Dangerous Hardboiled Magicians

by Mel Gilden

  While I spoke, they gave me their full attention, but no part of the story got a response—no nods, no frowns, no cries of surprise. Except for the fact that Lord Trask worked hard at picking the skin around his thumbnail, they might as well have been carved from wax. Of course, by that time they had read the story in the paper and probably had gotten a report from the police.

  When I finished, the quiet in the room seemed so heavy with meaning you could crack nuts with it.

  “Thank you, Mr. Cronyn,” Lord Trask said. “That will be all.”

  “Not quite all,” Lord Philpot said in his beautiful voice, surprising Lord Trask. “There is the matter of the—what did you call them? Space puckers?”

  “Indeed,” Lord Slex said, agreeing.

  “I told you everything I know about them. They float a few feet above the floor and suck in pencils but not air. If you’re thinking they might have something to do with Ms. Morning’s big secret project, you may be right. I have no idea. The police will be going through Misty’s stuff. You’ll probably hear from them if they find anything they can’t handle.”

  Lord Philpot nodded thoughtfully. The other two just stared at me as if still waiting for me to speak. Then Lord Slex shook his head violently, clearing it. “Thank you, Mr. Cronyn,” he said. “You may go now.”

  “Not just yet,” I said.

  “What?” Lord Trask asked, astonished again, causing the wrinkles in his thin face to deepen.

  “I came here to answer your questions and to give back your money, but those are not the only reasons I came. As Lord Slex pointed out, Misty Morning is dead. His implication is that I had something to do with it, if only because I bungled my assignment to protect her. Maybe he’s right. But I’m a detective, and I can’t let a situation like that just rest. I have to do something about it—like find the person or persons unknown who murdered Misty Morning.”

  “You believe that we have useful information?” Lord Philpot asked.

  “You knew the deceased,” I pointed out.

  Lord Slex sighed. “What do you wish to know?”

  “Did she have any enemies that you knew of? Perhaps that short guy with the cauliflower nose?”

  Lord Slex shook his head and laughed at my foolishness. “Misty Morning was a lovely young lady with a pleasant personality. To my knowledge, anybody who met her liked her.”

  I shrugged. “I had to ask,” I said. “Even the best people have enemies. Besides, it’s pretty obvious that somebody didn’t like her.”

  If they were faking, they were good at it. From their response to my statement, it was obvious they had never thought of Misty’s murder quite that way.

  “Someone may have murdered her because she refused to turn over her project,” Lord Philpot suggested after a long moment.

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “Especially if you’re right about Ms. Morning’s irresistible charm. What about her family? I hear they’re fairly conservative people from the Midwest. Have you heard anything different?”

  Lord Slex was shocked. “You don’t believe someone in her own family killed her,” he exclaimed.

  “Probably not,” I said. “But they might know things about her background that we never thought of. I figure it’s worth a phone call to find out—or will somebody from back home be attending the funeral?”

  “No,” Lord Slex said. “They’re going to have the body shipped to Chicago. I got the idea they didn’t quite approve of this place or what she was doing here.”

  “Which is probably one of the reasons she came.”

  All three lords nodded. Lord Slex opened a file and squinted at its contents. He made a note on a scrap of paper and shoved it across the top of the high desk at me.

  “In any case,” Lord Slex said as I folded the telephone number once and slid it into a pocket, “we have no thoughts about either a psychotic killer or a professional killer.”

  “You must have had some villain in mind when you hired me,” I said. “Ms. Morning mentioned a few possibilities: somebody from PrestoCorp, or from one of your cross town rivals.”

  Lord Slex nodded. “Yes, of course,” he said as if the idea had never occurred to him. “There is a lot of jealousy in the academic game, as there is in any other business.” He looked sideways first at Lord Trask and then at Lord Philpot, checking on how they were taking all this.

  “We know no one at PrestoCorp,” Lord Trask said.

  “Still,” said Lord Philpot, “it is more likely you will find the murderer there than at Cal Thau or Thau Tech. At neither school is murder on the curriculum.” Lord Philpot tried on a tiny smile, pleased at his turn of phrase.

