An Affair of Sorcerers

by George C. Chesbro

  “One of the nurses found you. Most of the hospital personnel know about Kathy—and you.” He almost smiled. “You’re on the verge of becoming a legend in your own time—at least, around here. The nurse called me, and I carried you here. You’re considerably heavier than you look. I don’t know why I didn’t call an orderly; I think I may have strained my back.”

  “I’m compact,” I grunted. “I seem to detect a change in your normally inflexible attitude.”

  The black doctor shrugged his frail shoulders. “You’ve slept for fifteen hours, which is all I asked you to do in the first place. You want to get out on the streets; I want you out on the streets. Kathy and I need you. Like I said, I just don’t want you to die out there, or end up developing rabies. So investigate, and work as quickly as you can. But you must take it easy, and you must make sure you get back here every day for your injection. Clear? You obviously have a high pain threshold, not to mention incredible endurance. But your mind and body can only take so much. Pace yourself, and we’ll get along just fine.”

  “Got it,” I said, pulling on my jacket and heading for the door.

  “Mongo,” he said. I stopped at the door, turned back. The doctor smiled wanly. “I’ve been waiting for your questions—or comments—on Esteban.”

  “What’s to say, Joshua? Kathy’s still alive, and that’s the only important thing. I’m sophisticated enough to know that doctors aren’t wizards or sages. Esteban may have nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Kathy’s still alive. It’s irrelevant. I don’t care what’s keeping her alive—so long as she’s alive.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Joshua said quietly. There was an odd, questioning tone to his voice. “Esteban hasn’t slept at all; the man doesn’t seem to need it. He just lies there with Kathy, rocking back and forth humming to her. He spent an hour with the Younger woman. During that time we monitored Kathy, and she started to slip again; Esteban had to go back to her. It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “You sound impressed.”

  “I am impressed, and I wanted you to know. You impress me. It was quite a feat, the way you smoked out Jordon to free Esteban.”

  We stared at each other for a few moments, and I finally nodded. “Thanks, Joshua. I got lucky. Let’s just hope that Esteban continues to impress. Thanks for taking care of me. I’ll be in touch.”

  The sleep orgy had left me groggy, but my body seemed to be tolerating the second shot better than it had the first. The pain in my belly was more of a dull, throbbing ache than the acid burn it had been, and my vision was clear. I left my car where it was and took a cab to Times Square, where the phone book had told me Sandor Peth had an office. I bought two hot dogs with sauerkraut from a Sabrett vendor and washed them down with a Coke. I waited ten minutes to see how they’d settle, then went looking for Peth.

  Appropriately enough, Peth’s office was on 42nd Street, New York’s mecca of polymorphous sex, gimcrack novelty stores and Instant Sleaze, just off Times Square, a floor above a porno movie house. To judge by the score or more of facsimile gold records tacked to his walls, Peth had to be making tons of money; as a manager, he was getting a flat twenty percent of the artist’s take from each one. However, his wealth wasn’t reflected in his office space. Old coffee cartons, sandwich wrappers and grease-stained paper bags overflowed a flowered metal wastebasket and littered the floor.

  Peth seemed to be wearing most of his money. He looked like his reputation; he sat behind his scarred wooden desk like a bloated spider, alternately talking into two telephone receivers. Despite the fact that it was a muggy August day and the office lacked air conditioning, Peth was wearing a three-piece suit that must have cost at least four hundred dollars. He was sweating, and he would occasionally remove a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and wipe his brow. He had a globular face in which two small black eyes were set like raisins in a clump of rising dough. The fringe of dark hair that circled the bumpy bald dome of his head was cut short. Every finger on both his hands, including the thumbs, had a diamond ring on it. In his own way, Peth was a striking figure. If you were into sloth and repulsion.

  There was no secretary, so I simply walked into the office and waited by the door. Intent on his dual conversations, riffling through what looked like a pile of contracts on his desk, Sandor Peth took some time to notice me. His voice was croaking, phlegmatic, his conversation rapid-fire and punctuated with references to network shows, “The Coast” and “thou’s.” He suddenly wheeled in his chair, saw me and arched his eyebrows inquisitively. He curtly finished his conversation on one line, talked for another minute or two on the other, then hung up.

