by Ian Rogers
He rested the sledge on his shoulder as a coughing fit came over him. He covered his mouth and when he brought his hand away it was sprinkled with blood. He was running out of time.
He had made an enormous hole in the wall, revealing pipes, wires . . . and half a dozen silver threads.
I don’t know whether to call an exterminator or an electrician. He started to laugh, but it quickly dissolved into another fit of coughing. The sledgehammer slipped out of his hands and landed on the floor, narrowly missing one of his feet. The coughing stopped and he was laughing again. A stomach cramp doubled him over. He dropped to his knees thinking, It’s over, that’s it, it’s too late. He squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, he saw her.
Charlotte.
She came out of the hole in the wall and went scrambling up toward the ceiling. Morris managed to get his legs under him once more.
One more swing, that’s all I ask, just one more swing.
He picked up the sledgehammer, drew it back, and swung. He felt something pop in his chest, and a burning sensation raced up his left arm.
The sledge struck the wall and went through it. Morris let go of the handle and fell to the floor. The sledge hung there, embedded in the wall, like a piece of modern art.
Did I miss? he wondered. He didn’t know. He had closed his eyes at the last second.
Then the sledge fell to the ground, and Morris saw the small stain on the head.
He did it. He killed her. Charlotte was dead.
The heat in his arm had moved into his chest. It felt like his heart was being clenched by a hand made of fire. He crawled over to the picture window that looked out on Alder Lane. He was wondering what the neighbours would think of all this when he heard a sound behind him. The tinkling of tiny bells. He turned back to the wall.
Spiders—thousands of spiders—were coming out of the hole. Silver spiders. Charlotte’s children. They looked like a river of ball-bearings pouring out of the wall, some of them crawling up to the ceiling, the rest moving across the floor. The ringing sound of their tiny, marching legs filled the dusty air.
Morris thought they would come for him, swarm him, devour him. But they didn’t even go near him. They moved across the floor to the stairs, then went up the steps. A glimmering silver waterfall flowing up instead of down.
He knew where they were going. And why. They were Charlotte’s children, after all, and they had to fly. Places to go, people to see. Morris turned back to the window.
They were going up to the roof, to the antenna, where they would take flight—not on kites of thread but on a radio wave, or a satellite signal.
Spiders for the new millennium, transmitted through the air on their own special frequency.
Morris stared out the window and waited for the sparks to fly.
Eddie knocked on the door again. He stood on his tiptoes, trying to peer in through the fanlight, and dropped the stack of plastic-wrapped newspapers cradled in his arm.
“Oopsie,” he muttered to the empty yard, and crouched down to pick them up.
He gave the front door a final concerned look and started back to his own yard. On the way he stumbled over the trashcan Morris had left in the driveway and dropped the newspapers again.
Across the street a kid on rollerblades yelled, “Hey, stupid! First day walking?”
Eddie shot the kid a dirty look and continued on his way. He wasn’t stupid. A lot of people thought he was, but he wasn’t. He was a little slow sometimes, sure, but that didn’t make him stupid. Sometimes he just didn’t notice things. Like that time with Morris’s barbecue and the hedges. Or just now with the trash can.
Or the silver antenna on the roof of his house.
RELAXED BEST
Ryerson pulled over to the curb and watched as Jonathan Marchand stepped out of the taxi in front of an establishment he assumed was a bar of some kind. It was hard to tell for certain. The windowless façade was dark, crumbling brick, and the only adornment was a plank-board hanging on a pair of hooks above the oaken door. The two words burned into the grain seemed to glare out of the dark like mad eyes. Al Azif.
Ryerson checked his watch. It was a quarter of one in the morning. He jotted the time on his notepad and tossed it on the passenger seat. He had been following the Blue Fairy’s husband for over fifteen hours.
