Sideways In Crime

by Sideways In Crime v2 lit

  Nothing had been touched. The bloodstain on the carpet had dried to a rusty brown and it gave the room a faint odor reminiscent of the Sun Temple. They were all looking at me now, like shoppers in the market watching one of the fire-eaters or the serpent dancers. Faintly I heard the sound of flutes and drums. Some ceremony at one of the temples? A hushed quiet had filled the room, thick as the blood smell.

  “Avery is called the drunken poet for a good reason,” I said. “Everyone knows that only luck and the generosity of The Quetzal toward a foreigner have saved him from serving as a slave. Who will believe the words of a drunkard?” I spread my hands. The consul was scowling agreement, Malinal looked troubled, and The Quetzal revealed nothing. “I asked him to tell me what had happened on the night Shin Li was murdered. He told me they played chess, that it had ended in a stalemate, that he had left. Later, when the watchman at the gate told me about finding the body, he mentioned that Shin Li’s hand was soft. Pliable.” I watched The Quetzal’s eyes narrow with instant understanding. The consul did not, but then the consul probably didn’t have as much personal familiarity with death. “That means the man had just died,” I explained. “A body stiffens quickly after death. Yet the watchman saw Avery leave long before the body was found.”

  “He was mistaken,” the consul snapped.

  “He records all people who pass through the gate,” I told him mildly. “You can ask to see his records and he will explain them to you.”

  “Someone sneaked in.” Malinal spoke up.

  “I thought of that.” I nodded. “But you can see this doorway from the watchman’s stool. Only tradesfolk came through the gate until just before the murder was discovered. The watchmen would not greet a water carrier or bearer, just note that person’s passing on his record. He would have turned his back on the doorway to greet the honored guests of the consul, but those guests could see if someone emerged from Shin Li’s rooms as they entered, and none of them saw anything, is that not so?”

  “That’s so.” The consul’s voice creaked like old wood.

  The Quetzal was watching me narrowly.

  “I found a few peculiarities when I examined the room.” I gestured to the chessboard. “Notice the game? It is not a stalemate. The board is full of pieces. The game has barely begun.”

  “What does that mean?” The consul spoke angrily. “Who can trust--”

  “The words of a drunk?” I nodded. “But why lie to me about the game? And look here.” I pointed to a faint stain in front of the carved chest. “Let us suppose that Shin Li knelt in front of the chest on a rug. He was stabbed there and fell onto the rug. The murderer moved the body to the chess table to make it look as if he had been killed while playing chess. Of course he had to move the rug, too, and didn’t notice that a small amount of blood had soaked through to the tiles. I suspect if you ask the woman who cleans this room you will discover that the rug normally lies in front of the chest, so that one kneels on softness to search through the chest. Its position in front of the table does not really make sense.”

  “The position of a rug in a room is meaningless,” snapped the consul. “And you have already explained that it would be impossible for anyone to come into this room at the time you believe he died. Your logic is flawed.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “My logic is not flawed. We do not yet have all the information we need.” I walked over to the carved screen. “Tell me about the garden beyond this screen.”

  “It is a small private garden.” The consul shrugged. “It is shared by my sleeping room along with this room and one other. But the screens block access to the garden. You have to go in through a door and that door opens only to my private sitting room. That is where I was entertaining my guests. I was there all evening. No one came though there and no one could get through this screen anyway.”

  I walked over and slid my fingers along the carved frame of the screen. Nothing. Sweat prickled my armpits. What if I had the wrong room... what if he had remembered wrongly? The Quetzal cleared his throat.

  Left, I thought. Right. He had mixed up the two. Quickly I ran my fingers along the frame on the other side. Aha! I felt the tiny lever, pressed on it. With the tiniest of “clicks” the screen sprang free and swung silently inward. “The son of the former Quetzal liked women and young men and his father did not approve of his behaviors,” I said. “When he built this house, he had the builder include these clever windows. He could house ‘guests’ in these rooms and visit them by night. Not even the servants could know and word would not get back to his father. Shall we?” I stepped through the screen.

