The Iron Angel

by Edward D. Hoch

  “You’re very clever,” she said, turning on her heel and heading for the door, “Or at least you think you are.”

  They all saw what she was doing, but nobody spoke. Instead of the door to the terminal she opened the door to the adjoining office where the handcuffed Meershan was waiting with an officer. “Slava!” he exclaimed when he saw her. “What –”

  She slammed the door on him and turned, her face drained of color.

  “Why did you kill Dr. Vincenti?” Michael asked.

  Her shoulders sagged in defeat. “He told me while he wrote his remarks with my pencil. He said some of my past associations had been questioned by the new government, and after reviewing the matter he’d decided I was not to be allowed to meet with King Michael – I was to remain at the hotel while the rest of you spoke with him. I had no choice then. Meershan was on his way to meet me with the bomb. I knew that killing Dr. Vincenti might abort the entire mission, but I had to gamble that the rest of you would decide to continue. The dagger was in a hidden pocket of my briefcase.”

  “Did you get all that?” Rizzoli asked the stenographer. Then, to Slava he said, “You are under arrest. You may have a lawyer present if you wish.”

  Michael and the others remained overnight in Milan. In the morning they continued on to Lausanne.

  THE IRON ANGEL

  Michael Vlado’s Gypsy village in the foothills of the Carpathians had remained free, so far, of the turmoil that had swept through much of Romania since the collapse of the Socialist government. In many communities Gypsies had died, or been driven away, and Michael had intensified efforts to find a new home for his people. But as spring returned to the Carpathians all seemed well for a time.

  Even Michael’s old friend Segar, once a captain in the government militia and now an official of the transition government, had taken to driving up to the village of Gravita as he had done so often in the old days. That was why Michael saw nothing unusual in his arrival that April morning when the horses were out it the field and the first of the spring flowers had blossomed.

  “Good morning, Captain. A nice day for a ride in the hills!”

  Segar smiled. Though he no longer wore his old uniform, he still liked being addressed as Captain. “My visit is not entirely one of pleasure,” he admitted. “Do you remember an American girl named Jennifer Beatty? She rode up here on a motorcycle and stayed a few days.”

  Michael nodded. “It was at the time the old king was murdered and I took over the leadership of my tribe. How could I forget? I’ve wondered sometimes whatever happened to that girl. I hope she returned to her country.”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Segar told him, looking off into the distance where the two mares were romping. “She’s in Bucharest, and she seems to be involved in a killing. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Is she accused of it?”

  “Not yet. She’d been snorting heroin with some other young people, and she was a bit high at the time.”

  “Snorting heroin?”

  “Drug addicts think it’s safer than using contaminated needles.”

  Michael knew there was some reason for Segar’s visit. “What do you want from me?”

  “You were her friend for that brief period.”

  “More than three years ago.”

  “True, but she asked for you while being questioned. She won’t talk to anyone else.”

  “You want me to return to Bucharest with you?”

  “Yes, if you could follow me down in your car.”

  “I hate that city, even more so now for what they’ve done to my people.”

  “I think the worst of the oppression is over.”

  Michael shook his head. “Last week a small group of Gypsies passed through here from Poland, heading south. They told of gangs of young people wrecking homes of wealthy Gypsies, trying to drive them from the country.”

  “I think the worst is over,” Captain Segar repeated. “Return with me to Bucharest. You can help the girl and you can help me.”

  “Who was murdered?” Michael asked.

  “A Gypsy.”

  The capital city had changed little since Michael’s last visit. A few statues had been removed and the name of the late president, Ceausescu, was nowhere to be seen. Otherwise, the buildings were as Michael remembered them. He recognized the old militia headquarters at once as Segar turned into the parking garage connected to it. “This is our police headquarters now,” his friend explained.

  “Then you are back in police work?”

  Segar shrugged. “It is the only work I know.”

  He led the way up to his second floor office, then picked up the telephone and issued a curt order for Jennifer Beatty to be brought in. He explained that she was being kept in a holding cell while they decided what to do with her. “The murdered man was a Gypsy named Jaroslaw Miawa. He was found stabbed to death in a cellar where Jennifer and some others were snorting heroin. She insists no one touched him, that he was wounded before coming there.”

  “Would that have been possible? What does your autopsy show?”

  Before Segar could respond, the door opened and Jennifer Beatty was brought in. Michael remembered her as a young woman of twenty-two who’d stolen a motorcycle from her boyfriend and driven it into the foothills to hide from him. Now she was in her mid-twenties, though somehow she looked older. Her blonde hair was streaked with some sort of coloring and the healthy outdoors look he remembered was tarnished. Her eyes were tired and the lids sagged, though that might have been from a night without sleep. “Hello, Jennifer,” he said getting to his feet.

  “You came! Thank God you came! Tell these people to release me.” Her face seemed to come alive at the sight of him.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  “You’re the Gypsy king aren’t you?”

  “These days in Romania that means even less that it did three years ago.”

  “I brought Michael Vlado as you requested,” Segar told her. “Now you must give us a statement as you promised.”

