The Iron Angel

by Edward D. Hoch

  Michael had been wondering how to explain his presence, and his first reaction to the announcement was one of relief. Then, as he was leaving the Club Nikolas with the other guests, Alexandra ran up to him. “Maksim has been arrested for the murder! Can you help?”

  “Arrested? Why him?”

  “The police discovered there was bad blood between them and he had charge of the clockwork rat, with the best opportunity to plant the bomb. It makes sense to them. He told me to get you, that you are friend of his grand-father.”

  “Who is the officer in charge?” Michael asked.

  “Ivan Vasili. He is a lieutenant in this district. He comes here frequently, sometimes off duty.”

  “I will try to speak with him,” he promised.

  Sam Croydon had seen Michael talking with Alexandra and he was waiting with a smirk on his face. “You have to admit, old chap, that she’s easy on the eyes.”

  “I never denied it. Do you come here often?”

  “I did until tonight. When bombs start going off, I stay away. It’s a Bolshevik thing, you know – those bowling ball bombs with the lighted fuse coming out of them, just as in the cartoons.”

  “It wasn’t that sort of bomb, and the Bolsheviks are gone.”

  “Gone but not forgotten.”

  “Do you know who this Lieutenant Vasili is, the one who’s handling the investigation?”

  Croydon glanced around at the crowd outside the Club Nikolas. “I saw him just a moment ago. He’s a regular at the club.” Suddenly he pointed toward a black sedan. “There he is with the dwarf!”

  Maksim was in handcuffs, being placed in the backseat of the car. Michael wanted to run up to try to free him but he knew such action would have brought a bullet in response. Much as he hated to admit it, old Caspian’s grandson might even be guilty of the crime. Perhaps he had good and sufficient reason for wanting the manager dead.

  The hour was already late and he decided to wait until morning. Things might look different by daylight.

  Michael was staying at an old, inexpensive hotel near the Pushkin Art Museum. There were no shades on the windows and he was awakened by the first light of day. He had breakfast and tried to read a newspaper account of the bombing at the Club Nikolas. His Russian was not good enough to grasp it all, but he saw that Maksim was described as a suspected terrorist.

  He took a taxi to the central police headquarters and asked to see Lieutenant Vasili, saying it was about the bombing. After a twenty-minute wait in a bare depressing room, the man in the baggy suit appeared. He carried a list of those who’d been at the club the previous night, and after Michael identified himself the detective led him back to a cubicle. “What do you have to tell me?” he asked, taking out a pack of Russian cigarettes.

  “I was sent here by Maksim’s grandfather. He was being forced to work at that club because of debts he’d run up.”

  “He told us that. It makes a good motive for wanting Kizim dead.”

  “But would he do it in such a manner, in the very room where he worked? And what would Maksim know about making bombs?”

  The detective lit his cigarette. “It is an unfortunate fact of life that such knowledge is easy to come by these days. He admits that during his youth in the circus he helped his parents make firecrackers for the clowns to use in their act.”

  “What happened to his father, Yegor Wanovich?”

  Ivan Vasili shrugged. “The mobs have a certain power in the city at this moment. Places like the Club Nikolas always attract them. They see it as a good semi-legal source of Western currency. Possibly Wanovich's father stood in their way.”

  “He was killed?”

  “We have no proof of that. No one has looked too hard for him. He was only a Gypsy from the circus.”

  “I would like to speak with young Maksim.”

  “That would be highly irregular. We have not yet finished our inter-rogation.”

  “I am a fellow Rom,” Michael said, realizing it might be the wrong thing to say. “I am king of the Gypsy tribe to which Maksim’s grandfather belongs. He lives in a village not far from me. Let me talk to him.”

  “You are a Gypsy king?” Vasili stared at him, studying him as if for the first time. “That is something like a judge, is it not?”

  “I have held court,” Michael admitted. “It is an informal court, called a kris, but my decisions carry weight within our community.”

  The detective though for a moment and then said, “I will respect your position, Michael Vlado. You may speak with the prisoner for ten minutes, no longer.”

  “Thank you.”

  Michael waited while Vasili stepped into the next room to use the tele-phone. Presently he was escorted along a narrow corridor to an interrogation room with one small window. Maksim sat alone at a long table that made him look even smaller than he was. In place of his eighteenth-century pageboy garb he wore a gray prison uniform. “You again!” he said as Michael entered. “Thank you for coming.” He probably would have welcomed anyone at that moment.

  “I have only ten minutes, Maksim. Tell me what you know of the killing.”

  “I know nothing, believe me! They say I killed him because he was holding me in bondage for my father’s unpaid debts. But I am innocent!”

  “Your father’s debts? How did that happen?”

  He spoke with childish naiveté remembering the days with the circus. “It was good then. Coming to Moscow was different. My mother had returned home and there were just the two of us. But I had my rats, and that got us a job at the Club Nikolas, which was just opening up. I did well, running the rats through the glass tubes my father had constructed. But once the place was open there was no job for him except kitchen work. One night last autumn he simply disappeared. He never came back to the little apartment we shared with a pair of music students.”

