Guest slot: The Da Vinci Code in the style of Richard Stark

I’m very pleased to present this piece by Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus. It was written a few years back, then vanished down the memory hole for awhile. Ethan has kindly given me permission to reprint it.

Ethan is a huge Donald Westlake fan and became friends with Westlake as a result. His article “A Storyteller That Got the Details Right” is an invaluable guide for anyone trying to navigate his way through Mr. Westlake’s 100+ novels, although we certainly disagree on a thing or two. Bookmark it.

* * *

I’m sure Westlake was appalled by the sentimental, adverb-heavy paperweights that repeatedly make the best-seller lists. At the height of the Dan Brown frenzy, I amused myself by attempting to rewrite The Da Vinci Code in the style of Richard Stark. When I showed it to Don, he commented, “You can guess which one I like better.” My version is not so great, really, even after I just re-edited it a little bit, but it’s unquestionably better than the original.

Dan Brown’s opening is 921 words.

Prologue

Louvre Museum, Paris 10:46 P.M.

Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.

As he had anticipated, a thundering iron gate fell nearby, barricading the entrance to the suite. The parquet floor shook. Far off, an alarm began to ring.

The curator lay a moment, gasping for breath, taking stock. I am still alive. He crawled out from under the canvas and scanned the cavernous space for someplace to hide.

A voice spoke, chillingly close. “Do not move.”

On his hands and knees, the curator froze, turning his head slowly.

Only fifteen feet away, outside the sealed gate, the mountainous silhouette of his attacker stared through the iron bars. He was broad and tall, with ghost-pale skin and thinning white hair. His irises were pink with dark red pupils. The albino drew a pistol from his coat and aimed the barrel through the bars, directly at the curator. “You should not have run.” His accent was not easy to place. “Now tell me where it is.”

“I told you already,” the curator stammered, kneeling defenseless on the floor of the gallery. “I have no idea what you are talking about!”

“You are lying.” The man stared at him, perfectly immobile except for the glint in his ghostly eyes. “You and your brethren possess something that is not yours.”

The curator felt a surge of adrenaline. How could he possibly know this?

“Tonight the rightful guardians will be restored. Tell me where it is hidden, and you will live.” The man leveled his gun at the curator’s head. “Is it a secret you will die for?”

Saunière could not breathe.

The man tilted his head, peering down the barrel of his gun.

Saunière held up his hands in defense. “Wait,” he said slowly. “I will tell you what you need to know.” The curator spoke his next words carefully. The lie he told was one he had rehearsed many times… each time praying he would never have to use it.

When the curator had finished speaking, his assailant smiled smugly. “Yes. This is exactly what the others told me.”

Saunière recoiled. The others?

“I found them, too,” the huge man taunted. “All three of them. They confirmed what you have just said.”

It cannot be! The curator’s true identity, along with the identities of his three sénéchaux, was almost as sacred as the ancient secret they protected. Saunière now realized his sénéchaux, following strict procedure, had told the same lie before their own deaths. It was part of the protocol.

The attacker aimed his gun again. “When you are gone, I will be the only one who knows the truth.”

The truth. In an instant, the curator grasped the true horror of the situation. If I die, the truth will be lost forever. Instinctively, he tried to scramble for cover.

The gun roared, and the curator felt a searing heat as the bullet lodged in his stomach. He fell forward… struggling against the pain. Slowly, Saunière rolled over and stared back through the bars at his attacker.

The man was now taking dead aim at Saunière’s head.

Saunière closed his eyes, his thoughts a swirling tempest of fear and regret.

The click of an empty chamber echoed through the corridor.

The curator’s eyes flew open.

The man glanced down at his weapon, looking almost amused. He reached for a second clip, but then seemed to reconsider, smirking calmly at Saunière’s gut. “My work here is done.”

The curator looked down and saw the bullet hole in his white linen shirt. It was framed by a small circle of blood a few inches below his breastbone. My stomach. Almost cruelly, the bullet had missed his heart. As a veteran of la Guerre d’Algérie, the curator had witnessed this horribly drawn-out death before. For fifteen minutes, he would survive as his stomach acids seeped into his chest cavity, slowly poisoning him from within.

“Pain is good, monsieur,” the man said.

Then he was gone.

Alone now, Jacques Saunière turned his gaze again to the iron gate. He was trapped, and the doors could not be reopened for at least twenty minutes. By the time anyone got to him, he would be dead. Even so, the fear that now gripped him was a fear far greater than that of his own death.

I must pass on the secret.

Staggering to his feet, he pictured his three murdered brethren. He thought of the generations who had come before them… of the mission with which they had all been entrusted.

An unbroken chain of knowledge.

Suddenly, now, despite all the precautions… despite all the fail-safes… Jacques Saunière was the only remaining link, the sole guardian of one of the most powerful secrets ever kept.

Shivering, he pulled himself to his feet.

I must find some way…

He was trapped inside the Grand Gallery, and there existed only one person on earth to whom he could pass the torch. Saunière gazed up at the walls of his opulent prison. A collection of the world’s most famous paintings seemed to smile down on him like old friends.

Wincing in pain, he summoned all of his faculties and strength. The desperate task before him, he knew, would require every remaining second of his life.

—

My version imitating Richard Stark is half as long.

—

ONE

When Saunière pulled down the Caravaggio, the iron gate slammed down and the alarm began to ring. He turned and looked back. The albino was already there, on the other side of the barricade, gun in hand.

“Better tell me where it is,” the albino told him through the bars. “I’ll shoot you dead if you run further.”

Saunière set the Caravaggio against the wall. “I told you already! I have no idea what you are talking about!”

They were in the Louvre’s Grand Gallery at night, with only the emergency floor lights providing illumination. The walls were white and adorned every few feet with paintings of different sizes. The floor was brown wood parquet with black stars as trim. Statuary dotted the hall.

After cocking his revolver and pushing the barrel though the barricade, the albino said,  “If I gut-shoot you, you’ll probably still live long enough to tell me. Your brethren stole it years ago; I know this for certain. Tell me where it’s hidden.”

Jesus! Who was this hulking creature and how could he know about the brethren? Saunière looked into the eyes of the albino.  They had pink irises and dark red pupils. Was Saunière losing his mind?  Could this actually be happening to him? “How can I tell you what I don’t know? You’ve got to believe me. Please.”

The albino said, “Grandpa, I don’t have time for this,” and fired a bullet into Saunière’s stomach. The shot echoed in the gallery. Saunière’s mouth opened and he buckled at the knees. A small pool of blood began gathering on the parquet floor.

The albino cocked the revolver again. “The next bullet is going into your brain, unless you tell me what you know.”

Saunière’s stomach was on fire. Probably he wasn’t going to make it. Misdirection was the only hope. He spoke his well-rehearsed lie and waited for execution.

The albino nodded. “Yes, that’s what the others said.” The alarm suddenly stopped, leaving a silence just as loud.  “You’ll be dead soon enough.” He lowered the gun, turned around, pulled his hood over his head, and disappeared around the corner.

Others? Saunière thought. Other sénéchaux? Telling the same lie? They must be dead…I’m going to die. He fainted for a moment. When he came back he thought: If all the sénéchaux are dead, no one will know the truth…I must tell someone, somehow…

He decided not to die just yet. The lady would help him. Saunière staggered to his feet and lurched towards the famous smile.