Annie sat cross-legged on the floor and carefully read the entire text, tracing her way down the page with her finger.
Dan nodded toward the TV. “Mind if I switch this old hag off now? She’s giving me the willies.”
“Oh, sure. But listen to this—this is the testimony given in court by the Reverend John Whiting, pastor of the Second Church in Hartford. I’ve read about him before. He was like the Eliot Ness of witch hunters.
“‘Having listened to the complaints against Goody Greensmith made by her neighbors, I went in the company of three men to Nathaniel Greensmith’s farm, south of the little river. There I found Goody Greensmith at her hearth, spinning. I explained to her the accusations that had been made against her and that I had come to remove her to jail.
“‘She refused to come with me and uttered several blasphemous imprecations, whereupon I instructed the men who had come with me to remove her forcibly. Two of them seized her arms, and they were good strong men, Samuel Wyllys and Richard Treat, but they were unable to move her even an inch. It was as if her feet were soundly nailed to the floor.
“‘However, I had come well-prepared for such witchery, and I produced from my satchel the Enochian text, which calls upon the assistance of angels and in the face of which any associate of the devil is powerless. I had in my possession also the rose-colored stone that had been sent to our ministry from England as soon as it became apparent that the devil was so assiduously recruiting new followers in the commonwealth.
“‘I spoke the words, “I reign over you in power exalted above the firmaments of wrath; in whose hands the Sun is as a sword, and the Moon as a fiery arrow. Which measureth your garments in the midst of my vestures and trussed you together as the palms of my hands.”
“‘Thereupon I pressed the stone against Goody Greensmith’s forehead, and she collapsed to the floor, her eyes as white as two pebbles, her wrists and ankles pressed together as if tightly bound by invisible cords. Mr. Wyllys and Mr. Treat were now able to lift her, with the assistance of Walter Filer, and carry her out of the house.’”
“So that’s how they caught her,” said Dan. “An Enochian text and some kind of stone.” He paused and sniffed. “What the hell is an Enochian text?”
“Enochian is the language of angels. It was supposed to have been spoken by Adam in Paradise.”
“I see. And how does anybody know that?”
“The story is that Enochian was communicated by the angels to an English spirit medium called Edward Kelley in the late sixteenth century.”
“By text message?”
Annie didn’t rise to it. “They did it through mirrors, or a rose-colored crystal. Kelley was working for Dr. John Dee, who was Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer, as well as being a magician and an alchemist. Dr. Dee was obsessed with the idea of talking to angels, and when Kelley said that he could do it, Dee paid him fifty pounds a year just to sit and stare at this crystal and tell him what the angels were saying, while Dee wrote it all down.”
“The word scam comes to mind, don’t you think?”
“Well…people have been arguing about that for centuries. But Enochian is a proper language with twenty-one distinctive letters, and it has its own consistent grammar and syntax. Not only that, each of the letters relates to a specific element and number and planetary force. Kelley was fluent in Latin and Greek, but it isn’t exactly easy to make up an entire language off the top of your head.”
“I don’t know. You should listen to my partner Ernie.”
“This could help us, though,” said Annie. “If the Reverend Whiting really did manage to capture Rebecca Greensmith by using an Enochian text, maybe we could do the same to her granddaughter…if that’s who this woman is, and if we can find out which text we need to do it with.”
“Hell of a lot of ifs there,” said Dan.
“I know. But it’s a start, isn’t it? And we can’t just let these witches run riot, can we? Life in Los Angeles isn’t going to be worth living.”
Dan’s phone burbled. It was Ernie.
“El Gordo! How’s it going, man?”
“You seen the news?”
“No…I’ve been working on this witch thing. What did I miss?”
“Nothing, because this wasn’t on the news. But the Zombie and the White Ghost and Vasili Krylov took their witches out to dinner at Spago. They couldn’t get a table, so they turned the whole place upside down.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“One fatality, heart attack. Apart from that, only minor injuries, but they were really weird injuries, like four people had their hands nailed to the table with cutlery.”
