Death Masks

I nodded. "Oh. I get it. All of them were right. All of them were wrong. They couldn’t get the whole picture."

Shiro nodded. "Precisely. I am just another blind man. I do not get the whole picture of what transpires in all places. I am blind and limited. I would be a fool to think myself wise. And so, not knowing what the universe means, I can only try to be responsible with the knowledge, the strength, and the time given to me. I must be true to my heart."

"Sometimes that isn’t good enough," I said.

He tilted his head and looked up at me. "How do you know?"

A cab swerved in from the street and rattled to a stop. Shiro stepped over to it and nodded to me. "Will be at Michael’s if you need me. Be watchful."

I nodded at him. "Thank you."

Shiro said, "Thank me after." Then he got into the cab and left.

Mac closed up shop a minute later, and put on a dark fedora on his way out. He nodded at me on the way to his Trans Am, and said nothing. I found a shadowy spot to linger in as Mac left, and kept an eye on the street. I’d hate for someone to drive by and shoot me with a plain old gun. Embarrassing.

A long, dark limo pulled into the parking lot. A uniformed driver got out and opened the door nearest to me. A pair of long, honey-brown legs slid out of the limo on top of black stiletto heels. Susan glided out of the car, managing grace despite the shoes, which probably qualified her for superhuman status all by itself. A sleeveless sheath of shimmering black cloth clung to her, an evening gown slit high on one side. Dark gloves covered her arms to the elbow, and her hair had been done up in a pile on top of her head, held in place with a couple of gleaming black chopsticks.

My tongue dropped out of my mouth and flopped onto my shoes. Well, not literally, but if I’d been a cartoon my eyeballs would have been about six feet long.

Susan had read my face and apparently enjoyed my reaction. "How much, good-looking?"

I looked down at my rumpled clothing. "I think I’m a tad underdressed."

"One tuxedo, coming up," Susan said.

The driver opened the trunk and drew out a hanger covered with a dry-cleaning bag. When he turned around with it, I realized that the driver was Martin. All he’d done to disguise himself was don an archetypical uniform and I hadn’t even recognized him until second glance. I guess sometimes it’s handy to be bland.

"Is it my size?" I asked, taking the tux when Martin passed it to me.

"I had to guess," Susan said, lowering her eyelids in a sultry expression. "But it wasn’t like I didn’t know my way around."

Martin’s face might have flickered with disapproval. My heart sped up a bit. "All right then," I said. "Let’s get moving. I’ll dress on the way."

"Do I get to look?" Susan asked.

"It’ll cost you extra," I said. Martin opened the door for Susan and I slid in after her. I filled her in on what I’d found out about the Shroud and those after it. "I should be able to find the thing if we get close."

"You think there will be any more of these Denarians there?"

"Probably," I said. "If anything gets ugly, we’ll take the best part of valor, pronto. These guys play hardball."

Susan nodded agreement. "Sounds like the thieves aren’t exactly shy about waving guns, either."

"And we’ll have Marcone around too. Whither he goeth, there too goeth armed thugs and homicide investigations."

Susan smiled. It was a new expression to me-a small, quiet, fierce little smile that showed her teeth. It looked natural on her. "You’re all about fun, aren’t you, Harry?"

"I am the Bruce Lee of fun," I concurred. "Give me some space here."

Susan slid over as far as she could to give me room to climb into the tux. I tried not to mar it too badly in the limited space. Susan glanced at me with a faint frown.

"What?" I asked her.

"You’re wrinkling it."

"This isn’t as easy as I’m making it look," I responded.

"If you weren’t staring at my legs, maybe it wouldn’t be such a challenge."

"I wasn’t staring," I lied.

Susan smiled at me as the car cruised through downtown and I did my best to dress like Roger Moore. Her expression became thoughtful after a moment, and she said, "Hey."

"What?"

"What happened to your leather coat?"

Chapter Nineteen

The downtown Marriott was huge, brilliantly lit, and busy as an anthill. Several blue-and-whites were parked nearby, and a couple of officers were helping to direct traffic in front of the hotel. I could see maybe twenty limos on the street and pulling through the archway in front of the hotel doors, and every one of them looked bigger and nicer than ours. Valets rushed around to park the cars of guests who had driven themselves. There were a dozen men in red jackets standing around with bored expressions that some might mistake for inattention. Hotel security.

Martin pulled up to the entryway and said, "I’ll wait for you out here." He passed a palm-sized cell phone to Susan. She slipped it into a black clutch. "If you get into trouble, speed-dial one."

At that point, a valet opened the door on my side, and I slipped out of the car. My rental tux felt a little awkward. The shoes were long enough for me but they were an inch and a half too wide. I shrugged my jacket into place, straightened the cummerbund, and offered a hand to Susan. She slid out of the car with a brilliant smile, and straightened my tie.

"Smile," she said quietly. "Everyone here is worried about image. If you walk in scowling like that we won’t blend in."

I smiled in what I thought was a camouflaging manner. Susan regarded the expression critically, nodded, and slipped her arm through mine. We walked in under the cover our smiles provided. One of the security guards stopped us inside the door, and Susan presented the tickets to him. He waved us through.

"First thing to do is find some stairs," I said from behind my smile. "The loading docks will be near the kitchens, and they’re below us. That’s where they’ll be bringing in the art stuff."

Susan held her course toward the stairs. "Not yet," she said. "If we snoop around the second we get in the door someone is likely to notice. We should mingle until the auction is running. People will be distracted then."

"If we wait, the whole thing could go down while we hobnob."

"Maybe," Susan said. "But odds are that Anna Valmont and the buyer are both thinking the same thing."

"When does the auction start?"

"Eleven."