The day started at nine o’clock when Jonathan left the Park Avenue brownstone he shared with his wife and went for breakfast at Sorrento’s. Afterwards, he went for a manicure and massage, strolled through Central Park, and met a female acquaintance for lunch at the Crystal Cave Restaurant. Ryerson doubted if this was the fabled mistress, seeing as how their only physical contact over the course of the meal was a kiss-kiss on the cheek before they sat down to eat. After lunch, Jonathan went suit shopping at Landry’s on 42nd Street. Then he played racquetball for two hours at the New York Fitness Club, took in a three-hour dinner at The Hartencourt Bistro, and met a pair of suited gentlemen who looked like members of the Hair Club for Men for drinks at the Biltmore. Jonathan stumbled out at 11:40 PM, hailed a taxi, and came here, to Al Azif.
Strange name for a bar, Ryerson thought. Is it a Muslim place? But then he wasn’t getting paid for his opinion; he was paid to follow, and follow he had, like a puppy dog. A very well-paid puppy dog, he reminded himself.
They called her the Blue Fairy because it was said that if you worked yourself into her favour, she would make all of your dreams come true.
Ryerson hadn’t come for wish-fulfillment. In fact, you could say the shoe was on the other foot. The Blue Fairy, Veronica Marchand, had summoned him.
She lived in one of the Park Avenue brownstones that Ryerson had only ever seen from the outside. The room where he waited was not very large, but living space in New York wasn’t measured in square-footage, it was measured in dollars. A lot of money had been spent in this room, from the gilt-framed oil paintings on the walls, to the pieces of statuary sprouting from every tabletop, to the Turkish rug under his feet.
The Blue Fairy, Ryerson had learned from his hurried research, had made her fortune on the stock market. She had done unusually well in blue-chip stocks—which were about as easy to predict as next week’s weather—and had acquired a reputation as someone who put her eggs in all the right baskets.
“Good morning.”
Ryerson almost jumped at the sound of her voice. The Blue Fairy was an ordinary-looking woman in her sixties. Medium height, slim, and possessed of a cherubic youthfulness that hadn’t come from a surgeon’s scalpel. She was dressed casually in a white blouse, untucked, and a pair of faded jeans. She padded across the room in bare feet and extended a long, well-manicured hand.
Ryerson crossed to meet her. “It’s very nice to meet you, Ms. Marchand.”
“It’s Missus, actually.”
“My apologies.”
She made a dismissive gesture. “It’s no matter. I’ve only been married a year, and quite frankly I’d be surprised if it lasts another. That’s why I asked you to come. I’m told you’re efficient and discreet.”
“You heard right,” Ryerson replied.
“I suppose you’ve heard what they call me.”
Ryerson smiled.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and listened to the rain tip-tap on the roof. The minutes dragged by slowly. Like Tom Petty said, waiting was the hardest part. Ryerson’s intuitions told him this was Jonathan’s final stop of the evening. He could probably call it a night, but the kind of cash the Blue Fairy was paying granted her some overtime. And he still had yet to see the mistress—assuming there was one.
A thought struck him then: What if she’s already inside? What if Al Azif is their rendezvous spot?
That decided it. He got out of the car, debated taking the gun (he called it Patricia for reasons he no longer remembered), and decided it would probably be a bad idea. Al Azif didn’t look like much, but in the city even the shittiest waterin
g holes that couldn’t afford a metal detector had a couple of goons to pat down everyone who came through the door. He wasn’t about to hand Patricia over to some goon who’d probably “lose” her later on. It wasn’t like checking your coat.
It had started raining earlier that evening, and now it was really starting to come down. Ryerson turned up his collar and sprinted across the street. It was so dark he tripped on the curb and almost went sprawling on the sidewalk. Stepping up to the door, he wondered vaguely why the streetlights hadn’t come on.
He put his hand on the door’s metal pull-handle, and froze. Thinking about the streetlights led to another question. Why couldn’t he hear any street noise? He cocked his head to the side, but couldn’t hear anything except the rain. He should have been able to hear the traffic a street or two over. New York was famous for its street noise, but this particular avenue seemed to be the exception. Maybe it was some trick of acoustics, a fluke arrangement of buildings that blocked out the din.
