The Ivory and the Horn n-6

by Charles de Lint

  "Sorcerers?" Angel repeated with a cocked eyebrow.

  "Think what you want," Jilly told her, "but it's been documented in old witch trials."

  "Really?"

  "Well, it's been documented that they were accused of it," Jilly admitted.

  Which wasn't quite the same thing as being true, Angel thought, but she kept the comment to herself.

  Jilly put her feet up on a corner of Angel's desk and started to pick at the paint that freckled her fingernails. There always were smudges of paint on her clothes, or in her tangled hair, Jilly looked up to find Angel watching her work at the paint and shrugged unselfconsciously, a smile waking sparks of humor in her pale blue eyes that made them seem as electric as sapphires.

  "So what're you going to do?" Jilly asked.

  "Do? I'm not going to do anything. I'm a counselor, not a cop."

  "But you could find Macaulay way quicker than the police could."

  Angel nodded in agreement. "But what I do is based on trust— you know that. If I found Macaulay and turned him over to the police, even though it's just for questioning, who's going to trust me?"

  "I guess."

  "What I am going to do is have another talk with Robbie," Angel said. "He's taken all of this very badly."

  "He actually liked Everett?"

  Angel shook her head. "I don't think anyone liked Everett. I think it's got to do with finding the body. He's probably never seen a dead man before. I have, and I'm still feeling a little queasy."

  She didn't mention that Robbie had seemed to be hiding something. That was Robbie's business, and even if he did share it with her, it would still be up to him who could know about it and who could not. She just prayed that he hadn't been any more involved in Everett's death than having stumbled upon the body.

  "Actually," she said after a moment's hesitation, "there was another weird thing that happened tonight."

  Although she knew she'd regret it, because it was putting a foot into the strange world Jilly inhabited, where fact mixed equally with fantasy, she told Jilly about her dream. As Angel had expected, Jilly accepted what she was told as though it were an everyday occurrence.

  "Has this ever happened to you before?" she asked.

  Angel shook her head. "And I hope it never happens again. It's a really creepy feeling."

  Jilly seemed to be only half-listening to her. Her eyes had narrowed thoughtfully. Chewing at her lower lip, she cocked her head and studied the ceiling. Angel didn't know what Jilly saw up there, but she doubted it was the cracked plaster that anybody else would see.

  "I wonder what he wanted from you," Jilly finally said. Her gaze dropped and focused on Angel's. "There has to be a reason he sent his spirit to you."

  Angel shook her head. "Haven't you ever dreamed that someone you know died?"

  "Well, sure. But what's that—"

  "And did they turn out to be dead when you woke?"

  "No, but—"

  "Coincidence," Angel said. "That's all it was. Plain and simple coincidence."

  Jilly looked as though she was ready to argue the point, but then she simply shrugged.

  "Okay," she said, swinging her feet down from the desk. "But don't say you weren't warned when Everett's spirit comes back to haunt you again. He wants something from you and the thing with ghosts is they can be patient forever. He'll keep coming back until you figure out what he wants you to do for him and you do it."

  "Of course. Why didn't I think of that?"

  "I'm serious, Angel."

  Angel smiled. "I'll remember."

  "I just bet you will," Jilly said, returning her smile. She stood up. "Well, I've got to run. I was in the middle of a new canvas when you called."

  Angel rose to her feet as well. "Thanks for filling in."

  "Like I said, it was no problem. The place was dead." Jilly grimaced as the word came out of her mouth. "Sorry about that. But at least a building doesn't have shoes to lose, right?"

  After Jilly left, Angel returned to her desk with another spiked coffee. She stared out the window at Grasso Street where the first touch of dawn was turning the shadows to grey, unable to get Everett's stockinged feet out of her mind. Superimposed over it was an image of Everett in the rain, holding out a shadowed bundle towards her.

  One real, one from a dream. Neither made sense, but at least the dream wasn't supposed to. When it came to Everett's boots, though...

