The Uncanny, page 12
Then she looked at her watch. It was just eight, just exactly. They must be auctioning The Magi right this minute.
That was the last thought she had before she pushed off the railing.
5
But as it happened, The Magi had come up for sale some fourteen minutes earlier. And it was just then—just as the panel was being lifted onto the display easel—that Richard Storm walked into the Sotheby’s auction room.
His entrance, in fact, made a lot more of a stir than the display of the panel. The broad, well-lighted room was packed when he came in. The rows of folding chairs were all occupied. Buyers lined up along the white walls, two deep in some places, the aisles blocked. More buyers clustered at the back. There were even some standing behind the phone tables, behind the neat, wealthy-looking young ladies who sat shoulder to shoulder there, waiting for call-in bids. And everywhere, as Storm entered through the double doors at the rear of the room, attention was paid. A subtle effect, but definitely there. The crowd that was gathered before the doors parted slightly to let him through. Heads turned, briefly. Women’s eyes went up him in appraisal; men’s eyes went down him in critique. All over the room, fine ladies touched the tips of their hair. One egotistical French industrialist unconsciously straightened his posture; an Arab oilman smirked; a Silicon Valley whiz kid snorted derisively and then had to wipe the snot off his lapel. The girls at the phone tables turned like a row of cranes in unison to get a glimpse. The auctioneer himself glanced down from his podium on high, sensing a change in the relative gelt humidity, feeling out the weather.
All because of Storm. And he knew it too. Hey, the man was in battle gear this time, babe. Broad shoulders squared by the slashing planes of an Armani suit. A blinding spit shine on his black Guccis. An elegant splash of gold glinting at his cuffs, and on his tie. Silk at his throat, at his pockets. A hundred and fifty pounds of style on his sandy hair—and we’re talking pounds sterling, sweetheart, not the scale kind. There were people in that room who were like computers in judging these things, in assessing potential lovers, customers, rivals. But even to an untutored eye, even to a casual glance, the guy looked like a major tycoon, like an American multimillionaire at ease with power and glamour and fame. Which, of course, is exactly what he was.
He stepped across the threshold, engine gunning. On a mission, clearly. For Storm felt good again, felt new even, reinvented. The reaction to his seizure had dwindled away. The physical weakness, the gape-faced shock, had dwindled. And his moral strength had returned to him in their wake—a reaction to the reaction. Thus, in the days since his last meeting with Harper—since he had fled from The Sign of the Crane, from the judgment he thought he saw in the old woman’s eyes—he had been locked alone in his measly room. He had been warring there with the inner demons of his death. A cast of thousands. An epic, bleak and bloody spectacle, forty years in the making. Day after day, he had flailed in the ravening clutches of his mortality. Night after night, he had scorched his cheeks with tears. Tailor-legged on the carpet. Streaming eyes lifted to the ceiling. Life, oh life, he had cried out to the gods.
And then it had ended. Only hours ago really. As he slumped exhausted just that morning. The answer he sought had suddenly come to him, had suddenly risen before his eyes like a thunderous dawn. And the answer was: Irv Philbin. Or, that is, the immortal words of Irv Philbin, who just happened to be the best goddamned movie publicist between the Canyon and the Coast. It was Irv, seven years ago, who had rescued Storm’s worst film, Castle Misery, who had slam-dunked the brain-dead spook show down the public’s throat with one of the great ad campaigns of all time. And it was the words of that campaign that dawned before Storm at this critical hour, the very words that were once emblazoned across the Castle one-sheet in every multiplex lobby in America. These words shone in Storm’s mind through the forest of doubt; at the exit of the valley of shadows they shone:
In the battle between Love and Death, there can be only one Survivor!
Storm was here to find Sophia.
Now, at the front of the room, a man in blue overalls was adjusting the easel canvas holders. Now he was stepping back. There was the panel, displayed: the ruined abbey, the broken window, the winter trees, the shadows, the cowled, ghostly figures gliding by the base of the chapel. Hanging from the ceiling above it, an enormous electric toteboard reset itself to zero. Pounds, dollars, deutschmarks, yen—all zero, straight down the column. The glimmer of it caught Storm’s eye. He heard the riffle in the seats as the buyers resettled. They crossed their wrists in their laps, focused their blasé regard on the Rhinehart.
