I unfolded the bit of tissue paper and found a card which read: Soukesian the Psychic. It was in thin script, nicely engraved. I had three just like it in my wallet.
I played with my empty pipe, stared at the Indian, tried to ride him with my stare. “Okay. What does he want?”
“He want you come now. Quick.”
“Nuts,” I said. The Indian liked that. That was the fraternity grip. He almost grinned. “It will cost him a hundred bucks as a retainer,” I added.
“Huh?”
“Hundred dollars. Iron men. Bucks to the number one hundred. Me no money, me no come. Savvy?” I began to count by opening and closing both fists.
The Indian tossed another fold of tissue paper on the desk. I unfolded it. It contained a brand-new hundred-dollar bill.
“Psychic is right,” I said. “A guy that smart I’m scared of, but I’ll go nevertheless.”
The Indian put his hat back on his head without bothering to fold the sweatband under. It looked only very slightly more comical that way.
I took a gun from under my arm, not the one I had had the night before unfortunately—I hate to lose a gun—dropped the magazine into the heel of my hand, rammed it home again, fiddled with the safety and put the gun back in its holster.
This meant no more to the Indian than if I had scratched my neck.
“I gottum car,” he said. “Big car. Nuts.”
“Too bad,” I said. “I don’t like big cars any more. However, let’s go.”
I locked up and we went out. In the elevator the Indian smelled very strong indeed. Even the elevator operator noticed it.
The car was a tan Lincoln touring, not new but in good shape, with glass gypsy curtains in the back. It dipped down past a shining green polo field, zoomed up the far side, and the dark, foreign-looking driver swung it into a narrow paved ribbon of white concrete that climbed almost as steeply as Lindley Paul’s steps, but not as straight. This was well out of town, beyond Westwood, in Brentwood Heights.
We climbed past two orange groves, rich man’s pets, as that is not orange country, past houses molded flat to the side of the foothills, like bas-reliefs.
Then there were no more houses, just the burnt foothills and the cement ribbon and a sheer drop on the left into the coolness of a nameless canyon, and on the right heat bouncing off the seared clay bank at whose edge a few unbeatable wild flowers clawed and hung on like naughty children who won’t go to bed.
And in front of me two backs, a slim, whipcord back with a brown neck, black hair, a vizored cap on the black hair, and a wide, untidy back in an old brown suit with the Indian’s thick neck and heavy head above that, and on his head the ancient greasy hat with the sweatband still showing.
Then the ribbon of road twisted into a hairpin, the big tires skidded on loose stones, and the tan Lincoln tore through an open gate and up a steep drive lined with pink geraniums growing wild. At the top of the drive there was an eyrie, an eagle’s nest, a hilltop house of white plaster and glass and chromium, as modernistic as a fluoroscope and as remote as a lighthouse.
The car reached the top of the driveway, turned, stopped before a blank white wall in which there was a black door. The Indian got out, glared at me. I got out, nudging the gun against my side with the inside of my left arm.
The black door in the white wall opened slowly, untouched from outside, and showed a narrow passage ending far back. A bulb glowed in the ceiling.
The Indian said: “Huh. Go in, big shot.”
“After you, Mr. Harvest.”
He went in scowling and I followed him and the black door closed noiselessly of itself behind us. A bit of mumbo-jumbo for the customers, At the end of the narrow passage there was an elevator, I had to get into it with the Indian. We went up slowly, with a gentle purring sound, the faint hum of a small motor. The elevator stopped, its door opened without a whisper and there was daylight.
I got out of the elevator. It dropped down again behind me with the Indian still in it. I was in a turret room that was almost all windows, some of them close-draped against the afternoon glare. The rugs on the floor had the soft colors of old Persians, and there was a desk made of carved panels that probably came out of a church. And behind the desk there was a woman smiling at me, a dry, tight, withered smile that would turn to powder if you touched it.
