Chapter XIV
Marvin Berryll lived in the Bronx, pretty close to dwarf country. A number of anti-elf humans had taken up residence in the Bronx, trying to find some solidarity with the dwarves that lived there. While there was sometimes a measure of agreement between the communities, there was seldom ever anything that resembled kinship. Surprisingly, they learned that Marvin was a married man with three children and a good job managing Paper Clips, the office megastore. Essentially, in Marvin they had a stable husband and father living in dwarf country and running with a renegade elf. And as if that wasn’t ironic enough, when the information came back on Herschel, it confirmed that he had been dead for seven years. Cancer.
Jessica and Owen debated about whether they should approach Marvin at home or at work. In the end, they decided that they didn’t feel like waiting around for him to go home. They shot over to the Paper Clips where Marvin Berryll worked and went inside.
The store was your standard chain store with bright lights and long aisles. They sold sixty one different kinds of staplers and you could pull individual rubber bands of all different colors from bins on the counter. They asked the nearest person, a seventeen year old kid with piercings in all sorts of places, if Marvin was in and he went to go and get him. They came forward a couple of minutes later and both Jessica and Owen were shocked at what they saw.
While the Marvin Berryll in front of them was clearly the same man from the Thursday before, he clearly wasn’t. For one, he was dressed in khakis and a green manager’s shirt for Paper Clips. He seemed a lot more middle aged than he had previously which included some grey hair on his head and a slight paunch sticking out over his belt line. Along with the grey hair was plenty of brown hair. It was well grown in but they could clearly see that there was no tattoo on his skull. He was also smiling and came forward to shake hands with both of them.
“What can I do for you, ma’am? Sir?”
They took out their licenses. “Jessica Church and Owen Keefe. We’re private detectives,” Jessica introduced. “I don’t suppose we could have a word?”
“Of course,” he replied, never losing his smile. He certainly didn’t look like a guilty man. In fact, he didn’t look like he had any idea what the whole thing was about. “Why don’t we talk in my office?”
Turning, he led them back through the store, leaving a befuddled pierced teenager to speculate about the visit of two detectives.
Marvin’s office was also a storage room. There were shelves lined with supplies all over the place. His desk was cluttered except where an old CRT computer monitor sat. The computer to which it was attached was sleeping at the moment. There were a couple of folded chairs leaning against the wall. He pulled them forward and opened them up for the detectives. Then he went around his desk and took a seat himself. He was looking closely at Owen.
“Wait, you’re that dwarf,” he said suddenly.
“Pardon?” Owen asked.
“Keefe, you said. I read about you online.”
Jessica looked over at Owen and then back at Marvin.
“What have you read about Mr. Keefe?” she asked.
Smiling, he folded his hands over his belly. “Oh, I read all about it. And you said your name is Church. It was your partner that shot that elf. What was his name…? I thought you were cops.”
“Long story,” Owen grumbled.
“Mr. Berryll, do you have any idea why we’ve come to see you?” Jessica asked.
For the first time, it seemed to dawn on him that he was sitting with two detectives and that they had specifically come to his place of work to question him.
“Is it about Leanne?”
Jessica was doing something on her phone. They sat in silence for a few moments until she was finished. Then she pushed the phone across the desk and asked, “Mr. Berryll, do you know what that is?”
Marvin went white as a ghost. He looked at the screen, then at the detectives, then back at the screen until the phone grew sleepy and went dark.
“This is about Herschel,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
“According to our information, Herschel’s been dead for seven years,” Jessica said as she retrieved her phone.
Marvin reached to his left and pulled a tissue out of a box. Dabbing at his eyes with it, he let off a couple of sobs. “Yeah. Cancer.”
“That’s right,” Jessica answered, confused but not allowing it to dominate the conversation. “But he was there on Thursday night with that tattoo across his head.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t Herschel. And that tattoo is not only a symbol for hate but a call for genocide.” He motioned for Jessica to give him back the phone. She did so, lighting it up again.
Marvin put it on the desk and invited them to lean forward. “Do you see that triangle there?”
“What?” Owen asked, squinting.
Marvin pointed out three different shapes that formed a triangle. One was pink, one was green, and the other was brown. “Notice how the green one bleeds into the pattern around it and encircles the pink. That’s the elves dominating the humans. They say it resembles them caring for us, but it’s domination plain and simple. Now look at the brown part. In the first place, it’s smaller than the other two shapes. That’s done to diminish the significance of the dwarves. It also bleeds into the black areas. Those black areas are shot through with green at points.” He pointed to several shoots of green running into the black. “That blackness represents disease. That it mingles with the dwarves is self explanatory. The elves are the cure.”
Owen studied it more closely. The one area Marvin had explained was still just a small portion of the entire design. The whole pattern was flecked with green, pink, and brown. There were also splashes of yellow and blue at certain points.
