Since the zoo incident a few days previously, Emily had been able to persuade her indefatigable hunter to relax his pursuit a little. The Queer Duck’s game was a blind alley, a brick wall, a merry-go-round, spinning tirelessly but going nowhere. Perhaps the way to win, she had suggested, was to refuse to play. Besides, if they went to the Chinese exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, Michael could always fit in a bit of stakeout after admiring the wonders produced in the ancient land of Emily’s ancestors. He agreed, not so much out of interest in Oriental art as in the belief that a change in tactics might be called for.
So it was that the two of them were strolling up Fifth Avenue, hand in hand, at about the time of Mrs. Arthur Mason’s astonished shout; they paused for a traffic light, seizing the opportunity for a quick kiss, at the very moment when the crowd of appalled visitors watched the canvas burst into flames; and they arrived at the museum simultaneously with the fire engines. Police were already there, holding back the spectators outside, while a TV camera truck disgorged its remote unit, the cameraman shouldering his portable equipment as a crew member guided him through the clamoring, craning throng. Firefighters clutching large hoses attached them to fire hydrants and ran up the steps. No one seemed to know what was happening, other than that there was a fire inside the building. Michael, wild-eyed, leaned away from the building as though struggling to neutralize an overpowering force and turned to Emily. “He’s in there,” he said, “I know he’s in there.”
“Who? The Queer Duck?”
“Yes, I can feel it. You hang around here and watch for him. I’m going inside.”
“But wait.” She hesitated, thinking, He might be right, and thinking, He’s lost his mind. “What happens if we lose one another?”
“Meet you at Dazz’s,” he yelled back to her, already pushing his way up the steps through the crowd. Finally he reached one of the doorways and was so intent on getting through it that he failed to see the old man exiting through another one.
The man started down the steps; then, seeing the television camera trained directly on him, he averted his face and made an involuntary motion with his hand, as if grabbing for something: his umbrella. A look of dawning realization spread across his face, and he turned back to the door he had just come out of.
“Can’t go in there,” a guard said, holding out his hands.
“I forgot—”
“Get it later.”
The man backed off slowly, a dazed expression on his face, and then, as the television camera whirred, he ducked abruptly and jostled his way through the press of people around the door.
Emily had skirted the main part of the crowd and stood on the top step, some distance from the entrance, scanning the tumult in the hope of spotting Michael. She saw someone she recognized, though she wished she didn’t; it was the old man, Michael’s Queer Duck, who burst clear of the obstinate bodies impeding his passage and hurried toward her, without noting her, across the crowded landing. He wasn’t like a duck at all, Emily thought, nor was he, despite the earlier impression he had made on her, as powerful and streamlined as a raptor. He was too disjointed, too bumbling, more in the manner of some dark, gruesome, carrion-eating bird, like a crow or a vulture, jerking across the stone steps while his loose black clothes billowed up around him and his one good eye rolled upward: a creature suited to the air, yet curiously bound to the pavement.
She took one step, then another, as he bore down on her, heedless of her but moving directly toward her. When he looked down to assure his footing, they were standing face to face.
This is it, Emily thought, as she registered the contemptuous, impatient grimace that twisted his thin lips and the dismissive gesture of his hand.
This time she would let him know what she thought of his hide-and-seek game with Michael. But as harsh words rose to her consciousness and she parted her lips to speak, all she could see was his one eye and all she could do was see it. She was frozen in place, helpless, unable to move a muscle. The eye was chilling, like an icy blade; it probed her, recognized her, dismissed her, as though she had been cut open and tossed aside. As the blood thawed around her heart and she came to herself, she felt absurdly ashamed, as if she had waked to find herself standing naked in a public place. The old man was gone. She looked around anxiously and saw him just below her, plunging through the crowd, down the steps, then darting between two fire trucks parked at the curb.
Propelled by an impulse that dismayed her, thinking all the while, Why am I doing this? she pushed her way down the steps after him. People came hurrying from all directions, and she had to struggle to ward them off. He crossed the street, heading east on Eightieth toward Madison. Without waiting for the light, Emily followed him.
In the meanwhile, Michael stood in the Great Hall, looking upward with the rest. The fire, apparently, was somewhere upstairs. A passing guard shouted at him, among others, to get out of the building, then hurried busily on. Michael stepped to one side and looked around. Somewhere in the sea of faces he felt certain he would see the Queer Duck.
