The Clairvoyant Countess (14 page)

Pruden stood paralyzed, wanting to run, wanting to join Swope, but wanting also to see what the hell lay below him. A moment later his decision was made for him as the threshold of the garage doors passed out of sight. Pruden turned back to the door of the van, climbed inside and crawled up on the sleeping shelf. There were several blankets piled in one end: he curled
up in a corner and drew the blankets over him.

The descent of the truck slowed, and he and the truck emerged into a lighted room below. He heard a low murmur of voices and the clink of keys unlocking the rear of the van. Two men jumped inside; he could hear the hollow sound of their feet walking around a few feet away from him, separated only by the wall against which he lay. A dolly was wheeled up, objects began being unloaded, and then came a new sound: a hammering on the sides of the truck.

“Okay, Carlos, bring the Freezee signs,” a man shouted, and the sides of the truck were assaulted again. Pruden kept himself small and quiet as he drew certain conclusions: Carlos Torres was here, and signs were being switched. An old hijacking trick, he reflected, but what did it mean? They’d mentioned Freezee signs. Presumably the Bazaar Shop truck would drive away as a Mr. Freezee delivery truck, but why, and with what?

A loud, irritating buzzer interrupted the hammering.

“Trouble at the back door,” a man called sharply, and Pruden heard footsteps racing away into the distance, echoing as if in a hall of some kind. After listening for a minute he concluded that he was the only person left in the garage. He crawled gingerly down from the bunk and stuck his head out of the door and looked around him. He was in a very neat underground cement-walled room with an exit that led up a long ramp-like hall, dimly lighted, to three doors at the end. He guessed that the ramp connected with the basement of Ramon’s house and shop.

Stealthily Pruden emerged and crept around to one side of the truck: it was still a blaze of scarlet, with
BAZAAR CURIO SHOP
emblazoned on it in gold. He walked around to the other side and was met with a blue panel and jagged white letters that read
MR
.
FREEZEE
. Neat, he thought, very neat. He moved around to the back of the truck and bent over the cartons that had been removed from the van and were stacked on the dolly. Drawing out his penknife he slit open the top of one and looked inside.

The box held Mr. Freezee popsicles.

He thought it damned careless of them to abandon the load here when ice cream melted so fast, and then he realized there was no dry ice anywhere in sight. He looked into the interior of the truck and ran a hand over its walls: this was not a refrigerated truck, and there was no sign of ice here, either. He went back to the carton and drew out a popsicle, pulled aside its blue-and-white wrapping, and examined it. It gave every evidence of being a coconut-cherry popsicle: it was red, and it was flecked with shreds of white, but it was warm to the touch, not cold. He tapped it with a finger; it was plastic.

A plastic popsicle … Carefully he knocked it against the side of the dolly and then slipped the wooden stick out of the plastic rectangle. The interior was a honeycomb of thin plastic: in the very center he found a cellophane envelope filled with white powder. He removed it. Tearing aside the cellophane he sniffed the white substance and then wet his finger and placed a few grains on his tongue. It was heroin, no doubt about it.

He thought he’d seen everything during his years on the force but the enormity of this numbed him. It seemed the ultimate insolence, selling drugs on the
street from innocent ice-cream trucks, those Pied Pipers of the neighborhood that brought music, bells, and laughter with them on hot mucky days, the one touch of innocence left to kids. The crowds would gather, real ice cream would be exchanged for coins and then a guy with the right password, the right gesture would get this … this obscenity.

It filled him with a manic fury. He thought that if Carlos and his friends came back now he would delight in taking them apart one by one. At the same time all his instincts told him to leave now, look for the right switches to the hydraulic lift, crawl into the truck and ride back upstairs into the world again. But he didn’t feel wise, he felt incensed and murderous. He looked at the three doors at the far end of the ramp and then he began running up the ramp toward them, not caring whether he was seen or heard. Two of the doors had small windows in them. Through the center door he saw steps leading to the upper floor; behind the left door lay a storage and workshop room with cartons of masks and a carpenter’s bench. The door on his right had no windows; he opened it and walked inside.

