by Linda Welch
I got a fork, a big ceramic bowl from a cabinet, filled it with rice and took it to the table. Mac barreled through the backdoor and leaned against my ankle, peering up at me through long brindle-black brows. I got upright and closed the backdoor, taking the bowl with me so my little friend didn’t feel compelled to jump on the chair and sample my supper. I plopped down so hard, the chair creaked as if in pain.
I have felt helpless before, too many times to count, but now the addition of hopelessness made it daunting, will-sapping. How could I, a stranger, search out clues in a world of which I knew so little, with no place to start? I doubted I would get anywhere marching into Bel-Athaer and asking the first person I met the whereabouts of Cicero, not after what Gareth said about the Seer.
I lifted my head to see Royal across the table from me. His hair blazed in the evening sunlight coming through the big west windows. Pale copper gilded his skin. His richly hued copper eyes sparkled with mica in their depths. His smile… .
I blinked him away, wanting more than anything to see him there, real, not an image conjured by my anxious imagination.
No longer hungry, I pushed my bowl aside.
My head sank in my hands. Wondering what happened to Royal was an ache in my chest. Now I had to discover if Lawrence’s life was at risk and how I could protect him. And Gorge, too. If finding Royal was beyond my capabilities, how was I supposed to find Gorge?
I hoped inspiration would jump out at me as my gaze drifted through the kitchen, until it settled on Gia Sabato’s book.
Book. Gorge.
My spine straightened. “Well I’ll be damned,” I said to the room at large. I knew where I saw that Gelpha writing. Gorge’s book.
Royal and I were at Gorge’s apartment over his antiques shop. Gorge settled Lawrence into bed. He came back in the living room and got a book from a bookcase with a glass door. He said something about Lawrence wanting a bedtime story and held the book up for us to see. I saw the title, Tales of the Brothers Grimm, and beneath it symbols which I took for decoration. It was Gelpha script.
I sucked on my lower lip. Did Lawrence use that page for a reason, or merely incidentally? The latter, I decided. Lawrence couldn’t know I noticed the symbols on Grimm; I barely glimpsed them, and forgot them till now.
Gorge no longer lived in Clarion, but he still owned the Emporium and used the apartment when he returned here to check on business with his manager. Chances are, he left his furniture and possessions in place when Lawrence insisted he live in Bel-Athaer. I could see Gorge wanting his old home kept as it was, as a refuge when life at Court became too much for him.
I had to check it out.
One of Clarion’s favorite myths claims secret tunnels snake beneath the oldest parts of downtown. A documentary was made, and the idea used in a movie, a television series and at least two works of fiction. If asked, those who live and work downtown will either deny there are tunnels, or swear they’ve been in them, but do so with a wink or twinkle in their eyes so you don’t know what to believe. Downtown Clarion is a tourist attraction and a little mystery can be good for business.
The truth? No secret tunnels, but there are cellars, many of them warrens of passageways and small rooms. Chinese railroad workers who settled in Clarion set up opium dens down there in the late 1800s. The cellars came in handy during Prohibition as Speakeasies and strip joints. Merchant/owners knocked holes in the connecting walls to facilitate deliveries, and in doing so created block-long labyrinths which hindered the law when it came calling. Local mobsters used them for various purposes. Many a man went down there in one piece and left in pieces, if you know what I mean.
Now, in this era of heightened security, most are blocked and some are unsafe. One runs under Royal’s apartment block, but I would have to break into Bailey and Cognac to get in, and it is blocks away from Gorge’s Antiques Emporium. But I did know a way into the cellars half a block from the antiques shop, an old hotel which until earlier this year catered to the down but not quite out, now locked down and boarded up. The owner had to close when a chunk of ceiling on the third floor fell in, and work on it had not started yet. It didn’t have an alarm system, either.
The Emporium had an alarm system, but only on the doors and windows, no motion detectors inside. No problem. I would not enter by a door or window.
