Aria in Ice (16 page)

The table was by the exit door, which
reassured me immediately, since, while I like night clubs and
dancing and partying, I get a bit paranoid about getting stuck in
one of those places if, God forbid, a fire should break out. Franz
noticed my perusal of the door.

“It’s unlocked. From both sides. We
checked.”

I glanced at him. “You share my worries?”

Franz’ face grew somber. “I survived a night
club fire in Hamburg only three years ago. It was truly a miracle
that no one was killed or injured, but it was the most terrifying
experience I’ve ever been through and I don’t wish to repeat
it.”

“Gotcha. I’m with you. Open door policy all
the way.”

Franz and Lily stole two chairs from an empty
table nearby.

“The couple who originally staked this table
haven’t quit dancing or going outside to kiss for the hour we’ve
been here. When they haven’t been kissing in here on the dance
floor. They do not even realize this table is where they first
ordered drinks from,” said Lily.

“Good. I don’t want irate customers coming
back and tossing Shay and me out on our respective butts. By the
way, for you native Czech speakers, what does
Krev
mean?”

Lily smiled. “Blood.”

“Oh, yuck,” Shay wrinkled her nose.

“Well, it’s a vampire theme club, so that was
a good choice, really.”

“ All true, but still—oh yuck.”

“Come on Shay, ambiance and all that. This
place would be awesome for the film.”

“Hmmm. Let me ruminate on this idea for a
moment.” She closed her eyes for approximately three seconds,
before opening them and delightfully declaring, “I could sneak in a
vampire scene—not in the club here, but in
Kouzlo Noc
.
Vampires are still good box office. I can just see the T-shirts for
the movie. I could make Count Zilania a vampire? No, that’s too
cheesy even for me. But perhaps there’s a way to hint that vampires
have been stalking the heroine on her journey to London?”

Shay was off and running. There was no good
point in responding to her flights of film fancy, so I didn’t
bother to say anything.

Franz had barely settled in the chair he’d
swiped from the other table, before popping up again and extending
his hand to me. “Want to dance?”

“Only for a bit. My foot isn’t quite up to a
lot of hopping around in heels. But yeah, thanks.”

We found a spot that allowed two people to
move arms and wiggle bottoms and not much else, and gyrated to the
heavy metal rock sounds from the band. This was great. I needed
this. I’d had too much culture and too much musical history crammed
into my brain the last couple of days. I needed a break to go wild
and listen to music that had no social significance and would never
survive two-hundred-fifty years. Or even two years. The band was
awful. I loved it.

Franz took turns dancing with me, Shay and
Lily. I let the other two take extra innings since I really didn’t
need the stress on my feet and I was having fun watching. About the
fourth time Franz danced with Lily, leaving Shay and me to sing
with the band since they’d started playing top American hits, we
were joined by two men—Corbin Lerner and Mitchell Herbert.

“Looking for us?” asked Shay.

“Yep. This the fifth club we’ve hit tonight
trying to hunt you down,” was the response from Mitchell.

“Reason?”

“Boredom. Not knowing anyone in the city and
wanting to be part of a group.”

Corbin smiled at me. “I have been in Prague
for three weeks now but I’ve mainly been up at the castle working
in that awful graveyard. This is a good break for me.”

“If you don’t mind a nosy question, what
exactly are you doing for the Duskovas? Other than jumping out of
crypts at unsuspecting location scouts? I mean, don’t they know
their history by now?” I queried.

“I’ve heard this,” said Mitchell. “Shay?
Wanna dance?”

She was up and running before the ‘c’ in
dance sounded.

I prodded Corbin. “So? Your work?”

“Well, you saw how destroyed that cemetery
was.”

“That’s an understatement. It looked like a
third world country after a third world war.”

“Nice way of putting it. Veronika told me the
graveyard has been vandalized for years and years, long before she
and her sisters were even born. And when the Communists were using
Kouzlo Noc
as their headquarters, they cleaned up the
original cemetery, but didn’t bother with that one. Veronika said
that it was originally built because the other cemetery got too
crowded, but she was embarrassed to tell you the truth.”

“Which is?”