  She disliked the idea of someone believing superstitions almost as much as she did the superstitions themselves. Taking a dead man's shoes so he wouldn't come back seeking revenge. It was so patently ludicrous.

  But Macaulay had believed enough to take them.

  Angel considered Jim Macaulay. At nineteen, he was positively ancient compared to the street kids such as Robbie whose company he kept, though he certainly didn't look it. His cherubic features made him seem much younger. He'd been in and out of foster homes and juvie hall since he was seven, hut the experiences had done little to curb his minor criminal ways, or his good humor. Macaulay always had a smile, even when he was being arrested.

  Was he good for Everett's murder? Nothing in Macaulay's record pointed to it. His crimes were always nonviolent: B&Es, minor drug dealing, trafficking in stolen goods. Nothing to indicate that he'd suddenly upscaled to murder. And where was the motive? Everett had carried nothing of value on his person— probably never had— and everyone knew it. And while it was true he'd been a royal pain in the ass, the street people just ignored him when he got on a rant.

  But then why take the boots?

  If Macaulay believed the superstition, why would he be afraid of Everett coming after him unless he had killed him?

  Too tired to go home, Angel put her head down on the desk and stared out the window. She dozed off, still worrying over the problem.

  ***

  Nothing has changed in her dream.

  The rain continues to mist. Everett approaches her again, no less graceful, while she remains trapped in the weight of her flesh. The need is still there in Everett's eyes, the mysterious bundle still cradled against his chest as he comes up to her. But this time she finds enough of her voice to question him.

  Why is he here in her dream?

  "For the children," he says.

  It seems such an odd thing for him to say: Everett, who's never had a kind word for anyone, so far as Angel knows.

  "What do you mean?" she asks him.

  But then he tries to hand the bundle to her and she wakes up again.

  ***

  Angel sat up with a start. She was disoriented for a long moment— as much by her surroundings as from the dream— before she recognized the familiar confines of her office and remembered falling asleep at her desk.

  She shook her head and rubbed at her tired eyes. Twice in the same night. She had to do something about these hours, but knew she never would.

  The repetition of the dream was harder to set aside. She could almost hear Jilly's voice, I-told-you-so plain in its tone.

  Don't say you weren't warned when Everett's spirit comes back to haunt you again.

  But it had been just a dream.

  He wants something from you, and the thing with ghosts is they can be patient forever.

  A disturbing dream. That shadowed bundle Everett kept trying to hand to her and his enigmatic reply, "For the children."

  He'll keep coming back until you figure out what it is he wants you to do for him and you do it.

  She didn't need this, Angel thought. She didn't want to become part of Jilly's world, where the rules of logic were thrown out the door and nothing made sense anymore. But this dream... and Macaulay taking those damn boots...

  She remembered Jilly asking her what she was going to do and what her own reply had been. She still didn't want to get involved. Her job was helping the kids, not playing cop. But the image of the dream-Everett flashed in her mind, the need in his eyes and what he'd said when she'd asked him why he was there in her dream.

&n
bsp; For the children.

  Whether she wanted it or not, she realized that she was involved now. Not in any way that made sense, but indiscriminately, by pure blind chance, which seemed even less fair. It certainly wasn't because she and Everett had been friends. For God's sake, she'd never even liked Everett.

  For the children.

  Angel sighed. She picked up her mug and looked down at the cold mixture of whiskey and coffee. She started to call Jilly, but hung up before she'd finished dialing the number. She knew what Jilly would say.

  Grimacing, she drank what was left in her mug, then left her office in search of an answer.

  Macaulay had a squat in the same abandoned tenement where Robbie lived, just a few blocks north of Angel's office on the edge of the Tombs. Angel squinted at the building, then made her way across the rubble-strewn lot that sided the tenement. The front door was boarded shut, so she went around the side and climbed in through a window the way the building's illegal inhabitants did. Taking a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dimmer light inside, she listened to the silence that surrounded her. Whoever was here today, was obviously asleep.

