The Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth Page B

cobra? Cobra will do just fine.
    Now listen up you guys,. ‘cause this is important. I feel the need for a cigarette, so I light up. Mistake, bad move. When the match sputters Darius comes round on me like a knife out of a sheath. ‘No naked flame, if you please,’ he snaps. ‘Extinguish the cigarette.’
    Now, I am still standing at the end of the table, near the corner door. Behind me there is a half-moon table against the wall with a silver bowl on it. I walk to it to stub out the butt. Behind the silver bowl is a vast silver salver, one edge on the table and the other on the wall so it is tilted at an angle. Just as I stub the cigarette I glance into the salver which is like a mirror. At the far end of the room, high on the wall, the oil-painting of the smiling guy has changed. A face is there, wide-brimmed hat, yes, but beneath that hat is a visage to scare the Rough Riders right out of their saddles.
    Under the hat is a kind of mask covering three-quarters of where the face should be. Just showing, half of a crooked gash of a mouth. And behind the mask, two eyes boring into me like drills. I let out a yell and turn around, pointing up at the picture on the wall. ‘Who the hell’s that?’ I yell.
    ‘ The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals,’ says Darius. ‘Not the original, I fear, which is in London, but very fine copy.’
    And sure enough, the laughing guy is back, moustache, lace and all. But I am not crazy, I know what I saw. Anyway, Darius reaches out and takes the letter. ‘You have my assurance,’ he says, ‘that within an hour Mr Muhlheim will have his letter.’ Then he says the same thing in French to Dufour. The lawyer nods. If he is satisfied there is nothing more I can do. We turn towards the door. Before I can get there, Darius says: ‘By the way, Mr Bloom, from which newspaper do you come?’ Voice like razor-blades. ‘ New York American ,’ I mumble. Then we are gone. Back down to the street, into a cab, back to Broadway. I drop the Frenchie off where he wants to go and head for the city desk. I have a story, right?
    Wrong. The Night Editor looks up and says, ‘Cholly, you’re drunk.’ ‘I’m whaaaat? I haven’t touched a drop,’ says I. I tell him my adventure of the evening. Start to finish. What a story, eh? He will have none of it. ‘OK,’ he says, ‘you found a French lawyer with a letter to deliver and you helped him deliver it. Big deal. But no ghosts. I just had a call from the president of the E.M. Corporation, a certain Mr Darius. He says you called this evening, delivered a letter to him personally, lost your head and started shouting about apparitions in the walls. He is grateful for the letter, but threatens to sue if you start casting slurs on his corporation. By the way, the bulls just picked up the Central Park murderer. Caught him in the act. Get down there and help out.’
    So not a word was printed. But I tell you guys, I am not crazy and I was not drunk. I really saw that face in the wall. Hey, you are drinking with the only guy in New York who ever actually saw the Phantom of Manhattan.

5
    THE TRANCE OF DARIUS
    THE HOUSE OF HASHISH, LOWER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY, NOVEMBER 1906
    I CAN FEEL THE SMOKE ENTERING ME, SOFT, SEDUCTIVE smoke. Behind closed eyes I can leave this shoddy, shabby slum and walk alone through the gates of perception into the domain of Him whom I serve.
    The smoke clears … the long passage floored and walled in solid gold. Oh, the pleasure of the gold. To touch, to caress, to feel, to own. And to bring it to Him, the god of gold, the only true deity.
    Since the Barbary Coast where I first found Him, I a foul catamite elevated to a higher calling, seeking always more gold to bring Him and the smoke to take me to his presence …
    I walk forward into the great golden chamber where the smelters roar and the gilden torrents run fresh and endless from their spigots … More smoke, the smoke of the smelters mingling with that in my