Chapter 2: Lost
Watson Hall, Columbia University. April 16, 2005. Saturday morning.
On Saturday morning, Neal arrived at Watson Hall on the Columbia campus to find Richard already at work in the adjoining studio. And not just Richard. Practically every other studio was occupied as well. The end-of-year exhibition was less than two weeks away. The final panicked countdown had begun.
Neal had been working toward the exhibition for the entire year. His art advisor, Professor Myra Stockman, had recommended the students make the works personal expressions. As Neal surveyed them, he wondered if he'd gone too far.
Exposed had been started the night Klaus fell to his death at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Chiseled surfaces in slate and crimson. Peter said it looked like he'd used a shovel for a paintbrush. Now, as he studied it, Neal saw more of Braque's influence in the work than he'd initially appreciated. It made him realize how much Klaus had exposed him to, both good and bad. He hadn't touched the work in a month. It was ready.
His two portrait pieces, Rock and Shapeshifter, were also finished. Spheres was an abstract of the Rose Space Center at the Museum of Natural History, where they'd found the Galileo manuscript forgery. He'd gotten the idea for Sandpipers when he and Peter went to Jones Beach on the trail of Azathoth. That was the day they'd been kidnapped. It seemed fitting that now he'd added to his exhibition Emergence, a seascape based on the psychedelic light and sound show Azathoth had displayed on their cell wall. The River he'd painted while wearing the anklet and Bicycles the night his con to trap the real thief had succeeded. Neal lined up the paintings to look at them. Spheres still needed a little work but he was rapidly getting to the point he better lock them up. Any more tweaking and he'd risk ruining them.
By the time Richard dropped in, Neal had finished Spheres and was cleaning his brushes.
"I wish I were as far along," he commented, scrutinizing Neal's paintings. "Are you declaring it a wrap?"
Neal nodded. "How about your pieces?"
"My galactic zoo?" Richard had sculpted two alien creatures for a competition at the sci-fi convention held six weeks ago. His entries not only won the top prize but earned him an internship at Scima Gameworks, a video game developer in SoHo. "I have one left to do. It's going to be a creature emerging from one of the kinetic abstract mobiles that I spent the entire first term on. Stockman wants to see our journey over the past year, and that's me. I started out in metal abstracts and took a left turn into organic life forms."
The Flying Saucer Pizza Company where they were meeting for lunch was two blocks from their studios. On the way over, Neal asked Richard about his internship.
"I'm glad I was able to able to talk my company into letting me have a leave of absence. It's the only way I could manage it since the internship at Scima is a full-time position. I'll have six months to prove myself."
"Any idea of what your first assignment will be?"
"They haven't told me yet but I'll find out next week when they place me on a team. The first two weeks have been an introduction to various aspects of game development."
"Henry told me his top choice for an office space is near Scima."
Richard nodded. "I know the place he's thinking about. It's off Lafayette Street below Washington Square. The building is one of the old cast-iron historic structures. The inside was gutted a few years ago and is high-tech contemporary. Exposed beams. It has good bones, plus it's close to the loft he was looking at. Did he decide to buy it?"
"He closed on it last week and has already hired Eric Vasquez to be the architect. He'll move in when he returns from Paris next week."
Richard stared at him incredulously. "But the loft is a disaster. He took Travis and me to see it. I agree it has potential, but the key word is potential, as in far off in the future after a ton of renovation. I'm not even sure the plumbing works."
Neal grinned. "Hopefully he's found out. He's got a bed, a couple of chairs, and not much else. But there's hope. He's scheduled a meeting with Eric as soon as he returns to discuss plans."
When they arrived at the Flying Saucer, they found Peter and Travis already in command of a booth. Saturday lunch here became a tradition when Peter and Travis started volunteering at the university's telescope workshop.
"Is Mozzie joining us?" Peter asked.
"When I spoke with him yesterday, he wasn't sure," Neal said. "He was working on a new blend of honey wine for graduation and may be running tests with Billy. They believe with all the relatives descending on campus in a few weeks, they'll have access to a new wave of customers."
"He was using me a soundboard for names," Richard added. "So far Blue Label is the leading contender. The wine will be a commemorative edition for the graduates of 2005."
Travis smiled as he picked up the menu. "The Ferengi side of Mozzie must be counting up the profits already."
