The Djinn (2 page)

“In death even
as in life,” muttered one of the prosperous-looking men.
“A
goddamned tightwad.”

“George!” said
his wife reprovingly.

“Well,” said
George, whom I instantly disliked, “that guy was so mean he used to stuff his
Thanksgiving turkey with newspaper.”

Over in the
corner, another couple
were
discussing the state of
the house in stage whispers.

“He must have
been down to his last dime,” said an intense woman with ginger hair. “I never
saw this place look so bad.”

“I always used
to think he was a millionaire,” sniffed her husband, who was bald and paunchy.
“I thought the guy had money to burn, but he certainly didn’t burn any around
here.”

Marjorie
herself got into conversation with a tall glum man, who said he couldn’t keep
his sherry down and stood drinking tapwater out of a teacup.

Miserable
though it was, for me this funeral was something of a vacation. Usually, I work
in New York, in the less-than-salubrious environs of Tenth Avenue, but when I
received my black-edged invitation to bury my godfather, I was only too glad to
get out of the sweaty city and head for the Cape. I don’t usually have the
money or the excuse to take a break, and this one, though morbid, was
ready-made.

Not that I
disliked Max Greaves. The truth was I didn’t feel much of anything, because I
hadn’t seen either Max or Marjorie in years. In the days when my parents used
to take me out to Winter Sails as a kid, Max was always cheerful and talkative,
but as years went by he grew increasingly morose and difficult to get along
with. In the end, I gave up trying. I sent Christmas cards and small birthday
gifts, but I stayed away from Hyannis. It’s no fun trying to hold a
conversation with a grumpy old man.

One of the
reasons I needed this vacation was that I had just broken off a long and
frequently painful affair with a blond WASP named Alison McAllister. For a
time, we loved each other, but then we did nothing but argue. One day I went
into P.J.’s for a beer and saw her cuddling some Man-Tanned jock from
NYU,
and that was just about the end of it.

Another reason
was that I was having a crisis o£ confidence about my work. My work is kind of
difficult to explain, especially since I don’t look like what I do. I mean, if
you met a dignified but balding 33-year-old from Cleveland, Ohio, with a rather
large nose and a tendency to squint at distant objects, you wouldn’t
automatically jump to the conclusion that he was a clairvoyant I used to be in
advertising, but I gave that up after my agency was taken over and I lost two
of my favorite accounts. I tried a couple of other jobs, like taking German
tourists around Manhattan (“und hier ist das Woolworth Building”) and even
walking dogs. But in the end I kind of found my niche in fortunetelling for
those homely old ladies who have plenty of money but not quite enough style to
shop on Fifth Avenue. I decorated my apartment to look like a wizard’s den
(purple drapes and leather-bound books), and I placed daily advertisements in
the New York Post. Business was always fair to moderate, since I have a kind of
a knack for making up exciting but very ambiguous fortunes, and an even greater
knack for making old ladies feel that someone really wants them and needs them.
I make enough to pay the rent and run a new Mercury Cougar, but not quite
enough to take regular vacations.

The trouble was
I was beginning to feel disillusioned with the spirit world. Sometimes you can
really sense that there’s something out there, something lurking in the
mysterious beyond. But at other times, you get to thinking that it’s all hokum,
and that can make you bitter as a bottle of bock beer. For months now, I’d been
turning over Tarot cards, peering at tea leaves, and feeling that my great
occult talent had deserted me forever. That’s another reason I came to Max’s
funeral. Maybe, in the company of recently departed souls, I would find the
inspiration to carry on. On the other hand, maybe I wouldn’t. Whatever
happened, it was a change.

I managed to
edge my way around the room and home in on the young lady with the red lips.

From dose up,
she was older than she first appeared, but also more attractive. She was short,
but she had a more-than-bounteous pair of breasts and the kind of foxy-eyed
look that always reminds me of Sophia Loren.

With my usual
charm, I handed her my card. She lifted the smoky veil on her black turban hat
and read it aloud.

“ ‘Harry
Erskine. The Beyond Is My Business.’ What on earth
does that mean?”

