Read The Book of Air and Shadows Online
Authors: Michael Gruber
The Book of Air and Shadows (32 page)
At this, Crosetti’s mouth fell open and he felt hysteria well up again but suppressed the feeling. “Yeah, we have his guns. Why?”
“Because when you are gone it will be necessary for me to stay here armed.”
“What do you mean, gone? When I’m at work?”
“No. I mean when you are in England. You should immediately leave for England.”
Crosetti stared at the man. He seemed perfectly calm, but you could never tell with a certain type of crazy person. Or maybe this was how he became when drunk. Crosetti was fairly drunk himself and decided to treat the current run of conversation like drunk-talk, or the type he and his friends got into when they were thinking about how to raise enough money to make a movie. He pasted a humoring smile on his face. “Why should I go to England, Klim?”
“Two reasons. One is to disappear from here. Second is to find out what Bulstrode learned while he was there, if you can. Third is to find the grille.”
“Uh-huh. Well, that shouldn’t take any time at all. They probably have just the grille we want at Grilles R Us. Or Grille World. But first, I think I’ll go to bed. Good night, Klim.”
“Yes, but first the guns. Perhaps they come tonight.”
“God, you’re
serious
about this, aren’t you?”
“Extremely serious. Guns is not a joking matter.”
Crosetti was just in that stage of drunkenness in which one is physically capable of acts that the sober self would never have considered for an instant (Hey, let’s drive the pickup out on the lake ice and do skids!), and so he went into his mother’s bedroom and took down the carton that contained all his father’s policeman stuff—the gold shield, the handcuffs, the notebooks, and the two pistols in their leather zip cases. One was a big Smith & Wesson Model 10, the classic .38 that all New York patrolmen used to carry before the semiautomatics came in, and the other was the .38 Chief’s Special with the two-inch barrel that his father had carried as a detective. There was a half-empty box of Federal jacketed hollow-point .38 Specials in there too and he took it out and loaded both weapons on his mother’s blond oak bureau. He put the Chief’s Special, still in its clip-on holster, into his pocket and left the room, holding the Model 10.
“I assume you know how to use this,” he said, handing it butt-first to Klim. “You won’t shoot your foot. Or my mom.”
“Yes,” said Klim, hefting it in the palm of his hand like a pound of
sausage. Crosetti was happy to see that he didn’t sight it and put his finger on the trigger. “It is a John Wayne pistol. All the world knows how to shoot this type.”
“There’s a little more to it than that.”
“I was making a joke. In fact, the weapons training I received was quite thorough.”
“Great. Well, knock yourself out.”
“Excuse, please?”
“Another figure of speech. I’m going to bed.”
He did and awakened at 4:10 in the morning, thinking that he had dreamed it all, dreamed that he had given a loaded weapon to a man he hardly knew. He jumped out of bed and went over to his trousers hanging from the closet doorknob and felt the weight of the other pistol there. With a whispered curse he removed it and started toward his mother’s bedroom and then thought better of it. Mary Peg invariably woke during the night after falling asleep in front of the TV, and he could barely imagine what she would think if she awakened again and saw her son in her bedroom brandishing a revolver. He placed it in the canvas briefcase he carried on his way to and from work and returned to his bed. Thereafter he slept fitfully, bemoaning during the waking intervals this last evidence of his terminal stupidity.
The next morning he came down to breakfast late, hoping to keep his contact with the house’s other two inhabitants to the socially acceptable minimum. When he arrived in the kitchen, his mother was there, fully dressed and made up, and Klim was sitting at the table attired in his bad suit. The pistol was not evident. Mary Peg was making bacon and eggs and chatting brightly with her houseguest. They were going to go out for a drive, maybe out to the Island, have lunch someplace, it looked like a sunny day, not too cold, etc. This amiable chatter only increased Crosetti’s depression and guilt. Klim was the reason for the cooked breakfast, obviously, for on weekdays the Crosettis made do with cold cereal and coffee. Crosetti had to eat some out of simple loyalty, and after a decent interval he grabbed his coat and his briefcase and left.