"Naturally," Neal agreed. "For the label, I included one of Columbia's buildings. I picked Watson Hall for this first year."
Peter raised a brow. "First?"
"Mozzie's dreaming big, and Columbia has a lot of buildings."
Richard looked over at the front door. "Still no Mozzie. You don't think he was attacked by alien slime, do you?"
"Is Mozzie still claiming that the tunnel slime he found is residue from an extraterrestrial invasion?" Peter asked.
Neal nodded. "He's a believer. A couple of evenings ago he showed me new samples from a tunnel under the quad. He's convinced that it was left by space aliens who are now hiding within bees."
Peter turned to Travis. "How's your SETI group taking his revelations?"
"It's become a sensitive topic," he acknowledged with a wince. "Mozzie has managed to persuade a couple of our members of the validity of his claim. He can be a persuasive speaker. We plan to spin off a sub-group with the recommendation they work on their slime research separately until they're ready for their grand reveal."
"You should call them the Slimebusters," Richard said with a grin. "They'll be your most popular group."
Neal wasn't surprised at Mozzie's absence. In the past, he often disappeared for days, sometimes weeks, at a time. What was unusual was the number of roots he was acquiring in New York. Mozzie used to harp on the desirability of never staying too long in one place. Now, with a girlfriend, a thriving honey business, his own bunker, and alien slime to investigate, it was no wonder he found New York a hard mistress to leave.
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Neal slept in on Sunday. He couldn't remember when he'd last had a day with so few commitments. It was a good feeling. In the afternoon he'd meet Aidan and Richard for fencing practice. The final meet of the season was scheduled for the following weekend. No band session this evening. With Fiona gone and finals looming on the horizon, everyone was taking a break.
Neal poured a mug of coffee, gathered up The New York Times, and walked onto the terrace. New York on a Sunday morning had a relaxed, laid back feel which suited his mood. Traffic was at a minimum. No noisy trucks clanking down the street, making deliveries.
He opened up the paper to the arts section which had a review of the Goya exhibition at the Met. The exhibition contrasted Goya's court paintings with his darker late works of demons and witches—a world of insanity some called it. Goya himself wrote little about what inspired such black visions. Some considered them a metaphor of his times. For others, they were a reflection of the physical and mental issues he was plagued with.
Hagen had forged one of Goya's witch paintings, Witches' Sabbath. Did Goya's dark side appeal to him? The imagery in certain of his paintings was depraved enough to rival Lovecraft.
Neal shook off thoughts of Goya and went into the kitchen to fetch an almond croissant he'd purchased on the way home last night. It was hard to be depressed when eating almond croissants.
His cell phone rang while he was in the kitchen. It was Mozzie's girlfriend Janet. She was in Central Park waiting for Mozzie who hadn't shown up.
"He was supposed to meet me at Cherry Hill at eight o'clock," she said plaintively. "We'd planned to take a bird walk. I've called several times but only get his voicemail."
Mozzie was far too smitten with Janet to stand her up deliberately, but he could have been wrapped up in his slime research and overslept. It was only ten o'clock, which was often the time Neal's nocturnal friend went to bed. Neal promised to check on him and get back to her.
After he hung up, Neal attempted to call Mozzie on all the different phone numbers he had for him, but none answered. He also left a text message, using the Columbia code Mozzie had devised. Neal categorized this as a Smew alert—the highest level—which should provide an immediate response if Mozzie were capable of responding.
Most likely Mozzie was asleep in the bunker. The trouble was Mozzie was subject to sudden flights of fancy where he'd take off on an impulse and only remember days later he should have said something. It was spring. He could have had another Thoreau moment and wandered off somewhere in the countryside. But without Janet? That didn't make sense. Surely he would have invited her along.
When Neal arrived at the Aloha Emporium, the cafe was crowded with brunch customers. He found Billy in the kitchen, making waffles. Billy had seen Mozzie on Saturday morning and not since. Neal jogged down the back staircase to the bunker—he'd never entered the hideout when Mozzie wasn't there. Would his paranoid friend have set any booby traps? Luckily the code hadn't changed and Neal didn't have to break in. Unluckily the bunker was without its occupant.
