Aces High Read online

  “No. Maybe a little.” She gave him another sideways glance. “This is probably a stupid thing to say. You don’t fit my image of a pimp.”

  “I don’t much like the name. But I don’t run away from it either. My women aren’t just hookers. My mother was Japanese and she trains them as geishas. A lot of them have PhDs. None of them are junkies and when they’re tired of the Life they move into some other part of the organization.”

  “You make it sound very moral.”

  She was ready to disapprove, but Fortunato wouldn’t let himself back away. “No,” he said. “You’ve read Crowley. He had no use for ordinary morality, and neither do I. ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.’ The more I learn, the more I realize that everything is there, in that one phrase. It’s as much a threat as a promise.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I like you and I’m attracted to you and that’s not necessarily a good thing for you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  She put both hands on the wheel and watched the road. “I can take care of myself,” she said.

  You should have kept your mouth shut, he told himself, but he knew that wasn’t true. Better to drive her off now, before he got any more involved.

  A few minutes later she broke the silence. “I don’t know whether I should tell you this or not. I took that coin around to a couple of places. Occult bookstores, magic shops, that sort of thing. Just to see what I could turn up. I met a guy named Clarke at the Miskatonic Bookstore. He seemed really interested.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “I said it was my father’s. I said I was curious about it. He started asking me questions like was I interested in the occult, had I ever had any paranormal experiences, that kind of thing. It was pretty easy to feed him what he wanted to hear.”

  “And?”

  “And he wants me to meet some people.” A few seconds later she said, “You’ve gone quiet on me again.”

  “I don’t think you should go. This stuff is dangerous. Maybe you don’t believe in the occult. The thing is, the wild card changed everything. People’s fantasies and beliefs can turn real now. And they can hurt you. Kill you.”

  She shook her head. “It’s always the same story. But never any proof. You can argue with me all the way back to New York City, and it’s not going to convince me. Unless I see it with my own eyes, I just can’t take it seriously.”

  “Suit yourself,” Fortunato said. He released his astral body and shot ahead of the car. He stood in the roadway and let himself become visible just as the car was on him. Through the windshield he could see Eileen’s eyes go wide. Next to her his physical body sat with a mindless stare. Eileen screamed and the brakes howled and he let himself snap back into the car. They were skidding toward the trees and Fortunato reached over to steer them out of it. The car died and rolled onto the shoulder.

  “What … what…”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t manage a lot of conviction.

  “It was you there in the road!” Her hands still held the wheel and tremors shook her arms.

  “It was just … a demonstration.”

  “A demonstration? You scared me to death!”

  “It wasn’t anything. You understand? Nothing. We’re talking about some kind of cult that’s a couple of hundred years old and makes human sacrifices. At the least. It could be worse, a hell of a lot worse. I can’t be responsible for you getting involved.”

  She started the car and pulled onto the road. It was a quarter of an hour later, back on I–87, before she said, “You’re not quite human anymore, are you? That you could scare me that badly. Even though you say you’re interested in me. That’s what you were trying to warn me about.”

  “Yes,” he said. Her voice was different, more detached. He waited for her to say something else, but instead she just nodded and put a Mozart tape in the stereo.

  He thought that would be the end of it. Instead, a week later, she called and asked if he could meet her for lunch at Aces High.

  He was waiting at the table when she came in. She would never, he knew, look like a fashion model or like one of his geishas. But he liked the way she made the most of what she had: narrow gray flannel skirt, white cotton blouse, navy cardigan, amber beads, and a wide tortoiseshell band for her hair. No visible makeup except for mascara and a little lip gloss.

  Fortunato got up to hold her chair and nearly bumped into Hiram. There was an awkward pause. Finally she held out her hand and Hiram bent over it, hesitated just a little too long, and then bowed away. Fortunato stared after him for a second or two. He wanted Eileen to say something about Hiram but she didn’t take the hint. “It’s good to see you,” he said.

  “It’s good to see you too.”

  “In spite of … what happened last time?”

  “What, is that an apology?” The smile again.

  “No,” he said. “Though I really am sorry. I’m sorry I got you into this. I’m sorry I couldn’t have met you some other way. I’m sorry we have this ugly business between us every time we see each other.”

  “So am I.”

  “And I’m afraid for you. I’m up against something like I’ve never seen before. There’s this … thing, this conspiracy, this cult, whatever it is, out there. And I can’t find anything out about it.” A waiter brought menus and water in crystal goblets. Fortunato nodded him away.

  “I’ve been to see Clarke,” Fortunato said. “I asked him some questions, mentioned TIAMAT, and all I got were blank looks. He wasn’t faking it. I looked in his brain.” He took a breath. “He had no memory of you.”

  “That’s impossible,” Eileen said. She shook her head. “It’s so strange to see you sitting there talking about reading his mind. There’s got to be some kind of mistake, that’s all. You’re sure?”

  Fortunato could see her aura clearly. She was telling the truth. “I’m sure,” he said.

  “I saw Clarke last night and I can promise you he remembered me. He took me to meet some people. They’re members of the cult, or society, or whatever it is. The coins are some kind of recognition thing.”

