by Wolfe, Gene
Barnes said, “That must have been while the rest of us were inside looking after that cop.”
The old woman shook her head. “It was the six P.M. Morning Report.”
Stubb grunted. “They had it taped, Mrs. Baker. Maybe even from before we moved in, when a lot of people were protesting the new ramp. What else did these ladies say?”
“Nothing match. Just that they had been looking for poor Mr. Free because he had crash coming, but when they got there he wasn’t here. Factually, the whole kitten caboose of you wasn’t. A missus as good as a mile, like they say, even if maybe they were married. They didn’t take their gloves off, either one.”
“They must have given you their names.”
Mrs. Baker hesitated, chin tucked in. She was sitting in the vanity chair, her back as straight as its own.
“First names? Last names? Anything?”
“I know they said them, but I was in a fluster. Then the little one saw Puff and asked what’s Puff’s name, and I told her Puff, and she run over and hid under the divan like she does, and I never thought to ask again. Do you think it’s a lot of crash?”
Stubb shook his head.
“Still, it might be a lot to him. The widow’s might, it’s called, I believe. You could call it the widower’s might nearly as good. Mr. Free was a widower, I expect.”
“But you don’t know?”
“He always seemed so widower-weedy, if you know what I mean. Not like a old bachelor—they’re always so crispy. The worst old women is the ones that wear pants in the family, they say. But I think old bachelors are worse even, and Mr. Free is so sweet. He casts his spelling over you.”
The witch asked quickly, “Just what do you mean by that?”
Mrs. Baker smiled her vague smile. “Why if I could say, it wouldn’t be spelling, would it? But Mr. Free used to come over and chew the rug now and then. The late Mr. Baker was a deer bomber in the war, and Mr. Free liked to hear about that and talk about his old company that he used to work for, Louise Clerk I think it was.” She sighed. “The closest I can put it is I never felt truffles was important when he was around. He had a beam in his eyes, like the Bible tells, and it lit up within.”
Barnes nodded and cleared his throat. “You know, I felt like that too. I felt like it wasn’t all that important whether I made the sale. I made some good ones too, just before we had to leave.”
“Yesterday I saw you go out my window,” the old woman said. “It wasn’t nosiness, it’s just that looking at the street’s more real-like, sometimes, than TV. I knew you were sailing because of those big valances you carried, and I thought someday you’d come to my door to sell me pans or bicyclopedias. You’d have thought I fell for your line hook and ladder, because I would have let you in and looked at everything. If you’d have told me about Mr. Free, I might have bought a new rooster too. I need one.”
Stubb was thumbing the telephone book. “No Louise Clerk & Company,” he said. “No Clerk, Louise in the residential section either.”
“I think they’re out of business,” Mrs. Baker told him. “They went backripped, I suppose. He said it was years black.”
Candy put in, “He would have retired at sixty-five, Jim, and I think he was over seventy.”
Stubb nodded. “I’m afraid we don’t know where Mr. Free is any more than you do, Mrs. Baker.” He slapped the telephone book shut. “But we’d like to find him. I’ll write down the hotel number and the number of this room for you. If you find him or hear where he is, I want you to call me. Don’t tell those women anything until you hear from me. I doubt that there’s any money. That’s something all investigators say when they want to find someone.”
“I was thinking—” Mrs. Baker took a handkerchief from her purse. “I was thinking if he’d crashed in he might have saved his house. Paid on somebody. I used to think how lucky all of you were to room in board there.” She blew her nose, a sound like Puff sneezing. “He told me all your names, but I think I’ve got them stirred up now and you aren’t who I thought. Just the same, I feel I know you from those years ago. The dark lady’s Miz Garth, because he said Miz Garth was an adventuress, and she’s so pretty. That makes the other lady—”
The bathroom door flew open. “I have my questions!” Sandy Duck waved her notebook triumphantly.
Chapter 16
CATOPTROMANCY
“Who was that woman anyway?” Sandy asked when she had settled into the plastic-cushioned hotel chair Barnes vacated for her.
“And is that the first of your questions?” The witch raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, no! I was just curious.”
“But you are not curious about the subjects of your other questions.”
“Yes, I am, of course. Very much so. Sandy’s round little face was confused and concerned.
“Then this question is of a piece with them, and counts as the first. Her name is Mrs. Baker, and—”
“Wait!” The notebook waved again, now a placard of protest. “You’re not in good faith. You’re just playing with me.”
“And are you in good faith? I spend my entire life, nearly every waking hour, in the pursuit of eternal truth and transcendent authority, and you come here with your three questions for an idiotic article that will be thrown away as soon as it is read. Is that good faith?”
“Yes,” Sandy said. “Yes, it is.”
The witch stared at her.
“In the first place, I didn’t come here with just three questions. I came with scads, and you were the one who said only three. In the second place, sure some copies we sell will be pitched out as soon as they’ve been read once, but a lot won’t be. To start with, we keep two sets in the office. They go clear back to 1927, when Who Knows?—that was our original title—was founded. The Mary-Sue Jordan Smith Memorial Library of the Occult in Belhaven, North Carolina has a complete set too—”
“She was a fool,” the witch interrupted.
