Kaleidoscope (17 page)

He made notes in his memo pad before saying, “There are six more to go through.”

For the next forty-five minutes she made comments on the impressions she received from the remaining letters of resignation. Only one in particular appeared to interest Gillespie: a man whose character did not equal his intelligence; he struck her as—she could only say that he was a born follower, his emotions immature.

“Which can happen with brilliant people,” Gillespie said. “Beware of followers.”

Madame Karitska, remembering Alpha Oliver, nodded, and noted that Gillespie double-checked this man in his list of possibilities.

“So,” he said at last, leaning back on the couch. “You've been more helpful than you realize, or than I expected.” He smiled his charming smile, relaxed now, even returning to his cup of coffee. “Coincidences always interest me, I imagine they do you, too.”

She returned his smile. “You mean our meeting at Mr. Faber-Jones's party, your obvious skepticism about clairvoyance, and now this.” She nodded. “There are sometimes meaningful coincidences that lead us to think—”

“Yes?”

She said lightly, “That meetings are not always by chance.”

He smiled. “I see that you've read Jung.”

“Yes,” and they smiled at each other with understanding. “And what now?” she asked after a long pause.

He gathered up his letters and repacked his briefcase. “What next? We begin again,” he told her. “But in Maine now. It will take time, and I'm always understaffed; I've few men to spare to find and become acquainted with one small town in Maine, but you've certainly given us an important fresh lead, this man whose impressions so upset you. His name and address are on our list; we can begin at this end to trace him, as well as in Maine.” He rose, briefcase in hand. “Send me your bill, please,” and he gave her his business card. With a glance at the simplicity of her apartment he added with a smile, “And don't stint on your bill, we can afford it.”

And with this he left, but leaving behind him the very pleasant sensation of a man with whom she had, for a moment, exchanged much more than words.

Later, as she strolled down the street toward Help Save Tomorrow she thought it appropriate for this day that at the corner kiosk selling newwpapers the headline in the
Trafton Times
read CALIFORNIA'S ELECTRICAL SYSTEM ON THE VERGE OF FAILURE. Overload, Gillespie would say, of this she had no doubt. More and more electricity needed, more and more people, inventions and companies using it with complacency.

But Laurie was her business just now. The shop, as she approached it, looked calm, no boys with shaved heads hanging about, no fights. Opening the door she found Laurie removing books from a carton and placing them carefully on the shelves of the bookcase. Seeing her, Laurie looked for a moment as if she couldn't remember who she was and then, “Oh—hi!” she said.

“Hi to you, too,” said Madame Karitska. “I've stopped in to remind you that your ten days are up tomorrow morning, and you're released from our agreement.”

“Really?” said Laurie, startled, and looked around her with a critical eye. “It's certainly needed tons of work and organizing. Actually . . . actually, I'm going to be staying awhile, Mrs. Karitska—I mean Madame Karitska. You see,” she explained as if to a child, “there's so much to be
done
. We're going to paint the walls, they're so grubby, and we're talking about a story hour on Saturday mornings for the kids. And Daniel's great but he simply
doesn't
know style, or how to
display
what comes in. Or advertise, either. I've persuaded him to put an ad in the Trafton community newsletter, which is where he is now.”

Struggling to adjust to this new and formidable Laurie, Madame Karitska said, “And you're contributing books, I see—of your own?”

“Oh no,” Laurie told her gleefully, “I visited a bookstore uptown yesterday and begged, really begged—can you imagine?”

Madame Karitska tried to imagine and failed. “That's certainly clever of you,” she managed.

Laurie looked at her and suddenly grinned. “Okay, you got me hooked, darn you. I hate like hell admitting you were right, but I'm really
good
at this.”

“So I've noticed,” said Madame Karitska, smiling, and looked down at the child tugging at Laurie's skirt.

The child was persistent. “Laurie, Daniel said—and you
promised
—”

Laurie nodded. “I know, Moesha, but you'll soon have my skirt off if you keep pulling at it.” And to Madame Karitska, “She wants to see the going-to-church dress we set aside for her. If you'll excuse us . . . ?”

