Double Take

CHAPTER 43

There was a stark white half-moon shining directly down on Cheney’s borrowed wheels, an older dark blue Audi, on temporary loan from the dealership while his own Audi was getting patched up from its beach run that morning.

It had all happened twelve hours ago. Amazing. He turned to Julia. “You hanging in there?”

“It’s been a wild day, that’s for sure.”

“What did you think of Tammerlane’s séance?”

“Well, I suppose it didn’t work, did it? We’re no closer to finding Kathryn. Do you think she’d dead, Cheney?”

He thought about that for a moment, then said, “No, the fact is, I don’t. However, I’m still not certain why Makepeace took her.”

“How about he believed she could have some visions for him, about where I am. What do you think?”

He laughed. “Yeah, right.”

But Julia wasn’t so sure. She’d lived in the world of psychics for three years, and sometimes she still wasn’t at all certain what was and what wasn’t real.

“I hope I can keep focused. Soldan Meissen’s got to be at the center of this thing, along with Pallack, and now he’s Pallack’s medium.”

She nodded. “I think you’ll find Soldan interesting. He’s, well, he’s even more different. You’ll see.”

“None of the others we’ve spoken to have much respect for him.”

“True. However, given Thomas Pallack’s experience—I mean he was with August and also with the famous medium Linz Knowler before him—I can’t see how Soldan could con him. He’d be very hard to scam.

“I remember seeing Soldan on TV maybe three months ago on one of those Hollywood entertainment shows. He was standing in a gloomy cemetery, naturally after dark, with manufactured fog creeping up to his knees. He was wearing jeans and three-inch stack-heeled boots to make him look more formidable, I guess—tough sell, let me tell you, because Soldan is really quite puny-looking. He was standing next to an oohing and aahing fluffy blonde who was handing him eight-by-ten photos of famous dead people. He told the camera what these folks were doing, how they felt about what their famous living relatives were up to. The blonde seemed to be impressed.

“August always said Soldan couldn’t carry it off in front of a camera, that anyone seeing him would believe he was a gold-plated fraud. He’d say Soldan gave psychics a bad name.”

Cheney pulled into Soldan Meissen’s big circular driveway, stopped in front of the front door, cut the engine, and looked around. “Another big spread. I guess the psychic business is thriving.”

Julia said, “Oh yes. Atherton is one of the biggest hubs of conspicuous consumption in the Bay Area. Soldan used to have a Spanish-style hacienda, then moved two blocks and went Oriental.”

Cheney looked at the long, single-story house, solid windows all along the front, bonsai trees thick on the ground, crowding close to the house. “Is the guy married? Any children hanging around?”

“I don’t know about kids, though there maybe a former wife. A couple of months ago I heard a woman moved in, but I don’t know anything about her. I sure hope he’s here, Cheney. It’s late. Maybe this time we should have called.”

“Nah, a surprise visit you never know what’s gonna pop. Look, there are some lights on at the end of the house.”

They walked along a flagstone path lined with Japanese-garden-style bushes and flowers. There was a double front door lacquered glossy black with shiny gold dragon’s-head doorknobs, flanked by a pair of huge Asian stone statues, too dark to tell any detail. Cheney pressed his finger against a dragon’s snout and heard the bell chime some creepy music from that old Bela Lugosi film Son of Frankenstein.

“Maybe the guy’s a warlock too.”

There was no answer for perhaps a minute, then came the sound of mules flapping up and down on tile. The door was opened by a woman wearing a very low cut frothy peach peignoir that floated around her ankles. She looked, Cheney realized, with those prodigious breasts framed by silk and feathers, like a saloon girl from a western movie, a little over the hill, a little too much makeup, but authentic enough, at least TV authentic.

Cheney said, “Hello. This is Julia and I’m Cheney. We’re here to see Soldan. Is he available?”

“You look familiar,” the woman said to Julia. “You don’t, sir. It’s after nine o’clock. At night. What do you want? Soldan is tired. We don’t see uninvited visitors. Besides, I don’t like the look of either of you.” She stared at Julia. “Yeah, you do look familiar. Is there a reason I don’t like you?”

Cheney smiled at the woman; she looked like she could shoot them both, then blow the smoke off the end of her six-shooter and toss back a shot of straight whisky. “We’re harmless. Actually, maybe you have met Julia. She’s Julia Ransom, Dr. August Ransom’s widow. And I am Cheney Stone, FBI. We won’t take up much of Soldan’s time. And who are you?”

