* * * *

  When the veil fell away, revealing Delight's frosty face, Stanton cried out in frustration. "Ives!" he shouted.

  Surprisingly, a reply came back through the darkness. “Over here, Stanton!"

  He saw the black sedan parked on the street and ran toward it. Ives was already out the rear door, hampered only by a handcuff holding her wrist to the car's interior. “Thank God you're safe!"

  "Did I see you just blow those two Gypsies away?"

  "A sawed-off shotgun full of birdshot. I bought it from that street vendor, Ersu. It put them out of action but they shouldn't have any lasting injuries."

  Ives told him about finding the murdered man and the spiders. Delight had followed him to the car while Wesley dealt with the wounded Gypsies. “I must have that calligraphy for my wedding,” she insisted.

  "Are the spiders for your wedding, too?” Stanton asked.

  "Of course! It is an American custom, no?"

  "I don't think so. What about the man who brought them? Who killed him?"

  "Prattos? I have no idea. I don't even know how he gained entry to my apartment. Wesley locked the door when he left your friend here."

  Ives interrupted then, telling Stanton, “Tranle, the man who's paying us, is her father."

  Stanton sighed and shook his head. “Unlock her handcuffs, Delight. It's time we all sat down and figured this out."

  They returned to the Bosphorus Cafe and her upstairs apartment. Wesley Fazzis joined them soon thereafter. “Did you have to shoot them?” he grumbled to Stanton.

  "They had guns and I expected they'd use them. You should be thankful I didn't use buckshot or they might be dead."

  "All right,” he said, sitting down. “What's there to talk about?"

  "We were hired to transport a valuable example of sixteenth-century calligraphy to a buyer in Germany. Your bride claims it should be hers."

  "Her father is a bastard,” Fazzis told them. “He promised that to her on her wedding day. Now he is selling it just before her wedding because he doesn't approve of me. What's he ever done for her?"

  "He recommended that we see her dance,” Ives said.

  "I don't even want that painting to keep,” Delight informed them. “I just want it for my wedding day."

  Stanton thought about it. “Why do you need spiders?"

  It was Delight who answered. “Our wedding is to duplicate a Turkish wedding from a hundred years ago, with traditional costumes and a chariot for the bride's arrival. It will be at Wesley's country estate, where there are many trees. I read in a book that in your pre-Civil War South plantation slaves would be sent out to distribute large spiders on the trees. The webs they wove would then be covered with gold dust for weddings."

  Ives looked doubtful. “I never heard of such a thing."

  "I suppose it might be true,” Stanton allowed.

  "That's what the spiders are for. We will take them out to Wesley's place in the morning and hope they are in a spinning mood."

  "Let's first visit your father and hope he is in a forgiving mood."

  * * * *

  Bruno Tranle was anything but forgiving. He sat behind his desk glaring at Stanton and Ives. “I expected you to be in Germany by this time, delivering the calligraphy to Meinz."

  "You promised it for my wedding,” Delight reminded him.

  "That was before you became a belly dancer, my dear."

  Ives spoke up then. “That can't upset you too much. You recommended Turkish Delight to Stanton and me."

  "I can appreciate her art without identifying her as my daughter."

  "Can't we have a compromise here?” Stanton suggested. “You allow her to display the calligraphy at her wedding ceremony tomorrow and we'll fly it to Germany the next day."

  "What if someone tries to steal or damage it during the wedding?” he asked.

  "Ives and I will guarantee its safety,” Stanton promised, avoiding his partner's icy stare as he spoke.

  Bruno Tranle glanced at his daughter. “Is that agreeable with you, Sophie?"

  "Sophie?” Ives repeated.

  The dancer snorted. “Did you think I was born with the name Turkish Delight?” Then, to her father, she nodded. “It is agreeable with me. I only want the painting for my wedding day."

  Fazzis, who'd remained silent in the corner until now, stepped forward to shake his future father-in-law's hand. “You have my promise that Sophie will have a good life."

  "Let us hope so."