  She knew Macaulay's squat was on the top floor, so she found the stairwell by the boarded-up entrance and climbed the two flights to the third floor. She looked in through the doorways as she passed by the rooms, heart aching with what she saw. Squatters, mostly kids, were curled up in sleeping bags, under blankets or in nests of newspaper. What were they going to do when winter came and the coolness of late summer nights dropped below the freezing mark?

  Macaulay's room was at the end of the hall, but he wasn't in. His squat had a door, unlike most of the other rooms, but it stood ajar. Inside it was tidier than Angel had expected. Clean, too. There was a mattress in one corner with a neatly-folded sleeping bag and pillow on top, Beside it was an oil lamp, sitting on the wooden floor, and a tidy pile of spare clothes. Two crates by the door held a number of water-swelled paperbacks with their covers removed. On another crate stood a Coleman stove, a frying pan and some utensils. Inside the crate was a row of canned goods while a cardboard box beside it served to hold garbage.

  And then there were the shoes.

  Although Angel didn't know Macaulay's shoe size, she doubted that any of them would fit him, She counted fifteen pairs, in all shapes and sizes, from a toddler's tiny sneakers to a woman's spike-heeled pumps. They were lined up against the wall in a neat row, a miniature mountain range, rising and falling in height, with Everett's bizarre boots standing like paired peaks at the end closest to the door.

  It was a perfectly innocent sight, but Angel felt sick to her stomach as she stood there looking at them. They were all the shoes of children and women— except for Everett's. Had Macaulay killed all of their—

  "Angel."

  She turned to find him standing in the doorway. With the sun coming through the window, making his blonde hair look like a halo, he might have been describing himself as much as calling her name. Her gaze shifted to the line of shoes along the wall, then back to his face. His blue eyes were guileless.

  Angel forwent the amenities.

  "These... these shoes...?" she began.

  "Shoes carry the imprint of our souls upon their own," he replied. He paused, then added, "Get it?"

  All she was getting was a severe case of the creeps. What had she been thinking to come here on her own? She hadn't told anyone where she was going. Her own hightops could be joining that line of shoes, set in place beside Everett's.

  Get out while you can, she told herself, but all she could do was ask, "Did you kill him?"

  "Who? Everett?"

  Angel nodded.

  "Do I look like a killer to you?"

  No, he looked as though he was on his way to mass— not to confess, but to sing in the choir. But the shoes, something about the way the shoes stood in their tidy, innocuous line, said differently.

  "Why did you take them?"

  "You're thinking they're souvenirs?"

  "I... I don't know what to think."

  "So don't," he said with a shrug, then disconcertingly changed the subject. "Well, it's a good thing you're here. I was just going out to look for you."

  "Why?"

  "Something terrible's happened to Robbie."

  The flatness of his voice was completely at odds with his choir-boy appearance. Angel's gaze dropped to his hands, but they were empty She'd been expecting to see him holding Robbie's shoes.

  "What...?"

  "You'd better come see."

  He led the way down to the second floor, on the other side of the building, then stood aside at the open door to Robbie's room. It was as cluttered as Macaulay's was tidy, but Angel didn't notice that as she stepped inside. Her gaze was drawn and riveted to the small body hanging by a rope from the overhead light fixture. It turned slowly, as though Robbie's death throes were just moments past. On the floor under him, a chair lay on its side.

  Angel turned to confront Macaulay, but he was gone. She stepped out into the hallway to find it empty. Part of her wanted to run him down, to shake the angelic smugness from his features, but she made herself go back into Robbie's room. She righted the chaff and stood on it. Taking her pen knife from the back pocket of her jeans, she held Robbie against her as she sawed away at the rope. When the rope finally gave, Robbie's dead weight proved to be too much for her and he slipped from her arms, landing with a thud on the floor.

