The Clairvoyant Countess

by Dorothy Gilman

  “Kind of you,” said Faber-Jones, getting to his feet. “Only pushed the page halfway, though, and frankly I’m exhausted.”

  “Me too,” admitted Gavin. “Hi, Lieutenant Pruden!”

  “What have I interrupted?” asked Pruden curiously.

  “A practice session,” Gavin told him eagerly. “It’s great meeting Mr. Faber-Jones, you know, he has the gift too.”

  “Oh? But what have you been practicing?”

  “Concentration,” said Madame Karitska. “The moving of mountains by the use of the mind. In this case, the lifting of a page in a book by sheer concentration of psychic energies. The pages can turn—you saw it yourself.”

  “Incredible,” said Pruden.

  “You can’t just say ‘Move!’ to the pages either,” put in Gavin. “You have to lift them with concentrated thought, and boy it’s rough. It’s fun too, though. You ought to try it.”

  Pruden’s laugh was short and doubting.

  “You find it unbelievable?” inquired Madame Karitska.

  “I don’t know,” said Pruden, frowning. “I might have six days ago but—”

  “But what?” asked Faber-Jones, sinking into the couch, obviously tired and ready for diversion.

  “Do not say a word,” said Madame Karitska, “until I bring out the Turkish coffee I’ve brewed, with a glass of milk for Gavin.” When she had returned and distributed refreshments she sat down and inserted a cigarette into a long holder. “Now tell us what has placed a crack in your imperviousness.”

  Pruden said, “I’d really like to know: you believe the mind has such intensity, such power?”

  “But of course,” she said, amused. “We use only a fraction of its power, we use only a tiny amount of ourselves.”

  “But for instance,” Pruden said, picking his words carefully, “do you believe a man can simply announce that he’s going to die, be in perfect health and—just die?”

  Madame Karitska smiled faintly. “So many diseases are psychosomatic, it happens oftener than you think. I have seen people turn their faces from life, their will to live gone. It may take months or years but they die.”

  He shook his head. “I mean something much faster than that—death in a matter of days.”

  “Ah,” said Madame Karitska, “now that is very interesting. You have met such a situation? You must have met such a situation or you would not be speaking of this?”

  He said ruefully, “I’m still not accustomed to having my mind browsed through but yes, I’ve met such a situation. Heard about it, at least. The patrolman on the block, Bill Kane, has been puzzling over it for days. It seems a man named Arturo Mendez died about two weeks ago. On a Wednesday he told his brother Luis that he would die before the week was out, and on the following Tuesday night he died.”

  “Did they not call a doctor?”

  “On Monday they called an ambulance and he was taken to the hospital. The doctors found nothing organically wrong with him, but the following night he was dead.”

  “Did they perform an autopsy?”

  Pruden nodded. “He died quite literally of a heart stoppage but there was nothing wrong with his heart either.”

  “Then it was precognition,” put in Gavin eagerly. “He knew something was going to happen ahead of time.”

  “No—no, I think not,” Madame Karitska said, and with an intent glance at Pruden, “There is more?”

  He nodded. “Yesterday Bill Kane told me that Arturo’s brother Luis won’t get out of bed now. He’s settled his debts, paid his landlady a week’s rent in advance, and told her that he’ll be dead by Monday morning.”

  “And this is Friday night,” mused Madame Karitska. “I wonder … where do they live, Lieutenant?”

  “Three blocks away on Fifth Street, in the Puerto Rican section.”

  She nodded. “I will go there tomorrow, I would like to see this.”

  Pruden shook his head. “It’s not a good section for gringos, as they call us. Very few speak English, and Luis only a little. Do you speak Spanish?”

  “No,” said Madame Karitska, “but there is communication without speech.” She added thoughtfully, “This is very interesting to me. There are yogis in the East, of course, who can stop breathing at will, but neither of your two men is a yogi; there must be very powerful forces involved here. It is the invisible at work, and I am a student of the invisible.” She glanced abruptly at her watch and said, “It’s time, Gavin.” To Pruden she explained, “Mr. Faber-Jones has brought over a portable television so that we can see John Painter make his debut on the ‘Tommy Tompkins Show.’ ”

  “Someone you know?” asked Pruden as Gavin jumped up to turn on the set.

