And for Cannon, who, like any good journalist, was out to confirm his facts by tracking them back to the source—Sandra Jacquet’s killers.
“What did you tell him?” Colin pressed.
Lucille lit a second cigarette from the stub of the first. The predominantly reddish light shining through the fake stained glass darkened her skin with the illusion of health, but Colin knew better. Lucille Thibodeaux was dying, as surely as if she’d been poisoned.
“No. Dat mistake I don’ make twice. No more do dose name pass my lips.”
“You told John Cannon. You knew he was a journalist when you talked to him; you knew that he was going to write about them.” And lecture about them. It may already be too late for me to save him. “What you told him won’t remain a secret.”
“Yes, it will,” Lucille said bleakly. “Dey kill me, cher. Dey kill M’sieu Cannon too, I bet.”
“If I can find them, I’ll make sure that they don’t hurt you anymore, Lucille, either of you. I swear it. But you have to tell me what Sandra Jacquet told you,” Colin pressed.
“She dead now, hahn?” Lucille guessed.
“You don’t have to die,” Colin said, evading an answer. “I can help you—if you’ll help me first. Tell me who they are.”
Lucille hesitated, then shook her head. “Lucille got sins enough on her soul so dat when she die she go straight to de bad placed. Dat poison-man Cannon, he on my conscience. I won’t have you dere as well, M’sieu.”
No matter what he said, Colin could not budge her, and finally he gave up.
“All right. There’s little I can do for you if you won’t tell me who is attacking you. I can give you the name of a priest. He’s a good man. He won’t laugh at you, Lucille, and they can’t touch you on consecrated ground.”
To Colin’s shock, the Creole woman laughed; a harsh, smoke-roughened bark.
“So de Church going to save Lucille? What de pries’ gone say to me—dat Lucille get down on her knees an’ come to Jesus an’ be saved, hahn? I don’ t’ink so, M’sieu. It too late for dat—God, he dead, an’ only de Devil is left. An’ de Devil goan’ get Lucille in de end.”
She stared broodingly toward the darkened windows for a minute, then got to her feet. “I t’ank you for coming, M’sieu, but I do a wrong t’ing to let you. Dere ain’ not’ing no living man can do for Lucille Thibodeaux in dis life no more, so you bes’ be go now, before dey see you an’ put a hurt on you, too.” Her voice was firm.
Reluctantly, Colin got to his feet. “I’ll pray for you,” he told her, knowing that such action would be too little, too late. He dug for his wallet. “At least get out of town; if you leave the area, they may not be able to track you down. Do you need money? I can—”
Lucille waved the offer away. “Dere no’ting more you can do for me, M’sieu MacLaren. Bes’ you go now, hahn?”
A few moments later, Colin stood on the street in the dull light of a December afternoon. He glanced up at the window of the second-floor apartment. Behind the shrouded window, Lucille Thibodeaux waited for death with the bleak fatalism of a trapped animal.
He would pray for her as he had promised, though he did not think it would save her. But there were others whom his intervention might yet help.
Colin was a pack rat and tended to save every scrap of paper that fell into his hands. It had taken him several hours to find Jock’s business card, which he’d tossed into the drawer where such pieces of paper tended to accumulate. The phone was answered by a woman who admitted that it was the Cannon residence; she asked his name, a faint wariness discernible beneath the polite tones. A moment later Jock Cannon came on the line.
“Mr. Cannon? This is Colin MacLaren; we met several months ago; at the Sorcery Shoppe?”
“I remember you, Mr. MacLaren.” Cannon’s voice Was weary.
“You’ll forgive my presumption in tracking you down, but the last time we spoke you were preparing a book on Black Witchcraft.”
“Hold on.” Cannon’s voice was suddenly sharp. “I want to take this call in the den.”
There were a few moments of shuffling around, while Cannon picked up in the den and told Bess—the woman Colin had first spoken to—to hang up the other phone. Then Cannon came back on the line.