“The graveyard, Saint John of Nepomuk
Cemetery, was named in honor of the saint tossed off the Charles
Bridge by Wenceslas the Fourth sometime in the Fourteenth
Century—not the Christmas “good king Wenceslas’ who had an earlier
reign—became the cast-off burial ground for the Duskova clan.
Cast-off as in, um, servants or various other working people who’d
died and hadn’t enough money for a decent burial at another site.
Or less-than-desirable folks who’d gotten into trouble somehow near
Kouzlo Noc
. Duskova family members who’d brought disgrace to
the name through various means. The usual stories of the maids
who’d been taken advantage of by barons and sons of barons and died
in childbirth.”

I shook my head. “I knew that place felt
sadder than a normal cemetery. Unwanted. And the vandalism just
made it so much worse. So your job now is—what?”

“Discovering who was buried when and where
and in what plot their remains should have been kept. Plus learning
as much about the history of who, what, where and when to document
for the Duskovas. So it’s not literally genealogical search but
that’s what I’m calling it.”

I paused. “Found anything really
interesting?”

He paused. “Such as?”

“Oh, let me run with this. Um. Buried gold
coins underneath a skeleton with a pirate hat and a cutlass and a
big sign that reads,
‘Treasure from the Spanish Armada—Dive in,
Dude!’
Something of that nature.”

I don’t know if he bought that particular
idea but he did chuckle before stating, “No. The closest thing of
value are the jewels I discovered in a rotted velvet bag.”

“Jewels?” I perked up.

“I use the term very loosely. Upon appraisal
by a local jeweler in Prague it was determined that the loot is
worth about a hundred dollars tops. Diamonds, but very poorly cut
and hardly worth anything at all.”

“Ah well. I’m sure you’ll stumble onto a
cache of emeralds and sapphires around the neck of some serving
wench dressed in the garb of a highwayman.”

His laughter sailed across the table. “I can
see why you and Miss Martin are making a movie. You obviously have
a taste for romantic fiction.”

“We do. After all, what’s life without a
touch of improbable romance?”

Shay, Franz, Mitchell and Lily all returned
in time to hear my last remark.

Mitchell queried,” What are you guys yakking
about?”

Corbin answered, “Abby is giving me a glimpse
into the workings of a show business mind filled with glamour,
mystery and fantasy. It’s very interesting.”

Lily spoke up. “Speaking of mystery, I have a
piece of a puzzle that needs answering. Well, perhaps it could be
said to be more along the line of gossip that furthers a
mystery.”

Shay brightened. “Gossip? Is this some lovely
obscure bit of info about a rock star involved in seducing some
other rock star?”

Lily almost sneered. “No, no. This is about
some one we know.”

We waited.

“It’s about Johnny Gerard.”

I sat up straight and took a sip of my drink
(vampire teeth used in place of umbrellas in red liquid) and tried
to ignore the pounding of my heart that was sounding louder than
the bass of the band onstage. Shay shot me a quick warning look,
then said, “Is this fun gossip—or something best left
unshared?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say it was fun, but it’s
important.” She looked at me.

We waited again. The woman had dramatic
pauses down to an infinitely fine art. Finally she spoke. “Johnny
Gerard has a prison record. He’s an ex-convict.”

Before my mind could register what that
meant, Franz added, “He’s also here in the club. Well, actually he
just climbed onstage. It looks like he’s going to be the guest DJ
while the band takes a break.”

The rest of the night at
Club Krev
hadn’t been much fun for me. I danced with all the guys and I drank
some new drink called Teeth of the Vampire that was good enough to
rate a space in my memory for future reference. I chatted with
Shay, Lily, Franz, Mitchell and Corbin about the movie and what the
plans were for
Headlights Productions
next few projects. I
didn’t care. I kept alternating between
avoiding
staring at
Johnny Gerard who, naturally, was making a huge hit with the crowd
as the guest DJ and
deliberately
staring at Mr. Gerard. I
also wavered between wanting him to come over to our table and
praying that he wouldn’t see us this far in the back.

The latter turned out to be the prayer
answered but I wasn’t happy about it. Shay and I stayed at the club
for about two hours after Johnny had done his forty-minute DJ stint
and we hadn’t seen him once he’d left the stage. Presumably, he’d
just done the job and gone home.

