An Affair of Sorcerers

by George C. Chesbro

  “You’re thinking that all this is going to be hard to prove,” I continued, not having the slightest idea what he was thinking—if he was thinking at all. I was fighting off a growing sense of panic. “True. But there have to be records somewhere; records and insurance policies. I’ll get to it, Jordon, I assure you. Maybe I won’t find out anything, maybe I will. But if you are guilty, you’ve got an opportunity few murderers do: you can almost square things by giving yourself up. The reason I haven’t had time to do any real investigating on you is because I’ve been working on a case involving a little girl who’s dying. Now she’s slipping fast, and if there’s even a chance that Esteban can give her a few more days, I want her to have those days. You can give them to her. Personally, I doubt that the old man can do her any good. But you’d know better than I would if Esteban has any healing gifts; you kept records on the patients he worked with.”

  I paused to give Jordon a chance to say something; anything. He sat as rigid and silent as a catatonic. My mouth was dry and puckered, and there was an acid, burning taste at the back of my throat.

  “Here’s the bottom line,” I continued, my voice cracking. I licked my lips and swallowed hard, trying to work up some moisture in my mouth. “If you killed Samuels, I’m going to prove it anyway. If you’re guilty, come with me now and give yourself up so that we can get Esteban out of jail. First, you’ll be doing yourself a favor; second, you’ll be doing me a favor—and I’ll do what I can to help you; most important, you’ll be doing the child a favor. A friend of mine can—and will—bring a lot of political juice to bear in order to get you the best possible deal. What about it, Jordon? What do you have to say?”

  He still didn’t have anything to say. He sat in the same position, unmoving, bloodless fingertips pressed tightly together. His face was a pale, ashen gray, and his eyes shone fever-bright. It was then that I knew I was right; but Jordon’s appearance was useless to me, because it would be worthless at a bail hearing.

  I tried to think of something else to say that might prod him, but came up empty. And my stomach took that moment to knot with the worst pain I’d experienced yet. I gasped and doubled over. At the same time, Jordon abruptly uncrossed his legs, leaned forward and opened a drawer in his desk. When his hand emerged from the drawer, it was holding a small automatic. I tried to bunch my legs under me as I looked for some place to dodge or run. It wasn’t necessary; he was no longer interested in me.

  In one swift motion, Dr. Eric Jordon put the barrel of the pistol into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 13

  The judge was not happy with me.

  He was particularly unhappy with the way I’d pressured Jordon, and he made it clear that he considered me partly responsible—in a moral, if not legal, sense—for the physician’s death. He was unhappy with the fact that I’d left it to Jordon’s hysterical nurse to call the police, and had left the offices before the investigating officers had arrived. Most of all, the judge was unhappy with the fact that no one had told him that Jordon had committed suicide before he’d been startled by the gunshot on the tape recording. He was also unhappy about what he considered the irregularity of the in camera proceeding.

  That was for the record. Off the record, he told us he personally did not believe in psychic healing, but was impressed by Senator Younger’s sincerity and the fact that Linda Younger was, after all, still alive. The judge attributed this to God’s mercy, but conceded that God just might be working through Esteban. He understood the unusual circumstances and the pressure I’d been working under. More important, he agreed that the tape recording represented enough circumstantial evidence to justify a reexamination of Esteban Morales’ situation. Esteban was free on cash bond that Senator Younger had put up, on Younger’s responsibility.

  I could hardly believe I’d pulled it off. In fact, I was in such a mental haze that I remained in my seat, staring at the bench, after the judge had left. People were talking excitedly around me, but I was having trouble connecting words to their meanings. Garth grabbed my arm and started to help me up. I shook him off, rose and followed him out of the courtroom.

  Garth drove Younger, Esteban and me to the hospital in a squad car. I was exhausted and in pain, and everything around me segued dreamily into and out of focus. The tension of my confrontation with Jordon had made me temporarily forget just what was the matter with me; now the realization that I was infected with a disease that tore up men’s minds before it killed them washed over me like an icy wave. I wasn’t exactly following doctor’s orders, and I was afraid. I knew I should go home and go to bed, but Kathy was in even worse danger; I had to know what was happening at the hospital, which meant I’d have to hold myself together for another hour or so.