Neal sat down at the desk and scanned through the papers lying on its surface. An open notepad was filled with cryptic bits of phrases. They appeared to be related to the coded message from Azathoth. Would Azathoth have kidnapped Mozzie? Up to now he hadn't been a target, but that could have changed. Many notes were concerned with tunnel slime and his SETI research. Perhaps Travis could figure them out. The sheets on top appeared to be recipes with lists of ingredients.
Troubled at the implications, Neal strode to the kitchenette. Several bottles, labeled with numbers, were on the counter and even more were in the cabinet above. Were these essences for his honey wine blends or drugs? Mozzie occasionally dabbled in experiments with drugs to promote mental acuity, as he described it. Neal had warned him on numerous occasions to be careful. Did Mozzie inadvertently take something which caused hallucinations or amnesia?
What if he'd been investigating slime in the tunnels? He could have had an accident or even a heart attack. Neal and Mozzie had discovered some of the lost tunnels—tunnels that were undocumented and which possibly no one else knew about. Then there were the forbidden tunnels that they had explored extensively. If Mozzie had slipped and fallen in one of those, no one would discover him.
Neal had brought along his spelunking gear in anticipation of entering the tunnels. He donned his headlamp and slipped on his overalls. After a few twirls of the lock hidden in the bookcase, he swung the bookcase open to reveal the entrance to the tunnel extension. Neal switched on his headlamp, closed the door behind him, and entered the blackness of the tunnels.
Last fall when he'd first explored the university's underground network, Neal had spent uncounted hours researching every cranny. He doubted anyone else had as much knowledge about them—except Mozzie. Had it been a mistake to reveal the tunnel secrets to him? Was Mozz now lying unconscious in a pool of stagnant water in one of the lost branches? As Neal began his search, that image continued to haunt him.
But after hours of fruitless exploration, he began to have doubts. He'd combed the entire southern half of the network without a single lead. Neal glanced at his watch. He was due to meet Richard and Aidan for fencing practice. No cell phone signal in the tunnels, but he could stop at the gym to check with them. Perhaps they'd seen Mozzie.
Neal took a side tunnel to the restricted entrance in the power room below Blue Gym. Before exiting, he removed his overalls and placed his gear in his backpack. He slipped through the power room and stopped off in a washroom to wash off the smudges on his face before heading for the fencing facility in the lower level. On the way he made another round of calls to Mozzie's cell phones, all with the same results.
He found Aidan and Richard suiting up in the locker room. "Glad to see you, d'Artagnan," Aidan said. "I was starting to wonder if you'd be a no-show."
"No fencing practice for me today, sorry. I've been searching the tunnels for Mozzie. He was scheduled to meet Janet this morning but didn't make it. No one's seen him since yesterday morning and he's not answering any of his phones."
Richard unzipped his fencing jacket. "We can practice another time. You can't search the entire grid by yourself. Let us help."
"Mozzie's a brother," Aidan added. "He'll always be Athos to us. Where have you looked?"
Neal was grateful for the offer. He'd first introduced them to Mozzie in the fall when Fowler attempted to frame Neal for the theft of Marie Antoinette's diamond earrings. They'd called themselves the Musketeers back then and Mozzie used the alias of Athos. It was time for the Musketeers to heed the call once more.
They stopped off at Richard's studio where he kept extra spelunking supplies. Next to Neal and Mozzie, Richard was the most familiar with the forbidden routes.
"Are you going to contact the FBI or police?" Aidan asked. "Isn't there something about a person needing to be missing for three days?"
"That's a myth," Neal said, "but there are other complications." He hesitated over how much to reveal. They were aware Mozzie engaged in less-than-legal activities, but everyone had been careful to avoid the topic. "Mozzie would never forgive me if I filled out a missing persons report. That would enter him into the system, and he prizes his anonymity almost more than anything."
"That explains all the aliases, but we can't simply focus on the tunnels," Richard said, handing Aidan a headlamp. "A car could have struck him. He could have had a heart attack while out walking."
Richard echoed Neal's own fears. "Is Travis working at the Bureau today?"
Richard nodded. "He's scheduled to work till around eight this evening on the museum feeds, but as you know, there's a lot of dead time when you're sitting around while the program churns through the data. He could make some calls."
Travis would understand Mozzie's desire for anonymity and protect it. When Neal called him, Travis offered to check the hospital and police reports for anyone matching Mozzie's description.
