Vienna (36 page)

“Vienna, did you find anything on my BlackBerry?”

“No.”

“Vienna, you had to—”

“I hate how you never believe me.” Tears starting again.

Shit.

Vienna would know the solution before the killer. Every step she took would be watched. Mr. Sunglasses would see to that. His boss would shoot Vienna the second she succeeded. There was no other way to keep the secret.

With the evidence on my computer destroyed, I might escape. She's trying to save me, but she can't save herself.

Except … the killer was like David Andries in one respect. He would never run from a woman. He would never believe one was a threat, not on a level that mattered.

“Doesn't that make sense?” Vienna asked. “To take it apart before it's replaced?”

“It won't be replaced. There was never a chance to make a duplicate. The owner won't let anyone see it but me.”

Vienna shrank under the covers. “I didn't think of that.”

“The only chance to get the cylinders would be to fake an accident serious enough to break the manikin open. They could drop it during unloading and grab the goods in the resulting chaos.”

Vienna remained silent.
Constructing a new argument to get to the manikin.

Justine brushed her fingers through Vienna's hair. “It never made sense to me—how we started in Budapest and skipped over Vienna—the closest city. But this had to be the last manikin. The thieves knew they'd have to destroy it with no duplicate to replace it. They couldn't do that and expect the other owners to give them access.”

“We still need to take it apart.” No reason given—none left except that Vienna needed the last piece of the puzzle.

The killer will go after her.

“I'm certain the owner will let me see it first. We can take it apart tomorrow morning, if you feel up for it.”

“Okay.”

He'll never see me coming after him.

 

28

Vienna didn't like the old house. The furniture was spindled wood and no padding. Antiques from when people had stronger arses.

The woman living there was broken. She thought Justine was her daughter. She kept on calling Justine “dear” and “sweet child.”

“Look at me,” said Miss Havisham. “You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?”

It made Vienna self-conscious.

The lady showed them to a domed library that held the manikin. “It's such a cute piece, and it looks so much like you, Heather.” It didn't look anything like Justine. “If only the pose were more dignified.”

The manikin wore a dark gray hobble skirt and a matching top. Vienna thought the dress was a sad attempt to conceal the impish pose of the doll; bent at the waist and her back swayed in open invitation to explore everything south of the shoulder blades. Standing on tiptoes.
Some anthropologists speculate that wearing high heels mimics lordosis behavior, observed in cats and other …
She blushed, remembering the last night in Iceland. Justine's hands on her back, the answering arch of her spine.

The manikin's hands were close to her chest, palms open, as if she were leaning on a high counter. She had long, curled hair, seductively dark. Her glass eyes were deep brown.

“She's very pretty,” Vienna said.

“But in poor taste. I'm putting her up for sale when this is over,” the old lady said. “I only kept her because I knew someday Heather would want to see her.”

“Very kind,” Justine said. “May we take it apart?”

“By all means, sweetie. I had no idea it even came apart!”

They removed the clothes, Vienna folding them on a spindled chair of polished mahogany. Lowering the statue to its side was easy with Justine's help. Vienna went to the feet, seeing the expected star, bowl, and horn. The other foot was branded with the statue's name: Theodrada. A forgotten queen, known as little more than dame to her king.

Women are nothing but machines for producing children.
Napoleon. That French bastard who invaded Austria.
My home.
She liked the way that sounded. My home.

Vienna twisted the big toe lightly, stopping at a slight click. She began to dismantle the manikin.

“Shouldn't you label the pieces?” the old lady asked, alarmed at the growing pile of wooden parts.

“Vienna is an expert,” Justine assured her.

Thirty minutes later, Vienna held up a tiny disk of gold and a small cylinder of stone.