The Milford is on the corner of the block with the front entrance facing south on Twenty-Second and west service entrance on Portsmouth. The alley in the rear is dark and narrow, the width of a sidewalk. It stank of vomit and rotting vegetables from two overflowing garbage cans. As I expected, the boards over one window were loose at the bottom and swiveled aside. The glass had been knocked out. The place might be unsafe, but that didn’t stop bums and junkies from using it. Their presence didn’t worry me and if I left them alone they’d do the same. I pulled a pair of thin, neoprene gloves from my back pocket and eased them on. Would not do to leave fingerprints.
Climbing through the window wasn’t difficult for a person of my height and I landed in a small scullery. I grimaced and pinched my nostrils with two fingers – someone had emptied their bladder in the rust-stained sink. My flashlight’s beam found empty tin cans and liter soda bottles on the floor with other trash I refused to look at too closely.
Street light slid through chinks between boards on windows and the front entrance, so I turned off the flashlight and cautiously walked through the ground floor. Appliances loomed in the kitchen. A tiny body scuttled along a shelf in the big pantry and dropped to the floor. Mice don’t normally bother me, but I swallowed a squeak of surprise just the same. Dust sheets covered furniture in the lunchroom. I returned to the hall leading to the foyer, past the back staircase winding up on my left. Thin rays and dots of light spackled the floor, walls, a doorway, the stair’s banister. I went in the foyer, past the long desk and age-mottled mirrors, into the big communal room, then out again. I stood, listening, but the old hotel was silent.
I know the location of most cellar entrances. Royal once spent I don’t know how long researching and mapping them. He thought they might be useful one day, but he never imagined the purpose I put them to today.
I turned my flashlight back on before opening the door to the storage closet under the rear staircase, and braced for claustrophobia. I’m not a classic claustrophobic, but you don’t have to be to dislike small, dark, enclosed spaces. I eased in a deep breath before shutting the door behind me. Don’t think about it, get it over with.
Dust and small pieces of trash covered the trapdoor. I kicked the trash away, knelt and positioned my flashlight on the floor so the beam shone on a heavy padlock.
Royal taught me to pick locks. Why would a law-abiding homicide detective need that skill? Tsk tsk.
The padlock, thick with grime, determinedly fought my lock-picking skills, but just as I decided to go home for bolt cutters, the thing finally cooperated.
The wood protested and dust fell in fibrous clumps as I heaved up the trapdoor. I lowered it to the floor so it would not crash down. Squatting, I braced myself. The cellars are windowless, no place where light can seep in. Perhaps some of them have electric lighting, but I didn’t know which. I shuddered as I imagined walking in unrelieved darkness.
I first experienced true darkness during my one visit to Castor’s Cave. After walking between stalagmites and stalactites, ascending and descending metal stairs, admiring the giant caverns carved by miners using hand tools and oil lamps in the 1830s, I and my fellow adventurers stopped in the last, gigantic natural cave. The guide gathered us in, reached back to a breaker switch on the wall… .
And turned the lights off.
I literally couldn’t see my hand before my face. I lost all sense of direction. I saw nothing, absolutely nothing but darkness black as pitch; its weight suffocated me. A voice swore and yelled at the guide to turn the goddamn light back on! Now! It was my voice. I was too angry to be embarrassed when the light came on.
When I got outside, I
marched to the information kiosk and complained. The brochures give you no warning of what to expect, nor the posters on the kiosk, and none from the guide before we entered the last cave. What if that black nothingness brought on a panic attack? Oh, wait, it did. Mine.
No, I don’t like places dark as these cellars.
My light showed me dusty wooden steps. No one had been down here in a long time. The thoughts you usually have when you’re about to step into a deep, dark cellar crossed my mind. Were there rats? Would the ceiling fall in on me? Would someone sneak in the cupboard and close the trapdoor, or jam the cupboard door so it would not open again?
I went down anyway.
The old wood rail felt too fragile beneath my hand, but the stair was solid. The air tasted of brick dust. I shone my light on the floor before me as far as the beam reached, then swung it back and forth over the old, crumbling brick wall on my right.
