Long known as Bughouse Square because of its appeal to soapbox orators, the park was understandably deserted just then. The late-afternoon sky was a pewter gray and the wind was nearly blowing the big fake candy canes off the lampposts. Christmas was just around the corner, and David had yet to do his shopping. Not that he had much to do. There was his sister, her husband, his niece, and that was about it. His girlfriend, Linda, had moved out a month ago. At least that was one less present to worry about.
Crossing Oak Street, he walked north to Division, and as he approached the El station, he heard a train screeching to a stop overhead. He raced up the stairs three at a time—he’d been on the track team in high school and could still keep up a pretty good pace—and made it through the sliding doors just in the nick of time. He flopped onto the bench feeling victorious, then, as he unzipped his coat and waited for his glasses to defog, wondered why he’d been in such a hurry. It was a Saturday, and he had no plans. As the train picked up speed, and the conductor announced the next stop over the garbled intercom, he reminded himself to put a Post-it note on his computer on Monday morning, reading: “Get a life.”
Chapter 2
Even for someone as jaded as Phillip Palliser, it had been a strange day so far.
A car had been sent to his hotel, and the driver—a Frenchman named Emil Rigaud, who looked as if he had spent more than a few years in military service of some kind—had whisked them off to a private airfield just outside Paris, where they had boarded a helicopter and flown south toward the Loire Valley. Palliser, a man who spent a good part of his life flying around the globe, still harbored some reservations about helicopter flight. The din in the cabin, even with the headphones on, was excruciating, and as part of the floor was transparent, he could not help but see the landscape rushing by below his feet. First, the outlying suburbs of the city—a hideous jumble of concrete blocks and crowded highways, much like the wastelands surrounding most metropolitan centers—blissfully followed by snowy farms and fields, then, an hour later, deep, dark forests and valleys.
As they had passed above the town of Chartres, Rigaud had leaned in, and, over his headset, said, “That’s the cathedral, right under us. I told the pilot to ring the bells.”
And when Palliser looked down, it did indeed seem as if the chopper’s rails were about to clip the cathedral’s twin spires. He felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach and closed his eyes. When he opened them again a few seconds later, Rigaud was looking at him fixedly, with a smile on his face.
The man was a bit of a sadist, Palliser thought.
“Not much farther,” Rigaud said over a burst of static. But his tone conveyed less comfort than regret … at the ordeal coming to an end.
Palliser looked away and concentrated on taking deep, steady breaths. For nearly ten years, ever since leaving the International Art Recovery League, he had undertaken private commissions such as the one he was on now. But none was going to be as lucrative as this. If he could find what his mysterious patron had asked him to find, he could finally take that retirement he dreamt of and even, perhaps, begin his own art collection in earnest. He was tired of being the expert instead of the owner, the detective hired to track down the valuable objets d’art to which other people—most of them philistines—held some spurious claim. It was time to set up shop for himself.
As they approached the steep, rugged walls of a cliff rising from the river, Rigaud’s voice again crackled in his headphones.
“The Chateau Perdu is due south. You will see it soon.”
In all his years, and all his travels, Palliser had never heard of this Chateau Perdu—or lost castle—but he had been sufficiently intrigued by the note left at his hotel to undertake this journey.
“I understand that we share certain interests,” the note had said. “I have long been a collector of art, from all over the globe, and would be delighted to have someone with your discerning eye appreciate, and perhaps appraise, some of it.” Palliser picked up the scent of a commission down the road. But it was the conclusion that sealed the deal. “Perhaps I can even help you on your present mission. After all, even Perseus did not prevail over the Medusa without the help of powerful friends.”
It was that last comment—about the Medusa—that had piqued his interest. The man who had signed the note—Monsieur Auguste Linz—must know something about the assignment Palliser was on. How he’d found out was anyone’s guess, as even Palliser had never met his actual employer on this job. But if this Linz actually knew something about the whereabouts of La Medusa, the ancient artifact that he was seeking, then enduring the helicopter ride would have been well worth the trouble.