Thorn

by Fred Saberhagen

  Mary was starting to recover from her first shock. “Listen, if this is Helen speaking … if this is Helen, tell me who was killed? Whose body did I stumble over in the dark?”

  “There was a girl you didn’t know about in the house that night. A girl named Annie, just a runaway from somewhere, she didn’t count. Only Uncle Del knew that she was there, and he was killed too … but Mary, I don’t want to talk about all that any more. I’ve found someone who I thought was lost to me forever. We’re going to do real things, and it’s all going to be okay. He’s going to put me in real movies. Someday.”

  “Real movies? What do you mean, you’ve found someone? Who? Where are you? Helen, this can’t be you.”

  “It’s me, Mary. Remember what you once told me, about something you said you’d never told another soul? About you and your boy friend in Idaho? Want me to play that back to you now?”

  “Oh my God.” Mary turned still more pale. “My God, it is you, baby.”

  “Not your goddam baby.” The distant voice turned petulant. Still a poor contact somewhere in the wires distorted it. “Just let me alone, please. Oh, Mary, I’m going to be so happy.”

  Mr. Thorn, listening, had doubts.

  “Helen? Tell me where you are?”

  “Goodbye, Mary.” It was a lament, a ghost’s farewell.

  “No, Helen. Wait. Where are you? Helen?”

  A click; what connection there had been was gone. Mary talked into nothingness for a few seconds, and jiggled the switch at her end of the line. After that she could only hang up too.

  Then she lifted a dreamer’s face to the two men. “You heard her. It was her. What do we do now?”

  Miller appeared unconvinced. “It did sort of sound like her voice,” he admitted. “Not that I ever talked to her that much, but…” He had to pause to clear his throat. “If that really was her, if Helen’s really still alive, do you know what that means? That masterpiece that Ellison Seabright just paid for is really still her property. In the legal sense, I mean,” he hastened to add when Mary looked at him.

  “Even if Seabright has paid for it?” Thorn asked.

  “Absolutely. No question about it. There’d be a devil of a legal and financial mess to untangle. But the painting would have to be held in trust for Helen, as per Delaunay’s will. Assuming he’s really dead. Wow,” added the lawyer, looking at Thorn. “And the painting was on that plane.”

  “The matter of the missing plane,” said Thorn, “is now perhaps explained.”

  Miller nodded slowly. “If Helen is still alive, and Seabright somehow found out about it, he’d then have a good motive to get the painting out of the way. Maybe sell it secretly; there are collectors who would buy.”

  Mary for once was not delighted to discuss villainy. She slumped in the kitchen chair, not looking like her usual self. “Rob, shall we call in the police and tell them about the call? How are we even going to start looking for her if we don’t do that?”

  “Indeed,” put in Thorn, “how are we to start looking in any case, whether the police are notified or not?”

  “Then you advise against calling them?” Miller was fumbling nervously for his pipe.

  “My advice is that we first take thought. What exactly can we tell the authorities, and what will they believe? All three of us heard someone on the phone, but which of us can swear convincingly that it was Helen? Certainly not I, who never heard Miss Seabright’s voice.”

  Miller, having found his pipe, held it in his hand forgotten. “I did—a few times. But I couldn’t honestly say. Mary?”

  Mary had her face down in her hands now. “Maybe … I don’t know. Maybe it could have been someone else. I saw Helen lying on the floor in the Seabright house, dead. All shot to pieces.”

  Thorn asked: “You recognized the victim’s face?”

  “Her mouth was almost gone, her lower jaw. I never realized till then that guns did things like that. Her hair … it looked like Helen’s hair. I assumed it was Helen. Everybody did. It never entered my mind that it might not be her, because I never had any idea that there could have been another girl in the house. ‘Annie.’ Whoever it was on the phone just now said ‘Annie’. Did you hear?”

  Thorn and Miller both signed agreement. Mary went on: “It’s crazy. I don’t know any Annie, and I don’t believe there could have been another girl. Dressed in Helen’s robe?”

