The Framing of Jon Smith

[joegoda]

42442 / 50000 words. 85% done!

"You gotta go, Sport." He slapped me again. It was an interesting position, me laying on the floor, looking at green pointed shoes and skinny knees wrapped in yellow tights. "The boss will be home soon. You gotta go."

"Stop slapping me!" I struggled to sit upright. "What the heck was in that drink?"

"Never mind. You've been snoring for the last hour." Dante' looked nervously toward the door. "I couldn't wake you up, dummy. And now, you really gotta go!"

"Why?" I shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs away. "What's the big deal? Barrick knows that I'm here, doesn't he?"

The gnome sighed. "He knew you were here. He doesn't know you're here now. When he comes back from one of these... business trips, he doesn't like visitors. At all."

The house rumbled. Something crashed and a groan like an elephant falling to it's knees echoed through the house.

"What the hell was that?" Standing, although very shaky, I looked around as if I could find the source of the noise.

"That's the old man, coming back!" Dante' sounded panicked and his voice dropped to a whisper. "We gotta move you, like yesterday."

He reached up and grabbed my pant leg. That blue glow that signaled a wormhole started to rise around us.

"Look, Sport," he said, "I'm gonna drop you right at your car, okay?" He waited for my nod. My head felt like it was going to roll off my shoulders. "I can't stick around, because I need to be here to help him... I just need to be here."

The blue glow enveloped us just as the doors flew open. I got the briefest image of something large, furry and with enormous curling horns on it's head. There was a rider wearing full battle armor, something out of the knights of the round table meets Norse viking type of armor. I caught a glimpse of Barrick's face behind a fierce looking helm. In his hand he carried a staff, covered with runes.

Then I was seated on the ground next to the thingmobile. "Was that a mammoth?" I asked no one at all as I stood up and dusted the seat of my jeans. "That looked like a woolly mammoth. And what the heck was Barrick wearing?"

I climbed in my car and thought about where to go next. I slipped the key into the ignition and just left it there while I contemplated my next move.

Back to the Brownstone? For what? Check out the monster in the closet? Not likely. Have another talk with Tammy? Seriously doubtful I'll be seeing her again. Besides that place gives me the creeps.

I could go down to the Warehouse district and try to scare up some more clues. Doubt I would find any, though. Anything that might have been there had either been trampled by all the activity putting out the fire or else was long gone. Besides, Mary had been found, or at least Barrick believed he knew where she was.

Speaking of Mary - her love, Armand, was a shapeshifter. Not the most common of things, and too close to that werewolf thing for me to be comfortable with it. Shapeshifters weren't magic workers. They were, like Mary, usually the result of a curse or a spell or a charm or something like that. People weren't born shapeshifters, as far as I knew. Heck, maybe there were werewolves and werepoodles and were whatevers. Except they weren't caused by getting bitten or scratched or however werestuff is transmitted. Maybe they were just shapeshifters stuck in a cycle. I've dated people like that.

So, Mary wasn't the killer. Armand? Maybe, but somehow I doubted he had any magical capabilities, besides being able to change what he looked like. If he had been a wizard or a magician, the need for the demon down at the Warehouse wouldn't have existed. He would have just magic'd up a doorway or a wormhole or whatever, just like Dante' does. Unless, unless his particular type of magic didn't give him the capability for doorways.

And the demon exploded. I saw it with my own eyes, the demon exploded. Barrick said demons don't explode. So... maybe this wasn't a demon. Maybe it was something like Tammy, who also exploded. Tammy claimed to be multiple ghosts all rolled up into one. The ghosts of... The little girls that Mendlehousen used up and tossed to that monster? Okay. I don't know everything. It could be.

But then, why did she react the way she did when I mentioned Roy, the demon at the Warehouse? She looked shocked when I mentioned the name. Maybe they're related? Roy and Tammy? Now that would be an odd relationship. Maybe they weren't like brother and sister. Maybe looking like a demon wasn't Roy's normal appearance. No, in fact, he didn't look like a demon. He looked like a gargoyle. Specifically, like the gargoyle on the front stoop of the brownstone.

