Where There's Smoke полностью

“Mr. Smoke,” she said, “I don’t want my daughter committed. I know she’s under stress right now, and be­having strangely, but I keep thinking it’s only temporary, she’ll come out of it, it was just the shock of Harry’s death. She loved her brother dearly, Mr. Smoke. There was a difference of only seven years in their ages—Harry was forty when he died, Natalie’s thirty-three. They were always very close. I visit Natalie all the time now, I try to give her support, I keep hoping she’ll come out of it. You must promise me that whatever I tell you, you won’t try to have Natalie committed.”

“I haven’t the power to do that, anyway, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“All right,” she said. “Natalie’s been attending black masses.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere in the basement of a church downtown. They invoke the devil. They make blood sac­rifices.”

Mrs. Fletcher fell silent. I waited. She was shaking her head again, staring into the coffee cup.

“I sometimes think, may God forgive,” she said, “I sometimes think Harry’s death was caused by witchcraft. Did one of Natalie’s friends do something to cause the coronary? Did one of them put a curse on my son?”

“There’s no such thing as witchcraft,” I said.

“Isn’t there?” she asked, and she raised her head, and her eyes met mine.

“No,” I said firmly. “And there’s no such thing as in­voking the devil, either.”

“I wish you’d tell that to my daughter,” she said, and sighed.

“Mrs. Fletcher,” I said, “do you have any idea where she might be?”

“None.”

“Have you talked to her since Saturday?”

“I spoke to her on the phone last night.”

“Sunday, do you mean?”

“Yes, Sunday. We’re about to get mixed up again, aren’t we?” she said.

“Not if we keep thinking of this as Monday night.”

“Yes,” she said. “This is Monday night, and she called me last night. Sunday.”

“What did you talk about?”

“She seemed quite happy. She told me she was passing over into a new life. I hoped at the time—but I’ve been hoping this for a long time now—I hoped she meant she was finished with her Cleopatra delusion.”

“Is that what she meant?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t explain. She said only that I might not hear from her for quite some time.” Mrs. Fletcher frowned. “It was a very strange conversation, now that I think of it. Mr. Smoke, I’m suddenly fright­ened. You don’t think she plans to harm herself, do you?”

“Has she seemed suicidal?”

“No. But... this business of... blood sacrifices, in­voking the devil... I don’t know. I’m frightened. I don’t know what she’s done, or may be about to do.”

“Mrs. Fletcher,” I said, “would you know anything about a midnight mass to take place tomorrow?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Would it be one of your daughter’s black masses?”

“I have no idea. It could be, I suppose.”

“Does the name Susanna mean anything to you?”

“Yes. She’s one of Natalie’s friends. Susanna Martin. That isn’t her real name. I don’t know what her real name is. Susanna Martin is the name she uses. It’s the name of a woman who was hanged for witchcraft in 1692.”

“Do you know where she lives?”

“On Ninety-sixth, near Fairleigh. I don’t know the ad­dress. It’s a red-brick building with a green awning. I met Natalie up there one afternoon. We were going shopping, but she had to see Susanna first, and she asked me to meet her outside the building.” Mrs. Fletcher looked directly into my eyes. “Are you going there now?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Be careful,” she said. “Susanna Martin is an evil woman.”

Ninety-sixth and Fairleigh was in Shrink City, where a plentitude of psychiatrists’ offices nestled within a three-block area, bordered by the park on the west and Fair­leigh Avenue on the east. To the north lay a Puerto Rican ghetto. To the south, Fairleigh and two other wide av­enues plunged downtown to the heart of the city’s busi­ness district. There was only one building with a green awning on Ninety-sixth. I stepped into the lobby and was walking toward the mailboxes when a doorman came briskly toward me.

“Hey you!” he said. “What do you want here?”

“I’m a police officer,” I said, and showed him the shield. “I’m looking for a woman named Susanna Mar­tin.”

“There’s no Martins in the building,” he said.

“Are there any Susannas in the building?”

“There’s two Susans, but no Susannas,” he said. “There’s Susan Howell in 12C, and there’s Susan Kahn in 8A.”

“Let’s try them both,” I said.

“What do you mean try them? You mean ring the apart­ments?”

“Yes.”

He looked at his watch and said, “It’s three-thirty in the morning.”

“I know that.”

“Can’t this wait till at least the sun comes up?”

“A man’s been killed.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “But if I go waking up a tenant in the middle of the night, I might lose a Christ­mas tip. Is the Police Department gonna make that up for me?”

“You can take your choice,” I said. “Either ring them and tell them I’m here, or I’ll go up and knock on then-doors.”

“You do that,” he said. “I didn’t even see you come in the building,” he added, and turned his back and walked toward the switchboard in the corner of the lobby.