In Plain Sight

A moment later the shoe began to shake. It spun around in a full circle, then snapped to a position with the toe pointing out the still-open door.

“It’s found it,” Danny said with a grin.

“I’ll be,” Meyers said, eyebrows flying upward.

Alex picked up the shoe while Danny scrubbed the chalk figure off the floor with Iggy’s handkerchief. It tugged in his grip, pulling him inexorably toward the door.

“Thank you, Agent Meyers,” he said, leading everyone back out into the hall. “You’ve been a great help.”

Alex followed the pull of the shoe along the hall to the stairs, then down to the street. The shoe led him around the building and into the outer ring, moving between two slum tenements.

“He turned right.”

“The mission is to the left,” Iggy said. “I guess you were correct.”

“Should I get the car?” Danny asked.

“No,” Alex said, moving off down the dark street. “It can’t have been far or he would never have made it all the way back to the mission.”

The tenements gave way to seedy shops, liquor stores, and the kind of nightclubs that were fronts for illegal gambling and prostitution. Alex didn’t have to worry about anyone bothering them. The organized criminal element kept the muggers and the bums out and away from their profit-making enterprises. Not to mention that on these kind of streets, people made an effort not to notice who their fellow travelers were.

Beyond the businesses, a row of shabby homes and apartments that were little more than flop houses sprang up. The shoe tugged Alex in the direction of a three-story apartment of the rent-by-the-week variety. It had a glass door that was so encrusted with dirt and grime that the lobby beyond was just a blur of faint light. When Alex pulled open the door, he found the dimness of the light had more to do with the single, naked bulb hanging from a wire than the thickness of the grime on the glass.

A shabbily dressed woman, whose stained blouse was opened low enough to give a good view of her bosom, looked up from a gossip magazine. When she saw Alex, she put on a smile that was more of a leer and leaned forward, showing even more of her breasts.

“What can I do for you, honey?” she said in a voice that indicated renting rooms wasn’t the only service she offered.

“You can tell us if anyone’s checked out of this dump in the last five days,” Danny said, flashing his badge. The woman’s face soured and she stood up straight.

“A couple of people,” she said with a shrug.

“Upstairs,” Alex reported, feeling the tug on the shoe. Danny looked at the woman, holding her eyes for a long moment.

“We’re going to go have a look around upstairs,” he said. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Nope.” She shrugged.

“We should look at the registration first,” Iggy said. The woman laughed.

“The kind of folk who come through here are usually named Smith,” she said. “At least the ones that ain’t named Jones.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Danny said. “Let’s check the room first.” He shifted his gaze to the woman, who now wore a look of interest in what they were doing. “You stay here,” he said.

The interest faded from her eyes and she picked up her magazine.

The shoe led them up to the second floor, to a room in the back. When they reached it, the shoe turned to point at it. Alex released the spell and the shoe shuddered, the pull from it disappearing. He slipped it into his jacket pocket and left it there, sticking out. His hand was just about to knock when Iggy grabbed his arm.

“You smell that?” he asked.

Alex had been too excited to pay attention, but he was now. A sickly sweet odor was emanating faintly from the door.

“Ugh,” Alex said, recoiling. “What is that?”

“Putrefaction,” Danny said. “Something or someone is dead in there, and they’ve been dead a while.”

23 The Book

“Could they still be infected?” Alex asked Iggy. Iggy shook his head.

“Not after all this time. Remember the bodies at the Mission.”

Alex nodded and took hold of the handle.

“Here goes,” he said. The handle turned in his hand and the door opened. A wave of stench washed out into the hall and Alex recoiled, coughing and trying to keep from vomiting. Danny backed down the hallway, gagging. Only Iggy seemed unaffected, but he had taken the precaution of lighting his pipe.

“Dear God,” Alex gasped.

“Steady on, lad,” Iggy said. “You’ll get used to it in a minute or two. In the meantime, however, I’ll go in and open a window.”

“You all right?” Alex asked Danny, putting his handkerchief over his nose and mouth.

“Yeah,” Danny said. He didn’t look too bad. “I was on a stake-out down at the docks a couple of years ago. It was about the same.”

The two men took a deep breath and entered the apartment. Despite its seedy exterior, the room was neat and clean. There were no dishes in the sink, the ashtrays were mostly empty, and three portmanteau trunks sat in the front room, closed and secured. The only thing amiss were the three bodies.