11 Harrowhouse (23 page)

“It's dirty red,” said Mildred. “His nimbus, halo, aureola, and even his glory.”

“Especially my glory,” said Chesser.

Mildred clucked her tongue, rolled her eyes, and told him, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“I wish I could see it,” said Maren with sincere envy.

“See what?” asked Chesser.

“Your aura, darling,” replied Maren, as though it was stupid of him not to know what that was. Rather intolerantly, she explained to him that every human body transmits a luminous radiation, but only those with mystical powers can see it.

“Actually, it's subsensible ether,” informed Mildred, “related to the odyle.”

“Oh,” said Chesser, watching Mildred's mouth work.

“An exteriorization of energy,” added Mildred, and finished her gin.

“The color of the aura indicates the character of a person,” said Maren. “Isn't that right, Mildred?”

“My!” gasped Mildred, bringing stubby fingers to her cheek. “Even his karmic aura is dirty red.” She continued to study Chesser. “Never saw the likes of it. Except once, around an Episcopalian bishop from Cardiff. But even his wasn't as intense as yours. Not nearly.”

“At least it's not green,” said Maren, sounding grateful for that.

“What's so amazing about dirty red?” asked Chesser.

“He's very neuropathic,” diagnosed Mildred, squinting.

Chesser thought that sounded like an unkind reference to his mental condition.

“My aura is purple,” Maren said with pride.

Mildred glanced quickly at Maren. “With a nice bit of rose at this moment, dearie,” she said, and returned her concentration to Chesser.

He asked: “What's purple mean?”

“Spirituality,” answered Maren.

“And rose signifies affection,” said Mildred, beaming sweetly.

“And me,” said Chesser, “old, dirty, red me, I'm nothing but lousy old, dirty red. Is that it?”

“You are what you are, darling,” said Maren. “Auras don't lie. Besides, there's no reason to be ashamed of it.”

“I'm not ashamed of anything. What does dirty red mean?”

“It means you're very erotic,” said Maren.

Mildred chuckled. “That's putting it mildly.”

Chesser was appeased. Maybe there was something to this aura thing. He imagined how entertaining and helpful it would be to see everyone's true colors. Rainbow people. He asked: “How far out does the aura usually radiate?”

“It depends,” Maren said, because she didn't really know.

Mildred told him, “From six to twelve inches all around the body. Except when someone's about to pass over. Just the other day there was a young man on the L-bus. Looked to be in the prime of his time, he did. But the moment I laid eyes on him I knew he wasn't long for this world. Had hardly any aura at all. Probably one of those drug addicts. They burn themselves out, you know.”

All the while she spoke, Mildred kept her eyes on Chesser, who was getting used to that by now. Abruptly but calmly she announced, “There's someone here.”

Chesser looked around.

Maren asked who.

“I don't know yet,” said Mildred.

“Maybe it's Jean Marc,” said Maren enthusiastically.

“Lor'!” exclaimed Mildred, and told Chesser: “He's not very pleased with you!”

Chesser laughed a little, nervously.

“Ask Jean Marc where the hell he's been,” said Maren. “Tell him I won't tolerate his chasing off somewhere without even a word.”

“It's not Jean Marc, luv,” said Mildred.

Chesser was relieved to hear that. Although he told himself he really didn't believe anyone was there. The damned medium was just putting on a show, mainly for his benefit.

“Well, if it's not Jean Marc, who is it?” asked Maren, disappointed.

“I haven't the faintest,” Mildred said, concentrating.

“Ask him to introduce himself,” suggested Chesser.

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“He's gone. Only showed himself long enough to let us know he was around. Didn't say anything, either. Just stood there, right back of your chair. He was scowling at you, real rankled, he was. Had on one of those overcoats with a velvet collar.”

“A Chesterfield,” said Maren.

Mildred nodded, “And a black Hamburg hat.”

“Homburg?” Chesser said.

“That's what I said, a black Homburg. He was furious at you. Positively livid.”