And why was that? Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not. It might turn out to be one of life’s little mysteries. Or, I could talk it out with someone who's been dancing around this stuff longer than I have. Frank Lezardo has been on the police force long enough to make Chief detective. We don't talk much anymore since he buddied me up with Dick Reed. Still, there is the occasional Christmas card and sometimes we even remember each other's birthdays.

Frank's office was on the 3rd floor of City Hall, along with all the other officials in the police department. The actual police department was spread out over 22 different stations and substations throughout the City. Pretty standard for most cities, I think. Dick Reed's station was on fifth and Laundry. The City Hall was uptown, just West of Promise and Delaware.

The building was large and blocky. Eight stories tall and about three times as wide as it was tall. There was a parking garage around to the west side of the building and there were three levels to it. I tended to park on the top level, because that's the one that is less busy. Leaving at rush hour may be a pain, but I like elbow room when I park.

It was pretty dark thirty by my watch. 8 plus o'clock. Would Frank be in? Probably. He tended to work late ever since his wife died. I could have called him, but what the heck. This way everybody gets surprised. If he's not there, I'll be surprised. If he is there, he gets surprised. And if he's not there, then I may just drop by the file room and sew what sort of dirt is on old Bobby Barrick. I've never looked him up before; never had a reason to, either. But if I'm going to be the new heir...

Forget I said that, forget I thought it. I don't know if I want that job. Seeing him come gallumping in on a wooly mammoth dressed like the love child of Arthur Pendragon and Eric the Red. What the hell was he doing, anyway? And why in the hell would I want to be heir to that?

The glass doors to the side entrance of City Hall were locked, of course. Locked unless you have a magic entrance card, which, once swiped, gains one entrance to the second level of a possible body search. Once through the glass doors, you stand in a steel cage until you have been cleared by the search twins - Claude and Hans.

Claude was a big dude, Germanic in tone and posture, 6 foot really big, with broad square shoulders and chiseled jaw. His hair, blonde of course, was cropped as short as possible and still show up. His ice blue eyes stared without malice, without humor, without humanity. Thinking back on the discussion about golems, I wondered if Claude could be one. I don't think I've ever seen him blink. I do know that if I ever needed a tire changed and didn't have a jack, Claude would be the first one I'd call.

Not that I could imagine him showing up. "Ha ha ha, little man. Your finely tuned German automobile has a broken tire? And you want Claude to fix it for you? Ha ha ha. Claude will do this for you, but first you must tear out your own heart. Claude is hungry."

Yeah. Something like that.

Hans on the other hand was this skinny guy, about five and a half foot tall, just a couple inches shorter than me. He had short brown hair, cut in a boring style that sits above a boring face that smiles a lot and tells boring joke. He has brown eyes, with may be a clue what he's full of, and his hands look like bags of walnuts strung together by wires and meat. Regardless of how he may look, Hans is one guy I would want at my back if there were bad guys around. The man is fast on his feet and built out of piano wire on a steel frame. I've seen him take down a guy the size of Claude and wasn't even breathing hard when he was done. The bad guy was just shy of critical, though. A couple of walls nearby were near critical as well.

"Hi Claude, Hans. Anything new tonight?" I stood still, hands raised above my head with the thumbs touching. My feet were placed in the yellow footprints that were painted on the floor inside the circle of doom. The entry to City Hall was the very same process as going through security at the airport. Well, not exactly the very same. Claude and Hans had a pet; a Silky Terrier that they named Picasso. Picasso, besides being just damn cute had a marvelous talent for sniffing out magic users. In particular magic users who were more dark than light.

"Hi Pico," I said to the dog while he licked my fingers.

"Hey, Jon," Hans said, his eyebrows raising while he looked at the screen for any weapon I might have had secluded on or in my body. "Why is it that string never wins?"

Claude didn't make a sound, but he did tilt his head to one side, slightly. I took this to mean, "Here he goes again." Claude and Hans were partners in the domestic sense and I have a feeling that Claude had heard every terrible joke that Hans ever came up with.

"I don't know, Hans," I said, keeping my face passive. "Why is it that string never wins?"

