The Memorist by M. J. Rose Read Free Book Online Page A

long past that. Besides, she has an excuse—in a week construction begins on one of her exhibitions.”
    “Work is always her excuse.”
    “Give her time on this one. Seeing the photograph was a shock.”
    “As was finding it. Along with the rest of what I found,” Jeremy said, and then told Malachai the stunning news about the letter that tied the chest to Beethoven and one of the lost memory tools.
    “Are you saying the flute might still exist?” Malachai asked after he’d heard the whole story. “That it could still be where Beethoven hid it?” He tried to keep his voice composed, not wanting anyone, not even his old friend, to know how much this news meant to him.
    “Extraordinary, isn’t it? I obtain information about a musical instrument purported to prompt past life memories from a letter hidden in an eighteenth-century gaming box. A box identical to an imaginary one my daughter’s been drawing since she was seven.”
    “It’s serendipity…” Malachai said by rote. It was how he began the standard lecture he gave to every baffled parent whose child was haunted by past life memories, but tonight he was the one bewildered by the connections Jeremy had just laid out for him.
    Extracting an antique deck of French gilt-edged cards from his desk drawer, he cut them once, then again, and then a third time. They were worth thousands of dollars; most collectors would have kept the treasure behind glass but Malachai liked to play with his toys. Usually it relaxed him. As he shuffled, the corners slapped against each other, making a sound that typically soothed him. Then, while asking Jeremy questions and taking note of his answers, Malachai performed a little sleight-of-hand for an invisible audience: he hid the king of diamonds in the center of the pack and with his next move revealed it at the top of the deck.
    Although a technical success, the trick had failed him. Malachai was still tense. He’d lost one of the memory tools. He was not going to lose another. And Meer was going to be his insurance.

Chapter 8
    Vienna, Austria
Friday, April 25 th —10:30 a.m.
    T wo hours after being hired via a cryptic phone call, Paul Pertzler walked toward one of only two empty tables at the Café Mozart on Albertinaplatz. Passing a young woman sitting alone, drinking a cup of coffee, his eyes dwelled on her extraordinary figure. At least the parts he could see from the waist up. Pertzler himself was very ordinary-looking, a man of medium height with light brown hair, dark brown eyes and ruddy skin—and she didn’t look up. Which was wonderful. It gave him more time to ogle the cleavage exposed by her black V-neck sweater. Focusing on it so intently, he didn’t notice that his newspaper had slipped from under his arm.
    “Excuse me—” The man holding out the paper wore a blue jean jacket and mirrored blue aviator sunglasses. “You dropped this.”
    Slightly chagrined, Pertzler thanked him, took it and continued on to the empty table. After he ordered a beer, he lit a cigarette and inspected the passing parade. TheRingstrasse was always crowded no matter what the season, the time of day or the weather. Today was no exception. Across the street the town hall took up the whole block. It was a fine architectural objet d’art, except once you got over the grandeur of it you realized how dirty it was. A century of soot. Vienna had a perverse desperation to hang on to the past even when it proved toxic. World War II had ended over sixty years before, but secrets about Vienna’s involvement kept cropping up all the time, exposing more Nazi crimes.
    When the man in the jean jacket left, Pertzler barely noticed, but when the woman in the low-cut sweater walked off, he watched every step of her exit. A few minutes after her departure he glanced at his watch, dropped some coins on the table and got up.
    Entering the Rathaus Park he took his time strolling through the well-kept gardens that included a wide variety of woody