  “I don’t know. It’s so confusing –”

  “Could I speak with her alone?” Michael asked.

  “All right,” Segar agreed.

  She reached out to touch his arm. “Wait. Do you have a cigarette?”

  Segar took out a pack from his pocket and gave them to her. “They’re not American,” he said apologetically.

  “I’ll smoke anything.” She lit one and tried to relax as Segar left them alone in the little office.

  “I was hoping you’d be back in America by now,” Michael told her.

  “I started back. I got sidetracked.”

  “How was that?”

  She shrugged. “I decided to stop off at Switzerland for a few days. They had this park in Zurich where you could buy drugs legally and take them quite openly. The city government even supplied clean needles. I think they’ve stopped it now. The idea was to keep addicts in just one area of the city, but it didn’t work too well.”

  “So you were back on drugs.”

  She nodded, drawing on the cigarette. “And before I knew it I was back here. I hooked up with a guy and when I told him about Romania he wanted to see it. Travel is easier now, and there was no problem driving here from Zurich. We both had American passports.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He wanted drugs and he got arrested the first week we were here. I haven’t seen him since. After that I fell in with a German named Conrad Rynox. I like him a lot. His crowd is into snorting heroin, which I’d never done before.”

  “Did you know the man who was killed?”

  “Jarie. Jaroslaw Miawa. He hung around, liked to gamble. That’s how he got money for the heroin.”

  Michael jotted down the name, asking her to spell it. Then, “Tell me what happened last night.”

  “We were in this cellar on Furtuna street. When Jarie came in I could see he was hurt badly. Then we saw the blood. He’d been stabbed more than once. He said
a few words and then he just died there, on the cellar floor.” Segar slipped back in while she talked.

  “What did he say?”

  “Something about an iron angel. The three eyes on the iron angel.”

  Michael glanced at Captain Segar. “Mean anything to you?”

  Segar shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Is there someplace in the city that has an iron angel – a park or a church perhaps?”

  “I don’t know of any.”

  “You might try contacting the churches. There aren’t that many of them anymore.”

  Segar nodded and made a note.

  “What does the autopsy say about the dead man’s wounds? How far could he have walked before collapsing?”

  “We found no blood on the pavement outside, which is why we’re questioning her further. He couldn’t have gone too far after he was stabbed.”

  Michael Vlado nodded. “And you say he was a Gypsy? Did he have a family?”

  “A brother here in the city. The rest of the family moved west years ago.”

  “Do you really think Jennifer is involved?”

  “We found her with the body.”

  “The others all ran away,” she explained. “I stayed. He was my friend and I was hoping he was still alive.”

  “Will you release her?” Michael asked.

  “Not now. Perhaps tomorrow, after the court hearing.”

  “She stayed with him, for God’s sake! Would his killer have done that?”

  “That argument will weigh in her favor,” Segar conceded, “but the laws and the courts are different now. We must follow regulations to the letter. Here is the name and address of the victim’s brother. If you can learn anything from the Gypsies, it could help her.”

  Michael had the unpleasant feeling that Segar had somehow recruited him to act as a detective. Either he was setting up Michael for some sort of trouble or there was something about the case that Segar couldn’t trust to his own assistants. Michael didn’t like it, but maybe Jennifer Beatty deserved another chance.

  The brother’s name was Sigmund Miawa, and Michael found him in the morning at a Gypsy enclave by the edge of the city. He was tall for a Rom, with a fairness of skin that suggested mixed blood and intermarriage. He was a watchmaker with a caravan that housed his wife Zorica and their child. It was a wonder that he continued to live as a Gypsy.

  “It is a sad day for my family,” he told Michael. “Perhaps you can honor us by taking part in the funeral service for my slain brother.”

  “Of course,” Michael quickly agreed.

  “To have a Gypsy king here, even a king from a neighboring tribe, would honor his memory.”

  “The police are trying to find who killed him.”

  “It was the drugs that killed him, whatever they say.”

  “As he was dying he spoke of the iron angel. What does that mean to you?”

  “Nothing. A myth. I have heard men speak of worshipping at the iron angel, but I think it is only a saying.”

  “A saying not known in my hills. It is not a Rom saying.”

  “Nevertheless –”

  “Your brother spoke of the three eyes of the iron angel.”

  “The Trinity, perhaps. It would be some sort of Christian symbol.”

  Michael Vlado said no more until after the funeral. There was only a small group of mourners. Sigmund’s family and a few others. It was explained that Jarie had not lived among them, that he had chosen the ways of the city. And his city friends, perhaps fearing the police, had not come to the funeral.

  Jaroslaw Miawa was buried in an unmarked grave over the hill from the Gypsy enclave. As they walked back together, his brother explained, “Feelings against the Rom are at a high pitch right now. We fear the wild city youths might desecrate the graves if they found them. We know where he is buried, and when times are better I will place a marker there.”

  “You should go out into the countryside where the living is better,” Michael suggested.

  “I have never been a wanderer. My work is here, and I doubt if old Kurzbic could manage without me.”

  “He is your employer?”