He had thought of asking when Klim would be leaving, now that the
deciphering had reached a dead end, but had decided not to, had decided that it would be ill-mannered. It was his mother’s house, she could shack up with anyone she wanted. Why was he living with his mother anyway? It was ridiculous and unsuitable and the hell with saving for film school. Carolyn Rolly had figured a way out of an impossible situation, and she had far fewer resources than he did (as she had pointed out to him), and now he resolved to make a change. There were people he knew in Williamsburg and Long Island City who lived in group dwellings, film and music freaks his own age. The rent would be a pinch, but maybe he could forget about film school for a bit, maybe he could get a small script shot and use that to get an internship or a scholarship, or maybe he should start sending scripts to the contests. He was filling his mind with thoughts that were not about pistols and the menace of violence from unknown parties and this worked well enough until he lifted his briefcase to pass through the subway turnstile and he heard a clank when it brushed against the metal of the turnstile housing and he realized that he still had the pistol with him.
T
HE
T
HIRD
C
IPHERED
L
ETTER
My lord there is naught of moment afoot, the same as in my laste, for the company are all engaged at the Globe theatre & I praye me it maye not vex you if I write less often, as it is tedious to encypher as it must be for you to interpret. Yet oure plan proceedeth well I thinke. Having done with his playe of the Tempest & the somer arrivynge W.S. travells to Stratford-upon-Avon which is his habbot to goe these manie yeares & hee bids me goe with hym & stop at hys howse. Soe wee leave London 5
th
June oure partie being besydes W.S. & mee some marchants in woole & the fellowe Spade as guard. Wee arrive upon the 8
th
inst. & are reseaved with signes of delight by Mr. S. his familie: wyfe & two daughters the eldest Susannah & the youngere Judith; also otheres of the town, W.S. being now a considerable man of propertie in those partes, hys howse at New Place most comodiouse. But the wages of sin are death.
W.S. agen shewes hym a false villein for hee plaies a verie other man in Stratford than in London as hee is plaien-spoke in the ffashion of this countrey lyke a playn burgesse of the towne, saies Zir, saies Chil, not I will, saies mortal not verie &c.: speakes not of the theatre nor hys lyfe in towne, no bawdry though hym bawdie enow in London tap-roomes. Wife some thyng of a shrewe, rates hym for keepyng trulls & not sending money sufficient for her keepe & he answereth her not but forebeares. Verilie he doth keep a trull, a singer of Italy methinkes or a Jewess, verie black to look at I have seen hym abed with her thrice or four tymes; but he doth not boast upon her to otheres: hee is a private man in such thynges, nor doth he goe for debauch in the stewes. His talke heerabouts is all of land & buying of landes & rentes & loanes, mortgages &c.
Yet with hys daughter Susannah is he seeminge more merrie; to whose company he doth much repaire. She hath more witt than women comonlie have or so ’tis said in the playce. She is marryed to Jn. Hall physician a Puritan man of goode repute. They speake not of religion; so I suspect them: as who doth not who be an honest man & of the trew faithe? They attend church & are not fyned although the talke hereabouts is the father was oft fyned & a damned recusant papist unto death; the mother too. Searched privilie about the howse for priests holes but could fynde none.
W.S. is verie easie with mee & with mee alone speakes of the theatre & plaies & the plaie of Mary he is comanded (soe he thinks) to write; yet for manie daies he doth no writing whilst here, or but a little in hys smale booke. We are abroad muche & I with my newdevized angle-rod holped hym survey som land neare Rowington which hys neighbour disputeth the boundes & pleazed hym muche therbye. His wyfe though passing olde is yet lively and manages alle; her accomptes all a-hoo (I have stolen a looke) yet she knowes her every ell of lande theyre rentes & where lieth the last pepper-corne. The youngere daughter somewhat ill-favoured; not married nor none in prospect; lykes me not & I doe not know why for I traite her with best courtesie. But I listen behinde door to servantes prattel & heare she is jealous of this elder sister that her father loveeth beste or soe she thinkes; soe too there wase a sonne her twin who hath died some yeares past & W.S. wisheth it ben her who died & not her brother; seeminglie am I of an age with this dead boye or a little younger & am somwhat lyke in hys eies, therefore hee doth favour mee & this daughter hateth mee for it. Thus they speake & whether it be trewe or no shal we see hereafter; but if trewe it doth advaunce oure enterpryse I thinke.
