The Bells of Hell

by Michael Kurland

  From below came the sound of distant thunder, punctuated by squeakings and squealings and clackings, and then a loud screech that went on for perhaps fifteen seconds.

  ‘It’s here,’ Lehman said.

  ‘It is,’ Weiss agreed. ‘And we should be gone. Set the clock.’

  Patricia watched as Lehman pulled an alarm clock from the satchel and gingerly reclosed the satchel and placed the clock on top. Three wires went from the clock to the interior of the satchel. ‘This bit requires care,’ Lehman said. ‘It is designed so that if the wires are pulled loose the device will go off anyway.’

  ‘Take your time,’ Weiss told him. ‘Be precise. If you feel the urge to sneeze, tell me and I will go up the hole first.’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ Lehman laughed. With his finger he moved the minute hand around to quarter to twelve and then pulled a tab from somewhere inside the clock. It began ticking. The ticks seemed to Patricia to be the loudest things she had ever heard, and each seemed louder than the last.

  ‘Let us get away from here,’ Lehman said.

  ‘Yes,’ Weiss said. He took one long look around the tiny room, kicked the nearest sleeping man in the leg for no reason, then turned and gave Patricia a stiff bow. ‘It is regrettable that our acquaintance has to end so abruptly,’ he said. ‘Such are the fortunes of war.’

  ‘What war?’ she asked, her voice surprisingly calm.

  ‘Always, somewhere, there is a war, is there not?’

  The two men retreated through the hole in the far wall and Patricia could hear them clambering up to the next floor.

  FORTY

  And all my days are trances,

  And all my nightly dreams

  Are where thy gray eye glances,

  And where thy footstep gleams –

  In what ethereal dances,

  By what eternal streams.

  – Edgar Allan Poe

  Escape artists have devised many subtle ways to release themselves from the ties that bind, and Max Mavini was one of the best. He had taught Patricia ways to hold her hands while her wrists were being tied together which looked quite natural, but allowed her to loosen the ropes and, with a bit of wiggling and stretching, free herself. And it worked almost every time. For the times that it failed on stage there were outs, clever changes in the script that changed the focus of the trick.

  But here there were no outs. It had to work. It had to …

  Patricia had – what? – twelve minutes to free herself and get to that clock. How to disarm it? She had no idea. But first things first. Max, she thought. It’s up to you. What you taught me back then may now save the life of the President of the United States. And, perhaps almost as important, my own.

  First twist the hands this way – so far so good. Now loosen the … loosen the …

  FORTY-ONE

  There is a tide in the affairs of men,

  which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

  omitted, all the voyage of their life

  is bound in shallows and in miseries.

  – William Shakespeare

  ‘She’s not in the room,’ Geoffrey said. ‘One of the elevator men remembers taking her up to the third floor, but none of them took her down again.’

  ‘She could have come down the fire stairs,’ Kearny suggested.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Geoffrey said doubtfully.

  ‘I’ll have her paged,’ Kearny said.

  ‘If you would,’ Geoffrey agreed. ‘Though if she has just stepped into one of the shops, she won’t be pleased about hearing her name over the public address.’

  The phone on Kearny’s desk rang, and he picked it up and listened for a few seconds. ‘Now?’ he said. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘will do.’ He turned to the others. ‘The President’s car is in the siding,’ he told them. ‘They were starting to move the limo to the elevator, but they’ve decided to listen to us, just in case. Roosevelt is going to stay in the train car until this is sorted out. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen now, or it’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Convoluted, but I see what you mean,’ Welker said.

  ‘We should go down there,’ Geoffrey said.

  Welker frowned. ‘What about Lady Patricia?’

  ‘I have a feeling that we’ll find her somewhere around. She has a frightful instinct for being where the action is.’

  Kearny stood up. ‘I don’t see how our joining the guys at the dock can help. They have everything we could think of covered. On the other hand we’re not doing much good up here. Let’s go.’

  ‘It couldn’t hurt,’ Geoffrey agreed.

