Jocundra was speechless, and Donnell, struck by a suspicion, shifted his visual field. Three black figures bloomed in the silver-limned door; the prismatic fires within them columned their legs, delineated the patterns of their musculature and nerves, and glowed at their fingertips. Simpkins and one of the other two, then, along with Papa, must have been the three figures Donnell had seen in Salt Harvest, and he thought he knew what their complex patterns indicated. He shifted back to normal sight and studied their faces. Clea and Downey were toadies and boot-lickers, but each with a secret, a trick, an ounce of distinction. Simpkins was hard to read.
‘So you’re Otille’s little band of mutants,’ said Donnell, walking over to stand behind Jocundra.
‘How’d you know that?’ asked Clea, her voice a nasal twang. ‘I bet Papa told you.’
‘Lucky guess,’ said Donnell. ‘Where’s the other one? There’s one more besides Papa, isn’t there?’
Simpkins maintained his God-conscious smile. ‘Right on all counts, brother,’ he said. ‘But if half what we been hearin’s true, we can’t hold a candle to you. Now Downey here’ - he gave Downey’s head a friendly rub - ‘he can move things around with his mind. Not big things. Ping-pong balls, feathers. And then only when he ain’t stoned, which ain’t too often. And Sister Clea…’
‘I sing,’ said Clea defiantly.
Downey snickered.
‘And when I do,’ she said, and stuck out her tongue at Downey, ‘strange things happen.’
‘Sometimes,’ said Downey. ‘Most times you just clear the room. Sounds like someone squeezin’ a rat.’
‘It’s true,’ said Simpkins. ‘Sister Clea’s talent is erratic, but wondrous things do happen when she lifts her voice in song. A gentle breeze will blow where none has blown before, insects will drop dead in midnight…’
‘She oughta hire out to Orkin,’ said Downey.
‘And,’ Simpkins continued, ‘only last week a canary fell from its perch, never more to charm the morning air.’
‘That was just a coincidence,’ said Downey sullenly.
‘You’re just jealous ‘cause Otille kicked you outta bed,’ said Clea.
‘Coincidence or not,’ said Simpkins, ‘Sister Clea’s stock has risen sharply since the death of poor Pavarotti.’
‘And what’s your speciality, Simpkins?’ asked Donnell.
‘I suppose you’d classify me as a telepath.’ Simpkins folded his arms, thoughtful. ‘Though it never seemed I was pickin’ up real thoughts, more like dreams behind thoughts…’
‘Simpkins once had a rather exotic vision which he said derived from my thoughts,’ said a musical voice. A diminutive, black-haired woman swept into the room, Papa and a heavy-set black man at her heels. ‘It was a pretty vision,’ she said. ‘I incorporated it into my decorating scheme. But his talent failed him shortly thereafter, and we never did learn what it meant.’ She walked over to Donnell; she was wearing a cocktail dress of a silky red material that seemed to touch every part of her body when she moved. ‘I’m Otille Rigaud.’ She gave her name the full French treatment, as if it were a rare vintage. ‘I see you’ve been getting to know my pets.’ Then she frowned. ‘Baron!’ she snapped. ‘Where’s Dularde?’
‘Beats me,’ said the black man.
‘Find him,’ she said, shooing them off with flicks of her fingers. ‘All of you. Go on!’
She gestured for Donnell to sit beside Jocundra, and after he had taken a chair, she perched on the desk in front of him. Her dress slid up over her knees, and he found that if he did not meet her stare or turn his head at a drastic angle, he would be looking directly at the shadowy division between her thighs. She was a remarkably beautiful woman, and though according to Papa’s story she must be nearly forty, Donnell would have guessed her age at a decade less. Her hair fell to her shoulders in serpentine curls; her upper lip was shorter and fuller than the lower, giving her a permanently dissatisfied expression; her skin was pale, translucent, a tracery of blue veins showing at the throat. Delicate bones, black eyes aswim with lights that did not appear to be reflections. A cameo face, one which bespoke subtle understandings and passions. But her overall delicacy, not any single feature of it, was Otille’s most striking aspect. Against the backdrop of her pets, she had seemed fashioned by a more skillful hand, and when she had entered the office, Donnell had felt that an invisible finger had nudged her from the ranks of pawns into an attacking position: the tiny ivory queen of a priceless chess set.
‘You have a wonderful presence, Donnell,’ she said after a long silence.’Wonderful.’
‘Compared to what?’ he said, annoyed at being judged. ‘The rest of your remaindered freaks?’
‘Oh, no. You’re quite incomparable. Don’t you think so, Ms Verret? Jocundra.’ She smiled chummily at Jocundra. ‘What an awful name to saddle a child with! So large and cumbersome. But you have grown into it.’
