“They’re probably beautiful,” said Tara Gordon.
She fast-forwarded the tape until it darkened and blurred and Larry recognized his own hand, resting on his desk at home. At first the picture was out of focus, but when he moved his hand into the light, the focus sharpened up.
It took a while, but at last they saw gray clouds drifting and tangling across his palm.
“This is fascinating,” said Tara Gordon. She was leaning forward so that Larry could see the full pale curve of her breast, with the silver ankh resting against it. “You see these patterns that look like clouds in the wind? They’re highly characteristic of spirit manifestations. We call them skeins. Nobody knows quite what they are. Von Budow said they were human longing, unraveled into the raw material of the spirit world. Some people think that they represent ‘the veil’ which separates this side from the other side.”
“And what do you think they are?” asked Larry.
“I personally think that it’s obvious. They’re unformed psychoplasma.”
“Oh, that tells me a lot.”
“No, no. It’s not difficult to understand. They’re like spun-sugar in a cotton-candy machine, that’s all. They don’t take on any recognizable shape until you wind them around a stick.”
Gradually, the “spun-sugar” on the palm of Larry’s hand began to clot and tear and form itself into the recognizable shape of a man’s face. Tara Gordon said nothing, but watched in fascination as the face began to move, and to turn, and to talk. The voice sounded tinny and distant; like a far-away radio.
Almost time to feed, my friend. Almost time!
“My God,” breathed Tara Gordon. “You can hear it! You can actually hear it!”
“Feed on what?” Larry’s voice boomed.
On that which was promised. On my earthly reward.
Enthralled, Tara Gordon watched and listened until they heard Linda saying, “Larry! Larry, what are you doing? Look at your hand!”
She rewound the tape, and replayed the moment when the face first appeared. Then she pressed freeze, and they were confronted by the fluttering image of a good-looking, smiling man, the strong angles of his face illuminated by sunlight; half-turned away. He looked genial and relaxed; and there was no doubt that what he was saying didn’t synchronize with the throaty, echoing threat that it was time to feed.
Tara Gordon sat in front of the television screen for almost five minutes, her chin in her hands, staring and saying nothing.
Larry said, “Maybe we could—” But Tara Gordon flapped her hand at him to tell him to keep quiet.
“Jesus,” he said, under his breath.
Tara Gordon at last sat back. “I think I know who that is,” she said.
“You recognize him?”
“It’s hard to be one hundred per cent sure. But it looks like Lieutenant Sam Roberts.”
“Who the hell is Lieutenant Sam Roberts? I thought I knew every ranking police officer there was.”
“Well, you probably do,” said Tara Gordon, standing up. “But you don’t know your San Francisco history very well.”
“Ms Gordon—”
“Please call me Tara. Or if you can’t manage that, Mistress Tara.”
She crossed the store to the Reference Section, and without hesitation pulled out a large book entitled The Lawless Years: San Francisco 1845–1850. While Larry stood behind her, she ran through the index until she found what she was looking for, and opened the book at a section of black-and-white photographs.
“There he is,” she said, triumphantly. “Lieutenant Sam Roberts, one-time Bowery Boy, one-time member of the company that was brought out to California by Colonel J.D. Stevenson to fight the Mexicans; one-time volunteer policeman; one-time bounty-hunter and scavenger; one-time murderer, arsonist, rapist, thief and vandal.”
Larry peered at the engraving closely. It showed a man with a genial, distinctive face. Broad forehead, thick eyebrows, and hair brushed firmly to one side. Larry glanced at the TV, where the freeze-frame picture still trembled, and there was no doubt in his mind at all. The man on his hand was the same man.
“I’m amazed,” Larry admitted.
“Don’t be too amazed,” said Tara. “I’ve been studying the magical history of San Francisco for years. I’ve been writing a book which is two years behind schedule, at the very least.”
“All right, then,” said Larry. “I admire that. I couldn’t write a book to save my life. Tell me the title.”
“I can’t possibly. It’ll bring bad luck. Besides, I don’t think I can ever finish writing it, so I’d save your admiration if I were you.”
