Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 100, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 603 & 604, October 1992

He sat up, bleary-eyed, making no effort to cover his hairy legs. “You come for some H?” he asked.

Michael shook his head. “I’m a friend of Jennifer’s. I don’t need any heroin, and neither does she.”

Conrad Rynox, if that was his name, spoke German rather than Romanian. He picked up his wristwatch, shook it, then tossed it aside. “What time is it, Jenny?”

“One-thirty. It’s time you were up.”

Michael could tell by his eyes and general manner that Conrad was still high on drugs, though he seemed reasonably coherent. “Do you know a man named Jarie Miawa?”

“Sure, I know Jarie — knew him, that is. He’s dead, isn’t he? Do I remember that right?”

“Yes, he’s dead,” Jennifer confirmed.

“Thought so. Came in bleeding like a stuck pig. That was last night, wasn’t it?”

“Two nights ago. Everyone ran away and left me for the cops.”

“I’m sorry, Jenny. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Jarie talked about the iron angel,” Michael said. “Do you know about it?”

“Iron angel — sure! It’s the answer to all problems, the fountain of youth, utopia.”

“Does it exist? Have you seen it?”

“I’ve seen it, just once. It was like nothing else on earth, man! There were a half-dozen fires burning around it, and there it was, shrouded in smoke. We approached like worshipers one at a time, through the smoke, to peer into its three eyes and learn our destiny.”

“Where can I find it, Conrad?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I think Jarie was stabbed there. Otherwise why was it on his dying lips? I need to find the killer, or else the police may arrest Jennifer again.”

“It is nearby,” he said. “But I’m not sure I could find it again. I’ll try to find out where.”

Michael could see there was no chance of learning more at the moment. “I’ll be going now,” he told Jennifer. “This is the hotel where I’m staying, and the phone number. Please call me if he learns anything.”

“I will,” she promised.

He went back downstairs. Glancing toward the end of Furtuna Street, where it intersected with Grivitei, he realized for the first time that he was just around the corner from the watchmaker’s shop where the victim’s brother worked. Sigmund was sitting behind the counter where Michael had left him only a couple of hours earlier.

“I thought of another question,” he told Sigmund. “Is there somewhere we could talk?”

“There’s a coffee house down the street.” He turned toward Old Kurzbic at the rear of the store. “Can you handle things while I go for a cup of coffee?”

“I handled them all morning,” the shop owner grumbled.

“I won’t be more than twenty minutes,” Sigmund promised.

Over coffee Michael said, “Your employer didn’t seem too pleased with your taking a break.”

“Sometimes he feels sorry for himself. He knows more about the business than I ever will. I think he only hired me so he’d have someone to converse with. On days like today there aren’t many customers.” He took a sip of coffee. “But what was it you wanted to ask me?”

He repeated Conrad Rynox’s description of the iron angel. “Did you ever hear anything like that before?”

He shook his head. “It sounds like a narcotic dream, all those smoky fires and the angel in the middle. It couldn’t really exist, could it?”

“I don’t know,” Michael Vlado answered honestly. If this Gypsy didn’t believe in the iron angel, why should he? “Do you know Conrad Rynox?”

“Slightly. He’s an occasional customer at our shop.”

“The number 470 was on a small paper in your brother’s pocket. Could it be an address?”

“None that I know of.” He thought about it. “That number would be about two blocks down from the cellar where his body was found. It wouldn’t be connected.”

“Connected? What do you mean?”

“In these old city blocks the building basements often run together. A person can enter on one street and exit through a building on a street around the corner.”

“But 470 wouldn’t be one of them, in any direction?”

“No. It would be too far away.”

They finished their coffee and walked back to the shop. Kurzbic was behind the counter waiting on a customer with a damaged alarm clock. “I’ll see you later,” Michael told Sigmund, leaving him at the door.

He went back to where he’d left his car and was about to get in when a woman stepped from a doorway. Her clothing told him at once that she was a Gypsy, but at first he didn’t recognize her.

“Michael Vlado!”

“Yes?”

“I am Zorica Miawa, Sigmund’s wife. We met briefly at the funeral this morning.”

“Of course. For a moment I didn’t remember.”

“There was no reason why you should.”

“I just left your husband. We had a cup of coffee together.”

She was a small, dark woman a bit younger than Michael — perhaps around forty. Her eyes had the deep intensity associated with Gypsy beauty, and he imagined she’d broken more than one Rom heart in her youth.

“I must speak to you about my husband and Jarie.”

He held open the car door. “Get in here.”

She slid in next to him but he made no attempt to start the engine. “I heard you asking Sigmund about the iron angel. He knows more than he pretends. The men talk about it. I have heard it mentioned in their conversations.”