  Thorn prodded: “But is it not possible? Some runaway, perhaps, being given shelter? That only Helen and her uncle knew about?”

  Mary hesitated. “Delaunay would’ve told me, if he’d been doing that. Let me think about it. It’s not absolutely impossible, I suppose.”

  Miller was now inspecting his pipe as if it were some interesting alien artifact. “Assume we went to the authorities with this phone call, and could get them to halfway believe us. Then ordinarily, you know, a court order could possibly be obtained, the body in question could be exhumed, a certain identification made. Fingerprints, dental records, and so on. But Helen—if she was the girl who was shot—was cremated.”

  “That’s right,” murmured Mary. “It was the family tradition.” Rotating her head as if to ease weary neck muscles, she looked at the men. She seemed now to have pulled herself essentially together. “But—oh, this is awful—the more I think about it, the more I feel sure that it must have been Helen on the phone just now: That dead girl in the house … she could have been someone else, although I don’t know who. But the girl on the phone mentioned something, a thing that happened to me in Idaho.” Mary sighed and looked at Miller as if asking to be forgiven. “Something that I know I’ve never talked about to anyone but Helen.”

  “But that Helen might have talked about,” said Thorn.

  “Well…”

  Thorn went on: “The girl on the phone said ‘he’ would try to kill her again if she came back.”

  Neither of the others wanted to comment. There was a short pause. Then Miller said: “She— whoever it was—said something else that I thought was strange. About being put into ‘real movies’, if I heard it right.”

  “You did,” said Thorn. “And mentioned reunion with someone she had thought ‘lost forever.’ Who had Helen lost forever, Mary?”

  Mary did not reply at once. Miller had put away his pipe and was massaging the back of her neck, her shoulders. She leaned back in the chair, yielding to the motion. “I don’t know,” she murmured at last. “She’s run off … it’ll be a rerun of last time, I’m afraid.”

  Thorn asked patiently: “What happened last time?”

  She looked up at him, her head bobbing with the rhythm of the continuing massage. “Helen ran away and got as far as Chicago. Some jerk there had her acting in porn movies. She wasn’t basically like that at all.”

  “I see. And do you think that this jerk, as you call him, is the long-lost lover she has now rejoined?”

  “Oh no. Not him, never. She doesn’t hate herself that much. But she did talk to me about someone else she met on the road, a boy who meant something to her. She told me his name was Pat. I don’t know if he was involved in the porn factory thing or not, but she must have known him at about the same time.”

  “Pat was a runaway too?”

  Mary thought. “I got the impression from Helen that he was older, a little older anyway. Not a runaway any more, an independent adult. No, independent is not the right word for what adults are like when they’ve grown up that way, on the road. I’ve seen a bunch of them. Lost, usually. Isolated. That’s what they tend to be like when they manage to grow up at all.”

  Miller said: “Come to think of it, I do seem to remember hearing Helen once mention someone called Pat. With a kind of wistful look in her eye.”

  “O’Grandison, that was his last name!” Mary had suddenly come up with it. “Oh, Rob, that must have been Helen on the phone. Oh, my poor baby. I remember now. She used to say Pat had talked to her about making good films, wishing he could help make them, something like that.”


  And here, unexpected by either man, came tears. Miller, still rubbing Mary’s neck tenderly, tried to react lightly. “Mother Mary,” he joked.

  “Don’t laugh at me.”

  “I’m not.” He squeezed her neck muscles firmly again and looked at Thorn. “What do you think?”

  “I think,” said Thorn, “that in the matter of making vile films in Chicago, and in the matter of this Mr. O’Grandison, I may be able to learn something. I repeat that I am not an official investigator of any kind, but in the course of an active life one forms connections.”

  Chapter Eight

  My Medici connection was going to be of no direct help in learning whether the woman I sought was in fact within the walls of the palazzo Boccalini. In fact if the alliance became known to the Boccalini it would have the opposite effect, for the two families were rivals, at odds in all sorts of Florentine affairs. My friends the Medici were of course the stronger, but I could not expect them to use their power too nakedly. Their rule in the city was a subtle thing, based on the maintenance of harmony among factions; and although King Matthias’s gratitude would mean much to them as traders, it would not be worth upsetting a Florentine political balance already teetering with the impact of Cosimo’s recent death. Lorenzo assured me of his family’s continued help, but also made sure that I understood its limits. If I was willing to be patient, in a few days a Boccalini servant could doubtless be bribed, a spy perhaps planted in their household.

