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The Framing of Jon Smith
The Brownstone where Mendlehousen was killed was not a really large building. It was only four stories tall, and had only a few residents. But it was OLD. Old as the City, I think. The front of the building was the stoop. a concrete, four step affair, which expanded across the building like a short tongue sticking out and down to the sidewalk. On either side of the stoop were the Gargoyles. Three foot tall statues of old demonesque figures, one, the one on the left, had wings and claws and a hump on his back. His eyes were open wide as if he was surprised by something and his teeth were sharp and gnashingly grimaced. Might have been a frozen laugh, might have been gas. Who knows with Gargoyles? It's like trying to guess their sex. I'm not really wanting to get that close to them to be able to determine that. The one on the right had little horns on his head. Horns that looked very familiar.
I got up close and personal with the one on the right. Horns on the head, big old stony eyes, opened wide like it's companion, but the mouth... instead of a grimace, this one had a frown. Mouth was downturned and wrapped around tusks barely hidden by thick pouty lips that might have meant that this was the female of the pair. Yeah. I might have a bit of an obsession here. Something I'll bring up with my therapist, once I get one. I looked toward it's rear end, and sure enough, there was a tail, the end of which was double forked.
Coincidence? Maybe. I didn't think so, though. I tried to remember every detail I could about the demon I had seen last night, opening the gate for the Mary. Definitely taller than this little stone mannequin. By about three times, for sure. Still... the world is odd and magic comes in many flavors and shapes. I certainly don't know everything about magic. I barely know anything about magic, regardless of what Dick may suspect.
I looked up the stoops to the front doors. Big, solid wood with six glass insets on each door. Around each rectangular inset was a tiny rimming of gold. Not gold paint, mind you. Real, solid, gold. Not a cheap door. Not a cheap building. I looked up from where I stood to the roof line. Old and large, each brick was solidly in place, giving the impression that this building would stand forever and ever. The roof-line was a cornice surrounding the roof, thick and concrete looking. It too, held it's share of gargoyles and figurines all looking down at the passersby on the streets. Each mouth was an open yawn and current city guidelines had an actual downspout and sticking out of each mouth and running down the side of the building, like a humongous tongue reaching down to the ground. Other than the juxtaposition of the past and the present, there wasn't much unusual here. Lots of buildings had the same sort of architecture.
From the ground floor to the fourth floor, windows, two one each side of the doors and going upward, and one above the doors, also going up stared out at the world of the rich, the semi-rich and the never will be rich. Maybe someone saw something. I should ask, go door to door and ask. No... I shouldn't. It's for the detectives to detect.
What the hell. I started up the steps to the front door. I am a detective. I detect. That's what I do.
"Hey, buddy." A voice was at my elbow. "Hey, you spare any change?"
I looked toward the voice. It was a little person. A dwarf. Really. Okay, maybe a gnome. Little red hat, rosey cheeks, green lederhosen and yellow shirt covered by a sky blue jacket. His shoes were red and pointy toed .
"Change?" I dug in my pockets and pulled out a crumpled one. "I gotta one. It's yours."
"Thanks, sport." The gnome took the proferred bill and stuck it into his hat. "You're a peach."
"You live around here?" Wouldn't it be just cool if the gnome had actually seen something?
"Around here?" The gnome looked around and spat on the ground. "You see any decent lawns around here?"
Lawns? I looked up and down the street. Not a single lawn was in sight. Little patches of green surrounding the trees that perched on the side of the road and tiny fenced gardens, but no lawns. I said as much to the Gnome.
"Yeah. Me neither." He pulled a dark and twisted cigar out from the same place he stuck the dollar, from under his hat, and lit it with a stubby lump of coal he pulled from his left jacket pocket. "I'm from uptown. And I got a message for some tall goober who was going to be hanging around this old building." He looked up at me and blew acrid smoke up at me. "I figure that would be you, sport."
"Might be," I coughed and waved the smoke away. "What's the message?"
"You're," smoky words rose from his mouth, "if you're who you're supposed to be, to go to the Barrick building. The old man wants to talk to you."
"And who am I supposed to be?" Barrick again. First Sparky, now Gnomey. Or whatever his name is.
"Oh hell," he stuck the cigar behind an ear and started digging in one of his pockets. "You're gonna make me look for it, aren't you?" Going from jacket pocket, to jacket pocket, and then from one pants pocket to another, he was cursing a blue streak all the while. "Damn it... I know it's here somewhere." Scratching behind the ear that wasn't carrying the cigar, he came with a scrap of paper. His eyes lit up as he read the paper to himself. I mean that literally, his eyes lit up as if there were lamps behind them, flickering and glowing dimly. "You're supposed to be, um.. John Smith?"
Dropping the paper on the ground to be picked up and flown away an errant wind, he grimaced and looked at me through one squinty eye. "You're John Smith?"
I could be John Smith. Why not? From Johann to John isn't so big a step.
"Johann," I told him. Sometimes it's important to be who you are. "Johann Smith."
The gnome shrugged. "Whatever. Are you the guy who I'm looking for or not?"
"Yeah, I'm the guy."
"Okay, good." He pulled a tiny cellphone from out of somewhere. "I was afraid I'd have to play the 'who are you' game forever."
