An Affair Of Sorcerers

statement from you.'

'When I get time. I was about to say that the girl's doctors don't know what's causing her coma. There doesn't seem to be anything physically wrong with her-at least nothing they've been able to detect.'

'There are drugs that can put a person into a coma.'

'I know. If she is drugged, the problem is identifying the drug before she dies. Obviously, whoever drugged her didn't intend for her to die right away; she was dressed in that gown, then left outside the circle of fire where someone could find her before the blaze spread.'

'Strange,' Garth said quietly, pulling at his lower lip.

'Yeah. I have to find out what's going on-in a hurry.'

Garth got up, pulled open the draperies and stared out into the wet morning. The vanguard of the working people was beginning to fill the city, and the hissing sound of tires on wet pavement drifted up from the streets below. 'What kind of son-of-a-bitch would do that to a kid?' he growled.

'You're the one who's been working that side of the street; I was hoping you'd be able to tell me.'

He turned back to me, ground out his cigarette and lighted another. He took a deep drag, then blew the smoke out with a sigh of exasperation. 'I deal mostly with a lot of wackos,' he said. 'I get groups sitting around a stinking, decaying body for a week while they try to raise it from the dead. I get small-time bunko artists, and the idiots who get taken by their mumbo jumbo. Every once in a while I tie into something big like the Son of Sam case, where some poor bastard thinks he's possessed by demons and starts killing people. But most of the stuff I see is small potatoes-cases with losers who got tired of being screwed by the natural and hoped to do better with the supernatural. There's always someone around to oblige them. This business that you describe, if you're right about it being a setup, sounds pretty sophisticated; you've got chemicals, drugs and a locked door.'

'I thought all the real weirdos were in Southern California.'

'The organized weirdos are in Southern California. Not counting victims, New York really has two layers of people involved in the occult. There are a lot of cocktail-party fortune-tellers, of course, but there are also some very sophisticated people who are very much into what they're doing.'

'What do the symbols on the gown mean-if they mean anything?'

'I don't know,' Garth said, shaking his head. 'But I can think of a couple of people who might. The guy I'd really like you to talk to is Michael McEnroe. He's a clairvoyant, psychic and teacher who lives down in the Village; supposed to be a real saint. The problem is that he's in India.' He paused, rubbed his forehead. 'You might talk to John Krowl. He works out of a brownstone in Brooklyn, just across the Manhattan Bridge. I'll give him a call for you.'

'What does Krowl do?'

'He reads hands and tarot cards. He used to be one of McEnroe's students until they had a falling-out of some kind. He's a very heavy fellow.'

'Meaning what?'

'Meaning. . he's heavy,' Garth repeated, raising his eyebrows. 'Krowl seems to be able to do exactly what he claims he can do: read your past, know your present-and maybe predict your future.'

'Christ, Garth, you sound as though you're starting to take this shit seriously.'

He didn't smile-didn't say anything. My words seemed to have triggered a whole train of thought in him, and for the moment he was lost in it. I was about to say something else when a tall, pretty redhead with green eyes stepped into the living room. She was dressed in one of Garth's shirts. My brother introduced her as Regina Farber.

'So you're Mongo,' the woman said in a throaty whisper. 'I've heard so much about you!'

'At your service,' I said with a bow.

'Garth talks about you all the time.'

'Quiet, Regina,' Garth said with a good-natured growl. 'The man's conceited enough as it is.'

'I've got to get along, Garth,' I said, tapping the face of my watch. 'How about giving this Krowl a call now? I'd like to see him as soon as possible.'

'Hey, come on. It's six o'clock in the morning. You're not going anywhere until you get some food in your belly and some sleep.'

'I'm in a hurry.'

'Sure you are. You haven't slept all night, and you haven't eaten. You go out of here now and you're going to fall right on your dwarf ass. That's not going to do you-or the little girl-any good. You know I don't give a damn what happens to you, but for the sake of the girl I'd like your brain to be functioning in full gear. So you're going to have something to eat, take a bath and sleep before you go back into the arena. In the meantime, I'll see what I can find out. Okay?'

Garth was playing Mother. I decided to let him get away with it, because he was right.

'I'll make us something to eat,' Regina said, gliding on her long, slender legs toward the kitchen.

Garth turned serious again. 'You talk about witchcraft and Satanism,' he said, lowering his voice as though he didn't want the woman in the kitchen to hear. 'Ever think about Charles Manson?'

'Have I ever thought about Charles Manson? Yeah, I've thought about Charles Manson; it's my business to think about nice folks like that.'

'I'm not sure you have,' Garth said evenly. 'Not really. Here's an out-and-out punk, a failed songwriter, failed you-name-it, and he-'

'He was a successful butcher.'

'Yeah, but he had power, Mongo; enormous personal power-enough to fuck up the minds of a whole flock of kids that he got to do his killing for him.'

'Weirdos. It's all psychological.'

'Of course it's psychological.' He looked at me hard, sighed. 'You're missing my point.'

'I'm afraid so. Even Manson didn't claim that the Devil made him do it.'

'Look,' he said after a pause, 'let me tell you about a case I just wrapped up. Last week, a woman wandered into the station house with this outrageous story. Witchcraft was involved, so it was referred to me. Well, her story turned out to be true. For the last eight months the woman had been enslaved by a 'spiritualist' she'd gone to for advice on how to cure her epileptic daughter. The spiritualist and her boyfriend had persuaded the woman to move in with them, along with her two kids. To make a long story short, the couple had been beating up on the woman for eight months; they'd been torturing her with lighted cigarettes, beating her with paddles and wire cables.'

'How'd she get away?' I asked, not really caring. I was distracted by the thought of Kathy in the hospital, but sensed that Garth was trying to tell me something he thought was important.

He shrugged. 'She was never actually locked up. She didn't have to be confined, because she was controlled. The couple had convinced her that they'd cast a spell and that she'd die if she tried to escape. Anyway, she was sent out to buy some groceries and a friend saw her. The friend asked her where she and the kids had been for eight months, and she blurted out the story. The neighbor convinced her that she should go to the police.'

He paused, blew a smoke ring, then impatiently swept it away with his hand. 'The place was quite a sight,' he continued. 'All red: red carpets, red walls, red altars, red candles-red everything. Satanism. Somehow, that couple had even managed to turn the woman's kids around; the children would help beat their own mother. Up to Friday-which was the last time I checked it out-the little bastards still preferred the spiritualist and her boyfriend over their mother. Would you call that a spell?'

I swallowed hard; my mouth felt dry, sore with fatigue and anxiety as I thought of mothers squirtgunning cyanide into their babies' mouths in Guyana. 'I'd call it a horror story. And I'm still missing your point.'

'Have it your way, brother. I'm trying to give you some advice: if you're going to jump into this particular pond, swim with a straight face. Believe what you want to, but never let on that you don't take these people seriously-not if you expect to find out anything. Especially remember that when you talk to Krowl; he'll pick up on it in a second if you try to bullshit him. Keep your usual smart-ass remarks to yourself.'

'You take Krowl seriously, don't you?'