“The Magi,” announced the auctioneer, up on his platform, behind the wide wooden podium with Sotheby’s written across it in gold. He was young, tailored, arrow-straight. Prim, thin-lipped, arrogant. A boy whom his colleagues called promising. “Lot ninety-four, a panel of Rhinehart’s Nativity triptych, recently rediscovered in the former East Germany and offered as an anonymous donation to the Children’s Resource Fund.”
It was now thirteen minutes before eight.
Storm scanned the crowd. Still standing amidst the people clustered at the doors, he slowly moved his eyes over the buyers leaning against the white wall to his left. Next he passed his gaze over the audience in their seats, checking off one coiffure after another. Finally he examined the girls at the phone table one by one. No Sophia.
“I’ll take an opening bid of twenty-five thousand pounds.” The auctioneer went into his practiced drone. Nasal, hypnotic, seemingly slurred, deceptively precise, the words flowed from his thin lips. “Opening at twenty-five thousand, twenty-five, I have twenty-five thousand, do I have thirty? Thirty, thirty thousand from the phone. Thirty-five. I have thirty-five thousand.”
It started happening that fast. Storm tried to see where the bids were coming from. He remembered Sophia had said that her gallery might buy the panel. He tried to follow the auctioneer’s eyes, but the auctioneer barely moved his eyes. And yet the guy seemed to see everything, everywhere in the room.
“Forty, I have forty thousand from the phone,” he said.
From the phone. Storm looked to his right just in time to catch the slightest gesture from the table. A noble swan of a young woman in the regulation cardigan was looking up from her handset to raise one eyebrow, one finger.
“Forty-five thousand,” the auctioneer went on. “I have forty-five, forty-five thousand, forty-five, I have fifty …”
The green lights of the electric toteboard winked all down the column. Fifty thousand pounds, seventy-five thousand dollars, one hundred ten thousand deutschmarks, incalcuable yen, eight million something. The price of the Rhinehart panel had doubled in just two minutes. It was eleven now before eight o’clock.
The auctioneer massaged his gavel—a heavy disc of wood—as he hummed right along. Now a barely perceptible jut of his chin made Storm turn his attention to the left-hand wall. Yes: another signal. The flutter of a slender white hand, the glint of a gold bracelet, as the price of the panel went up again. Storm nudged his way through the crowd of people around him. He edged along to the right behind the last row of seats. Trying to get a better look at the standing bidder.
Now he could see her in profile. No, it was not Sophia. Some cuddly blonde, hardly twenty. Pouting with effort, her forehead shining too much in the overhead lights.
Storm was about to turn away from her when he remembered who she was. The girl in Sophia’s gallery, the receptionist.
“Fifty thousand, do I have sixty, do I have sixty thousand, sixty, sixty …” The auctioneer—with that skill for which his friends detested him—had sussed the action, upped the bids. “Sixty, I have sixty from the rear, sixty thousand.”
Automatically, Storm glanced back to the rear of the room. Caught the brief wave of a numbered paddle. Another bidder—a man, this one. A tall, slim figure in a white suit. Wearing green gloves, weirdly enough. With black hair flowing to his shoulders. A thin, angular face, almost diamond-shaped, somehow feline, somehow feral. He was standing relaxed as the action popped, his eyes amused, witty. Standing back, out of the glare of the overheads. But even so, Storm took that one look at him and knew he was going to win the auction. He was that type. Storm had been around enough of them to know. Storm had been in auctions for books, for screenplays that had gone into the stratosphere; he understood the psychology. This guy was scorched earth, he was take-no-prisoners. Unless that was the U.S. Treasury on the phone, The Magi was as good as his. Sophia’s blond friend wasn’t even in it.
“Seventy, seventy, eighty thousand, eighty thousand, ninety …”
Whoa, thought Storm, getting interested now. The lights on the toteboard couldn’t keep up. Even in Hollywood, things didn’t move this fast.