“It's marble!” she said, delighted with the beauty of it. The Earth had no alchemical metal associated with it, so Bell had used marble. It was perfect. She guessed at the dimensions. “Five grams of gold.” The density of marble was harder to find, but the
Chemical Rubber Company Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
had it. “Marble has a density of 2.563, assuming this is solid, which I think it is.” She did the calculation in her head and added five grams. It would throw the final calculation off by meters.
I will never let them get it!
“Twenty-six grams.”

“What does it mean?” asked the lady.

“Weights for balancing the machine used to make the manikin,” Justine answered.

“They used gold for such things?”

“It could be precisely measured.” A ridiculous answer, but there was no change in Justine's voice, no way to tell she was lying.

“How nice,” the lady said.

“I'm sure historians of such things will be pleased,” Justine said. “Let's get it back together.”

Vienna worked faster than in Iceland, taking delight in the ingenious way the pieces slid together. She listened to Justine instruct the old lady how to lie. “I don't want anyone to know we took the manikin apart. You know how these photographers are. Once something is studied it's no longer art. We'll record the contents on a note and slip it into the skirt pocket. That way, everyone can discover it for themselves.”

It won't matter.
Vienna had all she needed. It was beautiful. Circles within circles. Treasure hidden among the planets.

Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight.

 

29

The girl was a ghost once again. Rising from bed the instant twelve flashed blue on the bedside clock. Of course Vienna would start a nocturnal quest precisely at midnight. It was a function of who she was. Across the floor with the preternatural grace of the socially traumatized.
No one notice me. I'm not here. Leave me alone.

Justine feigned sleep on an anthill of caffeine pills. Belatedly realizing that anxiety would have kept her awake.

Vienna dressed from a stack of folded clothes left on an oversized chair. Shoes on, she hesitated. “I had a dream,” she whispered, “which was not all a dream.” Justine imagined Vienna's eyes scanning over words only she could see. What meaning did they hold? An exaggerated sigh, and she was gone. Justine sprang from the bed, dressing from her own ready stash.

A lone man in the lobby, his face hidden behind the latest edition of
Der Kurier
. Blue jeans over black motorcycle boots. Justine wondered if he still had the sunglasses on.

How many other people had taken note of Vienna's flight? None of them could doubt her destination. The great forest at the edge of the city. Justine's phone showed the distance to be roughly eight miles from the hotel. The obvious plan would be to hit the front desk for access to the business center. Call up Google Earth and print a map of the area. Then ask the valet to flag a taxi. Show the driver your map and you're off. All it required was interaction with three or four strangers, most of whom would not speak your language. Easy to see how that'd play out in Vienna's world. They'd be angry at being disturbed by such stupid questions. They would laugh at you because you're such an idiot. They might even take you to the wrong place and then what would you do? So much safer just to walk. It would take less than three hours if Vienna kept a good pace.

The girl stepped into the night, hunched down in a black Pringle of Scotland sweater she'd found in a boutique off Stephansplatz. It would keep her warm enough as long as she kept moving.

Following was effortless. Vienna never looked to either side, let alone behind. Apprehension manifest in her broken stride; skipping over lines or tightroping along cracks in the sidewalk. Justine trailed a half block behind, her steps lost in the low drone of nocturnal traffic.

So how easy would it be to follow me?

She stepped to the side and quickly turned around, expecting to see Sunglasses. It was worse. Fifteen people close enough to see their faces. Was the man in the blue jacket familiar? Had he been at the hotel? A useless surge of adrenaline. Maybe in the elevator? Now what?

Justine turned away and quickened her pace to keep up with Vienna. Past a black-windowed bar, Jimmy Buffet absurdly spilling into the night. “
God I wish I was sailin' again…”
The staccato pulse of a UV light from the second floor. Impossible to imagine what for.

Justine's thoughts spiraled inward. So many mistakes.
I'm no better than Lina Zahler—a wink and a calculated flash of skin.
All that scheming in Iceland, and the only thing to show for it was Haldor, dead in his geodesic dome.
To what end?
Cut loose on a cold night, no one to trust beyond the girl she followed.

