“Hence my suspicion,” Max said, “that your strange experience may be related to this mysterious mystical matter, and that Detective Lopez, though an undeniably astute young man, is quite possibly mistaken when he characterizes last night’s events as a prank.”
“You think the man I saw last night was really dead?” I said with dread. “Even though he was, you know, moving around and talking?”
“No, my dear, I don’t think he was really dead.”
I sighed with relief. “Thank goodness.” I found the idea too disturbing.
“Not anymore.”
“Huh?”
“I suspect it would be more accurate,” Max said, “to classify him as reanimated.”
“What?” I was disturbed all over again.
“Or perhaps resurrected? Though that word has religious overtones which it would perhaps be best to avoid. I had a most unpleasant encounter, you know, with the Spanish Inquisition in Sicily. It was still relatively early in the eighteenth century, not long after I realized that I was aging at an unusually slow rate and, though in my seventies, I still looked like a young man. And the experiences which I endured in Palermo have made me wary, ever since, of—”
“Max,” I interrupted. “So you’re saying that you think Darius Phelps was dead? But, er, making his way back? Traveling in reverse, so to speak?”
“Based on what you’ve told me—a disoriented man matching the name and description of a recently deceased person who experienced dismemberment without bleeding—yes, I think that may be the case.”
“Recently deceased,” I repeated faintly, remembering something else now “He, uh . . . he smelled weird.”
Max looked at me intently. “Can you be more specific?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “It was an unfamiliar smell. I suppose it was a bit like . . .” I felt queasy as I realized what Darius’ odor brought to mind. “Like when you pull food out of the fridge and realize you should throw it away. It doesn’t smell rank yet, but it just doesn’t smell quite right anymore.” I decided not to eat another bagel.
“Hmm.”
“But I don’t really know what a dead person smells like. Or someone not quite dead. Let alone some who used to be dead and isn’t dead anymore.” Now I wished I hadn’t eaten even that one bagel. “Oy.”
“I’m puzzled by the involvement of the gargoyles,” Max mused. “Did the individual whom you encountered seem harmful or malevolent?
“No.” I shook my head. “Darius seemed endangered, not dangerous.”
“Despite their grotesque appearance, the traditional function of gargoyles is to protect us from evil spirits or harmful forces—such as demons.”
“Well, keep in mind that I’m not expert on supernat—uh, mystical creatures, Max. Those hideous beasts reminded me of gargoyles, but that doesn’t mean they were gargoyles.”
“Ah. Yes. That’s an excellent point. Nonetheless, it’s well worth asking: Did Mr. Phelps seem demonically possessed, by any chance?”
“My knowledge of demonic possession is limited to what I’ve seen in movies,” I said. “But at a guess, I’d say no. The man I saw seemed dazed, confused, and helpless. If he were possessed by a demon, wouldn’t he—I don’t know—pulverize the little creatures that I managed to fight off and chant the Latin Mass backward, or something?”
“Well, yes. Although generalizations are misleading, it’s nonetheless true that impressive strength is a common attribute of demons. Then again, perhaps Mr. Phelps—or some entity possessing him—had already been weakened by an encounter with the sword-wielding young huntsman whom you encountered elsewhere in the vicinity.”
“I didn’t see any sword wounds,” I said. “But it was dark, of course.”
“And we can postulate, based on your observations of his severed hand, that there would have been no blood to alert you to a sword wound.”
“Yes, thanks to the bloodless dismemberment that I was lucky enough to witness, we can indeed postulate that.” I groaned with regret as I saw Lopez’s comforting theory about a prank beating a fast retreat. “I really did see what I thought I saw, didn’t I?”
“I believe we must investigate the possibility,” Max said, patting my hand. “Mr. Phelps may be in need of aid. Conversely, the gargoyles or the armed huntsman may be in need of aid. Or all three parties may be forerunners of some sort of apocalypse that needs averting.”
