On the way back, Damianos sat in the back seat with me and I began to warm up to this odd but personable character. I don’t think he was more than maybe forty, had very amber eyes and light hair, well groomed. He gave me a phone number that I must share with no one and to call within 48 hours for further instructions. Where in the hell would this next chapter of my life take me? As 1928 was coming to a close, could it be my life was, too!
Eusapia Palladino: Predicting the Future in Ragtime
It was one of those days when the Santa Anas blew hot and dry from the mountains to the east. Whatever was in those winds made people feel restless and irritable. Honey and I had experienced a disagreement of profound proportion and I found myself feeling less and less in the center of her life. The Hollywood agency that represented her had urged her to change her look along with her name. So, when Honey Combes officially became Lana Loren, her hair became a shoulder-length platinum with a flip on the bottom, her eyebrows got thinned and those warm blue eyes and lips of hers were suddenly set off with enough make-up and color to disguise an Egyptian princess.
Anyway, this makeover thing bothered me. You know how men are, a bit on the territorial side. I didn’t want my woman becoming someone else without at least consulting me. She said she did—I said she didn’t or I would never have gone for it—hence the impasse which left a sour taste in the mouth of our relationship. I also wondered how that transformation might affect her image as a singing entertainer at the Bella Notte.
For whatever silly reason, I decided to take Crazy Jack along with me to my appointment with Eusapia Palladino, the famous psychic Wonder Woman. We had gotten off the trolley at Main and 37th Street and had to walk a couple of blocks to Madame Palladino’s parlor of mystique, which turned out to be a little old house set back about twenty-five feet from the sidewalk.
On the way to Madame Palladino’s, I was trying to communicate with Crazy Jack, which often wasn’t that easy. “So, Jack,” I was saying, “since you steered me on to this broad, tell me what to expect. I mean, I’ve never been to a soothsayer or fortune teller, or whatever she is, before.”
Crazy Jack popped his neck and raised one shoulder higher than the other and jerked it. “I don’t know! I don’t know! You mention the dimensions…but I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“Dimensions?” I said, giving Jack a strange look.
“I don’t know! Other rooms…like you find…in the mind, but I don’t know! I don’t know! Cigarette!”
He was always mooching Lucky Strikes off me. I took out the whole pack as I always did, lit one for him, took one for myself and tucked the rest of the pack in his pocket. I lit up and we continued our walk. “So, you need to know I got a free ride to chloroform city the other night. Some strange guy hired some goons to kidnap me off the street, dope me up and spit me out once I promised the head mystery man I’m going to birddog out that God of Our Fathers golden capsule thing. Now I’m kinda stuck, Jack. Got any feelings about that, Crazy Jack?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know! Sounds like a fanatic from the attic—but he won’t hurt you—but I don’t know—someone else might! Ha! ha! I don’t know!”
“You talked about a train trip or something the other night when we met near the Bella Notte. Any more thoughts on that?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know! Maybe you’ll miss the mark if you take the Lark by night—sent by woman to find a woman—but I don’t know! I don’t know!”
We reached the front of the house that belonged to one ‘Eusapia Palladino: Psychic Wonder Woman,’ so stated the large rickety white sign with black lettering. I told Crazy Jack to wait for me outside. “I don’t know! I don’t know! They might see me! But I don’t know!”
“Who might see you, Jack?”
“I don’t know!—them…” He looked across the street. “Them. They’re everywhere—they want to catch me, but I don’t know! I don’t know!”
I rapped on the door and soon a very short, rather frumpy looking woman stood before us. “Madame Palladino? She nodded, looking us over. I’m—I’m Cable Denning—and this is Crazy Jack, my friend.” We must have looked quite the pair, a cop and a down and out bum from skid row.
“Yes, please come in.” She led us into a very small living room. I was looking for a crystal ball, a mysterious cornucopia or a big megaphone to call up the dead, but I saw nothing. She looked at Jack with some disgust—he probably smelled somewhere between sweat, tobacco and garlic. “Would you be kind enough to wait there on that chair, by the kitchen table?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know! The Photes might get me! I don’t know!”