A lone fireman was standing against the gallery railing above, waving his arms. A whistle blew, and then the ringing alarm bell suddenly stopped. “It’s all right,” the fireman shouted down.
“What’s goin’ on?” another called up.
“False alarm, I guess.” He shrugged his perplexity and left the railing. In a moment firemen began descending with their equipment. A pair of uniformed guards came down together and spoke briefly; then the first guard walked toward the Egyptian wing, while the second one headed for the information desk. Michael stepped quickly after him.
“I’m with the News” he said, fast-talking the guard. “What’s happening up there?”
The guard was dialing a telephone. “Damnedest thing I ever saw—if I saw it—” He broke off and spoke into the mouthpiece, reporting that the fire was out. A moment later the first guard appeared in the entrance to the Egyptian wing and rushed shouting toward the information desk, intercepting a man in a seersucker jacket as he came. The guard spoke intensely and rapidly, the other listening, and together they came up to the desk. The guard on the telephone was just completing his call. The man in the seersucker jacket took the phone, dialed, and spoke.
“There’s been a robbery in the Egyptian wing.”
The first guard looked at Michael. “What do you want in here?”
“Press. Can you give me some details?”
“You got credentials?”
“Sure.” Michael made a great show of feeling in all his pockets. Avoiding the guard’s eye, he looked past his shoulder in the direction of the checkroom. Through the aperture in the partition, he noted something sitting on the nearly empty rack. Stepping toward it, he said, “Guess I must have lost them in the—” He made a vague gesture, then began moving more rapidly to the checkroom.
“Hey, wait a minute!” the guard called after him. Michael put on a smile and called back, “Forgot my umbrella. And my package.” He pointed to the two items on the rack and strode purposefully toward them. The guard had turned briefly to speak to the man in seersucker. Michael lifted the gate, grabbed the umbrella off the hook, snatched up the Bloomingdale’s bag, and headed for the entrance.
“Hey, wait a minute!” the guard shouted again. “You got a check number for those things?”
“Yeah,” Michael called back, “it’s with my credentials.”
“Say, you, hold on there!” The first guard was after him, the other one following. The one in the lead tripped over the hoses being lugged out by some firemen, the other tripped over him, and Michael made a dash for the door. At the last moment he turned to look at the guards extricating themselves from the hoses; then he leaped through the doorway and was lost in the crowd.
Some hours later, Michael was sitting with Dazz in his studio, waiting for Emily. Between nervous glances at the clock—it was nearly six—Michael stared at the objects spread out on the coffee table. The ordinary-looking umbrella, well used thou
gh it was, offered no clue as to its ownership. The contents of the Bloomingdale’s shopping bag had proved to be a shoe box, which contained a pair of new shoes: black, patent leather, narrow, with leather soles, rubber heels, elastic side panels, and eyelets for laces. Manufactured by the Bilt-Well Company. Little enough to go on.
Dazz had risen to go to the kitchen when the doorbell rang, and he and Michael were standing at the door as the elevator arrived and Emily stepped out, looking somewhat uncertain. She smiled weakly, but all she could say was “Hello” before Michael took her in his arms and squeezed her breathless. “Christ, I’m glad to see you,” he said, leading her inside. “What happened?”
“I saw him—yes, him,” she said, trying not to let Michael’s immediate reaction, transfixed eagerness, annoy her. “He came out of the museum right after you left to go in. He got through the crowd, and all of a sudden we were facing one another. I looked him in the eyes—eye, I should say. It made my blood run cold.” As she was speaking, she shook her head and walked to one of the tall windows, stood for a moment, staring out across the street at the karate parlor, then turned back to them with a strange expression on her face. “But I followed him anyway, I can’t tell you why, I sure didn’t want to. And, naturally, I lost him again.”
“Where?” Michael asked.
“On a bus.” She flopped down on the sofa and began blotting perspiration from her face and throat with a handkerchief. “He went down Madison and got on a bus. I had almost caught up with him and I got on a little after him; maybe four people got on between us. The bus took off, I pushed all the way to the back before it stopped again, and he wasn’t there.”
“He couldn’t have gotten off right after he got on?” Dazz asked.
“Not possible,” she said, rotating her head wearily on her neck. “The bus was packed, he would have had to get all the way to the back in two seconds. Not possible.” She continued moving her head around slowly, then gave it a few definitive shakes. “There was no place to go, and he wasn’t there.”
