by Simon Hawke
While the regulars at Lovecraft’s were all well accustomed to Gonzago’s antics, others couldn’t help but stare. Which was partly why Gonzago did it, Makepeace thought. Even high-level corporate, adepts were conservative in expending their powers, because magic had a price, but Morrison Gonzago did not seem to know the meaning of the word “conservative.” He was a study in excess. He drank enough booze to pickle the innards of an elephant and he was always using magic profligately, at enormous cost to his life energy. Most people would have long since burned out from such relentless self-abuse, but when it came to life force, Gonzago seemed to have enough for at least a dozen men.
He had graduated from Columbia with a degree in English Literature, then took a Masters in Occult Sciences at Harvard. He was awarded his Th.D. by the Cambridge College of Sorcerers, where he had studied under none other than Merlin Ambrosius himself, and he had been the first to achieve a perfect score on his certification exams, a feat unmatched by anyone to date, so far as Makepeace knew. He had received a stream of lucrative job offers, but instead of joining the corporate sector, Gonzago went back to school on a graduate fellowship. While teaching English at Yale, he took a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, during which time he also won three major poetry awards and published his first novel, which was promptly awarded the Pulitzer. Colleges and universities throughout the country fell all over themselves offering him positions on their faculties. However, that was before they had a chance to get to know him. Afterward, their initial enthusiasm waned rather quickly. Gonzago had wound up at N.Y.U. after bouncing around from one school to another throughout most of his career, with long stints in between where he had tried to write, without success. He was never able to duplicate that surge of incandescent energy with which he had blazed onto the literary scene… and so he drank, instead. He had worn out his welcome at most of the colleges where he had taught, and so he came to New York City, where faded literary lions with somewhat scandalous reputations were not the exception, but the norm. And at a faculty reception shortly after his arrival, he had made an astonishing discovery. There was someone in the History Department who was not only as flamboyant and eccentric as he was, in his own way, but who was actually capable of drinking him right under the table… all without ever getting even slightly tipsy. The two men became instant best friends.
Neither one of them looked even remotely professorial. Makepeace, in Gonzago’s words, “dressed like a stolen car,” while Gonzago affected dark blue robes emblazoned with cabalistic symbols, similar to the ones Merlin Ambrosius had worn many years ago. Despite the fact that most adepts no longer wore the traditional sorcerer’s robes, Gonzago insisted it was the way a proper wizard ought to look. Together, he and Makepeace made quite a spectacle. Morticia brought a pitcher of beer to the table, and Makepeace proceeded to drink from it as if it were a mug.
“Bring a second one for my esteemed colleague,” Makepeace told her. “Have you eaten yet, Morrison, or did you forget again?”
“I ate yesterday, I think.”
“He’ll have a pastrami on rye, with hot mustard,” added Makepeace. “Man cannot live on alcohol alone, although Lord knows, he tries.”
“Stop mothering me, Sebastian.”
“You don’t need a mother, you need a keeper,” Makepeace replied. “I shudder to think what your liver must look like.”
“It’s growing and crowding out my other organs,” said Gonzago. “I can feel the pressure. Or perhaps I merely need to piss. But you should talk. For a man who imbibes as prodigiously as you do, the very least you can do is have the food grace to get inebriated on occasion.”
“Fairies don’t get drunk, old boy,” said Makepeace. “Then I fail to see the point.”
Makepeace grinned and raised his pitcher. “Cheers.”
“L’chayim,” said Gonzago.
“Are you sober enough to have this conversation?” Makepeace asked.
“That depends on how many functional brain cells I have left,” replied Gonzago. “You don’t need all that many to teach Freshman Comp. What’s on your mind, old friend?”
“How long have we known each other, Morrison?”
Gonzago considered for a moment.
“Entirely too long. Why?”
“Have you ever known me to prevaricate?”
“Is this a serious conversation?”
“Deadly serious.”