Marvin pushed the phone back toward Jessica. “Just looking at that thing scares the heck out of me.”
“How do you know all about it?” Jessica asked.
Rubbing his face, he took several deep breaths. He looked very much like a man trying to cope with a panic attack. “Herschel was a dwarf hater. He had that thing tattooed on his head. I’m sure it’s what caused his cancer. Between the time he got the tattoo and the time he died, barely four months passed. The doctors were certain the growth of the cancer had been magically enhanced. They said it was like a crop spell. A crop spell.”
“I’m very sorry,” Jessica said, and it seemed like just the most appropriate sentiment at the most appropriate time.
“Then who was it that we saw on Thursday night?” Owen asked, and it seemed like just the most inappropriate question at the most inappropriate time.
“There’s this guy named Lancelot Conroy…”
“We know of him,” Owen said. “He’s dead.”
“Thank God,” Marvin breathed.
Owen looked at Jessica. God was another of those human concepts that dwarves didn’t understand. Back before science, everyone had their gods but the elves and the dwarves had given them up. The humans had clung to one. Owen suspected it was because of their short life spans and their inexplicable fear of death.
“He was also there on Thursday night,” Jessica said. “We found him dead at the scene of the second attack.”
Marvin nodded. “It’s all coming together now. It’s been, I guess, eleven years since Herschel got involved with Conroy. Herschel hated dwarves. He envied elves. He was very much into magic and Conroy…I don’t know if you know this…Conroy was a pretty powerful sorcerer.”
“Go on,” Jessica prompted.
Marvin shook his head against the sad memories. “Herschel wanted so badly to be a wizard. He tried and tried but he couldn’t grasp the specifics. In the end, he settled for just being a part of Conroy’s gang. When they started putting that tattoo on his head, I got involved. I mean, it wasn’t so bad before that, but I looked up all about that pattern and I found out what I just told you.”
“
And?” Owen asked.
“And he died,” Marvin sniffled. “Then, I guess it was a couple of years later, I caught up with Conroy. Before that I was just staying away from the whole thing. I was having trouble at home and had been drinking…” He trailed off. “You don’t need to know about any of that. I got really drunk one night and went to see Conroy. I was in much better shape back then, not really afraid of much of anything. Well, I never expected to see Herschel there. But it wasn’t Herschel. I knew it wasn’t. Conroy had just taken part of him and, well, duplicated him.”
“Like a clone?” Jessica asked. “Are you trying to tell us that he cloned Herschel?”
Marvin shook his head. “I researched that, too. Clone technology even now isn’t up to the standards of growing a whole human that can walk and talk and the like. That thing is more of a…a golem. It’s not all flesh and blood. In fact, it’s mostly mud and clay. But a good wizard can cast a spell on it if he’d got enough flesh and blood from a source. Conroy had done it before. Herschel told me about it. Conroy had done cats and rabbits and stuff like that. But Herschel?”
“What did you do?” Jessica asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing. What could I do? I couldn’t fight the thing. It doesn’t even feel pain. It just follows orders. Conroy kicked the stuffing out of me.” Marvin rolled up his sleeve and showed them a ragged red patch of skin on his shoulder. “He took a pound of flesh, too.”
“Well that explains it,” Owen muttered.
Marvin looked at him. Then he looked at Jessica.
She sighed. “You were there, too. And you were in, well, a lot better shape than you are now. Your head was shaved and you had one of those tattoos. One of Conroy’s friends gave us your name.”
“Oh, my God,” Marvin repeated, sobbing into his hands.
“Let me ask you something,” Owen said, not bothering to give Marvin a chance to regain his composure. “With Conroy dead, who’s ordering those two golems around? I mean, it’s not like they stuck around the scene of the crime once Van Walls was killed.”
Marvin sniffled, wiped his nose, and coughed loudly into his tissue. “I never met Van Walls. I bet he wasn’t even a major player. Try Konrad Van Esper.”
Jessica and Owen once again shared a look. Neither of them knew who this elf was.
“He’s the tattoo artist,” Marvin confirmed. “He used to live in the Village, but it’s been almost eight years since I saw him last. I don’t even remember the address.”
“Well thanks, Mr. Berryll,” Jessica said, standing up. Owen followed suit. “You’ve been a real help. We’ll get in touch if there’s anything else we need.”
“Oh,” Marvin said, seeming a bit surprised. “Okay, then.” He shook their hands.
“Um, detectives?” he asked as they were leaving his office. Jessica turned back. “You don’t think I’m in any danger, do you? I mean, I have a family and I’d hate to think…”
Smiling, Jessica waved a hand. “We’re just tying up the loose ends. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”
As they left the store, Jessica said to Owen, “We’re in some deep shit.”
Nodding his agreement, Owen said, “You should probably call Captain Walters and recommend that he order a squad car by that guy’s house every half hour.”
“Yeah,” she answered. “I’ll do that.”