"Do you think I could postpone it for an hour or so?" I asked politely. "I'd like to go ask the people in this building if they saw a murderer a few nights ago."
"No good, Sport." The gnome dialed a number. "The old man does not like to wait." I could hear the ringing from where I stood. "Yeah? yeah. It's me. It's him. Okay." He hung up.
"Man of few words, I see."
"Yeah. That's me." He pulled the cigar from behind his ear and started puffing it. "Stand close to me."
"Why?" I had nothing against gnomes. I don't like dark twisted cigar smoke.
"Because you don't want to lose an arm or leg when we transport, that's why."
He started waving the cigar in the air and muttering something under his breath. I shimmied up as close to him as I could without actually having to breath around him.
"Good enough?" I asked him.
He gave me that one eyed squint again and shrugged. "We'll see soon enough," he coughed grey smoke as a blue light started to quickly build around us.
I started to protest. I was expecting a car to pull up, maybe one of those stretch limos, black and half a block long, with booze in the fridge and something interesting on the television. The last thing I wanted or expected as a dimensional door. These are the wormholes that lead between there and here. They exist more often than people would like to believe. It's the same sort of 'Missing sock' wormhole that moves socks from the dryer to someplace in some other person's house. The number of unpaired socks is exactly the same as the number of missing socks. And if you don't recognize the sock that sits by itself, alone and lonesome, you can thank a dryer established wormhole.
The reason I don't like wormholes is because they pull you in one direction, away from where you are. Let me explain. It's a singularity, see. When we move in our normal three dimension reality, we move in more than one direction at the same time. Up, out, here, there, through time and space. A wormhole will pull you exactly one direction. You get stretched incredibly thin, to the thinness of one dimension. And I've always been afraid that in the stretching, something will get lost. Something I really like. I don't know what that may be, but I don't want to take a chance. Like McCoy of Famed Star Trek, I just don't trust 'em.
The other end of this wormhole dropped the gnome and me off in a plush looking and plush feeling hallway, in front of a tall set of doors wide enough to drive a truck and looked to be made of a single slice of the oldest oak tree in the forest. The thick carpet underfoot was all rich reds and blues, sloshed together in some sort of swirly pattern that seemed to move on it's own. It was like standing in a tidalpool of carpet, with the waves of polyester or wool or whatever the hell it was flowing around and over your feet. The walls were rich oak paneling, inches thick , and inlaid with a combination of light woods and red woods in a diamond pattern. There were tables evenly spaced on both sides of the long hallway, each table containing a vase or a lamp or some little dodad from some country or other. A few paintings - portraits rather - were hanging on the walls, illuminated from light that came from somewhere I couldn't see. One of those paintings showed the familiar wrinkly face of Robert Barrick, the man who wanted to see me.
I crossed the hall to the big oaken doors and started to push them open.
The gnome beat me to is and held his fingers to his lips. "Wait a second, would you sport? I wanna make sure the old man is in."
"Are you kidding me?" I reached down to the doorknobs, turned them and shoved. "Bobby and me are old friends!" The doors swung wide and I walked past the astonished gnome and into the drawing room as if I owned the place. "Bobby! Yoo hoo! Bobby, its me, Johann!"
The gnome rushed behind me and hid behind my shirt-tails. "Keep your voice down, sport!" he whispered loudly. "You don't know who you might disturb."
The drawing room was just as lavish and as well apportioned as the hallway had been, only more so. There was a fireplace big enough to roast the thingmobile in and it had a fire going full blast. Must have been a small treefarm in there, blazing away. Over the mantle, which must have been full foot thick, was another portrait of Barrick to match the one in the hall.
Just to give you an idea of how big the place was, I couldn't even feel the heat from the fireplace. I believe the entire displaced population of the Warehouse district fire could have moved into this room and lived quite comfortably. The brownstone down on Bridgeway might have fit easily in this room, if you had hacked off the top two stories. There were sofas and settees and small tables with expensive looking junk on them and bigger tables that might have been used for poker or might have been used for some sort of ritual sacrifice.
Spaced the wall there were those fancy half sofas - fainting couches I think they were called. There were two pianos. One for this side of the room, and one for that side of the room. This side also included a fully stocked wet bar, with obligatory mirror hanging the backboard. That was the side I favored and started over to the bar. I was getting thirsty and I bet there was a spigot just for cola.
All around the room were pictures from the Barrick family. There it looked like stern old great-grandad, wearing something from the civil war period, gazing out at the world was a singular disapproving eye. Across from him was probably great-grandma, just as happy looking with her hands crossed primly in her lap. A bit further might have been grandad and grandma, staring across the room and looking as if they had voted for Herbert Hoover and just read that Roosevelt won.
And right at the bar, to the left and right, must have been Mr. and Mrs. Barrick, proud parents of little Bobby. Dad wore a tab collar, showing he was a hep cat, and mom was a striking beauty with long, flowing blonde hair. She reminded me of that movie star... what's her name. The one that supposedly killed herself because she slept with a president. Something like that. There's statues to her all over the place.
As I was walking with direct purpose to the bar, the gnome was running behind me, working hard to keep pace and gnashing his teeth. He was not a happy little garden gnome. He was a distinctly unhappy garden gnome and he kept grumbling at me to be polite, to show respect, to think about whose house this was, etc, etc, etc.