  “A protégé of Mr. Faber-Jones.”

  Faber-Jones looked at her reproachfully. “We both know whose protégé he really is, Madame Karitska.”

  “Nonsense,” she told him, “you’re growing quite fond of him and you know it, especially since he stopped wearing tennis sneakers.”

  “He only exchanged them for calfskin boots and a sequin jump suit,” put in Faber-Jones dryly. “A very expensive sequin jump suit too, I might add.”

  “Hey, that sounds cool,” broke in Gavin. “You think I could meet him sometime?”

  “Sssh,” said Madame Karitska, touching his shoulder and pointing to the television screen on which a glowing sequinned figure had appeared, guitar in hand, to sit on a stool in front of the cameras. Faber-Jones turned up the volume just as the song began:

  “Once in old Atlantis

  I loved a lady pure …

  And then the waters rose …”

  “It’s already number two on the charts,” Faber-Jones told Pruden in an aside. “My Pisces company cut the platter.”

  “Oh?” said Pruden, blinking, and gave Faber-Jones a startled second glance.

  On the following morning Madame Karitska had an appointment at nine o’clock, and when her client had left she placed a sign on her door that read BACK AT 12. She then set out for Fifth Street, which she had always enjoyed on her walks around the city because so much of its life was lived without concealment on the street. Today was no exception: the sun was summer-hot and before Madame Karitska had even reached Fifth Street she could hear its music. At this hour flamenco dominated, and then as she rounded the corner she was met by John Painter’s “Once in Old Atlantis” pouring out of the Caballeros Social Club across the street.

  Madame Karitska picked her way along the crowded sidewalk. Street vendors chanted and shouted, and young men armed with lugs and wrenches peered into the hoods of old cars or lay under them with only sandaled feet showing. Several old men huddled over a game spread out on empty orange crates, and one family of four were unself-consciously eating early lunch at a card table on the sidewalk. Every stair and porch was occupied by people of varying ages taking the sun with the enthusiasm of any Miami Beach sun-lounger. It was noisy, but it was more alive than Walnut Street could ever be.

  As Madame Karitska approached number 203 a uniformed policeman came out of a store across the street, saw her, and waved. Crossing to her side he said, “You must be the lady Lieutenant Pruden said would be coming around ten to see Luis. I’ve been watching for you, I’m Bill Kane.”

  They shook hands. “I told his landlady I’d be bringing you over,” he added. Her name’s Mrs. Malone.”

  “Malone!” said Madame Karitska, amused. “Lieutenant Pruden was certain no one would speak English here.”

  “The lieutenant’s not a patrolman, he only drives through in a car,” Kane said forgivingly. “Mrs. Malone’s been here for years, runs a very tight boardinghouse. This area,” he said, pointing, “runs ten blocks down to the river. Used to be Irish, now it’s Puerto Rican.”

  He stopped in front of a narrow clapboard house painted a dull brown. Narrow wooden steps led up to a narrow front porch made narrower by two windows with starched lace curtains and a heavy wooden door with a peephole. Patrolman Kane rang, and after an interval they heard
approaching footsteps inside. The door swung open and a large woman with round pink cheeks and black hair confronted them. Her face softened when she saw Bill Kane. “Well, now, so it’s you,” she said, beaming at them both. “I didn’t even have time to take off my apron, I was that busy baking, you see. Come in, come in.”

  “And we won’t keep you from your baking more than a moment,” Madame Karitska told her reassuringly. “We’ve come to see Luis Mendez.”

  “Well, it’s kind of you, I’m sure. A terrible business, this, I can tell you. He won’t eat,” said Mrs. Malone, crossing herself. “His girl friend Maria sits with him evenings but everybody else stays away. They’re scared. It scares me too, frankly.”

  “Yes,” said Madame Karitska as they began climbing steep carpeted stairs. “Does he have many friends? Is he well-liked?”

