The Manitou

by Graham Masterton

  I nodded. “Okay, lieutenant. I understand. Thank you for coming round so quickly.”

  “It’s a pleasure. I’m sorry your client—you know, departed for the spirit-world like that.”

  I managed a wan little grin. “I’m sure she’ll be in touch,” I said. “You can’t keep a good spirit down.”

  I’m sure that Lieutenant Marino thought I was stark, staring mad. He pulled his little black hat over his hedge-like hair, and made for the door.

  “So long then, Mr. Erskine.”

  After he’d gone, I sat down and thought for a while. Then I picked up the telephone and dialed the Sisters of Jerusalem Hospital.

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m inquiring about a patient of yours. Miss Karen Tandy. She came in this morning for an operation.”

  “Hold on, please. Are you a relative?”

  “Oh, yes,” I lied. “I’m her uncle. I just got into town and heard she was sick.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table while I waited. The faint sounds of the hospital came down the line, and I could hear someone paging Dr. Hughes, please, Dr. Hughes. After a minute or so, another voice said: “Hold on, please,” and I was connected through to another lot of noises.

  Eventually, a nasal woman said: “Can I help you? I understand you’re inquiring about Miss Karen Tandy.”

  “That’s right. I’m her uncle. I heard she had an operation this morning and I just wanted to check she was okay.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, sir, but Dr. Hughes tells me there’s been a little complication. Miss Tandy is still under sedation, and we’re having another specialist come in to look at her.”

  “Complications?” I said. “What kind of complications?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t tell you that over the phone. If you want to call in, I could make an appointment for you with Dr. Hughes.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “No, don’t worry. Maybe I could call you tomorrow to check how she is.”

  “Okay, sir. You’re welcome.”

  I put down the phone. Maybe I shouldn’t be worrying, but I was. The strange way in which the cards had behaved last night, and that unnerving incident with Mrs. Herz, not to mention the odd dreams of Karen Tandy and her aunt—everything was making me feel queasy and suspicious. Suppose there really was something out there, something spiritual and powerful and unfriendly?

  I went back to the green-baize table and took out Karen Tandy’s letter and drawings. The coastline, the ship and the flag. Three sketchy pictures from the shores of the night. Three imaginary clues to a problem that might not even exist. I tucked them in my pocket, picked up my car keys, and went off to check them out of the library.

  It was almost closing time when I reached the library and wrestled my Cougar into a tiny parking space on a pile of brown slush. The sky was a dark coppery green, which meant there was more snow on the way, and a bitter wind sliced through my herringbone overcoat. I locked the car and trudged through ankle-deep drifts to the warm wooden library doors.

  The girl behind the desk looked more like a retired madame than a librarian. She wore a tight red cardigan and black piled-up hair, and her teeth would have fitted a horse.

  “I’m looking for ships,” I told her, kicking the melting snow off my shoes.

  “Why don’t you try the docks?” she grinned. “We only have books here.”

  “Ha ha,” I replied coldly. “Now will you tell me where the ships are?”

  “Upstairs, fifth or sixth shelf along. Under SH for keep quiet.”

  I stared at her in amazement. “Did you ever think of going into vaudeville?” I asked.

  “Vaudeville’s dead,” she snapped.

  “So are your jokes,” I told her, and went in search of ships.

  You know something. I never realized how many different kinds of ships there are. I thought there were only about two or three varieties—big ones, little ones and aircraft carriers. But by the time I’d skimmed through fifteen books on maritime engineering, I began to appreciate the size of my task. There were dhows and xebecs, barques and brigantines, frigates and corvettes and destroyers and jolly-boats and dinghies and coracles and barges and tugs and you name it. About half of them looked exactly like Karen Tandy’s funny little sketch.

  I came across the right one almost by accident. I was heaving out a heap of six or seven books, when I dropped the lot with a clatter on the floor. An old guy in glasses who was studying a huge tome on seals (see under SE) turned around and glared me into the ground.

