“He’s not here?” Nathan said to me.
At that point Jerry waved and came flouncing over.
“Nola, darling,” he said in his baritone voice. “Have you brought me a john or is this one yours?”
This time Nathan did look fazed, but only briefly. “Definitely hers,” he said. “Sorry.”
“I’m not having any luck tonight at all,” Jerry said. “Unless Nola’s brought me some charity.”
I took the four hundred-dollar bills of Agency money out of my jeans and held them out between my thumb and forefinger. Although Jerry didn’t appear to snatch them, they disappeared smoothly and suddenly into his taped-up cleavage.
“That’s your quarterly accounting,” I said, “and the pay for the latest job. Your requisition for expenses still hasn’t come in yet.”
“Why am I not surprised? This will come in handy, though.”
“Try not to shoot it all at once. You’re too valuable to lose.”
“You are sweet, but I don’t do needles, darling. My kind of customer doesn’t like tracks on the merchandise.”
“Then don’t snort it all at once.”
“I’ll restrain myself just for you. Did you see the lights today?”
“I did, yeah. I’m surprised you could see them from downtown.”
“I wasn’t downtown, is why. Every now and then I get this mad craving for sunshine, and I went to the park.” Jerry frowned down at the sidewalk. “You know I see things, and it’s not the drugs.”
“Yeah. You’ve always been accurate.”
“There was someone down by the windmill in the park.” He glanced at Nathan. “That’s Golden Gate Park, down at the west end, almost at the beach. A very well-dressed fellow, Armani slacks, D and G shirt, very pricey-looking camera. He was taking pictures of the windmill. Tourists do that all the time. But he gave me the creeps. I don’t know why. He just did, and I thought, that’s who the lights came for. I don’t know why. I just did.”
“Oh, really?” I touched Nathan’s arm. “Can I have those photos?”
Nathan brought the envelope out of the inner pocket of his jacket. Jerry’s eyes went very wide at a glimpse of the gun.
“Why are you packing?” he said. “Nola, is this guy a cop?”
“Yeah, but he’s not interested in local regulations. Don’t worry about it. Is this the guy you saw by the windmill?”
In the yellow glare of the streetlight, Jerry looked through the photos. “No,” he said eventually. “The guy I saw was much younger. Brown hair, darker than this guy’s.” He flapped the envelope, and Nathan took it back.
“Well, remember the face in the photo anyway,” I said. “He’s dangerous.”
“I noticed he was a Dodger fan. It figures.”
“If he comes by pretending to be a john, don’t go with him. Okay?”
“I’ll mention that I’ve just come from the AIDS clinic,” Jerry said, grinning. “That turns the smart ones off. Very well, darling, if you say so. He doesn’t look like a big spender anyway.”
I took one of Jerry’s hands in both of mine. “Think about that guy you saw,” I said.
Jerry obligingly thought. I soaked up a vibe, not a clear image, nothing so useful, but a vibe, and an impression of a small room with wood paneling—better than nothing, but not very good. I let Jerry’s hand go.
“That’ll give me a start,” I said. “Thanks.”
As we walked down Ellis Street toward Market, we saw an empty cab coming our way, probably after dropping a fare off at one of the big hotels. Just as Nathan hailed it, I had the odd thought that Aunt Eileen was watching us. We’d gotten into the backseat, and Nathan had told the driver our destination, when my cell phone rang. I took it out of my shoulder bag and flipped it open.
“Nola, is that you?” A dark male voice, with the deep growl of a heavy drinker.
“Uncle Jim! What’s wrong? You sound like something is.”
“We’ve just been burgled, that’s what. Jeezus H, I can’t believe the damn bad luck.”
As the cab started off, Nathan slid over next to me to listen. I was too worried to care one way or the other.
“Burgled? How bad is it?”
“Damnedest thing. Eileen and I took the boys out for an early movie and a pizza. When we came back, we found the front door wide open. The new TV was gone, and that brand-new game system, but they didn’t take my laptop. They trashed the boys’ rooms, though, turned everything upside down, threw stuff around. I don’t know what in hell they were looking for up there.”
“Have you called the police?”
“Jeezus H, of course I did. They’re here now, not that they can do much about it.”
“Didn’t they ask the neighbors if they saw anything? It still must have been light.”
“Hell, yes, and here’s the thing that really gripes me. The crooks—they drove up in a TV repair truck. Stolen, of course. So when Mrs. G across the street saw them carrying the TV out, she didn’t think anything about it.”
“Oh, for crying out loud!”
“Smart cookies, huh? Next I’m going to call the insurance agent, but Eileen had the idea that you’d want to know.” Jim paused, and in the background I heard her voice. “She wants to know if you got the cab she sensed.”
“Tell her yes, and thanks. Do you want me to come over?”
Again the pause, and Aunt Eileen’s voice, sounding weary.
“Naw,” Uncle Jim said. “There’s nothing you can do, either. She just thought you’d want to know.”
“I do, and tell her I’ll call her when I get home.”
“Good. Do that. Here’s the damn useless cop again.”
