Dr. Phibes Vulnavia's Secret Read online

  Soon it would be time for them to dance. His shiny black patent shoes had well‐sanded soles, which meant that he liked the music. But there was something else about him, something that didn’t quite ring true. Sophie couldn’t put her finger on it except that she felt a certain kinship with him and why not? He was tall, carried himself well and he was a very good dancer.

  The girl with him was very pretty but there was nothing between them. Why that thought gave her a twinge, Sophie didn’t know.

  THE BAND

  The band was very scrappy between sets, trash talking one another with very little praise to make up for the jabs. Willie Sweets, the trumpet player, was the loudest of the bunch. He liked to ride the bass player. Gottfried was big and slow and he talked slow and low which is probably why Willie stayed on him. Fact of the matter is that Gottfried was a real good musician.

  Now the bass as almost anyone can tell you is there to be seen and seldom heard. It stayed in the background like the brushes on the snare drum ‐ always slow and low and almost out of earshot. But the sound was always there because the other instruments had to have something to play against.

  Not so when Gottfried was on his bass. He was taller than the others, not beefy but with a long oval head. His big eyes poked out under big eyebrows and his high cheekbones gave an angle to his chin that certainly was the opposite of slackjaw.

  Gottfried had a very sensitive mouth, not pout but his upper lip did have a slight overhang. In his hands, the bass became a band within a band, putting out this huge complex sound with every string crying out to be heard and tickling the wood behind it into a soft harmonic that got under your skin. But Gottfried wasn’t satisfied with that. His bow was so precise, so punched that he made his bass sound like a thousand needles shooting at you and when he twirled it ‐ watch out!

  Usually every player got a solo when the band was playing a number with the bass getting the last and the shortest if he got one at all. But Gottfried always got his solo. They were like diamonds, pure and perfect and he was sure to show up any player who messed up.

  Everyone in the band knew it, which didn’t make Gottfried very popular but you couldn’t ignore his playing so the Wizards respected him, all except Willie Sweets who just kept razzing Gottfried something awful. There’s such a thing as being too perfect, not that Gottfried was highfalutin ‐ he wasn’t ‐ it’s just that his good enough made everyone else look excellent.

  Willie Sweets couldn’t stand him. Now Willie was loud and bad and bad and loud. His horn had a bigger than normal bell and when he flagged it with the tin hat, the wa wa was like the Wabash Limited coming down the line.

  Now the Wizards could play any style of music, which is why the press came to call them THE BAND THAT COULD PLAY FOREVER. Latin, funk, R&B, you name it and they could play it. But for the time of our story, they played Dixieland Jazz so if you were going to compare, then Willie Sweets sounded like Louis Armstrong and Jim Dandy (the clarinetist) sounded like Benny Goodman; not that any of this mattered because the bad blood between Gottfried and Willie Sweets stayed bad. The bass player always lofted above the fray up close to heaven just like his music and that really ticked off Willie Sweets when they were performing.

  Now the Wizards played beautifully together ‐ really elegant classy music that could put them in any club anywhere in the world. It was in between sets that things got out of hand, like the day when Willie was riding him so hard that Gottfried up and laid down his bass and walked off the bandstand.

  Where you going, bro? Willie called after him but Gottfried just kept on walking in that slow deliberate way of his until Willie saw red, jumped off the bandstand and waving his bigmouth horn like it was a club, ran after his sworn enemy.

  That’s when Stix piled out from behind his drums and made a beeline for a spot just in front of the charging trumpet player, cutting him off from Gottfried, who had never looked back and who was maintaining his steady pace out of the ballroom.

  Willie Sweets tried to sidestep the drummer but Stix just squared his shoulders and, clamping one big hand around Willie’s arm, stopped him in his tracks.

  Sophie took it all in ‐ the quick flash of anger, no telling where that would go ‐ and then pulling up short as quickly as it had begun. Stix is someone to be reckoned with, Sophie said to herself with a wink of her eye. Of those left on the bandstand only Sad Sax caught that wink.

