City of Brick and Shadow

by Tim Wirkus

  Elder Toronto nodded at the puddle of vomit, which had attracted a second dog.

  “What kind of question is that?” said Elder Schwartz. “It’s not like I could help it.”

  “Still,” said Elder Toronto.

  He turned away from the dogs and the vomit.

  “Are you okay?” he said, his profile to Elder Schwartz.

  “I’m fine,” said Elder Schwartz, wiping his nose, an acidic tingle at the back of his throat.

  As the puddle diminished, the two dogs began to scuffle. Elder Schwartz turned away as well.

  “What did the police say?” he said.

  “They said to wait,” said Elder Toronto.

  So, moving well away from the vomit, they started to wait.

  A few weeks earlier, the missionaries had been eating lunch at Bishop Claudemir’s house when the subject of the police had come up. They had been sitting there around the scratched wooden table, finishing their meal of rice, beans, and panquecas, Claudemir nodding off in his chair, when Fátima had mentioned that the police had stopped her on her way home from church today, asking her if she could identify a man depicted in a vague police sketch. Elder Schwartz had said that it was good to hear about police officers doing their job, doing what they could to reduce crime in the area. Fátima had shaken her head.

  “The police in our city are useless,” she had explained in her thin, raspy voice. “Worse than useless.”

  Elder Schwartz had asked why.

  “It’s complicated,” Fátima had said. “We have a joke around here that goes like this. One day an eccentric billionaire decides to hold a contest to find the world’s best tracker. He does some research, asks around, and finally decides who to invite—a bounty hunter, a safari guide, and, surprisingly, a policeman from our city. So these three contestants all meet up at the billionaire’s mansion and the billionaire explains the rules. He will release a rare and elusive bird into the jungle and each contestant will take a turn tracking the bird down and capturing it. Whichever contestant can capture the bird the fastest, wins. And they have to bring the bird back alive.

  “The bounty hunter goes first. The bird is released, given a twelve-hour head start, and then the bounty hunter begins his hunt. Three weeks later he comes back, muddy and thin, holding a canvas sack. The billionaire looks inside the sack and sure enough, there’s the bird, alive and well.

  “The safari guide goes next. The bird is released again, given the same head start, and then the safari guide goes after it. Three days later, he comes back, a little bit muddy, a little bit tired, holding a canvas sack. Once again, the bird is inside, alive and well.

  “Now it’s the policeman’s turn. The bird is released, given its head start, and our policeman goes after it. Three hours later, he comes back, canvas sack in hand. ‘I got it,’ says our policeman. The billionaire, the bounty hunter, and the safari guide are very impressed. The billionaire’s getting out the trophy and polishing it up to give to our policeman. Then he looks inside the policeman’s canvas sack. Instead of a bird, the billionaire finds a large monkey covered in blood, shot several times in the head and the chest.”

  Elder Toronto and Elder Schwartz had both laughed a little.

  “It’s not a very funny joke,” Fátima had said, “because that’s really how they work.”

  Now, sitting on the curb next to the payphone, Elder Schwartz wondered out loud how much longer they would have to wait for the police.

  “They’re clearly not in a hurry,” said Elder Toronto.

  “What do you think they’ll do when they get here?” said Elder Schwartz.

  “That’s a good question,” said Elder Toronto. “The person I talked to on the phone sounded more annoyed than anything else.”

  As neither of them had a watch, neither of them knew exactly how long they had been waiting. The game of dominoes had broken up, the old men dispersing to their homes, and the young man a few doors down had wandered off, guitar slung over his shoulder. The two missionaries sat alone on the empty street. Elder Schwartz began softly humming a hymn. Elder Toronto looked at him.

  “Could you stop humming, please?” he said.

  “Why shouldn’t I hum?” said Elder Schwartz, the absurdity of their situation beginning to sink in. “I mean, what are we even doing here? The police obviously don’t care enough to show up, and it’s definitely not safe for us to be out here right now. We’re out past curfew, and someone got killed tonight”—his voice rose in pitch—“and we found the body, and we’re just sitting here in the dark? Seriously—what are we doing here?”

