The Best of Kage Baker

by Kage Baker

  “Yeah, actually,” I couldn’t resist saying.

  “Ah. If you desire to seek further—I may be able to help you.” She came close and put her hand on my arm. Conqueror Worm prowled around her ankles, whining like a gnat. “I have some experience in, shall we say, arcane matters? It wouldn’t be the first time I have assisted a questing soul in unraveling the mystery of his past lives. Indeed, you might almost call me a detective…for I sense you enjoy the works of Mr. Dashiell Hammett,” she finished, with a smile as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa.

  I smiled right back at her. Conqueror Worm put his tail between his legs and howled.

  “Gosh, Mrs. Bryce, that’s really amazing,” I said, reaching for her hand and shaking it. “I do like detective fiction.” And there was no way she could have known it unless she’d been in my room going through my drawers, where she’d have seen my well-worn copy of The Maltese Falcon. “Did your spirits tell you that?”

  “Yes,” she said modestly, and she was lying through her teeth, if her skin conductivity and pulse were any indication. Lewis was right, you see: we can tell as much as a polygraph about whether or not a mortal is truthful.

  “You don’t say?” I let go her hand. “Well, well. This has been really interesting, Mrs. Bryce. I’ve got to go see how my friend is doing now, but, you know, I’d really like to get together to talk with you about this again. Soon.”

  “Ah! Your friend with the fair hair,” she said, and looked wise. Then she stepped in close and lowered her voice. “The haunted one. Tell me, Mr. Denham…is he…inclined to the worship of Apollo?”

  For a moment I was struck speechless, because Lewis does go on sometimes about his Roman cultural identity, but then I realized that wasn’t what Mrs. Bryce was implying.

  “You mean, is he a homo?”

  “Given to sins of the purple and crimson nature,” she rephrased, nodding.

  Now I knew she had the Valentino script, had seen Rudy’s cute note and leaped to her own conclusion. “Uh…gee. I don’t know. I guess he might be. Why?”

  “There is a male spirit who will not rest until he communicates with your friend,” Mrs. Bryce told me, breathing heavily. “A fiery soul with a great attachment to Mr. Kensington. One who has but recently passed over. A beautiful shade, upright as a smokeless flame.”

  The only question now was, why? One thing was certain: whether or not Lewis had ever danced the tango with Rudolph Valentino, Mrs. Bryce sure wished she had. Was she planning some stunt to impress the hell out of all these movie people, using her magic powers to reveal the script’s whereabouts if Lewis reported it missing?

  “I wonder who it is?” I said. “I’ll tell him about it. Of course, you know, he might be kind of embarrassed—”

  “But of course.” She waved gracefully, as though dismissing all philistine considerations of closets. “If he will speak to me privately, I can do him a great service.”

  “O.K., Mrs. Bryce,” I said, winking, and we went our separate ways through the garden.

  I caught up with Lewis in the long pergola, tottering along between the kumquat trees. His tie was askew, his hair was standing on end, and his eyes shone like a couple of blue klieg lights.

  “The most incredible thing just happened to me,” he said.

  “How’d you make out with Garbo?” I inquired, and then my jaw dropped, because he drew himself up and said, with an effort at dignity:

  “I’ll thank you not to speculate on a lady’s private affairs.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” I hoped he’d had the sense to stay out of the range of the surveillance cameras.

  “But I can tell you this much,” he said, as his silly grin burst through again, “she absolutely did not steal my Valentino script.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I replied. “Cartimandua Bryce took it after all.”

  “She—Really?” Lewis focused with difficulty. “However did you find out?”

  “We were talking just now and she gave the game away.” I explained. “Oldest trick in the book, for fake psychics: snoop through people’s belongings in secret so you know little details about them you couldn’t have known otherwise, then pull ’em out in conversation and wow everybody with your mystical abilities.

  “What do you want to bet that’s what she was doing when she sneaked out of the theater? She must have used the time to case people’s rooms. That’s how the damn dog got in our suite. It must have followed her somehow and gotten left behind.”

  “How sordid,” Lewis said. “How are we going to get it back, then?”