  “Did you get their names, or addresses, anything like that?”

  She shook her head. “I’d know them again. One of them was called Roman. Very good looking, almost too good looking, if you know what I mean. The other one was very ordinary. Harry, I think his name was.”

  “Does the group have a name?”

  “They haven’t mentioned one.” She glanced at the menu as the waiter came back. “The veal medallions, I think. And a glass of the chablis.”

  Fortunato ordered insalata composta and a Beck’s.

  “But I did learn some other things,” she said. “I’ve been trying to trace Balsam’s wife and son. I mean, they are a couple of loose ends in the story. First I tried the usual detective routine, birth and death and marriage records. No dice. Then I tried to find occult connections. Do you know the Abramelin Review?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a sort of Reader’s Guide to occult publications. And that’s where the Balsam family turned up. There’s a Marc Balsam that’s published at least a dozen articles in the last few years. Most of them were in a magazine called Nectanebus. Does that ring any bells?”

  Fortunato shook his head. “A demon or something? It sounds like I should know it, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “It’s a good bet he’s involved with the same society that Clarke is.”

  “Because of the coins.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What about those kid gangs that have been running wild up at the Cloisters? I took a coin off one of those kids. Can you see any possible connection?”

  “Not yet. The articles might help, but the magazine’s pretty obscure. I haven’t been able to turn up any copies of it.”

  The food arrived. Over lunch she finally mentioned Hiram. “Fifteen years ago he was more attractive than you might think. A little hefty,
but very charming. Knew how to dress, what to say. And of course he always knew fantastic restaurants.”

  “What happened? Or is it any of my business?”

  “I don’t know. What ever happens between people? I think most of it was that he was too self-conscious about his weight. Now it’s me that’s self-conscious all the time.”

  “You shouldn’t be, you know. You look great. You could have any man you wanted.”

  “You don’t have to flirt with me. I mean, you have all this sexual power and charisma and everything, but I don’t like the idea of your using it on me. Manipulating me.”

  “I’m not trying to manipulate you,” Fortunato said. “If it looks like I’m interested in you, it’s because I’m interested in you.”

  “Are you always this intense?”

  “Yeah. I guess I am. I look over at you and you’re smiling all the time. It drives me crazy.”

  “I’ll try to stop.”

  “Don’t.”

  He’d come on too strong, he realized. She set her silverware neatly on her plate and dropped her folded napkin next to it. Fortunato pushed the rest of his salad away. Suddenly something bubbled up in his mind.

  “What did you say the name of the journal was? Where Balsam was publishing?”

  She got a folded scrap of paper out of her purse. “Nectanebus. Why?”

  Fortunato signaled for the check. “Listen. Can you come back to my apartment? No funny business. This is important.”

  “I suppose.”

  The waiter bowed and looked at Eileen. “Mr. Worchester is … unavoidably detained. But he asked me to tell you that your lunch is compliments of the house.”

  “Thank him for me,” Eileen said. “Tell him … just tell him thank you.”

  Caroline was still asleep when they got to the apartment. She made a point of leaving the bedroom door open while she walked naked to the bathroom, then sat on the edge of the bed and slowly put her clothes on, starting with stockings and a garter belt.

  Fortunato ignored her, sorting through the stacks of books that had grown to fill an entire wall of the front room. Either she’d learn to control her jealousy or she’d find another line of work.

  Eileen smiled at her as she clomped out on her four-inch heels. “She’s beautiful,” she said.

  “So are you.”

  “Don’t start.”

  “You brought it up.” He handed her Budge’s Egyptian Magic. “There you go. Nectanebus.”

  “‘… famous as a magician and a sage, and he was deeply learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.’”

  “This is coming together. Remember Black John’s dog mask? I’m wondering if Balsam’s cult isn’t the Egyptian Freemasons.”

  “Oh my god. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that the name Balsam could be an Americanization of Balsamo.”

  “As in Guiseppe Balsamo of Palermo,” Eileen said. She sat down hard on the couch.

  “Better known to the world,” Fortunato said, “as Count Cagliostro.”

  Fortunato pulled up a chair across from her and sat with his elbows on his knees. “The Inquistion arrested him when?”

  “Around 1790, wasn’t it? They put him in some kind of dungeon. But his body was never found.”

  “He’s supposed to be connected with the Illuminati. Suppose they broke him out of jail and smuggled him to America.”

  “Where he shows up as Black John Balsam, the local weirdo. But what was he up to? Why the coins? And the human sacrifice? Cagliostro was a fraud, a con man. All he ever wanted was the good life. Murder just doesn’t sound like his style.”

  Fortunato handed her Daraul’s Witches and Sorcerers. “Let’s find out. Unless you’ve got something better to do?”

  “England,” Eileen said. “1777. That’s when it happened. He got inducted into the Masons on April twelfth, in Soho. After that Masonry takes over his life. He invents the Egyptian Freemasons as some kind of higher order, starts giving away money, inducting every high-ranking Mason he can.”

  “So what brought all that on?”

  “Supposedly he took some kind of tour of the English countryside and came back from it a—quote—changed man—endquote. His magic powers increased. He went from an adventurer to a genuine mystic.”