  “Settle down, Elder Schwartz,” said Elder Toronto, his chin resting on his knees.

  A few streets away, a dog barked.

  “No,” said Elder Schwartz. “We need to leave. Come on.”

  He stood up.

  “I’m going to wait for the police,” said Elder Toronto.

  “Come on,” said Elder Schwartz. “Do you know how many rules we’ve already broken? We need to get back to the apartment.”

  Elder Toronto didn’t budge.

  “I refuse to stay here,” said Elder Schwartz. “I refuse.”

  “All right,” said Elder Toronto.

  Elder Schwartz started walking away. He crossed the street, walked up the sidewalk, and turned left onto the cobblestone road they had come in on earlier that evening. Chaotic stacks of dark houses loomed over him on either side. The street was eerily empty. It was too late for the daytime crowd, and too early for the neighborhood’s nightlife. Elder Schwartz hadn’t been this alone since before his mission. Sans companion, he had that unsettling, dreamed feeling of showing up at school completely naked. He whistled a hymn as he walked.

  He hadn’t gone far when he came to a fork in the road. He stopped and considered it. He looked around for any familiar landmarks. During the cab ride earlier that evening, his mind had been on other things and he had paid only scant attention to the route they had taken. He vaguely remembered coming downhill at some point. Unfortunately, both branches headed up a steep hill. Elder Schwartz realized he had no idea how to get back to their apartment.

  It was very dark out. Elder Schwartz took a deep breath, the scent of vomit still in his nose. He took one last look around, halfheartedly hoping for some divine sign to point him in the right direction. He saw nothing. Bracing himself for humiliation, he turned around and walked back the way he came, cursing his incompetence with every step.

  When Elder Toronto—still sitting by the payphone—saw him round the corner, he patted the spot next to him on the curb.

  “I’m not sitting next to you,” said Elder Schwartz, and stood a few yards away. After a while, though, his legs got tired, and he sat down next to Elder Toronto.

  They waited and waited and waited. Faint laughter echoed from somewhere down the street. A cockroach scurried past their feet. Elder Toronto stood up, quickly enough to startle Elder Schwartz. For a brief moment, he thought that maybe he had finally managed to talk some sense into his companion.

  “Are we leaving?” said Elder Schwartz, standing up himself.

  Elder Toronto ignored him and began pacing back and forth on the craggy sidewalk.

  “Here are the salient questions,” he said. “Is it a coincidence that this man was murdered on the evening we were supposed to meet with him? It’s possible, although I doubt it. So if it’s not a coincidence, how does it relate to our meeting?”

  Elder Schwartz sat back down. Elder Toronto, still pacing, went on:

  “Did someone want to keep him from telling us something? Or are they sending us a message, trying to scare us off? Or a little of both? If it’s the former, what could he have had to say to us? And if it’s more the latter, what are they trying to stop us from doing?”

  He paused here and looked down at Elder Schwartz.

  “Any thoughts?” said Elder Toronto, but before Elder Schwartz could answer, he continued. “Clearly Marco Aurélio’s disappearance relates to all this. Which raises
further questions. Is, or rather, was the dead man a friend of Marco Aurélio’s? An enemy? A disinterested third party?”

  He paused.

  “At this point we have so little information. My hands are tied—I can only make suppositions.” He kicked at a loose chunk of cement, sending it skittering into the street. “We’ll just have to wait for the police.”

  He sat back down next to Elder Schwartz, his chin resting on his knees. They waited for what felt like another hour, Elder Toronto in contemplative stillness, Elder Schwartz in twitchy discomfort.

  Finally, a police cruiser turned the corner and pulled up next to the curb where the missionaries sat. The elders stood up. The passenger-side window of the cruiser rolled down and an officer with a thin moustache leaned out of it, the barrel of his M4 aimed at the missionaries. The elders put their hands in the air.