“But this Lieutenant Sam Roberts is in it?”
“That’s right. He was a very strange guy, by all accounts. He used to hold occult meetings and tell his friends that he could talk directly to Satan. In 1849 he formed a group of so-called police officers who were supposed to keep law and order, but in fact they did nothing but rob and rape and burn down people’s shacks and persecute non-American immigrants. They called themselves the Regulators, or the Hounds.
“In July of 1849 they attacked Little Chile. They shot the Chilenos indiscriminately. They raped women. They set fires. They tore down shanties.
“That was too much, even for the easygoing folks of San Francisco. The Hounds were hunted down by a Law and Order Party that was organized by Sam Brannan and Mayor Thaddeus Leavenworth. Some of the Hounds were caught and imprisoned, most of them escaped. A few of them drifted down to the waterfront. Nobody knows what happened to Lieutenant Sam Roberts, but about a month later he sent the people of San Francisco an open letter swearing his revenge on them.
“He said he was going to bring down a punishment on San Francisco that would be more terrible than anything they had ever known.”
Larry stared at the palm of his hand. “And this maniac’s appearing on my hand?”
“It sure looks like it.”
Larry said, “Wilbert Fraser said he would exorcize it for me.”
“There’s no harm in letting him try.”
“Is it something that you could do?”
Tara Gordon shook her head. “I don’t get into that stuff any more, the other side, the world beyond the veil. Even a fair-to-good sensitive like Wilbert Fraser doesn’t know half of what he’s getting himself into. It’s a whole different world, lieutenant—higher and deeper and wider than we can possibly know—where the laws of gravity and sanity and logic don’t apply. A very dear friend of mine spent seven months in a coma once, after a seance, and then died; and God knows he didn’t die happy.”
Larry thoughtfully removed the video-cassette from its slot. “So what do you think I ought to do now?” he asked her.
“You’re the detective.”
“Don’t you have any idea at all where this Fog City Satan might be hanging out?”
“All I can do is keep my eyes open.”
“Okay… thanks,” Larry told her. “And thanks for the information on Sam Roberts, whatever good that’s going to do me.”
“You’re welcome. At least you believe.”
“Believe? Believe me, I wish I didn’t.”
“Knowledge is a responsibility,” said Tara Gordon, pouring herself another large buffalo-grass vodka. “Belief is a cross.”
Larry left the Waxing Moon and crossed the busy sidewalk. When he climbed into his creaking Le Sabre and slammed the door and the whole interior smelled of Ralston because Fay Kuhn was sitting primly in the passenger-seat waiting for him.
“You’re being unfaithful to me,” she needled him.
“I’m carrying out an investigation.”
“With Tara Gordon? Tara Gordon is the biggest vamp since Sally Stanford.”
“Tara Gordon has behaved with complete propriety.”
“Sure. I can smell it on your breath.”
“As a matter of fact, Ms Kuhn, Tara Gordon has convinced me that what you’ve been saying about the Black Brotherhood is true… and that what Wilbert Fraser has been saying about th
em trying to revive the fallen angel Belial is true… whether any such thing as a fallen angel exists or not… and that what we have going down here is probably the most serious psychic disturbance in any American city since the Salem Witch Trials.”
“Can I quote you?”
Larry hesitated. If he came out in print with the opinion that the Fog City Satan case had real connections with the supernatural, Dan Burroughs would just about detonate. On the other hand, he was now totally convinced that the answer to these six ritual slaughters lay in the spirit world; and that only those who believed in the after-life and the other side and the world beyond the veil would be able to help him.
There was another convincing reason for going public: the Fog City Satan would know for the first time that Larry was on to him, and that Larry was prepared to pursue him on an occult level as well a procedural level. Maybe that would unnerve him, put him off balance, flush him out of hiding. All of his threats had been arrogant and boastful. Maybe Larry could taunt him into boasting just a little more openly, and reveal what he planned to do next, and where. One handle was all he needed.
Fay Kuhn said, “Whether you allow me to quote you or not, I’m going to run something on the supernatural side of this investigation. I have to. The Chron’s on to it, too.”