Dazz whistled softly. Michael hugged Emily and looked at the clock. “Vanished into thin air, his favorite habitat. Let’s go turn on the news.”
They went into the room off the kitchen that Dazz used as a study. Holding the shoes, Michael sat on the warped sofa and scowled moodily at the television screen as the six o’clock news began. The story of the museum fire was in the lead, and the newscaster made liberal use of such words as “incredible,” “hoax,” and “mystifying,” throwing in several “apparently’s” as qualifiers. The video showed the camera being jostled by the crowds on the outside steps, firemen fighting their way through the entrances. Faces appearing, disappearing, the microphones picking up traces of conversation.
“Look! There he is!” Emily pointed at the screen, where the old man had suddenly appeared amid the crowd gathered at the entrance. He glanced at the camera, shied away, made an odd gesture, then turned back as if to go through the doorway again.
“He realizes he’s forgotten his stuff,” Michael muttered.
Dazz started to ask a question but was sternly shushed by the other two as the individual reports began. The main lines of the story, pieced together out of various ill-assorted facts and eyewitnesses’ statements, were the following. One: the painting had not burned at all. (Eyewitness accounts, however, were at variance on this point, for many people, including several museum guards, had seen flames consuming the canvas.) Two: at the same time the painting was believed to be burning, or shortly thereafter, a priceless object was discovered missing from its case in the jewelry room of the Egyptian wing. The object was described as an ancient Eye of Horus, painted in azure on a fragment of ivory-colored faience. Three: the exhibition case was unharmed and showed no signs of tampering; the lock on the sliding panel had not been touched, nor had the glass been cut or broken. The guard on duty attested to the fact that he had seen the Eye in its proper place only five minutes before the “fire” broke out upstairs. The report continued with the pertinent information that an unidentified male individual had been seen near the display case, and police were investigating this lead. No one was certain whether any connection existed between the theft—or loss—of the Eye of Horus and the alleged fire. Finally, the head curator of the museum appeared briefly to emphasize that “Saskia in Tears” had not been damaged in any way. He hastened to assure the Dutch government that the painting on loan would be returned in the same condition in which it had arrived.
Some forced chat from the news anchors, a man and a woman who looked very much alike, heralded the arrival of commercials. Heaving a sigh, Emily rose to her feet and moved in the direction of the bathroom. Michael sank deeper into the sofa, closed his eyes, and groaned. “This sure is some strange stuff, babe,” Dazz observed, “but look at it this way. You’ve got yourself a fine new pair of shoes.”
“Great,” Michael said, barely moving his lips. “And what am I supposed to do with his shoes?”
Emily stopped, leaned in the doorway, pulling her hair off her neck with both hands. “You’re supposed to return them to him.”
“How am I going to do that?”
“You’ll find a way,” she said sorrowfully. “He knows you will. And so do I.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lost and Found
MICHAEL SAT DOWN WITH the Yellow Pages of the Manhattan telephone directory and turned to Shoes, Retail, but careful perusal of this section, followed by Shoes, Whol. & Mfrs., offered no information concerning the provenance of the Bilt-Well patent-leather gaiters. Neither Bloomingdale’s nor any store in its immediate neighborhood carried Bilt-Wells. According to the National Association of Shoe Manufacturers, reached after a long telephonic pursuit, the Bilt-Well Shoe Company of Cleveland, a victim of bad economic times, had folded some time ago and sold its entire stock to a chain of liquidation stores.
From this point, things became more difficult. Abandoning the telephone, Michael took to the streets with resolution in his heart and the shoes in their white cardboard box. He began systematically visiting shoe stores, making inquiries.
Many places sold Bilt-Wells, but not that model, many more didn’t sell them, period, and all had free advice: try down on Delancey Street, try some of the remainder outlets south of Canal, try Macy’s at Herald Square. How about tuxedo rental houses? Or one of those cheap places on Fourteenth Street where the Puerto Ricans shop? Try uptown/downtown/crosstown. Try somewhere else.
It was worse than the Bloomingdale’s stakeout, far worse than the long hours spent in the plaza or in front of the Metropolitan Museum. He was close, he knew he was nearly there, but stymied, stuck in place.
