Raga Six (A Doctor Orient Occult Novel) (14 page)

CHAPTER 8

Orient was active but uninspired.
 

He continued to maintain his routine; taking calls, scheduling payoffs, and meeting Joker’s clients, but with diminishing enthusiasm. He’d gone as far as he could as Joker’s apprentice. He had learned what he had to learn and it was time to find a new path. But as time passed his money supply was dwindling, reducing his possibility of movement. Some of his new friends had offered him various options: an invitation to join a commune in Colorado; a chance to spend a month in the West Indies working as a photographer’s model; a cross-country motorcycle tour with Ivan and his band. But none of the offers made any connection for him. They were horizontal possibilities and he was still casting about for a rung to a higher level. A level he couldn’t seem to recognize.
 

He decided to play it as it came.
 

Joker kept the pace steady during the weeks that followed, going through his daily business of gambling, scheming, coaching Orient, and looking for women. If he noticed any change, he didn’t react. He never discussed Sun Girl’s departure with Orient.
 

For all his own preoccupations, however, Orient could sense a growing restlessness within the cowboy. The nagging feeling that Joker was planning something persisted.
 

"You know what most women get hung up on?" Joker mused one evening while they were listening to music and lazily discussing the day’s events. "They all want things to stay the same." He snorted. "Women hell, everybody out there is hung up that way." He turned to make sure Orient was listening. "That’s the kicker, buddy," he winked broadly, "it never does stay still." He ran his freckled fingers through his long red hair.
 

Orient didn’t answer.
 

"Yeah, buddy," Joker leaned back and closed his eyes, "they never seem to tumble the news that it’s all changin’ all the time. They always get surprised." He opened one eye. "That’s the edge. Keep expecting things to turn around and you’re straight. Just like dice. They keep comin’ out at you and every roll is different."
 

Orient wondered whether Joker was just giving him advice or whether he was hinting at something else. Sun Girl perhaps. Or their business arrangement.
 

At times Orient found Joker’s ramblings almost paralleled the beliefs of a Zen Buddhist monk. One of the most profound teachings of Bodhidarma knew this as a system of harmonies while Joker saw it as a profit system.
 

Still, the cowboy’s instincts were unerring. Perhaps he was a new form of monk. A high-living, crap-shooting son of Bodhidarma.
 

Or maybe Joker was setting him up.
 

A few days later Joker stomped in while Orient was on the phone checking the football results, and paced impatiently until Orient finished.
 

"What’s the number today, buddy?" Joker asked, beginning the questions that had become a familiar routine between them.
 

"Eight four five."
 

"The second at Hi?"
 

"Six. Sir Winnie. Twenty-three eighty. Fourteen-forty and eight twenty." Orient rattled off the race prices automatically. His grasp of the leverage of games, his excellent memory, and his concentration faculties made him an agile gambler.
 

"En Dee?"

"I took it off the board and laid off what we had on New Jersey. Some big money was coming in too fast this morning."
 

"Good move, I just heard their quarterback’s hurt. What’s tomorrow’s line?"
 

"Jets plus three, Giants plus six and a half, Raiders..."
 

"Okay, okay, buddy," Joker stopped him, "you’re with it today. I got something I want you to do here."
 

"Fine." Orient picked up a slip of paper. "Here’s the totals. Keep it up and you’ll be able to buy a real ranch some day." Orient had acquired the knack of tabulating the day’s transactions in his head so that no paperwork was necessary.
 

"Good work buddy." Joker glanced at the figure and shoved the paper in his pocket.
 

It struck Orient that Joker was nervous today. Usually he was very concerned with the profits.
 

"Come inside," Joker said. He turned and walked ahead of Orient into the other room.
 

"I want you take that"—Joker pointed to a black doctor’s bag standing on the floor near the door—"to a friend of mine. Then I want you to meet me at Elaine’s in three hours."
 

