by Gene Wolfe
The bellman nodded. “Is it okay to tell him what you look like?”
“You’ll have to, but if he’s got the room staked out he’s probably made us already. Now listen, he’ll take you over everything three or four times if he’s a good cop. Keep it simple and remember to forget anything you could possibly forget. He didn’t give you his name, did he?”
“No.”
“He didn’t say, ‘I’m detective so-and-so?’ Anything like that?”
“No. I would have remembered.”
“You said he showed you his badge. What was the number?”
The bellman hesitated, then said, “I guess I didn’t notice.”
“Okay, when you go back, don’t knock like he told you. Go straight past. He’ll stop you again. Tell him you’re not sure about him, and say you want to see his badge again. Take a good look—make him let you see it in a good light—and remember the number. When you get back downstairs again, phone this room and tell me what it was. What did he look like?”
The bellman thought for a moment. “Not as big as most of them. I’d say maybe just over middle size. Big nose. He had a bandage around his head.”
“Forget the badge number,” Stubb told him. “I know who he is.”
* * *
“So do the rest of us,” Candy said when the bellman was gone.
“Except her.” Stubb nodded toward Sandy Duck.
“You’re right,” Sandy said. “I certainly don’t know. I also don’t know why the police should want to watch Madame Serpentina. Of course they always view major psychics with distrust except when they beg them to solve their cases for them without a fee.”
The witch smiled. “I believe you yourself wanted a certain prediction. I did not hear any mention of payment, but then perhaps I was inattentive.”
“I wish I could,” Sandy said frankly. “I can’t. Our magazines don’t have the money. I’ll tell you what we’ll do, though. Any time you want, we’ll run a one-page ad for free.”
The witch laughed.
Stubb said, “Don’t knock it. Sandy, I’ll send you Madame Serpentina’s copy tomorrow. To run as soon as possible, either magazine. How do you want it?”
“If there are pictures, we’ll need camera-ready copy. If it’s just text, you can tell us what you want to say and we’ll lay it out and spec the type.”
“But now,” the witch said, “I must earn this advertisement with my prediction. First, however, I will answer several more questions, questions you would ask if I permitted them. Yes, I did indeed see something in the mirror. No, you would not have seen what I saw, had you looked—you would merely have ruined the operation. And lastly, what I have done is the verso of necromancy; I summoned the spirits of the unborn to reveal the future.
“You desired to know of a great event—one affecting the entire nation—that will occur within a decade. Is that correct?”
Pencil poised, Sandy nodded.
“Very well. The greatest event of the coming decade will be the quadrumvirate. Four leaders, unknown today, shall unite to take political, financial, artistic, and judicial power. They shall create a revolution of thought. Many who are now rulers shall be imprisoned or exiled. Many who are now powerless shall rise to places of great authority. The rich shall be made poor, and the poor rich. Old crimes, long concealed, shall be made public, and their perpetrators given to the people as to a pride of lions. The four shall be hated and idolized, but their rule will not end within the period specified by my prediction. That is all I was told.”
The pencil flew. “You don’t know the names of these men?”
“No. That information would be very difficult to obtain. The spirits, as you should know, have great difficulty providing answers in terms of specific words. It is somewhat as though you—who we shall say speak Chinese—were to ask a woman who knew no other tongue the name of an American she met last year. If you were most fortunate, you might hear ‘Beloved Disciple of the Iron-Smiter,’ if the name was John Smith.”
“They will come to power in ten years?”
“Much sooner, I think.”
Sandy rose. “I realize I’ve asked more questions than the three we agreed on, and I don’t want to wear out my welcome. Mr. Barnes, Ms. Garth, I want to thank you for bringing me up here. I know as well as you do that I couldn’t have gotten into this room if it hadn’t been for you. Mr. Stubb, you’ve come to my rescue more than once, and I appreciate it. Madame Serpentina, I know you never grant interviews, but you’ve given me one tonight and let me take a picture and everything, and I appreciate it more than I can say.”
The witch inclined her head graciously. Candy looked embarrassed, Barnes grinned, and Stubb snorted.
“I’ll go now, but I want you to know that nothing I’ve heard in here—I mean, nothing beyond what I myself was told—will go into my article.”
Stubb said, “I’m a good deal more worried about what you’re going to tell the cop. Do you want to talk to him?”
Sandy shook her head. “Not if I can help it.”
“Swell. According to what the bellhop said, he’s between us and the elevators; but this hotel’s built in a hollow square, if you know what I mean. Turn right instead of left when you go out the door, and you should be able to walk around the long way and get to them without passing his room. Will you do that?”
“Of course. But if I’m stopped, I won’t tell lies—I just won’t say anything. The courts may say the police can examine a journalist’s notes now, but they won’t find anything there I wouldn’t put in my story.”
“Good girl,” Stubb said. He opened the door for her.
Candy sighed as it closed. “Wow. That’s over. Ozzie, why’d you have to bring her up here?” She tried to cross her legs, failed, and settled for crossing her ankles.
Barnes shrugged. “She looked like she needed help.”