“Deadly serious? Dear me. What have you done, Sebastian? Don’t tell me you’ve gotten involved with one of your nubile, young students. I thought you knew better than that.”
“This is considerably more serious than that, I’m afraid,” said Makepeace. “I consider you one of my closest friends, Morrison, and yet… there is a great deal about me you do not know.”
“Oh-oh. I sense a grave confession coming on.”
“I’m serious, Morrison. There are things I’ve never told you, and with good reason, I might add. However, I am going to tell you now, because I need your help. I need someone I can trust.”
Gonzago raised his bushy eyebrows. “This does sound serious. Are you in some sort of trouble?”
“Not I,” said Makepeace. “But a very good friend of mine is.”
“I see. What can I do?”
“Before I tell you,” Makepeace said, “you should know that it could be very dangerous.”
“Indeed? Define dangerous.”
“Potentially life-threatening.”
“I would call that an accurate, if somewhat alarming, definition,” Gonzago said with a nod. “Do go on.”
“It’s rather a long story,” Makepeace said.
“Finals are over, dear boy, and I have no immediate plans other than to curl up with a case of Scotch and pass the summer in a pleasant stupor. So let ‘er rip.”
“You studied with Ambrosius, Morrison,” Makepeace said. “You knew him. You were one of his prize pupils, were you not?”
“I am proud to say I was, yes. Why?”
“Well, you remember when his mansion in Beacon Hill burned down several years ago?”
“Yes, of course,” said Gonzago, looking down into his ale. “It made headline news not only in Boston, but throughout the world. A tragic loss.”
“What if I were to tell you that Merlin did not die in that fire?”
Gonzago looked up at him with surprise. “Good Lord. You don’t mean to say he’s still alive?”
“ You are familiar with the spell of life force transference?” Makepeace replied.
“Well, yes, naturally, but it would be beyond the capability of most adepts. It would take nothing less than a mage to…” His voice trailed off as comprehension dawned.
“His corporeal self died, although not in that fire,” Makepeace replied. “But his astral self survived. However, the whole story is even more complicated. In fact, it began even before Merlin was born, when—”
Makepeace stopped abruptly.
“What is it?” asked Gonzago.
“I’m not sure,” said Makepeace. Gonzago followed his gaze. Makepeace was looking toward the entrance.
A stunning young woman with flowing, violet hair was making her way toward their table. Yet, as striking as her appearance was, she was not what everyone was looking at. Everybody in the bar was staring at her companion, an ambulatory broom holding a black cat in its rubbery-looking arms as it swept across the floor, preceding her and heading directly toward Makepeace with alacrity.
“I take it back,” Gonzago said. “I am not sober enough to have this conversation.”
John Angelo stood looking around at his surroundings, feeling they were vaguely familiar, yet at the same time having no idea where he was or how he had arrived there. The last thing he remembered clearly was waking up in a hospital. He had no memory of how he came to the hospital in the first place, or even why. He had checked to see if he was injured, but so far as he could tell, he seemed to be all right.
Barefoot and wearing nothing but the white hospital gown he awo
ke in, he had walked out into the hallway and encountered a nurse carrying a tray. When she saw him, she dropped the tray and screamed. He bolted past the nurses’ station and into the elevator, ignoring their shouts for him to stop. He remembered pushing the button for the lobby… or had he pushed the button for the lobby? It seemed as if that was what he would have done, must have done, but though it was starting to come back to him in little bits and pieces, none of it was linear. The very next thing he remembered was standing in the living room of the apartment where he now found himself. Only how in the world did he get here?
I got into the elevator, he thought, and I pushed the button for the lobby… and then… Then what? Then I was here. Only how the hell did I get here? And where the hell is “here”? He walked over to the window and looked out. He was in a high-rise apartment building on the Upper West Side. The street was far below, perhaps twenty floors down. Only what street was it? He had the feeling he should know, but he couldn’t seem to make things fit together somehow.