I didn't really give much of a damn whose house I had been kidnapped to. Kidnapped is the correct word. I wasn't asked or even given dinner before being whooshed here.
"Bobby!" I hopped around the bar and made myself a quick rum and coke. "Come out, come out, wherever you are." No ice in the ice bucket. Damn the luck.
The gnome was hopping up and down himself, only not to get a coke or anything like that. He was red in the face... okay, he was redder in the face and he was severely pissed.
"Sport, you're gonna be lucky if Barrick doesn't scratch off your balls with a letter opener and then feed them to his cats. Do you know what type of cats he has? Cats that are all teeth, all claws, and all bad tempers. Them is some mean cats. If I was you, I'd get from behind that bar, walk quietly and slowly to the door, close them behind me and then knock. And wait. And knock again, on this time I'd knock softer. Cuz buddy boy, you are workin' and walkin' towards a world of hurt." I ignored him and sipped my drink. "Are you even listening to me?"
"Shorty, you're beginning to put me to sleep." Dwarfs absolutely hate to be called shorty, which is a big duh. "Now, run along, now, and play go fuck yourself."
From the far side of the room, from the other side of a sofa turned to face the piano waaay over there, an old man's voice crackled out. "No, Dante'. It's all right. Mister Smith can be as rude as he wants." A soft laugh like the sound of worn sandpaper wafted my way. Considering the length of the room, either the acoustics were incredible here or Barrick was doing some sort of ventriloquist bit. My vote was for the ventriloquism bit, but I wasn't ruling out the acoustics, either.
I gulped, involuntarily. It's one thing to make fun of the man when he's not anywhere around, and quite another to have him not only listening over your shoulder but giving you permission. And to tell the truth, Robert Barrick was one scary old man.
"How do you find my accommodations, Johann?" The voice hidden by the sofa cackled gently. "Are they to your liking?"
"Uh." Yeah, that's me. Mister Eloquent.
I heard, or maybe I just felt, a rustling like velvet being uncrushed. My attention was fully riveted on the sofa or settee or whatever the hell it was on the other side of the room. I caught a whisper of silk and satin and then I saw a hand, full and well manicured, reach above the edge of the sofa and heard a soft grunting. I think that was more for my benefit than not, because without a pause of more than a tenth of a second the slim figure of Robert Barrick rose, still prone from laying on the sofa, to laying prone in the middle of thin air. He hovered there for almost no time at all, before he righted himself and floated toward me. He crossed the entire distance of the room in half the time it would have taken me to walk it, and settled on one of the barstools across from where I stood.
"So, barkeep," he said, without a hint of sarcasm, "what's the special for tonight?" He smiled gently and gave a sort of... half laugh.
"Uh."
Robert Barrick. Okay, so I can talk smack about the guy, but let me tell you buddy... if you have him sitting directly across from you anywhere, you'll be saying UH too. He was not a tall man, but he was a BIG man, if you catch my drift. Even at 80 plus years old, he was not someone you would want to screw with. About five foot three or four, with well managed shocking white hair, eyebrows and eyelashes. He had piercing blue eyes and the whites of his eyes weren't white. They were just a pinkish hint of white. Robert Barrick is an albino, and everybody knows he is, but that doesn't mean much. Until you've seen the real article, albinos are those people of myths and legend and just a bit mysterious. And in truth, the word albino is an offensive word to most of them. Albinism is the condition. They are people who happen to have the condition. It would be like calling a caucasian whitey.
Robert Barrick was an imposing person, well muscled despite his age, full of confidence that shown lighthouse like out to the world. He was dressed in a somber blue evening robe, even though it was the middle of the day. Golden ascot tied gently around his neck and pinned with a yellow diamond. His feet were bare but I would bet a callous never found it's way there. His hands were long-fingered piano slash guitar slash flute slash whatever playing fingers. When he smiled, which he did frequently, his smile would cause aircraft to divert and bring pigeons falling out of the sky. His was the smile that sailed a million ships and made a million hearts break.
Robert Barrick was a wizard, or to be precise, a Sorcerer. A big deal magic practitioner, who was one of the movers and shakers of the Elite world. Not just Elite City, mind you, but the WORLD. And, as I've pointed out before, a darn nice guy. I wasn't kidding when I said he knew me. He knew me well, much in the way that a school principle knows a student. Or a distant uncle knows a nephew, let's say. And still... to be in his presence was pretty aweful, as in full of awe.
"Uh."
"Never mind, son," he said, "I'll just have what you're having. A rum and cola by the smell of it."
A rob roy glass floated up from under the bar and filled itself with ice and rum. The same spigot that I poured my cola from snaked into the air and arced a stream straight to the glass, and never spilled a drop. Once finished, the glass floated to Barrick's right hand and he lifted it to sip. Smacking his lips, he smiled that glaring white smile and beamed it at me. "Not bad."
"Yes, sir." God, I sounded like such a kid.
"Now, now, Johann, let's not be so formal." He chuckled at nothing at all. "You were just calling me Bobby a few minutes ago, weren't you?"
"Yes." I remembered I had my own drink in my hand and sipped. "Sir." "Bobby."
