Falling Angel

First look at a new novel

Part II

Synopsis:

It is 1959. In the one-room office of the Crossroads Detective Agency on Times Square, tough-talking private eye Harry Angel spends his empty hours reading the moving headlines on the building across the street. A telephone call from a Wall Street lawyer named Herman Winesap sends him to a lunch date at 666 Fifth Avenue with his new client, Louis Cyphre, a wealthy international traveler. Cyphre wants Angel to check up on a hospital in Poughkeepsie where a swing-era pop singer named Johnny Favorite (whose real name is Jonathan Liebling) has been in a coma since he was injured in World War Two. Cyphre has a contract with Favorite, collateral to be forfeited in the event of death. He became suspicious of the hospital when they refused permission to visit his old companion.

In Poughkeepsie, Angel discovers that Favorite, suffering from amnesia, was taken from the hospital in 1943 by a man named Kelley and an unknown woman. He learns this from Dr. Albert Fowler, an elderly morphine addict who was paid $25,000 by Kelley to keep Favorite's disappearance a secret. By faking the records, Fowler kept the lid on for over 15 years.

When Fowler refuses further information, Angel locks him in his bedroom, without his fix, to think things over. He returns later to find the doctor with his brains blown out. It looks like suicide, but Angel's instincts cry murder.

Back in the city, Cyphre hires Angel to find the missing singer. Angel digs around in old newspaper files and begins interviewing musicians who remember Favorite from the old days. A Harlem piano player, Toots Sweet, tells him of Favorite's love affair with Evangeline Proud-foot, a West Indian herbalist. Angel learns from her daughter, Epiphany, that Evangeline is dead.

Later, Angel tails Toots to Central Park, where Toots takes part in a voodoo ritual in which Epiphany is the priestess. A rooster is sacrificed. Angel roughs Toots up a bit in his apartment and gets him to tell about Favorite's involvement with the Harlem voodoo cult.

The next day, Angel finds Toots murdered, his body mutilated, voodoo scribbles in blood on the wall. He does not call the police. Out in Coney Island, he learns that a fortuneteller Favorite once consulted was in reality Margaret Krusemark, Favorite's social-register girlfriend, currently a high-priced mid-town astrologer.

When Angel's card is found by the cops in Toots Sweet's apartment, two of them, Lieutenant Sterne and Sergeant Deimos, come calling. Angel tells them most of what he knows, protecting his client's identity and leaving out Epiphany and Favorite. The cops are not satisfied but don't press it.

Later, Epiphany goes to Angel's office, fearing for her life, and confesses that Favorite was her father. Angel follows the girl to Margaret's apartment. He eavesdrops with a contact mike and soon tails a greatly alarmed Margaret to her father's office in the Chrysler Building. There, posing as a window washer and armed with his contact mike, Angel risks his neck hanging outside Ethan Krusemark's window.

He overhears enough to finger Krusemark as the Kelley who took Favorite from the hospital. Krusemark instructs his daughter to use any means necessary to find out who Angel is working for.

That same afternoon, Angel uses a skeleton key to break into Margaret's apartment but finds that he is too late--she has been murdered.

Finding Margaret Krusemark split like a Christmas goose upstairs in her apartment left me feeling grim and apprehensive. I dialed Epiphany Proudfoot's number from the phone booth on the corner. Listening to the endless ringing didn't make me feel any better. There was something ominous about not getting an answer.

I flagged down a cab on 57th Street and it dropped me in front of Proudfoot Pharmaceuticals 20 minutes later. The shop remained closed for business, the long green shade hanging behind the glass door like a flag lowered in defeat. I knocked and rattled the knob without success.

Epiphany had mentioned an apartment above the store, so I walked to the building's entrance farther down Lenox and checked the names on the mailboxes in the lobby. Third from the left: Proudfoot, 2-D. The hall door was unlatched and I went inside.

The narrow, tiled hallway smelled of urine and boiling pigs' feet. I climbed the age-scalloped marble steps to the second floor. Apartment 2-D was at the far end of the landing. I rang the bell as a precaution, but there was no answer.

The lock was no problem. I had half a dozen keys to fit it. I pulled on my latex gloves and opened the door, sniffing instinctively for ether. The large, corner living room was decorated with functional lay-away-plan furniture and African wood carvings. The bed was carefully made in the bedroom. A pair of grimacing masks flanked a bird's-eye-maple vanity table. I went through the dresser drawers and the closet without finding anything other than clothing and personal effects. The kitchen was clean and orderly, no dishes in the sink or crumbs on the table. Fresh food in the refrigerator was the only sign of recent habitation.

It was dark as a cave in the last room. The light switch didn't work, so I used my penlight. Once upon a time, it must have been an extra bedroom, but that was long ago. The window glass had been painted the same deep, midnight blue as the walls and ceiling. Over this swirled a neon rainbow of graffiti; leaves and flowers, crudely drawn fish and mermaids.

The room was a voodoo temple. An altar stood against the far wall. Upon it, rows of covered earthenware jars were ranked in tiers, like a stall in an outdoor market. Candle stubs rested in saucers beneath color lithographs of the Catholic saints pinned to the wall. I saw several gourd rattles and a pair of iron clappers on a shelf.

I thought of Epiphany in her white dress, chanting and moaning, while drums throbbed and the gourds whispered like snakes moving in dry glass. I remembered the deft turn of her wrist and the bright fountaining of rooster blood in the night.

I went through the hall closet without a score but got lucky in the kitchen and found a flight of narrow stairs leading to the store below. I went over the back room, searching among the inventory of dried roots, leaves and powders without knowing what to look for.

The front was dim and empty. There was a pile of unopened mail on the glass countertop. I checked it with my flash: a phone bill, several letters from herbal supply houses, a printed message from Congressman Adam Clayton Powell and an appeal from the March of Dimes. On the bottom was a cardboard poster. My heart turned a sudden cart wheel. The face on the poster was that of Louis Cyphre!

He wore a white turban. His skin looked burnished by the desert wind. Across the top was printed: El Cifr, Master of the unknown. The bottom bore this message: "The Illustrious and All-knowing El Cifr will address the congregation at the New Temple of Hope, 144 West 144th St., Saturday, March 21, 1959. 8:30 P.M. Admission: Free."

I slipped the poster inside my attaché case. Who can resist a free show?

•

That night, I dreamed I was awakened from a deep sleep by the sounds of shouting on the street. I went to the window and parted the curtain. A mob seethed from curb to curb, howling and incoherent. Through this throng inched a two-wheeled cart carrying a man and a woman. The woman was Margaret Krusemark. The man was me.

The cart rolled on. Over the heads of the crowd, I saw the guillotine's unmistakable silhouette. The cart jogged to a stop at the foot of the scaffold. Among the front ranks of the spectators, one revolutionary caught my eye. It was Louis Cyphre. His liberty cap hung at a rakish angle, crowned by a bold tricolored badge. When he saw me, he waved and gave a mock bow.

Drums rolled, the blade crashed, the executioner stood showing Margaret Krusemark's head to the adoring crowd. I heard my name called and stepped from the cart. Louis Cyphre smiled.

The scaffolding was slick with blood. I nearly slipped as I turned to face the taunting crowd. A soldier caught my arm and directed me almost gently toward the table. "You must lie down, my son," a priest said.

I knelt for a final prayer. The executioner stood beside me. A gust of wind lifted the black flap of his hood. I recognized the pomaded hair and mocking smile. The executioner was Johnny Favorite!

I woke up screaming louder than the ringing telephone. I lunged for the receiver like a drowning man after a life preserver.

"Hello ... hello? Is this Angel? Harry Angel?" It was Herman Winesap, my favorite attorney.

"Angel speaking." My tongue felt several sizes too large for my mouth.

"Good God, man, where've you been? I've been calling your office for hours."

"I've been sleeping."

"Sleeping? It's practically eleven o'clock."

"What's so important you couldn't leave a message?"

"Mr. Cyphre suggested you have lunch with him today."

"Same place as before?"

"No. Mr. Cyphre thought you might enjoy Le Voisin. It's at 575 Park."

"What time?"

"One o'clock. You can still make it if you don't fall back to sleep."

"I'll be there."

Wearing a pressed brown worsted suit, a white shirt crisp from the laundry and an unstained necktie, I was ready for the snottiest French restaurant. I drove uptown on Park and found a parking spot near the Christian Science Church on the corner of 63rd. Le Voisin's awning boasted a Park Avenue address, but the entrance was around the corner. I went in and checked my coat and attaché case.

The headwaiter greeted me with diplomatic reserve. I gave him Louis Cyphre's name and he led me past the pastry tray to a table on the banquette. Cyphre stood up when he saw us coming. Highlighting his lapel was a small gold star. It was upside down.

"Good to see you again, Angel," he said, gripping my hand.

We ordered lunch when the drinks arrived. Cyphre spoke to the waiter in French and I couldn't follow what was said. I know enough of the language to stumble through a menu and ordered tournedos Rossini and an endive salad.

As soon as we were alone, Cyphre said, "And now, Mr. Angel, a full report, if you please." He smiled and sipped his ruby-red drink. "I take it that you haven't found Jonathan?"

"Not yet. I've found out a lot about him, none of it very endearing."

Cyphre twirled his swizzle stick in his highball glass. "Do you think he's still alive?"

I said it appeared that way and filled him in on the events of the past three days. He listened without a flicker of emotion as I told him of the voodoo sacrifice in the park and Toots Sweet's murder, but he perked up when I mentioned breaking into Margaret Krusemark's apartment and finding her with her heart cut out.

"There was no mention of any heart in the newspapers."

"The cops always leave out certain details so they have some way to judge all the crackpot confessions that come in."

"You also seem to be one of the details omitted."

"That's because no one knows I was there. I skipped. The law already has me connected to the Sweet killing, which is bad enough."

Cyphre frowned. "How exactly are you connected to the Sweet killing?"

"I gave him my business card. The cops found it at his place."

Cyphre didn't look happy. "And the Krusemark woman? Did you give her a card as well?"

"No. I'm clean on that score. I found my name on her desk calendar and a horoscope she'd drawn up, but I took them with me."

"Where are they now?"

"They're in a safe place. Don't worry."

"Why not destroy them?"

"That was my first thought. But the horoscope may lead somewhere. When Margaret Krusemark asked for my birth date, I gave her Favorite's."

At this point, the waiter arrived with our order. He uncovered the plates with a magician's flourish and withdrew as silently as a pickpocket frisking a crowd.

"Do you think Jonathan killed all (continued on page 178) Falling Angel (continued from page 170) those people?" Cyphre asked when the waiter was gone.

"Not a chance."

"Why not?"

"Because the whole deal seems made to order. I think Favorite is being set up as a fall guy."

"Interesting hypothesis."

I met his glacial stare. "Trouble with it is, I don't know why. The answers are buried in the past."

"Uncover them. Spadework, man."

"My job would be a whole lot easier, Mr. Cyphre, if you'd stop holding out on me."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Everything I know about Johnny Favorite I had to find out on my own. You never gave me a clue. Yet you were mixed up with him. Had a deal going. You and this simple orphan kid who cuts pigeons apart and carries a skull in his suitcase. There's a lot you won't tumble to."

Cyphre crossed his silverware on his plate. "When I first met Jonathan, he was working as a bus boy. If there were skulls in his suitcase, I knew nothing of them. I'll be more than happy to tell you anything you care to ask."

