“A frank exchange of views. Anyway, will you?”

“I’ll suggest it to him. Will he want to see you?”

“I believe so. We share an interest in old manuscripts. I’m sure we’ll have lots to talk about. You should come too. It’ll be a fun evening. We can plan our trip to Israel to see old Dad.”

She stood up. “I’ll call you,” she said and walked out, leaving me alone except for the strange being tapping away at the keyboard. I stood behind Niko and looked at his screen. It was colored a flat, pale gray, across which field incomprehensible blue letters appeared and vanished like windshield rain. Niko was programming. I should say that for a working lawyer I am computer literate. Most lawyers believe their skin will rot away if they touch a keyboard, but not me. I suppose I am about where Niko was when he was four. I lifted one of his earphones and asked, “What are you doing?”

I had to repeat myself several times. “Search engines,” he said.

“Oh, search engines,” I said knowingly. “What are you searching for?”

“Anything. Let me go.” He shook his head and tried to tug his earphones down, but I lifted them off and spun his swivel chair around so that he faced me.

“I have to talk to you about something important,” I said. His body was starting to stiffen up and his gaze was directed at an upper corner of the room.

“Focus on this, Niko! Gangsters are after me and I think they may want to hurt you and Imogen and Mommy. I need you to help me out.”

This seemed to get through. He asked, bored, “This is pretend, right?”

“No, not pretend. For real.”

“Why are they after you?”

“Because I have some papers they want. A client of mine gave them to me and they killed him. They tortured him, and before he died he gave them my name.”

Yes, pretty strong stuff for a kid, but Niko is hard to reach. It’s not like he was sensitive. I imagine that if someone were torturing me he would watch with fascinated interest.

“Why do they want the papers?”

“I’m not sure. I think they think they could lead to a treasure.” He considered this for a moment, and I imagined the peculiar wheels in his head whirring like a fine clock.

“For real?”

“They think so,” I said.

“We should find the treasure,” he said. “Then they would probably leave us alone.”

I believe this is one of the few times Niko has used the pronoun we to include myself with him. I said, “That’s a very good idea. Now, there are two things I want you to do. The first is I want you to keep careful watch on the street and call me immediately if you see anything suspicious. These guys are Russians and they go around in black SUVs, so call me if you spot them, okay? The next thing is I want you to search for a man named Richard Bracegirdle. He died in 1642 in England.” I wrote this down on a sheet of paper from his printer.

“Who is he?”

“The man who buried the treasure. Find out about him and his descendants, and if there are any of them still alive. Can you do that?”

“Yes, I can,” said Niko. I’m not sure why I engaged him in this way, although Niko is about as expert a data searcher as any I know, he’s won prizes for it, and university professors correspond with him without knowing he is eleven years old. Clearly I could have hired a commercial firm to do the search, or we have people at my office who are good at it. Perhaps I was feeling lonely and here was something Dad and son could do together, like a hike in the piney woods. Thinking on my feet, like philanderers learn to do. Of course, that was the easy part. Now I had to go down and tell his mother all about it.

THE BRACEGIRDLE LETTER (9)

This fellowe says he is named James Piggott and is servant to my lord Dunbarton a man high in counsel to the Kinges majestie & askes me if I am of the pure religion & this man had the whey-faced, cold-eyed look I recollect from daies of my youth as markes youre canting Puritan & so I sayd oh yes sir, truely I am and fall to my meate a capon pastie & ale. Whilst I ate he quizzed mee upon all matters bearing upon religion as: depravity of Man, predestination, inefficacy of workes, revelation soley through Scripture, salvation through faith alone &c. & seemed well-pleazed with my answeres & then sayde Mr Hastynges gives a good reporte of thee & I answer hym Mr Hastynges a goode man and of the true religion I have found & after speaking somewhat of Mr H. he of a sudden says, I heare that your mother was a papiste and brat of a papistical traitor. What say you to that? At this I was much surprized and wroth but I stanche my ire and say that she wase upon a tyme mayhap but repented her error and was a faithfull adherent of the Reformed church her whole lyfe after. He asked of mee was she an Arden of Warwickshire & mee replying she was he saieth that hath saved thee from the gallowes my lad for my lord Dunbarton hath need of someone such as thee, of pure religion but papiste connectiones and those of your motheres family most particular. Now he asketh, hast evere heard a playe?

I sayde I had not for were they not verey wicked thynges? Aye, quoth he, and more than you know. For struttynge actors stand in full light o’ day & hatch treason. How you say? By three means. First, playes doe corrupt the mindes and soules of men who heare them by shewing lewd actiouns as: murther thefte, rapine, bawdrey, fornicatiouns, soe that those heareres may imitate them thereafter and soe disorder the state and lose theyre owne sowles to Hell. Next, these playes o’erthrow Gods lawe for they shew boys dressed as women which is itselfe sinne but far worse they doe unbridyle the filthie lustes of Sodom, which I do not doubt me these playeres doe sinke themselves in soe they are a stenche to heaven. Thirdlie and worste: theye are all but a maske for papistick treasones & he saith again: a maske, but a maske.

And he goeth on: for well you know the Harlot of Rome uzed to delight in rich shewes and silken costumes and men dressed as women to bedazzle the people and turne them away from the true worship of Christ. What is theyre gibbering mass but a playe? Now we have stoppte theyre masses will they not trye another waye to turn folke from true faith? What, quoth I, think you these players are secret papistes? Nay, says he, they are more subtle, more than serpentes. Now what sayest thou if I tell thee there is a man now abroad the chief of these playeres who, item: doth devise secret libels on the true religion: item, doth hold up papiste priestes in such playes to admiratioun: item, whose father wast a papiste fined many tymes for shunning the protestant church and whose mother wase spawn of a family longe reviled for adamant recusancie, doutlesse a papiste herself: item, who conspyred traitorously to ralleye the attainted earle of Essex his forces when he rebelled gainst our late sovereign Quene by meanes of shewing to his followers on the morn of the rebellion the playe of Richard Second as an inspiring exemple of treason & regicide & should have been taken up at that time but was not, for some of worship did protect him, dmn their eyies. What saye you of such a one? Quoth I (which I knew well was the onlie mete answer nowe), to the Tower with him hee should not walk abroade one houre.

Hee then smyled a colde smyle saying marry, you spake the truth boy, yet in the kingdomes now disordered state this wee cannot do, or not yet. For look you, the King surroundes himselfe not with the Godly but with lascivious & corrupt favourites, viz. my Lord of Rochester and otheres lyke, of these manie as near to papistes as your shirt your bodie & these delighteth in such vaine shewes as playes upon the stage: even the King hath a bande of playeres of whom he doth bespeake playes to suit his fancies & the one of whom I tolde thee the chiefest amongst these knaves.