  AND SHE VAMPED THEM

  At exactly 5’ x 104lbs., Sophie was lighter by far than the rest of the Wizards, a double‐zero petite amongst the beefeaters ‐ well, short beefeaters to be fair. None of the Wizards loomed larger than five‐three‐and‐a‐half, the tallest being Sad Sax, who was also the shyest.

  To put a song over, Sophie knew that she had to have the band’s attention, their undivided attention. This she would never have for all their grumbling and upmanship so she decided to vamp them, designing her own outfits and picking specifics for each performance along with the accessories.

  Soon that bellicose rabble on the bandstand behind her really began to see their chantoozie, her line, her indelible line in the spotlight. And what they saw was a kaleidoscope of style and substance, chromatically arranged with such profusion that it plunged them into permanent confusion (with apologies to the reader!)

  Not that Sophie went to any extraordinary effort. Her job was to get the song across and if that meant vamping the band, so be it. The first time she wore black is an example: a fitted blouse puffy at the elbows over toreador trousers with a single onyx strip down the right leg to her knee.

  The song had a slow build but once it got going, ’My Man’ turned every man in the room into a hunter. Sophie never noticed that spike in energy, She just moved to the music. It was as if she had tapped into some geologic vector right below where she was standing and pulled it into her performance, into all of her performances to come.

  That was the moment that put Phibes back on the Champs Elysees, to the time when he and Victoria were blazing across the society pages of England and the Continent.

  There was a lot of dancing at Number 5 after that. The ballroom stayed lit up and the Veuve Cliquot flowed freely. Phibes kept the wine cellar in the sub‐basement well stocked with this house favorite.

  He and Vulnavia stepped crisply together with the band going full‐bore on St. James Infirmary and the other standards. But you could tell from the hesitation in his step ‐ so slight that you almost missed it ‐ that his heart was somewhere else.

  Not so with Sophie. She always dressed to the nines and always attracted plenty of attention. She was a diva up on the bandstand but when she and Sad Sax stepped out on the dance floor, look out!

  One of today’s premiere cobblers soles his very expensive shoes in red. We can’t mention his name here but many readers will recognize him by his red‐bottomed high fashions…

  …the very same red bottoms Sophie was wearing in the 1930’s. Was she prescient?

  DIVERS

  There came now a variety of events whose construction, although not readily apparent, will come clear to readers who like to see the pattern of things. Perhaps.

  These events began and ended with glass insofar as this section of the Phibes Saga is concerned.

  * * *

  It was a persistent pecking, short heavy strokes that stopped soon enough because of their ineffectuality. The eagle knew that this was a test but as soon as it was over, he raised his claw with the automatic assurance of his species and scratched across the window pane, a kill stroke that would have put away any of his usual victims.

  Eagles are the alpha predators of the sky. #5’s rooftop observatory had a glass dome, its oblong beveled panes thick enough and strong enough to withstand the debris that flew up from the weekend brawls down below. For all of the good intentions of its founder, Maldine Square could never lift Bermondsey from the squalor of its Thameside docks.

  Haul cargo, drink and fight was the longshoreman’s lot in life. The eagle threw all of his
weight into the scratch ‐ enough to grate your teeth just like when that kid in the front row ran up to the blackboard and gouged his fingernails across it ‐ as if he owned the place, which in fact he did.

  The old brownstone shivered down to its basement and then was still. His mission complete, the eagle hopped onto the brass telescope barrel that jutted out from the cupola aperture. The blood flecks around his beak were still fresh. He could sleep now.

  At the opposite end of the hallway stood the Velocity Room. NO TRESPASSING spread across the space above its double doors in big white letters over a black

  background. And below that: VELOCITY ROOM.

  There was a lot of whirring and pumping coming from beyond the double doors but today’s sound wasn’t as smooth as it used to be. There was a slight crackle to it ‐ like seeds in a gourd ‐ and this had been going on now for a few days. The crackle was really there even if you didn’t want to hear it.

