In Plain Sight

4 The Mentor

Alex caught a westbound crawler, getting off a few blocks short of the park, then took another southbound one until he saw The Lunch Box. He thought about stopping in to tell Max, the owner, about Mary, but decided against it. She’d do all right without his help and Max could go on for hours about any subject. All Alex wanted right now was a cold beer and a warm fire.

He lived in a four-story brownstone just six blocks from Central Park. The house belonged to his mentor, a retired British doctor, one Ignatius Bell, late of His Majesty’s Navy. Bell had retired to New York to live with his son, Kingsley, who already lived there, but before Ignatius’ boat arrived, Kingsley succumbed to pneumonia and died. Bell arrived to nothing more than a grave marker, the brownstone, and enough money to live comfortably for the remaining years of his life.

The British navy used runewrights as their doctors. As Bell put it, Any fool can shove a healing draught down someone’s throat, but only a runewright can cast a Mending Rune and properly fix a broken leg.

Doctor Bell was full of sayings like that.

After living in New York in his son’s home for a few months, Bell decided he needed to pass his Lore on. Kingsley had been a banker and Bell had no other children, so he’d searched for a suitable apprentice. Eventually he found Alex hawking what simple runes he knew on a street corner. Now Alex lived with Bell and learned from him. It was Bell who convinced Alex to become a detective. Your skills are too great to peddle Restoration Runes in a shop or Barrier Runes on the street corner when it rains, he had said. You’ve a keen mind, use it.

Learning the Lore that Bell had collected over the years was hard. Some of his Runes were more complex than anything Alex had ever seen, certainly more than anything in his father’s meager Lore Book. As hard as they were, however, Bell’s lessons on how to be a detective were worse. He’d started Alex on the stories of Sherlock Holmes, showing him how the skills of observation and deduction could be employed to determine things like motive, and to reconstruct the events of a crime from the evidence left behind.

From fictional crimes, they graduated to real ones. As a Doctor with Rune Lore, Bell had offered his skill to the city medical examiner. Most Doctors these days weren’t runewrights, at least in America, so the M.E. was grateful for the help. With access to real cases and real case files, Bell taught Alex how to look for evidence, how to spot errors in witness testimony, and how to use his Lore to find things no cop ever could.

After two grueling years of that, Bell had pronounced Alex ready, and Lockerby Investigations had been born. At first, Bell went with him on every case, watching and correcting when necessary. After a year of that, Bell stopped going along, and only heard a report from Alex each night over dinner. These days Bell hardly asked at all. Instead Alex found himself eager to share the particulars of his cases with the old doctor. Lockerby Investigations had been open five years now, and the nightly report had become a fixed routine.

Alex checked his watch as he mounted the stairs to the door. Bell liked to retire early and it was almost nine. It was possible he’d already gone to bed. Checking his watch served a dual purpose. Powerful runes covered the door to the brownstone. Invisible to the naked eye, Alex could still feel them as he drew closer. Inside his watch, runes etched around the inside of the cover and behind the crystal began to glow. As he touched the door, he felt the magical protections that kept it shut roll away from the presence of the watch. He reached out and opened the door, stepping quickly through, then shut it gently behind him.

He didn’t know what runes guarded the door, nor which ones shielded the house itself. Bell cast those and maintained them. They were a part of his Lore Book that he had yet to share with Alex. All Alex really knew about those runes was that the beams in the attic were covered with them, and that without his watch to serve as a key, the wooden front door with its stained glass window would withstand the force of a battering ram.

It gave Alex a chill just thinking about it.

Someday Bell would teach him those runes. That would be an interesting day.

The front door led to an entryway with pegs for hats and coats, an umbrella stand, and a bench with storage for boots and galoshes. An inner glass door separated the entry from the tiny foyer and Alex tried to be quiet as he opened it and stepped inside. The interior of the brownstone had been done over in an art deco style with wainscoting and molding bearing polygonal shapes and angular designs. For a runewright of the geometric style, it was entirely appropriate.

