Night Secrets (14 page)

“Yes, she has.”

“And what else has she said?”

“Not much,” Frank said. “But at least she said enough for us to know where the bead came from. The first time I saw her, she wouldn't talk to me at all.” He shook his head, puzzled. “The only thing she did was dance.”

Farouk's eyes brightened. “Ah yes, that is called the
baile jondo
, the Deep Dance.”

“What does it mean?”

“It does not
mean
anything,” Farouk said. “It only expresses.”

“Expresses what?”

“Many things, I suppose,” Farouk said with a wry turn of his lips. “For passions that cannot be released in any other way, the
baile jondo
speaks for such things, for primitive sensations, violence and desolation and sensuality, all these things in one.”

“Why do they come out in a dance?”

“Because these things, they cannot be controlled once they are set loose,” Farouk told him. “They are too dangerous, and if they are released, all things will change.” He could see that Frank did not understand him, and so he elaborated a bit. “Men wish to be assured that tomorrow will be the same as today. These things come from the blood, from the earth. They are as they have always been. It is how the Immortals live in us, through our passions.”

“And what does the Deep Dance have to do with them?”

“It allows us to shake them off, so that we may be left to our drudgery,” Farouk said with a sudden astonishing weariness. “But it also allows us to know that they were there, that they call to us in our sorrow.” He took a quiet sip from the cup, then set it down and smiled very softly. “After the dance, she spoke, yes?”

“Only after I came back,” Frank said. “And only a few words.”

Farouk smiled knowingly. “They are not known for words, the Puri Dai.”

Frank leaned toward him. “How do you know so much about Gypsies, Farouk?”

Farouk looked as if it were a question he had been waiting to answer for a long time. “Long ago, my grandfather traveled the Silk Road across the deserts of Arabia,” he said. “When my father was a young man—really no more than a boy—my grandfather returned with a young girl, very dark, with black eyes.” He turned away slightly and quickly put on his glasses, then returned his eyes to Frank. “She was to be a servant—actually, a slave.”

“Slave?”

“She was won by my grandfather,” Farouk said. “The wager, I believe, was over horses.”

“A race?”

Farouk smiled knowingly. “No horse in the world can defeat an Arabian stallion. The Gypsy leader never had a chance.”

“She was a Gypsy?”

“As beautiful a one as ever lived,” Farouk said. “And she struck the heart of my father.” He laughed quietly. “A circumstance upon which—to say the least—my grandfather had not planned. Imagine, that such a man's son should fall in love with a servant girl, that this servant girl should be a Christian, or at least, not a Moslem. Imagine.”

“What happened?”

“They ran away,” Farouk said. He lifted his arm in the shadowy light and moved it slowly in a wide angle. “Across the desert wastes. My father left the life of the caravan to run hashish in a small boat on the Mediterranean. But always they were together.” The arm descended for a moment, then a single hand rose again, and drew the glasses from his eyes. He leaned forward, his face lit by the single candle on the table. “It was from her, my friend, that comes the blackness of my eyes.”

Frank sat back. “Your mother?”

Farouk's face seemed to glow gently in the shadowy light. “She was one who remembered everything, all the customs of her people.”

Farouk returned the glasses to his eyes. “Now,” he said, “since all of this has come to light, how may I be of assistance?”

Frank shrugged. “To tell you the truth, Farouk, I don't know where to begin.”

Farouk clapped his hands together softly. “Ah,” he said. “Then we are already at the place where it is best to be.”

F
rom across the avenue, Farouk's eyes scanned the large window. He could see the blue curtain which covered it, but everything else was dark. “Perhaps she has left already,” he said.

Frank shook his head. “According to Tannenbaum, she leaves at around three
A.M.
”

Farouk glanced at his watch. “The Gitano have their own time.”

“Let's wait a while longer,” Frank said. “Just to be sure.”

Only a few seconds later, the woman emerged from the dark first-floor landing, turned left and headed uptown. She wore a long coat, and her hair was bound up in a dark-red scarf.

Farouk watched her closely. “And she goes to Saint Teresa's?” he asked.

“That's what she told Tannenbaum.”

“Every night?”

Frank nodded.

The two of them continued to watch the old woman as she headed north along Tenth Avenue, then crossed it and disappeared up Forty-eighth Street.

“Now, we can go,” Farouk said happily.

They moved quickly across the street, Farouk's eyes surveying the upper floors. The windows were dark, as if the apartments above the fortune-teller's shop had already been abandoned.

At the window of the building Farouk drew Frank toward him, so that they both stood beneath the awning of the fortune-teller's shop.

“Just a moment,” he said. His eyes moved along the door, then down along the side of the building. “If matters have not changed with the Gitano, there is always a key left for the wandering guest.”

“You mean, on the outside?”

“On the outside, yes,” Farouk told him. He shifted his attention to the top of the iron grate that covered the window. “Up there,” he said. He walked a few feet to the edge of the grate, raised himself onto the tips of his toes and ran his fingers along the edge of the grate. “Nothing.”

