“How long have you known him?”
Again that vague wave. “Perhaps three years. We joined the amateur journalism society at about the same time. Newcomers are placed on a six months probation period during which time their work is judged by the other members.
“Naturally, Evans and I wanted to gain full membership so we helped each other with our magazines.” He fell silent for a block. Then, “He put out a mighty neat magazine.”
He led me into the restaurant. It was a long, narrow job with indirect lighting, and thick, red leather on the booth seats. The news I had brought continued to depress him. He went at the beer slowly like a good beer drinker. My steak was called a “Green Mill Special” and it didn’t remind you of something that ran in the Kentucky Derby last year.
I ate in silence; he stared at each bare spot on my plate uncovered by the vanishing steak. His beer was followed by two more but he never noticed it.
After awhile he snapped partly out of it. I was having a second cup of coffee, letting him find his own way.
“Well — I’ll be glad to help you in any way I can.”
“That’s appreciated. Do you have a file of his magazines?”
“Yes, complete.”
“Good. I want to read them. There may be something in them that will tie into something else. That’s the way this business works.”
“I can’t imagine what.” Kennedy turned the glass around and around on the table top. “He printed a lot of book reviews, a few amateur scientific studies, poetry.”
“Poetry. What kind of poetry?”
“Free verse.”
“No — I mean poetry about what?”
“Love.”
Maybe the man had been frustrated.
I offered in amplification, “The car that hit him was driven by a woman.”
“That’s ironic. He loved women. By that I mean he idolized them; women as a class, not any particular person. He often said that a woman was the most beautiful thing in the world. Quite frequently he printed poems dedicated to his daughter.”
Evans had no daughter. “What’s her name?” I asked the young man.
“Eleanor, I believe.”
I got back to, “The car was his own machine.”
“It was? How do you account for that?”
“Stolen — or loaned to the driver. Apparently a woman friend of his. And something went wrong between them, something serious. So she ran him down.”
“You seem so positive it was deliberate.”
“I am, and it was. I was an eyewitness, luckily. I could read the tire tracks left in the snow. And later on the car was abandoned, ditched. Familiar pattern.”
“It seems incredible, doesn’t it? I don’t mean that he would have women friends. I knew he was married; neither of us are prudes, although he never paraded his morals — or lack of them — in print. But it seems so incredible that a friend of his would actually murder him.”
“It may sound incredible, son, but people do it all the time. It happens among friends, in families... I want some more coffee.”
The waitress caught my glance and interpreted it.
Kennedy was gazing off into space.
“What else,” I interrupted his thoughts, “did Evans publish in this magazine?”
“Nothing else that I can remember offhand. Oh yes — he was running discussions on the languages of the various peoples of the world. It was becoming a rather bitter debate. Something to the effect that one universal language would eliminate the mistrust between nations. But I don’t believe that would help you.”
“I don’t think so, either. I’ve met Evans, and I’m learning things about him I never dreamed existed. That old adage about appearances often deceiving is hitting the nail on the head. Let’s get back to this poetry. I still can’t picture him writing poetry.”
“That is an advantage I have over you. Never having met him, I was forced to construct my image of him from his letters and his magazine. They impressed me favorably. And poetry seemed a part of him. It was as natural as... as...”
He broke off and stood up. I left a tip, picked up the check and paid it. Kennedy and the cashier exchanged a few pleasant words and we left. The poetry angle continued to stick in my craw.
Picture that man, Louise. Picture him standing there in my office that first day, his back to the wall, away from the glass door. Picture him figuring his way out of a frame-up. Or maybe landing in jail and being pushed around a bit.
And then picture the same man writing poetry.
Outside the restaurant the wind hit us. The wind is a devil of a lot colder in Chicago, too. We tramped in silence to Sacramento and turned south. A huge brick school building loomed up on the left.
Kennedy’s earlier remark about his prescience came back to me as we strode along in the wind. Scientists are careful not to admit any such thing exists, but that doesn’t prove anything. On the other hand, there are probably thousands of occultists and just plain people who would claim it did exist. Like Kennedy.
Did Evans share the gift? Or was it actually a gift?
It could be a galling saddle and Evans might have been saddled with it. At least it might explain his coming into my office with that crazy-sounding story. It might explain his belief that he would be arrested. And like Kennedy, what he foresaw in his “flash” could have been sufficiently different from what was to actually happen that he failed to recognize the real danger.
I asked Kennedy, “Did Evans mention prescience?”
“What—?” He had been several miles away from me.
“This prescience; did Evans have it, too?”
“I don’t know. I don’t recall him saying so, although he took part in the discussions concerning it. Most of us are pretty frank in our discussions, you see. We know we have a limited, sympathetic audience.”
“People laugh at you, eh?”
“Outsiders? Yes. So our society is limited to a membership of one hundred and the primary rule is that you be interested in our subjects or membership is denied. We print only enough copies for the membership; except of course a copy for the museum. There is a museum in Philadelphia which collects amateur publications.”
We walked another block in silence. He broke it the next time.
“Do you know,” he asked me as though I was as well acquainted with his publishing world as a full-fledged member, “I believe the most beautiful poem Evans ever printed was a love lyric he dedicated to a Chinese girl.”
Chapter 7
“Well I’ll be damned!”
Joquel Kennedy flashed me a pleased grin. He held open the door and stood aside to give me a better view.
“You like my studio?”
Did I like it? Louise, I was confounded. It was a second-floor back bedroom at 6636½, converted into what he was pleased to call his studio. To me it looked like bedlam.
Directly before my eyes hung something from the ceiling that resembled a round, full moon. It was. Complete with painted-in craters, dead-sea shadings and meteor pits. There was even a long, straight wall standing out on a plain that I remembered from school. A perfect imitation of the moon as one would see it through a telescope on a clear night.
Scattered elsewhere across the ceiling at various levels were eight planets and their attending satellites. Some were large, some small. Some were brilliantly painted and some dull. Foil rings circled one large globe.
It was a replica of the solar system.
“Okay, mister,” I said, getting my wind. “I’m ready. Do they explode, spin, light up and bingo, or what?”
Kennedy flipped a wall switch. The moon glowed with an inner illumination, bringing into sharp relief the crevices and craters. It seemed realistic enough. Some of the planets took on a dull glow but I couldn’t determine whether or not it was reflected from the center moon.