Our own crowd left together about one-thirty
in the morning and walked back to our respective hotels. Well, Shay
and I, Franz and Mitchell were at hotels. Lily took a cab to the
house of some relatives of hers and Corbin got into an old Jeep and
took off for
Kouzlo Noc
where I gathered he had been given
room and board for the duration of his work in the old
cemetery.

Shay and I were silent as we trudged up the
stairs to my room. We both sank onto my bed as soon as we were
inside the room.

“Damn. Damn. Damn.”

“Oh Abby, don’t start that again.”

“Well? Prison record? I thought he and I had
no secrets from each other. When the hell was in in prison? And why
the hell didn’t he tell me? Man! This little jaunt to Prague is
getting weirder and weirder when it comes to the man I’m
marrying—whenever.”

She frowned. “Not buying it and you aren’t
either. You just want something to obsess about. So, damn well ask
him tomorrow if it’s A—true and B—if so, what was he convicted of?
Remember all the b.s. you thought about Johnny and Tracy when y’all
were first dating? You put yourself through hell and all for
nothing. Yes, you have some trust issues—which, playing shrink, I
personally think were pushed into your tiny brain by your dear
mother right after birth but that’s beside the point. What
is
the point—for once in your life can’t you push them aside
and hear the man out? Be a good little American and not presume
guilty?

“Yeah, right. Great sentiments.”

“Ah shit!” She exclaimed. “How many of those
Teeth of Vampire drinks did you have? Lord Above and the good
Sisters of St. Agnes, help us. Johnny Gerard is a pussycat and
you’re so nuts about him it’s sickening to be around. So just go to
sleep and I’ll see you in the A.M. when you’re sober and not
letting your imagination take over what’s left of your zapped brain
cells.”

Good advice and I knew it, but it still took
me another hour before I was finally able to get the words “prison
record” out of my head enough to sleep.

They came back in my head when the hotel
called me at seven to tell me I had a visitor in the lobby. Johnny
Gerard wanted to take me to breakfast.

I got ready in fourteen minutes. My hair was
still slightly wet from the shower and my outfit, black jeans and a
black turtleneck (I looked like one of the
Klezmer Volny
Rabin
) wasn’t the fanciest thing in my suitcase, but my make-up
was on and I was as prepared as I could get for a nice morning
repast with an Irish-eyed, well-rounded felon.

Johnny greeted me in the lobby with a red
rose. Only Mr. Gerard could do that at seven-fifteen in the morning
and still look smooth. He gave me the rose, then crooked his elbow
so I could link my arm through. We exited the lobby without
exchanging a single word.

The silence remained until we found a café
three blocks away that had an empty table and wasn’t filled with
business people jabbing fingers at pocketsize computers and
organizers.

Johnny poured coffee into my waiting cup,
then sailed right in. “So Lily decided to make the shocking
pronouncement that I have been in prison.”

My eyes opened. I was wide-awake before I’d
even tasted my coffee. “Hold up there, pardner. Were you skulking
near our table last night and overheard? Been in communication with
cousin Julien’s shaman guide Bubba?”

“Nothing so crude. Nope. Shay called me at
three in the morning to tell me what the sweetly vicious Miss Lowe
had said.”

“Ah.”

He plopped a huge dab of whipped cream in my
coffee and sprinkled cinnamon on top. Which is exactly what I’d
done with my cocoa and Kahlua at the café the afternoon we’d run
into each other under the tree at
Kouzlo Noc
. One of many
reasons I adored him. He remembers little things like that.

He continued, “Shay did not ask for the story
behind this incarceration. She said she’d let me give you the
details and she trusted that I hadn’t done anything “really rude”
like hijacking planes and dumping small children out over the
Atlantic while I smoked Cuban cigars and had wild sex with a dozen
kidnapped Rumanian prostitutes—or mowing down little old ladies
crossing Trafalgar Square in London and stealing all their worldly
possessions. Something to that effect. I told her to keep all those
in mind for story lines on the soap so Greg Noble can catch the
creeps that really do that stuff.”