A homeowner’s dream, Ryerson thought, and pushed the door open.
“The Blue Fairy,” she said wistfully. “Isn’t it funny how we feel the need to label those things we don’t understand? I’ve been investigated, you know.” She managed to sound both amused and annoyed. “Mostly by people who didn’t know how to label me. The government gets very suspicious, as I’m sure you already know. We as a society don’t trust those who achieve great wealth and success. The ironic part is that my secret”—a playful smile touched her lips—“my secret is there is no secret. Two things helped me to become the person I am today, Mr. Ryerson. Contacts and contracts. Finding those who could help me and binding them to my service. Marriage isn’t all that different, if you really think about it. Promises are made, contracts are signed. Does that sound cold to you, Mr. Ryerson?”
“I have no opinion,” the detective said truthfully.
She seemed intrigued. “Really?”
“A private eye with too many opinions doesn’t find very much work.”
“Proverbs?”
“Dashiell Hammett,” Ryerson said with a small grin. “Or maybe it was Ross Macdonald.”
“Regardless, I treat my marriage as seriously as I do my business. My husband made certain promises, and I expect them to be carried out.”
“You think he’s running around?”
Veronica Marchand crossed her arms. “I don’t know,” she said. “But with Jonathan I’ve found it’s prudent to expect the worst.”
Ryerson stepped into an anteroom that smelled of ancient leather. It was darker inside Al Azif than it was on the street. He craned his head around and felt water rush down the back of his neck, chilling his spine. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. After a moment, he could make out a pair of unlit candles set in wine bottles on a ledge, and another door. He opened it and passed through.
He was in a larger room now. The muffled sounds of jazz music came from beyond a heavy red curtain. To his left was the dim outline of a vacant coat-check booth. He brushed water off his jacket, smoothed down his shirt, and stepped through the curtain.
The sudden bombardment of sound and light almost caused Ryerson to cry out. He stumbled backward, gripping the curtain for support.
The room was packed full of people. Men in expensive suits sat at a long mahogany bar or at small, round tables. Some of them had a woman on their arm, some had two. The women were unbelievably beautiful. To Ryerson they looked like Greek goddesses in designer dresses and evening gowns. A room full of Persephones and Junos and Athenas. Each one wearing an outfit that seemed to defy gravity in some strange yet alluring way.
The air of the club was hot and thick with smells: the harsh fug of cigarette smoke, the sharp scent of men’s aftershave, and the floral bouquets of a dozen or more perfumes. It was a heady mix that only added to Ryerson’s disorientation. A heavy bank of smoke hung in the air like a blue fog, making the place seem ethereal, dreamlike. People moved about like ghosts. A silver-haired man in a burgundy smoking jacket was moving from table to table, shaking hands and making chitchat.
On the left side of the club, past the bar, a set of stairs curved up to a section cordoned off with a velvet rope. A sign on the newel post said VIPERS.
Ryerson blinked his eyes against the smoke and squinted at the sign.
No. It said VIP.
“Welcome, sir!” a voice boomed.
Ryerson turned and saw a black man leaning against the bar and snapping his fingers. He smiled and disclosed teeth so white it almost hurt Ryerson’s eyes to look at them.
“Good evening,” he replied.
“Yes, sir!” the man agreed exuberantly, as if Ryerson had made a statement.
Ryerson moved to the far end of the bar and sat on a stool that gave a view of the rest of the club.
It looks like a Philip Marlowe novel exploded in here, he thought.
He turned to the bartender, a young black man who didn’t look old enough to be in a bar much less tending one. “What can I get you?” he asked.
“Rye and ginger.”
“Straight up.”
“This is some club,” Ryerson remarked. “I’ve never seen one quite like it.”
The bartender set the drink on a paper napkin, dropped in a plastic stir-stick, and slid it across the counter. “It has atmosphere,” he agreed. “But the real draw is the music.”
