Authors: William Hjortsberg
“Where is she now?”
“No one I talked to seemed to know. Society editor says she doesn’t live with her father, and she’s not the type who gets invited to the Peacock Ball at the Waldorf, so we haven’t got anything on her over here. The last mention she got in the
Times
was on her departure for Europe ten years ago. She may still be there.”
“Walt, you’ve been a big help. I’d start reading the
Times
if they ran comic strips.”
“What’s all this about Johnny Favorite? Anything in it for me?”
“I can’t open yet, buddy, but when the time comes, you’ll get it all first.”
“Much obliged.”
“Me, too. See you around, Walt.”
I got the phone book out of the desk and ran my finger down a page in the K section. There was a listing for a Krusemark, Ethan and a Krusemark Maritime, Inc., as well as a Krusemark, M., Astrological Consultations. This one seemed worth a try. The address was 881 Seventh Avenue. I dialed the number and let it ring. A woman answered.
“I got your name through a friend,” I said. “Personally, I don’t put much stock in the stars, but my fiancee is a true believer. I thought I’d surprise her and have both our horoscopes done.”
“I charge fifteen dollars per chart,” the woman said.
“Fine by me.”
“And I don’t do any consulting over the phone. You’ll have to make an appointment.”
I said that was also fine and asked if she had an opening today.
“My desk calendar is completely clean for the afternoon,” she said, “so whatever is convenient for you.”
“How about right away? Say in half an hour?”
“That would be wonderful.”
I gave her my name. She thought my name was wonderful, too, and told me her apartment was in Carnegie Hall. I said I knew where to find it and hung up.
ELEVEN
I took the uptown BMT to 57th Street and climbed the exit stairs that let me out on the corner by the Nedick’s in Carnegie Hall. A bum shuffled up and tapped me for a dime as I headed for the Studio entrance. Across Seventh Avenue one block down, a picket line paraded in front of the Park Sheraton.
The lobby of the Carnegie Hall Studios was small and barren of decoration. Two elevator doors stood on the right, flanking a mailbox fed by a glass chute. There was a back entrance to the Carnegie Tavern around the corner on 56th and a wall directory. I looked for Krusemark, M., Astrological Consultations, and found her listed on the eleventh floor.
The brass indicator over the left-hand elevator described a descending arc through a semicircle of floor numbers like a clock running backward. The arrow paused at 7 and again at 3 before coming to rest horizontally. A large Great Dane was first off, rugging a stout woman in a fur coat. They were followed by a bearded man carrying a cello case. I got in and gave the floor number to an ancient operator who resembled a Balkan army pensioner in his ill-fitting uniform. He looked at my shoes and said nothing. After a moment, he shoved the metal gate closed and we started up.
There were no stops until I got off at eleven. The hallway was long and wide and as drab as the lobby downstairs. Folded canvas firehoses hung at intervals along the walls. Several pianos debated dissonantly behind closed doors. In the distance, I heard a soprano warming up, trilling through the scales.
I found M. Krusemark’s apartment. Her name was painted on the door in gold letters, and beneath it an odd symbol which looked like the letter
M
with an upturned arrow as a tail. I rang the bell and waited. High-heeled footsteps tapped on the floor inside, a lock was turned, and the door opened to the limit of the police chain securing it.
An eye regarded me out of the shadows. The voice that went with it asked, “Yes?”
“I’m Harry Angel,” I said. “I called earlier about an appointment.”
“Why, of course. Just a minute, please.” The door closed, and I heard the chain sliding free. When the door reopened, the eye was one of a cat-green pair set in a pale, angular face. They burned within discolored hollows beneath dark, heavy brows. “Do come in,” she said, standing aside for me to enter.
She was dressed all in black, like a weekend bohemian in a Village coffeehouse; black wool skirt and sweater, black stockings, even her thick, black hair was held in a bun with what looked to be a pair of ebony chopsticks. Walt Rigler indicated she was about thirty-six or thirty-seven years old, but without any makeup she looked much older. She was very thin, almost gaunt, her meager breasts barely discernible beneath the heavy folds of her sweater. Her only ornament was a gold medallion hanging around her neck on a simple chain. It was an upside-down five-pointed star.
