City of Whispering Stone Read online

  Garth imparted all of this information to me in a flat, robotlike, totally matter-of-fact tone of voice, all the time staring out the window.

  “They haven’t found her body,” I whispered. “Maybe she’s still alive.” I hated myself the moment I said it. I didn’t believe she was alive, and Garth didn’t believe she was alive. Neptune had been nothing more than an innocent bystander who’d ended up a witness. After her usefulness to him was over, Khordad had to have blown her out like a candle.

  Garth mumbled something I couldn’t quite hear. I didn’t have to understand the words to know it was a curse. Directed at me.

  “Garth,” I said, “please turn around and look at me.” When he did, I could see that his face was glistening with tears that continued to roll in steady, tiny streams from his bloodshot eyes. “God, brother,” I said, tears filling my own eyes, “we have to talk. Do you want me to try to tell you how sorry I am?”

  “I don’t want you to tell me anything,” he said. His voice remained perfectly even and flat, which made it all the more eerie. It was as if all his terrible grief were contained in the rivulets of tears that continued to pour from his eyes, drop from his chin to the floor. He made no move to wipe them away.

  “Garth,” I said, shaking my head back and forth as though that would relieve the pain in my heart. “Oh, brother …”

  “I said I didn’t want you to say anything.” Garth closed his eyes, tilted his head back and smiled at some memory. I felt sick. “I’ve never loved a woman the way I loved Neptune,” he continued softly. “It was as … if my life had never really come together before she came into it. I was … lonely. So lonely.”

  “Garth,” I murmured, not having anything to say but compelled to say something. “I know; I know something about loneliness myself.”

  Slowly Garth’s eyes opened, his head tilted down and his smile collapsed. For the first time he looked directly at me. I wished he hadn’t; it wasn’t my brother in the room with me. A large part of Garth had died with Neptune. “No, you don’t,” he said in the same haunted, soft voice. “You know nothing about loneliness; not really. You’re a freak, a famous freak, and you love it. Women love it. You probably fuck more women in a month than I do in a year. You wear what other people assume must be loneliness like a kind of armor. You lonely? I know better. You’re too goddamned wrapped up in yourself, in playing Superdwarf, to have a lonely moment.

  “Well, you’ve always been damned fucking lucky. You were lucky this time, but Neptune wasn’t. Her luck ran out pretty damned fast, didn’t it? She got permanently pounded on.” He started toward the door, then broke down and sobbed. I could have risen and gone to him, but I could think of no words or gestures that would bridge the terrible wall that had sprung up between us. Finally he pulled himself together, turned, and in a cracked voice said, “By the way, Mongo: I … I don’t think I ever want to see or talk to you again.”

  Ali Azad came through the door and almost collided with Garth, who now covered his face with his hands and hurried out. Ali didn’t even seem to notice. He asked me how I was; I said I was all right, but I don’t think he heard. He wore an appropriate expression of sympathy, but his eyes were out of focus, almost glazed. It occurred to me that I could be hanging off the ceiling by suction cups on my toes and Ali wouldn’t notice. He was a young man with something on his distinctly one-track mind. That was fine with me. Garth had deposited a large, growing stone in my stomach; the stone was cold, and I was freezing. I felt tough, mean. I needed someone to play “normal” with; someone, perhaps, to make uncomfortable. Ali filled the bill perfectly: I thought I might have a few shocks for him.

  “I heard at the university that you were in the hospital. I am sorry.”

  “Thanks,” I said evenly. “I won’t be here long.” I pulled the blanket on my bed up to my chin; it did nothing to warm me.

  “You found Hassan Khordad?”

  “He found me.”

  Ali studied my swollen face. “He did this to you?”

  “He looks worse.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Dead. I killed him.”

  Azad shook his head. “That is hard to believe, Dr. Frederickson. No offense.”

  “I’m just one big bundle of surprises,” I said without smiling. I watched him as he put his hands in his pockets and stared at the floor. “What’s your problem, Ali?”

  “I came to see if you were all right.”

  “And?”