  “I’m sorry,” I said apologetically, and gathered up all the fallen books. And there it was, right under my nose. The identical ship. To me, all old sailing ships were “galleons,” and pretty much alike, but there was something distinctive about the shape of this hull and the way the masts were arranged. It was definitely the ship of Karen Tandy’s dreams.

  The caption underneath the picture said Dutch Man of War, circa 1650.

  The odd prickly feeling went up the back of my neck. Dutch. And what was it that old Mrs. Herz had muttered, back there in my flat? De boot, mijnheer, de boot.

  I took the ship book under my arm and went downstairs to the foreign language section. I lifted out an English-Dutch dictionary, flicked through the pages, and there it was. De boot, the ship.

  Now I’m as reasonable and logical as the next man, but this was more than a coincidence. Karen Tandy had been having nightmares about a Dutch ship from the seventeenth century, and then old Mrs. Herz had started having hallucinations or God knows what about just the same thing. How and why were questions that I just couldn’t answer, but it seemed to me that if Mrs. Herz had been killed by her visitation, then the same thing could happen to Karen Tandy.

  I went back to the desk and checked out the book on ships. The old whore with the horse-like teeth and the black hair gave me a sardonic grin, and that didn’t exactly make me feel any better. A woman like that was enough to give you nightmares on her own, without worrying about mysterious sailing boats from another century.

  “Enjoy your reading,” she grinned, and I pulled a face at her.

  Outside, I found a phone booth, but I had to wait in the freezing wind and snow while a short fat woman called her ailing sister in Minnesota. It was one of those conversations that chases its own tail, and just when you think they’re going to wrap it up, they start all over. In the end, I had to bang on the glass, and the woman glared at me, but at least she finished her epic dialogue.

  I got into the phone booth and thumbed in my dime. I dialed the Sisters of Jerusalem Hospital, and asked for Dr. Hughes; I had to hang on for four or five minutes, stamping the circulation back into my feet, and at last the doctor answered.

  “Dr. Hughes here, can I help you?”

  “You don’t know me, Dr. Hughes,” I said. “My name is Harry Erskine and I’m a clairvoyant”

  “A what?”

  “A clairvoyant. You know, fortunes told, that kind of stuff.”

  “Well, I’m sorry Mr. Erskine, but—”

  “No, please,” I interrupted. “Just listen for one minute. Yesterday I had a visit from a patient of yours, a girl named Karen Tandy.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Dr. Hughes, Miss Tandy told me that ever since she had first felt that tumor of hers, she’d been having recurrent nightmares.”

  “That’s not uncommon,” said Dr. Hughes impatiently. “Many of my patients are subconsciously disturbed by their conditions.”

  “But there’s more to it than that, Dr. Hughes. The nightmare was very detailed and very specific, and she dreamed about a ship. It wasn’t just any old ship, either. She made me a drawing of it, and it turned out to be a very particular ship. A Dutch man of war, dated about 1650.”

  “Mr. Erskine,” said Dr. Hughes. “I’m a very busy man, and I don’t know whether I can—”

  “Please, Dr. Hughes, just listen,” I asked him. “This morning another client of mine came to visit me, and she s
tarted talking in Dutch about a ship. She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t have known a Dutchman if he’d come up wearing dogs and given her a bunch of tulips. She got very upset and hysterical, and then she had an accident.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “Well, she fell downstairs. She was seventy-five years old, and it killed her.”

  There was a silence.

  “Dr. Hughes?” I said. “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m still here. Listen, Mr. Erskine, why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because I think it’s relevant to Karen Tandy, Dr. Hughes. I was told this morning that she had some kind of complications. This dream has already killed one of my clients. I’m worried in case the same thing happens again.”

  Another silence, longer this time.

