Night Secrets

by Thomas H. Cook

  “No,” Frank said. “It’s just that I didn’t see her, that’s all.”

  Farouk’s face screwed up slightly. “That is because she is gathered with the saints.”

  “With the what?”

  “Back in her village,” Farouk said. “In Colombia. It is her village that has the Jesus Tortilla.”

  Frank looked at him quizzically.

  Farouk smiled, but with a strange, aching darkness. “Some years in the past, an old woman was frying tortillas,” he explained. “She turned one over, and there it was, a miracle.” His eyes widened in mock amazement. “The face of Jesus.” The smile disappeared. His eyes closed worshipfully. “The face of Jesus,” he repeated.

  “On the tortilla?”

  “As if burned onto it by the hand of God,” Farouk said reverently, his large hand over his heart, still feigning astonishment. “It has since then become a shrine for the local people. Once every five years or so—when the urge comes upon her—Toby returns to it.” He drew in a deep breath. “But she comes back as she was before,” he added wearily. “Only the tortilla was transformed.” He stood up and stretched, groaning slightly as his arms hung motionless in the dimly lighted air.

  Frank smiled, but said nothing.

  Farouk’s arms sank down again, held rigidly, as if bolted to his sides. Dust swirled around him like tiny flakes of dirty snow. “The rites of spring,” he said, as if to himself, “they are not so kind to a man my age.”

  “They’re not that great for anybody,” Frank told him dryly. He returned his attention to the letter, opening it hurriedly as if it might actually contain something important.

  When he’d finished reading, he passed it over to Farouk. “It’s from Imalia Covallo,” he said. “Trying to explain herself.”

  Farouk’s eyes narrowed menacingly. “Covallo,” he whispered as he reached for the letter. “Some things cannot be explained.”

  She’d once been a leading fashion designer, but in a long, winding investigation, Frank had uncovered a lost history, which, in the end, had resulted first in one murder, then another. For this, she was now in prison.

  It was during the ordeal of this investigation that Farouk had come into Frank’s life, an immense, nearly motionless figure in an after-hours bar, one who earned his living simply by “lending assistance in difficult matters,” as he himself had put it at their first meeting. After that they’d moved forward together, as if sewn to each other by a weird, invisible thread, the two of them mismatched in size, Farouk so large against Frank’s lean and haunted look; by color, Farouk’s desert brown, Frank’s Appalachian white; and even by the most basic habits of mind, Farouk cautious and meticulous, Frank hurled forward by a sudden passionate surge.

  In the end, it was a union that had saved Frank’s life, and as he watched Farouk reach for his glasses, he remembered the flash of the pistol that had suddenly materialized in Farouk’s enormous hand, saw Riviera tumble forward, then Farouk again, standing massively behind him, his eyes as calm as his voice when he finally spoke: Come now, my friend. It is not time to die.

  Farouk finished the letter, folded it again, then handed it back to Frank. “Do as you wish,” he said. “But I do not forgive.” Then he smiled brightly as he slapped his great thighs with his hands. “Perhaps we should take in the evening air,” he said.

  Frank shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said reluctantly.

  Farouk smiled. “Are you waiting for a better offer?”

  “No.”

  “Then take what is handed to you,” Farouk said as he got to his feet. He walked to the door and waved Frank through it. “Come.”

  Within a few minutes they were in Hell’s Kitchen Park, enjoying the unusually warm breeze that filtered through the empty swings and seesaws. Frank sat on one of the cement benches, his eyes concentrating on two men who leaned against the black metal bars at the other end of the playground.

  Farouk sat beside him, watching them too. He craned his neck, then scratched beneath his chin. “It is the pettiness that kills you,” he said, as if it had just occurred to him. “One should not be eaten in small bites.”

  “Good cases are hard to find,” Frank said. He thought of Phillips, the blond woman in the photograph. “The dull ones pay the bills.”

  “And a man has to eat, yes?”