  “That said,” Lord Slex continued for him thoughtfully, “it must be admitted that Lord Meston and Lord Dillon both have a great deal of school spirit. If Ms. Morning refused an offer to join Cal Thau’s staff as an instructor or to do research, they would have taken it very badly.”

  “Badly enough to kill her?”

  Lord Slex shrugged.

  “We don’t like to speak ill of colleagues,” Lord Trask said.

  “Even if they deserve it,” Lord Philpot added.

  The three lords allowed themselves a small drawing-room laugh over that. We were all just a bunch of sophisticates.

  When they recovered, Lord Slex made piles of the books and papers in front of him as if preparing to leave. “Perhaps somebody at the Broken Wand can help you,” he said as he held one volume aloft.

  “What’s that?”

  “It probably opened since your time here,” Lord Slex explained as he set the book on his pile. “It is a small bar in Ferndell, a hangout for Stilthins Mort students. Many of them knew Misty. One of them may know things about Misty that she didn’t share with her teachers.”

  I nodded. “Thanks for the lead,” I said. “I’ll give it a try. Meanwhile, I understand Ms. Morning gave out copies of her house key like bad advice. Do any of you have one?”

  They looked from one to the other. “I believe we all do,” Lord Slex admitted. “But as you point out, this was hardly unusual.”

  Lord Slex’s admission didn’t seem to buy me anything. “I agree that’s quite a pool of suspects,” I went on, spinning my web. “But just for fun, let’s change the sitch a little. Is it possible that someone, perhaps a wizard, could have gotten in without a key? Could the murderer have gotten in through one of those space puckers, for instance?”

  This suggestion shocked them even more than the possibility that somebody hadn’t liked Misty Morning.

  “That’s a nasty idea,” Lord Philpot said, his handsome face curling with distaste.

  “Why? There must be a troubled wizard somewhere.”

  “Perhaps,” Lord Philpot admitted with difficulty.

  “Isn’t it more likely,” Lord Trask asked, “that someone broke in?”

  “But no one did,” I said. “The police and I seem to agree on that.”

  “No wizard was involved,” Lord Philpot stated firmly.

  “I repeat,” I said, “there must be a troubled wizard somewhere.”

  Lord Trask seemed about ready to explode. His deeply furrowed face was red again, and his lips crawled over each other like worms. “Perhaps,” he said, his voice shaking, “you are not aware of what Prohibition was like for a wizard. There were literal witch hunts. Anyone who could fan a deck of cards was suspect. No wizard in his right mind would ever give the public or the government an excuse to put the craft through a period like that again.”

  The other two wizards mumbled agreement.

  I could see that the three lords were sincere, and sincerely upset. Still, there was no way to avoid rubbing them the wrong way, not if I was to do my job. “I believe,” I said, “the operative phrase here is ‘no wizard in his right mind’.” I let the prospect of more investigation hang in the air like a line of dirty laundry.

  “Apparently,” Lord Slex said, “you are no better a detective than you were a wizard.” It was not just a statement but an accusation
. “This interview is at an end.”

  The three wizards rose as one and went out a side door, leaving me in the room alone. There seemed to be no point to standing there, so I left.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE BROKEN WAND

  Getting to rustic Ferndell, I had to make an inconvenient left turn just up the hill from Stilthins Mort, after Western Avenue changed into Los Feliz Boulevard. When I entered Griffith Park, the air became cooler than it had been below, and far away tiny bells seemed to ring constantly. On either side bushes and gnarled trees that looked like Arthur Rackham drawings crowded close to the street, except for the few places where dirt paths wound off into the wilderness.

  The Broken Wand had its own parking lot about half a mile up into the park. A dozen or so cars were in the lot, and one of them looked like the burgundy Honda Augury that had followed Misty and me the day before. I walked all around the car, noting the scraped front bumper, but it would take a better man than I to know whether or not that was a clue.

