City of Iron

by Williamson, Chet

  "Yes . . . yes . . . he. . . ." The voice was getting more breathy now, and Laika could sense that the man's mind was becoming even more muddied. He had probably not carried on a conversation like this in decades.

  She shuddered at the thought, then tried to prompt the priest. "Yes, the prisoner—what about him?"

  ". . . Hail Mary . . . Lord is with thee . . . fruit of thy womb . . ." The words stopped with a sharp intake of breath, and for a moment Laika was afraid the old man had died. But then they started coming again. ". . . Fruit . . . thy womb . . . thy line . . . lineage of David, house and lineage of . . . David . . . descend . . . into Hell . . . descending . . . descendant . . . line, lineage, Hail Mary, full of grace . . . Hail Mary. . . ." His words, which had been growing ever more incomprehensible, trailed off into mere mumbling.

  "Father Samuel," she said, but he gave no response except for low babbling. "Father, would you like us to help you? Would you like to leave here?" She asked again, but there was no change in the priest's demeanor. "All right," she said at last. "Let's go."

  She turned off her recorder and slipped it back into her pocket. Then she climbed up the narrow staircase in the dim red glow and heard Tony and Joseph coming behind her. At the top, she set the flashlight against the wall so that it would create as little light as possible. The vault was lit by a soft glow no brighter than a night light. She gestured to the marble slab, and together the three of them dragged it back over the hole and fit it into place. The babbling from below ceased immediately. Laika wondered if even a scream would be heard through the heavy slab.

  Then they turned out their lights, opened the vault door, and went outside into the New York City night. The sickly air smelled sweet in comparison to the pit from which they had climbed. Tony locked the door behind them and fit the padlock back onto the wrought-iron gate. There would be no evidence that they had ever been there.

  "Let's get out of here," Laika said, leading the way through the rank vegetation toward the far cleaner street.

  Chapter 36

  Twenty minutes later, they were sitting in the back booth of a well-lit, all-night coffee shop in midtown. They were all drinking coffee, and Tony was eating a piece of apple pie. Laika had no appetite, and Joseph didn't look any too hungry, either.

  "Thoughts?" Laika said, after the bored waitress moved away.

  "How long has that man lived down there?" Joseph said softly, staring down at the light brown surface of his coffee.

  "If that window was installed in 1919," Laika said, "and that's when this prisoner was held, it would seem he's been down there for close to eighty years."

  Joseph shook his head and looked up at Laika. "How could he be that old? If he was a priest, he had to be at least in his mid-twenties. Add eighty years to that, and the guy's over a hundred. You're telling me somebody could live in those conditions for eighty years and be a centenarian? I don't think so."

  "What does he eat?" Tony said.

  "The priest we met today must feed him through that small door in the wall," said Laika. "There's probably a tunnel between the rectory basement and the tomb. His toilet basin probably goes through there, too. But, my God, how could they let a man live like that? I can't believe he chose it himself."

  "Probably didn't," said Tony. "I know a little about Catholic guilt. Times have changed a lot—I mean, the Pope now says evolution's okay—but if this priest committed some mortal sin, and it's worse if a priest does it, then this . . . imprisonment might have been suggested by the bishop as penance, maybe for an appointed time. But when it was over, Father Samuel might have decided on his own that it wasn't long enough, that he still needed to do penance, and stayed down there himself. Or maybe he was just crazy by that time."

  "Or maybe," Joseph offered, "the church wanted to keep him quiet."

  "Quiet about what?" Laika asked.

  "Churches aren't supposed to hold prisoners, okay? Maybe it was kosher when popes had their own armies in the field, but not in this century. So here's the church, and they've got this guy the priest was talking about. He's locked in this crypt, and Father Samuel lets him go."

  "Or tries to," Tony said. "We don't know if this guy got away or not."

  "Okay, tries to let him go, so what's the church going to do? Are they going to go through normal channels to discipline Father Samuel? Hell, no. That means exposing what they're doing, which is imprisoning someone against his will. So they feed old Sam this crap about needing to repent, and stick him into the ground. Nobody ever sees him again."

