AHMM, September 2012

by Dell Magazine Authors

  He found the icehouse by the number stenciled on its clapboard side. Half the structure had tumbled down. It looked like the kind of place where stewbums would flop, or worse. Not a building to enter alone. He was about to walk away when Sveta leaned her long body out the doorframe and beckoned. She held a pipe clenched between her teeth.

  He went in. The floor was hard-packed dirt covered with rotting sawdust. Sveta kicked aside cans and mounds of less wholesome debris, causing rats to scatter.

  “Watch your step here.”

  She led him through another empty doorway. A kerosene lamp guttered on the floor, showing the confines of a small room. Less than five feet away a haunch of meat hung from a low-lying rafter. William blinked. The haunch was a human being. A shirtless, gray-haired man suspended by leather thongs wrapped around his wrists. He hung about an inch from the floor. A Slav with cheekbones broad as Sveta's sat on a nearby crate. He'd settled a long-barreled shotgun across his lap.

  “What is this?” William said.

  Sveta gestured with her pipe stem at the bound man. “Information.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “We asked questions. A man, at the theater where you work. He told us someone had been watching you. Every night. Came to see you and wrote notes in a little book. We found him.”

  William looked at the creature hanging from the rafter. Bruises the size of a shotgun butt dotted his narrow chest and stomach. His eyelids kept fluttering open. He breathed in gasps.

  “You tortured him?”

  “We asked questions.”

  “This man is a talent scout from New York. He's been watching all the acts at the Starlight.”

  Sveta shook her head. “Detective. We found his papers.” She pulled a wallet from her skirts and handed it to him. A worn piece of onionskin paper had been tucked inside. He unfolded it, read the contents by the lamp's flame. Typewritten letters announced that a Mr. Harris Shields was licensed as a consulting detective in Nassau and Suffolk counties, New York.

  “Who hired him?” William said, refolding the paper.

  “He doesn't know. A man meets with him at different times and places, gives him money.”

  “Did he say why someone would want me under surveillance?”

  “We asked many times.”

  “And?”

  “He doesn't know.”

  Shields let out a moan. William closed his eyes and asked in a soft voice: “You're certain he doesn't know these things? Or is he simply lying to protect his employer?”

  “He tells truth.”

  “Cut him down. I didn't ask Sandor for this. Cut him down and give him his wallet back.”

  “As you say.”

  “When you see Mr. Kovacs, tell him I don't require any more of his help.”

  Sveta puffed, letting the gray smoke swirl past her lips. “Not so simple. He said you were under protection.”

  “I don't want it.” The room, the smell of human fear beneath Sveta's sweet tobacco was too much. He turned to leave.

  “Wait.” She said something to the gunman in liquid syllables. He shifted around on the crate, dug a slim book out of his back pocket. “We found this,” Sveta said, “along with the wallet. His notes. My English was better, I could make something from it.”

  William considered the book. Outside, an approaching ship cut loose with its foghorn. The mournful sound masked Shields's labored breathing.

  * * * *

  He had no appetite, but ordered coffee at a crowded Rexall lunch counter anyway. The noise helped him not to think.

  About one o'clock customers started petering out. Eventually, it was only him and a black-shawled spinster three stools down. The counterman swayed over and refilled his cup.

  With a sigh, he pulled out Shields's notes.

  The pages were covered in tiny, but readable scrawl. Everything pertained to William Kreuz. Length of his acts, timed to the minute. Approximate size of the audience. Descriptions of “mental tricks”

  performed. Duration of applause. There was personal information, too, including his boardinghouse address and the name of his druggist.

  That last brought cool sweat to the back of his neck. Had Harris Shields tried to poison him? Or had he simply furnished the information to his would-be killer?

  “You want to keep sitting there, mister, you're going to have to order something more than coffee.” The counterman stood with his arms folded. William mumbled “chicken salad” and returned to the book.

  Every few pages he found strings of numbers crammed between paragraphs. The digits ran from one to the mid-twenties and looked like this:

  4 22 22 11 18 11 11 9 22 4 6 5 11 7 18 9 2

  His confusion lasted only a moment. It was a cipher, based on a simple number-to-letter substitution. He figured the key in the time it took for his scoop of chicken salad to arrive. The digit strings, as he translated them, spelled out various addresses, dates, and times.

