THE EXTENT OF SUSCEPTIBILITY
The next day, Schell and I took off in the Cord to stake out a new mark. There was a very wealthy gentleman over in Oyster Bay whose bank account required lightening. It was our practice to meet with perspective patrons first before performing a sйance in order to case the room where the event would take place and judge what effects would be possible. It was also an opportunity to pick up clues that we could spin into prescient revelations. The boss focused on artwork, the type of furniture, jewelry, repetitions of words and phrases the mark might use, hand gestures, pets. Not an errant nose hair escaped his attention, and he'd extract from these crumbs of information secrets of the bereaved as if he were Conan Doyle's detective.
The thing he most concentrated on, though, was the apparent degree of the mark's grief, for as he always reminded me, "The depth of loss is directly equivalent to the extent of susceptibility." In other words, the more one longed for contact from the other side, the more readily one would embrace the illusion. Occasionally, we would run into a snake, some self-professed debunker, whose intent was merely to out us as frauds, but Schell could spot this within the first five minutes of an interview.
"Watch the nose, Diego," he would say. "The nostrils flare slightly when one is lying. The pupils dilate an iota. In a thinner person, you can detect treachery by the pulse in the neck." For a man who trafficked in the spiritual, he was ever focused on the physical.
"And how are your studies going?" Schell asked me as we sped along.
"I'm reading Darwin, The Origin of Species," I said.
"My hero," he said, laughing. "What do you make of it?"
"We're apes," I said, adjusting my turban.
"Too true," he said.
"God's a fart in a windstorm. It's only Nature that rigs the deck."
"It isn't a perfect being that's brought all of this about," he said, lifting his right hand off the wheel and gracefully describing a circle in the air. "It's all chance and tiny mistakes that give an advantage, which are compounded over time. Think of the intricate, checkered patterning of the spanish festoon [a butterfly we'd had a specimen of some time back]; all a result of some infinitesimal, advantageous mistake in the makeup of a single caterpillar."
"Mistakes are at the heart of everything," I said.
He nodded. "That's the beauty."
"But you never make mistakes," I said.
"When it comes to work, I try not to. But, believe me, I've made mistakes-great yawning gaffes."
"Such as?"
He was silent for a time. "I let my past dictate my future," he said.
"I can't think of you employed in any other career," I said.
"Perhaps," he said, "but I can certainly conceive of you doing something else. You don't want to remain Ondoo for the rest of your days now do you? This repatriation business will blow over eventually. The economy will rebound. By the time you're nineteen, I'd like to see you in college."
"As far as my records are concerned, I don't exist. I have no past. I'm illegal." My education, although superior to any that could be obtained at a public school, was all garnered through a series of quality tutors that Schell had paid a small fortune for.
"You leave the records to me," he said. "Arrangements can be made."
"What if I want to stay in the sйance business with you and Antony?"
He shook his head but said nothing. We drove on for a few more minutes, and then he turned off the road onto a private drive. The path wound, eel-like, for almost a mile before coming to a guarded gate. A man in a uniform approached the car. Schell rolled down the window and gave his name. "We're here to see Mr. Parks," he said. The guard nodded, and we continued on toward an enormous house that had turrets like a castle.
We parked in the circular drive, and before exiting the car, Schell touched my shoulder and said, "Time to be mystical." We walked slowly, single file, to the entrance. As we ascended a long flight of marble steps, the front door opened and a man in a butler's uniform greeted us.
I'd grown used to the opulence of the residences we frequented on our jobs, but, as they went, the Parks estate was impressive. Antony and I had done the legwork on him and found he'd had money left to him by his father, who'd invested in railroads and trucking and increased it during the Great War by selling munitions to both sides. Parks's wife had died recently at a sanatorium from TB.
We met the man, himself-portly, with thinning sandy hair-in a parlor at the rear of the mansion. The large window that took up much of the back wall offered, at a distance, a view of the Long Island Sound. He sat, dressed in a white suit, in an overstuffed chair that resembled a throne, smoking a cigarette attached to an exceedingly long holder. I doubt he was much older than Schell, somewhere in his forties.
"Mr. Schell," he said upon seeing us, and rose to shake hands with the boss. He turned to me and nodded but didn't offer his hand.
"This," said Schell, waving at me, "is my assistant, Ondoo, a native of India. He has a remarkable facility with the mystical. Since working with him, I've found that the channels through which the departed travel from the other side are clearer in his presence."
Parks nodded and took his seat.
"There are spirits present now," I said as I sat in one of the chairs facing him.
"Preliminary ethereal sensations have led me to believe you seek contact with a woman who has passed over," said Schell.
Parks's eyes widened, and he gave a smile devoid of joy. "Remarkable," he said.
"You must miss her very much," said Schell.
Parks stubbed out his cigarette in a large, sterling silver ashtray in the shape of a sleeping cat. He nodded, and tears came instantly to his eyes. "Yes," he said, his voice having shrunk to a peep.
"Your wife…," Schell said, but at the same moment, Parks said, "My mother…"
Before Parks could register the slip, Schell continued, "As I was saying, your wife, of course, is sorely missed, but I knew it must be your mother to whom you wish to speak."
"I won't lie, Mr. Schell," he said. "You're right again. I miss my mother. When she was alive, I would sit with her for an hour every day and confer with her on business, the news, the drama of the household. Though she's been gone for ten years, I still find myself thinking, after making some astounding transaction, 'I can't wait to tell Mother.'"
"I understand," said Schell.
"The mother is the milk of the universe," I added, wondering what kind of relationship he'd had with his wife.
"Perhaps pathetic in a man of my age," he said. "But I can't help my feelings." He broke down at this point, lowering his head and lifting a hand to cover his face.
I looked over at Schell, who shifted his gaze to direct mine to the wall. There were three paintings in the room-one was a Madonna and child, one was of a child standing alone by the seashore, and the last was of a train. Beyond this, I noticed that the room was painted and decorated in primary colors.
My analysis of Parks's surroundings was leading me to a psychological revelation, but just then a young woman, no older than me, walked into the room. She was carrying a tray holding a pitcher of lemonade and three glasses with ice. "Will you have the drinks now, Mr. Parks?" she asked.
He dried his eyes. "Yes, Isabel," he said.
I looked at her again and somehow knew instantly that she was Mexican. At the same moment, she took me in, and in the subtle heave of her chest and signs of a suppressed smile at the corners of her lips, I knew she had made me. I looked at Schell, and he at me. He ran his index finger along the thin line of his mustache, our signal that I should remain calm.