“You’re sounding all chummy, aren’t you now? I’m thinking you’re the best-looking paid federal assassin I’ve ever seen. Fact is, you probably make use of being gorgeous, don’t you, makes it easier for you to flimflam innocent women like me.”

“Nah,” Cheney said. “They don’t pay me that much.”

“A federal assassin making jokes—you’re smart too, but really not that funny.”

“Who are you?” Julia asked.

“I’m Sol’s mother. Okay, okay, you got me. Obviously I’m far too young and beautiful to be his mother. I’m Sol’s sister—younger sister. Hey, I bet if I don’t let you in, you’ll pull a gun and force your way in. Isn’t that what you secret fed enforcers do?”

‘Yeah, that’s exactly what we do,” and Cheney showed her his SIG on the clip at his waist.

For the first time, Cheney saw a flash of genuine alarm in her eyes, though it was hard to tell since she was wearing so much eyeliner. She held out her hands in front of her, to ward him off. “Don’t you dare! All right, come in, I’ll warn Sol.” She gave Julia a dismissive look. “Shame on you, plastering your plain face all over the TV news.” And she sashayed away, clip-clopping on the three-inch peach satin mules.

Cheney said, “Look how that silky thing floats around her as she walks. If she weren’t so scary, it’d be sexy. Is she really his younger sister?”

“Why not? Don’t you know? After all, you’re the federal hired gun.”

They walked down a wide long hallway that ran the full length of the house. The front was all glass windows, with a series of open rooms to their left, and a line of translucent shoji screens covered in rice paper that slid shut to provide privacy. The screens were all at half-mast now. He could see into the rooms, decorated with Asian statuary, from small naked bronze boys to three-foot stone gods. A huge gong that looked to be as ancient as the goddess sitting next to it was hunkered down in the middle of the largest room.

Eastern mysticism to add to the mix? Truth be told, Cheney didn’t think anything much could surprise him after the trio of psychics he’d already met.

He was wrong.

Soldan Meissen sat in the middle of a half dozen huge silk pillows piled in front of a low, elaborately carved, red lacquered table, smoking a hookah. Smoke wreathed his bald head and fogged his rimless round glasses. He was slight, and looked swallowed up in a crimson silk robe belted at his meager waist with a wide black silk cummerbund. One narrow bare foot stuck out from the bottom of the robe. Ugly toes, Cheney thought, gnarly and bent. He realized he had seen him a couple of times on TV, but not like a little pasha in full costume. Why wasn’t he wearing a fez to complete the presentation?

The man observed them in silence for a moment through a veil of lacy smoke, then said in a lovely deep voice, “Why did you bring these people into the house, Ancilla? You know I do not deal with clients after eight o’clock at night. It is now well after nine o’clock. Who are they?”

“They forced their way in, Sol. One of them is a federal agent, at least that’s what he said. This person standing beside him is Julia Ransom.”

The rheumy eyes turned toward Julia. A slight smile unseamed his tight mouth. He carefully set down the end of the tube connected to the detailed Oriental glass hookah, its cooling water bubbling and frothing. He took off his glasses and cleaned them on the sleeve of his silk robe. “Ah, you are my sainted August’s beautiful widow, yes, I recognize you now, Mrs. Ransom. Forgive me. We met once, several years ago at one of August’s soirees. Your aura was murky with grief and I believed that odd since you’d so recently married August. But then I came to understand. Still, I was glad August didn’t see auras. It would have distressed him to know the depths of your pain. Ah, do call me Soldan and I’ll call you Julia. Sit down, both of you, take your ease.”

They made themselves as comfortable as they could on the silk cushions. Cheney could feel Julia had tightened, probably because she was thinking about her son, but she said nothing.

“I would have thought your aura would once again be chaotic from what I heard on the news today, but it’s not. The reporter said you were with an FBI agent in a mad car chase all the way to the beach. But you survived. I’m pleased about that. Oh, I see. The little drama was well staged even though I only saw the back of you when you climbed into a police car. I myself found it very effective. If there are people who believe you murdered August, that incident will turn the tide. You looked quite heroic.”

“You don’t think I killed August, do you, Mr. Meissen?”