t beat your face into a pulp and break both your legs before I get my family’s lawyer to sue your company for negligence.”

“Now, you see here—”

Stella made an indistinct noise and looked toward Diller’s Delicatessen, where her father burst from the door in a panic.

“Stella!”

“There’s Papa,” Lowe said as he gave one last malicious look to the foreman before striding off.

“Lowe, thank goodness.” Adam Goldberg met them halfway. “I turned my back for a second. What happened?” He surveyed the scene on the sidewalk and frowned.

“Nothing a little hot water and salve won’t cure.” Lowe uncurled one of her skinned palms. “Stings, ja?” he said, tapping her fingers to show what he meant.

She flexed her hand and nodded.

Adam took her out of Lowe’s arms, murmuring a quiet prayer beneath his breath. Once he’d inspected her knees, his shoulders fell. He chuckled the sort of terrified laugh that betrayed relief and fear—a laugh Lowe had heard a hundred times from his old friend.

“You look as if the desert sun tanned your hide,” Adam said. “And I see you’ve lost a finger. Should I ask?”

“Probably not.”

“Fair enough. Hungry?”

“Famished.”

“So much for a discreet meeting. Come on.”

The aroma of corned beef, chicken soup, and dill wafted toward them as they stepped into the delicatessen. Canned goods and bread were sold on one side of the shop, cold food behind a refrigerated counter on the other, and hot meals were cooked in a small kitchen in the back. A short menu of choices was scrawled in chalk on a standing board by the counter.

Adam set Stella down atop one of four tables near the windows and brushed dirt from her dress while Lowe dug around in his satchel, retrieving a windup toy for which he’d haggled in an open-air market in Cairo. He presented the black cat to Stella with a dramatic flourish. “What do you think? Hold on, you wind her like this.” Lowe demonstrated and set the cat on the table. It rolled and wagged its tail up and down.

Stella grunted in joy, twisting around to touch it as it moved. A winner. Lowe never knew. She’d rejected half his presents. “She’s grown a foot while I was gone,” he remarked.

Adam smoothed back her bangs. “Twice as sassy lately, too.”

An elderly woman came around the counter, smiling in their direction.

Adam nodded to her before speaking to Stella. “Take it to Mrs. Berkovich. You can play after washing up.” He moved his hands to sign the word “wash” and pointed at the woman. Stella grabbed the toy and Mrs. Berkovich escorted her to the back.

“It’s times like this when I think Miriam would’ve done a better job,” Adam said wistfully as he watched his daughter disappear.

Adam’s wife died of influenza a year after Stella was born—almost three years ago, now. The three of them had been friends since they were kids. Her death had devastated Adam. It had happened within a few months of Lowe’s parents dying in the car crash, so Lowe and Adam grieved together. But though Lowe could say he’d come to terms with losing his parents—mostly—Adam never truly got over Miriam. And Lowe was worried he never would.

“I’ve told you a thousand times, it’s not a defeat to hire a nanny.”

“And I’ve told you a thousand more that I’m not taking a handout from the Magnusson family. I’m a watchmaker, not a bootlegger. I do the best I can.”

“You’re a goddamn genius with metal, is what you are. And if we can pull this off, we’re going to make so much cash, you might be the one giving handouts.”

“I’ve heard that a thousand times from you as well,” his friend said, his mouth curling at the corners.

“We made a pretty penny off the crocodile statue forgery.” Never mind that Lowe’s uncle screwed up the paperwork, or that Monk wanted his head for it. None of that was Adam’s problem.

“And I spent it paying off Stella’s family debts.”

“You’re a better man than I, Goldberg.”

Adam playfully slapped him on the arm. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

After Mrs. Berkovich brought steaming bowls of soup, fresh bread, and half-sour pickles pulled from fat wooden barrels near the counter, Lowe retrieved the amulet base. The strange, disconcerting vibration it emitted grew louder as he unwrapped it. “Take a look.”

Adam whistled in appreciation. “This is it, eh?”

