City of Iron

by Williamson, Chet

  "My God," he said. "Peder did all this? It's . . . it's impossible."

  "Why?" Joseph said.

  "Well, it's . . . too much! I mean, in size and scope, this is more than a year's worth of work—and that would be with me helping him. He couldn't have done this by himself in just a few months."

  "Do you know anyone else," Laika asked, "who could have helped him with this?"

  Guaraldi shook his head. "No, I don't think so. The only people he was seeing were those goths, but. . . ."

  "Forget them," Tony said. "I talked to them last night, and they didn't know anything about this place."

  Guaraldi's eyes took in the massive structure, the metal staircases, the pipes tossed helter-skelter by whatever force had torn them from the mass. "I just don't see how . . ." he began, then sank into silence. After a long moment, he spoke again. "I can hardly believe that this is Peder's work. I don't mean just the size of it, but the . . . the aesthetic. I knew him better than anyone else, and I can't conceive that he was capable of something so. . . ." He searched for the word.

  "Monstrous?" Laika offered.

  Guaraldi nodded thoughtfully. "Monstrous, yes . . . but fascinating as well. It draws you in even as it repels you. Like a dark maze you're afraid to lose yourself in, but that you can't keep from entering. I can't help but feel that somewhere in this . . . gigantic chaos may be the answer to what happened to Peder."

  "I was thinking the same thing," said Laika. "This seems to be our only clue. But we can't really know what it means until we see it as it was intended to be. Do you think it would be possible to reconstruct it? From the plans?"

  "That might not be necessary," Joseph said. "We could do it virtually, on a computer. Did Holberg ever do any plans on his computer?"

  "No. He tried, but it just didn't work. He called it soulless and just played games on it."

  "If you could interpret these plans for me," Joseph told Guaraldi, "I could possibly reconstruct the statue in a CAD program. Just take it step by step."

  Guaraldi shook his head. "I don't think I could do that. This isn't as methodical as it appears. I don't want to sound too precious, but the plans alone aren't enough—this would take the eye of an artist. It's not a matter of mechanics as much as it is organic. Besides, you can't really know what one sheet of plans signifies until you've done the necessary construction on the previous one. I could never make all of this . . . coalesce with just lines on a screen."

  Laika didn't understand everything Guaraldi had just said, but she knew it meant no. She took a deep breath. "Do you think you could reassemble it physically, then? With the plans, could you reconnect the pieces that were . . ." She was about to say "blown off," but didn't. ". . . That were detached? With our help?"

  Guaraldi walked closer to the structure and ran his hand along the rusting iron. "I think so . . . it would take some time, some trial-and-error, but I think so." He looked at his fingertips where the red rust clung, then at the iron he had exposed. "The rust has eaten into the metal," he said. "It's even red underneath." Then he whirled about and looked at them, his face stirred and angry. "I can do it. It looks as though only a third or less of the whole is compromised. If Peder did the whole thing alone in a few months, I can do the same with some help."

  "I thought you said it was impossible," Tony said.

  "I know I did. But I don't think I reckoned with, what would you call it, the drive. Peder was driven to do this—by what, I don't know. But I do know what drives me to repair it, and that's finding out what happened to him. And if maybe the way to do that is to finish this work, then I can work that way, too." Guaraldi looked at the highest spot on the structure. "Like a man possessed."

  The first thing Guaraldi needed to do was to get the plans in a rough approximation of the proper order. Laika suggested that he might more comfortably do that back in his apartment, but Guaraldi said that it would be easier if he could see the structure itself and how the pieces fit together.

  So he set up shop on the large table at the far end of the warehouse, while Laika, Joseph, and Tony planned their next step.

  "We need to relocate here," Joseph said. "This is going to take months."

  "Agreed," said Laika. "We'll have to get some more computers out here, have fiber-optic lines put in, order desks."

  "I'll take care of all that," said Tony. "Maybe a mini-fridge and microwave." There were bathrooms off the anteroom, along with running water, as well as showers.

  "You know, though," Joseph said, "although it seemed fairly cavalier last night, I really don't want to pay those kids two-fifty a day for a few months just to park the car."