"OK. Why are you wearing an upside-down star?"

"This?" Cyphre glanced at his lapel. "Why, you're right, it's on crooked." He turned it carefully upright in his buttonhole. "It's the insignia of the Sons of the Republic. One of those zealous patriotic organizations. It never hurts to appear patriotic." Cyphre leaned forward, his smile whiter than a tooth-paste ad. "In France, I always wear the tricolor."

I stared at his dazzling smile and he winked at me. An icy nightmare terror ran through my body like an electric current. I felt frozen, unable to move, mesmerized by Cyphre's immaculate smile. It was die smile at the foot of the scaffold. In France, I always wear the tricolor.

"Are you all right, Mr. Angel? You look a bit pale."

He was toying with me, grinning like the Cheshire cat. I folded my hands in my lap so he wouldn't see them shaking.

"I'm fine. Don't worry. Nothing's going to stop me from getting to the truth."

Cyphre pushed his plate away, his elaborate pâté half eaten. "The truth, Mr. Angel, is an elusive quarry."

•

We skipped dessert in favor of brandy and cigars. I held up my end of the conversation as best I could, the feeling of dread gone hard in my gut like a cyst. Mind reading is the world's oldest con, but knowing it didn't keep my fingers from trembling.

We left the restaurant together. A silver-gray Rolls waited at the curb. The uniformed chauffeur opened the rear door for Louis Cyphre. "We'll be in touch," he said, gripping my hand before climbing into the spacious car.

The Chevy seemed a touch shabby as I turned on the ignition and started back downtown. I turned west. There was a parking spot on 45th mid-block between Sixth and Seventh, and I grabbed it.

In the outer room of my office, I found Epiphany Proudfoot asleep on the tan Naugahyde couch. Her body curved in a graceful Z shape, legs folded beneath her. She looked as lovely as the figurehead of a sailing ship.

I gently touched her shoulder and her eyelashes fluttered.

"Epiphany?"

Her eyes opened wide, glowing like polished amber. She lifted her head. "What time is it?" she asked.

"Almost three."

"That late? I was so tired."

"Where were you yesterday afternoon? I came to the store, but no one was there."

She sat up, easing her feet to the floor. "I was at a friend's. I've been afraid to stay at home."

"Why?"

"First Toots got killed. Then I heard on the news that the woman who was engaged to Johnny Favorite was murdered. For all I know, I'm next."

"Don't get cute with me, Epiphany. I followed you to Margaret Krusemark's apartment when you left here yesterday. I overheard the two of you talking. You're playing me for a sap."

Her nostrils flared and her eyes caught the light and flashed like gem stones. "I'm trying to save my life!"

"Both ends against the middle isn't the smartest way to go about it. What exactly did you have cooked up with Margaret Krusemark?"

"Nothing. After I phoned you yesterday, I got a call from this woman, Margaret Krusemark. She told me she was a friend of my mother's from long ago. She wanted to come up and see me, but I said I had to go downtown, so she invited me to drop by her place when I had the time. There was no mention of Johnny Favorite until I got there, and that's the truth."

"All right," I said, "I'll take your word for it. There's no one to contradict you. Where did you spend last night?"

"The Plaza. I figured some swank hotel'd be the last place anyone would think to look for a black girl from Harlem."

"Still staying there?"

Epiphany shook her head. "Can't afford it. Besides, I didn't really feel safe. I couldn't sleep a wink."

"You must feel safe here," I said. "You were out like a light when I came in."

She reached up a delicate hand and smoothed the lapel of my overcoat. "I feel a whole lot safer now that you've come."

"Me big brave detective?"

"Don't put yourself down." Epiphany took hold of both of my lapels and stood very close. Her hair smelled clean and crisp, like sun-dried linen. "You've got to help me," she said.

I lifted her chin until our eyes met and traced my finger tips across her cheek. "You can stay at my place. It's more comfortable than sleeping in the office."

•

I parked the Chevy close to the corner of Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street, in front of the old Grand Opera-House. The cast-iron facade of an old commercial building caught Epiphany's fancy. "I don't think I've ever been in this part of town before."

We passed Cavanaugh's Restaurant. "Diamond Jim Brady used to court Lillian Russell in there. Here's where I live."

Epiphany craned her neck and stared up at the red-brick Victorian extravagance of the Chelsea, charmed by the delicate iron balconies embellishing every floor. "Which one is yours?"

I pointed. "Sixth floor. Under the arch."

"Let's go in," she said.

I had two rooms and a kitchenette with a small balcony overlooking the street. "These are the accommodations," I said. "We'll work out some kind of arrangement."

"I'm sure we will," she said, her voice husky with innuendo. She sat down on the couch by the fireplace. "Does this work?"

"It does when I remember to buy wood."

"I'll remind you. It's a sin not to use it."

I opened my attaché case and showed her the El Cifr poster. "Know anything about this character?"

"El Cifr? He's some kind of swami. Been around Harlem since I was a little girl. He preaches anywhere he's invited, for Daddy Grace, Father Divine, the Muslims, you name it. I get his posters in (continued on page 275) Falling Angel (continued from page 178) the mail a couple times a year and stick them in the window of the shop. You know, public service."

"Have you ever seen him in person?"

"Never. What do you want to know about Cifr for?"

I said, "Let's get something settled right at the start. Don't pump me for information."

"I figure I've got a stake in this, too."

"You're in over your head. That's why certain things you're better off not knowing."

I made Epiphany a drink and another for myself and sat next to her on the couch. "Cheers," she said as we clinked glasses.

"I'll be honest with you," I said. "I'm no closer to finding Johnny Favorite than I was the first night we met. He was your father. Your mother must have talked about him. Try to remember anything she might have told you, however insignificant it may seem."

Epiphany toyed with an earring. "Momma said he was a person of strength and power. She called him a magician. Said he taught her a lot about the black arts, more than she wanted to know."

"What do you mean?"

"Play with fire and you're liable to get burned."

"Your mother wasn't interested in black magic?"

"Momma was a good woman; her spirit was pure. She once told me that Johnny Favorite was as close to true evil as she ever wanted to come."

"That must have been his attraction," I said.

"Maybe. It's usually some badass makes a young girl's heart beat faster."

Is yours beating faster now? I wondered. "Can you think of anything else your mother told you?"

Epiphany smiled, her gaze as unwavering as a cat's. "Well, there is one thing more. She said he was a fabulous lover."

I cleared my throat. She leaned back against the couch cushions, waiting for me to make my move. Her slender neck flowed into the open collar of her blouse with a grace that reminded me of hawks in flight. "Care for a refill?" I reached for her empty glass.

"Why not?"

I made them stiff, killing the bottle, and when I handed one to Epiphany, I noticed the top two buttons on her blouse were undone. I hung my jacket over the back of a chair and loosened my necktie. Epiphany's topaz eyes followed every move. Silence enclosed us like a bell jar.

My pulse hammered at my temples as I dropped to one knee beside her. I took her unfinished drink and placed it next to mine on the coffee table. Epiphany's lips parted slightly. I heard a sharp intake of breath when I reached behind the nape of her neck and drew her to me.

•

The first time on the couch was a frenzied tangle of clothing and limbs. Three celibate weeks did little to enhance my lovemaking skills. I promised a better performance if given a second chance.

"Has nothing to do with chance." Epiphany slipped her unbuttoned blouse off her shoulders. "Sex is how we speak to the gods."

"Let's continue the conversation in the bedroom." I kicked free of my tangled trousers and shorts.

"I'm serious." She spoke in a whisper as she removed my necktie and slowly unbuttoned my shirt. "There is a story older than Adam and Eve. That die world began with the copulation of the gods."

"Don't get too serious."

"It's not serious, it's joyful." She dropped her brassiere to the floor and unzipped her wrinkled skirt. "The female is the rainbow; the male, lightning and thunder. Like this."

Wearing only nylons and her garter belt, Epiphany arched into a supple backbend with the ease of a yoga master. Delicate muscles rippled beneath her fawn-colored flesh. She was fluid as a flight of birds.

Her hands touched the floor behind her, back bent in a perfect arc. Her slow, easy movement was like all natural wonders, a glimpse at perfection. She lowered herself until she was supported only by her shoulders, elbows and the soles of her feet. It was the most carnal position I had ever seen a woman assume. "I am the rainbow," she murmured.

"Lightning strikes twice." I knelt before her and she closed the distance like a limbo dancer and swallowed me up. The rainbow turned into a tigress. Her taut belly throbbed against me.

"Don't move," she whispered, contracting hidden muscles with a rhythmic pulse. It was hard to keep from yelling when I came.

Epiphany settled against my chest. I brushed my lips across her damp forehead. "It's better with drums," she said.

"You do this in public?"

"There are times when spirits possess you. Banda or at a bambouché, times when you can dance and drink all night, yes, and fuck till dawn."

"What's banda and bambouché?"

Epiphany smiled and toyed with my nipples. "Banda's a dance in honor of Guédé. Very savage and wild and sacred, and always done in the hounfort of the société. What you would call the voodoo temple."

"Toots said 'humfo.'"

"Different dialect; same word."

"And bambouché?"

"Bambouché's just a party. Habitants of the société letting off a little steam."

"Something like a church social?"

"Uh-huh, but a whole lot more fun."

We spent the afternoon like naked children, laughing, taking showers, raiding the icebox, conversing with the gods. Epiphany found a Puerto Rican station on the radio and we danced until our bodies ran with sweat. When I suggested going out for dinner, my giggling mambo led me to the kitchenette and lathered our privates with whipped cream. It was a sweeter feast than Cavanaugh's ever served Diamond Jim and his buxom Lil.

And as it grew dark, we picked our clothes off the floor and retired to the bedroom, lighting several plumber's candles discovered in the utility drawer. In the pale light, her body glowed like tree-ripened fruit. She fell asleep in my arms and I lay awake for a long time afterward, watching her.

It was madness to have gotten involved. Those slender fingers knew how to grip a knife. She sacrificed animals without a qualm. If she killed Toots and Margaret Krusemark, I was in big trouble.

I can't remember falling asleep. I drifted off trying to contain my feelings of tenderness for a girl whom I had every reason to believe was extremely dangerous. Just like it said on the WANTED circulars.

My dreams were a succession of nightmares. I saw a man posting a billboard against a blank wall. As he glued the random strips, an image began to form. I walked closer. The face of Louis Cyphre leered down from the billboard, his joker's smile three yards wide, like the grinning Mr. Tilyou at Steeplechase Park. I called to the workman and he turned, gripping his long-handled brush. It was Cyphre. He was laughing.

The billboard parted like a theater curtain. Cyphre ran inside. I was close behind. Somehow, I lost him, and with that came the revelation that I was lost as well.

The trail I followed meandered past parks and meadows. I heard a shrill cry and hurried to the edge of a small clearing. At the far side, a bear was mauling a woman. I ran toward them. The huge carnivore shook his limp victim like a rag doll. I saw the girl's bleeding face. It was Epiphany.

I hurled myself at the bear. The beast reared and swatted me head over heels. There was no mistaking those ursine features. In spite of fangs and dripping muzzle, the bear looked exactly like Cyphre.