  “We’ll think of a way.” I said. “I have a feeling she’ll approach you herself, anyhow. She’s dying to corner you and give you a big wet kiss from the ghost of Rudolph Valentino, whom she thinks is your passionate dead boyfriend. You just play along.”

  Lewis winced. “That’s revolting.”

  I shrugged. “So long as you get the script back, who cares what she thinks?”

  “I care,” Lewis protested. “I have a reputation to think about!”

  “Like the opinions of a bunch of mortals are going to matter in a hundred years!” I said. “Anyway, I’ll bet you’ve had to do more embarrassing things in the Company’s service. I know I have.”

  “Such as?” Lewis demanded sullenly.

  “Such as I don’t care to discuss just at the present time,” I told him, flouncing away with a grin. He grabbed a pomegranate and hurled it at me, but I winked out and reappeared a few yards off, laughing. The lunch bell rang.

  ***

  I don’t know what Lewis did with the rest of his afternoon, but I suspect he spent it hiding. Myself, I took things easy; napped in the sunlight, went swimming in the Roman pool, and relaxed in the guest library with a good book. By the time we gathered in the assembly hall for cocktail hour again,

  I was refreshed and ready for a long night’s work.

  The gathering was a lot more fun now that I wasn’t so nervous about Mr. Hearst. Connie got out a Parcheesi game and we sat down to play with Charlie and Laurence. The Hearst kid and his girlfriend took over one of the pianos and played amateurish duets. Mrs. Bryce made a sweeping entrance and backed Gable into a corner, trying out her finder-of-past-lives routine on him. Marion circulated for a while, before getting into a serious discussion of real estate investments with Jack from Paramount. Mr. Hearst came down in the elevator and was promptly surrounded by his executives, who wanted to discuss business. Garbo appeared late, smiling to herself as she wandered over to the other piano and picked out tunes with one finger.

  Lewis skulked in at the last moment, just as we were all getting up to go to dinner, and tried to look as though he’d been there all along. The ladies went in first. As she passed him, Garbo reached out and tousled his hair, though she didn’t say a word.

  The rest of us—Mr. Hearst included—gaped at Lewis. He just straightened up, threw his shoulders back, and swaggered into the dining hall after the ladies.

  My place card was immediately at Mr. Hearst’s right, and Lewis was seated on the other side of me. It didn’t get better than this. I looked nearly as smug as Lewis as I sat down with my loaded plate. Cartimandua Bryce had been given the other place of honor, though, at Marion’s right, I guess as a further consolation prize for the loss of Tcho-Tcho. Conqueror Worm was allowed to stay in her lap through the meal this time. He took one look at me and cringed down meek as a lamb, only lifting his muzzle for the tidbits Mrs. Bryce fed him.

  She held forth on the subject of reincarnation as we dined, with Marion drawing her out and throwing the rest of us an occasional broad wink, though not when Hearst was looking. He had very strict ideas about courtesy toward guests, even if he clearly thought she was a crackpot.

  “So what you’re saying is, we just go on and on through history, the same people coming back time after time?” Marion inquired.

  “Not all of us,” Mrs. Bryce admitted. “Some, I think, are weaker souls and fade after the first thundering torrent of life has fini
shed with them. They are like those who retire from the ball after but one dance, too weary to respond any longer to the fierce call of life’s music.”

  “They just soita go ova to da punchbowl and stay there, huh?” said Connie.

  “In a sense,” Mrs. Bryce told her, graciously ignoring her teasing tone. “The punchbowl of Lethe, if you will; and there they imbibe forgetfulness and remain. Ah, but the stronger souls plunge back headlong into the maelstrom of mortal passions!”

  “Well, but what about going to Heaven and all that stuff?” Marion wanted to know. “Don’t we ever get to do that?”

  “Oh, undoubtedly,” Mrs. Bryce replied, “for there are higher astral planes beyond this mere terrestrial one we inhabit. The truly great souls ascend there in time, as that is their true home; but even they yield to the impulse to assume flesh and descend to the mundane realms again, especially if they have important work to do here.” She inclined across the table to Hearst. “As I feel you have often done, dear Mr. Hearst.”

  “Well, I plan on coming back after this life, anyhow,” he replied with a smile, and nudged me under the table. I nearly dropped my fork.

