Trumps of Doom

Chapter 2

I drove away from the bay until I came to a quiet, well-treed area. I stopped the car and got out and walked.

After a long while I located a small, deserted park. I seated myself on one of the benches, took out the Trumps and studied them. A few seemed half familiar and the rest were totally puzzling. I stared too long at one and seemed to hear a siren song. I put them down. I did not recognize the style. This was extremely awkward.

I was reminded of the story of a world-famous toxicologist who inadvertently ingested a poison for which there was no antidote. The question foremost in his mind was, had he taken a lethal dose? He looked it up in a classic textbook that he himself had written years before. According to his own book he had had it. He checked another, written by an equally eminent professional. According to that one he had taken only about half the amount necessary to do in someone of his body mass. So he sat down and waited, hoping he’d been wrong.

I felt that way because I am an expert on these things. I thought that I knew the work of everyone who might be capable of producing such items. I picked up one of the cards, which held a peculiar, almost familiar fascination for me — depicting a small grassy point jutting out into a quiet lake, a sliver of something bright, glistening, unidentifiable, off to the right. I exhaled heavily upon it, fogging it for an instant, and struck it with my fingernail. It rang like a glass bell and flickered to life. Shadows swam and pulsed as the scene inched into evening. I passed my hand over it and it grew still once again — back to lake, grasses, daytime.

Very distant. Time’s stream flowed faster there in relationship to my present situation. Interesting.

I groped for an old pipe with which I sometimes indulge myself, filled it, lit it, puffed it, and mused. The cards were functional all right, not some clever imitations, and though I did not understand their purpose, that was not my main concern at the moment.

Today was April 30, and I had faced death once again. I had yet to confront the person who had been playing with my life. S had again employed a proxy menace. And that was no ordinary dog I had destroyed. And the cards… where had Julia gotten them and why had she wanted me to have them? The cards and the dog indicated a power beyond that of an ordinary person. All along I had thought I’d been the subject of the unwelcome attention of some psycho, whom I could deal with at my leisure. But this morning’s events put an entirely different complexion on the case. It meant that I had one hell of an enemy somewhere.

I shuddered. I wanted to talk to Luke again, get him to reconstruct their conversation of the previous evening, see whether Julia had said anything that might provide me with a clue. I’d like to go back and search her apartment more carefully, too. But that was out of the question. The cops had pulled up in front of the place as I was driving away. There’d be no getting back in for some time.

Rick. There was Rick Kinsky, the guy she’d begun seeing after we’d broken up. I knew him on sight — a thin, mustached, cerebral sort, thick glasses and all. He managed a bookstore I’d visited once or twice. I didn’t know him beyond that; though. Perhaps he could tell me something about the cards and how Julia might have gotten into whatever situation it was that had cost her her life.

I brooded a little longer, then put the cards away. I wasn’t about to fool with them any further. Not yet. First, I wanted as much information as I could get.

I headed back for the car. As I walked I reflected that this April 30 wasn’t over. Suppose S didn’t really consider this morning’s encounter as aimed directly at me? In that case there was plenty of time for another attempt. I also had a feeling that if I began getting close S would forget about dates and go for my throat whenever there was an opening. I resolved not to let my guard down at all henceforth, to live as in a state of siege until this matter was settled. And all of my energies were now going to be dire toward settling it. My well-being seemed to require the destruction of my enemy, very soon.

Should I seek counsel? I wonder. And if so, from whom? There was an awful lot I still didn’t know about my heritage…

No. Not yet, I decided. I had to make every effort to handle things myself. Besides the fact that I wanted to, I needed the practice. It’s necessary to be able to deal with nasty matters where I come from.

I drove, looking for a pay phone and trying not to think of Julia as I had last seen her. A few clouds blew in from the west. My watch ticked on my wrist, next to unseen Frakir. The news on the radio was international and cheerless.

I stopped in a drugstore and used a phone there to try to reach Luke at his motel. He wasn’t in. So I had a club sandwich and a milkshake in the dining area and tried again afterward. Still out.

Okay. Catch him later.

I headed into town. The Browserie, as I recalled, was the name of the bookstore where Rick worked.

I drove by and saw that the place was open. I parked a couple of blocks up the street and walked back. I had been alert all of the way across town, but could not detect any sign that I was being followed.

A cool breeze touched me as I walked, hinting of rain. I saw Rick through the store’s window, seated at his high counter reading a book. There was no one else in sight in the place.

A small bell jangled above the door as I entered, and he looked up. He straightened and his eyes widened as I approached.