"You're clear, by the way," Hans said. "The reason that string can never win is because the most it can do is tie. Ha ha ha." Actually, when Hans laughs, it goes more 'Guffaw, guffaw, guffaw' than 'Ha Ha Ha'. I really don't know how Claude can put up with it for very long.

Claude grunted. "Nodding new, Johann." Yes, he really talks like that. "Same ol' same ol'. You here to see de CD?"

"Yeah." I stepped out of the circle of doom, and put my shoes back on. "He in?"

"Yah, he's in." Claude passed me my belt. "Tird floor."

"Same as always, thanks guys." I fastened my belt around my waist.

"Hey, Jon," Hans asked. "Why does a chicken coup have only two doors?"

I walked toward the elevators without looking back. "I don't know, Hans. Why does a chicken coup have only two doors?"

The elevator dinged and the doors opened, but not fast enough.

"Because if it had four doors," Hans paused, the sadist. He knew I would hold the doors to find the answer.

"Hans," I cried out, "the doors! Please!"

"Okay, okay." I could tell he relished in my pain. "Because if it had four doors, it would be a chicken sedan."

Even Picasso howled.

The elevator was, thankfully, silent. There was no muzak anywhere in City Hall, as the Mayor had outlawed the use of canned music two years ago. He claimed that it created brain bleed. Nobody argued with him, and the motion passed without opposition.

Third floor. Executive suites and executive suits. City Hall was used for meetings with officials from neighboring cities, states and on occasion, countries. We had a sister city in Guatemala. I don't remember what the name of the city is and I probably couldn't pronounce it if I did.

Frank's office was at the end of the hall, past all the glassed doors and the glass block walls and the certificates on the wall. Frank's door was different. Wooden door, no window.

There was a plaque on the door that said "Chief of Detectives". There wasn't a name on the plaque. Frank knew that the job was only temporary. Frank knew that every job was only temporary. Frank lost his wife two years ago to a sniper. Since then, everything in Frank's life is temporary.

I knocked. Frank deserved my respect, not only because he was my best friend back in elementary school, but also because he 'gets' this weird magical attribute I have. We've been involved in a couple of cases, some of them before he became Chief.

The first case Frank and I worked a guy who was able to be in two places at the same time. Frank remembered my talent and sent out a search party to find me. I was able to prove that the bad guy was indeed the bad guy and that his alibi was just a shadow double he had sent to a bar on 2nd street.

I've been an unofficial part of the police department every since. I've met everyone from the Mayor on down, and it was no secret where I make my money, such as it is. Nobody argues with my participation and it's even gained me some respect and notoriety. Life is good, thanks to Frank.

So, I knocked.

"Come in, Jon."

I opened the door and looked into Frank's tiny office, into his sad hangdog face. "Hans called you, didn't he?" I would have been surprised if he hadn't known I was coming.

"Of course." Frank had thick black hair and in another world, in another life, he could have been a Frank Sinatra impersonator. It would have required that Frank sing, however, and that would have ended a short and illustrious carreer. Frank looked just like Frank and as long as he kept his mouth shut, nobody would have been the wiser. Frank's voice was low, rumbly, and slurred, due to a physical deformity in his mouth. Many a person had mistaken Frank from being drunk. Many a person was wrong.

"Jonny, how have you been?" Frank came from around his twenty year old wooden desk. There wasn't any clutter on that desk. Frank liked his office clean, because it was all, you know, temporary. He wrapped his long arms around me and cracked one of my ribs with his hug. "Been a long time, eh?"

"That it has, Frank." I tried to return the hug as best I could but really, it was like a turtle hugging a bear. "How you been?"

"Oh, you know," Frank mumbled. He reached into one of the drawers of his desk and pulled out a bottle of Jameson's Irish. Rank does have it's priveledges, after all. "Same o, same o. Working and working, payin' rent, payin' the man." He leaned back in his desk chair and knocked back his Jameson's. "What can I do ya for?"

"Frankie," I said, sitting on the edge of his deak, "I'm stuck."

"Not the first time I've heard that, Jonny." He smiled at me, warmly. "You'll get through it. You always do."

