Swimmer (16 page)

Jim took hold of his hand. ‘You're right. And I really appreciate it. Just give me a moment to go to the bathroom.'

‘You can use mine if you like. There's a wonderful poster of Jim Morrison on the wall, in those skin-tight leather pants.'

‘It's okay, I'll, uh – use my own. I was never a Doors fan, personally.'

Jim went back to his apartment and splashed his face six or seven times with icy cold water. He changed his shirt and rolled on some more Contradiction deodorant. He stared at his face in the mirror for a while and thought he looked haggard. It was no good. Ever since he had come out of hospital at the age of nine and seen dead people hurrying through the streets, he had known that he would never escape from his near-death experience. Death had touched his shoulder,
Tag, you're it
, and let him know that it was always close by.

Tibbles Two came up to him and rubbed her head against his leg, purring thickly.

‘Come on, TT, give me a break. You'll be living with Mervyn from tomorrow. Don't start getting affectionate now. You know you hate me.'

TT loped into the living-room. She jumped up on to the table and nudged his pack of Grimaud cards with her nose.

‘Come on, TT, I don't want you telling my fortune.'

TT nudged the cards again, but Jim said, ‘Forget it, TT, what do cats know? This is just a charade, isn't it? All you want is attention. I'm going to be giving you away to a transvestite torch singer, okay? But he's a great guy and he's going to take care of you better than me. So forget the cards. This is where you and me part company.'

All the same, TT tapped the deck of cards with her paw, again and again, until they all spilled on to the carpet. Then she dropped down from the table and nudged out the three of clubs, hope, showing a woman standing by the ocean.

‘Well … that's the most optimistic card you've ever picked. Hope, huh?'

TT looked up at him with baleful yellow eyes. Then she nudged out another card, the nine of spades. Card number 44, death, in his tattered gray shroud.

‘Well, thank you for making my day. Hope, and death. I feel better already.'

TT slowly rose up on her hind legs. He had never seen a cat do that before – not balanced on its own in the center of the room. Her ears were folded right back and her eyes were slitted so that she looked more like a snake than a cat. As she reached her full height, Jim heard a sudden sharp clattering sound in the kitchen.

‘The
hell
?' He hurried into the kitchen and found that both of the faucets were turned on full, and that water was blasting into the sink and spraying across the draining board. He turned the faucets off and then went back to the living-room, dabbing at the front of his shirt with a towel. TT was still standing erect, staring at him.

‘How did that happen?' he demanded. ‘Did you do that?'

TT slowly sank down, but she didn't take her slitty little eyes off him.

‘You're warning me, aren't you? You're really warning me.'

But TT stayed where she was, watching him, unmoving; and he knew that, ultimately, the decision to hunt down the Swimmer was his alone.

He went back to Mervyn's apartment with a chilled bottle of Cuvée Napa sparkling wine, which he had been saving for his last night with Karen. It had only cost $12.98, but Mervyn fluttered his eyelashes and said, ‘Champagne,
pour moi
?' and opened it up with the softest of exhalations, like an expert. ‘Do you know what sommeliers call that sound, when they open up a bottle of champagne?
Le pet d'un ange
. An angel's fart.'

‘You have hidden depths, Mervyn.'

‘I know, and I've tried so many diets.'

They sat cross-legged on the floor in Mervyn's living-room and Mervyn brought in little lacquered bowls of braised lotus root and tuna salad with a bean-paste dressing and crisply fried pieces of chicken and green peppers. The room was illuminated by paper lanterns, and Mervyn played a CD of traditional Japanese
ongaku
music, soft and plangent and almost hypnotic. They drank cups of warm sake and after a while Jim began to feel more relaxed than he had since Sunday morning, just before Jennie had called him.

‘I have to admit, Mervyn, I'm enjoying this.'

‘Well, I shall miss you, dearest Jim, when you're gone. You're one of the few people I know who treat me like I really am, rather than what I look like.'

‘Just as well, I guess. At the moment you look like a low-budget production of
The Mikado
, with you playing all of the parts.'

