The Haunted Air Part 47

"Marvelous," Eli said. He'd put this woman on the back burner, but now he was remembering what she'd said and his anger flared anew. "Who is she?"

Strauss pulled out a note pad. "Name's Gia DiLauro. Works as some sort of artist. But things don't add up with her. I ran a check on her state income tax and she doesn't make the kind of money that would put her anywhere near the ultra-tony neighborhood she lives in."

"An artist, hmmm?" Eli said. "Well, we'll find out where she sells her paintings or who she works for and see that her showings and sources of income dry up. That'll be for starters. Then-"

"She's got a kid," Strauss said.

Eli caught his breath. A child. Oh, this was too good to be true.

"Go on."

"It's another of the weird things about her. She's got a daughter she claims as a dependent but the kid's got a different last name: Westphalen. Victoria Westphalen."

"And her age?"

Please say under ten, Eli prayed. Please.

"Eight."

Silence in the room as the three men exchanged glances.

"Eight," Adrian breathed. "That's... perfect."

More than perfect, Eli thought. If they could get hold of the child in time, she could become the lamb for the next Ceremony. And her sacrifice would offer the lagniappe of crus.h.i.+ng her bitter-tongued mother.

How wonderful. The mere possibility made his blood tingle.

"Find out everything you can about this child, Freddy. Everything. Immediately. We don't have much time."

6.

Jack reached the office of Kristadoulou Realtors a little ahead of schedule. Since it was on Steinway Street he'd decided to get a two-fer out of the trip by stopping by his Queens mail drop on the way. He rented boxes in Hoboken and Manhattan as well, but every two weeks they forwarded all his mail to the Astoria drop. With a pair of manila envelopes under his arm, he figured he'd kill the ten minutes to appointment time by checking out the hood.

Kristadoulou Realtors sat in an old stone building in the heart of one of Steinway's most commercial blocks; its windows were filled with photos of properties they had listed. The rest of the street was lined with triple deckers-stores at ground level, two floors of apartments above.

He walked south on the west side, pa.s.sing little old Greek ladies with shopping bags, lots of guys with black mustaches yammering into cell phones, couples laughing and talking, hardly anyone speaking English.

The businesses were like a poster for ethnic diversity: a storefront touting "Immigration Medical Exams" next to the Kabab Cafe next to the Nile Deli, then an oriental rug merchant, and something called Islamic Fas.h.i.+on, Inc. A little farther on was the Egyptian Cafe, the Arab Community Center, and the Fatima Pediatric Center; farther still was a Colombian bakery and a Chinese Qi Gong center specializing in back and foot rubs.

He crossed the street and turned back north, pa.s.sing Sissy McGinty's Irish pub, the Rock and Roll Bagel restaurant, an Argentinean steak house, an Egyptian coffee shop right next door to an Italian espresso place. He stopped before the window of an Islamic religious shop offering prayer rugs, incense, and a special clock: "5-Full Azan Talking Alarm Clock-Jumbo Display With 105-Year Calendar." Jack had no idea what any of that meant.

He spotted Lyle getting out of a cab. He looked every inch the African today-blue-and-white batik kaftan, white cotton pants, sandals, and a brightly colored knitted tarn. He blended in with the rest of the exotically dressed locals. Jack was the stick-out in his Levis and golf s.h.i.+rt.

"You made it," Lyle said when he spotted Jack. "I wasn't sure if you got my message."

"I got it." He gestured at the surrounding stores. "Do all these folks get along?"

"Pretty much."

"Ought to bring the UN here for a look-see. Find out how they do it."

Lyle only nodded. He didn't look so hot. Even with his eyes hidden behind dark gla.s.ses, his face looked strained.

"You okay?"

"Me? Okay? Not even close."

"Uh-oh. What happened?"

Lyle glanced at his watch. "Tell you later. Right now we're due to see Mr. K. But before we go in, I want you to know how I'm going to play this, okay?"

"Sure. This is your show. Shoot."

"I'm going to let him him think that think that I I think the house is haunted." think the house is haunted."