  There was something approaching a crowd outside Kathy’s room, and there was a palpable tension in the air. Joshua Greene was there, along with three other doctors who I assumed were the team of specialists he’d called in. Flanking the physicians were three men in dark, pinstriped suits with name tags that identified them as hospital administrators. None of them looked happy. On the opposite side of the corridor, as if facing off against an opposing team, were Janet and April.

  I anticipated problems, but Janet had done her job well; Linda Younger had been given a bed in a private room with Kathy. Indeed, it was Janet who seemed to be in charge of the whole operation—probably understandable since, obviously, no one associated with the hospital wanted to assume responsibility.

  As soon as we arrived, Janet took Esteban by the arm and led him into the room. Through the open door I watched him as he stopped between the two beds and stared down at the girls. He spoke cheerfully to Linda Younger, then had a whispered conference with April, who’d followed them in. She nodded, and Esteban came back out into the corridor.

  “I can still help Linda,” Esteban said to the Senator. “With her, we have more time. But I must work with the little girl immediately.”

  “I understand,” Younger said in a hoarse voice. “Go ahead and do what you have to do. I’m just so grateful—” He turned to me with tears in his eyes. “Frederickson, I’m so … grateful.” He broke into sobs, covered his face with his hands and hurried down the hall toward the men’s room at the end.

  Esteban went back into the room and turned off the lights. He took off his jacket and shoes, then lay down on the bed next to the pale, comatose Kathy. To me, Kathy already looked dead, but occasionally her chest would rise almost imperceptibly, then fall again as she clung to life.

  One of the administrators started to object. April came out into the corridor and silenced him with a reminder that she’d signed a paper releasing the hospital from any responsibility for what Esteban did to her daughter. Then she nodded to Esteban, who, taking care not to disturb any of the tubes connected to her body, picked Kathy up and placed her on his chest. He put his cheek against Kathy’s, closed his eyes and began to stroke her body. In the silence I thought I could hear him softly humming to himself. April came over to me, put her arms around me and squeezed hard. Then, without a word, she went into the room and knelt next to the bed on which Kathy and Esteban lay.

  “You’re making things worse, Mongo.”

  I turned to face Joshua Greene. The rest of the local medical establishment stood slightly behind him, grimly nodding their agreement like a Greek chorus. “The girl is going to die,” he continued tightly. “All you’ve done is raise false hopes. The mother and uncle were accepting. You should have left them alone with their grief; now they’ll only have to go through that phase all over again.”

  “It seems to me that that decision is the mother’s.”

  Joshua sighed. “How do you feel? You look terrible.”

  “I feel like shit. I’ve got stomach cramps, and I constantly have the sensation that I’m going to throw up. Is there something you can give me?”

  He slowly, firmly, shook his head. “Within the past twenty-four hours you’ve been bitten—damn good—by a rabid an
imal. You’ve got rabies coursing through your system right now. You’ve had the first in a series of rabies shots that are painful and are no guarantee, in the circumstances, that you won’t develop the disease anyway. The injections have side effects, and you’re feeling them; I can tell by your eyes that you have a fever. If you don’t rest and let the serum take effect, there’s a very good chance that you could die of rabies. I don’t think you’re aware of just how dangerous your situation is.”

  He was wrong. I was very much aware of what I was risking. But I heard myself saying, “I have to keep going, and you know why I have to keep going. Give me something to prop me up.”

  “No,” Greene said, a slight tremor in his voice. “I won’t help you kill yourself; offhand, I’d say that’s what you’re trying to do. Rabies is a horrible way to die, Mongo.”