“Wait a minute! How did this go from being a prank to an apocalypse?” I said crankily. “I haven’t even finished my coffee yet.”
“Bring your cup, if you wish,” Max said briskly, rising to his feet. “We must leave immediately.”
“We must? Why? Where are we going?”
“The library.”
“The what?” I said blankly.
“The public library. In fact, I think our time will best be served by going to the outpost located in Harlem, so that we can also investigate the scene of your encounter. I may be able to identify clues to the incident that the police overlooked.”
“But Max,” I protested, “I want to go home. Change my clothes. Shower. Call Dirty Thirty’s production office. Start canceling and replacing the things that were in my stolen purse—ID, credit cards, cell phone . . . And I need you to let me into my apartment.” Max’s talents included the ability to unlock doors without a key.
“Of course, Esther,” Max said absently, as he disappeared around the corner of a bookcase. “We’ll do all of that. Immediately upon conclusion of our urgent business in Harlem.”
“But Max, I can’t go around town wearing this outfit and—”
He reappeared, wearing a jaunty straw hat that suited him well and holding Nelli’s pink leather leash. “Shall we?”
Nelli leaped to her feet, tail wagging in eager anticipation of a field trip.
“We can’t take a dog to the public library,” I said firmly.
Nelli gave me a wounded look.
“Don’t say ‘dog,’ ” Max reminded me anxiously. Nelli was a mystical familiar, and Max considered it a solecism to refer to her as a dog.
“We can’t take a canine familiar to the public library,” I said.
Nelli whined.
Even getting her all the way up to Harlem would be a challenge, though we had by now learned that some cab drivers were open to monetary persuasion with regard to transporting Nelli. As for the subway, that was out of the question. The rules about animals on public transportation were strict and specific, and (as we had also learned) the Manhattan Transit Authority was not amenable to making an exception for a carnivorous mammal that outweighed many adult women.
“Oh, dear.” Max said apologetically, “I’m afraid Esther may be right, Nelli.”
She looked at him reproachfully as he set down her leash on the old walnut table.
“I will give you a full account of our findings when I return,” he assured her. Lifting the receiver of the heavy old telephone that sat on the table, he added, “I will also ascertain immediately if Satsy is available to watch the store and take you out for your midday perambulation, since Esther and I may be gone for some time.”
Satsy was “Saturated Fats,” a three hundred pound drag queen who had assisted us in solving the problem of the mystical vanishings in spring. Satsy was an occult enthusiast who had already been a regular customer of the bookstore when we became acquainted, and now that Max had, as it were, a pet to care for, Satsy occasionally babysat Nelli and the bookstore in exchange for free books.
After a short telephone conversation, Max announced that Satsy would arrive within an hour of our departure. Nelli’s tail wagged with renewed good humor, since she liked Satsy, who was a kind-hearted companion—and also a pushover who fed her too many treats.
As we exited the store, Max said cheerfully to Nelli, “I’m sure I can count on you to assist any customers who enter before Satsy’s arrival!”
My guess was that when encountering Nelli alone inside the shop, most people sensibly turned right
back around and left. But there was no denying that in the jumbled chaos of Zadok’s Rare and Used Books, she was uncannily good at helping people find obscure Latin volumes on alchemy and witchcraft, when asked.
Once we were outside on the street, and my Lycra top, leather boots, and vinyl skirt caused the bright muggy heat of the day to hit me with full force, I opened my mouth again to protest and insist that we go to my apartment before doing anything else today.
But Max spoke first. “Which direction is it?”
“What?”
“The subway train to Harlem,” he said. “Where do we find it?”
I blinked. “You’re getting on the subway?”
Raised in an era when a horse-drawn carriage was the epitome of fast, sophisticated transportation (and would continue to be so for another two hundred years), Max had an unmitigated horror of modern moving vehicles. He preferred to walk to most destinations, and he sometimes paid (outrageous sums) for the slow-moving horse-drawn carriages from Central Park, popular with tourists, to transport him. He only chose to travel by mechanized means when he considered speed imperative.
