The Book of Fate

93

The scratched metal door to the old apartment yawned open, and the stale smell of pipe tobacco swirled across Lisbeth’s face.

“The reporter, right?” asked a stubby, sixty-year-old man with brown-tinted glasses, a short-sleeve white button-down, and a pointy, crescent-moon chin. He looked no different than the last time she saw him — except for his forehead, where a jagged oval hunk of skin the size of a campaign button had been sliced from the top of his receding white hairline down to his eyebrows, leaving a lump of fresh pink skin in its place.

“Squamous cell skin cancer,” he blurted. “Not pretty, I know, but — aheh — at least it didn’t reach my skull,” he added with an awkward shrug and laugh.

Eve had warned her about this. Like the comic strip folks and the obituary guys downstairs, every crossword designer could use a few lessons in social graces.

As Lisbeth stepped inside, Martin Kassal followed a bit too closely, trying to hide a small limp while trailing her into the living room, where packed bookshelves clogged every wall. Even the tops of the bookcases were stacked to the ceiling with newspapers, magazines, dictionaries, thesauruses, and full sets of the 1959 and 1972 Encyclopedia Britannica. Just past the living room, a small sitting area held a white Formica desk that was yellowed from the sun, a two-person beige love seat buried under newspaper clippings, and a freestanding chalkboard that was framed with at least fifty diamond-shaped, suction-cup Baby on Board signs: Student Driver on Board, Twins on Board, Marlins Fan on Board, Gun Owner on Board, Mother-in-Law in Trunk, Michigan Dad on Board, Nobody on Board, a bright pink Princess on Board, and of course, a black and white Crossword Lover on Board, where the o’s in Crossword and Lover intersected.

“June 1992,” Kassal beamed, his moon-chin rising. “We did a scavenger hunt for the weekend section. Impossible stuff: an old pull tab from a soda can, a baseball card with a player not wearing a baseball cap, and these,” he said, pointing to the Baby on Board collection. “Anything but BABY on Board.”

Nodding politely, Lisbeth looked past the suction-cup signs and focused on the actual blackboard, which held an oversize hand-drawn grid. The top half of the grid was filled with words and darkened boxes; the bottom half was almost completely blank.

“You still design them by hand?” she asked.

“Instead of what, some computer program that’ll do all the work for me? No offense, but — aheh — I’m obsolete enough as it is. Last thing I need to do is wave the white flag and bury myself, if that makes sense.”

“Perfect sense,” Lisbeth agreed, staring down at the two crossword puzzles in her hand.

“So those the puzzles you were talking about?” Kassal asked, raising his nose and peering through the reading half of his tinted bifocals. As Lisbeth handed him the crosswords, he scanned the top one for a moment. “Fifty-six across should be taser, not tasks.”

“It’s not the puzzle that’s the problem,” Lisbeth pointed out. “It’s the symbols on the side.”

Following Lisbeth’s finger to the side of the puzzle, Kassal studied each symbol: the handwritten

“Sure it’s not just doodling?”

“We thought the same — until we found this,” she explains, flipping to the crossword Violet gave her.

“Aheh,” Kassal said with his wimpish little laugh. “Clever buggers. Their own little message.”

“See, but that’s the thing. I don’t think they made it up themselves…”

Already lost in the game, Kassal whispered to himself. “If the four dots represent the letter D as the fourth letter, and the two dots stand for B… No, no — it’s not a cryptogram — not enough symbols for letters. Not an anagram either.” Looking over the tops of his glasses at Lisbeth, he added, “They could be weather symbols… maybe Navajo signs. Who’d you say drew this again?”

“Just a friend.”

“But is it a clever friend, a dumb friend, a—?”

“Clever. Really clever. Head-of-the-class clever.”

“And what do you need it for again?”

“Just… y’know… just for fun.”

Kassal stared at her, picking her apart like she was the crossword. “This isn’t going to get me in trouble, is it?”

“Sir, the guys in comics — they said you were the best at deciphering these kinds of things.”

“Now you’re trying to flatter me, dearie.”

“No, that’s not—”

“It’s okay. These days, I don’t get flattered too often by pretty young redheads. I miss it.” Hobbling over to the yellowed Formica desk, Kassal pulled out a legal pad and copied the symbols one by one.

“So you’ll help?” Lisbeth asked.

“Less talking — more working,” he said, once again engrossed in the puzzle.

Lisbeth moved behind him, barely able to hide her excitement.

“Let’s start with the four-dot sign you have here,” he said, pointing to the::. “If you draw a vertical line down the middle of it, like this:

: |:

“… and a horizontal line like this:

“… the symbol is the same on both sides of the line, which means this sign is multi-axis symmetric.”

“And that matters why?” Lisbeth asked.

“Ever try to look up a symbol in a dictionary? Four-dots-in-a-square isn’t filed under F. But the same way every puzzle has a solution, every symbol has its own classification, which breaks down into four distinct subgroups: First, whether it’s symmetrical or not. Second, whether it’s closed like a triangle or open like your four dots here. Third, are its lines straight or curved? And fourth, does the symbol have lines that cross, which opens up a whole new religious can of tuna.”

“And when you answer those questions?”

“When you answer those,” Kassal said, limping to his bookcases and pulling thick, phone-book-sized texts from his shelves, “then you go to the references.” With a thud, he dumped the pile of books on his desk. Elsevier’s Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery, Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols, Franken’s Guide to Religious Images, The Visual Almanac of Occult Signs, Passer’s Handbook of Native American Symbols…

“This is gonna take some time, isn’t it?” Lisbeth asked, flipping open one of the books to a section titled Multi-Axis, Closed, Soft Elements, Crossing Lines. The open pages contained four encyclopedia entries for infinity (including its denotations in mathematics, genealogy, and botany) and six listings for various overlapping circles.

“Of course, it’ll take time,” Kassal replied, already cataloging the other symbols from the crossword. “Why? You got someplace t—”

Lisbeth’s cell phone erupted with a high-pitched ring. Flipping it open, she was about to pick up, then caught herself when she saw caller ID.

“Bad news?” Kassal asked, reading her reaction.

“No, just — not at all,” she insisted as the phone rang again.

“You say so,” Kassal replied with a shrug. “Though in my experience, looks like that are reserved for two people: bosses and boyfriends.”

“Yeah, well… this one’s a whole different problem.” But as the phone rang for the third time, Lisbeth couldn’t ignore the fact that even though her notepad was sticking out of her purse, she wasn’t reaching for it. Of course, that didn’t mean it was easy for her. But after nearly a decade of trying to turn four-inch stories into front-page headlines, well… some things were more important than the front page. Finally picking up, she asked, “Wes? That you?”

“Yeah,” he replied, sounding even worse than when they watched the video of the shooting.

“Everything okay?”

“I–I don’t think so.”

Hearing the pain in Wes’s voice, Lisbeth turned back to Kassal.

“Go,” the old man told her, readjusting his bifocals. “I’ll call you as soon as I find something.”

“Are you—?”

“Go,” he insisted, trying to sound annoyed. “Young redheads are just a distraction anyway.”

Nodding a thank-you and scribbling her number on a Post-it for him, Lisbeth ran for the door. Turning back to her cell, she asked Wes, “How can I help?”

On the other end, Wes finally exhaled. Lisbeth couldn’t tell if it was relief or excitement.

“That depends,” he replied. “How fast can you get to Woodlawn?”

“Woodlawn Cemetery? Why there?”

“That’s where Boyle asked to meet. Seven p.m. At his grave.”