An Evil Guest (11 page)

“In this account. Yes.”

“Good. Write me the check. When we leave here we’ll go straight to your bank, and I’ll use your check to open an account there.”

“All right.” Gideon pursed his lips. “You know, that’s clever. I hadn’t thought of it.”

“Need a pen?”

He shook his head and got out a checkbook.

“While you’re writing my check, I’ve got a question.”

“So do I. Cassie or Cassandra?”

“Cassie. My name’s not Cassandra, and I always go by Cassie.”

Gideon wrote.

“Here’s my question. Is it all right if I hock the bracelet? I don’t like it and I don’t want it around. If I hock it, I can go back and get it if Wally makes too big a stink.”

Gideon nodded to himself as he signed. “ ‘One may buy gold at a price too deare.’ Who said that? Spencer?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.” Cassie accepted the check. “Are you about ready?”

“No. I want more coffee, and I have more questions.”

“So do I. Is it all right if I get my wall fixed?”

He nodded as he handed her the check. “Go right ahead.”

“Thanks.” Cassie was studying the check. “Barclays Bank? Isn’t that English?”

“Correct. It’s the U.S. branch of a British bank.”

“You get around. What about the bracelet?”

“I want it, and I’ve said so. The more I hear about it, the more suspicious it sounds. I want to examine it thoroughly, and I want to have some people I know look it over. When they’ve checked it out, you and I can decide what—”

Cassie’s purse played “Pigs in Paradise.”

“My cell phone,” she muttered, and answered it. After what might have been fifteen seconds she said, “Naturally you were afraid. I understand. . . . Don’t worry about it.”

She fell silent for a few seconds longer, then said, “Listen, I want you to
come to my apartment at three.” She gave the address. “I’ll be there, we’ll talk this over, and I’ll give you that eight hundred.” Soon she repeated, “I understand,” pushed a button, and dropped the telephone back into her purse.

“Something’s happened,” Gideon said. “What is it?”

“Our friend—Mr. Rosenquist is what Margaret said—came to see her. She must rent a room somewhere. That’s what it sounded like. He wanted his bracelet, and he must have known, somehow, that it was still in her purse.”

“She probably looked toward it when he asked about the bracelet. People do that unless they train themselves very carefully not to.”

“Fine. She looked, and he opened her purse and got it. He had a long black jewelry box, she said. It sounded like the same box he had the bracelet in when he gave it to me. Anyway, he got out this box and put my bracelet in it and left. Then she called me. All this was just a minute ago.”

“She didn’t call the police?”

Cassie shook her head. “She’d have told me about it if she had, I’m certain. Do you want her to?”

“No. That’s the last thing I want. He must have given her some excuse when he asked for it back. Do you know what it was?”

“She didn’t mention any. Just said that he asked for it back.”

“A long black box . . . No further description?”

Cassie signaled to the waitress, who brought them more coffee. When she had gone, Cassie said, “I told you it sounded like the box it was in when he gave it to me. If that’s right, it’s about this long and covered with black leather. It was lined with white silk, or something like that.”

“You handled it?”

“No,” Cassie said. “I mean yes. Yes, I did. He gave it to me and I took the ribbon off and opened it. Then I took the bracelet out and handed the box back to him. He must have put it in his pocket.”

“Was it heavy?”

“The bracelet or the box? The bracelet was as heavy as lead. I don’t know about the box.”

“You handled it,” Gideon said, “even if it was only for a moment. Please try to remember. This is important.”

“I’m trying. I remember how heavy it felt when he handed it to me. I couldn’t imagine what it was. Then the bracelet . . . You know, I think it was. I think the box was heavy, too. You shouldn’t smirk.”

“Was I smirking? I apologize.” Gideon sipped his coffee. “He may give that bracelet back to you. I doubt it, but he may. If he does, don’t wear it more than you have to, and get in touch with me right away.”

“Do you carry a cell phone? You must.”

Gideon nodded.