Madame Palladino looked up at me, then back at Jack. “The Photes?”
“I don’t know—they’re everywhere! Invaders—but I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“I think you’ll be just fine, Crazy Jack,” I said. “If you need me, just call and I’ll come help you with the Photes, okay?” That seemed to comfort him a little. I was escorted to a seat at a small round table. “Will you be comfortable with only candlelight, Mr. Denning? Didn’t you say you were a police officer?”
“Not if I can help it,” I joked. “But, yeah, I play at it. Don’t like it a lot anymore. Got discouraged by all the chicanery going on in the force these days, particularly since Prohibition. By the way, I was under the impression that
Eusapia Palladino was much older.”
“You are speaking of my aunt, who died in 1918. I took her name when I began to use my powers here some years ago. Her sister, my mother, was equally gifted with seeing through the dimensions of time and space. My mother trained me and I guess successive generations become more educated and better at what their forebears began.”
“I see,” I said, twiddling my fingers, wondering what in the hell I was doing in a spiritualist’s living room. “So, you know why I came?”
“How could I? I require something that belongs to you.” Her mouth was tight and small, she was a bit over-weight and stood no taller than five feet from the ground. Her eyes were dark-brown and her nose slightly flattened. Her hair was short, thin and non-descript, while her eyebrows were dark and thick. I figured her for about thirty-five. “Perhaps a memento, some keys, a wallet?”
“My wallet!” I kidded her, “you mean you want to rob my wallet before your bill does?”
She did not laugh. I guess she was lacking in that certain lightness of spirit that humor can bring to a situation. I handed her my keychain. She lit three candles on the table before us. One was white, one red and the middle one… black. I’d never seen a black candle before. She closed her eyes and started swaying with my keys in the palm of her hand. “Your journey is frightening, rewarding, violent…yet…full of…of love, Mr. Denning. How strange this should be so.” Then I heard a bell ring and I looked around. “Not from this world…do
not be alarmed. We are being visited from the other side of the veil.”
I looked around for any sign of a bell. None. “Veil? So where’s the sound coming from if not from this dimension?” I asked, baffled.
“Everything is manifest in everything else. Good and evil are opposite sides of the same coin. We must not run from evil, but walk into it, greet it as we would a friend who is lost and ill-intentioned toward strangers. That is why we light the black candle, Mr. Denning. Sin is necessary in order for redemption to take place.”
So far I wasn’t comfortable with any of it. And I worried about Crazy Jack out there in the kitchen itching and scratching. He did that a lot. He probably picked up some fleas or lice from that dump where he lives. “I’m only here because Crazy Jack out there has a record for being psychically accurate. But I don’t personally believe much in the occult crap.”
She didn’t look up but continued with her eyes closed. “Please…you must be silent now. The spiritual universe does not care whether or not we believe, Mr. Denning. It just is, whether we accept or not.” Then she went into what appeared to b
e a deeper trance. Then her voice changed into what I could swear was someone else! The voice became low and eerie, and spoke in measured tones. “That which you seek lays hidden in a night of knights in a castle far away. The Deus Patrum Nostrorum must rest in its rightful place. You are chosen of truth to bring it there. Humans must not access it. It cannot be destroyed by human hands. Others will attempt to kill you for it. It will protect you through the Asian Virgin of Nymphaea Ou. What must be destroyed is the icon photograph inside the capsule. The golden egg itself is the true Deus Patrum Nostrorum. Go to a city by the large bay, facing west, look to the west that leads to the East. Look to the west…that leads to the East…”
Then my hostess jerked herself out of the trance. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at me. I could hear Crazy Jack in the background mumbling, “I don’t know! I don’t know! I think they’re here—but I don’t know!” It appeared the “photes” had caught up with him and it was time to take him back home.
“That is all we can bring you today, Mr. Denning.”