Stubb said, “Our friend Ozzie’s a soft touch. How was your fish?”
“Tasty, only there wasn’t enough of it, or enough beer. You want the rest of your sandwich? How about that pickle?”
“You can have them.” Stubb pushed his plate over. Barnes said, “It’s that cop that got hit with the ax, isn’t it? Sergeant Proudy, his name was. I let him in this morning—my God, it feels like a year ago.”
“We’ve all had a tough day.”
Her mouth full, Candy mumbled, “’S not over yet.” She swallowed. “Why’s he watching us?”
Stubb nodded. “You’re right, that’s the first thing we have to talk about. Anybody got any ideas?”
“Maybe they found out about Ozzie calling all those salesmen. I heard you and Ozzie outside the house through the busted wall. Maybe somebody else heard you too.”
“So what? It was just creating a nuisance, and if they wanted him they could pick him up. Besides, Proudy’s not on duty.”
“You’ve been taking lessons from the Wicked Witch of the West over there, Jim. There’s no way you could know that.”
“Nuts.” Stubb leaned back in his chair, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know how she does it—or if she really does. But I know how I do it, and anybody willing to think for a minute could do it too. Proudy got it with the spike end of a fire ax. I saw it. He got stitches and bandages and so on. You saw that, in fact you helped. He may not be in a hospital. He may not even be lying down, even if he should be. But there’s no way in hell the Department would put him back on duty after that. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not till he’s pretty well healed up.”
The witch pushed aside her fruit and lit a cigarette. “You are right in what you say. But that is not the question.”
Stubb nodded.
Barnes said, “Let me try. What are we going to do about him?”
“That’s not it either,” Stubb told him. “Anyway, who says we have to do anything?”
“Why,” the witch said. “That is what we must discover, Ozzie.”
Candy was staring at the witch and Stubb. �
�All of a sudden it seems like you two are pretty close.”
“Yeah. I’ll tell you about that in a minute. For now, let’s get back to Proudy. Anybody got any more suggestions about what he might be up to?”
Barnes said, “Remember those women who came to see Mrs. Baker? Could he be working for them? And anyway, what are they doing?”
“I don’t know,” Stubb said. “When she told us all that, I more than half thought she was making it up, or blowing a couple of nosy neighbors into spy stuff. Now I don’t know.”
Candy asked, “You think he could be working for them?”
“No. Not working for them. But he could have got onto them, and he might have talked to the Baker woman for all we know, and be trying to cut himself a piece of cake. He’s on his own for sure, and when a cop goes on his own when he could be home in bed, he smells a promotion or money. Any of you a mass murderer?”
“Don’t try to be funny, Jim.”
“Okay, then it’s money. We’ll talk about that later too. Should we ring him up and ask what the hell? I’m serious. He’s in seven seven one, and all we have to do is pick up the phone and dial his room.”
“I’m for it,” Barnes said. “After all, we carried him in and got him patched up after one of his own men hit him. If he’s after us now, I think we’re entitled to some kind of explanation.”
“One in favor,” Stubb said. “How about you, Candy?”
“You know as well as I do that it’ll end up with me getting busted.”
“One against.” Stubb glanced at the witch.
“It seems to me we should know more.”
“One for later. Make that two for later—when I talk to a cop, I like to have something I can pry with. Later it is.”
The telephone rang.
From The High Country
Stubb reached for the telephone. The witch said, “This is my room. You may hand it to me.” He nodded.
Candy nudged Barnes. “You think it’s him calling us?”
“Yes,” the witch said into the receiver. “This is she.” Then, “Of course you are. I knew your voice at once. What is it you want?”
There was a long pause while the witch listened.
“No, I did not. I will not say I never call invisible powers, but I have done nothing to him … . Everything affecting human lives involves spirits. That is nothing. There are many other explanations … . I would suggest that you go home. It is very late—if this were summer, you would see dawn at the windows.” She hung up.
Stubb was leaning back in his chair. The light from the weak hotel bulb above the table showed how waxen his skin was under a dark stubble. “You going to tell us?” he asked casually.
Ignoring the cigarette that smouldered on her plate, the witch got out another and her gold lighter. The flame trembled ever so slightly.
“Later, maybe,” Stubb said.
“I will tell you now, if you wish. It was the girl who just left. She was curious about the policeman and went past his room after all. She said he came out and tried to question her, but she would tell him nothing; when she threatened to scream, he released her. She asked if I had laid a curse on him.”
“And you said you hadn’t. Why’d she ask?”
“I assume because he looked or acted like one who had been cursed. She was prolix, but she really told me very little. I gathered she thought him irrational.”
“Did she tell you what he asked her?”
“Only that he wanted to know if we were all here, and that he seemed to expect her to know who he meant by all. She described us, and he asked who else was here.”
“Swell.” Stubb sounded bitter.
Candy asked, “What’s the matter, Jim?”
“Well, for one thing, I didn’t want her to talk to him. She has, and she’s sure as hell told him something. You can’t describe four people without telling an investigator who’s listening a lot, just to start with, and who knows what else she told him? For another thing, now I’ve got some idea of what he’s looking for.”
