Book of Secrets

by Chris Roberson

  I met O'Connor's eye and didn't look away, but saved the quips and comebacks bubbling up for another time. For some reason, they didn't seem appropriate. I hefted the cardboard box under one arm and the wooden case under the other. Without another word, the old lawyer turned away and walked back to his desk.

  I headed for the door, the sharp edge of the wooden case cutting into my side, the dust off the ancient cardboard box drifting up and into my nose and eyes. When O'Connor spoke, my eyes were watering.

  "It was the damnedest thing, Spencer, and I never knew just why, but that old man loved you."

  I didn't turn around, didn't say anything, just kept walking out the door.

  I decided to put in some time in a bar after all, but even after making friends with a half-dozen screwdrivers managed not only to remember my appointment, but to get there on time. Talitha was still up in the office when I arrived, with the case notes ready to go.

  Great, I thought, another cardboard box.

  I had expected to go over Stiles's notes there in the office, but instead Talitha just handed it to me.

  "Go on," she said, "you take them. They're not doing anyone any good here."

  "Are you worried that if somebody went after Stiles, they might come after you too?"

  "Not with that shit out of here, they won't," she answered. "Besides, I'm not going to stick around long enough to find out. This is my last day on the job, and then I'm leaving town."

  "Another job?"

  "Eventually, but right now I think it's a good time to take a vacation." She smiled at me, and leaned on the desk in a way that made me think of a mechanic's wall calendar.

  "Not a bad idea." I peeled open the top of the box and began rummaging inside. There was a large stack of black-and-white and color photos, handwritten pages by the dozen, and a large sheet of paper, yellowed with age and sealed in an enormous Ziploc bag. This last I held up, looking at it in the light. It was covered front and back with tiny little characters, in what might have been Hebrew, or maybe Arabic.

  "What's this?" I asked.

  "Not sure," Talitha answered, "and neither was David. He said he copped it from Pierce's place when the old cracker wasn't looking. It had fallen under a desk or table or something… it's all there in his notes."

  "Why did he take it? Was it a clue?"

  "A clue?" Talitha snorted. "What are you, Encyclopedia Brown? Evidence, honey, ev-i-dence. That's what it is. From the way it was laying there, David figured it must have been part of whatever got swiped, so he figured he'd have a closer look."

  "He find out what it was?"

  "Nah, didn't have a chance."

  I dropped the plastic bag back into the cardboard box, and sealed it up again. I picked up the box again, and started slowly towards the door.

  "Thanks for all this, Ms. Cummings," I began. "If there's anything I can ever do for you…"

  "Not so fast, baby," she interrupted, grabbing her purse. "I'm not helping you just because you're so cute. You owe me a dinner."

  She breezed past me into the hallway.

  "I am not," she called back, "I repeat, not above taking a bribe."

  We ate at the most expensive Italian restaurant Talitha could think of, and once we'd both had enough wine the atmosphere of the evening was like a fair first date. Talitha told me more about herself, and I was loose enough to tell her a little about me. I told her about the times I ran away from home, and about my three years as a cat burglar, subjects I rarely get into with strangers. Still, she seemed sympathetic, and maybe a little impressed, so I went on longer and farther than I normally would have. I could tell she didn't exactly believe me when I told her about breaking into the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, so I let the conversation drift in other directions.

  When we were done and the check paid, I drove her back to her place. I let her invitation to come upstairs fly right past, knowing that she didn't really mean it, even if she thought she did. It would only complicate what had been a pretty good night. I left her on the curb, and pulled away into the night.

  It was too late to head back to Austin, much less go anywhere else, so I found a cheap motel on the interstate and checked in for the night. I pulled the box of Stiles's notes out of the trunk, and in a moment of drunken curiosity pulled the top stack of papers and magazines out of my grandfather's box as well. My bag over my shoulder and a pack of cigarettes in each of my pockets, I staggered up to my room and inside.

  In the room, decorated in early denim, I lay on the vibrating bed and gave the photographs Stiles had taken of the Pierce home a cursory inspection. Wide shots of the yard, endless views of the interior rooms, tight close-ups of the motion detectors and infrared webs that had been disabled during the break in. Then pages and pages of notes in a scrawl only slightly more legible than my own, detailing Stiles's theories on how the burglar entered the grounds, crossed to the house, got inside, and on and on and on. The sheet in the Ziploc bag was last, and made no more sense to me than it had before. I left them all piled up on the other side of the bed and spent a while staring up at the acoustic ceiling tiles. By the time the timer in the vibrating bed ran out, I was starting to sober up, and climbed off the bed to find something else to entertain me.

  The television in the room only picked up four stations, and with only two infomercials, Sheriff Lobo and a Chevy Chase movie to pick from, didn't take up too much of my time. I lit a cigarette and sat down on the edge of the bed, the stack from my grandfather's box in my hand. There were a few typewritten pages I couldn't quite get the meaning of, genealogies or timelines or some such, and a couple of magazines. The one on top was one of the pulp magazines I remembered seeing in my grandfather's study all those years before. The Black Hand Mysteries. With nothing better to do, I dragged an ashtray onto the bed and started to read.