  “That’s right,” Frank said. He could tell that something had suddenly gone bad between the two men. They faced each other edgily, their voices growing louder and more strained. In an instant, faster than anyone could imagine, it might all be over, with one body sprawled across the cement, another hanging limply from the fence.

  He looked away, toward the only other people in the park. It was a family of four. The man and woman bounced up and down on the seesaw, one small child cradled in each lap. The woman said something, and all of them laughed. Watching them, Frank wondered what contentment felt like, whether it was real, or just a dream you hadn’t questioned yet.

  “Do you know the tarot?” Farouk asked, in a question that seemed to come from nowhere.

  Frank shook his head.

  “It is an ancient way of learning the future,” Farouk explained. “Like palm reading. Only with cards.” He glanced over at the two men, who were still arguing loudly beside the fence. “One of them should do a reading, to see if he has stepped too near the snake.”

  Frank nodded as he watched. One of the men moved up close to the other, pushed him hard with the flat of his hand, then rotated on his heels and slowly began to walk away, his back turned arrogantly to the other man.

  “To insult and then turn your back,” Farouk said. “One should never be that sure of the weakness of another man.”

  Frank dragged his eyes away from them, let them settle on the gray metal steps of the slide. He started to think of his daughter, as he always did in playgrounds. He blinked quickly, batting her away, then stood up, suddenly tense, agitated.

  “Where are you going?” Farouk asked.

  “I don’t know,” Frank said. “Just moving.”

  Farouk groaned as he rose beside him. “Then I will go as well.”

  They headed back down the avenue. The traffic was moving rapidly alongside them, cars, trucks, Chinese delivery boys on rusting bicycles, and as he walked along, watching it speed by, Frank felt his own unease like thousands of tiny arrows whizzing down the blue corridors of his veins. He didn’t know where it came from, or where it would lead, but only that it was the most authentic part of his character, the part he couldn’t direct, anticipate or control.

  “Look, there, my friend,” Farouk said after a moment. He pointed to a small storefront on the east side of Tenth Avenue. A plain neon sign hung between a dark blue curtain and the unwashed glass: FORTUNES READ.

  Frank stared at the sign. “It’s been there for a few weeks.”

  “Yes, I know,” Farouk said. “I have been watching it.”

  “Watching it?” Frank asked, surprised. “Why?”

  Farouk’s face seemed to grow very thoughtful. “It is an odd thing, memory,” he said. “To think that it might move in both directions, that it might be possible for one to remember the future.”

  Frank regarded him quizzically, but said nothing.

  Farouk drew one side of his coat over his large belly, then pulled his tie up to his throat. “Do you wish to join me?”

  “Join you what?”

  “To discover the future.”

  Frank looked at him unbelievingly. “You don’t believe in that stuff, Farouk,” he said.

  “But it is just an entertainment,” Farouk told him. “A way of passing the time. Will you join me?”

  Frank shook his head.

  “Why not? It can do no harm,” Farouk said insistently. “And besides, it is possible that one may sometimes find a truth stuck in something false.”

  Frank shook his head again, then started to move away.

  Farouk grasped his arm. “Then at least come and observe,” he said insistently
. “The Gypsies are an ancient people.” He smiled and tugged Frank forward. “Come.”

  Frank hesitated a moment as Farouk headed across the avenue, then he moved forward slowly, following him reluctantly until they reached the door.

  Farouk knocked gently, and the door sprang open like a trap. A small, very slender woman stood in the hallway, her hand still on the knob. She wore a blue skirt, embroidered here and there with black horses, and a white blouse. Her face was very brown, and badly wrinkled, with deep webs around the nearly black eyes. Her hair was stone gray, but most of it was hidden beneath a large red scarf.

  “You wish to have your fortune told?” she asked matter-of-factly.

  “That is my wish, yes,” Farouk said. He glanced down at her bare feet. Three of her toenails had been freshly painted a bright purple. “But, perhaps another time?”

  “No, no,” the woman said hastily. She pushed the door open instantly. “Now is good.” She turned and led them through a red beaded curtain into the adjoining room. It was very small, the walls hung with paintings of Jesus, the small tables filled to overflowing with plaster statues of what looked like the Virgin Mary, except the eyes were without pupils and looked strangely black.

