Ash and Iron

by

 Parhelion

 


V---Going Downtown



On the other side was an office corridor with the usual overhead lamps, rubber plants, and ashtrays filled with sand.  Only its floor was out of place.  I put one foot across the threshold and felt around.  When it stopped where the carpeting should be, I took a deep breath and walked through the open door.  Once inside, I paused to look down again.  Beneath my feet, the midnight sky with all its stars was magnificent, like the dance floor for a Fred and Ginger routine. 

Suspended above the void, I headed towards the elevator.  The windows in the office doors along the corridor had been washed.  The rubber plants were healthy and someone was emptying the ashtrays.  I wondered what kind of character would work in a place like this.  When I got to the elevator, the doors of the car opened, and I found out. 

He was okay below his collar.  The bulge under his jacket told me he was carrying a gun:  that was bad tailoring.  Otherwise his suit was fine, a gray number with a thin chalk stripe that I would have worn myself.  I wouldn't have put black suede shoes with it, but there's no accounting for taste.  It may be that he was trying to coordinate since above the neck he was a crow.  Perhaps he was a raven, given that big ruff of feathers. 

My brain was trying to jam again, complete with horns blaring and brakes screeching, but I waved the mental traffic to one side and told myself to concentrate.  I took a deep breath and let it out again.  The guard turned his head to one side, so he could inspect me with a single yellow eye.  "What are you looking at, Mac?"

"Sorry," I said.  "I'm not used to seeing an elevator guarded."

"This is a private car.  You got a pass or a token?"

I slapped my pockets.  "Nope.  My boss is upstairs, though.  How about you call him?  He'll vouch for me."

He waggled his beak, the way crows do when they're laughing at you.  I remembered the gesture from my childhood among the Ohio cornfields.  I hadn't liked it then, either.  "What do I look like, a switchboard operator? You can't go up without credentials."

Nero Wolfe has standing instructions for when I hit a snag and cannot talk to him.  I'm to make my own decision using my intellect in the light of experience.  On the one hand, something about this guy's attitude told me that he wanted a piece of me, and I wasn't inclined to give it to him.  On the other hand, I knew he had a gun and I didn't. 

I made my decision and shrugged.  "Hey, it's okay.  I'll take the stairs."

It ruffled him for a moment, but he smoothed his feathers and said, "The stairs only go down."

That was a problem.  Still, he hadn't liked my idea, which probably made it a good one.  I glanced around and, sure enough, spotted a door labeled "Fire Exit".

I grinned.  "Down it is, then.  I'd better go and let you get back to work. You never know when the rabble are going to storm the elevator."

I'd made him unhappy.  His head darted forwards as if he was going to peck at something dead on the highway.  I danced out of range, reached back, grabbed the doorknob, and let myself into the stairwell.  After I slammed the door behind me, I took the stairs two at a time before he could decide to follow me. 

The stairs may have looked normal, but the treads moved beneath my feet as if I were on the gangway of a ship.  After a couple of flights, I realized the stairs weren't swaying, the stairwell was breathing.  I trotted down the remaining flights, wanting out of the building before it got any more cute ideas like swallowing me.  On the way, I passed a couple of doors to lower floors, but I kept on going until I reached the exit at the foot of the stairs.  That door, I was glad to see, had a fire bar on it.  When I pushed it open and went through onto the street outside, the door swung shut behind me with a heavy clunk.

Up where the sky should have been, was black. It wasn't the black of an overcast night but the black of a cavern when they turn the lanterns down low.  I tried to estimate distances.  My brain resisted.  All I could sense was a great space above me.  Telling myself not to waste time, I looked back down at the buildings around me.  They were modern enough to have been built in the last ten years if architects were now hop-heads in their spare time. 

The buildings didn't worry me, but the passers-by were strange.  As an example, the guy running the newsstand on the corner was dead.  The businessman buying a paper from him seemed normal enough, and could have worked at any firm on Wall Street, but the newsie himself was missing half his head.  Lots of the other pedestrians were things I wouldn't otherwise have seen without eight shots of bootleg rye to inspire me.  It was all getting to me.  I really needed someplace to sit quietly, observe the local action, and catch my breath.  Checking the building fronts for a bar or diner, I spotted the marquee of a nightclub up the block and went to see if I could get in. 

I wasn't trying to be cute, heading for a club.  Usually I can find company willing to talk when a table by a dance floor and a couple of drinks are involved. I knew I needed information even if, this time, someone else would have to do the buying.  I wasn't going to try to guess what was used for cash around here. 

The doorman looked familiar considering that I don't know too many pale, bald guys with ears like a bat's, teeth like a snake's, and fingernails like a mole's.  When I walked up to him, he laughed and opened the door.  That made my skin crawl.  It seemed as if the locals could tell at a glance that I didn't come from the neighborhood, and strangers seemed to be fresh meat.  I knew I was a hick again, and I did not like it.  It gave me the attitude I needed to walk into the nightclub.  As it turned out, the attitude was useful. 