  "The Talon's Curse"

  by Walter Reece

  (originally appeared in the

  September, 1939 issue of

  The Black Hand Mysteries)

  1

  The blood-curdling scream tearing across the night air told Richmond Taylor one of two things: someone had just been killed, or someone was about to be. He didn't care for either option.

  Coming up the stairs to the Carousel Club, the rooftop restaurant that had become the toast of the San Francisco social scene, Taylor tore through the crowds towards the source of the scream. Louise Aldridge, his Gal Friday and companion for the night, still hung on his arm, rushing alongside him with bated breath. Louise knew well Taylor's course in the face of danger.

  The last of the crowd parted seeing Taylor approach. The wealthy financier was well known in upper crust social circles, and generally thought something of a fop, but his steely gaze and his whipcord muscles flexing like steel bands beneath the dark fabric of his suit would brook no delay.

  There, on the tiled floor, lay the battered body of a young girl. She lay face up, an expression of terror frozen on her cold face, black blood encrusted round her lips. Where her heart should have been, where the beat of her young life once sounded like a small bird's wings, there was only a gaping chasm, a gory tunnel to the floor below. Taylor straightened himself, fixing his gaze on the inert body on the floor. Rush as he might, he would have arrived too late to save this girl. She had been dead for hours.

  Next came the sound of shouts, and a gruff voice raising above the rest, calling for order. Taylor knew the voice well. It belonged to Detective Chalmers, pride of the San Francisco Police Department.

  "Get outta my way, you blood-thirsty rubber neckers," he called again, shoving his way through the crowd. "Lemme do my job."

  At a sign from Taylor, Louise slid her arm from under his and blended back into the crowd. She understood her duty at such a time: to canvas the onlookers nonchalantly, discovering what she could. Her report would aid Taylor in ferreting out the truth, and she cherished her responsibility. Of all Taylor's agents, only she knew the secret of his other life.

  With Lou
ise gone, Taylor made his way across the crowd to a man he'd noted on his entrance. They had been climbing the stairs together, and when the waitress who had discovered the body had screamed, this man had been the only one not to hurry to the scene to investigate. Taylor had recognized him as Peter Matthews, black sheep son of a wealthy shipping magnate.

  Sidling up to Matthews, Taylor watched as Detective Chalmers surveyed the scene, and began questioning the witnesses. Taylor, feigning horror and a weak stomach, addressed Matthews.

  "Terrible business," he began, only a trace of the Texas twang he had inherited along with a fortune from his father sounding in his level voice. "What could possess someone to do such a thing?"

  "I wouldn't know," Matthews answered evenly, his gaze darting to Taylor. "I've only just arrived."

  "Not the sort of thing you expect to see at such a place," Taylor commented, eyeing the other man.

  "Oh?" Matthews answered coolly. "And where would you expect to see such a thing?" Abruptly he turned on his heel, and stalked away. Taylor watched him as he went, deep in thought.

  When the police had finished their interviews, and the body had been carried out under a sheet, Taylor and Louise met on the stairs. Taylor produced a pair of cigarettes, and lit one for each of them with a silver-plated lighter, engraved with the emblem of an outstretched hand.

  "Well, Miss Aldridge," he finally spoke, loud enough for passersby to hear, the smoke curling about his head, "I see little reason to remain. I'll walk you home."

  They descended the stairs and went out into the dark street. Walking down the sidewalk, arm in arm, they looked the picture of the loving couple. But it was not endearments they whispered to one another. They spoke of crime.

  "Miss Aldridge," Taylor said, his voice low, "your report."

  Louise began simply, stating what she had learned from memory. "The hallway had been empty when the waitress last passed through it. It leads from the main dining room to a storage area. The storage area is visited throughout the night, waitresses and busboys going back and forth to get glasses, linens, and such. But sometimes half an hour can pass without anyone going that way. The waitress had been the last one to walk it, twenty minutes before, but when she went back, she found…" Despite herself, Louise found her voice breaking. She paused, trembling.

  "She found the body," Taylor said, completing the thought.

  "Yes," Louise answered.

  "And beside the main entrance, is there any other access to that hallway?"

  "Near the storeroom there's a freight elevator," she replied. "It stops on each floor, but is unmanned at this hour. It opens on the loading dock at the ground level."

  "Likewise unmanned," Taylor commented.

  "Yes."

  Taylor quickened his pace, and Louise hurried to keep up.

  "Then," Taylor concluded, "anyone might quite easily have taken the body up the elevator, left by the same route, and escaped detection."

  "But why?" Louise asked. "Why leave the body there?"

  "That, Miss Aldridge, we will not know until the body is identified. Only then can we begin to answer such questions."

  Arriving at Louise's walkup in the North Beach, Taylor bid her a good night, saying he would see her the next morning at the office. Out of habit, Taylor waited in the street below until he saw the light in Louise's window go on. She was his most trusted aide, and he was always very protective.

  As he was about to turn, and move on, he caught sight of a dark figure, prowling about the side of Louise's building. He thought it a vagrant, seeking a warm place to sleep, until the figure stepped into the light, and he saw his features were disguised with a hood. Then the moonlight glinted off the steel of the pistol in the figure's hand, and Taylor knew it was no vagrant.