“Of course,” said Madame Karitska and watched the two of them walk to the rear, where a curtain had been strung across the corner. Reaching for a ruffled pink dress Laurie and Moesha disappeared behind the curtain, and there followed a few giggles and a “Wow!”

She turned as Daniel walked into the store, closing the door behind him. “Well, Daniel,” she said, “Laurie's just told me she's going to stay awhile.”

Daniel placed the package he was carrying on the counter and looked at her with his wise eyes. “That's one smart girl, she has me dizzy with plans,” he said, “but I think you smarter.”

“Me?”

He nodded. “You bring me one girl with a frozen heart,” he told her, chuckling, “and just see her now.”

Once again he had surprised her. “A frozen heart,” she repeated, moved by his words, and as she walked slowly home she thought,
how poetic and how
right
of Daniel.

As for herself she could finally soothe Faber-Jones's wounded feelings by telling him, at last, where he could find his daughter and for this she was glad, because she had missed him, but she would have to gently prepare him for a shock.

The last event of this day was the sheaf of flowers left on her doorstep, wrapped in plastic. The card inserted read,
I trust you are still considering.
They were not the first that Amos Herzog had sent. Amused, she carried them inside and placed them in a vase of water.

15

That night, following Roger Gillespie's visit, Madame Karitska slept restlessly, and toward morning experienced a strange dream. In her mind she entered a large room furnished from wall to wall, and ceiling-high, with endless rows of what looked like switchboards that glistened with tiny lights and knobs; above these the ceiling was a network of shining wires. When she awoke she knew that it was an important dream, it had meaning and she trusted it, remembering other such dreams . . . above all, the pathetic elderly couple heartbroken over the death of their granddaughter, Jan Cooper Hyer, who had been killed in a car accident on the way to the airport for her first trip to Europe. Only one shoe and her passport were intact, somehow escaping the flames of the burning car, the passport with its photograph of a lovely young blond woman. She had been killed; but why, then, had Madame Karitska dreamed night after night of that young woman in a barren room, helpless but alive? Pruden had fought her insistence that it was someone else—not Jan Cooper Hyer—in the wrecked car; Madame Karitska had set out to prove him wrong.

“Her grandparents mentioned that this young woman had the sixth sense,” she told Pruden. “I believe she walked into my dreams to send a message.”

And ultimately they had found Jan Cooper Hyer in a barren warehouse, tied to a post, cold and hungry.

This dream of the night was no less vivid. This dream had to be connected with Roger Gillespie's visit; and this, then, was what he would find, if he was fortunate, but it was of no use to him, of course, since it gave no hint of its surroundings. She lay in bed for a long time, wondering if each of those dials and knobs represented electric grids, substations and companies all over America, ready to send the country into darkness. It was not a pleasant thought, and she forced herself to put it aside as she began her day.

She had just finished her breakfast when Pruden telephoned to ask if she was free for a few minutes, he needed to talk.

“Free until half past nine,” she told him.

He must have been calling from his police car because three minutes later she was opening the door to him. “Turkish coffee?” she asked.

He grinned. “You're an exotic influence on me. The first time you offered—”

She laughed. “I remember, yes.”

“I felt you were testing me,” he told her, “so I said Turkish and nearly strangled from it.” He followed her into the kitchen while she measured and prepared it. “I'm here about the carnival that comes every summer and sets up on the outskirts of the suburb of Edgerton. The owner's a reliable chap named Max Saberhagen, runs a clean, honest show. Rides, Ferris wheel, and the usual fortune-teller, a good money-maker, very popular, named Shana.”

She handed him the carafe of coffee to carry into the living room, and followed him with two cups. “And?” she asked, as they sat down on opposite couches, facing each other.

“Max is worried; he suspects what he calls ‘hankypanky' going on.”

Amused, she said, “I know that word; what's happening?”