“Perhaps you’d like to state the nature of your business, Mr. MacLaren?” Cannon said coolly.
“I’ve just been speaking to a woman named Lucille Thibodeaux,” Colin answered candidly. “What she told me worried me a great deal.”
“Ah …” Cannon gave a long sigh. “Is she all right?” he asked hesitantly.
“She’s dying,” Colin said bluntly. “Her client—whom I presume she mentioned when you interviewed her?—is already dead. Murdered.”
There was a pause from the other end of the line. “How did she die?” Cannon asked hesitantly.
“Badly,” Colin said, refusing to elaborate. “These people mean business. Lucille’s convinced she’s next—and if you’re planning to publish an exposé about them, so are you.”
“I’m a big boy now, Mr. MacLaren. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve been intimidated by schoolyard threats,” Cannon answered.
Colin sighed inwardly. He recognized graveyard bravado when he heard it. Cannon must already be under attack.
“Do they know where you live, Mr. Cannon? Have you been having any … peculiar troubles?” Colin asked gently.
“How do I know you’re not one of them, wanting to find out what I know?” Cannon snapped, his voice suddenly flat with suspicion.
“Come now, Mr. Cannon,” Colin said. “Of course I want to know what you know, but I’m the one who warned you against getting involved in the first place, remember? I just want to help you. The best thing might be if you abandoned your project, and—”
“Too late.” Cannon’s voice was ugly with triumph. “I turned the final draft of Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today in last week—it’s at the publisher’s now.”
There was a brief moment of silence.
“They already know that, of course.” Cannon said. “They’ve got a terrific intelligence network. I’ve actually been to one of their filthy rituals. A Father Mansell tried to recruit me, get me to withdraw the book. He put on a good show, but it’s all just hoodoo. That’s all. Coincidence, intimidation—” His voice faltered and died, and there was a long silence. “Help me,” Cannon whispered.
Colin checked his watch. “You’re near Gramercy Park, right? I can be there in less than an hour; I’d like to bring along a—”
“No—don’t come here,” Cannon said quickly. “I don’t want Bess upset any more than she has been so far, and I don’t—I don’t want them to see you here,” he finished raggedly.
There was another pause while Cannon gathered his wits. “I have to drop by Blackcock—my publisher—to see Jamie about the book tomorrow. I’ll come by your place afterward. I need to talk to you. Maybe if I withdraw it the way they want …”
“That would probably be a very good idea,” Colin said. “At least let me see the manuscript. I understand that you name names—well, these kind of people are usually terrified of exposure, and with good reason. I have a few friends in the police who might be able to make their lives pretty hot—and take the heat off you.”
“I … I suppose so,” Cannon said, obviously more rattled by the minute. “I need to think about this. It isn’t that I take them seriously, of course—it’s just strong-arm techniques and scare tactics … .”
“There’s no ‘just’ about it, Mr. Cannon,” Colin said forcefully. “Please don’t make the mistake of thinking these people won’t make good on their threats. If what I believe is true, they’ve already killed once.”
“I’m not going to turn tail,” Cannon said, abruptly changing tack again. “But we can talk about it tomorrow. Still …”
Colin waited, but Cannon said nothing more.
“Mr. Cannon?” he finally said.
“Oh.” Cannon sounded as if he
’d been roused from a doze. “Well, thanks for calling, Mr. MacLaren,” he said in a bright, false voice. “I appreciate your interest.”
“Come and see me,” Colin said urgently. “Or I can meet you up at Blackcock. What time are you meeting your editor?”
There was a bitter laugh at the other end of the phone. “You think I’ll tell you that? I’m not that much of a greenhorn. Tell you what, MacLaren: I’ll call you tomorrow. Maybe we’ll have lunch.”
“Mr. Cannon—” Colin began desperately. “Jock—”
“Thanks so much for calling, Professor,” Cannon interrupted. There was the click of a receiver being replaced in its cradle, and then the buzz of a dial tone.
