19
“Me?” Lopez said, standing in the middle of the
bookshop with his hands on his hips. “Me.”
“Yes,” I said. “Well,
not you you. But your perfect
double.”
I had done my best to
explain what we knew, and what the danger was. I thought I had been
methodical and cogent despite my agitation about the mortal danger
he was in now. But while I talked, his expression went from
impatient, to skeptical, to—at the moment—appalled.
“This . . . this
crap,” he said, “that’s all over the
floor and the chairs and the bookcases and your hair—”
“It’s in my hair?”
Revolted by the thought of doppelgangster detritus in my hair, I
started brushing at it with my hands.
“You’re saying it was
a supernatural creature that looked and sounded exactly like
me?”
“Yes.”
“And if I saw it, I’d
be cursed with certain death?”
“Yes,” I said,
relieved he was getting the picture.
“And Max beheaded it
to save my life.”
“Yes.”
“Esther . . .” He
shook his head. “What the fuck is in
the coffee that Max gives you here?”
I sighed. “I’ve seen
these . . . these things. With my own
eyes. Lucky has seen them, too.”
“Lucky drinks the
coffee here, too, doesn’t he?”
“Danny Dapezzo saw
his doppelgangst—uh, doppelgänger before he died.”
“And by amazing
coincidence,” Lopez said, “Danny shared food and drink with Max the
night before.”
I blinked. “How did
you know that?”
“Wiseguys never do
anything that doesn’t involve a ton of food.”
“Oh.” I said, “But
what about Charlie? And Johnny?”
“Charlie was mentally
ill, you’re obviously confused about when you saw Johnny, and Max
has planted a lot of crazy ideas in your head.”
“So you just think
I’m a gullible idiot?”
He avoided answering
that. “I don’t know much about toxicology. I’ve never worked
narcotics. But it sounds to me like Max must be slipping you a
whole smorgasbord of hallucinogenics.”
“Max isn’t drugging
anyone!” I said in exasperation.
He pulled his cell
phone out of his jacket. “I’m going to have this place
searched.”
I thought of the
laboratory downstairs. “No!”
“If there’s nothing
here, then they won’t find anything.” His voice was professionally
soothing as he dialed a number on his phone.
I leaped forward and
knocked the phone out of his hand, startling him. “I will not be
the cause of you violating Max’s privacy!” Or the cause of Max
getting locked up after they found weird things in his lab that
couldn’t easily be explained away. Especially not with Lopez so
suspicious of him already.
Angry now, Lopez
said, “You just told me you watched Max cut off ‘my’ head tonight,
and then ‘I’ exploded all over the room! Do you really want to go
on another trip like that,
Esther?”
“I wasn’t
tripping!”
“Do you want him
doing this to someone else, too?”
“He’s not drugging
anyone! Why won’t you believe me?”
“Do you hear how
crazy you sound?”
“Yes, I do! Do you
honestly think I’d even talk to you
about this if your life weren’t at stake?” Frustrated, I said, “Max
wants to protect you! And me! Why are you trying to blame
him?”
He bit off whatever
he was about to say, got control of his temper, and closed his eyes
for a moment. Then he let out his breath slowly and said, “Because
Max creating these delusions by drugging you is better than the
alternative.”
“Which is?” I gasped
as I realized what he meant. “Oh! You think I’m
crazy?”
He didn’t say
anything.
“So either I’m a
drugged-up dupe or I’m a nutbag?”
“I’m trying to think
of a third alternative, but nothing’s coming to me.” He crossed the
floor and stooped down to retrieve his phone. Examining it, he
said, “It’s dead. Great. That’s the second phone I’ve run through
today.”
Trying to relieve the
tension in the room, I said, “What happened to the first
one?”
“I don’t know.” He
shrugged. “It’ll turn up. But after I saw those photos, I didn’t
want to call you from an OCCB phone, and I couldn’t find my cell.”
He turned the broken phone over in his hands. “I keep this in my
desk. It’s prepaid. Anonymous. Useful for work,
sometimes.”
“Oh.” That explained
why his call to me a little while ago had shown up on my cell as
“Caller Unknown.” I said, “I’m sorry I broke it. But I don’t want
you bothering Max.”
“I’m worried about
you,” he said. “Seriously worried.”
“I’m a lot more
worried about you.”
“I want you to stay
away from Max from now on.”
“No, I won’t do
that.”
He glanced at his
watch. “Shit. I have to go.”