“What do you think? Can you do it?” Lowe glanced at Stella playing with the windup cat. She didn’t seem to “hear” the amulet, which was probably a good thing. Adam didn’t comment about it, either.

“May I?” Adam asked, pulling out a pair of jewelers’ eyeglasses with extended magnifying lenses.

“Be my guest. I can’t stand to touch the thing. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

Adam turned it in his hand, leaning closer for inspection. “Same strange red tarnish to the gold as the crocodile statue, but completely different method of casting.”

“A thousand years older, different place. Pay close attention to the hole at the top.” Lowe pulled out a black pocket notebook from his suit and roughly sketched the finished shape of the amulet with the four crossbars stacked on the top—or how he theorized it would look, based on known descriptions and other djed pillars depicted in stoneware and jewelry from that time period.

“A curator at the de Young Museum looked at it—daughter of the antiquities department head.”

“The one who offered to buy it?”

“The very one. I just came from seeing her.” Lowe tapped his fingertips on the table and felt Adam’s eyes boring into him. “Came from seeing her father, I mean. Her and her father.”

Adam made a guttural noise that was both judgmental and amused. “Pretty?”

“The father?”

“Screw you.”

“Hadley, then.”

“Oh, Hadley,” Adam drawled. “Ech. One day home and you’re already on first-name basis? Damn you and your crazy Viking height and that lying smile of yours. What does she look like?”

“She’s interesting.” Well, she was. And he didn’t really know how to describe her. Part of him wanted to tell Adam about the “cock” slip and the astounding shape of her ass, but some irrational part of his brain selfishly wanted to keep it all for himself.

“Fine, don’t tell me. Is her father still buying this from you?”

“Even better. The man claims he found the crossbars that fit into the top. His dead wife hid them around the city years ago. He wants me to track them down and sell him this so he’ll have the whole thing.”

Adam looked at him above his magnifying spectacles. “How much?”

Lowe told him.

“No.”

“Oh, yes,” Lowe confirmed. “And God willing, if I find them, I want you to copy each piece exactly.”

“It’ll take me a couple of weeks to forge this one.”

“That’s fine. The crossbars will be smaller. Less detail.” Lowe slipped his friend an envelope with a rather hefty wad of bills he’d pilfered from Winter’s petty cash that morning; he’d have to replace it when Bacall’s check cleared. “Money to purchase the gold. And keep that thing in the warded vault, Adam. Just in case anyone comes sniffing around.”

“Why would anyone have reason to?”

“Well, for one, Monk is furious about the paperwork for the statue.”

Adam raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Your uncle and his schemes. Are we in trouble?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. I made sure I wasn’t followed here, but watch yourself.”

“Hold on a minute. Am I making the amulet copy for Monk? To repay him for the statue? Why would he trust you again if you’ve cheated him once and got caught?”

“He wouldn’t. You’re making the forgery for Dr. Bacall. I’ll give Monk the real thing.”

“Damn. Sure you’re confident enough to pass off a forgery to an expert?”

Lowe leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Dr. Bacall is blind.”

“Ah.” Adam smiled. “That helps, I suppose.”

“If those crossbars really do exist and you can forge the entire amulet, we’ll be rich. Still, worse case scenario is no crossbars, Monk gets the real base for no charge, and we get fifty grand from Bacall for the forged base.”

“Fifty grand. Even that’s a fortune.”

“Your cut’s half.”

“Lowe—”

“Half,” he insisted, nodding to Stella. “For her, if not yourself. All I did was dig the thing up. Besides, Miriam would whip your ass from the Beyond if you didn’t take it.”

Adam sighed and removed his eyeglasses. “It’s so much more than the statue. Maybe you should just clear your debt with Monk, sell Bacall the forged base, and be done with it.”

“But if I can find the pieces, it’s fifty a piece, Adam. Fifty.”

“If you find the pieces. If.”

“I found part of a mythical object buried in a flooded room halfway across the globe. Searching the city for a few more will be as easy as duck soup.”