  Sigmund nodded. “I am not a Rom when I am at work. I do not have the typical features of a Gypsy and it is easy to pass as a Romanian. That is some-thing my brother always resented. His Gypsy heritage was more obvious, and it kept him from the sort of job I have.”

  Sigmund Miawa used public transportation to go to work, and he was grateful when Michael offered him a ride. “I could not tell Old Kurzbic that my brother had died, or he would ask too many questions. I simply took off half a day.”

  The store where he worked as a watchmaker was near the center of the city on Calea Grivitei. Michael parked his car down the street and went into the shop with Sigmund. From the name “Old Kurzbic,” he’d expected the store owner to be a man in his seventies, but Kurzbic could not have been more than sixty. He was balding and wore thick glasses, but showed no sign of aging. His handshake was strong as he greeted Michael. “Welcome to my store. Feel free to look around.”

  In addition to jewelry, the small shop sold antique watches and clockwork mechanisms designed to amuse adults as well as children. “Whoever made these things?” Michael marveled, examining the miniature figure of a magician who waved his wand and produced answers to previously prepared questions.

  “Such devices were popular in the late eighteenth century,” Kurzbic explained. “Basically they were clockwork automatons, designed to perform any number of wondrous tasks. In a sense it was the golden age of the watchmaker’s art.”

  “Do you sell them?”

  “Some are worth a small fortune today, but only to collectors.”

  “You should guard these with care.”

  Kurzbic nodded. The reflection of the overhead lights danced off his thick glasses. “I am careful. Everything is locked up well at night, and I keep a gun behind the counter.”

  Michael glanced at the more modern watches and clocks and then bid farewell to Sigmund and his employer. “One other thing,” he asked Kurzbic “Did you ever hear of something called the iron angel?”

  The older man blinked. “A prize fighter, wasn’t he? Many years ago?”

  “Said to have three eyes?”

  “I believe so. One in the back of his head, they claimed, because he was so fast. The memory is vague but I think he was called the Iron Angel.”

  “That was the Iron Engine,” Sigmund Miawa corrected from his work table. “I remember going to see him in my youth. I think Ceausescu’s government had him shot as a traitor because he refused to be part of the Olympic team.”

  Kurzbic nodded. “Iron Engine, Iron angel – you may be right.”

  Michael left the shop and drove back to Captain Segar’s office. The court hearing was over and Jennifer Beatty was waiting for him. “They said I can go,” she told him.

  He glanced at Segar. “Do you have any leads yet?”

  “None. Here are the things from the dead man’s pockets.”

  A shabby wallet with a few bills in it, some coins, a stubby pencil, a hand-kerchief, a key and a folded piece of paper bearing the number 470. Michael looked them over and saw little of interest. “What’s the key for?”

  “His apartment. It’s in an old building a few blocks from where he was found. The address is in his wallet and we checked on it.”

  “He lived alone?”

  “So far as we know.”

  “Is 470 his apartment number?”

  “No. We don’t know what that is.”

  Michael noticed the piece of the paper was perforated along one edge as if it had been torn from a notebook. “All right,” he said to Jennifer. “Ready to go?”

  “I was ready yesterday.”

  He said goodbye to Segar and promised to call later. Outside, he asked the American girl where she was living. She wiped her palms nervously against the sides of her jeans. “I’ve been staying with Conrad Rynox, “she answered quietly.


  “The leader of this little drug group?”

  “He’s very good to me,” she answered defensively. “I love him.”

  He decided she was not really his responsibility. “All right, where does he live?”

  “Furtuna Street. Across from the cellar where I was arrested.”

  “Tell me something,” he said as they got into his car. “You knew Jarie Miawa. Did you ever see him with a knife?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “There wasn’t one among his belongings. Most Gypsies carry knives, especially in a city like this. It might indicate he pulled it out to defend himself and dropped it when he was stabbed. Perhaps he wounded the killer with it.”

  “I never saw one,” she said looking away.

  As they turned into Furtuna Street, he pulled up to the curb. “Jennifer, I have to ask you if you’re doing the right thing going back to this man Rynox. He’s been supplying you with drugs, hasn’t he?”

  “Sometimes.” She looked away. “I’m cutting down. Pretty soon I won’t need them anymore.”

  “I’ve known addicts before who said that. Come on, I want to meet Conrad Rynox.”

  She was reluctant at first to introduce them, but when Michael insisted she finally led the way into the apartment building. There was no elevator so they climbed five flights to the rooms she and Rynox shared. Michael hadn’t known what to expect, but he shouldn’t have been surprised to find a bearded man, apparently well into his thirties asleep on the sofa in his underwear. He woke up when Jennifer shook him and reached for her.

  She danced away and announced, “We have a guest. Try to make yourself presentable, Conrad.”

  He sat up bleary-eyed, making no effort to cover his hairy legs. “You come for some H?” he asked.

  Michael shook his head. “I’m a friend of Jennifer’s. I don’t need any heroin and neither does she.”

  Conrad Rynox, if that was his name, spoke German rather than Romanian. He picked up his wristwatch, shook it, then tossed it aside. “What time is it, Jenny?”