He turned and glanced around at the apartment. It puzzled him that he could not remember how he got here. He could not remember anything after entering the elevator. He did not remember coming out into the lobby or hailing a cab… Surely someone would have tried to stop him if he came out of the elevator and into the hospital lobby looking the way he did. But why couldn’t he remember?
He tried to organize his thoughts and concentrate. Where the hell am I? And then, an even more chilling thought. Who the hell am I? With a shock, he suddenly realized that he had absolutely no idea. God, he thought, what happened to me? Why can’t I remember? And how did I get here from the hospital? It seems as if I got into that elevator only seconds ago, and now I’m in this strange apartment. Do I live here?
Something about the place sort of vaguely felt like home, and then again, it didn’t. Perhaps, he thought, there was something in the apartment itself that would clue him in. There was nothing in the living room that seemed to help. Black leather sofa and easy chair, gray carpet, steel and glass coffee table, end tables, lamps, entertainment center, several paintings of nude women on the walls… He frowned. Did he really like that sort of thing? The whole place seemed rather tasteless. There was nothing in the living room to give him any clue as to his identity—if, in fact, this was even his place. He didn’t seem to like it much.
He went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror. He stared at the face he saw reflected back at him. He wasn’t even sure he recognized it. The man in the mirror had shaggy black hair, neatly trimmed to just above the collar; a full black beard, also neatly trimmed; brown eyes, vaguely almond-shaped and sleepy-looking, what women often called “bedroom eyes.” He frowned at the thought. Did that mean he was a ladies man? Or was he married? Did he have a family? He checked his left hand. No wedding ring. Would they have taken it off at the hospital? He didn’t think so. And there was no telltale ring mark. So he probably wasn’t married. But did he live alone?
The toilet articles in the bathroom suggested that he did— assuming, again, that this was his apartment. A check of the closets in the bedroom revealed no women’s clothing. Just suits, shirts, slacks, and sport coats, flashy and well tailored. He found clean underwear in the bureau drawers. It fit. The clothes fit, too, like they were made for him. Perhaps they were. The jacket had a tag sewn on the inside, stating that the garment had been custom tailored by Zangarra and Son for Giovanni Angelico. That must be me, he thought. Or is it? The name seemed vaguely familiar somehow. But only vaguely.
While he was getting dressed, he had noticed a strange gemstone implanted in the skin of his chest, over his heart.
A ruby. It looked real. Then again, why would anyone bother to have an artificial gem made a part of their body? He stared at it in the mirror, seeing its peculiar highlights, touching it lightly, wondering why it was there. Purely a bit of decadent ornamentation, apparently. Whoever I am, he thought, I must be quite a character.
In the drawer of the end table by the bed, he found a roll of cash large enough to choke a horse, but no wallet, no ID and not a single credit card. He found a small, black enamel jewelry box that contained a large and flashy diamond ring set in gold; an expensive Swiss watch, also gold; and a heavy, gold ID bracelet engraved in fancy script with the name “Johnny Angel.” He also found a gun.
It was a 9-mm semiautomatic of Italian manufacture. He picked it up, removed the magazine—fully loaded—and racked the slide back. The motions seemed very natural and familiar to him. It seems I know about guns, he thought. A pricey gun, custom-tailored suits, expensive jewelry, a lot of cash, but no ID and no credit cards. Two names, one of which sounded like an alias… Johnny Angel. Sounds like a cheap hood. He considered the gold jewelry, the expensive suits, the large roll of cash. Maybe not so cheap. If I am Giovanni Angelico, he thought, then I may be some sort of criminal. And, somehow, that thought seemed very familiar, too.
“What do you mean you don’t know where he lives?” McGuire said with disbelief. “How can you not know where he lives? He works for the department, doesn’t he?”
“He’s detached to special duty, Organized Crime Task Force,” said the young sergeant, staring at her monitor screen. She looked up at McGuire. “His current operational files are restricted.”