Colin stared at the telephone in exasperation and pity. He only hoped that Cannon would call him tomorrow—and even more than that, he hoped Cannon would withdraw his manuscript about the black covens. The “good-faith” gesture might be enough to save his life.
It might.
The call he waited for didn’t come. All through the day Colin waited, while he debated the wisdom of calling Cannon’s wife, or his publisher, and reluctantly dismissed both notions. By the Oaths that bound him, he could not force his help on someone who did not wish it. He prayed that the call he waited for would come. When the telephone rang at four o’clock, Colin lunged for it anxiously.
“Yes?”
“Colin?” The voice was faintly familiar. “It’s Michael Davenant.”
“Michael,” Colin said warmly, hiding his disappointment that the call had not been what he’d wished. “How has life been treating you?”
“Oh, I can’t complain. You heard that we lost our funding?”
“No.” Even through his worry about Cannon, Colin was shocked. The Rhodes Group had been privately funded and owed a good deal of its viability to government contracts.
“Afraid so. The Sharon Tate thing hit us pretty hard out here—that and the Blackburn murders were a sort of one-two punch. Frankly, when the government contracts dried up, the group couldn’t make a go of it in the private sector.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Colin said honestly. “How are you doing these days?”
“Oh, not too badly. There’s always room for a good administrator. But I ran across something the other day that I thought might interest you, and I thought I’d buy you a drink and tell you about it.”
“With all due curiosity expressed,” Colin said, “I am a bit tied up here in New York.”
Davenant laughed. “Oh, silly of me; I should have mentioned. I’m in New York, staying at the Warwick. Come on by—I guarantee it’ll be worth your while.”
Colin glanced at his watch. He tried to convince himself that Cannon still might call, and failed.
“It’s four o’clock now,” Colin said. He mistrusted his own eagerness to involve himself with Cannon’s problem—he needed to step back from it if he could. Meeting Michael would be a heaven-sent distraction. “How about if I meet you at six-thirty? We’ll have time for a drink or two before dinner. I know a nice little Italian place only a few blocks away from where you’re staying.”
“Great,” Davenant said. “I’ll see you then.”
The bar at the Warwick was like something out of a lost world: dark and intimate, with a faintly shabby coziness. It seemed to belong more to the fifties than to the seventies. Colin located Davenant at a corner table and quickly moved to join him.
Part of Colin’s mind was still occupied with Cannon, but he’d called Claire to phone-sit while he was out. She knew where Colin was, and Colin put more faith in Claire’s ability than his own to keep a frightened, distrait caller on the line long enough to elicit some hard information. Her years spent manning various crisis hot lines had honed her inbred people skills to the point that nobody remained a stranger to Claire Moffat for long.
“You’re looking well,” Davenant said when he arrived. “The publishing life agrees with you, though it’s a pity to lose your services in the field.”
“I do keep my hand in here and there,” Colin admitted.
Davenant smiled. “I was hoping you were. So many folks burn out, you know—get religion, or just lose their taste for ambiguity. I’m glad you’re still in the fight.”
“So to speak,” Colin said.
They ordered drinks, and chatted of current events—the Watergate break- in, Nixon’s reelection, the war—until they came. After they’d both tasted their drinks—the Warwick poured an excellent selection of single-malts—Davenant finally broached the subject of their meeting.
“I’ve already told you that the Rhodes Group is disbanding, but of course there’s still the matter of the company’s assets to dispose of. The research library—not to mention the records of our cases—constitutes a significant resource. And it would be a pity if all that data were to be lost.”
“It certainly would,” Colin agreed. “I suppose you’ll be donating it to a library or university?”
“Donating!” Davenant laughed. “You’ve been out of the business world too long, Colin. I’ve spent the last eight months looking for a buyer at the express direction of the board.”
“I suppose so,” Colin said noncommittally. He was always depressed when commerce got in the way of pure research. “Any luck?”
“Fortunately, yes. The library was broken up—most of it went to Duke, of course—but I’m happy to say I’ve found the perfect home for our case files.”