"Well, it is, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but I don't want him knowing how how haunted. And no mention of Tara Portman or whatever it's calling itself." haunted. And no mention of Tara Portman or whatever it's calling itself."

"Tara Portman was a real person," Jack said. "Gia and I looked her up on the Internet last night."

" 'Was'?"

"She was nine when she was abducted in the summer of '88. Never seen again. Her picture matches the girl Gia saw."

"Oh man!" Lyle clapped his hands and grinned. "Oh man, oh man, oh man!" man!"

Jack had expected astonishment, or at least a touch of awe or wonder. Not this outright glee.

"Why is this good news?"

"Never mind," Lyle said. "Let's go see the Big K."

Jack wondered what was going on in Lyle's head. He seemed to have developed a personal agenda. That was okay with Jack-he had an agenda of his own. He just hoped they didn't cross each other.

Inside, Konstantin Kristadoulou was expecting them and a secretary led them to a rear office where they met the head man. Jack fully appreciated the 'Big K' remark as Lyle introduced him. They seated themselves in the two rickety chairs on the far side of his desk.

Kristadoulou Realtors looked to be a no-frills operation. Maybe because its owner ate all the frills. At least he looked like he did. Konstantin Kristadoulou dwarfed even Abe in the waistline category. Jack figured he was pus.h.i.+ng seventy, but the puffy face and quadruple chins stretched out all the wrinkles, so it was hard to tell. His longish, thinning gray hair was combed straight back to where it flipped up at the collar.

"So," he said, glancing at Jack with his dark, heavy-lidded eyes, then fixing them on Lyle. His voice was lightly accented. "You wish to know about the house you bought, Mr. Kenton. Why is that? No trouble, I hope?"

"We took some damage from the earthquake," Lyle said.

"Serious?"

"Just some minor cracks."

Minor? Jack thought. A cellar floor cracked in half isn't minor.

But he caught a quick glance from Lyle that he read as, Let me handle this.

"The reason I'm here," Lyle went on, "is that we've been hearing strange noises in the house lately. Voices... but no one's there."

Kristadoulou nodded. "Lots of people think Menelaus Manor is haunted-not because they've ever witnessed anything, mind you, but because of its history. I hope you remember that I told you all this before you bought it."

Lyle raised his hands. "Absolutely. I'm not here to complain, I'm here to try and understand. I need more in-depth information on the house's history. I mean, if Menelaus Manor 'went wrong' somewhere along the way, I'd like to figure out where. Who knows? Maybe I can fix it."

"'Went wrong,' " Kristadoulou said. "An interesting way of putting it." He leaned back-the only direction his gut would allow-and stared at the ceiling. "Let's see... if anything 'went wrong' with the Menelaus house, I'd say it happened during Dmitri's owners.h.i.+p."

"Who's Dmitri?" Jack said.

"Kastor Menelaus's only son. Kastor built the place back in the fifties. That was when Astoria was known as Little Athens, a bit of h.e.l.lenic heaven in the heart of New York because of all the Greeks who moved here after the war. I arrived after the house was built but I know something of the family. Dmitri, he was younger than me, so we never socialized, but even if we were the same age, we wouldn't have mixed. A strange one, that Dmitri."

"How strange?" Jack asked. "Strange cults? Strange beliefs?"

Kristadoulou gave him an odd look. "No. I mean he was always keeping to himself. No girlfriends, no boyfriends. If you happened to see him at a restaurant, he was always alone."

Jack had been hoping for some indication of involvement with the Otherness. Or maybe with Sal Roma, or whatever his real name was. He'd also been on the lookout for one of Roma's cutesy anagrams-the last Jack had recognized was "Ms. Aralo"-but Dmitri wasn't one. Not even close.

Lyle said, "Why do you say the house might have gone wrong during Dmitri's owners.h.i.+p?"

"Because of his renovations. Old Kastor died in 1965. Cancer of the pancreas. After Dmitri inherited the place-his mother had died in '61-he came to me for advice. I was working as an agent for another firm then and he wanted me to recommend carpenters and masons to redo his bas.e.m.e.nt. He hired a couple off the list I gave him. I felt somewhat responsible so I stopped in every so often to check on them-make sure they were doing a good job." He shook his head. "Very strange."

