Chapter 5: The Hierophant

Liv looks at Nick. “You mean it?”

“I really mean it,” Nick says, his eyes on the road. The GPS reads they still have ten minutes to the crime scene. Liv sits back in her seat. “Partner,” she says, letting her lips get used to the word. “Do I get paid more?” She asks, not wanting to ruin the moment. Nick nods, knowing it won’t make a bit of difference. “Sweet,” Liv smiles, looking out the window. “When do we start training for real? I feel like your partner should know how…” Liv makes a finger gun.

“We’ll find the time. You ever fired a gun?”

“Plenty of times. My dad took me to the range. But I’ve never used it for real, y’know?”

“You’re not missing anything.”

The car whines to a stop two blocks from a high-rise apartment block in Murray Hill. The two approach it, seeing the penthouse through sycamore canopies. Tanzer’s apartment sits atop an angular building, spotless windows reflecting what little moonlight gets through the clouds.

“The guy lives here?”

“Lived,” Nick says.

They catch the elevator, heading to the 15th floor. Liv pictures herself with a cool jacket and a gun of her own. Maybe a cool catchphrase before she kills a monster. The doors ding and open, revealing something entirely separate from the off-white minimalism of the lobby. Spruce, oak, and other wood finishes enjoyed by the upper tax bracket are on full display. A huntsman lodge, thinks Nick, while Liv compares it to an evil lair from a spy film. They walk past a bear skin rug in front of an extinguished Tudor fireplace.

“Sublte,” Liv says, looking up at a large portrait hanging over the fireplace, depicting a scowling Levi Tanzer, standing with his cane and his doberman by his side. His features are angular, with deep-set lines like weathering in stone. His long, thin body is adorned in a perfectly tailored suit, and his big hands grip the cane more out of authority than imbalance. His long square brow hangs over small black eyes like a cliff. Thin lips become thinner through a slight frown.

“He was shorter when I met him.” Nick jokes.

“Still taller than you.” Anton appears from behind a pillar. His coiffed hair is an auburn departure from Nick’s jet black mess. A stark lack of bags under his eyes and clean fingernails make those features stand out all the more on Nick. The two standing next to each other in a well-lit room look as if Anton’s shadow grew legs and threw a coat on. “Glad you could make it.” Anton gives Nick a one-sided hug. “Ms. Rivera.” He shakes Liv’s hand. “I’m the brother.”

“Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Anton smiles at Nick. “No, you haven’t.”

They get the tour from Anton. As they pass the kitchen island with the espresso machine, Tanzer likely never operated it himself. Rain starts tapping on the windows. Marble countertops shine under the amber glow of Venetian lamps. Cookbooks decorate the shelves over the oven: French, Italian, Indonesian, and Korean.

The bathrooms and guest rooms are glossed over by Anton; they are all oddly spotless, devoid of human presence. The three ascend the ornate stairs, and with each step, the tall ceiling of the second floor becomes more impressive. A tiered glass chandelier hangs from it. The tall forensic lamps set up by the PNCD make the chandelier redundant. Liv and Nick stand in front of the great white carpet that ties the living room together, tall black lamps crowd around it like a summoning circle. In the center of the carpet, almost reaching the edges, is a strange shape. At first, Liv thought of it as a strange, abstract form of red fabric overlaid on the white. Close up, she sees a pool of long-dried blood, crusting along the edges.

“We moved the body; it’s in a makeshift morgue we built down in our headquarters.” Nick approaches the carpet, looking down at the dark parquet panels as he does. He observes no blood outside the carpet area. He walks around it, silently. The rest of the living room houses expensive-looking paintings. Some depict lakes somewhere in Southeast Asia, with lilies floating under tropical trees. Another painting, of the Acropolis in Athens, seen from afar. A great portrait at the end of the living room, near a reading nook, catches Nick’s eye. He leaves the ring of light and goes to it. It depicts three women dancing; the colors are all earth-toned, but painted with enough mastery to create an illusion of realism. The women are manic, draped in animal skin and holding long sticks tipped in leaves and pinecones. Their eyes are vacant and mouths agape in ecstasy. Nick looks closer and sees that they’re dancing around a severed head.

“Maenads,” Nick whispers to himself. He turns to Liv and Anton and walks back towards the carpet. “He’s well-traveled,” he calls out.

“I guess,” Anton replies. He motions Nick to the carpet and points out the red splotch shaped like a continent from another planet. The white edges of the carpet’s original coloring hang on the brink against dark brown, crusted fibers. This crime scene smells and looks far better than Nick’s usual ones.

“Dadaist.” Nick points at the stain, wanting to lighten the mood.

