John Miller - Death Draws Five

Blood howled for his meat.

New York City: The Waldorf-Astoria

John Nighthawk watched Contarini stare at Cameo as if she’d just hooked a quarter from the collection plate, or done something equally unforgivable. Usher and Magda looked on with interest. Usher’s seemed mild. He really had no dog in this fight. Nighthawk knew that he was along just for the paycheck. But Magda’s expression was hurt compounded with fury.

If there’s trouble, Nighthawk thought, it’ll come from her.

Magda looked at Cameo as if she’d expected the Second Coming to occur right before her eyes and instead had been given a third rate vauDeville act. (Which, Nighthawk realized, was pretty much close to what had happened.) The nun looked from the transformed Cameo to Nighthawk, to Contarini, searching for a clue as how to react. Cameo posed no immediate threat to the Cardinal or anyone else. But, obviously, things hadn’t gone right. The Shroud should have produced Jesus Christ. Instead they’d gotten... someone else. It was clear that Magda had no idea who Cole Porter was, but Contarini, whom Nighthawk knew was a well-educated sophisticate, quickly showed that he labored under no such handicap.

“I don’t understand.” The Cardinal’s voice sounded like cracking ice on a frozen lake in the Italian Alps. “What... where is Our Lord? Why do we have this, this degenerate writer of, of degenerate popular songs instead of Our Lord?”

Nighthawk, who knew a little about music, couldn’t agree with Contarini’s assessment of Porter’s talents and was also more than a little amused that the Cardinal’s fury had made him almost tongue-tied. More importantly, he had an explanation regarding Porter’s unexpected appearance.

“It seems,” Nighthawk said quietly, “that we may have been a little impetuous in insisting that Cameo do her reading here instead of her usual room in Club Dead Nicholas.”

Everyone, even Cameo channeling Porter, looked at him with interest.

“What do you mean?” the Cardinal asked.

Nighthawk shrugged. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Look around. This is Porter’s apartment. When he was in New York he lived in the Waldorf-Astoria, since, when?”

“Nineteen thirty-four,” Porter said. “Though I did move once, from another room in the hotel to this very apartment. It’s so much more spacious than my old flat.“

”Did you brought your furniture with you?” Nighthawk asked.

“Some,” Porter allowed.

“Like the chair you’re sitting on?”

“Yes,” Porter said. “It’s a very comfortable reading chair. Naturally, I brought it along for my library.”

Nighthawk looked at Contarini and spread his hands in a silent, there-you-have-it gesture.

“Are you saying,” the Cardinal said in his low, dangerous voice, “that somehow the spirit, the soul, of this, this sodomite jingle-writer—as expressed in his chair—somehow overcame the potency of Our Lord Savior’s soul—as expressed in his Shroud?”

“No,” Nighthawk suggested quietly. “I’m saying that the scientists and skeptics have been right all along.”

“Che?” Contarini’s anger made him slip into his native language.

“Like the scientists and skeptics have said all along, maybe this isn’t really the burial cloth of Jesus. Maybe it’s a fake.”

For a moment Nighthawk thought that the Cardinal was going to have a stroke. The churchman’s face turned white, then a dangerous-looking red. Veins stood out on his forehead and he swayed on the sofa as if tossed by unfelt winds. Finally he steadied himself and stared at Nighthawk like a malignant demon or a righteous angel. Nighthawk couldn’t decide which.

“It isn’t,” he hissed. “It is real. It is the burial cloth of My Lord and Savior. My faith tells me so.”

“This is all so fascinating,” Porter said, eyeing them closely, “but what does it all have to with me?”

Nighthawk shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, and thought silently to himself, and everything. Nighthawk knew that he had to end this farce soon. Magda was picking up on the Cardinal’s distress. There was no telling how she’d react if the Cardinal made a hasty, unfortunate decision.

And if she reacted badly, his chance to learn what he’d hoped to learn when he’d accepted this mission would probably vanish. It was clear, whatever the Cardinal’s faith told him, that the Shroud was a fake, but this little comedy had shown Nighthawk one thing: the undeniable durability of the soul. There was life after death. The soul did transcend the death of the body. What had been a matter of uncertain faith had suddenly become a matter of certain fact.

He had so many questions he wanted to ask Porter, but he couldn’t ask them now. Not in front of the Cardinal. He hated to see the revenant go, but Porter had to go back to wherever he’d come from before the situation blew up in their faces. There’d be other opportunities to get answers to his questions. Now, for the benefit of all involved, Nighthawk knew that he had to end this scene as quickly and quietly as possible.

“Mr. Porter,” he said in polite tones, “would you come here for a moment? There’s something I’d like you to see.”

Porter looked at him from across the room. “I’d love to, but you see—” He interrupted himself, laughing. “Of course. I have legs that work now. One forgets after doing without for so long.” He glanced down at Cameo’s limbs. “Such slender, pretty ones, too. I would have been quite the popular chap in the old days. But, no, of course, I suppose it wouldn’t have been the same.”

He stood with a sigh, and Cameo swayed as her body broke contact with the chair. She reached out as if to steady herself against the chair’s arm, then snatched her hand away before touching it. She looked from Nighthawk to Contarini, ignoring the two who stood behind her like door guards in a medieval hall.

“It didn’t go as you expected.” It was a statement, not a question.

Contarini stared at her, frowning. “No. It didn’t. Not at all.”

Nighthawk didn’t like his expression, or the inflection of his voice. It didn’t take a revelation to realize what the Cardinal was contemplating. The only question was how far the Cardinal dared to go.

“Nighthawk.” The churchman snapped the ace’s name without looking at him, his terrifying gaze reserved solely for Cameo. “Take this... take our... visitor... out of my sight.”

Nighthawk suddenly relaxed. Whichever way Contarini wanted to go, he, Nighthawk, would actually be in control of Cameo’s destiny. And he’d find a way to work things out.

Nighthawk went to her side. “Come with me,” he said quietly.

She looked at him, made a move to her handbag. Nighthawk shook his head briefly, almost imperceptibly, but she noticed. She looked at him for what seemed a long time, and then she finally nodded.

“Take her to St. Dympna’s,” Contarini said in detached, almost uncaring tones. He gestured vaguely. “Usher and Magda will accompany you.”

“I don’t need—” Nighthawk began, but Contarini interrupted him with a lion’s roar.

“Don’t tell me what you need or don’t need!” he shouted. “I tell you what to do. You obey. Capice?”

Nighthawk bowed silently. Usher moved as quietly as a jungle cat on a deep pile carpet, and before Cameo had a chance to react, he grabbed her handbag away from her. She made a single convulsive motion toward snatching it back, but Usher just shook his head and held it out of her reach.

“Uh-uh,” he said. He looked inside, and frowned. He reached in and took out a battered old fedora that had definitely seen better days. “What’s this?” he asked, bemused. “I thought you were lugging a hand cannon around with you, and it’s just an old hat?”