“There were bone sculptures, ornate candlesticks made from human remains, some other half-completed efforts, and a representation of a Mexican deity, Santa Muerte, made from a female skull.”
Stuckler didn’t seem interested in Santa Muerte. Instead he made me elaborate on what I had seen, questioning me about small details of construction and presentation. He then gestured to Murnos, who took a book from a side table and brought it to his employer. It was a black coffee table volume, with the words Memento Mori in red along the spine. On the cover was a photograph of a piece that might have come from Garcia’s apartment: a skull resting upon a curved bone that jutted out like a white tongue from beneath the ruined jaw, which was missing five or six of its front teeth. Below the skull was a column of five or six similar curved bones.
Stuckler saw me looking.
“Each is a human sacrum,” he said. “One can tell from the five fused vertebrae.”
He flicked through fifty or sixty pages of text in a number of languages, including German and English, until he came to a series of photographs. He handed the volume to me.
“Please, take a look at these photographs and tell me if anything is familiar.”
I leafed through them. All were in black-and-white, with a faint sepia tint. The first depicted a church of some kind, with three spires set in a triangular pattern. It was surrounded by bare trees, and an old stone wall separated at regular intervals by columns topped with carved skulls. The rest of the pictures showed ornate arrangements of skulls and bones beneath vaulted ceilings: great pyramids and crosses; garlands of bones and white chain; candlesticks and candelabras; and finally, another view of the church, this time taken from the rear, and in daylight. The surrounding walls were thick with ivy, but the monochrome textures of the photograph gave it the appearance of a swarm of insects, as though bees were massing along the walls.
“What is this place?” I said. Once again, there was something obscene about the photographs, about this reduction of human beings to a series of adornments to a church.
“First you have to answer my question,” said Stuckler. He wagged a finger at me in reproach. I considered breaking it. I looked at Murnos. He didn’t need telepathy to know what I was thinking. From the expression on his face, I imagined that a lot of people, maybe Murnos included, had thought about hurting Joachim Stuckler.
I ignored the finger and pointed instead to one small photograph of an anchor-shaped arrangement of bones set in an alcove beside a cracked wall. Seven humerus bones formed a stellate pattern with a skull at their center, supported in turn by what might have been portions of sternum or scapula, then a vertical column of more humerus bones, which met at last a semicircle of vertebrae curving upward on either side and ending in a pair of skulls.
“There was something similar to this in Garcia’s apartment,” I said.
“Is that what you showed to Mr. Neddo?”
I didn’t answer. Stuckler snorted impatiently.
“Come, come, Mr. Parker. As I told you, I know a great deal about you and your work. I am aware that you consulted Neddo. It was natural that you should do so: after all, he is an acknowledged expert in his field. He is also, I might add, a Believer. Well, in his defense, perhaps ‘was a Believer’ might be more accurate. He has since turned his back on them, although I suspect that he retains a faith in some of their more obscure tenets.”
This was news to me. Assuming Stuckler was telling the truth, Neddo had kept his connection to the Believers well hidden. It raised further questions about his loyalties. He had spoken to Reid and Bartek, and I could only hope that they knew of his background, but I wondered if Neddo had told Brightwell about me as well.
“What do you know about them?” I asked.
“That they are secretive and organized; that they believe in the existence of angelic, or demonic, beings; and that they are looking for the same item that I am seeking.”
“The Black Angel.”
For the first time, Stuckler actually looked impressed. If I was a little more insecure, I might have blushed happily in the light of his approval.
“Yes, the Black Angel, although my desire for it is different from theirs. My father died seeking it. Perhaps you are aware of my background? Yes, I rather suspect that you are. I don’t believe you are the kind of man who fails to equip himself with information before meeting a stranger. My father was a member of the SS, and part of the Ahnenerbe, Reichsführer Himmler’s delvers into the occult. Most of it was nonsense, of course, but the Black Angel was different: it was real, or at least one could say with reasonable certainty that a silver statue of a being in the process of transformation from human to demonic existed. Such an artifact would be an adornment to any collection, regardless of its value. But Himmler, like the Believers, was of the opinion that it was more than a mere statue. He knew the tale of its creation. Such a story had a natural appeal for him. He began seeking the pieces of the map that contained the location of the statue, and it was for this reason that my father and his men were dispatched to the monastery at Fontfroide, after Himmler discovered that one of the boxes containing a map fragment was reputed to be hidden there. The Ahnenerbe boasted prodigious researchers, capable of unearthing the most obscure references. It was a dangerous errand, undertaken beneath the noses of the Allied forces, and it led to my father’s death. The box disappeared, and so far, I have been unable to trace it.”
He jabbed a finger at the book.
“In answer to your earlier question, this is Sedlec, where the Black Angel came into being. That is why Garcia was working on his bone sculptures: he was commissioned to create a version of the ossuary at Sedlec, an environment worthy of holding the Black Angel until its secrets could be unlocked. You think such a thing to be strange?”
There was a new light in his eyes. Stuckler was a fanatic, just like Brightwell and the Believers. His veneer of sophisticated give-and-take was falling away, and to my benefit. On the subject of his particular obsession, Stuckler could not contain himself.
