Page 26 of Stone
Chapter 14
Examination
Elsowas in the middle of a phone call whenFinestraentered his office, again without permission. This time, however, he’d been expecting the man.
“I’m sorry, but a small emergency has come up. I’ll have to call you back at a later date, all right?” Without waiting for the man on the other end to respond, he hung up and turned his attention to his associate.
Finestrastrode up to his desk, opened a small black bag he carried, and carefully extracted the items from inside it, laying them one at a time across the leather desk mat.Elsostared at the five objects.
“Well? Which one is it?”
“We don’t know. That’s why my man grabbed anything he thought might remotely fit the description.”
Elsocontinued to eye each piece. He finally pulled out apair of latex gloves from a desk drawer and put them on before handling the artifacts. After another couple of minutes, he extracted a huge magnifying glass to get a better look at the details. “Tell me what happened,” he demanded as he studied the items.
“What do you mean?”
The evasive tone inFinestra’svoice was evident, and it setElso’sirritability factor a notch higher. He glared atthe man. “There isn’t anything I don’t know about when it comes to this city,” he snapped. “Especially when it comes to anything I have a remote or invested interest in. The alarm went off in the museum not once but twice, and I want to know why. And I want to know if your man had anything to do with it”
Finestra’sface paled, but he stood his ground. “My man claims it wasn’t him who set offthe alarms. I believe him.”
“I don’t give a fuck whether you believe him or not.”Elsokept his voice and his countenance as icy as possible. “Tell me what happened.”
Finestradug his hands into his pockets. “He managed to get into the building without any problems. In fact, he said it was almost too easy. Someone set off the alarms before he got there, and while the guards and cops were distracted,he was able to gain entry via one of the rear service entrances. He went down to the offices and found Miss Van de Camp working. She was alone, so he decided to have her tell him which one was the seal, but she seemed genuinely confused.”
“Why did he even approach her in the first place? Why not take what he could find and leave?”
“I asked him that same question. He said there was no way hecould tell which boxes held the recent shipment. Plus, she would have spotted him, given how those rooms are arranged.”
Elsomuttered more to himself than toFinestra. “If he hadn’t confronted her outright, she would have had time to summon the guards once she realized there was an intruder.” He glanced up at the man. “Continue.”
“He had her show him which containers were part of the shipmentfrom Dr.Kelling. But while he was going through them, she managed to escape. He followed her to the warehousing area—”
“Why? Why didn’t he leave as soon as she fled?”
Finestrashrugged. “I’m assuming he didn’t want her to notify the guards. But by the time he got upstairs, he couldn’t find her. That’s when he said the guy in the Halloween costume came out of the stairwell.”
Elsodidn’ttry to hide his surprise.Finestracontinued before he could comment or question that last part.
“At first he said he thought the man was wearing some kind of protective gear, with a big clownish type of mask over his face. But when the thing raised a big ass pair of wings, he fired on it.” He ran a hand over his face. “He swears he saw dust fly off the guy when he put four slugs in the man’schest. The bullets just ricocheted off. One of them must have struck near where the girl was hiding because she screamed in surprise. He started to go after her, but the thing continued to advance on him. At the same time the alarms went off for a second time. That’s when he decided to get the hell out of there. So he shot out the lock on the back door and escaped out into Roosevelt Park.”
“Tell me again about the man who attacked him. He was wearing aHalloweencostume?”
“He claims the guy was wearing some kind of gargoyle costume. Whatever it was made of out, it was dense enough to be bulletproof.”
Elsogot to his feet and went over to a bookcase to extract a slender volume. He opened it, found the page he wanted, and held it out forFinestrato take. Curious, the associatelooked at the entry.
“What does that look like to you?”Elsoquestioned him.
“A gargoyle.”
“With an ugly-ass face mask and wings, right? Just like your man’s description, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes. I guess. What are you showing me?”
“That’s a drawing of anesmesh. It’s a demon servant of the Egyptian god,Petbe.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not that familiar with Egyptian lore.”