He examined the shoes minutely, letting his imagination play over them. Something about them made him think of show business. People didn’t wear shoes like these without a reason; they did something while wearing them, they had a purpose when they put them on. Maybe he should try a theatrical costumer. The thought led him to the theater district, where he wandered about for a while looking for an appropriate shop. He found one between a deeply soiled delicatessen featuring PASTRAMI SANWITCHES and a sparkling porno theater showing Psychic Bimbos. Yes, the shopkeeper said, they carried Bilt-Wells in this style and others, had recently purchased them from a liquidation company, but an inventory check revealed that none of the ones like Michael’s had been sold. The man suggested a costumer who turned out to be located on the same floor as Lou Tannen’s Magic Shop in the Loew’s State Building. Michael was elated; this was the best lead yet.
He brought the shoes in, laid them on the counter. Yes, the clerk said, eyeing him suspiciously, they specialized in “character” shoes for dancers and carried a number of cancelled Bilt-Wells. So why did he want to know? Was there something wrong with the shoes? Were they stolen?
No, Michael explained glibly, he’d found them on a park bench, thought they were perhaps expensive and the owner might be someone working in the neighborhood. The clerk was still distrustful. People didn’t go ar
ound trying to return a pair of shoes to an unidentified owner. Was he a cop or something? Look, Michael said, go next door, ask Lou, he knows me. I’m a magician, see, just trying to do a favor for a guy.
The man took up the shoes and inspected them for the third time. Well, if he was a friend of Lou Tannen’s…
“You know Wurlitzer?”
“Wurlitzer? The Great Wurlitzer?”
The man shook his head doubtfully. “Well, let’s say the once-great Wurlitzer. Nutty old geezer. Got that rundown museum, whatchamacallit, Egyptian hall around the corner. You never heard of it?”
He hadn’t; had heard of the Great Wurlitzer, though. He mentioned the pictures in his collection, the man of many disguises, Merlino the Magnificent.
“Yeah, that’s him, same guy. He uses a couple different names, but his real one is Wurlitzer, Max Wurlitzer. He bought these shoes offa us. He’s been buyin’ here for years. Used to be two pairs a year, now it’s one every three or four. I always wait on him myself. It’s funny, this has been going on since I was a kid, yet he never seems to get any older, know what I mean?” The man gave a sort of snorting laugh and began flipping through the cards in a small file box on the counter. “Nah, old Max’s been lookin’ about a hundred years old since I first seen him. Acts kinda crazy, too. Some people’re afraida him, but he don’t seem so scary to me. One thing’s for sure, he don’t make no money at that place. Aw right, I finely found his address. I’ll write it down for ya. You take him his shoes, he’ll be glad.”
Not half as glad as I’ll be, Michael thought.
He came upon the place from the opposite side of the street. He passed a newsstand on the corner, then continued down the block until he saw the red doors. He stopped in front of a coffee shop and looked across. It was a sorry tenement district west of Times Square, beyond the “bad luck” theaters like the Martin Beck, where no one wanted to run Broadway shows anymore. A miserable-looking building. A portal in fake Egyptian style and a sign: THE LITTLE CAIRO MUSEUM OF WONDERS. Old, dilapidated, seedy. Above, three floors of what looked to be apartment rooms. He caught a sign of movement behind a second-story window; a woman peered out; then she dropped the curtain but remained standing behind it. He sensed something furtive in her movement, something worrisome, something familiar, something…nothing. He crossed the street and approached, eyes sweeping the vista. Next to the two red doors, in an exterior alcove, a box-office window, boarded up. Below: THE GREAT WURLITZER APPEARING SAT. & SUN 3:00 & 7:00 P.M. Above the doors a faded mural in circus-poster style: paintings of a flea circus with fleas the size of cockroaches, pulling chariots and climbing ladders. A strongman bending a bar. A snake charmer. A fortune-teller with a silver globe. Recessed from the street next to the theater doors was another door, also red, but dingier, with a brass knob that looked as if it had been polished. The name on the insert plate, also brass, also shiny, read LENA WURLITZER He rang. Waited. Rang again. Still no one. He stepped back to the curb, looked up. He could see the woman behind the curtain. She moved away. He rang again, waited. Still no one came. He recrossed the street to the coffee shop and stood with the box under his arm and looked. There was no sign of anyone. He went inside, sat at the counter, and ordered coffee.