Authors: Joe Gores
Just then the doorknob turned. With remarkable agility, Staley leaped into bed and jerked the covers up as Lulu, out of her
chair with equal alacrity, grabbed up his glass of water and dashed it in his face. Crichton entered to find Staley flat on
his back, tossing his sweat-beaded head from side to side on the soaked pillow.
“I heard Hawkins all the way down in the doctor’s lounge,” Crichton began apologetically. “Did he…”
“Terrible abusive, he was,” snuffled Lulu. She was dabbing the moisture off Staley’s contorted features. “He swore an’ called
my Karl names…”
Crichton sighed. “I’ll see he doesn’t get in here to bother you again.”
They grinned at each other as the door closed behind him.
“Three-four days oughtta do it,” said Staley.
“Yes, my beloved,” said Lulu warmly.
* * *
In San Francisco, it was a night for lovemaking. And con games. And maybe jealous rages.
Bart Heslip and his forever lady, Corinne Jones, were buying a house together above Parnassus in that maze of little streets
twisting up the side of Twin Peaks. It was a Victorian with dark hardwood walls and floors, big front windows, an upstairs,
an old-fashioned swing on a front porch with chunky balustrades, and a modern kitchen with a microwave and an electric stove
that Corinne had installed herself and loved.
Walking uphill from the bus at six o’clock, she found Bart in the kitchen with lamb chops in the broiler, mashed potatoes
warm on the stove, brussels sprouts in the microwave, and a green salad on the countertop he’d laid tile by tile.
“My God!” she exclaimed, folding herself into his thick black arms. “It’s a miracle!”
“C’mon, I do
lots
of cookin’ around here…”
“Microwave popcorn,” she said, opening things and peeking into things and sniffing things. “Hot dogs. But lamb chops… and
even a crucifer…” She laughed over her shoulder at his sour face. “What you want? You must want somethin’…”
Bart suddenly grinned. “How about you?” he said.
“That can be arranged.”
It was.
An hour later they sat down to dinner by candlelight, Bart waving his arms around as he told her just how much he wasn’t accomplishing
on the Great Gyppo Hunt.
“Everybody’s grabbing cars but me! Even Trin Morales got one of ’em, for God sake! Morales!”
By soft candleglow, Corinne’s black eyes gleamed in her heart-shaped brown face. She was a beautiful woman, with high cheekbones
off an Egyptian wall painting and a wide warm kissable mouth. Bart was stirred again just looking at that face.
“You always said he was a very good detective.”
Heslip laid down his knife and fork to gesture some more.
“Also a son of a bitch, unlike the other Latinos I know. Point is, he doesn’t know anything more about Gyppos than I do—but
he’s
scored. Larry’s got his fortune-teller feedin’ him leads, Giselle’s got some secret informant, O’B just busted one out by
the Cow Palace, the Great White Father is down in L.A. knocking ’em off…”
“And poor little Bart Heslip is a pseudo house-husband stuck at home baking cookies for his wage-earning cutie.”
“Well, damn near.”
They both laughed, and linked their wineglasses gaily; and the phone rang. Corinne wiped her mouth as she stood up.
“It’ll be the office.”
The year before, she had taken over as manager of the downtown travel bureau where she had worked for several years; she and
Bart were even talking about buying in when the owner retired. The promotion had meant more money, but in the recession crunch
the agency had taken to staying open until seven o’clock weekday evenings, and problems were usually bounced back to Corinne
even if she had gone home for the night.
But it was Giselle Marc’s familiar voice on the phone. After hello-hello, Corinne said, “I hear you have a mysterious Gypsy
informant all of your own.”
“Mysterious is right,” said Giselle. “One cryptic phone call that led me to a mark who led me to Larry’s fortune-teller.”
“Jealously among the Gyppos?” asked Corinne.
“Something like that, maybe I’ll know more tonight.” She added quickly, “Don’t tell Bart that, he’ll tell Larry and—”
Corinne chuckled. “Gotcha.” Giselle had told her all about Yana and the claws she had in Larry.
“Speaking of Bart the Incredible Hulk, is he around?”
“And grouchy as a bear.”
“Then I think I have some good news for him.”
Heslip was standing beside her when she turned to look for him; he always knew when she was talking with Giselle. The two
women had gone through a couple of things together that had made them the same kind of real friends he and Larry were.