"Robert will do, Johann." Barrick shifted on his seat. "I haven't been called Bobby for a decade or so, and I've think I've reached a certain... shall we say 'status'?"
"Yes, Robert."
"Dante', you can be dismissed. Go guard the garden." Barrick waved a dismissive hand at the gnome, who was still red faced and steamed at me.
"Okay, Boss." The gnome opened his blue wormhole again and paused before stepping in. "You need me, you call, okay?"
"I'll be fine, Dante'," Barrick said. "Johann is an old friend of mine."
Sort of. Like I said, we met a while ago, he paid me a bit of money.
"Okay." Dante' glared at me. "Watch your ass, sport." The wormhole flared and was gone, taking the gnome with it. I swear, it made a tiny sucking sound as it went. I had to laugh.
Barrick ignore the laugh. "Dante can be rather serious about his work." He levered his eyebeams at me. "Just as you can be serious about your work, Johann." Again, that smile and half laugh.
"Robert," I gulped again, but didn't stop. "Why did you bring me here?"
Barrick nodded and a glint came and went from his eye. "Johann, can't I just invite someone to my home?"
"No, I don't think so." No idea where my balls just grew from. "I don't think Robert Barrick ever just 'invites someone' to his home."
Again, Barrick nodded, this time without a glint. His eyes did narrow, though. "Very true, and very sad. It's the price of being who and what I am that I can never just have people over."
"This has something to do with Mary, the little match girl, doesn't it?" Subtle, I was, too. "With Mendlehousen's death?"
Barrick looked hurt. "Johann, while I have done things that I'm not entirely proud of, I had nothing to do with Mendlehousen or his untimely demise."
I looked deep into his eyes. It's like the peeling back the realities trick or the rewinding time trick. The truth is there if you look for it. Doesn't have to be magic involved. All that's required is to be aware and open to what the truth looks like. AND to remember that the truth and reality are sometimes two different things that don't even live on the same block. He was telling the truth.
"Then why bring me here, Robert?" I poured a bit more rum into my cola. "Why did you have the gnome kidnap me?"
"Kidnap you? Goodness no!" Barrick laughed for real this time. "I instructed him to bring you to me, willingly. Didn't he ask you to come?"
"Not exactly in those words, no." I sipped my drink. Just two old friends talking. "He told me that the 'old man' wanted to see me and then he wormholed me here."
"Ah." A sigh. "I see." Another sigh. "I suppose I shall have to speak to him on how to best represent me."
"No big deal, Robert," I said, generously. "I'm sure he did what he figured you wanted him to do." I looked toward the fire, over Barrick's shoulder. "Still, you're avoiding the question. What did you want to see me for?"
Robert kept his gaze on me, watching me like a cat does a bird. "I wanted to hire you."
I started in surprise. "Hire me?"
"Yes, Johann." That half laugh. "Hire you. You see, Mary the Match is very dear to me and she has disappeared. "
Hmm. He didn't know until now? So... he had nothing to do with her disappearance? "How do you know she's disappeared?" I asked him. I could feel his eyes on me, but I kept my gaze on the fireplace.
"Johann," Barrick said, with just a hint of humor, "who would I be if I didn't at least attempt to keep up the appearance of omnipotence? Honestly, I heard about the fire down at the Warehouse district. I had my people check it out and found that Mary's house, such as it was, had been completely destroyed. I also heard that you were seen in the area last night, along with Detective Dick."
"Detective Dick?" It was my turn to laugh. "Really? Is that what he's called on the streets?" I laughed again. "Detective Dick?"
Barrick joined me in laughing at Dick's expense. "I didn't give him the name. Detective Richard Reed has nothing but the highest respect from me. It is my staff that has named him Dick."
"I call him Dick as well, Robert." Was this a bonding moment? "Yes, I was there last night. And yes, I saw that Mary's shack had burned to the ground."
"Because," Barrick noted, "you suspected her to be involved with Mendlehousen's death."
It wasn't a question.
"Yeah," I nodded. "That's right. I still think she's involved. And I saw you there."
"Me?" Barrick showed surprise at that. "If you saw me, you probably saw one of my staff. When I send them out in public, I tend to charm them so that when someone looks at them, they see my face. I do this for two reasons. One, for protection of that person's identity. If they look like me, then they don't look like themselves. Two, if they look like me, they are protected by looking like me and they get left alone."
Okay. That makes sense. Barrick is one of the most powerful wizards in the world. Who would want to mess with him? Nobody with any sense, that's who.
"Now, Johann," he continued, "What would you say if I told you that you were correct? That Mary is involved with Francis' death?" Barrick certainly had a strong gaze. It made my neck itch, and he was in front of me.
"I'd say," I switched my own gaze back to stare at him. Two can play this game. "that means that you know something I don't."
"Dear boy," Barrick raised his eyebrows high on his face, "I'd say that is a foregone conclusion. Mary, as I said, is very dear to me. Francis Mendlehousen is not. Or was not, as the case may be. However, I had nothing to do with his death, and neither did Mary."
Um. "I thought you said she was involved."
"She is involved, but she had nothing to do with his death."
"Okay, Mister Obscure." I sighed. "You're telling me that she was involved with Mendlehousen's death, and she did not kill him. Have I got that right?" Why do people have to make it so damn hard?