  Meeting places? Sveta had told him Shields and his unknown employer would rendezvous periodically.

  The last string gave today's date. Three in the afternoon. An address right outside the Tremont neighborhood, in Lincoln Park.

  * * * *

  Back in his room, he hauled down trunk after trunk from the closet shelves until he found his service revolver. Hands shaking, he loaded five .45 rounds and made sure the hammer was resting on an empty cylinder. He tried stuffing the gun in different places under his coat, opting finally for the back of his pants. The grip dug into his backbone and made him stand ramrod-straight.

  All the while, a calm voice told him this was wrong.

  He should take the notebook straight to Wagner. Let the police handle this. Storming off to confront his potential killer would just as likely get him killed.

  But going to the police, convincing them to act, would take time. The three o'clock window was closing. And they'd want to know how he'd gotten the book in the first place. He could imagine their reaction when he told them about Sandor Kovacs.

  * * * *

  Three ten, by his watch. He'd hiked through Tremont to get to the park. Sprawling Victorian houses along elm-lined streets, giving way to an expanse of green sward cut by trails. An iron-wrought gazebo stood in the center.

  Very peaceful. Only a few people sitting on the benches, or on blankets spread out over the grass. He breathed in a lungful of Sycamore and told himself to calm down. There was a bench nearby that afforded a lengthwise view of the park. A good vantage.

  He sat. The gun bumped his lower back, making him hunch forward. Ten feet away a professor type leafed through a copy of The Plain Dealer. No one paid William any attention.

  “Excuse me.”

  He nearly jumped. A man had materialized out of the lazy afternoon air. William's brain registered a narrow face behind a pair of smoked lenses. Mid thirties. Thinning black hair. Gray overcoat.

  The man sat down on the bench beside him.

  “I see that you're armed,” he said. “I am as well. Make no moves for the gun. Don't cry out or otherwise indicate distress. The moment you do—” The stranger thrust a black-lacquered walking stick between them. He seized the handle, twisted, and drew out three inches of winking steel.

  William nodded. The man slid the blade back with a click.

  “Tell me what you've done with my detective.”

  “I, ah...” William glanced over to see if the professor type was watching. He wasn't. “I've done nothing to him.”

  “And yet you're here. Instead of Shields. Have you involved the police?”

  “No.”

  “Better for you, then. We need to talk, but not in this place.”

  “Who are you?”

  The polished lenses regarded him for a moment. “You're telling me you don't know, Mr. Kreuz?”

  “I've never seen you before.”

  “I doubt that. I doubt that very much.” The man rose. “Now come with me.”

  * * * *

  They climbed the
same hill William had followed down into Lincoln Park. Sweat plastered his shirt to his skin, but it wasn't from exertion. Always, the stranger kept his hand near the walking stick's hilt. Three blocks up and they stopped abruptly in front of a slim Victorian wedged between two broader ones, its foundation canted on the upward slope.

  “Just a rental,” the black-haired man said. “Not many comforts inside, I'm afraid.”

  He led him across the portico and into a dusty front room. “You'll take that coat off now. Slowly, please. That's good. Turn around.” William felt the revolver being yanked from his pants. “Have a seat on the couch. We'll talk this over like civilized men.”

  The stranger gestured toward a tasseled settee from the previous century. William sat. A chessboard rested on the cushion beside him. Another had been set up on the floor. All the pieces were locked in the final moves of endgame.

  “I dabble,” the man explained, removing his glasses. The eyes underneath were shadowed with the bluish black rouge of the sleepless. His other hand held the revolver in a casual grip. “You play as well?”

  “Chess problems from the paper, usually.”

  “Had I known you were coming ... but I suppose a real match might take too long.” He kicked a stool next to the couch and hunkered down, keeping the gun's barrel pointed at William.

  “I still don't know who you are.”

  “So you claim.” The stranger made a flicking motion with his empty hand. A business card appeared between his index and middle fingers. He tossed it to William.

