How Like an Angel

by Margaret Millar

The gray bundle on the floor stirred and whimpered.

  “Come on,” Quinn said. “You can make it back to the Tower before it gets dark if you start now.”

  Karma’s long black hair appeared, then her face, blotched with pimples, sullen with resentment. “I’m not going back.”

  “A little bird tells me you are.”

  “I hate little birds. I hate Brother Tongue. I hate the Master and Mother Pureza and Brother Crown and Sister Glory. Most of all I hate my own mother and those awful yapping children. Yes, and I even hate Sister Blessing.”

  “That’s a heap of hate,” Quinn said.

  “There’s more. I hate Brother Behold the Vision because his teeth click when he eats and I hate Brother Light be­cause he called me lazy, and I hate—”

  “All right, all right, I’m convinced you’re a first-class hater. Now get out of there. Start moving.”

  “Please, please take me with you. I won’t be a nuisance, I won’t even speak. You can pretend I’m not here. When we reach the city I’ll find a job. I’m not lazy the way Brother Light claims I am. . . . You’re going to say no, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I’m going to say no.”

  “Is it because you think I’m just a child?”

  “There are other reasons, Karma. Now be a good girl, save us both a lot of trouble—”

  “I’m already in trouble,” she said calmly. “So are you. I hear things.”

  “What things?”

  She sat up on the back seat, tucking her long hair behind her ears. “Oh, things. They talk in front of me as if I were too young to understand.”

  “Did Sister Blessing talk in front of you?”

  “All of them.”

  “It’s Sister Blessing in particular that I’m interested in,” Quinn said.

  “She talks plenty.”

  “About me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Oh, things.”

  He gave her a hard look. “You’re giving me the run-around, Karma, stalling for time. It won’t do any good. Come out of there before I drag you out by the hair.”

  “I’ll scream. I’m a good screamer and sounds carry in the mountains. They’ll all hear me, they’ll think you tried to kid­nap me. The Master will be furious, he may even kill you. He has a terrible temper.”

  “He may also kill you.”

  “I don’t care. I have nothing to live for.”

  “All right, you asked for it.”

  Quinn reached into the back seat to grab her. She took a long deep breath and opened her mouth to scream. He cut off the sound by pressing his hand against her mouth.

  “Listen, you crazy kid. You’ll get us both in a mess. I can’t possibly take you with me to San Felice. You’re going to need money, clothes, someone to look after you. You may not like it here but at least you’re protected. Wait until you’re older, then you can leave under your own power. Are you listening to me, Karma?”

  She nodded.

  “If I take my hand away, will you promise to be quiet and discuss this in a reasonable way?”

  She nodded again.

  “All right.” He removed his hand from her mouth and leaned wearily against the back of the seat. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “How old are you, Karma?”

  “Going on twenty-one.”

  “Sure, but how far have you got to go? Come on, the truth.”

  “I’m sixteen,” she said, after a time. “But I could easily find a job in the city and earn money to buy some stuff for my face so I’ll look like other girls.”

  “You have a very pretty face.”

  “No, it’s terrible, all these terrible red things that they say I’ll grow out of but I don’t. I never will. I need money for the stuff to make them go away. One of my teachers told me about it last year when I went to school, acne ointment she called it. She was real nice, she said she used to have acne herself and she knew how I felt.”

  “And that’s the reason you want to go to the city, to buy acne ointment?”

  “Well, that’s what I’d do first,” she said, running her hands along her cheeks. “I need it very bad.”

  “Suppose I promise you that I’ll buy some for you and see that you get it? Will you postpone your trip to the city until you’re a little more capable of looking after yourself?”

  She thought about it for a long time, twisting and untwist­ing a strand of her hair. “You’re just trying to get rid of me.”

  “That’s true. But I’d also like to help you.”

  “When could you get it for me?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “How would you know it’s the right stuff?”

  “I’ll ask the pharmacist, the man who sells it.”

  She turned and looked up at him, very earnestly. “Do you think I will be pretty, as pretty as the girls at school?” “Of course you will.”

  It was getting quite dark but she made no move to get out of the car and go back to the Tower. “Everyone here is so ugly,” she said. “And dirty. The floors are cleaner than we are. At school there were showers with hot water and real soap, and each of us had a big white towel all to ourselves.”

  “How long have you been here at the Tower, Karma?”

  “Four years, since it was built.”

  “And before then?”

  “We were at some place in the mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains down south. It was just a lot of wooden shacks. Then Mother Pureza came along and we got the Tower.”

  “She was a convert?”

  “Yes, a rich one. We don’t get many rich ones. I guess the rich ones are too busy having fun spending their money to worry about the hereafter.”

  “Are you worried, Karma?”

  “The Master scares me with his funny eyes,” she said. “But with Sister Blessing I’m not scared. I don’t really hate her the way I said I did. She prays every day for my acne.”

  “Do you know where she is now?”

  “Everyone does. She’s in isolation.”

  “For how long?”

  “Five days. Punishment always last five days.”

  “Do you know the reason she’s being punished?”