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Late afternoon, after a search of the entire grid produced no sign of Mozzie, Neal called off the operation. The next target area he'd have to tackle on his own.
In addition to his bunker, Mozzie had a number of safe houses throughout the city. Neal knew most of them but not all. He started in Lower Manhattan—a studio apartment over Sal's Billiards in the Bowery. It was a favorite refuge and home to Mozzie's pet rat Percy. Neal had visited the place on more than one occasion to keep his billiards skills sharp. Sal was a close friend of Mozzie's and tended Percy for him.
Sal was a second generation Italian, a swarthy man with black slicked-back hair and dark shrewd eyes. Neal found him in the back office. Sal hadn't seen Mozzie for a week. He thought Percy looked lonely so had brought his cage down to his office. Neal checked the apartment, which had been furnished with items from a thrift store down the street. Mozzie was meticulous in his housekeeping. No scraps of paper in the wastebasket to indicate he'd been there recently. This was one safe house which could be scratched off. Neal sprawled in an old plaid recliner and gloomily contemplated his next stop—a studio on Staten Island—when Travis called him on his cell.
"Tell me you found him!" Neal's heart was performing somersaults. Did he really want Travis to have news? If he did, it wouldn't be good.
"Yes and no," Travis said. "For Mozzie, nothing's come in. No hospital reports of John Doe cases matching his description. But here's something you'll like. There's news on the Dutchman. Curtis Hagen was recorded visiting the Goya exhibition at the Met yesterday afternoon."
Neal broke into a grin at his first good news of the day. "I'm not far from the Bureau. I'll be right in."
When he arrived, the tech boys in the lab were still high-fiving each other.
"We're running the latest footage from the Met through the program now," Travis said. "We'll continue to monitor the other museums, but as of now the Met will be our main target. I'm setting up a surveillance schedule for the entrance."
"You can sign me for the daytime shifts. It will give me something to do."
Travis shot him a sharp look. "If it were a kidnapping, someone probably would have heard something."
Neal nodded. "That's what I believe too. It's not Azathoth's style. He likes to taunt us about his exploits."
"Have you told Peter?"
"Not yet." Neal was becoming increasingly convinced that Mozzie had taken some mind-altering drug in one of his bizarre experiments. Mozzie's drug use, to the best of his knowledge, had always been in the cause of "scientific experimentation," but would Travis and Peter view it that way? The most likely scenario was that Mozzie was currently sleeping off the side effects in one of his safe houses. Neal still had several to check, but if Mozzie had chosen one he didn't know about, Neal would have to wait for the drug to wear off and Mozzie to resurface.
Before he left to continue the search, Neal reviewed the footage with Travis. Hagen had been recorded at the admissions window in the Great Hall and at the gallery containing the Goya exhibit. The witch paintings had been aligned on one wall with the surveillance camera capturing the entire series of six paintings. Hagen stopped in front of several of them but the one he spent the most time on was a painting called Witches Flight. Did Hagen have a wealthy buyer with a fascination for the occult? It was a puzzle Neal longed to solve, but the mystery swirling around Mozzie would have to take precedence.
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Monday morning dawned with Mozzie still missing.
Neal had checked out the remaining safe houses he knew about—the dojo in Queens, the studio in Staten Island, even the maintenance shed on top of the apartment building on Roosevelt Island, but none of them had any sign of recent occupancy. He'd reached out to Mozzie's contacts. Some he could call, but for many others he had to visit personally. No one had seen him. The Dutchman had just emerged from the fog. Had Mozzie taken his place and sailed back into the mist?
Travis had assigned Neal to the early shift of surveillance duty on Monday morning. He hoped time away from the search would perhaps provide fresh insights. The van, disguised as a Con Edison utility truck, was parked outside the front entrance to the Met. So far the only sighting of Curtis Hagen had been the Met visit on Sunday.
Diana was his van buddy for the shift. Neal didn't plan to mention anything about Mozzie's disappearance to her. She'd developed a fragile truce with Mozz which could be easily shattered if she thought he'd run off to do a job or was sleeping off an overdose of drugs somewhere.
Besides, they had another mystery to work on while keeping their eyes glued to the monitors—the coded message from Azathoth which Mozzie had deciphered.
