Kaleidoscope

by Dorothy Gilman

  "But Jan happened to be psychic," he protested, "and you and young Gavin and Faber-Jones, the three of you psychic-projected—"

  She interrupted him to say, "There are other methods, Pruden, and it's worth a try."

  "You mean," said Max, "there's still hope? Do you actually mean there's something you can do?"

  She nodded, and to Pruden, "I would need a very large and very detailed map of Trafton, a quiet room somewhere, and a photograph of Shana. No promises, but possible."

  "You'll have it," agreed Pruden. "We've a conference room on the top floor at headquarters, and of course we've a large and detailed map of the city." He glanced at his watch, and then at Madame Karitska. "Nearly midnight, you're not too tired?"

  "To help find a victim of that dreadful man? Of course not."

  Max said, "But it's dark, it's night."

  "It will be light in six hours," she pointed out.

  "So let's go. Anything else you need?"

  "Yes, six or eight inches of string, as thin as possible, and above all a photograph of Shana, please."

  It needed only a few minutes until Max returned to them with a publicity portrait of Shana, as well as string. They walked out of the tent and again into the world of calliope music, of shouts from the ring tossers and screams from the Ferris wheel, to leave the carnival behind and enter Pruden's police car.

  This time he turned on the siren to cut a way for them through the night traffic, and once at headquarters they were whisked up in the elevator to the top floor.

  "This is the conference room," Pruden said, opening a door and turning on lights. There were chairs lining the long mahogany table and Pruden pushed six or seven to one side. In the huge windows they were reflected like pale ghosts against the darkness outside, while below them the neon signs of nightclubs, traffic lights and cars glittered like upside-down stars. The map was carefully spread out on the table. Madame Karitska removed one of her long gold earrings and attached it to the string.

  Max said suddenly, "But that looks like dowsing! I grew up in Vermont, where every town seemed to have a chap who could locate water for a well by dowsing."

  Madame Karitska gave him an appreciative glance. "But we will be dowsing for a human being. Lower the lights, will you, Pruden?" and she gave the photograph of Shana a long look: a heart-shaped young face, long blond hair, and bright blue eyes.

  "She's not psychic," Max said abruptly, "but she's warm and caring and good with people."

  "I can see that," said Madame Karitska. "Now we must be very quiet."

  They watched as she closed her eyes for a few minutes, and then, opening them, she leaned over the map, lightly holding the earring suspended on its string. It swayed nervously and then steadied itself, and for long moments Pruden feared defeat until the earring began to tremble and started to move, hovering briefly over the center of the city and then slowly, very slowly, with Madame Karitska's hand obeying, it came to a stop.

  And there it remained still.

  "Where has it stopped?" asked Madame Karitska.

  "Railroad Avenue

  . Not the best section of town. Freight depot, billiard parlors, repair shops, truck depot, garages."

  "I have the impression . . ' began Madame Karitska.

  "Yes?" said Max eagerly.

  She frowned. "The impression that she's somewhere in a box."

  "A box!" blurted out Max. "Dead or alive?"

  "I don't know; it's blurred. Not a coffin. A box or crate."

  "She can't be alive," Max said despairingly. "We'll never find her."

  Pruden paid him no attention. "As soon as it's light we'll try Railroad Avenue

  . I'll clear it with the chief. Knowing we've finally caught Jake Bodley he should be in a very good mood, practically ecstatic."

  "Five hours' sleep will help," said Madame Karitska. "You'll pick me up, please, at six o'clock?"

  "I insist on going, too," Max said firmly. "You'll find me downstairs here in your lobby at five-thirty A.M. '

  Dropping string and earrings into her purse she smiled at him. "You're not married, Mr. Saberhagen?"

  He shook his head.

  "Does Shana know you're in love with her? Have you told her?"

  With an attempt at humor he said, "Deliver me from psychics! Of course she doesn't know, I'm too old for her, I know that, and she'd never—But oh God I hope she's still alive."

  There was no reply, no reassurance that he could be given. Madame Karitska was delivered back to her apartment, where she applied a cold compress to her savagely kicked ankle, brewed a cup of valerian tea, printed a sign, CALLED AWAY ON EMERGENCY, to hang on her door in the morning, and went to bed.