  Karma shook her head. “There was a lot of whispering I couldn’t hear, between her and the Master and Brother Crown. Then when my mother and I went to make dinner yesterday at noon, Sister Blessing was gone and Brother Tongue was crouched by the stove, crying. He just worships Sister Blessing because she babies him and makes a big fuss over him when he’s sick. The only one that acted glad was Brother Crown and he’s meaner than Satan.”

  “How long has Brother Crown been a convert?”

  “He came about a year after the Tower was built. That would be three years ago.”

  “What about Sister Blessing?”

  “She was with us in the San Gabriel Mountains. Nearly all the rest were, too, including a lot that have gone away since because they quarreled with the Master, like my father.”

  “Where’s your father now, Karma?”

  “I don’t know,” she said in a whisper. “And I can’t ask. When someone is banished his name can never be mentioned again.”

  “Have you ever heard anyone here refer to a man called Patrick O’Gorman?”

  “No.”

  “Can you remember that name, Patrick O’Gorman?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your ears open for it,” Quinn said. “You needn’t tell anyone I asked you to do this, it’s strictly between you and me, like the ointment. Is it a bar­gain?”

  “Yes.” She touched her cheeks, her forehead, her chin. “Do you really and honestly thi
nk I will be pretty when my acne goes away?”

  “I know it.”

  “How will you send me the ointment? The Master opens all the mail packages and he’d just throw something out if he thought it was drugs. He doesn’t believe in drugs or doctors, only faith.”

  “I’ll bring the stuff to you myself.”

  It was too dark now to see her face but Quinn felt her little movement of protest or dissent. “They don’t want you to come here anymore, Mr. Quinn. They think you’re trying to make trouble for the colony.”

  “I’m not. The colony, as such, doesn’t interest me.”

  “You keep on coming.”

  “My first visit was an accident, my second was to give Sister Blessing the information she asked for.”

  “Is that the honest truth?”

  “Yes,” Quinn said. “It’s getting late, Karma. You’d better start back before they send out a lynching party for me.”

  “I won’t be missed. I told mother I was going to bed because I had a sore throat. She’ll be busy in the kitchen until late. By that time,” she added bitterly, “I expected to be half­way to the city. Only I’m not. I’m right here. I’ll be right here until I die. I’ll be old and ugly, and dirty like the rest of them. Oh, I wish I could die this very minute and go to heaven before I commit all the sins I’ll probably commit when I get the chance, like having beautiful dresses and shoes and talking back to the Master and washing my hair every day in perfume.”

  Quinn got out of the car and held the door open for her. She climbed out slowly and awkwardly.

  “Can you find your way in the dark?” Quinn said.

  “I’ve been up and down this road a million times.”

  “Good-bye for now, then.”

  “Are you really coming back?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you won’t forget the stuff for my acne?”

  “No,” Quinn said. “And you won’t forget your part of the bargain?”

  “I’m to keep my ears open if anyone mentions Patrick O’Gorman. I don’t think they will, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’re not allowed to talk about the people we knew be­fore we were converted, and there’s no one in the colony called O’Gorman. When I’m looking after Mother Pureza I often read the book the Master keeps with our other-world names in it. There’s no O’Gorman in it. I have a very good memory.”

  “Can you remember Sister Blessing’s name?”

  “Naturally. Mary Alice Featherstone and she lived in Chi­cago.”

  Quinn asked her about some of the others but none of the names she mentioned meant any more to him than Mary Alice Featherstone did.

  In the light of the rising moon he watched Karma walk back toward the Tower. Her step was brisk and buoyant as if she had forgotten all about wanting to die and was concentrating instead on the sins she intended to commit when her chance came.

  Quinn drove to San Felice, checked in at a motel on the waterfront and went to sleep to the intermittent croaking of a foghorn and the sound of surf crashing against the break­water.

  TEN

  By nine o’clock in the morning the sun had burned off most of the fog. The sea, calm at low tide, was streaked with colors, sky-blue on the horizon, brown where the kelp beds lay, and a kind of gray-green in the harbor itself. The air was warm and windless. Two children, who looked barely old enough to walk, sat patiently in their tiny sailing pram waiting for a breeze.

  Quinn crossed the sandy beach and headed for the break­water. Tom Jurgensen’s office was padlocked but Jurgensen himself was sitting on the concrete wall talking to a gray-haired man wearing a yachting cap and topsiders and an im­maculate white duck suit. After a time the gray-haired man turned away with an angry gesture and walked down the ramp to the mooring slips.

  Jurgensen approached Quinn, unsmiling. “Are you back, or haven’t you left?”

  “I’m back.”

  “You didn’t give me much chance to raise the money. I said a week or two, not a day or two.”

  “This is a social call,” Quinn said. “By the way, who’s your friend in the sailor suit?” “Some joker from Newport Beach. He wouldn’t know a starboard tack from a carpet tack but he’s got a seventy-five-foot yawl and he thinks he’s Admiral of the fleet and Lord of the four winds. . . . How broke are you, Quinn?”

  “I told you yesterday. Flat and stony.”

  “Want a job for a few days?”

  “Such as?”