She had sleek, black, coiled hair, a dark Asiatic face. There were pearls in her ears and rings on her fingers, large, rather cheap rings, including a moonstone and a square-cut emerald that looked as phony as a ten-cent-store slave bracelet. Her hands were little and dark and not young and not fit for rings.
“Ah, Meester Dalmas, so ver-ry good of you to come. Soukesian he weel be so pleased.”
“Thanks,” I said. I took the new hundred-dollar bill out of my wallet and laid it on her desk, in front of her dark, glittering hands. She didn’t touch it or look at it. “My party,” I said. “But thanks for the thought.”
She got up slowly, without moving the smile, swished around the desk in a tight dress that fitted her like a mermaid’s skin, and showed that she had a good figure, if you liked them four sizes bigger below the waist than above it.
“I weel conduct you,” she said.
She moved before me to a narrow panelled wall, all there was of the room besides the windows and the tiny elevator shaft. She opened a narrow door beyond which there was a silky glow that didn’t seem to be daylight. Her smile was older than Egypt now. I nudged my gun holster again and went in.
The door shut silently behind me. The room was octagonal, draped in black velvet, windowless, with a remote black ceiling. In the middle of the black rug there stood a white octagonal table, and on either side of that a stool that was a smaller edition of the table. Over against the black drapes there was one more such stool. There was a large milky ball on a black stand on the white table. The light came from this. There was nothing else in the room.
I stood there for perhaps fifteen seconds, with that obscure feeling of being watched. Then the velvet drapes parted and a man came into the room and walked straight over to the other side of the table and sat down. Only then did he look at me.
He said: “Be seated opposite me, please. Do not smoke and do not move around or fidget, if you can avoid it. How may I serve you?”
Five—Soukesian The Psychic
He was a tall man, straight as steel, with the blackest eyes I had ever seen and the palest and finest blond hair I had ever seen. He might have been thirty or sixty. He didn’t look any more like an Armenian than I did. His hair was brushed straight back from as good a profile as John Barrymore had at twenty-eight. A matinee idol, and I expected something furtive and dark and greasy that rubbed its hands.
He wore a black double-breasted business suit cut like nobody’s business, a white shirt, a black tie. He was as neat as a gift book.
I gulped and said: “I don’t want a reading. I know all about this stuff.”
“Yes?” he said delicately. “And what do you know about it?”
“Let it pass,” I said. “I can figure the secretary because she’s a sweet buildup for the shock people get when they see you. The Indian stumps me a bit, but it’s none of my business anyhow. I’m not a bunko squad cop. What I came about is a murder.”
“The Indian happens to be a natural medium,” Soukesian said mildly. “They are much rarer than diamonds and, like diamonds, they are sometimes found in dirty places. That might not interest you either. As to the murder you may inform me. I never read the papers.”
“Come, come,” I said. “Not even to see who’s pulling the big checks at the front office? Oke, here it is.”
And I laid it in front of him, the whole damn story, and about his cards and where they had been found.
He didn’t move a muscle. I don’t mean that he didn’t scream or wave his arms or stamp on the floor or bite his nails. I mean he simply didn’t move at all, not even an eyelid, not even an eye. He just sat there and looked at me, like a ston
e lion outside the Public Library.
When I was all done he put his finger right down on the spot. “You kept those cards from the police? Why?”
“You tell me. I just did.”
“Obviously the hundred dollars I sent you was not nearly enough.”
“That’s an idea too,” I said. “But I hadn’t really got around to playing with it.”
He moved enough to fold his arms. His black eyes were as shallow as a cafeteria tray or as deep as a hole to China— whichever you like. They didn’t say anything, either way.
He said: “You wouldn’t believe me if I said I only knew this man in the most casual manner—professionally?”
“I’d take it under advisement,” I said.
“I take it you haven’t much faith in me. Perhaps Mr. Paul had. Was anything on those cards besides my name?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And you wouldn’t like it.” This was kindergarten stuff, the kind the cops pull on radio crime dramatizations. He let it go without even looking at it.