It was Cyphre. He was naked in the tall grass and instead of mauling Epiphany, he was making love to her. I lunged forward and pulled him off the moaning girl. We wrestled beside her in the grass. I had him by the throat and squeezed until his face darkened with blood. Epiphany screamed behind me. Her screams woke me up.

I was sitting in bed, sheets wound about me like a shroud. My legs straddled Epiphany's waist. Her eyes were wide with terror and pain. I had her around the throat, my hands locked in a death grip. She was no longer screaming.

"Oh, my God! Are you all right?"

Epiphany gasped for breath, scuttling to a safe corner of the bed when I took my weight off her. "You must be crazy," she coughed.

"Sometimes I'm afraid I am."

Epiphany rubbed her neck where the dark imprints of my fingers marred her flawless complexion. "You treat all your girlfriends like that?"

"Not as a rule. I was having a dream."

"What kind of dream?"

"Someone was hurting you."

"Someone you know?"

"Yes. I've been dreaming about him every night. Crazy, violent dreams. And the same man keeps turning up, mocking me. Tonight I dreamed he was hurting you."

Epiphany took my hand. "Sounds like some boko's put a powerful wanga on you."

"Speak English, doll."

Epiphany laughed. "I better educate you fast. A boko is a hungan who is evil. Who deals only in black magic."

"A hungan?"

"A priest of obeah. Same as a mambo, like me, only a man. Wanga's what you'd call an evil curse or charm. What you say about your dreams makes me think some sorcerer's got you in his power."

I felt my heart beat faster. "Someone's working magic on me?"

"That's how it looks."

"Would the man in my dreams be the one?"

"Most likely. You know him?"

"Sort of. Let's say I've gotten involved with him recently."

"Is it Johnny Favorite?"

"No, but you're getting warm." I put my arm around her. "Think you could make a charm that would protect me in my dreams?"

"If you were a believer, I could."

"I'm gaining faith by the minute. Sorry if I hurt you."

"That's all right." She kissed my ear.

"I know a way to make all the pain go away."

And she did.

•

I opened my eyes to dust motes dancing in a narrow slice of early-morning sunlight. Epiphany lay beside me, the covers thrown back over her slender arm and cinnamon shoulder. I leaned and kissed her eyelids when the pounding started on the front door. "Come on! Open up in there, Angel!" It was Lieutenant Sterne.

Epiphany sat up, wild-eyed, pleading in silent panic for some explanation. "It's the law," I whispered. "I don't know what they want. Probably just talk."

"Hurry it up, Angel!" Sterne bellowed.

Epiphany bounded from the room with long-legged strides. I heard the bathroom door close quietly as I kicked most of her scattered clothing under the bed. The pounding continued without a break.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," I called, pulling on a wrinkled bathrobe. "You don't have to kick it down."

"About time," Sterne snorted, shouldering past. Sergeant Deimos was right behind.

"You boys are the breath of springtime," I said.

"Sleeping late, as usual, Angel?" Sterne pushed his sweat-stained hat back on his head. "A great life, ain't it, Deimos? We sure were dumb to join the force."

"I'm in bad need of coffee," I said. "You fellows mind if I put on a pot?"

Sterne sat on the arm of the couch. "Go ahead. We don't like it, we'll dump it in the toilet."

As if on cue, a loud bumping noise came from the bathroom. "Someone in there?" Sergeant Deimos jerked his thumb at the closed door.

The bathroom door opened and Epiphany appeared, carrying a bucket and mop. The maid often left her gear in my John, saving herself a trip to the utility closet at quitting time. Epiphany was wearing the maid's gray smock, her hair tied up under a bit of dirty rag, and she shuffled into the room, slouching like an ancient crone.

"I'ze all done wid de bathroom for today, Mistuh Angel," she whined, her nasal accent pure Amos and Andy. "I sees you got company, so I be back later to finish up, if dat's OK wid you."

"That'll be fine, Ethel." I swallowed a smile as she shambled past.

She smacked her lips as if her dentures were slipping and headed for the door. "Mo'nin', gentermans. Hopes I din' disturb y'all too much."

I wondered if they noticed she was barefoot and held my breath until the front door closed.

"What was it you fellows wanted to see me about?" I asked, filling the coffeepot in the kitchenette.

Sterne leaned against the alcove wall next to the refrigerator. "Does the name Margaret Krusemark mean anything to you?"

"Not a whole lot."

"What do you know about her?"

"Only what I read in the papers."

"Which is?"

"That she was a millionaire's daughter and got herself murdered the other day."

"Anything else?"

I said, "I can't keep up with every murder in town. I've got my own work to look after."

Sterne shifted his weight and looked at a spot on the ceiling above my head. "When do you do that, when you're sober?"

"What's this?" Sergeant Deimos called from the other room. I looked down the hallway at him. He was standing by my open attaché case and held up the printed card I found on Margaret Krusemark's desk.

I smiled. "That? My nephew's confirmation announcement."

Deimos looked at the card. "Why is it in a foreign language?"

"It's Latin," I said.

"What's this gizmo mean up at the top?" Deimos pointed to the inverted pentagram.

"That's the emblem of the Order of Saint Anthony. My nephew's an altar boy."

"Looks like the same gizmo the Krusemark dame was wearing."

"Maybe she was Catholic, too."

"She was no Cat'lic," Sterne said. "Heathen is more like it."

"I thought you were investigating the death of Toots Sweet."

Sterne's dead eyes met my gaze. "That's right, Angel. It just so happens the M.O. in both killings is very similar."

"In what way similar?"

"That comes under the heading of police business."

"So how can I help if I don't know what you want?" I got three mugs out of the cupboard and lined them on the counter.

"You're holding out on us, Angel?"

"Why shouldn't I hold out on you?" I turned off the flame and poured the coffee. "I don't work for the city."

"Lissen, wise-ass: I called your fancy mouthpiece downtown. It looks like you've got us over a barrel. But if I find out you've broken so much as a parking regulation, I'm gonna come down on you like a pile driver."

I sipped my coffee, breathing the fragrant steam. "I always obey the law. Lieutenant," I said.

"Bullshit! Guys like you play jump rope with the law. Someday real soon you're gonna slip, and I'll be there waiting with open arms."

"Your coffee's getting cold."

"Fuck the coffee!" Sterne snarled. He backhanded the mugs off the counter. They crashed against the opposite wall and bounced along the floor. Sterne regarded the splattered brown stain thoughtfully, like a 57th Street gallery-goer studying an action painting. "Looks like I made a mess," he said. "No problem. The nigger can mop up when I'm gone."

"And when might that be?" I asked.

"When I damn well please."

"Suits me." I carried my cup back into the living room and sat on the couch. Sterne stared at me as if I were something unpleasant he'd just stepped in. Deimos looked at the ceiling.

I held the cup in both hands and ignored them. Deimos started to whistle but quit after four tuneless notes.

"Awright. Let's breeze," Sterne barked. Deimos sauntered past as if it were his idea.

"Hurry back," I said.

Sterne pulled his hat brim down. "I'll be waiting for you to step outa line, ass-wipe." He slammed the door.

•

After a couple minutes, I heard a soft tapping at the front door. "Come on in, Ethel. It's open."

Epiphany peered inside, still wearing her rag bandanna. "Are they gone for good?"

"Probably not. But they won't bother us any more today."

When I took her in my arms, I felt her body tremble under the thin cotton smock. "You were terrific," I told her.

"Wait'll you see how clean I got the toilet."

"Hungry? There's a pot of coffee made and eggs in the fridge."

We fixed breakfast, a meal I usually skip, and carried our plates into the living room. Epiphany dipped her toast in egg yolk. "Did they find anything of mine?"

"They weren't looking, really. One of them poked around my attached case. He found something I took from the Krusemark apartment but didn't know what it was. Hell, I don't even know what it is."

"Can I see?"

"Why not?" I got up and showed her the card.

"'Missa Niger,'" she read. "'Invito te venire ad clandestinum ritum....'"

She held the card as if it were the ace of spades. "This is an announcement of a Black Mass. Missa Niger is the Latin for Black Mass."

"You read Latin?"

Epiphany grinned with pleasure. "What else do you learn after ten years in parochial school? I went to Sacred Heart."

I laughed. "The voodoo princess at Sacred Heart. I'd love to see your yearbook pictures."

"I'll show you sometime. I was class president."

"I'll bet you were. Can you translate the whole thing?"

"Easy," Epiphany smiled. "It says: 'You are invited to attend a secret ceremony to the glory of Lord Satan and his power.' That's all. Then there's the date, March 22nd, and the time, nine P.M. And down here it says, 'Eastside Inter-borough Rapid Transit, 18th Street Station.'"

"What about the letterhead? That upside-down star? Have any idea what it means? Anything to do with voodoo?"

"No, no. This is Devil worship." Epiphany was pained by my ignorance. "An inverted star means bad luck. Probably also a satanic symbol."

I grabbed Epiphany and wrapped her in my arms. "You are worth your weight in gold, babe. It's time to brush up on my black magic. We'll get dressed and go to the library. You can help me with my homework."

•

I waited in the main reading room while Epiphany sorted through file cards. Scholars of all ages sat in silent rows between the long wooden tables where precisely arranged lamp shades wore numbers like convicts on parade. I found a vacant seat at the far end of a reading table. The number on the lamp shade was 666. I remembered the snotty maitre de at the Top of the Six's and changed my seat; 724 felt a lot more comfortable.

"Wait'll you see what I've found." Epiphany dropped an armload of books with a dusty thump. Heads turned halfway down the table. "Some of it is trash, but there's an edition of the Grimoire of Pope Honorius privately printed in Paris in 1754."

"I don't read French."

"It's in Latin. I'll translate. Here's a new one that's mostly pictures."

I reached for the oversized coffee-table volume and opened it at random. An Elizabethan woodcut showed a woman in a farthingale kneeling behind a naked Devil with the build of a lifeguard. The woman hugged his legs, her nose nestled directly beneath his uplifted tail. She was smiling.

"The abominable kiss," Epiphany said, looking over my shoulder. "That's how a witch traditionally sealed her allegiance to the Devil."

"I guess they didn't have notary publics in those days." I turned a few more pages and came across an inverted five-pointed star with the figure 666 printed at the center. "My least favorite number."

"It's from the book of Revelation. 'Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.'"

"Just the book we need."

"It's entertaining, but the meat and potatoes are in these: Malleus Male-ficarum, and Reginald Scott's The Dis-coverie of Witchcraft, and Aleister Crowley's Magick, and the Secrets of Albertus Magnus, and--"

"OK, terrific. Go on home and curl up on the couch with a good book. Mark any passages dealing with the Black Mass."

Epiphany began piling the books. "You're not coming with me?"

"I've got work to do. Here's the key to my place." I got out my wallet and slipped her a 20. "That's for cab fare and anything else you think you'll need."

"I don't want to be alone."

"Keep the chain on the door. You'll be fine."

•

I dropped the Chevy off at the garage and walked back to Broadway on the sunny side of 44th. I was taking my time, enjoying the weather, when I spotted Louis Cyphre coming out of the main entrance to the Astor. He started downtown past the Paramount Building at a brisk pace. I figured he was heading for the Crossroads office and didn't think of tailing him; I was much too close. But when he passed the entrance to my building, I fell back, curiosity at full throttle. He crossed 42nd Street and turned west. I watched from the corner, then kept pace with him, following along the opposite side of the street.

