Death Trance

by Graham Masterton

  Bob Stroup asked, ‘Doesn’t Neil Sleaman know where Clare is? Once we know where Clare is, we can track down this Michael Hunter too.’

  ‘Clare’s been careful not to tell Neil where he’s staying. Neil kept asking him but he kept refusing, and Neil didn’t want to push it too hard. I don’t think Clare suspects Neil, but he didn’t want anybody to know where he was. Privacy, he said, no intrusive phone calls from the factory. But he’s probably making sure that nobody accidentally or not-so-accidentally passes his address on to you and Reece or those other coyotes of yours.’

  ‘You want to give me some instructions?’ Bob Stroup asked.

  ‘Yes. Find Randolph Clare as quickly as you possibly can and dispose of him just as we arranged. Then find this Michael Hunter and make sure you deal with him too, especially if he has already had the opportunity to speak to Randolph Clare. I don’t want him talking to Clare’s family after Clare is dead and putting the finger on us posthumously. Then I want you to fly straight back to Memphis on the earliest possible flight.’

  ‘Supposing we don’t catch up with Clare before he leaves Bali?’

  ‘Let’s just say that you had better.’

  ‘But if we don’t?’

  ‘Give it twenty-four hours. Keep on searching, then fly back here. But I know you’re not going to disappoint me, you and Reece. You never do.’

  He heard a clock out in the hall chime twelve-thirty, a deep Westminster chime, as sonorous as death itself. He thought about Randolph actually talking to Marmie again.

  It was quite poignant in a way. He had always liked Marmie. He had certainly not borne her any personal malice. But then his eyes strayed across the library to where the Bechstein stood, its lid as shiny as a lake of ink, and on the stand there was the score for Mozart’s Fantasy and Sonata in C-Minor, a melody Ilona used to play.

  And suddenly he thought to himself, Ilona.

  ‘Bob?’ he said. ‘You still there?’

  ‘Still here, Mr Graceworthy.’

  ‘Bob … see what you can do to bring me this Michael Hunter alive.’

  ‘Alive? That ain’t gonna be easy.’

  ‘See what you can do. If you need more money, just call me. I’ll wire it to you.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Mr Graceworthy.’

  Waverley put down the phone but sat for a long time holding the receiver in his hand.

  It was only when his butler came in and asked if he wanted his bath drawn that Waverley blinked and focused his eyes.

  ‘You are well, sir, I trust?’ his butler sneered.

  ‘Quite well, thank you. Would you fix me a brandy and soda?’

  ‘But of course, Mr Graceworthy.’

  Waverley went over to the piano and slowly picked out the first notes of Mozart’s Fantasy. He had never learned to play it the way Ilona did. He had been too old by the time she died, too old and too stiff-fingered. But those few isolated notes always brought back the feeling that she was still somewhere in the house, unseen, unheard, leaving nothing behind her but a softly felt eddy of air.

  Ilona, thought Waverley. Could it really be possible to meet the dead? Perhaps Bob Stroup had misunderstood. Perhaps the man he had killed had gabbled out the first fantastic story that had come into his head in a desperate effort to stay alive. Yet Bob Stroup had no imagination whatsoever. That was what made him an excellent killer.

  And if the man had really said that, Bob would have reported it to Waverley without emotion and without embellishment. A man who had made his way through enemy-infested jungle just to rescue a buddy who had already been given up for dead was not the kind of man who needed to make up stories. He was probably not the kind of man who could.

  The butler brought Waverley his brandy and soda. He was slightly amazed to see that Waverley had taken out his handkerchief and was wiping tears from his eyes.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Ball

  Randolph was awakened by somebody gently shaking his shoulder. It was just daylight; the light that strained through the bamboo blind was pearly and pink as if the sun were shining through a veil of rose-coloured Balinese silk. He turned his head and saw Wanda standing over him, wearing only a shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  She kissed his forehead. ‘Michael’s waiting for you outside.’

  Randolph reached for his watch. ‘Is it five already? I feel like I just closed my eyes.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have stayed up so late talking to Dr Ambara.’

  ‘Dr Ambara is an extremely fascinating man.’

  Wanda retreated from Randolph’s mosquito net while he sat up and stretched.