  ‘It could if that bomb goes off,’ Welker said. ‘But I’d rather take my chances with a bomb than have to explain why I wasn’t there when it went off.’

  Special Agent Reilly got up. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t like having to explain it either. Not after Florida.’

  They crowded through the office door, with Blake coming hesitantly behind. ‘The car elevator comes up to the loading dock on the 49th Street side,’ Kearny told them, pointing to a corridor across the wide lobby. ‘Down that corridor.’

  The men started across the lobby, and were about halfway there when Blake noticed a man coming toward them and, for a few seconds, tried not to stare. Then he grabbed Welker’s arm. ‘It’s him,’ Blake whispered in a soft squeak. ‘Over there, to our right. He’s coming toward us. Don’t look.’

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘What’s his name – Weiss. The killer.’

  Welker resisted the impulse to turn and look. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure. It’s him. What do we do?’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘To the right. He just came out of where I think we’re headed for.’

  Welker took Blake’s arm and stopped him. ‘Face me and start talking,’ he said. ‘And don’t panic. Remember, he doesn’t know what you look like.’

  ‘What should we talk about?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Just look natural.’

  ‘He’s getting closer.’

  ‘Fine,’ Welker said. ‘We’ll let him pass, and then …’

  Suddenly Blake turned and threw himself at the approaching man. ‘You son of a bitch!’ he yelled.

  The man – Weiss – froze, then took a step back, not sure what was happening. Blake grabbed at his jacket, but was twisted around and fell past him. Weiss recovered quickly and took another step back, drawing an automatic pistol from under his jacket.

  ‘What is this?’ he barked. ‘Who are you? What do you think you are doing? Stand back!’

  Welker raised his hands in a placating gesture. ‘Listen, mister,’ he said, taking a step forward, ‘I don’t know what this is all about, or what you two are fighting about, but this is no place—’

  ‘Back!’ Weiss yelled, waving his gun in an arc from Welker to Blake. ‘Keep back. I don’t know what kind of trick this is, but I will leave now.’

  The others in Welker’s group had stopped a few steps beyond the altercation and were paused, undecided as to just what was happening. Reilly already had his service Colt .45 drawn and was taking a two-handed stance, aiming it at Weiss. Kearny was working at getting his revolver out of the quick-draw holster under his jacket.

  Blake pushed himself up, throwing himself at Weiss again, and connected this time, grappling with him and seemingly ignoring the gun, which Weiss was trying to twist around so he could shoot.

  They went down, Weiss concentrating on trying to get his gun in position, and Blake doing his best to get his hands around Weiss’s throat.

  The gun went off, the noise like a sharp clap of thunder reverberating in the cavernous room. Blake made a sound like the hiss of air coming out of a tire and fell away from Weiss, clutching at his side.

  Weiss rose to his knees, but before he could raise his arm for a second shot Welker stepped in and kicked savagely at the gun and the hand holding it. The gun skittered across the floor. Weiss tried to scramble away, but in a second Welker and Geof
frey had grabbed him and were pulling him up, and Reilly was advancing with a pair of handcuffs.

  ‘What do you people think you are doing?’ Weiss yelled, as his hands were roughly twisted behind his back and the cuffs were applied. ‘This is outrageous! I have done nothing! I will have the police on you!’

  ‘Who is this guy?’ Kearny demanded.

  ‘Probably the bomber,’ Welker said. ‘But for sure he’s a Nazi and a murderer.’ He knelt down next to Blake, who was doubled up on the floor, his face white, both hands clutching at his side, where a large red stain was spreading beneath his outstretched fingers. ‘Let me look,’ he said.

  Welker pulled Blake’s jacket aside and used his penknife to slit open the shirt and undershirt. He pulled a vast pocket handkerchief from his own jacket and gingerly wiped aside the blood.

  ‘How bad …’ Blake began, and then paused, gritting his teeth. He began again: ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘You are the luckiest sun of a bitch this side of Canarsie,’ Welker told him. ‘It looks like the bullet went in here, through the fleshy part of your side below your armpit, and then right out again about two inches further along.’ He pushed experimentally at the wound making Blake wince and grit his teeth. ‘As far as I can tell, it didn’t even break a rib. Here, put your hand right here and press.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll get something to wrap it with so you don’t lose too much blood, and then we’ll get you to the hospital.’

