The Unicorn Anthology.indb

by Peter S. Beagle

“Then I suppose you’re in luck.”

  “I suppose I am,” she said, and turned towards me again. Her eyes glinted red, just for an instant, like the eyes of a Siamese cat. I figured it for a trick of the light. “I’m a friend of Auntie H. I run errands for her, now and then. She needs you to pick up a package and see it gets safely where its going.”

  So, there it was. Madam Harpootlian, or Auntie H. to those few unfortunates she called her friends. And suddenly it made a lot more sense, this choice bit of calico walking into my place, strolling in off the street like maybe she did all her shopping down on Skid Row. I’d have to finish unpacking the crate later. I stood up and dusted my hands off on the seat of my slacks.

  “Sorry about the confusion,” I said, even if I wasn’t actually sorry, even if I was actually kind of pissed the girl hadn’t told me who she was right up front. “When Auntie H. wants something done, she doesn’t usually bother sending her orders around in such an attractive envelope.”

  The girl laughed, then said, “Yeah, Auntie H. warned me about you, Miss Beaumont.”

  “Did she now. How so?”

  “You know, your predilections. How you’re not like other women.”

  “I’d say that depends on which other women we’re discussing, don’t you think?”

  “Most other women,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the rain pelting the shop windows. It sounded like frying meat out there, the sizzle of the rain against asphalt, and concrete, and the roofs of passing automobiles.

  “And what about you?” I asked her. “Are you like most other women?”

  She looked away from the window, looking back at me, and she smiled what must have been the faintest smile possible.

  “Are you always this charming?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” I said. “Then again, I never took a poll.”

  “The job, it’s nothing particularly complicated,” she said, changing the subject. “There’s a Chinese apothecary not too far from here.”

  “That doesn’t exactly narrow it down,” I said, and lit a cigarette.

  “Sixty-five Mott Street. The joint’s run by an elderly Cantonese fellow name of Fong.”

  “Yeah, I know Jimmy Fong.”

  “That’s good. Then maybe you won’t get lost. Mr. Fong will be expecting you, and he’ll have the package ready at five-thirty this evening. He’s already been paid in full, so all you have to do is be there to receive it, right? And Miss Beaumont, please try to be on time. Auntie H. said you have a problem with punctuality.”

  “You believe everything you hear?”

  “Only if I’m hearing it from Auntie H.”

  “Fair enough,” I told her, then offered her a Pall Mall, but she declined.

  “I need to be getting back,” she said, reaching for the umbrella she’d only just deposited in the stuffed hippopotamus foot.

  “What’s the rush? What’d you come after, anyway, a ball of fire?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I got places to be. You’re not the only stop on my itinerary.”

  “Fine. Wouldn’t want you getting in Dutch with Harpootlian on my account. Don’t suppose you’ve got a name?”

  “I might,” she said.

  “Don’t suppose you’d share?” I asked her, and took a long drag on my cigarette, wondering why in blue blazes Harpootlian had sent this smart-mouthed skirt instead of one of her usual flunkies. Of course, Auntie H. always did have a sadistic streak to put de Sade to shame, and likely as not this was her idea of a joke.

  “Ellen,” the girl said. “Ellen Andrews.”

  “So, Ellen Andrews, how is it we’ve never met? I mean, I’ve been making deliveries for your boss lady now going on seven years, and if I’d seen you, I’d remember. You’re not the sort I forget.”

  “You got the moxie, don’t you?”

  “I’m just good with faces is all.”

  She chewed at a thumbnail, as if considering carefully what she should or shouldn’t divulge. Then she said, “I’m from out of town, mostly. Just passing through, and thought I’d lend a hand. That’s why you’ve never seen me before, Miss Beaumont. Now, I’ll let you get back to work. And remember, don’t be late.”

  “I heard you the first time, sister.”

  And then she left, and the brass bell above the door jingled again. I finished my cigarette and went back to unpacking the big crate of books from Connecticut. If I hurried, I could finish the job before heading for Chinatown.