"The meaning of the first part is obvious," Diana said. "Of course, I love treasure hunts. Who doesn't? But the second half—Find yourself in the sky over Britain— that's downright mean. How am I supposed to figure that out? How many thousands of square miles does England have?"
"And whatever the number is doesn't touch the magnitude of the problem. We don't know how high in the sky over Britain we need to look. Calculating the different numbers would result in something approaching infinity."
"There, you see my point," she said with a sigh. "It's impossible. He's simply being a tease."
Neal shook his head. "I don't think so. With the puzzle he'd built around the Galileo manuscript, there was a genuine prize at the end—the manuscript. What we need is something to narrow the search parameters. He hasn't sent you any more clues?"
"Not yet. I'll post another chapter later this week and plan to reference the comment with something about skies in my notes."
"I hope you're not sending me back to Leng. Was it absolutely necessary for you to subject my namesake to that ghastly frozen plateau in your last story?"
"I thought you'd like that part," she protested with a grin. "You were the one who provided the source material when you compared your trek down Lynx Mountain to Lovecraft's Plateau of Leng."
"That was a joke! I didn't think you'd actually torture Neal Carter with it. He's just a kid."
"You're not that much older and look at the trouble you get into. Besides, I found your account much too vivid not to steal parts of it." She slanted a glance at him from her station. "So, aside from criticizing my choice of setting, any other comments?"
He made a theatrical show of pondering her question for several minutes. "Hmm."
"Oh, come on. Surely there was something you liked."
"Referring to Peter as a panda was a nice touch. I've called him a polar bear, but that's just as appropriate."
"I was proud of that one too," she confided. "Black and white like our by-the-book boss and with a marshmallow center. But don't tell him I said so, or I'll exact my revenge on your character."
"I thought you already had." Neal ducked the eraser missile she hurled at him and flung it back at her. "Speaking of which, did Neal Carter actually travel to Leng or was that a dream? And was that really a dragon he saw flying around the church? Any chance it's the same dragon that Raphael's St. George fought?"
"Enough with your questions! You'll have to wait along with the readers to find out."
"Now I understand your evil plan. Azathoth won't want to kill us so he can read the end of the story."
She smiled wickedly. "Now you're catching on."
The hours passed. After Diana failed to be persuaded by a brilliantly constructed argument that Neal Carter would make a great dragon slayer, Neal reverted to an internal debate over whether he should tell Peter about Mozzie. There wasn't much if anything Peter could do, but there was a remote possibility that Azathoth was behind the disappearance. That seemed less and less likely though as no ransom demand or any other message had been received.
"You're looking a little green around the gills," Diana commented, after Neal had spent a half-hour contemplating the possibility Mozzie had ingested tunnel slime in order to become one with the extraterrestrials he was convinced had made it. "It's your turn to escape. It's almost lunchtime. Take a break and bring me back something to eat."
Neal sprang to his feet in an instant. "You're a goddess, thank you!" he called out as he sprinted for the door. "I know a fusion cafe just down the street which you'll love."
Exiting the van, he paused to take a deep breath of fresh air. Perhaps Japanese. Nothing too spicy and no garlic—not in those closed quarters. Diana liked cupcakes. He'd buy her a special one to thank her for letting him out of prison. Neal picked up the cupcakes—a caramel macchiato for her and a mimosa for himself—then headed for the Hiroki Fusion Cafe.
When his phone rang, for one heart-stopping second he thought it could be Mozzie, but he didn't complain when he heard Henry's voice.
"Paris says bonjour."
"Your accent's improving, Henri. How's the work going? Is the software performing up to your specifications?"
"It is. It's worked so well at De Gaulle International that the French are negotiating to implement it at all their international airports."
The facial-recognition software wasn't the only reason Henry was in Paris. He was also spearheading the search for Fowler as part of the partnership between the FBI and Henry's company to bring Adler to justice. Win-Win had secured several clients who had been bilked out of millions of dollars from Adler's Ponzi scheme. It was this same scheme that had caused Neal to lose most of the money he'd acquired from his years of working with Klaus. Adler was assumed to still be hiding in Argentina, but Fowler had been recently spotted in Paris.
"That's great. Wait till they have their first match, and all of Europe will be signing up."
"It's already happened." Neal could hear the grin in Henry's voice. "And it's a big one—Fowler."