Her thoughts were scattered by the flaps-extended whine of a passenger jet passing to the southeast. Searching for the safe harbor of Flughafen Wien before the coming storm.

She turned again. Fifteen new faces behind her. They all seemed to have come from the hotel. A glimpse of black boots stepping into a nightclub.
Was that him?
Justine looked ahead and saw Vienna had already crossed to the next block; suddenly hidden behind a stopped bus.
I'm going to lose her.
She dodged through the crowd. The bus pulled away in a cloud of exhaust. Vienna's slender frame almost lost in the maze of people.
Idiot! Keep her in sight!
Justine crossed the street against a red light.

Vienna turned on Thalia Strasse. A long climb, the city unfolding below them. Left onto Hertlgasse. Silver fog crawled from the Danube, smearing streetlights into spectral haze. The barbed spire of Saint Stephens sank under the dark tide. Traffic thinned.

Two hours and forty minutes after leaving the hotel, Vienna reached a shadowed corner. A tube of yellow light over a bus stop. Savoyen Strasse and Johann Straus Strasse. She crossed the street and paused under the black eaves of the Wienerwald.

Justine wanted to rush to her; take her away from this place. But running from the forest wouldn't change anything. Wouldn't stop the murders.
I chose to be here. I have every advantage that Prince Rudolph did not.
Her fingers closed around the aluminum tent stake in her pocket.

Vienna turned on a penlight. A single step into the forest, and then she stopped. Another step, this time placing her right leg forward, across her left. Shoulders back, toes pointed forward. Justine recognized a stuttered imitation of her own runway walk. Vienna took only four steps before knocking ankles midstride and almost tripping.
How many times did I do that when I was learning?
She stopped and regained her balance. The short, exhaled giggle, so incongruous on such a night.

Justine held her breath as several seconds ticked by. Vienna's shoulders bunched in one of her long sighs, and she was off again in her normal walk. Justine paused long enough to glance down the street behind her. No one. Far worse than the crowded sidewalks. She turned and followed Vienna.
Just as Marie von Vetsera followed her lover.

The waning moon backlit thickening bands of cirrus, its light dimming in the failing weather. The girl stayed on a path marked by placards nailed to trees. Red and blue stripes in Vienna's light, then yellow and red. Every so often, shouts came from other parts of the forest. College kids partying. Or worse.

The feeling of alienation returned. This was the heart of the city, more than Saint Stephens ever would be. Ancient trees that had witnessed the coming of the Celts, heard the cadence of Roman legions, and the battle cries of Magyars. Knotted branches stretched across the sky in claustrophobic arcs, calling out the latest invader. Leaves fell through the breeze, snared by the groundcover's tangle of decay and rebirth. Justine breathed in the timeless perfume of wet loam.

A rasping sigh, directly behind her. Justine whirled to face an empty path. A skewed tree whispered to the breeze, banners of lichen hanging from lower branches. Long seconds spent searching the tree's canopy, silhouetted against faint moonlight.
Just the wind.

Justine turned back. The path was deserted.
Vienna!
Justine bit back the urge to shout out. Too many ears in the forest.
She can't have gone far.
Justine jogged up the path. Nothing.

She's left the trail.
Justine backtracked and looked to her left. Only a thin row of trees separating the path from a meadow. No sign of the girl. The other way was dense forest.

She has to be this way.
Justine stepped off the path, ducking under low branches. Nothing. Five steps. Ten.
She has to be this way.
Justine crouched low and pushed her way forward. Her foot slipped into the trace of a stream and she went down, her palm sliding through cold mud. Her left side instantly soaked. No traction to get her feet under her. Hands out, clawing into grass. Back up and pushing through another thicket.

There!
A narrow beam of light dancing across the ground. Justine closed the distance, trying to catch her breath from the fall.

Ten minutes in the woods brought them to a chain-link fence, long fallen into disrepair. Vienna stepped through a truck-sized hole cut in the metal weave.