Too Old a Cat (Trace 6) (5 page)

Except for the people, the only splash of color in the all-white room was a purple velvet cushion, as big as a car seat, on a platform at the front of the room. A lump of incense, the size, shape, and color of a vanilla ice-cream cone, burned on a white saucer next to the pillow, flooding the room with the treacly smell of sandalwood.

The room echoed with the
plink-plink-plink
of a stringed instrument that seemed out of tune, but if any of the fifty-two persons who sat cross-legged on neatly placed rows of white terry towels minded the sound, none showed it: they all stared straight ahead mindlessly, as if in trances, appearing not even to blink.

A redhaired woman in a long white gown rose smoothly in the front row and walked down the center aisle to a phonograph in the rear of the room and removed the needle from the record, halting the metallic sound of the sitar. With the music silenced, the faint sound of a portable television camera, operated by a young pimply-faced man in the back row, clicked in the room. He smiled at the redheaded woman, who nodded pleasantly and walked to stand behind him, in front of the room’s closed and locked double doors. She clasped her hands in front of her waist and waited.

Then she smiled as the white satin drapes behind the platform parted. The people kneeling on the towels leaned forward and touched their foreheads to the floor as a tall brown-skinned man stepped onto the platform. He paused there as if posing for a painting of God. The man had a neatly trimmed gray-flecked beard and wise-looking azure eyes that seemed wisely to count the house before he walked to the purple cushion and sat down. He spread his long white robe neatly about him, smiled at the redhaired woman in the rear of the room, looked around at the still-bowed heads, and clapped his hands once, softly, gently.

In unison, the bowed heads raised and the fifty-two cold expressionless faces warmed into smiles.

“
Om shanti
,” the man on the platform intoned in a voice far more musical than the sound of the sitar.

“
Om shanti
,” the people in the room mumbled in answer.

“Welcome to the House of Love,” the man said. His voice was the singsong dialect of India, its cadence rising and falling by some internal logic that seemed to escape more Western minds.

“God is love. You are love. All is love. Do all here believe that?” The man looked carefully around the room at the fifty-two heads nodding agreement.

“Then rise, my children. Love thy neighbor, as it is written.”

The people rose from their white towels and the redhaired woman stepped forward from the rear of the room and placed her hand over the lens of the young man’s television camera. She smiled at him and held her hand there as the people in the room turned, each to his nearest neighbor, and embraced. Over their heads came the voice of the man on the platform. “Love, love, all is love. Love, children of love. Love. Love. Love. Love.”

As his voice echoed, the embraces became warmer, more ardent. It was a festival of wandering hands, between legs, under blouses, inside pants. Men groped women, men groped men, women groped women, as the man on the platform continued to chant his one-syllable mantra: “Love, love, love, love, love.”

A young couple in the front row, apparently carried away, began to undo each other’s clothing. But suddenly the man in the white robe clapped and all the activity ceased. The people turned their faces to him, hastily rear-ranging their clothing, and he spread his hands before him and gestured to them to sit again. Slowly, they sank back onto the towels on the floor. The redhaired woman removed her hand from the lens of the television camera and smiled again at the acned camera operator.

“God is love. Life is love. We are love,” the man in the robe said. “Many have heard our message. Have you heard our message?”

There were mumbled cries of “Yes, yes.”

“And will you live by our message of love?” the man said.

There were more yesses this time.

The man on the platform nodded his approval. “He who loves is never alone,” he said. “Our numbers are thousands across this great land and will soon be millions around this earth. Many are on their way here now and next week we will begin our journey to our new home, the City of Love, even now being made ready in far-off Pennsylvania. Who among you will be with us in the City of Love?”

A dozen hands were shyly raised around the room.

“Very good, very good,” the man on the platform said. “We welcome you who will join us in the City of Love and we welcome you who are here today to meet with us in this House of Love. Someday perhaps the rest of you too will give up worldly possessions and come to join us in far-off Pennsylvania to live a life of harmony with our fellow man, our fellow woman, our creator and our universe. We welcome all of you to our family today. A special blessing to all of you.”

He clapped his hands again softly and the white drape at the rear of the platform parted and a young dark-haired woman stepped out. She was small and delicate and wore a long white robe. In her arms, she carried a dozen long-stemmed yellow roses.

Nervously, she moved forward and knelt before the seated man, touching her head to the floor of the stage. Then she carefully arranged the dozen roses about his feet, slowly and deliberately as if creating a sculpture. As she moved, a bell tinkled gently.

