Elisha’s Bones (32 page)
“How did you know I was here?” I ask him.
“Please, Dr. Hawthorne. What kind of man doesn’t know what’s going on in his own home?” He gestures to the chairs by the fireplace. “Would you care to sit down?”
“Not really.”
I look around the room, not certain what I’m searching for. This is all too simple, too cordial. Surely he’s pressed an alarm of some sort, and we’ll be surrounded by police, or worse, his own private security, in a matter of seconds.
“I can assure you that we won’t be interrupted,” Manheim says.
“You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not comforted by your assurances.”
Esperanza has taken a spot just inside the room, from which she can look out and see much of the hallway. She seems to have a knack for knowing the best way to handle this kind of situation, which is something I find disturbing.
“For good reason, I suppose,” Manheim answers. “I heard about that nasty business in Laverton.”
“Heard about it? You mean planned it.” A flash of anger rushes through me, and my hand tightens on the gun. I can almost see myself pulling the trigger. The memory of what I saw in Jim’s home is fresh. Manheim endures my anger without changing anything about his relaxed demeanor. I may even see some measure of sympathy in his eyes—the emotional resonance of a man for whom the bigger picture might necessitate casualties and for whom mourning those sacrificed is appropriate.
“I had nothing to do with that event, Dr. Hawthorne, other than bearing responsibility for bringing into the world the man who is to blame.” He sighs. “Victor has shown extreme impulsiveness over the last few years.”
“Even if that were true, in my book that’s enough.”
“Enough to what? Shoot me in cold blood?” Manheim sets his book on an end table and shifts forward in his chair. “No. I don’t think so. There are two reasons you’re not going to kill me, Jack. May I call you Jack? The first is that you’re not that sort of man.”
“Don’t count on it. Some of your employees—or your son’s employees—found that out.” It’s false bravado. I know it and Manheim knows it.
“Necessity makes animals of us all.”
“What’s the second reason?”
“You want answers, and you can’t get them if I’m dead.”
It’s a baited hook. And exactly the right thing to say. I shake my head as if to chase away the siren song of information, of answers. I gesture with the gun, indicating the whole of the estate. “Where is everyone? Family, security? It can’t be just you and Stemple here.”
At the mention of Stemple’s name, Manheim’s eyes darken a shade. “I trust that Andrew is unharmed?”
I answer with silence, feeling a bit smug that I’ve said something to upset him. It’s not a fair fight if only one of us is on the slippery slope.
But Manheim only smiles and says, “I’ll have to assume that he’s fine, Jack. I honestly don’t believe you’d hurt someone simply for being difficult.”
He starts to get up and I raise the gun back to level, just now realizing that I’d let it slip.
He waves me off. “I’m just going to pour myself a drink. Would you care for one?”
He gives Esperanza a wink, then crosses the room to the bar. He chooses a scotch and decants a generous amount into a glass. His back to me, he takes a sip, his hand on the bar.
“There’s nothing here, Dr. Hawthorne.” When I don’t answer, he turns to face me. “You asked why there is no one here. No security. No family. The truth is that Victor is all the family I have left.” He takes another drink and returns to his chair, placing his free hand on the chair’s back. “There’s no security because there’s nothing left to protect.”
I absorb the words. “The bones . . .”
“Are gone. Transitioned.” He gives a short laugh. “Our time is finished, Jack. There are new caretakers now.”
I work hard to process what he’s said. There’s a part of me—the part that has sought validation for the sacrifices I’ve endured—which is exuberant at having this confirmation. Regardless of whether or not the bones have any power, Manheim has corroborated their existence. Yet the skeptic in me remains. I need to see them for myself, perhaps touch them. And Manheim has robbed me of that hope.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because that’s the way it’s always been. I’m certain your research has established that fact. I’m only surprised you’ve made it this far at a time that coincides with the bones’ relocation.” He indulges in another drink, draining most of the contents of the glass. “You should be proud, Jack. Few have learned of their existence, much less been this successful in their inquiries.”
“
Proud
isn’t the word I’d use.”
“And you, Ms. Habilla. Do you not feel some satisfaction for being involved in one of the greatest coups in the science of antiquities?”