  A small finger sign next to a dirt path pointed the way to the bar. I had a pleasant walk of a few hundred feet up to a small house made entirely of smooth egg-shaped stones. Over the door hung a wooden sign with the name of the bar on it, and a crude drawing of a sure-enough broken wand. I had seen no fairies on the way, but people rarely do. Fairies are harder to spot than movie stars, especially in Los Angeles.

  When I stepped inside, I stood in the doorway for a moment allowing my eyes to adjust to the low level of light, which was helped very little by will o’ the wisps flickering in cages in corners and along the walls. A strong odor of beer and pizza charged at me like a bull elephant. All around me conversation and occasional laughter continued, working against the soft rock ’n’ roll that dribbled from a jukebox.

  I stepped farther into the room, avoiding tables and chairs and clumps of people, and stood at the bar, which ran the length of one side of the room. Nobody at the tables paid any attention to me or to the bartender. The bartender didn’t look old enough to have a driver’s license, let alone to dispense alcohol.

  “Nice place,” I said.

  The bartender nodded. “Student?” he asked.

  “Once,” I admitted.

  “What can I get for you?”

  “Beer. Whatever’s cheap. Want to see some ID?”

  He laughed briefly. “Coming up,” he said.

  All around the walls, wherever there wasn’t a light cage, wooden shields hung, each with a device of a sorority or fraternity drawn on it. I had been a member of Abracadabra House, whose device was a hand pulling a rabbit from a hat. One of our rivals was Hey, Presto!, whose device was linking rings. The only other frat I knew was Sim Sala Bim, which used a fanned deck of cards. I didn’t recognize any of the others. A lot had changed since I’d attended school at Stilthins Mort.

  The bartender set a thick, sweating mug on the bar in front of me. I gave him a bill and began to sip. The beer was as cold as death and bitter as a jealous heart. The bartender took a step or two away from me and began to polish a hole into the bar with a damp rag.

  “Too bad about Misty Morning,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said and shook his head. It was a tough old world.

  “Did she come in here much?”

  “Sometimes. Not often.”

  I sipped my beer. “Did she hang out with anybody in particular?”

  He shrugged. “Mostly the other grad students.”

  “No steady boyfriend?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You wouldn’t tell me if you knew, would you?” I suggested.

  He smiled at that and shrugged again. He kept polishing. I drank a little. One of the things that makes a good bartender is a closed yap. This one wouldn’t give me the time of day without permission from the guy who owned the clock. I picked up my beer and drifted over to a table to try my luck with some of the customers.

  Four people sat at one of the tables, three men and a woman, all about the right age to be students. The men wore the uniform, flannel lumberjack shirts, hair indifferently cut, skin spotted with youth. All three of them peered at me through glasses. The girl was a slim blonde, nicely scrubbed, and almost beautiful. She wore a pink cardigan sweater over a tight t-shirt sprinkled with stars.

  “May I sit down?” I asked.

  “I hope you’re not selling something,” one of the boys said, and got a laugh.

  “Nothing like that,” I said and hooked an empty chair toward me with a toe. “My name is Turner Cronyn.”

  John introduced me to Fred, Mike, and Marjory.

  “I’m a private detective investigating the murder of Misty Morning.”

  The boys shook their heads in sorrow. The girl sniffled. I was about to speak again when a tall handsome dude exploded from a back room carrying a pizza. He set it down on the table with a flourish, asked if anything else was wanted and, like a bird in a cuckoo clock, went back where he’d come from.

  Fred picked up a hot slice, fumbling it so as not to burn his fingers, saw that nobody else had moved, and with embarrassment put it back. For some reason Marjory looked a little worried. Each of them made magic passes through the air over the pizza. The pan rocked, and then triangular slices separated themselves from the pie on the table. Each of the men levitated a slice before him, but Marjory couldn’t control her slice any more than she could a paper airplane. We watched with morbid fascination as the slice circled her, tying her in hot mozzarella cheese. She howled with pain, and the three men helped her pull the cheese off, leaving behind angry red lines.

  “I can’t seem to get that incantation right,” Marjory moaned. She stuck two fingers into a glass of water and rubbed them against her face where the hot cheese had been.