The décor was death a la art deco.  The place had started out as a limestone cavern, with stalactites and stalagmites---not that I could tell them apart---and all the other rock formations you pay a few bucks to gape at along America's scenic highways.  It would have been worth your money since someone had gilded all the limestone with silver.  The result was cold, elegant, and ruined by the decorations that covered the walls. 

When I took that trip to New Mexico a few years back, we were south of the border in San Carlos de Borremo y Potosi over Halloween.  I thought then that I had never seen so many skulls in my life.  Wolfe had loathed the toy skeletons I brought back with me, but he hadn't known when he was well off.  Here, riveted to the walls and accented with more gilt, were twice as many skeletons as in all of San Carlos, but somebody hadn't cleaned them up properly and it had made them hostile.  If I didn't flinch, it was only because a decade or so of working with Wolfe will harden you to anything. 

The patrons didn't improve my mood any.  I scanned the room just once and then focused firmly on the dance floor.  Most of the people on it looked human, probably because you need a few intact limbs to do well dancing.  So, when the headwaiter came to escort me to a table, I asked him for one by the floor.  He was only a naked rack of bones in evening dress, but least he was polished, dry, and didn't seem to expect me to slip him a gratuity for the ring-side table. 

We were passing the largest and best of the tables when she accosted me.  "Hello, Archie," she said. 

Her voice glowed from within, like the ruby-red glass of an old storm lantern.  Her dark eyes held secrets, and her figure suggested without promising.  Her features were classic, her makeup subdued, and her simple, black evening gown hinted at affluence older than old money.  Her hair was dark as night and twice as long.  To give you some idea of the impression she made on me, I didn't object to her using my first name.  Usually I reserve my first name for people who know me since I find a stranger who greets me with it is generally trouble.  It only goes to show that you should stick to your own rules. 

"Would you like to sit down?"  She put the silver mirror she had been examining face down on the table in front of her.  The three men sitting with her all leaned forward to look me over.  She ignored them. 

I already knew that if I wanted any information, I'd have to take a chance.  "Sure, I'd be happy to join you if there's any room at the inn.  "

She turned to the three men at her table.  They shifted their chairs aside to make a space for me, and I took the opportunity to inspect them.  The first wasn't so bad, just the kind of half-ape, half-executive you find crushing walnuts in his fist to impress the showgirls at the Crystal Ballroom.  From his attitude, I fingered him as the husband.  The second character was a more dubious proposition.  He was another animal-head and I already had the evidence that such men were dangerous.  His skinny black-dog's muzzle was wrinkled up over his teeth as if I smelled bad.  I was willing to take it in stride;  maybe, to these people, I did reek.  However, when compared to the third musketeer, Dogthos looked swell.  The last guy, I did not like at all.  Or rather, he was okay but his twin brother was not.  This junior version of himself was growing out of his shoulders, giving him two necks and two heads facing in opposite directions.  As I went to sit down, both heads turned and both pairs of eyes looked at me.  Senior was bored and irritated, but Junior had the eyes I have had the bad luck to see before, the eyes that could make you shudder and not know why. 

"Would you like a drink?  Something to eat?" She nodded at the table.  The food on the sterling service could have made Fritz sulk, the presentation was that good. 

I shook my head.  "No, thanks, I'm on duty.  I'm looking for my employer, Mr.  Nero Wolfe."

"Mr.  Wolfe.  Of course I know of him, although," she smiled a little, "we've never met face to face.  I hope to have the chance to meet him, some day."

"You might.  Although, I have to warn you, he's pretty eccentric about meeting women."  I shrugged.  "You're not missing much unless you have a taste for fat, egomaniacal geniuses."

She pursed her lips.  "I do, as a matter of fact.  I spend so much of my time working with such ordinary people that a true eccentric comes as a positive relief.  Besides, I believe we share an interest." She waved a hand towards the centerpiece on the table.  The vase was another nice piece of silver work, if you like deformed mummies, and contained an impressive array of obscure plant life.  I had been to enough garden shows for Wolfe to name a few: acacia and  amaranth, coltsfoot, southernwood, and wallflowers.  There were others in the assortment, too, including one that I didn't recognize but knew that I should. 

"I arranged this myself."

It was an odd mix, if you asked me.  Perhaps she sensed I was unimpressed because she added, "I also raised most of them myself."

"Wolfe does admit the occasional female horticulturist," I said, "with reluctance."

"Ah, good.  I will have to discover if I can get in to see him.  Although it may be a while before I arrive.  I find my appointment book is quite crowded, these days."