My flashlight was pitifully inadequate, but not to worry. I unclipped my handheld rechargeable spotlight from my belt and locked it into floodlight mode.
The ceiling was eight inches above my head and the old-brick passage felt too confining. I faced east. I’d pass beneath the adjoining buildings and come to Gorge’s store if I kept going. The cellars ran in a straight line under the block and this passage against the outer wall did not deviate, leaving no margin of error.
Dust puffed under my shoes. I shone my spotlight through a doorway on my left and saw a corridor made of tilting wooden walls scattered with doors either side. The walls in the next cellar were brick which fell short of the ceiling by five feet or more, and more doors, one open, but I didn’t go down there to investigate. The next cellar was one room the width and length of the building above with a wood staircase leading up to a small platform and door. The door to the next cellar, Gorge’s, was locked. This could mean Gorge stored stuff down here, or was justifiably protective.
I’d wear down my lock picks at this rate.
After several minutes fiddling with the lock, I stood beneath Gorge’s Antiques Emporium.
I walked through the doorway on my left into another passage running parallel, beyond that a wall punctured by three doors. Rotating ninety degrees, intending to first try the door farthest on my left, an exceedingly hard object struck my shoulder. I dropped the spotlight; it clunked and rattled and went out. Swallowing a yelp, I scurried backward and hit the wall, hard. My Ruger filled my hand as if by magic. Back to the wall, I listened for movement, holding in panicked breathing loud enough to pinpoint my position.
Nothing.
I couldn’t stay here, but moving took willpower. I needed light. The spotlight had landed on the button and turned itself off. Pulling my flashlight from a right side pocket with my left hand was awkward, but I didn’t want to switch my gun to my left hand. The second I had it, I clicked the switch and swept the thin beam to my left.
I sagged. Way to go Tiff. I’d walked into an old, slender, spiral iron staircase tight against the west wall, the way up to Gorge’s shop.
I retrieved the spotlight, which fortunately still worked, put the flashlight in my pocket, the Ruger in its holster, but kept the gun’s safety off.
I tested each step as I went up the spiral staircase, aiming the spotlight at them and the ceiling. Loosened by the vibration, tiny specks of rust stuck to my glove and dropped on my hair. At the top, light held tight, I tried pushing the trapdoor with one hand, which did nothing, not a tremor. So I laid the spotlight on the step and tried two hands. The door shifted a fraction, and I mean a fraction.
Okay. This is not gonna work.
The step at the top was more the width of a small landing, making descent from above easier. With some grunting and cussing, I concertinaed till I lay on my back with my knees tucked against my chest. I had to twist and hang half off the step with my head dangling to get the soles of my feet on the trapdoor. Taking in a deep breath, I pushed.
The door heaved up an inch.
Damn. It wasn’t locked, but I bet Gorge put a piece of furniture on top.
I shoved up again, and again, and each time the door went up a fraction but weighed so much I had to let it slam down again.
The edge of the step dug into my spine painfully. My hand hurt from gripping the railing. I took a moment to rest and wipe sweat from my face before it ran in my eyes.
Something was going to give, dammit, either the door or my legs.
I twisted so I could grasp the railings with both hands. Then I put all my energy into power-kicking the trapdoor.
The trapdoor went up and over. It hit with a crash and I nearly slid off the steps.
I rested a moment before getting upright and climbed through the square opening.
Streetlight sent fractured beams through the plate glass windows and into the store’s twilight depths, reflecting off glass display cabinets and old silver, picking out colored metallic threads in upholstery, making them bright as a demon’s hair. Gorge had a lot of clocks on display, from tall, distinguished grandfathers to delicate, inches-high gilt and marble creations. I stood in the middle of the shop, breathing heavily, as they tocked up and down the scale.
The trapdoor was propped on a Georgian oak and gilt armchair fallen on its side.
The place was a maze, one of those stores you’re afraid to walk through lest you knock over and break a valuable objet d’art. My fingers brushed a chaise lounge. I sat here, Gorge’s clocks ticking maddeningly, as I waited for Royal to come downstairs from Gorge’s apartment where they spoke to Lawrence.