“That’s it? If you’re really Wonder Woman, how can I pull a wonder out of that scant information? That voice—was it really you disguising your own? C’mon, you can tell a young cop with a nose for detective work.”
Madame Palladino seemed insulted. “Yes you are young, and you are also quite arrogant. I was not present during the channeling, so I cannot say what was told you. But give me my twenty dollars and please leave with your friend. If…what was told to you does not prove to be true—I will refund your money.” We walked to the kitchen to fetch Crazy Jack. “When my grandmother left Naples for Bulgaria, she had mastered levitation, elongation, raised heavy tables into the air with thought power and played musical instruments remotely. I can do the same. For two hundred dollars I could give you a complete demonstration.”
I handed her a twenty-dollar bill. “That’s more dough than a policeman’s salary can afford. But as far as what I heard here today, I’ve got no choice but to believe you, Madame Palladino. Out of curiosity, I’d sure be interested in seeing some of what you just mentioned, though.” I looked at poor Crazy Jack sitting at the table, itching and scratching, twisting his neck around and around. “Well, Jack, are you ready to hit the road?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know! The Photes came in! They’re waiting outside—to grab me—but I don’t know—photes! Bad!”
I looked at Madame Palladino with a raised eyebrow. “Sometimes gifted people see things ordinary mortals do not see, Mr. Denning. Your friend may indeed see through the veil. He led you here, didn’t he?”
I couldn’t argue with that, so I took Crazy Jack by the arm, thanked Madame Eusapia Palladino and left. We walked to the streetcar line stop. An accordion player with an old cigar box at his feet stood across the street playing I’m Always Chasing Rainbows and it hit me pretty hard because it was one of the songs my mother used to play on our little wind-up phonograph when I was a kid…and suddenly I was ripped back to melancholy nights watching my mother sit on a beat up old cushion chair listening. Only she played the Chopin version, a solo piano. Sometimes I was embarrassed to go home and visit her. Just across town, you know, to a land of tough times and poverty. I wished I could help her better her life situation. But she said she didn’t want to change anything. That she would live and die on that same street where I was born. For a minute I got homesick. I must see her soon.
On the streetcar home, Jack was nodding his head up and down. “I don’t know! I don’t know!” he was chattering under his breath.
“If this Palladino broad was on the level, Jack, then I’ve got three major challenges here. One, how in the hell do I figure out the riddle of what is meant by the capsule being hidden in night of nights in a faraway castle? What the crap does that mean? Sounds like some fairy tale shit to me. Second, this weird stuff about an Asian virgin, of all things, from Nymphomania or some such place—and third, what city has a large bay facing west? Los Angeles Harbor?”
Crazy Jack put his finger to his temple, “I don’t know! But maybe you’ll find it so, where the redwood grows! But I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“Redwood? Ah, you mean Redwood trees.”
“I don’t know! I don’t know! Ferries cross the channel—hide and seek, find the peak called twins. Ha! ha! But I don’t know!”
“Well, Crazy Jack,” I said as we stepped out of the streetcar on Main street “The only city in California that’s big enough and has a bay near Redwood trees is San Francisco. Maybe that’s it?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know! Never been! But my sin comes creeping in to say I never knew! ‘Cause I don’t know!”
I took Jack across the street to a little stand and bought him a couple of tacos. He relished them and I stood with him watching the noisy, dirty traffic make its way along the crowded streets across from us. I noticed that the little Mexican gal who waited on us somehow looked like she didn’t belong. Soon Crazy Jack got restless and I gave him carfare and thanked him for his help. He left and I could hear him mumble to himself as he inspected the coins I had given him. “I don’t know! I don’t know!”
I threw my wrapper in the garbage can by the concession when suddenly the little gal behind the counter said, “Are you Mr. Denning?” I was floored.
How in the hell would this petite little gal know me?
“Depends on who’s asking and what for?” I said.
Her accent was pretty thick, but she was pert and had a hell of a figure, as well as those warm, dark eyes Latinas are known to show off in the pre-bedroom ritual. “Will you please follow me? It is safe to know me. I am only a messenger for someone.”
