City of Brass

by Edward D. Hoch

  The old woman stirred again in her chair. Her eyes opened and focused on me. “Are you a friend?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “They keep me here. I am alone with my God.”

  “Are you a prisoner?” I asked, and caught a sharp look from Betty.

  “A prisoner, yes. I must go out, into the world, to spread the word of God. She waved her hands with their ghastly wounds.

  “Come,” Betty said, urging me out. “We must leave now. She’s getting excited.”

  There was nothing more I could do. But I knew that Simon Ark would be most interested in this strange woman with the wounds of Christ on her body. I followed Betty out of the room, and we drove back to Baine City in tight-lipped concentration. Very possibly Betty was beginning to regret her action in showing off the family secret …

  Surprisingly enough, Simon Ark was sitting in my hotel room, staring at the city. He turned as I entered and smiled a greeting. “My friend, the pieces of the puzzle are now complete.”

  “That’s what you think, Simon. I’ve got a whole new bag of puzzles—enough to baffle even you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Did you learn anything about Professor Wilber?”

  He nodded. “I learned the nature of his experiments.”

  “So did I.”

  This seemed to surprise him. “About the animals?”

  “Animals? No, this is something else.” And I quickly told him about my visit to the country house of Mrs. Baine.

  When I’d finished I saw that he was profoundly moved by the events I’d narrated. “You actually saw the markings on her hands?” he asked. “There was no trickery with the lighting?”

  “They were there,” I insisted. “What point would they have in faking it? No one ever sees her.”

  “Stigmata is rare, almost unheard of in this country,” he mused. “And yet—perhaps …”

  “What about the animals, Simon? What did you learn?”

  “That can wait,” he said. “We have much to do before morning.”

  “I’m tired.”

  “There will be time to rest later. Right now—we may still be in time to prevent another murder …”

  Then we were in Professor Kane Wilber’s laboratory once again, with the afternoon sunlight filtering through high windows. He’d been surprised to see us again, and now he was cautious—a man at bay, backed against one of his own monkey cages.

  “What is it this time, gentlemen?” he asked.

  “You work long hours on a holiday,” Simon observed.

  “There is much to do.”

  “With the animals?”

  He looked away. “That and other things.”

  “We know about old Mrs. Baine, Professor,” Simon said quietly.

  “You do?” He made no effort to hide his surprise.

  “What we want from you now is an account of these experiments we’re told you carried out.”

  He was still on the defensive but he’d advanced from the cages now. “That information you’ll have to get from Foster Baine. I can tell you nothing.”

  “You can tell us nothing about Cathy Clark, either?”

  “Nothing.”

  Simon moved a step closer, until he towered over the man. “You know much about this matter, Professor. You are too deeply involved.”

  But Wilber only shrugged. “I can say nothing.”

  “Very well,” Simon said. “Perhaps then I must release to the newspapers the information about the exact nature of your experiments with those apes.”

  Wilber’s eyes narrowed. “You’re bluffing.”

  “Am I? Should I mention the name of Mirza Ali Akbar to you?”

  Whatever the name meant, it had its effect on Wilber. He seemed to shrink a bit inside. “Very well,” he said. “What do you wish to know about Mrs. Baine?”

  “Is she really a stigmatic?”

  Professor Wilber shrugged. “I have discovered no other explanation. They called me in some time ago to investigate the thing, but of course it’s a bit out of my field. I do know that she bears strange wound-like markings on her hands, feet and side. And she apparently needs no food or liquid nourishment to live. I have conducted careful searches of her room for any hiding places where food might be kept, but I have found nothing. It would appear to be a supernatural thing, from start to finish.”

  Simon Ark was growing more interested by the minute, and I figured he’d already forgotten the Cathy Clark case and his promise to Quinn to reveal the murderer in the morning. Now he was filled with an excitement I’d rarely seen before, and as quickly as we’d arrived he was ready to depart.

  “We will meet again, Professor,” Simon told him. “Until later, thank you.”