  His head came up fast. “I would like to know if you have discovered anything about Mehdi.”

  “Ali, I think your boy’s in Iran.”

  Ali shook his head again; this time his shoulders moved with it, and he looked like a rodeo horse trying to buck an unwanted rider. “I have told you that is impossible.”

  “Sorry, Ali. It’s not only possible, it’s probable. In fact, as far as Immigration is concerned, there is no such person as Mehdi Zahedi.”

  Azad stumbled backward into a chair and sat down hard. He glanced nervously around the room, then dropped his head and studied the backs of his hands. “I don’t understand,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

  “That makes two of us. All I’ve got is scraps of information, and the only people I know of who could fit them together are dead or missing.” I hesitated, wondering whether it was worth the trouble of going into, decided it was. Talking helped keep the cold away. “Somebody’s been running American guns into Iran. Not just any guns; LS-180s, which have a laser-beam component; the last word in Instant Death. Now, hang on to that fact, because it’s important. LS-180s aren’t the easiest things in the world to get your hands on: every one that leaves the factory is supposed to be registered. You sure as hell couldn’t mount a gunrunning operation with LS-180s from Iran. The GEM leaders—”

  Azad’s eyes flashed. “Then you do believe—”

  “The GEM leaders,” I continued impatiently, “are in the United States. It makes sense anyway; you don’t have your generals wandering around in the middle of the battlefield. Specifically, the top man, or at least the logistics chiefs, must have been traced here to New York City by the SAVAK. That’s why the SAVAK has been swarming. My guess is that GEM came very close to killing the Shah at last year’s Shiraz art festival; I’ve seen a photograph with a section of scaffolding circled, and the section would be a perfect place to plant plastique if you wanted to bring the whole thing tumbling down. The assassination didn’t come off and somebody from GEM got caught, but it must have scared the shit out of the Shah and he started to get really serious about finding the leaders.”

  Ali clapped his hands together; they made a sharp sound that did nothing for my nerves. “Mehdi!” he yelped with delight. “Mehdi is a member of GEM!”

  “Uh, not quite. The way I see it, the president of your organization is SAVAK.”

  “That’s not funny, Dr. Frederickson,” Ali said icily. “We are serious men.”

  “Ali, I’ll lay odds that your glorious leader’s real name is Nasser Razvan.” I watched the young Iranian’s dark eyes cloud with anger. “Sorry, Ali, but that’s the way it stacks up. Nasser Razvan flew to Iran by first-class jet the same night Mehdi Zahedi disappeared. I don’t know why; maybe something came up that required his personal attention. Somehow, Simpson found out that Razvan and your president were one and the same, and he had to be killed. When I stumbled on the same trail, I had to be killed.”

  Ali’s face was mottled with dark, purplish patches. “It can’t be true. The things he spoke of—”

  “Talk’s cheap, Ali.”

  “I tell you it is impossible!” Trembling, he rose to his feet. “If Mehdi is such a clever spy, why didn’t he return here immediately? Why would the SAVAK keep him in Iran so long that suspicions would be raised?”

  “I haven’t got the slightest idea.”

  “Of course you don’t! You don’t know because you are guessing!”

  “Hey, pal, I said I was guessing. You guess for a while if you want to.
Put all the facts into your head, shake them around a bit and see if they don’t spell SAVAK. Start off with the fact that Immigration’s never heard of any Mehdi Zahedi.”

  “It is a mistake!” Ali’s voice, thick with confusion, was a plea. “You know those bureaucrats! They are always making these stupid mistakes!”

  “All right, Ali, you believe what you want to; I really don’t give a shit. I told you I’d let you know if I thought I had a line on your man, and that’s what I’ve done.”

  There was a long silence. When Ali spoke again, his words were high-pitched and run together. “Dr. Frederickson, would you be willing to go to Iran?”

  I laughed, then choked as pain ripped through my side. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I whispered. “If I’m right about Zahedi, and after all that’s happened, can you imagine the reception the SAVAK would have prepared for me? Do I look as if I had a death wish?”