Sandy looked baffled, and Stubb said, “The Smith woman?”
“Yes, I knew her. She had some talent, perhaps, but she had no judgement. She was appallingly ignorant as well.”
Sandy looked at Candy Garth as though for support. “I think she died in nineteen forty-seven.”
“Pah! Nineteen forty-five. Continue.”
“That’s all.” Sandy held up her hands as though she were balancing two coconuts. “I was just going to say that lots of our readers keep all our issues for years and years. They write and tell us, or say they have everything except a certain one, and ask if we’ll sell them that. We do, for five dollars, if we’ve got it.”
“How could I not cooperate with a publication so highminded? Very well then. My favorite recording artist is a man in Senegal, of whom you have never heard. I sleep in the nude. If I were stranded on a desert island—”
Candy shouted, “Oh, shut up! For God’s sake, let her ask her damn questions and get out of here. I’m tired and I’m not buzzed any more and I’m so damn hungry I may faint. You!” She glared at Sandy. “Ask the first one. She’ll answer it or I’ll sit on her.”
The young woman from Hidden Science/Natural Supernaturalism cleared her throat. “Madame Serpentina, you are one of the most profound practitioners of the occult today. In your opinion, what one thing can the average person do that would most improve his or her position vis-a-vis the unseen world?”
“See.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Apprehend, if you wish a longer answer.”
“This isn’t a question, but I’d appreciate it if you’d enlarge a little on that. You promised to answer ‘fully and fairly’ after all.”
“Most unenlightened people believe they see what they believe they will see,” the witch said. “They should not do that. To see the unseen world, it is necessary to look—that is why wisdom has so often been depicted as a third eye.”
Sandy hesitated, then nodded. “I see.”
“I doubt it.”
Stubb interposed. “Time for
the second question, I think.”
“All right, second question.” Sandy took a deep breath. “Madame Serpentina, by what simple test—if such a test exists—can our readers determine whether they themselves or others who in their opinion may possess them, actually have occult powers?”
“Certainly such a test exists.” The witch straightened her shoulders and with both hands smoothed the black lace of her skirt. “You must understand that we are speaking of talents, just as one who might seek to isolate a future symphonist from a group of students would be intent upon talents. Occult talents differ from musical, or mathematical, or athletic talents in certain ways, but they are talents still. Those who possess them show signs of the same sort. I mean an easy mastery of the rudiments combined with a ‘signature’ —a characteristic their teachers may or may not appreciate that distinguishes their work from that of others.”
“But—”
“For example, a woman who believes herself clairvoyant should, more than once and more than twice, attempt cartomancy. If her most surprising predictions are often validated by subsequent events, she may proceed to more difficult things. A man who puts himself forward as a medium, let him call up spirits—then see if they come.”
Sandy remained speechless for a moment, then sighed. “Now I’m just dying to ask you about fakes, but you wouldn’t answer, would you? Unless we counted it as the third question?”
The witch shook her head.
Stubb said, “I’ll answer. I’ve checked out a few of those guys for nervous relatives. And what the hell, you’re not interviewing me, so anything I say is free. So what I say is, I never in my life met a man that had a dog that would come every time he called it. But I’ve met a lot of stage people who’d go into their acts every chance they got, and sometimes for no reason at all. If a guy comes up with some sort of spook every time he tries, you can bet the rent he’s a performer. The guy whose dog stops coming if somebody looks hard to see if it’s a real dog or a kid in a dog suit’s a performer too.”
The witch’s lip curled ever so slightly. “Since Mr. Stubb has seen fit to put himself forward as enlightened, I have no alternative but to proffer an answer—or at least half an answer—myself.”
Sandy started to speak, but the witch raised her hand to stop her. “Do not thank me. Whatever gratitude you may feel should be directed to him, not me. My half answer is this—that the real problem confronting one who would judge mediumship is not distinguishing true spirits from bogus ones, as Mr. Stubb appears to believe. The great problem that confronts such a person is distinguishing honest and beneficent spirits from dishonest and malicious ones. One who can do that will have no difficulty unmasking shams; but one who cannot do it, and do it reliably, had much better have no traffic with spirits at all unless he can procure the assistance of a trustworthy expert. Now let us have your third and last question, please.”
“All right.” Sandy gulped. “The third and last question, but before I read it I want to tell you I am grateful to you, whatever you say.
“Third question. Madame Serpentina, what event of great importance to America do you foresee within the next ten years?”
The witch laughed. Her laugh was charming when she wished it to be, and it was charming now—Bames felt she had never been so desirable. “I do not cast the nation’s horoscope every day. Indeed, I do not much approve of the casting of horoscopes at all, as that art is commonly understood. One baseball team will defeat another, a short politician will be beaten by a tall one, valleys will flood, and the ground will shake; aircraft will plummet from the sky. I can tell you all that, but there is nothing of the unseen world about it—it is all the world that is too much seen, and in fact the world that does not have to be seen at all, since anyone can read of it in a newspaper. I will couch all those things in suitably cryptic verse for you, if you wish.”