  Through the smoky muslin, he watched her walk to the window and raise the blind, and it occurred to him that he liked her more than he had ever liked any woman other than Marmie. Wanda treated him with a casual directness and equality in spite of the fact that she worked for him.

  He struggled out of the mosquito net and found his clothes. ‘Something’s knocking in back of my head,’ he said.

  ‘Ten ice juices and Balinese rum, that’s what’s knocking,’ Wanda remarked. While Randolph had been discussing psychic phenomena with Dr Ambara on the previous evening, he had developed an almost unquenchable thirst for crushed ice soaked in pineapple and sirsak juice and topped up with rum.

  He laced his white canvas shoes. ‘Okay, I’m just going to the bathroom and then I’m going to the temple. If anybody comes asking questions, lock the door and call the front desk. Did Michael bring anybody around to keep watch?’

  ‘There’s a ten-foot-tall Chinese guy in a “Feed the World” T-shirt.’

  ‘That’s terrific. I don’t know how long this session is going to take but we’ll be back in plenty of time to catch the plane.’

  ‘You really believe they’re that dangerous? Ecker and those friends of his?’

  ‘They killed I.M. Wartawa. At least it looks as if they did. And everything Jimmy the Rib told me in Memphis is beginning to make a lot of sense. Ecker - or Reece, or whatever his name is - is the Cottonseed Association’s strongarm man. If you don’t toe Waverley Graceworthy’s line, buddy boy, you’re going to end up in serious trouble. I honestly believe that Ecker was sent out to frighten me while I was away on what Waverley Graceworthy thought was a long vacation. Either to frighten me or to kill me. Look at what happened to my limousine when it was supposed to pick me up at Memphis Airport. Anybody who can fix up a stunt like that is obviously quite capable of killing people without even thinking about it.’

  Wanda asked, ‘Why didn’t they try to kill you in Memphis if they were going to kill you at all, instead of sending Ecker all the way out here?’

  ‘It’s quieter here. Less suspicion. What are the Balinese police going to say? An American businessman loses his family, becomes depressed, hangs himself in his hotel bathroom. All over. And nothing to make any of my friends back in Memphis suspicious. Besides, I think Waverley and Orbus were burning to find out why I came here. Waverley hates my guts, but at the same time, he’s incurably inquisitive about everything I do. Did you know that when I was married, he even sent someone around to take one of the menus from the reception? For some reason, he’s obsessed with Clare Cottonseed and with me.’

  Wanda came over and touched his shoulder. Then she bent forward and kissed him.

  ‘You will be careful, won’t you, when you go into this trance today?’

  ‘I’ll try to be,’ Randolph said. To tell the truth, I don’t know how to be careful.’

  Michael was waiting for him in the losmen’s lobby downstairs, leaning against the reception counter smoking a cigarette and talking in Basaha Indonesian to the plump little girl who helped run the hotel with her grandmother.

  ‘Saudara sudah berumahtangga?’ he asked her. ‘Are you married yet?’

  The girl giggled and shook her head. ‘Tidak. Mungkin nanti.‘1

  ‘You see,’ Michael told Randolph. ‘They all say it. “Maybe later.”’ T
hen he turned back to the girl, blew her a smoke ring and said, ‘Saya akan kembali nanti.’

  The tall Chinese bodyguard whom Michael had brought along to protect Wanda and Dr Ambara in case they were found by Ecker and his men was standing stolidly by the losmen doorway, his muscular arms folded over his breasts. He wore a dirty sweatband tied around his shaven head and one of his eyes was blind.

  ‘Ain’t he sweet?’ Michael joked as they stepped out into the street.

  Randolph asked, ‘Are you sure we have to do this? I really don’t like to leave Wanda and Dr Ambara alone.’

  Michael said, ‘It’s imperative. You must have at least one experience of a death trance while you’re here in Bali before we try to do it in Memphis. Unless you know what to expect, know what the warning signs are, you won’t stand a chance. We’ll go to the temple, induce the trance, and then we’ll go to the Dutch Reform Cemetery on Jalan Vyasa. It should be quite safe provided you remain completely calm.’