I guessed his eventual destination to be Port Authority. He surprised me mid-block and ducked into Hubert's Museum and Flea Circus.

I dodged four lanes of two-way traffic, only to be brought up short by a signboard at the entrance. Glitter-edged letters announced: The Amazing Dr. Cipher. Eight-by-ten glossies showed my client wearing a top hat and tails like Mandrake the Magician. Limited engagement, it said.

The main floor of Hubert's was a penny arcade; the stage was downstairs. I went in, bought a ticket and found a place in the dark. I counted five other shadowy spectators besides myself. The six of us stared at an empty stage without complaint until an old geezer wearing a red vest and sleeve garters appeared. "Ladies and gentlemen," he wheezed, "it is with great awe and trepidation that I present to you the amazing, mysterious, unforgettable Dr. Cipher. Let's give him a nice welcome." The old man was the only one clapping as he shuffled off.

The lights dimmed to blackness. A muffled bumping and whispering backstage as in amateur theatricals was followed by a blinding, phosphorescent flash. Louis Cyphre stood alone, center stage, surrounded by wispy tendrils of smoke and the smell of burnt magnesium. He wore a black Edwardian soup-and-fish with long swallowtails and a two-button vest. A hinged black case the size of a breadbox stood on a table to one side.

"Let me tell you a story: When I was a young man and just beginning my travels, I struck up a conversation with a retired seaman in a waterfront bar in Tangier. He told me that when he was my age and first shipping out, he encountered an old beachcomber in Samoa who gave him a bottle containing the soul of a Spanish quartermaster who once sailed with King Philip's armada. Any illness or misfortune that might befall him was instead suffered by this tormented prisoner. How the Spaniard's soul came to inhabit the bottle, he knew not, but at the age of seventy, he must give it away to the first young man who would accept it or suffer the consequences of taking the unfortunate conquistador's place within.

"Here the old German looked at me sadly. He had but a month to go before his seventy-first birthday. 'Time,' he said, 'to learn what life is all about.'

"He gave me the bottle. A hand-blown rum bottle, amber in color, and easily hundreds of years old. It was stoppered with a gold plug."

Dr. Cipher reached behind the black case on the table and produced the bottle. "BeholdI" He sat it on top of the case. His description had been exact, omitting only the frenzied scuttling shadow inside.

"I have had a long and happy life; but listen"--all six of us craned forward to hear--"listen...." Cyphre's voice trailed away to a whisper. Out of the ensuing silence came a tiny, bell-chime complaint, like a chain of paper clips dragged across a crystal goblet. It seemed to be coming from within the amber bottle.

"Ay-you-da-may ... ay-you-da-may...." Over and over, the same haunting melodic phrase.

"Mysterious fate," Louis Cyphre said. "Why should I spend a life free from pain while another human soul is doomed to eternal anguish within a rum bottle?" He withdrew a black-velvet sack from his pocket and stuffed the bottle inside.

"I want to show you something else," he said. "I bought the contents of this box in Zurich from an Egyptian merchant I had known years before in Alexandria. He claimed what you are about to see were souls originally enchanted at the court of Pope Leo X. An amusement for his Medici imagination. This seems an impossible claim, does it not?"

Dr. Cipher unsnapped the metal fasteners securing the case and opened it to form a triptych. A miniature theater unfolded, with scenery painted in the meticulous perspective of the Italian Renaissance. The stage was peopled with white mice, all costumed in tiny silks and brocade as characters from commedia dell'arte. There was Punchinello and Columbina, Scaramouche and Harlequin. Each walked on its hind legs in an elaborate pantomime.

"The Egyptian claimed they would never die," Cyphre said. "An extravagant boast, perhaps. I can only say that I have not lost any in six years' time."

The diminutive performers walked on tightropes and brightly colored balls, brandished matchstick swords and parasols, tumbled and took pratfalls with clockwork precision.

"Toys," the man next to me muttered in the dark. "They gotta be toys."

As if on cue, Cyphre reached down and Harlequin scampered up his coat sleeve and perched, sniffing the air, on his shoulder. The spell was broken. It was only a rodent wearing a tiny diamond-patterned outfit.

"As you see, I have no need for television." Dr. Cipher folded the sides of the miniature stage closed and secured the fasteners. There was a handle on top and he lifted it off the table like a suitcase. "Whenever the box is opened, they perform. Even show business has its purgatory."

Cyphre dropped something onto the table. There was a flash of white light and I was blinded in its momentary brilliance. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. The stage was bare. A plain wooden table stood alone in the spotlight.

Cyphre's amplified, disembodied voice issued from an unseen speaker: "Zero, the point intermediate between positive and negative, is a portal through which every man must eventually pass."

I groped my way up the sagging stairs. The prickling dread I felt in the French restaurant had returned. My client was toying with me, playing tricks with my mind like a three-card monte dealer fleecing the suckers.

•

Out front, a fat young man removed the glossy photos from the glass-covered signboard.

"Great show," I said to the fat kid. "That Dr. Cipher is a marvel. I'd like to congratulate him. Is there some way to get backstage?"

"You just missed him."

"Missed him? That's impossible."

"He uses a tape recorder at the end of the act. Gives him a head start. Doesn't take off his costume or anything."

"Where does he live?"

"How should I know?" The fat young man blinked at me. "Are you a cop or something?"

"Me? No, nothing like that. Just wanted to tell him he's made a new fan."

"Tell his agent." He handed me an 8 x 10 photo. I flipped the photo over and read what was rubber-stamped:

Warren Wagner Associates WY 9-3500.

•

I caught a cab that dropped me off uptown on Broadway in front of the Rivoli Theater, across from the Brill Building, and took the elevator to the eighth floor. The peroxided receptionist had silver fingernails this day.

I showed her my card. "Mr. Wagner in his office?"

"He's busy right now."

"Thanks." I stepped around her desk and jerked open the door marked private.

Warren Wagner, Jr., glowered at me. "What the hell do you mean barging in like this?"

"You saw me on Monday. I was working undercover." I got out my wallet and let him look at the photostat.

"So, you're a shamus. Big deal. That doesn't give you the right to come crashing into a private meeting."

"Why not save the adrenaline and tell me what I need to know? I'll be out of your hair in thirty seconds."

"Johnny Favorite means less than nothing to me," he said. "I was only a kid then."

"Forget about Johnny Favorite. Tell me about a client of yours who calls himself Dr. Cipher."

"What about him? I just signed him last week."

"What's his real name?"

"Louie Seafur. You'll have to get my secretary to spell it for you."

"Where does he live?"

"Janice can tell you that," he said. "Janice!"

Silver-nails opened the door and peeked timidly in. "Yes, Mr. Wagner?" she squeaked.

"Give Mr. Angel here the information he requires, please."

"Yes, sir."

"Thanks a lot," I said.

"Next time, knock."

Silver-nailed Janice didn't give me the benefit of her jiggling, gumchewer's smile, but she did look up Louis Cy-phre's address in her circular file. She even wrote it out.

•

The 1-2-3 Hotel was on 44th between Broadway and Sixth, name and address all in the same package: 123 West 44th. I went in and gave the desk clerk my business card, wrapped in a ten-spot. "I want the room number of a man named Louis Cyphre," I said, spelling it for him. "And you don't need to say anything to the house dick."

"Checked out over a week ago."

"What about his room? Rented yet?"

"Wouldn't do you any good; been cleaned top to bottom."

I stepped back into the sunshine and headed toward Broadway. It was a beautiful day for walking. I savored the sounds and smells, trying to remember the real world of a week ago, when there was no such thing as magic.

I used a different approach with the desk clerk in the Astor. "Excuse me, I wonder if you might help me out. I was supposed to meet my uncle in the coffee shop twenty minutes ago. I'd like to phone him, but I don't know the room number."

"What's your uncle's name, sir?"

"Cyphre. Louis Cyphre."

"I'm terribly sorry. Mr. Cyphre checked out this morning."

"What? Back to France?"

"He left no forwarding address."

I phoned Herman Winesap downtown and demanded to know what was going on. "What the hell is Louis Cyphre doing at Hubert's Flea Circus?"

"What business is it of yours? You were not hired to follow Mr. Cyphre. I suggest you stick to your job. For fifty dollars per diem, Mr. Cyphre can always find someone else to work for him."

I told Winesap I got the message and hung up.

After a trip to the cigar stand for additional dimes, I made two more calls. First, Krusemark Maritime, Inc., where I learned that the president and chairman of the board was in mourning and not available. I tried his home number and got some flunky who took my name. I didn't have to wait long.

"What do you know about it, Angel?" the old brigand barked.

"Some. Why don't we save it? I need to talk to you. Soon as I can get there'd be as good a time as any."

"All right. I'll call downstairs and tell them to expect you."

•

Number Two Sutton Place was the building where Marilyn Monroe had lived. A doorman festooned with more gilt braid than an admiral hurried to assist me. I gave my name and asked for the Krusemark residence.

"Yes, sir," he said. "Elevator on the left."

I got off on the 15th floor, stepping into a Spartan walnut-paneled foyer. A dark-haired man opened the door. "Mr. Angel, please come in. Mr. Krusemark is waiting for you."

He led me through large, luxuriously furnished rooms with views of the East River and the Sunshine Biscuit Company over in Queens.

We came to a closed door and my gray-suited guide knocked once and said, "Mr. Angel is here, sir."

"Bring him in where I can see him."

I was ushered into a small, window-less gym. Ethan Krusemark, wearing boxer shorts and a skivvy, lay on his back, doing leg presses. For a man his age, he was pumping a lot of iron.

At the sound of the door closing, he sat up and looked me over. "We're burying her tomorrow," he said. "Toss me that towel."

I flipped it to him and he wiped the sweat from his face and shoulders. He was powerfully built. Knotted muscles bunched beneath his varicose veins. This was one old man you didn't want to fool with.

"Who killed her?" he growled at me. "Johnny Favorite?"

"When I find him, I'll ask."

"That dance-band gigolo. I should have deep-sixed the bastard when I had the chance."

"When was that? When you and your daughter snatched him from the clinic?"

His eyes locked on mine. "You're way out of line, Angel."

"I don't think so. Fifteen years ago, you paid Dr. Albert Fowler twenty-five thousand dollars for one of his patients. You gave your name as Edward Kelley."

"Who's paying you to dig into this?"

"You know I won't tell you that."

"I could make it worth your while."

I'm sure you could," I said, "but it's still no dice. Look. You want the man who killed your daughter. I want Johnny Favorite. Perhaps we're both interested in the same guy. We won't know unless we find him."

Krusemark's thick fingers curled into a fist. It was a big fist. "OK," he said. "I was Edward Kelley. It was me paid Fowler the twenty-five Gs."

"Why did you use the name Kelley?"

"You think I'd use my own name? The Kelley business was Meg's idea, don't ask me why."

"Where did you take Favorite?"

"Times Square. It was New Year's Eve, 1948. We dropped him off in the crowd and he walked out of our lives. So we thought."

"Let's take that one again," I said. "You expect me to buy that after paying twenty-five grand for Favorite, you lost him in a crowd?"

"That's the way it happened. I did it for my daughter. I always gave her what she wanted."

"And she wanted Favorite to disappear?"

Krusemark pulled on a terrycloth robe. "I think it's something they cooked up together before he went overseas. Some kind of hocus-pocus they were fooling around with at the time."

