Chapter 65: Chapter 11: Dragon's den

> “Rita smiled and walked away. In the early evening, she set out toward the abandoned building where the two had made their home. They were surprised to see her, for sure, and asked defiantly how she had found them.”

“Right this way, Ms. Scott,” said Mona Hardin, the assistant curator, directing us around the courtyard perimeter and toward the elevator.

“Thank you,” said Emma in a fawning voice. “I’m looking forward to finally visiting the collection. I’ve read so much about it and already have some ideas on what pigments would be perfect for my powder palette.”

“We have some in mind that we think you’ll really enjoy. And of course, we are most appreciative of your commitment to donate a portion of the proceeds to the Museum.”

Emma shot me a glance, which confirmed that she hadn’t bothered to read all the way through the elaborate email correspondence I had constructed between the two of us that I had forwarded to Mona.

“Yes, well, my grandmother was a great patron of the arts, so it seemed only fitting that I continue her work.”

“Oh, that’s lovely,” said Mona. “What sort of work did she do?”

“She, umm,” said Emma, stumbling over her words. This is why I had impressed to her over the past few days that every nook and cranny of her cover identity had to be thought through three times over.

“She was on the Board of Trustees of the Coventry Art Museum,” I interjected, when it was clear that Emma was still tongue-tied.

“Yes, thank you Jane, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Yes, Gran especially loved the Museum’s hat collection.”

“Oh,” said Mona. “I hadn’t heard of that. I’ll have to take a look when I get a moment.”

I cursed under my breath. While there was an art museum in Emma’s hometown, it consisted entirely of blacksmith implements. But hopefully we would be long gone from here before Mona figured that out.

We exited the elevator on the familiar fourth floor, and the curator walked us over to a small display case next to the reception desk.

“So I thought I would start by showing you some pigments we have showcased this month,” said Mona, standing to the left of the case. We peered inside to survey the array of vials and other specimens.

“That vial in the back corner contains Mummy brown, which is made up of ground-up mummies.”

“You cannot be serious!” said Emma. “That’s gross!”

“Yes,” said Mona with a smile. “That’s usually the reaction we get. But it does wonders to add transparency to paintings, so it was in high demand in the 17th century. And that piece of foil in the front is coated with a sample of Infiniblack. Traps practically all light within the nanotubes it’s made of. You can’t even tell that the foil is crumpled from that side. It’s incredible.”

“Wow,” said Emma. “Jane, you’re taking notes, right? Tell me you’re taking notes.”

“I’m taking notes,” I said, scrambling to pull out a small notepad from my bag.

“Good. We’ll want to think about including an Infiniblack-based eyeshadow in the line. And make a note that I have follow-up meetings with potential distributors on the 3rd, 12th, and 17th.”

“Yes, Ms. Scott,” I said, not knowing what the hell she was talking about. Maybe she really had immersed herself in the character and was throwing out little details that would make us seem more believable.

“If I may interject for a second,” said Mona. “Unfortunately Infiniblack is not something that you can readily purchase. It’s tightly controlled by the manufacturer in England. And you certainly can’t use it for human applications. It’s highly abrasive to skin.”

“Noted,” said Emma. “We’ll think of something. I have a lot of contacts over there. Anyway, is there anything else in this little case that we should look at, or can we move on to the collection itself?”

Mona looked a bit perturbed at Emma denigrating the display, but stifled her reaction.

“No, that’s good for now. We can always come back at the end if there’s something else you want to see.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Excellent!” said Emma, and motioned for the curator to lead us onward. When we got back to the hotel later, I would need to have a talk with her about being unnecessarily condescending.

We walked down the hall, and Mona waved her ID over a badge reader to the left of a set of glass doors. Its red light turned green, and I heard something in the door click.

“Shall we?” she asked, and we both nodded in agreement as the curator pushed the doors open. Unbelievably, the first leg of our mission was complete.

“Now down here on the fourth floor is the Romberg Collection of Pigments and Varnishes. It was assembled by Dean Romberg over the course of 50 years. He traveled the world collecting rare pigment specimens, and we are so fortunate to be the beneficiary of all that hard work. This way.”

We turned a corner and made our way down the corridor we had glimpsed from the conference room the other day. The left side was lined with cabinets showing shelves full of jars, vials, and other containers. Underneath them were several rows of drawers.

“The Pigment Collection is organized by color,” said Mona, as we walked down the hallway. “Starting with yellow in the middle and then extending toward blue in one direction and then toward red in the other direction. On the upper shelves, you have the pigments themselves, and underneath, in these drawers, are the chemical duplicates of the pigments. And then finally, on the lower shelves, you have the raw materials.”