  “Oh, he’s very popular in the neighborhood,” said Mrs. Malone. “He drives an ice-cream truck, you know, or did—and his brother too, God rest his soul—and very hard-working and personable they was too. A very nice way they had about them with children. ‘Hey! Here comes Looie. Viva Looie,’ ” she said with a shift into mimicry. “Many’s the time I’d hear them. The kids loved him. As for close friends,” she added in a practical voice, “well, they’ve been here in the States only two years and more hard-working men I’ve never seen. Up at dawn, back late—but,” she said with a twinkle, “I’m not saying there wasn’t time for a few beers at the social club, or time for a girl friend. Very good men, both of ’em. Hard-working and kind.”

  “No enemies?” emphasized Madame Karitska.

  “Enemies!” Mrs. Malone’s shocked voice was reply enough. “Luis? Goodness no!” She opened the door of a room at the end of the hall and called, “Company for you, Mr. Mendez. Not that he’ll hear me,” she added in an aside. “Real spooky it is.”

  They entered a large room, sparely furnished. The walls were papered with garish climbing roses that nearly obscured two crucifixes hung on the wall. There was a huge overstuffed chair in one corner, with a lamp and magazine table beside it. The bureau was massive and bore a statue of the Virgin Mary as well as a great deal of clutter. On a double bed by the window lay a young man in a rumpled shirt and slacks, his eyes open and staring at the ceiling. He looked no more than thirty, with jet-black hair and a black stubble of beard along his jaw, but the color had been drained from his skin, leaving it gray, and there were dull blue smudges under his eyes.

  The landlady withdrew, closing the door behind her, and Bill Kane stood with his back to it, like a guard. Madame Karitska walked over to the bed, looked down into the man’s face and then sat on the edge of the bed and grasped one of his hands in hers. She said nothing. The man’s gaze swerved to hers and he moved restlessly, rebelliously.

  “Can you speak?” she asked softly.

  He groaned. “Si—go away.” He snatched his hand away from hers and turned his face to the wall.

  “He sure has the look of death on him,” said Kane in a low voice. “It’s uncanny.”

  “Yes? Well, we shall see,” she said, and walked over to the bureau to glance at the many objects abandoned there. One in particular drew her attention; a black candle shaped like a man, six inches high and standing upright in a saucer. Several broken matches lay beside it. She picked up the saucer and thoughtfully examined the candle, then put it down and glanced at an elaborately framed photograph of a beautiful girl. An inscription in the corner read, “All my love, Maria.”

  She nodded. “We can go now,” she said.

  “Already?” Kane was startled. “I thought—well, frankly the lieutenant made it sound as if you could cure Luis.”

  Madame Karitska was amused. “I only diagnose, I cannot cure.”

  “Well, then,” said Kane, brightening, “what did you decide about Luis?”

  “That this is a case for Lieutenant Pruden and that we should call him at once,” she told him crisply. “This man is being murdered, and the lieutenant handles homicides, does he not?”

  “What do you mean, he’s being murdered?” demanded Pruden, climbing out of a patrol car in front of Mrs. Malone’s boardinghouse. “A man decides he wants to die it’s suicide, not murder.”

  “When you have finished losing your temper,” said Madame Karitska calmly, “I will explain to you why Luis Mendez is not committing suicide. In the meantime let us walk to the Botanica around the corner and see what we can do to save his life.”

  “You might call a doctor first,” he said irritably, falling into step beside her.

  “A doctor cannot possibly help him,” she told him. “This is espiritismo. Here we are,” she added, turning the corner, and came to a stop in front of LeCruz’ West Indies Botanica.

  “This place?” protested Pruden. On display in the window were statues of Buddha, of the Virgin Mary, and of figures he’d never seen before, some of them grotesque, some of them appealing; holy medals lying in nests of velvet, herb-burners fashioned of pottery, and plastic bottles advertised as ritual lotions. Madame Karitska opened the door, a bell jangled, and a gnarled little man with white hair and heavily pouched eyes glanced up from the counter. “Ah, Madame Karitska,” he said, brightening. “How nice to see you again.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” Madame Karitska told him warmly, shaking his hand. “You are well? Your family is well?”

  “We are all well, Madame Karitska. And you?”