  “A dwarf!” he coughed, letting the pudgy fingers on his left hand hover over the telephone-console buttons as though waiting for them to decide on their own which button he should push next. “I love it! What the hell do you do?”

  “Snoop,” I said evenly. I wanted his undivided attention.

  “Snoop?” His fingers continued to hover indecisively over the buttons, wriggling like fat worms.

  “My name’s Frederickson. I’m a private investigator. I’d like to ask you some questions.”

  Peth leaned back in his swivel chair and roared with laughter. His body shook, but the laughter never reached his eyes, which were like blotches of thick paint, with no light or life. “Great! A stand-up comic!” His laughter tapered off to an obscene chuckle. Peth was a bit overcooked, I decided, like a refugee from one of the fifth-run movie houses on the street below. But he was real and sitting in front of me, raw and rancid at the center. “Jesus Christ,” he continued absently when his laughter had run its course. “Who the fuck do I know that would be playing practical jokes on me?”

  “How about Harley Davidson?”

  Peth had started another chorus of laughter; now it shut itself down in stuttering dribbles until finally he was looking at me soberly. “Frederickson,” he said thoughtfully. “A dwarf. Seems to me I’ve heard … You used to be with the Statler Brothers Circus? Mongo the Magnificent?”

  “You’ve got it, sweetheart.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, thin white lines appearing at the corners of his mouth. “You are a private detective. And you’re heavy.”

  “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me today.”

  Peth scowled; on his face, a scowl was a formidable expression. “What the fuck do you want with me?”

  “I told you: I want to ask you some questions about Harley Davidson.”

  “What do you know about Davidson?”

  “For openers, he’s dead.”

  Peth made an effort at projecting surprise and grief, but gave it up after about ten seconds. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he said casually, tapping a fat, bejeweled index finger on his desk.

  “Yeah. Son-of-a-bitch.”

  Peth shrugged and started to pick up the phone. “Well, that’s tough; but show biz is tough.”

  “Funny how Davidson started sliding after he signed with you.”

  “What the fuck does that mean, dwarf?”

  There was no way Sandor Peth was going to give me information voluntarily, and with his street smarts he’d be almost impossible to trick. I knew I was probably wasting my time confronting him directly, but he was one more button that had to be pushed. On the other hand, he could be a very big button; there was no telling what might pop out if I pushed hard enough. There was no doubt in my mind that Peth was in some way—no matter how peripherally—responsible for Bobby Weiss’s death, if only because he had passively stood by while it happened. For that reason alone, I wanted to kick him a few times and see which way he bounced.

  “That’s the talk around town,” I said.

  “What’s the talk around town?” he shouted, half-rising out of his chair. Peth obviously had a hair-trigger temper.

  “The talk is really a question,” I said evenly. “What did you promise—or do—to that kid to get him to leave William Morris and come over to a guy who oper
ates out of a shithouse like this one?”

  “Watch your mouth, dwarf,” Peth said menacingly. “There’s a simple answer to your question: Davidson felt I could do more for him than Jake Stein.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said, emphasizing the sarcasm, watching him. “Everyone can see what you did for him. What did you offer him, for Christ’s sake?”

  Peth was not about to enlighten me. “I’m going to sue you, dwarf!” he shouted at me. “I’ll sue you for slander!”

  “So, sue. From what I hear, you’d be a tough guy to slander.” I smiled. “How much money are you going to make off Davidson’s death? I know you had him insured.”

  Now Peth was having to make a considerable effort to control himself. His knuckles were white where his hands gripped the edge of his desk; he held the tight grip until he stopped shaking.

  “I’m a businessman,” he said in the tone of a man who was just trying to be reasonable. His voice sounded as though it were being filtered through a thick wad of cotton, and his face was blotched with pink and white patches. “It costs money to build these people up; I personally insure everyone in my stable. After seeing which way Davidson went, you can understand why. Not everyone can handle success. I have to protect my Investments; it’s just good business.”