  They were walking through the street market now, through the fragrant smoke of a little stand selling peanut butter on hot toast, and coconut cakes drenched in molasses. A man dressed in scarlet silk was dancing barefoot on the sidewalk, leading a monkey on a long chain.

  Randolph ran his hand through his hair. ‘You mean, I’m actually going to see dead people today?’

  ‘Missionaries, most of them, merchants, local politicians.’

  ‘How, er …’ Randolph was embarrassed. ‘How long have they been dead?’

  Michael glanced at him. ‘You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. You should never go into a death trance if you’re frightened. The leyaks will sense you right away.’

  ‘Well, that’s another thing,’ Randolph said. ‘About these leyaks -‘

  Their conversation was interrupted for a moment while they crossed Jalan Gajahmada. Then, as they reached the opposite sidewalk, Michael said soberly, ‘I hunted leyaks for about a year, maybe for a little longer. What happened was - on my very first death trance - the leyaks killed my pedanda.’

  That’s a high priest, right? ApedandaT

  Michael nodded. ‘He was the same high priest my father had asked to take care of me. He was more than a priest, and he was more than a father. We weren’t friends particularly. When you study the ways of Yama, it’s almost impossible for you to be friends with your teacher; the stress of the situation is far too intense. But he was all around me, and inside of me as well. As long as I live, my pedanda will live too because what he gave me was much more important than food or clothing or education, or even love. He taught me to transfer myself from the world of the living to the world of the dead, and even back to the world of the yet unborn. He made me superhuman in a way, but of course anybody would be capable of the same thing if he could only believe.’

  ‘I believe,’ Randolph said firmly. Michael looked at him and there was no recognition in his expression of the twenty-five-year difference in age between them.

  ‘Do you?’ he asked.

  ‘I believe,” Randolph repeated doggedly.

  They reached the Temple of the Dead. Together they eased open the vast copper doors, one of which gave a groan that sounded like a dying man. They closed the doors behind them and walked directly through the derelict outer courtyard to the inner courtyard. This time Michael produced thin silk scarves and laid them over the stones before they sat down. He filled the censers with incense and lit them while Randolph walked around the courtyard examining the shrines: the shrine to Yama, the ruler of hell; the shrine to Dewi Sri, the goddess of fertility; the shrine to Kali, the destructive manifestation of Siwa; the shrine to Dharma, the god of virtue.

  The curved emerald roofs of the shrines rose above the walls of the dank and shadowy courtyard into the sun, into the world of the living. But when Randolph turned around, Michael was beckoning him to sit down on his mat, and already the smoke from the incense was blowing through the temple like the breath of the dead.

  On the ground between them Michael had laid a large object, the size of a horse’s skull, that was concealed beneath a faded scarf of decoratively dyed silk.

  ‘What’s that?’ Randolph asked.

  ‘The mask of the Goddess Rangda. Do you want to see it? It’s very sakti, very magical. It’s used in dances and trance ceremonies.’

  Without waiting to hear Randolph’s reply, Michael drew the silk away from Rangda’s face. Randolph stared for a long time at the Witch Widow’s bulging eyes, at her curving, crossed-over teeth, at her feral snarl. She was ferocity, cruelty and sheer blood-spattered terror. A face to be seen only in nightmares.

  ‘Is that what she really looks like?’ Randolph asked with trepidation in spite of himself.

  Michael covered up the mask. ‘I’ve never seen her, not for real, but there are some pedandas who have. And, yes - according to them - that’s what she looks like.’

  ‘Why do we have to have the mask here?’

  ‘Because we’re entering Rangda’s empire, that’s why; the realm of the dead. We can enter it only if we recite the ritual songs and show respect for Rangda. The magic of the mask creates a gate, a way through to the other world. And as long as the mask remains here, the gate will remain open. That’s why the death trance is forbidden by Indonesian law, because leyaks can escape through the gate into the physical world just as easily as we can enter into the spiritual world.’

  ‘Is there any way you can prevent that from happening? I mean, suppose leyaks come through the gate without our knowing it while we’re on our way to the Dutch cemetery.’

  Michael shook his head. They can’t do it here, it’s sacred ground. That’s why I always try to enter the death trance from the inside of a temple. Leyaks cannot walk here. The only being who can come close is Rangda herself, and she rarely does, especially if you take care not to disturb her leyaks while you’re in the trance.’