McGuire gave a long, exasperated sigh. Was anything going to work out normally on this case? The commissioner wanted facts, because the mayor wanted to know what was being done and the media was driving him crazy. So the commissioner was driving McGuire crazy. He wanted answers, except that McGuire had no answers to give him. Whatever answers were available, the Bureau had, and they were not disposed to share. The press wanted to know why they had been told essentially nothing about one of the largest police raids in the city’s history. They were screaming that people had a right to know. And now they had gotten hold of the fact that an officer who had been injured in that raid and was supposedly brain dead had simply gotten up out of bed and walked out of the hospital. It had sent them into a feeding frenzy that made a school of piranha fish look like a bunch of sardines. The whole thing was driving McGuire nuts.
“Angelo’s files have been transferred to the O.C.T.F. database,” the sergeant said. “Without proper authorization, we’re locked out. He’s one of the D.A.’s people.”
“No, Sergeant, he’s one of my people, on loan to the D.A. And she’s managed to rig things so that I can’t even find out where one of my own people is supposed to live. Jesus. Get her on the phone.”
About an hour later, he had finally gotten through to District Attorney Mathews. “Christine,” he said, “I’ve got a problem. I require access to the files of one of my people on loan to your Organized Crime Task Force.”
“Sorry, Steve, you know I can’t do that,” she replied.
“Christine, look, I’ve got a situation here—”
“Steve, I told the mayor when we set this whole thing up that in order to safeguard the lives of the officers and maintain the integrity of our investigations, I had to have complete and absolute control over all files and all internal policy and communications relating to the task force. As I recall, your office supported me in this undertaking and promised full cooperation.”
“I know that, Christine, but this is a special case. I need—”
“I’m sorry, Steve, I can’t make any exceptions. There have been leaks in the past and officers have died as a result.”
“Don’t you think I know that, Christine? Now will you listen to me, please?” And he quickly brought her up-to-date.
“All right, now wait a minute,” she said when he had finished, “just let me get this straight. You’re telling me that Angelo arrived at the hospital in a coma, was pronounced brain dead, then got up and walked out?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s impossible.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Well, obviously, there must be some mistake.”
“I only wish there were, but Angelo
had a living will stipulating that no heroic measures should be taken to keep him alive in the event of something like this, so not long after he was officially pronounced brain dead, they took him off life support in the presence of the department physician. And that was all she wrote. There was no heartbeat, no respiratory function, no brain waves, nothing. Only the fact remains that while they were getting ready to take him to the morgue,’ Angelo got out of bed and was seen leaving his hospital room, barefoot and wearing only a hospital gown. He got into the elevator and was never seen again. He simply disappeared.”
“What do you mean he disappeared?”
“I mean he disappeared. Flat out vanished. The people on duty in the lobby swear they never saw him get off the elevator. He may have gotten out some other way, like maybe through the maintenance corridors in the basement or something, but either way, nobody saw him. He’s gone, and no one knows what’s happened to him.”
“Well, I’d say their diagnosis left something to be desired,” D.A. Mathews said dryly.
“Christine, the man was stone cold dead.”
“Or so they claim, at any rate,” she replied. “Sounds to me as if somebody’s trying to cover their ass.”
“There were witnesses, Christine,” McGuire said. “They took Angelo off life support and all his vital functions stopped, period. The nurse who saw Angelo leaving his room had a nervous breakdown. She saw a dead man walking. The doctors over there are seriously upset about this. I had one of our forensic adepts check the room out. He said there were enough thaumaturgic trace emanations in there to light up Yankee Stadium.”
“‘Not even magic can bring a man back from the dead, Steve,” the D.A. said.
“Well, then I guess Angelo must be dead, but he doesn’t seem to have the sense to lie down.”
“What was he doing on this big raid of yours, anyway?” she countered. “The task force is under my authority.”