“Well... it
means I tell people’s fortunes.
Old ladies, mostly.
Like a clairvoyant.”

“A clairvoyant?
You mean
,
you look
into crystal balls, that kind of stuff?”

“Well, not
exactly crystal balls. I can do crystal balls, if you’re interested. But
generally it’s Tarot and tea leaves. I’m also quite handy with the Ouija board.
It’s a living.”

The girl looked
at me oddly. “I never met a clairvoyant before. Do you really read the future?”

“I guess so.
Within limits.
I think I’ve gotten better with practice.
It’s like anything else. You can’t service an automobile without practice, and
you can’t probe the future without practice either.

The occult is
kind of delicate, you know, and you can’t go blundering around the spirit world
in hobnail boots.”

The girl
smiled. “No, I guess not. I’ve never considered it”

“Well, take it
from me.”

The girl sipped
sherry. “Did you know Max Greaves very well?” she asked.

“Pretty well.
He was my godfather. He was a close friend of
my father’s, way back at college or something. We always used to call him
‘Uncle.’ He was a pretty interesting guy.”

“Nobody seems
exactly heartbroken that he’s dead.”

I shrugged,
“Well... he got kind of cranky in his old age. He used to be real kind and
gentle and generous when I was young.
That’s the way / recall
him
. I remember he gave me a terrific clockwork train outfit for my
tenth birthday, and he never forgot to send me a Christmas card.

But he turned
into a recluse when he got older.
Very short-tempered.
I haven’t seen him in years now. I suppose he was one of life’s great
characters, but he got like all great characters-more than a little hard to
live with.”

“What did he
do?” asked the girl. “I mean, for a living?”

“He used to be
in oil. Some independent refinery I think. I don’t recall. But he spent most of
his early life in Arabia-something to do with Mideast oil. That was before the
days of Arabian oil politics, of course, when every white man was a big cheese.
He used to have a lot of Arabian junk around the house, although it looks like
it’s all been sold. I used to like to play with his camel saddles. You know,
the Lone Ranger, that kind of thing.”

The girl raised
an eyebrow. “Who played Tonto?”

“I never had a
Tonto. I guess I’ve always been something of a lone Lone Ranger.” “Not
married?”

“Are you
kidding? Can you imagine trying to support a wife and five kids on tea leaf
readings?”

The girl said
nothing; she just smiled. I finished my sherry. If you ask me, it was the
amontillado that Edgar Alien Foe had bricked up into his cellar wall.

“Listen,” I
told the girl, “I know a terrific lobster restaurant just up the cape. How
about lunch?

That’s if
you’re not too full of cakes.”

“Sure,” she
nodded. “Perhaps you can read my future from cracked lobster claws.”

“I’d rather
read your palms. Or even the soles of your feet. By the way, I don’t know your
name.”

“Anna,” she
said.
“Anna what?”
“Just Anna.”

I sniffed.
“That’s very mysterious.” “It’s not meant to be. It’s just the way it is.” “All
right, Just Anna,” I said. “Let me have a few words of condolence with my
godmother, and then we’ll go off and eat. Don’t get led astray by any strange
men.”

“I think that’s
already happened,” she said smiling.

I left her for
a while and made my way through the chattering guests to Marjorie Greaves and
her doleful consort. They were talking about the inferior quality of today’s
kitchen equipment, and it seemed to me that anyone would be grateful to be
rescued from a conversation like that

“Marjorie,” I
said, taking her arm. “Can we just have a private word?”

“Of course,”
she replied. “Excuse me, Mr. Gorst.”

Mr. Gorst
mournfully raised his teacup of water.
“Naturally, Mrs.
Greaves, naturally.”

Marjorie
Greaves seemed distracted. Not grieving or particularly sad, but anxious and
thoughtful.

“Is everything
all right?” I asked her. “Yon don’t have financial problems, do you? I
mean,
the house-”

She shook her
head quickly. “It’s nothing to do with money. I’m quite all right for money.
There’s no need to worry on that account.”

“Marjorie,” I
said seriously, “the house is kind of run-down.”