  Laika grinned. "I'll talk to them, maybe work out a long-term lease. Someone should be here with Guaraldi at all times, though. I don't want to leave him alone out here."

  "But if the place is locked up," Joseph said, shrugging.

  Laika looked at where the unseen force had torn the structure apart. "I'm not as much concerned with what's outside as with what may be inside."

  "Invisible force, huh?" Joseph said with a curl of his lip. "Can you explain it? And can you convince me that nothing like it will happen again in here?"

  The sneer disappeared. "No."

  "Then we protect him. Okay, let's get started making this place livable."

  They spent the rest of the day organizing. Laika figured that the ideal cover would be to have most residents think the mob was setting up a drug factory, a scenario that assured they wouldn't be bothered, and the others agreed.

  Tony called in their requirements from his cell phone, and by late afternoon most of the equipment they needed had been delivered by Company vans, all of which bore the names of Italian businesses on their sides. Although a few kids walked by, nobody bothered to watch or to ask what was going on. You didn't do that in this neighborhood if you wanted to stay healthy.

  In the afternoon, Joseph took the car to get some of the things he would need that evening at Melton's townhouses, while the other two continued to assemble their new office and Guaraldi kept trying to make sense of Peder Holberg's manic blueprints. Laika watched the man from the corner of her eye as he feverishly flipped through the large papers, then leapt up with several sheets in his hand, walked around to a certain vantage point, intently stared at a junction of pipes, then at the papers, and ran back to the table to resume his work of getting the plans in order.

  They ate take-out at both lunch and dinner, but Guaraldi was concentrating so on the work at hand that he let his sandwich sit and go dry at lunch, and at dinnertime merely waved a hand when asked what he wanted. At Laika's insistence he ate a few bites of the soup and egg roll she had gotten for him, but he was immediately back at the papers again.

  Elissa Meyer had set the time for the evening's ghostly meeting at eleven o'clock, so at ten, Laika and Joseph got into the car and headed back to the city. Tony remained at the warehouse with Adam Guaraldi, who showed just enough signs of tiring that Tony was able to talk him into taking a break.

  They sat on a worn sofa in the anteroom. Guaraldi sipped a Coke while Tony had another cup of coffee. "This is how I get my caffeine fix now," Guaraldi said with a smile. "Peder hated coffee, couldn't even stand the smell of it. 'Burnt leather,' he always said." Guaraldi chuckled as Tony took a sniff of the steaming mug he held.

  "In this case, he wouldn't be far off the mark," Tony said. "Chinese places aren't known for their coffee." He smiled at Guaraldi, then looked back down at the black surface of the coffee. Tony was uncomfortable with gay men. It was all right when there were other people around, but when he was alone, he never knew what to do or say.

  "You okay?" Guaraldi asked. Despite the chill of the warehouse, his chest and arms were glistening with sweat.

  "Yeah, sure," Tony said, looking up as though surprised at the question.

  "You seem kind of 'out there.' Of course, I don't know many scientists. Maybe they all act kind of 'out there.'"

  "Sorry."

  "No probl
em. Or maybe you're just straight."

  "What?" Oh shit, was the guy coming on to him?

  "Ah, I can tell straight guys, they're always edgy when they're alone with people like me. Don't wanta be too friendly because they don't want me to think they're making a move on me, and they don't want to be too unfriendly, because they don't—"

  "They don't wanta be a jerk." Tony nodded. "You got me. Ever do any profiling?"

  Guaraldi gave a little smile and shook his head. Then he raised an eyebrow. "Straight."

  "As an arrow."

  "Well, relax, you're not my type," Guaraldi said seriously.

  "I'm Italian, too."

  Tony didn't mind flirting when he knew it was safe, but Guaraldi didn't crack a grin. He just shook his head and said, "I'm a one-man man." He got off the sofa, walked to the door, and looked toward the sculpture. "But I can't find him."

  "We will."

  "You mean that, Doctor?" Guaraldi looked back hopefully.

  "Yeah, I mean that. And forget the Doctor stuff. Call me . . ." He had to think for a minute. ". . . Vince."

  "Okay, Vince. Well, I've got a few more hours in me, I think."