  Railroad Avenue was three miles long, and starting at the north end it grew more derelict as it left behind the more prospering businesses. Pruden named each building as they passed, but these grew thinner as they approached Roosevelt Boulevard

  .

  "Not much at this end," he said. "On your right a liquor store—cheap liquor—and two boarded-up shops. On your left there used to be a park; now it's called Shanty Town—or Little Paris, its occupants have named it. The city plans to clear it out soon and build a mall." He waved a hand vaguely toward it. "Rather tough on the homeless, and with unemployment so high it's grown like weeds. Quite a fire hazard, too, those shelters built out of wooden discards and plastic and—"

  Madame Karitska said abruptly, "And boxes and crates? Stop, Pruden, stop!"

  He braked sharply. "Boxes and crates," he repeated. "Yes," and he drove to the edge of the weed-rimmed street and parked the car. "They don't like policemen in there," he said grimly as he opened the door to Madame Karitska and Max, "but let's look."

  There was certainly no formal entrance to Little Paris; they entered between two shacks built out of cheap plywood. Ahead of them a woman sat in the sun nursing a baby; seeing them she scuttled into the tent behind her. It was like a labyrinth, with its variety of makeshift housing, and after considerable wandering Madame Karitska suspected they were lost until she saw ahead of them a propped-up door being removed by mysterious hands and set aside to allow a man to emerge from his shack into the sunshine. He stood by the door, looking them over, as if waiting: fortyish, thinning red hair and wearing patched jeans and a stubble of beard.

  As they neared him he appeared to have reached a decision. He said, "You looking for a pretty little blond lady that got tossed out of a car three nights ago?"

  "Tossed out of a— Yes, sir," gasped Max. "You've seen her?"

  Again he looked them over carefully. "Bert and I been looking after her," he said. "Didn't know her name, and no purse to ID her. She was hurt pretty bad; that car must have been going fifty miles an hour."

  Pruden said, "We've been looking for her, yes. She's inside?"

  "And may we come in?" asked Madame Karitska politely.

  He smiled. "She'll be glad to see you," he told Pruden, his eyes running over his police uniform. "If the liquor store's phone hadn't been out of order we'd have called nine-one-one. They damn near killed her, Bert and I saw it."

  But Max had already rushed past him to disappear inside the shack, and they followed him out of the sun into a dim interior. "She's alive," he shouted.

  Shana lay on a ragged mattress, her blond hair stiff with blood, one cheek swollen, her eyes bruised, and as she looked at Max her eyes were filled with wonder. "You found me, Max. Oh, you found me!"

  Their hosts' companion, obviously the buddy he'd called Bert, was kneeling over a Sterno stove and stirring soup in a pan. Glancing up he said, "Take care, we think her left arm's broken, too."

  Sternly Pruden said, "Bodley did this?"

  "I don't know who he was, but you won't arrest Bert and Al, will you? They've been so kind—so very kind. They built a fire outside and heated water to wash the gravel out of the cuts on my face, and . . , yes, even stole two cans of tomato soup for me—I'm sorry, Bert, but I heard you did—and you won't arrest them, will you?"

&
nbsp; "Arrest them?" echoed Max, turning to look at Bert. "I can't give them medals but I can give them jobs if they'd care to work in a carnival."

  Bert abandoned the soup to look up at him. "You hear that, Al? A job?"

  "I heard," he said, and a huge grin spread across his face. Pruden said stubbornly, "Yes, but was it a man named Bodley?"

  She turned her bruised face toward him. "He didn't tell me his name. I was such a fool; I told him I'd call the police and . . , and he knocked me around and forced me to go with him to the car. And he drove it."

  Al said, "Bert and I can ID the man, we were out looking for cigarette butts when it happened. He just opened the door and pushed her out. We got a good look at him, too."

  "Well, well," said Pruden, looking pleased. "Looks as if we'll have Bodley for attempted murder as well as narcotics. I'll call an ambulance now from my car. Back in a minute."

