I am a sorceress and a warrior. I do not relish being treated as a breeding animal. Would this occur to Captain Nordenholz? No force, he says, has been applied—but I am forced by my circumstances, cast up here with a peso, and by my Indian blood which compels me to side with all enemies of Spain. The child will be brought up a sorcerer or sorceress.
Now, a short rundown on these shabby adventurers plotting to appropriate a continent and remake it to their taste. They all puto queer maricones. Look at that Juanito—el más maricón de los maricones. El más puto de los putos. Nordenholz was selling his ass in Hamburg twenty years ago. Old story: sea captain takes a liking to him, signs him on as fourth mate.
And Strobe with his well-rehearsed Eton accent. Circus people. Mother and father were aerialists and they did this high-wire hanging act with angel wings: he takes off the noose, extends his wings, and goes into a dazzling aerial act with his angel wife. It attracted a lot of attentions and the Strobes were taken up by the best people but not for long. Soon the lordliness of their manners, talking to royalty as if they were being nice to the servants, rendered them absolutely insufferable. Their American origins were discovered and they were sent to the colonies, where they decided the angel act was too exotic for American tastes and booked as the Singing Aerialists. Soon they added other instruments, throwing them from one to another on tightropes—a high-wire musical juggling act it was. Young John learned his poise on the high wire and his swordsmanship as well. But show biz wasn't for him, and he shipped out with Nordenholz.
The Iguana twins have some claim to aristocratic birth. They came from an old landed family, impoverished and dispossessed. They were brought up to act rich at all times—"act like you've got it and you'll get it," Mother always said. You can't lay it on too thick in Mexico. With preposterous forged titles and pistoleros on credit they seized an estate in northern Mexico and hit a silver vein.
Nordeholz is a good organizer. He saw at once that a single settlement would inevitably be discovered and wiped out. His plan called for a series of settlements, so that if one were taken they could retreat to another fortified position while bands of thirty men or so cut supply lines, contaminated the enemy water supply, conducted hit-and-run raids, and eventually forced the enemy to fight on two fronts when they laid siege to the next position. Sound strategy. With every victory, more people flocked to the Articles.
Suppose the Spanish have been driven out or brought under the Articles? Suppose, too, similar uprisings in North America and Canada have shattered English and French rule. What now? Can this vast territory be held without the usual machinery of government, ambassadors, standing army and navy? They can only plan to hold the area by sorcery. This is a sorcerers' revolution. I must find my part as a sorceress.
Quién es?
We flew back with a three-hour stopover at Orly. I had decided what I was going to do. I was going to refund Mr. Green's retainer, minus travel expenses, and tell him the actual killers were dead in a plane crash. The Greek police consider the case closed. Nothing further I can do.
Back in my New York loft I called the Greens. "This is Clem Snide calling. I'd like to speak to Mr. Green, please."
A woman's voice sounded guarded: "What is it in reference to, please?"
"I am a private investigator retained by Mr. Green."
"Well, I'm afraid you can't speak to him. You see, Mr. and Mrs. Green are dead."
"Dead?"
"Yes. They were killed last night in a car crash. This is Mrs. Green's sister." She sounded pretty cool about it.
"I'm terribly sorry...." I was thinking about what Dimitri had said. The "Adepts" who had hanged Jerry did not know what magical intentions they were projecting. They did not know to whom they were aspeak ... plane crash ... car crash ...
I didn't want to think about the Green case anymore, but it stuck to me like the fever smell. What had Dimitri called it? B-23, the Hanging Fever.
Death is enforced separation from the body. Orgasm is identification with the body. So death in the moment of orgasm literally embodies death. It would also yield an earth-bound spirit—an incubus dedicated to reproducing that particular form of death.
I took a Nembutal and finally slept.
Someone was murdered in this room a long time ago. How long ago ... the empty safe .. the bloody pipe threader? His partner must have done it. They never caught him. Easy to disappear in those days, when a silver dollar bought a good meal and piece of ass. Smell of dust and old fear in the room. Someone is at the back door. Quién es? The hall is dark.
It's Marty come to call ... gaslight now on the yellow pock-marked face, the cold gray eyes, the brilliantined black hair, the coat with fur trimming at the collar, the purple waistcoat beneath....
"We had a hard time finding you." His drunken driver there can hardly stand up. "Wore himself out getting here, he did."
"He made a few stops along the way."
"Come along to the Metropole and have some bubbly. It's my treat."
Now Broadway's full of guys who think they're mighty wise, just because they know a thing or two
"No, thanks."
"What do you mean, no thanks? We had a long way to find you."
You can see them every day, strolling up and down Broadway, boasting of the wonders they can do
"I'm expecting someone from the Palace."
"Your old pals aren't good enough anymore? Is that it?"
"I don't remember we were exactly pals, Marty."
There are con men and drifters, Murphy men and grifters, and they all hang around the Metropole
"Let me in, Dalford. I've come a long way."
"All right, but ..."
But their names would be mud, like a chump playing stud, if they lost that old ace down in the hole
"Nice place you got here. Plenty of room. You could put the Metropole in here if it came to that...." He is sitting on the bed now.
They'll tell you of trip that they're going to take, from Florida up to the old North Pole
"Look, Marty ..."
I wake up. Jim is covered with white foam. I can't wake him. "Jamie! ... Jamie! ..." Cold white foam.
I wake up. Jim is standing with a pipe threader in his hand, looking towards the back door.... "I thought someone was in the room."
I got up and dressed and went into the kitchen to make breakfast. It tasted disgusting. The Everson questionnaire and picture had arrived, and I looked through them as I drank coffee. The pictures were quite ordinary. The Everson boy looked like the clean-cut American Boy. I wondered why he had taken up such an esoteric subject as Mayan archeology.
Jim came in and asked if he could take the day off. He does that occasionally, has an apartment of his own in the East Village. After he left, I sat down and went carefully through the Everson case: the boy had been in Mexico City doing some research in the library preparatory to a dig in Yucatán. In his last letter he said he was leaving for Progreso in a few days and would write from there.
After two weeks, his family was worried. They waited another week then called the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. A man checked his address, and the landlady said he had packed and left almost three weeks ago. A police check of hotel registration in Progreso turned up nothing. It had now been about six weeks with no word.