When she set down the last rose, she backed away from the platform and knelt on the floor, head down. The people in the room watched as the man picked up one of the roses. He held it before him, looking at it lovingly, his face set in a small whimsical smile, then lifted it above his head in both hands as if offering it up to God. He lowered the rose again to his face, inhaling deeply of its scent. Then he carefully plucked a petal from the rose in his lap and placed it in his mouth. He chewed the petal delicately, once, twice, swallowed, then peeled another petal and placed it in his mouth. Petal by petal, he denuded the rose. The young woman still knelt before him. The others in the room watched him reverently. The redheaded woman watched the actions from the back of the room and the television camera recorded the eating, the watching, the kneeling, and the waiting, all for posterity.

Slowly, the man on the platform rose from his purple cushion to his feet. He held the now-bare stem of the rose and lifted it skyward, over his head, looked upward, and then gurgled, deep down in his throat, a bubbling sound that seemed hard and gross in the still sanctity of the room, and then he coughed and choked and fell forward onto the floor, mashing his nose with a sharp crack of splintering bone.

Blood sprayed from his broken nose as his body lurched to the side, splashing the robe of the prostrate dark-haired girl. For a moment, the people in the room seemed rooted in their places by shock, looking at one another, then at the man who lay in a white crumpled heap, like a week’s washing. The redhaired woman ran forward toward the platform. The kneeling woman looked up, touched the blood on her face, then screamed. The scream broke the tableau. People moved forward to the platform and milled about the fallen man. Others came from behind the white drapes to see what had happened.

In the confusion no one noticed the pretty dark-haired girl who had carried in the roses leave. Nor did anyone see the cameraman depart.

No one thought about the young woman until later when a police doctor determined that the man had died from ingesting a huge dose of poison that had been sprayed over the petals of the rose. The other eleven roses contained enough poison on their petals to have wiped out almost the entire room of people.

Detective Ed Razoni was waiting in front of his seedy-looking West Side apartment building when Tough Jackson screeched his car to a stop at the curb.

Razoni clambered inside and Jackson took off with a complaint of rubber. Razoni dug his heels into the worn floormat of the car and covered his eyes with his hands.

“Tough, I know you’re married, but I still got something to live for,” he said.

“Captain says he wants to see us in a hurry. I’m hurrying,” Jackson said.

“Hurry a little slower. Please. And isn’t this some shit, getting called in to work on a Sunday? What the hell is this all about? Did the captain say anything?”

“He never says anything,” Jackson said. “Just get in here or get out of here or go away. He never tells you anything.”

Razoni grunted and fastened his seat belt. He finally relaxed sixty blocks later when Jackson skidded to a stop in a no-parking zone near police headquarters.

“What the hell is this?” Razoni said.

Through the windshield of the battered 1982 sedan, they saw a stream of people in white robes, silently walking in a single file around the entrance to the headquarters building.

“What do those signs say, Tough?”

“Avenge the death of Salamanda.”

Razoni screwed up his face in bewilderment. “Some-body’s lizard died? All this because somebody’s lizard died?”

Jackson shrugged. “As long as it’s not a Klan meeting.”

“Maybe it is,” Razoni said brightly. “Maybe it is. Maybe we’re finally taking back control of the department from the pinkos and the communists and the fags and the bombthrowers. Tough, take me home so I can get my sheet.”

“I think maybe we ought to see the captain first,” Jackson said.

As they stepped onto the curb in front of the police center, Jackson was pushed from behind. He turned calmly to look down into the fuzzy eyes of the wiry-haired youth who had done it.

“Why did you do that, son?” he asked gently.

“The great Swami Salamanda is dead,” the youth cried, his voice brushing the edge of hysteria. “If you’re going in there, you got to be a pig. Are you going to get the killer of the great Salamanda?”

“Sonny,” said Jackson, “I don’t know who or what Swami Salamanda is, but if you call me a pig one more time, I’ll use you for suet.”

He turned and started up the five concrete steps to headquarters, Razoni one step behind him. There was a scream from within the crowd. Shrieking, a Brillo-haired girl in a white robe left the line and lunged toward Razoni with a kitchen knife in her hand.

Razoni turned at the scream, saw her coming, and darted behind Jackson.

“My suit, Tough. Don’t let her get at my suit. It cost four hundred dollars.” He cowered behind the big body of his partner.

The girl darted up the steps toward Jackson, the knife in front of her like a jouster’s lance. Just when it seemed that the knife must find Jackson’s midriff, he moved a few inches to the side. His giant right hand came down and closed around the girl’s wrist. He squeezed. She screamed and dropped the knife.

Quickly, but without seeming to hurry, Jackson turned back toward the door and followed Razoni into headquarters, still holding the girl’s wrist, pulling her along with him as easily as if she had been a stuffed toy. The door closed behind them, just as the shouts of “Brutality” began to rise from the crowd.

