Brooklyn Knight Page 4

  “A female assistant,” asked the professor, “say, with great legs and a stunning shape? One with features so finely chiseled one is forced to wonder why she didn’t choose a career in modeling, acting, or some such thing?”

  Bridget stared at Knight for a moment, not certain how to respond to his answer. Where the professor’s words sounded like the beginnings of some patented “come-on” line, nothing in the man’s attitude or tone suggested that was his motive. Having given the redhead a moment to realize such, Knight spoke again, his voice soft and understanding.

  “Listen, in my defense, as well as to save the museum the expense of a sexual harassment charge, I would remind you that at the airport I did have to attract your attention with that sign with your name on it.”

  “Which you misspelled.”

  “Oh my, yes,” he admitted, sighing. “How kind of you to remember.” As she giggled despite the seriousness of the moment, he continued, telling her;

  “That aside, yes, I knew you were female, and I did expect you to be on the young side since I was informed you were a recent college graduate, but if your feminist sensibilities can tolerate my saying so, the rest was merely a delightful surprise. The truth be known, I do simply like to get out of the museum on occasion, and more to the point, I greatly enjoy getting to know the people I’m going to be overworking unmercifully. I also will admit, my dear, to using sexist terms of endearment because I sometimes suspect the back of my mind wishes I lived in a black-and-white movie.”

  “Thank you,” answered Bridget, her tone filled with an honest reassurance, “and truthfully, sir, I don’t mind a ‘my dear’ or two at all. Really, to be big-sky honest, it makes me feel like I’m back home. But I saw the menu. Maybe I am kind of a hick, but these prices … my mama always said a man doesn’t pull out his wallet without knowing what he’s buying. And I—”

  Allowing a sigh to escape his lips, a thing sounding as if it came from a grandfather trying to train an especially beloved pet, the professor cut the young woman off with a gentle wave of his hand.

  “Montana’s own Bridget Elkins, allow me to be perfectly frank with you.” His half smile returning, Knight continued, saying;

  “Although you are indeed an ingenue, I am no Broadway producer, and dust-laden museum archives are not the place for casting couches.” Then, his eyes filled with sympathy, he moved both his hands toward each other slightly to focus Bridget’s attention, as he told her softly;

  “Look, you really are an adorably sweet girl, and once you get to know me, I think things will go quite smoothly between us. To facilitate that, let me address your concerns. First off, yes, besides being sweet, which frankly I think is your finest natural asset, you are a wonderfully attractive female, and having you as an assistant will only give the other directors one more thing to envy about me.”

  “The other things being … ?”

  “Why, my good looks, enormous intellect, and quite natty fashion sense, of course.”

  “And your humility?”

  “Oh, good God, no. Barely have an once of it. No, I don’t think anyone’s ever envied me that.”

  Bridget giggled quietly once more, despite the seriousness of the conversation, a great part of her relaxing as the professor spoke. She had found everything about him charming and interesting so far, and would have hated to discover that any of it had been a sham, the tacky first move in some ridiculous game for which she had no desire.

  “As for dinner, my dear, well, quite honestly I simply like to eat. Also, I am blessed with a marvelous metabolism—another thing many envy about me, to be certain—one that lets me consume morning to night and not gain much more than a pound or two, which I then seem to burn off without much effort.”

  “I could envy that myself,” admitted Bridget, “considering how hard I have to work to look this way. All ‘wonderfully attractive,’ as you said.”

  “I understand. You have my complete and utter sympathy. If ever I were to start gaining weight more in line with my ability to consume that which creates it, I think I would be heartbroken. Crestfallen. I do so enjoy stuffing myself with the best food I can find—” Looking around the room, he then added, “I also like doing it in places where they know me and cater to my whims, and I enjoy most of all doing it with other people who enjoy eating, which, I must admit, you certainly seem to do.”

  Blushing, his companion answered him quietly, “It’s true. Daddy loved to take us out to every new steak house and rib joint in or anywhere near town. I’ve got a pretty healthy appetite, but like I said, I do have to work to keep it off. I’ll be looking for a gym to join once I get settled in.”

  “Then,” said Knight, staring directly into Bridget’s warm and trusting eyes, “do we understand each other?”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered, smiling brightly—honestly. “I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

  “Of course we are,” he insisted. “You’re young and eager to learn, and as I told you before, knowing pretty much everything, and being infallible, I’m the absolute perfect person to mold you into the unconditionally first-rate museum director I think you’re capable of becoming.”

  “Thank you, good sir.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Knight insisted. “I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t think it true. Which now leads us to your first decision as an official employee of the Brooklyn Museum.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Your choice, do we go back to the museum tonight to dig out and prepare the Dream Stone for Dr. Ungari, or do we have dessert instead?” Bridget thought for only a moment, then responded in mock seriousness;

  “Why don’t we have dessert, then go to the museum? I mean, why go to work simply full when we can stagger in like bloated pigs?”

  “Bridget, my girl,” announced Knight loudly, his eyes twinkling, laughing as he clapped his hands together, “I like the cut of your jib.” Then, turning to one of the waiters, he shouted;

  “Hurry, man—we need two Toppa Caffes, and your largest Exotic Bombas. And make it quick; the world of scientific inquiry needs us desperately!”