  There was a knock on the door, and Tony was up in an instant and looking through the peephole he had installed earlier that day. "It's just the car," he said. "I had another one brought out in case you want to leave before the others come back from the city."

  When he opened the door, a young, nervous agent handed him the car keys without a word, then got into the passenger side of a second car and was driven away. Tony saw several young men across the parking lot start to move toward the warehouse.

  "I'll be right back, Adam," he said.

  "Where you going?"

  "Dr. Kelly asked me to take care of the, uh, parking attendants. Try and negotiate a long-term deal." He stepped through the doorway, locking it behind him, and waited for the boys who were growing nearer, their shoulders hunched, menace in their strides.

  Tony smiled. He could handle these negotiations. Easily.

  Chapter 27

  "So what did you buy?" Laika asked, as she and Joseph drove south toward Manhattan.

  "Simple things. Tape measure, stud finder, crowbar, hammer, mirror, thermometer, couple of Coleman lanterns, the usual ghost-hunting equipment."

  "No holy water?"

  "Never drink it."

  They arrived at the townhouses at 10:45 to find Clarence Melton's limousine parked in front of the third house. Melton and Dennis Tweed were there waiting for them. "Miss Meyer hasn't arrived yet," said Melton, "but we can go in if you like."

  "That would be fine," Joseph said. Laika had decided that he would be in charge of tonight's little adventure. "If you wouldn't mind, could Dr. Kelly and I go in alone to do some preliminary groundwork?"

  Melton agreed, and Joseph and Laika went into the fifth house, the one where they had previously heard the scream. "Whatever you hear, 'Doctor,'" Joseph said, maintaining the illusion, "don't let it worry you. And if you see anything, it's going to be totally natural in origin. Remember, I'm not Dr. Montague, and you're not Eleanor Vance."

  "Sorry, I didn't get that."

  "The Haunting of Hill House—the ghost hunter and the sensitive. Maybe you saw the movie—The Haunting?"

  "Yeah, I did, but frankly, that's the last thing I'd like to think about right now. It scared the shit out of me when I saw it on TV when I was a kid."

  "Common experience," said Joseph. "But I'm old enough for it to have scared the shit out of me in a theater. Let's get these lanterns on."

  Laika hadn't seen similar lanterns since she'd gone camping with her parents, so she was newly amazed at the amount of light they gave off. "Makes it homey," she said, "though home always smelled a lot better than this."

  "Mmm. That was part of what tipped me off. Where there's piss, there's people."

  "What about cats and dogs?" she said, following Joseph up the stairs.

  "Seen any around here? Cats and dogs, in a situation like this, would leave their scat anywhere. But we haven't seen a single pile of it. Still, we're smelling it." She understood what he was saying and began to feel the edginess she always felt when there was a live enemy around. Even so, the narrow stairway felt almost cozy in contrast to the vast nightmare of Peder Holberg's warehouse and its looming and broken sculpture. And she preferred even the smell of human waste to the smell of death.

  "Okay," Joseph said at the top of the stairs. "This is where we heard the scream, right?" She nodded. "Here, grab the end of this tape—hold it right there, and let me go into the next room."

  They measured several rooms and hallways, and although Joseph wrote nothing down, she saw that he was carrying the figures in his head. He opened several closets throughout the house and peered into them, lifting his lantern high, examining every surface.

  "Secret passageways, Mr. Hardy?" she asked.

  "You bet your magnifying glass."

  Finally, Joseph took out an instrument that Laika didn't recognize, and examined it at several places in the hall. "Come on," he said, slipping it back into his pocket, "let's see if the psychic Ms. Meyer has materialized on this plane."

  Outside, a small red Lamborghini was parked behind Clarence Melton's limo, and a tall woman with flame-red hair was standing next to Melton. She appeared to be in her mid-forties and was wearing a short jacket of silver fur over a pair of black slacks that Laika thought was at least two sizes too tight.

  "Nice fur," Joseph said quietly to Laika, as they walked down the steps to the street. "But it's a wonder she isn't tortured by the psychic screaming of the foxes. 'Do you still hear them, Clarice?'"

  "Knock it off, Dr. Lecter," Laika replied, "or it's back in the hockey mask."

