City of the Dead

»19«

“I see a large body of water.”

“Yes.”

“Not an ocean. Somewhat smaller. A large river—or a bay, perhaps.”

Konig sits in a large, shadowy room full of the odors of overstuffed furniture and incontinent cats. He sits at a bare, round, wooden table opposite a woman of Buddhistic proportions with a wen on her nose and a furze of dark hair above her lip.

“I see a small house.”

“Yes.”

“With a garden outside and a small fence around it.” Madam Lesetzskaya leans forward, rocking gently on immense haunches, eyes glazed, lashes fluttering like butterflies above them. She leans into the shadow, craning her neck, as if trying to hear better, words, or a message, coming to her from far away. Konig sits there in the darkened room, behind the drawn curtains, stiffly, warily, a begrudging tolerance upon his face, waiting for her to speak.

A card pressed on him several weeks before by a friend, and carried in his pocket till only that afternoon, had read: “Madam Paulina Lesetzskaya. Budapest, St. Petersburg, Paris, New York. Spiritualist. Mediumist. Confidante and adviser to—” Then a list of mostly defunct and obscure royalty to whom she had ministered—dukes and princes, shahs and potentates, pages to the royal court. Then the tag line, the kicker: “Contact established with the departed and missing. Results guaranteed,” the card promised in the plain, rather unextraordinary verbiage of an exterminator’s calling card promising to rid you of roaches.

The two figures lean toward each other in the damp, malodorous shadows, the one rocking slowly back and forth, the other, stiff, recoiling slightly, as if struggling against the impulse to shout.

The tips of Madam Lesetzskaya’s fingers tremble across the face of Lolly’s birthday card—the shaggy bear in the white copious robes of a doctor, stethoscope dangling absurdly around its neck. Each finger on Madam’s hand has a ring, while depending from her neck is a bezoar stone, a scarab amulet, and a fake jade lavaliere.

“I see several people—three, possibly four—”

“Yes.”

“One female—early twenties.”

“Yes.”

“The others, male, somewhat older. Though there is danger about the house, I don’t sense any immediate danger to the girl.”

Konig sighs, leaning backward, relief flowing over him like a balm. He knows it is all fake, meretricious. That means nothing to him. All he wants now, craves, is the simple analgesic of her words, like the blessed Demerol coursing through his bloodstream.

“I feel her trying to reach you. She wants to talk to you. Make contact.”

He cocks an ear toward her, waiting for the next words. “Yes—but where is she? Can you tell me where she is?” Madam Lesetzskaya’s stubby, bejeweled fingers scratching over the birthday card suddenly halt, then rise tremblingly to her temples. Eyes screwed shut, hunched over the table, she concentrates more deeply, rocking back and forth, on her great haunches, huge buttocks spilling over the sides of a small wooden chair creaking rhythmically beneath her. “A cold, remote place. Far north of here.” Her eyes suddenly open and she stares fixedly at some distant point on the ceiling. “That’s all I see now. The air is beclouded. I have no clear impression. Come back in three days. Bring some article of clothing or jewelry.”

“Yes,” Konig mumbles and staggers to his feet. “Yes, I will.”

Going down the murky stairway, he is full of loathing and self-contempt. Next time, perhaps, it will be an astrologer, or an Oriental guru, or some wizard phrenologist who will read the bumps on his head. He feels like an ass, a fool, a rube who’s just been sold the Brooklyn Bridge. And the worst part of it is, he’s not at all certain he won’t be back there in three days with a piece of clothing or jewelry.