Dark Maze

himself another drink and offered one to me. I declined. He walked unsteadily back to the sofa and sat down heavily.
    He grinned again and told me something he might never have said if his lawyer had been with us, or if the whiskey were not so good. Or maybe he wanted me to know, maybe he was afraid. He said, “I know Johnny Halo. Halo’s no trouble to me, or my plans.”
    And I congratulated myself. I had come here on instinct and I had played Wendell Prescott by instinct, and with a little good luck and good whiskey I had now penetrated one of the important lies.
    “May I use your telephone, sir?” I asked.
    “So long as it’s local,” Prescott said, slurring his words. “Oh it’s local, all right.”
    I got up from my chair and stepped over to Prescott and said, “Maybe you ought to lie down. You look a little rocky.“
    “I don’t mind if I do.”
    He lay down and shut his eyes and by the time I was across the room to his desk he was snoring.
    I dialed Central Homicide in Manhattan. Captain Mogaill was still there. I asked him to arrange an immediate round-the-clock police guard for Wendell Prescott, both at his business premises on Atlantic Avenue and his home on Montague Street.
    Then I stepped out into Eileen Cream’s empty office. There was no shortage of records in the file cabinets off to the side of her desk. I looked through them long enough to confirm the lie.
    And then I sat tight for about fifteen minutes. A pair of Brooklyn uniforms arrived and took over custody of Sleeping Beauty on the blue sofa.

    Back at the Bergen Street subway station, I telephoned Ruby at the theatre while I waited on the platform for the Manhattan-bound F train.
    She was frantic.
    “Hock, this is too much!” Her voice was high, and on its way to a screech. “I’ve never …”
    “Take a breath, Ruby. Then tell me slow. What’s the matter?”
    I heard her trying to catch her breath.
    “Something came in the mail this afternoon,” she said.
    “And?”
    “Addressed to me, at the theatre!”
    “What?”
    “It’s a plain white envelope, Hock, with an upside-down flag stamp! Just like the one that came to your apartment the other day, the one with that Polaroid of a painting by Picasso.”
    “The painting of Dr. Reiser?”
    “Yes.”
    I heard Ruby crying now. And I started to think of the people who knew we were close, and who among them might have passed this knowledge on to Picasso; who among them knew where Picasso was.
    I asked Ruby, “Did you open it yet?”
    “No,” she said. “I was waiting for you to call.”
    “Open it.”
    Ruby put down the telephone. I heard her footsteps fade out, then fade back in.
    Then the sound of ripping paper.
    And Ruby, crying. “Hock! Oh my God, Hock! This is just horrible, horrible...”
    “Ruby, what is it? Take it slow and easy. Just tell me.“
    “It’s another Polaroid... horrible!”
    “A photo of another painting?”
    “Yes…” Her voice trailed off in tears.
    “Who’s in the painting, Ruby?”
    “I can’t tell exactly. There’s a naked man... with something like spikes in his head, and there’s blood running down his face and his chest.... The blood, all the blood!“
    “Easy, Ruby.”
    She took a deep breath and said, “He’s hanging, from a wooden cross...”
    And I knew.
    “All right. That’s enough, Ruby. You can put the picture down, you don’t have to look at it anymore.”
    My train pulled into the station. I would have to board it, it was the quickest way to get where I now had to be. There were only seconds.
    “Listen carefully, Ruby,” I said. I gave her the number at Central Homicide, along with the address of the Crown of Thorns Holy Tabernacle in Times Square. “Talk to Captain Mogaill for me, tell him I’m on my way to the church. Tell him I’ll need a murder scene investigation unit to meet me there.”
    Ruby said, “Got it. And please, Hock, promise you’ll call me later.”
    “I will. I’m going to need you.”

TWENTY-ONE

    A police photographer was snapping off shots of the blasphemy behind the altar. Logue was there with a small swarm of detectives, uniforms, and forensics officers. He was smoking a cigar. So was everybody else, except for a pale young fat guy sitting next to Logue in a red plush chair.
    The fat guy was dressed in a shiny black suit and string tie. His sandy hair was piled up in a double pompadour and hardened with spray. He held a white leather-bound bible in his lap and every so often he