Shark and Octopus Read online

  *

  “This won’t take long, amigo,” Bobby said, leaning forward on the couch. “We worked all afternoon in DC with Grace. We didn’t learn anything about the man in white.”

  “And Grace sends you her best,” Annie added.

  “And Grace sends you her best,” Bobby said, leaning back on the couch. “Sorry, Griffin.”

  “Don’t worry, Bobby. I spent all afternoon online until I was on the verge of retina burn. Came up with zero also.”

  Griffin looked out the living room window. The sky was sliding into twilight. The evening was warm, though no longer hot. Still looking out the window, Griffin said, “You’re telling me we don’t know anything more about the man in white than we did last night?”

  “Fraid not.”

  “Bobby, we have no idea how he learned we’d been hired by Duke Ferlinghetti? And all the other details he knew about me? He wasn’t guessing or speaking in generalities. He knew.”

  Bobby Lowell, an actor who randomly practiced accents, replied in the voice of a Kentucky colonel.

  “Well, suh-” he said, nodding at the picture of Duke Ferlinghetti and the unknown blonde in the Paris restaurant. “Suh, maybe we do know” – know was two syllables somehow – “somethin’ about that.”

  Griffin looked directly at Bobby. “What do we know, colonel?” Griffin asked.

  Bobby replied not in an accent, but in his own voice, a voice flattened with sadness.

  “Look at the woman’s eyes.” Everyone in the room did. “Look at her stare. No life there; none at all. She’s gone. She’s physically in the restaurant, sure, but that poor woman’s not really there. She’s on her way to her next fix or next drink or next whatever it is she needs to keep going. I know that Duke Ferlinghetti is an obnoxious turd – forgive my language, Annie.”

  “No, you can say it. He’s a turd.”

  “It seems the turdish Duke Ferlinghetti has a regular supplier of tall, model-y blondes. Remember the blonde last night, in the hotel suite? Pouring the wine she kept missing our glasses. Even at the time I could tell her problem wasn’t the candlelight. Her hands shook.” Bobby paused, looking at his own hands.

  “I assume the Duke bankrolls each blonde’s particular habit, in exchange for what we can all guess. Is there anyone here who doubts the Duke would resort to that? And addicts – whatever their particular poison – are the world’s worst secret keepers. The blondes probably then turned around and sold what they knew to the man in white.

  “I-” Bobby hesitated, and when he spoke his voice came out clear but distant, the voice of a man looking at himself and not caring for what he saw.

  “I couldn’t admit it to any of you – and I know this isn’t my best profile – but in the fall I tried rehab for my drinking. The key word there is tried. I snuck out of rehab in the middle of the second night. Hit a North Avenue liquor store on the way home. I wasn’t ready.” He pointed again at the woman in the picture. “I saw plenty of those lifeless stares in rehab. I saw one when I looked in the mirror.

  “Then, Griffin, you called me just before Christmas last year. You asked if I could help you and Annie and Kit with something. If that worked out, you said the feds would drop their case against you. You didn’t know it but having something to do that mattered kept me out of my jail too. Haven’t had a drink five months now. Hardly even want one anymore.”

  “No worries,” Griffin quietly said.

  Annie reached over, touched Bobby softly twice on the forearm. It was, Griffin knew, the perfect, understated gesture of support.

  The silence stretched comfortably a few seconds, broken by Griffin saying, “I’m sure you’re right, Bobby. That’s how the man in white found out Duke Ferlinghetti had hired us and knew what we planned to do last night. Through the Duke’s blondes is how he knew. They passed along to the man in white all our plans as I so conveniently explained them to the Duke.”

  “You going to tell the Duke about that?” Annie wondered.

  “Tell the Duke he caused the theft of his beloved key?” Griffin said. “I’d have to wear full body Kevlar armor to do that. God only knows what would go flying in my direction. Besides, what good would it do? I don’t know anything about those blondes, even their last names.”

  “And I doubt the Duke does either,” Bobby finished for him.

