Raga Six (A Doctor Orient Occult Novel) (17 page)

Orient began to read.
 

Presto looked up. "Want a newspaper?"
 

"Sure." Orient reached over and took the paper Presto was holding out to him. He hadn’t seen any news for days. He glanced at the front page and saw that what passed for the world’s events was still nothing but a litany of chaos. He turned to the sports pages and began checking the day’s numbers, the race results, and the football and basketball columns. He’d gotten into the habit of doing this while he was Joker’s apprentice and the tabulations still held as much interest for him as a game of chess.
 

Turning to another page, he saw a picture of someone who looked familiar. When he looked closer at the photograph, his breath cut off in his throat and something heavy and oppressive settled in his chest. The girl was Pola Gleason. Pola. The girl Joker had sent him to see. And she was dead.
 

She had been found dead in her apartment of some undisclosed illness. There was no sign of a struggle or of robbery. She had been found by her cleaning woman in her bedroom. Police were investigating.
 

Orient read the last three words again.
 

Perhaps that was the reason for Joker’s complimentary trip.
 

CHAPTER 11

The loading of the ship began again early the next day and by late afternoon the last of eight automobiles had been secured on the rear deck, and the long front deck was almost completely covered with large wooden crates and heavy pieces of industrial machinery.
 

Orient spent most of the day on the upper deck trying to make a decision. He watched the cranes swing huge tractors onto the deck and wondered if the boat would sail that evening. He gazed at the dim outline of the hazed-over skyline and brooded over the advisability of calling Andy Jacobs.
 

But what could he tell the attorney, or the police?
 

That he had delivered a doctor’s bag containing a betting payoff to a complete stranger three days before she died of an illness? Joker was many things but he wasn’t a deliberate murderer. If Pola’s death was murder.
 

He watched a police car roll down the street outside the dock area and wondered if it would turn into the gates.
 

Most likely Joker had turned a quick profit on a shady deal and had decided to pull up stakes. If it were anything more serious, he wouldn’t have risked involving an amateur.
 

The police car slowed down and turned left, moving away from the dockyards, cruising through the bleak expanse of vacant lots, gasoline stations, and warehouses toward the squat cluster of project apartment houses. He looked down and studied his wrinkled palms.
 

But Joker had considered the deal serious enough to advise the amateur to leave town.
 

Orient decided to find out if he could call Andy from the ship’s telephone on the lower deck.
 

Arriving below and passing through the lounge, he saw a late edition of a newspaper on the bar. He picked it up and began checking the headlines. The item he was looking for was buried in a small paragraph on page three.
 

Pola Gleason had died of a form of leukemia. Her parents had arrived from Chicago to claim the body and had discovered that their daughter had been under a doctor’s care for over a year. Orient put the paper aside and sat on one of the high stools.
 

Perhaps he had overestimated the connection between Joker and Pola. The cowboy had at least a hundred clients. One of them was certain to die of illness or accident over a period of time. He decided to pass on calling Andy.
 

When the dinner bell rang, however, he was still mulling over the reasons for Pola’s strange maneuvers the day he delivered the bag.
 

The dining room arrangements were more formal this evening. Two of the three tables were fitly set and the steward was moving quickly to and from the kitchen as he hurried to serve the enlarged number of diners. There were name cards at each plate. Orient had been seated with Presto, Low Wallet, the woman with the black shawl, and the young girl. The blond potential and her friend were sitting at the next table between two older couples.
 

Presto and Wallet were involved in a discussion of the loading procedure of Presto’s motorcycle, so Orient said his good evenings, was introduced to Wallet’s wife and daughter, then settled back and let the talk continue to flow around him.
 

As he ate, he kept glancing over at the other table. The blond girl was seated between two men facing him, but the other three women at the table had their backs to him. Both men were listening attentively, and apparently with great pleasure, to the vivacious chatter of the blond girl.
 

"You don’t eat meat, huh, Owen?" Presto was saying, peering at Orient’s vegetable-heaped plate.
 

"Not if I can help it," Orient smiled. He didn’t go into detail.
 

"Is that how you stay so slim?" Greta Wallet asked.
 

"It’s good for your health generally," Orient explained. He looked around and saw that Greta’s daughter Gale was staring at him fixedly, her eyes wide. "It gives you more energy," Orient said to the little girl. Gale looked down at her plate.
 

"Shy," Greta smiled confidentially at Orient. Lew Wallet’s wife had deep lines in her wide, plain face, but her smile softened the lines and made her features warm and attractive.
 

Everyone at the other table burst into laughter at some remark the blond girl had made.
 

"What’s your business, Owen?" Lew Wallet asked.
 

"I’m in research," Orient answered. "And you?"
 

"Photographer." Wallet replaced the glasses over his small, watery eyes. "Except that I’m a specialist at developing film, while Presto here is a genius as taking them.”

"Lew’s a genius too," Greta put in. "He had a show of his new work just before we left New York."
 

"Just nonsense," Lew scoffed. "Friend of mine. I’ve been working on a new developing process with infrared film. On some of the photographs I took and developed we found some things that weren’t there when I was shooting. Things like old paintings on walls that were bare when I took the shots; even people’s faces floating in midair."
 

"What kind of process, Lew?" Presto squinted and leaned closer.
 

"Can’t discuss it yet. Still working on the patents. Anyway, there was all kinds of stuff on the photographs. I think they may be heat spots."
 

"Alfonso said they were ghosts," Gale said, looking around the table with glee.
 

"Alfonso’s my friend," Wallet went on. "He’s an astrologer. He actually makes a lot of money at that crazy stuff. He’s the one who convinced me to have a showing of the photographs at his salon. Good publicity for the process, but I don’t believe in this spirit business."
 