  Max was kneeling beside Shana and smoothing her hair. Madame Karitska, feeling that the situation was well under control without her, enjoyed observing the ingenuity applied to the twelve-by-twelve shack. It amused her to wonder the reactions that she'd produce if they knew that as refugees her family had lived in just such a makeshift hut in Kabul: boxes for tables, large tin cans overturned to sit on, a kerosene lamp.

  Pruden, returning, said, "Ambulance on its way."

  Madame Karitska glanced at her watch. "It's only half past eight," she told him. "If you could take me home now I believe I can remove the sign on my door and still see my nine o'clock client."

  "Okay with me. You'll stay, Max?" he asked.

  "Oí course," he said.

  Madame Karitska turned to leave and then looked back at Max, still hovering over Shana. "By the way," she said in a kind voice, "I do believe, Mr. Saberhagen, that if you share with Shana what you admitted to us last night I think the results could surprise you."

  On that note—she had always enjoyed a good exit line— she left to accompany Pruden to his car.

  16

  Several days later, fully restored from her encounter with the infamous Jake Bodley, Madame Karitska climbed the stairs to pay her monthly rent and to see what new snakes Kristan might have devised for his painting.

  A surprise awaited her: as Kristan opened the door to her, his smock as usual splattered with paint, she looked beyond him at his easel and exclaimed, "Kristan!"

  His grin was almost boyish. "Like it?"

  The painting on his easel was an abstract tangle of brilliant colors—pink, orange, red, yellow, purple—the shapes so intertwined that it needed a second glance to realize the sinuous forms that filled the canvas were snakes.

  "They almost move," she said in awe, walking past him to look more closely. "And what colorí" and with an interested glance at him, "Very different from your dark, Rousseau-like designs."

  "So something finally pleases you," he said dryly as she handed him her rent money, and he added, "I never thought—"

  He was interrupted by a woman's voice from the kitchen, calling, "Is an egg sandwich okay, Kristan?"

  There was something very familiar about that voice, and she looked at Kristan with curiosity.

  "Egg's fine," he called back.

  "Good," was the reply, "because—" and Betsy Oliver walked out of the kitchen carrying a plate that she almost dropped at seeing Madame Karitska. "Oh how wonderful," she said. "I didn't know you were here. I'm so glad to see you again!"

  "And I you," said Madame Karitska, smiling. "I see that you two artists are—"

  "—are thinking of living together," Kristan told her. "You might as well be the first to know, since you live downstairs."

  Betsy nodded happily. "We'll be neighbors. His apartment is larger than yours, you see. There's a bedroom for Alice, and we think my drawing table will fit"—she gestured toward a corner of the room—"over there by the window."

  It was not often that Madame Karitska found herself without words, but firmly dismissing her astonishment she said, "I'm delighted; we really will be neighbors. And how is your artwork going?"

  "Tell her," said Kristan.

  "Gladly," and turning to Madame Karitska, "Kristan's been such a help. I draw figures now, too, and a publisher who saw my greeting-card drawings has asked me to illustrate a children's book."

  "A rather gushy book," put in Kristan.

  "Oh, Kristan, not gushy," she told him, and to Madame Karitska, with a humor that she'd never shown before, "It has no snakes, you see, just a cuddly brown bear and children. Alice posed for it."

  Remembering the events of two days ago, Madame Karitska felt almost uncomfortable at the happiness flooding the room. She knew Kristan only as a responsible young landlord with little conversation. That he had opened his life not only to Betsy but to her five-year-old daughter suggested hidden depths and a Kristan that she'd never met, for it was a rare man, she thought, whose caring could include Alice as well as Betsy, and she would look forward to knowing him better.

  "I'm really glad for you," she told them, "but I'll leave you now to your egg sandwiches because I have two appointments ahead of me and three guests coming to dinner tonight."

  But Betsy followed her out to the stairs. "I wanted to say ... I think of it so often now," she said with a smile. "It's just like what you told me that day. Your philosophy, I guess you'd call it. It left me that time with a feeling of patterns, somehow, especially when I think how it was you who introduced me to Kristan, and just see what's happened now!"

  Madame Karitska nodded. "You love him."

