In The House Of Secret Enemies m-9

by George C. Chesbro

Uranus motioned me closer to the desk and pointed to the two circles. "The inner circle is the natal horoscope," she said, "the position of the sun, moon and planets in the sky at this person's birth. There are no severe afflictions-bad signs-in it. He or she probably has a marked talent in art or music, although that talent is used rather superficially, in a popular vein. But the chart indicates considerable success."

  I swallowed hard and found that my mouth was dry. "Where does the trouble come in?"

  "The outer circle is a synthesis-the horoscope projected up to the present time. Saturn-an evil, constricting influence-is in very bad conjunction with the other planets. There is a bad grouping in Scorpio, the sign of the occult. There are a number of other afflictions indicated, including a bad conjunction in the house of the secret enemy. I would say that whoever this is has reached a most important crossroad in his life, and the situation is fraught with danger. May I ask whose horoscope this is?"

  I felt light-headed. I wrenched my brain back into gear. "A rock star by the name of Harley Davidson."

  Uranus choked off a cry as her hand flew to her mouth.

  "You know him?"

  Uranus shuddered. "His real name is Bob Greenfield. Bob was one of my students a few years back. Tall, likable boy. Black hair, angular features. Maybe you remember him."

  I didn't, which wasn't unusual. The university is a big place. I briefly told Uranus the story Peth had given me.

  Uranus' eyes clouded and her face aged perceptibly. "Borrn is an evil man," she said quietly. "Bob would be no match for him."

  "His ex-manager seems to think the same thing. He hired me to try to get something on Borrn."

  Uranus shook her head. "You'll fail. And you'll be running a great personal risk if you try. Borrn is exceedingly dangerous."

  "If he's criminal, maybe I can prove it."

  "No. Evil is not necessarily criminal. There's a difference."

  I didn't argue the point. I understood it all too well.

  "Borrn is a gifted astrologer and palmist," Uranus continued. "There's also a rumor to the effect that he's a member of a supersecret coven of witches."

  "Garth mentioned that."

  "Garth must be developing some other good contacts; or someone is deliberately trying to mislead him. I'm not sure if the rumor is true, but it probably is. If so, it could explain a lot of things."

  "Like what?"

  "The influence you claim Borrn has over Bob. It could be the coven's cone of power acting on him."

  "Cone of power?"

  "An influence coming from a powerful collective will. That's the purpose of a coven: to form a collective will. There's no telling what they want with Bob. It could be a homosexual angle-Bob's a handsome boy-or it could simply be money."

  I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry, Uranus, but I don't believe that 'cone of power' number."

  Uranus seemed distracted, and I couldn't tell whether she hadn't heard or was merely ignoring my comment. "We should go and talk to Bob," she said at last.

  "We?"

  "He wouldn't talk to you. He would to me. I know the language."

  I considered it for a moment, then reached for the phone, intending to call Peth. "I'll find out where he lives."

  Uranus was already halfway to the door. "I know where he lives; we kept in touch up until a few months ago." She paused and stared at me. I was still standing by her desk, trying to sort things out. The urgency in her eyes hummed in her voice. "I really think we should hurry, Mongo."

  The place where Harley Davidson had once lived was a three-story brownstone in a fashionable section of Greenwich

  Village. Nobody answered the bell, and it took me half an hour to work my way through the double lock on the door.

  Harley Davidson was out, and he wouldn't be back. He'd left his body behind on the floor of his bedroom, filled with sleeping pills.

  I picked my way through the empty plastic vials on the floor and called Garth. Uranus sat down on the edge of Davidson's bed and began to cry softly. I began to poke around. The first thing that caught my attention was what appeared to be a notebook on a night stand. It had metal covers and was inscribed with strange symbols. I used a handkerchief to pick it up and carry it over to where Uranus was sitting. Her sobbing had subsided and she was staring off into space, beyond a young man's corpse, at what was and what might have been.

  I touched her gently on the shoulder and showed her the notebook. "Darlin', do you know what this is?"