  “Please sit down,” the woman said.

  Farouk lowered himself into the plain metal chair that rested beside an equally small table. The table was covered with a very ornate cloth, bright green with red trim, that was embroidered with complicated scenes of jungle life, panthers peering out from behind thick clusters of green foliage, boas coiled around overhanging limbs.

  The woman walked to the window which looked out onto the street and quickly drew a light-blue curtain over it. Then she sat down at the table, facing Farouk, her hands flat down on the cloth, the elbows locked rigidly in place. “I can tell you of yourself,” she said to him, “or I can tell you of your destiny.”

  “They are not the same?” Farouk asked, in a tone that struck Frank as surprisingly serious.

  “They are never the same,” the woman replied crisply. She smiled quietly, with one eye closed, the other one focused intently on Farouk. “You must choose.”

  Farouk nodded. “And one costs more man the other, yes?”

  The closed eye shot open. “Destiny is always more.”

  Farouk glanced over toward Frank. “What should I ask for, my friend?”

  Frank shook his head, then leaned more heavily into the doorjamb at the entrance of the room. Strings of red beads hung over his shoulders like the shredded remnants of a shawl. He raked them away. “Up to you,” he said.

  Farouk looked back at the woman. “Destiny.”

  The woman nodded quickly. “Give me your hands.”

  Farouk stretched his hands toward her.

  The woman took them in hers, turned them palms up, stared at the deep lines. The light in her eyes seemed to dim slowly, then go out. “Ah, yes,” she said, her voice suddenly flat, trancelike. Then she released his hands and drew a deck of cards from beneath the table. “The tarot,” she said, as she began to arrange them on the table. “The cards of divination.”

  A shadow darted across the blue curtain, and Frank leaned forward slightly and glanced to the left, toward the rear of the house. The interior room was separated from the front by another curtain of red beads. It was entirely empty except for several strange musical instruments which hung from one of the walls, a white wicker chair, and a small table, upon which a large red candle burned almost motionlessly, casting netlike shadows over his face as its light passed through the beaded curtain.

  “The Ace of Coins,” the woman told Farouk, “the light of the world.” But Frank could hear her voice only as a faint monotone. It was followed by Farouk’s.

  “Better than the Ace of Scepters,” he said, “the eye of the serpent.”

  Frank continued to watch the place where the figure must have passed in order to throw its shadow on the curtain, but nothing moved. He cocked his head for an instant, tried to hear something other than the fortune-teller, but everything was silent except for her flat, drowsy voice.

  “Another ace,” she said as if surprised, “The Ace of Cups.” She bent down farther, her eyes now concentrating on Farouk. “You must know the truth.”

  Frank glanced back at the fortune-teller, let his eyes linger on her for a time, men drew them back toward the rear of the house. He leaned forward again, inching closer to the thin silvery slits of light that passed through the slender red tentacles of the curtain.

  The candle had been put out, throwing most of the room in deep shadow and leaving only an eerie tunnel of light, which fell directly upon the chair and the woman who now sat silently in it, her face lifted high, her eyes staring boldly into his. She wore a long black dress embroidered in bright designs. A profusion of swirling colors gathered at her waist, and there were two embroidered scorpions curled at her breasts. Her skin was very brown, and her long black hair fell in curls and ringlets to her bare shoulders.

  For an instant, he pulled away, then drew back, watching her more closely, taking everything in, the white sandals that clung to her feet, the long swirling hoops of her earrings. He could tell that she saw him, but she gave no hint of it, not the slightest gesture, but only stared directly toward him, her black eyes burning wildly through the screen of dripping red.

  He nodded toward her gently, awkwardly, and for a moment felt the strange sensation that they were already locked together in a primitive collusion, as if they’d exchanged in whispers some searing line of vital information: I know what you know.

  Suddenly she stood up, stared at him a last smoldering instant, then vanished from the room.

