The Memorist

Chapter 38

Vienna, Austria

Monday, April 28^th-8:10 p.m.

As the silver-and-navy Smart Car sped along the Graben, Inspector Alex Kalfus, dressed in civilian khaki pants, white shirt and a blue windbreaker that had seen better days, navigated with his right hand while smoking with his left. There was a Van Gogh portrait hanging in Amsterdam of a farmer who had the same curious expression on his face, Lucian Glass thought. Amazing how much of a man’s soul could be captured in rough strokes and applied color. There was a rough scar on Kalfus’s neck running from behind his ear down to his collarbone. So, the Austrian detective was a traveler on the same rough road Lucian had been stuck on his whole adult life.

Hanging a left, Kalfus drove into traffic, cursed and blew smoke out the window but the wind pushed it back into the car and Lucian inhaled it. He wanted to bum a cigarette off the Austrian, could already imagine how satisfying the first drag would be…except all it took to be a smoker again was one cigarette.

“I’m coming up to a corner,” Kalfus prompted.

Checking the monitor built into the briefcase open on his lap, Lucian directed him to take a right turn at the next light. “As long as this surveillance equipment’s performing properly,” he added.

After landing that morning, Lucian had hooked up with Kalfus and together they’d waited an hour for Malachai Samuels to arrive from New York. From the minute the reincarnationist walked off the plane, picked up his luggage and got into a limo, the two lawmen had been tracking him. Lucian preferred working with his own team but the Austrian government had insisted this was the only way they’d allow the FBI to work on their soil.

“And now a left,” Lucian said.

Kalfus made the turn. A few blocks later another left and then a right. “I know where he’s headed now. This is the way to Jeremy Logan’s house which makes sense since you said he’d come here to see what Logan found.”

“And lost,” Lucian agreed.

For the last hour Lucian and Kalfus had filled each other in on the actual criminal activity and suspected criminal activity that had put them both on the same case.

“How did you plant the bug?” Kalfus asked.

“We had a few men take over airport security during the hours before the flight and when Samuels went through the screening process, one pulled him out of the line to check out why he set off the machines-which bought us some time. While he was being inspected, an agent inserted the transistor chip inside his billfold.”

“He won’t find it?”

“It’s microscopic and hidden inside a seam.”

“You have been doing surveillance on this man for how long now?”

“Nine months.”

“So even if Langley’s techniques are state-of-the-art, their efforts to find any hard evidence against Malachai have failed?”

“Not their efforts…my efforts. It’s been my case and I’m its last lone crusader.”

“Why haven’t you given up by now?”

“The man is a psychologist and amateur illusionist. He understands how to misdirect and manipulate. It’s more than just making coins disappear or disguising himself, he tricks everyone. I refuse to allow him to trick me.”

“Has he been calling many people here in the last few days?”

“Jeremy Logan several times and your ex-minister of defense, Fremont Brecht, twice. We think Brecht and Logan are members of the same Society. The Memorist Society. A small, nonpolitical organization with no criminal associations as far as we can determine. Originally it was formed as an offshoot of the Freemasons.”

“Here in Vienna?” Kalfus sounded miffed that the American was telling him something he didn’t know about his own city.

“There’s no reason for you to be aware of it, it’s deep under the radar.”

“And how does all this relate to this weekend’s murder and the robberies?”

“Based on what we heard on our phone taps, the Society was going to bid on the gaming box and Malachai was negotiating to go in on that purchase with them, in exchange for unlimited access to the object. But it’s possible he was only saying that to get information from them and that he was behind the robberies. If that’s true, then following Malachai could lead us to the antique and the letter or to whoever has them. If it’s not true, we know he wants them and has the money to buy them on the black market if they’re for sale, which could also lead us to the antiques or whoever has them.”

“You seem certain one way or another he’s connected to what’s gone on here.”

Lucian nodded. He’d seen determination in Malachai’s eyes that was almost maniacal but he didn’t say that. Looking away from the monitor, he glanced out the window at the passing buildings, wondering what it would be like to actually spend a few hours being a tourist here.

“Instincts are important,” Kalfus said.

“What do you have so far in your investigation?” Lucian asked.

“Many details. Many suppositions. No tangible evidence. No mistakes on the thieves’ part,” Kalfus complained.

“No obvious mistakes, you mean.”

Kalfus shrugged. Lucian noted the Austrian did that often and wondered if it was the way he got rid of the uncertainty that every law enforcer and investigator lived with.

“The question I’ve never gotten a good answer to is how come it’s so easy for us to see those mistakes in retrospect?” Lucian said.

“Self-deprecating? It’s not a personality trait I associate with American FBI agents.”

“Left up ahead.”

Conversation came to a halt as Kalfus reached the corner, turned and they both watched the black Mercedes at the end of the block as it slowed down and parked.

Kalfus shifted the car into idle in front of number 59: a white stucco house with black shutters, while in front of number 83 Kirchengasse, a uniformed chauffeur got out of the car, went around to the passenger side, opened the door and helped the passenger out.

The front door opened and a tall man with tousled hair walked down to the curb to greet his visitor. “Is that Jeremy Logan?” Lucian asked.

“Yes.”

Logan put his arms around Malachai then Meer stepped forward and embraced him.

Kalfus put the car into Drive and slowly made his way down the street toward number 83. “That’s Jeremy’s daughter, Meer Logan,” Kalfus explained. “The gaming box was pulled out of her arms during the tear gas attack.”

“Do you have surveillance tapes of what happened at the auction house?”

“There are tapes but the smoke bombs make it impossible to see anything helpful.”

Kalfus hadn’t told him if Meer was hurt but Lucian didn’t bother to ask. By now they were driving by and Lucian could see her clearly. She didn’t look physically hurt but he had the distinct impression that she was even more troubled than the last time he saw her.

It must have been the jet lag that made him suddenly more tired than he could remember feeling for a long time. A bone-tired exhaustion that he imagined would take years to recover from. Kalfus was asking him something that required a response but Lucian had no idea what the Inspector had been saying for the last minute or two. That must have been the jet lag, too.