Mallory's Oracle

by Carol O'Connell

  After a fifteen-block walk from the subway to her apartment, she stood outside her door with the sick realization that she had no keys. They must have rolled out of her pocket when she slid to the floor of the bank’s lobby. She banged on the door of the empty apartment, crying against the wood, sinking to the hallway tiles. Her birth certificate was in there, somewhere in that pile of rubbish, and she could not get at it. She kicked the door with all the strength she had left.

  Wait. The mailbox.

  Her mail would identify her by name and address. But her box key was on the same lost ring with her apartment key. She pulled a switchblade knife from her pocket and danced down the steps to the mailboxes. She pried the box open, and pulled out one piece of junk mail and a utility bill.

  Mallory squinted. Strong morning light poured through the long bank of tall windows, illuminating each cigarette burn on the red velvet couch. At each end of the couch sat unacquainted women who were well past a certain age, yet both sported rouge and lipstick to do a fire engine proud. An old man stood at the receptionist’s desk slowly counting out dollar bills pulled from a plastic money clip which bore a dry cleaner’s logo. The receptionist nodded, rippling four chins each time a dollar was plumped down on the desk in front of her.

  The courtly Mr. Esteban was bending low to insert a videotape into the VCR. Mallory stared at a gray quarter inch on each side of the part in his hair, all that was not dulled with black dye.

  “We tape all the students,” he was saying, “every two weeks, so they can see their improvement. Usually we erase them, but not this one. No, this one is a keeper. He was a wonderful dancer, a natural.” Hunched over the machine and with his nose an inch from the screen, Mr. Esteban watched the test numbers flash by on the monitor in advance of the film. “One moment and you will see.”

  And she did see. There was gray-haired, overweight Markowitz and a slender young dancing partner some distance from the camera. The young woman in the red dress and dancing slippers was her own age or younger, familiar and not. As the oddly matched couple danced closer to the camera, Mallory sucked in her breath.

  It was Helen Markowitz.

  Helen was no longer pudgy and homey, no matron in this incarnation. She was three decades younger, an impossible teenage Helen with spiked hair and a ring in her nose.

  Well, why not, thought Mallory, sinking down to a tattered red velvet chair. This had been a week for ghosts.

  Rabbi Kaplan had told the truth. Markowitz was a wonderful dancer, lifting his partner high in the air to the music of Chuck Berry, spinning her out and twirling her back to his side. He was rocking and rolling. Illusion created of grace and fluid motion stole the years away until it was a young Louis dancing with the teenage Helen.

  “What’s the girl’s name?”

  “Brenda Mancusi.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She doesn’t work here anymore. She never came back after we heard the news about our Mr. Markowitz.”

  “I need her phone number, her address and a copy of that tape.”

  He hadn’t expected to see her again, yet here she was, holding two envelopes in her grimy fist, thrusting them into his face, screaming, “Look, look!”

  He took the envelopes gingerly in two fingers, wondering if lice might be transferred in this manner, and loathing himself for wondering. He nodded as he read the name appearing on the utility bill.

  “This only tells me that you and Samantha Siddon have the same last name.”

  “I want my—”

  “I did try to contact her attorney after you left the bank. He’s in Europe. There’s no number where he can be reached. His partner has agreed to look into the matter and get back to me.”

  “Sure. That bastard probably left town with all my money.”

  “I can assure you the money is safe in Mrs. Siddon’s accounts. But those accounts will remain frozen until the bank receives instructions from the executor. And then, we’ll need a picture ID. A passport or a—”

  “I need money, you son of a bitch. You know what I got in my pockets? This!”

  She pulled her deep vest pockets inside out. Lint-coated pennies and nickels spilled over his desk, followed by a slow-rolling moist wad of tissue, and last, the knife came tumbling out and landed in the center of his blotter. It was a switchblade.

  She hadn’t threatened him. He did realize it had only fallen out with the other contents of her pockets, the tissue and the coins. But a knife. Perhaps it had simply jarred him to see a knife in a bank, a weapon of any kind. Perhaps that was why he had pressed the silent alarm. He wasn’t certain.