  But my nature was impatient to begin with, and anyway it did not seem to me that I had time to spare. If Helen was not after all with the Boccalini, I was wasting tune; on the other hand, if she was, not only might her life be in peril but her identity could be exposed at any time. In view of this I told Lorenzo that speed was necessary; and, within a few hours of leaving Verrocchio’s workshop, my young benefactor and I had agreed upon another scheme.

  At that time there was in Florence—I think the building may be still standing, near the Mercato Vecchio—an inn known as the Tavern of the Snail. This snail was much frequented by the adventurous young bloods of the leading families, the Boccalini in particular. Therefore we felt safe in gambling that one or two Boccalini youth would approach the place that very night, or at worst within the next few evenings. As events turned out, our most optimistic hopes were justified.

  Lorenzo had three or four reliable men stationed in ambush, along the route our game would most probably take. The scion of the Medici did not, of course, place himself among the ambushers. He could not afford to have his involvement in the affair discovered, and in any case his skills were not those of physical violence. My own part was to wait as patiently as possible in concealment nearby. As soon as the pretended robbers had sprung their trap I was to bound out, crying for the watch, and rush upon them with drawn sword.

  As I have said, we were lucky on the first night, and carried it off well enough. One of the paid ruffians, playing his part with cheeky skill—there is nothing easier than to ruin a plan of this kind by a lack of convincing effort by all concerned— offered me resistance, whereupon I ran him through the arm, a touch of authenticity he had perhaps not been expecting. After I had drawn blood, there was nothing more to be seen in the dark street of the attackers, and nothing heard of them but their fast-flying footsteps in retreat.

  My eyes had had a long time to grow accustomed to the poor light, and I could get a fairly good look at the two Boccalini. They had managed to get their backs against a wall, side by side, and were now slumped down somewhat in that position. Both had weapons drawn, both were panting and cursing, and one was bleeding in a minor way. Besides ourselves the street was now deserted, the hour of curfew long since past. As a rule curfew received little attention from young hell-raisers like these, of good political connections. Nearby dogs were ravening bravely at our recent dueling noises, their canine courage fortified by stone walls.

  Warily I moved a little closer to the two dim figures. “Are you hurt, gentlemen? The pigs have taken to their heels.”

  The Boccalini snarled, grumbled, groaned, at Fate, at the world in general, at their attackers, at me. Then the smaller of the pair stood up straight and offered me at last some words of gratitude. From Lorenzo’s briefing I thought I could recognize him as the eldest brother of the younger generation, Sandro.

  We all three sheathed our blades, and introductions were informally exchanged. It was apparent that Sandro’s younger brother Giulio was bleeding from his wrist rather more than could cheerfully be disregarded. An attempt at bandaging the wound with a strip of clothing failed to stanch the flow sufficiently, and the two young men decided that the tavern could wait, and that a retreat to their home was in order. It may have been in the minds of both brothers that assassination rather than robbery could have been the motive for the attack. Their family was certainly not without enemies, and assassins would be more likely than footpads to have a second try. At any rate, I was invited to go with them, and accepted with inner jubilation that I had not had to spend hours with them in the Tavern of the Snail before the invitation came.

  Their house, no great distance away, was as Lorenzo had described it to me, a smaller, older, less well-built version of the Medici palace. A great barred door was opened to our shouts and pounding, and at once there came a rush of startled servants to care for Giulio. I followed the excitement through halls and a small open courtyard to a room where there was a soft couch for him to lie upon. On the way I kept my eyes open and took note of several girls and young women, dressed differently than the regular servants, in a gaudy style suggestive of the bordello. Though I looked sharply at each face, I could not recognize my Magdalen.