“I know,” she
said. She wouldn’t look directly at me. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t
matter? This is an old house. If you don’t look after it, it’s going to
collapse around your ears. All it needs is some repair-work on the roof and
some of those gutters fixed.”

“It’s coming
down anyway,” she said quietly.

I frowned.
“Coming down? I don’t understand.”

“I am having it
demolished. When it is demolished, I shall sell the land for development. They
tell me that, providing it’s not down-zoned, I can build five houses to the
acre.”

“Well,” I said,
“that’s your decision. I guess it makes sense. But I always thought you loved
Winter Sails. It’s a beautiful old house, Marjorie. It seems kind of sad to
tear it down.”

She shook her
head. “It has to come down.”

“What do you
mean-has to?”

“I don’t want
to talk about it. It’s a personal decision, Harry, and I assure you it’s all
for the best.

Now I think I
ought to talk to Robert before he leaves,”

I held her arm.
Her skin seemed very cold through the thin black fabric of her funeral dress.
It’s always alarming to touch other people and find their body temperature
radically different from your own. Lake icy feet in bed or
a
fiery
sunburn.

“Marjorie,” I
said, “I am your godson.”

She looked up
at me at last, with those intent, black shrimp’s eyes. “Harry,” she said
quietly, “I really can’t explain.”

I bit my lip.
“I think you ought to,” I advised her. “I mean, Marjorie, look at this room.
Where has the furniture gone? Where are the paintings?”

“They were
portraits” said Marjorie. “We couldn’t have portraits.”

“You couldn’t
have portraits? What do you mean?”

Unaccountably,
Marjorie Greaves began to tremble. It wasn’t the deep spasm of sorrow or the
nervous twitch of exhaustion. It was hysterical, paralytic fear. She was like a
horse that senses a snake in the straw and shakes in terror.

“You’d better
come outside,” I told her, guiding her as quickly and calmly as I could through
the gathered guests.
From the other side of the room.
Anna raised a querying eyebrow, but I stuck my hand up in the air with five
fingers spread, indicating I’d be gone for only five minutes. She shrugged and
nodded. At least my appetizing lunch date was secure, unless the miserable man
with his cup o£ water got in there while I was away, but there wasn’t much
chance of that.

Outside, in
brilliant sunlight, we walked across the overgrown lawns in silence and rested
at last on a rusty wrought-iron garden bench. There was a view of the
glittering, ink-colored sea, with the starched sails of yachts leaning on it;
the crumbling old house with its Gothic turret; and the neglected gardens that
ran down through the land; there was nothing but the sound of the surf and the
weathervane squeaking with every swing. Marjorie patted her graying hair
straight, took out her handkerchief, and discreetly blew her nose.

“I’ve never
seen you like this,” I told her. “You seem frightened of something.”

She folded her
hands in her lap and stared out toward the seashore, saying nothing at all.

“I don’t
understand about the house,” I said. “Didn’t Max want you to keep it? Didn’t he
leave you some kind of trust fund for it?”

Marjorie didn’t
answer. She sat as if she were posing for a formal portrait, with her black
funeral shoes side by side in the grass like a pair of obedient Labrador
puppies.

“Well, I don’t
know,” I said resignedly. I took a pack of cigarettes out of my black vest
pocket and found they were crushed into S-shapes. I straightened one out, lit it
with my trusty Zippo, and blew the smoke across the lawn.

The
scimitar-shaped weathervane went squeeeekkk, squeeeekkk, squeeeekkk.

After a few
minutes, Marjorie said, “Max was not himself toward the end.”

I nodded. “Is
that why he didn’t settle anything about the house?”

“Oh, no,” she
said. “He was quite sure about the house.”

“You mean Max
wanted it demolished, too?”

“Oh, yes, he
was quite sure about that.”

“But why?
What’s the point of tearing down a historic house
like this? Max loved it!”

Marjorie sighed
nervously. She seemed very jittery, and it was obviously an effort for her to
sit still.

“He never
explained everything. He said that he would only tell me what I needed to know
for my own safety.”

I laughed.
There was nothing notably funny in what Marjorie had told me, but I thought I
ought to bolster her confidence by showing her how carefree and debonair I was.