  Now they both stared down at the knife as two paunchy gray-haired security guards were charging up the stairs from the lobby, their faces going red with the unaccustomed exertion.

  His eyes and hers locked together in mutual disbelief.

  She grabbed up the knife in one hand and ran down the stairs, passing between the old men, who reached out simultaneously and grasped the air she had passed through. They turned to follow after her as she ran the length of the lobby. The guards were so slow she had time to stumble, to collide with a patron, to burst into angry tears and beat them to the door.

  “No,” said Mallory. “She’s only expecting me. It would’ve queered the deal if Redwing ran a background check on you. I’m passing you off as a friend of the family.”

  “Not a good idea,” said Edith Candle. “It’s truth, bits and pieces of truth, that makes any scam work. An outright lie will work against you. If this woman’s any good at all, she’ll know.”

  “We’re doing it my way.”

  The door was opened by a woman in a black dress and a crisp white apron. Mallory gave her name and they were ushered into the foyer. Floating on a rich sea of mingled perfumes were the sounds of teacups clinking in saucers and a gentle Chopin étude. The maid turned and hurried into the large room which opened off this small holding pen for suspicious callers. From the foyer, Mallory could hear voices: melodious laughter and high, twittering speech. The far wall was a bank of sun-bright windows. Riding below the perfume was the unaired smell of an invalid’s room.

  The maid was raising a sash to the noises of the street. And by that cacophony of noise, Mallory knew this could not be a parkside window. A driver was leaning on his car horn, something which was not done in the square by tacit agreement of every living and rolling thing that passed through. And on a near street, a siren careened down the block. It must have been stopped in traffic, because now the siren switched to the bleating mode, whining to get this show on the road. And inside the apartment, the old women gathered like birds on a fence, tensely perched on the furniture while the table was being set up and chairs were brought in. Women with hennaed hair chatted with blue-haired women, and all about the room was the air of things to come.

  A matron in her early seventies was walking toward the foyer, smiling, her neck choked in pearls. Her head was disproportionately small, a white-haired marble atop a thick-waisted hourglass.

  “Miss Mallory? I’m Fabia Penworth, Marion’s mother. I’m so glad you could come, my dear. Oh, but who is this?” She stared down at Edith Candle, and then back to Mallory. “This won’t do. You were supposed to come alone, dear. Redwing never sees anyone without advance notice.” She leaned closer and said in a stage whisper, “I’ve told her all about your father and his unfortunate death. She says the easiest spirit to reach is one who dies by violence. They want to contact us, they want truth to out.” She suddenly remembered the annoying detail of Edith. “But this won’t do.”

  Mallory said, “This is an old friend—”

  “How do you do,” said Edith, stepping forward. “I’m Edith Candle. Perhaps Miss Whitman or Mrs. Gaynor mentioned me to you. I believe you all used the same broker at one time or another.”

  “Why, of course. Oh, how do you do.” The woman was showing all of her expensive bridgework to Edith. “Well, I’m honored, really honored. I never expected this. I don’t see any pro
blem at all, really. I’m sure Redwing will be delighted to meet you, someone of your stature in the spiritual community.”

  After being led into the main room and introduced to the medium, Mallory couldn’t tell if Redwing was delighted or not. The medium’s large, padded armchair had taken on the aspect of a throne. Imperial Redwing was dressed in Day-Glo colors, her head wound with a scarf of Indian pattern. The jewelry must weigh ten pounds, by Mallory’s rapid estimate, all bangle bracelets and golden chains. Her feet were encased in tiny gold lame sandals with delicate straps. Her eyes squinted into slits as one plump hand rose in the air to the level of Edith Candle’s lips, as though she expected it to be kissed. Redwing did not rise for the older woman.

  Edith took Redwing’s proffered hand in her own arthritic one. Mallory detected a wince of pain. Perhaps any pressure on Edith’s inflamed joints might cause that, perhaps not. And now Redwing’s eyes were open wide, too sharp, too bright.