  “The Admiral’s looking for a bodyguard,” Jurgensen said. “Or, more strictly, a boat guard. His wife’s divorcing him and he got the bright idea of cleaning everything out of his safe deposit boxes and taking it aboard the Briny Belle before his wife could get a court order restraining him from disposing of community property. He’s afraid she’ll find out where he is and try to take possession of the Briny and everything on it.”

  “I don’t know anything about boats.”

  “You don’t have to. The Briny’s not going anywhere until the next six-foot tide can ease her past the sand bar. That will be in four or five days. Your job would be to stay on board and keep predatory blondes off the gangplank.”

  “What’s the pay?”

  “The old boy’s pretty desperate,” Jurgensen said. “I think maybe you could nick him for seventy-five dollars a day, and that’s not seaweed.”

  “What’s the Admiral’s name?”

  “Alban Connelly. He married some Hollywood starlet, which doesn’t mean much, since every female in Hollywood under thirty is a starlet.” Jurgensen paused to light a cigarette. “Think of it, loafing all day in the sun, playing gin rummy over a few beers. Sound good?”

  “Neat,” Quinn said. “Especially if the Admiral’s luck isn’t too good.”

  “With ten million dollars, who needs luck? You want me to go and tell him about you, give you a little build-up?”

  “I could use the money.”

  “Fine. I’ll skip down to the Briny and talk to him. I suppose you can start work any time?”

  “Why not?” Quinn said, thinking, I have nothing else to do: O’Gorman’s in hell, Sister Blessing’s in isolation, Alberta Hay­wood’s in jail. None of them is going to run away. “Do you know many of the commercial fishermen around here?”

  “I know all of them by sight, most of them by name.”

  “What about a man called Aguila?”

  “Frank Aguila, sure. He owns the Ruthie K. You can see her from here if you stand on the sea wall.” Jurgensen pointed beyond the last row of mooring slips. “She’s an old Monterey-type fishing boat, anchored just off the port bow of the black-masted sloop. See it?”

  “I think so.”

  “Why the interest in Aguila?”

  “He married Ruth Haywood six years ago. I just wondered how they were getting along.”

  “They’re getting along fine,” Jurgensen said. “She’s a hard­working little woman, often comes down to the harbor to spruce up the boat and help Frank mend his nets. The Aguilas don’t socialize much, but they’re pleasant, unassuming people. . . . Come along, you can wait in my office while I go out to the Briny Belle to see Connelly.”

  Jurgensen unlocked his office and went inside. “There’s the typewriter, you can write yourself a couple of references to make Connelly feel he’s getting a bargain. And you don’t have to bother with details. By ten o’clock Connelly will be too cockeyed to read anyway.”

  When Jurgensen had gone Quinn looked up Frank Aguila’s number in the telephone directory and dialed. A woman who identified herself as the baby-sitter said that Mr. and Mrs. Aguila were down in San Pedro for a couple of days attending a union meeting.

  When Quinn reached the Briny Belle a young man in over­alls was painting out the name on her bow while Connelly lean
ed over the rail urging him to hurry.

  Quinn said, “Mr. Connelly?”

  “Quinn?”

  “Yes.” “You’re lace.”

  “I had Co check out of my motel and make arrangements for my car.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” Connelly said. “You’re nor about Co be piped aboard if that’s what you’re waiting for.”

  Quinn walked up the gangplank, already convinced that the job wasn’t going to be as pleasant as Jurgensen had let on.

  “Sit down, Quinn,” Connelly said. “What’s-his-name, that jackass who sell boats—did he tell you my predicament?”

  “Yes.”

  “Women don’t know anything more about a boat than its name, so I’m having the Briny’s name changed. Pretty clever, no?”

  “Fiendishly.”

  Connelly leaned back on his heels and scratched the side of his large red nose. “So you’re one of those sarcastic bastards that likes to make funnies, eh?”

  “I’m one of those.”

  “Well, I make the funnies around here, Quinn, and don’t you forget it. I make a funny, everybody laughs, see?”

  “You can buy it cheaper in a can.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to like you,” Connelly said thought­fully. “But for four or five days I’ll go through the motions if you will.”

  “That sounds fair.”

  “I’m a fair man, very fair. That’s what that little blonde tramp, Elsie, doesn’t understand. If she hadn’t grabbed for it, I’d have thrown it to her. If she hadn’t gone around bleating about her career, I’d have bought her a career like some other guy’d buy her a bag of peanuts. . . . What’s-his-name said you play cards.”

  “Yes.”

  “For money?”

  “I have been known to play for money,” Quinn said care­fully.

  “O.K., let’s go below and get started.”

  That first day established the pattern of the ones that fol­lowed. In the morning Connelly was relatively sober and he talked about what a good guy he was and how badly Elsie had treated him. In the afternoon the two men played gin rummy until Connelly passed out at the table; then Quinn would de­posit him on a bunk and go up on deck with a pair of binoc­ulars to see if there was any sign of activity on Aguila’s fishing boat, the Ruthie K. In the evening Connelly started in drink­ing again and talking about Elsie, what a fine woman she was and how badly he had treated her. Quinn got the impression that there were two Elsies and two Connellys. The evening Elsie who was a fine woman should have married the morning Connelly who was a good guy, and everything would have turned out fine.