“Back to
work?”
“I’m following a
lead. I’ve got to go meet someone.”
“You’re not safe,” I
said urgently. “Don’t go.”
“The city’s on the
verge of a mob war, Esther. That’s a very messy thing, and people
besides wiseguys will get hurt. I want to get you out of
here—”
“And maybe into an
insane asylum?” I said sourly.
“—but I don’t have
time to fight about it. I’ve got to leave.” He started collecting
the bladed weapons from the table.
“What are you
doing?”
“You sound insane,
you’re talking about beheading people—”
“Not people!”
“—and chopping off
heads is evidently Max’s bright idea. All things considered, I
don’t think it’s a great idea for me to leave two swords and an ax
lying around here when I go.”
“You can’t just
take those! Don’t you have to have a
warrant or something?”
“Let’s agree that I’m
not taking them as a cop, but as your concerned . . .
friend.”
“Give that back!” I
grabbed the ax and tugged. “You can’t leave us
defenseless!”
He used his free hand
to grasp my wrist and torque it downward. A sharp jolt of pain made
me let go of the ax and stumble. He twisted my arm behind my back
and pulled me up against his chest. I was breathing hard and
grimacing in pain. He looked angry, sad, and
frustrated.
“Either you’re
leaving here right now, or else these weapons are leaving.” His
voice was quiet, his tone unyielding. “God knows what you might do
with them, in your current state of mind.”
“Where do you want me
to go?” I was angry and frustrated, too. “A psych
ward?”
“That’s not a bad
idea.” He lifted his brows. “Well?”
I lowered my head and
tried to get control of my breathing, aware of our bodies pressed
together. Aware of how different things were now than they had been
only this afternoon. Nothing about this embrace resembled the one
we had shared then.
“If you take these
weapons,” I said, realizing there was a silver lining, “keep them
with you. And if you see your perfect double—”
“No, Esther, I’m not
cutting off someone’s head.” He released me. “But I will take the
weapons.”
Ax still in hand, he
picked up the two swords. “Don’t eat or drink or inhale anything
else Max gives you—”
“Oh, for God’s
sake.”
“—and I’ll try to
call you tomorrow. We’ll talk about protective
custody.”
“Lopez!” I followed
him as he headed for the door. “Will you at least promise to call me immediately if you see
someone who looks just like you?”
“We’ll also talk
about you getting treatment.”
“Listen to me! What’s
happening here is more complicated than just another mob war! The
Gambellos—”
“Esther, I know you
want to help.” He paused on the threshold and looked over his
shoulder at me. “And some of what you told me tonight is helpful. It’s useful. Okay? But now you’ve got
to stay out of this.”
And he
left.
Max and Nelli were
alone when they returned to the shop.
“Where’s
Lucky?”
“He got a call while
we were out. He has been summoned by the don of his famiglia.”
It was nearly
midnight. “Don’t wiseguys ever sleep?” Max’s gaze fell on the table
where I sat. “Where are our weapons?”
I told him what had
happened.
When I finished, he
patted my back. “Don’t blame yourself, my dear. I’m sure you
explained the danger with excellent clarity. But I’ve learned
through long and difficult experience that most people respond to
mystical events precisely the way Detective Lopez does. That is to
say, by dismissing some of the evidence and interpreting the rest
according to their existing beliefs.” He added morosely, “Or else
they respond the way Doctor Dapezzo did.”
Recalling the capo’s
unbridled mirth, I said, “Well, at least Danny had a good time on
the final night of his life.”
“And you mustn’t fret
about the loss of the bladed weapons. I have more.”
“Really?”
“I have no more
swords, alas, but I do have a rather good machete in the laboratory
that will serve our purpose,” he said. “And it is somewhat
comforting to know that Detective Lopez is now armed with suitable
weapons for dispatching a doppelgangster.”
“He says he won’t use
them.”
“We can only hope
that, if confronted by his own perfect double, he will change his
mind.”
“But then it’ll be
too late! Once he comes face-to-face with himself, he’ll be a
victim of the killer’s curse, and nothing can save his life after
that! So how can we prevent him from meeting his
duplicate?”
“Well, first of all,
keep in mind that we have dispatched his double and that it’s
entirely possible the killer is unaware of this. In which case, he
won’t even consider making another duplicate until he suspects that
something has gone wrong.”
“And then he
will make another, and—”
“So far, the killer
has only created one doppelgangster per victim,” Max said.