“Why are you so certain that it exists?” I said.
“Because I have seen it replicated,” said Stuckler. “You have too, in a way.”
He stood suddenly.
“Come, please.”
Murnos started to object, but Stuckler silenced him with a raised hand.
“Don’t worry, Alexis. Everything is coming to its natural conclusion.”
I followed Stuckler through the house until we came to a doorway beneath the main stairs. Murnos stayed behind me all the way, even as Stuckler unlocked the door and we descended into the cellars of the house. They were expansive, and lined with stone. Most of the area was given over to a wine collection, which must have stretched to a thousand bottles, all carefully stored, with a thermostat on the wall monitoring the temperature. We passed through the racks of bottles until we came to a second door, this time made of metal and accessed using a keypad and a retinal scanner. Murnos opened this door, then stepped aside to allow Stuckler and me to enter.
We were in a square stone room. Glassed alcoves around the walls contained what were clearly Stuckler’s most treasured items: there were three icons, the gold upon them still intact, the colors rich and vibrant; there were gold chalices and ornate crosses; there were paintings, and small sculptures of men that might have been Roman or Greek.
But the room was dominated by a statue, perhaps eight feet in height, and constructed entirely from human bones. I had seen a similar piece of sculpture before, except on a much smaller scale, in Garcia’s apartment.
It was the Black Angel. A single great skeletal wing was unfurled, its spines the slightly curved bones of the radius and ulna. Its arms were made from femurs and fibulae to achieve the sense of scale, its great jointed legs an ornate arrangement of carefully fused bones, the barest hint of the joins visible between them. Its head was made up of fragments of many skulls, each carefully cut and fused to create the whole. Ribs and vertebrae had been used to construct the horn
that rose from its head and curved down to its great collarbone. It rested on a granite pedestal, its clawed toes hanging slightly over the edge and gripping the stone. In its presence, I felt a terrible sense of fear and disgust. The pictures of the bone adornments at Sedlec had unsettled me, but at least there might have been some purpose to them, some recognition of the passage of all mortal things. Yet this was something without merit: human beings reduced to constituent parts in the creation of an image of profound evil.
“Extraordinary, don’t you think?” said Stuckler. I could not guess at how often he had stood here before it, but judging from the tone of his voice, his awe at this possession never faded.
“It’s one word for it,” I replied. “Where did it come from?”
“My father discovered it in the monastery at Morimondo in Lombardy, during the search for clues about the Fontfroide fragment. It was the first sign that he was close to the map. There was some damage to it, as you can see.”
Stuckler pointed out fragmented bones, a crudely repaired fissure in the spine, missing fingers.
“My father’s guess was that it had been transported from Sedlec, probably some time after the initial dispersal of the map fragments, and had eventually found its way to Italy. A double bluff, perhaps, to direct attention away from the original. He ordered it to be concealed. He had a number of locations for such things, and nobody dared to question his instructions on these matters. It was to have been a gift for the Reichsführer, but my father was killed before he could arrange for its transportation. Instead, it passed to my mother after the war, along with some of the other items accumulated by my father.”
“But surely anyone could have made this?” I said.
“No,” said Stuckler, with absolute conviction. “Only someone who had examined the original could have created it. The detail is perfect.”
“How do you know, if you’ve never seen the model for it?”
Stuckler strode across to one of the alcoves, and carefully opened the glass cover. I followed him over. He activated a light inside. It revealed two small silver boxes, now open, with a simple cross carved into the lid of each. Beside them, carefully protected between thin layers of glass, were two pieces of vellum, each perhaps a foot square. I saw sections of a drawing, depicting a wall and window, with a series of symbols around the edge: a Sacred Heart entangled with thorns, a beehive, a pelican. There was also a series of dots on each, probably representing numbers, and the corners of what might have been shields or coats of arms. Almost immediately, I saw the combination of roman numerals and a single letter that Reid had described.
One manuscript was dominated by the drawing of a great leg, curving backward, and the clawed toes at its feet. It was almost identical to that of the statue behind us. I could detect the faintest trace of lettering concealed in the leg, but I could not read any of the letters. The second manuscript showed one-half of a skull: again, it was identical to the skull on Stuckler’s bone statue.
“You see?” said Stuckler. “These fragments have been separated for centuries, ever since the creation of the map. Only someone who had seen the drawing could have constructed a representation of the Black Angel, but only someone who had seen the original could have done so in such detail. The drawing is relatively crude, the actuality much less so. You asked me why I believe it exists: this is why.”
I turned my back on Stuckler and his statue. Murnos was watching me without expression.
“So you have two of the fragments,” I said. “And you’ll bid at auction for a third.”
“I will bid, as you suggest. Once the auction is complete, I will make contact with the other bidders in order to see who among them is also in possession of pieces of the map. Nobody knows of the existence of this cellar and its contents, apart from Alexis and I. You are the first outsider to have the privilege of seeing it, and only because of the imminence of the auction. I am a wealthy man, Mr. Parker. I will establish contacts. Deals will be struck, and I will acquire sufficient knowledge to make an accurate determination of the Black Angel’s resting place.”
