Burial (3 page)

I can see her face today: clear as a photograph. White hair, wound in a knot; bright green eyes; skin like soft crumpled tissue-paper. She always put me in mind of Katherine Hepburn, romantic and girlish and strong, even at the age of 71. And she always gave me a saltwater taffy, and kissed me before I left.

Wherever you are, Adelaide, heaven or hell or tarot-land, God bless you.

It was a grilling August day and every window was open wide to let the heat in. My recently-departed lover had been friends with a very hip, black gang-leader called Purple Rayne who had sold me a ‘second-hand' air-conditioner that still had ‘Avis Rent-A-Car' stencilled on it. I didn't object so much to the fact that it was stolen as I did to the fact that it hardly ever worked. When I did manage to get it going, it used to sound like a Mexican rumba orchestra practising
La Cucharacha
on the last train to Brighton Beach.

This morning I needed comparative quiet because I was telling the fortune of Mrs John F. Lavender, one of my most generous clients; and Mrs John F. Lavender was very demanding when it came to finding out what was going to happen to her next. This was because she was having affairs with three different men at once and she didn't want any one of them to find out about the other; and in particular she didn't want Mr John F. Lavender to find out about any of them.

My walk-up consulting rooms and living accommodation were on the top floor of a peeling three-storey brick building on East 53rd, above the Molly Maguire Club, where some of the less assimilated of New York's Irishmen gathered of an evening to drink Bushmills Whiskey and sing about the old country and dance a few jigs and knock each other's teeth out. The whole south side of East 53rd between Lexington and Third was in a state of dilapidation: a sorry collection of trellis-gated stores that had long gone out of business, interspersed with Cohen's Cut-Price Drugs, the Pink Pussy Sex Center, and Ned's Bargain Liquor. It directly fronted the gleaming new plaza underneath the Citicorp Center, like a hideous reminder that everything grows old one day, and that even the grandest dreams can collapse into dust. I managed to rent my premises for less than a hundred and fifty dollars a week because Citicorp were
doing everything they possibly could to evict me and Ned and Cohen and the Pink Pussies and the Molly Maguires and tear the whole scabby block down. I think they were afraid we'd give their plaza some kind of architectural leprosy.

Mind you, cheap as my consulting rooms were, I'd managed to give them a certain occult tone. I'd been across to Seventh Avenue to see my friend Manny Goodman, and Manny had sold me three bolts of midnight-blue velour at cost, which I had nailed to the walls and decorated with stars cut from turkey-sized cooking foil. I still had my crystal ball from my old consulting room, plus heaps of dusty leather-bound books, which looked like ancient grimoires unless you looked too closely at the titles,
Cod Fishing Off Newfoundland
and
The Girls' Book of Lacrosse
.

My latest acquisition was a phrenological bust, on top of which I had stuck a candle. I must say it looked pretty damned clairvoyant.

Mrs John F. Lavender was lying back on the velour-draped daybed and furiously smoking at the ceiling. ‘I had such a terrible premonition this morning,' she said. ‘It was like icy fingers trailing down my back.'

I made notes.
Icy — fingers — trailing — down — back
. When I first started in the fortune-telling business, I used to wear a kind of occult hat and kind of shiny occult robes, but these days I found that the ladies liked it better if I wore a suit and shiny shoes and a carnation in my buttonhole and behaved more
professionally
— less like Merlin and more like a shrink. I also found that they paid me considerably more.

In a last attempt to be nice to me before her sense of humour ran out, my recently-departed lover had lettered me a very impressive certificate from the Institute of Chartered Clairvoyants, of Chewalla, Tennessee, which attested that Harold P. Erskine was a fully-qualified seer, licensed to soothsay in every state of the Union except Delaware. I
don't know why Delaware was excluded, that was just an authenticating touch that she'd invented. Either that, or Delaware simply doesn't have a future.

Mrs John F. Lavender said anxiously, ‘I'm convinced that Mason suspects something.'

‘What makes you think that?'

‘Well … I was leaving Christopher's building last Wednesday afternoon, and I was sure that I saw Mason in a passing cab. I'm ninety-nine per cent certain that it was him. He looked my way, and
I think that he might have recognized me
.'