  ‘It sure hurts like hell,’ Blake said.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Welker said. ‘But you’re going to be fine.’

  ‘Help me get him back into my office,’ Kearny said. ‘We’ll put him on the couch and I’ll call the house doctor.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Welker said. ‘Then we still have a bomb to find.’

  ‘We pulled the President’s car back without unloading the limo,’ Reilly told them, ‘so it’s somewhere a few hundred yards down the track until we tell them it’s OK to come in. Now let’s go find that damned bomb.’

  ‘Amazing it hasn’t gone off already,’ Kearny said. ‘You’d think …’ He paused, trying to decide just what you’d think.

  ‘I’m going to find my wife,’ Geoffrey said. ‘This is beginning to alarm me.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Welker told him.

  FORTY-TWO

  ‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,

  ‘To talk of many things:

  Of shoes – and ships – and sealing-wax –

  Of cabbages – and kings –

  And why the sea is boiling hot –

  And whether pigs have wings.’

  – Lewis Carroll

  They took the elevator up to the third floor. ‘First thing,’ Geoffrey said, ‘is to check out our room again. See if I missed anything. Then try to determine where she might have gone from there.’

  ‘I have a thought,’ Welker said. ‘Let’s take a look in the fire stairs.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Geoffrey said. ‘She may still be in the staircase. She may have …’ He stopped without finishing the thought, and then added, ‘Let’s go and look!’

  They went down the corridor to the stairway door and pushed it open. ‘Pat!’ Geoffrey called. ‘Patricia!’ The sound echoed in the narrow space.

  Welker peered over the railing to the landing below and looked up to the one above. ‘No sign of disturbance,’ he said. ‘But then, what would I see?’

  ‘I’ll go and look in our room,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Don’t get locked in there, it only opens from the stair side.’

  Welker examined the lock. ‘This one doesn’t,’ he said. ‘See! Someone’s jammed a bit of something in the latch.’

  ‘Curious,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Why do you suppose …?’ Something on the carpeted floor of the corridor a few feet away caught his eye and he moved over to it to take a closer look. ‘I’ll be …’ he said, bending over to pick it up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a pearl.’

  ‘No kidding. Real?’

  Lord Geoffrey peered at it and then rubbed it across an upper incisor. ‘It feels rough to the tooth,’ he said. ‘That makes it real.’

  ‘Clever,’ Welker said. ‘I’ll remember that, should the question ever arise.’

  ‘Well, here’s your chance,’ Blake told him, pointing to a spot further along the corridor.

  Welker walked over and picked up a second pearl. He looked at it, then back at where Geoffrey had found the first one. Then he turned and looked further down the corridor. ‘I see what may be a pattern,’ he said, ‘and there’s yet another pearl.’

  ‘Patricia has a pearl necklace,’ Geoffrey said.

  ‘I remember,’ Welker said. ‘Perhaps she has been waylaid and is laying down a trail of pearls instead of bread crumbs.’

  ‘That’s not funny,’ Geoffrey told him.

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘Bread crumbs?’

  ‘Hansel and Gretel. It’s one of Grimms’ fairy tales.’

  ‘Oh yes. They lay out a trail of bread crumbs, but the birds come and eat the crumbs so they can’t find their way home.’

  ‘That’s the one. And there’s a wicked witch.’

  ‘Well, let’s follow the trail of pearls, if such there be, and see where the wicked witch has taken my wife.’

  Four more pearls took them to the end of the corridor where it turned right, and another five down the right turn, and then the pearls stopped.

  ‘One of these rooms?’ Welker asked.

  ‘Let us hope,’ Geoffrey said, turning to the door that said ELECTRIC PANEL. ‘Let’s try this one.’ He turned the knob and pushed, and it opened. The light, a bare bulb in the ceiling, was on. The room was small with one wall of panels and switches and meters and a large fuse box and little else, and nowhere to hide. ‘I guess not,’ he said.