  Once they were alone, Ives berated her partner. “We're guaranteeing the safety of that thing worth nearly a million dollars?"

  "Otherwise he never would have agreed. It won't be difficult. Prattos was killed because someone saw him arrive with that canvas bag and thought it contained the calligraphy. Another attempt will probably be made tomorrow, the last chance before it flies off to Germany. We'll catch the killer in the act and save the painting."

  "How will we know who it is?"

  "I already know,” Stanton told her. “All we have to do is keep our thief from getting it."

  * * * *

  The wedding day was bright with sunshine without being uncomfortably warm. That afternoon, arriving at the Fazzis estate with its palatial house on the Bosphorus, they seemed to enter another dimension of time. There were Arabs in turbans and Turks in traditional red fezzes that hadn't been worn since the government outlawed them after the First World War. Everything was as it might have been a hundred years earlier, and among the trees they could see the spider webs with their golden dust.

  Wesley Fazzis, dressed in the formal wedding clothes of the last century, greeted his guests as they arrived. Stanton recognized some of the employees from the Bosphorus Cafe, including Guzine Guler, the manager, and one of the other dancers. Some wore modern dress, but many had gone along with the theme of the past.

  Glancing out at the road, Ives asked, “Isn't that Ersu, the vendor who sold you that shotgun?"

  "It looks like him,” Stanton agreed. “I wonder what he's selling at a fancy wedding."

  Bruno Tranle accompanied his daughter in the bride's chariot, dressed as some nobleman from a past time. Delight herself was all but unrecognizable in a traditional Turkish bridal gown. Stanton and Ives saw the prized calligraphy displayed amidst floral arrangements on the wide porch of the house, where the wedding would take place. “It is a thing of beauty,” Ives agreed. “I can understand why Delight would want it at her wedding."

  "And why someone would murder to get it."

  After the brief nonreligious ceremony, guests were ushered into a large ballroom for the wedding dinner. They congratulated the bride and groom, but Stanton was more interested in watching the calligraphy on the porch. “You'd better cover the side yard,” he told Ives. “Just in case."

  They could hear music from the ballroom, and Stanton stepped behind one of the large floral displays to be out of sight. They had reached the crucial moment when the thief must act. The door of the house opened, but it was only the bride's father checking on his valued possession. “I'll have it removed shortly,” he told Stanton.

  "Fine. We have our morning flight to Germany."

  It was ten minutes later when the restaurant manager, Guzine Guler, appeared and began removing the calligraphy from its stand and rolling it into a cylinder. That was when Stanton made his move. “Hold it, there!"

  Guler turned, unfazed. “I was asked to remove it for safekeeping,” he explained.

  "Is that what you told Prattos when you stabbed him?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You thought he had the calligraphy, but it was only a box of spiders."

  "There's no evidence against me."

  "Perhaps not for a court of law, but there's enough to convince me. Ives said the dead man had a cube of Turkish Delight in his pocket."

  "Everyone who dines at the restaurant gets one."

  "But not wrapped in rice paper like the ones in your office. Prattos came to you when he couldn't find Delight or Wesley Fazzis. You obligingly took him up to her apartment, unlocked the door, and stabbed him to get the painting he didn't possess. As the building manager you would have had keys to all the apartments and offices. And Delight must have mentioned the valuable calligraphy to you when she was discussing her wedding, perhaps even hinting she was going to steal it from her father."

  "Delight and Fazzis had keys, too."

  "But Delight was downstairs dancing and Fazzis would have known Prattos was delivering spiders."

  Guler muttered an obscenity and started running, still clutching the calligraphy. “Stop him, Ives!” Stanton shouted.

  But he was off the porch before she could grab him. He stiff-armed her and kept on running across the lawn.

  "You all right?” Stanton asked, helping her to her feet.

  "He's getting away!"

  And he was. They took off after him, but he was a fast runner with a sizable lead. He headed through the trees, running toward one of the big gold-dusted cobwebs. Then suddenly he was on the ground, tangled in wire, and they had him.