  He paused, stared at me with his compassionate, soulful eyes. “First, your vision will begin to blur. Then your throat will begin to constrict to the point where you can’t even swallow your own saliva; you’ll slaver all over yourself and howl like an animal because you’ll crave water but won’t be able to drink it. Of course, by this time your mind will be gone. We won’t be able to do anything but isolate you, strap you down and wait for you to die. And once you start to develop symptoms, it’s over. And you are going to develop symptoms unless you do as I say. Think about it.”

  “Oh, I will Joshua,” I said softly. “I have.” My mouth already felt dry. Greene had told me that symptoms wouldn’t normally appear for several days, at least. But then, I was a dwarf—and the bat had really enjoyed a picnic on my thumb; I had to be carrying an extra-large dose of pathogens in my system.

  A glacial wind rose from somewhere in my mind, chilling me; regardless of the consequences, I couldn’t rest—not just yet. I had only a few years left anyway; Kathy had a lifetime.

  I wanted to talk to Janet, but she was involved in what looked like a heated conversation with one of the hospital administrators. I walked quietly into Kathy’s room, paused beside the first bed and smiled at Linda Younger. The frail twenty-four-year-old woman was resting serenely, her hands folded peacefully across her stomach. Suddenly she opened her violet eyes, saw me and smiled. She reached out and gripped my hand.

  “Thank you, Dr. Frederickson,” she whispered weakly. “My father told me what you did.”

  I blew her a kiss, then moved around behind the kneeling April and put my hand on her shoulder.

  “Thank you for not letting me give up, Robert,” she said quietly, taking my hand.

  “Hey, there’s no guarantee,” I whispered in her ear. “I just had to take this last shot at buying some time.”

  “I understand. Even Daniel seems to believe that Esteban can help. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have permitted it.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s back out … hunting.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “I don’t know; I’ve lost track of time.” She put her cheek against my hand, gently kissed my bandaged thumb. “You have to rest, Robert. You should see what you look like. You’re killing yourself.”

  “I’ll take it easy, April, but I’ve got to get back out on the streets. If I don’t, getting Esteban down here will be a wasted exercise. Maybe we’ve got a little more time now, but not much.” I gently pulled my hand away and looked at my watch. It was almost five, and the sand in Greene’s original twelve-hour estimate was running out. “I’ve got to go. I’ll be in touch.”

  Janet was waiting for me out in the corridor. “Thanks, love,” I said to her. “You came through with flying colors. I can imagine the talking you had to do. I owe you a big one.”

  “Mongo!” she called after me as I headed for the elevator. “Where are you going?”

  “Hunting.”

  It was five thirty by the time I got to the William Morris Agency offices in the MGM building on Avenue of the Americas. Despite the late hour, I was fairly certain Jake Stein would still be at his desk, talking on the phone to Los Angeles: such is the life of a high-powered talent agent.

  The receptionist buzzed Jake, and a minute later I was on my way past a sliding glass partition into the honeycomb of inner offices of the largest talent agency in the world; William Morris, with its worldwide network of offices, represented about half of all the name actors, writers, directors and singers in the world. They’d represented me during my later years with the Statler Brothers Circus. Now I wanted to talk to Jake about Bobby Weiss.

  Jake was twenty-eight; with a full head of bushy blond hair, he looked younger. When I walked into his office he was talking up some kind of deal into a telephone receiver that was part of a ten-button console; five of the ten buttons were lighted and flashing. He hung up, swung around in his swivel chair, saw me and grinned broadly. His grin faded as he rose and looked me up and down.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” Jake said. “For Christ’s sake, what’s the matter with you? You look like the lead in a cancelled pilot.”

  “Overwork. You know how it is with us hotshot private eyes. Don’t you watch television?”

  “No shit, Mongo; you look terrible.”

  “I’m all right,” I said, shaking his hand. “It’s good to see you, Jake.”

  “Likewise.” He drew a long, thin cheroot from a plastic container in the pocket of his double-breasted sport jacket. He lifted the cigar and waved smoke away from his milky blue eyes. “You want a drink? I’ve got some Chivas in the drawer.”