"You mean black magic?"

"Black, white, what difference does it make? Meg was always a funny kid. She played with tarot cards before she could read."

"Did you know your daughter once ran a fortunetelling parlor at Coney Island?"

"Yes, I set her up in that, too. She was all I had, so I spoiled her."

"I found a skull in her bathroom."

"Favorite gave that skull to Meg the night before he shipped out. Everybody else gave their girl a class ring or a varsity sweater or something like that. He picks a skull."

"I thought Favorite and your daughter had broken things off by then."

"Officially, yes. Must have been some game they were playing."

"Why do you say that?" I flicked an inch-long ash onto the floor.

"Because nothing changed in their relationship."

"Did your daughter ever mention a woman named Evangeline Proudfoot?"

"Proudfoot? Can't place it. She might have."

"What about voodoo? Did she talk about voodoo?"

"Voodoo was one she missed," he said.

"Dr. Fowler told me Favorite was suffering from amnesia when you took him from the hospital. Did he recognize your daughter?"

"No, he didn't. He acted like a sleepwalker. Didn't say much. Just stared out the car window into the night."

"In other words, he treated you like strangers?"

"Meg wanted it that way. She insisted that we not call him Johnny and that nothing be said about their past relationship."

"Didn't that strike you as odd?"

"Everything Meg did was odd."

"Did your daughter ever see Favorite again after that New Year's Eve?"

"Never."

"You sure of that?"

"Of course I'm sure. Do you have reason to doubt it?"

"My business is doubting what other people tell me. How do you know she never saw him again?"

"We had no secrets. If she ever saw Favorite again, it was on the day lie killed her."

"Nice and neat," I said. "A guy with total amnesia, doesn't even know his own name, wanders off into a New Year's mob fifteen years ago, vanishes without a trace, and then suddenly shows up out of the blue and starts killing people."

"Who else did he kill? Fowler?"

I smiled. "Dr. Fowler was a suicide."

"That's easy enough to arrange," he snorted.

"Is it? How would you go about arranging it, Mr. Krusemark?"

Krusemark fixed me with a steely buccaneer's stare. "Don't go putting words into my mouth, Angel. If I wanted Fowler knocked off, I would have had it done years ago."

"That I doubt. As long as he kept the lid on the Favorite business, he was worth much more to you alive."

"It was Favorite I should have had put away, not Fowler," he growled. "Whose murder are you investigating, anyway?"

"I'm not investigating anybody's murder," I said. "I'm looking for a man with amnesia."

"I hope to hell you find him. Where do you go from New Year's 1943?"

"No place. I can't find him in the past. If he's here in the city, he'll surface again soon. Next time, I'll be waiting."

"Think I'm a target?"

"What do you think?"

"I'm not going to lose any sleep over it."

"Might be a good idea if we kept in touch," I said. "My number's in the book, if you need me." I wasn't about to hand my business card over to another potential corpse.

Krusemark clapped me on the shoulder and flashed his million-dollar smile. He walked me to the front door, exuding charm like a pig sweating blood. "You'll be hearing from me; you can count on that."

•

Two men were waiting on the corner as I came out of the building. The short, stocky one wearing a blue-rayon wind-breaker looked like a high school football coach. His companion was a kid in his 20s with a d.a. haircut and the wet, imploring eyes of a greeting-card Jesus.

"Hey, buddy, got a minute?" the coach called, ambling toward me with his hands in his jacket pockets. "I got something to show you." The blunt muzzle of an automatic pointed up at me from out of the in the coach's half-zippered windbreaker. Only the front sight was exposed. It was .22-caliber, which meant the guy was good, or thought he was. "There's a park across the street. Let's you and me take a walk over there, where we can talk nice and private."

The kid fell in behind us and we crossed Sutton Place and started down the steps to a narrow park fronting on the East River. "Cute trick," I said, "cutting the pocket out of your jacket."

"Works nice, don't it?"

A promenade runs along the river's edge, the water ten feet below an iron railing. At the far end of the little park, a white-haired man in a cardigan sweater walked a Yorkshire terrier on a leash. He was coming toward us but kept to the dog's mincing pace. "Wait here till that bozo makes himself scarce," the coach said. "Enjoy the view."

I tightened my grip on the attaché case. The man with the dog was less than 20 feet away. I shifted my weight and glanced at the coach, waiting for him to make a mistake. The quick flicker of his eyes as he checked the dog walker's progress was all I needed.

I swung the attache case full strength, driving it up between the spread of his legs. He screamed with true sincerity and bent double, a stray shot burning through his windbreaker and splattering off the pavement.

The Yorkshire terrier strained at his leash, barking shrilly. I gripped the attaché case with both hands and slammed it against the coach's head. He grunted and went down. I kicked his elbow and a pearl-handled Colt Woodsman spiraled across the concrete.

"Get a cop!" I yelled at the open-mouthed gentleman in the cardigan sweater as the Christ-eyed kid closed on me with a leather-covered sap in his bony fist. "These guys want to kill me!"

I used the attaché case like a shield and caught the kid's first swing on its expensive calfskin surface. Kicked at him and he danced back away from me. The long-barreled Colt lay tantalizingly close. I couldn't risk stooping for it and kicked the automatic under the railing into the river.

That left me wide open. The kid caught the side of my mouth with his weighted sap. Now it was my turn to scream. I shielded my head as best I could, but the kid was in the driver's seat. He struck a glancing blow off my shoulder, and then I felt my left ear explode. As I went down, I saw the man in the cardigan swoop his yapping terrier up into his arms and run hollering up the park steps.

I watched his departure on my hands and knees through a pink haze of pain. My head roared like an express train on fire. The kid sapped me again and the train went into a tunnel.

Voices approached out of the bloody fog. "There he is, officer. That's the man. Oh, my God! Look what they've done to him."

"Take it easy, fella," another voice said. "Everything's OK now." Strong arms lifted me. "Just lean back, fella. You're gonna be OK. Can you hear what I'm saying?"

When I tried to answer, I made a noise like gargling. The swirling red mists parted and I saw an earnest, square face surrounded by blue. I focused on the badge until I could almost read the numbers. When I tried to say thanks, I made the gargling noise again.

"You just relax, fella," the square-faced patrolman said. "We'll get some help here in a minute."

The sound of voices brought the realization that I'd been unconscious again. I guessed it was the ambulance crew. "Easy does it," one of the attendants said. "Take his legs, Eddie."

I said I could walk, but my knees buckled when I tried to stand. I was lowered to a stretcher, lifted and carried. There didn't seem much point in paying attention to what was going on. The inside of the ambulance smelled like vomit. Above the mounting wail of the siren, I could hear the driver and his partner laughing.

•

The world came back into focus in the Bellevue emergency room. An intense young intern cleaned and stitched my lacerated scalp and said he'd do the best he knew how with what was left of my ear. Demerol made it all seem OK.

A precinct detective showed up just as they were taking me out for X rays. I did nothing to discourage his holdup assumptions and he left after I described the coach and the kid. As soon as they finished taking pictures of the inside of my head, the doc said they were holding me overnight for observation. I felt too shitty to make much of a fuss. The nurse walked me to a pay phone in the corridor and I called Epiphany to say I wasn't coming home.

She sounded worried at first, but I joked with her and said I'd be fine after a night's sleep. She pretended to believe me. "Know what I did with the twenty you gave me?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Bought a load of firewood."

I told her I had plenty of matches. She laughed and we said goodbye. I was falling for her. Bad luck for me. The nurse led me back to a waiting needle.

Next morning, I was finishing my Cream of Wheat when Lieutenant Sterne paid a surprise visit to the ward. "Looks like someone did a pretty good job on you," he said.

"You forgot the flowers," I said.

"I'm saving 'em for your grave, asshole." Sterne sat on the white chair next to the bed.

"What's on your mind, Lieutenant?"

"I thought you might be interested in something we found in the Krusemark apartment, seeing as how you never knew the lady."

"I'm holding my breath."

"That's what they do in the gas chamber," Sterne said. "Hold their breath. It don't do no good."

"What is it that they do up in Sing Sing?"

"What I do is I hold my nose. Because they shit their pants the second the juice hits 'em, and it smells like a wienie roast in the toilet."

I said, "Tell me what you found in the Krusemark apartment."

"It's what I didn't find. What I didn't find was the page for March sixteenth on her desk calendar. It was the only page missing. You get so you notice things like that. I sent the page underneath to the lab and they checked it for impressions. Guess what they found?"

I said I had no idea.

"The initial H, followed by the letters A-n-g."

"Spells hang."

"We're gonna hang your ass, Angel. You know damn well what it spells."

"Coincidence and proof are two different things, Lieutenant."

"Where were you Wednesday afternoon around half past three?"

"Grand Central Terminal."

"Waiting for a train?"

"Eating oysters."

Sterne shook his big head. "No good at all."

"The counterman will remember. I was there a long time. Ate a lot. We joked about it. He said oysters looked like gobs of spit. I said they were good for your sex life. You can check it."

"You bet your ass I'll check it." Sterne got to his feet. "I'll check it five ways from Sunday, and you know what? I'll be there holding my nose when they strap you in the hot seat."

•

My first stop after leaving the hospital was the dentist. I had called him and he agreed to open his office in the Graybar Building long enough to fit me with temporary caps. Numb with painkiller, I hurried to make a one-o'clock appointment in the lobby of the Chrysler Building. I was ten minutes late, but Howard Nussbaum patiently waited for me at the Lexington Avenue entrance.

"This is blackmail, Harry, pure and simple," he said as he shook my hand. He was a small, worried-looking man in a brown suit.

Howard Nussbaum was in charge of key control for a company that handled security in a number of big midtown office buildings. He owed his job to the fact that I had omitted his name from a report I once filed for his firm, tracing a grand master that had turned up in the purse of a teenage prostitute. "Did you bring it?" I asked.

"Would I come and not bring it?" He reached inside his jacket and handed me a small unsealed brown envelope. I slid a brand-new key out onto the palm of my hand. It looked exactly like any other key.

"This a master?"

"I should trust you with a master key to the Chrysler Building?" Nussbaum's frown deepened. "It's a submaster for the forty-fifth floor. There's not a lock on the floor it won't fit. Mind telling me who you're going after?"

"Ask me no questions, Howard. That way you're not an accessory."

"I'm an accessory all right," he said. "I've been an accessory all my life."

I rode up in the elevator, studying the little brown envelope. There was an off-chance that somewhere among my half-G set of twirls I had one that would work the same trick. But skeleton keys require locks with mechanisms worn through the use of duplicates, and Nussbaum's firm will replace a lock rather than save money on third-generation keys.

The lights were dim behind the frosted doors of Krusemark Maritime, Inc. I pulled on my surgeon's gloves and slipped the submaster into the first of many locks.

I set up the Minox and the copying easel on the L-shaped desk. My penknife and a bent paper clip were all it took to pop the locked filing cabinets. I didn't know what I was looking for, but Krusemark had something he wanted to hide badly enough to send the goon squad after me. There's always a little crime under the corporate rug.

I shot 15 rolls of film. Every major deal Krusemark Maritime had a finger in passed under my copying easel. Somewhere, lurking behind all the statistics, was enough crime to keep the D.A.'s office hopping for months.