  “And even assuming Duke Ferlinghetti could track down these blondes,” Griffin went on, “how much could they tell us – women who sold information to the man in white while they sold their companionship to the Duke. These ladies would be close to useless. And the man in white, if I am any judge, wouldn’t be careless enough to put himself in a position where they could hurt him. No, unfortunately, the blondes will get us no closer to finding out who the man in white is. Grace didn’t help. Let’s hope we can find out about the man in white from another direction.

  “Guess you’re on now, Saif. What can you tell us about the license plate of the car the man in white drove off in last night?”

  *

  “Griffin, here’s what I learned about the partial plate you gave me,” Saif began. He’d printed out his notes but did not need to consult them.

  “You had all but the first two letters of the license plate. Turns out the plate is DNR 187. You said the car was an old land yacht, and it is that – a 1996 Buick Riviera. The vehicle was owned by a Miss Andrea Marie Platts. She was the original and only owner.”

  “Was? Not is? You mean the car was stolen?”

  “That too.”

  “Ah, Saif-”

  “Griffin, the car owner, Miss Platts, is dead.”

  “Meaning we can safely assume she wasn’t driving last night.”

  “Safe assumption. I knew you’d want to know, so here’s what I can tell you about her. She never married. No children. No sibs. No prior arrests. No bankruptcies, no debts. She resided the last fifteen years of her life at the Oakecrest Village retirement community. Died March 16 of this year, age 86.

  “With no close relatives and no will, there was some squabbling about which second cousin would inherit the estate. Lawyers got involved, there was a one inch, single paragraph article about it in the Baltimore Sun newspaper on April 12.”

  “What was in the estate?” Griffin wondered.

  “Besides the Buick? Some stocks. A bit of cash. Oh, and several dozen salt and pepper shakers she liked to collect.”

  Griffin motioned for Saif to continue.

  “April 16, four days after the article appeared in the paper, the Buick Riviera was stolen from the Oakecrest Village parking lot. You know Oakecrest?”

  “Sure. It’s just a couple miles from here. My grandmom’s at Oakecrest.”

  “Then you know how big the place is, Griffin. The car theft wasn’t noticed for a couple days. I accessed a report filed with the Baltimore County police. One of the guards at the place thought he’d seen someone in the parking lot who didn’t seem to belong there. All he remembered of this guy is that he had tattoos on both arms and reeked of what the guard described as a ‘strange mix of Aqua Velva and whiskey.’ Strange must be putting it mildly. That’s it. That’s all I could find.”

  “Well played, Saif.”

  Griffin looked out the window once more. The sky was streaked with red-rimmed clouds; another hot day tomorrow.

  “Okay, let’s walk through the time line,” he said. “I think better when I can see it in writing. Kit, hand me that empty box, will you?”

  “You’re going to write on a pizza box?”

  “Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope.”

  “Somehow,” Kit said, giving Griffin the pizza box, “it sounds almost logical when you say it.”

  *

  “First off, March 4.” Griffin made a mark and wrote the date on the pizza box, “I get a phone call from Grace. She’s been contacted by an obnoxious Italian duke nobody likes. But he’s a strong ally of our country, so she’s got to help him if she can. The Count has this some
what weird request – put a real key into a museum exhibit in place of a fake one. And do it without anyone knowing it’s been done. His Ferlinghetti honor is at stake. Obviously this isn’t something the federal government can touch, so they have to go off the books.

  “That same day, Grace contacts me. Which makes sense, since this is just the sort of thing we do, retrieve stuff without anyone noticing. Besides, the exhibit with the key to be switched is coming to Baltimore on its tour of American museums.

  “On March 16, poor Miss Platts departs this life.” Griffin wrote the date in a pepperoni stain on the box. “On April 12,” another mark, this in a streak of tomato sauce, “the article in the Sun appears about the squabble over the estate of Andrea Platts. The estate consists of her big, old car and not much else of interest. I’m assuming no one but the dearly departed cared about the salt and pepper shakers.”