  “First-year stuff,” John said. “I’ll help you.”

  “Thank you, John.” Marjory smiled at him.

  “Excuse me,” a voice behind me said—a little viciously, I thought.

  I turned and was looking up at the fat kid with the strangulated fashion sense, Misty’s teaching assistant. “Mr. Hillyer, isn’t it?” I asked. I stood up and put out my hand.

  Hillyer ignored it. “You were hired to protect Misty.”

  I lowered my hand. “Bad news travels fast I see,” I said.

  “A funny man,” Hillyer said. “Nobody at Stilthins Mort thinks Misty’s murder is funny.”

  Some people make me tired, and Hillyer would be one of them. “Can I help you with something, Mr. Hillyer?” I asked.

  “You let Misty get murdered,” Hillyer said. “I ought to murder you.”

  I sighed. “I don’t suppose it matters to you,” I said, “but the situation is a little more complicated than that. Sit down and we can discuss it.”

  My suggestion caught him off guard and for a moment his belligerence became confusion. Then he noticed a lot of people watching us, and he was merely embarrassed. He pulled over a chair and sat down at the table with Marjory and me and the others.

  “Hey,” he said by way of greeting.

  “Hey, Herb,” the other four said.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” I went on, “Lord Slex doesn’t think much of me either.”

  “Lord Slex, hah!” Hillyer said with contempt. “He was never half the wizard Misty was, and now that he’s getting older, he’s losing it entirely.”

  “He always speaks well of you,” I said and took a drink.

  Hillyer’s eyebrows rose at that. Then he saw he was being kidded. “Yeah, right.”

  “Do you know what secret project Misty was working on?”

  “No. Nobody knew.”

  “Do you have a key to Misty’s apartment?”

  Hillyer half-rose from his chair. “What am I, now, a suspect?” he asked.

  “Nothing that important,” I said. “But I thought you might want to help me find Misty’s murderer.”

  “Are you working with the police?”

  “The police and I have agreed to share information.” It
was almost true. Certainly true enough for Herb Hillyer.

  Hillyer sat down again. “Yeah, I had a key. But don’t get the wrong idea. A lot of people had a key.”

  “Too bad, huh?”

  The other kids around the table kind of snickered at that.

  Hillyer’s face went red, and he looked stricken. Perhaps he thought nobody had noticed that he worshiped Misty.

  “All right, settle down,” I said. “Let’s try to focus here. Is that your burgundy Honda Augury out in the lot—the one with the front bumper that looks as if it has the mange?”

  “What if it is?”

  “Somebody in a car just like it followed us yesterday and then beat us to Misty’s apartment. I thought it might have been you. And I thought if it was you, maybe that wasn’t the first time you stalked Misty. You might have noticed somebody else with an interest in her.”

  “Stalked is a offensive word,” Hillyer said quietly.

  “Am I right? Is it your car?”

  Hillyer didn’t say anything for a long time, but only glared at the pizza as if it had insulted him personally. At last he stood up. “Let’s talk over here,” he said.

  I picked up my beer and followed him to an empty table in a corner of the room under a will o’ the wisp. The fairy light made him look smarter and healthier than he was. I wondered what it did to the appearance spell I was wearing.

  Hillyer started to speak a few times, but he got no further than a sharp intake of breath. He made a whole catalog of small useless motions with his hands. His eyebrows went up and down. By himself he was a whole circus. I waited. He needed to tell me something, and I was confident he would let fly with it eventually.

  “You’re right,” he said. “That wasn’t the first time I followed Misty. But I wasn’t stalking her. I never intended to do her any harm. I don’t think she even knew I was doing it.”

  “All right. You weren’t stalking her. Bad choice of words. I’ll try to get over it if you will.”

  “Smart mouth,” he said.

  “It’s a curse. Do you want a beer?” I asked and sipped my own.

  “No, thanks,” he said in a calmer tone. “A few days ago I was hanging out in front of Misty’s apartment when I noticed another guy doing the same. He was short and ugly and dressed all in red.”