Orient looked at Joker. The cowboy often asked him to deliver envelopes to people around the city. And Elaine’s was one of his favorite haunts. But something was different this evening. Orient could feel a churning quality to Joker’s vibration.

 
"Okay," he said. "Anything else?"
 

Orient was surprised when Joker shook his head. He was sure there was another card to this deal. Then Joker snapped his fingers. "Oh yeah. The chick you give it to is named Pola. If the doorman asks you anything, just say you’re on a house call. Bring your ID."
 

"Why the mystery?"
 

Joker smiled. "Just being careful."
 

Orient’s awareness of the turmoil within the cowboy increased. "Are you worried about something?" he asked casually.
 

Joker nodded. "Two things, buddy. One, I got a crap game with some dudes I owe money on, and two," he jerked his thumb toward his bedroom, "I think we ought to change our telephone. Until we do, I want to lay off taking any action except on a personal basis."
 

"You think the phone is tapped?"
 

Joker nodded.
 

Orient didn’t like it. He felt as if he was being forced to compromise his profession as a doctor. And he didn’t want to be arrested.
 

"I slipped Pola’s payoff in the lining of the bag. We got to talk over some new kind of setup after this," Joker said. "Oh yeah, here," he took a slip of paper from his pocket, "there’s the address. Remember her name is Pola Gleason."
 

Orient hesitated. Then he took the paper. He decided to have a showdown talk with Joker when he saw him after the delivery. He picked up the bag and hefted it. It was light. It felt almost empty. "Anything else?" he asked.
 

Joker grinned. "Just stay cool and don’t worry if I’m late some. I may get involved makin’ a whole lot of passes."
 

"Bring your own dice," Orient suggested as he left.
 

Orient tried to relax in the cab going uptown. Joker had never seemed to worry about the possibility of an arrest before. He was an independent gambler whose ties to the large syndicates were minimal. Joker had a distaste for organizations and tried to deal only with small independents like himself. And he was always agitated before a crap game.
 

Still, the errand was strange even for Joker. He examined the bag on his lap. Just an ordinary black, grained-leather doctor’s bag. It’s only outstanding feature was a crescent-shaped patch on one side where the top skin had worn off, exposing the tan undersurface.
 

He opened the bag. Inside was a stethoscope, blood-pressure gauge, some antibiotics—and nothing else. No matter how much he rationalized, he still felt that there was something else Joker wasn’t saying.
 

The address Joker had given him was a large, modern apartment building in the east sixties. Orient grimaced when he saw the aluminum waterfall and abstract copper shapes decorating the Formica-marble lobby. Too yang.
 

The man behind the receiving desk near the elevators was big and brooding. His shoulders strained under his blue suit and there was a dark stubble of beard on his square, scowling face.
 

"Yes?" he said in a high tenor that seemed to belong to some smaller, thinner man. "Who would you like to see?" He looked disapprovingly at Orient’s long hair.
 

"Miss Gleason in 17H."
 

The man dialed the telephone. After a few moments he pushed he receiver bar and dialed again. He looked at Orient, the phone still at his ear. "Seems to be out of order." He tried again, then put the phone back on the cradle. "Do you have an appointment?"
 

Something about the man’s manner put Orient on his guard.
 

"Miss Gleason called about an hour ago. I’m a doctor." He produced his wallet.
 

The man peered at Orient’s cards for a long time. "Sure look young to be a doctor," he muttered when he passed them back. He pointed behind him, still studying Orient’s face. "Middle car on the right."
 

As he stood in the corridor waiting for the elevator, Orient thought he could feel the clerk’s eyes on his back.
 

As he rode up to the seventeenth floor his uneasiness grew. Everything about this payoff seemed wrong. Even the sprightly Muzak tune coming from the chrome ceiling had an ominous air. The car stopped and the doors slid open. The silence in the corridor was main-rained by the thick carpet that absorbed his footsteps. Orient found the apartment and pushed the button. He heard a scrape and saw a flash in the circle of glass. Somebody was examining him through the peephole in the door.
 