  “I don’t know that I’d want to,” said Marion a little crossly. “My g-

  goodness, I think I’d rather have a nice rest afterwards, and not come back and have to go fighting through the whole darned business all over again.”

  Hearst lifted his head and regarded her for a long moment.

  “Wouldn’t you, dear?” he said.

  “N-no,” Marion insisted, and laughed. “It’d be great to have some peace and quiet for a change.”

  Mrs. Bryce just nodded, as though to show that proved her point. Hearst looked down at his plate and didn’t say anything else for the moment.

  “But anyway, Mrs. Bryce,” Marion went on in a brighter voice, “who else do you think’s an old soul? What about the world leaders right now?”

  “Chancellor Hitler, certainly,” Mrs. Bryce informed us. “One has only to look at the immense dynamism of the man! This, surely, was a Teutonic Knight, or perhaps one of the barbarian chieftains who defied Caesar.”

  “Unsuccessfully,” said Hearst in a dry little voice.

  “Yes, but to comprehend reincarnation is to see history in its true light,” Mrs. Bryce explained. “Over the centuries his star has risen inexorably, and will continue to rise. He is a man with true purpose.”

  “You don’t feel that way about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, do you?” Hearst inquired.

  “Roosevelt strives,” said Mrs. Bryce noncommittally. “But I think his is yet a young soul, blundering perhaps as it finds its way.”

  “I think he’s an insincere bozo, personally,” Hearst said.

  “Unlike Mussolini! Now there is another man who understands historical destiny, to such an extent one knows he has retained the experience of his past lives.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t think much of dictators,” said Hearst, in that castle where his word was law. Mrs. Bryce’s eyes widened with the consciousness of her misstep.

  “No, for your centuries—perhaps even eons—have given you the wisdom to see that dictatorship is a crude substitute for enlightened rule,” she said.

  “By which you mean good old American democracy?” he inquired. Wow, Mrs. Bryce was sweating. I have to admit it felt good to sit back and watch it happen to somebody else for a change.

  “Well, of course she does,” Marion said. “Now, I’ve had enough of all this history talk, Pops.”

  “I wanna know more about who we all were in our past lives, anyway,” said Connie. Mrs. Bryce joined in the general laughter then, shrill with relief.

  “Well, as I was saying earlier to Mr. Gable—I feel certain he was Mark Antony.”

  All eyes were on Clark at this pronouncement. He turned beet red but smiled wryly.

  “I never argue with a lady,” he said. “Maybe I was, at that.”

  “Oh, beyond question you were, Mr. Gable,” said Mrs. Bryce. “For I myself was one of Cleopatra’s maidens-in-waiting, and I recognized you the moment I saw you.”

  Must be a script for Black Covenant in development, too.

  There were chuckles up and down the table. “Whaddaya do to find out about odda people?” Connie persisted. “Do ya use one of dose Ouija boards or something?”

  “A crude parlor game,” Mrs. Bryce said. “In my opinion. No, the best way to delve into the secrets of the past is to speak directly to those who are themselves beyond the flow of time.”

  “Ya mean, have a seance?” Connie looked intrigued. Marion’s eyes lit up.

  “That’d be fun, wouldn’t it? Jeepers, we’ve got the perfect setting, too, with all this old stuff around!”

  “Now—I don’t know—” said Hearst, but Marion had the bit in her teeth.

  “Oh, come on, it can’t hurt anybody. Are you all done eating? What do you say, kids?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to have a round table?” asked Jack doubtfully.

  “Not necessarily,” Mrs. Bryce told him. “This very table will do, if we clear away dinner and turn out the lights.”

  There was a scramble to do as she suggested. Hearst turned to look at me sheepishly, and then I guess the humor of it got to him: an immortal being sitting in on a seance. He pressed his lips together to keep from grinning.

  I shrugged, looking wise and ironic.

  Marion came running back from the kitchen and took her place at table. “O.K.,” she yelled to the butler, and he flicked an unseen switch. The dining hall was plunged into darkness.

  “Whadda we do now?” Connie asked breathlessly.

  “Consider the utter darkness and the awful chill for a moment,” replied Mrs. Bryce in somber tones. “Think of the grave, if you are tempted to mock our proceedings. And now, if you are all willing to show a proper respect for the spirits—link hands, please.”