“Wow, that was a close call,” Razoni said. “A four-hundred-dollar suit and she goes waving a knife at it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said to the girl angrily.

“Go fuck yourself,” she snapped.

“Anything’d be better than you,” said Razoni. He marched toward the desk of the precinct, which shared some of the space in the building with the headquarters units.

“Prisoner for you, Sarge,” he called out cheerily.

The bored-looking, middle-aged desk sergeant looked up unhappily as Jackson dragged the girl along.

“What’s the charge?” the sergeant asked.

“She assaulted Razoni’s suit,” Jackson said.

“Kill the pigs,” the girl screamed. “Kill the pigs.”

“No, sweetheart,” Razoni said. “You’ve got it wrong. This is the week we kill salamanders. Next week we’ve got squirrels and the week after
that
it’s pigs. You got it? Sarge, we’ve got to see Captain Mannion. You got somebody to handle this dipstick?”

“Hunsburger,” the sergeant called. A tweedy-looking young detective with a beard came from an office. He looked at the sergeant, who told him: “Book this one. She assaulted Razoni’s suit.”

The detective nodded, then finally comprehended what the sergeant had said, and looked up in surprise. “His suit?” He looked at Razoni’s plaid sharkskin suit. “It might be justifiable homicide,” he said.

“I hate cops who try to be smartass,” said Razoni, who took the girl’s arm from Jackson and pushed her forward into Hunsburger. “Watch yourself,” he said. “She’s a killer.”

Inside an office whose door announced PRIVATE, a uniformed sergeant with a thin pinched face looked up as the two detectives entered.

“Hiya, Schultz,” said Razoni breezily. “Jeez, it must be important to drag you away from Sunday school.”

“It’s about time,” the sergeant said. “He’s been waiting for you a long time. You think when he said hurry, you’d hurry.”

Razoni had never liked Schultz and had absolutely detested him since he had been promoted to sergeant and Razoni had failed the test. He said, “Schultz, I want to get you something for your birthday. What does a weasel eat anyway?”

Schultz glowered. “Go inside. He’s waiting for you.”

Captain Mannion sat behind a giant old wooden desk that always reminded Razoni of a coffin big enough to hold the bodies of an entire precinct basketball team. The varnish along the edges of the desk was scalloped with black parabolas where Mannion had let cigarettes burn themselves out.

The captain’s face was shrouded in darkness. The only illumination in the office came from a gooseneck lamp and it was aimed toward them, toward the door, its hard light glaring angrily on a single red rose in a white milk crystal bud vase on the edge of the desk.

“Look at the flower,” Razoni whispered to Jackson. “You think he’s getting soft in the head?”

“Shhhh,” Jackson responded.

Mannion, however, could not hear them, since he was too busy shouting into the telephone. Angrily, he waved to Razoni and Jackson, a wave that meant the two detectives should sit down. Their sitting down confirmed, in turn, that they were going to be given an assignment. When Mannion only wanted to chew them out, he made them stand.

“I don’t care what your profit picture is,” said Mannion into the telephone. “I don’t want that goddamn place rented to those nit-nats.”

Razoni and Jackson slid into the hard-backed wooden chairs as Mannion listened quietly for a moment. The air in the office was shot through with stale cigarette smoke.

“This place smells like a burning dump,” Razoni said.

“Shhhh,” said Jackson.

Mannion was talking again and did not hear them. The captain took a deep breath and lowered his shoulders.

“This is it,” Razoni said. “He’s going to try to be reasonable.”

“Now, now, now,” said Mannion softly into the telephone. “I understand your problem, Mr. Macdonald. I truly do. Yes, I know how the economy is affecting your property rentals. Yes, sir, I certainly do. This sluggish economy is a terrible thing. Us police suffer from it too. Yes, sir. I guess you could call us fellow sufferers. But you see, sir, there is a different problem here. If you rent that loft to those people, it will probably serve as head-quarters for whatever kind of disturbance they might take it in their mind to plan. It might lead to serious trouble. Yes, sir, it certainly could. It might even result in serious property damage to your building, and that is why the commissioner and I were hoping you would not rent it out.” He paused. “I see. You’re willing to take that risk. I see. You need the income from the building. Yes, I see. The public safety is not really your concern. Yes, I see. I can certainly understand that, Mr. Macdonald. Yes, yes. Oh, yes. Of course. May I just say one more thing, sir? Thank you. Let me just say that you are a tight-fisted prick and I hope those hairy scumbags tear your fucking building apart, and when they do, you cheap Scotch bastard, if you come whining around here, I’ll throw you in the can and throw the key in the fucking river, now go fuck yourself, asshole.”