“I’m in a sensitive profession,” he said. “Even in this paradise of fakers. Let me see one of those cards.”
“I was kidding you,” I said. “There’s nothing on them but your name.” I got my wallet out and withdrew one card and laid it in front of him. I put the wallet away. He turned the card over with a fingernail.
“You know what I figure?” I said heartily. “I figure Lindley Paul thought you would be able to find out who did him in, even if the police couldn’t. Which means he was afraid of somebody.”
Soukesian unfolded his arms and folded them the other way. With him that was probably equivalent to climbing up the light fixture and biting off a bulb.
“You don’t think anything of the sort,” he said. “How much—quickly—for the three cards and a signed statement that you searched the body before you notified the police?”
“Not bad,” I said, “for a guy whose brother is a rug peddler.”
He smiled, very gently. There was something almost nice about his smile. “There are honest rug dealers,” he said. “But Arizmian Soukesian is not my brother. Ours is a common name in Armenia.”
I nodded.
“You think I’m just another faker, of course,” he added.
“Go ahead and prove you’re not.”
“Perhaps it is not money you want after all,” he said carefully.
“Perhaps it isn’t.”
I didn’t see him move his foot, but he must have touched a floor button. The black velvet drapes parted .and the Indian came into the room. He didn’t look dirty or funny any more.
He was dressed in loose white trousers and a white tunic embroidered in black. There was a black sash around his waist and a black fillet around his forehead. His black eyes were sleepy. He shuffled over to the stool beside the drapes and sat down and folded his arms and leaned his head on his chest. He looked bulkier than ever, as if these clothes were over his other clothes.
Soukesian held his hands above the milky globe that was between us on the white table. The light on the remote black ceiling was broken and began to weave into odd shapes and patterns, very faint because the ceiling was black. The Indian kept his head low and his chin on his chest but his eyes turned up slowly and stared at the weaving hands.
The hands moved in a swift, graceful, intricate pattern that meant anything or nothing, that was like Junior Leaguers doing Greek dances, or coils of Christmas ribbon tossed on the floor—whatever you liked.
The Indian’s solid jaw rested on his solid chest and slowly, like a toad’s eyes, his eyes shut.
“I could have hypnotized him without all that,” Soukesian said softly. “It’s merely part of the show.”
“Yeah.” I watched his lean, firm throat.
“Now, something Lindley Paul touched,” he said. “This card will do.”
He stood up noiselessly and went across to the Indian and pushed the card inside the fillet against the Indian’s forehead, left it there. He sat down again.
He began to mutter softly in a guttural language I didn’t know. I watched his throat.
The Indian began to speak. He spoke very slowly and heavily, between motionless lips, as though the words were heavy stones he had to drag up hill in a blazing hot sun.
“Lindley Paul bad man. Make love to squaw of chief. Chief very angry. Chief have necklace stolen, Lindley Paul have to get um back. Bad man kill. Grrr.”
The Indian’s head jerked as Soukesian clapped his hands. The little lidless black eyes snapped open again. Soukesian looked at me with no expression at all on his handsome face.
“Neat,” I said. “And not a darn bit gaudy.” I jerked a thumb at the Indian. “He’s a bit heavy to sit on your knee, isn’t he? I haven’t seen a good ventriloquist act since the chorus girls quit wearing tights.”
Soukesian smiled very faintly.
“I watched your throat muscles,” I said. “No matter. I guess I get the idea. Paul had been cutting corners with somebody’s wife. The somebody was jealous enough to have him put away. It has points, as a theory. Because this jade necklace she was wearing wouldn’t be worn often and somebody had to know she was wearing it that particular night when the stick-up was pulled off. A husband would know that.”
“It is quite possible,” Soukesian said. “And since you were not killed perhaps it was not the intent to kill Lindley Paul. Merely to beat him up.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And here’s another idea. I ought to have had it before. If Lindley Paul really did fear somebody and wanted to leave a message, then there might still be something written on those cards—in invisible ink.”