"That is exactly what I'm saying, Dear boy." He sipped at his rum and cola. "What was so hard about that?"
I paused. I took a deep breath. "Robert." I paused again and listened to the fire crackle for a full minute. "Do you know who did kill Mendlehousen?"
It was Barrick's turn to say nothing. I could almost hear the gears clicking away. Then, "No, Johann. I don't. I'm sorry."
"But you have your suspicions?" I was hopeful.
"Johann," Barrick was moving into his teaching mode. I've seen him give speeches at his political rallies. "When anyone in the Elite dies, especially of suspicious means, all the other Elites get together on one plane or another and begin to point fingers at each other until there are no more fingers to point. With Francis, although he was a nice enough fellow, he was not well liked. There were many, many suspects who could have, and would have killed him, given the right motivation."
"Robert," I pointed out, "that's true for any murder. And I always thought that Mendlehousen was a good enough guy. Who would want to murder him?"
"You are an innocent, Johann." Barrick's face turned soft for just a bit. He whipped up another refresh of his drink. Though I never saw him raise it to his lips, the glass was empty when he refilled it. "None of the Elite are Lilly white. None of us, you understand?" All softness was gone, now. It was replaced with hard, cold granite.
I thought about it. Stories and rumors. The Elite thought they were above the law. The Elite bought and sold normals as pets and toys. To the Elite normals were just a bit above ants. Really? I stared at my glass and the brownish liquid in it. "None of you are Lilly white," I repeated. "None of you are innocent." I raised my eyes to meet his. "How about you, Robert?"
"Ah." That half laugh. "I may be less... tarnished, I think is the right word... than others, my boy. Oh yes, definitely less tarnished. I could tell tales, of course, but those tales would do nothing but frustrate you and anger you. Let us leave it at that, shall we?"
"And," I could feel my face flush, my anger rise, "Mendlehousen had enemies among the Elite?"
"Oh goodness, yes!" Barrick laughed full throated. "Oh yes! Even I have my enemies. Those who would love to see me dead and departed. You see, we all have our own... areas of expertise. You know of the Law of Conservation of Magic?"
I nodded slightly. "Yeah, a bit. It has to do with the amount of available energy in any given area and that it cannot be added to or subtracted from, right?"
"Yes!" Barrick was like a young child on Christmas. "Yes, exactly. There is only so much in any given area. That amount of available energy that can be manipulated may vary from geographic location to the next based upon any number of variables, but the sum total of an area's gross energy cannot be added to or subtracted from - it must be shared by those practitioners who exist in that area. The more magical folks, the less there is to go around, and therefore everyone gets a smaller piece of the pie, so to speak."
"Which is why we find a larger concentration of Elites in the uptown area?" I was curious, for some personal reasons as well. "There is a lower level of energy downtown? Near the river?"
Barrick was clapping his hands in delight. "Yes! That is exactly right! You see, there is a massive substrata of crystaline quartz and iron under the uptown area. The conductivity here is much greater than it is just five miles away. It is also why Elites tend to build large buildings in some areas and why we buy up acres and acres of empty land. It's not as if we can live on all that land. It is designed to keep other Elites away, to limit their access. I, myself own over two thousand acres of desolate land in Russia near an area called Tunguska."
"Robert," I paused, thinking of how I would say what I was trying to say. "I'm not an Elite. But..."
Barrick nodded. "But you're not exactly normal, either. You're a wild-card, my boy. Not exactly a magic user, but you have something. Something nobody, not even an Elite, has. And you should be careful. There are those of the Elite who are more than just a little concerned about you and what you can do."
Now, there was a disturbing thought. A distracting and disturbing thought. There are Elites who are 'concerned' about me.
I coughed into my hand. "Robert, can we come back to this at another time? I really, and I mean really, want to know more, but right now..."
"Yes." Barrick turned serious again. "Yes, of course. We shall have more chats like this. Many, many more." He shifted on his chair again. "What would you like to know? About Francis Mendlehousen's particular peccadillo? Well, he liked young girls, Johann. The younger the better. And that was why I was concerned about Mary, you see. She and I go very far back in history."
What? I stared at him. What? "Um. What?"
"Yes," Barrick's head nodded as if on a spring. "It was well known among the Elite." He grimaced. "Not exactly for public knowledge, of course. We all have our vices. I, for instance, collect artifacts that others call junk and store them around my building. Why on the second floor I have over two thousand plastic..."
I interrupted him with a wave of my hand. "Mendlehousen liked little girls?"
Barrick nodded again. "Yes! That's what I said. And I suspect he liked little boys as well, but that's just a suspicion."
"Mary wasn't a little girl, Robert." My mind was boggled. "Mary was an old woman."
"Trapped in a little girl's body, Johann." Barrick lay one of his long fingered hands on my arm. His touch was cold and I began to understand where the concept of vampires came from. "She is only old in years, Johann. Physically, her body looks eight years old. I, myself, met her when she was a mere one hundred and fifty years old. Or so she said. We met on a play ground in Germany. She had on a red smock and had a red ribbon in her..."
"Mendlehousen liked little girls."
"Yes, Johann." Barrick was beginning to sound annoyed. "I've said that multiple times."
"For sex?" Something was starting to click, but I wasn't sure what.
