Thanks for that much.
Her husband pulled out the chair reserved for her, and, she primly sat. She drew her hands out of the long sleeves of the gown like a surgeon preparing to wash up; she placed her small, delicate hands, the nails of which were long, razor sharp and as red as a gaping wound, flat on the table. The candle wax that had dripped onto the wood was damn near the same color as her nails. This pair was good. They were worth whatever they charged.
“Thank you for your presence,” she said. Her hair, what I could see of it under the hood, was jet-black and pulled away from her face; she wore a single, circular gold earring, the one overtly gypsylike touch. “You are Mr. Breckinbridge.”
Breckinbridge, she said.
But Colonel Breckinridge did not correct her; it isn’t polite to correct a psychic.
“You are a police officer,” she said to me, smiling as sweetly as a shy schoolgirl.
“That’s right,” I said. Breckinbridge, Schmeckinbridge, if this babe said she was psychic, she was psychic by me.
“And your name?”
“Nathan Heller,” I said. Christ, she smelled good.
“Mr. Heller, will you take my hand?”
Is the Pope Catholic?
She joined hands with me, and squeezed. Yowsah.
“When my companion has induced my trance state,” she said, “please clasp hands with Mr. Breckinbridge. And Mr. Breckinbridge, please clasp hands with Martin. And Martin will take my hand, and the psychic chain will be established. Please do not break the psychic chain.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.
Marinelli slowly, pompously, removed the golden, jeweled cross from around his neck. Holding it by its chain, he began to slowly pass it before the great big beautiful brown peepers of his wife.
Wife, hell. She called him “companion,” and he introduced her as Sister Sarah Sivella, not Marinelli. If anything, they were common-law. My conscience was clear, thinking the thoughts I was thinking.
He was mumbling something; an incantation, something-it was barely audible. But she seemed to hear it. Her eyes traced the slow, sensual movement of the cross before her, and when Marinelli with his free hand snapped his fingers, click! her eyes shut as tight as yanked-down window shades.
Then he clicked his fingers again and her eyelids rolled up the same way. Those eyes, deep brown and flecked with gold, were open wide in the stare of the dead. Her face seemed to lengthen; her expression was blankly sour. It spooked me. Breckinridge was similarly transfixed.
We both knew this was a bunch of bullshit; but the act was a good one, thanks to its fetching heroine, and we were caught up. We had all joined hands, now; in my right was the smooth delicate hand of the pretty medium, and in my left was Breckinridge’s big lawyer-soft paw.
“Who am I speaking to?” Marinelli asked.
“Ugh,” she said.
Ugh?
“Chief Yellow Feather-are you with us?”
She nodded. “Yellow Feather here.” Her voice was forced down into a male register. It sounded as ridiculous as you’re thinking.
I would’ve laughed, and on reflection did; but at that moment, I just went along with the ride. She smelled good, and I never heard a twenty-two-year-old dame with her nipples poking out of her shirt talk like an Indian before.
“Mr. Breckinbridge,” she continued, in the deep mock-male voice. What do you know? Chief Yellow Feather had the name wrong, too. “Spirits say kidnap note was left on windowsill in nursery.”
Breckinridge remained unruffled, when I glanced at him, but we both knew that this piece of information had not been released to the general public.
“Is this correct?” Marinelli asked Breckinridge.
“I’m not at liberty to confirm or deny that, sir,” the Colonel said, in a stiffly dignified manner that seemed about as silly, under the circumstances, as the voice of Chief Yellow Feather.
“Mr. Breckinbridge, you got note at your office today.”
“Note?” Breckinridge asked.
“Kidnap note.”
“No notes have been sent to my office.” He seemed relieved to be able to say that; it was, as far as I knew, the truth.
“All right,” said the girl huffily, in her big-chief voice. “Be at your office tomorrow. Nine in morning.”
“That’s pretty early.”
“Be at office!” The “chief” was firm.
“All right,” Breckinridge said, probably just to placate him. Her. Whoever.
Marinelli said, “Chief Yellow Feather-have you received any other spirit messages?”
“Yes. I see name.
“What name do you see?”
“Jafsie.”
I asked Marinelli, “Can I ask her a question?”
But Sarah answered. “You may speak to Yellow Feather,” she said, in her own voice.
“Yellow Feather, spell that name, please.”
“J-A-F-S-I-E.” This was intoned in the deep Indian voice.
“Thank you, Chief. Is the baby well?”
She shook her head slowly; her face lost its blankness and became sad.
“A baby’s body,” she said in her own voice, “will be found on the heights above Hopewell.”
Breckinridge looked at me sharply and I at him.
Marinelli snapped his fingers and she jerked awake.
She withdrew her hand from mine; we all let go of each other’s hands, sat back, relaxed. We sat quietly in the flickering candlelight, listening to the wind make like a wolf.
“Why did you bring her out of it?” I asked Marinelli.
“I can sense when the psychic strain is too much,” he said gravely. “We can arrange another sitting…”
“Not at this juncture,” Breckinridge said, shifting his chair. “But I would like the address of your church, in Harlem.”
“Certainly. Let me write it down for you.”
Marinelli rose, disappeared into the darkness.
Sarah looked tired; she slumped; her hands disappeared into her lap.
“Were we successful?” she asked quietly.
“You gave us information, child,” Breckinridge said, gently. “Whether it was helpful, well, that would be premature for me to say.”
“Do you remember what you said?” I asked her.
She smiled at me, warmly. “I go into a trance, and I say things. Later Martin tells me what I’ve said.”
“I see,” I said.
Her hand, under the table, settled on my thigh.
“You have kind eyes, Mr. Heller,” she said.
She began to stroke my thigh. I began to levitate again.
“Your eyes,” I said, “are very old, for so young a girl.”
She continued to stroke my thigh. “I’ve lived many times, Mr. Heller.”
Now she was stroking something else.
“I can tell you’ve been around,” I managed.
“Here’s the address,” Marinelli said, returning with a scrap of paper for Breckinridge.
Her hand slipped away.
“You can reach us day and night,” he said. “We live on the church premises.”
“Thank you,” Breckinridge said, rising. I kept my place, for the moment. It wasn’t that dark in the room.
“We, uh, do appreciate you clearing out of this suite,” I said. “I’m the one who’s going to be using it.”
“We will be staying the night, you understand,” she said. “Or, actually-I will. Martin is going on ahead, by car, shortly, to prepare for weekend services. I’ll be going home by train, tomorrow.”
She was giving me what I might best describe as a significant look. I’m a detective. I pick up on these things.
“Do you need any expense money?” Breckinridge said.
“No,” Marinelli said. “If what we’ve said proves helpful, we would not be adverse to having our names in the papers. Like any Christian church, we are missionaries, spreading the word.”
I got up, “Well, thank you, both. Sorry if I was rude, earlier, Reverend.”
“All true believers begin as doubters,” he assured me, gesturing us toward the door.
“Safe journey,” she told us, and we were in the hall.
We sat in the Dusenberg at the curb for a while.