  “That detective, Vasili, thinks the mob played a part in his disappearance.”

  Maksim snorted. “Vasili himself is in the pay of the mob, as are many of the police. He would never suggest that if it were true. Oleg Kizim insisted my father had stolen money from him and he forced me to continue working there until he considered the debt repaid.”

  “With Kizim dead you’re free to go?”

  “Yes,” Maksim said with some irony in his voice, glancing around at the somber walls. “I am free at last.”

  Michael Vlado considered the possibilities. The club manager’s death could have been an outgrowth of his troubles with Maksim and his father, or it could have had some other cause, probably mob-related. “Is there any possibility that your father could have rigged that bomb in the clockwork rat before his dis-appearance?”

  “None. We use it two or three times a week. There are two of them but we use them both at least once a week. Both were used two nights ago and Kizim wound them as he always did. The bomb must have been placed in it during the last two days.”

  “Did your father have a key to the club? Could he have slipped in while the place was closed?”

  “It’s only closed for cleaning for a few hours in the early morning. Even then, someone is always in the building. We all came and went as we pleased. But I told you, he is dead, and I don’t believe in spirits.”

  “You say there are two of those windup devices?”

  “Yes, in case one breaks down. They’re both kept in the drawer.”

  “So the killer could have borrowed one and tampered with it and then returned it to its place.”

  “I suppose so. The drawer isn’t locked. A key is needed for the rat itself, but a key for any windup toy would probably fit. And there’s one in the drawer anyway.”

  “Would anything have prevented your father from returning to the club, slipping back in during those early morning hours and tampering with the mechanical rat?”

  “Not if he’s still alive.”

  Michael saw that his ten minutes was almost up. “If the mob was responsible for your father’s disappearance, who would it be? I need a name.”<
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  “The detective, Vasili, is paid off by a Georgian name Gogol. At least that’s what he’s called. I sometimes see him meeting with Kizim.”

  “Where can I find Gogol?”

  “He hangs around a health club named Elite, near Red Square. It’s connected with the Club Nikolas somehow.”

  “Time’s up,” Ivan Vasili announced, returning to the interrogation room.

  “I’m finished,” Michael said getting to his feet.

  He knew Maksim’s eyes were on him as he left the room.

  Michael spent the afternoon at the Elite Health Spa, trying out the Jacuzzi, a foaming tub of hot water that he’d never before experienced. Then he moved on to the exercise cycles and the weight room. It was an invigorating way to spend a few hours, but no one he spoke to would admit knowing a man called Gogol.

  He had used his temporary membership card for the Club Nikolas to gain admission to the Elite, and obviously there was a connection between the two. The woman at the desk told him any charges would appear on his monthly statement from Club Nikolas. That evening, after eating lightly at his hotel, he returned to the club. Most of the rooms seemed much the same, and the place was crowded, though the back room used for the rodent races was closed and locked.

  He saw Alexandra at the bar and went to speak with her. She seemed drained of color and there were beads of sweat visible on her forehead. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’ve just had a shock. A new manager has been appointed for the club. He is a man I dislike intensely.”

  “Did he work here before?”

  She shook her head. “He would come and meet with Oleg Kizim. He is a bad man, worse than Kizim was.”

  The mention of meetings sparked a memory of something Maksim had told him that morning. “What is the new manager’s name?”

  “Everyone calls him Gogol.”

  “I saw Maksim at the police headquarters this morning. He mentioned that name.”

  “How is Maksim?” she asked trying to smile.

  “He seemed well. They were still questioning him. But he did tell me this man Gogol is associated with the mobs that have sprung up in Moscow recently. He might even know something about the disappearance of Maksim’s father.”

  “That was before I came,” she told him. “I have worked here only since January, many months after Yegor Wanovich’s disappearance.” Suddenly she caught her breadth and whispered, “There he is!”

  Michael turned, thinking for an instant that she meant Yegor, but then he saw the Russian and knew it was Gogol. He must have been well over six feet tall, moving with authority as he towered over everyone else in the room. He strode directly to the door of the room where the rat races were held and inserted a key in the lock.

  Sam Croydon, the Englishman Michael had met earlier, appeared from somewhere and asked Gogol, “Will there be racing tonight?”

  The Russian pulled the door open. “I must inspect the damage first.”

  Michael could see there was surprisingly little of it. “The position in which Kizim had been holding the clockwork rat as he wound it had directed the force of the small explosion into his body, either by accident or design.

  Perhaps the bomber was a humanitarian who was careful not to injure anyone but his victim. Or perhaps he was careful simply because he knew he’d be standing close to Kizim when the bomb detonated.

  “Who will operate the games?” Sam Croydon asked.

  “The police have released Maksim,” the Russian answered, and as if on cue the little Gypsy walked through the door. “Maksim!” Alexandra exclaimed, throwing her arms around him as one might greet a child. “You’re free!”

  “For the moment,” he told her. “Vasili has warned me not to leave the city.”