  Gothic lettering read:

  ARTYOM SOKOLOV

  PRINCE OF NUMBERS

  FEATS OF MEMORY *** CHESS EXHIBITIONS

  MAGIC *** LIGHTNING CALCULATION

  “I'm a musician, too, but it didn't fit on the card. I play the Palace in New York. Now tell me you haven't heard of me.”

  “I've heard of the Palace.”

  “I bet you have. An excellent venue. The best. Many talented people would kill for the chance to perform there. Literally, I mean.”

  “I'm not that ambitious, myself,” William said.

  Sokolov locked eyes with him. “I'll ask again: What happened to Shields?”

  “He was detained, by associates of mine. Not my idea, really.”

  “You're bluffing. You've probably paid him off.”

  “Why did you hire Shields in the first place? Was he the one who tried to—”

  “I'm holding the gun. I'll direct the inquiries.” Sokolov got up off the stool and paced over to a cabinet. Glass clinked as he rummaged inside. “I have a problem with my nerves. You too, I gather, from what Shields told me. What do you take for it?”

  “Sedatives. And German philosophy.”

  “I prefer laudanum.” Sokolov poured himself a shot of amber fluid from a patent medicine bottle and drained it. His eyelids shuddered closed for a moment. “I've never met another of our kind before. It's a strange experience.”

  “Our kind?"

  “Another mentalist.”

  “I don't think of myself as very different from other people.”

  “How egalitarian.” Sokolov snorted. “I consider our profession one step elevated from a circus freak.”

  “You seem to be doing well enough.”

  “Thank you. The Palace pays triple what you make here. But you must already be aware of that, surely?” His mouth curled upward at the corners.

  “That's what this is all about, isn't it? You're afraid I'll usurp your act.”

  Sokolov's knuckles had gone white, gripping the revolver. William figured it wouldn't be much longer. He'd already gotten him out of the park and into a secluded place. Another shot of laudanum, perhaps, to steady his hands.

  A loud scraping sound echoed through the parlor.

  Sokolov's head shot up. “Were you followed?”

  “No.”

  The noise was coming from the rear of the house. Sokolov swung the gun in that direction. William noticed the stiletto-cane leaning against the opposite wall, twelve feet away. Too far. He groped for the nearest solid object. A chessboard. Sokolov stepped past the couch, his attention focused on the frantic scraping. William stood, pivoted, and winged the board at his head.

  Chessmen rained through the air. The board struck Sokolov's temple with a satisfying whack. His finger convulsed and sent a slug tearing into the floorboards. William lunged. His shoulder connected with Sokolov's hip and the two of them stumbled backward, William putting all his effort into seizing the gun. They crashed to the floor together.

  The laudanum hadn't slowed Sokolov at all. He clamped his other hand around his wrist and tried to wrestle the barrel level with William's chest. William struggled to force the gun down. He could hear rustlings from the adjacent hall, but they seemed miles away.

  Someone's fingers—it could have been both of theirs—brushed the trigger.

  The revolver bucked and thundered.

  Sokolov's mouth parted in a silent O. The barrel was pointing at his sternum. He had time to roll his eyes toward the ceiling, staring past William, before the strength melted from his arms. He lay still.

  “I am not too late.”

  William looked up to see Sveta emerging from the hallway. She held a buck knife covered with splinters. Her gaze took in the contents of the room, including Sokolov's stiffening form. “This the only one?” she said, gesturing toward the corpse with her knife.

  William nodded.

  “You are injured?”

  He had to check the front of his shirt to be sure. There was a blood spatter, but not from him. Burnt powder stung his fingers. “I'm all right.”

  “I followed you, from icehouse. Forced window open.”

  “You probably saved my life.”

  She pointed to Sokolov again. “Is this—?”

  “I think so.”

  “The shots will bring police. We must go. Give me the gun and I'll wipe prints.”

  “No, Sveta.” William rose and staggered over to the settee, where he collapsed. His heart was still thundering.

  “They will charge you,” Sveta said. “Murder.”

  “Self-defense, I should think.”

  “Mr. Kovacs would not want you arrested. You are still under protection. Come with me.”