He had entered some kind of office or study: Ramon’s, he decided, because it looked like him. The walls were hung with maps and charts—astrology charts, he guessed—and fierce-looking masks. The center of the room was occupied by a huge desk covered with drawings and diagrams. A small click-click sound troubled him until he moved to the desk and saw that beside it stood a teletype machine. Ramon certainly did himself well, he thought. A second machine in the corner caught his eye and he walked over and discovered it
was a computer, an honest-to-God king-sized computer with winking lights.

Then he saw the map of Trafton on the wall behind the computer, a map with every street and alley rendered in detail, and he felt a small chill. In this room incalculable plans were being made for Trafton; he’d stumbled across some kind of command post where something was being plotted and organized for his city. He went back to the desk and studied the papers and charts on its surface. Horoscopes, he saw, staring at a thick sheaf of papers with houses of the zodiac marked off. Beside these lay a pack of tarot cards and over here … he peered closer. A list of typed names: Arturo Mendez, Luis Mendez, Raphael Alvarez … He remembered that Alvarez was the name his informant had mentioned tonight. The list was long, and Arturo’s name at the top had been crossed off with red ink.

Pruden stood and thought about this. Madame Karitska had said “an original mind,” and now he understood at last what she had meant. For the first time he accepted the fact that Arturo Mendez had actually been murdered and that Luis Mendez was in the process of being murdered. Not a finger had been laid on them, but here in this room a man had so clearly understood them and so accurately appraised their fears that he could manipulate their deaths without knowing anything but their history and their culture, and without ever meeting them.

“Clever,” he thought, but he knew this word only concealed his unease. It was the potential behind it that disturbed him, it was the troubling sense that if this could happen to two happy, uncomplicated men, then
possibly one day in the future it could reach out to him and to others.

He was lost in these thoughts when a voice spoke nearby, a voice oddly calm and almost tender. “Good evening. You realize of course, sir, that you are trespassing?”

Pruden swung around to see Ramon standing in the doorway; he had entered without a sound and stood smiling at him.

“Yes,” said Pruden.

“I should, of course, be indignant or alarmed but I never waste energy on unnecessary emotion,” Ramon said, the soft light glittering across the lenses of his glasses and rendering them opaque. “And I’m sure you have some suitable explanation.” Was there a touch of irony in his voice? “In the meantime I’m certain we can find some practical and pragmatic solution to this confrontation if we use judgment and frankness. I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? You were in my shop yesterday.”

Pruden nodded.

“And now you are seeing what I like to think is a modern alchemist’s laboratory.”

The important thing, Pruden realized, was to stall for time. Swope would know what to do, Swope had seen him disappear, and thank God he’d not come alone. Calls would be going out, patrol cars rerouted, a strategy plotted.
Don’t rock the boat,
he told himself,
keep it light, keep him talking.
“You’re a student of the occult, I see.”

Ramon laughed. “A master. How do you like my little study?”

“A bit weird,” Pruden acknowledged. “Unusual, certainly.”
He could feel Ramon’s eyes on him and it was an uncomfortable feeling because he couldn’t see the man’s eyes and this was even more disquieting.

“I may inquire your name, sir?” Such a gentle voice!

“Pruden.”

“Ah yes. Actually, Mr. Pruden, I am a scholar and inventor. At the moment I am consultant to a group that is very interested in my research, which is highly specialized, and they are willing to pay me astronomic sums for certain research studies I’ve done. Absurd, of course, but I have an IQ of over two hundred, which more than makes up for the fact that I am small, almost deformed in appearance, and nearly blind.” He said this softly, his eyes rooted on Pruden as he waited for his response.

“Oh?” said Pruden equally softly, and asked in a neutral voice, “And do you use your—er—research—for good or evil?”

Ramon chuckled. “A conventional question, Mr. Pruden. Power is so often used for evil, is it not? I believe it was Lord Acton who said, ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ ”

“What kind of power?” asked Pruden, and decided that he must stop thinking of Swope because he had the uncanny feeling that those opaque eyes could read his mind.

“Power to destroy people.” Ramon chuckled. “I could destroy you, Mr. Pruden, very easily, in less than two days. Consider that a compliment, by the way, because most people I could reduce to nothingness in hours, without violence.”

