And Louis knew him for who, and for what, he was: this was the Collector. The man might have been dressed in thrift store clothes, his appearance that of one who has been poorly served by life, and has chosen to respond in kind, but it was all a veneer. Louis had met dangerous men before, and some had died at his hand, but the man now walking toward the door to 112 exuded menace the way other people sweated from their pores. Louis could almost smell it off him as he slipped from the car and moved in; that, and something more: a hint of burnt offerings, of blood and charnel houses. Though Louis’s approach was silent, the Collector raised his hands without turning while Louis was still fifteen feet away. The cigarette had burned down as far as the yellowed skin on the Collector’s fingers, but if it hurt him then he did not show it.
‘You can drop that, if it’s bothering you,’ said Louis.
The Collector let the cigarette slip from its fingers. ‘A shame. There was another pull left on it.’
‘They’ll kill you.’
‘So I’ve been told.’
‘Maybe I’ll kill you first.’
‘And we haven’t even been formally introduced, although I do feel that I know you. You might say that I’ve watched you from afar, you and your partner. I’ve admired your work, especially since you appear to have developed a conscience.’
‘I guess I should be flattered, huh?’
‘No, you should simply be grateful that I haven’t had cause to come after you. You were on the verge of damnation for a time. Now, you are making recompense for your sins. If you continue on that path, you might yet be saved.’
‘Are you saved? If you are, I’m not sure I want to be keeping that kind of company.’
The Collector expelled a breath through his nose, the closest he had come to laughter in an eternity.
‘No, I exist between salvation and damnation. Suspended, if you wilclass="underline" a dangling man.’
‘Kneel,’ said Louis. ‘Put your hands on your head and keep them there.’
The Collector did as he was told. Louis advanced on him quickly, placed the gun to his head, and knocked hard on the door. Up close, the smell of nicotine made his eyes water, but it served to mask the other smells.
‘Me,’ said Louis. ‘I got company. An old friend of yours.’
The door opened, and the Collector looked up at me.
He sat in a chair by the door. Louis had frisked him, but the Collector was unarmed. He examined the ‘No Smoking’ sign by the television, frowning as he knitted his fingers across his stomach. Bobby Jandreau stared at him the way one might stare, upon waking, at a spider suspended above one’s face. Mel had retreated, and was sitting in a corner behind Angel, her eyes fixed on the stranger, waiting for him to pounce.
‘Why are you here?’ I asked.
‘I came looking for you. It seems that we are working toward similar ends.’
‘Which would be?’
A thin finger, the nail the color of rust, extended itself and pointed to Jandreau.
‘Let me guess the story so far,’ said the Collector. ‘Soldiers; treasure; a falling out among thieves.’
Jandreau looked as though he might have been about to dispute the use of the word “thieves,” but the Collector turned his mocking gaze in the direction of his finger, and Jandreau remained silent.
‘Except they didn’t know what they were stealing,’ the Collector continued. ‘They were indiscriminate. They took all that they could, without wondering why it had been made so easy for them. But you paid a high price for it, didn’t you, Mr. Jandreau? You’re all paying a high price for your sins.’
Jandreau started. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘Names are my business. There was a box, was there not? A gold box. They left it for you to find. It was probably in a lead receptacle, for they couldn’t be too careful, but they left it where it wouldn’t be ignored. Tell me, Mr. Jandreau. I’m right, am I not?’
Jandreau just nodded.
‘I want the box,’ said the Collector. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘For your collection?’ I said. ‘I thought someone had to die before you got to claim one of their possessions.’
‘Oh, someone will die, if I have my way, and my collection will increase greatly as a consequence, but the box will not be part of it. It does not belong to me. It does not belong to anyone. It is dangerous. Someone is looking for it, a man named Herod, and it is essential that he not be allowed to find it. If he does, he will open it. He has the patience, and the skill. The one with him has the knowledge.’
‘What’s in it?’ asked Angel.
‘Three entities,’ said the Collector simply. ‘Old demons, if you prefer. The box is the latest in a series of attempts to contain them, but its construction was flawed by the vanity of its creator, who forgot that he was forging a prison. Gold is such soft metal. Over the years, gaps appeared. Something of what was contained inside found a way to reach out, to poison the minds of those who came into contact with it. The lead box was an effort to counteract that threat: crude, but effective. Like the dull paint used to cover the gold, it also served to conceal what was inside.’
‘Why didn’t they just dump it in the ocean, or bury it somewhere?’
‘Because the only thing worse than knowing where it might be is not knowing. The box was watched. It had always been watched, the knowledge of it transferred from one generation to the next. In the end, it was hidden away among a jumble of worthless artifacts in a museum basement in Baghdad, and then the war came, and the museum was looted. The box disappeared, along with much else that was of value, but somehow an understanding of its nature, however incomplete, reached those who had seized it. It may even have been that they knew exactly what they had from the moment it appeared, for looting is a relative term. The items stolen from the Iraq Museum were carefully chosen, for the most part. Do you know that seventeen thousand items were stolen from the museum over those April days; that four hundred and fifty of four hundred and fifty-one cases were emptied, but only twenty-eight of those cases were broken? The rest were simply opened, which means that those who stole from them had keys. Astonishing, don’t you think? One of the greatest museum thefts in history, one of the greatest sackings since the time of the Mongols, and it may have been an inside job.
‘But no matter. When Mr. Jandreau and his friends came looking for treasure, the box was passed on to them, perhaps in the hope that they would do exactly what they did: transport it back to this country, the country of the enemy, where it would be opened. Now you know what it is. In return, tell me where to find it.’
His eyes scanned every face in the room, as though the knowledge that he sought might somehow be read in them, before he fixed on mine.
‘Why should we trust you?’ I said. ‘You manipulate truth for your own ends. You’re just a killer, nothing more, a serial slayer slaughtering under some divine flag of convenience.’
A light flared in the Collector’s eyes, like twin flares being ignited in an abyss. ‘No, I am no mere killer: I am an instrument of the Divine. I am God’s murderer. Not all of His work is beautiful…’
He looked disgusted, both at me and, I believed, at some level kept hidden even from his own conscience, at himself.
‘You must set aside your qualms, just as I must set aside mine,’ he said after a moment. ‘If I trouble you, then you disturb me. I dislike being near you. You are part of a plan of which I have no knowledge. You are bound for a reckoning that will be the death of you, and of all who stand alongside you. Your days are numbered, and I do not wish to be close to you when you fall.’