by Rain, J. R.
“I know someone who needs help,” said the faint voice.
“Would that someone be you?”
Hesitation. “No.”
“What kind of help?” I asked.
“You’re not going to believe me if I tell you.”
I nearly chuckled. Nearly. These days, I didn’t chuckle much. If at all. And if I had a nickel for every time someone told me I wouldn’t believe their story, I would have, well, a shitload of nickels. What people didn’t understand was that private investigators had heard it all before. Dozens of times.
“Try me,” I said.
“Jesus, maybe this is a bad idea. I’ll probably get fired—or worse.”
“Probably,” I said.
“That’s not very encouraging.”
“If you think you’ll get fired for telling me something—or anyone anything—then trust your instincts.”
“Good point,” said the voice.
I waited. The computer screen chose that moment to go into screensaver mode as the computer’s logo slowly bounced within the screen. I watched it idly, but my thoughts were on the side of the road, where I had been flung from the burning car so many years ago.
“Yes,” said the voice in my ear about twenty seconds later. “Yes, I’m willing to risk my job. Hell, I could even be willing to risk my life, but that could just be paranoia talking.”
“Tell me about it.”
The caller took in a lot of air, and then said, “I work at Medievaland in Orange County. Have you heard of it?”
“Jousting tournaments, eating with your hands, and waitresses dressed like wenches,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s the place.”
“Never heard of it,” I said.
The voice laughed lightly. “Anyway, we put on nightly shows. I work as a squire in the show, which means I run around in fake chainmail tights and look like an idiot.”
Now I laughed, perhaps for the first time in a long, long time.
“I know,” he said. “Ridiculous. But what the hell. A job is a job, plus I get to work around horses and I love horses. Anyway, we do this bit where we bring out a prisoner wearing an iron mask.”
“An iron mask?”
“Yeah, like in the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio.”
“Or the Alexandre Dumas novel.”
“I don’t know about the novel,” the voice said. “Anyway, I’ve worked there for two months and realized that I didn’t know who played the part of the guy wearing the iron mask. I mean, they just wheel him out, then wheel him back, and we never see who he is.”
He paused, perhaps for effect. I waited, not so much for effect. I looked at the picture of my son on the desk. My deceased son.
“I want to know who the guy in the iron mask is,” he finally said.
“Have you asked around?”
“Yes, and no one seems to know.”
“You’re right,” I said.
“Right about what?”
“I don’t believe you.”
I nearly hung up. For some reason, I paused just long enough for him to stop me. To convince me to stop. And he did.
“Wait. Hear me out.” I heard the urgency in his voice.
“Okay,” I said.
“Something’s going on,” he continued. “Something weird. No one’s talking to me. And no one seems to know who the guy in the iron mask is.”
“Probably an extra on the show,” I said, always the voice of reason.
“That’s what I figured, until I saw them wheel him away the other night.”
“Which night?”
“Two nights ago.”
“Go on.”
“I was backstage in the prop room grabbing another sword for my knight—the things always break. Anyway, the skit with the prisoner in the iron mask had just ended and I watched them roll him backstage. I’ll admit, my interest was piqued, if only to settle my own curiosity.”
I waited. Admittedly, my interest was piqued, too. And who said the word “piqued” these days, anyway? I thought about that as I waited.
Finally, the voice said, “The first thing I noticed was that they never took him out of the iron mask.”
“What do you mean?”
“They just kept on rolling him down a side hall, and then into one of the service tunnels, which leads to, from what I understand, a basement of sorts under the arena.”
“They never took the guy out of the mask?”
“No.”
An oddly cold chill coursed through me as I processed this. “You’ve never been below the restaurant?”
“No.”
“And no one else knows who the guy in the iron mask is?”
“No one. At least, not the other squires. We don’t hang out much with the knights.”
“And you tried looking into this yourself?”
“I did.”
“And what happened?”
“I was told that if I was ever seen near the elevator again, I would be fired.”
“So why are you calling me?” I asked.
“I want you to find out who the man in the iron mask is.”
“Why?” I asked.
This time there was a lot of silence, and I found myself shaking my head. In this business, you never knew who was going to call you. The homeless man continued weeping. In my mind’s eye, I saw my son’s burned flesh. His burned and smoking flesh.
Finally, the guy on the phone spoke. “Because I think the man in the iron mask needs help.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think—and this is the part where I know I sound crazy—that he might really be a prisoner.”
“Not crazy,” I said. “Batshit crazy.”
I heard him breathing on his end of the line. Breathing hard. Raspy. He’d gotten himself worked up. Finally, he said, “Do you want the job?”
I thought about it—and thought about my past few crazy cases, both of which involved creatures of the night—and said, “What the hell. Crazy is right up my alley.”
Chapter Two
Roxi and I were sitting on her balcony.
We were looking out over Los Feliz, which is a sort of borough in Los Angeles, except they don’t call them boroughs here, and I can never pronounce Los Feliz right anyway. Whenever I try to pronounce it right, I get corrected, and if I try to pronounce it another way, emphasizing the ‘e’ in Feliz, I get corrected again. I’ve decided there might just be something wrong with me.
