Empire State Read online

  The doormen smiled. One gestured expansively to the door.

  "Welcome. Please, come in and make yourself at home."

  Rad knocked the brim of his hat with an index finger and hoped his own smile didn't look too forced. He jogged up the remaining stairs, careful to affect the same nonchalance as he did when he first approached, and entered the house.

  It was warm and bright, and it looked like a normal house, albeit one that had now been divided into apartments or even offices from the original single dwelling. The hall was wide but bare, and had stairs on the left directly ahead. Before the stairs there was a door on the left, and two on the right. The hallway ran back from the street and ended in another door. All were open and the lights were on in every room. Everyone seemed to be in the room to his left, so Rad slipped his hat off, rubbed his scalp, and walked in.

  The parlour was longer than it was wide. Behind him a large bay window gave a view to the street, although being dark outside and light in, it was nothing more than a mirror. Checking over his shoulder, Rad saw the room reflected and the back of fifty people's heads, and a man standing on some kind of makeshift stage – a table – at the front. He was standing still, and after a few seconds Rad saw some of the heads in the window turn to look around. Rad realised they were looking at him, and turned around himself.

  The man on the table wore a brown suit, like any kind of suit Rad had ever seen. He stood on the table in his brown shoes and his tie was blue against a cream shirt. Everyday. The man raised both arms in front of him. In one hand he held a book. In the other a small axe, a hatchet. Rad bit his top lip but kept his cool. All part of the act, for both him and the guy on the table.

  "Welcome, my brother, welcome. Please, make yourself comfortable."

  The everyday man spoke through a hood. It was of white cloth, and sat over his head like a big napkin. It looked homemade and odd, but the way the two eyeholes and face were aligned properly and didn't slip as he moved made Rad think there was more to it underneath.

  He was starting to get sick of people in funny masks. He looked around the room, expecting to see two guys in gas masks or maybe someone in the Skyguard's helmet, wondering whether his expectation was silly or serious.

  Aware that the room, and the man in the hood, appeared to be waiting for him, he smiled and held his own hat up in a friendly greeting. Apparently satisfied, those that were looking at him turned back to the man in the hood, who began to speak again.

  Rad looked around, but saw that all the chairs were taken, and that around a third of the room's occupants, himself included, were standing at the back. Rad found a spare patch of frame in the bay window and leaned against it as comfortably as he could. Even though there were people in front of him much taller than he was, he could see the man in the hood quite clearly from the elbows up as he stood on the table. Rad crinkled his nose as he noticed a strange smell, faint, like the echo of incense. He decided he didn't want to stay long enough to find out what it was.

  The meeting was in full flow already, and Rad couldn't quite get caught up with what the man in the hood was saying. Something about the moral nature of society. Not for the first time that night, Rad regretted the second drink at Jerry's. He folded his arms and in the close warmth of the house on Hanover Street he found it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open. The man's voice droned on, quietly and calmly, but constantly. Nobody else spoke. If the room was full of gangsters and terrorists and criminals as he had been led to believe – as everyone in the whole city had been led to believe – they were a nice, polite bunch. Perhaps it was the wrong house after all. Perhaps Jerry had been wrong, perhaps this really was a church. The doors were open, and the lights were on, and it was hardly a secret meeting. Sure, the speaker wore a hood, but then the priests of a regular church wore long robes and funny hats and nobody thought that was strange.

  Rad flicked his eyes open as something hard nudged his elbow. He blinked in the light and concentrated against the effects of the drink. The person next to him prodded his elbow again and Rad turned around with a jerk. Maybe he had dropped off a little.

  The man next to him smiled like the guys on the door had smiled – actually it was one of the guys from the door. He was poking Rad with a small book, a hardcover bound in red linen, sans jacket. He tilted the book a little, indicating that Rad should take it, and in the bright light of the room the geometric pattern on the cover shone where the finger marks of heavy use had held the book by the edges.

  The Seduction of the Innocent. Rad's head cleared, and he stood straight, taking the book.

  He was in the right place.

  Rad had arrived late, but not by much, and the meeting was a long one. The man in the hood was the Pastor of Lost Souls, the city's most wanted. As large as life in a house with no curtains and lights a-blazing. Rad sighed. Well now.

  The Pastor was discussing a chapter of The Seduction of the Innocent at some length: Rad followed for a time, trying to understand, trying to get what the congregation, the cult was about. But after thirty minutes his brain felt fuzzy and he decided he'd get more out of this visit by observing the people in the room. He kept the book open, balanced on the palm of one hand, as he looked around the room. He wasn't conspicuous – half of the fifty or so people had their heads down, following the text. The other half gazed at their leader as he kept the monologue up. He was calm and measured, but driven. There was an edge behind it which Rad didn't like, no matter how nicely spoken the words were. He wasn't sure from this far back, but the man's eyes didn't blink enough, or at least it didn't look like they did with the cloth over the rest of his face. The bottom of the mask flapped around as his jaw moved. And he didn't stop speaking. He didn't read from the book, although it was clear he could quote passages from it, whole pages, from memory.