  “Did you report a murder?” said the officer.

  “Yes, sir,” said Elder Toronto.

  “You boys put your hands down and get in the car,” said the officer.

  The two missionaries looked at each other.

  “Come on,” said the officer, pointing with his gun.

  They got into the back seat.

  “Where is this place?” said the officer in the driver’s seat, a bald man with a square, unreadable face.

  Elder Toronto gave him directions and they started driving. The few people lingering in the street at this hour of the night casually disappeared as the police cruiser drove by them, not running, not acting panicked or guilty, but drifting deliberately into the protective shadows of alleyways and storefronts. The officer with the moustache looked at the two elders from the rearview mirror.

  “You’re missionaries,” he said.

  “We represent the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” said Elder Toronto.

  “I know who you are,” said the officer with the moustache.

  Elder Toronto said that was great and asked if he’d ever received visits from the missionaries in his home.

  “No.”

  Elder Toronto asked if he had ever wondered about things like where we came from before we were born, or where we were going after we died.

  “I’ll tell you what I know about your church,” the officer with the moustache said. “I grew up next door to some Mormons. They had a son a few years older than me. He beat me up every chance he got. Real mean kid. If I ever had anything he wanted, a kite or maybe some ice cream, he’d punch me in the gut and take it right out of my hands. Didn’t think twice about it. And the whole neighborhood thought he was this model child—going to church in his little white shirt and tie, singing his hymns, all that garbage. He once told me that if I ever ratted on him, he’d sneak into my house and strangle me in my sleep. And I think he would have done it.”

  The officer with the moustache stared at the missionaries from the rearview mirror. Elder Schwartz couldn’t see the man’s mouth, but he imagined it must be sneering.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Elder Toronto.

  “I bet you are,” said the officer with the moustache.

  The car stopped at the rickety footbridge that spanned the river.

  “What’s the address?” said the officer with no hair.

  “Number twelve,” said Elder Toronto.

  The two officers got out of the car, their assault rifles hanging at their sides, their flashlights drawn, leaving the two missionaries locked up in the back seat of the cruiser. The elders watched the bobbing gleam of the flashlights cross the bridge and then disappear behind the row of shacks on the other side of the river.

  “Are they going to arrest us?” said Elder Schwartz.

  “I don’t think so,” said Elder Toronto. “Although I guess they could.”

  They sat there in the cruiser listening to the steady white noise of the river. Elder Schwartz reached over and tried opening his door. It was locked.

  “It’s locked,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Elder Toronto. “This is a police car.”

  Dim moonlight, streaming in through the window of the car, illuminated the left side of Elder Toronto’s face, making him look like a smaller, smugger version of the waning moon itself.

  “I told you this was a bad idea,” said Elder Schwartz.

  “You did say that earlier,” said Elder Toronto. “But you were wrong then, and you’re wrong now.”

  “How am I wrong?” said Elder Schwartz.

  Elder Toronto interlaced the long, thin fingers of his hands and rested them on his knee.

  “Isn’t this all just a little bit fascinating to you?” he said, his face half in shadow. “Don’t you feel like we’re on the cusp of something exciting?”

  “Really?” said Elder Schwartz. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” said Elder Toronto. “Really. I wish you could see it.”

  “I bet you do,” said Elder Schwartz, and turned to look out the window.

  “Hey,” said Elder Toronto. “Listen. I understand you’re scared, but we’re going to be fine.”

  Elder Schwartz looked out at the dark gleam of the river.

  “Elder Schwartz?” said Elder Toronto. “Would you look at me?”

  Elder Schwartz didn’t turn around.

  “You’re going to be fine,” said Elder Toronto. “Okay?”

  “Sure,” said Elder Schwartz, trying to make out any movement in the little row of dwellings on the other side of the river.

