I looked round and saw the golden-skinned woman walk in.
“Good morning,” I said. “They must like you.”
She laughed pleasantly. “Hello. Weren’t they behaving?”
Under the black beach robe her skin was a softer, more mellow gold, and it was her eyes that held me. I could just see them under the wide-brimmed hat. Insect legs wavered delicately round two points of purple light.
She walked over to a bank of mixed ferns and stood looking at them. The ferns reached out towards her and trebled eagerly in their liquid fluted voices.
“Aren’t they sweet?” she said, stroking the fronds gently. “They need so much affection.”
Her voice was low in the register, a breath of cool sand pouring, with a lilt that gave it music.
“I’ve just come to Vermilion Sands,” she said, “and my apartment seems awfully quiet. Perhaps if I had a flower, one would be enough, I shouldn’t feel so lonely.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“Yes,” I agreed, brisk and businesslike. “What about something colourful? This Sumatra Samphire, say? It’s a pedigree mezzo-soprano from the same follicle as the Bayreuth Festival Prima Belladonna.”
“No,” she said. “It looks rather cruel.”
“Or this Louisiana Lute Lily? If you thin out its SO2 it’ll play some beautiful madrigals. I’ll show you how to do it.”
She wasn’t listening to me. Slowly, her hands raised in front of her breasts so that she almost seemed to be praying, she moved towards the display counter on which the Arachnid stood.
“How beautiful it is,” she said, gazing at the rich yellow and purple leaves hanging from the scarlet-ribbed vibrocalyx.
I followed her across the floor and switched on the Arachnid’s audio so that she could hear it. Immediately the plant came to life. The leaves stiffened and filled with colour and the calyx inflated, its ribs sprung tautly. A few sharp disconnected notes spat out.
“Beautiful, but evil,” I said.
“Evil?” she repeated. “No, proud.” She stepped closer to the orchid and looked down into its malevolent head. The Arachnid quivered and the spines on its stem arched and flexed menacingly.
“Careful,” I warned her. “It’s sensitive to the faintest respiratory sounds.”
“Quiet,” she said, waving me back. “I think it wants to sing.”
“Those are only key fragments,” I told her. “It doesn’t perform. I use it as a frequency-”
“Listen!” She held my arm and squeezed it tightly.
A low, rhythmic fusion of melody had been coming from the plants around the shop, and mounting above them I heard a single stronger voice calling out, at first a thin high-pitched reed of sound that began to pulse and deepen and finally swelled into full baritone, raising the other plants in chorus about itself.
I had never heard the Arachnid sing before. I was listening to it open-eared when I felt a glow of heat burn against my arm. I turned and saw the woman staring intently at the plant, her skin aflame, the insects in her eyes writhing insanely. The Arachnid stretched out towards her, calyx erect, leaves like blood-red sabres.
I stepped round her quickly and switched off the argon feed. The Arachnid sank to a whimper, and around us there was a nightmarish babel of broken notes and voices toppling from high C’s and L’s into discord. A faint whispering of leaves moved over the silence.
The woman gripped the edge of the tank and gathered herself. Her skin dimmed and the insects in her eyes slowed to a delicate wavering.
“Why did you turn it off?” she asked heavily.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I’ve got ten thousand dollars’ worth of stock here and that sort of twelve-tone emotional storm can blow a lot of valves. Most of these plants aren’t equipped for grand opera.”
She watched the Arachnid as the gas drained out of its calyx. One by one its leaves buckled and lost their colour.
“How much is it?” she asked me, opening her bag.
“It’s not for sale,” I said. “Frankly I’ve no idea how it picked up those bars-”
“Will a thousand dollars be enough?” she asked, her eyes fixed on me steadily.
“I can’t,” I told her. “I’d never be able to tune the others without it. Anyway,” I added, trying to smile, ’that Arachnid would be dead in ten minutes if you took it out of its vivarium. All these cylinders and leads would look a little odd inside your lounge.”
“Yes, of course,” she agreed, suddenly smiling back at me. “I was stupid.” She gave the orchid a last backward glance and strolled away across the floor to the long Tchaikovsky section popular with the tourists.
“Pathétique,” she read off a label at random. “I’ll take this.”
I wrapped up the scabia and slipped the instructional booklet into the crate, keeping my eye on her aE the time.
“Don’t look so alarmed,” she said with amusement. “I’ve never heard anything like that before.”
I wasn’t alarmed. It was that thirty years at Vermilion Sands had narrowed my horizons.
How long are you staying at Vermilion Sands?” I asked her.
“I open at the Casino tonight,” she said. She told me her name was Jane Ciracylides and that she was a speciality singer.
“Why don’t you look in?” she asked, her eyes fluttering mischievously. I come on at eleven. You may find it interesting.”
I did. The next morning Vermilion Sands hummed. Jane created a sensation. After her performance three hundred people swore they’d seen everything from a choir of angels taking the vocal in the music of the spheres to Alexander’s Ragtime Band. As for myself, perhaps I’d listened to too many flowers, but at least I knew where the scorpion on the balcony had come from.
Tony Miles had heard Sophie Tucker singing the “St Louis Blues”, and Harry, the elder Bach conducting the B Minor Mass.
They came round to the shop and argued over their respective performances while I wrestled with the flowers.
“Amazing,” Tony exclaimed. “How does she do it? Tell me.”
“The Heidelberg score,” Harry ecstased. “Sublime, absolute.” He looked irritably at the flowers. “Can’t you keep these things quiet? They’re making one hell of a row.”
They were, and I had a shrewd idea why. The Arachnid was completely out of control, and by the time I’d clamped it down in a weak saline it had blown out over three hundred dollars’ worth of shrubs.
“The performance at the Casino last night was nothing on the one she gave here yesterday,” I told them. “The Ring of the Niebelungs played by Stan Kenton. That Arachnid went insane. I’m sure it wanted to kill her.”
Harry watched the plant convulsing its leaves in rigid spasmic movements.
“If you ask me it’s in an advanced state of rut. Why should it want to kill her?”
“Her voice must have overtones that irritate its calyx. None of the other plants minded. They cooed like turtle doves when she touched them.”
Tony shivered happily.
Light dazzled in the street outside.
I handed Tony the broom. “Here, lover, brace yourself on that. Miss Ciracylides is dying to meet you.”
Jane came into the shop, wearing a flame yellow cocktail skirt and another of her hats.
I introduced her to Harry and Tony.
“The flowers seem very quiet this morning,” she said. “What’s the matter with them?”
“I’m cleaning out the tanks,” I told her. “By the way, we all want to congratulate you on last night. How does it feel to be able to name your fiftieth city?”
She smiled shyly and sauntered away round the shop. As I knew she would, she stopped by the Arachnid and levelled her eyes at it.
I wanted to see what she’d say, but Harry and Tony were all around her, and soon got her up to my apartment, where they had a hilarious morning playing the fool and raiding my scotch.
“What about coming out with us after the show tonight?” Tony asked her. “We can go dancing at the Flamingo.”
“But you’re both married,” Jane protested. “Aren’t you worried about your reputations?”