“Didn’t you have some confidentiality issues there?” Colin asked. “Some of those case files have some pretty hot stuff in them.”
“Oh, well, of course. Naturally all the government files were turned over to the Central Intelligence Agency—something called Project Star Gate has taken over our work in-house over there, but you didn’t hear it from me. As for the rest, real names have been deleted, and most of our clients signed partial waivers back in the beginning anyway. The only real problem was in finding a suitable recipient, and fortunately, I have success to report. We ended up selling the material lock, stock, and ectoplasm to the Bidney Institute, right here in your backyard.”
“Not quite my backyard, Michael—Glastonbury is a good ways up the river. But close enough, I suppose,” Colin said.
“Which brings me to what I wanted to pass along to you. While I was up there closing the deal, I happened to hear that they’re looking for a new director, since Newland’s retiring next year. I suppose you’re familiar with the terms of the funding bequest?”
Coincidentally enough, the book Colin was reading for Selkie Press was on the life of Margaret Beresford Bidney. “As a matter of fact, yes. The institute is associated with the college, but it manages and administers its own funding, including that million-dollar prize.”
“For just as long, I gather, as the good doctor can keep the money out of the sticky fingers of the college trustees. Well, now that he’s decided to retire, the college is putting real pressure on the institute to wind down and assimilate with Taghkanic.”
“Which would, of course, give Taghkanic control of the Bidney bequest?” asked Colin, out of familiarity with the intricacies of both internal politics and academic feuds.
“Precisely. The institute won’t have much hope of remaining an independent entity if they can’t search out a qualified director. While of course the college doesn’t have any actual control over who the institute chooses, if the institute makes a really bad appointment, the college can always withdraw its support and leave them without accreditation.”
“Who picks the new director?”
“The outgoing director and the institute’s board of directors. Frankly, I think Newland’s on Taghkanic’s side, the way he’s conducting his job search. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to get caught in the middle.”
“I can understand his feelings.” Colin considered the matter. “Well, I can hardly walk in and propose myself for the job. To be frank, I’m pretty happy with Selkie Press and my consulting work. Still, if the institute is going on the block, I
’d at least like to take a look at it before it’s gone.”
“That’s the spirit,” Davenant said enthusiastically. “And speaking of spirits—”
The conversation turned to parapsychology, and rambled through the field of mutual friends and acquaintances. Soon the venue was moved to Colin’s “little restaurant around the corner,” where both men did full justice to the table d’hôte. It was only at the end of the meal, over brandy and cigarettes, that Davenant returned, briefly, to the subject of the Rhodes Group library.
“It was a near thing, and even if the institute is going to go under next year when Newland resigns, I’m still glad they got the records—they’ll just roll over into the Taghkanic Library, and you know how colleges are about letting go of anything once they’ve got their hands on it. Anyway. I had a job of persuading the board, because Hasloch, Morehouse, and Rand were frankly offering more money, but—”
“Hasloch?” It wasn’t a common name, and Colin felt a chill strike straight to his heart, as though he’d unwarily breathed in a deep lungful of arctic air. There were no coincidences—all his experience and training had taught him that. Michael had called today—and Colin had accepted his invitation—for a reason, and now he knew what it was. Suddenly, without any need for temporal proof, Colin knew the enemy he faced.
“Toller Hasloch,” Davenant said. “Hotshot legal beagle: used to be Hasloch, Hasloch, and Morehouse before Hasloch’s father died last year and one of the senior associates got promoted. Apparently they were bidding for a client who didn’t want to be named—I can’t imagine what interest a New York law firm would have in parapsychology.”
For an instant the cozy restaurant was gone, and Colin stood in the basement in Berkeley, looking up at the blasphemous inverted figure hanging from the cross.
“Neither can I,” Colin said evenly.
The talk moved on, but the mood of the evening had been clouded, and when Davenant pleaded an early flight on the morrow, Colin was almost eager to let him go.
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