  William folded his arms across his chest and waited. The low keen of a siren sounded in the distance.

  * * * *

  He was acquitted three weeks later.

  Bernstein celebrated with a bottle of Canadian whiskey. They sat on the Starlight's stage, legs dangling over the edge, and looked out at the shadowed and empty seats. William sipped milk from a glass warmed by the footlights. His ulcer had decided to quit throbbing.

  “A toast,” he said, raising his drink toward the phantom audience. “To Marguerite. I've been so concerned for my own safety, I almost forgot about her.”

  "L'Chayim.” Bernstein sloshed a measure of precious whiskey onto the floorboards. He fumbled through his vest pocket as if searching for a cigar, found nothing, and sighed. “If it'd been me, in your shoes, I would've taken that woman Sveta up on her offer. You could've avoided the whole trial.”

  William shook his head. “Kovacs wanted me to work for him. He would've used the cover-up as blackmail.”

  “Work for him? Doing what?”

  “Memorizing ledgers, probably. Tracking his bootlegging profits. All of it kept up here.” William tapped at his skull. “He'd be that much harder to indict, with nothing committed to paper.”

  “Clever.”

  “But I don't think he's done with me, Joseph. He'll want some kind of repayment for nabbing Sokolov's detective. I hate to say this, but Cleveland's become too contentious for me to stay.”

  Bernstein paled. “A change of venue?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “But where would you go?”

  “There's lots of options,” William said, allowing himself a grim smile. “I've heard the Palace pays well.”

  Copyright © 2012 Garnett Ellio
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  * * *

  Department: MYSTERIOUS PHOTOGRAPH

  * * * *

  Copyright © 2012 Laurel Fantauzzo

  * * * *

  BROUGHT UP SHORT

  Everyone Here?

  We will give a prize of $25 to the person who invents the best mystery story (in 250 words or less, and be sure to include a crime) based on the above photograph. The story will be printed in a future issue. Reply to AHMM, Dell Magazines, 267 Broadway, New York, New York 10007-2352. Please label your entry “September Contest,” and be sure your name and address are written on the story you submit. If you would like your story returned, please include an SASE.

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  * * *

  Fiction: BEEHIVE ROUND

  by Martin Limon

  Vern Kruckman felt the warm ondol floor beneath his feet and hurriedly pulled on his trousers. The room was dark with just a bare glimmer of starlight peeking through the partially open window. Pei Un-hui, Vern's wife, rolled over on her sleeping mat, blinked, and gazed up at him.

  “Where you go?” she asked.

  “Alert,” Vern said. Just then a siren from Camp Pelham, the 2nd of the 17th Field Artillery headquarters compound, let out another wailing moan.

  “What's a matter you?” his wife said, sitting up now. “You no go.”

  “'No go?’ What do you mean, no go? We have an alert.” Hurriedly, Vern slipped on his socks. “Hell, for all I know it could be a move out. Maybe even the real thing. Maybe Joe Chink is coming south.”

  “Vern!”

  “What?”

  “No more Joe Chink. No more alert. You no army no more!”

  Vern Kruckman froze, a wool sock slipped over his big toe. And then he dropped the sock and placed his bare foot back on the vinyl-covered floor. Un-hui was right. Vern hadn't thought of that. In the seconds after the alert siren startled him awake, he had forgotten that he wasn't in the army anymore. Now the memories flooded back. Memories of his retirement ceremony, which had been held only last week on the central parade ground of the 2nd of the 17th Field Artillery Battalion. Colonel Weldwright, the DivArty commander, had flown in by chopper to personally present First Sergeant Vernon R. Kruckman with the Meritorious Service Medal for thirty years of dedicated military service. In fact, the medal sat right now in its velvet-lined case on the inlaid mother-of-pearl table next to Vern's sleeping mat. For a moment Vern felt foolish. After thirty years—after enlisting as a teenager at the end of World War II and seeing combat during the Korean War and experiencing it again as a middle-aged man in Vietnam—Vern's wife was right. He wasn't in the army anymore. And that alert siren, the siren that called every active duty soldier in the area to report—on the double—to their post of duty, no longer called for him.