  "We need to learn his identity," Laika said. "There should be records of what priests served St. Stephen's in the 1910s. Let's find out and see what officially happened to Father Samuel. And then maybe we can also find out precisely what he did, and the identity of this prisoner he freed."

  "Whatever it's all about," Tony said, "I think the church took it seriously. You notice the name on the tomb that Father Samuel's living under?"

  "Peters," said Laika. "You see a link to Peter the apostle?"

  "'On this rock I will build my church' Peter?" Joseph asked. When they looked at him in surprise, he shrugged. "I had comparative religion courses in college, okay? I mean, myth and fantasy have always fascinated me," he added dryly.

  "Yeah, that Peter," Tony said to Laika, looking away disgustedly from Joseph. "Only that's also the Peter who denied Christ three times, remember?"

  Of course she did. "So you think that's why they carved 'Peters' on the tomb?"

  "Look," said Tony, "that tomb was never built to hold any bodies, but it was built to hold something else, and something—or somebody—that was really important. It was built to house a prisoner. Now, either that 'Peters' was carved there later to ironically indicate that the church fathers thought Father Samuel was a blasphemer or something of the sort, or it was carved there when the thing was built, and it was built as a prison, so the 'Peters' refers to the prisoner."

  "Maybe the prisoner's name was Peters," Joseph said.

  "Sure," said Tony. "And they're going to hide this guy and then put his name right on the front of his prison? Please." Laika glared at him, and Tony continued in a more moderate tone. "Another reason this thing is big is the window. Why would the church have put that window in if it somehow wasn't meaningful?"

  "It was," said Joseph. "You heard the priest—it's the St. Stephen window. And it's St. Stephen's Church, right?"

  "You didn't learn enough in comparative religion," Tony replied. "St. Stephen was brought before the Sanhedrin, and after he spoke to them, they dragged him out and stoned him. But Stephen was never imprisoned, Joseph. He never wore chains."

  Joseph said nothing. He just looked down into his coffee again. "The flat black walls, Joseph," Tony went on. "You mentioned them in your dream . . . your own vision of St. Joseph. They were flat black walls in Father Samuel's cell, weren't they? And the window showed the same man you saw in your vision, too, didn't it? But that's just a coincidence, huh?"

  "Lead," Laika said, realizing what the surface was.

  "That's also why the slab was so heavy, isn't it? The cell was lined with lead."

  "Joseph, I asked you a question," Tony said.

  Finally Joseph nodded. "Yes," he said softly. "The man in the window, the room in the crypt. They were just like my dream." He looked up at them, pleading, almost desperate. "I didn't make it up. I told you last night, before we ever came here."

  "I know," said Laika. "I can't explain it either."

  Tony finished his coffee and gave Joseph a small smile. "I think we're all pretty tired. What do you say we head back and dig out the information on Father Samuel in the morning . . . the late morning?"

  Laika paid the check and followed Tony and Joseph out the door into the street. Just as she let the door swing closed behind her, there was a sudden flash. Although she heard no gunshot, she crouched immediately, only to see Tony take off running across the street after someone in retreat. Joseph and Laika followed.

  It wa
sn't much of a race. Tony caught the runner in an open plaza in the middle of the block, grabbed him by the shoulder, and yanked him around. A camera with a flash attachment swung around with him, and Tony grabbed it with his other hand, jerking it from around the man's neck. Then he pushed the man away from him.

  "Hey!" the man yelled. "Give me my camera!"

  There were only a few people on the street. A couple of winos sat on a bench under a spindly tree that the building owners probably hoped would lend a bit of sylvan charm to their vista of concrete, and a young couple walked by on the sidewalk, very careful to ignore completely the shouting photographer. There were no policemen in sight, and none of the cars cruising by had bubble tops.

  Laika didn't think Tony would have cared if there were cops around or not. He popped open the back of the camera and yanked out the film, then threw the camera back at the man, who just missed it. It clattered on the concrete, and he retrieved it with a moan of fury, while Tony pulled the length of film out of the cartridge, exposing it to the bright New York night.