  He paused and then said seriously, ‘The only time I’ve ever known it to happen was during my first death trance. Rangda possessed the mask and used it to kill mypedanda. So here’s a word of extra advice … when we come back out of the trance and you find yourself sitting here, stay away from the mask until you’re sure the gate to the other world is closed and everything is safe.’

  ‘What about the dead themselves? The spirits?’

  ‘What about them?’

  Randolph settled himself on the floor. ‘I don’t mind telling you that I’m just as scared of them,’ he told Michael.

  ‘What do you have to be scared of? The dead won’t harm you. The dead will be overjoyed to see you.’

  ‘But they’re dead.’

  Michael said, ‘It was your burning desire to see your Marmie again that brought you here. Do you still want to see her or have you changed your mind? She’s dead, remember. She’s one of the dead, and she’ll be just like the people you’re going to see today.’

  Randolph shut his eyes and lowered his head. ‘Oh, God,’ he murmured. ‘Sometimes I wonder what the hell I’m doing.’

  ‘Whatever it is, you’re paying for it,’ Michael said, deliberately trying to be businesslike and mundane.

  Randolph wrapped his arms around his knees and shouted at Michael, ‘I’m scared!

  Don’t you understand that? I’m scared shitless!’

  Michael raised his hands, their palms towards Randolph. He stared at Randolph and his face was utterly serene. ‘You’re not frightened,’ he said, and his voice had an extraordinary metallic quality; it was as if he were speaking from a great distance.

  ‘You’re not frightened at all. You’re about to enter the world of the dead, but the world of the dead is nothing more than the other side of the mirror. One side bright, one side dark. But nothing to be frightened of, ever, because the dead are as happy to meet the living as the living are to meet the dead. These are not ghosts, Randolph.

  These are real, ordinary people, the kind of people you could pass in the street and never even glance at. Th
e only difference between them and you is that they’re dead and you’re still alive. But you’ll be dead one day just like they are, and when you’re dead, will you expect the living to be afraid of youT

  Randolph closed his eyes but Michael ordered, ‘Look at me. Look at me. And breathe deeply. Get rid of all of that panic. Get rid of all of that chaos. Your mind’s like a traffic jam. Unlock it. Calm it down. Stop worrying.’

  It was almost ten minutes before Randolph was sufficiently calm for Michael to start his chanting. Even then, Randolph could feel transient scurries of panic in the corners of his brain, like sudden bursts of tumble weed blowing across a landscape that was supposed to be desolate and utterly still. But Michael obviously considered that he was relaxed enough to enter a death trance and began to sing the sacred songs and tap his foot in time with the magic music, the music that was there but wasn’t, and gradually he coaxed Randolph to follow him into a state of other being.

  The kendang drums beat their complicated rhythms. The ceng-ceng cymbals rang.

  Randolph closed his eyes not because he wanted to, but because he had to, and he could hear the chiming of gongs, the staccato of tapping sticks, and the scuffling of a hundred feet through the courtyard.

  ‘We can walk now among the dead,’ sang Michael. ‘We can see quite clearly the ghosts of those who have gone before. Our eyes are opened, both to this world and to the next. We have reached the trance of trances, the trance of the dead, the world within worlds.’

  Randolph felt the stones rise beneath his feet as if they were made of freshly kneaded dough. He heard insistent whistles and talking, and shadows flickered in front of his eyes, the shapes of masks and faces and gesticulating arms, like in the wayang shadow theatre. He was sure he could never attain the spiritual frenzy required of a trance, and yet he was overwhelmed by the jangling music, the relentless beat of the drum and Michael’s continuing chants.

  They were still chanting when a taxi - a dented green Mercury with a smoking exhaust - drew up outside the temple on the opposite side of Jalan Mahabharata.

  Inside, wedged uncomfortably and sweatily in the back seat, were Richard Reece, aka Richard Ecker; Jimmy Heacox; and Bob Stroup. In the front seat sat a girl wearing a shocking-pink T-shirt and grubby white shorts, her hair twisted up with a batik scarf. She was Jennifer Dunning, the girl whom Michael called Mungkin Nanti, Maybe Later.