  “Safe assumption,” Saif agreed.

  “By this time I’ve been in frequent contact and even met with the Duke. Whichever blonde he’s with at the time is aware of this. She’s there when the Duke and I are on the phone. She’s there when the Duke and I meet. She would know what I’m planning and that Bobby, Kit and Annie will be working with me on this.

  “Whatever the blondes’ addictions, addicts need money, right?” Bobby nodded. “The man in white seemed to have lots of it. He could find out what we’ve been hired to do easily enough, through buying off the blonde du jour. All he needed to know about was the Duke’s interest in the key. Which he told me last night he knew about.”

  Griffin continued and another mark went on the pizza box.

  “On April 16 the Buick Riviera is stolen from the Oakecrest parking lot. As you noted, Saif, the retirement community is huge. The disappearance of one old car isn’t likely to be noticed right away. Apparently this guy with the tattoos and Aqua Velva and whiskey boosted the Buick without a key. Hotwire the car; jam a screwdriver into the ignition. With a car this old? Certainly very doable.

  “We know next to nothing about the man in white, but we can be sure he’s from out of town. He knew he’d need a car. Not something he rented or bought, which would leave a traceable paper trail. Once he saw the article in the Sun, he figured the Riviera was right for his purpose. He wouldn’t even have to be in Baltimore for that. The paper can be read online from anywhere in the world. He’d hire someone to steal the car. Then have the car sit someplace safe for a while.”

  “Wouldn’t the police be looking for a stolen car?”

  “Months after it was stolen, Saif? Not likely. “At the museum fundraiser?” Griffin pressed on. “While I was watching the man in white ride off into the night? His choice of getaway car surprised me. A huge, ancient American car? He seemed a brand new Maserati or Bentley type. But now his mode of transit makes sense, for the reasons we’ve just gone over.”

  Griffin tapped the pizza box against his knee. It was a soft, contemplative tap.

  “The Oakecrest Village car thief – our Aqua Velva and whiskey man – likely hid the car someplace until last night, when the man in white needed it. My guess is he drove the man in white to the museum fundraiser.”

  More tapping of the pizza box against Griffin’s knee. This was a harder, anger-flaring tap.

  “The man in white wouldn’t cab or Uber or Lyft to the fundraiser. Their riders can be easily traced. And a guy as distinctive as the man in white would be remembered.

  “Last night I couldn’t see the driver and obviously I couldn’t smell him, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn the driver had tattoos and reeked of Aqua Velva and whiskey. It’s logical to use the same man for both the theft of the getaway car and the getaway itself. Fewer people mean fewer problems, fewer chances for betrayal if anything goes wrong. It seems the man in white hired this Aqua Velva and whiskey guy as his car thief and his driver.”

  “Who is he, Griffin? And where is he now, do you think, the man in white?” Kit asked.

  Griffin did not even attempt to answer the first question. To the second he replied quietly, “Somewhere in the world.”

  Griffin banged the pizza box against his knee with enough force the box bent.

  ”The man in white lets me do all the hard work – the planning, the learning how to pick locks, learning how to exchange the key without setting off the alarm. Once the man in white knew our plans, all he had to do was keep an eye on me at the fundraiser. Which he could do easily enough in that crowd. When I left for the second floor, he waited a few moments, then went after me. We do all the work and he gets the key. Truth is, he played us. Me especially. That’s a slap in the face. We just can’t let that go.”

  “Everything you mentioned, Griffin, took place in March and April and this is June,” Bobby observed. “Seems the man in white has been planning this for a while.”

  Griffin agreed that was certainly true.

  “And he’s got brains enough and money enough to pull it off,” Kit noted.

  Griffin conceded that seemed to be the case.

  “This key, it matters hugely to him,” Saif concluded.

  It must, Griffin said.

  “But what,” asked Griffin, who crumpled the pizza box some more. “What does the man in white want with the key? Is he a thief? Some people rob banks, some rob convenience stores, he robs museums?” Griffin quickly answered himself. “That can’t be the explanation. He knew that key is the least valuable of the twelve on display. But he wanted it anyway. What does he want with that key?”