I clicked off and put the phone back in my bag, then scowled at Nathan until he returned to his side of the cab. By then we were driving up McAllister past the housing projects, heading for Stanyan, I assumed, to cross over to the inner Sunset district.
“Your aunt sent this cab?” Nathan said.
“No, she sensed it. She does that with cabs. It’s an urban evolutionary adaptation.”
“You’re joking.”
“About the evolution bit, yeah. But she does sense cabs.”
Nathan spent the rest of the ride scowling out the window. I spent it worrying about Pat’s notebooks—would they still be in my apartment when we got back?
When we arrived, Nathan insisted on going up the stairs first, gun in hand, but again, the only thing we saw or heard was Mrs. Z’s TV. Nothing in the apartment looked the least bit disturbed, either. I went straight to the bathroom and took the Chaos ward off the clothes hamper by the shower. The green book bag still sat inside under some dirty towels. I pulled it out and checked. None of the notebooks had gone missing.
I took them back out into the living room, where Nathan was slouched down on the couch. He’d tossed his jacket over the coffee table.
“You look angry about something,” Nathan said.
“I never wanted my work to touch my family. Damn right I’m angry.”
“You’re assuming Johnson had something to do with the burglary?”
“Yeah, and that he wanted these.” I patted the book bag.
“Would he have known about them?”
“Good question. What I’m hoping is that it’s local teenagers who knew about the new TV and the dope that Michael keeps in his room.”
“Dope?”
“Marijuana. Sorry. I’m old-fashioned sometimes.”
“He smokes? You should put a stop to that.”
“I’ve tried. It’s probably only a lid, if that.”
“What?”
“An ounce. An archaic term for how much dope will fit into a plastic coffee can lid.”
“You seem to know a lot of odd information and a lot of odd people, I must say.”
“I haven’t led a quiet life. Have you?”
“No. Sorry. I can see why you’d want to keep your family well clear of all this. I take it that this is a new assignment for you.”
“He cast the—wait, that’s a fortune-telling device, isn’t it?”
“A very old one. Bronze Age, in fact. Sometimes I think he’s nearly as old, but more likely he just dates from the Sixties.”
“Maybe I should stop complaining about my superiors.”
“You may be lucky, yeah. Look, I want to call my aunt, but I’m going to do an LDRS for Johnson first.”
I put the book bag down on the coffee table, then got out my crayons and pad of paper. I went into the kitchen to work at the table. When I let my mind range out to Johnson, my hand started drawing immediately. The blue car, trees, dark sky, waning moon, a structure of some kind off to one side—the information began flowing in fast. I tore off the first sheet and started on a second. The structure was a couple of columns and a lintel by a lake, more trees—
As fast and sharp as a slap to the face, the flow turned into a shudder of pain. I felt my body jerk around in the kitchen chair. My hand spasmed and snapped the crayon I held. Although I couldn’t hear myself, I must have made some kind of noise, because Nathan came barreling into the kitchen.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
I held up one hand as a signal for him to wait. I took a deep breath and sealed off my mind by reciting the alphabet backward. When I made it to A, I let out my breath in a long sigh. My hand dropped the pieces of crayon.
“What happened?” Nathan said.
“I ran into Johnson,” I said. “He’s got talent, this guy. I’ve never touched an electric fence, but I bet it’s lot like what just happened to me.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Just tired.”
“Very well, then.” He picked up the drawings and began to study them.
I realized that he wasn’t going to cluck and fuss, that he’d simply believed me when I told him I’d survived okay. I began to see formerly hidden qualities in the man. I saw something else, too: I was glad he was there, gun and all. That’s the edge of the slippery slope to meltdown, O’Grady, I told myself. Keep your mind on business.
“He was obviously outside somewhere,” Nathan said.
“I’d say Golden Gate Park. There’s a shallow lake there with this odd doorway to nowhere standing beside it. The story runs that it was part of a Nob Hill mansion that the 1906 earthquake and fire leveled. The only thing left of it was that marble lintel and the columns, so the guy who owned it gave it to the city. I don’t know why they set it up in the park.”
“Do you think Johnson might still be there?”
“No. He knows I caught up with him.”
I was expecting Nathan to argue, but he merely nodded and went on studying the scribbles. I wanted to sit for a few minutes and think about my next move before calling Aunt Eileen. Although I’d suspected that Johnson had psychic talents himself, now I knew, in a very immediate way. I was going to have to proceed carefully if I did a full scan for him.
“Tell me something.” Nathan laid the papers back down on the table. “Why do think he’s hunting you? I’ve got the distinct feeling you didn’t tell me when I asked before.”
“I didn’t, no, and I’m not going to now. For one thing, I don’t know if it’s me as me that he’s after, or if he just knows that someone from the Agency is after him. It could be either.”
“Well, why won’t you tell me the truth? Or are you protecting someone in your family?”
“Protecting them? No. Keeping them out of this, yeah. There’s a difference. Which one were you thinking of?”
“The latter, actually. Why are you so touchy?”