He took the receiver from Corinne’s hand, making a kissing mouth at her as she went back to her dinner before it got cold.
“Ed McMahon called, I’m worth millions?”
“Next best thing,” said Giselle. “Dan has a chokehold on Poteet and the man is paying off like a drilled slot machine.”
Cutting lamb, Corinne watched Bart write things down. She knew him so well. They had met just before he had quit the ring,
and for years she had hated his being a detective as much as she’d hated his being a boxer, had even convinced herself she
hated Dan Kearny for making him a DKA associate. But finally she had realized that Bart defined himself by the game, and his
game was Me against You, whether in the ring or in the field.
Me against You, and no color, no social status, no educational differences to worry about. Delinquent debtor, deadbeat, embezzler,
skip, defrauder, personal injury cheat, they were all the same. For Bart, just Me against You, physical if you wanted it that
way, but usually outguessing, outthinking, or outfacing you to bring you down. In a way she’d even come to approve of it—she
couldn’t deny that sort of excitement and challenge to her man…
Who was writing and mumbling, “Yeah, yeah, I got it, mmhmm, Seattle… Yeah. And that’s… Okay, J-O-S-E-F—that’s with an ‘F’—A-D-A-M-O.
And his scam… Road paving. We got an address or… Just check on new subdivisions, huh? Okay, Got it. And Chicago… hold it
a sec…”
He started another
REPO ON SIGHT
order.
“In Chicago it’s… Mmmhmm, N-A-N-O-O-S-H… what was the second… T-S-A-T-S-H-I-M-O—Tsatshimo, that right?… Yeah… Metal plating?
What the hell is… Okay, got you… Yeah… Either likely to be using his real name?… Okay, sure, I’ll call you, give you my
motel soon’s I get… Yeah, I’ll fly tonight. Soon’s I can get to the airport…”
He talked a few moments more, hung up, turned to Corinne wearing a face alight with excitement.
“Honey, old Dan Kearny turned this L.A. Gyppo upside down and shook him, and out popped—”
“Seattle and Chicago and a couple of Gyps with names like rare diseases.”
He chuckled. “Think you’re so smart! Anyway, I gotta—”
“Soon as you can get to the airport?”
Her tantalizing Mona Lisa smile made Heslip realize he was going to be several long days—and nights—away from her sweet face
and sweet body and that sweet loving he’d just had some of not long before…
“Well, baby, all that ‘soon’ talk is relative, isn’t it? Gotta find out when there’s a Seattle flight, no use hanging around
the airport for hours… What’s ‘soon,’ after all…”
Somehow, they never did finish that fine dinner house-husband Heslip had slaved over.
R
amon Ristik met Teddy at the door. “Do you have the egg?”
Teddy held up the old battered yellow gym bag as if it carried the Hope diamond. “Still in my Reebok. Just the way Madame
Miseria told me. And the money, all I could raise.”
Ristik nodded and stepped aside to let him by. It was all part of the mumbo jumbo, but also Yana had not been quite ready
for the night’s charade. They had been arguing, truth be told. About the tall blond
gadjo
with whom Yana had a relationship Ristik really didn’t understand. And didn’t trust at all.
But Ristik had dropped it: after all, who knew what powers Yana might
really
possess? Ramon always had secretly believed that his sister had been born with “a veil over her forehead” as the gift of
second sight often is described by the
rom
.
She appeared at the head of the stairs when Teddy had limped halfway up—the snake down his flank was severe. Yana was back
in her bright filmy Gypsy clothes, but tonight it was without anything under them so her beautiful figure was outlined mistily
by the light behind her.
Ristik approved of the tantalizing display, it kept Teddy off balance. But he couldn’t approve of the blond
gadjo
. How did Yana know him so well? From when? From where? She almost acted as if they once had been…
lovers
. But
rom, gadjo
…
“You have come,” said Yana in that eerily deep voice she could assume at will.
“Ye-e-es,” quavered Teddy.
“To learn whether evil had hatched out or not.”
Yana was as beautiful as ever, but Teddy noted there were shadows under her eyes—skillfully applied, which he didn’t notice—
and her skin was pale, almost translucent. He didn’t realize, either, that she had dusted pale powder on beforehand and that
her parrot-bright silks were to heighten the effect.