“It would be expressionist, if anything.” Anton corrects. Anton adjusts his collar and begins the forensic report. “Victim’s head was found… crushed. The frontal lobe caved in, and the crown burst from the pressure.” Anton hands Nick a picture. Despite what he’s seen, a human face bludgeoned into abstraction is still hard to look at. Nick exhales and hands it back.

“He was hit repeatedly?”

“Our best guess, and with something. Right zygomatic bone shattering inward and maxilla splitting down the middle suggests the killer swung something, hard and wildly.” Nick looks at the carpet and overlays an imaginary body over it, matching the stain to the body. Below where the torso would be, side by side, through the red, Nick spots light fraying of fibers.

“He was conscious. His fingers were gripping the carpet. Here,” Nick points to another spot, “and here.”

“You think he fought back?”

“Don’t know yet.” Nick produces a notebook from an inner coat pocket and scribbles something in his usual jagged script. “No signs of a struggle.” He calls Liv to bring the duffel bag, from which he retrieves a small silver camera. He aims and snaps a photo.

Anton then leads them into Tanzer’s study, where vast oak shelves house tomes with broken backs and weathered faces. Some first editions of books Nick has only heard of as legends among collectors. As Anton and Liv walk between a set of leather armchairs, past the work desk, and to the window, Nick stays crouched by the bookshelf. His eyes run wild as he spots books he’s read, books he’s searched for for years, and ones he’d never heard of. All 8 volumes of Ashraf and Pelletier’s famous “Understanding of Djinn and various other Myths of the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa” stand side by side. Franz Lindberg et al.’s anthropological study into the Y-Epoch and theories on how magic came into our world and why it left lies open on a bottom shelf. Rolland Müeller-Greis’ seminal work on Mythics and the City stands out to Nick. A re-covered and reprinted version of a book that’s been all but burned and outlawed by the PNCD finds a home in the Director’s bookshelf.

“Hypocrite.” Nick holds it in his hand

“Nick?” Anton calls. On his way to join them, Nick tosses the book on the leather armchair. Moonlight sanitizes Anton and Liv, coloring them corpse blue.

“I made sure my people didn’t touch anything before we got you here,” Anton says, rubbing the keyhole of a lock on a drawer.

“How kind.” Nick crouches and examines the lock. He reaches into his jacket and takes out a matchbox. The paint has long since faded, leaving cardboard in its place. “Little help, pal?” He says as he pushes the box open. Two dark-brown pincers stretch out, and his pet lock-pick turns to look at him. An ugly little creature, stuck somewhere between a scorpion and a fly. Black beady compound eyes look at the night sky through the window. Wings protrude from his back, and in place of a stinger, a vaguely key-shaped appendage, capable of unlocking most mechanical locks.

“What the hell is that?” Liv asks. The scorp-fly buzzes in the air and attempts to land on Liv, who swats at it.

“That’s Bee. Bought him a month ago. Huge timesaver.” Nick says as he orders Bee to crack the lock, which he does with ease. Inside are a revolver, a snub-nosed and well-loved .38 special, and a few business cards. “Brought his work home often?” Nick says, crouched, now pointing the revolver at the wall.

“Paranoia pays off in our line of work,” Anton says.

“Guns aren’t much use in a drawer,” Nick says, a pensive line across his face. “A bit weird the director wouldn’t have the standard issue pistol,” Nick says after more thought. “Why the weak firepower if you’re so paranoid?” Liv sees Nick discreetly reach for something in his pocket.

“Maybe he was sentimental.” Anton humors him. Nick goes back to searching, handing the gun over to Anton, who seals it in a clear plastic bag. “What’s this?” Nick rummages deeper in the drawer and pulls out a card. “SoBec Consolidated Shipping.” He flips the card. “Hoboken, New Jersey.” Nick hands it over to Anton, who leaves the room to make a call.
“We’re going to Jersey?” Liv whispers to Nick, her eyes following Anton’s retreating silhouette.

“No, we’re not,” Nick reassures her, then holds a finger to his lips. “False bottom, drawer’s too shallow.” Nick measures the drawer with his eyes, then checks the underside with two fingers. With a small switchblade, Nick cuts at the felt lining of the bottom and reveals a hidden compartment containing a single card. With little time to inspect it, Nick pockets it and closes the drawer before Anton comes back. The three make their way downstairs. Before leaving, Liv plucks the book from the seat of the chair on her way out.

“Made a couple of calls to a friend, they can get us access to the dock in Jersey. My team’ll investigate.”

