City of Brass Read Online Free PDF

triangle of green that was a park.
    “It’s a city,” I said.
    “A city,” Simon nodded. “We must stay, my friend, and look beneath the surface of this city. It has a heart, if only a brass one.”
    “You think Wilber knows something about her death?”
    “A possibility. But I think it is time we visited your friend, Henry Mahon. …”
    We found him in front of the house, strangely puttering with his rose bushes. It seemed an odd action for a man who had just lost his sister-in-law. He looked up as I parked our rented car, and I thought I saw a flicker of uncertainty on his face.
    “Hello, Hank,” I said, leading Simon up the easily spaced steps.
    “I told you there was nothing for us to do,” he said. Then, “I see you brought Simon Ark.” He made it a statement, not a question, and I wondered how he could be so sure. Simon’s face was anything but well known, and I’d told Mahon I was having trouble locating him. And yet he knew this was Simon. Had somebody called to tip him off? His wife, or Quinn or even Wilber? Anything was possible, I supposed.
    “We were out to the University,” I said. “We talked with Professor Wilber. He seems a nice sort.”
    Mahon grunted. “I understand you were at the funeral home too.” Apparently it had been his wife who’d called him.
    “We stopped by,” I admitted. “After all, I did know her in a way.” I wondered why I was bothering to apologize to him.
    “Come in,” he said suddenly, his manner changing in an unaccountable way. “How about a drink?”
    We agreed, and I flopped into the same chair I’d occupied on my last visit. The house hadn’t changed much, actually, though I noticed that a small framed picture of Mahon and Jean was missing now from its place of honor on the coffee table. The drink tasted good after the day we’d spent in laboratories and funeral homes, and I for one was willing to devote the rest of Sunday afternoon to investigating the rest of the bottle.
    Mahon, too, seemed intent on being the perfect host, producing a large poster from somewhere for our inspection. “How do you like it?” he asked. “I had two thousand of ’em printed up.”
    It was a gaudy thing, done in black, yellow and fluorescent red, bouncing its vivid message out at you with uncompromising fury: GIVE! DOLLARS FOR SCHOLARS!
    “That headline was my idea,” he said proudly. “Like it?”
    I grunted something meant to be affirmative. “How’s the drive going?”
    “Well, hell, considering the time of the year and everything, not too bad at all. You know, people are up at their summer cottages and stuff—they don’t like to be bothered with fund raisers. Some of them don’t even have phones and I have to write them if I can track them down.”
    “Do you approach Baine Brass on something like this?”
    “Well, not officially, though of course I sent a letter to Foster Baine. He graduated from the place back in ’40, you know. Granddad was still alive then, throwing his money around like he had an endless supply—and maybe he had. Foster Baine has the whole works now, at a fairly young age, and I suppose he’s doing a good enough job. You know, this is an odd city in a way. I can’t think of another place in the country with a population as big as ours that is so completely dominated by one industry—one single company. Baine City and the University and our largest theatre are all named after the original Baine. The family is the social leader, the business leader, the cultural leader. When the city needs a new hospital, or a park for the kids, the mayor just calls up Foster Baine or his wife, and there’s usually a fat check in the morning mail. And a fine spread in the following morning’s newspaper. That’s life in Baine City, and I suppose there’s nothing really wrong with it.”
    “There was something wrong with it,” I reminded him. “Something in Professor Wilber’s laboratory.”
    He sighed and sipped his drink. “You’re really