  She glanced at the notebook. "It's a witch's diary," she said distantly. Her voice had the quality of an echo. "All initiates start one, and fill it the rest of their lives. It usually contains personal experiences, spells, and coven secrets."

  I grunted, opened the book and started to leaf through it. There wasn't much in it that made any sense to me; I decided the obfuscation was probably intentional, designed to preserve its contents from prying eyes like my own. Borrn's name was mentioned a number of times, along with a list of various ceremonies in which Davidson had participated.

  "Borrn seems to be the coven leader, judging by all this," I said.

  Uranus said nothing, nor did she exhibit any interest in the notebook. I didn't press her on it. I asked a question instead. "What's 'scrying'?"

  "Is that mentioned in there?"

  "A number of times."

  "Scrying is a method of divination," Uranus said hollowly, "of looking into the future or discovering secrets. It usually involves crystal gazing, but flame or water can also be used. Bob would have been nowhere near the point where he could scry."

  "Who is at that point?"

  I must have made a face, or the tone of my voice wasn't right. Uranus suddenly snapped, "Don't mock what you don't understand! I do it all the time!'' She punctuated the outburst with a long sigh; it was an apology, unasked for and unneeded. "With the locked door and empty pill bottles, it's an obvious suicide. It's finished, Mongo. What's your interest now?"

  It was a good question, one I'd been asking myself. Maybe it was the fact that a lot of Sandor Peth's money was still rustling around in my pocket. It seemed a shame to give it back, and if I were going to keep it I had to work for it.

  "There's a point of law called psychological coercion," I said. "If it can be shown that Borrn or any other member of his coven influenced Davidson to take his own life, it's a criminal offense. Probably impossible to prove, but worth looking into."

  "Leave it, Mongo. Please. No good will come out of your investigating Borrn. I know you don't believe this, but you can't imagine the misery he could cause you."

  I didn't say anything. I was tired of warnings, tired of unwanted glimpses into the dark attics of men's minds. There was the body of the boy on the floor, shot out of the tree of life by invisible bullets of what had to be superstition. Those bullets had found their mark in a bright, talented and rich boy who had exploded under their impact, plunging from the rarefied atmosphere of celebrity to end as a cold, graying hulk, like a falling star.

  Uranus suddenly gripped my arm. "Bob shouldn't have had something like this."

  I looked at her. The grief in her eyes had been replaced by something else. She looked as if she had just waked from sleep, passing from a nightmare into something worse.

  "Why not? You told me Borrn was a witch. Under the circumstances, wouldn't it have been natural for Davidson to become a member of Borrn's coven?"

  "No. It would have been virtually impossible. I told you that a coven is made up of thirteen members. Thirteen is a magic number of sorts. No coven would take in a fourteenth member."

  "Maybe somebody died or decided to join the Elks instead."

  Uranus shook her head. "Not at the level at which this coven operated. You don't just 'leave' a coven like that. And, even if a member had died, they would never choose a boy like Bob to take his place. Borrn's coven is highly skilled. They would never accept an initiate."

  "Maybe the book belongs to somebody else."

  "I doubt it. A witch's dia
ry is his most precious possession. He almost never lets it out of his sight."

  I put the book back in its place and started for the door. "Garth should be here in a few minutes," I said. "You fill him in. I'll talk to him later."

  "Where will I tell him you've gone?"

  "Tell him I've gone to have my fortune told."

  It took a bit of looking, but I finally found Borrn's store-front operation. It was the only open door in a narrow alley bounded on both sides by crumbling warehouses with boarded-up windows. I went through it.

  The room was small and cramped, permeated by the smell of incense. Borrn sat in the middle of it like a spider in the middle of an invisible web that was no less deadly for the fact that I couldn't see it. In front of him was a plain wooden table on which was a crystal ball. It was the only exotica in the room; the rest consisted of bookshelves filled with books, most of which looked well-worn. I wondered whether he actually read them, or had picked them up in a secondhand bookstore. Borrn himself was dressed in a very unmystical outfit consisting of faded denims and dungaree jacket. I felt vaguely disappointed, like a boy who'd peeked into a clown's dressing room.