“Hi,” I said, pausing then for a moment. “Rick, I don’t know whether you remember me.”

“You’re Merle Corey,” he stated softly.

“Right.” I leaned on the counter and he drew back. “I wondered whether you might be able to help me with a little information.”

“What kind of information?”

“It’s about Julia,” I said.

“Look,” he answered, “I never went near her until after you two had broken up.”

“Huh? No, no, you don’t understand. I don’t care about that. It’s more recent information that I need. She’d been trying to get in touch with me this past week and — ”

He shook his head:

“I haven’t heard from her for a couple of months.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, we stopped seeing each other. Different interests, you know?”

“Was she okay when you — stopped seeing each other?”

“I guess so.”

I stared straight into his eyes and he winced. I didn’t like that ‘I guess so’. I could see that he was a little afraid of me so I decided to push it.

“What do you mean ‘different interests’?” I asked.

“Well, she got a little weird, you know?” he said.

“I don’t know. Tell me.”

He licked his lips and looked away “I don’t want any trouble,” he stated.

“I’d rather not indulge either. What was the matter?”

“Well,” he said, “she was scared.”

“Scared? Of what?”

“Uh — of you.”

“Me? That’s ridiculous. I never did anything to frighten her. What did she say?”

“She never said it in so many words, but I could tell, whenever your name came up. Then she developed all these funny interests.”

“You’ve lost me,” I said. “Completely. She got weird? She got funny interests? What kind? What was going on? I really don’t understand, and I’d like to.”

He got to his feet and headed for the rear of the store, glancing at me as if I should follow him. I did.

He slowed when he reached a section full of books on natural healing and organic farming and martial arts and herbal remedies and having babies at home, but he went on past it into the hardcore occult section.

“Here,” he said, halting. “She borrowed a few of these, brought them back, borrowed a few more.”

I shrugged.

“That’s all? That’s hardly weird.”

“But she really got into it.”

“So do a lot of people.”

“Let me finish,” he went on. “She started with theosophy, even attended meetings of a local group. She got turned off on it fairly quick, but by then she’d met some people with different connections. Pretty soon she was hanging around with Sufis, Gurdjieffians, even a shaman.”

“Interesting,” I said. “No yoga?”

“No yoga. When I asked her that same thing she said that it was power she was after, not samadhi. Anyhow, she just kept fording stranger and stranger acquaintances. The atmosphere got too rarefied for me, so I said good-bye.”

“I wonder why?” I mused.

“Here,” he said, “take a look at this one.”

He tossed me a black book and stepped back. I caught it. It was a copy of the Bible. I opened it to the publishing credits page.

“Something special about this edition?” I asked.

He sighed.

“No. I’m sorry.”

He took it back and replaced it on the shelf.

“Just a minute,” he said.

He returned to the counter and took a cardboard sign from a shelf beneath it. It read JUST STEPPED OUT: WE’LL REOPEN AT and there was a clock face beneath it with movable hands. He set them to indicate a time a half hour hence and went and hung the sign in the door’s window. Then he shot the bolt and gestured for me to follow him to a room in the rear.

The back office contained a desk, a couple of chairs, cartons of books. He seated himself behind the desk and nodded toward the nearest chair. I took it. He switched on a telephone answering machine then, removed a stack of forms and correspondence from the blotter, opened a drawer and took out a bottle of Chianti.

“Care for a glass?” he asked.

“Sure, thanks.”

He rose and stepped through the opened door of a small lavatory. He took a pair of glasses from a shelf and rinsed them. He brought them back, set them down, filled both, and pushed one in my direction. They were from the Sheraton.

“Sorry I tossed the Bible at you,” he said, raising his glass and taking a sip.

“You looked as if you expected one to go up in a puff of smoke.”

He nodded.

“I am really convinced that the reason she wants power has something to do with you. Are you into some form of occultism?”

“No.”

“She talked sometimes as if you might even be a supernatural creature yourself.”

I laughed.

He did, too, after a moment.

“I don’t know,” he said then. “There’re lots of strange things in the world. They can’t all be right, but…”

I shrugged.

“Who knows? So you think she was looking for some system that would give her power to defend herself against me?”

“That was the impression I got.”

I took a drink of the wine.

“That doesn’t make sense,” I told him.

But even as I said it I knew that it was probably true. And if I had driven her into the path of whatever had destroyed her, then I was partly responsible for her death. I suddenly felt the burden along with the pain.

“Finish the story,” I said.