"Probably." Barrick frowned. "I don't think he was a cannibal, but one never knows, does one?"
I was horrified. "Robert." My mind was reaching for something. "Did Mary have sex?"
"What?" Barrick grew wide-eyed. "What are you asking? I... I don't know, Johann. I... I suppose she must have. Not with me, though. Oh goodness no. That would have been impossible."
Wait a minute. "I heard you were looking for an heir." No. That wasn't right. "I heard you just had a boy child. A baby."
Barrick stared at me for the longest time. Finally he blinked a long slow blink and he made some coughing noises. I was afraid he was having a heart attack until I realized he was laughing. "I had a baby! I? Me? I had a baby? Where in the world do people come up with these ideas? I'm old, son, old! Eighty is how the world looks at me, but I'm easily as old as Mary the Match."
He laughed hard and long again, and when he caught his breath, he slapped the top of the bar, which startled me. "I'm sorry, Johann. I am looking for an heir, and I think I found one. I do not, and let me make this clear, not have a child, boy or girl. There are no babies in this household. Not that I have anything against babies. I think they are fine and a wonder in their own right, but there are none in this house and none that I have fostered. I have no genetic children, Johann."
Okay. That's one rumor put to bed. "May I ask who this heir that you may have found is?"
"No, Johann." Barrick smiled enigmatically. "You may not. It's my little secret until I announce who the person is."
My cellphone rang at just that wrong moment. I snatched it from my belt, looked apologetically at Barrick, who just shrugged and looked at the caller ID. It was Cousin Vinny.
"What, Vinny?" My voice came out hard and sharp. "I'm kinda busy here."
"Oh? Really?" Vinny was eating something. Probably a BLT. And he was probably doing it in the Morgue. I was on my way to being annoyed and grossed out. "Too busy to know what killed Mendlehousen?"
Mentally and emotionally I hit the brakes. As sweetly as I could, I said "Do tell, please, Cousin Vinny. What was it that killed Mendlehousen?"
Barrick's attention was channeled my way again. Not the laser beams from before, but a definite interest.
Vinny chewed for a second or two and said, "Magic. Magic killed our boy."
Stunned, I said, "Really? No shit, Sherlock. Is that all you have to tell me is that magic killed Mendlehousen?"
Vinny, never shaken, said, "Hey. I know how he was killed. It was a particular type of spell, very hard to do, called the Escher Curse."
"Escher Curse?" I'd never heard of it before, but I could tell from Barrick's expression that he had.
"Yeah," Vinny continued, "and Jon, it's a doozy if ever there was one. One, maybe two wizards in the whole world could do this sort of thing. Okay, maybe more. My point is, this sort of thing takes some big guns, you know what I mean?"
"Vinny," I decided to say it with Barrick nearby. "Could, say, Robert Barrick do something like this?"
Barrick frowned massivly and shook his head in a violent negative.
"Barrick?" I heard Vinny think about it. Vinny thinks very loudly. "Maybe, but I doubt it. Barrick doesn't have the sort of focus for this type of curse. It requires solid, single mindedness. Barrick is a bit scatterbrained, from what I've seen and heard. Speaking of which, did you hear he had a child?"
"Vinny," I said, speaking with the wisdom of newly gained knowledge, "I can categorically tell you that he, Robert Barrick, does not have a child."
"Oh?" Vinny got that tone in his voice. The one that says 'and how could you know this when I just found out about it myself?" Which by the way is what he said to me. "How could you possibly know this when I just found out about it myself?"
"Because, Vinny, I happen to be standing here speaking with the man himself when you decided to give me a call."
Vinny laughed. "You are so full of it. What would Barrick be doing talking to a second rater like you. Standing there with Robert Barrick. It is to laugh."
Barrick took the phone out of my hand. "It's true, my boy. Johann is standing here, and we've had a marvelous chat about what killed Francis Mendlehousen, Mary the little match girl, and all sort of lovely things. Perhaps next time he comes to visit, he'll bring you." Barrick listened a bit. I wish I could hear what Vinny was saying. "Oh," Barrick continued, "I assure you, I am Robert Barrick. I'll tell you what. How about if I have one of my assistants pop in at your place of work and prove it to you? Will that suffice?" I heard Vinny laughing. "Very well, please hold."
Barrick raised two fingers to his lips and whistled long and shrilly. Dante' the Gnome popped in using his wormhole. Barrick looked at me and winked just before he bent down and whispered in Dante's ear. Dante nodded, said "Whatever you want, boss," and popped out again.
A second later, I heard Vinny's voice, no longer laughing, scream out something obscene. Dante' reappeared and was carrying Vinny's BLT. Dante' took a large bite out of the sandwich. "Mission accomplished, Boss. Thanks for the sandwich." Dante' gave me the stink-eye, flipped me the bird and popped back out through his wormhole.
"I don't think Dante' likes you very much, Johann," Barrick said with a chuckle. He raised the phone back up to his ear. "Cousin Vinny? Does that convince you I am who I say I am?"
I could feel, even though I couldn't hear, Vinny backpedaling as much as he could.