  ‘Wait a second,’ Welker said. ‘Look at the floor.’

  ‘Where?’ Geoffrey looked down. ‘Dust,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Welker said. ‘Well, yes, dust. But also …’ He pointed.

  ‘The white stuff?’

  ‘The white stuff. It’s plaster. And recent, otherwise it would have disappeared into the dust.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Geoffrey. Three more steps took him to the far end of the room, where he squatted down and examined the floor and the walls. ‘Nothing seems disturbed on these two walls,’ he said, ‘and this metal panel …’ He banged on it with his knuckles.

  ‘Helloooo!’

  ‘What was that?’ Welker asked kneeling down next to Geoffrey.

  ‘It’s her,’ Geoffrey said. ‘It’s Patricia!’ He pounded on the panel. ‘Hello!’

  ‘Down here!’

  ‘It is her,’ Welker said.

  ‘We’re here!’ Geoffrey yelled. ‘Welker and I! We’re coming for you!’

  ‘Thank God! I can’t hold this thing much longer. I think my fingers are going numb.’

  ‘What?’ Geoffrey called.

  ‘Just get down here!’

  Welker looked at Geoffrey. ‘Down where?’

  ‘Somewhere behind this thing,’ Geoffrey said, grabbing with the tips of his fingers for the edges of the metal panel. ‘Can we move it?’

  ‘You take that end,’ Welker said.

  ‘Be careful,’ came Patricia’s voice. ‘But do hurry!’

  They each took a side, prying at it with their fingers until, all at once, the panel sprang loose, slipping from their grasp and clattering to the floor, revealing a roughly square cutout in the wall and a dark crawlspace beyond.

  ‘What happened? Are you OK?’

  Geoffrey peered into the space.

  ‘We’re fine,’ he called. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Down here! There’s a hole! Hurry!’

  ‘Let me,’ Welker said, lifting himself up and, bending at the waist, pushing himself into the space. He started trying to wiggle forward on his belly with his feet still sticking out into the room.

  Using his arms and his shoulder, Geoffrey pushed Wel
ker further along until only his shoes were sticking out.

  ‘I found it!’ Welker called. ‘There’s a hole in the floor here …’ And his shoes disappeared into the crawlspace.

  Geoffrey pulled himself up and started crawling after Welker. He could see Welker directly in front of him, silhouetted in the light coming from a jagged round hole in the floor. Welker was working at twisting his body around so he could get his head away from the hole and his feet down into it. Geoffrey grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him around.

  ‘Thanks,’ Welker said. He pushed his feet down the hole and allowed the rest of his body to follow, until he slid through and landed with a satisfying thunk on the floor below.

  Geoffrey swiveled his body around and scrunched over to the hole and then followed Welker through, landing easily on the bare concrete slab some seven feet below. The space was no bigger than a closet and had no visible access, but a square hole some three feet by three feet, which Welker was busy climbing through, had been cut in one wall.

  ‘Thank God you’re here,’ Patricia called from the far side of the wall.

  Geoffrey followed Welker through this next hole, beginning to feel as though he were engaged in a truly odd game of tag. The next room was an oversized closet in which he saw four men lying about the floor, unconscious or dead he couldn’t tell. Patricia was there, crouching by a board partition of some sort, with both hands clutching the top of a black-leather satchel. There was a rope around her ankles and a loop of rope on the floor next to her.

  She looked up at them with a peculiar intensity. ‘Please be careful,’ she said. ‘This thing is a bomb. I’ve got it stopped, but I don’t know how to disarm it and I don’t dare let go.’

  Welker and Geoffrey both stopped where they were, studies in frozen motion.

  ‘What is it that you’re holding?’ Geoffrey asked.

  ‘An alarm clock. One of those round ones with the two bells on top. The sort you’d buy at a shop for about ten shillings. The glass is off the face and I’m holding the second hand so it won’t move.’

  ‘Is that clock the trigger?’

  ‘Is that what you call it? It’s got wires attached running down into the satchel.’