The Book of Common Dread Read online

DeVilbiss moved quietly into the room, giving it an unhurried, vigilant survey. "This… says the book was stolen," he declared.

  Montague saw that the slow-witted Bertrand had at least gotten his first instruction right and was waiting in the boiler room. He closed the door loudly behind him, as a signal for his huge partner to appear. "You're not, by any chance, a member of any police force, are you?" he asked.

  A soft snort of amusement escaped through DeVilbiss's nostrils. "No. Not by any chance."

  "Because, if you are, this will be regarded in a court of law as entrapment," Fox went on. The words fell smoothly off his tongue. Montague had rehearsed the speech as preparation for this particular scenario. It not only protected him in case the man were a minion of the law, but also added to the charade that this was indeed a genuine, if stolen, book.

  Before DeVilbiss could answer, the boiler room door opened, and Bertrand eased himself into the office.

  "Who is this?" DeVilbiss asked, without apparent alarm.

  "This is Mr. Wren," answered Fox. "He's letting us use his office, and I asked him to stand guard, to make sure we're not disturbed."

  Having taken the large man's measure, DeVilbiss shifted his attention to the table. "May I see it now?"

  "Yes, certainly," said Fox, hastening to the magazine and flipping it open with a flourish, exposing the little book. "As you can see, the cover is old but not genuine. I put this one around it for protection. And, of course, there is no title page."

  A hand with elegant fingers emerged from the folds of the cape.

  Fox picked up the book. "But the colophon and printer's mark have survived. The last page has worked its way loose."

  Having gotten out his recitation, Montague yielded the book. "If you feel you must verify its authenticity, I understand. Leave me, say, a thousand-pound deposit and you may take the page with you. We'll simply conclude this on another evening."

  The creation of the last page, with its printer's mark and publication information, had cost Fox a pretty farthing. The careful production of Venetian printer Aldus Manutius's dolphin entwined about an anchor symbol had set him back one hundred pounds. But that famous anchor, printed on the genuine paper, was precisely the hook that would catch the most incredulous buyer.

  DeVilbiss accepted the book, moved swiftly to the table and sat. As he did, he said, "I won't need to take the page. Give me five minutes, and I'll tell you whether or not I'll pay your price." As if to validate his words, the man reached into the depths of his tails and withdrew a thick stack of banded thousand-pound notes. He dropped them casually onto the magazine, then opened the book.

  Montague stared blankly at Bertrand, whose bulging eyes were focused on the stack of pound notes. This was a scenario Fox had not envisioned. The man was actually starting to read the text. Montague's words, in fact, translated by himself into Greek. The last copy of the real Aldus 1503 edition had disappeared more than a hundred and fifty years before, with not even a reproduction remaining. Two eighteenth-century books had passages that paraphrased sections of the infamous contents, however, and it was from these scant roots of knowledge that Fox's imagination had flourished and blossomed into full-blown prose. He had labored hard on its invention. There was no way any contemporary could call him on the authenticity of the text. Nonetheless, he felt beads of sweat swelling on his forehead. He assured himself that it was due to the boiler room humidity; he looked at Bertrand and saw that the giant was leaking from every pore. Montague would have felt heartened by the sight had he not then chanced to look at the face of the stranger. DeVilbiss's brow, cheeks, and chin had a matte quality, betraying not even the slightest sheen of moisture. Fox dug into his clammy pocket for his handkerchief.

  DeVilbiss scanned through the book as if speed reading, his forefinger weaving lightly down the center of each page. Haifa dozen pages in, he seemed to lose patience and picked up the pace of his study. Long before reaching the end, his forefinger stopped. He closed the book gently and set it on the table. He rose from the chair and, with a look that seemed for all the world to be pleasure, he announced, "This book is a forgery."

  The force of the man's conviction rocked Montague back a step. He realized the implication of his movement and drew up his frail frame with mock umbrage. "I am one of the world's foremost experts, sir, and the paper, the type, and the ink are all authentic."

  "I don't give a damn about the paper, the type, or the ink," DeVilbiss replied, his voice still even. "The words are pure fiction. How many copies of this fabrication exist?"

  Bertrand straightened up and slowly slipped his right hand behind his back. "He's a copper all right."