“Forgive me if I’m skeptical,” Pruden said.

“Oh, I can assure you it’s quite possible, and entirely
without physical violence of any kind. Every human being has his Achilles’ heel psychologically, you see, his own self-image that he nurtures. It would take a little time to discover yours, Mr. Pruden, but you have one. Everyone does. Disturb that image, which is like the skin of a balloon, and following the loud bang there is—why, nothing at all. Or madness,” he conceded modestly.

“You use drugs, of course,” Pruden said harshly.

Ramon looked shocked. “My dear sir, you miss the point entirely. Of course not. You are a completely conditioned animal, Mr. Pruden, composed of habit, other people’s valuations, other people’s ideas, opinions, and reactions. What do you have that is yours, untouched by others? Very little. It is more likely that you have no center at all. Human beings are eternally fragmented and highly susceptible to a breakdown of the ego. Statistically, my dear sir, only one man in twenty is a leader, with the capabilities and strengths of a leader. The rest are sheep. The Chinese know this. The North Koreans discovered it for themselves when they brainwashed their captives in the fifties. Destroy that one man and the others prove no problem at all. Almost all human beings are machines, Mr. Pruden. Sleepwalkers without consciousness.”

“Sleepwalkers,” repeated Pruden, recognizing the phrase.

“But I think we waste time talking here,” Ramon confessed with a benevolent smile. “Frankly, a small conference becomes necessary with my employees while we discuss how to solve this unexpected situation. I have never,” he added with a disarming smile, “entertained a trespasser before.”

“I suppose not,” said Pruden.

“I would suggest that you wait in the next room while I discuss this with them. If you would be so kind—”

Pruden shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

“Good. The door is behind that scarlet curtain over there. You’ll find cigarettes there, and a small bar. It’s my living room—I can assure you I am quite civilized.” Ramon walked to the curtain and drew it aside, exposing an oak door. He opened it, and flicked on the lights. “There is no trickery here, as you can see. We will keep this very brief, Mr. Pruden, with as little suspense for you as possible.”

“Yes,” said Pruden politely, and wondered if in passing Ramon he could get close enough to reach him but he discovered that the idea of grappling with the man filled him with ennui. He felt curiously tired, sapped of his usual energy. Anyway it had to be time for Swope, he thought. Surely now, surely any minute?

He entered a large room furnished with low couches and tables. There were no windows; instead the walls were hung with soft antique tapestries and fabric, while in the very center of the room a massive Buddha sat smiling down at him. On shelves to his right, behind glass, he saw Chinese porcelains and pieces of jade that could easily have come from a museum. It was all amazing, he thought, a sybaritic underground pied-à-terre. The theme of the room was oriental, soothing and unusual, the motif established by the Buddha, which was taller than he was, carved out of wood—teak, he realized, approaching it with curiosity—and colored with dabs of blue and red.

Abruptly he stopped, thinking
Buddha.

Blue and red Buddha.

Madame Karitska … Buddha … danger from behind …

Pruden whirled just as Ramon fired the gun with a look of hatred and contempt distorting his face. The bullet caught Pruden sideways, he felt a stab of pain radiating through his chest, intense, grinding, unbearable pain and then he slumped to the floor and darkness crashed over him in waves.

Hours, days, weeks later Pruden opened his eyes to a bright ceiling and a feeling of dull uneasy discomfort. Slowly his eyes focused on a bouquet of yellow flowers and he thought, Somewhere between then and now I died. Beyond the flowers he saw a face that struck him as comical but also vaguely familiar: a deeply tanned face with a bristling white mustache and vivid blue eyes. The face rose and drifted nearer. “You’re awake,” it said. “I’ll call the nurse.”

“Who,” began Pruden.

“Faber-Jones,” the voice said. “We’ve been taking turns sitting with you, Madame Karitska and I.”

“Karitska,” repeated Pruden, and then as it all came back he said, “There was a Buddha. Tell her there was a Buddha.”

“Right,” said the voice, and vanished.

“A Buddha,” Pruden told the nurse when she appeared in starched white cap. “There was a Buddha.”

“Yes, Lieutenant, but take these capsules now.… You’ve been very, very ill, we nearly lost you.”