Book of Shadows Read Free Page A

photograph to upset him. But he’d listened to her problems often enough in the past; now it was her turn to listen to him.
    That’s why she was in his shop drinking cognac from antique cups with Japanese “felicitation” markings on the bottom. The marks meant happiness, something which had eluded Marisa lately.
    “My safe had been opened,” said Nathan Shields.
    Marisa looked up from her teacup.
    “Both burglar alarms had been bypassed,” he said. “Someone had cut the wires.”
    Marisa’s eyes held his for a long time.
    In the short silence, Shields placed the antique cup and saucer on his desk and stood up, his back to Marisa.
    “After the business with the shoes something told me to go to the safe. I keep a fair amount of cash there. I never know when I’ll need money on weekends or after banks close. Some of the people I buy from prefer cash, to avoid being hit for heavy taxes. I won’t buy stolen goods, but if people insist on cash I go along with them. Anyway, I checked the safe …”
    He turned around and looked at Marisa. “Nothing was missing. Cash, bonds, securities, my will, important receipts, none of it was gone. But someone had been in the safe. The money wasn’t stacked just the way I’d left it. My papers had been put back, but again, they weren’t in the order I’d left them in. Then I began to feel more than a little edgy, which is when I checked the alarms. They didn’t work, so I called the police. They came and did some checking of their own; that’s when I learned the wires had been cut.”
    He walked from behind his huge desk and sat on the edge in front of Marisa. “The police were there two hours and between us we couldn’t find anything else out of the ordinary. It was only after they left that I made a more detailed search and found out about the address book and the photograph. Whoever broke in also searched the attic, the freezer, the pool house, and the garage. In police terminology, my unknown visitors gave the place one good toss.”
    Marisa frowned. “Why, Nat? It’s all so unreal.”
    “To say the least. The police aren’t going to get excited about what I’ve lost and if I go to my insurance company with this fanciful tale, I’ll be laughed at. My premiums are high enough as is.”
    He pointed to his shop. “They tell me I have to have three different alarms, separate fire and theft policies with the usual exorbitant premiums, and I’ve got to change the combination on any safe I keep here at least three times a year. There are bars and gates on the windows and doors at night, and I get inspected more times than an Arabian virgin. I don’t mind it, being a precise sort of fellow—”
    Marisa smiled. “The operative word is ‘prissy.’”
    “Prissy. But it’s made me ever vigilant and watchful, which brings me to the next item on the agenda. For about a week I’ve had the feeling I’m being followed.”
    “That’s life in Fun City. Everybody in New York gets followed sooner or later.”
    Nathan Shields shook his head. “I’m not talking about the louts with wet chins who follow such stunning beauties as yourself. I’m talking about …”
    He closed his eyes and hesitated. “It’s … it’s just a weird feeling I’ve had that somebody knows everything there is to know about me.”
    Marisa stood up. “Sounds like you’re a victim of that old Chinese curse. Whenever they wanted to wish a person rotten luck, the Chinese would say ‘may you live in interesting times.’ Now didn’t you invite me over here for lunch?”
    Nathan Shields smiled and clapped his hands together. “Indeed I did, I most certainly did.”
    He looked at his watch. “Ten after two and America’s favorite actress hasn’t eaten and neither have I. My love for you is indicated by my having kept the ‘Closed’ sign dangling on the front door for the past half hour. You go out and bring back the eatables. Cottage cheese, black coffee, and fruit cup for me. Diet