  The Quetzal followed with the consul and Malinal at his heels. I had expected the consul to protest, but he was silent and when I glanced back at him, his face was the color of old ivory. Well, he was the father, after all. “Notice the hinges and the latch.” I pointed to the dark stains on the wood. “They have been recently oiled.” I stepped through flowering shrubs that smelled of cinnamon to another, identical screen. Across the small garden I could see a third screen next to a carved door. That would be the consul’s chambers. I ran my fingers down the correct side of this screen and it swung silently inward. The consul’s younger son lay asleep on the silk coverlet of the bed. He startled awake as I stepped into the room. “According to the watchman, your younger son was in his room until the maid came to call him to your private dinner.”

  “This is scandal. Ridiculous!” The consul’s face had gone even paler and twin spots of red stained his cheeks. “What do you insinuate here? You have taken the side of a drunk, built a house of feathers in your accusations...”

  “I suspect that if you search the room, you will find the blade that killed your son. Unless he hid it in the garden.”

  “What are you saying?” The young man’s eyes had gone wide. “What are you accusing me of? How dare you, you... savage!”

  The consul turned away from his son. “You may search.” His tone was leaden, without expression. “My son and I will wait in my rooms.”

  The Quetzal called in his private guard to do the searching and summoned a minister from the Hall of Justice to oversee it. He spoke with the minister at length, then joined Malinal and myself in the small garden where we sat on stone benches. Servants brought cups of delicate tea and small sweet rice cakes.

  “You have presented me with a truth,” The Quetzal said. “But perhaps not all of that truth. Where did the drunken poet go after the chess game? The consul will want to know and so do I. Before I can release him, I must know that he had nothing to do with this.”

  I looked at Malinal. She was staring at the ground.

  “He was in my garden.” Her voice was low, but she raised her head and met her father’s stare. “I enjoy his poetry, father.”

  “He is a drunk.” The Quetzal’s tone was flat and cold. “You were without a chaperone?”

  “Of course I was. You forbade me to invite him to the palace.” She flushed. “Nothing improper occurred.” She held his gaze, didn’t look away.

  I’m not sure I could do that.

  The Quetzal said nothing.

  One of the searchers appeared, a lanky young man with a narrow face and beaked nose. He held a long, slender knife. A golden dragon’s head formed the hilt, set with blood-colored rubies for eyes.

  “My father gave that knife to my older son.” The consul had emerged from his chambers. He seemed to have shrunk, as if he had aged ten years. “This is a family matter. I have accepted a post in the emperor’s court. I will dispatch a communication to the emperor and he will select a replacement for me. My younger son is not fit to assume my duties.” The words fell from his lips like dry stones. “He will be punished.”

  “I will permit your son to depart with you.” The Quetzal inclined his head. “As you say, this is a family matter. We are a civilized people who understand family.” He watched the consul cross the garden and disappear into his chambers, walking with the faltering steps of an old man. “And the gods do no
t appreciate a flawed sacrifice.” He turned to face me.

  “You are a finder of truth.” The Quetzal’s eyes bored into mine. “A very wise man.” A hint of a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. “On the day of your choosing, I will be honored to sacrifice you on the altar in the Temple of the Sun.”

  “I am... honored.”

  “You are horrified, but you are a European.” The smile came and went again. “Is it better to grow old, witless, blind, a burden to all?” He turned to Malinal. “One of my guards will escort you back to the palace when you are ready.” He left the garden, followed by two guards bearing their atlatls.

  The sun was setting. Birds began their evening song in the garden’s trees and I could hear the raucous shrieks of the Hot Lands birds.

  “He offered you a great honor, you know.” Malinal’s voice was bitter.

  “I know.”

  “The priests will not accept my sacrifice now. I knew the risk.” She sighed. “But it was innocent and I love the music of his words.”

  “There are many ways to serve the gods,” I said.

  “So my father says.”