  After a minute, the bobbing lights reappeared from behind the shacks and crossed the river toward them. The officer with the thin moustache opened the back-seat door and told the missionaries to get out. He still held the gun and the flashlight, and aimed both in the general vicinity of the missionaries’ faces. The officer with no hair stood a few feet away, a bored look on his face, his gun also trained on the missionaries.

  “Follow my lead,” Elder Toronto said quietly.

  The elders got out of the car, their hands held in the air.

  “Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?” said the officer with the moustache to Elder Schwartz.

  Elder Schwartz didn’t respond, didn’t know how. The officer raised his assault rifle.

  “Huh?” he said, pointing the gun at Elder Schwartz. “Are you going to answer me, kid?”

  He fingered the trigger guard and Elder Schwartz flinched.

  “Did I tell you to move?” said the officer with the moustache.

  Elder Schwartz shook his head.

  “That’s right,” said the officer. “I didn’t. I didn’t even tell you you could shake your head, so don’t. What I told you to do was answer my question. Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?”

  Elder Toronto responded, rescuing his companion.

  “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” he said.

  The officer turned to Elder Toronto, who squinted into the glare of the flashlight.

  “Don’t play games with me,” said the officer, waving his assault rifle.

  The bald policeman smiled at this.

  “You boys think it’s fun to mess around with the police?” The officer with the moustache was yelling by this point. “You think we don’t have better things to do?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you mean,” Elder Toronto said, his voice steady in spite of the gun aimed at his head.

  “Are you saying I’m a liar?” said the officer.

  “I’m just very confused,” said Elder Toronto.

  “Maybe your friend can explain,” said the officer, shifting his aim back to Elder Schwartz.

  Elder Schwartz shook his head.

  “What did I tell you about shaking your head?” said the officer.

  Elder Schwartz couldn’t think of the words to answer.

  “What are you, mute?” said the officer.

  Elder Schwartz shook his head, and then flinched, his body trembling visibly. The officer with no hair chuckled.

  “Let’s go,” said the officer with the moustache.
/>   Elder Toronto moved to get back inside the car.

  “No,” said the officer with the moustache. “To the bridge.”

  The elders looked at him. He gestured with his gun barrel.

  “Move,” he said.

  The missionaries started to walk, the two police officers following close behind with their guns and their flashlights pointed at the elders’ backs, casting long, missionary-shaped shadows in front of the small party. They crossed the bridge and walked to shack number twelve.

  “Now go inside and tell me what you see,” said the officer with the moustache.

  Elder Toronto opened the door and the two missionaries stepped into the shack. The candle had burned out, but the light from the officers’ flashlights illuminated the small space. The room was empty except for the small table and the burned-out candle. The body and the cot it had lain on were gone.

  “Pretty gruesome murder scene,” said the officer with no hair, speaking for the first time.

  “There was a dead body in here,” said Elder Toronto.

  He got down on his hands and knees.

  “Hey—what are you doing?” said the officer with the moustache.

  “Looking for blood,” said Elder Toronto. But the wall and floor were clean, free from any trace of a murder. He crawled toward the small table.

  “Hey, get up,” said the officer with the moustache.

  Elder Schwartz watched Elder Toronto bump the bottom of his shirt pocket with his hand, sending his ballpoint pen skittering under the table.

  “I dropped my pen,” he said.

  “Then pick it up,” said the officer with the moustache.

  Elder Toronto crawled under the table, his torso momentarily lost in shadow. He emerged a moment later, pen in hand, and stood up.

  “Someone must have moved the body,” said Elder Toronto, seemingly unbothered by the gun pointed at his face. “Do you want us to come in to the station and make a statement?”

  The officer with the moustache muttered something under his breath. He stepped forward and pushed his index finger into Elder Toronto’s chest. He held the barrel of his assault rifle against the missionary’s cheek, the metal pressing into this skin.

  “I want you to stop wasting our time,” said the officer with the moustache, his voice low, “and trying my patience. Do you understand?”