“I’m pretty much in two minds about it,” Larry admitted. “I’m going take a lot of flak from Dan Burroughs; and probably the mayor’s office, too. But I guess on the whole it’s better to bring it out into the open.”
“All right, then,” said Fay Kuhn, taking out her pencil. “Let me ask you first what led you to suspect that the Fog City Satan might be more than your common-or-garden sociopath?”
Larry cleared his throat. He was aware of the political gravity of what he was doing, but in the end—what the hell, the investigation was more important than the politics. “The thing was, in his broadcasts, the Fog City Satan kept mentioning ‘the other side’. Meaning the other side of death, you know?—the spirit world. So at my wife’s suggestion I went to a seance, to check this ‘other side’ out. I went there open-minded with no preconceptions. To be quite honest, I didn’t expect anything to happen and I didn’t expect it to lead anywhere.”
“Okay… that was at Wilbert Fraser’s?”
“That’s right. And when I went to that seance, I discovered to my amazement that there is an ‘other side’, for real. No tricks, no hidden cameras, no bullshit. Well, don’t write ‘bullshit’. I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced it. And if it’s real enough for a police officer to see and experience, then it’s real enough to warrant serious investigation. Particularly if it’s going to help me put this lunatic where he belongs, in San Quentin, on Death Row.”
He talked to Fay Kuhn for almost a half-hour. She wrote an even, flowing shorthand note, turning over page after page of her springback notebook. She was almost through when Larry’s radio crackled, and a voice said, “Car twenty-two, car twenty-two.”
“Twenty-two responding.”
“Is that you, Lieutenant Foggia? We have an urgent call for you from Sergeant Brough. He says to attend SFG as soon as possible. Floor nine. Edna-Mae Lickerman’s acting up.”
“Acting up, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“How should I know? Sergeant Brough didn’t tell me any more than that.”
“On my way,” said Larry, and reached for his red roof light.
Fay Kuhn said, “Can I come with you?”
“Technically, no.”
But without any hesitation, Larry U-turned the Le Sabre through slow-moving traffic, and sped toward San Francisco General before Fay Kuhn had any opportunity to get out.
“I’m parked on a red,” she told him. “I hope you can take care of it for me.”
“Why do I seem to spend my whole life doing nothing but favors for Fay Kuhn?” he retorted.
“Because Fay Kuhn is going to do you plenty of favors in return.”
“Hmh! We’ll see about that when Dan Burroughs reads tomorrow’s front page. What’s your headline? FOGGIA FINALLY FLIPS?”
“I don’t write the headlines. I simply report the facts as I see them.”
“Well, come take a look at Edna-Mae Lickerman. Let’s see how factual you can be about her.”
Houston Brough was standing stiffly in the corner. His gun was drawn but he was holding it up tight to his chest.
In the center of the room stood a young white-clad nurse; a pretty red-headed girl of about twenty-two. Her blue eyes were wide open, her freckled face was drained white with terror and disbelief. Behind her, floating in the air, unsupported, so that she was even higher than horizontal, was the shriveled form of Edna-Mae Lickerman, with her tufted skull and her milked-over eyes and her wrists as thin as a bird’s claws. She wore a hospital robe which rippled and trembled in an unfelt wind.
At the girl’s throat, she held a large curved slice of broken glass.
She blindly smiled, and crooned, and floated behind the nurse as easily and as happily as if she were floating in the ocean.
“How can she do that?” whispered Fay Kuhn. “She’s suspended in mid-air! How can she do that?”
Larry said, “Stay back. This could be very dangerous.”
“But you said I could come along.”
“I said you couldn’t.”
“But you brought me, all the same.”
Larry didn’t stop to argue. He edged his way into the room, sliding with his back to the wall until he reached the corner where Houston was standing with his gun drawn.
“Can you believe this?” said Houston. He sounded more annoyed then alarmed. “A homicidal psychopath who can fly.”
“Has she said anything?”
“She keeps singing.”
“Has she threatened the nurse’s life?”
“Not verbally. But I wouldn’t consider that piece of glass to be much of a goodwill gesture, would you?”