  DeVilbiss sneered at the pronouncement. His eyes narrowed and stayed fixed on the scholar.

  "No, he's not," Fox contradicted, as his throat became more parched. "But he is trouble."

  "Not for long," Bertrand snarled. He lurched forward like a two-ton truck whose clutch had just been popped. As he advanced on DeVilbiss, his right hand arced around into view. The stiletto, though six inches long, looked puny in his hamhock grip. Red boiler room light glinted off its razor edge.

  "No!" Montague screamed, frozen in place. Bertrand was deaf to his command.

  DeVilbiss stood like a gazelle overtaken by a lion, as if already in shock and resigned to his fate. His hands pushed futilely against his huge attacker as Bertrand drove the knife hard into the place where the black brocade vest made a V of the brilliantly white shirt, then pivoted the blade upward beneath the skin.

  Bertrand gave a grunt as he yanked the stiletto from his victim's stomach. DeVilbiss made no outcry at all. His fingers had curled into the coarse material of the boiler man's coat, and they held fast as his knees buckled. Bertrand's shoulders hunched forward from the dead weight.

  "Get off me," Bertrand growled, softly.

  The long, thin fingers held fast. Bertrand stabbed the knife into the table surface, then clawed the offending hands from his coat. The gentleman collapsed onto the floor, his cape rustling around him in an elegant swirl, covering his face.

  "Jesus Christ!" Montague gasped. "Are you mad?"

  Bertrand sidestepped around the body. "Not a bit," he answered. He lunged across the table and scooped up the banded stack of pound notes. "He was gonna get you an' me sent up. Instead, it's tough on him."

  "But what if he told someone-"

  Bertrand thrust up his free hand to silence his partner. "Shut yer yap! What's done is done. I'll get rid of the body." He waggled the money in his other hand. "But I also get all of this. You keep your book an' hope the next mark ain't so bloody clever."

  Montague's complexion had taken on the pallor of chalk. His salivary glands had kicked back in; a string of spittle hung unnoticed from the corner of his gaping mouth. "Maybe… he isn't dead."

  Bertrand paused from riffling through the pound notes. "Is that all that's worrying you?" He snatched the knife from the table and knelt down next to the body. His left hand sorted through the cape folds for an opening. "You're dead, rich boy, ain'chya?"

  The thin fingers thrust out from under the cape with astonishing speed, splayed and curled into five hard talons, tips up. Before Bertrand could flinch, they drove up through the taut trouser material and into his groin, fastening around his penis and scrotum. Almost as swiftly, DeVilbiss's other hand thrust out and clamped over the boiler man's mouth.

  "Sorry, I'm not, actually," DeVilbiss hissed, affecting a mocking imitation of his victim's lower-class accent.

  Montague's mind tottered on the border of shock. He stood bolted to the floor as the caped man resurrected with a vengeance. Only Montague's eyeballs moved, drinking in the impossible sight of Bertrand's genitals being cleanly ripped from his groin. Twice, Bertrand stabbed the stiletto through the back of his attacker's cape, but the stranger was totally unfazed.

  DeVilbiss's palm pressed the boiler man's quivering jaw shut; two of his fingers disappeared through Bertrand's cheeks, burying themselves up to the first knuckles. Blo
od spurted across the table legs. The knife clattered to the floor. Casually, the elegantly dressed man tossed the detached genitals into a corner, rose to his knees, then his feet, lifting the dying man upward as if he were nothing heavier than a stuffed toy. The muffled screams and gurglings were echoes of a slaughterhouse.

  Slowly DeVilbiss pivoted, holding his victim away from him so that the outpourings of blood would not stain his evening dress. He turned so that he had Montague clearly in his line of sight. Where the knife had entered his stomach the shirt was torn, but there was little sign of blood. DeVilbiss smiled and lowered his mouth to the huge man's twitching neck, as a lover might to his beloved.

  Stark white incisors gleamed in the office light.

  Montague's legs lost their strength and slid out in front of him. He dropped swiftly to the floor.

  DeVilbiss sank his teeth into Bertrand's neck. His eyes remained fixed and unblinking on the quaking scholar.

  Bertrand stopped twitching. A low groan escaped his lungs.

  DeVilbiss drew his mouth from the neck. A look of displeasure distorted his handsome face. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the already reeking floor.