“I want the number. I was trying to get in touch with you last night, before you called me. I couldn’t reach you.”

“You tend to be indiscreet on the telephone. That’s why I haven’t given you the number.”

“I won’t be. Never again.” Cassie raised a hand. “Honest Injun. And I won’t pester you for dates.”

Gideon grinned. “Pity.”

“Oh, you want to be pestered? Then you will be. But I’ve got to have the number.”

He took out a business card and wrote it on the back; his numerals, while somewhat stylized, were as neat and disciplined as print.

“Thanks. You said you had more questions. All right, Dr. Chase, let fly.”

“If you’re going to ask me for a date,” Gideon said, “you really should use my first name.”

“Fine. I will. In a day or two, I’ll be calling you Giddy. What are the questions?”

“I suppose I invited that. Very well. I don’t think you can possibly know the answer to the first one; but it’s by far the most important, and if you have speculations I’d like to hear them. Why did Reis give you a bracelet and take it back?”

Cassie stared. “I have no idea. I was so happy to get rid of it that I didn’t even think about that.”

“Do so now.”

In the momentary silence that followed, the waitress laid a small blank book and a pen on the table in front of Cassie. “It’s not for me,” the waitress explained, “it’s for Ida. She collects them, only she’s not your waitress and she’s shy. Could you sign it for her? Best of luck, Ida? Something like that?”

Much impeded by traffic, they drove from the House of Toast to Barclays Bank. When they had at last completed their business, Gideon took Cassie to her building on West Arbor, and at her insistence let her out at the curb. Parking places were hard to find at that hour; but he found one, walked four long blocks back to her building, and stationed himself across the street for a time.

There he thought about a great many things, including (but far from limited to) a sculptor of ancient Greece and the beautiful woman George Bernard Shaw had called Galatea. “I could reverse it,” he told himself, “but time and chance will do that soon enough.” As soon as he spoke, he knew that for him no reversal would have the least effect.

Returning to the brown convertible, he drove to his own Pine Crest Towers several miles away, where he parked in the space assigned to him. A doorman smiled, nodded, and touched his cap. “Professor Chase.”

There seemed to be nothing wrong. Why then, he asked himself, did he feel so utterly certain that something was? The impression was so strong that he would not have boarded the elevator if there had been anyone else in it.

He was walking down the long second-floor corridor when the sound of a pistol slide being racked made him turn. For an instant he saw the muzzle of the gun and threw himself against the door of the nearest apartment with all his strength.

It gave way, and he staggered into someone’s living room as the gun spoke in the corridor behind him. He had nearly reached the kitchen before he felt the stab of pain in his right calf.

He had known there would be no way out of the kitchen save one window. There was no time to break that window or climb through it, but kitchen gadgets hung above the sink. He threw a cleaver and saw the gunman stagger backward, his bleeding face in both hands.

With a meat tenderizer in one hand and a carving knife in the other Gideon tried to pursue him, but found that it was all that he could do to walk without falling. Before he limped away, he picked up his assailant’s gun and left three hundred dollars under a book on the coffee table.

M
ARGARET
was fifteen minutes late. “There was a phone call, Miss Casey. Miss Dempster called wanting the number of your cell phone.”

Cassie nodded. “You must not have given it to her.”

“I didn’t. You had given it to me, but I didn’t think you would want me to give it out. So I told her I didn’t have it.”

“What’s this!” Cassie’s smile would have broken the heart of every man in sight, had there been any. “You lied to India, Margaret? Tsk, tsk!”

“I didn’t, Miss Casey. Things like that really bother me, so I don’t do it unless I’ve got to. You had written your number on that napkin. Remember?”

“Right, I do.”

“Well, before I told Miss Dempster I didn’t have it, I got the napkin and threw it away. I’ve got a pretty little round wastebasket next to my phone.”

“Handy,” Cassie remarked.