“Therefore, it is not unreasonable for us to hope that he
can only make one for each
target.”
“But you’re not
sure.”
“No. But logic
suggests that, at least for the rest of tonight, Detective Lopez is
out of danger.”
“Logic,” I repeated.
“You must be kidding.” Still, this soothed my panic enough for me
to remember what I had wanted to tell Max. So I explained what I
had realized when confronted by the real Lopez.
“Hmm. Yes, this is
most interesting, Esther!” He stroked his beard. “So Detective
Lopez’s doppelgangster tonight was wearing exactly the same
clothing that the real man wore at your apartment early this
afternoon . . .”
“Plus the jacket,” I
said, “which he didn’t have when he came to my place. So I guess he
hadn’t been duplicated yet?”
“But by tonight, he
was.”
“What I don’t
understand is, how did Lopez avoid meeting his double? It sounds to
me like they were both at the scene of the crime this afternoon.
They both found the note with our phone numbers . . . Wait!
Oh.”
“Ah!” Max
nodded.
“He was duplicated
after he found the note,” I
said.
“The doppelgangster
shared his memories up to that point. It recalled finding the note
at the scene of the crime, concealing the evidence, and phoning
this number to verify that it was indeed mine.”
“But it didn’t know about anything that happened later,” I
said. “It wasn’t affected by the things that took Lopez’s mind off
that discovery as the evening progressed. And it didn’t know about
the surveillance photos, either, which bothered the real Lopez more
than the note did.”
“The doppelgangster,”
Max mused, “gave in to the impulse to come here immediately and
confront you about the note. An impulse that Detective Lopez
presumably felt when he found our phone
numbers with the deceased, but couldn’t act upon at the
time.”
“Because he was on
the job. He could place a phone call, but he couldn’t leave.” I
paused. “But, wait, the doppelgangster didn’t come here immediately, Max. It came here
right before Lopez did.”
“It didn’t come here
immediately after the discovery of the note,” Max agreed. “I
postulate that it came here immediately after it was created.”
A chill went through
me. “This is creeping me out.”
“So we know the
doppelgangster came into being sometime after I received Detective
Lopez’s extremely brief phone call and before the creature arrived
here.”
“That’s a window of a
few hours. Does this mean that’s how long it takes to make a
doppelgangster?”
“Possibly. Or perhaps
even much less time than that. Alternately, however, the process
could have begun well before this afternoon and then been completed
this evening.”
My shoulders slumped.
“So we haven’t really narrowed down anything after
all?”
“On the contrary!”
Max said encouragingly. “While we still don’t know how it was
done—nor precisely how long the whole process took—we have discerned the moment of Detective Lopez’s life
from which his doppelgangster was created: While he was angry about
the note and conscience stricken over concealing it, but before his
subsequent experiences began distracting his attention from
this.”
“All right,” I said.
“We know approximately when . . . but
we still have no idea why.”
“Why he was
duplicated?”
“The other three
victims were all wiseguys. Why is the murderer trying to kill a cop
now?”
“Because Detective
Lopez is his adversary,” Max suggested.
“Wiseguys don’t
target cops,” I said with a frown. “So are we looking for a wiseguy
who’s violating that custom? Or are we . . .” It occurred to me for
the first time. “Is it possible the killer isn’t a
wiseguy?”
“Hmm. That’s a theory
we’ve overlooked until now. The victims all had enemies in their
own, er, profession, so we made the reasonable supposition that the
killer is a colleague. However, you’re quite right—that needn’t
necessarily be the case.” He continued, “On the other hand, our
adversary is creative, devious, ruthless, and clever. Given the
unconventional nature of these murders, I find it difficult to
believe he abides by popular custom, so to speak, when choosing his
victims. Therefore, he may well be a member of Lucky’s profession
and yet entirely willing to target a police officer.”
“But if a cop dies .
. .” I felt sick at the thought of which cop we were talking about, but made myself
continue, “There’ll be hell to pay, and the killer must know
that.”
“If so, then he is
indifferent to that eventuality.” Max shrugged. “Perhaps he even
courts it. It would certainly add to the violent chaos that is now
imminent.”
“Yes, it would. And
why this particular cop?” I said
desperately. “There’s a whole team on the case!”
“Perhaps because the
killer has identified him as a greater threat than his fellow
officers are? As you are well aware, Detective Lopez is both astute
and persistent.”