  Montague moaned balefully.

  DeVilbiss released the boiler man. The corpse-imminent collapsed clumsily into a pool of its own blood.

  "And now, sir," DeVilbiss said, after wiping the blood from his lips, "you were about to tell me how many copies of this forgery you have made."

  Fox began to hyperventilate, heaving in a great quantity of air, then gasping for more before he could use what he had.

  DeVilbiss walked to the crumpled figure and kicked him lightly between the legs. Montague stopped breathing altogether.

  The gentleman knelt beside the scholar. "When the pain goes away, you will breathe normally," he said, in a gentle voice. "Do you understand me?"

  Montague nodded. The pain ebbed, and he did as the voice and the unblinking eyes commanded. "Why?" he gasped.

  "I was about to ask you the same thing. Why, of all the ancient books to forge, would you pick the most dangerous one on earth?"

  "Dangerous? I don't understand."

  "That's evident."

  "You're going to kill me," Fox squeaked.

  "Not necessarily," DeVilbiss encouraged, smiling warmly. "All I need is to be sure no copies of the book exist, either real or forged. Now, one last time, how many copies did you create?"

  Montague's eyes bulged, struggling to focus on the encroaching face. "Eight."

  "Where?"

  "In my safe deposit box, at the bank," Montague whispered, fixing his stare on the looming mouth, needing to see the teeth.

  "Where is the key?"

  "At my house. I can-"

  The elegant fingers caught Montague's collar and ripped it open, found the golden chain from which dangled the safe deposit box key, and snapped it from Fox's neck.

  "I wear mine in the same place," DeVilbiss revealed, matter-of-factly. "Too valuable to leave lying around. I'm sure you visited the bank today, to fetch the book." He thrust his hand into Montague's inside coat pocket, withdrew his billfold, and rifled through the plastic cards until he found one. "This bank?"

  The scholar nodded mutely.

  "You've obviously never seen a real edition of old Aldus's book. You're to be congratulated. You've come close to its true contents several times. Too close."

  The scholar wanted to weep for the cruel disaster that had erupted from his brilliant scheme. "What's in the book?"

  "Knowledge about me," the elegantly dressed creature replied, "and those who command me."

  Montague blinked at the statement. "Others command you?"

  DeVilbiss's lids dropped momentarily, as if exhausted. "You find me frightening? I'm a lamb compared to…" He caught himself; his gaze drifted away from the little man's still-furrowed eyebrows. "One doesn't survive for five hundred years by accident. Eternal life is earned, day after day after day. Now stand, my talented little forger."

  "Stand? Why?" Montague dared.

  "We can't leave you in here, so close to the hallway. Someone might hear your cries for help after I leave."

  "I promise, on my-"

  DeVilbiss put a silencing forefinger to Montague's lips. "Stand."

  Montague obeyed. DeVilbiss grasped him by the collar and guided him around the table, toward the boiler room door. As he moved, DeVilbiss scooped up the forged book and the magazine. "You are indeed an authority," DeVilbiss granted. "This is beautiful work."

  "Thank you," Fox croaked. The creature who held him spoke so gently and civilly that he began to hope he might survive. A few more kind remarks and he might become relaxed enough to piss in his pants.

  They passed through the boiler room door, with Montague in the lead. He remembered with rue his likening of the room to the bowels of Hades. Its pulsing red glow looked all the more hellish.

  "Now what?" Montague dared.

  In answer, DeVilbiss drove his incisors hungrily into the scholar's neck, clutching him in a grasp of steel so that the carotid artery would not escape his attack.

  Montague yelped and twisted, calling up the last reserve of his energy in a vain attempt to avoid extinction. A bonfire of pain had been torched in the side of his neck, and its flaming tongues licked outward to all extremities. His ears thrummed with the pounding of his own heart and with a low moan of sexual pleasure that was certainly not his.

  Montague's bladder let go. He quit flailing and awaited death.

  But it did not come, even though the creature fastened to his throat drank for what seemed to him an hour. He was released gently, allowed to collapse face-up on the concrete floor.

  Montague looked up with wonder at the towering figure dressed in black. His body felt shod in ice. He was vaguely aware through his pervading numbness that his teeth chattered and he was shivering like a wet dog.