  The boy standing behind the armchair must belong to Redwing. Mallory assessed the genes of all races, rejumbled in this new combination: The child’s eyes were yellow, the skin was golden brown and the hair somewhat kinky. The facial features were Caucasian. Though the eyes slanted up, the Asian folds were missing in this new translation of chromosomes. The boy’s expression was dulled. Had he been drugged?

  When the introductions were done and Redwing turned away, ending the audience, Mallory pulled Edith Candle to the only unpopulated corner of the room.

  “You never told me you knew Estelle Gaynor.”

  “You never asked. At my age it’s not unusual to know several dead people.”

  “Several murdered people?”

  And what about Samantha Siddon? Had the fourth victim also been on nodding acquaintance with dead people before joining their company?

  The doorbell chimed with light musical notes. Jonathan Gaynor was admitted. After a brief handshake with the enthroned Redwing, he allowed his introduction to be made to Mallory as though they had never met. He winked at her as his hostess led him off to another part of the room. Another white-haired woman with a survivor’s eye for dangerous moving objects stepped out of his way when the sharp angles of his jutting elbows came perilously close to her.

  As long as he was sitting down and not colliding with anyone, not tripping on anything, Mallory thought he fit in well with the old women who fawned over him and fed him nourishing sugar cookies. He touched the wrinkled, dry hand of an octogenarian to make some point with tactile emphasis, and the woman came all undone. Mallory reevaluated her opinion on the death of sex after forty.

  Her attention turned to a tall, thin woman who had joined them on the couch. The lean body was created for designer dresses. The expensive razor cut of her short white hair framed a fine bone structure beneath the webs of wrinkles. The woman was saying to Edith, “Oh yes, we knew Samantha Siddon quite well. She never missed a seance after the second murder. She said it was life on the edge, and she hadn’t been to the edge for more than fifty years, and then it was only for a moment.”

  Mallory accepted a delicate teacup from the maid and turned back to the woman with the mannequin frame. “Ma’ am?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Aren’t you afraid? Three murders so close to home. Those women—”

  “Oh no, dear, not at all. Now take Pearl Whitman, she wasn’t killed in the square. Oh, but it was the same lunatic, wasn’t it? Of course it was. You know, what frightened Pearl most wasn’t death. It was the prospect of invalidism, lying in a hospital bed for years, waiting to die or waiting for someone to visit, always being disappointed, always waiting.”

  “Miss Whitman attended the seances, too?”

  “She was a charter member. She thought murder made the whole thing more exciting.”

  “And Estelle Gaynor?”

  “She hosted the very first one.”

  “No, dear,” said a voice behind Mallory’s chair. “Anne hosted the first one.”

  Mallory looked up into the bright eyes of a blue-haired woman with a perfectly round face.

  “Anne?”

  “Anne Cathery, the woman who died in the park,” said the moon-faced woman.

  “You’re both aware of the connection?”

  “The murders and the seances? Of course we’re aware. All of us.” The wave of her hand included the entire room. “What’s left of us. How could you fail to notice a thing like that? I swear, you young people must think we were all born with liver spots and Alzheimer’s.”

  The mannequin leaned toward Mallory and said, more kindly, “It’s all right, dear. You’re supposed to take old women for doddering fools. You’re young, that’s your job. I certainly don’t mind. I find it gives me an edge in all my dealings with your generation.”

  The round-faced woman winked at the mannequin. “Like that young financier you took for a ride last year?”

  “Netted me a million in profit, April dear.” She looked back to Mallory. “The young man assumed my position on the board of directors was some honorary title for the widow of the majority stockholder. But you seem more interested in murder than money. That speaks well of you.”

  “So you’re not afraid.”

  “Of dying? I’d have to think on that, dear. Most days I’d have to say yes. But then, there are those days, you know? No, of course you don’t. You’re a child. You don’t know the joys of incontinence and flatulence. I don’t think Samantha Siddon much cared if she lived another year. She had lived too long, she thought, surviving her own children. Now there’s a crime of crimes.”