  "The spiders weren't spinning,” the bridegroom explained later. “We had to construct the webs ourselves out of wire."

  (c)2008 by Edward D. Hoch

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Passport to Crime: A MAN IS KNOCKING AT THE DOOR by Rodolfo Pérez Valero

  Cuban Rodolfo Pérez Valero was one of the seven founding members of the International Association of Crime Writers in 1986. He has won the CubanNational Prize for Crime Litera-ture three times and the SemanaNegra Prize for Best Short Storyfor this tale and for three others. He is currently a writer for Univision Network News.

  English translation by the author.

  The drizzle is just a sticky dirty dust that dulls the outlines of things as the man hurries to the porch, goes straight for the door, and pushes the button. From inside, the muffled sound of the bell strikes him like a long-gone memory that surges in a dream. Silence. A glance at his watch ... a hand to his cheek. The faint shadow of his recently shaven beard gives a virile touch to his young face.

  Nobody opens. The man rings again and stays still to catch any sound. He looks at the door, he looks at both sides of the street, he looks at his watch. He's uneasy now. He raises his hand to the bell but a metallic click stops him. The man is aware that the peephole is open and he's being watched.

  "What do you want?"

  It's the cracked voice of an old woman. The man takes the wallet out of his pocket, opens it, and flashes it at the peephole.

  "Police. Would you mind opening up?"

  A pause. Something tense, uncomfortable, arises between the man and the eye that's watching him. At last, the peephole is closed, the latches are released, and the door is opened. A woman in that indefinite transition from sixty to seventy years old examines him from head to foot as her hands squeeze a little white handkerchief.

  "Are you Maria?"

  "Marina,” she corrects him.

  "Yes, Marina. That's it. Can I come in?"

  The woman nods. The man steps in. She closes the door and with an outstretched hand invites him to proceed to the next room. She follows behind, offers him a rocking chair, and chooses a place for herself on the sofa. He brings out a cold, studied smile. The woman continues to press the handkerchief in her hands.

  "You'll excuse me for the delay and for asking first,” she begins, “but with that killer around I don't open to any man I don't know.... Well, you're a cop...” She stares at the trendy clothes and the hair that's a bit too long. “But, I mean, you look too young to be a policeman."

  "I just graduated,” he explains, keeping the same smirk, which suddenly flits away from his lips as he bends towards her. “And we have information that the perpetrator of those crimes may be coming here. They've sent some cops to the area, and the captain dispatched me to this house.” His voice becomes grave when he adds: “You know that, up to now, the victims have always been old women ... elderly, I should say ... and generally, they live alone. Do you live alone?” The woman nods. “That's why the captain sent me here: to protect you."

  The woman fights to put forth an unworried smile: “But how did you get that information—that the man is coming here?"

  "He told us himself.” The young man smiles with pride. “You're a woman, older, you live alone ... and you do have some fine possessions, don't you?"

  "Yes ... some jewels I kept from when my husband was alive, and a few presents my grandson has given me. But how could that man know such things?"

  "Maybe he makes some inquires before choosing his victims. It's not hard. People talk too much in a neighborhood. You just have to go to the market and listen. It's amazing the things you hear down there. They talk about everything: themselves, their relatives, neighbors."

  The whisper of the rain creates a strange intimacy between the young man and the old woman. He, now sure of himself, studies her openly. By the order of the house, the woman seems to be a clean person, but her hair could be better cared for and so could the apron that, over the dress, presses her sagging flesh. She evades his cross-examining look and fixes a loose curl before she asks him, “What do you know about the murders?"

  The man glances at the ceiling, shrugs, and then decides to give away some unimportant information: the victims stay home alone almost the whole day; they all have a degree of economic security; the killer steals their jewels, money, and other possessions; until now he hasn't broken in, perhaps he has come through a window, but it's supposed that the victims themselves have opened their doors to him; he surely takes advantage of some subterfuge to make them let him in.

  The woman is trembling, but her curiosity proves to be greater than her fears.