  "Sorry to borrow so much of your blood," DeVilbiss said, "but one must live as one can. Are you cold?"

  "Yeh… yes."

  "Hmm!" DeVilbiss arched his curved eyebrow even higher. "In such a warm room?"

  Montague let his head loll, following DeVilbiss's stride to the mouth of the boiler furnace. The man opened the large door, letting in fresh air that made the flames roar hungrily. With a flourish, he threw the magazine and the book into the conflagration. He walked back toward Montague without having closed the door.

  "Still cold?" DeVilbiss inquired.

  This time, Fox's chattering affirmation broke the word into five syllables.

  "Well, we can't have that!" DeVilbiss exclaimed. He scooped up Fox as easily as he had handled Bertrand, cradling him like a baby. "Not for such an artist!"

  The last shred of Montague's sanity told him it was an idiotic gesture, yet something about his attacker's eyes and the reassuring tone of his voice made Fox want to thank the man. He concentrated on fixing his lips, so that he could utter a simple "thank you." Before he could manage the act, his feet had passed through the furnace doorway.

  CHAPTER ONE

  December 12-13

  He was so learned he could name a horse in nine languages, so ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on.

  -Benjamin Franklin

  Simon Penn stared silently at the ocean-blue Mikasa plate. It had to be at least ten inches across, and the portion of food in its center looked like an island lost in the Pacific. Lynn had called it a "lasagna roll-up." It was undoubtedly the spawn of The Pasta Diet or her infernal American Heart Association Cookbook. As far as he was concerned, the one candle burning feebly in the center of the table, wreathed at its base with holly, was more than enough illumination.

  Lynn aspersed low-cal dressing on Simon's salad as if it were holy water. Softly from the Bose speakers, Bing Crosby invited everyone to have themselves a merry little Christmas. The holiday was only thirteen days away, but this was the first time Simon had heard a Christmas song on the radio. Predictably, it was one that made no mention of Jesus.

  "Oh! Rememb
er I told you about the Schickner Collection?" Simon said, glad to have something to share. "It finally arrived. Over six hundred books, and more than half incunabula. But the most incredible part is the scrolls. Especially-"

  "Have you called Kenneth yet?" Lynn interrupted, from behind his right shoulder.

  Simon caught Lynn's image on the knife blade resting atilt on his cloth napkin. She looked unimpressed by his news. He knew why.

  It was directly related to the free realtor's magazine she had picked up at the bank. With no regard to subtlety, she had placed the magazine above Simon's setting, opened to a page of homes "in the mid-$300,000s." He unfolded his napkin and dropped it on his lap without enthusiasm. "Yes, I called."

  "Let me rephrase that: Did you speak with Kenneth?"

  "No. He was in a meeting."

  "He's always in a meeting," Lynn returned, topping her goblet with chilled Perrier, then emptying what was left into Simon's glass. "Did you tell his secretary who you were?"

  "I left my name and phone number." Simon lifted his fork mechanically.

  "I told you to use my name as well." Lynn sighed. "You'd be good at advertising, Simon. You have the imagination, not to mention all those weird facts you've been cramming into your head for the past thirty years."

  As he dug a corner off the lasagna, Simon said, "The way I understand it, most clients don't appreciate imagination. And anyway, advertising's supposed to be dog-eat-dog."

  "All business is dog-eat-dog if there's real money in it," Lynn riposted.

  Real Money was the name of Lynn Gellman's game. Now thirty-four, she had entered the C. W. Post campus of Long Island University on the waning cusp of the Vietnam War era. But she had no affinity with students who had bought into the Great Society and the Peace Corps. Her path was too predirected to wander off into English literature or social work. Business administration was her major and psychology her minor. While pursuing her MBA with a marketing concentration at SUNY-Albany, she summer-interned at Dow Jones in Princeton, securing a job before she had graduated. A year at The Wall Street Journal headquarters had allowed her to ferret out better opportunities in the Princeton area. Central Jersey, she found, was the information nexus for the American psyche. The Gallup Organization and the Eagleton Institute polled political thinking; Educational Testing Service quantified learning levels; three corporations-Opinion Research, Total Research, and Demographic Research-formed the Great Triumvirate for supplying "people knowledge" to business and industry.