  I followed him out and across the campus to where we’d parked the rented car. “What was that name you scared him with, Simon? And why didn’t you ask him some meaty questions while you had him on the run? Why didn’t you ask him what he was doing running his fingers through Cathy Clark’s hair?”

  “There was no need of that last question, my friend. I already know the answer.”

  “Great!” He might know but I surely didn’t. “So now what?”

  “Now you take me to the house of Mrs. Baine.”

  “The old lady? Nothing doing! Besides, that Gerta dame would never let us in alone anyway.”

  “There are two ways of getting by her.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve never seen her. Besides, you won’t get a thing out of the old lady. I tried.”

  “Still …”

  We’d just reached the car when we saw the flashing red of a police vehicle heading toward us. “Now what?” I muttered. The squad car pulled up ten feet away and Sergeant Quinn climbed out. His face was grim and there was no humor in his eyes.

  “One of my cars said you were up here,” he said. “You’d better come along with me.”

  His eyes were on me, not Simon, and I asked him what it was all about.

  “You were with Betty Baine this afternoon?”

  “For a short time, yes,” I admitted.

  “Well,” he said, “she’s disappeared. And you’re the last person seen with her.”

  “Disappeared? That’s crazy!”.

  “Sure it is,” Quinn agreed. “But she’s Foster Baine’s wife, and if she doesn’t turn up right quick you’ve really had it, man …”

  Baine City, twilight, July Fourth. Monday madness, quiet groups standing in the street corner, the word spreading from one to the other. Mrs. Baine missing. Mrs. Baine kidnapped.

  Mrs. Baine raped and murdered?

  In a ditch somewhere?

  A city alive, a city with a small town mentality, alive now with the scent of sensation. Betty Baine, the social leader, the woman in the cream convertible. Gone now, in trouble. No longer to be envied but only prayed for.

  Past the funeral home where I could see Jean Clark Mahon standing by the curtained window, past the hotel, to the familiar police station with Quinn.

  “Where do the boys go in the evening?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  “The boys with the fireworks. I haven’t heard one in hours.”

  “All out, I guess,” Quinn answered absently. “Against the law, you know.”

  From the window of his office I could still see Baine Brass, where the second shift would be working now. I wondered if the word had reached them yet, at their machines. Probably.

  “… found her car, the white convert, in a ditch on the way back to the cottage. When did you leave her?”

  “She dropped me at the hotel maybe two hours ago.”

  “Where were you with her?”

  “For a drive.”

  “In the country? You were seen on the East Road.”

  “So what?”

  “You went there for a little loving? Foster Baine thinks you knew his wife before.”

  “I knew her. When I was in college. Is there a law against that?”

  “There’s a law against kidna
pping.”

  “Go to hell.”

  Quinn had been silent through much of the questioning, interjecting only an occasional comment. Now he came forward and pulled up a chair facing me. “Man, you’re in bad trouble, don’t you realize that?”

  “Ask Simon Ark. I was with him all the time.”

  “You lie and he swears to it. Where did you and Mrs. Baine go this afternoon?”

  “Get Foster Baine in here and I’ll tell him. I can’t tell anyone else.”

  Quinn slapped his knee. “By God, we’ll do just that.”

  He went off somewhere and I looked around the bleak office for some sign of Simon. But he was gone, perhaps to one of the other offices. The cop who’d been questioning me offered a cigarette. “Get up and stretch your legs,” he said, sounding friendly enough.

  “Thanks.”

  Outside the grimy station window the night was gathering its forces. What had they called it during the Middle Ages—the Blind Man’s Holiday? The period of day just before the candles were lit? And even as I watched, the lights of Baine City were going on, in silent response to some far-off electrical impulse. Their yellow glow fell on people, standing, talking, waiting. It was a big night in Baine City. Their queen had disappeared.

  “Queens have died young and fair,” I quoted, half to myself.

  “What?” the detective asked.

  “Thomas Nash. A quotation.”