  She was right, of course. I did have a well-deserved reputation for not being on time. But I knew that Auntie H. was of the opinion that my acumen in antiquarian and occult matters more than compensated for my not-infrequent tardiness. I’ve never much cared for personal mottos, but maybe if I had one it might be, You want it on time, or you want it done right? Still, I honestly tried to be on time for the meeting with Fong. And still, through no fault of my own, I was more than twenty minutes late. I was lucky enough to find a cab, despite the rain, but then got stuck behind some sort of brouhaha after turning onto Canal, so there you go. It’s not like the old man Fong had any place more pressing to be, not like he was gonna get pissy and leave me high and dry.

  When I got to Sixty-Five Mott, the Chinaman’s apothecary was locked up tight, all the lights were off, and the “Sorry, We’re Closed” sign was hung in the front window. No big surprise there. But then I went around back, to the alley, and found a door standing wide open and quite a lot of fresh blood on the cinderblock steps leading into the building. Now, maybe I was the only lady bookseller in Manhattan who carried a gun, and maybe I wasn’t. But times like that, I was glad to have the Colt tucked snugly inside its shoulder holster, and happier still that I knew how to use it. I took a deep breath, drew the pistol, flipped off the safety catch, and stepped inside.

  The door opened onto a stockroom, and the tiny nook Jimmy Fong used as his office was a little farther in, over on my left. There was some light from a banker’s lamp, but not much of it. I lingered in the shadows a moment, waiting for my heart to stop pounding, for the adrenaline high to fade. The air was close, and stunk of angelica root and dust, ginger and frankincense and fuck only knows what else. Powdered rhino horn and the pickled gallbladders of panda bears. What the hell ever. I found the old man slumped over at his desk.

  Whoever knifed him hadn’t bothered to pull the shiv out of his spine, and I wondered if the poor s.o.b. had even seen it coming. It didn’t exactly add up, not after seeing all that blood drying on the steps, but I figured, hey, maybe the killer was the sort of klutz can’t spread butter without cutting himself. I had a quick look-see around the cluttered office, hoping I might turn up the package Ellen Andrews had sent me there to retrieve. But no dice, and then it occurred to me, maybe whoever had murdered Fong had come looking for the same thing I was looking for. Maybe they’d found it, too, only Fong knew better than to just hand it over, and that had gotten him killed. Anyway, nobody was paying me to play junior shamus, hence the hows, whys, and wherefores of the Chinaman’s death were not my problem. My problem would be showing up at Harpootlian’s cathouse empty-handed.

  I returned the gun to its holster, then I started rifling through everything in sight—the great disarray of papers heaped upon the desk, Fong’s accounting ledgers, sales invoices, catalogs, letters and postcards written in English, Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, French, Spanish, and Arabic. I still had my gloves on, so it’s not like I had to worry over fingerprints. A few of the desk drawers were unlocked, and I’d just started in on those, when the phone perched atop the filing cabinet rang. I froze, whatever I was looking at clutched forgotten in my hands, and stared at the phone.

  Sure, it wasn’t every day I blundered into the immediate aftermath of this sort of foul play, but I was plenty savvy enough I knew better than to answer that call. It didn’t much matter who was on the other end of the line. If I answered, I could be placed at the scene of a murder only minutes after it had gone down. The phone rang a second time, and a third, and I glan
ced at the dead man in the chair. The crimson halo surrounding the switchblade’s inlaid mother-of-pearl handle was still spreading, blossoming like some grim rose, and now there was blood dripping to the floor, as well. The phone rang a fourth time. A fifth. And then I was seized by an overwhelming compulsion to answer it, and answer it I did. I wasn’t the least bit thrown that the voice coming through the receiver was Ellen Andrews’. All at once, the pieces were falling into place. You spend enough years doing the step-and-fetch-it routine for imps like Harpootlian, you find yourself ever more jaded at the inexplicable and the uncanny.

  “Beaumont,” she said, “I didn’t think you were going to pick up.”

  “I wasn’t. Funny thing how I did anyway.”

  “Funny thing,” she said, and I heard her light a cigarette and realized my hands were shaking.

  “See, I’m thinking maybe I had a little push,” I said. “That about the size of it?”