Mannion slammed the telephone into its cradle with a crack that seemed to make the desk jump into the air.

“Now, what is it you two imbeciles want?” he shouted.

“Nothing, Captain,” Razoni said quickly. “We just stopped in to see how your roses were doing. It looks all right, so we’ll just be on our way.” He stood up to leave.

“Sit down, Razoni. Sit down and, just for once, shut up, because I don’t want to have to listen to you. Why me, God?” He looked heavenward, then back down, and his eyes shone black as coal as they glared at Razoni from under a pair of snow-white steel-wool eyebrows.

“Where the hell have you two been?” he snarled. “I called hours ago.”

“We were checking out the white sale outside,” Razoni said, but before Mannion could respond, Jackson said, “What’s going on, Captain?”

“A guru’s been killed over in the East Village.”

“That Salamanda?” asked Razoni.

“Right.”

“See, Tough. I told you he wasn’t a lizard,” Razoni said.

“Shut up,” Mannion bellowed. “This is important. Next Sunday, exactly seven days from today, this Salamanda was going to hold a national convention of the freaks that follow him. Right here in our fair city. And then they were all going to get into buses and drive out into Pennsylvania, where they are going to open, are you ready for this, the City of Love.”

“Love is nice,” Razoni said.

“Well, all these swami’s followers are still coming and we’re going to have trouble,” Mannion said.

“How’s that, Captain?” Jackson asked.

“These nutcakes are still coming. Dammit, Salamanda’s body isn’t even cold yet and already they’re talking about protesting police inefficiency. That’s just a taste outside. Can you imagine what it’s going to be like next Sunday if this isn’t cleared up by then?”

Razoni shrugged, then looked down and dusted the lapels of his suit jacket. “Put the killer in jail. That’ll shut everybody up.”

“Put the killer in jail,” Mannion mimicked. “Put the killer in jail. Put the killer in jail. There’s only one little thing missing from your plan, Razoni. To do that we have to find the frigging killer.”

While Mannion was speaking, Razoni picked up the bud vase and sniffed it deeply. The rose had an outdoorsy smell that one could go years in the city without experiencing. Razoni thought it smelled funny.

“So let’s find the killer,” Razoni said.

“Good. Get right on it,” Mannion said. He looked down at papers on his desk.

“It might help, Captain, if you told us a little bit about it,” said Razoni.

“All I know about it is that somebody handed this guru a rose and he ate it and it was poisoned.”

Razoni swiftly put down the bud vase. “He ate a rose?” he said.

“Right. He ate a poisoned rose.”

“Why would anybody eat a rose?” Razoni asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe he was hungry,” Mannion snarled.

“I’ve been hungry,” Razoni said. “I never ate any rose. Did you ever eat a rose, Tough?”

Jackson turned his head away, refusing to answer.

“Captain, you ever eat a rose?” Razoni asked.

“Oh, my God,” Mannion said. “Is this what the rest of my life is going to be like?”

Razoni suspected that Mannion might be upset, so he asked brightly, “Who gave the swami the rose? The one that he ate?”

“Some girl. He was holding some kind of ceremony for just new members and the roses are part of the ceremony. He ate the goddamn thing and keeled over and died.”

“Right after eating the rose?” Razoni asked.

“Right, Razoni. Right after eating the rose.”

“No sweat, Captain,” Razoni said. “We’ll find the killer of this, er, guru for you.”

“Please do, Razoni,” Mannion said earnestly. “I would consider it a personal favor.”

“Are the precinct bulls working on it?” Jackson asked.

“Yeah, and they’ve got to keep working on it. But they couldn’t find cowshit in a pasture.”

“Well, what do you want us to do?” Jackson asked.

“Go down and look around. See if you find out anything. Let yourself be seen. If they understand that the commissioner’s office is hot on this, they’ll work harder. You know what to do. Do what you usually do. Annoy people.”

Jackson nodded. Razoni stood up, looking thoughtful. He walked from the office mumbling to himself, “Who’d eat a rose? Got to be damn hungry to eat a rose.”

Razoni managed to knock over Schultz’s coffeecup before leaving, ruining what looked like a freshly typed pile of correspondence. In the doorway leading to the hall, Razoni said, “Tough, I’ve got to ask you something very important.”

In the hall, with the door safely closed behind them, Jackson said, “What, Ed?”

“What the Christ is a guru?”

“You don’t know? You live in this city and you don’t know what a guru is?”

Razoni wrinkled his brow. “Somebody who eats roses?”