Orient didn’t answer. He did believe, however, that energy remains in the atmosphere long after its cause has been removed. Science had taught him that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, merely transformed. And reason told him that what men consider mysteries are only natural happenings for which there is no known connection. Only because man’s information is incomplete.
 

"Alfonso felt that Lew had bridged a dimension." Greta smiled and nodded at her husband. "They called the show ’Bridge.’"
 

"He called it ’Bridge,’" Lew corrected. "I call it hogwash. I thought I could find some backing for my process, but all I got was my horoscope read eight times. And none of them told me I’d be taking a voyage."
 

Orient was mildly interested in the subject of psychopictography, but he was more interested in developing the sensitivity of the mind to the point where an infrared process wasn’t needed. Still, the photographer’s process might have interesting possibilities for Orient’s own film tape project if and when he resumed work on it.
 

He looked up and saw the blond girl watching him. She smiled and looked away.
 

After dinner Orient did some reading, but he soon became restless. When he heard the low rumble of the engines increase and the announcement over the cabin’s intercom that the Trabik was sailing, he decided to go up on deck for the event.
 

A few other passengers had the same idea. Through the darkness Orient could see their silhouettes against the rail, looking over the rear deck across the water as the boat moved slowly through the blazing gauntlet of blinking harbor lights toward the open sea. He stood there watching until the blaze was no more than a fading cluster of pinpoint embers in the distance. Then he went down to the lounge.
 

The bar was now open and Presto, Lew and Greta Wallet, and one of the couples from the other dining table were sitting in a semicircle of armchairs near by. When Wallet saw Orient, he waved him over.
 

"What are you drinking?" Wallet demanded. "I’m standing the bon voyage toast."
 

Orient ordered a brandy and was introduced to the new couple, Jack and Alice Crowe. When his drink arrived, he raised his glass.
 

"Here’s to the sea," he said.
 

"This your first voyage?" Jack Crowe asked. He was a tall, flabby, unhealthy-looking man with crewcut hair. His face had the tense pinch of a ferret.
 

"First in a long while. I’m looking forward to it."
 

"We enjoy traveling on freighters," Alice Crowe volunteered. "It’s so relaxing and you meet such interesting people." She was a short, heavy woman. Her dark hair was closely cropped and she wore no makeup on her round face.
 

"I hope so," Orient said. "Could be tedious otherwise." As he spoke he felt a prickly sensation at the base of his skull. Then he saw the blond girl and her friend entering the lounge from the far passage.
 

The Crowes called out to them, and Lew and Presto pulled two chairs over as the gifts joined them.
 

The blond potential introduced herself as Pia. She was direct, casual, and friendly. Her friend, who was more hesitant, was called Janice. Pia ordered a brandy and Janice decided to have the same.
 

"Presto." Pia threw back her head and smiled. "Where on this planet did you get that name?"
 

Presto straightened up in his chair. "The whole name’s Prestone Williamson Wallace," he said earnestly, "but people have called me Presto ever since I can remember. Just natural, I guess."
 

"Have you ever been photographed, Pia?" Wallet asked gruffly. Pia laughed.
 

"I modeled for a few years. But I’m out of that now. I like to eat—and detest cameras."

 
"Yes." Wallet took off his dark glasses and squinted professionally. "You must have been very good."
 

"Are you interested in film?" Presto asked casually.
 

"Only as a spectator sport."
 

"Presto here is a young director," Wallet rumbled paternally. "We were thinking of doing some shooting on board."
 

Pia shook her head slowly, grinning as she saw what the two men were hinting at. "Consider me disqualified. I’m going to do some serious loafing this week." She turned to Greta. "I’ve been looking at the fine work in your shawl all evening. Did you make it yourself?"
 

"Why, yes." Greta Wallet flushed, partially with pleasure and partially self-consciously.
 

"That’s wonderful," Alice Crowe exclaimed nasally. "Isn’t it, Jack?"
 

"Very good." Jack Crowe pursed his lips. "We handle a big line of hand knits in our boutiques. We’re going to do some buying in Yugoslavia."
 

As the Crowes launched into the possibilities of Greta’s handiwork, Pia turned to Orient. "Where are you bound, Owen?" she asked lightly.
 

"Tangier."
 

"A tourist?" Pia made it sound like a compliment.
 

Orient nodded. "I’d like to do some sightseeing for awhile."
 

"What sort of research are you in, Owen?" Wallet asked.
 

"Oh, nothing very important," Orient said, suddenly uncomfortable at the direct turn in conversation.
 

"What kind of film are you making, Presto?" Pia asked. She gave Orient a quick smile as she spoke, almost as if she had realized Orient’s discomfort and deliberately moved attention away from him.
 

"I’ll shoot it as I go," Presto said. "Take footage in Morocco and Spain and do the processing and editing in Rome."
 

"Sounds like a winning combination," Pia said.
 

Orient looked at Janice. She was entirely absorbed in listening to whatever Pia said. Greta, Jack, and Alice were still murmuring enthusiastically about handicrafts, but Janice didn’t seem to be aware that there were any other people tallking. She watched every gesture of Pia’s with something close to adoration.
 

"Oh, hello, Doctor," Pia said.
 

Orient looked over at her automatically, but Pia wasn’t speaking to him. She was greeting the other man who had been seated at her dining table.
 

He was tall and stout with an expensive bearing. His suit was dark and well cut, his tie pin, cuff links, wrist bracelet, and massive ring all of hammered gold. A small yellow chain attached to the buttonhole in his wide lapel fell across the soft flannel into his breast pocket. He tried to smile, but it was an exertion for which the heavy-featured face hadn’t been trained.