  The metro police had come around day before yesterday. One of the locals was missing so they were going around the neighborhood looking for him like they’re supposed to do. They went through the building with extra care because it was Maldine Sq., after all. But when they got up to the top floor and saw the ‘No Trespassing’ sign, they stopped. Better get approval back at the precinct, they decided, before going past the sign.

  THE NIGHT LITTLE LYONEL WENT MISSING

  Like a lot of Russian dancers do, Lyonel went by one name but that wasn’t enough to get him into Sadler’s Wells even though he claimed to have danced for Diaghilev. So he kicked around London, even managed to hook up with some visiting troupes when they blew into town for a two‐week stand.

  The money was not steady so neither were his lodgings. Lyonel often vacated on the qt with just enough in his pocket to stake him for another sixty days. But he had to be nimble because the bill collectors were all over him thanks to the size of his arrears ‐ over 90 Quid ‐ which made their slice of the pie worthwhile.

  Living on the run like this would take the wind out of the average man’s sails. But Little Lyonel was an artiste driven by a higher calling so he decided on a career move that would put him in clover until that call came in from Sadler’s Wells.

  It didn’t matter that his new lodgings in Bermondsey had no phone: there was one in the hallway just outside his fifth floor room. Of the two other rooms on his floor, the chap next door was an older fellow who played the violin long into the night, not at all badly, thank you. He washed his pots and pans in the common bathroom down the hall, a habit Lyonel found distasteful but beggars can’t be choosers especially if they’re in search of a higher goal.

  The girl in the front room was either a stenographer or some sort of professional. Her violet fragrance was several cuts above the stuff you could get in drugstores and from the sound of her footsteps, her shoes were quality, too.

  Lyonel fancied that he’d be invited in for tea soon enough. A single woman in this part of the world needed someone she could rely on. Lyonel never would be a Steady Eddie but he saw himself lounging in her bay window sipping the oolong soon enough. In the meantime, he gathered the tools of his new trade and went to work.

  Weekends were busiest when the saloons down near the docks let out the crews whose ships had come in earlier that day. Flush with a couple months’ pay, they made easy pickings being all grogged up and still navigating the cobbles on their sea legs. After picking his mark, it was easy for Lyonel to put him away with just one tap of his sap.

  Lyonel’s hands were as fast as his feet. It got so that he went through the mark in under a minute and was a block away before anyone knew the difference.

  He was so fast that he did not need to drag the mark into the alley, just left him on the sidewalk where he fell ‐ sleeping it off for anyone who cared to look.

  The sap was a bunch of old coppers stuck in the toes of an old sock, self‐knotted to keep the coppers from spilling out. But after a few close shaves ‐ his marks wanted to tussle before Lyonel could put them down ‐ he stuck a razor blade into the front of the sole on his right shoe for insurance.

  Things were going good for Lyonel in his new career. He bought some fresh duds including a pork pie topper like the one he had seen in the movies somewhere. Very dapper, he thought at the time. It would impress that girl up front, not that he needed to impress anyone: his growing bankroll would take care of that.

  Then Little Lyonel had a sudden reversal of fortune. It happened on a Sunday night. Now you would think that it being the Sabbath and all, that things would be quiet. And indeed his first two marks that evening dropped like flies. He cleared fifteen quid but he needed one more good score to make his rent. The last wine shop on his block had already turned off its lights but the signs up ahead in the next block were still lit: FLATHAMMER, with his big red hand clasping an even bigger ball peen and THE LADY HAMILTON, with that famous lady in silhouette against a daring pink background.

  Lyonel took off on a trot to his next payday. Just as he passed the last pub on his block, his eye caught a shape stove up against its darkened doorway and without thinking, dove in for the man’s pocket instead of sapping him first. But before the primo danseur could capture the wallet, the mark had locked Lyonel’s hand in his own and was squeezing it as if to break all of Lyonel’s fingers at once.