  Ali frowned. “You are an American citizen; I do not think the Iranian Government would dare to harm you. If they do know about your part in killing Khordad, it is more likely they will simply refuse to let you into the country; it is only Iranians that they care to torture and kill. We would pay you very well for making the effort.”

  “I don’t speak the language.”

  “That can be taken care of. There is no one else we can trust, and you know the background of the case. We would arrange for somebody to meet you in Tehran. In the meantime, we will arrange for cassette tapes and a language tutor.”

  “What would I be expected to do?”

  “We would simply like you to make discreet inquiries through your interpreter. We would like you to try to determine if Mehdi is in Iran and, if so, what has happened to him. We will pay all your expenses, plus ten thousand dollars.”

  I repeated the figure just to make sure I’d heard right, and he nodded. “All that just to find out what happened to Mehdi Zahedi?”

  “Yes. He is very important to us.”

  “That’s a lot of money, Ali.”

  “Donated expressly for the purpose of solving the mystery of what has happened to Mehdi.” He cleared his throat. “The money came with the stipulation that we hire you.”

  “Oh-oh. So much for my anonymity. Who came up with the money?”

  The Iranian flushed. “I don’t know. But that isn’t unusual. I have already told you that much of our money comes from Iranians who, for their own reasons, want to remain anonymous.”

  “Ali, it’s time you started thinking with your head instead of your guts. That money’s a gilt-edged invitation to me from the SAVAK.”

  “Why should the SAVAK spend so much money to bring you to Iran? It would be much cheaper to kill you here.”

  “When did you get this money?”

  “Yesterday, by messenger.”

  “It doesn’t matter where the money came from. How does a foreigner—a dwarf, no less—go about making ‘discreet’ inquiries through an interpreter? The idea is absurd. You’ll really screw them if you just put the money in the bank. Better yet, print up some leaflets.”

  “But it is our money, and we want to hire you to find Mehdi. If you believe Mehdi is in Iran, then it is there you must go. We will prepare a dossier containing absolutely everything we know about him.”

  “I’ve already seen the information you gave John Simpson. It read like a press release. How much can you add to that?”

  He dropped his eyes. “Admittedly, not much. But will you at least think about going, Dr. Frederickson?”

  “I did think about it,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “I thought about it for half a second when you first brought it up, and I gave you my answer.”

  Ali looked confused. “But … I don’t understand. I thought by … your questions …”

  The pain that ran up through my side when I leaned forward was almost welcome; it gave me something to focus on besides the terrible, spiked rock in my gut. “I ask questions because I’m naturally curious. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll be quite content if I live the rest of my life without hearing of Iran, or meeting another Iranian. That includes you, kid. Have a nice day. Goodbye.”

  I filled most of my days with classes, research, books, movies, concerts—anything that would tone down the volume of Neptune’s screams inside my head. I still heard them when I slept. Still, I managed to function; there was nothing else to do.

  I gave Garth three weeks. Then, after classes, I went over to his precinct station house. Harry Stans looked up from his Daily News as I walked in. “Hey, Mongo! How you feeling?”

  “Okay, Harry. Thanks. How about yourself?”

  “Terrific. I was just getting ready to call you. Where the hell is Garth?”

  “What are you talking about?” I said tightly.

  “When’s he coming back from Iran?”

  A nervous tic I’d developed in my right eyelid suddenly began fluttering. I pressed the heel of my hand hard against it. “I didn’t know he was in Iran.”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “Why did he go, Harry? Do you know?”

  Harry, puzzled, looked at me strangely for a few moments, then shrugged. “Well, you must know he was off the wall for days after Neptune’s death. Then he got a message from the girl’s family inviting him to come there and visit them for her funeral. He took a week’s vacation time, but he was supposed to be back a week and a half ago. Well, not a word from him, and there’s been some heavy breathing from the brass. But we’ve been holding them off; we know how screwed up he’s been since Neptune’s death.”

  “What part of Iran does her family live in?”

