The Memorist

Chapter 8

Vienna, Austria

Friday, April 25^th-10:30 a.m.

Two hours after being hired via a cryptic phone call, Paul Pertzler walked toward one of only two empty tables at the Café Mozart on Albertinaplatz. Passing a young woman sitting alone, drinking a cup of coffee, his eyes dwelled on her extraordinary figure. At least the parts he could see from the waist up. Pertzler himself was very ordinary-looking, a man of medium height with light brown hair, dark brown eyes and ruddy skin-and she didn’t look up. Which was wonderful. It gave him more time to ogle the cleavage exposed by her black V-neck sweater. Focusing on it so intently, he didn’t notice that his newspaper had slipped from under his arm.

“Excuse me-” The man holding out the paper wore a blue jean jacket and mirrored blue aviator sunglasses. “You dropped this.”

Slightly chagrined, Pertzler thanked him, took it and continued on to the empty table. After he ordered a beer, he lit a cigarette and inspected the passing parade. The Ringstrasse was always crowded no matter what the season, the time of day or the weather. Today was no exception. Across the street the town hall took up the whole block. It was a fine architectural objet d’art, except once you got over the grandeur of it you realized how dirty it was. A century of soot. Vienna had a perverse desperation to hang on to the past even when it proved toxic. World War II had ended over sixty years before, but secrets about Vienna’s involvement kept cropping up all the time, exposing more Nazi crimes.

When the man in the jean jacket left, Pertzler barely noticed, but when the woman in the low-cut sweater walked off, he watched every step of her exit. A few minutes after her departure he glanced at his watch, dropped some coins on the table and got up.

Entering the Rathaus Park he took his time strolling through the well-kept gardens that included a wide variety of woody plants and unusual trees. Stopping to examine a Japanese pagoda and then a very old ginkgo, he showed great interest even though, for all he knew, he might as well have been looking at common maples. But before he opened the newspaper under his arm he had to make sure he wasn’t being followed.

Landlines were too easy to tap, cell phones too easy to intercept, e-mail was relatively safe but left a trail, and while message boards worked well, he preferred old-fashioned methods. Pertzler had remained under the radar for twenty-five years for one reason only-he was exceedingly careful and didn’t give anyone any reason to notice or suspect him. That’s how he managed to deliver each and every time. This wouldn’t be an exception. His client was paying triple for this job to ensure it was done fast and right. And triple sounded three times as good.

Certain he wasn’t under surveillance, Pertzler sat down on a wooden bench, unfolded his International Herald Tribune and scanned the front page.

Rare Beethoven Letter Found After 200 Years

By Susan Essex-Vienna, Austria

Hidden inside a concealed false drawer in an antique gaming box, an expert at the Dorotheum auction house here has discovered a two-page letter possibly written by Ludwig van Beethoven. If the letter’s provenance is validated and the handwriting guaranteed, the find could be worth more than 750,000 euros.

The information was delivered to this paper’s office by unnamed sources. Jeremy Logan, curator of the Judaica department and the man who found the letter, could not be reached for comment but the auction house confirmed the letter’s existence.

Experts agree that, considering the gaming box belonged to Antonie Brentano, a well-known friend of Beethoven’s and possibly his “Immortal Beloved,” there is a good chance the letter will be authenticated.

The gaming box, which was given to Brentano by the composer, will be sold at auction next week but the letter will not be included in that sale.

Estimates place the value of the box at approximately 100,000 euros.

Millions of people who read the article would all glean the same information from it but in his version a few dozen characters were underlined. Once Pertzler decoded them they’d spell out everything he needed to know about the job he’d agreed to take on from the caller who’d given him a name he was certain wasn’t half as real as the antique letter he’d been hired to steal.