  “What about all the money Harley Davidson earned? What happened to it? When I found him, he was living in a sinkhole. He couldn’t have spent all the money he made on junk.”

  Peth scowled again. “Hey, I don’t know what he did with his money; I wasn’t his mother. I got twenty percent, period. What he did with the rest was his own business.” He smiled almost sweetly, like some grotesque, poisonous cherub. It suddenly occurred to me that the man was mad. “Look,” he said quietly. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me who you’re working for?”

  “I don’t suppose I do.”

  “It can’t be his folks; they wrote him off months ago because they didn’t want a junkie for a son. I assume that’s what he died of.”

  “You assume right. I don’t suppose you want to tell me the real reason why the kid left William Morris to sign with you?”

  Peth squinted at me. “We can make a deal, dwarf. Whatever your client’s paying you, I’ll go better; a lot better. I can make you a rich man.”

  “What the hell could I possibly do for you?”

  “One thing: tell me who sicced you on me. That’s all. Tell me the name, forget about all this, then go off and enjoy your money.”

  “It’s a tempting offer, but I think you’d better clear it with Esobus.”

  Peth’s control snapped like a rotten string. He was up and out of his chair with a quickness that amazed me, skittering on his fat legs around the desk to stand in front of me. I found myself staring up into his florid face. His right fist was clenched, the ring finger pointed at me in the warning gesture April had described as the witch’s athamé.

  “You’re working with Daniel, aren’t you?” he squeaked.

  “Daniel who?” I asked, my heart starting to pound.

  Peth slowly put his hand down and heaved a deep sigh. “Look, Frederickson,” he said in a lower octave, reaching out with one thick hand, “maybe we can still …”

  I was sick, and my reflexes were only half what they usually were. Before I could back away, he’d wrapped the fingers of his right hand around my bandaged thumb and begun to twist. Now, for the first time since I’d walked into his office, Peth’s eyes showed signs of life; they glowed like banked coals fanned by winds of hatred and sadism.

  Searing pain arced through my finger, then scorched its way down to the pit of my stomach. I shouted with surprise and pain and reacted instinctively, rolling away from the torque of his grip to release the terrible pressure, then trying to twist free. Peth grunted with amusement at my feeble efforts and moved with me, maintaining and tightening his hold. He started to twist my thumb in the opposite direction, at the same time raising his jeweled fist in preparation for a blow on the top of my head that was guaranteed to crush my skull.

  With Peth hanging on to my thumb, there was only one way to go—and that was where I went. I got my feet under me and pushed up hard, slamming my head into his groin. He shrieked, let go of my thumb and crumpled to the floor. The air exploded from his lungs and he lay there, gasping for air and cradling his genitals with both hands.

  Holding my thumb, I struggled to my feet once again and stood over Peth. I wanted to see his teeth on the floor; I reared back, ready to smash the toe of my shoe into his mouth. Suddenly the muscles in my stomach contracted with the worst pain I’d known yet. I groaned and doubled over with pain, then stumbled backward until I came up against the wall. I sat down hard, clutching at my stomach and fighting off spasms of nausea.

  Peth, still rolled up in a fetal position with his hands in his crotch, looked over at me and cackled insanely. “You’re a dead man,” he wheezed, his breath whistling in his lungs.

  “What’s wrong with the girl, Peth?” I was doing a little wheezing of my own. We were two sidelined cripples, glaring at each other across an abyss of agony and hatred.

  “What girl is that, dwarf?” His words triggered a new spasm of insane, high-pitched laughter. “What girl? Oh, you are a dead dwarf!”

  I stared into the leering face, desperately wanting to kick at it and keep kicking until the laughter had stopped and he’d told me what I wanted to know. But I knew that wasn’t the way the scene would play. I was helpless; Peth could—and would—kill me as soon as he recovered. I had to get out of the office.