He sighed. “In Trafton we have several gangs to keep an eye on. Every big city has them; they come and they go, but one in particular is too damn clever and canny for us, and he's behind most of the major crime in Trafton. Name of Jake Bodley, and—”

Madame Karitska nodded. “I've heard of him.”

Pruden gave her a startled glance. “Even you? At any rate Max knows Bodley's people only too well; his carnival's been coming here for seven summers, and in the early years he was approached by Bodley and his men demanding a payoff for protection. Max flatly refused each time. At first they made a little trouble—a flurry of pickpocketing, bad for a carnival's reputation, but Max has steadfastly refused to pay them, and for the past few years they've left him alone.”

“But not now?” she asked.

“No. For the past week or ten days Bodley's men have been spotted at the carnival every evening.”

“Doing what?” she asked.

“Strolling.”

“Just
strolling
?”

“Yes, but with a special interest in the fortune-teller Shana.”

“Interesting,” said Madame Karitska. “She must be very attractive?”

“We don't think she's the attraction,” he told her. “Not for Jake Bodley. His specialty is drugs, and robberies to pay for the drugs, and the carnival's only half a mile away from the thruway to New York; it could be an easy dropoff place for him if he's found his other routes blocked.”

“You think he could somehow be using the carnival for deliveries?” she asked.

Pruden shrugged. “If so, we have no idea how. We only know that suddenly his men have been showing a distinct interest in the carnival. That's something new, and Max is worried.
His
fear is that they're looking for a way to put him out of business as revenge for refusing to pay protection money—and heaven only knows they could do a hell of a lot of damage: sabotage the Ferris wheel, or slip a few gears on the merry-go-round.”

“But you think different?” asked Madame Karitska.

Pruden nodded. “It's not Bodley's style. If it's revenge he's after—as Max fears—he'd very definitely catch Max in a dark alley and his body would be found floating in the river weeks later. Bodley is
not
subtle. But there's no explaining his men coming to the carnival suddenly, different men each night—and so regularly.” He added abruptly, “I'm filling you in with a lot of details.”

“Yes, you are,” she said dryly. “The chief sent you, didn't he, and this is
not
idle conversation over coffee?”

“True,” admitted Pruden. “I had orders to fully brief you first. On the carnival, on Max, on Jake Bodley and his gang appearing at the carnival every night this past week, and on our private suspicions that drugs may be involved, but now,” he said angrily, “it's become a police matter. The fortune-teller Shana's disappeared.”

“Disappeared!”

He nodded. “Didn't come to work last night. Nobody's seen her, she didn't sleep in her trailer and her clothes are still there, and Max is really alarmed. Seems carnival people are like a family; Shana's been with them for three years.”

Madame Karitska nodded. “And you think this could have something to do with the Bodley gang?”

“We look at it this way: if there really are drugs coming in by way of the carnival she could have been involved. Or,” he said, “she may have learned too much and been frightened and left.
Or
they approached her this week to make a deal, and they threatened her.
Or,
” he added reluctantly, “she could have been kidnapped before she talked,
or
—” He didn't finish. “We suggested to Max that a policewoman take her place, but he wants instead to close her tent until we find her. Which, of course, may be impossible.”

Madame Karitska waited. “And you?”

“We want to learn what was going on in the tent while we look for her, and why it was of such interest, why Bodley's men, usually two at a time, take a ride or two, but always—every time—visit Shana's tent. And although a policewoman was suggested . . .” He shook his head. “Just as we have mug shots of almost everyone in Bodley's gang, I'm sorry to say that he can smell the police, man or woman, a mile away, or how else would he have survived a decade being the kingpin of crime in Trafton? And what would a policewoman know about fortune-telling?”

“I begin to see why you're here,” she said dryly.

He nodded. “Yes, you could help us, just until we find Shana. Evenings only, five P.M. to midnight, and Max is prepared to pay you handsomely.”

“I see.”

“It could be dangerous,” he told her. “I won't kid you about that, but your being psychic would be an advantage, and with your instincts you just
could
identify Bodley's men if they continue lurking around the tent—if, of course, Shana only ran away. If she's dead . . .” He winced. “If she's dead, we could only hope they proposition
you
. We'd supply some protection but we can't be obvious.”