  “Oh.”

  “You think she’s dead?”

  The detective looked up quickly. “Who?”

  “Betty Baine.”

  “Mrs. Baine? No—her kind lives forever. They’ll find her, unless you did something to her yourself.”

  I grunted and turned back to the window. A car full of curious teenagers went by and I was reminded of Zenny.

  Zenny!

  Of course! The half-veiled threat to get Mrs. Baine. He’d said something like that, just the night before. There was no reason, only madness, but perhaps people like Zenny didn’t need a reason.

  Quinn came back into the room, with Simon Ark behind him. “You two sure got your stories down pat,” he grumbled. “Maybe too pat.”

  I ignored him. “Simon, remember when Zenny forced us off the road last night? Didn’t he say something about Mrs. Baine?”

  Quinn looked surprised. “Zenny?”

  “Zenny,” Simon Ark repeated slowly. “Do you know where he can be found, Sergeant Quinn?”

  Quinn scratched his head. “Cathy Clark’s old friend, huh? I figured this would all tie in together.”

  “Where can we find him?”

  “Should I believe you guys?”

  Simon sighed. “You must believe somebody, someday, Sergeant.”

  “OK,” he decided, “let’s go—but no tricks. Joe, bring up a squad car in front and clear some of those people away. We don’t want an audience …”

  Screaming through the night, screaming silently so our siren would not give us away. Quinn and Simon and another and I. Through the black bright dark of Baine City.

  “The funeral’s tomorrow, tomorrow at nine.”

  “Better to be hers than mine.”

  “Better …”

  Around a corner, bright headlights picking out the sights and sounds of a sleeping city. Cathy Clark’s neighborhood. Where the Cathys prowled, through black alleys, searching searching. Zenny, here Zenny, come quickly and quietly. Simon tense at my side, Quinn intent on the twin beamed targets.

  “See Zenny?”

  “Not a sign.”

  “Keep driving.”

  “Zenny?”

  “Zenny?”

  “No Zenny.”

  Then—“There, it’s his girl, Bun!” Quinn barked an order and the car rolled to a stop. “Bun, where’s Zenny?”

  “Don’t know.” A summer night’s dream in tight red shorts, very short. Ready to take on the toughest of the boys.

  “You’d better tell us, Bun. He’s in big trouble.”

  “Big.”

  And Simon gazed up at the antique buildings around us. Brick apartment houses topped with a Bronx-like forest of TV antennas. Babes in the woods.

  “Where?”

  “Don’t know.”

  People, crowds gathering even here. People all the damned people in the world staring at me here and there and everywhere and.

  “He snatched Mrs. Baine, didn’t he, Bun?”

  She shifted her bare legs, showing off the round smooth buttock cloth of her shorts. “Don’t know a thing.”

  “Take her,” Quinn said. And into the car with us, in the rear seat between Simon and me, with her hot bare legs pressing against my pants. And on further, slowly now, deeper into the night that was like some long dark cave.

  A jazz joint, shouting its praise to the world. Brassily announcing that life was eager and gay. The corner drugstore because there always was one. The neoned bar with the red sign flickering for lack of money. Tired, like its people.

  “That’s his car,” I spotted. “Parked there.”

  She went for my eyes, twisting and scratching like a wildcat. Simon was on her, pulling her away, muffling the scream of warning already forming in her throat.

  “This is it,” Quinn said. “Hold her down.”

  “Take the riot gun, Sergeant.”

  “Hell, man, that’s Baine’s wife. No guns.”

  Up the stairs, Quinn, Simon, me, with the other detective hanging fast to Bun. “Which apartment, Bun?”

  “You figure it, copper!”

  Quinn figured it. “Let her go,”

  “What?”

  “Let her go.”

  She broke free, looking up and down like a trapped tiger as her mind tried to comprehend, the snarl of the trap. To warn him or not? To run with him or without. Quinn had guessed right—she headed up.

  “Zenny, they’re here—run for it!”