  I finally managed to struggle to my feet and wobble out the door, leaving Peth rolling on the filthy floor in his three-piece suit. He was giggling hysterically. “What girl?” he kept repeating in his high-pitched whine. “Oh, man, you’re one dead fucking dwarf!”

  I couldn’t stand straight. Sliding against the wall, I made it around a corner, then hunched down on the floor until the spasms of pain and nausea passed. I was sweating heavily, and it was ten minutes before I could straighten up. All the while I could hear Peth cackling in his office down the hall. I walked shakily down a rickety stairway to the street, then went to a phone booth on the corner of 42nd and Broadway. I was suffering a bad case of blurred tunnel vision, but I was determined not to waste time worrying about symptons. I had to do what I had to do, and what would be would be.

  Garth had just come in. “Hey, brother,” he said, real finger humming in his voice, “why didn’t you tell me you’d been bitten by a rabid bat? For Christ’s sake, why did I have to hear it from the doctor who treated you?”

  “Garth … I need you.”

  “What’s the matter, Mongo?” he asked tensely. “Where are you?”

  “Corner of Forty-second and Broadway. I’ve got someone I think has the information we need.”

  “Who?”

  “Sandor Peth; Harley Davidson’s manager.”

  Garth’s voice was thick with excitement and tension. “What makes you think he knows anything?”

  “… Witch,” I managed to say. “Knows about Daniel. Garth, he’s a crazy. We’re going … to have to beat it out of him. That’s why I need you. Can’t … handle it by myself.”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then: “Mongo, did you try to do a physical number on this guy?”

  “Fat chance; I’m so weak I can hardly fucking walk. You’ve got to get over here.”

  “Stop talking crazy, Mongo,” Garth said quietly but firmly.

  “Garth, there’s no time!” I shouted into the receiver. “If you won’t help me beat it out of him, I’ll have to go back up there and try again myself!”

  “Hold it!” Garth commanded sharply, as if sensing that I was about to hang up. “Just listen to me! Don’t panic; it’s not like you.”

  “Garth,” I mumbled, screwing my eyes shut against an awful dizziness that threatened to sweep me away with it. “Kathy’s on the verge of dying. What else can I do?”

  “It’s what you’ve already
done that worries me,” my brother said evenly. “Let’s hope you haven’t given this Peth cause to swear out a warrant on you.”

  “He knows I know he’s involved with that coven. He won’t make any noises to the police.”

  “You hope he won’t. If he does, you’re going to be hung up good. You wait right there; I’ll come over and pick you up. We’ll put a little heat on Peth together. But no rough stuff. You wait for me. Got it?”

  “Yeah,” I said after a pause. I really had no choice. “Hurry it up, will you?”

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes. Sit tight.”

  I hung up, took a few deep breaths to settle my nerves and stomach, then went fishing in my pockets for another dime. I only had a nickel. Getting change in Manhattan is one of the most difficult feats known to man, and the newsstand on the corner was inexplicably shuttered. I hit four porno movies before I found a cashier who took pity on me and gave me change for a dollar. Armed with the precious coins, I went back to the phone booth and called the Medical Center.

  “Reception.”

  “What’s Kathy Marlowe’s condition?”

  “Uh … may I ask who this is?”

  That was a new wrinkle, a little frightening. “Dr. Robert Frederickson,” I said tightly.

  “Just a moment, Dr. Frederickson,” the woman said. There was an odd ring to her voice that made my stomach contract painfully with anxiety. “There’s someone here who wants to speak with you.”

  I waited, breathing shallowly and tapping my fist impatiently against the glass. A few moments later April came on the line. She was crying, and for one terrible moment I feared I was about to get the dreaded news that Kathy was dead. But then I realized that she was crying with happiness, and her weeping was punctuated with joyous laughter.

  “Robert!” April cried. “We’ve all been waiting for you to call! Dr. Greene says he thinks Kathy’s going to be all right!”

  Someone was banging a gong inside my skull again, and there were tears in my eyes. “Have they found out what’s wrong with her?”

  “Yes!”

  “How? What’s wrong with her?”