“Because you’re so damned rude.”
The squabble of thirteen year olds again. Apparently he felt it too.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to know if the information came from someone in your family. I’m not accusing anyone of anything.”
“Oh, okay. Yes, it did. What made you think so?”
“They all seem to be as odd as you.”
I reminded myself that “odd” did in fact describe my family and bit back a nasty retort.
“Your aunt’s an O’Brien, right?” Nathan went on. “What about the Houlihans, the family she married into? Do they have these talents too?”
“Some of them. That’s one reason Eileen married Jim, because she knew he’d understand about her and her family. Kathleen’s husband is just an ordinary guy—well, an ordinary very rich guy—but she’s incredibly beautiful, and he would have accepted Godzilla as a brother-in-law if he’d had to.”
Nathan’s mouth twitched at the joke. “But Eileen didn’t have the requisite seven children, did she?”
“No, just three, James Junior, Clarice, and Brian.”
Very carefully I pushed back my chair and stood up. He started to reach out to steady me, then drew his hand back.
“I’m going to call my aunt,” I said, “and then read some more of Pat’s journals.”
“Good. I want to know what’s in them.”
“So do I, but before I start, I’m going to wrap a barrier around me. I don’t want Johnson reading over my shoulder.”
“Do you think he knows Latin?”
“If he’s reading the information from my mind, he wouldn’t have to.”
Nathan looked puzzled.
“Some thought is preverbal,” I said. “Especially the telepathic kind, because it’s apparently more primitive than actual language.”
“What? Explain.”
“Can’t. You’ll have to take my word for it, because I don’t know how it works, either. It’s got to do with deep mental structures, though. Ask Noam Chomsky.”
Nathan stiffened like one of Kathleen’s cats when a dog sniffs it. “What do you mean by that?” His voice hovered just above an animal growl.
“Huh? What’s so wrong? He’s a linguist, the one who invented the concept of deep mental structures, is all.”
“Not all.” His voice returned to normal. “You don’t really know what you’ve just said, do you?”
“No, I sure don’t.”
“He defends the PLO and Hamas. Drums up a lot of support for them in America.”
“Oh, my God! I’m sorry. That’s news to me. I only knew about his linguistic theories.”
Nathan shook his head. “You are amazing,” he said. “You live in a different world than the rest of us, don’t you?”
“Just what do you mean by that?”
“I hardly know myself.”
Nathan walked out of the kitchen. I sat back down and stared at the two LDRS drawings. They’d gone so dead that I knew Johnson had left the location for somewhere far, far away.
CHAPTER 5
BEFORE I PHONED AUNT EILEEN, I asked Nathan to refrain from bugging the call. He solemnly promised me he would. He was turning on the TV as I went into the bathroom, as far away from him as I could get in the apartment, so I could hope he’d keep his promise. When I reached my aunt, she sounded reasonably calm, though I could hear Uncle Jim storming around in the background, yelling at Brian and Michael.
“I don’t know why he’s blaming the boys,” Eileen told me. “He thinks they may have bragged about the new TV at school, where some gang members overheard them. Even if that did happen, it wouldn’t be our boys’ fault it was stolen.”
“That’s very true,” I said. “He’s just mad and needs to vent, I guess.”
“He usually does. It’s nice of you to call, though really there’s not much you can do.”
“Well, if you think of anything, let me know. And if Michael needs to talk to me, he can call, too.”
“That’s a very good thought. I’ll make sure he has the number of your cell phone.”
“Thanks. There’s something I wanted to ask you. Have you had any more dreams about that Sam Spade character, the one who wanted to kill me?”
“No, I’m glad to say. I did have one rather worrisome
dream about you and that good-looking Mr. Morrison, though.”
I should have known. I may have groaned aloud.
“About Sam Spade,” I said as fast as I could. “Did you get the feeling that he knew specifically who I am? Or could he have been worried about my job? In general, you know.”
“That’s a very good question.” She was silent for a long time. “He was such a vague figure that I think it might just be your job. He was going to kill someone who might cause him trouble. But still, in the dream, that someone was you. Of course, I know you even if he doesn’t. You know how ambiguous these things are.”
“I’m afraid I do, yeah.”
“Well, if I get anything more, I’ll call you right away. I’d better go now before Jim pours himself another shot. He’s had quite enough.”
I returned to the living room to find Nathan slouched on the couch and watching the news, or to be precise, a commercial with the sound off.
“What about your other stringer?” he said. “You implied that there was more than one.”
“That’s true.” I glanced at the clock. “She’ll be asleep by now, and I don’t want to risk leading Johnson to her, either. She’s elderly and couldn’t defend herself. In the morning I’ll see how things are and then give her a call. What I want to do now is read more of Pat’s journals.”
“Good idea.”
The commercial break ended, and Nathan clicked on the sound again. I started to go into my bedroom to read but stopped when I heard “breaking news” and turned to watch. What I saw sickened me. The police had found the stolen TV repair truck with the driver dead inside.
License to Ensorcell Page 9