“Could you hit her from here?”
“Oh, for sure. But would she die? And even if she did die, would she die before she could give that nurse an extra mouth?”
Edna-Mae continued to float eerily in the air, her shriveled toes almost touching the drapes. She smiled to herself, and sang, as if she were the happiest person alive, as if this was the day to which she had been looking forward all her life.
“By the meadow, sweet with hay…
My love and I we walked one day…”
“Christ almighty, what the hell is this?” said Larry.
“She’s been singing like this ever since I got here,” Houston told him. “Same song, over and over.”
“By the bay, by the city
He so handsome, I so pretty…”
Larry slowly unholstered his gun. “Edna-Mae?” he called out. “Can you hear me Edna-Mae? It’s Larry Foggia. Lieutenant Larry Foggia. Remember I met you down at Alphonson’s, on Front and Green.”
“He took my hand, he took my heart
He promised we would never part…”
“Edna-Mae,” Larry repeated, and took two cautious steps forward. Edna-Mae lazily turned in the air, so that she was further away from Larry than before; and she lifted her eyes and stared at him, although they looked so opaque that Larry didn’t know whether she could see him or not.
“Edna-Mae, that nurse hasn’t done you any harm. Don’t you think you ought to put down that piece of glass?”
The nurse stared at Larry in desperation. She looked for a moment as if she were about to say something, or try to tug herself away, but Larry gave her a quick shake of the head. One slice with that piece of glass and Edna-Mae could sever her carotid artery, and even with all of these medics present, there was too much of a risk that she would bleed to death before anyone had a chance to get to her.
She was too young, too pretty. Even Larry wouldn’t have taken the risk.
“Edna-Mae, why don’t you give this young girl a break? She hasn’t done anything to you except take care of you, try to nurse you back to health.�
��
“He gave me babies, gave me four
Gave me five, then gave me more.”
Larry stepped back to the corner. “I want a marksman here, fast. I want somebody who can shoot a heavy load with one hundred percent accuracy at close range.”
“Rickenbacker’s your man for that,” said Houston. “He can shoot out your nosehairs with a .45 without even making you sneeze.”
“Then get him.”
Edna-Mae kept on swaying in the air and crooning to herself. With cold prickles around his scalp, Larry heard her sing
“See the little babies cry
Eat the meat and hope to die.”
He edged back to the doorway. Fay Kuhn was waiting there, looking distressed.
“What are you going to do?” she asked him.
“Any bright ideas? I’ve sent for a marksman, that’s about the best I can think of. Maybe I ought to send for a priest, too.”
“See the little babies burn,” sang Edna-Mae.
“See the way they twist and turn.”
Larry turned back to Edna-Mae. He kept his gun behind his back, and raised his hand to her to show her that he meant her no harm. “Edna-Mae, you have to let that girl go. You know that, don’t you? You don’t have any right to threaten that girl. You don’t have any right to hurt her in any way.”
Edna-Mae spat at him. “She said the name. She said the name.”
“What name, Edna-Mae?”
“She said the name she had no right to say.”
“Maybe she can say she’s sorry. I’m sure she didn’t say it on purpose.”
“Once a name is spoken, a name is spoken. She had no right. Not to mock him like that.”
“Edna-Mae, this girl is a trained nurse. I’m sure she had no intention of mocking anybody. Now, please… think what you’re doing. Let her go.”
Edna-Mae said nothing, but smiled to herself as if she were dreaming, as if she were thinking of beautiful days gone by. Larry didn’t know what to say next. The shining curve of glass was less than an eighth of an inch away from the nurse’s bare neck, and even if he had managed to aim and shoot and hit Edna-Mae, too, he still couldn’t be certain that she wouldn’t have time to slice the girl open from ear to ear.
“Edna-Mae…”Larry said again. He wondered if he risked stepping nearer. But then a slight movement to his right-hand side caught his eye. He stopped, his hand still raised, and turned his head. Houston Brough saw him turn his head, too, and looked around to see what had attracted his attention.
Black Angel Page 25