Neal stopped short at the news—not a good idea on a congested Manhattan street as he was immediately jostled by someone crashing into his back.
"Watch it, numbskull!" the guy complained, giving him a dirty look as he passed him.
Henry laughed. "I heard that. You want to get out of the way? Where are you anyway?"
"Taking a break from van duty. Just keep talking."
"Fowler was discovered to have left Paris on the tenth of April under the name of Jack Pritchard."
"Do you know the destination?"
"Munich, Germany. Our partner agents had been combing hotels in Paris, trying to find a location for him. They eventually located a hotel where he'd been registered. One of the agents has contacts to rival Mozzie's. He discovered through a fence that Fowler was trying to locate a painting by Georges Braque. It's called Violin and Candlestick."
Henry was continuing to talk but Neal listened with half an ear. So Adler was the buyer, after all.
"You still there?"
"Yeah. I'm trying to figure out why Adler would be interested in the painting."
"That's what I planned to ask you. Why was Fowler going around saying he'd buy it for ten times over what I was told the going rate would be? Let me know if you find out anything."
Henry stayed on the phone a few minutes longer, saying he'd also call Peter with the news. He'd fly back to New York on Wednesday.
As Neal stood in the line at the cafe, he pondered Henry's revelation. The mysteries in his life were multiplying like rabbits. Fowler must be acting for Adler. For him to offer much more than the market value for the painting implied only one thing. More than ever Neal longed for Mozzie.
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"What is it about that Braque painting that makes it so fascinating?" Peter asked. "I assume that's why you've been staring at my desk for the past few minutes."
As soon as Neal returned from his surveillance shift, Peter called him into his office. Henry had told Peter he'd already spoken with Neal. Peter was counting on his resident art expert to shed light on why Fowler was interested in a painting by a Cubist master. But from the way Neal was acting, enlightenment wouldn't be forthcoming.
"Your desk is showing its age. Isn't it time for a new one? Perhaps in oak or walnut. Italian contemporary would make a bold statement."
"Enough with the stonewalling. What aren't you telling me?" Didn't Neal realize by now that every time he deflected, Peter's internal radar pinged he wasn't going to like the answer?
"Honestly, I don't know why Adler would be interested in it, and that bothers me." Neal looked genuinely troubled. "The painting is one of Braque's early works. What Fowler's offering is far more than the black market rate."
"You're thinking about a connection to Nazi plunder, aren't you?"
Neal shrugged with a smile. "You caught me. With anything concerning Adler, Hitler clones start dancing in my head."
Peter considered for a moment. "Since he's inquiring about it, that means he doesn't believe it's part of a looted cache of art, but it may have some other connection. Research the painting's history and get back to me." Neal nodded but showed no inclination to leave. "Is there something else besides Nazis doing a polka in your head?"
His expression became serious as he nodded. "Mozzie's missing. He was supposed to meet Janet on Sunday morning but never appeared. I spent all day looking for him—checked every place I can think of." As he described his search, Neal looked increasingly tense.
For Peter it had the opposite effect. Not that he wanted anything to have happened to Mozzie, but for a moment he'd wondered if Neal had any history with the Braque. Now that he knew his distraction was because of Mozzie he could breathe easier. "Mozzie's disappeared before, right?"
"Not frequently, but it's happened in the past. Still, I find it hard to believe he would stand Janet up."
"I don't suppose you've listed him as a missing person?"
Neal sighed. "I can't. You know that. Mozzie would never forgive me."
"I assume you've checked hospitals . . ."
Neal saved him from having to say it. "Morgues, yeah, all the usual places."
"You haven't mentioned Azathoth, but I know you're thinking it."
Neal nodded. "Kidnapping seems unlikely. There's no ransom note or other message."
"I agree. It doesn't fit Azathoth's style. Do you know of anyone else who'd have Mozzie in his sights?"
"Mozzie's never mentioned any enemies to me. I don't know of any Kellers in his past, but he hasn't told me much about his life before I met him."
"I could alert the police about a person of interest. Do you have a photograph I could use?"
"No, I don't. Mozzie doesn't allow photos of himself to be taken and destroys any he finds. And you can't go to the police about this."
Neal wasn't making it easy on him. "I'd like to help, but you're really tying my hands in this."
