your chart. Not yours really, that boy I mentioned. Your horoscopes are undoubtedly similar.”
“I’m game.”
Millicent Krusemark frowned, studying her notes. “This is a period of great danger. You have been involved in a death quite recently, within a week at least. The deceased was not someone you knew well; nevertheless, you are deeply troubled by his passing. The medical profession is involved. Perhaps you will soon be in a hospital yourself; the unfavorable aspects are very strong. Beware of strangers.”
I stared at this odd woman in black and felt invisible fear-tentacles encircle my heart. How did she know so much? My mouth was dry, my lips stuck as I spoke: “What’s that ornament around your neck?”
“This?” The woman’s hand paused at her throat like a bird resting in flight. “Just a pentacle. Brings good luck.”
Dr. Fowler’s pentacle didn’t bring him much luck, but then he wasn’t wearing it when he died. Or did someone take the ring after killing the old man?
“I need additional information,” Millicent Krusemark said, her filigreed gold pencil poised like a dart. “When and where was your fiancee born. I need the exact hour and location. So I can determine longitude and latitude. Also, you haven’t told me where you were born.”
I ad-libbed some phony dates and places and made the ritual gesture of glancing at my wristwatch before placing my cup on the table. We rose together, as if on a lift. “Thanks for the tea.”
She showed me to the door and said the charts would be ready next week. I said I’d call, and we shook hands with the mechanical formality of clockwork soldiers.
TWELVE
I found the cigarette behind my ear on the way down in the elevator and lit it as soon as I hit the street. The March wind felt cleansing. There was almost an hour before my meeting with Vernon Hyde, and I walked slowly down Seventh trying to make sense out of the nameless fear that seized me back in the astrologer’s bosky apartment. I knew it had to be a con, verbal slight of hand, like encyclopedia salesmanship. Beware of strangers. That was the sort of bullshit you got for a penny along with your weight. She suckered me with her oracle’s voice and hypnotic eyes.
Fifty-second Street looked down-at-the-heels. Two blocks east, “21” preserved elegant speakeasy memories, but a fantan chorus line of strip joints had replaced most of the jazz clubs. With the Onyx Club gone, only Birdland kept the temple fires of bop burning over on Broadway. The Famous Door had closed forever. Jimmy Ryan’s and the Hickory House were the only survivors on a street whose brownstones housed more than fifty blind pigs during Prohibition.
I walked east, past Chinese restaurants and petulant whores with zippered leatherette hatboxes. Don Shirley’s trio was on deck at the Hickory House, but the music didn’t start until hours later and the bar was quiet and dim when I entered.
I ordered a whisky sour and settled by a table where I could watch the door. Two drinks later, I spotted a guy carrying a saxophone case. He wore a brown suede windbreaker over a cream-colored Irish-knit turtleneck. His hair was salt-and-pepper gray and cut short. I waved and he came over.
“Vernon Hyde?”
“That’s me,” he said through a twisted grin.
“Park your axe and have a drink.”
“Solid.” He placed his saxophone case carefully on the table and pulled up a chair. “So you’re a writer. What kind of thing is it you write?”
“Magazine work mostly,” I said. “Profiles, personality pieces.”
The waitress came over and Hyde ordered a bottle of Heineken’s. We made small talk until she brought the beer and poured it into a tall glass. Hyde took a long sip and got down to business. “So you want to write about the Spider Simpson band. Well, you picked the right street. If cement could talk, that sidewalk’d tell you my life story.”
I said: “Look. I don’t want to lead you on. The story will mention
“I’m game.”
Millicent Krusemark frowned, studying her notes. “This is a period of great danger. You have been involved in a death quite recently, within a week at least. The deceased was not someone you knew well; nevertheless, you are deeply troubled by his passing. The medical profession is involved. Perhaps you will soon be in a hospital yourself; the unfavorable aspects are very strong. Beware of strangers.”
I stared at this odd woman in black and felt invisible fear-tentacles encircle my heart. How did she know so much? My mouth was dry, my lips stuck as I spoke: “What’s that ornament around your neck?”
“This?” The woman’s hand paused at her throat like a bird resting in flight. “Just a pentacle. Brings good luck.”
Dr. Fowler’s pentacle didn’t bring him much luck, but then he wasn’t wearing it when he died. Or did someone take the ring after killing the old man?
“I need additional information,” Millicent Krusemark said, her filigreed gold pencil poised like a dart. “When and where was your fiancee born. I need the exact hour and location. So I can determine longitude and latitude. Also, you haven’t told me where you were born.”
I ad-libbed some phony dates and places and made the ritual gesture of glancing at my wristwatch before placing my cup on the table. We rose together, as if on a lift. “Thanks for the tea.”
She showed me to the door and said the charts would be ready next week. I said I’d call, and we shook hands with the mechanical formality of clockwork soldiers.
TWELVE
I found the cigarette behind my ear on the way down in the elevator and lit it as soon as I hit the street. The March wind felt cleansing. There was almost an hour before my meeting with Vernon Hyde, and I walked slowly down Seventh trying to make sense out of the nameless fear that seized me back in the astrologer’s bosky apartment. I knew it had to be a con, verbal slight of hand, like encyclopedia salesmanship. Beware of strangers. That was the sort of bullshit you got for a penny along with your weight. She suckered me with her oracle’s voice and hypnotic eyes.
Fifty-second Street looked down-at-the-heels. Two blocks east, “21” preserved elegant speakeasy memories, but a fantan chorus line of strip joints had replaced most of the jazz clubs. With the Onyx Club gone, only Birdland kept the temple fires of bop burning over on Broadway. The Famous Door had closed forever. Jimmy Ryan’s and the Hickory House were the only survivors on a street whose brownstones housed more than fifty blind pigs during Prohibition.
I walked east, past Chinese restaurants and petulant whores with zippered leatherette hatboxes. Don Shirley’s trio was on deck at the Hickory House, but the music didn’t start until hours later and the bar was quiet and dim when I entered.
I ordered a whisky sour and settled by a table where I could watch the door. Two drinks later, I spotted a guy carrying a saxophone case. He wore a brown suede windbreaker over a cream-colored Irish-knit turtleneck. His hair was salt-and-pepper gray and cut short. I waved and he came over.
“Vernon Hyde?”
“That’s me,” he said through a twisted grin.
“Park your axe and have a drink.”
“Solid.” He placed his saxophone case carefully on the table and pulled up a chair. “So you’re a writer. What kind of thing is it you write?”
“Magazine work mostly,” I said. “Profiles, personality pieces.”
The waitress came over and Hyde ordered a bottle of Heineken’s. We made small talk until she brought the beer and poured it into a tall glass. Hyde took a long sip and got down to business. “So you want to write about the Spider Simpson band. Well, you picked the right street. If cement could talk, that sidewalk’d tell you my life story.”
I said: “Look. I don’t want to lead you on. The story will mention
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