“And how in the hell did you—or anyone—know Crazy Jack and I were getting off the streetcar here on Main Street—this particular spot? It could have been anywhere in the city, lady.”
“Lo siento mucho, señor. I follow instrucciones. Por favor, follow me.” I checked my pocket for my .38 but had left it at home. I followed my gut and the little señorita to a phone booth. There she tossed in a nickel and told someone at the other end I was present with her. Then she hung up.
“Please wait, señor. Look over there. Allí. Someone will pick you up,” she said, looking up a rather dark alley.
I was thinking about what clues would lead me to that unknown city I had yet to discover. “Is there a travel agency near here?” I asked of the pretty little lady waiting with me.
“Sí…mi hermana, Señorita Moreno, has Todo el Mundo across the street, over there. She can get you ticket to Sud America—or anywhere!”
I decided to skip out on the arrival of the mysterious surprise package and told the lady I’d be across the street. I walked in to a green and yellow painted room with a potted palm tree in a corner. Behind a small desk stood a larger version of the young Mexican woman across the street selling local food. But this lady was a dish, from A to Z. She wore a bright yellow skirt with matching blouse, stood about five-six, had those same tantalizing eyes her sister possessed and a figure that belonged on the inside of the Police Gazzette. Her face was beautiful, with a gorgeous aquiline nose and full lips… slightly pouty. Her shiny black hair was up in a bun with a silver barrette holding it together.
“Hi, there. Your sister across the street…uh…directed me here. I think I’m interested in a train trip. I’m just not sure where yet.”
Her voice was warm and charming. “Señor, I am Adora Moreno, at your service.” I sure wish she meant that in all departments. This gal had something that turned a switch on in me. “How can I help you?”
“Well, I’ve been presented with a mystery, you see. Maybe you can help. I need to find a city facing west with a large bay, Redwood trees growing nearby, maybe some hills or mountains close together that look alike, a fairyland castle nearby—oh, yeah, and an Asian virgin called Nymphomania or something like that.”
The beautiful young woman looked at me strangely. “Have you been drinking—I mean too much
tequila, señor? I never have customer oh, so—so extraño!”
“No, I like gin and smoke cigarettes and chase beautiful women, but…no, I’m not drunk, Miss—Miss Moreno.”
She came out from behind her desk. I had a feeling she was as drawn to me as I was to her. She extended her hand. “Entonces, it is a pleasure to meet you and let us see if we can find your city by the bay, a fairyland castillo, some montañas like twin breasts—and one Asian virgin.”
“I’m—I’m Denning—Cable Denning…” I said, shaking her hand. A jolt of electricity went through both of us. We registered it with our eyes and it took a few seconds for us to recover. “I—I, uh, sure would be grateful if you could help me out. You see, this isn’t exactly a pleasure trip.”
She looked me over. “I can see, you are a mysterious—and maybe dangerous man.” She went back behind her desk and took out a folder. “Come, Señor Denning…venga aquí so I show you.” I came around to where she stood behind the desk. As she leaned over the map, her ample breasts fell forward and the loose blouse permitted me to see two marvelous cantaloupes just right for the picking. “Ay, aquí—here! San Francisco has everything except el castillo I believe. Here you have big bay, ferryboats to carry la gente, facing west al océano. Probably you find your virgin aquí—in Chinatown! Big trees with red bark grow across the water in Muir Woods Parque Nacional. No other ciudad has all those that meet together, Señor Denning. You want to buy ticket on the Owl, the Lark or the Daylight?”
I thought about what Crazy Jack had said, something about a Lark… “Thanks a bunch, Miss Moreno. I think I’ll take the Lark. I owe you a dinner or something—you have helped me mucho, señorita.”
“Con mucho gusto,” she replied. “When, señor, do you wish to depart?”
“I need about three days to wrap things up with my sergeant, and take care of some miscellaneous business.”
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