  Griffin began stabbing the box repeatedly with his pen “Why is he after the key? And what happens after he has the key, what does he want to do with it?”

  Annie took the pizza box from Griffin. She said, “What does anyone want with a key?”

  “I give up. What?”

  “To open something that’s locked.”

  SIX

  June 5

  7:14 pm

  “What you’re pointing out,” Griffin said, beginning to pace once more, “is that the man in white wants to get in somewhere.”

  In the rugless room, Griffin’s pacing – he was always a clomper – echoed harshly. The calico, Dr. Eckleburg, scurried to safety behind the couch.

  “So, Griffin? What was the key made to open?”

  “Annie, it was made for the jailer in the Arazzo Castle, when the Ferlinghettis lived there, way, way back in the day. This was about 1715, remember. The key was made for a room or a jail cell, I suppose. But where? The jailer’s not around to ask.”

  ”He’s not, but could the jail still be around?”

  Griffin stopped his pacing. The question had not occurred to him.

  “I knew there was a reason I liked you,” he said to Annie. This earned him a smile and a mock curtsy. “That must be why the man in white wanted the original key – to get into someplace in the jail. The replica wouldn’t do him any good. The replica wouldn’t open anything. It’s just a replica.”

  “Could the jail still be around?” Annie asked again.

  Griffin gave a maybe yes, maybe no tilt of his hand.

  “The jail still could be, I suppose. That’s a big could. The castle was sacked by Napoleon and flattened by Allied bombing during the Second World War. The Ferlinghettis haven’t lived there in generations. The castle has been partially reconstructed into a tourist destination. It’s kind of a fantasy camp for folks who want to live like a duke for a day. The brochure for the castle doesn’t say if the jail survived.”

  “You got any idea how we can find out if the jail is still there?”

  “I can help with that, Annie,” Saif said. Everyone in the living room turned to hear Saif’s unexpected contribution.

  He said: “There’s a professor at Hopkins. Saul Silverman. He’s been emeritus for years now. One of the world’s leading authorities in Italian history, Renaissance to Italian Unification. Almost eighty now, but he still keeps office hours every weekday morning. He’ll be your starting point if you want to learn about an Italian castle that was around
in the 18th century. Nobody knows more than Saul Silverman. I can introduce you.”

  Griffin said, “I agree that’s our starting point, Monday morning. Bobby and I will go see him. But I don’t want you introducing us. Time for you to get back to being a professor.”

  Saif’s face crumpled in disappointment.

  “Saif?” Griffin said, but seeing the hurt on Saif’s face, he could not continue. Griffin tried again. “Saif, how long before your doctoral defense? About a month?”

  “A little less.”

  “Only three weeks or so before you become Dr. Venkatesan.”

  “Likely.”

  “If I know you at all, Saif, there’s no likely about it. That result is an absolute lock. Unless … Unless, of course, you’re spotted on the campus of Johns Hopkins University consorting with a man arrested just last year for committing a felony. Who would be me. And who happens to be engaging in the illegal activity of attempted theft of an historical artifact. Which is exactly what I want to do – steal back that key.

  “Saif, we appreciate your help, enormously. It’d of taken me days to dig up what you got in an afternoon. But you can’t afford to be seen with me.”

  Saif looked around the living room, almost furniture-free.

  “Griffin, do you known how lucky you are this place is barely furnished?”

  “What? Why?”

  “Griffin, you and Annie can decorate this room however you want.”

  “And?”

  Saif threw his arms out, as if trying to embrace the possibilities of the empty space.

  “And you can hang purple drapes. And put zebra striped shag carpeting on the floor if you want. Or on the ceiling, if you want. My life is nothing like that. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been on a kind of highway, taking me to where my career is now. It’s what my parents expect of me. I’m okay with that. I’m their only child. It’s fine, really.