Mystery & Detective
from Chapter One
These cards had been held in the hands of the Italians who had ordered them created. Used for what purpose? To play games, as jaded historians would have everyone believe? I couldn't believe that such beauty -- each card a hand-painted treasure of Renaissance art! -- could only exist to kill time in some overstuffed castle. I had to prove that these cards weren't simply a European spin on the ancient Chinese game of "money cards," but a sacred tool of the ancient Egyptians brought to Europe by nomadic Arabs and Romani gypsies -- a connection many occultists swore by, even if secular Tarot researchers scoffed at the notion.
For me, though, the cards were too charged with symbolism and meaning to be simply a game. Their intricate facades overwhelmed me with the fine detailing of those master craftsmen who'd created them. Each tiny brush mark, each application of pigment, a stroke of genius. For a moment, I forgot about the divinatory significance of each card and was struck merely by the beauty of the artistic technique...
And then the gloved hand unveiled the fourth card in its transparent sheath.
I had studied the reproduction of this card before viewing the original, but nothing had prepared me for the earthiness of its tone, and that smudge along the young page's profile in such a rich hue. I was reminded of Egyptian hieroglyphs and African pottery. There in the Renaissance depiction of the archetype I carry within me -- this message-bearing page who has crossed centuries on his quest to enlighten others -- I found the earth of Africa.
I'm not talking about a symbolic earth, but rather an actual physical quality to the pigment used to paint the card: a gritty streak of savannah sludge worn into the delicate figure as if by the cruel thumb of fate. No, it wasn't a streak, but rather more like an exposed foundation revealed through the chipped plaster of the white figure's fragile cheek.
These cards were not born in Europe.
Had I gasped out loud at my discovery, I wondered, as the librarian whisked away the final image from me? My time with the cards had come to an end.
"You are lucky," she said, as she placed the page back into the box she had used to transfer it from the dark recesses of the library where it was presumably stored. "Normally this particular card is kept in Bergamo."
I was stunned. "Really? Then why is it here?"
"A wealthy collector of Tarot art was looking to verify the authenticity of a privately acquired piece..." She stopped herself, as if realizing she'd revealed too much.
As he parked the Taurus on the third floor of the Montreal General parking garage, Max suddenly realized he’d come without even making a plan. He’d driven back to Canada on a whim, abandoning the most elementary caution. Why had he come anyway? David was in a coma and couldn’t speak, and even if, by some miracle, his nephew recognized him and allowed him to stay, what could they possibly talk about?
Your father asked me to keep an eye out for you, but while you were getting blown up on the other side of the world, I was in Manhattan swindling a banker — again! I’m so sorry. Max sighed. His presence seemed increasingly pointless, wrong, in fact. Never mind. He wanted to be with him, and he ought to be with him.
Max slammed the car door, cast a quick look around, and made his way to the hospital. No cops anywhere. Not surprising, really — terrorists never finish off their victims. They leave them to suffer right to the end. Why not do as much damage as you can? No journalists, either. He learned later that they’d been corralled in a smoking room on the ground floor, and there weren’t that many anyway. The operation was over, and the radio was saying that David had survived … just barely. Now he was stable.
Max did spot a security detail, though, but not the usual hospital agency, which struck him as odd. At the entrance, the regular guards’ uniforms were burgundy. These ones wore navy-blue jackets. They were also armed and looked all ready to play commando.
“Can I help you?” An agent had appeared behind him with two more hanging back, and before Max could answer, the man added, “Journalists aren’t allowed here.”
“I’m family.”
The guard looked him up and down. Max realized right away that something was off. Two more agents ambled up in case they were needed as backup. There was no time to lose, and Max tore off down the corridor, looking for stairs to get him out of there fast. Already, he was cursing his carelessness.
He bumped into a nurse, who dropped her tray of meds with a howl of fright. First he tried the door to the stairway, which he opened without looking, but other agents had been called in and were swarming up from below, cutting him off. Max jumped over the handrail, delivering a few punches as he went, but it wasn’t enough. He was being held firmly, his head hurting, against the bars of the railing. He’d stumbled upon some real pros.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to visit my nephew.”
The men looked at one another. One pulled out his cellphone and stepped away to make the call while they took Max back to the corridor. The nurse was crying, and a well-intentioned guard was helping her pick up the things she’d dropped. Max was taken to a windowless room that must have been where the on-duty doctors came for a rest because it had lockers, a wash basin, and a toilet with the door half open. Someone offered him a coffee, which he refused with a grunt. Then they left him alone with one guard. What was this set-up for? Why didn’t they hand him over to the cops? Maybe that was next. A few moments later, he imagined Luc Roberge showing up with an evil grin. After all these years, I finally get my hands on Public Enemy Number One! Luc Roberge. Max had practically forgotten him till now. Of course, it was his turf he’d stepped onto, straight into the cop’s waiting hands. What a screw-up!
When the door opened, it wasn’t Roberge he saw but Béatrice, and the guard had disappeared. Béatrice stood apart from other women her age, thanks to her long years in the diplomatic corps, her manners, and her attitude: lofty, very erect, and impeccably elegant. She was radiant, even in this naked, cold, and impersonal room. Max hadn’t seen her for years, ever since the death of Philippe in 1990, when he’d shown up incognito — thanks to all the “wanted” notices — to be with his brother’s remains. He’d taken a big risk then, too, but he’d trusted Béatrice, who, during the night, had smuggled him into the funeral home on O’Connor Street in Ottawa. While she stood lookout at the back of the hall, he’d gently made his way through the floral arrangements, as though he had the place to himself. Philippe with the discreet and modest red maple leaf pin on his lapel, for which he’d given his life in El Salvador. Max didn’t know how long he’d spent beside the coffin, looking but not crying — he’d already done that. When they were outside in the parking lot, Béatrice announced majestically, “From here on, I never want to hear from you again. Don’t write or speak to me or David. Nothing at all. You no longer exist.”
Then Max had shown her the International Herald-Tribune, the paper Philippe had used to communicate with him once upon a time. Béatrice tossed it in the street. “Never, you hear me? Never.”
So this was to be a double mourning. Her husband was dead, and Max was shoved into the shadows. The idea was to protect David now that Philippe was no longer around. What galled him the most was not this decision; that was hardly unexpected. It was her intransigence … and all with that bedroom voice of hers. Max knew seduction; it was the basis of his craft, and he could only admire the finesse and subtlety of hers. The outcome was the same, but oh, how she said it. Max had gone from being a necessary evil to just plain evil.
A century later, here she was again, standing before him, attractive as ever. She looked disappointed in him, as though his appearance only meant more bad news, just another rock in the avalanche of the past twenty-four hours.
“How is he?” Max asked.
“The doctors are confident; in fact, downright encouraging.”
After long pause, Béatrice said, “I knew you’d come.”
Max smiled sadly. He couldn’t tell if she meant it or if it was just her way of saying it was too late again, that it was time to lay a wreath and choose a picture for the card.
“I want to see him.”
“He’s in a coma. He doesn’t recognize anyone.”
“I want to see him,” Max insisted.
“What’s the point?”
Before she could stop him, Max stepped around her and continued down the corridor. The teary-eyed nurse was gone, and the mercenaries were clogging the coffee machine, leaving only one guard at the door on the other side. He rushed Max to keep him from going in, while others moved in to back him up. Then behind him, Max heard Béatrice: “Okay, it’s okay.” The man hesitated, then stepped aside. Max glanced across the hall at Béatrice and opened the door. The room was in shadow, but his eyes easily spotted the bed in the corner behind a curtain. He approached and pulled aside the curtain. The bed was empty.