"I know. I'm sorry. That's why I didn't call you yesterday. I knew you'd be frustrated and I'd hoped he'd show up on his own. I shouldn't have brought it up. You have enough on your plate already."
"No, you did the right thing. I'd say take some time off to look for him, but with Hagen . . ."
"Thanks, but I already covered every place I can think of." Neal stood up to leave.
"He'll show up, Neal. No doubt he'll invent some wildly implausible tale to explain his absence to hide the job he was on that I don't even want to think about."
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Peter's prediction didn't come true till Tuesday morning.
Neal was finishing the morning shift of van surveillance with Travis when his cell phone rang. "Mozzie?" he asked, not daring to hope the voice matched the display.
"Neal, is that you?" Mozzie's voice had a dreamlike quality as if he were tripping.
"Yeah, it's me. Where are you? Are you okay?" Travis nudged Neal and he put his cell on speaker.
"I'm floating. Hiiii-gh in the sky . . . with the stars."
"Stars?" Neal repeated in bewilderment. It was bright sunshine outside. He glanced over at Travis who looked equally baffled.
"Mozzie, this is Travis. Which stars are you seeing?"
"Is that Space Suit?"
"Yeah, he's with me. Describe the sky to us," Neal pleaded.
"I don't see the Space Suit. Is he behind the horse?"
"Horse? Are you in the country?"
Mozzie snickered. "No, silly. Pegasus, the flying horse. I'm in space, remember? There aren't any real horses in space. Oooh . . . Pretty . . ."
Neal groaned. He was definitely tripping. Travis was attempting to get a bead on his location but Mozzie was so doped up he could drop the phone or ring off at any moment. "Please, Mozz. Look around you. What do you see?"
"Of course! Aquarius." Mozzie started singing "Aquarius" from the musical Hair. Neal had never heard Mozzie sing before but he was surprisingly good. Had an interesting warble to his voice, if only it weren't so slurred.
"Are you on Broadway? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" but Mozzie hung up before answering.
Rubbing his forehead, Neal asked. "What do you think? He was seeing stars. Where is it dark? Europe?" Perhaps Mozzie was on a job with Gordon Taylor after all, and simply hadn't told him. If so, he'd been drinking far too much champagne.
Travis considered for a moment and shook his head. "I don't think Mozzie was seeing real stars. Aquarius and Pegasus aren't visible in the night sky in April."
"You think he was hallucinating?"
"Inconclusive, but when you mentioned being in the country, he giggled. It's logical to postulate an urban situation. We were getting a strong signal. I don't think he was calling from overseas."
"So he might have been looking at a painting of stars . . . Where could he see Pegasus and Aquarius? The planetarium?"
"That's one possibility although they're currently running a show about the Big Bang and wouldn't be featuring those constellations. Do you know of any paintings of constellations in a museum?"
Neal snapped his fingers. "Of course! Grand Central Station!"
Travis's face lit up. "That has to be it. The ceiling is painted with constellations, and now that the restoration work is completed, the effect is spectacular."
"Are Aquarius and Pegasus included in the stars?"
Travis was already researching it on his computer. He nodded. "The ceiling depicts the zodiac in October and includes them."
Neal stood up. "Is it okay if—"
Travis interrupted before he'd finished his question. "Go ahead. Diana and Jones will be coming in an hour to relieve me. Keep me informed."
Neal grabbed a taxi and ten minutes later was at Grand Central. The Beaux-Arts façade with its impressive sculptures shone in the morning sun like a vision of Xanadu. Mercury, the patron of thieves, was the central figure. Was his outstretched arm pointing the way to Mozzie?
Neal sprinted inside the Grand Concourse. It wouldn't be trivial locating him among the crowd of travelers milling about the vast space. Neal glanced up at the ceiling. Decades of tobacco smoke had been removed during the restoration work. The constellations of the zodiac stretched out in a scintillating band of gold against the cerulean blue sky. Mozzie said he looked up and saw Aquarius. Could it be that easy?
As Neal walked toward Aquarius he spotted Mozzie leaning against one of the columns and gazing up at the ceiling. Neal raced toward him, not knowing whether to shake or hug him. He wound up doing both.
Mozzie showed no surprise in seeing him. His eyes were unfocused, his glasses askew. He had several days of beard growth. His clothes were rumpled but not torn. No blood on them—a good sign. Neal checked the back of his head, while Mozzie patted Neal's arm in a random gesture. "You came to stargaze with me. How nice. They're particularly beautiful tonight."