I spotted it just as we reached the middle. It was just lying there, peeking out from its paper wrapping, a simple placard in front of it identifying it to the world as “Dragon’s blood.” Next to it was a lump of “Dragon’s blood gum,” the hardened version of the pigment. Above, somewhere amongst the racks of vials and rows of jars was the prize we were seeking.

“Are we close to the Tyrian purple?” I said to Mona, after nodding to Emma. “Ms. Scott is a particular fan of the color, and I think it is safe to use in cosmetics?”

“Why yes,” she said. “Just a little way down. Let me show you.”

“You two go on ahead,” said Emma. “These reds here are simply delightful. I want to take a closer look.”

“OK,” said Mona. “But please don’t open any of the cabinets.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Emma with a grin.

I walked with the curator down to the purple section, looking back quickly to see Emma on her tippy toes staring at one of the upper shelves.

“So as you can see,” said Mona when we reached our destination, “Tyrian purple is-”

“Hold on one sec,” I said, pulling out my notebook and writing Tyrian purple in big obnoxious letters at the top. “OK, go.”

“As I was saying, Tyrian purple is made from a secretion of predatory sea snails. Thousands of snails would be required to-”

“Hold that the thought,” I said. “I … I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Look, I know some of the pigments are made up of unpleasant-”

“It’s not that,” I interjected. “Can … can you get me to a bathroom? I’m in my first trimester and-”

“Oh,” said Mona. “Oh! I’m so sorry. Yes, it’s right down this hall. But let me tell Ms. Scott to come help you since-”

“She doesn’t know,” I said, pretending to wipe sweat from my brow. “And you say anything to her. Please. She doesn’t, she won’t…”

“OK, OK. Let’s hurry then.”

We darted to the end of the hallway, where a set of bathrooms awaited, and Mona led me inside. I retreated to the stall furthest from the door, knelt down in front of the toilet, and pretended to puke my guts out.

“How are you doing?” called Mona.

“I’m … I think I’m … nope,” I said, going in for a second round of fakery. My phone buzzed, and I quickly pulled it free from my pocket to see a text from Emma.

“Big whoop,” it said, which was our code word for aborting the mission. I wanted to rush back to the Dragon’s blood cabinet to see what could have happened, but took a few moments to gather myself before slowly opening the stall.

“Phew,” I said to Mona, who looked half-sick herself. “That was a bad one. Thank you for your discretion.”

We found Emma crouched down several colors down from where we had left her, staring at a rack of orange vials.

“Jane,” said Emma, her cheeks red. “There you are. I was wondering where you ran off to. I’m afraid I’ve got nothing. This isn’t doing it for me. Maybe we should consider a partnership with the Aquarium. I’m thinking a clown fish-themed lipstick and maybe-”

“But…” said Mona.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’ve been very kind, but we need to get going.”

I grabbed Emma’s arm and pulled her away from the exasperated curator and toward the elevator. A man in a white lab coat emerged from within and attempted to thread his way between us, which was a terrible mistake, because Zazy Scott was not the type of person to move out of the way for anyone. And I didn’t help the situation by “accidentally” elbowing him, sending him careening into Zazy, who pushed the startled lab worker aside with a shove.

“Keep your hands to yourself, perv!” said Emma with a look of disgust and the man, too embarrassed to say anything in front of Mona, ran off without a word.

We rode down to the lobby in silence, where several dozen people were scurrying about with truckloads of floral arrangements for some reason, before hailing a cab to take us to the five-star hotel we were pretending to stay at.

“What happened?” I finally asked when we had both collapsed into the large leather chairs in the hotel lobby.

“It was empty,” said Emma flatly.

“The box? You actually opened it?”

“Yes,” said Emma. “You make it sound like you didn’t think your little magic codeword was going to work.”

“Hey I never said that it was a sure thi-”

“Well, I didn’t need it, in the end. All those hours practicing and the box was already unlocked! And completely empty, by the way. I would have taken it with me, but it’s stuck to the shelf with at least one, maybe two auragen links. I couldn’t even lift it an inch.”

“So now what?”

Emma held up a white ID badge sporting a picture of the man from the elevator.

“Wow, that was some quick work.”

“Compared to what I used to knick for the Vultures, this was an easy get. Do you think it will be enough?”

I looked at the grinning face of the man on the badge.

“Only one way to find out.”