If it had been Mason (who was lover number two, incidentally) I was convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that he
would
have recognized her, instantly. Today was one of her discreet days, and she was wearing a patterned silk shirt that looked like a schizophrenic's painting of Miami's Parrot Jungle, signal-red pedal pushers, and strappy red stiletto-heeled sandals. Her hair was dyed bright henna-red and tied up into a kind of firework effect on top of her head. She was fifty-two years old, with a dead white face, turquoise eyelids, double false eyelashes and a mouth like a strawberry flan run over by a fire-truck.

‘We'd better go over the cards,' I said. ‘I'm sure you don't have anything to worry about. Early Sagittarians are going through a very stable period right now … no disruptive vibrations. There's a possibility that something you eat may disagree with you … it
feels
like tortellini. But apart from that, everything's very calm. Almost cruise-like, you might say.'

I brushed bagel crumbs off my baize table-top, and laid out the cards. I didn't use the tarot any more … not after all that trouble with Karen Tandy. I should have listened to Adelaide in the first place, I guess. But the tarot is a little like crack: you can't really comprehend how dangerous it is until you try it.

These days I used Mile Lenormand's fortune-telling cards. This is a very pretty pack of thirty-six cards which was devised by Mlle Lenormand early in 19th-century France. She used it to help her predict the rise and fall of Emperor Napoleon, the secrets of Empress Josephine, and the fate of many of their court followers. Or so the old shyster said — but then she was in the same business as me. What she
really
used was observation, logic and common sense. The cards were nothing more than a ritual. Unlike the tarot, Mlle Lenormand's cards have a little rhyme on them which more or less explains what they mean. Like most aids to fortune-telling, the rhymes are sufficiently ambiguous to allow the quick-witted card-diviner (i.e. me) to be able to interpret them according to his subject's immediate circumstances.

Mrs John F. Lavender noisily smoked while I laid out the cards, face up in four rows of eight cards and one row of four cards. ‘I don't know what I shall do if Mason has found out. He has
such
a temper! I daren't even
face
him! But then I can't live without him, either. He has such a cute ass. I mean, cute asses are
very
few and far between, especially in men of his age. Most of them look like as if they've filled their shorts with three gallons of Jell-O.'

Mrs John F. Lavender's key card was number twenty-nine, an elegant woman in a long green dress carrying a bouquet of roses. Personally I thought that number fourteen, the vixen, would have been more appropriate, but then I wasn't being paid to be sarcastic.

‘Here we are,' I told her, laying down the last of the cards. ‘This is you … with your roses. And right ahead of you is … ah.'

She blew smoke, and half sat up. ‘Right ahead of me is what? That's a scythe, isn't it? What does that mean?'

‘Well … strictly speaking the scythe isn't altogether good news. It says here, “
The scythe looms bare, danger stalks too. Of strangers beware, they can harm you.”
'

‘Danger? Of strangers beware?' snapped Mrs John F. Lavender, her mouth contorted. ‘I thought you said my vibrations were
calm
. That doesn't sound like calm!'

‘Wait a minute,' I interrupted her. ‘It also says, “
If some nearby cards hold a favourable view, Good are the odds you'll overcome too.”
'

‘I still don't like the sound of that “
of strangers beware
” stuff, Mrs John F. Lavender protested. ‘God, I have a difficult enough time bewaring of people I
know
!'

‘Hold on, hold on, let's not be too hasty here,' I told her. ‘Look, right next to you, on the right-hand side, is the clover-flower card. That means that even if something bad happens to you, you'll soon get over it.'

‘But I don't
want
to get over it! I don't want it to happen to me in the first place!'

‘Well, for sure … but let's take a look here, on the left. A letter, look — lying on a lace tablecloth. “
This scented letter from a place remote … brings news that is better from a friend who wrote
.” There … it looks like everything's working out okay. The scythe card is just a warning, that's all. It's telling you to watch out for traps.'