  If Bridget had chosen to only have dessert or to go directly to the museum, they would have avoided what would happen to them next. And with that one simple error was the entire world thrown down the path to the almost irresistibly inevitable destruction of the human race.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “And here, as the large green sign announced so clearly, is the fabled Brooklyn Bridge, your gateway to paradise.”

  Bridget smiled, at both the professor’s seemingly endless parade of facts about New York City and the sign he had just mentioned. More amusing, however, was the sign they found at the other end of the bridge. It was a standard municipal welcoming announcement, but its full wording:

  Welcome to Brooklyn

  How Sweet It Is

  delighted her to no end. Brooklyn, the redhead thought, might just live up to her new boss’ ever so favorable opinion of it. She admired his enthusiasm for his hometown, not having tiring of his continual, spontaneous lectures even after a full day of them. Knowing a fact about the bridge herself, she said;

  “It’s over a hundred and twenty-five years old, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed,” answered Knight. “Designed by visionary engineer John Roebling. Took him ten years to get his designs approved, and after all that struggle, when he was scouting for the site for the Brooklyn tower his foot was crushed by an incoming ferry. Never recovered from the accident. His son Washington had to take over.”

  “Died from a crushed foot?”

  “Oh, the Gray Lady took a score of lives before she was through. Young Roebling himself was nearly done in by her. Left paralyzed by caisson disease. Had to work through his wife.” As the professor maneuvered his car onto the off-ramp for downtown Brooklyn, making the practiced illegal turn over the multiple white lines forbidding such an action all New York drivers made without a second thought, he added;

  “Emily Roebling,
remarkable woman, really. Rather than let the project slip from her husband’s hands, she had him tutor her relentlessly in mathematics and bridge engineering. She delivered his instructions on a daily basis, taking over his on-site responsibilities.”

  Heading up Camden, Knight continued chattering about the Brooklyn Bridge. After ten more minutes of driving, even as he began to slow, scouting for a parking place, he told his assistant, “First steel cables ever to be used in a suspension bridge. Only reason she’s lasted this long. Roebling called steel ‘the metal of the future.’ ”

  All conversation ceased, however, as he sighted a legal spot. Racing forward, Knight threw all his attention into sliding his vehicle into the space. Then, as he and Bridget disembarked from his car, the redhead asked;

  “I know you didn’t want to talk shop at dinner, but we’re here now. So could you tell me, please, just what is this Dream Rock?”

  “The Dream Stone,” corrected Knight while he helped his aging seat belt to roll itself up. Tossing the lock switch, the professor finally shut his door and then turned back to his companion, directing her around the corner and up the great front stairs of the Brooklyn Museum as he explained;

  “It was, in its time, the much-hoped-for Rosetta Stone of the ancients of ancients. My great-great-grandfather, who was, I will have you know, father to one of the very first directors of this hallowed museum, he uncovered it in the region of Jordan, back in 1855, ’56, somewhere around then.”

  “And it resembles the Rosetta Stone in what manner?”

  “Quite simply, where the Rosetta had a complete list of the Greek alphabet carved alongside those pesky Egyptian hieroglyphics everyone had been having such trouble deciphering, allowing the scholars of the early eighteen hundreds to finally crack the mysteries of the pharaohs, the Dream Stone contained three distinct alphabets. Ancient Phoenician, Attic Greek—”

  “Those are the early Greeks, right,” asked Bridget. “Sort of their Dark Ages?”

  “Yes, very good,” answered Knight. As the pair drew close to the front doors, he headed them to the far left where the one door employees could use at any time was situated—if, that is, they were important enough to not need to circle around to the back entrance everyone was supposed to use. Pulling out his keys as they continued forward, he went on, telling her;

  “And, obviously, there was a third language. One no one recognized at the time. Indeed, one no one has ever found another trace or even the slightest hint of to this very day.”

  “And exactly why is it called the Dream Stone?”

  “My ancestor, I’m afraid, was a full-blown romantic. Upon discovery of the comparative chart, he contacted every authority in the world searching for any clue that would explain the mystery of this unknown alphabet. When it proved to be a completely unknown set of letters, he dubbed it ‘the Language of Dreams.’ The name stuck, and the slab of rock in which it was inscribed to this day has been known as the Dream Stone.”

  “It’s such a romantic story,” said Bridget. “Ummmm, the romance of archaeology, you know what I mean. Dedicated scholar makes incredible find, works feverishly to uncover its meaning, dies without ever learning the truth.” As Bridget let out a whimsical sigh, one that charmed Knight while also reminding him of just how young she was, he said;

  “Yes, that was Great-great-granddad.”

  “So, tell me, the way people in our field love to mythologize the slightest of matters, why is it I’ve never heard of the Dream Stone before?”

  “Oh, it’s like so many things, I imagine,” said the professor as he removed his key from the lock. Both pushing the door inward and then holding it open so his assistant could enter, he offered, “After a few score years, people stopped looking for an answer, simply forgot about it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes—the way of things, I suppose. But, in all honesty I doubt there’s a textbook with a mention of it these days. There hasn’t been a request to examine it in all the years I’ve been here. Sadly, I doubt there’s even a single copy of its text still in existence outside of our own files.”