Chesser tried to visualize a ghost in a Chesterfield and Homburg. A lot more debonair than one in an ordinary old sheet, he thought. And then, for some absurd reason, he was presented with a fragment from the past. A black hat that Chesser had tried on when he was almost nine years old. A winter morning two days before his ninth birthday, to be exact. A Homburg hat that was much too large for him, that came down over his ears and eyes when he tried it on, alone in front of the hall mirror, before anyone else was up. The hat had just been returned from the cleaners in the special box in which his father always kept it. The cleaners had done a special rush job on it because Chesser's father needed to wear it that day. His father always wore that Homburg when he flew across the ocean for business with The System. That time he'd be gone a week. Chesser was extra careful with the hat when he placed it back in the box and told it, with language he'd only said aloud when he was on the street with the guys, that he didn't give a shit.

But now, more than thirty years later, Chesser quickly dismissed the association, washed his mouth with the best available Scotch, and marveled only at the coincidence, giving Mildred or whatever Mildred represented at best the benefit of his chronic doubt.

By then Mildred was accepting her third double portion of gin. She smiled at Chesser, evidently confident that she had impressed him.

Chesser wondered if Maren would forgive him if he went downstairs to practice some shooting off the hip.

“Do you play?” Mildred asked him.

“Not anymore,” he replied.

“She means the piano,” explained Maren. There was a Wurlitzer grand in the corner of the room.

With difficulty, Mildred got down off the couch and toddled across the room to the huge, ebony-finished instrument. “My mum saw to it that I had lessons,” she said, tracing fingers respectfully along the piano's side surface. She went up on her toes to peek inside at the strings. “She's gone over, you know, with kidney trouble, years ago. But she's very happy. Better off than she was here, I'll tell you that. A horrible shame, all she went through, having me, strange as I am and all. But that was her karma. She brought it on herself.”

Maren thought to ask Mildred if her mother also was a dwarf, but she didn't know what words would be adequately tactful. With her absolute belief in Mildred's psychic abilities, Maren wasn't surprised when Mildred seemed to take her thought right out of the air. Mildred said: “I always looked up to her, my mum. She was almost six feet. Seemed tall as the bloody Post Office tower to me.” She climbed up onto the piano bench. “Still she wanted me to have lessons, my mum did.”

Mildred plunked a note several times and then attacked the keys. Her rendition of something by Tchaikovsky, which sounded more like “Camptown Races” the way she had to play it with her short fingers unable properly to manipulate both the black and white keys simultaneously. She also had to limit her efforts to the middle range because her arms were too short to reach lower or higher on the keyboard. And, of course, she couldn't work the foot pedals.

Mildred's performance brought tears to Maren's eyes. Chesser noticed and loved Maren for that. He also felt some sympathy for Mildred's incapacity, as she pounded her way through the piece, innovating and compromising to accommodate her limitations.

Both Maren and Chesser applauded at the finish. Mildred grinned, proud of herself. She toddled back to the couch, climbed up, resumed her former position, and was rewarded with another big helping of gin. “Let's talk business,” she said.

Chesser preferred not to. He'd already decided he'd try to buy Mildred off with a generous M. J. Mathew certified check when the time was right.

“Diamonds,” said Mildred, “are one thing I've never had much to do with, except for a little stickpin I had once but lost down the loo. I've never been one for material things. Can't afford to be. They wouldn't like it if I was. They'd take away my power.”

Chesser wondered who
they
were.

“I'm quite willing to help however I can, providing I don't get paid for it, you understand.”

Maren nodded and admired Mildred's values.

Chesser merely nodded, skeptical.

Mildred continued, “I've already done a bit of groundwork, you might say. This afternoon I contacted someone on the other side who was very involved with diamonds. He said he was a crook. He's sorry now, of course, but nevertheless he was a crook.”

“Who was?” asked Chesser.

“The someone this someone knows,” answered Mildred, perturbed. “I didn't ask for names. They don't usually like to reveal their names, you know. Do you want me to go on?”

Maren urged her.

Mildred took a deep breath, sniffled some, fussed with her tatted bodice, clasped her hands, and told them, “I was given one bit of advice for you.”