  “Wouldn’t have been necessary if you’d have just answered the damn phone in the first place.”

  “You already know Fong’s dead, don’t you?” And, I swear to fuck, nothing makes me feel like more of a jackass than asking questions I know the answers to.

  “Don’t you worry about Fong. I’m sure he had all his ducks in a row and was right as rain with Buddha. I need you to pay attention—”

  “Harpootlian had him killed, didn’t she? And you knew he’d be dead when I showed up.”

  She didn’t reply straight away, and I thought I could hear a radio playing in the background. “You knew,” I said again, only this time it wasn’t a query.

  “Listen,” she said. “You’re a courier. I was told you’re a courier we can trust, elsewise I never would have handed you this job.”

  “You didn’t hand me the job. Your boss did.”

  “You’re splitting hairs, Miss Beaumont.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s a fucking dead celestial in the room with me. It’s giving me the fidgets.”

  “So how about you shut up and listen, and I’ll have you out of there in a jiffy.” And that’s what I did, I shut up, either because I knew it was the path of least resistance, or because whatever spell she’d used to persuade me to answer the phone was still working.

  “On Fong’s desk, there’s a funny little porcelain statue of a cat.”

  “You mean the Maneki Neko?”

  “If that’s what it’s called, that’s what I mean. Now, break it open. There’s a key inside.”

  I tried not to, just to see if I was being played as badly as I suspected I was being played. I gritted my teeth, dug in my heels, and tried hard not to break that damned cat.

  “You’re wasting time. Auntie H. didn’t mention you were such a crybaby.”

  “Auntie H. and I have an agreement when it comes to free will. To my free will.”

  “Break the goddamn cat,” Ellen Andrews growled, and that’s exactly what I did. In fact, I slammed it down directly on top of Fong’s head. Bits of brightly painted porcelain flew everywhere, and a rusty barrel key tumbled out and landed at my feet. “Now pick it up,” she said. “The key fits the bottom left-hand drawer of Fong’s desk. Open it.”

  This time, I didn’t even try to resist her. I was getting a headache from the last futile attempt. I unlocked the drawer, and pulled it open. Inside, there was nothing but the yellowed sheet of newspaper lining the drawer, three golf balls, a couple of old racing forms, and a finely carved wooden box lacquered almost the same shade of red as Jimmy Fong’s blood. I didn’t need to be told I’d been sent to retrieve the box—or, more specifically, whatever was inside the box.

  “Yeah, I got it,” I told Ellen Andrews.

  “Good girl. Now, you have maybe twelve minutes before the cops show. Go out the same way you came in.” Then she gave me a Riverside Drive address, and said there’d be a car waiting for me at the corner of Canal and Mulberry, a green Chevrolet coupe. “Just give the driver that address. He’ll see you get where you’re going.”

  “Yeah,” I said, sliding the desk drawer shut again and locking it. I pocketed the key. “But sister, you and me are gonna have a talk.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Nat,” she said and hung up. I shut my eyes, wondering if I really had twelve minutes before the bulls arrived, and if they were even on their way, wondering what would happen if I endeavored not to make the rendezvous with the green coupe. I stood there, trying to decide whether Harpootlian would have gone back on her word and given this bitch permission to turn her hoodoo tricks on me, and if aspirin would do anything at all for the dull throb behind my eyes. Then I looked at Fong one last time, at the knife jutting out of his back, his thin gray hair powdered with porcelain dust from the shattered “Lucky Cat.” And then I stopped asking questions and did as I’d been told.

  The car was there, just like she’d told me it would be. There was a young colored man behind the wheel, and when I climbed in the back, he asked me where we were headed.

  “I’m guessing Hell,” I said, “sooner or later.”

  “Got that right,” he laughed and winked at me from the rearview mirror. “But I was thinking more in terms of the immediate here and now.”

  So I recited the address I’d been given over the phone, 435 Riverside.

  “That’s the Colosseum,” he said.

  “It is if you say so,” I replied. “Just get me there.”