"No," Barrick said, soothingly. "It's perfectly understandable. Many of us aren't what we appear, are we? And you are sure that it was the Escher Curse? And you're sure I can't have been the one to perform it?" Vinny blahs for a few seconds. "Ah ha," said Barrick, nodding. "I can see where you would say that, and I concur. I no longer have the excellent mental faculties that I used to. No. I'm all right. Just very old, cousin Vinny. Just very, very old. Mmmm Hmm. Yes. It was a pleasure speaking with you as well. I'll give you back to Johann." He started to hand the phone back to me when Vinny asked him one more thing. "What was that? No, no, Vinny. I did not have a child. Yes, I am looking for an heir." Barrick chuckled. "No, I'm sorry, Vinny. It can't be you, although I have to applaud your audacity."
He handed the phone back to me. "I like your cousin," Barrick said, nodding. "Even if he isn't really your cousin. A very nice, down to earth individual."
I looked at Barrick and shrugged. "He's all right, for people," I said. To the phone I said, "Vinny, Look man, I have to go, okay? Escher Curse... got it. You're sure that's what did it?"
"Look," Vinny said, "with that many bones broken, the man would have had to have fallen down the stairs, then back up the stairs, then back down the stairs, then across the wall and around the room before falling back up and down the stairs. Only one thing that my research shows would cause that, and that, my friend, is the Escher Curse."
I looked over at Barrick. "Did you hear?"
Barrick nodded solemnly. "I agree with Cousin Vinny's assesment. From what I gather is an extremely unusual amount of bones broken and internal organs shattered or whatever, the Escher Curse would be the most logical conclusion. And, Johann, even though I know about the Curse and even have an idea how to put it together, I wouldn't have done it when I was in my prime."
"Okay." I heard what he had said, now I listened. "You said you wouldn't have done it. COULD you have done it?"
Barrick shrugged one shoulder. "I don't honestly know. Perhaps. Perhaps not. I do know of one magician who could and would have done it. I doubt it would be much of a help, though."
"Oh?" I raised my eyebrows at Barrick. "And who would that have been?"
Barrick shrugged. "Francis Mendlehousen. He really was a nasty creature, Johann."
"Vinny, I gotta go. Thanks." I disconnected.
"So," I prompted Barrick, "Who else BESIDES Mendlehousen could and would have done the Escher curse?"
Barrick pondered the question. "I don't know. Cousin Vinny was correct in that only one or two magicians could and would have done the Curse correctly. There are, however, many that CAN do it. Just many who won't do it."
"So, the question," I postulated, "becomes, who could have taken the Escher Curse and turned it on Mendlehousen, and how is Mary involved?"
Barrick nodded. "How is Mary involved, indeed." He sighed. "Johann, Mary and I go back many years, as I said. I believe I can tell you this much without betraying our trust. Francis Mendlehousen was working on a way to remove the curse from Mary.
Oh? "Robert, if the curse was removed, wouldn't Mary have, you know, died, right then and there?"
"Ah, yes." Barrick nodded. "In normal circumstances, yes, that might have occurred. Perhaps, in this case, it would be best to say that Francis was working on a modification to Mary's curse. Francis, from what Mary had told me, was attempting to allow Mary to grow up naturally and normally without turning to dust from the number of years she had already existed. Sort of a 'restarting' of her time, if you would."
Hmm. "Robert, when you were... excuse me, when your assistant was down at the Warehouse district, um, wearing your face, did they happen to mention what happened to Mary?"
"Why, no." Barrick shook his head negatively. "He didn't. He simply said that Mary's house burned and she wasn't in it when that happened." He turned his gaze on me again. "Why? Is the truth a bit different than what I was told?"
I took a deep breath. "Robert, when I was there, I saw your assistant, and I saw Mary. AND I saw a demon, or what I think was a demon."
Barrick looked shocked. "A demon? Around here?"
"I don't know, Robert. It blew up afterward."
"Demons don't blow up," he said.
"I mean it exploded."
"Demons don't explode, either."
"Well, this one did," I insisted.
"Then it wasn't a demon, Johann."
"What was it, Robert?" I tried to not let my exasperation bleed through my voice. "It looked like a demon, it opened a demon gate and it closed the demon gate after Mary went through it. Then it exploded."
"The gate exploded?" Barrick asked.
"No," I explained. "The demon exploded."
"Maybe it was a dummy," he offered. "A golem."
"A golem?" I pondered. Maybe.
"Yes," Barrick said. "A golem carries some of the power of the person it's shaped after. Sort of like a voodoo doll, except a voodoo doll carries none of the abilities of the person it's shaped after, only the ability to transfer physical sensation or mental manipulation. But a golem... if you take a golem and inscribe a scroll for the golem to behave such and such a way, and then wrap that scroll in rune soaked cloth and then put that inside of a gopher wood box and then put the box inside of the golem, then the golem would have whatever characteristics the scroll and the shape gives it. For example, I couldn't shape a golem to look like you and then give it spider like powers. That would be silly and it would never work. However, I could make a golem and 'program' it to be able to see into the past." He looked puzzled for a second. "I don't know why I would do that, though."
"Robert, this demon exploded," I reminded him.
"Yes, yes." He nodded. "I think it was the heat, you see. Pottery will also explode if it's subjected to high temperatures. And that is essentially what a golem is. A walking, moving, phyiscal expression of a person, or in this case, a demon, in pottery."