  Taylor, keeping his eyes fixed on the mysterious figure, stepped into the shadows of a doorway. Pulling on black leather gloves, and rolling down a close-fitting mask of black fabric from inside the brim of his fedora, he stepped back into the light. No longer Richmond Taylor, wealthy financier and gadabout, he now stood tall as that dark mystery of the night, that scourge of terror and nemesis to all evildoers: The Black Hand!

  2

  Stealthily slipping across the cold concrete, The Black Hand crept up behind the dark figure. As the figure mounted a trellis on the side of the building, intending to climb, The Black Hand rushed him. His own swift hand swept through the night air, knocking the pistol from the figure's grasp before he knew the attack was on him. The hooded man fell to the ground, cursing, and rolled away out of the Black Hand's reach.

  "Who are you?" the Black Hand hissed though the fabric of his mask. "What evil do you work here?"

  The hooded man rose to his feet, unsteady, and before the Black Hand could move flung himself at him. The pair fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs, each striking out at the other. The hooded man got to his feet an instant before the Black Hand, and raced off into the night. The Black Hand flew after him, his feet sounding like gunshot against the pavement.

  Across North Beach they raced, over Telegraph Hill and down to the docks, the hooded man always just out of the Black Hand's reach. Behind his mask, Taylor cursed himself for going out into the night without his twin .45s. It was a mistake he vowed never to make again.

  Their pursuit had gone unnoticed, through deserted and empty streets, but at the Embarcadero the hooded man raced in front of a truck, bearing its cargo through the night. He made it past the truck only by inches, and the Black Hand found his path blocked until the mammoth vehicle had passed. By the time he himself had crossed the thoroughfare, the hooded man was nowhere in sight. He had vanished into the night air like mist, blending into the foggy sky.

  On the other side, the Black Hand found only the empty piers, and the silent warehouses that lined them up and down. The hooded man must have gained entrance to one, and there hid in darkness. The Black Hand spent the better part of an hour, searching the perimeter first of one warehouse, then the next, but could find no sign of forced entry. Finally, he gave up the chase, and, returning his mask to its place, hidden under the crown of his hat, he made his way back over the hill, now simple Richmond Taylor again.

  He came at last to Louise's door. Her light still burned overhead, and Taylor wanted to warn her against danger. Some unknown stalker had sought to do her harm, and might do again. Letting himself in the main door with his skeleton key, he climbed the stairs to her door. He knocked, and knocked again, and no answer. Finally, fearing the worse, he tried the door, only to find it unlocked. Pushing it open, he cautiously entered the apartment.

  The furniture lay in disarray, strewn about the floor, and broken dishes and lamps were spread all over. Louise was nowhere to be found. Pinned to the inside of the door, with a steel hook, was a notice, hastily scrawled in red ink.

  "Louise Aldridge is with me. If Mr. Taylor wants her return, it will cost him. I will contact with details."

  Taylor ripped the note from the door and read it over. It was signed, "THE TALON." He crumpled the note in his gloved hand. Louise Aldridge was in grave danger, and there was work for the Black Hand to do!

  3

  Taylor hurried through the foyer of police headquarters, speeding to his appointment with Detective Chalmers. Though as the Black Hand he was wanted dead by criminals and imprisoned by the police, as Richmond Taylor he was a valuable member of the community, and the authorities were happy to rush to his aid.

  On his way through the squad room, Taylor narrowly avoided colliding with Officer Joe Martenson. Martenson, a simple beat cop with an honest heart and a hatred of crime, was one of the Black Hand's trusted subordinates. But unlike Louise Aldridge, he knew nothing of the identity of the man he aided, and had never met Richmond Taylor. Taylor almost forgot himself and addressed Martenson by name. Instead, he excused himself and hurried by.

  The night before he'd called Martenson from Louise's apartment, telling him only that the Black Hand had a use for him. He'd given Martenso
n Louise's address, and told him to hurry. Then Taylor had returned to his home on Nob Hill, and awaited the police's call. When the call came, he feigned shock. Someone kidnap his trusted assistant? The horror.

  Now, the next morning, Taylor was to meet with the officer in charge of the investigation, and would learn the particulars of the case. He was eager to learn all he could. Little did the police realize that by talking to Taylor, they were aiding the mysterious Black Hand!

  When all had gathered in Chalmers' office, Taylor surveyed their faces. Besides himself and the Detective, there was Police Lieutenant Jones, the Chief of Police James Carroway, and millionaire industrialist Reginald Dupree. Taylor eyed this last longest.

  Dupree was dressed in an expensively tailored gray suit, with a silver pin on his lapel, showing a four-armed spiral enclosed in a circular band. Though distressed, the man had an undeniable look of self-satisfaction about him, as though he considered the others in the room beneath him. Since the beginning of the Depression ten years before, few fortunes had escaped entirely unscathed, and those that had were usually comprised of some dirty money. There were rumors about Dupree's practices, rumors of ill-advised associations.