  Finally, Dr. Hughes said: “Mr. Erskine, this is very irregular. I’m not saying for one moment that I understand what you’re trying to get at, but you seem to have some kind of idea about my patient’s condition. Do you think I could persuade you to come up to the hospital and talk to me about it? There may be nothing in it, but to tell you the truth we’re at a complete impasse with Karen Tandy, and anything, no matter how small, could help us understand what’s wrong with her.”

  “Now you’re talking,” I told him. “Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll be right there. Should I just ask for you?”

  “That’s right,” said Dr. Hughes tiredly. “Just ask for me.”

  By the time I arrived, the slush was freezing up again, and the streets were slidey and treacherous. I parked in the basement of the hospital, and took the elevator up to the reception desk. The girl with the Colgate smile said: “Well hello—it’s the Incredible Erskine, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is,” I told her. “I have an appointment with Dr. Hughes.”

  She buzzed his office, and then directed me to the eighteenth floor. I rose in the warm, hushed elevator, and emerged into a thick-carpeted corridor. A shingle above the door in front of me read dr. j. h. hughes, and I knocked.

  Dr. Hughes was a small, weary man who looked as though he needed a weekend in the mountains.

  “Mr. Erskine?” he said, limply shaking my hand. “Take a seat. Coffee? Or I have something stronger if you prefer it.”

  “Coffee is terrific.”

  He bleeped his secretary to fetch us drinks, and then he sat back in his big black swivel armchair and laced his hands behind his head.

  “I’ve been dealing with tumors for a good many years now, Mr. Erskine, and I’ve seen them all. I’m supposed to be an expert in my field. But I can tell you straight out that I’ve never seen a case like Karen Tandy’s, and I’m frankly bewildered by it.”

  I lit a cigarette. “What’s so special about it?”

  “The tumor isn’t the normal kind of tumor. Without going into too much grisly detail, it doesn’t have any of the usual characteristics of tumorous tissue. What she has there is a fast-growing swelling made of both skin and bone. In some ways, you could almost describe the tumor as being like a fetus.”

  “You mean—a baby? You mean she’s having a baby—in her neck? I don’t understand you.”

  Dr. Hughes shrugged. “Neither do I, Mr. Erskine. There are thousands of recorded cases of fetuses growing in the wrong place. In the fallopian tube for example, or in various kinds of annexations of the womb. But there is no precedent for any sort of fetus growing in the neck area, and there is certainly no precedent for any sort of fetus growing as fast as this one.”

  “Didn’t you operate on her this morning? I thought you were going to remove it.”

  Dr. Hughes shook his head. “That was the intention. We had her on the operating table, and everything was lined up for its removal. But as soon as the surgeon, Dr. Snaith, started making an incision, her pulse-rate and respiration weakened so drastically that we had to stop. Another two or three minutes and she would have died. We had to satisfy ourselves with more X-rays.”

  “Was there any reason for this?” I asked him. “I mean, why did she get so sick?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dr. Hughes. “I’m having a series of tests run on her right now, which will maybe give us the answer. But I’ve never come across anything like it before, and I’m as mystified as anyone else.”

  Dr. Hughes’ secretary brought us in a couple of cups of coffee and some biscuits. We sipped in silence for a while, and then I asked Dr. Hughes the 64,000 dollar question.

  “Dr. Hughes,” I said. “Do you believe in black magic?”

  He stared at me thoughtfully.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

  “I don’t either,” I replied. “But there’s something about this whole business that strikes me as completely weird. You see, Karen Tandy’s aunt is also a client of mine, and she has had the same kind of dream as Karen. Not so detailed, not so frightening—but definitely the same kind of dream.”

  “Well?” asked Dr. Hughes. “What does that suggest to you—as a clairvoyant?”

  I looked at the floor. “I’ll confess to you here and now, Dr. Hughes, that I’m not a serious clairvoyant. It’s my living, if you know what I mean. Usually I’m pretty skeptical about spirits and the occult. But it does seem to me that there’s some kind of outside influence causing Karen Tandy’s condition. In other words, something is making her dream these dreams, and maybe it’s the same thing that’s affecting her tumor and her health.”