Neither of us said a word, and I found myself staring at the dangling medallion. “Go, and catch a falling star …” The opening line of the Donne poem echoed through my mind, accompanied by an image of Dr. Albert Fowler’s hands. For an instant, I saw the golden ring on his drumming fingers. A five-pointed star was engraved on the ring that Dr. Albert Fowler was no longer wearing when I found his body locked in the upstairs bedroom. Here was tike missing piece in the puzzle.
The revelation hit me like an ice-water enema. A cold chill ascended my spine and raised the hackles along the back of my neck. What happened to the doctor’s ring? It might have been in his pocket; I didn’t go through his clothes; but why would he take it off before blowing his brains out? And if he didn’t remove it, who did?
I felt the woman’s fox-fire eyes focused on me. “You must be Miss Krusemark,” I said to break the silence.
“I am,” she answered without smiling.
“I saw your name on the door but didn’t recognize the symbol.”
“My sign,” she said, closing and relocking the door. “I’m a Scorpio.” She stared at me for a long moment, as if my eyes were peepholes revealing some interior scene. “And you?”
“Me?”
“What’s your sign?”
“I don’t really know,” I said. “Astrology’s not one of my strong points.”
“When were you born?”
“June 2, 1920.” I gave her Johnny Favorite’s birth date just to try her out, and for a split second I thought I caught a faraway flicker in her intense, emotionless stare.
“Gemini,” she said. “The twins. Curious, I once knew a boy born the very same day.”
“Really? Who was that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It was a long, long time ago. How rude of me to keep you standing here in the hall. Please come in and have a seat.”
I followed her out of the murky hall into a spacious, high-ceilinged studio living room. The furniture was a nondescript collection of early Salvation Army brightened by paisley-print spreads and quantities of embroidered throw pillows. The bold geometry of several fine Turkestan rugs offset the thrift shop decor. There were ferns of all descriptions and palms towering to the ceiling. Greenery dangled from hanging planters. Miniature rain forests steamed within enclosed glass terrariums.
“Beautiful room,” I said, as she took my overcoat and folded it over the back of a couch.
“Yes, it’s wonderful, isn’t it? I’ve been very happy here.” She was interrupted by a sharp whistling in the distance. “Would you like some tea?” she asked. “I just put the kettle on when you arrived.”
“Only if it’s no trouble.”
“No trouble at all. The water’s already boiling. Which would you prefer, Darjeeling, jasmine or oolong?”
“You decide. I’m not a connoisseur of tea.”
She gave me a wan half-smile and hurried off to deal with the insistent whistling. I took a closer look around.
Exotic knick-knacks crowded every available surface. Things like temple-flutes and prayer-wheels, Hopi fetishes and papier-mâché avatars of Vishnu ascending out of the mouths of fishes and turtles. An obsidian Aztec dagger carved in the shape of a bird glittered on a bookshelf. I scanned the haphazard volumes and spotted the
I Ching
a copy of
Oaspe
, and several of the Evan-Wentz Tibetan series.
When M. Krusemark returned carrying a silver tray and tea set, I was standing by a window thinking about Dr. Fowler’s missing ring. She placed the service on a low table by the couch and joined me. Across Seventh Avenue on the uptown corner of 57th Street, a Federal-style mansion with white Doric columns improbably crowned the roof of the Osborn Apartments like a hidden treasure. “Somebody buy the Jefferson place and have it moved?” I quipped.
“Earl Blackwell’s. He gives wonderful parties. Fun to watch anyway.”
I followed her back to the couch. “That’s a familiar face.” I nodded at an oil portrait of an aging pirate in a tuxedo.
“My father, Ethan Krusemark.” Tea swirled into translucent china cups.
There was the hint of a roguish smile on the determined lips, a glint of ruthlessness and cunning in eyes as green as his daughter’s. “He’s the shipbuilder, isn’t he? I’ve seen his picture in
Forbes
.”
“He hated the painting. Said it was like having a mirror that got stuck. Cream or lemon?”
“I’ll take it straight, thanks.”
She handed me the cup. “It was done last year. I think it’s a wonderful likeness.”
“He’s a good-looking man.”
She nodded. “Would you believe he’s over sixty? He always looked ten years younger than his age. His sun is in trine with Jupiter, a very favorable aspect.”
I let the mumbo-jumbo pass and said that he looked like a swashbuckling captain in the pirate movies I saw as a kid.
“Very true. When I was in college all the girls in the dorm thought he was Clark Gable.”