Alex turned right, into the library. An enormous hearth occupied the far wall, with marble columns and a massive cherry-wood mantle. To either side, bookshelves reached up to the fifteen-foot ceiling. The bookcases had been ordered by Kingsley, before his death, and they matched the molding and trim. Now the cases were stuffed with books of all shapes and descriptions. Most were works on medicine and rune lore, but Bell had an entire section dedicated to classical literature, and even a chest where he kept select pulp fiction books that tickled his fancy. The only furniture in the room were two overstuffed arm chairs that faced the fire, each with an ottoman in front of it. A small, round occasional table stood between them, supporting a mahogany cigar box, two ash trays, and a stained glass lamp to provide light for reading after dark.

A modest coal fire had been laid in the iron grate of the hearth, filling the room with invigorating warmth, and pungent cigar smoke swirled around the furthest chair.

“Here you are at last, dear boy,” Doctor Ignatius Bell said, shutting the flimsy paperback book he’d been reading. “I was beginning to think I’d have to send out a search party.”

Alex laughed and sat down in the chair next to Bell, setting his hat on the ottoman.

“Not to worry, Iggy,” Alex said with a grin. “I had to make a stop at the Mission.” Alex had dubbed Bell “Iggy” during their first year together and the name just stuck. Bell didn’t particularly like it, but he seemed to take it as a sign of affection from Alex, so he tolerated it.

“Yes, your secretary informed me thus when I called.”

There was a note of irritation in Iggy’s voice and Alex flinched.

“I should have called,” he admitted, taking out another of Burt’s cigarettes and lighting it. “Did I ruin dinner?”

Ever since Iggy let Alex run his own cases, Alex had been paying rent to bunk at the brownstone. Iggy hadn’t insisted, but Alex needed to pay his way. He did, however, let Iggy cook for the both of them. Iggy had learned to cook in the navy and it had become a serious hobby for him ever since.

“I made a quiche,” Iggy said, puffing on his cigar. “It was delicate, light as air, and delicious.”

“What’s a quiche?”

Iggy sighed and put his hand to his forehead as if it suddenly hurt.

“I think your fellow uncultured Americans would call it a bacon pie.”

Alex perked up at that. He hadn’t eaten anything since the poached eggs Mary cooked him.

“I left you some on the table under a cover,” Iggy said.

Alex put his hands on the chair’s arms but before he could rise, Iggy spoke again.

“How did it go today?” he said, opening his book again. “It must have gone well if you can afford cigarettes again.”

Alex stifled a sigh and leaned back in his chair. Apparently Iggy wanted his pound of flesh for Alex’s lack of judgment. The Brits really loved their social rules.

“Funny story about the cigarettes,” he said, then launched into a detailed description of his day. For the most part, Iggy just listened quietly, commenting when he wanted clarification on any certain point.

“So,” he said when Alex finished. “Father Harry wants to see you in private on Saturday.” He puffed his cigar for a moment before adding, “Ominous.”

Alex laughed. Father Harry was many things, but mysterious wasn’t one of them. The man was an open book.

“He probably just wants me to do some rune work for him and doesn’t want to talk about it in front of the sisters. You know what a gossip Sister Gwen is.”

Iggy nodded, staring into the fire.

“I’m sure you’re right,” he said, though he didn’t sound convinced. “In any case, I’ll wager you’re hungry.”

Alex stood and picked up his hat.

“Oh, Father Harry even paid me for my work.” Alex fished the five-dollar bill out of his pocket and held it up.

“You should probably put that in the safe,” Iggy said before returning to his book.

Turning toward the hearth, Alex approached the bookcase on the left. About six feet off the floor, just high enough that Alex had to reach up to get it, stood a thick book bound in green leather. Unlike the other books on the shelf, this one tried very hard not to be noticed. The rune that shielded it was so powerful that it bled over onto the books on either side, a volume of Shakespeare’s poetry on the right and a large, thin book bound in red leather on the left.