That got to him. His smile hung on but it had a little more wrinkle at the corners than at first. The time was short for me to judge that.
The light inside the milky globe suddenly went out. Instantly the room was pitch dark. You couldn’t see your own hand. I kicked my stool back and jerked my gun free and started to back away.
A rush of air brought a strong earthy smell with it. It was uncanny. Without the slightest error of timing or space, even in that complete blackness, the Indian hit me from behind and pinned my arms. He started to lift me. I could have jerked a hand up and fanned the room in front of me with blind shots. I didn’t try. There wasn’t any point in it.
The Indian lifted me with his two hands holding my arms against my sides as though a steam crane was lifting me. He set me down again, hard, and he had my wrists. He had them behind me, twisting them. A knee like the corner of a foundation stone went into my back. I tried to yell. Breath panted in my throat and couldn’t get out.
The Indian threw me sideways, wrapped my legs with his legs as we fell, and had me in a barrel. I hit the floor hard, with part of his weight on me.
I still had the gun. The Indian didn’t know I had it. At least he didn’t act as if he knew. It was jammed down between us. I started to turn it.
The light flicked on again.
Soukesian was standing beyond the white table, leaning on it. He looked older. There was something on his face I didn’t like. He looked like a man who had something to do he didn’t relish, but was going to do it all the same.
“So,” he said softly. “Invisible writing.”
Then the curtains swished apart and the thin dark woman rushed into the room with a reeking white cloth in her hands and slapped it around my face, leaning down to glare at me with hot black eyes.
The Indian grunted a little behind me, straining at my arms.
I had to breathe the chloroform. There was too much weight dragging my throat tight. The thick, sweetish reek of it ate into me.
I went away from there.
Just before I went somebody fired a gun twice. The sound didn’t seem to have anything to do with me.
I was lying out in the open again, just like the night before. This time it was daylight and the sun was burning a hole in my right leg. I could see the hot blue sky, the lines of a ridge, scrub oak, yuccas in bloom spouting from the side
of a hill, more hot blue sky.
I sat up. Then my left leg began to tingle with tiny needle points. I rubbed it. I rubbed the pit of my stomach. The chloroform stank in my nose. I was as hollow and rank as an old oil drum.
I got up on my feet, but didn’t stay there. The vomiting was worse than last night. More shakes to it, more chills, and my stomach hurt worse. I got back up on my feet.
The breeze off the ocean lifted up the slope and put a little frail life into me. I staggered around dopily and looked at some tire marks on red clay, then at a big galvanized-iron cross, once white but with the paint flaked off badly. It was studded with empty sockets for light bulbs, and its base was of cracked concrete with an open door, inside which a verdigris-coated copper switch showed.
Beyond this concrete base I saw the feet.
They stuck out casually from under a bush. They were in hard-toed shoes, the kind college boys used to wear about the year before the war. I hadn’t seen shoes like that for years, except once.
I went over there and parted the bushes and looked down at the Indian.
His broad, blunt hands lay at his sides, large and empty and limp. There were bits of clay and dead leaf and wild oysterplant seeds in his greasy black hair. A tracery of sunlight skimmed along his brown cheek. On his stomach the flies had found a sodden patch of blood. His eyes were like other eyes I had seen—too many of them—half open, clear, but the play behind them was over.
He had his comic street clothes on again and his greasy hat lay near him, with the sweatband still wrong side out. He wasn’t funny any more, or tough, or nasty. He was just a poor simple dead guy who had never known what it was all about.
I had killed him, of course. Those were my shots I had heard, from my gun.
I didn’t find the gun. I went through my clothes. The other two Soukesian cards were missing. Nothing else. I followed the tire tracks to a deeply rutted road and followed that down the hill. Cars glittered by far below as the sunlight caught their windshields or the curve of a headlight. There was a service station and a few houses down there too. Farther off still the blue of water, piers, the long curve of the shore line towards Point Firmin. It was a little hazy. I couldn’t see Catalina Island.
Collected Stories (Everyman's Library) Page 63
