An Affair Of Sorcerers

'Let me know what you find out.'

'Will do. Any further information on Daniel?'

'Still kicking ass, from what I hear.'

'If the two of you cross paths, tell him I want to talk to him. About bats.'

'What's with the bats?'

'I'll talk to you later, brother. Thanks again.'

After hanging up, I eased myself over the side of the bed. The pain in my stomach had eased to a kind of dull throb; now it was my thumb that burned. I managed to get dressed; I needed a shave, but decided to save my energy for what looked to be a long day. I wanted to talk to Davidson, then start pulling together my other contacts.

I opened my apartment door and was startled to see April Marlowe, her hand raised as if to knock. We both jumped, then laughed. She was dressed as she'd been when I'd first seen her, in jeans and the steel-blue silk blouse. She looked tired, but still stunning.

'Robert!' she said breathlessly, reaching out and gently touching my right hand. 'I saw Dr. Greene this morning and he told me what happened to you. Are you all right?'

'Just a little sore, April. Thanks.'

'Sore? Dr. Greene told me you were in pain and that you'd probably be in bed all day!'

'I'm surprised you're not at the hospital.'

April looked at me oddly; something like a cloud passed across the surface of her blue-gray eyes. 'After all you've done for Kathy, I thought it was time you got a little tender loving care.'

'Thank you,' I said quietly, covering her hand with mine. As before, the touch of her flesh was like an electric shock, making it hard for me to breathe. This time she didn't draw her hand away. I squeezed her fingers, then quickly drew my own hand back, embarrassed by even this small intimacy. I felt like a shy schoolboy-even more so since Krowl's reading had made me intensely aware of just how much April Marlowe fascinated me. 'I appreciate your coming to see me, April,' I continued, resisting the impulse to look at my feet. 'I know how hard it is for you to leave Kathy. You can go back now. I'm all right.'

'They're running more tests on Kathy this morning,' April said softly. 'I told Dr. Greene I'd be here, so he knows where to reach me. I did want to get out of the hospital for a little while. I thought I'd come over and make you something to eat, and here I find you on your way out. At least you can let me take you out to breakfast.'

The fact of the matter was that there was nothing I'd have liked better than to spend a leisurely hour or two with April Marlowe; but it was also a fact that the depth of my feeling toward her was beginning to frighten me. I was, when all was said and done, a dwarf. I didn't want to make a fool of myself. It wasn't that I lacked self- confidence: I didn't lack for female company, platonic or otherwise. But April was different; she was creating an emotional climate in me that I feared was blowing out of control. I didn't want to do or say anything that might jeopardize our relationship-whatever that relationship might be.

April was a woman I wanted badly-and could love.

'Uh-I can't hold anything down, April. And I have to keep moving; I have to find somebody.'

'It has something to do with Kathy, doesn't it?'

'Maybe; I'm not sure. I feel like I'm chasing a ghost, if you'll pardon the outrageous analogy, but I have to keep after this Esobus. At the moment, I'm trying to get more information on John Krowl. I'm on my way to talk to a man by the name of Bobby Weiss. You may have heard of him as Harley Davidson.'

'The singer?'

'He used to be a singer. Right now he's on the skids.'

'Robert, may I go with you? I. . really don't want to be alone today.'

'Where I'm going isn't exactly Park Avenue, April. It's ugly; very ugly.'

She shook her head. 'I'd still like to go-as long as you don't think I'll be in the way. I'll wait in the car; just as long as there's a phone nearby so I can check in with the hospital.'

Against my better judgment, very conscious of Krowl's reading of the tarot cards, I nodded my assent.

I drove across town on 72nd Street, turned south on the East River Drive and exited in lower Manhattan on Houston Street. The pain in my stomach persisted, as though Joshua Greene had left part of the needle there; but my weariness had vanished, chased by the excitement of being near April Marlowe. The late morning and afternoon no longer loomed as a nightmare of forced endurance; the woman beside me made everything all right, and I had to remind myself of the seriousness of the errand I was on.

Cars were jammed up in the left lane, waiting to get onto the entrance ramp for the Manhattan Bridge. Krowl, of course, lived just across the river, and it occurred to me as I pulled into the right lane to pass that I was driving at a right angle to the problem. Looking up Bobby Weiss in order to get information on the palmist and tarot reader might well be a waste of precious time. I felt a surge of rage at Krowl for holding out on me-if he was holding out on me.

April must have had similar thoughts. 'How did your reading with John Krowl go?' she asked. 'Ummm.'

'What does 'ummm mean?'

'It means you were right: I was impressed.'

'How did the two of you get along?'

'Not too well.' I glanced over at her. 'I think he knows something about Esobus, but he isn't likely to tell me what it is. The man I'm going to see had his hand cast on Krowl's wall; I want to find out what it takes to get into the Inner Sanctum, and what it means once you get there. By the way, your former husband's cast was there too.'

April half-turned in her seat, touched my arm. 'Frank went to see Krowl?'

'As Bart Stone; at least that's the way the cast is identified. Krowl may not have known his real name when the cast was made.'

'Perhaps not,' April said distantly. 'On the other hand, 'Bart Stone' was far more famous than Frank Marlowe; that was one of the things that bothered Frank. He wanted to produce something he could be proud to put his own name on.' She paused, shook her head. 'If you knew Frank, you'd realize that a tarot reader would be the last person he'd have gone to see.'

'You also said he was the last person you'd have expected to be involved in witchcraft,' I reminded her gently. 'And the person I'm going to see is the last person I'd expect to become a junkie, but that's what he is. I don't think I'll recommend this occult business to any of my friends.'

She looked away. 'It's not all like that, Robert,' she said sadly. 'You've seen so much. . evil. I guess you can't be expected to understand.'

'I've met you,' I said, brushing the back of my hand across her forearm. 'And that makes me think wicca can't be all bad.'

I stopped for a traffic light, and two bleary-eyed members of The Bowery's vanguard looking for the day's first bottle of Thunderbird or cheap rotgut whiskey stumbled off the divider and proceeded to 'clean' the lights and windshield of the car with the filthy rags they carried. I rolled down the window and managed to slip a dollar to the man nearer me before he'd smeared the entire windshield.

'Thank you,' the man said. His smile was vacant, but his voice was surprisingly clear, with precise diction. 'You're probably curious about me. I used to be an engineer. It's not that people haven't tried to help me. Don't you believe it. I'm here because I'm a loser. I want to be here; I'm a bum because I want to be a bum.'

I glanced into his face and was startled to see that he was a fairly young man who only looked old. I always gave money to the street-working winos when I passed through this section, but I rarely looked at them. Now, when I did, I was shaken, not only by the wasted human being who lived from one bottle to the next, but by the research which seemed to indicate that there was no solution. As the man had said, he was on The Bowery because he wanted to be, and all the king's psychiatrists probably couldn't keep him away. Put him in the hospital, dry him out, buy him clean clothes, get him a job. . he'd be back in a week, just like the shopping-bag ladies in midtown.

I wondered if the man thanked all his 'customers' with his confession.