  “Don’t know, pal. I never saw the message; Garth just mentioned it to me. Anyway, if he gets in touch with you, tell him to get it together and get his ass in here.” Harry paused, scratched his head. “Shit, if he’d just waited a couple of days he’d have had something nice to take back to her family.”

  “What’s that, Harry?”

  “Her jewelry box. It ain’t worth much, but Neptune was worried because it’s a family heirloom. Anyway, whoever burglarized her apartment made a mistake: they pawned the box. It’s amazing what some of these jerks will do for a couple of extra bucks. Now we think we’ve got a lead on who’s fencing her jewelry.”

  “Terrific,” I said.

  No one at the Celanese Corporation would give me any information about Neptune’s background or family. I went back to my apartment and wrote a long report on everything I knew and suspected about the case, a list of media people who were to follow up on it, and a covering letter taped to the outside with instructions to open the report if I wasn’t heard from in four weeks. That would go to Phil Statler. I updated my will, then called Ali.

  II

  IRAN

  10

  For a week I worked my tutor overtime during the day, and spent most of my nights immersed in the language tapes Ali had provided me with, along with three volumes of Farsi–English dictionaries. I didn’t get much sleep, but if I was right about Garth’s absence being a second, command invitation, I’d have plenty of time to catch up on my sleep—perhaps forever. At least I’d be able to chat with my captors in pidgin Farsi. I didn’t see that I had any choice but to go, and the SAVAK knew it. One person had already died for my sins, and it was time to pay my dues. I stayed with the tapes all through the flight, then dropped them and my recorder into a toilet wastebasket.

  Seen from the air, Tehran seemed no more than a dusty, blurred adjunct of the desert; in fact, it was the latest Shangri-La for every hustling high roller in the world, the end of the rainbow floating on a subterranean sea of black, bubbling gold. It was as if, on this section of the planet, Nature had painted only from the earth end of the palette, and the people, living as they did in the midst of brown sand, rock and mountains, knew no other colors and could build only in terms of their immediate surroundings. Or perhaps it was the desert which altered everything to suit its own taste. All of the buildings were the color of the surrounding earth.
The rest was desert and barren, rolling mountains. The plane banked. Somewhere in the distance, to the east, was a flash of blue that could have been water.

  My cholera shots hurt, and I knew I was running a slight fever. The woman at the consulate where I’d picked up my visa had insisted there was no cholera in Iran, but I’d remembered Darius’ words on the subject and taken the series of shots anyway. The doctor’s remark that the vaccine, under the best of conditions, was only about forty percent effective would be a sobering reminder to carefully watch what I ate and drank, assuming I had a choice of cuisine. There was no doubt in my mind that even the runt of any cholera litter would cackle with joy at the sight of my soft, relatively sterile Western innards.

  The 747 came in to a smooth landing, and I watched out the window as the plane rolled over the broad gray strips of concrete laid out across the sand. Once the plane abruptly braked to a halt as a khaki-colored military jet swooped low over us and landed on the runway a few hundred yards ahead. There were large pieces of artillery and soldiers in jeeps with machine guns lining all the runways, reminders of the tensions in the Middle East and the pervading paranoia that is the ugly court jester in most dictatorial regimes.

  Most of my fellow passengers were Iranians, who stared openly at me. In that respect these people, with their dusky, rugged beauty, were no different from the people of Los Angeles, or New York, or Chicago; I was a dwarf, and thus an object of curiosity. However, a good rapport had been established when they’d discovered I could carry on the rudiments of a conversation in their language.

  The plane finally rolled to a stop beside a gleaming terminal at the end of the runway. Outside the window, armed soldiers, their weapons nestled in the crooks of their folded arms, stared impassively out at the desert. I remained in my seat while the others rose and filed out. Only then, in the name of optimism, did I reach into my pocket and take out the slip of paper on which Ali had written the name of my contact in Iran: one Parviz Maher, who was supposed to be a student at Tehran University and who worked as a professional tourist guide during the summers. I tore the paper into small pieces and dropped them into the ashtray. According to the plan, Maher was supposed to meet me at the airport. It was his job to find me; my job was to stand around looking like a dwarf.