The door opened slightly and a light feminine voice came through the space. "Yes?"
 

"Miss Gleason? I’m a friend of Joker’s," Orient said quietly.
 

The door opened. Orient stepped inside and saw that the voice belonged to a tall thin black girl with a close-cropped hair. When she saw the bag she smiled. "I’m Pola," she said. Her eyes were wide and slanted and she was wearing a long fur-and-leather coat. Orient smiled back. He held out the bag. "Here it is."
 

She took the bag. "Just a minute," she said. Then she turned and went into the next room. Just before she closed the door, Orient caught a glimpse of an enormous blue living room.
 

Orient looked around him. He was standing in a small hallway. The only piece of furniture was the light fixture. In a few moments Pola came out carrying a large fringed shoulder bag.
 

"Going somewhere?" Orient asked. "Out," she answered. "With you." She checked the eyepiece before opening the door.
 

Orient automatically went toward the elevator but Pola called him back, her voice low. She was standing at the door to the stairway marked EXIT. Orient followed her through the door and up two flights to the nineteenth floor.
 

"This floor connects to the next wing of the building," she explained as they walked quickly across the long corridor. They stopped at the elevators at the far end of the hall. When the car arrived, Orient moved to follow Pola inside but she stopped him at the door. "You take the next one," she said. "Maybe next time we can even have a drink or something. Tell Joker I love him." She pushed the button and blew him a kiss as the door slid shut.
 

Orient rocked impatiently as he waited for the next car. He was annoyed with the espionage atmosphere; Joker would have to do some further explaining.
 

Out on the street again, he began walking, trying to shake the nervousness brought on by the strange maneuvering. But after ambling for a few blocks, he was suddenly hit by the possibility that he was being followed, and stepped up his pace. He crossed against a light, went a block, turned the corner, and saw a subway entrance. He hurried down the stairs, searching his pockets for a token. A train came to a slow, screeching stop and began letting off passengers. Orient couldn’t find a token and hurried to the token booth. He looked up at the stairs. No one was coming down. He bought a token, dropped some change, fumbled through the turnstile, and rushed into the subway car just as the doors were closing. He looked through the pane. There was no one on the platform. He’d been the last passenger to board.
 

Relieved somewhat, he left the train at the next stop and walked slowly up the stairs to the street. His exasperation abated as he walked through Central Park to the West Side. The air was warm and damp and he could smell spring through the leaden fumes of traffic. He was less angry, but he was still determined to get a straight answer from Joker. And to find another form of activity.
 

He walked for some time, without direction, skirting Broadway and going toward the Hudson River, until he found himself on Riverside Drive standing in front of his old house.
 

He stared at it for a long time. A year ago he’d been carrying on his laboratory work and using his meditation room to open the dormant energies of his pilgrims. A man caught up with the constant discoveries of a new science. Now he was looking over his shoulder and running from shadows in his new home—the street.
 

No, that wasn’t quite right, he corrected himself. A year ago he’d been snug, smug, and totally unaware of the real needs of people. For the first time in his life he wasn’t doing his important experimentation: bringing his own dormant energies to life. He saw a cab approaching and waved it down. He didn’t look back when the cab pulled away and turned the corner heading east.
 

Orient waited for Joker for almost three hours at Elaine’s and it felt like thirty. To a lesser degree Orient shared Joker’s enthusiasm for the place, but it was Saturday night and almost midnight. The crowd was loud, proud, and very thirsty. He wasn’t a drinker and he wasn’t transacting social business, so the hilarity of the marketplace eluded him this time. He kept the rent on his seat at the corner of the bar current by ordering orange juice and champagne, but after four glasses he felt it getting him down. The smoke, shuffling jam of people around the bar, and jumbled noise made it stuffy. Orient held out for another half-hour before pushing his way to the door and out into the street. He stood for a moment letting the air cool the flush on his face, before moving down the street toward Third Avenue and a cab.