“But that wasn’t my question—none of it was my question. I want to know just one event of great importance, as specifically as you can give it to me. We’ll print your prediction, and don’t forget that your reputation will depend somewhat on what you say. If you have to cast a horoscope, go ahead and do it.”
The witch shook her head. “Casting the horoscope of an entire nation—as I do such things—would require weeks. I will make a prediction because I have promised, if I can. If I cannot, you must leave without one. Are you familiar with catoptromancy?”
“I don’t even know what it means.”
“Perhaps you will see some. Ozzie, would you please open the drapes?”
Barnes fumbled for a moment before finding the cords at one side of the window. The stores and offices across the street were in three and four-storied buildings for the most part, so that the window looked out over a dark panorama of ugly roofs.
“Cloudy,” the witch said. “Very cloudy. Nevertheless, perhaps we might try. Ozzie, Mr. Stubb, I wish the mirror to be taken from that—that thing there. The dresser, or whatever one calls it. Can you do that for me?”
“I doubt it,” Stubb told her. He jerked the article in question away from the wall and glanced at its back. “Big tamper-proof screws. I might get it off in half an hour if I had a tool kit, but I don’t.”
“Then you will have to move the whole affair until it faces the window. Not right against the glass necessarily, but fairly close. Ozzie, assist him.”
Sandy pushed her chair back to let them past.
“Good. That is fine. Now open the window.”
“It’s cold out there,” Barnes protested.
“I am aware of it. Miss Garth, would you prefer that I call you Candy?”
“No,” Candy said.
“I do not blame you. Miss Garth, will you please extinguish the lights? You are nearest the switch, I think.”
The room was plunged into night. Sandy stirred in her chair and made one of those little moans for which there is no name. Barnes was wrestling with the window catch in the blackness. He won and slid back the glass.
“Now what?” Stubb asked.
“Now you wait until I tell you otherwise.”
Candy, rummaging the floor near where she sat, found her white raincoat and draped it about her shoulders. None of the others moved.
The faint noises of traffic rose from the street below. There was no wind, but the room quickly became cold. Somewhere nearby, the door of another room opened and closed.
“If you don’t—” Sandy began. The witch, leaning forward from her position on the bed, touched her knee to silence her.
An airplane droned far overhead. At thirty-five hundred feet the dark masses of snow cloud parted. Moonlight reached down toward the spire of the Consort, shone through the open window of Room 777, touched the mirror, and was reflected back and lost in the lightless sky.
“Shut the window,” the witch said. “Close the drapes. Now you must all listen to me and do as I tell you. You must not look into that mirror. When Miss Garth turns on the lights, you may talk among yourselves, or walk about, or do anything else you wish, but you must keep your eyes from the mirror. Do not speak to me; I will not be able to answer you …” She continued, rapidly yet solemnly, but the words were in a tongue none of them understood.
“Hell, we can’t look into it,” Stubb said.
Barnes told him, “I think she wants us to put it back where it was.”
Candy flicked the switch and called to Sandy Duck, “Get up and help them. That thing must weigh a ton.” With a woman at each front corner and a man at each rear corner, the vanity was restored to its original position.
“Now what?” Sandy asked. She was the smallest of them all, shorter even (if the heels had been pulled from her shoes) than Stubb, and she was panting a little.
“Now we don’t look in it,” Barnes said. “You heard her.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Oh, Lord,” Candy muttered. “What now?”
A voice outside announced room service.
Candy opened the door, and the t
hird bellman wheeled in a laden cart. She looked frantically at Stubb, who waved a reassuring hand.
“Four dinners,” the bellman said. “I’ll put them on the table for you. Fish. Pie. Club. Steak. Fruit. Two coffees. Beer. Scotch. Glass of wine. That everything?”
“I think so,” Stubb said.
“Lady will have to sign for it,” the bellman said. “Unless you’re paying. Say, is she all right?”
The witch relaxed and nodded. “I am fine. I will sign. May I put a tip for you on the bill when I sign it?”
“Yes, Ma‘am. That will be fine, Ma’am. Thank you very much.”
She took the check and his pen. “Your friend—do you know whom I mean? He has not returned with my seventy dollars. If you should see him, will you ask him to do so? I am somewhat inconvenienced.”
“I certainly will, Ma’am. Joe ought to have got back to you with that quite a while ago. I’ll tell him.”
Stubb said, “Maybe he’s off already.”
The bellman shook his head as the witch handed back the check. “He’ll be on the rest of the night. We don’t get off till seven.” He grinned. “That’s very generous of you, Ma’am. Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“I do think something of it, Ma‘am, and I appreciate what you gave when we carried your bags up, too. Ma’am—maybe I shouldn’t say it, but I know something, something confidential, that maybe I ought to tell you about.”
“Then tell me,” the witch said. She had speared a section of mandarin orange, and she punctuated the words by thrusting it into her mouth.
“It’s confidential.” The third bellman looked around at Stubb, Sandy, Candy, and Barnes. “Maybe you could step into the hall with me for just a moment?”
Barnes said, “You don’t have to do that, Madame Serpentina. We’ll go outside if you want us to.”