‘Have some more
takenoko kimpira
. I love Gilbert and Sullivan. “We are not shy; we're very wide awake, the moon and I!” You were telling me about this David DuQuesne. I think I've heard of him. Hasn't he been on the television?'

‘Yes, he used to have a show called
Modern Mysteries
. Kind of an
X-Files
, only true.'

‘Oh, yes. I think I remember. The bloodied bedsheet that came to life, that was one, wasn't it? Ugh! That gave me nightmares for
weeks
.'

‘You've got it. He says we need to find a really top-class medium and try to confront this Swimmer face to face.'

‘I thought you already had a medium. This Susan Silversocks, whatever her name is.'

‘Her minder won't let her do it. I have the impression that she had a seriously bad experience not long ago, getting in touch with some malicious spirit, and she still hasn't got over it yet.'

‘Don't you love this lotus root? It's supposed to work wonders for your sex life. Either that or your catarrh, I forget which. You ought to try my friend Gabriel Dragonard – well, his real name is Rooney –
he's
a medium. He runs a weekly ad in the
Hollywood Reporter
. “Talk to the loved ones you've lost.” Woooooh!'

‘Is he any good? I'm not being rude, but we can't risk having any amateurs on this job. They could get themselves hurt, or worse.'

‘Oh no, Gabriel's
wonderful
, I swear it. He got in touch with James Dean once. Dean had borrowed a copy of this guy's screenplay to read and it was the only copy he had and after Dean was killed nobody could find it. But Gabriel talked to James Dean and found out that he had left it by accident in the men's room at the Beverly Wilshire … and that's where they found it. And that's a true authenticated story.'

‘Where can I find this friend of yours?'

‘I'll call him myself, if you like. Let's put it this way … he tends to be way over the top when he's dealing with the general public. Well, they expect it. The moody music. The incense. You don't want any of that, do you?'

‘Not unless it genuinely helps.'

‘I shouldn't think so. It's part of the showmanship, that's all – and that's what Gabriel does. He's a showman. But he knows what he's doing, too.'

‘I hope so. This could be seriously dangerous.'

Mervyn sucked soy sauce from his fingers and picked up his mobile phone. He punched out Gabriel Dragonard's number and waited while it rang. ‘You should hear
his
phone. It plays “Danny Boy”. He has terrible taste. In fact, unlike
moi
, he has no taste at all.'

Eventually he said, ‘Gabriel! How are you? It's Mervyn! Yes, I know I did, but I got so tied up. No, not like that, you cheeky boy. Listen, Gabriel … a very dear friend of mine needs to communicate with the spirits. Not an ancestor, no. A young girl who's been giving him some trouble. Yes, he knows her name. Yes, he can probably find you a picture. But it could be risky. She's a very vengeful spirit, this young girl. I know. All women are the same, aren't they?' He cupped his hand over the receiver and said to Jim, ‘He'd like to talk to you personally, if that's all right.'

Jim took the phone. ‘Jim Rook here, Mr Dragonard … I hope this isn't asking too much.'

Gabriel Dragonard sounded distinctly Irish. ‘It depends what you expect me to do. And whatever it is – even if you're a friend of Mervyn's – I'm afraid I can't do it for free. Even a medium has to pay the rent.'

‘That's okay, I'm sure we can come to some kind of arrangement. I need you to get in touch with the spirit of a young girl who died about ten years ago in a drowning accident.'

‘What sort of trouble is she giving you?'

‘Serious trouble. She's already drowned a nine-year-old boy and a student of mine; and she tried to drown Mervyn, too.'

Gabriel was silent for a moment, and he was obviously thinking hard. ‘This is heavy stuff now, isn't it? This isn't just a bit of
craíc
with your dead grandpa.'

‘No … I'll admit that it's probably going to be dangerous. But unless I can get in touch with her she's going to drown more people, no doubt about it.'

‘Well, I always relish a challenge. Most of the spirits I'm called on to contact are tedious old seniors who don't want to talk about anything but golf. I haven't had to deal with any genuinely difficult spirits since I was called in to exorcize a house in Malibu.'

‘You carried out an exorcism?'