I do not want you to think I am a sap.  I was catching some of the undertones, and they were not promising.  I kept a friendly and frank expression on my face.  "I'm sure he would find it interesting."

She laughed.  In this company, it was an amazing laugh.  It made me want to take her up and out of this cavern into the fresh autumn air.  She must have read the urge behind my eyes because she went solemn.  I felt like I had crushed a butterfly. 

When she smiled again, she had herself back under control.  "Interesting.  A word of many connotations.  Yes, I am sure that he would find it interesting."

"Interesting enough that I think he would admit you.  That's not something I could say to many women."

"Perhaps because the competition to engage his interest has already been won."

There were a lot of ways I could take that statement, but I settled on the simplest one.  "Thanks.  That's quite the compliment coming from a lady of your standing."

"And how do you know of my, hmm, standing?"

I nodded my head to each side.  "Surroundings.  Presence.  And your companions.  I'd be a poor P. I. if I couldn't figure it out."

I had won my bet with myself.  When she smiled for real, you saw the dimples.  "Do you know who my companions are?"

That was easy to answer.  "No, and it's fine.  I don't need to know.  "

Hubby actually grinned.  I decided that he might be okay if we stayed out of dark alleys together.  Junior, though, was whispering to Dogface while Senior crumbled a breadstick into crumbs. 

"Wise Archie," she said, with a velvet purr in her voice.  "Very few of the young men we see here know when to stop asking questions.  They discover, only after it is too late, what we charge for answers."

Well, that shot my plans for obtaining information all to hell because I took her at her word.  "Then I guess there's nothing left for me to do but try and amuse you."

She raised a single eyebrow.  Nice trick, that;  I wished I was back in the office annoying Wolfe with it.  "You are amusing me.  Unusual, since I have seen a great deal and am difficult to please.  Hmm.  It is the tradition that a man who amuses me receives a gift to take back with him.  What gift would you like?"

There was something about her attitude that let me know she expected me to ask for a smile, or a dance, or a kiss.  However, I had a different idea.  I had recognized the flower that had seemed so familiar.  Its color, a vivid scarlet, was what had sidetracked me.  It was an orchid and a cattleya, to boot.  I snagged it out of the vase and tucked it into my lapel.  "I'll take this, thanks."

She seemed surprised.  "A good choice, Archie." Then her eyes filled with sympathy, and I knew I was in for it.  "Of course, you owe us a gift in return."

I should have made a break for it, but I was caught napping.  The twins and Dogface grabbed me and frog-marched me into the back although not without a struggle.  Hubby got up, sighed, and followed us out.  What I glimpsed on the way through the kitchens was enough to make me glad that I had decided against trying the house specialties. 

The boys kept going, into a back room that may once have been a pantry.  It had shelves, a table, crates and canisters stacked against the walls, and the usual metal lamp with a single bulb hanging overhead.  When they got me inside and the door closed, they started working me over.  Their manner was that of men who have a job to do except for Junior, who kept walking his fingers up and down my ribs and giggling as if he was playing post office.  They kept at me until I was past putting up a fight, and then they dumped me on top of the table and backed up.  Dogface drew a gun from a shoulder holster.  Senior picked a cleaver up from the top of one of the crates.  Hubby, who had been watching it all with a sympathetic expression, went over and levered the top off one of the canisters stacked up against the wall. 

I hope you will forgive me if I skim over the next few minutes.  I only want to mention one thing in passing.  If anyone ever holds a gun on you, to keep you still while his boss smothers you with plaster, make him shoot you.  As a death, smothering leaves you with too much time to think over your mistakes. 


VI---If You Can't Say Anything Nice---


Nothing. 


VII---Dialogue


I drifted, wrapped in unyielding night.  I didn't care.  I was dead.  There was nothing left for me to care with since someone had chopped my body into pieces.  I couldn't see.  I couldn't hear.  I didn't feel.  I only knew that, off in the distance, the two voices would not shut up. 

...every event, every epiphenomenon is strictly physical, completely natural.  However, given the limitations of both our understanding and our explanations of the natural universe, that truth is as reductive as it is revelatory. 

Nuts.  I'm glad you came after me, but that doesn't mean I believe any of this. 

There is no reason why you should.  It is all a phantasm, a theater of shadows, if one that is permeated with meaning. 

So what?  Am I going to be able to finish this job, or not?  I want to get it done. 

You do not grasp all the possible consequences of your determination.  Are you certain?

Of course I'm not certain, I'm committed.  It's different. 

I must admit that you are correct, as I have discovered to my cost.  Very well, then.  Let us see what happens. 

As I was put back together, one exquisitely painful bit at a time, one piece flew away from me.  I reached out for it and missed.  Instead, my hand closed around something soft and fragile:  the orchid. 



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