  No sooner had we laid Giulio on this couch than with another rush we were surrounded by three more young men of the family, the brother and two cousins of my street companions. For the next hour things were operatic. Mighty oaths of outrage and revenge rang in the stone rooms. Shouts and gestures expressed extravagant grief and rage. Sword-wavings were directed at the unknown dastards who had done this deed; but they were absent and the naked blades imperiled only the help. It was unanimously agreed, a number of times over, that a punitive expedition must be launched into the night as soon as Giulio had been properly bandaged—a purported physician who lived nearby had now been sent for, and spider-webs were being gathered as a coagulant. The correct target for this retaliatory raid could not be agreed upon, however, and all the talk came to nothing, as I had surmised it must. In the morning the young men of the family were going to have to take the practical step of informing their elders at their suburban villa; at present, though, there was really nothing to be done but to make sure that all doors and windows were secure, and then get on with the nightly debauch. Giulio, once the doctor had tied his arm up properly, was not so badly off that he would be forced to abstain from this. And of course I, as their heaven-sent ally and savior, was hospitably invited to take part.

  Looking back, I see that perhaps I have not made it clear enough that from my first entry into the house, even with all the other things they had to shout about, my young hosts made me welcome with thanks and praise and every courtesy, extravagantly expressed. Like their greater Medici rivals in the Bankers’ Guild, the Boccalini were often dependent for success on foreign men who lived by the sword, and the family habit of politeness to such had been ingrained in all its members.

  “Have some more wine, Cousin Ladislao—you don’t mind if I call you that? You have shown yourself more than a cousin tonight. Wine, and how about a woman or two? There are plenty here to choose from.”

  Indeed, I could see there were, all of them young and well-formed if not all pretty. Drawn by the excitement, ten or a dozen of these girls were nearby, a couple petting Giulio, others lounging about, chatting idly among themselves in a manner that showed they could not be ordinary servants. Some of them had managed to acquire rich clothing, and their confinement here, if such it was, appeared to be on quite lenient terms. Doubtless for all of them li
fe here in the palazzo was a definite improvement over what it had been on the streets outside. I saw no one who looked like an unwilling kidnap victim. But neither had I yet seen one who wore the face of Magdalen.

  “By the beard of St. Peter,” I commented, “there are more women here than in the tavern, I would guess.” I reached out a hand to squeeze a passing buttock, whose owner paused briefly to give me back a nervous smile. I drank some wine—not much. “But I am a hard man to please, gentlemen. Without meaning the least disrespect to your hospitality, I must admit that these wenches look to me like so many cows filled with milk. To a man like myself these are as nothing. I want fire.” At this point I emitted a loud, completely un-Florentine belch; and I must confess that it was a deliberate attempt to express bold worldliness.

  My hosts averaged about fifteen years younger than myself, and I was still far from an old man. They were duly impressed, and exchanged glances.

  “It is something more fiery than these that you require,” mused Sandro.

  “Something different, at least.” I waved a haughty hand.

  A fat genuine cousin, Allessandro, raised his brows, hiccupped, and offered a suggestion. “There is a stableboy here, I am told, who plays the part of a girl quite—”

  “Bah!”

  Sandro was coming visibly to a decision. “Nay, old cousin Ladislao, come along with me. If it is fire you want, real female fire, then I think that I can promise you a treat.”

  The others, understanding what he meant after delays corresponding to their several states of drunkenness, hiccupped, shouted, and belched their approval. Sandro rose, and with a flourish took up one of the candles from the table, signing me to do likewise. Then with another great gesture he bade me follow him.

  We went up one flight of stairs after another, to a cramped top floor where some of the heat of the past day still lingered in the roof whose beams forced me to duck at almost every step. I counseled myself as we climbed that if this rare treat proved not to be the one I sought, I had better enjoy it anyway, or appear to do so. If I stayed on good terms with the Boccalini, sooner or later I would find out what had happened to Helen. If they had really taken her. With my luck, I thought, she was probably at that very moment on her way to Naples, or to England, or the Sultan’s court.