  There was a creaking and rustling as we obeyed her. I felt Hearst’s big right hand enclose my left one. Lewis took my other hand. Good Lord, it’s dark in here, he transmitted.

  So watch by infrared, I told him. I switched it on myself; the place looked really lurid then, but I had a suspicion about what was going to happen and I wanted to be prepared.

  “Spirits of the unseen world,” intoned Mrs. Bryce. “Ascended ones! Pause in your eternal meditations and heed our petition. We seek enlightenment! Ah, yes, I begin to feel the vibrations—there is one who approaches us. Can it be? But yes, it is our dear friend Tcho-Tcho! Freed from her disguise of earthly flesh, she once again parts the veil between the worlds. Tcho-Tcho, I sense your urgency. What have you to tell us, dear friend? Speak!”

  I think most of the people in the room anticipated some prankster barking at that point, but oddly enough nobody did, and in the strained moment of silence that followed Mrs. Bryce let her head sag forward. Then, slowly, she raised it again, and tilted it way back. She gasped a couple of times and then began to moan in a tiny falsetto voice, incoherent sounds as though she were trying to form words.

  “Woooooo,” she wailed softly. “Woooo woo woo woo! Woo woooo!”

  There were vibrations then, all right, from fourteen people trying to hold in their giggles. Mrs. Bryce tossed her head from side to side.

  “Wooooo,” she went on, and Conqueror Worm sat up in her lap and pointed his snout at the ceiling and began to talk along with her in that way that dogs will, sort of wou-wou, wou-wou wou, and beside me Hearst was shaking with silent laughter. Mrs. Bryce must have sensed she was losing her audience, because the woo-woos abruptly began to form into distinct words:

  “I have come back,” she said. “I have returned from the vale of felicity because I have unfinished business here. Creatures of the lower plane, there are spirits waiting with me who would communicate with you. Cast aside all ignorant fear. Listen for them!”

  After another moment of silence Marion said, in a strangling kind of voice:

  “Um—we were just wondering—can you tell us who any of us w
ere in our past lives?”

  “Yes…” Mrs. Bryce appeared to be listening hard. “There is one…she was born on the nineteenth day of April.”

  Connie sat up straight and peered through the darkness in Mrs. Bryce’s direction. “Why, dat’s my boithday!” she said in a stage whisper.

  “Yes…I see her in Babylon, Babylon that is fallen…yea, truly she lived in Babylon, queen of cities all, and carried roses to lay before Ishtar’s altar.”

  “Jeez, can ya beat it?” Connie exclaimed. “I musta been a priestess or something.”

  “Pass on now…I see a man, hard and brutal…he labors with his hands. He stands before towers that point at heaven…black gold pours forth. He has been too harsh. He repents…he begs forgiveness…”

  I could see Gable gritting his teeth so hard the muscles in his jaws stood out. His eyes were furious. I wondered if she’d seen a photograph of his father in his luggage. Or had Mrs. Bryce scooped this particular bit of biographical detail out of a movie magazine?

  Anyway he stubbornly refused to take the bait, and after a prolonged silence the quavery voice continued:

  “Pass on, pass on…There is one here who has sailed the mighty oceans. I see him in a white cap…”

  There was an indrawn breath from one of Hearst’s executives. Somebody who enjoyed yachting?

  “Yet he has sailed the seven seas in another life…I see him kneeling before a great queen, presenting her with all the splendor of the Spanish fleet…this entity bore the name of Francis Drake.”

  Rapacious little pirate turned cutthroat executive? Hey, it could happen.

  “Pass on now…” I could see Mrs. Bryce turn her head slightly and peer in Lewis’s direction through half-closed eyes. “Oh, there is an urgent message…there is one here who pleads to speak…this spirit with his dark and smoldering gaze…he begs to be acknowledged without shame, for no true passion is shameful…he seeks his other self.”

  Yikes! transmitted Lewis, horrified.

  O.K. She wanted to convince us Rudolph Valentino was trying to say something? He was going to say something, all right. I didn’t care whether Lewis or Rudy were straight or gay or swung both ways, but this was just too mean-spirited.