When I finished the filing cabinets, I let myself into Krusemark's private office with the submaster. I went over the wall paneling and looked behind all the paintings. There was no sign of a safe or any tricky carpentry.

Other than the couch, the bar and the marble-slab desk, the room was bare; no files, no drawers or shelves. I looked under the marble slab. You couldn't see it from above, but a shallow recessed steel drawer was cleverly concealed underneath. Hidden springs sent it gliding open like a drawer in a cash register. Inside were several expensive fountain pens, an eight-inch dirk and a scattering of letters.

I picked up a familiar envelope and removed the card. An inverted pentagram was embossed at the top. The Latin words were no longer a problem. Ethan Krusemark had his own invitation to the Black Mass.

•

I put everything back the way I found it and packed my camera away. When I hit the street, it was raining. I called Epiphany from the first empty phone booth and asked how long it would take her to get ready. She said she'd been ready for hours.

"Sounds inviting, sweetheart," I said, "but I'm talking about business. Take a cab. Meet me at my office in half an hour. We'll have dinner and then go uptown to hear a lecture."

When I got to my office at ten past six, Epiphany was waiting in the Naugahyde chair. She was all dressed up and looked fantastic. She felt and tasted even better.

"Missed you," she whispered. Her fingers lightly traced the bandage covering my left ear and hovered over the spot where my scalp was shaved. "Oh, Harry, are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Maybe not so pretty anymore

•

The New Temple of Hope on 144th Street had at one time been a movie-house. The old marquee hung out over the sidewalk with El Cifr in foot-high letters on all three sides. I parked farther down the block and took Epiphany's arm as we walked back toward the bright lights.

"What're you interested in Cifr for?" she asked.

"He's the magician in my dreams."

"Cifr?"

"The good Dr. Cipher himself."

"What do you mean?"

"This swami business is just one of several roles I've seen him play. He's like a chameleon."

Epiphany's grip tightened on my arm. "Be careful, Harry, please."

"I try to be," I said.

"Don't joke. If this man is what you say, he must have plenty power. He is no one to fool with."

"Let's go inside."

We found seats off the side aisle. An organ murmured behind the closed red-and-gold curtains. The orchestra and balcony filled to capacity. The house lights dimmed, the organ music swelled and the curtain parted to reveal a 100-voice choir grouped in the shape of a cross. The congregation rose to its feet, singing Jesus Was a Fisherman.

As the music reached a climax, a small brown man dressed in white satin appeared onstage. Diamonds flashed on both hands.

I caught Epiphany's eye and mouthed the question, "Reverend Love?"

She nodded.

"Please be seated, brothers and sisters," Reverend Love spoke from center stage. His voice was comically high and shrill. He sounded like the emcee at Birdland.

"Brothers and sisters, I rejoice in the happy sound you make. We are honored to have with us this evening a very holy man, the illustrious El Cifr."

Reverend Love turned and held out his open arms toward the wings. The choir broke into a chorus of A New Day Is Dawning. The congregation clapped its hands as Louis Cyphre swirled onto the stage like a sultan.

El Cifr greeted his audience with a fancy salaam. "May prosperity smile upon you all," he said, bowing low. "Is it not written that paradise is open to those who dare but enter?"

A smattering of amens rippled through the congregation.

"The world belongs to the strong, not the meek. The lion devours the fold; the falcon feasts on the blood of the sparrow."

"That's true, that's true," an impassioned voice called from the balcony.

"Sounds like the flip side of the Sermon on the Mount," Epiphany quipped out of the side of her mouth.

El Cifr paced the apron of the stage. His eyes were ablaze with raw fury. "It is the hand holding the whip that drives the wagon. The rider's flesh does not feel the sting of the spurs. To be strong in this life requires an act of will. Choose to be a wolf, not a gazelle."

The congregation responded to his every suggestion, clapping and shouting agreement. His words were chorused like Scripture. "Be a wolf ... be a wolf ..." they called.

He danced and chanted, ranting of power and strength. The congregation howled a frenzied litany. Even members of the choir shouted angry responses and shook their fists in the air.

I found myself daydreaming, not paying attention to the rhetoric, when suddenly my client said something out of left field that brought me up short.

"If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out," El Cifr said, looking, or so it seemed, straight at me. "That is a fine quotation, but I say also, if anyone's eye offend you, rip it out. Claw it out! Shoot it out! An eye for an eye!"

His words shot through me like a spasm of pain. I sat forward in my seat, alert as I could be.

"If hearts are steeped against you, cut them out. Don't wait to be the victim. Strike first at your enemies. If their eyes offend you, blow them out. If their hearts offend you, rip them out. If any member offends you, cut it off and shove it down their throats."

El Cifr was shrieking above the roars of his audience as he left the stage. I felt numb, transfixed. Was I imagining it all or had Louis Cyphre just described three murders?

I grabbed Epiphany's hand and pulled her with me into the aisle. We hurried on through the lobby and out onto the street.

The silver-gray Rolls waited at the curb. El Cifr appeared on the sidewalk and started for the car, flanked by a pair of heavyweights, "Just a minute," I called. I was immediately strong-armed by the lead bodyguard.

"Don't go be doin' nothin' you're likely to regret," he said, blocking my path.

I didn't argue. A return trip to the hospital was not on the agenda. As the chauffeur opened the rear door, Louis Cyphre stared at me without expression. I watched them drive off from around the bodyguard's bulk. He stood there, impassive as an Easter Island statue. Epiphany came up from behind and linked her arm through mine. "Let's go home and build a fire," she said.

•

Palm Sunday was slumberous and sensuous, the novelty of waking up beside Epiphany compounded by finding myself on the floor, nestled among couch cushions and tangled blankets.

"Sleep well?" she whispered. "No bad dreams?"

"No dreams at all." I ran my hand over her smooth brown flank. "Maybe the spell is broken."

"Maybe." Her warm breath fanned my neck. "It was me dreamed about him last night. Harry--what has he got to do with Johnny Favorite?"

"I'm not sure. I seem to be mixed up in some sort of struggle between two magicians."

"Is Cifr the man who wants you to find my father?"

"Yes."

"Harry, be careful. Don't trust him."

Can I trust you? I thought, hugging her slender shoulders. "I'll be all right."

"I love you. I don't want anything bad to happen now."

I choked back the urge to echo her words, to say "I love you" over and over again.

After breakfast, I carried the stack of library books into the bedroom and stretched out with my homework. Epiphany kneeled beside me on the bed. "Here." She handed me a book. "The chapter I marked is all about the Black Mass. The liturgy is described in detail, everything from the backward Latin to the virgin deflowered on the altar."

I read until it grew dark, a do-it-yourself course in the satanic sciences. Epiphany magically reincarnated a bouillabaisse she had made while I was in the hospital. We ate by firelight, shadows shifting like imps on the walls around us. There wasn't much talk; her eyes said it all. They were the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen.

About 7:30, I started getting ready for work. I dressed in jeans, a navy-blue turtleneck and a stout pair of lace-top, rubber-soled hiking boots. I loaded my black-bodied Leica with Tri-X and slipped the .38 into the pocket of a leather aviator's jacket I'd had since the war. Epiphany, tousle-headed, watched in silence, wrapped in a blanket before the fire.

"You forgot your invitation," she said as I reached under the blanket and pulled her close one last time.

"Don't need one. I'm crashing this party."

"Go away." she said. "Sooner you go, sooner you'll be back."

"Try not to worry," I said.

She smiled to show me that everything was OK, but her eyes were large and wet. "Take care of yourself."

"That's my motto."

"I'll be waiting for you."

"Keep the chain on the door." I got my wallet and a knitted navy watch cap. "Time to go."

Epiphany ran down the hall, shedding the blanket like an emerging nymph. She kissed me long and deeply at the door. Nothing more was said. I heard the chain slide into place as I started for the elevator. Why didn't I tell her I loved her when I had the chance?

I took the Eighth Avenue IND downtown to 14th Street, where I caught the BMT over to Union Square and hurried down the iron stairs to the IRT platform, grabbing an uptown local. The metal wheels screamed like wounded eagles against the rails. I gripped a pole for balance and stared out into blackness. We gathered speed and a moment later it was there.

You had to look close to see it. Only the lights of our passing train reflecting on the soot-covered tiles revealed the ghostly presence of the abandoned 18th Street station. I could make out the mosaic numerals decorating each column and saw a shadowy stack of trash cans against the wall. Then we were back in the tunnel and it was gone, like a dream you no longer remember.

I got off at the next stop, 23rd Street. I climbed the stairs, crossed the avenue, descended and shelled out 15 cents for another token. An uptown express roared through as I started down the narrow metal ladder at the end of the platform. A pathway alongside the tracks led away into darkness. At distant intervals along the tunnel wall, low-wattage bulbs marked the way through the gloom. Between trains, it was very quiet, and I surprised several rats scuttling among the cinders on the track bed beside me.

It seemed as if I had walked many more than five city blocks. There were occasional alcove openings with conduits and metal ladders leading up. I hurried along, my hands in my pockets. The checkered grip of the .38 felt rough and comforting.

I didn't see the abandoned station until I was ten feet from the ladder. The soot-covered tiles gleamed like a ruined temple in the moonlight. I stood very still and caught my breath, my heart bumping against the Leica hanging under my jacket. In the distance, I heard a baby cry.

•

The sound echoed in the darkness. It came from the opposite platform. Distant lights from the tunnel gleamed along twin ribbons of track. Although it was dark, I could make out rows of iron girders like shadowed tree trunks in a midnight forest. What I couldn't see were my own feet, and I felt the lurking menace of the third rail, lethal as a hidden rattlesnake in the gloom.

The sound of a train alerted me. I checked my rear and felt an adrenaline surge. The train was highballing down the tunnel. I stepped between the girders separating the express tracks. The train roared through like an angry dragon, spitting sparks from its clattering wheels and the deafening noise covered any sounds of my climbing onto the opposite platform. As the rear car flickered out of sight, I was flat against the cold tiles of the station wall.

The baby was no longer crying. At least not loudly enough to be heard over the drone of chanting. I knew from my afternoon's research that it was Latin in reverse. I was late for church.

I got the .38 out of my pocket and eased along the wall. A faint curtain of light hung in the air ahead. Grotesque silhouettes swayed in what was once the entrance alcove of the station. From the corner, I saw the fat, black candles arranged along the inner wall. If this was by the book, they were made from human fat, like the ones in Maggie Krusemark's bathroom.

The congregation wore robes and animal masks. Goats, tigers, wolves, horned creatures of every variety, all chanting a backward litany. I slipped my pistol into my pocket and took out the Leica. The candles surrounded a low altar draped in black cloth. A cross hung upside down on the tile wall above it.

The presiding priest was plump and pink. He wore a black chasuble embroidered with cabalistic symbols. Underneath he was naked, his erection trembling in the candlelight. Two young acolytes, naked under their thin cotton surplices, stood swinging censers. The smoke had the acrid sweetness of burning opium.

The priest recited the looking-glass prayers and the congregation, all naked beneath their swirling capes, responded with howls and grunts. I spotted Krusemark's hard old-man's body. He was wearing the mask of a lion. I saw the flash of his silver hair as he snuffled and howled.

The priest beckoned, and from out of the shadows came a lovely adolescent girl. She stood absolutely still as the priest undid the fastenings. The cape slid in silence to the ground, revealing slender shoulders and budding breasts, a patch of pubic floss like spun gold in the candlelight.