  And like a crazy fool he threw open the door to see what the yelling was about. He had a six-inch switch-blade and Quinn had nothing, but the detective took him with one quick blow to the neck. He toppled like a hundred-year-old tree.

  “You killed him,” she sobbed.

  “No such luck.”

  Inside was a dull and dusty mess of confusion. The unmade bed and dirty dishes told their own story, but there was no sign of Betty Baine. “Struck out,” Quinn murmured.

  “Third base,” I said, pointing to a scattered handbag open in one corner of the room. Simon was already going through the connecting door to the next apartment.

  And there she was, tied to a wooden kitchen chair with her skirt pulled up to her hips and her stockings shredded with runs. Quinn undid the gag and tried to sound sorry. “Are you all right, Mrs. Baine?”

  She made a sour face and worked her jaw to loosen it. “I guess so,” she answered, “but it’s been one heck of a holiday …”

  Quinn’s office at ten-thirty that night was crowded to overflowing. The mayor himself was there, expressing the city’s concern and sorrow to Foster Baine. Quinn was there, and a handcuffed Zenny, and a sobbing Bun, along with Simon Ark and myself, and the center of all the attention, Betty Baine.

  “Get this guy out of here,” Quinn ordered, indicating Zenny. “I’ll take care of him later.”

  Foster Baine had his arm around Betty’s shoulder, comforting her, and Simon Ark was standing quietly in one corner, as if trying to pass unnoticed. As soon as Zenny and the girl Bun had been led away, Quinn went over to Mr. and Mrs. Baine.

  “Did he … say anything at all when he forced your car off the road, Mrs. Baine? Anything as to why he might have done it?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered thoughtfully. “I got the awful impression he was doing it to get back at Foster somehow. He said something about Foster trying to frame him for the Cathy Clark murder.”

  Quinn sighed deeply. “It all leads back to that, doesn’t it?”

  And that was when Simon Ark stepped from his corner. “If you would allow me the interruption, I could name for y
ou the killer of that girl.”

  “Then you really do know?” Quinn asked, half doubting still.

  “I believe so.”

  “Then name ahead.”

  But—“No!” It was the firm voice of Foster Baine, speaking up over the hush of expectant breath. Quinn turned questioningly toward Baine, but he didn’t have to ask him the reason for the outburst. Baine was all too willing to continue. “This … this whole thing is closing about me like a web. First some young punk kidnaps my wife and now this mental wizard here is going to try to implicate me in a girl’s murder.”

  But Simon held up a peaceful palm. “Not at all, my friend. I intend only to implicate the guilty.”

  “You’re implicating Professor Wilber, aren’t you? That’s as bad as me. It’s almost the same thing.”

  I thought I saw the dark shadow of Foster Baine’s mother pass across his face as he spoke, and Simon must have had the same feeling. He said, “It is the country house you really fear, is it not, Mr. Baine? And its occupant?”

  If the words surprised him he didn’t show it. “That does not even enter into the discussion,” he answered coldly.

  “Ah, but it does, my friend,” Simon insisted. “At times the ways of the gods are indeed strange. Take me there this night, let me spend a few lonely hours with your mother, and perhaps I can help this too.”

  “No one can help this too. Not the priest nor the policeman.”

  “We shall see.”

  “No one,” Baine repeated.

  Quinn interrupted with a puzzled voice. “Your mother’s still alive, Mr. Baine? I thought …”

  And then Betty spoke. “Heavens, Foster—it had to come out someday. Let this man see her. Perhaps he can help.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps! You’re sounding like him now! And what were you doing driving with this other one this afternoon.” His finger jabbed accusingly at me.

  “If you must know, I took him out there to see her.”

  It was the last blow to an already crumbling Foster Baine. “You took him out …?”

  “They have to know, Foster. It’s time everybody knew!”

  He wiped his forehead with a damp handkerchief. “Why? Why is it time? She’ll be dead and gone in a few years. So little time …”