  She left the garden then. She will make a good ruler, after The Quetzal lies down on the altar stone. Whenever that is.

  He has ruled the Three Peoples for three decades now and made them powerful among the world nations. Of all his children, Malinal, with my Spring Wind Song’s eyes, is the one who is most like him.

  The Quetzal has his priorities.

  So the Chinese consul who does not think much of the Aztecs will leave in disgrace and perhaps his replacement will have more respect. Malinal will honor the gods by becoming an even better ruler than her father. Since she can no longer honor the gods with her blood. Avery will leave Tenochtitlan before he makes a fatal mistake.

  How does my guilt measure up in all this?

  I left the garden as the shadows lengthened. The watchman had been assigned to the consul personally by The Quetzal. As a gift. Ten Reed found that out for me. The carved chest had plenty of room for a slender man to hide. The women who clean--also a gift from The Quetzal--would know where the dagger with the ruby eyes was kept. And they could oil the old hinges on the screens.

  Ten Reed’s uncle had been surprised by my curiosity about the consul’s house. The Quetzal’s emissary had asked him to draw up detailed plans the month before The Quetzal had given the house to the consul.

  I will never play chess with The Quetzal.

  I went home through the darkening streets. They still don’t use street lamps here. The night streets belong to Tezcatlipoca and I felt his breath tonight. Ten Reed will have dinner waiting for me. When they release Avery, I will convince him to go north as quickly as possible. I recognized the exquisite feather border on his cloak as one created by Malinal’s personal feather artist. I should go with him, too, I suppose. But I will not. My knees twinge on some of these cold mornings and I am starting to feel old. Who knows? One day, The Quetzal’s honor may look like a good choice. But meanwhile, I want to watch Malinal learn to rule.

  Murder in Geektopia:--Paul Di Filippo

  Paul Di Filippo is my secret weapon. No, really, that’s all you need to know. Anything else one can think to say about this gonzo maverick, who always surprises and who seems to snort the Zeitgeist and regurgitate works of brilliant and hysterical relevance, would still fall short of the total gestalt of Di Filippo goodness. He is a genius in a field of geniuses.

  Max Moritz is the moniker on my NC license, and, yes, I’ve heard all the obvious allusive wisecracks already.

  “Funny, you don’t look Prankish.”

  “I heard you keep all your cats in jam jars.”

  “What strength monofilament you use for chickens?”

  “Did your mama stick dirks in her bush?”

  But of course I haven’t let smartmouth cracks like those bug me since I was twelve years old, and just finishing my third-level synergetics course at GBS Ideotorium Number 521. (Our school motto that year, picked by the students of course: “A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.” From one of my favorite Shaw and Raymond pictonovels, Major Barbara versus Ming the Merciless.)

  And of course after I left GBSI Number 521 that year for my extended wanderjahr before declaring my major and minor passions, I fell in with a variety of older people who politely resisted the impulse to joke about my name.

  Except when they didn’t.

  But that’s just the Geek Way, anyplace you go.

  Still, I wasn’t about to change Moritz to something else. Family pride, and all that. Would’ve killed my mother, who had worked hard with my pop (and alone after his death) to make the family business a success. Moritz Cosplay was known worldwide for its staging of large-scale (ten thousand players and up) recreational scenarios, everything from US Civil War to Barsoom to Fruits Basket, and Mom--Helena Moritz--regarded our surname as a valuable trademark, to be proudly displayed at all times, for maximum publicity value.

  Not that I was part of the firm any longer--not since five years ago, when I had told Mom, with much trepidation, that I was leaving for a different trade.

  Mom was in her office, solido-conferencing with the head of some big hotel chain and negotiating for better rates for her clients, when I finally got up the courage to inform her of my decision. I waited till she flicked off the solido, and then said, “Mom, I’m switching jobs.”