“What?”
“Fred Manning was one of them. Oh yeah, and Krystie Wallis, her too. But nobody saw nobody do it.”
“How come this wasn’t on TV?”
“It’s not going to be anywhere—TV, radio, newspapers. Our three friends have told the media that if they see one story disrespecting them in any way at all, like even criticizing the pattern on their neckties, then retaliation will be swift and strange and extremely terrible.”
“Is the lieutenant still there?”
“No…he left about a half-hour ago.”
“Okay…I just wanted to tell him that I’ve made some progress on this witch stuff. I think I’ve identified that old woman at Chief O’Malley’s media conference. I definitely think she’s the fourth witch, and all the other witches are getting their power from her. I also think that we might be able to take her out, if we go about it the right way.”
“I don’t like this, muchacho. I don’t like any of this. I’m not scared of any criminal. But these witches—”
“We’ll be okay, Ernie. We just have to beat them at their own game.”
“Oh, for sure. You know what my father used to say? Más vale que digan aqui comó una gallina y no aqui munó un gallo. Better to be known as a chicken while you’re alive than remembered as a brave man after you’re dead.”
“El Gordo, I’ll catch you tomorrow. Don’t have nightmares. Witches, they like you to have nightmares. They open the door to your head, man, and they can send in the scariest things you can think of, like spiders.”
“You’re trying to scare me? How old do you think I am? Six?”
“Of course not.”
“Good,” said Ernie. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then he paused, and said, “Do they really do that? Send spiders into your head, when you’re asleep?”
Dan and Annie stayed up until 1:30 A.M., searching through Annie’s books on witchcraft and Enochian magic. Annie found An Enochian Dictionary, as well as the complete text of the incantation that Rev. John Whiting had used to pinion Rebecca Greensmith, in both English and Enochian.
“Ol sonf vorsag goho Iad Balt lonsh…calz vonpho so-bra Z-Ol ror I ta nazps,” Annie read.
“That’s it?” said Dan. “That’s the language that Adam spoke in Paradise?”
“I’m not too sure I’m pronouncing it right.”
“All the same—Jesus. No wonder Eve wanted to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Even rap sounds better than that.”
They finished a last glass of chardonnay, then decided to call it a night.
“You can stay here if you’re worried about maggots,” said Dan. “I can sleep on the couch.”
“No…I think I’ll risk it. But I’ll keep the phone close in case I need you. Now we know what we’re up against…I don’t know, I’m beginning to feel more confident. Stronger.”
“Well…don’t hesitate to call if you need me.”
“I won’t.” She kissed him on the lips and looked up at him and smiled. He didn’t exactly know what it was that he saw in her eyes. He had never seen anything like it before in any girl. It was a recognition of her own attractiveness—but it was more than that. It was fearlessness and a farsighted sense of her own personal destiny.
In the early morning, a little after 4:00 A.M., he felt the sheet lift and somebody climb into bed beside him. A warm, nak
ed body pressed up against his back, and fingers ruffled his hair.
In his half-awake state, he thought at first that it might be Annie, but then he remembered that his apartment door was locked and bolted, and there was no way that she could have gotten in.
He twisted around, and there was Gayle lying next to him, smiling.
“You’re not here,” he said, hoarsely. “You can’t be here.”
“Dan…why are you so determined not to believe in me?”
“Because you’re dead. Because—whoever you are, you can’t be Gayle, even if you look like her and sound like her.”
“And feel like her?”
“Yes.”
“But if I look like Gayle and sound like Gayle and feel like Gayle, what difference does it make?”
He climbed out of bed and reached for his blue terry bathrobe. It was still damp from last night’s shower, but he put it on anyway. “Tell me the truth,” he asked her. “Are you a witch?”
“A witch? What kind of a question is that?”
“My friend Annie thinks that you’re a witch impersonating Gayle. She says that witches can take on any shape they want to.”