  “In need of help, Mr. LeCruz. I know you have several spiritists among your clientele and we urgently need the best. Can you recommend one?”

  Mr. LeCruz’ glance moved to Pruden and rested on him doubtfully. “For me to recommend—I am not sure this is wise.”

  “I can vouch for Mr. Pruden,” she said with a smile. “He is no believer but I am educating him, Mr. LeCruz.”

  He nodded. “Okay then.” He was thoughtful a moment, then brought out paper and pencil. “I give you two names with addresses.”

  With a nod toward the shelves Pruden said, “What’s all this—uh—merchandise?”

  “I’ll show you,” Madame Karitska said, and taking his arm guided him along the counter. “Here you see candles: red ones to attract a loved one, blue candles for healing, yellow and white when communication with the dead is wished. And here is a black Chango candle,” she added, picking one up. She handed it to Pruden and he stared blankly at the shape of a male figure about six inches tall. “It’s burned when one hopes for the death of an enemy,” she told him, and added casually, “I have been told Luis Mendez has no enemies, but there is a black Chango candle like this on the bureau in his room.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake,” protested Pruden.

  She went on, ignoring the slant of his brows. “Here you see black rag dolls with gold-plated needles—oh dear, eight dollars now, the price is going up. As you probably know, the needles are struck into the dolls to cause pain to enemies. And here are herbs, a very fine selection, each for different purposes, and although Mr. LeCruz disapproves of black magic he is a man who also likes to pay his bills and so you find here vials of snake oil, graveyard dust, and bats’ blood.”

  Pruden groaned. “Please. I was back at headquarters making out reports, and you pulled me away for this? I thought—”

  “Ah, Mr. LeCruz is waiting for us,” she said, interrupting him, and moved toward him with a smile.

  “I’ve given you two names,” Mr. LeCruz told her in a low voice. “Each from different cults. Both are fine, I hear, and give good results.”

  “Results are what we need. Thank you, Mr. LeCruz,” she said, and to Pruden, “Shall we go now? I’ll explain outside what I discovered and then you can go back to your reports at headquarters.”

  “While you go to Third Street?” he said, glancing at the addresses on the sheet of paper. “Not on your life, I’m going with you. People like you get mugged on Third Street.”

  “If you go with me you will have to forget that you are a policeman,” she told him sternly. “You’re not dressed
as one, so if you’ll not speak like one or act like one—”

  “Why?”

  “Because there will be nothing rational about this, my dear Lieutenant, but then there is so much in life that isn’t. The important thing—of the highest order—is to save Mendez’ life. Then you must proceed as with any attempted murder, and discover who wishes the Mendez brothers dead.”

  “And the weapon?” he asked, amused.

  “The mind.”

  “I don’t think you can convict anyone on that,” he told her dryly.

  “Exactly,” she said in her clear crisp voice. “Which makes it very clever, do you not think so? The perfect crime.”

  He’d not thought of it in this light. “You really think that?” he said, his brows slanting. “Of course if it could be done, if it were possible—”

  “My dear Lieutenant,” she told him with a smile, “voodoo is a religion older than Christianity. You have seen far too many Hollywood movies, I think. It is as old as astronomy, and uses astronomy in its beliefs and its gods, and it has many similarities to Christianity. It is a complex, ancient, and very structured religion, with formal rites and ceremonies, a culture as well as a religion. Don’t, as John Painter would say, knock it.”

  “Obviously I mustn’t,” he said meekly.

  They entered Third Street, a desolate street with windows broken in many of its buildings. A few black children playing hopscotch on the sidewalk stopped and stared at them; an old man sitting on a step in the sun bowed a grayed head to them as they passed. Farther along the street rock-and-roll music poured from a delicatessen around which at least a dozen young men idled.

  “Here is number 180,” said Madame Karitska, and they confronted high narrow steps to an open door, beyond which rose a second flight to the floor above. “She is called Madame Souffrant.”

  “Madame, eh?” said Pruden with a grin.

  A cardboard sign just inside the door bore the name, with a purple arrow pointing to the second floor. They climbed rickety stairs and knocked at a door. A stately West Indian woman, her skin the color of café crème, answered their knock.