“With all due respect, Mr. Manheim, coming away empty-handed is hardly a coup,” Esperanza says.
“Let’s call it a triumph of the human spirit, then.”
“You can call it whatever you want,” I interject, “but we have to face the reality that my brother and several of my friends are dead, along with two men on the Manheim payroll.”
“And thousands of men before them, and who knows how many to come. Even I don’t know the number of all those who have lost their lives because of the bones, which is ironic when you think about it.” He shakes his head and downs the rest of the scotch. “They have the power to heal—to raise the dead— yet they have been the cause of more death than any holy relic apart from the grail.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“There is no room for doubt. They are as real as this chair.” He brings a wrinkled hand down on the seat.
It’s a forceful statement, and my gut counsels me against challenging it, so I try another tack.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you won’t find them. And because I think I owe you at least this much.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. If Elisha’s bones exist, and if there has been some grand conspiracy to keep them hidden, why risk it? Aren’t you concerned that I’ll leave here and divulge your secret?”
“I’m not risking much. Whether or not you’re willing to admit it to yourself, you were convinced of their existence before I said a word. As for revealing the secret to the world, well, let’s just say that better men than you have tried.”
“The Raphael,” Espy says.
Manheim gives her an appreciative look. “Among others.”
I run a hand through my hair, trying to dispel disbelief. I set the safety on the gun and slip it in my pocket. Manheim offers a knowing smile.
“The
S
on the sculpture, the same symbol on the carvings in the temple . . .”
“Identifying an organization, one as old as the bones themselves,” Manheim says. “The first incarnation were Hebrew priests. Over the centuries, that dynamic has changed somewhat.”
“The church in Ethiopia,” I say, but Manheim ignores the conjecture.
“They’re the ones who select the families, who facilitate the transitions and keep a watchful eye on those who would seize the bones for their own use.”
“The brokers.”
Manheim laughs. “I suppose that’s as good a name as any.”
“But . . .”
“Why transition the bones at all?” he finishes for me. “Why not just keep them within the organization?”
I nod.
“For the same reason there is more than one branch to your government. It’s a check against misuse. They can concentrate on protecting the bones while avoiding the politics that invariably creep into any organization.”
I don’t have an immediate response. I’m in the strange position of having too many questions to ask them in a logical fashion. But then the one question I should have asked first, the one I’ve harbored for years, suddenly rises to the surface.
“What was at KV65? What did my brother die for?”
“Like the Raphael,” Manheim says, “the tomb held unauthorized information about the brokers. A good deal more detailed than the symbol on the sculpture.” He gives me a sympathetic look. “I wish I could say your brother died for the bones, Jack.”
While it’s not the answer I wanted, there is some closure. Yet there’s something else I need to know.
“Did you order it?”
Manheim shakes his head. “Actually, Victor was tasked with handling the matter. I would have been more subtle.”
I feel the anger returning now.
“Why a conspiracy at all? If the bones can do what you say they can, why not use them?”
“Gordon Reese,” is Manheim’s grim response. “And men like him. Reese has been after the bones for a very long time. He has finally succeeded in tracking them to me, which is why they’ve been moved. Should he ever succeed in acquiring them, we both know what would happen. What if they had wound up in the hands of someone like Caligula, or Genghis Khan, or any one of a thousand other powerful despots? The reason that no individual tyrant can take the world to a place from which it could never recover is because people die. It’s something of a safety mechanism, I suppose.”
“So why keep them around at all? If they’re that dangerous, why weren’t they destroyed centuries ago?”
Manheim releases a heavy sigh and it makes him look even older. He steps around the chair, his hand trailing along the back, the arm, and he sinks into it.
“One should tread carefully when considering what to do with something God has vested with great power. It’s been the dilemma of every incarnation of your brokers, ever since the original Hebrew priests took them from the men who removed them from the burial site. Do you know, Jack, that the priests killed those men? Not only that, they killed the man who had been raised from the dead. They were so fearful of what these bones meant that they murdered a person who was touched by the hand of God.”
“And they still kill for them.” It is not a question.
“When necessary.” Manheim pauses, then gives me a wink. “I trust that Gregory Hardy is no longer a problem?”
