’s All Kill Constance

Chapter Twelve

We drove up near Queen Califia’s Psychic Research Lodge, dead center of Bunker Hill. Crumley gave it a sour eye. Then I nodded to one side and he saw what to him was a lovely sight: CALLAHAN AND ORTEGA FUNERAL PARLOR.

That raised his spirits. “It’s like a homecoming,” he admitted.

Our jalopy stopped. I got out.

“You coming in?” I said.

Crumley sat staring out the windshield, hands on the steering wheel, as if we were still moving. “How come,” he said, “everything seems downhill with us?”

“You coming in? I need you.”

“Outta the way.”

He was halfway up the steep concrete steps and then the cracked cement walk before he stopped, surveyed the big white dilapidated bird cage of a house, and said, “Looks like the half bakery where they bake your misfortune cookies.”

We continued up the walk. On the way we met a cat, a white goat, and a peacock. The peacock flirted its thousand eyes, watching us pass. We made it to the front door. When I knocked, an unseasonable blizzard of paint snowflakes rained on my shoes.

“If that’s what holds this joint up, it won’t be long,” observed Crumley.

I rapped on the door with my knuckles. Inside I heard what sounded like a massive portable safe being trundled across a hardwood floor. Something heavy was shoved up against the other side of the door.

I raised my hand again, but a high sparrow voice inside cried, “Go away!”

“I just want—”

“Go away!”

“Five minutes,” I said. “Four, two, one, for God’s sake. I need your help.”

“No,” the voice shrilled, “I need yours.”

My mind spun like a Rolodex. I heard the mummy. I echoed him.

“You ever wonder where the name California came from?” I said.

Silence. The high voice lowered to almost a whisper. “Damn.”

Three sets of locks rattled.

“Nobody knows that about California. Nobody.”

The door opened a few inches.

“Okay, give,” the voice said.

A hand like a great plump starfish thrust out.

“Put it there!”

I put my hand in hers.

“Turn it over.”

I turned it, palm up.

Her hand seized it.

“Calmness.”

Her hand massaged mine; her thumb circumnavigated the lines on my palm.

“Can’t be,” she whispered.

More quiet motions as she thumbed the pads under my fingers.

“Is,” she sighed.

And then, “You remember being born!”

“How did you know that?”

“You must be the seventh son of a seventh son!”

“No,” I said, “just me, no brothers.”

“My God.” Her hand jumped in mine. “You’re going to live forever!”

“No one does.”

“You will. Not your body. But what you do. What do you do?”

“I thought my life was in your hands.”