  The driver nodded and pulled away from the curb. As he navigated the slick, wet streets, I sat listening to the rain against the Chevy’s hard top and the music coming from the Motorola. In particular, I can remember hearing the Dorsey Brothers, “Chasing Shadows.” I suppose you’d call that a harbinger, if you go in for that sort of thing. Me, I do my best not to. In this business, you start jumping at everything that might be an omen or a portent, you end up doing nothing else. Ironically, rubbing shoulders with the supernatural has made me a great believer in coincidence.

  Anyway, the driver drove, the radio played, and I sat staring at the red lacquered box I’d stolen from a dead man’s locked desk drawer. I thought it might be mahogany, but it was impossible to be sure, what with all that cinnabar-tinted varnish. I know enough about Chinese mythology that I recognized the strange creature carved into the top—a qilin, a stout, antlered beast with cloven hooves, the scales of a dragon, and a long leonine tail. Much of its body was wreathed in flame, and its gaping jaws revealed teeth like daggers. For the Chinese, the qilin is a harbinger of good fortune, though it certainly hadn’t worked out that way for Jimmy Fong. The box was heavier than it looked, most likely because of whatever was stashed inside. There was no latch, and as I examined it more closely, I realized there was no sign whatsoever of hinges or even a seam to indicate it actually had a lid.

  “Unless I got it backwards,” the driver said, “Miss Andrews didn’t say nothing about trying to open that box, now did she?”

  I looked up, startled, feeling like the proverbial kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. He glanced at me in the mirror, then his eyes drifted back to the road.

  “She didn’t say one way or the other,” I told him.

  “Then how about we err on the side of caution?”

  “So you didn’t know where you’re taking me, but you know I shouldn’t open this box? How’s that work?”

  “Ain’t the world just full of mysteries,” he said.

  For a minute or so, I silently watched the headlights of the oncoming traffic and the metronomic sweep of the windshield wipers. Then I asked the driver how long he’d worked for Ellen Andrews.

  “Not very,” he said. “Never laid eyes on the lady before this afternoon. Why you want to know?”

  “No particular reason,” I said, looking back down at the box and the qilin etched in the wood. I decided I was better off not asking any more questions, better off getting this over and done with, and never mind what did and didn’t quite add up. “Just trying to make conversation, that all.”

  Which got him to talking about
the Chicago stockyards and Cleveland and how it was he’d eventually wound up in New York City. He never told me his name, and I didn’t ask. The trip uptown seemed to take forever, and the longer I sat with that box in my lap, the heavier it felt. I finally moved it, putting it down on the seat beside me. By the time we reached our destination, the rain had stopped and the setting sun was showing through the clouds, glittering off the dripping trees in Riverside Park and the waters of the wide gray Hudson. He pulled over, and I reached for my wallet.

  “No ma’am,” he said, shaking his head. “Miss Andrews, she’s already seen to your fare.”

  “Then I hope you won’t mind if I see to your tip,” I said, and I gave him five dollars. He thanked me, and I took the wooden box and stepped out onto the wet sidewalk.

  “She’s up on the eleventh,” he told me, nodding towards the apartments. Then he drove off, and I turned to face the imposing brick and limestone façade of the building the driver had called the Colosseum. I rarely find myself any farther north than the Upper West Side, so this was pretty much terra incognita for me.

  The doorman gave me directions, after giving me and Fong’s box the hairy eyeball, and I quickly made my way to the elevators, hurrying through that ritzy marble sepulcher passing itself off as a lobby. When the operator asked which floor I needed, I told him the eleventh, and he shook his head and muttered something under his breath. I almost asked him to speak up, but thought better of it. Didn’t I already have plenty enough on my mind without entertaining the opinions of elevator boys? Sure, I did. I had a murdered Chinaman, a mysterious box, and this pushy little sorceress calling herself Ellen Andrews. I also had an especially disagreeable feeling about this job, and the sooner it was settled, the better. I kept my eyes on the brass needle as it haltingly swung from left to right, counting off the floors, and when the doors parted, she was there waiting for me. She slipped the boy a sawbuck, and he stuffed it into his jacket pocket and left us alone.