“I should have conked
him over the head and locked him up in the
laboratory.”
“No, he would get
into mischief down there,” Max said.
“Not if he was tied
up,” I said grimly.
There was a pause.
Then Max said, “I don’t wish to alarm you
unnecessarily—”
“Why bother, when
there’s so much necessary alarm to be
had?”
“—but before he left
to see his superior, Lucky said that it’s not entirely impossible
that you and I are now in some danger from the Corvino
family.”
“Oh. Right. The
thought had occurred to me.” I said, “Also to Lopez. When he got
here tonight, he wanted to take us into protective custody. But now
I think he wants to put me in a loony bin and you in a maximum
security prison.”
“That sounds most
incommodious.”
“Indeed.”
“Lucky says that
since you’re a dame and I’m an old guy, and we’ve never whacked
anyone, we won’t be high on the hit list if the two families go to
the mattresses—”
“You’re learning his
dialect, I see.”
“—but we should
nonetheless take reasonable precautions until he knows exactly what
the Corvinos’ intentions toward us are.”
“Such
as?”
“He recommends that I
keep the bookstore closed for the time being. And since I can ward
this building against mundane intruders—as well as their
firearms—you are to sleep here tonight.”
Actually, that
sounded fine by me. It had been an exhausting day. The tense
journey to Brooklyn, Danny’s murder and Vinny’s strange story,
followed by a mind-numbing evening of doing more reading about
apparitional bilocated doppelgängerism . . . All capped off by
two awful confrontations with Lopez,
during one of which I had watched him get decapitated. All in all,
I realized I’d have trouble just crawling as far as the nearest bed
now, never mind making it all the way home to be murdered in my own
apartment by Corvino hitters.
Max said,
“Hieronymus’ rooms on the third floor are vacant, if you think you
would be comfortable there.”
“Hieronymus.” I
grimaced.
“The accommodations
are modest, but adequate for your temporary needs, I
think.”
I thought about it
and gave an involuntary shudder. “Oh, I don’t think I want to sleep
in a bedroom that was recently inhabited by a demented young wizard
who would have wound up killing half the city if we hadn’t, er,
sent him away.” Remembering what we had done to Hieronymus made me
think of Lopez again, which made me feel anxious and weepy. “My
nerves are frayed enough as it is, Max. I’ll just sleep on your
couch.”
He nodded. “Nelli
usually sleeps on the couch, but I feel certain that she would be
pleased to relinquish her usual place to you, given the
circumstances.”
“I’m wiped out. I
think I’ll go straight to bed.” I stood up. Nelli, who’d been
sitting nearby, rose to her feet, too, and yawned. I asked Max,
“Are you coming upstairs now?”
“In a little while,”
he said. “I need to meditate and focus my strength to ensure this
building is well protected for the rest of the night.”
I nodded, turned, and
walked to the back of the shop. Nelli followed me. I opened the
stairwell door so we could ascend to Max’s sparsely furnished
apartment on the second floor. I’d only been there once before, but
I knew where the bathroom was. I went in there, turned on the
light, and conducted a quick and very basic nighttime toilette.
Then I poked gingerly around the apartment for a few minutes in
search of a blanket. I found a worn but clean cotton quilt that was
folded up and lying in a cedar chest in Max’s monklike bedroom. I
took it back into the living room, turned out the light, and lay
down. I would sleep in my comfortable knit dress. The couch sagged
a little, but was relatively comfortable. Unfortunately, though,
only days after her arrival in this dimension, it was already
redolent of Nelli. I would definitely need a shower in the
morning.
Nelli didn’t seem to
mind my being in her usual sleeping place, but she mistakenly
thought the couch was big enough for two. Without warning, she
cheerfully climbed on top of me and started settling herself into
the cushions with contented little snuffles, impervious to my
attempts to shove her off. After a brief argument which didn’t seem
to faze her a bit, I decided that as long as I could breathe, I was
too exhausted to care about retaining feeling in my legs. And
although I thought at first that her snoring would keep me awake
all night, it wasn’t very long before my own fatigue overcame the
noise. I sank into oblivion and slept like the dead until late the
next morning. I didn’t even hear Max come upstairs and go to bed,
nor go back downstairs again to resume his work sometime after
sunrise.
And as is so often
the case, getting enough sleep for the human brain to function
effectively made a tremendous difference. The following day, I woke
up knowing who the killer was and why Lopez had been
targeted.