By the clock on the wall just behind the board, it was nine minutes to eight.
Storm looked back at the girl against the wall, the blonde from the Endering Gallery. Yeah, as he’d figured, she was beginning to crack. The corners of her lush red lips were turning down, her eyes were frenzied. Every time her bid was trumped, Storm could see her blink, recoil, dismayed.
She fluttered her hand again.
“A hundred thousand pounds,” said the auctioneer. And immediately, “One hundred twenty-five thousand from the gentleman in the rear.”
That sent a stir through the audience, not quite silence, not quite sound. Several faces surreptitiously came round to get a look at this “gentleman in the rear.” And Sophia’s assistant—Storm saw her—whipped a stricken look over her shoulder so fast it made her hair fly.
Storm smiled at that. Then he stopped smiling. When she turned that way, he could see the front of her for a moment. He could see she was wearing Sophia’s brooch.
The bidding went around the triangle again. The phone table, the blonde, the man in the rear. The auctioneer, with a feel for the atmosphere almost tactile, had sped the bids once more. He was leaning back from his podium with his eyelids lowered as if with passion.
“One-fifty, one-fifty, one-fifty, one-seventy-five, one hundred seventy-five thousand, two hundred. Two hundred thousand …”
Wait a minute, thought Storm. This isn’t right.
It was seven minutes to eight.
What’s she got Sophia’s brooch for? he thought. What, were they all part of this evil cult Harper had told him about? That was crazy. It didn’t make sense. Her mother’s brooch. Which she’d never worn before the other day. She wouldn’t have loaned it to this other girl, would she? A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck. He heard Harper speak to him as if she were standing at his shoulder: Something is terribly wrong.
“Two hundred, two hundred, I have two hundred from the rear, do I have two hundred and fifty, do I have two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, two-fifty, two-fifty …”
Now the murmur of the crowd was clearly audible. The swanny dame at the phone bank, Storm saw, gave a short, level chop of her hand in the air. The buyer on the line had withdrawn from the fray. It was between the blonde and the weird guy in the white suit now. The blonde’s small hand trembled upward like a leaf on the wind.
“I have two hundred fifty thousand—three hundred,” the auctioneer said instantly. “Three hundred thousand from the gentleman in the rear.”
As the excited murmur of the crowd grew louder, Storm began to move, to edge through the standing buyers, to feel his way behind the backs of the last seats towards the left-hand aisle.
The lights of the toteboard fluttered up front. Three hundred thousand pounds. Four hundred fifty thousand dollars. Nearly seven hundred thousand deutschmarks. Yen beyond imagining. Storm could see the blonde against the wall practically spastic with terrified indecision. Her lips trembling, her eyes filling, her hands hovering before her, unsure.
Then he lost sight of her in the crowd as he moved closer. He heard the auctioneer say, “Three hundred, three hundred, three hundred, three hundred and fif—Four hundred thousand. The bid is four hundred thousand pounds from the gentleman in the rear.”
Jesus, thought Storm, as he started pushing down the aisle. This white-suit guy is a killer. He looked over his shoulder and saw him again. Got a closer look at him now. A killer, no question. Something in the brutally cut facets of his face—something in the weirdly smoky depths of his eyes—made Storm shudder, made his collar go clammy. He turned away, glanced up blindly at the toteboard. Noticed the clock instead: five minutes to eight. Something is terribly wrong.
Making terse excuses, Storm wedged himself between two people blocking the aisle. Squeezed between two more. Pushed out to see the blonde at the wall just ahead of him. He was near enough now to see her nostrils flare in panic as her hand jerked up again like a marionette’s.
“Four hundred fifty thous—Five hundred thousand pounds from the gentleman in the rear.”
Storm put his hand on the blond girl’s arm. She spun on him with eyes the size of saucers, her lips parted, her skin slick.
“Where’s Sophia?” he asked her.
“I … I … I …” she said. And then she seemed to recognize him and whispered harshly, desperately, “She said fifty. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!”