  The crowd was a real mix. Young and old, men and women. No elderly, no children. Tidy and respectable, normal hair, normal clothes, normal shoes. Nothing outlandish, no punks or gangsters or goons in gas masks. If anything, Rad was the odd one out, in his belted trench coat and clutching a half-folded fedora in one hand.

  Rad frowned, and the man in the hood kept speaking, and Rad was getting nowhere fast.

  Sure, he was in the right place. He'd infiltrated a cult, if infiltrated meant walking in the front door of a brightly lit house to be welcomed with open arms. He was in the middle of a room full, by legal definition, of insane terrorists and murderers. Rad tried to reconcile the assembly of nobodies with the official picture, but it didn't work. He was surrounded by people with respectable haircuts and normal clothes who maybe thought girls' skirts were too short nowadays. People you'd find anywhere.

  True, they were listening to a guy in a hood talk, and technically, the meeting was illegal by definition – no gatherings of more than six people were permitted in Wartime.

  Which made it all the stranger that the group was holding a meeting in, if not quite a public, then a conspicuous way. Rad knew the police weren't interested in much these days – Katherine Kopek's dilemma a case in point – unless it suited them. But this was ridiculous. They could take the Pastor out in a second.

  Unless there was something else going down. Like, maybe this meeting was unusual, called while the authorities were busy elsewhere? The mysterious return of an ironclad, perhaps? Although that suggested someone on the inside, keeping tabs on what the police were doing.

  Rad frowned and wished he hadn't slept most of the day. He checked his watch, and saw it was well after midnight and heading around to the very, very small hours. He yawned, and when he closed his mouth, he noticed the sermon was over. The man in the hood had gone, and people were now milling around. Some remained sitting, some stood; most turned to their neighbour to discuss the lessons received. A nicer bunch of evil cultists Rad couldn't imagine.

  "I haven't seen you here before," said the man immediately on Rad's right. It was the doorman again, the guy who had given him the spare copy of Seduction. Rad smiled and offe
red the book back, tugging open the corner of his trench coat to reveal Sam Saturn's copy of the same book nestled in an inside pocket. The man nodded and smiled, his eyes alight, pupils tiny.

  "Oh, you have been here before? My name is Frederic." Frederic held a hand out and Rad took it. His handshake was firm and matched the solid muscle of Frederic's frame. Rad couldn't hold back a wince. Looked like he really was a bouncer.

  Rad retracted his hand and rubbed it absently. "Actually, no, this is my first time. Someone gave me the book; actually I thought they might be here. You know a Sam?"

  Frederic's smile stayed on his face but it looked fixed. Rad realised his mistake, but decided to play innocent. Open public meeting this might be, but maybe the reason why it hadn't been shut down was because it was being watched. Maybe some of the fifty in the parlour were agents, and more importantly, maybe the guy in the hood and his gang knew that too. Maybe Frederic thought Rad was one of them.

  The only way out of it was to keep talking and keep it light. Rad tried to look nice. Something must have worked because Frederic seemed to relax a little. Rad was rusty, and swore he'd teach himself a lesson or two as soon as possible, preferably over some liquid refreshment back at Jerry's.

  "Can't say I know a Sam," said Frederic. "You a friend of his?"

  Rad shook his head and reached into his coat to the inside pocket opposite the book. He took out the photo that Katherine had given him and held it in front of Frederic, the right way around.

  "Samantha Saturn. Thought she might be here."

  Frederic took the edge of the picture with one hand and studied the image.

  "You carry a picture of all your friends around?"

  Rad pulled the photo back a little. Time to get professional.

  "Truth is, Frederic, she's gone missing, and I'm looking for her. She's in no trouble, but some people are worried about her. She's a member of this church, that much I know, but if you haven't seen her..."

  Frederic held a hand up. "Hold up. I said I didn't know a Sam. A Saturn, on the other hand... wait." Frederic turned and walked sharply away, leaving Rad leaning against the window frame in the bay window.

  Rad waited quietly, noticing that a few people had started to give him sideways looks. People were nervous. They'd probably heard him and seen him holding the photo, and then put the hat and trench coat and the fact that Rad was a total stranger together and come up with something that wasn't good for any of them. Rad sighed again. If there were any agents at the meeting, or if the meeting was being watched in some other way, he'd just put himself on the list. His mind wandered back to the gas masks in the alley and he idly wondered whether he was already on it.

  He was rubbing the side of his face that was still sore when Frederic returned. The bulky man stood aside, and from behind him, the man in the brown suit and the white mask stretched out a hand. Rad took it, unable to take his eyes off the man's cloth-covered face.

  "Welcome, brother, to the church. I am the Pastor of Lost Souls."

  The Pastor's office was on the third floor of the brownstone, but like the rest of the house, it was anything but private. The door to the room, which had probably been some kind of servants' quarters back when the house had been built in the heyday of... whenever it was, was open, and the windows were curtained but the curtains were drawn back. The night outside was pitchy black through the open window.