I snapped some pictures as the priest escorted her to the altar. Her languorous movements suggested heavy sedation. She was lowered onto the black cloth and lay on her back, legs dangling and arms spread. In each upturned palm the priest placed a squat black candle.

"Accept the unblemished purity of this virgin," the priest intoned. "O Lucifer, we implore thee." He dropped to his knees and kissed the girl between her legs, leaving tangled pearls of spittle shining there. "May this chaste flesh honor your divine name."

An acolyte handed the priest a tall silver chalice. The congregation snuffled and grunted like rutting swine as he balanced the chalice on the perfect belly of the teenage girl. "O Astaroth, Asmodeus, princes of friendship and love, I beg you to accept this blood, which is shed for thee."

A baby's lusty howls pierced the bestial grunting. The altar boy stepped out of the shadows carrying a squirming infant. The priest grasped it by a leg and held it high in the air, kicking and screaming. "O Baal-berith, O Beelzebub," he cried, "this child is offered in thy name."

It happened very quickly. The priest gave the baby to an acolyte and was handed a knife in return. The bright blade caught the candlelight as they cut the infant's throat. The tiny creature bucked for life, his cries a muffled gargle. "I sacrifice you to Divine Lucifer. May the peace of Satan always be with you." The priest held the chalice under the spouting blood. I finished the roll as the baby died.

The congregation's throaty moaning grew louder than the accelerating rumble of an oncoming train. I slumped against the wall and reloaded the camera. A vivid splattering glistened on the dirty walls. I wished every frame I'd shot had been a bullet and other blood darkened the forgotten tiles.

The train came crashing through, casting its bold light on the proceedings. The priest drank from the chalice and hurled what was left out over the crowd as the acolytes stood jerking each other oft, heads back and laughing.

Tossing his chasuble aside, the priest kneeled above the blood-splattered virgin, entering her with short, doglike thrusts. The girl made no response. The candles remained upright in her outstretched hands. Her wide-open eyes stared sightlessly into the darkness.

The congregation went wild. Casting off cloaks and masks, they coupled frantically on the pavement. Men and women in every possible combination. The stark light of the passing train cast their frenzied shadows against the subway wall. Their howls and moans carried above the violent clatter of the wheels.

I saw Ethan Krusemark cornholing a hairy little man with a potbelly. They were standing in the men's-room entrance and looked like a silent stag movie in the flickering light. I shot a whole roll of the shipping tycoon in action.

The party went on for at most half an hour. It was early in the season for subway orgies and the cold, clammy air eventually sapped the enthusiasm of even the most ardent Devil worshiper. Soon they were all hunting for lost clothing, grumbling over hard-to-find shoes in the dark.

Krusemark packed his costume in a valise. The black altar cloth and inverted cross were removed, the blood wiped away with rags. The group began dispersing in singles and pairs. Some headed uptown, others down. One carried a heavy, dripping sack.

•

Krusemark entered the tunnel, walking rapidly along the narrow pathway. I let him get as far as the first naked light bulb before following. The approach of a downtown train gave me the opening I needed. As the rumbling thunder of the oncoming express built to an iron climax, I started running for all I was worth. The train's roar drowned the slap of footfalls. The .38 was in my hand. I saw him enter an open doorway. It was a service exit of some kind and Krusemark was starting up a metal ladder fastened to the back wall.

"Freezel" I held the Smith & Wesson at arm's length in a two-handed grip.

Krusemark turned, blinking in the half-light. "Angel?"

"Turn around and place both hands on a rung above your head."

Krusemark did as he was told, dropping his leather satchel to the floor. I got my bracelets out of my jacket pocket and clipped one cuff to his right wrist and the other to the rung lie gripped. He faced me, and I backhanded him full strength across the mouth with my left.

"You filthy scum!" I jammed the muzzle of the .38 under his chin, forcing his head back. His eyes were wide as a trapped stallion's. "I'd like to spray your brains all over the wall, cocksucker."

"You're making a mistake."

"Bullshitl Maybe I should rearrange some teeth." I grinned at him, exposing my temporary dentalwork. "Like your torpedoes did to me."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you do. You set me up. You've been lying since the first minute I met you. Edward Kelley is the name of an Elizabethan magician. That's why you used it as an alias, not because your daughter thought it was cute."

"You seem to know all about it."

"I've been doing some homework. I brushed up on my black magic. It was you all the time. You're the Devil worshiper."

"I'd be a fool if I wasn't. The Prince of Darkness protects the powerful. You should pray to him yourself, Angel."

I spit in his face. I'd never done that to anyone before. "A cockroach is the chosen of God alongside you. Let's start at the beginning. I want to know all about Johnny Favorite. The works. Everything you've ever seen or heard."

"Why should I? You won't kill me. You're too weak." He wiped the saliva off his cheek.

"I don't need to kill you. I can walk out of here and leave you hanging. And when these pictures are developed, I'll have something to remember you by." I held up a yellow roll of film. "My favorite is the one of you screwing the little fat man."

"You're bluffing."

"Am I?" I showed him my Leica. "I shot two rolls of thirty-six. It's all in black and white, as they say."

Krusemark's disdainful smirk melted into a frown of deep concern. "Angel, wait. Let's talk this over."

"That's just what I had in mind, big shot. You talk, I'll do the listening."

Krusemark held out his free hand. "Give me the film. I'll tell you everything I know."

That made me laugh. "No deal. First you sing. If I like the tune, then you get the film."

Krusemark rubbed the bridge of his nose and stared at the dirty floor. "All right." His eyes flickered like yo-yos as he watched me toss and catch the film. "I first met Johnny in the winter of '39. It was Candlemas eve. I was impressed with him right at the start. You could feel the power running out of him like an electric current. His eyes were more alive than any I'd seen before in my life, and I've been around some.

"I introduced him to my daughter and they hit it off right away. His career was only getting started and he was hungry for fame and wealth. Power was something he already had in spades. I watched him conjure up Lucifuge Rofocale, right in my own living room."

"You expect me to swallow this?" I asked.

"Swallow it, spit it out; I don't give a damn. Johnny was in a lot deeper than I had the nerve to go. He always wanted more. He wanted it all. That's why he made a pact with Satan."

"What kind of pact?"

"The usual arrangement. He sold his soul For stardom."

"Crap!"

"It's true."

"It's bullshit, and you know it. What'd he do, sign a contract in blood?"

"I don't know the details." Krusemark's haughty glance was impatient and scornful. "Johnny was alone at midnight in Trinity Churchyard for the invocation. You shouldn't take what I say so lightly, Angel, not when playing with forces beyond your control."

"OK, let's say I buy it. Sounds pretty risky, selling your soul. Eternity's a long time."

Krusemark smiled. On him, it was more of a leer. "Pride," he said. "Johnny's sin was pride. He thought he could outwit the Prince of Darkness himself."

"How?"

"With Satan's help, Johnny made it big in a hurry. Real big. Overnight, he was a headliner. I guess it went to his head. He started thinking it was him that was the source of the power and not the Dark One. It wasn't Ions; before he was boasting he had found a way to duck out of his end of the bargain."

"Did he?"

"He tried. He came across an obscure rite in a manuscript by some Renaissance alchemist. It involved the transmutation of souls. Johnny had the idea that he could switch psychic identities with someone else. Actually become the essence of the other person."

"Go on."

"Well, he had to have a victim. Someone his own age, born under the same sign. Johnny found a young soldier just back from North Africa. He had a brand-new medical discharge and was out celebrating New Year's Eve. Johnny picked him up in the crowd at Times Square. He drugged him in a bar and took him back to his place. That's where the ceremony took place."

"What kind of ceremony?"

"The transmutation rite. Meg assisted him. I was the witness. The soldier was bound naked on his back on a rubber mat. Meg unsheathed a virgin dagger. Johnny blessed it in Hebrew and Greek. I couldn't understand a word. When he finished, he bathed the blade in the altar Hame and cut the soldier deeply across each tit. He dipped the dagger into the kid's blood and traced a circle with it on the floor around the body.

"There were more chants and incantations then. I didn't follow any of it."

"What happened to the soldier?"

"Johnny ate his heart. It was still beating when he wolfed it down. That was the end of the ceremony. Maybe he did gain possession of the guy's soul; he still looked like Johnny to me. His plan was to drop out of sight and resurface as the soldier. He'd been stashing money in secret hiding places for some time. Lord Satan presumably would never know the difference. Trouble was, he got shipped overseas before he could pull the switch and what came back couldn't remember its own name, let alone a Hebrew incantation."

"And that's when your daughter entered the picture."

"Right. A year had gone by. Meg insisted we help him. I put up the cash to bribe the doctor and we dropped Johnny off at Times Square on New Year's Eve. Meg made sure of that. It was the starting point, the last place the soldier remembered before Johnny drugged him."

I grabbed Krusemark by his shirt and slammed him back against the ladder. "What was the soldier's name?"

"I don't know."

"You were there in the room."

"I didn't know anything about it until just before it happened. I was only the witness."

"Your daughter must have told you."

"No, she didn't. She didn't know herself. It was part of the magic. Only Johnny could know his victim's true name. Someone he trusted had to guard the secret for him. He sealed the soldier's dogtags in an ancient Egyptian canopic urn and gave it to Meg."

"What did this urn look like?" I was close to choking him. "Did you ever see it?"

"Many times. Meg kept it on her desk. It was alabaster, white alabaster, and had a three-headed snake carved on the lid."

•

I was in a hurry. Keeping the .38 tight against Krusemark's ribs, I unlocked the handcuffs and stuffed them into my jacket pocket. "See you around, hotshot." I stepped out onto the pathway as an uptown local thundered by. My only mistake was shoving the Smith & Wesson back into my pocket. We all do dumb things sometimes.

I didn't hear Krusemark coming until he had me around the throat. His breath came in short, angry snorts. He was the only one of us that was breathing. "I want that film," he snarled.

Even with both hands, I couldn't break his choke hold. I got one of my feet hooked between his legs and we fell together against the side of the moving train. The impact spun us apart like rag dolls.

Krusemark managed to stay on his feet. I wasn't so lucky. I watched the iron wheels rush by, inches from my face. The train sped past. Krusemark aimed a kick at my head. I caught his foot and yanked him down.

There wasn't time to grab the .38. Krusemark sat facing me on the path. I sprang at him and we grappled on the narrow pathway, gouging and kicking. Krusemark got his hard hands around my throat. I pushed my right palm under his chin and levered his head back. It didn't work, so I jabbed my thumb into his eye.

His grasp relaxed, and I twisted free, sucking in air. We wrestled, rolling together onto the tracks. I ended up on top and heard Krusemark's head thud against a wooden tie. I kneed him in the groin for good measure.

1 stood up and felt my pocket for the Smith & Wesson. The gun was gone, lost in the struggle. Krusemark's shadowy form staggered upright. He threw a wild roundhouse right. Stepping inside, I pounded him twice in the midsection and took a left on the shoulder where it did no harm. I poked my right into his face, connecting with the ridge of bone above his eye. It felt like hitting a stone wall. My hand went numb with pain.

Krusemark lumbered on, throwing hard, skillful jabs as he came. I couldn't block them all and he stung me a few times as I groped in my jacket for the handcuffs. I used the bracelets like a flail, backhanding him across the face. I hit him again, above the ear, and he went clown backward with a grunt.

