The Chair (36 page)

His conscious mind finally shut down around two in the morning, without coming up with a decent theory.

But knowing Tesser, whatever it was, it would probably stretch Corin’s mind to Egypt and back. Hopefully without snapping his brain in two.

C
orin arrived at Tesser’s home on Sunday morning two minutes before nine and reached for the doorbell, but before he could ring it, the door opened to reveal a grinning Tesser.

Strange. He’d never come to the door in all the years Corin had known him.

“You’re here!” Tesser shuffled his feet forward and back in a little jig. “Finally. I’ve been up since four, squirming with anticipation.”

“You’ve found something big.”

“Very.” Tesser motioned him into the foyer. “Come, come, let’s get to my study.”

Corin followed Tesser as he trotted down his dark hallway, muttering over his shoulder about how excited he was.

Tesser pushed through the halfway open door to his massive study and threw his arms wide, his gaze focused toward the middle of the room.
“Blicken!”

The German word for “look.” Corin stared at the back of his friend’s head. He’d never heard Tesser speak German before. What was that about?

He stepped through the door to view Tesser’s discovery. Immediately three emotions crashed into his mind simultaneously.

Disbelief.

Anger.

Fear.

Nicole sat in the middle of the vast study, in the duplicate of the chair, her hands tied with brown twine as were her ankles. The same type of twine he’d been tied with in his store three days earlier.

Her white hair was disheveled, her head cocked slightly to the side. Her countenance was worn, her skin pale.

Impossible.

Corin tried to speak but the shock of seeing his Nicole sitting in the center of Tesser’s study bound against her will froze his speech, froze his mind, froze his words.

Tesser couldn’t have done this.

Waves of heat surged through him as the sensation of vertigo made him flail for something to hang on to.

“What have you done?” Corin stumbled toward Tesser, who shuffled backward toward his oversized maple desk.

A moment later Corin spun toward Nicole and staggered her direction.

“No, I can’t let you do that,” Tesser said. “Help, please.”

Immediately four men stepped out of the deep flickering shadows cast by the candles randomly placed throughout the room.

Their arms hung loose but looked ready to move like lightning if needed. He recognized two of them: Ponytail and Baldy. The other two were rail thin, but their craggy faces conveyed how efficient they’d be in a street fight.

This wasn’t real. He was dreaming. He had to be.

Jefferies doing something like this would have been a bad dream come to life, but one he could have expected. This was a nightmare.

“I didn’t want to do it this way.” Tesser shuffled back and forth in front of his desk in his oversized slippers, fingers pressed into his forehead. “Really, Corin, I didn’t.” He glanced up, his face grim, then he slammed his hand down on top of the desk. “Why couldn’t you have given me the chair when I asked you to store it here? Or left it in the barn? If you had we wouldn’t be going through all this turmoil right now. A shame, it is.”

“Let her go.”

Tesser strolled over within a foot of Corin. “But all emotion aside, I am so very glad you came, because now we can end this subterfuge. I’ve been waiting for this moment since last night when I finally found Nicole and brought her here for a visit. And I have to assume she has been waiting as well.” He motioned toward her with an ancient-looking pen. “Although I feel I’ve been a gracious host, I believe she would prefer not being here.”

“Are you okay?” Corin said to Nicole.

“I’m fine.” She blinked rapidly and breathed deep.

Corin glanced at Tesser’s thugs. “Friends of yours?”

“Yes.” Tesser glanced to his right then left. “Good friends. Loyal friends.”

“Friends who throw rocks through windows and break into stores to steal what is not theirs.”

“Yes, those kinds of friends.” Tesser pulled on his sparse goatee.

Corin lunged for Tesser but Ponytail and Baldy grabbed him, flung him into a chair to his left, and began tying him to it.

As they did, Tesser frowned. “Yes, very, very regrettable about your friend. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not at all. Tsk, tsk. Truly.”

“How could you do this do me?”

“You mean—why did I want the chair?”

Corin stared at him, no need to answer the question.

“At least three or four reasons, maybe even five. I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Think about it now.” Corin yanked on the cords around his wrists.

“This is amusing since you’re not exactly in a position to be making demands, but why not?”

Tesser paced in front of him, still pulling on the thin tuffs of hair hanging from his chin. “First, it’s fun, don’t you think? This is real-life Indiana Jones stuff.” Tesser stopped pacing and turned to Corin. “Come, come, even though you’re not having fun at the moment, you have to admit this has been one of our more fascinating adventures together. Yes?”

Tesser went on without waiting for an answer. “Second, I’ve been looking for this chair all my life. Most thought it a legend only.” He shook his head. “My, did I start to get excited when I realized you might have the real thing.

“Third, I wanted to validate all the time I’ve spent trying to track the chair down. Fourth, I suppose it irked me that all these years Nicole was right under my proverbial nose and I didn’t see it, so now I want to rub her face in it just a bit. And fifth, I want the power that surrounds the chair. I think anyone can understand that.”

“You’re an old man, Tesser. What good could the chair do you?”

“Yes, I’m old, it’s true.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “But the chair is not for me. The chair is for those who have been given claim to the earth. Those who are destined to rule this world. I’m a historian. I’ve never thought in decades but centuries. Look at the United States, Corin. Look at the world. It’s falling apart.

“The Reich is needed. Hitler took it too far. His zeal overtook his wisdom. The killing of the Jews was an atrocity beyond imagination. But our destiny to rule the other races? That is true. It is good. It is right.”

For the first time Corin heard the trace of a German accent that filled microscopic cracks in Tesser’s voice. How had he missed that all these years?

Tesser’s words from their first meeting almost two weeks ago floated through his mind:
“Think what kind of an army you could build with . . .”