Farouk shook his head. “It is somewhere, the key,” he said with certainty, as his eyes turned toward the awning itself. “Perhaps, there,” he said after a moment. He pointed to the narrow rod which supported the cloth itself as his eyes shifted to Frank. “Look there.”

Frank stepped over to it and ran his fingers along its edge. There was a very slender trough which stretched between the rod and the awning's steel supports. About halfway from the edge, he felt a loose piece of metal. He pulled it out.

Farouk smiled proudly. “Ah, you see. The ways of the Gitano do not change.” He thrust out his hand and Frank dropped the key into it.

Farouk walked over to the door and inserted the key. The door opened, and they stepped into the dense interior darkness of the building.

Frank took out a book of matches and struck one. The room glowed in a faint reddish light, until Farouk found the light switch and turned it on.

Frank waved out the match, then allowed his eyes to move about the room.

“Maybe she's not coming back,” Frank said.

Farouk glanced at the small table and the two metal folding chairs which still remained in the front room. “No, she will return,” he said. “She would not leave these things behind.”

He stepped into the second room and switched on the light. It was entirely empty.

Frank walked up alongside him, and for a moment they stood silently together.

“There was a white wicker chair right there,” Frank said as he pointed to the center of the room. “That's where I saw the woman. And there was a small table beside it.”

“And that was all?”

“There was some kind of statue,” Frank told him. “And there was a candle and a medallion.”

Farouk smiled distantly. “The Gitano are in love with ritual,” he said matter-of-factly. “What did the statue look like?”

“It was a woman,” Frank said. “She was dressed in robes and there was a hood over her head.” He shrugged. “It looked like some sort of religious thing. Like in a church. Like the Virgin Mary, except …”

Farouk nodded casually as his eyes continued to scan the room. “Except what?”

“Except that she looked like she was walking in water, some kind of foamy water.”

Farouk's eyes shot over to him. “Foamy water? You mean, like the sea?”

Frank nodded.

Farouk's face grew more concentrated. “And the medallion? What did it look like?”

“There was a scorpion on it,” Frank told him. “That's all I remember.”

Farouk walked over to the door that led into the next room and opened it. It was empty except for a large foam-rubber mattress.

“There were three beds in there,” Frank said, as he walked up and glanced inside.

“Three beds in this one room?”

“Yes.”

“So they all slept together, the women?”

“In the same room, yes.”

Farouk nodded thoughtfully, then looked across the room to where the outline of the woman's body could still be seen on the unpainted wooden floor.

“That's where the body was,” Frank told him.

Farouk walked over to the outline and studied it for a moment. “How was the body arranged?” he asked.

“She was facedown,” Frank told him. “Lying on her stomach.”

“And where was her head?”

“Near the door.”

Farouk studied the outline a few more minutes, then nodded toward the third door. “It was open when the woman was killed,” he said. “You can tell by the bloodstains. The bottom of the door is very near the floor. It would have made a pattern in the blood if it had been opened after the murder.”

“Yes, it would have,” Frank said.

Farouk thought a moment longer, then moved over directly in front of the now closed door. For a time, he stared at the door itself, then slowly, as if in response to some signal Frank couldn't see, he sank down onto his knees. “She was like this,” he said quietly, “on her knees, facing the door.”

“Yes, that's right,” Frank said almost to himself.

“And the Pun Dai,” Farouk added grimly as he got to his feet, “if it was the Puri Dai, she stood behind her, pulled her head back, exposing the throat, and then drew the razor across it.” Farouk blinked rapidly, as if to bring himself back to earth. “And that was the end of it.”

Frank thought a moment, his eyes fixed on the door lock. “Someone opened the door,” he said, “so that …” In his mind he could almost see it, the woman on her knees, her head drawn back by the murderer's hand, and the door opening, slowly opening, so that whoever waited behind the door could see the old fortune-teller die.

Frank stepped over to the door and quickly opened it. A small table still rested at one corner, but the small square mat which had stretched out in front of it was gone. “This room is like I remember it,” he said. “Everything's still here, except for a piece of foam rubber.” He turned to Farouk. “It looked like a shrine, something like that.”

Farouk stepped inside and looked around carefully. Then, suddenly, he cocked his head to the right and concentrated on the hook-and-eye latch that dangled from the jamb. For a few seconds, he stared at it carefully, then he raised his hand and touched it with his fingers. “Not a shrine, I think.”

Frank looked at him quizzically.

“A cell,” Farouk added. He drew the door closed and inserted the lock. “It was used to lock someone in the room.”

“The Puri Dai?” Frank asked instantly. “You think she was some kind of prisoner.”

Farouk didn't answer. Instead, he suddenly lifted his face upward and sniffed the air.

“What is it?” Frank asked.

Farouk glanced about, until his eyes settled on a few drops of brownish liquid that dotted the small tabletop. He dipped the tip of his index finger into one of the droplets, then brought it to his nose and sniffed again. “Raki,” he said. “Just as I thought.”

Frank stared at him wonderingly. “What?”

Farouk brought his finger to Frank's nose. “Do you smell that sweetness?”