Gimme, gimme, gimme, Jack thought. "How so?"

"He was lining the bas.e.m.e.nt with these big granite blocks he'd imported from Romania. He told me they came from what he called 'a place of power,' whatever that means. He said they'd originally been part of an old dilapidated fortress, but if you ask me, I think they were from a church."

"Why's that?" Lyle said.

"Because some of them were inlaid with crosses."

Jack glanced at Lyle and saw him sitting ramrod straight in his chair.

"Crosses? What kind?"

"Funny you should ask. They weren't regular crosses. They were almost like a capital T T with the crosspiece bra.s.s and the upright nickel." with the crosspiece bra.s.s and the upright nickel."

"Tau," Lyle whispered.

"Exactly!" Kristadoulou said, pointing a knockwurst digit at him. "Like the letter tau. How did you know?"

Lyle's eyes s.h.i.+fted toward Jack. "We've spotted a few around the house. But let me ask you about those blocks with the tau crosses. Do you think they might have come from a Greek Orthodox church?"

Kristadoulou shook his head. "I've traveled a lot, been in many, many Orthodox churches, and I've never seen any crosses like that." Another head shake. "Bad business stealing church stones. It's like asking for trouble. And that's just what Dmitri got."

"You mean his suicide," Jack said, remembering this from when Gia had read to him from Lyle's brochure.

"Yes. He'd just been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas. He'd seen how his father suffered. I guess he couldn't face that ordeal, so..."

"When was that?" Jack asked.

"Nineteen ninety-five, I believe."

Owned the place for thirty years, Jack thought. The span covered the year Tara Portman disappeared. Dmitri had to be involved.

"Dmitri didn't bother to leave a will," Kristadoulou went on, "and that caused problems. With no children or wife, the estate wound up in probate. After years of legal wrangling Menelaus Manor went to one of Dmitri's cousins who wanted nothing to do with it. He called me and told me to sell it as soon as possible."

"And Dr. Singh bought it, right?" Lyle said.

"Only after lots of other potential buyers pa.s.sed it by. The cellar was the sticking point. All those strange granite blocks I mentioned. And speaking of those blocks, when I inspected the house before putting it on the market, I went down to the cellar and noticed that all the crosses had been removed."

"Any idea why?"

"No more idea than why he left a dirt floor."

"Wait," Jack said. "Dirt floor?"

"Yes. Can you imagine? Dmitri went to the expense of importing all those blocks, and then didn't finish the floor."

Maybe because it makes it lots easier to bury things you want no one to see, Jack thought.

"The nephew was unwilling to sink in any money for renovations so we kept lowering the price. Finally a vascular surgeon named Singh bought it for a song."

"A rather short song, as I recall," Lyle said.

Kristadoulou nodded. "He and his wife modernized the interior and refinished the bas.e.m.e.nt with paneling over the granite blocks and a concrete floor. One day he doesn't show up for surgery or his office. Police investigate and find him and his wife in bed with their throats cut."

Jack remembered that too. "Who did it?"

"No one was ever caught. The police didn't even have a suspect. Whoever did it left not a clue."

"No wonder people think it's haunted," Jack said.

Kristadoulou smiled. "It gets worse. The executor of the Singh estate directed me to sell it. I thought, a suicide and a double murder-I'm never going to sell this place now. But lo and behold, this young couple walks in and wants to buy Menelaus Manor."

"In spite of its history?" Jack said. "Or because of it?"

"You must understand," Kristadoulou said, patting his belly. "I didn't delve into the Loms' motivations, because I didn't exactly dwell on the house's history. It was not what you'd call a selling point. I remember Herb, he was the husband, saying that he wasn't the superst.i.tious sort, but it was his wife Sara, a pretty thing, who seemed to be pus.h.i.+ng the deal. They were planning on adopting a child and wanted a house for the family to live in. So, I sold it to them." He leaned back again and gazed toward the ceiling. "I wish I hadn't."

This was the point where Gia had refused to read him any more of the house's history, calling it "sick."