  “Yeah … uh, on second thought, no thanks.” I had no idea how Scotch and antirabies serum would mix, and it didn’t seem like a good time to experiment; the way I felt, I’d probably come down with instant bubonic plague. “I want to talk to you about Harley Davidson.”

  “Davidson? Christ, I haven’t seen anything on him in six months. He left us, you know. What do you hear?”

  “He’s dead. I found his body …” I had to stop and think; time was collapsing in on itself, and it seemed inconceivable to me that only a few hours had passed since I’d walked into Bobby’s rotting apartment. “I found his body this morning.”

  “God damn,” Jake said thoughtfully, shaking his head. He took a deep drug on his cheroot, breathed out the smoke with his words. “I’m really sorry to hear that. I liked that kid. What happened to him?”

  “He killed himself. In slow motion.”

  “Drugs,” Jake said, nodding. “I heard things, but I hoped they weren’t true.” Eight of the ten buttons were flashing now. Jake glanced at the console unconcernedly, looked back at me. “Poor son-of-a-bitch,” he continued quietly. “The air’s thin up there where he was, and it’s stone fucking cold.”

  “He seemed fine while he was with you, Jake; top of the charts, and a network show in the offing. And he looked healthy enough in his pictures. What happened between the two of you?”

  Jake shrugged and ran a hand through his thick blond hair. “His contract was up; he decided he wanted to leave so that he could sign up with a guy by the name of Sandor Peth. What the hell? Harley wanted to leave, it was his right.”

  “Peth’s name was dog shit when I was here. Why would Davidson want to leave the people who’d taken him to the top in order to sign with a creepy second-rater like Peth?”

  Jake shook his head. “It’s tough to figure, isn’t it? Peth is a creep, and a rip-off artist. It looks like Harley went straight downhill after signing with him.”

  “He may have started sliding slightly before that.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “I think he got involved with some nasty people who specialize in giving bad advice. I was hoping you might know something about it.”

  Jake stared into space for a few moments, then ground out his cigar and popped a mint into his mouth. “Well, Harley had an absolutely enormous ego-occupational requirement, you know. He was easily influenced by anybody who knew how to play up to that ego. That’s about all I can say.”

  “Jake, it’s important for me to find out who
greased the skids under that kid—if that’s what happened. It could tie in with a case I’m working on.”

  Jake nodded thoughtfully and began drumming his fingers on the cluttered desk top. I was beginning to worry about the flashing buttons on his telephone console; Jake obviously wasn’t. “Harley was getting pretty deeply involved in the occult a few months before he left,” Jake said at last. “Could that be any help?”

  “It certainly could,” I said, feeling my blood pressure go up a few notches. My face felt hot. “The problem is that an interest in the occult wouldn’t make him any different from ninety percent of the other people in the business, right?”

  “Sure; it’s the Age of Aquarius, you know. But Harley had gone past the point of comparing sun signs at cocktail parties. At the beginning he seemed to be on an astrology and palmistry trip. He was really manic about it, you know?” Jake clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “Then, I think he got into witchcraft. He didn’t talk so much after that.”

  “And then he left you to sign with Sandor Peth. You think Peth’s a witch?”

  Jake’s laugh was high-pitched, boyish. “Peth’s a son-of-a-bitch, for sure, but I don’t know anything about his being a witch.” He shook his head, laughed once more, then grew serious. “Peth personally insures the lives of everyone in his stable. I’ll bet that shmuck is going to make a bundle off Harley’s death.”

  “Did Davidson ever mention the name John Krowl?”

  “Christ, yes,” Jake said with an expansive wave of his hand. “Harley was one of Krowl’s favored clients—and very proud of the fact. That’s a status symbol in this town.” He suddenly rose and walked quickly to a filing cabinet near his desk. “I just remembered: Harley left something here that might interest you,” he continued, opening a sliding metal drawer and quickly riffling through a bank of files. “It was during his manic phase that I told you about. He brought me in a copy of a horoscope he’d had done. He was really riding high at that time, and something about the horoscope amused him. He said it was terrible.”