Corin stated the obvious. “You were raised in Germany.”

“I always wondered why you never asked me about that.”

“When did you move to this country?”

“Long ago.” Tesser waved his pen in the air. “But my heritage has not been forgotten.”

“I trusted you.”

“You can still trust me. I am your friend, Corin, and I have no intent to hurt you in any manner.” Tesser sighed. “As I tried to tell you out by the waterfall, I wish you weren’t mixed up in this. And of course I tried with the rock through your window, and then with my friends who stopped by to pick up the chair and transfer it here, but in neither case would you listen. A shame.” He motioned again to Nicole. “So I had to track down this elegant lady and—if I need to—I will use her as a most valuable currency in our negotiation for a certain piece of merchandise.”

“Let her go,” Corin repeated.

“Certainly. Of course, right away.” Tesser smiled at Corin, an expectant look on his face.

“As soon as I tell you where the chair is.”

“Precisely. So good to know we still understand each other in the, uh, midst of realizing my slight alteration of our friendship.”

Tesser tapped his pen on his palm, weaved in between Ponytail and the bald thug from Corin’s store, and stopped behind Nicole. “I have to say your building a decoy was an excellent diversion.” He slid his pen into his pocket and patted the back of the chair with both hands. “I didn’t see that coming although I should have. Congratulations on your skills—I didn’t know of your woodworking talents. I’m impressed, really I am. It took me two full days before I realized you’d created a duplicate.” Tesser tipped his cap. “You are an artist.” He shook his head and smiled.

“How do I know you’ll let her go if I tell you?”

“You don’t, I’m afraid.”

Nicole struggled to sit up straighter in her chair. “Don’t let your emotions cause you to stray from the truth, Corin.”

“What truth?”

“That we all die sooner or later. And delaying my death is not worth your telling him where the chair is.”

“I can’t lose you.” He’d just found her. Losing her so soon would rip him apart. With Shasta solar systems beyond his reach, she was the only family he had.

“Yes,” she smiled, “you can. If it is my time to go sooner rather than later it will be all right. I know it will.”

Corin pulled on the cords cutting into his wrists and glared at Tesser. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth from the beginning?”

“What do you mean?” Tesser smiled as if looking at a child. “I never lied. I simply didn’t tell you everything I knew or what my ultimate motivations were for finding the chair.”

“Holding back knowledge for personal gain that can hurt the other person is lying.”

Tesser motioned to two of his men and they hoisted Corin to his feet.

“Since I never skirted over into the ethics department during my tenure at the university, I think we’d be wasting time on the semantics of truth telling.” Tesser pulled down his glasses and looked at Corin over the top of them. “Tell me where the chair is.”

“Never.”

Tesser wagged his finger and the man on either side of Corin slugged him in the gut. Hard. It felt like two shot-put champions had dropped their shots into his stomach from thirty feet up. He doubled over and his stomach heaved, almost spilling his burger onto Tesser’s cherry hardwood floor.

Tesser frowned. “A little too robust, gentlemen. Corin is my friend and we’re trying to coerce, not kill the boy.”

Tesser’s thugs didn’t respond but took a step back and stared at the professor.

“Now, Corin, I need you to tell me where the real chair is.”

“No chance.”

“Really?” Tesser glanced at the man on either side of Corin, then back at him. “You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“Interesting.” Tesser rubbed his forehead and paced in front of Corin, then looked at Nicole. “What do you think of that, Nicole? You must be proud of your protégée protecting your most prized possession.”

Tesser waved his hand to the two men on either side of Corin. “Again.”

This time the shots to his stomach felt like cannonballs.

“Corin?”

“No,” Corin choked out.

Tesser shook his head. “I have no desire to hurt you permanently, Corin. I simply want the chair. You give it to me, I’m happy, you’re happy, Nicole and you aren’t dead, and we all skip off into the sunset whistling. Now tell me.”

“No.”

Tesser circled Corin, poking him as he eased around him counterclockwise. “Where is it?”

Silence.

Tesser poked him hard on his collarbone. “Games are over. Where is it, Corin?”

He glared at Tesser.

“Let’s give this one more try.” Tesser rubbed his hands together, then motioned to his thugs with a quick thwip of his finger. An instant later Corin’s head was yanked back and the blade of a hunting knife was flashed in his face, then applied to his throat with enough pressure to make him cough. After a few seconds he felt a trickle of blood wind its way down his skin.

Tesser laughed. “Don’t cough, Corin! It jiggles the blade. Then you start bleeding and make a mess out of that fine American Eagle shirt you have on. Donate your B positive at the blood bank, not here okay? Now tell me.”

“No.”

Corin tried to look at Nicole but the vise grip on his hair kept him from moving more than an eighth of an inch. He was yanked again.

The shuffle of Tesser’s slippers moving toward him was mixed with a ringing in Corin’s ears.

“Oh, let him move his head.”

The grip on Corin’s hair eased and his head flopped forward.

Corin looked at Nicole. Her back was straight, chin pushed forward, and even a hint of her enigmatic smile surfaced as she stared Tesser’s direction. A moment later she turned and looked at Corin. It was easy to see what was in her eyes. Deep love. And peace.

As her eyes spoke of a joy that made no sense, Corin tried to soak it all in. It fanned the flame of his determination.

Corin coughed and pain ripped through his ribs like a knife. They were probably broken. “I’ll never tell you.”

Tesser glanced back and forth between Corin and Nicole three times before bending over Corin. “I think you believe that. I also think I will be able to persuade you to think differently.”

Tesser let out a long sigh and ambled over to Nicole. “I hate this, I really do.” He picked up a long serrated knife from the table next to her. He turned it over and seemed to study the blade. “Where is the chair?”