"I know, I'm just special that way." I held up an empty glass. Frank nodded toward the open bottle. As I poured, I said, "It's just that this case... the Mendlehousen case, is eating my brain, Frank. I can't let it go."

"Hmmm." Frank rubbed a spot above his eyes. "Tell me what's going on." He leaned back and waited.

"See, it all began with a call from Reed." and I spilled the story of what the last two days had held.

"So, Frank, the dog wasn't a dog," talking made me dry. I had drunk half a pot of coffee just to keep awake. "The Great Mendlehousen wasn't so great. Mary the Match girl has run away with a shapechanger. And Barrick is invovled but is untouchable."

Frank, who had been pretty much silent the entire time, nodded. "He thinks so, and he is untouchable, pretty much. Still, I can vouch for him, Jonny. If he's involved, it's just because he knows more than the rest of us."

"What do you know about Barrick, Frank?"

"Why do you want to know, Jonny?" Frank gazed placidly at me. "You know the base story, right?"

"Yeah, of course." I nodded. "I spent more time with him recently than I've ever spent with him in the past. I was just wondering if there's a back story to him, besides being the magical prodigy of two non-magical parents."

Frank nodded, apparently understanding. "Yes, Jonny, of course there's a back story besides the public one. There always is." He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. "I'm not at liberty to tell you the details of that back story."

"But Frank," I began to protest. He raised one hand, palm towards me.

"No, Jonny." He shook his head in negation. "On this thing I cannot help you." His tone turned serious, more serious than normal. "Robert Barrick is a man who, and I can't believe I'm saying this, is above the law. He's a man who has decided to be part of the human race, rather than to be against the human race." His face grew even more dark, more serious. "This is a fact that is very important, Johann, and you need to make note of it. Barrick is a good man, and he is on our side."

Hmmm. Okay. "Frank," I thought about telling him that I might be in line to be Barrick's heir, but changed my mind. I didn't have any proof of it, and thinking about what Frank just told me, it actually sounded rather silly. "Okay. I take your hint, my friend. Barrick is a big dog. I'll leave him alone."

"Wise idea, Jonny," Frank continued to watch me. He knew how I thought most of the time. He knew this wasn't done with, and he also knew that I had my own reasons for asking. "So, what about Mendlehousen? I hadn't heard that he had... hobbies, but it wouldn't surprise me. These magic folk, they spend so much time being someone else that after a while they begin to believe that the rules the rest of us live by don't apply to them."

"And did I mention the monster in his closet? I think I was lucky to make it out alive."

"Jonny," Frank hadn't moved much, and he was still keeping his eyes on me. "Why were you in that apartment during an investigation? You might have tampered with evidence."

"Frank," I said, annoyed, "that's crap and you know it. There wasn't anything in the apartment that was linked to Mendlehousen's death. He died at the bottom of the staircase, more or less."

"He died at the top of the staircase, Jonny." Frank let go of me with his stare. "He died at the top. The apartment was sealed because of the investigation."

An idea occured to me. "Frank, I call bullshit." I stood up and faced him, pressing my hands into his desktop. "I think that apartment was sealed because this department knew about Mendlehousen's perversions. Maybe they didn't know before his death, but I would bet donuts to dollars that you knew about it, and you even knew about the closet monster."

Frank smiled. In all the time I've known him, I've never seen Frank thrown, never seen him upset to the point of losing his composure. "Jonny, I can't confirm your suspiciouns. I can tell you that I, personally did not know about it."

I looked at Franks eyes. He didn't blink, he just kept smiling his poker face smile. I believed him, and I told him so. "What do you know, Frank? You know more than you're telling me. Cough it up."

"Jonny," Frank leaned forward again and poured another drink. "It's true that this department was aware of some of Mendlehousen's activities. We were also aware of Mary Match and her involvement with Mendlehousen. At first we thought it was an illicit meeting for reasons of sex and profit."

"It wasn't," I interjected.

"We know," Frank nodded at me. He offered the bottle to me and I took it. "Mary was looking for a cure. It is not an unusual thing, Jonny, for these magic types to try to figure a way to be normal." He looked pointedly at me.