“And the Believers? You think you can buy them out?”
“Don’t be fooled by the ease with which you dealt with the hired help in Maine, Mr. Parker. You were not regarded as a real danger. We can take care of them, if necessary, but I would prefer to reach an accommodation agreeable to both sides.”
I doubted if that would happen. From what I had learned so far, Stuckler’s reasons for seeking the Black Angel were very different from those of Brightwell and his kind. To Stuckler, it was merely another treasure to be stored away in his cave, albeit one with links to his own dead father. The Black Angel would stand alongside the bone sculpture, one darkly mirroring the other, and he would adore them both in his neat, obsessive way. But Brightwell, and the individual to whom he answered, believed that there was something hidden beneath the silver, a living being. Stuckler wanted the statue to remain intact and unexamined. Brightwell wanted to explore what lay within.
“Have you encountered a man named Brightwell?” I said.
Stuckler looked at me blankly.
“Should I have?” he asked.
I couldn’t tell if he was hiding his knowledge of Brightwell, or genuinely didn’t know of his existence. I wondered how recently Brightwell had emerged from the shadows, impelled by his belief that the Believers’ long search was nearing an end, and if that was the reason why Stuckler professed to be unaware of him. Despite Stuckler’s faintly comical bearing, he was clearly skilled in his business of choice, and had somehow managed to conduct his own search for the map fragments while avoiding the attentions of Brightwell’s kind. It was a situation that was about to change.
“I think you’ll be hearing from him, once he discovers that you share a common goal,” I said.
“I look forward to meeting him, then,” said Stuckler, and there was the hint of a smile upon his face.
“It’s time for me to go,” I said, but Stuckler was no longer listening. Instead, Murnos led me out, leaving his employer lost in contemplation of the ruined bodies of human beings, now fused together in a dark tribute to old, undying evil.
19
I met Phil Isaacson for dinner in the Old Port, shortly after returning from my meeting with Stuckler. It was becoming ever clearer that the following day’s auction would be a turning point: it would draw those who wanted to possess the Sedlec box, including the Believers, and it would bring Stuckler into conflict with them if he succeeded in acquiring the item. I wanted to be present at the auction, but when I called Claudia Stern she wasn’t available. Instead, I was told that entry to the auction was strictly by invitation only, and that it was far too late to be added to the list of invitees. I left a message for Claudia, asking her to call me, but I didn’t expect to hear back from her. I didn’t imagine that her clients would be pleased if she allowed a private investigator into their midst, an investigator, moreover, who was interested in the eventual destination of one of the more unusual pieces to have come on the market in recent years. But if there was one person who could be relied upon to find a way into the House of Stern, and who might know enough about the bidders to be of assistance, it was Phil Isaacson.
Natasha’s used to be on Cumberland Avenue, close by Bintliff’s, and its move to the Old Port was one of the few recent developments in the life of the city of which I was totally in favor. Its new surroundings were more comfortable, and if anything the food had improved, which was quite an achievement given that Natasha’s was excellent to begin with. When I arrived, Phil was already seated at a table close by the banquette that ran along the length of the main dining room. As usual, he looked like the dictionary definition of dapper: he was a small, white-bearded man, dressed in a tweed jacket and tan pants, with a red bow tie neatly knotted against his white shirt. His main profession was the law, and he remained a partner in his Cumberland-based practice, but he was also the art critic of the Portland Press Herald. I had no problem with the n
ewspaper, but it was still a surprise to find an art critic of Phil Isaacson’s quality hiding among its pages. He liked to claim that they’d simply forgotten that he wrote for them, and sometimes it wasn’t hard to imagine someone in the news editor’s office picking up the paper, reading Phil’s column, and exclaiming: “Wait a second, we have an art critic?”
I’d first met Phil at an exhibition over at the June Fitzpatrick Gallery on Park Street, where June was showing work by a Cumberland artist named Sara Crisp, who used found items — leaves, animal bones, snakeskin — to create works of stunning beauty, setting the fragments of flora and fauna against complex geometric patterns. I figured it was something to do with order in nature, and Phil seemed to generally agree with me. At least, I think he agreed with me. Phil’s vocabulary was considerably more advanced than mine where the art world was concerned. I ended up buying one of the pieces: a cross made from eggshells mounted in wax, set against a red backdrop of interlocking circles.
“Well, well,” said Phil, when I reached the table. “I was beginning to think you’d found someone more interesting with whom to spend your evening.”
“Believe me, I did try,” I said. “Looks like all the interesting people have better things to do tonight.”
A waitress deposited a glass of Californian Zin on the table. I told her to bring the bottle, and ordered a selection of Oriental appetizers for two to go with it. Phil and I swapped some local gossip while we waited for the food to arrive, and he gave me tips on some artists that I might want to check out if I ever won the state lottery. The restaurant began to fill up around us, and I waited until everyone at the nearby tables appeared suitably caught up in one another’s company before I broached the main subject of the evening.
“So, what can you tell me about Claudia Stern and her clients?” I asked, as Phil finished off the last prawn from the appetizer tray.