“Five hundred, the bid is five hundred thousand, the bid is at half a million pounds …”
Storm nodded, squeezed her arm. “Drop it, honey. You’re licked. The guy’d go to a zillion. Where’s Sophia?”
“Five hundred, five hundred, five hundred …” The auctioneer lifted his gavel. The blonde turned to stare at him with her hand lifted as if to bid again.
“Trust me on this, kid. Drop the potato,” said Storm. “Where’s Sophia?”
Her face rolled back towards him, she gawped up at him as if from a nightmare. His eyes went to the brooch on her sweater. To the dimwitted terror in her perky, cherubic face.
“I don’t know,” she said. “She told me to come here instead …”
“She told you …” said Storm. The woman is asking for your help, said Harper Albright in his mind, crying for your help.
“Sold! For five hundred thousand pounds!” said the auctioneer.
His forearm fell. The gavel hit the podium. Whack. Storm felt the blond girl jump in his hand.
Perhaps the auction represents some sort of crisis point …
The audience burst into loud applause, loud laughter and conversation. Storm’s gaze arced over the room wildly. Caught a glimpse of the man in the white suit. Holding up his paddle—number 313—in his green-gloved fingers. Grinning, his teeth predatory. And the others in the seats with their hands moving, coming together. The toteboard caught at five hundred thousand.
Sophia saying: This is where I want to die.
“Oh my God,” said Richard Storm.
It was one minute before eight.
There were some people in the audience who figured he had stolen a purse or a necklace. It was their best guess when they saw him drive back recklessly up the aisle. Wielding his broad shoulders left and right. Shoving people aside without mercy.
But then he was gone, dashing through the rear doorway, and no one was screaming “Thief! Thief!” so it must’ve been all right. The Rhinehart panel was already being removed from the easel. Another painting was already being lifted into place. The audience turned away and forgot Richard Storm. The business of the auction went on.
Out on New Bond Street, Storm fired through the doors of Sotheby’s like a missle. He didn’t believe what he was thinking. He didn’t dare to. He just ran—the way they’d taught him in high school track: legs stretching, body straight, elbows pistoning. The storefronts whipped by on either side of him, the store banners whipped over his head. People dodged out of his way, looked after him: in his fine suit, in his fine shoes, running as if the devil were on his tail. He didn’t think about it. He didn’t dare to think anything. He just ran.
He was at the Endering Gallery’s door in thirty seconds. Under the port awning, between the two spruces. Plastered to the glass like a bug on the windshield. He probed the dark interior over the fog his breath made on the door. The fog expanded, shrank as he panted. The gallery beyond was still. The front desk empty. The paintings undisturbed on the wall. Everything appropriate, right. He thought it was okay.
Then he lifted his eyes and saw her, seated on the balcony rail. He could make out the line of the belt around her neck.
Storm felt as if gasoline had been thrown on the smoldering coals inside him. Doubt, suspicion, anxiety all flared into a sudden blaze of fear. He grabbed the door handle, yanked. It was locked. He shook it.
“Damn!”
He let the handle go. Once, twice, he slapped the glass with both palms. He felt as if it were he up there with the noose around his neck.
“Sophia! Sophia!”
She didn’t hear him, didn’t react.
“Sophia!”
Storm clung to the smooth surface, powerless. She sat there another moment. He spun, his mind desperately empty, his eyes looking anywhere, for anything.
The spruce in the cast-iron planter. He bent down, seized the planter, lifted it into the air. It flew up too easily—for a moment he thought it would be too light to break the door’s thick glass. But that was the adrenaline: he was so jazzed, he could’ve lifted the building. He stepped back. Raised the tree, the planter, over his head. Dirt and cigarette butts poured down into his expensive haircut. He hurled the planter into the door and the door shattered.
The black cascade of soil and the white cascade of glass went blue as the gallery’s alarm light started flashing, as the siren started shrieking to the sky. Storm charged through the jagged opening. The shards of the door crackled under his feet. The planter was still tumbling to a stop as he leapt over it. He dashed for the stairway, shouting.
