"I'm sorry to hear that," Mad said, lowering her gaze. "Did you. . tell Garth about me?"
"No, and I don't plan to. If you'll help me, there won't be any need."
"You know I'll do anything I can, Mongo-as long as I don't get any publicity."
"I want you to go for a ride with Garth and me. Garth already knows about your involvement with the occult, so that won't be a problem. You'll eventually have to make up a story about what happened to your forehead, so it may as well be sooner as later." I lighted a cigarette, squinted against the smoke. I suddenly felt very tired. "There's another woman I'd like to ask to come along. I'll need her expertise, as well as yours."
Mad's blue eyes clouded, and she frowned. "I don't know, Mongo," she said hesitantly. "My career is so important to me. Lately, I've begun to regret that I ever became involved with the occult."
"I know. But this woman's a witch to begin with-and she's a friend of mine. You have my word that she'll keep your secret."
Mad gave a slight toss of her head, then brushed her silver hair back and smiled easily. "Your word's good enough for me. Where are we going, and what do you plan to do?"
"Let's wait on that until I get everything absolutely straight in my own head. When will you feel up to going out?"
Mad shrugged. "I'm ready to go now, if it will clear this business up once and for all."
"Tomorrow morning," I said. I rose, took Mad's arm and helped her. to her feet. "If you change your mind and want to wait a few days, let me know."
"All right. But I won't. What time?"
"I have to check with Garth and the other woman, but let's say eleven."
"Eleven it is."
I walked Madeline to her car and drove her home. Later, I called Garth and April. My stomach wouldn't stop churning.
The city was aglow with copper light, and the late-morning air was oppressively thick, dirty and hot. Black-bottomed clouds had been scudding low across the sky for hours, phantom freighters impatient to unload their wet cargo. It was going to rain soon-and hard.
Despite the impending downpour, no one had suggested that we put off the trip. Events now seemed to be moving with a momentum of their own. Garth, Madeline and April seemed to sense that; I knew it. To put off this journey would only postpone the inevitable, and it was best to get it out of the way as soon as possible. That was what I kept telling myself. I was, after all, responsible for whatever was going to happen, and at the moment I was the only one who carried the burden of knowing just how ugly was the face of the secret we hunted.
The tires on Garth's car whined as we went down the entrance ramp and entered the maw of the Lincoln Tunnel. There'd been little conversation; everyone was waiting impatiently for me to explain what we were supposed to be doing, and the atmosphere inside the car was tense. Garth was driving his Pontiac, and Madeline sat with him in the front, staring moodily out the side window. April sat in the back with me, holding tightly to my hand. Her palm was wet and clammy. I was slouched down in the seat, wishing I were even smaller than I was. I puffed mechanically on a cigarette, blowing the smoke out the side vent.
"Are you sure you're all right, Doctor?" Garth said quietly to the woman sitting next to him.
"Yes, thank you," Madeline said evenly. "I'm just paying for my own stupidity. If I hadn't been so impatient and yanked on the chart, the rack wouldn't have fallen on me."
Garth inclined his head back. "Are you all right, Mongo?" he asked with heavy sarcasm. "Are you alive, Mongo?" Anger and hurt hummed in his voice.
"I'm alive."
"You're being very mysterious, brother, even for you."
"Lay off for a bit, will you, Garth?"
"Come on, Mongo!" Garth snapped. "The party's under way, and you're the host. It's time you told us where we're going, and why we're going."
We passed out of the tunnel, into New Jersey. I flicked my cigarette out the window and straightened up in the seat. I'd run out of time. "We're going to Philadelphia to look for Frank Marlowe's book of shadows."
"What the hell?" Garth said, accidentally hitting the brake and almost sending us into a skid. Madeline had turned in her seat and, like April, was staring at me with astonishment. Garth started to pull over to the shoulder of the road.
"Keep going, brother," I said curtly. "At the moment, I'll feel better if we're moving."
"Where in Philadelphia?" Garth asked, accelerating up past the speed limit and moving into the passing lane. The anger in his voice had been replaced by curiosity.
"To April's house-with her permission, of course."
April gasped and put her hand to her mouth. "Robert? I didn't take Frank's book of shadows!"
"Of course you didn't," I said to April, squeezing her hand. "I think your former husband put his book-or at least, the bulk of it-in your attic. That's what we're looking for."
"Explain, brother," Garth said quietly.
"Frank Marlowe wasn't working on a 'book of shadows' in the witchcraft sense of the term. This was his big book-the one he'd always wanted to do. And it would have been big; maybe it still will be. A coven: witchcraft, murder, extortion and sex-it had everything, up to and including some very big names in show business and politics. That was his book of shadows; he was probably even going to call it that. He'd been working on it from the first day he became involved with the coven."
The rains came; or, rather, they attacked. The sudden cloudburst was a thick wall of water falling on us with the force of a giant wave. Sheets of rain swept over the car, instantaneously reducing visibility to zero. Huge droplets banged against the roof and windshield like the foot slaps of millions of running soldiers; their supporting artillery could be heard close by-laser rockets of lightning, explosions of thunder, their percussive vibrations felt through the body of the car.
Garth immediately turned on the wipers, but, despite the fact that he had them on at high speed, they had little more effect on the blurred windshield than someone swishing his hand through the water of a pond looking for something on the bottom. Garth slowed the car to a crawl as dozens of taillights, glowing like red wounds in the day, suddenly appeared on the road before us.
A few minutes before, I would have been glad for any excuse not to talk. Now I resented the storm's interruption, the way in which it had wrenched my audience's attention away from me. My certainty, and the words it generated, were building up with inexorable force, like poison in an infected wound.
After fifteen minutes of creeping along, watching Garth hunched over the wheel, I could stand the pressure no longer.
"April," I continued, raising my voice so as to be heard over the snare-drum beat of the rain and loud flop-flop of the wipers, "you were the one who told me Frank used to periodically drop manuscripts off at your home for storage and safekeeping. That's what he'd been doing with his book. The early parts of his research-the meat of what we want, including the names of the coven members and records of their activities-is probably still up there in your attic. That shopping bag you brought me was the last thing he brought up. I'm sure that, if we really look around up there, we'll find more than enough to put Krowl and the rest of the coven away permanently."
April shook her head. "I don't understand. You said that Frank told Kathy his book of shadows had been stolen."
"Only part of it-the sections he had in his apartment. The main work had been done, and I'm betting he was just researching background material on witchcraft in general in order to flesh out the book. Those sections didn't have anything in them to identify the members of the coven; but when they were stolen, Frank knew his secret was out and that he was in deep trouble. It was those minor sections that Daniel stole."