I remembered … on that day, I decided to trust two demons.
I left the spotlight on the floor and used the flashlight. With elbows tight to my sides, I eased between furniture and cases to the other end of the room and a heavy velvet curtain on the back wall. Holding it aside revealed the door to Gorge’s apartment.
Which, of course, was locked.
Picking a lock requires two hands. I knelt on the bare board floor, head on an angle, flashlight tucked under my chin, trying to keep the light on the lock as I worked. It opened with a loud clunk which made me momentarily freeze.
An enclosed staircase behind the door led up to a small landing and the entrance to the apartment. I crept up there, though I didn’t expect to encounter anyone. But I had to go through the lock picking thing again when I reached the top.
Finally in the apartment, I shone my flashlight around. The living room looked the same as last time I was here. Antique furnishings, naturally, positioned so daylight from the big bay window would illuminate their finer aspects. The etched glass shade on the ceiling light was Victorian, as were two table lamps adorned with tassels and glass crystals. Two square, slightly worn Oriental rugs placed side by side covered the floor but for a six-inch margin of polished oak board.
A tall oak display cabinet with four glass shelves held objects through the ages, from seventeenth-century snuff boxes and Regency inkwells to nineteenth-century cigarette and cosmetic cases.
I went directly to the book cabinet.
Yep, you got it, another lock. But this baby popped open without a murmur.
Brothers Grimm. Brothers Grimm. Ah, there you are. You’d better be worth it.
I eased the book from its slot and opened randomly to see a page of Gelpha text complete with indents and paragraph divisions. Flipping through, the book seemed to be separated into chapters.
Two more books next it were also written in Gelpha.
The covers were black faux leather, with English titles stenciled in gold letters, but the Gelpha symbols or letters, whatever they were, were hand-inked. Inside, strong black thread in tiny, meticulously spaced stitches sewed the cover together.
Tales of the Brothers Grimm, The Hobbit, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Fairy tales. Bedtime stories.
I sucked on my lower lip. Gorge felt more comfortable reading to Lawrence from a Gelpha book than its English language counterpart, and I could come up with several good reasons for disguising the books.
Maybe this was a dead end.
Mouth twisted, I shook my head. I have a knack for finding clues in apparently unrelated details and information, and I knew this book was significant.
The handwritten paper Lawrence gave me - his handwriting? Could the book help me decipher it?
I moved the books so the gap on the shelf was not obvious, and left the apartment with Brothers Grimm.
I locked the apartment door and the door at the bottom of the stairs, and considered the fallen chair. I heaved the heavy piece up and shifted it so the back legs were next the trapdoor. Would Perry notice? I bet he would. But perhaps he’d think a customer moved it. If he suspected a breakin through the cellar and called the cops, nothing was missing from the shop and I hadn’t left fingerprints.
I zipped the book inside my jacket, collected the spotlight and locked the cellar door before I left. The repositioned chair would be a mystery the manager never solved.
Unless he found Gorge, and Gorge rushed here. Knowing Gorge, he’d check every inch of the shop and his apartment. The missing book would send him on high alert, but he had no reason to suspect I took it.
There again, if Perry found Gorge, it was one less thing I had to worry about.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a book, Mel,” I told her dryly.
Jack’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “You’re not serious.” He flung his hands up. “Why, it is. You’re right! That squarish thing with a cover and writing on it is a book! The depth of your perception astounds me at times. Why, if you - ”
“Okay, Jackson, enough.” I tapped the item in question with two fingers. “I’m thinking.”
“Touchy again, are we?” Mel said from over by the window.
“When is she not?” Jack drifted to my shoulder. “Touchy and thinking. How does she fit thought and emotion together in such a small space? I didn’t think the typical female brain worked that way.”
“Hey, Mister, watch it!” Mel joined Jack. “Another book we won’t get to read, I suppose.”
Distracted, I flipped the book open. “Be my guest.”