  “That’s kind of sad.”

  “Well,” answered Knight, trying to be magnanimous, “that’s fate for you. The Brooklyn Museum has one of the largest collections in the world, over a million and a half pieces—with over a half-million square feet in which to display them.”

  “That’s a lot of room.”

  “Ohhhhh,” Knight answered, his voice going quiet, wistful, “but there should have been so much more. The original design was a thing of magnificence. The architects, McKim, Mead, and White, I believe, their vision, if realized, would have created the largest single museum structure in the world.”

  “Didn’t the merger of Brooklyn with Manhattan interfere with that?”

  A great sadness collecting in the professor’s eyes, his voice dropped even lower as he answered, “Yes. Suddenly the money that had been allocated tightened, disappearing down some rat hole or into some back pocket.” His tone growing ragged, his voice began to ratchet upward in volume as he continued, saying;

  “She was meant to hold the most glorious displays in the world. A comprehensive collection of not just world art, but of natural history as well. Scientific objects, research and education projects of every stripe and caliber …”

  As Knight paused, his assistant attempted to cheer him by reminding him of how large the museum still was. Snorting, his contempt still aimed at the long dead politicians and backroom deal makers who had scaled back Brooklyn’s original dreams of greatness, he said wistfully;

  “True enough, and yet, even with what seems like a great deal of room, there are literally thousands of things stored in the various collections here that haven’t seen the light of day in decades. And not even for the obvious reasons one might first assume, like political correctness, or the current fad of deemphasization of Western culture … it’s just …”

  Bridget wondered at the professor’s curious pause.

  Having spent the better part of the day with him, if there was one thing she was certain she knew about Professor Piers Knight, it was that he had an inexhaustible set of opinions and a finely tuned vocabulary with which to express them. As the idea continued to take root in the young woman’s mind, she realized this was the first moment she had seen the professor at a loss for words over anything. A further examination of his face, however, led her closer to the truth of the matter.

  Knight was not struggling for a path down which to take their conversation.

  He had abandoned it completely.

  Although looking forward into the gloom-shrouded lobby of the Brooklyn Museum, he was not focused on anything within range of their vision. This worried the redhead slightly. Although she could not imagine what might have captured the director’s attention, Bridget Elkins was no fool. From the tilt of his head to the set of his shoulders, the way his fingers seemed to have frozen in mid-air, everything about the professor’s body language was screaming to her that something beyond her immediate comprehension was seriously wrong.

  What it was that had captured Knight’s attention she could not say. Staring inside through the glass doors, scanning the building’s vast main pavilion and lobby, she saw nothing amiss. Dark as the area was, she still had a clear view of the entire area all the way to the visitor center and the first of the galleries. Nothing seemed out of place in the least.

  At that point most people, even those with some sense of self-control, would have begun to blather, throwing useless questions out such as, “What is it?” “What’s wrong?” “What’s going on?” Time-wasting chatter that accomplished nothing more than making the speaker feel less inadequate.

  Much to her credit, Bridget knew better. She had gone hunting with her father and two older brothers often enough to recognize the look that had come over Knight.

  It was obvious to her that something was going on of which she had no clue—something about which the professor himself seemed to have no solid
ideas. As his tension grew, she asked quietly, “What can I do?”

  Without shifting his eyes from the shadows hanging throughout the front entrance’s massive foyer, Knight handed his assistant his cell phone along with a card he pulled from his wallet, whispering to her, “Take this; the number on the card is the direct number to the desk officer at the Seven One—that’s the local precinct house. Ask for a Detective Sergeant Dollins—”

  “If he’s not there?”

  Knight was not the kind of man who took kindly to interruption, but he realized Bridget was correct. Considering it far more likely Dollins might not be in the station, despite his self-centered assumption the detective would have to be there simply because he wished him to be there, the professor corrected himself, answering;

  “As I was saying, ask for Dollins. No Dollins, ask for LaRaja. If you can’t find either of them, take whatever detective you can get. Tell whomever you get who you are, that I prompted you to call, and that there is something wrong in the museum. Do so while you walk back out to the plaza. Once the police are on their way, find a cab; get in it—leave.”

  And then, Knight moved forward into the massive lobby, not giving Bridget the slightest glance. His attention was completely focused on the poorly lit interior before him, almost as if he were listening for something rather than looking for it. The professor stepped cautiously, moving from one display sculpture to another, not allowing his shoes to make a sound, even careful that, as he rounded one marble piece after another, he did not slide his hand across the stone too harshly. He knew even the slightest squeak could give away his position. To whom, he had no idea. But that there was someone inside his museum—someone who did not belong there—of that much he was certain.

  All right, he asked tersely within his mind as he moved across the wide lobby, where are you?

  As quickly as possible, Knight made his way to the main security desk. The fact that no museum personnel were to be seen at the post was the first thing that had aroused his curiosity. Of course, the desk was not manned every second of the day—sometimes those on duty were simply called away.