“Our destination is some distance from here,” he said.
“Well, yes. Seven or eight miles, I’d say.”
“Therefore, although I do not by any means look forward to the journey, a subterranean train is the best means of traveling to Harlem, is it not?”
“Yes. Especially on a weekday morning.” Today was Thursday, and midtown would be clogged with traffic. “We can catch the train at Washington Square, change at Forty-second Street, and get off at One Hundred Twenty-fifth Street in Harlem.”
“And the library?”
“There’s a branch not far from there. Also not far from where I met Darius. But Max . . . why are we going to the public library?”
“To look for local obituaries from three weeks ago. We must find out who Darius Phelps was and how he died.”
6
“Darius Phelps died of a ruptured intestine?” I stared at the computer screen in the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library while Max sat next to me and read over my shoulder. “That doesn’t sound mystical. It sounds messy. And painful.”
The library was housed in a beautifully renovated, ivy-covered, neoclassical building from the early nineteenth century, with a pale stone exterior, tall windows, and high interior ceilings. It was on East 124th Street, directly across from Mount Morris Park and only a few blocks away from where I had found gargoyles attacking the late Darius Phelps in the dark.
“It’s unfortunate that there is no photograph of him,” Max said. “We might be able to determine if this is indeed the individual whom you saw last night.”
Phelps had evidently not been an important man, in worldly terms. His obituary was short and impersonal; I found it listed in several sources during the week he had died in July, but the information was identical in each instance.
He had died suddenly, at the age of thirty-seven, and no survivors were listed. He was originally from Chicago, had an MBA from Roosevelt University, and had moved to New York several years ago to work at the Livingston Foundation, where he was employed at the time of his death.
“The Livingston Foundation,” I murmured. “Why does that name ring a bell?” I thought I’d heard of it before, but I couldn’t place it.
“I believe that if you ask this machine to do so, it can provide information about the Livingston Foundation,” Max suggested helpfully.
I typed the name into the search engine and clicked on the top result, which opened the page to a Web site. There was a photo of a large redbrick building, a navigation menu, and a mission statement about this private nonprofit foundation:
“The Livingston Foundation, created by the late Martin Livingston, fosters the dreams, nurtures the education, and supports the ambitions of young African-Americans. The foundation offers cultural and educational programs; administers grants, scholarships, and small business loans; and organizes community projects in Harlem.”
I clicked on some of the links, and Max and I read the information there. Martin Livingston was a successful businessman who had retired as a billionaire at the age of fifty and announced he would devote the rest of his life to putting his fortune to work for the people of Harlem, where he had been born and raised. Thus, the Livingston Foundation was born, and Martin had spent the next dozen years turning it into an influential center for African-American education, culture, and community outreach. The Web site had numerous photos of him receiving leadership awards, giving speeches, writing checks, and shaking hands with people. Livingston had died two years ago, at the age of sixty-three. The foundation was now managed by its board of directors, in accordance with his legacy and his wishes.
“If he died of a ruptured intestine, too,” I said, “then, as a safety precaution, we are not eating any of the famous fried chicken advertised in the windows of Harlem’s dining establishments.”
The text didn’t say how he had died, but he was such a prominent man that the information should be easy to find if we did a search for his obituary.
“The Livingston Foundation must be here in Harlem,” Max said. “Given the scant information about Mr. Phelps that we have thus far obtained, perhaps we should pay a visit to his place of employment?”
“That should be easy,” I said, after clicking on the “Contact Us” link. “According to this address, we’re about a sixty-second stroll away from it.” The Livingston Foundation was on this same street, barely a block east of the library.
Max popped out of his chair. “Excellent!”
I logged off the computer and rose to follow him out of the cool, quiet library and into the midday heat. “Man, it’s another scorcher today.” I fussed with the Lycra that clung suffocatingly to my torso, then I lifted my tangled hair off my neck.
