Page 85 of Your Every Wish
“You want Turkish coffee?” He pours coffee thick as mud from a small copper pot into a miniature glass.
Both Liam and I pass, but it does smell good.
“At least have some locum or dates.” He puts down plates of jelly candy and dried fruit on the coffee table.
I snag a piece of sugared candy and pop it in my mouth. “Wow, so good.”
He bobs his head and grins.
“We have a puzzle we’re trying to solve,” Liam says. “We were hoping you could help.”
Something unspoken passes between the two of them and again Azriel bobs his head. “Show me what you have.”
I show him my phone with the picture of Willy’s numbers. Azriel takes the phone from me to study the photograph.
“What is this?” he says.
“It belonged to Emma’s late father. We found it in his house. We wondered what all the numbers meant.”
“Why a photo? You don’t have the original?”
“Not here, not with us, no. It was just a white sheet of typing paper with those numbers.” Liam locks eyes with me for a second, then says, “Emma’s father was a professional gambler. We think he may have used some kind of gambling algorithm to send her a message.”
“Why didn’t he just pick up the phone?”
Liam cuts me a look.
“My father was convicted of insider trading and died in prison of cancer. We think he did this”—I point to the phone—“before he was arrested. Like he might’ve been aware that the FBI was closing in on him and he wanted to leave a message to us. We found it tucked in a book behind a wall in his garage.”
Azriel studies the photo again, then hands me back the phone.
“My father was legendary in the gambling world and quite successful. He spent a lot of time researching and experimenting with computer analysis and algorithms for betting. Those numbers could simply be that. But the fact that it was so carefully hidden . . . It seems like he didn’t want anyone to find what he was working on.”
Azriel rises and disappears down the hallway only to return a few moments later with a pad of paper and pencil. He drags a chair to a folding table in the corner of the room. It’s piled so high with papers there’s hardly any workspace but he pushes a few notebooks to the side and starts scribbling.
“Do you need the picture with the numbers?” I start to get up to bring my phone to him, but Liam shakes his head and mouths, “He’s memorized them.”
Really? He saw them for, like, thirty seconds. I crane my neck to see what he’s doing but can’t make out much. The room is silent except for the soft swishing of Azriel’s pencil brushing against paper.
I want to ask if he’s really former Mossad but am not sure about the etiquette on such things. And something tells me Liam wouldn’t approve. I pop another jelly candy in my mouth. I’m definitely a person who eats my nerves. Plus, the candy is beyond delicious, sweet with a flavor that tastes like roses.
“You say you found this in a book?” Azriel says.
“Uh-huh.” It’s my chance to see what he’s been writing all this time. I bring him my phone again and show him the snapshot. “This. The note was tucked next to the copyright page.” I show him a snapshot of the open book and the piece of paper. It was my idea to record the scene exactly how we found it in case we had questions later (hey, I watch a lot ofCSI).
“You don’t have this book?”
“No, we put it back in the wall with the note the same way it was before we opened it up.”
“Why?” He cuts me a look, then says, “Never mind. Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. I need the book.”
“Why?” At the time, Liam, Kennedy, and I assumed the book was immaterial, just a container for the note so it wouldn’t slip down the wall.
“Because I’m almost certain this is a book cipher.” He waves his fingers at me to come closer. “See this number?” When I nod, he says, “It likely corresponds to a page in the book. This number here tells you the paragraph, this number the word. String them together and you have a message. You say your father was a good gambler?”
“Not a good gambler, a brilliant gambler. One of the most successful in the history of gambling.”
“No offense to the dead, but he was stupid. If I’m right, which I’m confident I am, it would’ve taken the FBI less than ten minutes to figure this out. It took me five because I’m smarter.” He holds up the paper he’s been making notes on and grins.