“It truly is, Miss Casey, and while we were still talking back and forth I took your napkin out of my purse and dropped it into there. Of course after we’d hung up I looked down real careful and read the number. I copied it
into my book, only there was a good deal said between Miss Dempster and me before. Before she’d let me off the phone, you know.”

“Wait a bit,” Cassie said. “What would you have done if you hadn’t been able to read the number?”

“Why I’d shake the wastebasket, Miss Casey, just like anybody would. Made that napkin jump around in there, you know, until I could read it.”

“Golly, I should have thought of that. What did India have to say?”

“Ever so many things.” Margaret looked vague. “A read-through was one. She’d got the Tiara, she said, by telling them her new show might open there. One tomorrow afternoon, it will be.”

“I’m not signed,” Cassie remarked.

“I don’t think anybody is, Miss Casey. Or nobody but Miss Dempster and Mr. Palma. She said he was, come to think.”

“I see.”

“Only she said she’s been talking to Ms. Youmans and it’s all settled except for signing. She said to tell you she absolutely had to have you and you’d be letting them all down if you wouldn’t take it, so she was ever so very glad you were going to do it. Because of Mr. Rosenquist is what she said.”

“I’ve got it. Before I sign, I want to talk to Zelda. She’s sold me down the volcano much too cheaply, unless I’m badly mistaken.”

Margaret tittered. “Then, too, she wants to know how many solo songs you’ll do.”

“None,” Cassie said firmly.

“That Mr. Rosenquist wanted five, she said. Only Miss Dempster doesn’t want you to strain your voice. She is trying to get him down to the three, she said. There is a voice coach, too, now. I don’t recall the name.”

“Doesn’t matter. Dammit! I can sing along with two or three other people, but I’m no singer.”

“You sing beautifully, Miss Casey.”

When Cassie objected, Margaret raised her voice. “I know you do, Miss Casey. I’ve heard you talking. I’m hearing you right now. There’s nobody in the world who can talk like you who can’t sing.”

“You’re a very nice person, Margaret, but no. I’ve . . . The other night . . .”

“What is it, Miss Casey?”

“Have you ever heard of a mountain that was alive, Margaret? Honestly, now. A mountain whose wife washed clothes?”

Doubtfully, Margaret shook her head. “A dream, Miss Casey? I was
going to say I sing in the choir. In church, you know, when I’m not on the road, because there’s hardly ever a show on Sunday morning. I’m not much of a singer, but I know some good singers and I know how they sound.”

“Do you really, Margaret? Give me a sample. What do you sing?”

“I’ll try to get the tune right, Miss Casey. It’s such a lovely song, but I’m not good with tunes unless I have the music.” She sang, her voice quavering a bit on the high notes. When she had finished, Cassie applauded.

Smiling gratefully, Margaret said, “Now let’s hear you sing it, Miss Casey. You can’t help but be better than I was.”

Cassie stood and coughed to clear her throat: a soft, apologetic sound.

“As close as tomorrow the sun shall appear,
Freedom is coming, and healing is near.”

“Louder, Miss Casey!”

“And I shall be with you in laughter and pain
To stand in the wind and walk in the reign,
To walk in the reign.”

The song seemed to fill her, a host of angels caroling through the corridors of her mind.

“The sower is planting in acres unseen
The seeds of the future, the field of God’s dream.
Those meadows are humming, though none sees them rise.
The name of the sower is God of Surprise.
God of Surprise . . .”

When she had finished singing as much as she could recall, Margaret clapped enthusiastically. “Wonderful! You have a wonderful, wonderful voice, Miss Casey. I knew it. Why, I declare, it was like—like I don’t know what. If you could come to church just once—”

The telephone rang. Cassie excused herself with a gesture and picked it up.

“Was that you singing?”

“I’m afraid so.” Cassie managed a rueful smile. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

“I—Pickens is my name. Brian Pickens. I have the place above yours, and I work at—it doesn’t matter. I got your name from your mailbox. I wanted . . . I was out earlier today, and I saw you come in. I hope you don’t mind.”