  Melton introduced Elissa Meyer to Laika and Joseph, and though she shook their hands, her attention seemed to be elsewhere. Her head jerked here and there, as though she heard sounds no one else did.

  "Picking up some psychic transmissions, Ms. Meyer?" Joseph asked, in a surprisingly sincere tone.

  She nodded and answered in a low, thick voice. "This entire street is teeming with them. I can't begin to describe the intensity I feel here. I . . . I'm almost afraid to go inside."

  "Don't be," Joseph said. "We've just been there, and it seems pretty quiet tonight." He opened the trunk of the car and took out the crowbar he had bought earlier, then gestured with his hand like a maitre d'. "Shall we?"

  They went up the stairs of the fifth house, Joseph leading the way with his lantern, Elissa Meyer behind him, then Laika with her lantern, and Melton and Tweed bringing up the rear. Meyer stopped dead in the foyer. "Oh, God," she whispered. "Oh, dear God. . . ."

  "The smell is pretty bad," Joseph said, "but you'll get used to it."

  The woman seemed oblivious to Joseph's sarcasm. "No . . . there is great pain here . . . and madness . . . and death."

  "Where, specifically?" Joseph asked. His words made Laika angry, though she could not express why. This woman was probably a charlatan—no more psychic than Laika or anybody else, for that matter. But there was something about this place, a sadness, a sense of tragedy, that went beyond its appearance and the odor that pressed on them like a cloud. It made Joseph's easy mockery almost sacrilegious.

  "It's everywhere here," Elissa Meyer said, her eyes shut tightly. "All around us."

  "That's not too specific."

  She forced her eyes open and looked at Joseph. "You doubt," she said, "and you mock. But I tell you, I am not wrong. There is real horror here."

  "Spirits of the dead?" Joseph asked.

  She did not move her head, but only said, "The dead themselves."

  Joseph smiled. "Then let's go say hello to them. The cold spot—and where we heard a pretty severe scream—is upstairs."

  He led the others up the stairs and down the hallway. "Mind the tiles, there," Joseph said, stepping around the hundreds of ceramic tiles that the workmen had apparently pulled up before they'd been chased out. "Feel a change i
n temperature, Ms. Meyer?"

  "Oh, yes. . . ." she said. "Yes . . . it's here. Right near here. The locus of all the pain, the horror."

  "So, this cold spot," Melton said, "is, in your opinion, a paranormal occurrence?"

  "It undoubtedly is. Something dreadful happened here . . . or close by."

  "Oh, I don't know if I'd call solar energy dreadful," Joseph said.

  They all looked at him oddly. "Solar energy?" Melton said.

  Joseph nodded. "Mr. Melton, have you ever noticed this cold spot on cloudy days?"

  Melton thought for a moment. "I can't really say. I've only been in here a few times, and most of those were at night, so I don't know."

  "Well, it was sunny today, wasn't it?" Joseph said. "And these windows," he continued, "are among the few in these houses that have been cleaned, I assume by the workmen who were working here to let a little light in. Now, Mr. Melton, may I suggest that you feel one of those tiles?"

  Melton frowned, but then walked back to the end of the hall, with Laika lighting the way. He knelt next to the tiles and picked one up, running his hand over its dusty surface, both the smooth front and the rough back. He gave a small sound of surprise. "The back's warm," he said.

  "Ceramic tile really soaks up the sunshine," Joseph said. "I think you'll find that the tile at the other end of the hall is only a few degrees cooler. That gets the morning sun, while the tile you're holding gets the setting sun. All that tile increases the temperature at the back end of the hall by four degrees, at the front end by two. Our bodies sense the difference, but because we're more sensitive in a tense situation, the difference in temperature seems far greater than it is. So we wind up with a cold spot that's really no colder than the rest of the building, but is colder than the ends of the halls through which we've come, and into which we pass."

  "You may be right," Elissa Meyer said, before Laika even had a chance to be impressed. "But there is still something here . . . or near here." She was qualifying, Laika thought—covering her tracks.

  "You're absolutely right," Joseph said. "There is something here." And he took the crowbar and swung hard at the wall.