“Your friend Annie? You should be very cautious about your friend Annie.”
“Oh, yes? And why is that exactly?”
Gayle sat up in bed so that the sheet dropped down and bared her breasts. “Some people are not what they seem to be.”
“Well, nobody could be more qualified to say that than you. Whoever you are—or whatever you are. Are you a ghost?”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts, Dan. Once you’re dead, you’re dead.”
“How can you say that? You were killed in a car wreck and cremated. Yet here you are, sitting on my bed, talking to me.”
“Don’t you want to make love to me?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Didn’t you enjoy it the last time we made love?”
Dan didn’t answer.
Gayle drew the sheet completely back and knelt up on the bed. “Dan, I came here to warn you. I came to protect you.”
“I’m going crazy. That’s it, isn’t it? I’m cracking under the strain.”
She took hold of his hands and pulled him toward her. Then she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. Yes, she felt like Gayle. She even smelled like Gayle. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him and she hadn’t been killed, after all. Maybe she had finished with him, that was all, and he had rationalized his pain by pretending that she was dead.
What did it matter, so long as she was here?
“So what are you trying to tell me about Annie?” he asked her.
“All I’m saying is…be very careful. Don’t take anything she says for granted.”
Gently but firmly, Dan pried himself free from Gayle’s embrace. “I want to know why.”
Gayle looked at him for a long time without answering. Outside, it was growing increasingly light, and the birds were beginning to twitter.
“Why don’t you make love to me?” she said. “Who knows…it might be the last chance we ever get.”
“Tell me why I need to be cautious about Annie.”
“Because magic is power, and you know what they say. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
She lay back on the bed and opened her legs wide. She reached up to him with both hands.
“Make love to me, Dan. I want you so much.”
Dan looked away. Then he looked back again and tugged loose the belt of his bathrobe.
Chapter Nineteen
When he arrived at headquarters, he found Ernie already at his desk, eating a cheese burrito and talking on two phones at once, the receivers tucked under his double chins.
Dan hung his coat over the back of his chair and waited until Ernie had finished. “What’s up, doc?” he asked him.
“That was Frank Quinlan from Narcotics. He’s been surveilling Uncle Horrible. He has video footage of him handing over drug money to the Karim brothers, and he’s picked up some real incriminating chatter from his cell phone.”
“Uncle Horrible” was the nickname used by Raoul Truchaud, who was one of the Zombie’s top lieutenants. Other members of the gang had equally bizarre noms de guerre, such as “Dried Meat” and “Grandfather Smoke.”
“Anything that fingers the Zombie himself?”
“You bet. You remember that UPS heist at LAX last October? Uncle Horrible directly implicated the Zombie in that. He also made it one hundred percent clear that it was the Zombie who ordered the Fellini Building to be torched. And he said that the Zombie paid Marc Bailly ten big ones to put a bullet in George Maskell. There’s more than enough evidence to pull him in. And Uncle Horrible. And a few more of those Haitian dirtbags.”
At that moment, Lieutenant Harris came in. He was unshaven, and his shirt was crumpled. He looked as if he hadn’t slept all night.
“I’ve just had the ATF on the phone. Apparently they’ve hacked into one of Vasili Krylov’s computers and uncovered a massive counterfeiting operation—designer goods mainly, but liquor, too. And the Colombian police have sent us information about a major cocaine shipment delivered to Orestes Vasquez three days ago. They gave us names, locations, everything we need.”
Dan said, “And all this means what?”
“It means that we can bust all three of those bastards simultaneously.”
“We’re going to bust them?”
“Why not? They think this new symbiosis thing has given them some kind of immunity from the law. Well, not as far as I’m concerned it hasn’t. And because they’ve gotten so goddamned overconfident, they’ve given us more prima facie evidence than we’ve ever had on them before.”
“But come on, Lieutenant—what happened at the Vasquez house, that could happen all over again.”