  Borrn rose as I entered. He was not a big man, but he had presence, the kind of self-assurance that comes from being able to make a living doing what you like and being good at it. He was short and stocky, with brown hair and piercing black eyes.

  "Can I help you?" His voice was soft, almost lilting, like the swish of a garrote before it bites into flesh.

  I gave him a phony name. Business or no, I didn't want my name popping up at a later date on some astrologer's list of clients. "I hear you tell fortunes."

  I'd offended him. Borrn sat back down and crossed his arms over his chest. "I do not 'tell fortunes,' as you put it. I advise you to look on Forty-second Street."

  "What do you do?"

  "If you are serious, I will read your palm. I charge twenty-five dollars for a one-hour consultation. However, I do not think you are serious. You would have known that I am not a fortuneteller."

  "What do you call palm reading?"

  "The palm is a map of your past and an indication of what your future may hold. It does not tell your destiny; you decide your destiny."

  "It still sounds like the same thing."

  "It is not. If I tell you there is a red light two blocks from here, that does not affect your freedom to decide to stop for it or to run it."

  "It sounds a little complicated to me. How about doing my horoscope?"

  He motioned me to sit down. I did.

  "I believe your horoscope would be useless to you," he said in the tone of a doctor criticizing a medication. "I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you to be told that you're a dwarf. Your horoscope would probably show a great affliction in the physical area, but the rest might not necessarily hold true. A horoscope is like an insurance company's actuary tables. You differ markedly from the norm; your dwarfism-the immediacy of it-would consistently influence your life far more than the planets."

  "All right," I said, holding out my hand, "see what you can do with that."

  "Are you right-handed?"

  "Yes."

  "Then this hand is the record of what you have done with your natural talents. The left is your subconscious, your potential. Later we will compare the two."

  He took my right hand and began to manipulate it, bending the fingers back and forth, pressing the mounds of flesh at the base of the palm and fingers. He had a soft, delicate touch. To this point he had been rather pleasant, a natural psychologist; I had to remind myself that the worst evil often comes in the nicest packages.

  "Were you once in the circus?"

  The question startled me, until I reflected on the logic of it. "Sure," I said evenly. "We call it 'Dwarfs' Heaven.'"

  Borrn shook his head. He seemed puzzled. "But you weren't there in the capacity of a clown, or a freak. You were important, had a wonderful reputation and considerable publicity. I. . see great coordination and drive. I would have to say that you were an acrobat. Or a tumbler." He looked up at me. "Is that right?"

  I decided Borrn had one hell of an act. I resisted the impulse to look at my own hand. "What else does it say?"

  Borrn turned his attention back to my hand. "The head line is very long and complex. I would say that you have-or once had-multiple careers. You have a great deal of intelligence, and may be a teacher, probably at an advanced level, as your hand shows that you are impatient with stupidity. Also, you are dying."

  The last went through me like a jolt of electricity. I yanked my hand away. "It comes with the package," I said tightly. "That's why you don't see many dwarfs in old-age homes. Did Harley Davidson's hand say the same thing?"

  That gave Borrn a little jolt of his own, but he had remarkable control. Something flashed in his eyes, then went out, leaving his eyes looking like two cold lumps of coal. The effect was startling, as though he had suddenly contracted and was watching me from somewhere deep inside himself, far behind the dull eyes I was watching. "Who are you?" he asked. "What do you want?"

  "Davidson was one of your clients. Did you know that he's dead?"

  "I do not discuss my clients," Borrn said in a voice that was so low it was barely audible. "Get out."

  "You may have to discuss Davidson with the police. I think you may have had something to do with his death. What did you tell him that would make him want to take his own life?"