On that note, the music abruptly stopped and the audience erupted into applause. Ryerson picked up his drink and swivelled around. Next to the stairs leading up to the VIP section, there was another, wider set of steps leading down to a sitting and dancing area in front of a stage. There was no one up there at the moment, just a cloud of yellow smoke dissipating in the air. When it was gone, a spotlight snapped on, throwing a jaundiced glow on the floor. An ancient black man with hair like steel wool came shuffling out. He raised a gnarled, claw-like hand and tapped the microphone, sending off thumps of amplified thunder.
“Tonight,” he said in a grating voice, “is a special night, here, at Al Azif!” Feedback shrieked off the mike and the audience applauded again. A few people whistled loudly.
“As you know, we like to present our performers at their relaxed bests.” A few people nodded their heads knowingly. “And so, without further ado, I present the trombone of Danny ‘L’il Joe’ Johnson.”
The crowd whooped and hollered as the old man shuffled off stage. A short black man in a suit the colour of dried limes came out. He was holding a trombone that was almost taller than he was. He put the mouthpiece to his lips, and the spotlight changed colour, from jaundice-yellow to pumpkin-orange.
L’il Joe started to play a slow, mournful song, all warbling notes and quavering drawls, pulling the sounds from the instrument in a way that seemed painful to him. His eyes squinched shut and his cheeks puffed out to a cartoonish size. The crowd stared in mingled awe and anticipation.
Ryerson tried to find Jonathan in the crowd, but the smoke was too thick to see much of anything. The whole place seemed faded, washed out of all its life and colour. The only thing that stood out with any real clarity was the neon FIRE sign above the emergency exit to the right of the stage. Jonathan was probably up in the VIP lounge—the only place in the club Ryerson couldn’t see from where he was sitting.
He paid for his drink and made his way across the room, skirting the stairs that led down to the sitting and dancing area, and took a seat at a table with a slightly better angle.
He loosened his tie as he sipped his drink and glanced around the club. He looked toward the emergency exit again, and noticed something different about the neon sign above it. It said EXIT, even though he was sure when he looked at it a moment ago it had said FIRE. He stared at it for a long time, thinking about how the other sign had seemed to change as well. The red neon still said EXIT. And of course that was what it was supposed to say, right? He couldn’t recall ever seeing an emergency exit sign that said FIRE.
He look
ed up at the VIP lounge. From his vantage point, he could see three tables lined up against the railing. A single person was sitting at each one, but none of them was Jonathan Marchand. One of them, an older woman in a black dress with a mink stole over her shoulders, was tapping her foot along with L’il Joe’s trombone. She seemed to feel Ryerson’s look, and turned and smiled at him.
Ryerson stared back, unable to tear his eyes away. He found himself transfixed by the rhythmic rise and fall of her foot. Maybe it was the smoke in the air, but the rhythm of her tapping seemed relaxing, almost soothing. It seemed to grow louder as he stared. At the same time, the sound of the trombone began to decrease in volume. The smoke was very thick, an opalescent tide that ebbed and flowed, obscuring his view by turns. It cleared for a moment, and Ryerson was startled to see the woman’s foot was no longer a foot. It had become an animal’s cloven hoof. He squinted his eyes and saw that the leg attached to the foot was now covered in tufts of thick, white fur.
His gaze drifted upward, as if by some inexorable force, to discover the long, gruff face of a goat. Its eyes were a burning red split by sharp, triangular pupils. A pair of curving horns sprouted above its downturned ears. It was still wearing the woman’s dress.
“I feel he’s up to something,” Veronica Marchand said. “I suspect he’s trying to locate someone to nullify our contract.”
“Excuse me,” Ryerson said, “but if you believe your husband’s been unfaithful, why not cut to the chase and ask him? It would save you a lot of time and money.”
“I don’t want him exposed,” she said firmly. “I just want to know where he’s going. What I do after that . . . well, that’s my business.” She took out a pack of Kools and lit one with a gold-plated lighter. “I don’t believe in divorce, Mr. Ryerson. In my twenty-eight years of trading I’ve never gone back on my word. I expect the same respect from my husband.”