Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

"You could have just read the future," Ben said, careful not to stare at Libra, his sign, which he knew from his last visit was just above her left brow.

It took a few seconds for Madame Sonja to gauge his expression. Then she grinned.

"That was funny."

"I'm relieved you think so. Sometimes, most of the time, in fact, I say things that are meant to be funny, but I'm the only one who thinks they are."

That is a curse.

She led him past a heavily draped reading room, complete with a card table, tarot deck, teacups, and nearly as many arcane artifacts as were in Alice Gustafson's office, into a cluttered den with overfilled bookcases, several computers, scanners, banks of electronics, and a professional-grade artist's easel. Except for a computer workstation and a small desk chair, there was no furniture, but in one corner was a potter's wheel, well used and splattered with dry clay.

"Any luck?" he asked.

"Perhaps. I'm quite pleased with what I have for you."

"As I mentioned, Dr. Woyczek spoke very highly of your work." "He knows I appreciate his referrals. I only wish that his regard for me carried over to his friends, the detectives at the police department. I'm afraid they think I'm something of a quack. They have their own artists, and even with numerous examples of my superior accuracy, they refuse to send their business this way."

Woyczek had understatedly described Madame Sonja as something of an eccentric, who used the latest in computer graphics to create or recreate faces, but often then modified her renderings with something she just saw in her mind. Three days before, Ben had brought the hideous photos of Glenn's nearly obliterated face to her. For a time, she sat across the table from him in her reading room, studying the pictures, sometimes with her eyes totally closed, sometimes open just a slit. He sat patiently, although he considered her actions a complete charade. Despite Woyczek's glowing endorsement of the woman, Ben had confessed his heavy, cynical bias against clairvoyance, mental telepathy, telekinesis, fortunetelling, and the supernatural.

"I've done one set of renderings in color, and one in black and white," Madame Sonja said. "As you will see, the sets are somewhat different from one another. I can't explain why." She sat down at her computer with Ben studying the screen over her shoulder. "Here is your man."

The first image, face-on in full color, materialized on the screen. It was essentially three-dimensional, done by a remarkable program, and clearly drawn by a woman with talent. The man depicted had a round, youthful face? pudgy, ruddy cheeks? rather small, widely spaced eyes? and somewhat low-set ears. There was little about the face that Ben found interesting, but it did have a certain childlike aura. Madame Sonja rotated the electronic

bust 360 degrees.

She allowed Ben a couple of minutes to study her handiwork and then put the black-and-white drawing on the screen. Few would have said the drawings were of the same man. The face was narrower and more intelligent, the eyes fuller.

"How do you explain the differences?" Ben asked.

"I don't try to explain anything. I draw what I see — on the photos and up here." She tapped a long, scarlet fingernail against Gemini. "I wonder if this man has — make that had — diminished intelligence. Perhaps I have drawn him as he was at the time of his death, and then as he might have been save for some accident of birth."

Another strikeout, Ben was thinking. Woyczek might be right about this woman, but as far as he could tell, her uniqueness began and ended with the zodiac on her forehead. He wondered how many customers had paid how much money for her "wisdom."

"I have hard copies of five views in each of these envelopes. My charge would usually be a thousand dollars per set, but because Dr. Woyczek sent you, I'll give you both of them for five hundred."

Shocked, Ben hesitated, about to refuse, when the woman added, "As you are thinking, you can refuse to pay and leave these here. But I tell you, Mr. Callahan, these renderings are what you are after."

Ben's eyes narrowed. Anyone could have known what he was considering, he finally decided. It was logical and obvious — pure deduction from his hesitation and probably his expression. Anyone could have known. Reluctantly, he took his checkbook from his briefcase.

"I'm afraid I only take MasterCard and Visa," she said with no sheepishness whatsoever, "and, of course, cash."

An entrepreneur with a tattoo across her forehead. What happened to the simple, carefree antiestablishment types he had hung out with in college? A little grass, a little beer, a little rock and roll. Ben checked his holdings and handed over the cash. It was extremely doubtful that Alice Gustafson and Organ Guard would reimburse him in full for this one, but what the hell.

Then, in a move that totally surprised him, Madame Sonja reached out and took his hand.

"Mr. Callahan, I'm sorry you feel as uncomfortable about me as you do. You have a wonderfully kind face, and I can tell that you are a good man. If you will, please come and join me for a cup of tea."

Ben wanted nothing more than to hit the road. He had visited every hospital within twenty — five miles of the accident site, as well as every police station. Now, as long as he had sprung for these pictures of Glenn, he might as well use what time he had left before returning to Chicago to show them to some people — perhaps starting with the hematologists. But there was something compelling about the woman's touch. Reluctantly, he followed her into the den and took a seat. A minute later, she was pouring a rust-colored, aromatic tea into two Oriental cups, each with a different Asian symbol on the side.

"Please, drink it down," she urged. "I assure you there is nothing in it but tea. When you have finished, please pass your cup over to me."

Ben did as she asked. Madame Sonja stared into the cup for a few seconds, then wrapped her hands around it and looked intently across at him. Finally, she closed her eyes.

"I'm not getting much," she said.

Since when is five hundred dollars not much?

"I'm sorry," he replied.

"I keep hearing the same words over and over, though."

I've got to get out of here.

"What words?"

"Just start with what you know."

Ben stared across at her in stunned silence. Althea Satterfield's words precisely.

"A…a friend in Chicago just said those exact words to me not an hour ago."

"They did come in loud and clear."

"I don't believe this. Anything else?"

Madame Sonja shrugged and shook her head.

"Nope. Some days are better than others for me. This one isn't much."

"You think that was just…luck? Coincidence?"

"Do you?"

She led Ben to the door.

"Well, thanks for your drawings and your help," he said, shaking her hand and heading down the walk.

"I hope you find your man," she called after him.

"So do I."

"And I hope you find your cat, too."

With no feeling for where he was headed or what he was going to do, Ben found himself on a small road that dead-ended at a grassy patch overlooking what his map said was the Inland Waterway. Madame Sonja's parting reference to Pincus's disappearance had shaken him, as had her reiteration of Althea's odd suggestion.

Start with what you know.

The phrase wasn't all that unusual, he reasoned, and maybe the words weren't precisely the same ones his neighbor had used. And as for Pincus, he was focused on his failure as an investigator and on handing over five hundred dollars in cash, but in addition the disappearance of his strongest connection to the world of the living was very much on his mind. He must have said something about the cat. That had to be it. In all likelihood, he had said something in passing and just couldn't remember having done so.