Sekret Machines: Chasing Shadows by Tom DeLonge

Author:Tom DeLonge [DeLonge, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781943272297
Google: O2UQMQAACAAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: To The Stars...
Published: 2016-04-05T07:00:00+00:00

31

HERMAN SALTZBURG

London

IN A WARM, EXPENSIVELY-PANELED OFFICE IN MAYFAIR, Herman Saltzburg extended his long legs under his desk and smiled a wide, slightly ghoulish smile. For a big man, he carried almost no body fat and gave the impression of being all sinew and bone, which was why the daughter of the late Edward Quinn had dubbed him “The Skeleton Man.” He hadn’t minded, though he’d thought the child impertinent. He’d always liked the idea of scaring her. The skin of his face, sallow and close to the bone, stretched improbably so that the grin looked like the death’s head motif SS officers had once worn on their peaked caps. He didn’t mind that either.

But little Jennifer Quinn had become more than impertinent of late and things had come to a head.

“Tell me again,” he purred into the phone, his eyes resting on the man sitting silently and patiently across the desk from him.

“There’s nothing more to say,” said Letrange, made defiant by failure. “She got away.”

“That, Daniel,” said Saltzburg in his most unctuous voice, “is the part I don’t seem to be comprehending. That she escaped from you is regrettable, to say the least, given what she apparently suspects, but the fact that you seem to have no notion of where she might have gone is unacceptable.”

He said it quietly, without rancor. He didn’t need to do more.

“Yes, sir,” said Letrange. “If she made it to the airport, I’ll be able to find where she went.”

“A consummation devoutly to be wished,” said Saltzburg. “I suggest you do so. Immediately. Call me back.”

He hung up without another word and smiled at his companion, before continuing their interrupted conversation in measured German.

“Wird es ein probleme sein?” asked Herr Manning, one of Maynard’s other board members.

“No, it won’t be a problem,” said Saltzburg. “You’ve seen Miss Quinn’s tenacity, first hand, but you’ve also seen her blundering cluelessness. This is not her world. We are not. She will scurry about, turning over the wrong stones, until we stub her out like a spent cigar. Though I doubt she will unearth anything particularly sensitive, it remains unclear how much she knows. Or remembers.”

“That was very long ago, surely,” said Manning. “You can’t think she recalls that?”

“I had a hobby-horse when I was four,” said Saltzburg. “It was white with blue glass eyes and an improbably orange mane. I rode it everywhere, though I had no recollection of it until some workmen stumbled upon it while clearing out a lumber room a few years ago. As soon as I saw it, I was transported back to a very particular day when I saw my father beating my mother for something involving the gardener. My mother was, I knew even then, not someone to be trusted. But the incident came back to me with extraordinary clarity. Which cane he used. The sprinkle of blood on the hearth where she fell. It was really quite remarkable.”

He said this with the same eerie and unflinching smile, so that even Manning, who was used to him, looked momentarily unnerved.

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