  Croydon shook his hand. “Great to have you back old chap. Now get those rats of yours running.”

  “Give us one hour to clean up the place,” Gogol said. “Will that be enough, Maksim?”

  “I don’t know. There are blood spots here which I must clean from the carpet as best I can.”

  Gogol inspected them. “Hardly noticeable especially with the room full of gamblers.”

  Michael had moved over to Maksim’s side. “Vasili wouldn’t have released you unless he was fairly certain of your innocence.”

  “Gogol wanted me to run the races. Vasili does what he’s told. Gogol doesn’t care who killed Kizim as long as the races go on.”

  An hour later the bettors were lining up once more with their money and chips in hand. Maksim rang the bell and released his rats for their dash through the lighted tubes to the food at the other end. The races continued for more than an hour before Gogol announced there’d be just one more before the room closed. The Gypsy placed three rats into their holding boxes and said to Gogol, “There is one more clockwork rat remaining if you wish to use it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do you want to wind it?”

  The man in the black suit smiled and shook his head. “You will do that, little man.” He took a step back, toward the door. Everyone in the room seemed to do likewise, though Michael was certain the remaining windup rat would have been examined by the police. Maksim shrugged and inserted the key into the furry toy, winding it briskly several times. He placed it on the bottom track and turned it on just as he released the other rats. Cheers went up from the spectators.

  This time, to the surprise of many, the clockwork rat actually won the race by a nose. Gogol scowled at the dwarf, perhaps thinking that the previous manager had the right idea about winding the toy himself. “Not so tight next time,” he cautioned Maksim in a low voice.

  Michael followed the crowd into the club’s regular casino and watched the more familiar varieties of gaming for an hour or so. He even tried his hand at roulette and won enough for those two plane tickets back home. He hoped he’d be able to use them. Gogol did not appear, and there was no opportunity to speak with him about the murdered man and the missing Yegor Wanovich. Finally, at midnight, he saw Alexandra departing through a side door, her shift at an end.

  But there was something wrong.

  Gogol had emerged from his office and signaled to two men in the rumpled suits seated at the bar. They looked like former KGB agents, which wouldn’t have surprised Michael. He’d heard that some of them had gone into organized crime. These two quickly followed the woman out the side door, and Michael hurried after them.

  They caught up with her at her little black car yanking her from the front seat before she could start the engine. Michael Vlado broke into a run heading straight for them. He caught the first man by surprise spinning him around and toppling him to the cindered parking lot. The second man was tougher and he already had his hands on Alexandra’s throat. Michael kicked him in the shin, then dragged him from the car as he relaxed his grip on her.

  “Thank you,” she managed to gasp.

  “Let’s get out of here, fast!” He pushed her over and took the wheel himself.

  Both men were at the car as they pulled away, but if they were armed, neither used a weapon. “They’re going for their car,” Alexandra said, looking back. “They’ll try to catch us.”

  The little Russian car was unfamiliar to Michael but he guided it along the residential streets, past old houses and high rise apartments. “Why is Gogol after you?”

  “Because I know what happened to Yegor Wanovich. He was killed by Kizim, probably on orders from Gogol.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  “There were papers in Kizim’s office at the club. I’d sneak in there during my breaks if he was busy somewhere else, hoping to find something on him. I wasn’t the only one interested. Wanovich discovered the games were crooked and was blackmailing Kizim. I found records of the payments.”

  “Would anyone be surprised at the crooked casino games in Moscow? Why would Wanovich take such a risk?”

  “Because Kizim was fixing even the rat races, making it look as if Wanovich and his son were resp
onsible.” She peered through the windshield squinting until she recognized the street. “Turn left here.”

  “How do you fix a rat race?” Michael wondered.

  “By forcing them to swallow lead shots. It slows down the ones you want to lose.”

  It was a Gypsy trick. Michael wondered if Wanovich had taught it to Kizim in the first place. “I came here to rescue Wanovich’s son Maksim. His grand-father said Kizim was holding him in virtual slavery.”

  “This is my apartment,” Alexandra said, indicating a brick building that probably dated from pre-Revolutionary days. “Come in with me until I know we haven’t been followed.”

  The street was deserted in the midnight darkness and Michael hurried after her. Inside the tiny apartment she turned on no lights but moved familiarly through the darkened room to the window. The glow from a streetlight enabled him to follow her progress until she stood just behind the curtains staring down at the street. “Is anyone there?” he asked.

  “No one yet.”

  The spring night had turned chilly in the Russian capital and he could see she was trembling from the cold or from fear. He went to her and put his arm around her. “I can stay the night and sleep here on the sofa.”

  “If you get involved with me you may end up dead. Gogol is a hard man who’ll do anything to keep control of the Club Nikolas.”

  He looked down at the street and saw a car drive slowly past he building. It might have been the one that followed them but he couldn’t be sure. “This money Maksim’s father is supposed to have stolen from the club – it was really the blackmail money, wasn’t it?”

  “I think so, yes.” She turned and nestled her head beneath his chin. “Can you get me out of here? Out of Moscow?”