“How do you pronounce Los Feliz?” I asked Roxi again, who was now my girlfriend of a couple of years, God bless her patient heart.
“Not the way you pronounce it,” she said. She was sipping on a glass of chardonnay with her feet crossed over the balcony railing. Three stories below, a steady stream of people swept up and down Vermont Avenue. Toward, undoubtedly, a slew of trendy restaurants.
“No one pronounces it the way I pronounce it,” I said. “Apparently, I’m the only one in Los Feliz who can’t pronounce Los Feliz.”
“Los Feliz,” she corrected, emphasizing the ‘e’ in a way I thought I just had. “And you’re not the only one who can’t pronounce it. People who just move here can’t pronounce it; that is, until they learn how to pronounce.”
I sighed in a manner that suggested I gave up, which I don’t often do for anything, especially cases.
Roxi grinned and reached out and touched my thigh in a way that always sent a shiver through me. And just as the feeling coursed through me, I fought it back. What right did I have to feel shivers, or pleasure of any kind?
I didn’t. Not now. Not ever.
Roxi must have sensed me recoil, even if slightly, and gently withdrew her hand. How and why she stayed with me was still a perplexing puzzle that I had quit trying to understand nearly two years ago. If I hurt her feelings by recoiling, she didn’t show it. She knew me better than most—perhaps better than anyone. She knew I was damaged goods, and she knew what she had gotten herself into. Instead, she took a sip from her chardonnay, re-cro
ssed her legs and asked what case I was working on.
And so I told her about the mystery man in the iron mask, who made nightly appearances in the Medievaland shows, and who was, apparently, carted off to a subterranean chamber beneath the arena.
“You’re kidding,” said Roxi.
“Do I ever kid?” I asked.
“Good point. Okay, so this guy is strapped to, what, a sort of upright gurney, à la Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal Lecter?”
“That’s how I envision it,” I said.
“And it’s all part of the show?” she asked.
“Apparently.”
“But your client doesn’t think so?”
“Right,” I said.
“Does he know how crazy he sounds?”
“I think he does.”
“And?”
“And he still wants to hire me anyway.”
“Is it ethical to take his money if he’s crazy?”
“I haven’t taken it yet.”
“You’re going to check out the scene first,” said Roxi.
“Right.”
Below me, I watched a car bump into the back of another car at the Los Feliz Blvd and Vermont intersection. The bump was minor. The first car barely moved, if at all. If anything, it was all brake squeal and no bark. Still, the driver of the first car got out. An older guy wearing a sweater around his shoulders, he jawed in a manner which suggested anger. Or even hate, although I couldn’t hear what was being said. I had been in an accident a few years ago. Two of them, in fact. Two accidents, two deaths. My wife in the first, my son in the second.
Two for two, I thought, and wished all over again it had been me.
“And this guy in the iron mask...your client doesn’t know who he is?”
“Apparently, no one does. At least, no one who’s talking.”
“And he sees the guy being wheeled to an elevator that leads below the arena?”
“Yes.”
“Still strapped to the gurney?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, that’s weird,” said Roxi. Roxi was about my age, but looked younger. Guys ten years older than me still looked younger than me. Going through what I went through had a tendency to age a guy...and drive him to the brink of a massive, catastrophic depression. Roxi helped me steer clear of such a depression. Roxi was a bright light in what would have been, I was sure, an unbearable existence.
“You can’t just go in there and ask about the guy in the iron mask,” said Roxi.
“No.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“I’ll poke around,” I said. Below, the older guy was now taking pictures with his camera phone.
“You’re good at poking around,” said Roxi, and I was sure that was the wine talking.
But I let her flirtatious comment go, as usual. Maybe another day, another lifetime ago, I might have flirted back, but my days of flirting were over.
Forever.
Chapter Three
Medievaland looks like a big castle.
It was definitely not something you’d expect to see in the middle of Orange County, a county famous for its desperate housewives, beaches and, perhaps, citrus fruits.
Then again, what did I know? I lived in a small apartment in the heart of Los Angeles, an hour northwest of Orange County. Desperate housewives in my part of town didn’t make TV shows. They hired me to follow their husbands. Or find their missing kids. That was my specialty, actually. Finding the missing. Tough field. Especially when I found them dead.
Or worse.
With that said, this part of Orange County—in a place called Buena Park—reminded me a lot of Los Angeles: rough streets, graffiti, homeless and traffic. Yeah, I felt right at home.
That is, of course, until I found myself on Beach Boulevard and surrounded by a surprisingly large crowd of tourists, all here to see Knott’s Berry Farm, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, and Wild Bill’s Dinner Theater. And, of course, Medievaland.
A lot of flash for an otherwise dreary city.
I parked in the back parking lot with a smattering of other vehicles. I was early. The dinner show would start in about an hour.