“Can you trust them with something like this?” Nick asks, hands in pockets. As they step back to the first floor, Liv detours around the edge of the living room as the two brothers discuss the trustworthiness of Anton’s circle. Her path reconnects to theirs when they enter the bedroom. A bohemian bed stands in the center, illuminated like artwork. On the left wall hangs a painting of a mountain range with yurts nestled on a flat plain between hills. On the opposite wall hangs a mounted portrait of Tanzer and a young woman. Nick points it out to Anton.

“His daughter. He never spoke about her. The one time he mentioned her to me, all he said was she got ill.”

“Deceased?” Nick asks.

“From what I know.”

“Interesting.” Nick studies the portrait before snapping a photo. Tanzer’s hand rests firmly on the girl’s shoulder. Curly long hair was wrestled into an unruly ponytail. Kind hazel eyes overlooking flushed, freckled cheeks. Nick gives her 24, 26 at most. He spots her knotted fingers, pointed by calluses.

“A musician.”

“Have a look at this,” Anton says, pulling Nick away from the portrait. The three stand side by side, with Anton drawing a timeline. “Forensics came up dry for the bedroom, but my team placed him in the bedroom before the murder took place. The housekeeper usually makes the bed because he’s up by the time she gets here. She makes coffee in the kitchen and brings it upstairs to his office.” The bedsheets lay crisp and voluminous on the bed, nary a wrinkle.

“So she found him in the morning after making his bed?”

“That’s what she told us.”

Liv looks under the bed, trying to contribute. She and Nick’s eyes meet, and he gives her a thumbs-up. The room wraps around them, with the capacity to house a family of four, but instead, it sits empty. Dark olive walls with soft amber lighting now enjoyed by the dust and paintings.

Anton ushers them to the balcony, a concrete lip flaring at a bedazzled concrete paysage. The Empire State Building hovers to the left, wearing a wreath of fog. Liv looks over the railing and tries to think about how one would break into a place like this.

“Nick tells me you did med school,” Anton says, fingers interlocked over the streets below. The two look at Anton. Liv nods with inward lips. “Quite the career change.”

“Wasn’t really my thing. The textbooks and all those high and mighty pricks acting better than you.” Liv stretches from the railing like a kid on a playground.

“You sure dodged that bullet,” Nick jokes, lighting a cigarette. Anton looks at Liv; she’s younger than he imagined, and it almost makes him feel bad. Anton observes a certain looseness to her actions; the attic of her mind isn’t too crowded.

“The front cameras were turned off from inside the apartment, but we didn’t find any signs of forced entry. For now, we can’t tell if he let the attacker in, or if they snuck in and caught him by surprise. The maintenance elevator leads up two floors shy of the penthouse; the attacker could have taken it to avoid the cameras, then cleared the rest by climbing on the outside.”

“Or it could have been someone Tanzer trusted,” Liv suggests.

The trio goes over the details of the murder, and Liv stands cautiously listening to the rapport between the two brothers. The facts are strained from fiction, and theories are flung conservatively, always with a sentiment of “too early to tell”. Tonight’s debrief takes place in Anton’s car, parked behind the building. Tepid rain steams in front of neon signs burning on the next street.

“You think this dock really has something for us?” Nick asks.

“We gotta follow every lead.”

“You still remember how to do it?” Nick asks, looking at Anton’s hands—smooth, unmarked.

“Been doing this longer than you, smart guy.”

“So what do we do now?” Liv interjects from the backseat.

“Since we’re flying under the radar for this one, we have to be careful about spreading the info more than we already have,” Anton speaks over his shoulder.

“What about canvassing suspects?” Liv asks. “If he was such a big shot, people must have had plenty of motive to bump him off.”

“If you could show a little respect, please. This was a respected man.” Anton says. Nick’s eyebrows hike in surprise at Anton’s sensitivity on the subject.

Nick scratches at his stubble, “She’s right, though. We need to be able to speak to his close ones. If he even had any.” Liv smiles as Nick says this.

“You’ll have to wait for my go-ahead for that one. We do have a list of potential suspects who had the motive and the means to do this. For now, don’t worry about it, just stand by tonight.” As the two leave the car, Anton leaves them with one last piece of advice: “Trust no one.” Anton has a strange look on his face. Or maybe not, Nick isn’t used to seeing his brother anymore.

In Nick’s van, the two sit in comfortable silence before Liv starts.

“What was that card about? Must be important,” Liv asks. Nick produces it from his back pocket. It is matte black, on it is a simple drawing of a circle with a small oval inside of it, colored a hot pink.

“He told us to trust no one.” On the flip side of the card is the number 34 and a name: ‘Naomi.’

“So where are we going?” Liv asks.

“It’s called the Cherry Pit. It’s a brothel.”