“That’s pretty much it,” he answered. “I got tired of people who wanted to discuss cosmic crap all the time and I split.”

“And that’s all? Did she find the right system, the right guru? What happened?”

He took a big drink and stared at me.

“I really liked her,” he said.

“I’m sure.”

“The Tarot, Caballa, Golden Dawn, Crowley, Fortune — that’s where she went next.”

“Did she stay?”

“I don’t know for sure. But I think so. I only heard this after a while.”

“Ritual magic, then?”

“Probably.”

“Who does it?”

“Lots of people.”

“I mean who did she find? Did you hear that?”

“I think it was Victor Melman.”

He looked at me expectantly. I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know the name.”

“Strange man,” he mused, taking a sip and leaning back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his neck and bringing his elbows forward. He stared off into the lavatory. “I’ve heard it said — by a number of people, some of them fairly reliable — that he really has something going for him, that he has a hold on a piece of something, that he’s known a kind of enlightenment, has been initiated, has a sort of power and is sometimes a great teacher. But he’s got these ego problems, too, that seem to go along with that sort of thing. And there’s a touch of the seamy side there. I’ve even heard it said that that’s not his real name, that he’s got a record, and there’s more of Manson to him than Magus. I don’t know. He’s nominally a painter — actually a pretty good one. His stuff does sell.”

“You’ve met him?”.

A pause, then, “Yes.”

“What were your own impressions?”

“I don’t know. Well… I’m prejudiced. I can’t really say.”

I swirled the wine in my glass. “How come?”

“Oh, I wanted to study with him once. He turned me down.”

“So you were into this, too. I thought — ”

“I’m not into anything,” he snapped. “I tried everything at some time or other, I mean. Everybody goes through phases. I wanted to develop, expand; advance. Who doesn’t? But I never found it.” He unbent and took another gulp of wine. “Sometimes I felt that I was close, that there was some power, some vision that I could almost touch or see. Almost. Then it was gone. It’s all a lot of crap. You just delude yourself. Sometimes I even thought I had it. Then a few days would go by and I realized that I was lying to myself again.”

“All of this was before you met Julia?” He nodded.

“Right. That might be what held us together for a while. I still like to talk about all this bullshit, even if I don’t believe it anymore. Then she got too serious about it, and I didn’t feel like going that route again.”

“I see.”

He drained his glass and refilled it.

“There’s nothing to any of it,” he said. “There are an infinite number of ways of lying to yourself, of rationalizing things into something they are not. I guess that I wanted magic, and there is no real magic in the world.”

“That why you threw the Bible at me?”

He snorted.

“It could as easily have been the Koran or the Vedas, I suppose. It would have been neat to see you vanish in a flash of fire. But no go.”

I smiled.

“How can I find Melman?”

“I’ve got it here somewhere,” he said, lowering his eyes and opening a drawer. “Here.”

He withdrew a small notebook and flipped through it. He copied out an address on an index card and handed it to me. He took another drink of wine.

“It’s his studio, but he lives there, too,” he added. I nodded and set down my glass.

“I appreciate everything you told me.”

He raised the bottle.

“Have another drink?”

“No, thanks.”

He shrugged and topped off his own.

I rose.

“You know, it’s really sad,” he said.

“What?”

“That there’s no magic, that there never was, there probably never will be.”

“That’s the breaks,” I said.

“The world would be a lot more interesting place.”

“Yeah.”

I turned to go.

“Do me a favor,” he said.

“What?”

“On the way out, set that sign for three o’clock and let the bolt in the door snap shut again.”

“Sure.” I left him there and did those things. The sky had grown a lot darker, the wind a bit more chill. I tried again to reach Luke, from a phone on the corner, but he was still out.

We were happy. It had been a terrific day. The weather was perfect, and everything we did had worked out right. We went to a fan party that evening and afterward had a late dinner at a really good little place we’d stumbled upon by accident. We lingered over drinks, hating for the day to end. We decided then to prolong a winning streak, and we drove to an otherwise deserted beach where we sat around and splashed around and watched the moon and felt the breezes. For a long while. I did something then that I had sort of promised myself I would not. Hadn’t Faust thought a beautiful moment worth a soul?

“Come on,” I said, aiming my beer can at a trash bin and catching hold of her hand. “Let’s take a walk.”

“Where to?” she asked, as I drew her to her feet.

“Fairy land,” I replied. “The fabled realms of yore. Eden. Come on.”