  “Okay,” Fortunato said. “Now listen to this. This is Tolstoy on Freemasonry: ‘The first and chief object of our order … is the preservation and handing-on to posterity of a certain important mystery … a mystery on which perhaps the fate of mankind depends.’”

  “This is starting to scare the hell out of me,” Eileen said.

  “There’s one more piece. The thing that’s on the back of the Balsam penny is a Sumerian deity called TIAMAT. It’s what Lovecraft took Cthulu from. Some kind of huge, shapeless monster from beyond the stars. Lovecraft supposedly got his mythology from his father’s secret papers. Lovecraft’s father was a Mason.”

  “So you think that’s what it’s all about. This TIAMAT thing.”

  “Put it together,” Fortunato said. “Suppose the Masonic secret has something to do with controlling TIAMAT. Cagliostro learns the secret. His brother Masons won’t use their knowledge for evil, so Cagliostro forms his own order, for his own ends.”

  “To bring this thing to Earth.”

  “Yes,” Fortunato said. “To bring it to Earth.”

  Eileen had finally stopped smiling.

  It had gotten dark while they talked. The night was cold and clear and Fortunato could see stars through the skylight in the front room. He wished he could shut them out.

  “It’s late,” Eileen said. “I have to go.”

  He hadn’t thought of her leaving. The day’s work had left him full of nervous energy, the thrill of the hunt. Her mind excited him and he wanted her to open up to him—her secrets, her emotions, her body. “Stay,” he said, careful not to use his powers, not to make it a command. “Please.” His stomach felt cold when he asked.

  She got up, put on the sweater she’d left on the arm of the couch. “I have to … digest all this,” she said. “There’s just been too much happening at once. I’m sorry.” She wouldn’t look at him. “I need more time.”

  “I’ll walk you down to Eighth Avenue,” he said. “You can catch a cab there.”

  Cold seemed to radiate out of the stars, a kind of hatred for life itself. He hunched his shoulders and put his hand deep in his pockets. A few seconds later he felt Eileen’s arm around his waist and he held her close as they walked.

  They stopped at the corner of Eighth and 19th and a cab pulled up almost immediately. “Don’t say it,” Eileen told him. “I’ll be careful.”

  Fortunato’s throat was too tight for him to talk if he’d wanted to. He put a hand behind her neck and kissed her. Her lips were so gentle that he had started to turn away before he realized how good they felt. He turned back and she was still standing there. He kissed her again, harder, and she swayed toward him for a second and then pulled away.

  “I’ll call you,” she said.

  He watched the cab until it turned the corner and disappeared.

  The police woke him at seven the next morning.

  “We’ve got a dead kid in the morgue,” the first cop said. “Somebody broke his neck up at the Cloisters about a week ago. You know anything about it?”

  Fortunato shook his head. He stood by the door, holding his robe closed with one hand. If they came in they would see the pentagram painted on the hardwood floor, the human skull on the bookcase, the joints on the coffee table.

  “Some of his pals say they saw you there,” the second cop said.

  Fortunato locked eyes with him. “I wasn’t there,” he said. “You want to believe that.”

  The second cop nodded and the first one started to reach for his gun. “No,” Fortunato said. The first cop didn’t manage to look away in time. “You believe it too. I wasn’t there. I’m clean.”

  “Clean,” the first cop said.


  “Go now,” Fortunato said, and they left.

  He sat on the couch, hands shaking. They would be back. Or more likely they’d send somebody from the Jokertown division who wouldn’t be affected by his powers.

  He wouldn’t be getting back to sleep. Not that he’d been sleeping that well anyway. His dreams had been full of tentacled things as large as the moon, blocking the sky, swallowing the city.

  It suddenly occurred to him that the apartment was empty. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent the night alone. He almost picked up the phone to call Caroline. It was only a reflex and he fought it off. What he wanted was to be with Eileen.

  Two days later she called again. In those two days he’d been to her museum in Long Island twice, in his astral form. He’d hovered across the room, invisible to her, just watching. He’d have gone more often, stayed longer, but he was taking too much pleasure in it.

  “It’s Eileen,” she said. “They want to initiate me.”

  It was three-thirty in the afternoon. Caroline was at Berlitz, learning Japanese. She hadn’t been around much lately.

  “You went back,” he said.

  “I had to. We’ve been over this.”

  “When is it?”

  “Tonight. I’m supposed to be there at eleven. It’s this old church in Jokertown.”

  “Can I see you?”

  “I guess so. I could come over if you want.”

  “Please. As soon as you can.”

  He sat by the window and watched until her car pulled up. He buzzed the door for her and then waited for her on the landing. She walked ahead of him into the apartment and turned around. He didn’t know what to expect from her. He closed the door and she held out her hands. He put his arms around her and she turned her face up to him. He kissed her and then he kissed her again. Her arms went around his neck and tightened.

  “I want you,” he said.

  “I want you too.”

  “Come to bed.”

  “I want to. But I can’t. It’s … it’s just a lousy idea. It’s been a long time for me. I can’t just climb into bed with you and perform all kinds of weird Tantric sex acts. It’s not what I want. You can’t even come, for crissake!”