I hadn't read her the last part of the rhyme on the letter card, and I had no intention of reading it, either. It said, “
But as dark clouds loom in threatening sky, Sadness will soon much intensify
.”

Mrs John F. Lavender lay back on the daybed and fumbled in her pocketbook for her cigarettes. I leaned forward and lit it for her, and she breathed tusks of smoke out of her nostrils. ‘What kind of trap, do you think?'

‘Mason will follow you; or have you followed. That's what I think.'

‘The rat! But I love him.'

‘Just be careful, that's what the cards are telling you. Here, look at this one, underneath you. An open road. But there's a warning, too. It says, “
Beware of the ground sinking
from within
.” What it means is, take a different route when you visit Christopher, and when you visit Vince.'

‘Vance,' she corrected me, ‘not Vince, Vance.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry … I lose track sometimes.'

‘I don't have
that
many men in my life, thank you!'

‘I wasn't trying to suggest that you did. But four's enough to be getting along with, don't you think?'

She sucked smoke down to her red-lacquered toenails. ‘Do you know what my dream is?' she said. ‘To have them all in bed with me at one time. Can you imagine what it must be like to be taken by
four
men, all at one time?'

I frowned at the cards. ‘I'm afraid I don't see that particular entertainment coming along in the foreseeable future. But — well, you never know.'

My intercom buzzed. I excused myself and answered it, while Mrs John F. Lavender took out her cheque-book and wrote out my fee. ‘Erm … it is fifteen dollars extra, for the Lenormand cards. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. They do take a considerable amount of psychic interpretation.'

‘Of course,' she said, correcting the cheque. She signed it with her huge graffiti-like scrawl and waved it in the air to dry it

‘
Hallo
?' said a tiny, distorted voice on the other end of the intercom.

‘Hallo, who is this?'

‘
Is that Harry Erskine
?'

‘That's me. Erskine the Incredible — palmistry, card-divining, tea-leaf interpretation, astrology, phrenology, numerology, bumps read, sooths said. As recommended by
New York
magazine and
Psychology Today
.'

Mrs John F. Lavender gave me a furry wink of her double false eyelashes, and a wide suggestive grin, from which smoke leaked.

‘
I read that piece about you in
New York
magazine,
' said the voice on the end of the intercom. ‘
It said you were “the only
so-called clairvoyant who made no secret of his fakery … either because he thought his clients were so gullible, or because he simply didn't have the skill to make his crystal-ball gazing look convincing
”.'

‘What do you want?' I demanded. ‘I have a client here … a very gracious lady who takes my divinations extremely seriously.' (Here I nodded at Mrs John F. Lavender, and blew her a little kiss.) ‘What are you trying to do to me, ruin my reputation?'

‘
I need to see you,
' said the voice.

‘Well, I'm sorry … I'm all booked up for the rest of the week.'

‘
It ‘ll only take a minute, I promise
.'

‘I'm sorry. Why don't you put your request in writing? Enclose a clip of your hair, a tracing of the lines on the palm of your right hand, a cheque for thirty dollars and a stamped self-addressed envelope. I give a five-year guarantee. If what I predict doesn't happen to you within five years from the date of your reading, you get another fresh reading absolutely free, no questions asked.'

‘
Please,
' the voice implored. ‘
I really have to talk to you
.'

‘You're so
popular
, Harry, that's the trouble,' smiled Mrs John F. Lavender.

‘Yes, Deirdre, I suppose you're right.' I lifted the intercom again, and said, ‘Okay then, I'll be coming downstairs with my client in a couple of shakes. Just wait where you are. But I can only spare you a minute.

‘
I'll wait
'

I frowned as I cradled the receiver. I had an odd feeling that I
knew
that voice. I couldn't think why, or how. But there was something familiar about the intonation that even the crackling of a loose connection hadn't been able to obliterate. Mrs John F. Lavender said, ‘Harry? Are you
okay
?'

‘Sure … Yes, I'm okay. I'll see you down to the street.'

‘I'm sure that you're right about Mason having me
followed,' she said, hip-waggling in front of me into the hallway. I had stuck a poster of Aleister Crowley on the wall, and she peered at it in disapproval.