I knew what he was looking at. When I was a young man, being different was not that easy. Hell, now that I'm an old man, it's still not easy. There were a few times when I prayed to either die or be normal. And I don't really have any magic to speak of.

"Yeah, I getcha." I thought for a second. "What about Armand?"

"The shapeshifter?" Frank shrugged. "He and Mary fell in love, or something like it. I wish them the best, wherever they are."

"You knew he worked for Barrick, right?"

"No, I didn't." Frank picked up an ancient ink pen and wrote something on a small pad of paper. He looked up at me while he wrote. "Thanks for that, Jon. Doesn't surprise me, though."

"Why is that, Frank?"

"Because," he said without blinking, "we all work for Barrick, even if we don't know it."

"What?" Okay, Barrick is starting to bug me. So I told Frank that. "Barrick is what? Some sort of magical Godfather, with his fingers into everything?"

Frank nodded. "Maybe. Maybe. You have to trust me on this, Johann. Barrick is a good guy." He raised his glass at me. "Leave it alone, Jonny. Really."

I sighed. "All RIGHT, sheesh. I don't know the big deal about Barrick. I'm trying to find out, but you keep stonewalling me."

"Yes, I am." Frank admitted. "If Barrick wants you to know more, and he very well might,"

"Really?" I raised my eyebrows. "Why?"

"He would have his own reasons, if he did." Frank clenched his jaw and didn't say any more about it. "Tell me more about this exploding demon."

I sat quiet for a long moment. I had some thinking to do, but that could wait. "I don't think it was a demon, Frank. Demons don't explode. Ghosts don't explode either. Barrick thought that maybe the Roy the demon was a golem, and the heat of the fire caused him to explode, like a clay pot that overheated."

"And Tammy?" Frank asked. "Any explanation for an exploding ghost?"

"Nope." I was clueless about that. For a second, maybe. "I'm was thinking that Tammy and Roy were related."

"You sound doubtful."

"Well, thinking about it, ghosts and demons being related doesn't make much sense, Frank."

"Ghosts aren't always ghosts, Jonny," Frank reminded me. "Originally, they start as something else."

"So do demons, Frank." I paced his room. "Listen. Tammy said she wasn't exactly a ghost. She was a conglomerate of ghosts. She was made up of the spirits of the dead girls that Mendlehousen had killed, right?"

"If you say so," Frank said, letting me ramble.

"And demons... what are demons?"

"Depends on your religious bent."

"Right," I nodded. "In this case, since we don't know the religious bent, we have to go by what we know. Roy, the demon, looked exactly like the gargoyle at Mendlehousen's brownstone. Tammy hung around the brownstone. Tammy and Roy both exploded. I think that Tammy and Roy are the same person."

"A person," Frank asked. "And you said are, not were. So, not a spook, a dead person. Who?"

"I'm thinking that it would be someone who can pretty much come and go at will," I told him. "Someone who knew both Armand and Mary and was pretty darn acquainted with how evil Mendlehousen is... was."

"Jonny," Frank got a warning sound in his voice. "It's not Barrick..."

"I wasn't thinking of Barrick, Frank." Sheesh. Make one slip up and they never let you forget it. "I was thinking of someone who works for Barrick. I don't have any proof yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm right."

"You gonna clue me in, Jonny?" I think I finally said something that got Frank interested.

"Not yet, Frankie." It's been a long time since I used that name. "But I need you help on this: What would cause me to become such a celebrity to the people of Barrick's neighborhood?"

"Huh?" Frank stared at me. "Explain that to me."

"Every time I was there and something weird happened, everybody I saw on the street was giving me the fish eye, like I was the most important person in the world. Like I was all they could focus on." I paused and let that sink in. "Frank, I don't know what the hell that means."

"It's not because you're good looking, Jonny." Frank actually cracked a smile. He looked, for a second, like the old Frank, before Louise got killed. Then, quick as a bathtub bubble, it broke.

"Listen, Frank." I was getting an idea. "I want to borrow someone tomorrow. Someone who doesn't know me. Someone with clear eyes."

"What for, Jonny?"

"I'm going back to the Brownstone," I told him. "I'm going ghost hunting."