I mentioned that the demon looked an awful lot like the gargoyle on the Brownstone Stoop.
"Oh?" Barrick said, his brow scrunched up. "Interesting. That may mean that who ever created the golem was familiar with the gargoyle. It may have created the gargolem - my little play on words - because the real gargoyle recognized Mary."
"Um, Robert," I was getting hungry. "A gargoyle isn't a real thing. It's a statue, you know?"
Barrick gave me one raised eyebrow. "Johann, do not believe that you know everything. If you do, it will make life much harder for you to learn in the future. Of course gargoyles are real things. In fact, the two in front of Francis' brownstone are a lovely couple. Catch them on a full moon and see. Quite the conversationalists, considering they can only come out for four days a month. Unless, of course, it's a blue moon month. Then they can come out for eight days."
Hmmm. "Robert, do you think the gargoyles might be able to shed some light on the murder?"
"I doubt it, Johann. The last full moon was fifteen days ago. Francis' murder happened two nights ago." He shrugged his shoulders. "You'll have to try a different tack."
"Well, it was worth a shot."
"Johann," Barrick asked, his eyes full of concern. "You said that Mary stepped through the gate before it closed, yes?"
"Yes, Robert," I nodded. "I saw her step through to what looked like some sort of tropical island or paradise." I debated on the next part, and decided to go ahead anyway. "And before she left, she blew a kiss to whoever was your assistant for the evening."
"Oh?" Barrick pondered this for all of a second. "OH? Really? Blew him a kiss, did you say? And I was told that he didn't even see Mary." Barrick's face clouded over. He placed two fingers into his mouth and blew.
Dante' popped in. "Yes Boss?"
Barrick did not look happy. "Tell Armand I want to see him."
Dante' hesitated. "Uh. Boss."
Barrick looked even less happy. Sentences that start out with 'uh' very rarely carry good news. "Yes, Dante'?"
"Armand isn't here today."
"Ah," Barrick nodded, with lightning flashing out of his eyes. "I see. Do you have any idea where he went, Dante'?"
Dante' shook his head in the negative. "No, boss. I don't."
Barrick's face was turning red, which was not a terribly pretty sight. "Very well, Dante'. Best you go back to... um... your garden for the nonce. I will look into your 'missing in action' compadre'."
Dante's face clouded. "Is Armand in trouble, boss?"
Barrick didn't say anything at first. Then he smiled. It was a terrible smile in it's lack of feeling. It was the sort of smile a Jabberwocky might have smiled, with Teeth that Bite and Claws that Catch. "It depends upon Armand, Dante'. Go back to your garden, now."
"Yes, boss." With a flash of blue light, the gnome was gone.
Barrick turned toward me and frowned. It was still Jabberwockyish and still frightening, but it wasn't directed at me. "I am sorry, Johann. This has been fun, and I'm afraid I will have to cut it short for now. I do believe I have found Mary, with your help." He went to one of the many desks in the room and pulled out a checkbook. "Would a thousand dollars be enough, do you think?"
I gaped at him. "Robert, I didn't do anything!"
Barrick's frown briefly turned upside down. "Don't be rediculous. I asked to hire you to find Mary. You pointed me in the right direction to do that very thing, and I suspect I will also find my missing Armand. You've also been very entertaining. I think a thousand is enough." He tore the check from it's register. "The same amount I paid you when you found that earring. Amazing how earrings and old friends end up costing the same."
"What do you think it means, Robert?"
"I think, Johann, that it means that Mary and Armand are somewhere I can find them. I think, and I speak from past experience, that our little Mary is, as the young people say, 'getting her freak on'."
"What are you going to do about it? You aren't going to hurt them, are you?"
Barrick looked shocked. "What are you talking about, Johann? Mary is one of my oldest and dearest friends. Armand is an employee. I'll simply verify my suspicions. Mary is certainliy old enough to make up her own mind about who and what she beds. Armand, on the other hand. He's lost a day's pay and he may very well lose his position if he doesn't have a good excuse."
I shrugged. "Perhaps they are in love, Robert."
His frown deepened. "Love is always an excuse, Johann. It is rarely the reason." He rose from the bar stool and headed toward the large oaken doors. I followed, close at his heels. He moves pretty quick for an old guy.
"I hope we can chat again very soon, Johann. I've enjoyed this." He opened the door and stepped out into the hall. "If you would be so kind as to show yourself out, thank you." Then there was a bright red flash and a bit of thunder and the most powerful Sorcerer in the world went to take care of something else.
So... Mary was not the killer. She was involved. Mendlehousen MIGHT have been fooling around with Mary, but the chances were that he was actually trying to help him. Mary was still seen by me leaving Mendlehousen's building the day of his death, and she didn't look unhappy about something. Maybe it was because she was meeting her lover, Armand, whose shoes I don't even want to be in when Barrick catches up with him. Regardless, Mendlehousen had a lot of enemies. That I could believe. And he was killed by a Curse - the Escher Curse in fact - that only a few of the Elite could cast. And I still don't know why. Back to the Brownstone I go, but this time to search Mendlehousen's apartment. I'm just missing something that I never knew existed in the first place.
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Also, does "but the chances were that he was actually trying to help him" contain a pronoun error, or is it just confusing to me?
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