Lieutenant Harris picked up Ernie’s coffee mug and took a large swallow. He grimaced and said, “Sweet Jesus, Ernie!” because Ernie always took three spoonfuls of sugar. But then he said, “Listen, Dan, we still don’t know what killed those SWAT teams, not for sure. The ME hasn’t even half completed his autopsies. And there’s a high degree of risk with every bust. Chief O’Malley may have lost his nerve, but not me.”
“Lieutenant, it was the witches,” Dan insisted. “If we try to arrest those guys, I promise you, they’ll rip our guys into shreds. Or worse.”
“Jesus Christ, Dan. I can’t run this division on superstition.”
“But like I told you before, sir, this is real. Even by themselves, those three women have the ability to wipe out every single one of us. Burn us, tear us apart, shake us so hard that our heads fly off. But not only that, there’s a fourth witch.”
“A fourth witch?” said Lieutenant Harris, folding his arms. “Go on. This gets better.”
“As far as we can make out, she’s a descendant of the single most powerful witch ever known in America, Rebecca Greensmith. She’s acting like a source of energy—like a battery charger. Every time one of those three other witches casts a spell, she gives them a huge boost of additional power. That power makes their magic a hundred times more devastating than it would be normally.”
Lieutenant Harris was staring down at the floor. “Do you know where she is, this fourth witch?”
“Yes, I think we can locate her. My friend has a way of tracking witches.”
Lieutenant Harris still didn’t look up. “And what you’re trying to tell me is that without this fourth witch, the other three witches wouldn’t be so dangerous?”
“I’m pretty sure of that, yes, sir.”
Lieutenant Harris at last raised his eyes. “What do you think I ought to do, Dan? Relieve you of duty on grounds of suspected insanity, or let you hunt down this witch and bring her in?”
“If I were you, sir, I’d err on the side of caution.”
“Meaning?”
“I’d say to myself, ‘Detective Fisher sounds as if he’s gone nuts. But if he hasn’t gone nuts, then I’d be risking a who
le lot of men’s lives by trying to arrest the Zombie and the White Ghost and Vasili Krylov all at the same time. So I’ll give Detective Fisher a chance to put this old hag out of action, and then I’ll decide what I’m going to do next.’”
“That’s what you’d say to yourself?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what do you think, Detective Munoz?”
“I saw those SWAT teams, sir. They was all chopped liver. I never saw nothing like that, never. It gives me such a stupendous nightmare.”
“You believe in these witches, too?”
Ernie crossed himself—twice.
“Okay,” said Lieutenant Harris. “But I can’t postpone these collars, even if I wanted to, which I don’t. The captain’s had Mayor Briggs on the phone, too. He was at Spago yesterday evening, when those three hoodlums caused all of that pandemonium. He said he felt totally helpless—humiliated.”
“Oh, I see. We’re going to sacrifice God knows how many officers, just to save hizzoner’s dignity?”
“It’s not only that. It’s our dignity too, the LAPD. We need to take some action.”
“Lieutenant, this isn’t a question of politics. This is a question of saving officers’ lives.”
“I’m sorry, Dan. But I will make you a concession. Maybe I’m as nuts as you are, but you and Detective Munoz can carry on hunting down these witches of yours. All I ask is that you make a case against them that will stand up in court.”
“How about giving us twenty-four hours’ grace before you go in?”
“No can do, Dan. The warrants are on their way to us already. Our information is that the Zombie and the White Ghost and Vasili Krylov will be meeting at the West Grove Country Club at seven this evening. Apparently they’ll be having a friendly little discussion with Giancarlo Guttuso. Guttuso is more than a bit peeved that our three merry mobsters are starting to muscle in on his narcotics trade.”
“I wouldn’t bet on Guttuso’s chances of getting any concessions out of those three,” said Dan. “In fact I’ll bet that by the end of the evening they’ll probably have him puking up live iguanas. Or worse.”
The 5th Witch Page 17