Alex took down the green book and opened it. The center of each page had been painstakingly cut out with a razor blade, then painted with varnish to make them all one solid piece. From the outside, the book appeared perfectly normal, but once opened, it had a hollow well inside, large enough to hide three of Iggy’s pulp novels. Alex withdrew a small stack of cash held together by a paper clip. He added the fiver to it, then retuned the clip and re-shelved the book. This was Alex’s emergency stash, money that not even Leslie knew about. Any time he had off-the-books cash, it went into the safe. Iggy said it was an important habit to develop.

Iggy had lived through the big war and several bank runs in his home country. Alex never doubted that the man mistrusted banks. He was also sure that Iggy had his own safe somewhere in the house, under the floorboards in his room, or maybe behind some loose bricks in the basement. It never tempted him. Alex made his own way in the world and he never took what wasn’t his just because he could. Still, the idea of it made him want to go looking, just to see if he could find his way through the runes that kept it hidden.

Of course, it was more likely that it was here in the library, in a book or a series of them, just like Alex’s.

Always hide things in plain sight, Iggy told him. No one thinks to look there; they always think you’re trying to be clever.

“Good night, Iggy,” Alex said but the doctor had bent over his novel again and seemed oblivious.

Alex ate his bacon pie in the kitchen. For something with a girly name like quiche, it was really quite good. After he finished, he washed his plate, fork, and glass in the sink, then set them aside to dry. He thought about opening his magic vault and replenishing his rune book, but he just didn’t have the energy. He was tired. He’d had a full day, but it wasn’t full the way he wanted it to be. The police job had started out great, but now Danny and Callahan would lie in wait and catch the murderers red-handed. It was open and shut with nothing more for him to do but pick up his check. Not that he minded that part, but he wanted to feel more useful. He wanted a case that would be hard to solve, one he could make his name with. If Leslie got him one more job finding a lost dog or a cheating husband, he’d pack it in and hawk Barrier Runes on rainy street corners.

Not really, of course, but it had been a long day and Alex wanted to indulge in a few minutes of self-pity.

His room was on the third floor, above Iggy’s. It was small and modest with just the bare essentials; a bed, a desk, a wing-back chair, a nightstand, and a dresser. A narrow door led to a tiny bathroom with a toilet, sink, and stand-up shower. A telephone and a bottle of bourbon with a glass stood on the nightstand, and Alex poured himself a slug, then stripped down. He hung up his jacket and threw his trousers over the back of the wing-back chair. His barrier rune only kept falling rain from hitting him. It did nothing about puddles, so his shoes were soaked. He’d have to oil the leather to keep it supple. He poured himself a second slug of the bourbon and set to work.

When he finally got to bed, the clock on the nightstand read eleven twenty-five.

It felt like Alex’s head had just hit the pillow when he was startled awake by the telephone. At whatever ungodly hour of the morning it was, the sound grated on his nerves like a rasp. He felt an instant headache form somewhere behind his left eye. Reaching out in the dark he managed to find the phone and fumbled the receiver to his ear.

“Yeah?” he mumbled.

“Alex?” a desperate voice came across the wire. He knew it sounded familiar, someone he knew, but his brain wasn’t fully awake yet. It was a woman, he recognized that, and she was just short of hysterical. “Alex!” the voice said again, more urgent than before. “Are you there?”

“Sister Gwen?” he asked, the connections in his mind putting a name to the voice. “What’s—”

“You have to come down to the Mission, Alex,” Sister Gwen said. Her usually calm voice broke. Alex had never heard her anything but calm and in control, but now she was neither. The relief of reaching him warred with some unknown panic and she sobbed. “You have to come now. Hurry!”

She was weeping and her voice betrayed a fragile state of mind.

“Of course,” Alex said, sitting up. “Of course. I’ll come down right now.”

He hoped this would calm her and she seemed to relax a bit. She drew several ragged breaths and her voice came over the wire in a tense whisper. “They’re dead, Alex.”

Alex’s mind snapped into full wakefulness.

“Who?” he demanded. “Who’s dead?”

“Everybody.”