“I assume the Livingston Foundation will be climate-controlled,” Max said soothingly. “Shall we?”
He could afford to be soothing, I thought crankily. He was wearing loose linen trousers, sandals, a short-sleeved cotton shirt, and a hat that kept the sun off his face. I, on the other hand, was wearing hot, uncomfortable, synthetic clothing that had already been through far too much activity to be sanitary even without the effects of this stifling heat.
I took his arm and proceeded down the street with him, walking parallel to the park. We were in the Mount Morris Park Historic District, a large and beautiful nineteenth-century neighborhood that had blossomed during Harlem’s recent resurgence through the renovation of historic buildings and the revitalization of such great Harlem institutions as the National Black Theatre.
Thinking about that theatre made me think about work, which made me think about Michael Nolan, presumably still lying in a hospital bed only a few blocks away from here. That, in turn, made me think about the need to find a phone and call the D30 production office.
“What a nice park,” Max said, nodding in that direction. “And so big! One doesn’t really think of there being such big green spaces in Harlem.”
“No, I suppose not.” The park, which was framed by an attractive wrought-iron fence, covered the space of about eight city blocks. The grass looked well-tended, there were a lot trees and some paved paths, and I saw many young children in the nearby playground, supervised by parents, elder siblings, or babysitters. Beyond the playground, the park looked more overgrown and lush, with shrubs, boulders, and dense thickets. At the distant southern end of the park, atop a steep hill covered by trees that appeared to be thriving in the summer heat, and surrounded by a thick fog of heavily leafed, sky-reaching branches, I saw the very top of some sort of skeletal metal tower. “What do you suppose that is?”
Max looked in the direction I was pointing. “Interesting. It almost looks like very old scaffolding, doesn’t it?”
“Ah, here we are,” I said as we arrived at the Livingston Foundation’s redbrick edifice. It was indeed only about a minute’s walk from the library. It was quite a large building but ha
d relatively few windows. The architecture was charmless, but sturdy. Over the entrance, embedded in what appeared to be brass letters, was a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that appealed to Max: LIFE’S MOST PERSISTENT AND URGENT QUESTION IS, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR OTHERS?”
I, however, was less enthusiastic than Max about passing beneath this admirable motto and entering the building. He wanted to question people at the foundation, but I was uncomfortably aware that I didn’t present a credible persona, dressed as I was. I thought perhaps I should wait outside for him. Max was trying to assure me, without noticeable conviction, that I didn’t look quite as disreputable as I thought, when a tall, slim black man with a shaved head approached the building and tried to get through the doorway that we were blocking while we talked. He seemed to be in a hurry.
“Excuse me,” he said, his gaze on my cleavage as he moved to step between us and enter the doorway.
“Oh, sorry. I’m in the way, aren’t I? Max, we should move.”
The man glanced sharply at me as I spoke, which made me look at him in return. He was about thirty, nice-looking, clean-shaven, and . . .
“Oh, my God,” I said slowly. The cue- ball head had made him look like a stranger at first glance. He’d had close-cropped hair back when I knew him. “Jeff?”
He frowned, then looked thunderstruck as he recognized me. “Esther?”
“Yes.” I smiled. “Jeff!”
“Holy shit! Esther Diamond!” He grinned and embraced me. “Man, it’s been a long time!”
When he released me, I said, “I haven’t seen you since you went on the road with that show. That was—what? Three years ago?”
“Four.”
I said to Max, “It was a musical version of Idi Amin’s life.” Then to Jeff: “How did that go?”
“It died on the road.”
“Go figure.”
“But that was a long time ago. How about you? How’ve you been?” His gaze moved over me and his expression froze in an awkward smile. “This is . . . a new look for you.”
“It’s a costume,” I said wearily. “I was working last night, and I haven’t been able to get my own clothes back or go home yet. Long story.” I gestured to his bald head. “This is a new look for you, too.”
Unsympathetic Magic Page 7