  Rad sat in an armchair in front of the Pastor's desk. It was comfortable but not flashy, with high rounded arms and upholstery that was pleasantly rough on Rad's fingertips. The room was dominated by the large dark desk, but was devoid of anything else except for the three items of furniture. The walls were painted entirely in white that practically glowed in the bright electric light. The desk had some notepads, an ink and pen set, and an old black typewriter. The Pastor sat with his elbows on the centre of the desk and his hands steepled in front of his covered mouth. Next to one elbow was a stack, three high, of The Seduction of the Innocent, clean and unused and still in their distinctive black and white dust jackets. By the other elbow was a black telephone. The handset had rocked ever so slightly when the Pastor had sat down.

  In front of him was Sam Saturn's photo. Rad had put it there without asking, and for a moment the Pastor and the detective eyed each other and the photo between them. The quiet murmur of conversation drifted from two floors below, through the open door.

  The Pastor's group – church, cult, call it whatever – didn't seem too bad, but Rad had to draw the line at the mask. The mask was strange and sinister and it meant that the Pastor had something to hide. Rad didn't like it but he didn't show it. He was looking for Sam, not trying to take down the cult singlehanded. For all he knew, such matters were already being taken care of.

  The Pastor nudged the photograph with his fingers. In the bright office light the cufflinks on his shirt sparkled. Then the cloth mask moved.

  "I'm a little concerned, detective, that you did not come to us to repent and join our moral code."

  The Pastor's tone was friendly, but Rad didn't like the words. He presumed, rightly or wrongly, that any cult leader was most likely insane. Nice and happy and tra-la-la the meeting might have been, but he was in the top floor of their building, with their leader in front of him and his happy army downstairs. Rad needed information, and he needed it fast, and then he needed to leave. It occurred to him that maybe Sam had been here, and maybe the Pastor was responsible for her disappearance. Rad felt very isolated and very much in danger.

  Rad opened his mouth to speak but the Pastor changed tack suddenly. The cloth mask hung away from his face and he looked down to the photograph again.

  "Novice Saturn is a member of this glorious congregation. So yes, you are correct, she has been here."

  Rad began to speak again; the Pastor looked up sharply. The bottom edge of the mask reached the top of his sternum and it swung to and fro, and then jogged up and down as he spoke.

  "But not," he said, raising one hand, "for some days. As an initiate she is expected to attend each and every night. A single absence is not tolerated, but an absence of three nights speaks of something untoward." He picked the photo up and offered it back to Rad. Rad took it, and replaced it in his coat pocket, sliding it against Sam's copy of Seduction.

  "So you haven't seen her since, what, Thursday last?"

  The Pastor nodded. "This is so."

  "And you wouldn't have any idea where she might be?"

  The Pastor shook his head, mask swaying. "No. As I said, she is expected here. We're as interested in finding her as you are."

  Rad paused, then said: "Yes" slowly. The Pastor said nothing, his expression unreadable behind the cloth. Only his eyes showed, brown and squinting. Rad wasn't sure if he was squinting in the bright office light or for some other reason.

  "Mr... ah, Pastor..."

  "Yes?"

  Rad wanted to ask about the get-up, the mask, and the weird house and all the lights and the open doors, but thought better of it. He stood to leave.

  "Thank-you for your time."

  "Not at all." The Pastor stood and gestured towards the office door. "Please, after you."

  Rad unfolded his hat and squeezed it onto his head. He reached the doorway, and hesitated. Behind him he heard the Pastor stop in his tracks, and Rad turned to face him.

  "What's it about?"

  The Pastor didn't answer immediately. "What is what about?"

  Rad couldn't hold back his curiosity any longer, and after all, there was still some connection between the weird house and Sam's disappearance. Certainly the Pastor had something to hide.

  "This." Rad looked up at the white ceiling, and waved his hands around. "All this – the house, the people, the meeting." He pointed to the stack of books on the desk. "The Seduction of the Innocent. What's it all about, what's it all for, and why do people come here? What are you telling them?"

  The Pastor might have chuckled, but if he did it was muffled behind the white cloth. Rad didn't h
ear it, but watched the mask wobble as the Pastor worked his jaw for a few seconds.

  "The Empire State is not a happy place, detective. You know that, I know that. We're in a state of war with an enemy vast, powerful, unknowable. Life is difficult for all of us, and to survive and to prosper and to rebuild when Wartime is over, we need self-control, dignity and pride. We need to be in control of our actions and of our thoughts. People must live by a moral code or we descend to the level of animals."

  Rad sniffed. "Moral code? You must love the Prohibition."

  This time the Pastor did laugh, and with some volume. "You have us there, detective. We may not support the corrupt government of the Empire State, but the Prohibition is their best policy. This is Wartime. No citizen can afford to lose control, not even for a moment."

  "Thank-you, sir." Rad tipped his hat and trotted down the stairs. He went out the door and made sure he patted Frederic the doorman on the shoulder as he passed, and walked across the street in the drizzle and mist. All this talk of Prohibition and moral codes made him thirsty.