  Dr. Hughes was suspicious. “Are you trying to tell me she’s possessed? Like The Exorcist or something?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I don’t believe in that kind of demon. But I do believe that one person can dominate another, through their mind. And I think that somebody or someone is dominating Karen Tandy. Somebody is transmitting a mental signal to her, a signal that’s powerful enough to make her ill.”

  “But what about her aunt? And this old lady client of yours—the one who fell down the stairs this morning?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think that this somebody really meant to harm them. But it’s just like any powerful signal that’s sent over a considerable distance—any receiver that happens to be in the area it’s being sent to tends to pick it up, too. Mrs. Karmann and Mrs. Herz were close to Karen Tandy, or to places where she’d been, and they picked up the backwash from the main transmission.”

  Dr. Hughes rubbed his eyes, and then looked at me narrowly. “All right—supposing someone is sending a signal to Karen Tandy, with the intention of making her ill. Who is it, and why are they doing it?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. But don’t you think it might do some good if we talk to Karen herself?”

  Dr. Hughes spread his hands. “She’s in pretty bad shape. Her parents are flying in this evening, in case we can’t pull her around. But I guess it wouldn’t affect her chances if we tried.”

  He lifted the phone and spoke to his secretary. In a few minutes, she bleeped back and said she’d made arrangements for us to visit Karen.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to wear a surgical mask, Mr. Erskine,” said Dr. Hughes. “She’s quite weak, and we don’t want any more infections getting into her system.”

  “That’s okay by me.”

  We went down to the tenth floor, and Dr. Hughes showed me into a dressing room. As we tied on green surgical robes and masks, he explained that he would have to ask me to leave if her condition worsened even slightly.

  “I’m only letting you see her because you have a theory, Mr. Erskine, and anybody with a theory could help us. But I warn you that this is all very unofficial, and I don’t want to have to explain to anyone why you’re here.”

  “I get you,” I said, and followed him down the corridor to Karen Tandy’s room.

  It was a big corner room, with a view of the snowy night on two sides. The walls were pale hospital green, and there were no flowers or decorations, except for a small picture of a fall day in New Hampshire. Karen Tandy’s bed was surrounded with surgical equipment, and th
ere was a clear drip feed going into her right arm. She had her eyes closed, and she looked as white and wan as the pillow she was lying on. There were dark umber circles around her eyes, and I could hardly recognize her as the girl who had come into my apartment the previous night.

  But it was the tumor that was the most startling. It had swollen and grown around her neck, pale and fat and threaded with veins. It must have been twice the size it was the night before, and it was almost touching her shoulders at the back. I looked across at Dr. Hughes and he simply shook his head.

  I pulled up a chair to her bedside and laid my hand on her arm. She felt very cold. She stirred a little, and her eyes opened slightly.

  “Karen?” I said softly. “It’s me—Harry Erskine.”

  “Hello,” she whispered. “Hello, Harry Erskine.”

  I leaned closer. “Karen,” I said. “I’ve found the ship. I went to the library and looked it up and it was there.”

  Her eyes flickered toward me.

  “You’ve—found it?”

  “It’s a Dutch ship, Karen. It was built around 1650.”

  “Dutch?” she said weakly. “I don’t know what it could be.”

  “Are you sure, Karen? Are you sure you haven’t ever come across it before?”

  She tried to shake her head, but the distended tumor prevented her. It bulged from the back of her neck like an awful pallid fruit.

  Dr. Hughes laid his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think we’re getting very far, Mr. Erskine. Maybe we just ought to leave it.”

  I grasped Karen’s wrist more firmly.

  “Karen,” I said. “What about de boot? What about de boot, mijnheer?”

  “The—what?” she whispered.

  "De boot, Karen, de boot."

  She closed her eyes, and I thought she’d gone back to sleep again, but then something seemed to shift and stir on the bed. The bulging white tumor sudden wriggled, as though there was something alive inside it.