“What?” asked Chesser.

“I told you she'd help,” said Maren.

“It's only three words,” said Mildred. “Spirits usually communicate in as few words as possible. Perhaps because it's not easy for them. Anyway, ‘black will oblige.' That's what he said. ‘Black will oblige.' I suppose you know what that means?”

Maren didn't.

“Do you?” Chesser asked Mildred.

“Haven't the faintest,” replied Mildred. “I thought you'd know, with your being in the diamond business and all.”

“Think, darling!” Maren said. “Do you know anyone named Black?”

“Milton Black,” said Chesser.

“Who's he?” asked Maren.

“First kid on my block who could masturbate. He was very big in those days. Last I heard he was an interior decorator and handball champion of the entire upper East Side.”

“He can't possibly be
the
Black,” said Maren.

“Black will oblige,” quipped Chesser, pleased with himself.

“It'll come to you,” assured Mildred. “Anyway, I told that man on the other side I'd be in touch with him again. You don't mind if I go into a bit of a trance, do you?”

Maren was delighted.

Chesser was more tolerant now because he was feeling the Scotch.

Mildred knocked back what gin remained in her glass. She settled herself and closed her eyes. After a few moments her body went rigid. Her stumpy little legs looked as rigid as a plaster doll's.

Chesser was sure the small medium was about to give them the feature number of her act. But Maren eagerly anticipated some vital information from the vast spiritual limbo.

They waited nearly fifteen minutes. Nothing came from or through Mildred. She remained absolutely the same.

Maren was concerned. But she was afraid to make a sound, believing that Mildred's spirit was out in the astral world, trying to tap the cosmic force. Any abrupt sound, perhaps even a whisper, Maren believed, might disturb Mildred's physical entity without allowing time for her spiritual essence to return. If that happened, Maren had no idea how Mildred would be affected, but she knew it would be dreadful.

Chesser had had enough. While he was sitting there looking patient, he'd been thinking about number 11, how impenetrable it was. And wondering what information Watts might come up with. Chesser's opinion was that nothing Watts could tell him, no matter how secret, would really help his cause. He tried not to be such a pessimist, but it was difficult to be even slightly optimistic with the score 12 billion to zero. At least, almost zero. All he had in his favor were a dying man, a captious girlfriend, a fake dwarf medium and himself—an amateur everything.

He got up and, disregarding Maren's frantic gestures, went over to Mildred. He examined her closely and then tapped her on the shoulder.

Mildred's bulbous eyes opened with a start. “Lor',” she said thickly, “I must have dozed off. You must think I'm daft or something.”

Maren asked if she was all right.

Mildred nodded, rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, badly smearing her mascara. “It's just that I've been working too hard lately,” she said pitifully. “The spirits take so much out of me.”

She means the gin, thought Chesser.

“Poor Mildred,” cooed Maren.

“Well, dearies,” sighed Mildred, “I'm afraid we've had it for tonight. But I promise I'll do some work for you soon enough.”

“I'll drive you home,” offered Maren.

“Just toss me into a taxi,” Mildred said.

Chesser was tempted to literally do that.

CHAPTER 15

E
ARLY
F
RIDAY
evening Watts called.

The information was ready. Should he bring it? No. Chesser thought it more prudent to have it delivered by regular taxi. Watts agreed and said he'd call again sometime during the week in case Chesser had any questions. They exchanged thanks.

Within an hour, a well-sealed, letter-size envelope was in Chesser's hands. It contained twenty-two neatly written pages, including numerous carefully drawn diagrams.

Maren and Chesser went over it together. While propped up by many extra pillows on their big bed. Munching on black Greek olives and red Irish radishes. No comments. They just devoured.

Watts had really done a thorough job of it. He had applied his obsessive regard for accuracy and detail, and it was all there, every physical characteristic of The System's facilities at number 11, as well as a precise timetable of operation. Watts's diagrams were explicit, drawn in scale with the help of a ruler. Everything was clearly indicated, from the placement of worktables to the location of electric sockets. He had even noted measurements exact to the inch where it might matter.