“And what’s that?” Barnes asked. “Or is it a big secret?” He had loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt.
“It’s no secret and it’s just a guess. But I think it’s a good guess. Who’s not here, Ozzie? Which of us isn’t here?”
Barnes’s eyes rolled as he looked about the room,the glass eye not quite tracking with his real one. “Why, we’re all here,” he said. “Everybody’s here.”
Stubb shook his head.
Candy asked, “You don’t mean Mrs. Baker?”
“Close, but no cigar. Who was she looking for? Who were the women who came and talked to her looking for? Last night, folks—just last night—there were five of us living together in the same house. Who’s missing?”
Barnes nodded. “Free, of course. I guess I didn’t think about him because we’d already talked about him when Mrs. Baker was here.”
“We’re going to talk about him some more. I didn’t want to do it then because that Duck girl was in the bathroom and so forth. But that’s why we’re here.” Stubb walked across the room to the television set and switched it on. “I don’t like talking against noise any more than the rest of you—maybe less. If anybody can guarantee no one’s listening in, I’ll turn it off. Anybody want to try?”
No one spoke.
“It stays on, then. The last we heard, Proudy was a couple of rooms away, but he may have got closer by now. There’s half a dozen tricks for listening through a hotel wall, and all of them work pretty good.”
Candy blurted, “All right, Mr. Free’s not here—and I don’t give a damn about the God-damned TV. If you knew how much talking I’ve done against rock tapes and radios and everything else—What I want to know is why are we here. If the crystal gazer wants to put me up for the night, fine. I could have found some other place, but this is as good as any. Only if you’re going to tell me it’s out of the goodness of her heart, forget it. In the first place, I don’t think she’s got one. In the second place, if she does there’s no goodness in it.”
“Thank you,” the witch said. “I am delighted by your gracious acceptance of my hospitality.”
“Knock it off,” Stubb told Candy. “What the hell do you think the rest of us are—a choir? This is a business meeting. You and Ozzie might as well know right now that before you came up Madame S. and I formed a little partnership. We’re going to help each other instead of fighting each other, and we’re going to split whatever we make right down the middle. She didn’t get you up here, I did—the room is just in her name, that’s all. And I didn’t get you up out of the goodness of my heart either. I did it because we want to invite you in. You get to hear our offer, and if you don’t take it you can split.”
Barnes was suddenly alert. “All right,” he said. “What’s the offer?”
“Let me ask you something first. Did Free ever say anything to you that made you think he had something valuable hidden?”
Barnes shut his eyes as he cast his mind back. “Suppose he did. Why?”
“We think he did. I’ll give you this just to show we’re dealing off the top. One time Free told me he came from what he called ‘the High Country.’ He said he had a ticket hidden away that would take him back there if he wanted to go, but it was too late to use it. What do you think of that?”
Barnes shrugged. “What do you think of it? That’s what seems important to me. You were there and you heard him, and now you say you’re going to make me an offer. What do you think?”
“I haven’t got anything but guesses,” Stubb said, “but I’ll let you have them—I’ve given them to Madame S. here already.” He took off his glasses, inspected their lenses and put them on again. “Ever since I talked to him, I’ve been wondering what the High Country might mean, because if I knew that, I’d have a pretty good idea what kind of a ticket it would take to get you there. Madame S. has her own ideas, but I’ll lay off them—she can tell you herself if she wants to. In the first place, the High Co
untry could really be another country—Switzerland, maybe, or someplace else that’s got a lot of high ground; maybe the highlands of Scotland. In that case, the ticket’s probably his passport. Anybody buy that?”
He looked at Barnes and Candy, but there was no reply.
“Me neither. Here’s another guess. Free could be a hillbilly—he talked like one. Maybe he was from someplace in the Smokies. Anybody like it?”
Candy said, “Jim, I think he talked different depending on who he was with.”
“You sure of that?”
“No. I can’t really put my finger on it. Maybe it was something I just imagined. Only that’s the way it seemed to me. I don’t have a hell of a lot of education, Jim. I dropped out of high school. And I don’t think you do either. So I think maybe when he was around us he talked a little simple, so we’d relax.”
“Fine. That’s a good point, and I want to come back to it in a minute. For now, let’s hold it and clear the decks a little. Anybody go for the hillbilly idea?”
“No,” Barnes said. “Go on.”
“Then where are we?” Stubb paused and looked at each of them in turn. A televised war crashed to a close, and an announcer began to speak earnestly about soft drinks. “If he wasn’t from someplace that’s really high up—here or in some other country—what’s left?”
“Craziness,” Candy said.
Barnes swiveled to look at her.
She said, “You ever talk to those old bag ladies in the street? I have, when I’ve had a fifty or hundred-dollar trick and three or four shots afterwards. I’ll be floating along, and I’ll sit down beside one someplace, or one will sit by me. One I met was a princess. One was the bastard of some President. All of them have some crazy story, and if I ever hear one that makes the bag lady not so important as she looks instead of the other way, I’ll give her a five if I’ve got one. But I don’t think I’ll ever need to.”