  “Didn’t she have a cousin?”

  “Margot. Strange child. I don’t think she cared for Margot very much. She used to brag on the child’s visits every week, but I don’t know that she enjoyed them. No, Samantha probably didn’t mind dying.”

  “But a death like that—”

  “There’s an excitement to a quick ending,” said the mannequin. “It’s a momentous thing, death. But you wouldn’t know that.” She rested one paper-light hand on Mallory’s. “You think you’re immortal, don’t you, dear? Of course you do.”

  The moon-faced woman sat down and well back in the couch cushions. Her plump feet did not quite touch the floor. “Well, anyway, the seances certainly made Samantha’s last days more exciting. It was almost like a lottery. Or perhaps you’d prefer the more clichéd analogy of a Bingo game. Ah, the Bingo parlor, God’s little waiting room for the blue-hair set.” The woman sighed. “And now it’s another month to wait for the next one.”

  “The next séance?” asked Mallory.

  “No, dear,” said the mannequin. “The seance is once a week. She’s talking murder. They’re usually four weeks apart.”

  “Did anyone mention the seance connection to the police?”

  “Oh, worst possible idea. Redwing wouldn’t like it. It might cause a rupture in her karma. Artists are so fragile. You’re not going to rat us out, are you, dear?”

  Markowitz had taught her to scout the terrain. And now she was immersed in the land of canes and cataracts, blue hair and support hose, conspiracy and murder.

  A bell tinkled in the hand of the maid.

  The illusion of bird women stayed with Mallory as, from different points about the room, they rose in a flock and settled back to earth around the table with its white cloth, with whispers in the shush of material, creaks and shuffles of chairs, settling down and settling in. Mallory sat between Jonathan Gaynor and a woman with a bobbing head. Edith sat between this woman and their hostess. Redwing grasped the hands on either side of her, and the rest of the assembly followed suit in joining hands.

  A dish with a black unlit candle sat at the center of the table beside a brightly painted statuette of a Madonna and Child. Piled in front of Redwing was a collection of objects. Markowitz’s pocket watch was there, gleaming among other items—the rings with bright gems, a key, a ribbon-tied lock of gold hair so fine it must have belonged to a small child.

  Heavy drapes were bei
ng drawn across the sunlit windows by the maid. As the room grew dark, the candle at the center of the table came to life, of its own accord, to provide all the light there was. And with that light came the sweet odor of incense, which thickened and overpowered the perfumes of the women. A trick of the wavering candle flame made the tiny Madonna statuette move in a flickering dance.

  Redwing closed her eyes, and her head rolled against the back of the wing chair. “Our Father Who art in heaven,” she said, and the gathering closed their eyes, all save Mallory, and repeated the words after her, all save Mallory.

  Our Father Who art in heaven,

  Mallory only moved her mouth in the little heresy of the handicapped make-believer with severe limitations which stopped short of buying heaven.

  Hallowed be Thy name.

  And it was only hour by hour that she kept at bay the realization that Markowitz was in that hole in the ground and feeding the worms.

  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

  The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.

  On earth, as it is in heaven.

  Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, dead was dead, and a stiff was a stiff. All alone in the cold ground. Markowitz.

  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

  Never.

  The boy stole up behind Redwing’s chair and stood there with less life to him than the wavering statuette. Mallory was planning his incarceration in Juvenile Hall as quickly as she confirmed all the signs of a drugged child. It had always made her a little crazy to see someone strike a child, and this was worse. It called up some gray area of earliest memory which just as quickly slid away from her like a dream lost and beyond recalling. Not that she tried, for every good instinct said, ‘Let it go.’

  The gramophone began to play. The music was classical, melding into twenties tunes, and then to old fifties-style rock ‘n’ roll. Mallory lifted her chin only slightly in recognition of an album from Markowitz’s basement collection.