  She looked at me coolly with that gesture familiar from my childhood, as if she were peering over the rims of her reading glasses. But she hadn’t worn eyeglasses since 1963, when she had gotten laser-eye surgery to correct her far-sightedness. Then out the glasses went, faster than Clark Kent had gotten rid of his in Action Comics #2036. (But Lois Lang still didn’t recognize Clark as Superman, since Clark grew a mustache at the same time, which was really a very small shapeshifting organism, a cousin of Proty’s, who could attach and detach from the Kryptonian’s upper lip at will to help preserve Supe’s secret identity.)

  Anyway, I had made my decision and announcement and wasn’t about to quail under a little parental glare.

  “What’re you planning on doing?” Mom asked.

  “I’ve just gotten my NC license. I’ve been studying in secret for the past six months.”

  “You? A nick carter? Max, I respect your intelligence highly, but it’s just not the Sherlock-Holmes-Father-Brown-Lincoln-Powell variety. You had trouble finding clean socks in your sock drawer until you were ten.”

  “I aced the exam.”

  Mom looked slightly impressed, but still had an objection or two. “What about the physical angle? You’re hardly a slan in the strength department. What if you get mixed up with some roughnecks?”

  “Roughnecks? Shazam, Mom! What century are you living in? There hasn’t been any real prevalence of ‘roughnecks’ in the general population since before I was born. At GBSI Five-twenty-one, one of the patternmasters spent half a day trying to explain what a ‘bully’ was. The incidence of sociopathic violence and aggressive behavior has been dropping at a rate of one-point-five percent ever since President Hearst’s first term--and that was nearly three-quarters-of-a-century ago.”

  “Still, the world isn’t perfect yet. There’s bad people out there who wouldn’t hesitate--”

  “Mom, I also got my concealed weapons license.”

  Mom had a technical interest in weapons, after hosting so many SCA tournaments and live-action RPG events. “Really? What did you train on?”

  “Nothing fancy. Just a standard blaster.”

  I didn’t tell Mom that I had picked a blaster because on wide-angle setting the geyser of charged particles from the mini-cyclotron in the gun’s handle totally compensated for my lack of aiming abilities. But I suspected she knew anyhow.

  Mom got up from her chair and gave me a big hug. “Well, all right, Max, if this is really what you’ve got your heart set on. Just go out there and upho
ld the Moritz name.”

  So that’s how, on August 16, 1970 (Hugo Gernsback’s eighty-sixth birthday, by coincidence; I recall watching the national celebration via public spy-ray), I moved out of the family home and hung up my shingle in a cheap office on McCay Street in Centropolis.

  Now, five years later, after a somewhat slow start, I had a flourishing little business, mostly in the area of thwarting industrial espionage.

  All Mom’s fears about me getting into danger had failed to come true. Until the morning Polly Jean Hornbine walked through the door.

  Business was slow that day. I had just unexpectedly solved a case for ERB Industries faster than I had anticipated. (The employee dropping spoilers on the ansible-net about ERBI’s new line of Tarzan toys had been a drone in the shipping department.) So I had no new work immediately lined up.

  I was sitting in my office, reading the latest copy of Global Heritage magazine. I had always been interested in history, but didn’t have much Copious Spare Time these days to indulge in any deep reading. So the light-and-glossy coverage of GH provided a fast-food substitute.

  I skipped past the guest editorial, a topical poem written by Global Data Manager Gene McCarthy himself. Where he found the time to churn out all these poems while shepherding the daily affairs of billions of people around the planet, I had no idea. Everyone else, myself included, bright and ambitious as one might be, looked like a lazy underachiever next to our GDM.

  Beyond the editorial, the first article was a seventy-fifth anniversary retrospective on President Hearst’s first term of office, 1901-1905. Even though the material was mostly familiar, it made for a lively, almost unbelievable story: the story of a personal transformation so intense that it had completely remade, first, one man’s life, and then the collective life of the whole world.

  Few people recalled that William Randolph Hearst had been a money-grubbing, war-mongering, unscrupulous newspaper publisher in the year 1898. A less likely person to become a pacifist politician and reformer would be hard to imagine. But there was a key in the rusty heart of the man, a key that would soon be turned.