“Fortune-telling,” she mused. “I'd have to fake it, I'm afraid, or use tarot cards. No one would care to hand over a watch, a ring, or a wallet in a carnival.”

“You mean you'd do it?” asked Pruden eagerly.

“I've always enjoyed carnivals,” she said, “except that in Europe they're usually called fairs. Actually it could be a pleasant change. That poor child, of course I'll do it.”

“Good,” he said with relief. “You'll find the tent dim. No candles—strict regulations from the fire department—only two low-wattage bulbs—so nobody may notice the change; if they do, just tell them Shana's sick.”

She said doubtfully, “In a dim tent I don't know what faces I could see to read their reactions.”

“Not
that
dim,” he assured her, “and people talk. People ask interesting questions, don't they? One of Bodley's men may even want to learn if their future holds prison bars or pub bars.” He frowned. “For one thing, we hear that Bodley's taken on a new man this year, a foreigner, and his name might be mentioned. But what it comes down to—all that we know,
really
—is that Bodley's men arrive, lately, every evening, and you might learn something. And that Shana's disappeared . . . Max has a robe you can wear; have you a turban?”

She nodded. “And dangling gold earrings, of course.”

“Perfect. If you can start tonight, Margolies will pick you up fifteen minutes before five, deliver you to Max, Max will show you to the tent and send you home at midnight in a cab.” With a nod he rose. “Now I've got to get back to work. Two robberies in two nights, it's keeping us busy. And thanks
very
much.”

He left her pondering just what manner of fortunes one told in a carnival; out of necessity they would have to be sketchy and brief, but faces had always interested her, each one of them a map of their personality.

You will have good health. . . . I foresee a possible
accident, quite serious, near the end of the year. . . .
Someone loves you whom you've taken no notice
of . . . you will live a long life.

Glib, but viable.

“And always look at their ring finger,” she reminded herself, and before welcoming her half-past-nine client she went to her desk to look for her pair of dangling gold earrings.

Seated beside Margolies in his police car Madame Karitska headed toward the suburbs, past a line of malls, then neat lawns and flower gardens, the houses growing smaller as they passed through the center of Edgerton, and once near its border then met with a baseball field on their left, a brilliant green in the sunlight, and to the right of them flags and pennants advertising, quite unnecessarily, MAX'S CARNIVAL OF DELIGHTS, FUN FUN FUN!

Max was waiting for them at the entrance, and once Margolies had introduced them he drove away, leaving Madame Karitska and Max to appraise each other. She liked him: a well-built, sturdy man with a round face that under different circumstances she guessed would be cheerful, but today he looked grim. After
his
close scrutiny he nodded. “You'll do. Good . . . and thanks.”

As he led her through the gate into the carnival she smiled at the familiar smells of buttered popcorn and sawdust, the sound of barkers shouting, the merry-go-round pumping out its music, and the undercurrent of grinding machinery and shuffling of feet along the midway. Nodding at the tent as they approached it Max said, “Shana put in long hours—we all do. Then we take a vacation after we close up here, and later head south to set up in Florida for the winter. Shana's been with us three years; she doesn't deserve this.”

“No one does,” she said quietly.

The tent was striking: it was black with blazing white stars and crescent moons woven into its fabric. Reaching into the interior Max brought out the sign FORTUNES TOLD! SHANA! LEARN YOUR FUTURE, $3.50, and hanging it up over the entry he said, “You're in business now.”

Inside, in the center of the room, stood a table draped in bright red satin, a crystal ball displayed prominently on it. Max switched on two feeble lights, one in each corner, and said, “The police had an electrician here today; you'll find”—he bent under the table and pointed—“a buzzer connected to Andy's cotton-candy booth next to you. If you run into any trouble—the police insisted on this—you press it with your foot. Better look where it is now so you don't accidentally step on it.”

She leaned over, and then because the drapery cut off all light she knelt and ran her hand over the earth until she found a tiny metal bubble in the corner.