Raga Six (A Doctor Orient Occult Novel) (36 page)

"And you sound hungry."
 

"I am, but let’s not eat just yet. It’s so beautiful here today. I can’t bring myself to think of leaving."
 

Orient looked out across the beach. The stretch of white sand at the edge of the gently lapping water was almost deserted The sea was like a swatch of light-streaked silk.
 

"It would be wonderful to stay here and never have to leave," Raga whispered.
 

Orient looked at her. Her skin was still pale despite the hours they’d spent in the sun, and the reflections of the sea muted the yellow swirls in her eyes, tinting their ragged edges clear green. The translucent skin on her face was smooth and her body was soft and supple next to his.
 

"Another month and I should be making plans to get back to New York," Orient said. Raga’s dusty pink lips parted in a hesitant smile. "But why, Owen? Aren’t you happy here?"
 

Orient leaned over and kissed her. "Of course. And I want to make sure it lasts past next month. I’ve got to go back and start working. To keep you in shantung bikinis."
 

"Then your plans do include me?" Raga laughed, her husky voice low.
 

"Up to you. I want very much for us to stay together."
 

"So do I," Raga said fervently. She laughed. "But you don’t have to worry about any of this. You can come with me to Rome. I’ll find us an apartment that’s large enough for a laboratory for you. You can continue your work there with me."
 

Orient didn’t answer. He wanted to get back to work again. He was sure that he could find research funds in New York. He could even resume private practice for a while. He wanted to make a life for himself and Raga. And he wasn’t sure that letting her support him was the way to do it.
 

Raga pulled away. "Doesn’t that please you?"
 

"I don’t really know."
 

"Well, whatever you decide," she said quietly, "I want to be with you." Orient smiled and lay back on his towel. "Then everything else is just detail." Raga snuggled close to his arm. "Where did you find that odd ring, Owen?" she asked sleepily. "You weren’t wearing it in Tangier."
 

"No." Orient opened his eyes and looked at the deep blue stone on his finger. "I found it in Marrakesh."
 

"It’s lovely."
 

Orient’s mind went back to the words Ahmehmet had given him with the ring. And the key. Two seven seven. He remembered what the old woman Mafalda had said. The Lammia. It had taken him some time before he placed the term. It was a Greek word, probably assimilated into Etruscan lore. Lammia was the name of a bisexual demon who sucked the blood of children. Orient made a mental calculation, using the Abjad notation system. The sum of the word was two seven seven. Except for one slight deviation from the code. The numerical value of Lammia was 277 before it was divided in half. Orient remembered the division as being the last sequence in the code. He turned his face up to the sun. Perhaps he was mistaken about the structure of the code. Someday he’d have to look it up and check.
 

The following evening, while Orient was uncorking a bottle of wine for dinner, he reflected on the pleasant influence Raga had begun to exert on him. She had shown him how to appreciate food, enjoy wines, and enjoy the subtle variations of lovemaking. She had enlarged his capacity for sensual pleasures. Like lifting a curtain from his senses.
 

His body had a refreshed tingle as if he had just been aroused from a long sleep. "Here it is," Raga called as she entered, carrying a large plate. "Is the wine ready?"

 
"Right here." Orient went over to the table. "What’s all this?"
 

"Just a big salad with chunks of fresh fish, cheese, and everything else I could find. Sordi’s not the only one around here who can cook."
 

She sat down. "Let’s eat, darling."
 

"Great." Orient poured the cold white wine. "I’m ravenous."
 

"You certainly are." Raga turned and regarded the rumpled bed across the room. She adjusted the blue negligee over her shoulders and looked at him across the table, her pale lips slightly parted. "And I think it’s delicious."
 

"Delicious," Orient agreed, staring into her eyes. They had made love all that afternoon after coming back from the beach. Long, lush hours playing at the delights of their sun-soaked bodies. "And it made me hungry." He picked up the salad bowl and began heaping Raga’s plate.
 

They toasted each other silently before they took a sip of the cold dry wine. The candle flames cast tiny reflections in Raga’s eyes. "Have you decided what to do about your New York plans?" she asked hesitantly. "Not yet." Orient looked down at his plate. "I really haven’t wanted to think about it."

 
"Rome is lovely, Owen," Raga smiled. "And you could do your research there, couldn’t you?"
 

Orient nodded, looking at the ring on his finger. When he’d left Ahmehmet he’d been defeated and depressed. Also disappointed somehow. His stay with Ahmehmet had been short and his training nothing more than a run-through of occult forms that he already knew. But lately Orient had come to understand what it actually was that Ahmehmet had taught him. The small shopkeeper had shown Orient how even a supreme adept, one of the Nine Unknown Men, could take his place in the affairs of men and the marketplace and still continue his infinite work.
 

Ahmehmet conducted money matters, taught, lived with two wives, and initiated Orient’s candidacy to the second level without missing a single beat of his normal routine. One cannot be taught to achieve the second level, Ahmehmet had told him. It is choice that determines the success or failure of expansion. And Orient was sure that Ahmehmet’s daily life itself was what he’d been sent to observe and learn. The shopkeeper juggled his powers and his life to create a single, sure rhythm of balanced harmony.
 

"I suppose I could set up research anywhere. I don’t need much equipment at first," he said.
 

Raga put more salad on his plate and refilled his glass. "You know, here we are discussing living together and I don’t even know your birth sign, darling."
 

Orient smiled. "Scorpio. How about you?"
 

"I, sir, am a Sagittarius," Raga bowed her head. "I’m charmed to make your acquaintance."
 

"Charming, the Sagittarians," Orient lifted his glass and drawled like W.C. Fields.
 

Raga giggled.
 

"They have such splendiferous accents. Ah yesss." Orient sipped some wine.
 