  Lyonel countered this threat to his livelihood with a thrust of his shoe, severing the man’s hamstring and forcing him to lose his grip. He broke and ran, with the mark’s cries, mingled with the floppings of his near‐ severed foot, booming after him, these quickly joined by the tumble of footsteps, hundreds of footsteps.

  How could anyone have that many friends? Actually not more than a dozen locals were hot on Lyonel’s trail but word had gotten out about this rogue pickpocket and this bunch intended to do something about it.

  Lyonel ran like hell, up away from the docks and the surrounding flophouses until he came to that little local park with the tall trees and the fence around it. But the gates were locked so he just kept on going. The crowd was still a couple blocks away but gaining so he darted into Maldine Square. And with one of those indefinable but inevitable strokes of luck, scampered up the stoop of #5 and, trying the brass doorknob, found the heavy oaken door unlocked. With a quick look to back to see if anyone had spotted him, he ran up the stairs to the fifth floor and dashed through the double doors marked: NO ADMITTANCE, VELOCITY ROOM.

  And he was never heard from after that!

  TO THE PYRAMIDS

  A small Turkish fleet was making a goodwill tour of various Mediterranean ports. It was Kemal Ataturk’s first official visit to the other members of the now‐defunct Ottoman Empire. He was quartered on his flagship, the OSMAN SELIM. This former German battle cruiser was all agleam with fresh paint and high polish on every inch of its brass works.

  The flags were spank brand new, flapping the Turkish colors with a crispness that belied the sullen air that hung over the Mediterranean that morning. Far below on the bridge, two men are conversing on the subject of freedom, and its impending loss.

  So when are you going to get married?

  The day after you tie the knot. We don’t do that in Anatolia!

  So true. But it’s also Turkey, the newest country in Europe. And you’re the man who made it happen.

  I had a lot of help. The two men on the bridge were old friends. Anton Phibes was headed back to London after a ten‐month tour in India. He’d stopped in Istanbul for a quick catch‐up with Ataturk, and accepted his friend’s invitation to travel part of the way back with him.

  We’ll drop you off in Marseilles. You’ll be back in London two days later. They’d left Istanbul yesterday afternoon for Alexandria and were ahead of schedule thanks to the favorable weather. Today, the Mediterranean was a near perfect blue, extending to every point on the horizon. They were almost at the geographic center of this great inland sea, without a shoreline in sight. Looking at those limitless horizons, you could sense what the crews of the Greek
triremes felt when they went into battle: timelessness, the worry of never finding their way back home…and what lies beneath the surface?

  None of these concerns intruded on their conversation. Ataturk’s was one of the few success stories to come out of the War and whereas the Great Powers ‐ England, France and Germany ‐ were exhausted from the bloodletting, Turkey had shed the deadweight of its Ottoman past and was emerging into the modern era with confidence.

  We’ll be in Alexandria this time tomorrow, Ataturk said, pushing the tray of fresh coffee across the table. There’s something you should see once we make port.

  I was stationed there before the war. Beastly hot! Don’t know that I want to see much more of the place, with all due respect.

  Gizeh. I’m talking about Gizeh.

  The Pyramids?

  The Great Pyramid. Khufu, 4th Dynasty. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

  …And the only one still standing. Read about it in school.

  But you never went to see it. It’s just a short trip from Alexandria.

  I had the Nile to think about. We were short‐handed.

  No excuse. But that’s OK. I’m giving you another shot. Thanks but… Here, Ataturk brushed him off; I know you’re not a tourist, Anton. But I also know what you do in your line of work…

  …water. Phibes finished the sentence for his host. There’s never enough of it in this part of the world! Precisely. The ancient Egyptians were great dam builders. How do you think they survived for so long as a society?

  A civilization! Thank you. Egypt is a desert now and it was a desert then. What little rain they did get, they captured it in cisterns. And built dams on the Nile to capture the spring floods.