  Then, before the photographer could decide what to do next, Tony grabbed him and patted him down, removing several rolls of film from his jacket pocket. Tony jammed them into his own pocket, then continued to search the man. He tried to break away, but Tony grabbed his wrist and tugged the man's arm up behind his back. "Screw around with me and it breaks," he said, then finished his search as Joseph positioned himself on the other side of the photographer.

  Satisfied, Tony swung the man around again and grabbed his lapels, the way he had done to James in the apartment lobby. "Who are you?" Tony said.

  The man, who stood a head taller than Tony, but seemed powerless in his grip, only shook his head, his mouth opening and closing. Tony's hand disappeared behind the man and reappeared with a wallet. He flipped it to Joseph, who caught it deftly and opened it, examining the cards.

  "Taylor M. Griswold," said Joseph. "You don't mind if I take a business card, do you, Mr. Griswold? Now I'll know who to call the next time aliens give me a rectal probe." Joseph reached into his pocket and brought out a pair of sunglasses that he slipped on. Then he went up to Griswold, whom Tony now released, and stuck his face only six inches away from the man's.

  "Mr. Griswold works for The Inner Eye, my friends, that paragon of journalism. I'll also memorize your home address, Mr. Griswold, just in case you should ever annoy us again and we have to pay you a visit. You see, we are the people in the black hats, the ones who show up to ask questions of folks who die the next day? The ones who visited the Kennedy witnesses? Who dropped in to Marilyn's house that last night? Who caution people not to mention the black helicopters that fly over their farms?

  "We don't want to see you again, Mr. Griswold. And we don't want to see anything about us in your newspaper, or anywhere else. Do you understand, Mr. Taylor M. Griswold of 204 West 96th Street, Apartment 37M?"

  Griswold nodded nervously.

  "Comply with our request," Joseph said, "and neither myself nor Comrade X-9 nor the feminine demiurge of the solar system shall trouble your earthly frame again. And Heil Zantarp, master of all the universe." Joseph crossed his hands over his chest in an X, and looked at Griswold expectantly. "I said 'Heil Zantarp,' mortal."

  "Heil Zantharp," Griswold responded incorrectly.

  Joseph looked skyward and sighed, then back at Griswold. He stuffed the wallet into Griswold's pocket and tapped him on the chest. "Move your ass."

  Griswold moved it, walking quickly away from them, heading uptown. They waited until he was out of sight, then turned back toward their car, which was parked a few blocks away.

  "Think you scared him?" Laika said to the men.

  "Reporters are pussies," said Tony. "We won't see him again. He not only thinks we're mean, thanks to Joseph he thinks we're crazy, too, and mean and crazy is a magical combination that most people won't screw around with."

  "Let's check this magazine he works for," said Laika.

  "It's a tabloid," Joseph informed her.

  "Whatever. See if there's anything about the Scottish affair or the Plattsburgh case, or worse, the Melton thing. There's got to be some reason this guy has made us."

  "We're not made," Tony said. "If he thinks we're anybody, he thinks we're from the National Science Foundation, and there's no way he'll learn any different."

  "Do people from the National Science Foundation usually threaten reporters and steal their film?" she asked, climbing into the car.

  That shut Tony up for a minute. "Well, some scientists can be pretty strange," he finally said as he started the car.

  A half hour later, Taylor Griswold sat in his car and spoke quickly into his cell phone. "Yes, I'm sure it's them," he said. "They were the same ones I saw in Plattsburgh. . . . I did, but they took my film. . . . of course they know who I am, they looked in my wallet! . . . Yeah, they know who I work for, and where I live, for that matter. . . . Sure, I'll move out tomorrow afternoon. Set it up.

  "Anyway, I followed them back uptown, but I lost them at a light on Sixty-fifth . . . there was traffic, okay? I can't drive through a bus! They kept going uptown, so wherever they are, they're above Sixty-eighth. I lost their lights after that. . . .

  "No, it was just a freak. I had a tip on a psychic party, but it turned out to be a bust, and I'm just walking past this coffee shop, look in, and there's the Italian guy sitting in the back. So I waited until they came out. . . . How? The flash was on. I thought I had it off, but I must've bumped it. If it hadn't gone off, they never would've spotted me. . . .