  "Yes, and it's so different. With Alpha—I mean Arthur—I realize now he'd never really grown up, even though he treated me like a child. With Kristan . . , well, we're equals, he actually respects me."

  Madame Karitska leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "Meaningful coincidences again," she murmured, remembering Roger Gillespie, and giving Betsy a hug she descended the stairs to her own apartment in time to see the postman sorting mail on the steps.

  Opening the door she said, "Good morning, Mr. Pétrie, anything but bills for me today?"

  He was a likable young man. He grinned and said, "Surprise .., a letter and also a postcard sent Priority Mail." He shook his head. "Never saw a postcard sent by Priority Mail, and"—turning it over—"a mighty queer one, too." He handed her the two missives and moved to Kristan's box and she went inside, closing the door behind her and glancing at the postcard he'd called a mighty strange one.

  And strange it was: it had been accurately addressed to her but when she turned it over it was absolutely blank, without message or signature. She was about to toss it into the waste-basket when she saw its postmark: Denby, Maine.

  The postmark itself was a message; Roger Gillespie had found what he was looking for, and he wanted her to know. It was kind of him, but remembering the vivid dream she'd had of what he might face she couldn't help shivering. She placed it on her desk and opened the letter to find a check for one thousand dollars from Max Saberhagen.

  "One thousand dollars!" she exclaimed aloud—and for only two nights' work? Generous indeed! This, too, she placed on her desk, but the thought of the mysterious postcard lingered, because it meant, surely, that Gillespie had found the source of the destruction that he'd feared. It held an almost biblical quality, this confrontation of good with evil, of life versus death and destruction. The words sent her to her bookcase, where she fingered the Koran, passed lightly over the several books on Buddhism, found the Bible, and opened it to the passage that already haunted her: And i beheld a pale horse and his name was Death, and Hell followed him. And power was given unto them to kill with sword, and with hunger and with Death.

  If Roger Gillespie failed .. .

  He had found Denby but what else had he found, and why had he sent a postcard by Priority Mail, and what did it mean? But there was no one—no one she could share this with, because no one else knew of Roger Gillespie's surprising and very private visit to her that day.

  But her first client of the day was
knocking on the door, and she firmly put aside her speculations, curiosity and dread. Instead she forced herself for the rest of the day to think of the wonderfully generous check sent to her by Max Saberhagen.

  For this Friday evening she had invited Faber-Jones, Pruden and Jan for dinner. It was necessary for her dinner parties to be small in number since she could seat only four at the table next to the window, but the food she served more than made up for the deficiencies in space. Tonight she had made an egg-and-cucumber mousse; Faber-Jones had brought a bottle of vintage wine, and Jan and Pruden had contributed a quart of ice cream. The streetlight outside her window delivered a soft glow that reinforced the candle occupying the center of the table. "Always the romantic," commented Jan. "I love candlelight, too."

  Over dessert and coffee they talked of recent events: of Shana's progress in the hospital, of Jan's work at the Settlement House, and Faber-Jones of how his daughter Laurie had changed.

  "Not only talking to me," he said proudly, "but I mean really, really talking, and no more hostility."

  "Speaking of hostility," put in Pruden, "I met someone I think we all know, and I have to say that he was not only hostile, but aggressively hostile."

  "That's hard to imagine," said Faber-Jones. "Who was it?"

  "Amos Herzog."

  "Hostile?" said Jan. "Why in the world would he be hostile to you?"

  Pruden turned to Madame Karitska with a smile. "He accused me of keeping you so busy that you've said no to marrying him."

  This met with a sudden silence until Madame Karitska ended it by saying lightly, "How indiscreet of him. He must have been really peeved if he dared to be hostile to a police lieutenant."

  Jan said, "Marina, he asked you to marry him, and you turned him down? ' Flustered, she added, "I mean, I know-he's a lot older than you are, and a retired safecracker, but such a catch—all that charm and money!"

  Madame Karitska smiled. "Shocking, isn't it? But can you imagine me living on Cavendish Square

  , or Amos here? We have agreed to remain friends, for I like him very much, but marriage, no."