Alex drank it and handed back the container.
“And this for that black eye,” he said, pressing a small square of flash paper to Alex’s eyelid. “Hold still,” he said, taking out a cigarette case and his lighter. A moment later he touched the smoldering end of the cigarette to the rune paper. It flashed and Alex resisted the urge to jerk back. He felt a tingling spreading out over the right side of his face and he knew the rune was taking effect.
Iggy examined the gash in Alex’s hip.
“Not too bad,” he said, getting out his sewing kit. “Now, lie on the table and tell me what happened.”
“I was looking into Andrew Barton’s missing motor,” Alex said, laying on his side with his hip in the air. “It was stolen from the loading dock of his factory right after it had been put on a truck.”
“Convenient,” Iggy said, using a cotton ball to dab an ice-cold liquid on the wound. Alex winced as he began sewing it up, but the cold had penetrated into the gash and he couldn’t feel the needle.
“That’s what I thought,” Alex said. “Whoever did it had a window of about a minute to get in and get out with the truck. I figured they were watching from the alley across the street, so I checked it out.”
“Find anything?”
“Nope,” Alex said. “From what I can tell you can’t even see the loading dock from that alley. I was just about to leave when someone shot me in the back and stole my rune book.”
“It’s probably a good thing you fell on your face then,” Iggy said. “If the man who shot you had realized you weren’t really hurt, he’d have shot you in the head for good measure.”
Alex hadn’t considered that. His clumsy stumble might just have saved his life.
“Did you see the back-shooting coward?” Iggy asked, washing the stitches with iodine.
“Just his arm,” Alex said. “The rest was a bit… blurry.”
“You were dazed. Was there anything distinct about the shooter’s arm? What did his footsteps sound like when he ran? Did you smell anything?”
Alex searched his memory. He hadn’t heard the shooter approach. The first sign of his presence was when he turned Alex over. His face swam, blurrily into Alex’s minds-eye but the only detail he could clearly see was a mop of black hair.
“What happened next?” Iggy probed as Alex recounted the memory.
“He searched my jacket pockets. I remember seeing his arm. His skin was brown.”
“Asian maybe, or Latin,” Iggy said.
“He had a mark on his wrist,” Alex said, struggling to remember. “A tattoo.”
“What did it look like?”
“It had a face looking up toward his body.”
“Was it a person?”
Alex shook his head.
“No, it was… it was square,” Alex said, focusing on the image in his mind. “Like something from the funny papers.”
“Was it colorful?” Iggy asked.
“No, it was in that blue ink most tattoo artists use.” Alex shook his head and the vision vanished. “That’s it.”
Iggy picked up Alex’s sopping trousers and wrapped them in a towel.
“I’ll let you handle these,” he said, handing the towel to Alex.
“I lost my rune book.”
Iggy gave him an unamused look.
“If you haven’t taken the simple precaution of preparing a spare, then go to my table and write a cleaning rune and a restoration rune. I’d like to see how steady your hands are.”
Alex signed and left the bloody towel on the operating table. He moved to Iggy’s runewright lab, with the doctor in tow, and sat down at the writing table.
“So, who do you think shot you?” Iggy asked as Alex drew a minor restoration rune.
“Someone who doesn’t want Barton to get his motor back,” Alex said, showing the rune to Iggy for approval.
“Yes, yes, you can draw simple runes,” he said, setting it aside. “Now the cleaning rune if you please.”
Alex set to work on the much more complicated of the pair.
“You said the prize for this railroad contest is a million dollars, right?”
“Yeah,” Alex muttered, concentrating.
“Well, men have certainly killed for much less. How did the shooter know you were investigating?”
“Well,” Alex said, his hand moving slowly as he traced in the delicate details of the cleaning rune. “I’m guessing someone at Barton’s warehouse called them when I showed up there.” He remembered Jimmy Cortez saying that Barton had called and told him to expect Alex. “Maybe before.”
“So you think the theft was an inside job?”
“The timing was exact,” Alex said. “The thief walked into the dock just as the driver and the security guard were out of sight. That’s much easier when someone tips you off.”
“I agree,” Iggy said as Alex finished. He held up the rune to the light for a long minute. “Good enough,” he said, passing it back to Alex. “You need more practice, though.”
“Maybe someone will shoot me tomorrow,” Alex said with a sardonic smile.
“Perish the thought.”
Alex and Iggy left the vault and went through the kitchen to the door that led to the brownstone’s tiny, walled-in back yard. Once there, Alex stuck the cleaning rune to his trousers and held his breath as he activated the rune. Blood and dirt burst into powder and swirled away down the alley, leaving his pants still torn, but clean.
“Adequately done,” Iggy said once Alex had come back inside. “Practice and you’ll be able to work the restoration rune and the cleaning rune together. Saves time.”
Alex ignored him, setting the towel aside and sticking the restoration rune to the tear in his trousers. He lit the rune and the torn fabric wove itself back together as if it had never been damaged.
“So how goes the case of the missing husband?” Iggy said as Alex put his pants back on.
“I went by his work this morning,” Alex said, describing his conversation with Leroy’s boss. “It doesn’t sound like whoever grabbed Leroy wants him for his drafting abilities, and they don’t do any confidential work there.”
“You’re sure he’s not heir to some secret fortune?” Iggy asked, tapping his cigarette into an ashtray on the kitchen table.
“Not likely,” Alex said. “He grew up in a coal town in West Virginia.” He sighed and sat down next to Iggy. “The only thing I can figure is that whatever the kidnappers want, it must be something from Leroy’s past. There just isn’t anything in his present.”
“Well,” Iggy said, puffing on the cigarette. “I’ve always said that if you remove the impossible, whatever is left must be the truth.”
Alex rubbed his face, which felt better already. Iggy’s cigarette was bugging him, though. He wanted one pretty badly.
“I hate it when you quote yourself.”
Iggy chuckled, taking another puff as if to spite Alex.
“Be that as it may, what will you do now?”
Alex looked at the clock. It was after three, but there was still plenty of daylight left.
“Do you know what an Assistant Mining Engineer does?” he asked.
“No,” Iggy admitted. “What’s that?”
“Leroy’s job back in Coledale.”
“Well, if that’s a mining job, there must be someone here in town that can tell you. Maybe someone in the coal industry or a supplier of mining equipment.”
“Not a bad idea,” Alex said. “I’ll call Leslie and have her…oh.”
“What is it?”
“I sent Leslie out to Suffolk County to run down a lead in the ghost case.” Alex thought for a moment, then got up and went to the phone. “Ralph’s Building Supply,” he told the operator. Alex had helped Ralph deal with some vandals a few years ago and now Ralph gave him tools or hardware at cost.
“Ralph, it’s Alex,” he said once the operator connected them. “No, I don’t need any tools this time, but I’ve got a question for you. Is there anyone in town who makes gear for mining?”