Neal couldn't find any bumps or bruises. "Do you know what day it is?"
He turned to look at Neal with surprise. "What an absurd question. We're in the Age of Aquarius. That's all that matters," and he broke out once more in song.
Neal shushed the former-shadow-dweller-turned-exhibitionist and led him out the building.
Mozzie offered no resistance. "Where are we going? To look at more stars?"
He should see a doctor, but Neal knew once Mozzie was in his right mind, he'd never forgive him for that. "A safe place so you can rest. Would you like to come to the loft or your bunker?"
He shook his head. "Janet. Take me to Janet's." He struggled to free himself from Neal's arm. "I have to see Janet now!"
"Janet's it is," Neal said soothingly. "I'll give her a call in the taxi." Janet had an apartment in Chelsea, not far from the costume warehouse where she worked. Neal had been there once before. Luckily she was in her office when he called. She reacted ecstatically to the news, saying she'd meet them there.
Janet's two-floor apartment reflected her creative personality. It was in a former warehouse that had been converted into lofts. The exposed brick walls were covered with hand-painted silk wall hangings. Fanciful flower lamps in bright colors hung from the tall ceiling. The furniture was comfortable leather. No artificial fabrics for Janet. A narrow cast iron spiral staircase led up to her bedroom.
Mozzie refused to lie down and took immediate possession of the leather couch. Janet prepared him a glass of Moroccan mint tea with a generous dollop of honey which he drank greedily. During the taxi ride over he'd become much more lucid but hadn't divulged anything about what happened to him.
"You can't remember anything?" Janet asked as she spread a throw decorated with dragonflies over him.
He shook his head despondently. "I remember waking up on Saturday, thinking it was a beautiful morning. I went out to take a stroll and . . ." His voice trailed off. He tapped a few times on his forehead. "There's nothing else there. The next thing I remember I was in a cab with Neal."
"You don't remember calling me?" Neal asked. "Singing 'Aquarius'? How you arrived at Grand Central Station?" At Mozzie's headshake, Neal slouched deeper into his chair.
"Have some wine," Janet said, handing him a hand-painted wine glass. "We need something stronger than tea." Janet must have painted the glass. It couldn't be easy to find yellow-faced bee wine glasses.
Mozzie looked longingly at their wine. "Can't I have some too?"
"No!" Neal said, wanting to shake him again. "Do you have any idea how worried we've been about you?"
Grumbling, he put down his tea and twisted the throw in his hands. "I've made a careful analysis of what you've told me and there can be only one answer." He shifted his eyes back and forth between the two of them. "Brace yourselves. I don't want to alarm you unduly, but you should be prepared. They may come back."
"They?" Neal asked cautiously. "Who are you referring to?"
Mozzie leaned forward. "The aliens," he whispered. "They must have heard about my slime research and wanted to know how much I knew. They took me to their spaceship and probed my mind with their alien devices." An expression of beatific joy suffused his face. "I was abducted by extraterrestrials!"
Notes: Mozzie's abduction theory may not prove to be correct but I don't want to burst his balloon too quickly. He'll discover what really happened in a couple of chapters. In next week's chapter, He Sails No More, the spotlight is on Hagen. Peter has a conversation with Kramer, Henry meets with the team, and, oh yes, we get a glimpse of what Bryan's up to.
The Galileo manuscript puzzle Neal refers to is in The Woman in Blue. The house Azathoth held Neal and Peter captive in was designed as an elaborate puzzle. (Chapters 21 and 22). Many of Neal's paintings are based on incidents from that story. Fowler's attempt to frame Neal is the subject of The Queen's Jewels.
I wrote about Hagen for our blog. The post is called "The Dutchman and Goya: A Moment of Serendipity." And there's exciting news from the writers' cave. Penna has begun to write her novel, nicknamed Prime. She's shared her thoughts on starting a new work in her post "The fear of starting something new," and has also updated the Prime page on the blog.
Many thanks to Penna for her help with this chapter and to you for reading and your comments!
Blog: Penna Nomen & Silbrith Conversation
Chapter Visuals and Music: The Raphael's Dragon board on the Caffrey Conversation Pinterest website