The Medievaland facade is fortress-like, complete with high towers, turrets, a walkway and even a moat, which I crossed over now along the lowered drawbridge. The lowered drawbridge looked suspiciously non-functional. At the ticket window, I purchased a dinner for one, which included tonight’s tournament and a free tour of the facilities. I tried to look excited about the free tour. The girl at the ticket booth smiled at me sadly. Perhaps I had looked too excited.
Ticket in hand, I joined a handful of other guests as we were shown through a gate and into the horse stables. I didn’t know much about horses, and suspect I never would, but from what I could tell, these were particularly magnificent creatures. Each was bigger than I thought horses actually were. Yeah, I know. City boy and all that. Still, since when did they grow horses so big?
There were about ten such beasts, all different colors, although the jet-black creature at the far end seemed to hold me transfixed. I was certain he was bigger than the others. No doubt a shitload of hands high. He was watching me in return, tail swishing rhythmically, black eyes unblinking. It took a brave man—or woman—to ride that animal. After our brief stare-down, which I lost, I followed the other guests through the stable and out into the arena itself.
The floor was covered in dirt and sawdust and peanut shells. Two beams of wood ran along either side of the arena floor, where, I suspected, the knights jousted. I could think of a half-dozen other things I would rather do than ride a horse at full speed while another man pointed a spear at my chest.
The arena was larger than I’d expected. Bigger than a high school gymnasium, but not quite the size of a basketball stadium. Still, there were dozens and dozens of rows for what would undoubtedly seat hundreds of guests and tourists.
We continued through the arena, which was roped off so that we wouldn’t venture too far astray, and soon found ourselves in the gift shop and cafe, where, I calculated, we would spend more money while waiting for the show to start.
Which is exactly what I did. I spent mine on a Diet Coke served in a pewter mug. I was all too aware that drinking beer in the very same mug would have been heavenly. Except I don’t drink beer anymore—or alcohol of any type. I’m a recovering alcoholic, and some days are easier than others. Today was a hard day. Today I was wishing very earnestly that this beautiful-looking mug was filled with ale or grog or mead, or whatever the hell they called it in this place.
Easy, boy, I thought. Easy.
And so I sat there and watched the dozens of other tourists laughing and smiling and drinking, waiting for the show to start. A show that would feature a man in an iron mask.
I shook my head and drank my Diet Coke and wondered again why I had taken this case. In an hour or so, I would see why.
Boy, would I.
Chapter Four
The show was about to begin.
I was seated at a scarred table on a scarred bench. A few minutes earlier, while I had been nursing my second tankard of Diet Coke, the doors to the arena had burst open and two young men wearing colorful tights stepped out. Next, they solemnly raised their longish horns, trumpeted them a few times—just enough to give me a headache—then announced the tournament was about to begin. I might have detected an English accent or two.
I’d joined the multitudes as we passed through the door and into the dark arena. I’m not a tall guy, and soon found myself surrounded by a lot of shoulders and hair and sullen teenage kids. They split us off into various rows and aisles and somehow I ended up with a seat right smack dab in the middle of the arena, about halfway up.
Waitresses made their rounds between the tiered rows. The waitresses looked a lot like poor serving wenches. They also showed a lot of bosom, which, I was certain, was historically accurate.
Drink orders were taken and soon, another pewter mug of Diet Coke was placed before me,
along with a basket of bread and a bowl of tomato bisque soup. Noticeably missing were utensils. Apparently, according to my bosomy waitress and armchair historian, those in the eleventh century didn’t use utensils.
Others seated nearby promptly used their bread to soak up the soup—or simply slurped happily from their bowls. As they say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do...
Or in this case, Medievaland.
As I slurped—and not very happily—the arena lights dimmed. Drums sounded from seemingly everywhere. A spotlight turned on, shining down on a tunnel entrance. Smoke billowed from the entrance. The drums increased in tempo. Suddenly, a horse and rider burst from the smoke and into the arena, and charged along the outer edge of the open space, kicking up dirt and dust and undoubtedly horseshit.
The crowd clapped and cheered. I didn’t clap or cheer. I watched and dipped my garlic bread in the tomato bisque soup.
The horse and rider circled a few more times, whipping the crowd into a frenzy. He finally stopped in the center of the arena and hopped down from his horse. He was wearing full chainmail and a gleaming white tunic. The tunic was embroidered with something that looked like a dragon.
“Hear ye, hear ye!” he bellowed, his voice booming almost supernaturally, seemingly coming from large black boxes suspended around the arena. Certainly not period pieces. Perhaps these were devil boxes. “Dost thou knowest the time?” he asked, turning in a full circle.
“Medieval times!” shouted some in the crowd.
He nodded, pleased. “Aye, good sirs and fair maidens. Tis indeed these medieval times. But more importantly, it’s tournament time!”
As the crowd cheered, he explained further: apparently the arena was split into four color-coded quadrants. Red, blue, white and green. I was in the green quadrant and was told I should root for the green knight. My quadrant, like the other three, erupted in wild cheering. It was mob mentality at its best.