"That’s because I’m a Martinique Sagittarian," Raga smiled. "I thought I got rid of my island accent years ago in Paris, but you picked it right up."
 

"Elementary, m’dear—" A quick probe at the base of Orient’s brain cut off the rest of his reply. The picture flashed through his consciousness.
 

A naked black man rummaging through a pile of rubble in front of a large stone temple.
 

Then the contact withdrew, ebbing from his senses and leaving him temporarily drained.
 

Orient took a deep breath. He took the silver cigarette case from his pocket, pulled a hand-wrapped cigarette, and held it out to the candle flame. The message had been from Argyle.
 

Raga was looking at him, still smiling. "Have some more salad," she said.
 

Orient inhaled and shook his head. "No thanks." He took another puff on his cigarette. "I think I’ve decided to go to Rome after all."
 

"That was an impulsive decision."
 

Orient looked up. When Raga saw his expression, the smile left her face. She waited for him to speak.
 

"It wasn’t an impulse," he said. "I’ve just gotten a telepathic message from a friend of mine. From Rome."
 

"You mean just now?" Raga’s eyes widened. "That’s fantastic."
 

"That’s what my research is all about," Orient said. "The man who contacted me is a telepath. He needs my help."
 

"When do you want to leave?" Raga asked softly. Her eyes were still wide and confused.

"Tomorrow."
 

"So fast?" Raga looked stricken with disappointment.
 

Orient nodded. "You can join me later if you want more time here." He took her hand. "I must answer his call for my help. He wouldn’t have used telepathy to contact me unless it was urgent. It was probably the only way he could find me."
 

"I want to go with you, darling," she said quietly. Orient smiled. "Thanks. And maybe you’ll convince me to stay in Rome after all."
 

"I don’t know. It might be hectic with all those messages you don’t have to sign for. What is your work in telepathy all about anyway?"
 

Orient looked at the burning tip of his cigarette. "Right now all I’m trying to do is find people who have the potential to send and receive mental images. Working together with them I’ve tried to amass as much scientific data as possible to devise a technique to develop psychic facilities. Argyle Simpson, the man who contacted me, is one of those people. Pia is a potential telepath. We did some work together, but we never got beyond the beginning stage of the technique."
 

Raga’s hand went to her mouth. "Pia? She never told me anything about it, Owen."
 

"She didn’t know really until we met on the Trabik." Orient drummed his fingers on the table. "Strange that you haven’t heard from her."
 

Raga hugged herself as if she felt a sudden chill. "I knew Pia for three years," she said softly. "I think that was enough."
 

"How do you mean?"
 

Raga looked at him. "She’s wild, Owen. She has an insatiable appetite for raw pleasure. Nothing else matters for her. For a while I enjoyed her escapades, but now"—she smiled and her hand reached out to cover her—"now I think I want to concentrate on my greatest pleasure. You, just you and no one or nothing else."
 

Orient kissed her fingers. "I feel the same way," he said.
 

Later, as Raga slept beside him, Orient lay awake repeating Argyle’s image in his mind. The temple in the picture had been the Roman Pantheon. And Argyle had been looking for something. Something he couldn’t find.
 

The picture spun through his thoughts until he fell asleep, still wondering what his friend had lost.

CHAPTER 21

Rome, 1970
 

The next morning Sordi drove Orient and Raga to the ferry. He was surprised at their hasty decision to leave Ischia but confident that Orient would soon get in touch with him. He kissed them both goodbye and stood at the dock waving until the ferryboat had cleared the entrance to the port.
 

When the ferry reached Naples, Orient and Raga took the express train to Rome.
 

Raga was in good spirits and curious about the details of Orient’s work. He tried patiently to explain the complicated elements of his research as well as he could, but certain factors were difficult for a non potential to grasp. Soon Raga gave up and turned her attention to the prospects of their life in Rome. She began making enthusiastic plans and by the time the train reached the station had decided what hotel they would stay at. Orient murmured agreement, only half-aware of her conversation as he speculated ahead about the reasons for Argyle’s call.
 

The hotel Raga had chosen was small but well located in the center of Rome near the Spanish Steps. The man behind the desk greeted Raga effusively when they arrived and gave them a large penthouse suite with a terrace.
 

The first thing they did when they were alone was hold each other close for a while. It seemed to Orient that the formalities of the six-hour trip had kept them isolated from each other and they were just re-meeting after a long absence.
 

"You must be tired," Orient said softly.
 

"Not really. I’ll go with you to look for Argyle."
 

"You can take a nap if you like and I can call you when I’ve located him."
 

"No." Raga smiled and kissed him. "I want to stay with you. If I won’t be in the way."
 

"You won’t be in the way. But I hope it’s something we can clear up right away."
 

"Then we can start looking for an apartment," Raga said lightly. "And after a few weeks, I promise you won’t want to leave this lovely city."
 

Orient put his arm around her shoulder and began walking slowly to the door. "We’ll decide after we talk to Argyle," he said.
 

They took a cab to the Pantheon. Orient had visited Rome before and the domed temple to Jupiter was one of his favorite pieces of architecture, but this time he was more concerned with finding Argyle than renewing his admiration for Hadrian’s masterpiece. He glanced around the columned entrance before going inside. Argyle wasn’t there.
 

Orient frowned as he looked around the circular temple. Except for a couple of guards and some camera-laden tourists, the huge, dome-ceilinged room was empty.
 

"It’s two o’clock, Owen," Raga said. "Everyone’s at lunch." Her face brightened. "I have an idea. Argyle is a film actor, so perhaps he’s on the Veneto."
 

"Why not?" Orient agreed. "Let’s give it a try."
 

"We can sit at one of the cafes and have a cup of coffee," Raga suggested as they walked to the thirty-foot metal doors.