Krusemark's sudden scream echoed and died in the dripping tunnel like the sound of someone falling from a great height. A metallic, beetle-wing hum of electricity crackled in the darkness. The third rail.

I didn't want to touch the body. It was too dark to see him clearly and I stepped back onto the safety of the path. In the light of a distant bulb, I could make out his obscure form, sprawled across the tracks.

I went back into the exit alcove and poked around inside the leather valise. Under the tangled black cape, I found a small plastic flashlight and stepped out into the tunnel.

I wiped my prints off the handle and threw his valise down beside him. Flashing the beam up and down the pathway, I spotted my .38 lying against the wall a few feet away. I picked it up and put it in my pocket.

I left the subway at the 23rd Street station and caught an uptown cab at the corner of Park Avenue South. Ten minutes later, he dropped me in front of Carnegie Hall. I look the elevator to the 11th floor. The door to Margaret Krusemark's apartment had been sealed by the police. A strip of gummed paper was plastered across the lock. I tore it free, found the right twirl and let myself in, wiping the knob with my sleeve.

Switching on Daddy's flashlight, I probed the beam into the dark. I continued down the hallway to the witch's bedchamber. I flashed my light across the desktop. The calendar and scattered papers were gone, but the row of research books stood intact. At one end, the alabaster canopic urn gleamed like polished bone.

My hands trembled as I picked it up. I fumbled for several minutes, but the lid with the carved three-headed snake remained stuck tight. In desperation, I hurled the jar to the floor.

A set of army dogtags gleamed among the shards. I picked them up, holding the small, oblong tags under the light. An involuntary chill spread through my body. Along with the serial number and blood type was a machine-stamped name: Angel, Harold R.

•

The dogtags clinked in my pocket on the way down. I ran my thumb over the indented metal letters like a blind man reading a text in Braille. Out on the street, the chill night air stung me from my trance. I dropped Krusemark's plastic flashlight into a litter basket and hailed a passing cab. Before anything else, I knew I had to destroy the evidence locked in my safe.

Steam clouds curled from under the manhole covers like the last act of Faust.

I thought of Louis Cyphre's elegant smile. What in hell was going on? Times Square blazed like a neon purgatory. I fingered my improbable nose and tried to remember the past. Bits and pieces remained. Smells often bring them back. Damn it, I knew who I was. I know who I am.

The lights were on in my office when we pulled to a stop in front of the novelty shop. I hoped there was still time.

I took the fire stairs to the third floor so the noise of the elevator wouldn't give me away. The hallway was dark, ditto my waiting room, but the light from the inner office shone on the pebbled glass in the front door. I pulled my gun and eased inside. The door to the inner office stood wide open, spilling light across my threadbare carpet. I waited a moment but didn't hear a thing. The steel door to the office safe hung wide open.

Then the lights went out. Not in the office, inside my head. Someone got the drop on me with what felt like a baseball bat. I heard the sharp crack it made connecting even as I fell forward into blackness.

Cold water splashing on my face brought me around. I sat up, sputtering and blinking. My head throbbed like an aspirin jingle. Louis Cyphre stood above me, dressed in a tuxedo, pouring water from a paper cup. In his other hand, he held my Smith & Wesson.

"Find what you were looking for?" I asked.

Cyphre smiled. "A man in your profession shouldn't house his secrets in tin cans like that one." He pulled Margaret Krusemark's horoscope of me from his inside jacket pocket. "I imagine the police will be happy to have this."

"You'll never get away with it."

"But, Mr. Angel, I already have." Cyphre slipped the horoscope back into his pocket. "Sorry about that nasty tap, but I needed some more of your things."

"Such as?"

"Your revolver. I have use for it." He reached into his pocket and slowly removed the dogtags, dangling them in front of me by the beaded chain. "And for these."

"That was clever," I said. "Planting those in Margaret Krusemark's apartment. How'd you get her father to cooperate?"

Cyphre's smile widened. "How is Mr. Krusemark, by the way?"

"Dead."

"Pity."

"I can see you're all broken up about it."

"The loss of one of the faithful is always regrettable." Cyphre toyed with the dogtags, winding the chain between tapered fingers. Dr. Fowler's engraved golden ring flashed on his manicured hand.

"Cut the crap! Having a gag name doesn't make you the real thing."

"Would you prefer cloven hooves and a tail?"

"I didn't figure it out until tonight. You were toying with me. I should have guessed when I learned that 666 was the number of the beast in the book of Revelation."

"You disappoint me, Mr. Angel. I should have thought you would have had very little difficulty deciphering my name." He chuckled out loud at his own lame joke.

"Framing me for your killings is pretty smart," I said. "There's just one hitch."

"And what might that be?"

"Herman Winesap. No cop'd believe a story about a client pretending to be Lucifer. But I have Winesap to corroborate me."

Cyphre hung the dogtags around his neck with a lupine grin. "Attorney Winesap was lost in a boating accident at Sag Harbor yesterday. Most unfortunate. The body has not yet been recovered."

"Thought of everything, haven't you?"

"I try to be thorough," he said. "You must excuse me now, Mr. Angel. I'm afraid I have business to attend to. Should you show yourself before I'm gone, I shall be forced to shoot." Cyphre paused in the doorway like a showman milking his exit line. "As much as I'm eager to collect my collateral, it would be a real pity to be killed by your own gun."

"Kiss my ass!" I said.

"No need for that, Johnny," Cyphre smiled. "You've already kissed mine."

He closed the outer office door quietly behind him. I scrambled across to the open safe. In an empty cigar box on the bottom shelf, I kept an extra gun. I flipped up the lid and removed a .45-caliber Colt Commander. The big automatic felt like a dream come true in my hand.

I hurried to the outer door and saw the top of the elevator car slide past the circular glass window in the door as I ran for the fire stairs.

I took the stairs three at a time. Gasping in the stair well, I held the fire door open with my foot, the automatic braced against the jamb with both hands. My percussive heartbeat crashed in my ears.

I prayed that Cyphre would still have my gun in his hand when the door slid open. That would make it self-defense. Posing as the Devil might con voodoo piano players and middle-aged lady astrologers, but it didn't wash with me. He picked the wrong man to play the patsy. The elevator clanked to a stop. I steadied my aim and held my breath. Louis Cyphre's satanic charade had come to an end. The red metal door slid open. The car was empty.

I staggered forward like a sleepwalker, not believing what I saw. I had watched the indicator above the door and seen the numbers light up as the car descended without stopping. He couldn't get off if the car didn't stop.

I got in and pushed the button for the top floor. As the car started up, I climbed onto the brass handrails, one foot braced against either wall, and pushed open the emergency trap on the ceiling.

I stuck my head through the opening and looked around. Cyphre was not on the roof of the car. Greased cables and spinning flywheels left no place to hide.

From the fourth floor, I climbed the fire stairs to the roof and searched behind chimneys and air vents, the blistered tar paper buckling underfoot. He was not on the roof. I leaned over the cornice ledge and looked down at the street. The Sunday-night crowds were sparse. Only whores, male and female, lingering on the sidewalks. Louis Cyphre's distinguished form was nowhere in sight.

During the next half hour, I went over the entire building. Using my skeleton keys, I let myself into every dark and empty office. I searched Ira Kipnis' place and Olga's Electrolysis without luck. I poked through the shabby waiting rooms of three cut-rate dentists and the closet-sized establishment of a rare-coin-and-stamp dealer. There was no one there.

I returned to my office feeling lost. No one can vanish into thin air. It had to be a trick. I sank back into the swivel chair, still holding the Colt Commander. Across the street, the unremitting march of the day's news continued: "... Fallout of strontium-90 is found highest in U. S...." By the time I thought to call Epiphany, it was too late. Tricked again by the greatest trickster of them all.

•

The endless ringing struck the same note of despair as the lonely voice of the Spanish sailor in Dr. Cipher's bottle. Another lost soul like me. My mouth was dry and tasted of ashes. All hope was gone, abandoned. I had crossed the threshold of doom.

After a while, I got up and stumbled down the stairs to the street. I stood on the corner of the Crossroads of the World and wondered which way to go. It didn't matter anymore. I had run long and far enough. I was all through running.

I spotted a cruising cab heading east on 42nd and flagged it down. My words sounded far away, like someone else speaking. "Hotel Chelsea on 23rd Street."

I slouched in the corner and stared out at a world gone dead. Under my breath, I hummed a swing tune popular during the war. It was one of Johnny Favorite's biggest hits.

"Looks like there's been some excitement around here tonight." The driver pulled to a stop across from three squad cars and a police ambulance.

I paid with my emergency $50 and told him to keep the change.

"This ain't no five, mister. You made a mistake."

"Many mistakes," I said and hurried across pavement the color of gravestones.

My apartment door stood wide open. A flashbulb popped inside. The smell of cheap cigars filled the air. I strolled in without a word. Three uniformed cops paced around with nothing to do. Sergeant Deimos sat at the table with his back to me, giving my description to someone on the telephone. Another flashbulb went off in the bedroom.

I had a look inside. One was enough. Epiphany lay face up on the bed, wearing only my dogtags and tied by her wrists and ankles to the frame with four ugly neckties. My hammerless Smith & Wesson protruded from between her outspread legs, the snub barrel inserted like a lover. Her womb's blood glistened on her open thighs, bold as roses.

Lieutenant Sterne was one of five plainclothes detectives watching with his hands in his overcoat pockets as the photographer knelt for a close-up. "Who the hell are you?" a patrolman asked behind me.

"I live here."

Sterne looked in my direction. His sleepy eyes widened. "Angel?" Disbelief cracked his voice. "That's the guy. Collar him!"

The cop behind me pinned my arms. I didn't resist. "Save the heroics," I said.

"See if he's heeled," Sterne barked. The other cops looked at me like 1 was an animal in the zoo.

A pair of cuffs bit into my wrists. The cop frisked me down and pulled the Colt Commander from the waistband of my pants. "Heavy artillery," he said, handing it to Sterne.

Sterne glanced at the gun and set it on the bedside table. "Why'd you come back?"

"No place else to go."

"Who is she?" Sterne jerked his thumb at Epiphany's body.

"My daughter."

"Bullshit! Give it to me again, Angel. Who's the girl?"

"Epiphany Proudfoot. She runs an herb shop on 123rd and Lenox."

One of the other detectives wrote it down. Sterne shoved me back into the living room. I sat on the couch. "How long you been shacking up with her?"

"Couple days."

"Just long enough to kill her, right? Look what we found in the fireplace." Sterne picked up my charred horoscope by the remaining unhurried corner. "Want to tell us about it?"

"No."

"Doesn't matter. We've got all we need, unless that's not your .38 stuck up her snatch."

"It's mine."

"You'll burn for this, Angel."

"I'll burn in hell."

"Maybe. We'll be sure and give you a head start Upstate." Sterne's shark-slit mouth widened into an evil smile. I stared at his yellow teeth and remembered the laughing face painted on Steeplechase Park, a joker's grin expanding with malice. There was only one other smile like it: the evil leer of Lucifer. I could almost hear his laughter fill the room. This time, the joke was on me.

"An icy terror ran through my body like a current. I felt mesmerized by Cyphre's immaculate smile."

"Delicate muscles ripped beneath her fawn-colored flesh. She was as a flight of birds."