  I expected some kind of reaction and got none. I knew instinctively that Borrn was not going to say more. He sat very still, like some kind of statue executed in perfect detail, but still without life. Again, I had the impression that he had retreated to somewhere deep within himself to a trancelike state where, as far as I was concerned, he had left the room and would not be coming back. I swallowed hard. His eyes were blank, looking at and beyond me. I suddenly knew that he could stay that way for hours if he chose to do so. Nothing I could say or do would have the slightest impact on him.

  It was the most effective brush-off I'd ever seen. I got up and left.

  I didn't go far. It had been a long day, and I'd covered a lot of territory, geographic and emotional; but there was still a way to go, and I was anxious to get to the end of whatever road it was I was traveling on. Borrn had gotten to me in a way he probably hadn't anticipated. He'd known too much about me. That meant one of two things: He had actually seen things in my palm, or he had a dossier. To me it was no contest. I wanted to find the dossier, then find out who had given it to him, and why.

  I killed what remained of the afternoon in a local bar over beer and a steak sandwich. Then I went out and bought a penlight and a navy blue sheet. Finally I went back to the alley. It was dark.

  It took me all of thirty seconds to burgle my way into the store-front. I shrouded myself with the sheet to hide the light from the penlight and began to go through Borrn's rather extensive library. I wasn't sure what I was looking for; whatever it was, I didn't find it. Most of the books were highly technical treatises on astrology, replete with countless charts and tables that made my eyes water. That was it, except for a crumbling copy of something called the Kabala and other books on mysticism. There were no personal papers or records of any kind.

  I sat down in Borrn's chair and tried to think. I'd apparently struck out in Borrn's office, and I doubted strongly that I would find any "Borrn" listed in the telephone directory. Besides, judging from what Uranus and Garth had said, I wasn't going to get any information from people in the neighborhood who might have any.

  I raised a good dwarf chuckle by reflecting on the fact that I might just have to "scry" up some answers. I reached out and touched the crystal ball in front of me. It was heavy leaded glass. I absently pushed at it and heard a soft click behind me. I turned and whistled softly.

  A section of one of the bookcases had slid open to reveal a short corridor leading to what appeared to be a large chamber.

  Light from the secret chamber was pouring out into the storefront a
nd splashing onto the street. I quickly rose from the chair and went through the opening.

  I'd been worried about getting the door shut, and I realized too late that I'd confused my priorities. The heavy steel door sighed shut as I passed through the opening. It came up flush against the wall with a very solid and ominous click. I looked for some way to get the door open and couldn't find it. It was a double-security system, primarily designed to keep intruders out but, failing that, designed to insure that they stayed in. Since there seemed to be no way out, I went in.

  The setup inside was impressive. The interior of the warehouse behind Borrn's store-front had been gutted and reconstructed to form a huge, circular chamber. The walls and ceiling were solid and soundproofed; the floor was concrete. I estimated the construction costs to be in excess of a half million dollars. Borrn didn't get that kind of money from doing mystical manicures.

  The job wasn't completed yet. There was a gaping hole high on the north wall, with ropes and scaffolding hanging down from it. That would be the conduit for the building supplies.

  There was a large crater in the middle of the floor, about twenty feet in diameter. I walked over and looked in. It was perhaps six feet deep, covered at the bottom with large gas jets. The ceiling above was blackened, and there were air vents placed at strategic points around the chamber to allow for circulation. The whole thing reminded me of a crematorium.

  There were twelve cubicles built around the perimeter of the chamber, and I could see from where I was standing that they were living quarters of sorts, complete with cots, small libraries and black-draped, candle-covered altars; but it was the thirteenth cubicle built into the north wall in which I was interested. It was at least twice as large as the others, and was draped in red: that would be Borrn's. I walked in.

  I was a slow learner. The cubicle was rigged in the same manner as the store-front; I had no sooner stepped over the threshold than a steel door dropped from a hidden receptacle in the ceiling. Obviously, arrangements for walking out had to be made before walking in. I decided that didn't bode well for my immediate future.