“That one was handled by them, and I suspect Reese will be next.”
I’m enthralled, like a schoolboy who has been shown something fantastic in a science lab. Every word of it might be a lie, but there’s something eminently believable about the tale. I find myself drawn to this man, to the knowledge he possesses. I want to know what he knows. It’s a need that has defined my life.
Esperanza has taken a seat in one of the chairs by the fireplace. Before joining her, I pour myself a drink from the bar. In the space of a few minutes, the confrontational nature of this audience has been replaced by a meeting of kindred minds.
“And what about Victor?” I ask.
“Victor will not see the bones pass into his possession.”
“Why?” Espy asks.
“For the same reason that Mr. Reese cannot have them. Neither of them would be suited to the task.”
I’m about to press the matter when a concussive sound all but deafens me. It seems to happen in slow motion, the red stain that appears on Manheim’s white shirt. It spreads in a flower pattern, a deadly orchid. Both Esperanza and I are out of our seats before the ringing stops.
And there, standing in the doorway, is Victor, his gun now aiming at me. “Please sit down, Dr. Hawthorne.” His voice is almost pleasant, as if shooting one’s father is something of no great consequence.
There’s a pain in my skull that I can only associate with hatred, and with having something hard-won snatched away. I watch the life bleed away from my link to the ancient secrets.
“Why?” I practically spit.
“Because he would give them away rather than entrust them to me. Now take a seat.”
It’s a good suggestion because my legs feel weak. Esperanza has already complied and sat down. I reach a hand back for the chair while slipping my other hand into my coat pocket, where I feel cold metal. Victor is less than five feet away, so when I fire the gun through the coat fabric, the bullet strikes true. He’s propelled backward, his free hand clutching his shoulder. But when he lands, he’s still holding the gun.
I’m across the room in a second, jumping on top of him, pressing my own piece behind his ear. It’s all I can do to keep from blowing his head off. This is the culmination of everything I’ve experienced since leaving Evanston; this man is the embodiment of my own personal devil. The pain in my temple is stronger now, a pulsing sensation that fires the nerve endings behind my eyes.
“Jack.” Esperanza’s voice is soft but insistent.
I shut my eyes against the pain and concentrate on breathing. I force the anger to a place further back, where it can simmer instead of boil. And still I want to kill this man. Instead, I push myself up and then bring the butt of the gun down on his head. Breathing heavily, I turn and find Espy staring at me.
She puts a hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
I nod, then point at Victor. “Can you do something with him?”
The front of George’s shirt is covered red, a trickle of blood still flowing from the wound. When I reach the chair, I see that the old man’s hand is moving. I bend down toward him and he grabs my forearm. It startles me so that I almost pull away. His lips are moving as tiny bubbles of frothy blood pool in the corners. I bring my ear close to his mouth.
“. . . keep them from Reese.” The next bit is incomprehensible. His eyes are closed, and I can see him fading, yet his hand on my arm remains strong. “They’re still here.”
“What?”
“The bones are here. . . .”
I
’ve always wanted a wine cellar. Not the brightly lit, modern, temperature-controlled variety favored by the upper middle class, the kind that exists solely so they can hold dinner parties and tell their guests they have to pop down to the wine cellar to select a nice Beaujolais. No, I fancy having a wine cellar like this one: the dark, dank, moldy kind lifted directly from a Poe story, with casks labeled by region, year, and vintner, and bottles of all kinds arranged in rows and columns crafted from wood dating back to the time of Columbus. To say that I am surrounded by a fortune in processed grapes would be a gross understatement. And such is my preoccupation that the wine goes mostly unnoticed.
My hand trembles as I run a finger along a cedar shelving unit well into the cellar against the south wall. The chamber was cut from the bedrock with such skill and care that the shelf structure abuts the wall with seamless precision. I push a thick layer of dust aside with my finger, and it falls from the wood like gray snow. I don’t feel anything, but I’m certain this is the place. Manheim said it twice, and I absorbed his words. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll still be able to repeat each and every syllable the dying man uttered. I take slow steps across the stone floor, letting my finger glide along the wood. I’m about to stop, retrace my steps, and try again, when I feel a hole in the frame.