  Frank felt his breath release in a sudden burst, saw the glittering beads again, then heard the fortune-teller’s voice, and pulled his eyes back to her and away from the now empty room.

  She had turned the last of the tarot cards and was staring at it intently, her eyes fixed on the swirling colors of its intricate design. “The Ace of Swords,” she said suddenly. Then she shivered slightly and let her hands drop helplessly to her sides. “No more,” she said quietly.

  Farouk stared at her penetratingly. “You see danger?”

  The fortune-teller shivered again. “Please, you must go now.”

  Farouk leaned forward. “Death? You see death?”

  The fortune-teller stood up. “Go now. I can say no more.”

  Farouk slowly got to his feet. “Please, tell me more,” he insisted. “You must have seen something.” He reached for his wallet. “If it is a matter of money …”

  “No. No money,” the woman replied coldly. “Nothing. Nothing.” She bolted toward the door, opened it instantly. “Please, you must go.”

  Farouk dropped his head forward tragically and moved ponderously out of the room, pausing at the open door. “Madam, are you sure that you …?”

  “No,” the woman snapped. “No. Nothing.” She stepped back and closed the door tightly behind her.

  Farouk snapped his head up immediately after the door had closed, leaving him alone with Frank again. A mocking smile played on his lips. “It is always the same,” he said. “For a thousand years, it has not changed.”

  Frank looked at him questioningly.

  “To see something fearful, then order you to leave,” Farouk explained. “To pretend that money means nothing to you. That is how they deceive.” He shook his head. “It is what they call the Hokkano Baro, the Great Trick, the heart of the sting.”

  “Then why do you go to them?” Frank asked.

  Farouk’s eyes darted away. “For the experience,” Farouk said crisply, his eyes not looking back at the door. “And because they are Gypsies,” he added, “the last of the vagabonds.” His dark eyes swept over Frank. “Have you ever heard the Gypsy prayer, my friend?”

  “No,” Frank said, thinking of the woman again, the strange, invisible net she seemed to have cast over him for an instant, the way his breath had leaped from him when she vanished, as if a lethal grip
had been suddenly relaxed.

  Farouk grinned mysteriously. “The Gypsy prayer,” he repeated, crossing himself as he quoted it. “‘Thank God I got away.’”

  It was past midnight before Farouk finally roused himself from the sofa in Frank’s office and lumbered to the door, hesitated for a moment, then looked back. “I must go to Toby’s now,” he said. “Are you coming later?”

  Frank nodded. “Maybe.”

  Farouk opened the door. “Well, good night then, my friend,” he said as he stepped out into the brick corridor.

  “Good night,” Frank said, then watched out the front window until he saw Farouk mount the short flight of cement stairs, carefully pulling his large frame over the woman who now slept at the bottom of them.

  For a long time after Farouk had disappeared, Frank watched the sleeping woman, how she drew her legs up to her enormous drooping breasts. Even in the shadowy light that covered her, he could still make out the details of her clothing, the tattered shoes and mismatched socks, the long orange coat she used to protect herself from the evening chill.

  He pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk, took out the bottle and poured himself a round. It went down warm, as it always did. He poured a second round, brought it nearly to his lips before he stopped, his eyes fixed on the blue paper that lay crumpled up in the wastebasket beside his desk. He drew it out again, spread it faceup on his desk, and stared at it. It seemed far away, an artifact from a distant time. Then he thought of the woman behind the beaded curtain, and he suddenly returned the whiskey to the bottle, and the bottle to the desk drawer. He didn’t know why, except that if he took another shot, he would take another and another until tomorrow would seem entirely irrelevant.

  He sat back in his chair, closed his eyes and waited. Sleep came upon him slowly, as it always did, like water rising in the room, cutting him off from the dusty light and the sounds of the street that banged against his window. At first it was a kind of slow muffling, then a vague, uneasy darkness, and finally an oblivion so dense and dreamless that, each time he awoke, he sensed that it was not so much from a suspended consciousness as from a dream of death.