I have scaped a dangeur that I shal relate you. He hath upon an evening come into my chamber in hys howse & I was cyphering with mye grille & he askes what it is I doe & I wase much dis
countenanced yet spake brave saying I reade holie scripture. He asketh what is that sheete of metall & answered tis a copie I hath made of a lanthorne that adorneth the crypt where lieth my mother, a remembrance of her. Then asketh: art a poet too Dick I see you have quick hid what you write upon when I cam in as som poets doe & I with ’em. Nay cosen saith I tis som mathematick idlinge I doe. He saith: ho, holie writ & nomberes all at onece thou art a wonder, no wonder thy skull lacks room for witte. Soe he left me safe.
Now heere is a secret I have uncouvered of hym: a-Sundaies ’tis hys habbot after divine servise he taketh horse & quits the towne with the fellowe Spade soe hee saies to ryde in the forest of Arden nearebye. Upon such a day I take horse and follow them on a road through the forest north-west up the vale, five miles or more it must have ben & come to a rise in ground and can see at some littel distanse the castle of Warwick, its tours. I come to theyre horses and I dismount too and walk upon a track through the woode. After a tyme I come to a ruine of som olde priorie or such romish howse shut sence King Henries daie where are manie folke about kneylyng & telling bedes & a man there no dowt a popish priest with hys cuppe & mumbles; & W.S. there too among them all. I watch & listen & then the folk leave the place & W.S. speaketh with the priest for a tyme & I venture closer to heere them theyre develish plots mayhap when I am seized from behynde & a grete hande clappit ovr mye mouth & then pressed to earth with a heavie weight & feele a point gainst my cheke & a voise saith quiet or you are dead man. Soe for a while; then am lifted up & I see there is W.S. & it is Spade who hath me & his daggere still drawen.
Quoth W.S. Dick why skulk in shadoues why not com to mass you are a goode Catholicke are you not? I answer sir I was afeared an it might be a snare set by pursuivantes to take names of thos sekeing holy masse as if oft done these tymes. Nay he saies they are but good
folk of the countrey who cleve stil to the olde religioun. And you amongst them, say I. In parte, he saies, for I am a goode Kinges man & temper me to the requisites of pouwer & shew my face a Sundaies where pouwer demandes it. Quoth I: And believeth not? That, saies he, is for God alone & not such as you, nor yet the Kinges majestie to know; but though Jack Calvin & all the bischops saie I can not praye for the sowles of my parentes & of my littel sonne, yet I will: if it damn mee to hell I will do it. And hym sayeing this looketh most fierce. Then smiles, saying come look I will shew thee a thinge to marvell at, goode Spade putt up thy blade here is a friende.
Soe goe we throew the oulde stones of the priorie all o’ergrowne with brakken & smale trees; it was the priorie of St. Bosa as he telleth whilst we goe, onece the abode of holie sisters. Hee pointes variously: here the chapel there the cloister & at last come we to a ring of stones & in the centre a black cercle. This is St. Bosa’s holy-welle he saies & list thee well to it & droppeth in a pibble & it passeth a long tyme before wee heare but verie fainte the plash. Tis deep saies I. Marry, passinge deep, saies hee they saie no man hath plombed it ever. In past tymes the maydes would gather heere on St. Agnes daie & draw up a payle & peer in the water to scrye the face of theyre husband that shalbe. But no more, no more: for God as we nowe are taught loveth not confort, nor plaifulnesse, nor musick, nor glorious shewes, nor anie lovelie thynge, nor yet workes of charitie, but desireth us to tremble in plain dull chamberes, wee cloathed all in mourninge, whilste som whey-face canting parson drones wee are damned, damned damned to hell. Then laughes clops me on showleder & saies hang such sectish talk for now wee are for home & shall feaste us & drinke & play nine mens morris lyke simple folk.
Soe we did & after meate wee oute to the sward all the familie & Spade with his knife cutteth out some turves to make a board & they commense plaie. I saie I know not this game & W.S. saies
what, canst not play morris? Nay you plaie deeper games mye tricksey cosen deep as Bosa Holiewell; soe I aske his meaninge & he saies why I meant onlie London games with cartes as pinero & gleake. But I thinke he meant else.
This night he hath a candle late & I heere hym pace his chamber & I listen close & heer the scrach of a pen & shift of paper & I think hee must write oure plaie of Mary now. My lord you ask can I overlook his papers to see what he doth write & I shall try it; but hee is verie close with hys papers & no onne is let see them til he be finished. I praye you my lord doeth well & all your howse prosper, from Stratford-upon-Avon the 19
th
June 1611 bye your lordshipes most humble serv
t
Richard Bracegirdle