  "And when he gets in, what does he do?"

  The young man enjoys the interest his words cause.

  "By the traces he's left, we know that he hasn't been in a hurry to kill, nor, after he kills, to go; he searches thoroughly, looking for the really valuable things he can carry off."

  "And why does he—"

  "He kills the old women so as not to be identified. With a simple kitchen knife, the victim's own knife."

  "He must be crazy."

  "Maybe not. Remember that he doesn't kill just to kill, but to rob. He may be sane, and have an entirely normal appearance."

  "Oh, so you don't know what he looks like?"

  "No, nobody's seen him."

  The woman keeps silent, as if wondering about what she's heard. Her hands, uneasy, discharge their tension on the handkerchief.

  "You now! You haven't really explained how you got to know he'd come around here."

  The man smiles. Then he takes his cell phone out.

  "Excuse me for a second."

  "Yes.” She watches him. “You are very young for a cop."

  "Don't you worry,” says the man as he dials. “Trust me."

  The woman casts her eyes down to the handkerchief in her hands.

  "Lieutenant, it's me. I'm at Marina's house, as you ordered me.” The man holds on a minute and turns back to the woman: “Your relatives ... Do they come every day?"

  "No, my son's not coming until tomorrow."

  "No,” reports the man at the telephone. “She'll be alone the whole night.” He stands quiet for a few more seconds and then says: “Yes, it's okay. I'll stay here till it's all over.” He closes the cell phone. “Are there any other doors in the house?” he asks the woman.

  "Yes, the one in the kitchen to the yard."

  "Can we see it? We must close everything to prevent access."

  The woman gets up. She manages to control the alteration in her face and hands.

  "Come along,” she says and starts walking down the inner corridor.

  The man follows behind. He's watching the woman's disordered hair. On each side of the corridor there's a closed door, which the man examines as they pass. They both get to the kitchen and she points to the open door.

  "Let's get it closed,” he commands with decision. She holds back. “It's necessary,” he insists.

  "I never close it until I go to sleep,” the woman assures him. She looks outside. “It's raining so hard!” She hesitates a few seconds but finally closes the door and fastens the two latches. Then she notices that the man is sweating.

  He seems to understand what she is thinking.

  "Could you give me a glass of water?” he asks. “It's hot."

  The woman takes a glass from the cupboard, opens the refrigerator, fills it, and hands it to the man. As he drinks, his eyes scan the kitchen, passing over other details and stopping at a point.

  "Those two knives are like the ones he uses."

  "It's awful,” says the woman, and shakes again.

  "Thank you for the water.” He hands back the glass and, cautiously, he adds: “Those rooms, are the windows closed? Aren't there attractive things that could be seen from outside and attract a robber?"

  "Yes ... My son has brought some presents, but the windows ... I closed them when the rain started."

  The man becomes still and brings out his cold smile once again. She seems to doubt. “I suppose you want to check them?” He nods. “Well, come on, there are two bedrooms, one's empty, the other is where I sleep."

  They go back along the corridor. She leads the way. She gets to one door, opens it, and steps aside to let him in.

  "Excuse me for asking you this again,” she persists, “but you have not explained why you are so certain the killer is going to come here."

  As he goes to the window and checks it, he explains that at the last crime scene they discovered traces of pen strokes on the telephone message pad. The police had managed to decipher what was written on the missing page above. And they were able to determine that it wasn't the murdered woman's handwriting nor even that of one of her relatives. There were some addresses...

  "...among them, this number, this street, this block. And, as you live alone..."

  "The killer made a mistake,” comments the woman when the man comes out of the room and they both go to the other door. The woman opens it. “This is my room,” she says, and steps aside.

  The man takes two steps across the threshold. From there he glances at the closed window and his eyes roll down to the bed, where he takes in several necklaces and rings, apparently gold, and money, a lot of money. He also notices that the doors of the wardrobe are open, the drawers are pulled out, and everything is in a mess, as if someone had just made an exhaustive search.