The Book of Air and Shadows

the door and stepped in and the man followed at his usual careful distance and received a heavy blow on the head from a barbell rod wielded by Omar, lying in wait next to the door. The coughing fit I staged had been one of Omar’s little signals.
    “Who is he?” he asked.
    “An Israeli,” I said sadistically, and then had to stop Omar from breaking more than a few of the man’s ribs with his foot.
    I went to my filing cabinet while Omar taped the man up and I retrieved the Shakespeare manuscript, my laptop, the FedEx envelope from Paul, and my German pistol.
    “What are we doing, boss?” Omar asked.
    I had no idea, but defying Izzy, even over a fake, seemed essential to me now, and after the revelations of the last few minutes I had come up with a plan of my own, one that had nothing to do with any member of my family. “The roof,” I said.
    One of the peculiarities of this part of town is that once on the roof of any building one can pass along the whole street by climbing over low parapets and then descend via one of the fire escapes with which these old loft buildings are generously supplied. Since burglars know this too, the roof doors are alarmed; since this is New York, no one pays any attention to the alarms.
    We raced across the rooftops and climbed down onto Varick Street, out of sight of my father’s limo. From there it was an easy matter to go to the garage and get the Lincoln. In the car I called Mickey Haas.
    “You’re joking,” he exclaimed when I told him what I had. I assured him I was not and told him a little of the recent cryptanalysis and the adventures of Carolyn and Albert in Warwickshire.
    “Good Christ! You say you’ve recovered all the spy letters?”
    “Yes, and it’s quite a tale.”
    “Oh, Jesus, I’m nauseated. Jake, you have to come to my office this very second. I can’t believe this-you have the
actual manuscript of an unknown Shakespeare play in your fucking hands!
”
    “On my lap, actually. But, Mickey? I’m in a bit of a jam here. You remember those gangsters we discussed? Well, they’re after me, and one of the gangs is being run by my father.”
    “Just get up here, Jake. I mean it, just drive to my office-”
    “Mickey, you’re not listening. These people are on my tail and it won’t take them long to figure out that I might want to show this thing to you and then they’ll come up to where you are and kill the two of us and take it.”
    “But this is Hamilton Hall in broad daylight. We can just walk over and deposit it in the-”
    “No, you’re not getting this, man. Listen to me! These are completely ruthless people with almost unlimited resources and they would be happy to wipe out everyone in Hamilton Hall to get their hands on this thing.”
    “You have to be kidding-”
    “You keep saying that but it happens to be true. Between this minute and the time when you announce the existence and authenticity of this item in public we are totally vulnerable to these people.”
    Or words to that effect. I recall that Mickey made a lot of noise over the phone, cursing and shrieking because he couldn’t see this pile of paper right away. It was quite an act, better than I would have given him credit for. Between the two of us I always considered myself the actor. I told him my plan: I would get a four-wheel-drive vehicle and go up to his place on Lake Henry. I had been there many times and knew how to get there and where he stashed the keys. In a while, a couple of days maybe, he would come up and join me and look over the material, both the spy letters on my laptop and the manuscript and render an opinion and also take a sample of the ink and paper to be tested in a lab. That done and should the thing prove real, we would drive to some neutral city, Boston perhaps, and call a press conference. And he agreed to this, as I knew he would. Before ending the call I made him swear on the Bard that he would tell absolutely no one where I was or what our plans were, and as soon as I was off the line with him I rang an exotic car rental place on Broadway at Waverly and arranged for the Escalade I’ve already mentioned. In less than an hour I was on the Henry Hudson, heading north in my comfy domestic tank.
    And here I am. Perhaps it’s time for a summing-up, but what should it be? Unlike Dick Bracegirdle, I am a modern man and thus further than he was from moral truth. My mind is still reeling from my interview with my father. Could what he said possibly