Night Secrets Page 10

  “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.”

  From 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 i
nto 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?”

  Frank inhaled deeply. “Yes.”

  Farouk smiled wistfully. “That is raki. It is a drink, a liqueur made of raisins. It is a Turkish drink, not common in this country.”

  “Turkish?”

  “Yes,” Farouk said.

  “You mean, they’re not …”

  “No, they are Gypsies, all right,” Farouk said, anticipating Frank’s question. He pointed to the odd-shaped instruments that hung from the wall. “Those are known only to the Gitano,” he said. Then he shook his head quickly, and stepped out of the small room, edging his large belly carefully out the door. For a moment he seemed lost in thought, his large eyes strangely distant, as if he were seeing other worlds, vanished lands. Then suddenly he seemed to return to himself. “Where is the kitchen?” he asked.

  Frank shrugged.

  “Probably back there,” Farouk said. He moved quickly out of the room, down a very short corridor to another small room. “Yes, here it is,” he said as he stepped into it.

  Frank stopped at the entrance. “What are you looking for?”

  Farouk didn’t answer. Instead, he moved quickly from one cabinet to the next, opening them one by one, then moving on to the drawers, the refrigerator, the small dark space beneath the sink. When he’d finished, he stood near the center of the room, thinking to himself. “Three women,” he said almost to himself. His eyes shot over to Frank. “Is that what you think? That there were three women in this place?”

  “Yes.”

  “And no one else?”

  “As far as I know.”

  Farouk shook his head. “I do not think so, Frank.”

  “Why not?”

  Farouk brought his finger up to his nose again. “Because raki is not a woman’s drink,” he said. “And whoever drank it here last took the bottle with him.”

  Frank shrugged. “It could have been a guest. Someone passing through.”

  Farouk nodded. “That is possible,” he said. Then he walked over to the small bathroom which adjoined the kitchen and turned on the light. He opened the small medicine cabinet, concentrating on the array of tubes and bottles which were crowded onto its three small glass shelves.

  Frank ticked off the things he saw. “Toothpaste, perfume, hairpins.”

  Farouk continued to glance about.

  “Lipstick, rouge, eyeliner,” Frank went on. “I don’t see anything that would belong to a man.”

  Farouk turned toward him. “Perhaps,” he said. Then he drew a small pocket knife from his trousers, opened its slenderest blade and slid it into the tiny crevice where the sink’s faucet met the basin. “Ah, yes,” he said with sudden satisfaction as he brought the blade out once again.

  Frank stepped over toward him and watched as Farouk brought the blade near his eyes. It was covered with tiny black flecks.

  “Not the strands of a woman’s hair,” Farouk said, “but the leavings of a beard.”

  “A man,” Frank breathed. “But why aren’t there any other signs?”

  “Because he does not live here,” Farouk said, “but only comes to them in the night, yes?”

  “And leaves in the morning,” Frank added.

  “After he has shaved,” Farouk said. He glanced at his watch. “Come now, we must go.”

  They returned to Frank’s office, moving down the nearly deserted sidestreets, their eyes searching up ahead for the old Gypsy. Finally they disappeared down the cement stairs, stepped over the old woman who was sleeping soundly at the bottom and made their way into the office.

  Farouk sat in the old sofa by the window and watched while Frank retrieved the bottle from his desk and poured each of them a shot in a paper cup.

  Farouk lifted his slightly, in a faint toast, then drank.

  Frank sat down behind his desk. “What are you thinking, Farouk?” he asked bluntly.

  One of Farouk’s eyebrows arched gently. “Thinking? Many things, as you know.”

  “About tonight,” Frank said. “That place.”

  Farouk considered the question for a moment, as if carefully weighing his answer. “I think that there is one who wishes his presence to be concealed. This person is a man, and for a time at least he has visited with the women.”

  “But where does that leave us?”

  “Perhaps nowhere of importance,” Farouk admitted. “But when one wishes to hide himself, it causes me to wonder why.” He took another sip from the cup, then rested it on his large thigh. “You men
tioned the statue,” he said.

  Frank nodded.

  “Describe it for me again.”

  Frank shrugged slightly. “It wasn’t much of anything. It looked religious, sort of like those plaster ones you see of Mary.”

  “You are a Christian?” Farouk asked.

  “I’m nothing,” Frank told him. “I was raised a Christian.”

  “Catholic?”

  “No.”

  “But you said that it looked rather like the Virgin Mary?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Like the Virgin Mary,” Farouk said emphatically. “It was not the Holy Mother herself?”

  Frank shook his head. “It looked different somehow.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, like I told you, she looked as if she were walking in water.”

  “And it was foamy, this water? As if it were the sea, as if she were walking onto the beach?”

  Frank nodded. “Yeah, that’s the way it looked.”

  Farouk’s eyes closed thoughtfully. “Was she carrying a child?”

  “No.”

  “Was there a halo?”

  “No.”

  “And you said she was wearing a purple robe, is that right? With a hood?”

  “With a hood.”

  “And the hood was up?”

  “Yes.”

  Farouk opened his eyes and smiled. “Forgive me these questions, but the more detail the description has, the better I can use it.”

  Frank took a sip from the cup. “Use it how?”

  “To discover things,” Farouk replied idly. “And there was also a medallion?”

  “Brass,” Frank said.

  “Large? Small?”

  “I’d say it was about four inches in diameter.”

  “And there was a scorpion, you said.”

  “That’s right,” Frank told him. “And on the Puri Dai, too.”

  “There were scorpions on her? You mean …”

  “Embroidered on her blouse,” Frank said quickly. “One over each breast.”

  Farouk sat back slightly, raised the cup toward his lips, then stopped and brought it down again. “I think it is now time for me to meet the Puri Dai.”

  Frank nodded.

  Farouk glanced at his watch. “But not tonight,” he said. “Toby has returned, and I must see her home.” He got to his feet. “Tomorrow morning, then?”