  "Okay, fine, I gotta get some sleep. Gonna call The Inner Eye first—they have to get their pound of flesh, too. . . ."

  Chapter 37

  Laika woke up at 8:30 in the morning, after four and a half hours of sleep, slipped on her robe, and walked down the hall. The door of Tony and Joseph's room was closed, so she assumed they were still sleeping, and she went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.

  When she heard a key jiggle in the front door lock, she grabbed a pistol from the silverware drawer and took a combat stance in the living room. The door opened, and Tony Luciano stepped in with several bags.

  "Jeez," he said, "you wouldn't shoot a guy with bagels, would you?"

  "Depends," she said, lowering the gun. "Any onion?"

  He frowned. "Not a one. All plain, poppy, and sesame. H&H, best in the land."

  "Good. I hate onion bagels. Come on in, I've got coffee going." She took the bagels from him and noticed that he was holding a bookstore bag as well. "Run out of reading material again?"

  "No, this is something else. I didn't sleep very well."

  "Don't tell me you've started having dreams, too," Laika said, carefully cutting two of the bagels in half. The bloodiest wound she had ever gotten had occurred when a knife had slipped while she was cutting a bagel, and she had gashed the web between her thumb and forefinger. Blood had sprayed out. She still had the scar.

  "No. No dreams. But I kept thinking about what the old man said, especially at the end, you know, when he was babbling?" Tony went back into the living room and got the microcassette recorder. "Listen to this. . . ."

  He pushed the button and Laika heard the words of the old man, thin and tinny from the tiny speaker. ". . . Fruit . . . thy womb . . . thy line . . . lineage of David, house and lineage of David . . . descend. . . . into Hell . . . descending . . . descendant . . . line, lineage . . ."

  Tony turned off the machine. "All that about a descendant, and lineage? He harps on that, doesn't he? And I was thinking, lying in bed, about the idea of a descendant of Christ, and then I remembered this book I read in high school, must have been fifteen years ago."

  "Isn't it a little bit early for a literary discussion group?" Joseph had come down the hall so silently they hadn't heard him until he thrust his head and shoulders through the kitchen door. "Ah, coffee. And bagels, too. H&H?" Tony nodded. "Excellent."

  "Go on, Tony," Laika said, as Joseph helped himself.

 
"Anyway, this book—maybe you know about it, Joseph—came up with a theory that Christ didn't die on the cross. He was alive when they took him down, and survived the crucifixion."

  Joseph took a sip of coffee so hot he couldn't speak for a moment, but nodded his head vigorously. "Passover Plot, right?" he said finally.

  "No," said Tony. "Holy Blood, Holy Grail."

  "Oh yeah, that one—the Merovingian bloodline thing."

  "Whoa," said Laika, "you lost me."

  "Baigent, Leigh, and . . . and. . . ." Joseph said, trying to recall.

  "Lincoln," said Tony.

  "Right! Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln came up with this wild theory that Jesus survived, ran off to India—or maybe that was some other book—got married, and had children. Started a whole bloodline which, so they claim, came down to the present day through the old Merovingian kings."

  "And who were the Merovingian kings?" Laika asked.

  "Jesus, I can't be expected to know everything," said Joseph. "I never read the book myself, just about it, enough to know it was bullshit." He looked from Laika to Tony. "What brought this subject up, anyway?"

  "The old priest talking about descendants, and I started thinking about descendants of Christ, and. . . ." He shrugged, and pulled a paperback from the Barnes and Noble bag: Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

  "Oh boy," said Joseph, "here we go again. You're gonna read that and figure that all of this somehow ties into it, aren't you?"

  "No," said Tony. "I've read it. But you haven't. I got this one, too." He pulled out another paperback from the bag. "It's the sequel."

  Joseph shook his head. "Forget it. I will not piss away my time on those books."

  "Yes, you will," said Laika, trying hard to keep from smiling. "Think of it as research on how this case might not tie into the book's thesis. Or if it does, maybe you'll realize how it was made to tie in."

  "Would you like me to do all our horoscopes when I'm done? Or maybe read your palms?"