Laughing, she let me lead her along the beach, toward a place where it narrowed, squeezing by high embankments. The moon was generous and yellow, the sea sang my favorite song.

We strolled hand in hand past the bluffs, where a quick turning of the way took us out of sight of our stretch of sand. I looked for the cave that should be occurring soon, high and narrow…

“A cave,” I announced moments later. “Let’s go in.”

“It’ll be dark.”

“Good,” I said, and we entered.

The moonlight followed us for about six paces. By then, though, I had spotted the turnoff to the left.

“This way,” I stated.

“It is dark!”

“Sure. Just keep hold of me a little longer. It’ll be okay.” Fifteen or twenty steps and there was a faint illumination to the right. I led her along that turning and the way brightened as we advanced.

“We may get lost,” she said softly.

“I don’t get lost,” I answered her.

It continued to brighten. The way turned once more, and we proceeded along that last passage to emerge at the foot of a mountain in sight of a low forest, the sun standing at midmorning height above its trees.

She froze, blue eyes wide. “It’s daytime!” she said.

“Tempus fugit,” I replied. “Come on.”

We walked through the woods for a time, listening to the birds and the breezes, dark-haired Julia and I, and I led her after a while through a canyon of colored rocks and grasses, beside a stream that flowed into a river.

We followed the river until we came, abruptly, to a precipice from whence it plunged a mighty distance, casting rainbows and fogs. Standing there, staring out across the great valley that lay below, we beheld a city of spires and cupolas, gilt and crystal, through morning and mist.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Just around the corner,” I said. “Come.”

I led her to the left, then down a trail that took us back along the face of the cliff, passing finally behind the cataract. Shadows and diamond beads… a roaring to approach the power of silence…

We passed at last into a tunnel, damp at first but drying as it rose. We followed it to a gallery, open to our left and looking out upon night and stars, stars, stars… It was an enormous prospect, blazing with new constellations, their light sufficient to cast our shadows onto the wall behind us. She leaned over the low parapet, her skin some rare polished marble, and she looked downward.

“They’re down there, too,” she said. “And to both sides! There is nothing below but more stars. And to the sides…”

“Yes. Pretty things, aren’t they?”

We remained there for a long while, watching, before I could persuade her to come away and follow the tunnel farther… It bore us out again to behold a ruined classical amphitheater beneath a late afternoon sky. Ivy grew over broken benches and fractured pillars. Here and there lay a shattered statue, as if cast down by earthquake. Very picturesque. I’d thought she’d like it, and I was right. We took turns seating ourselves and speaking to each other. The acoustics were excellent.

We walked away then, hand in hand, down myriad ways beneath skies of many colors, coming at last in sight of a quiet lake with a sun entering evening upon its farther shore. There was a glittering mass of rock off to my right. We walked out upon a small point cushioned with mosses and ferns.

I put my arms around her and we stood there for a long time, and the wind in the trees was lute song counterpointed by invisible birds. Later still, I unbuttoned her blouse. “Right here?” she said.

“I like it here. Don’t you?”

“It’s beautiful. Okay. Wait a minute.”

So we lay down and made love till the shadows covered us. After a time she slept, as I desired.

I set a spell upon her to keep her asleep, for I was beginning to have second thoughts over the wisdom of making this journey. Then I dressed both of us and picked her up to carry her back. I took a shortcut.

On the beach from which we’d started I put her down and stretched out beside her. Soon I slept also.

We did not awaken till after the sun was up, when the sounds of bathers roused us.

She sat up and stared at me.

“Last night,” she said, “could not have been a dream. But it couldn’t have been real either. Could it?”

“I guess so,” I said. She furrowed her brow.

“What did you just agree to?” she asked.

“Breakfast,” I said. “Let’s go get some. Come on.”

“Wait a minute.” She put a hand on my arm. “Something unusual happened. What was it?”

“Why destroy the magic by talking about it? Let’s go eat.”

She questioned me a lot in the days that followed, but I was adamant in refusing to talk about it. Stupid, the whole thing was stupid. I should never have taken her on that walls. It contributed to that final argument that set us permanently apart.

And now, driving, as I thought about it, I realized something more than my stupidity. I realized that I had been in love with her, that I still loved her. Had I not taken her on that walk, or had I acknowledged her later accusation that I was a sorcerer, she, would not have taken the route that she took, seeking power of her own — probably for self protection. She would be alive.

I bit my lip and cried out. I cut around the braking car in front of me and crashed a light. If I had killed the thing I loved, I was certain that the opposite was not going to be true.