She said, “All day I have been feeling…
a presence
…”
Teddy was led to the
boojo
room. Flickering candles made shadow demons dance in the corners. They sat down across from one another at the table. No
crystal ball tonight; instead, a single small bone-white ceramic bowl like that in which his money had bled. Ristik had disappeared.
Yana gripped both of Teddy’s hands hard in hers.
“Let us pray now to Jesus Christ the Savior,” she said.
Teddy panicked—he hadn’t prayed in years, so he could think of nothing except “Now I lay me down to sleep…” Yana started
a Hail Mary, but suddenly stopped and released his hands.
“It is no good!” she exclaimed harshly. “The emanations are too strong…” She transfixed him with her sudden fierce gaze.
“You brought all the cash you could raise?”
“Yes,” said a terrified Teddy. He didn’t say he had cheated, that it was all he could raise without starting to cash in the
investments his stepfather had left for him. “Over five thousand dollars. But…”
“
But!
Do you wish to die?”
“No, but—”
“Die horribly?”
Teddy slumped in his chair. “No.” His limbs twitched. Sweat poured down his face. Yana softened.
“Perhaps it will not come down to the money.”
As if on cue, Ristik appeared, pale. “The omens are bad! You must not do this!” But she waved him away.
“I must. Leave us. Be ready if I cry out.”
He seemed to struggle against her, but finally disappeared silently through the curtains again.
Yana turned back to Teddy. “Put the egg on the table.”
He opened his old yellow gym bag and took out the Reebok. If he had felt silly putting the egg in the shoe, he didn’t now.
Now he felt disoriented, terrified, feverish. Out of the shoe he carefully took the sweatsock in which he had rolled the egg.
He put the egg carefully beside the bowl.
“If the demon has not hatched, the egg will be pure. If it has…” Her voice trailed off, fraught with horrors.
“How… will we… know?”
“We will know.”
“And if it… if it is in the egg, what happens?”
She only whispered it. “It will pass from the egg to me.”
She took up the egg and rolled it gently between the palms of her flattened hands. When she did, she began to tremble. Suddenly,
with one convulsive jerk of her wrist, she cracked the egg against the rim of the bowl. She bent forward.
As did Teddy. He looked into the bowl. He screamed.
Staring up at him was a tiny bilious green devil’s head with black exclamation-point eyebrows, a black goatee, and gleaming
minuscule horns. Tiny evil eyes burned redly up into his through the mucous mess at the bottom of the bowl.
Even as he glimpsed it, Madame Miseria sprang to her feet, whirled around three times, and fell to the carpet where she rolled
to and fro, shrieking, gnashing her teeth. Ristik leaped into the room and grabbed her shoulders, trying to hold her down.
“Help me!” he cried. “The demon has passed from the egg into her! Goddam you, help me!”
The terrified Teddy threw himself on her, but she was tremendously strong. Her shiny teeth snapped at his face like a dog’s,
narrowly missing his nose. Ristik was chanting in
rom
. The squirmings and spasms of her body beneath Teddy’s were like obscene lovemaking. He felt disgust for himself: even as
she fought for his life, he wanted to possess her sexually!
Her convulsions began to lessen. Finally, the thrashing ceased. Ristik, panting, stood up to lean against the table, looking
down at them. He crossed himself.
“It… it has… gone.”
Yana sat up, a dazed look on her face. She was wringing wet. She whispered hoarsely, her vocal cords strained by her battle
with the forces of evil, “The… demon is very strong.”
She struggled to her feet. Teddy did the same, couldn’t help looking into the bowl again. The devil’s head was gone!
“Yes,” Yana nodded. “From the egg to me, It nearly took me, but now it has passed from me back whence it came.”
Teddy knew where that was. He knew what had to be done.
“So my money is—”
“Cursed. Indeed, it is cursed.”
The demon’s whirlwind passage had knocked the gym bag off the table; the paper bag’s money was spewed out across the floor.
As Teddy stared at it, mesmerized, Madame Miseria whispered, “It is the only way. Only then will the curse depart.”
Ristik had brought forward a thirty-gallon metal trash barrel and a poker and a box of decorative wooden fireplace matches
about a foot long. Yana picked up the money, folded the top of the paper bag down over the thick sheaf of bills. She slipped
the package into her bosom, crossed her arms over it.
“You have the strength to do what must be done?”