I sipped my tea. It tasted like fermenting peaches. “My brother knew a girl named Krusemark when he was at Princeton,” I said. “She went to Wellesley and told him his fortune at a prom.”
“That would have been my sister, Margaret,” she said. “I’m Millicent. We’re twins. She’s the black witch in the family; I’m the white one.”
I felt like a man waking from a dream of riches, his golden treasure melting like mist between his fingers. “Does your sister live here in New York?” I asked, keeping up the banter. I already knew the answer.
“God, no. Maggie moved to Paris over ten years ago. Haven’t seen her in an age. What’s your brother’s name?”
The entire charade hung limply over me like the skin of a deflated balloon. “Jack,” I said.
“I don’t remember Maggie ever mentioning a Jack. Of course, there were so many young men in her life in those days. I need for you to answer some questions.” She reached for a leather pad and pencil set on the table. “So I can do your chart.”
“Fire away.” I flipped a cigarette from the pack and stuck it in my mouth.
Millicent Krusemark waved her hand in front of her face like a woman drying her nails. “Please don’t. I’m allergic to smoke.”
“Sure.” I tucked the butt back behind my ear.
“You were born on June 2, 1920,” she said. “There’s quite a bit I know about you from that fact alone.”
“Tell me all about myself.”
Millicent Krusemark fixed me with her feline stare. “I know that you’re a natural actor,” she said. “Playing roles comes easily. You switch identities with the instinctive facility of a chameleon changing color. Although you are deeply concerned with discovering the truth, lies flow from your lips without hesitation.”
“Pretty good. Go on.”
“Your role-playing ability has a darker side and presents a problem when you confront the dual nature of your personality. I would say that you were frequently the victim of doubt. ‘How could I have done such a thing?’ is your most constant worry. Cruelty comes easily to you, yet you find it inconceivable that you are so gifted at hurting others. On one hand you are methodical and tenacious, but by contrast you place great stock in intuition.” She smiled. “When it comes to women, you prefer them young and dark.”
“A-plus,” I said. “You were right on the money.” And she was. She had it down pat. An analyst who could probe such secrets would be worth the twenty-five-bucks-an-hour couch fare. Only one problem: wrong birthday; she was telling my fortune with Johnny Favorite’s vital statistics. “Do you know where I can meet some dark, young women?”
“I’ll be able to tell a great deal more once I have what I need.” The white witch scribbled on her notepad. “I can’t guarantee the girl of your dreams, but I can be more specific. Here, I’m jotting down star positions for the month so I can see how they’ll affect your chart. Not yours really, that boy I mentioned. Your horoscopes are undoubtedly similar.”
“I’m game.”
Millicent Krusemark frowned, studying her notes. “This is a period of great danger. You have been involved in a death quite recently, within a week at least. The deceased was not someone you knew well; nevertheless, you are deeply troubled by his passing. The medical profession is involved. Perhaps you will soon be in a hospital yourself; the unfavorable aspects are very strong. Beware of strangers.”
I stared at this odd woman in black and felt invisible fear-tentacles encircle my heart. How did she know so much? My mouth was dry, my lips stuck as I spoke: “What’s that ornament around your neck?”
“This?” The woman’s hand paused at her throat like a bird resting in flight. “Just a pentacle. Brings good luck.”
Dr. Fowler’s pentacle didn’t bring him much luck, but then he wasn’t wearing it when he died. Or did someone take the ring after killing the old man?
“I need additional information,” Millicent Krusemark said, her filigreed gold pencil poised like a dart. “When and where was your fiancee born. I need the exact hour and location. So I can determine longitude and latitude. Also, you haven’t told me where you were born.”
I ad-libbed some phony dates and places and made the ritual gesture of glancing at my wristwatch before placing my cup on the table. We rose together, as if on a lift. “Thanks for the tea.”
She showed me to the door and said the charts would be ready next week. I said I’d call, and we shook hands with the mechanical formality of clockwork soldiers.
TWELVE
I found the cigarette behind my ear on the way down in the elevator and lit it as soon as I hit the street. The March wind felt cleansing. There was almost an hour before my meeting with Vernon Hyde, and I walked slowly down Seventh trying to make sense out of the nameless fear that seized me back in the astrologer’s bosky apartment. I knew it had to be a con, verbal slight of hand, like encyclopedia salesmanship. Beware of strangers. That was the sort of bullshit you got for a penny along with your weight. She suckered me with her oracle’s voice and hypnotic eyes.