‘Oh yes, about three years ago now. The local priest wouldn't do it. He said that possession by evil spirits was nonsense. Imagine that – a priest who didn't believe in evil spirits! This spirit was a Mexican maid whose fifty-five-year-old employer had made her pregnant, and she hanged herself in the stairwell. Only seventeen, poor kid. But every time her employer tried to sleep in the house he felt that he was being strangled by a rope. Personally I think he deserved it, but it was only fair on the girl to give her some peace. She was a difficult one, very vengeful. She nearly strangled me, too. But if you know what you're doing, the risk is reasonably controled. You have to make the spirits feel that the living still remember them and still care about them. It's the loss of their physicality that enrages them the most. They feel useless and hopeless. You have to give them hope, and then you have to give them death.'

Jim thought of the Grimaud cards that TT had nudged out for him. Hope and death.

‘Would you consider holding a seance?' he asked.

‘I don't actually call them seances,' said Gabriel, a little sniffily. ‘I call them “transmigratory consultations”.'

‘I see. Well, would you consider holding one of those?'

‘I think so. As long as we take certain basic precautions.'

‘Such as?'

‘For obvious reasons, we don't do this anywhere near water; and you give me two hundred and fifty dollars cash in advance and a further two hundred and fifty if I can successfully contact the spirit. Is that fair? It's less than half my usual fee.'

‘Okay,' Jim agreed. He would have to wait a little longer to buy himself a new tennis racquet, but this was far more urgent. ‘What time would be good for you?'

‘Tomorrow night, around nine? Nine is a very auspicious time for spirits. Three times three. Twice three is six. Three sixes are six-six-six.'

‘Can't you do it tonight? I'm supposed to be flying to Washington tomorrow.'

‘I'm sorry, I'm all booked up this evening. Six ladies from Pasadena. It's up to you. But it sounds to me like you've got yourself a very, very serious problem. The sooner you lay this spirit to rest, the better for all concerned.'

‘All right. Nine tomorrow. Give me your address.'

He wrote down Gabriel's address in Santa Monica and then hung up. Mervyn raised a thinly penciled eyebrow and asked, ‘Everything all right?'

‘Sure. It's just that this isn't a farewell dinner after all. I'm going to have to postpone my flight tomorrow.'

‘Oh! Tibbles will be delighted. Not.'

Jim tiredly rubbed his eyes. ‘Tell me something, Mervyn … have you ever felt that you were cursed?'

T
he evening was still uncomfortably warm when they parked outside Gabriel Dragonard's single-story house at the more expensive end of Lincoln Boulevard. Laura was wearing a skimpy pink top and a white mini-skirt, and Washington was sporting a pair of wrap-around sunglasses with yellow mirror lenses, so that he looked ineffably cool.

The house looked like an illustration from a Grimm's fairy tale, with leaded windows and a bright red clay-tiled roof and bougainvillaea climbing all around the verandah. The lawn was almost poisonously green and looked as if it had been clipped with nail scissors.

There was hardly any breeze at all, and seagulls circled silently overhead as if they were flying through syrup. Jim hadn't called Susan to tell her what he intended to do. He had the feeling that she would be badly upset if she knew that he had consulted another sensitive – no matter how dangerous it might be for her to try to contact the Swimmer, and no matter how adamant Michael had been that she shouldn't try. After all, she had found Jim, rather than the other way around, so she must have felt the urge to help him from the moment they had first met.

‘Looks like the Wicked Witch of the West lives here,' Washington remarked as they climbed out of the car. Outside the front door hung a bronze bell-pull with the face of a serene young woman on it, wearing a hood. Her eyes were closed as if she were sleeping, or dead; and for some reason Jim found her unnervingly creepy. He tugged her, and they heard a long and complicated carillon of bells.

‘See what your friend means about the dude's dubious taste.'

It was over a minute before the door opened and a thin bespectacled man appeared. He had a wild overgrown bush of brambly gray hair and three days' growth of prickly white stubble, so that he looked more like a species of wild animal than a man. He was wearing an emerald-green shirt, with a sand-colored linen vest and scrumpled linen pants to match, emerald-green socks, and sandals.

‘Jim Rook is it?'

‘That's right. Pleased to know you. This is Laura and this is Washington.'