  She jumped down and straightened his limbs. Forcing a finger between the rope and his neck, she slowly managed to loosen the pressure and remove the rope. Then, though she knew it was too late, though his skin was already cooling, she attempted CPR. While silently counting between breaths, she called for help, but no one stirred in the building around her. Either they were sleeping too soundly, or they just didn't want to get involved. Or maybe, a macabre part of her mind suggested, Macaulay's already killed them all. Maybe she hadn't walked by sleeping runaways and street kids on her way to Macaulay's room, but by their corpses...

  She forced the thought out of her mind, refusing to let it take hold.

  She worked until she had no more strength left. Slumping against a nearby wall, she stared at the body, but couldn't see it for the tears in her eyes.

  It was a long time before she could get to her feet. When she left Robbie's room, she didn't go downstairs and leave the building to call the police. She went upstairs, to Macaulay's room. Every room she passed was empty, the sleeping figures all woken and fled. Macaulay's room was empty as well. It looked the same as it had earlier, with one difference. The sleeping bag and the clothes were gone. The line of shoes remained.

  Angel stared at them for a long time before she picked up Everett's boots. She carried them with her when she left the building and stopped at the nearest pay phone to call the police.

  ***

  There was no note, but the coroner ruled it a suicide. But there was still an APB out on Macaulay, and no longer only in Connection with Everett's death. Two of the pairs of shoes found in his squat were identified as belonging to recent murder victims; they could only assume that the rest did as well. The police had never connected the various killings, Lou told Angel later, because the investigations were handled by so many different precincts and, other than the missing footwear, the M.O. in each case was completely different.

  Behind his cherubic features, Macaulay proved to have been a monster.

  What Angel didn't understand was Robbie's suicide. She wouldn't let it go and finally, after a week, of tracking down and talking to various street kids, she began to put together another picture of Macaulay. He wasn't just a killer; he'd also made a habit of molesting the street kids with whom he kept company. Their sex made no difference— just the younger the better. Coming from his background, Macaulay was a classic case of "today's victim becoming tomorrow's predator"— a theorem put forth by Andrew Vachss, a New York lawyer specializing in juvenile justice and child abuse with whom Angel had been in correspondence.

&nb
sp; Even more startling was the realization that Macaulay probably hadn't killed Everett for whatever his usual reasons were, but because Everett had tried to help Robbie stand up to Macaulay. In a number of recent conversations Angel had with runaways, she discovered that Everett had often given them money he'd panhandled, or shown them safe places to flop for a night.

  Why Everett had needed to hide this philanthropic side of himself, no one was ever going to find out, but Angel thought she now knew why Robbie had killed himself: It wasn't just the shame of being abused— a shame that kept too many victims silent— but because Everett had died trying to protect him. For the sweet soul that Robbie had been, Angel could see how he would be unable to live with himself after what had happened that night.

  But the worst was that Macaulay was still free. Two weeks after Everett's death, he still hadn't been apprehended. Lou didn't hold out much hope of finding him.

  "A kid like that," he told Angel over lunch the following Saturday, "he can just disappear into the underbelly of any big city. Unless he gets picked up someplace and they run his sheet, we might never hear from him again."

  Angel couldn't face the idea of Macaulay in some other city, killing, sexually abusing the runaways on its streets, protected by his cherubic features, his easy smile, his guileless eyes.

  "All we can hope," Lou added, "is that he picks himself the wrong victim next time— someone meaner than he is, someone quicker with a knife— so that when we do hear about him again, he'll be a number on an ID tag in some morgue."

  "But this business of his taking his victims' shoes," Angel said.

  "We've put it on the wire. By this time, every cop in the country has had their duty sergeant read it to them at roll call."

  And that was it. People were dead. Kids already feeling hopeless carried new scars. She had a dead man visiting her in her dreams, demanding she do she didn't know what. And Macaulay went free.

  Angel couldn't let it go at that, but there didn't seem to be anything more that she could do.

  ***

  All week long, as soon as she goes to sleep, Everett haunts her dreams.