Douglas, Nelson - Cat with an Emerald Eye

"Who was on your left?"

"William Kohler. I think."

"Exactly. You think. Even Gandolph could have been up to something when the lights dimmed. The old-time mediums were busy as one-man or -woman bands when their audiences were in the dark. They used knees, feet, toes, chests, heads, anything to make tambourines chatter and trumpets speak and tables dance. And Gandolph asked especially to sit next to me, remember? Maybe he thought he could fool a greenhorn with a faux limb, especially a gloved one. Now I remember someone patting my knee, after all our hands were linked! I certainly can't swear that I was squeezing pinkies with a real hand. Too much else was going on for me to pay strict attention to assumed stimuli, which is the idea behind seance phenomena."

"And all this is in Mr. Gandolph's book?"

Temple nodded. "Mr. Randolph's. That was his real last name."

"Say, should be a best-seller."

"Yeah." Temple smiled. "Maybe it'll solve its ghostwriter's financial problems."

"Gandolph had a ghostwriter?"

"He does now. Look! Movement up yonder. Shall we climb the stairs for our appointment with the Handcuff King?"

"Sounds like something kinky on cable TV, dear." That did not appear to faze Electra, but something else did. "Those stairs don't look OSHA-approved."

The complicated structure ahead had effectively distracted Elec-tra from speculating on the identity of Gandolph's ghostwriter, which is what Temple had wanted. Not only fraudulent mediums had the ability to mislead.

The pair climbed the rickety wooden stairs, which creaked quite authentically. Spotlights placed here and there high above glared down on them like a constellation formed entirely of blazing, fixed pole stars.

"I just realized something." Electra stopped halfway up the stairs.

"What?"

"The seance isn't supposed to start until midnight, and we're plenty early, yet everybody else's vehicle is here already."

"Yeah, I noticed that. I wonder who arrived when, because the early birds could certainly have tampered with the worm."

"Indeed!"

"Luckily, I arranged for some even earlier birds to stake out the premises."

"You arranged? Who? Watts and Sacker?"

"I could hardly bother the police about something as borderline flaky as a second stance held to find a killer even the police aren't looking for. No, it's just Eightball O'Rourke and Wild Blue Pike and some other Glory Hole Gang guys. They know the layout, and they know spook attractions, so I figured we've got expert -witnesses waiting in the wings."

Electra examined those three-story wings rather apprehensively. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She patted her quiet, pewter-colored hair. "I would have dressed for company."

"Does it matter in the dark?" Temple nodded to the shadowy reaches of everywhere.

"My dear, at my age it especially matters in the dark."

They resumed their climb, Temple holding herself to Electra's pace, although after a couple flights she was glad to have an excuse to slow down. This was much more taxing than entering the portable room when it was parked on the first or second floor. But Electra was right, how could anyone manipulate outside effects in-side a mobile chamber?

"At least," Temple said, "I don't have Crawford Buchanan and his nosy camera on my backside all the way up the stairs. Perhaps that will make seeing him at the top of the stairs more palatable."

Electra stopped. "You know, he could have done it."

"Crawford? Much as I like to think he's capable of anything, what would he have against Gandolph?"

"Nothing against him, but he did sit next to Gandolph, and you did say Mr. Buchanan was ambitious, and this Hot Head show must be his big chance."

"It's Hot Heads , plural. You mean, Crawford could have killed someone to up the ratings on his segment?"

Electra shrugged persuasively.

"Oh, great. Everyone up there's a potential murderer, except that the police can't make a case because the bottom line is that Gandolph died from natural causes, according to the newspaper."

"Are there any natural causes at a seance?" Electra asked cryptically. "I still think the spirit world punished him for disbelief."

"Then spirits are nothing more than jealous, paranoid small-minded gods, like the Greek pantheon. Why would anyone want to contact such closed-minded tyrants?"

"Nobody's perfect. I'm only saying that even spirits can get tired of being snubbed. Oof,"

Electra took the last step and stopped. "You open the door, dear; I'm too tired to lift a pinkie."

Temple, resisting an urge to knock, turned the cold brass knob. A screamingly theatrical screech announced their entrance.

She was startled to see the bloodied battle-ax (now wiped clean) hanging in place near the window dead ahead. The other pikes, maces and whatalls were still installed, and the broken sconce light and shade had been replaced.

Everyone sat in his or her designated seat in customary guise: Oscar in black, Mynah on his left in white, Jeff Mangel in academic black and blue (for jeans), a space for Electra, then the charcoal-black figure of William Kohler, a space for Temple, and another space ...

Not another empty place! An occupied space for Edwina Mayfair/Gandolph.

Temple turned to Electra. "Who--?"

"It's ... Sophie! One of my soft-sculpture people from the wedding chapel. She does look a lot like Edwina, down to the veiled hat and gloves."

"How?"

Electra shrugged. "An out-of-body experience? Don't ask me. Maybe one of the Glory Hole boys thought we needed a stand-in. Whew. I bet she gave everybody a start when they came in."

"I imagine that was the idea." Temple ignored her pounding heartbeat to cross the threshold, where she suspected that ordinary expectations would not hold for long.

Crawford, in the seat next to the ersatz Edwina (who had, in fact, been ersatz from first to last) turned to watch their entrance. On his left was D'Arlene Hendrix and beyond her the ashen, frail features of Agatha Weik.

Nobody looked particularly perky, Temple noticed as she took her seat and nodded politely all round, even at the ersatz Edwina.

"Did you resuscitate the transvestite, T.B.?" Crawford asked. "I remember you putting those stuffed cats in the ABA booth after the real ones were kidnapped. This was a pretty dirty trick."

"I didn't do it. Was it here when everyone arrived?"

Nods and no comment.

"Who arrived first?"

They exchanged looks. "Not I." "You were here when I came." "I wasn't first."

Temple saw that this was not going to be a cooperative evening. Then why had they agreed to meet again?

"Whose idea was this, anyway?"

"Mine," said a surprising voice.

She turned back to Crawford. "And why was that, C.B.?"

He pointed to the cameraman leaning against one of the few solid shafts of wall "Good media op. Nice follow-up piece. Actually, I suppose with this lump of old pantyhose in place we can call this a Recreation.' If everybody mortal is here, we might as well begin. Grab a stuffed mitt, T.B., and hold on. If we have any luck, this is going to be a bumpy evening."

Temple stared at Crawford, struck by his paraphrasing the same line from the same old Bette Davis movie that had crossed her mind at the previous seance. Was Bette out there urging them on? When her mind and Crawford's showed signs of parallel thought, even al-most a week apart, she began to fear for her sanity, not to mention her integrity.

Temple sat and reached for Sophie's stuffed hand in its vintage fifties opera-length satin glove. The gesture felt a bit macabre and even disrespectful. She knew more of Gandolph the Great now than she had when he had so effacingly died beside her. And the fact that he had been Max's friend... she almost couldn't do it, couldn't connect with this obscene substitution for the living person. An awful thought came, surprising only because she wasn't a spiritualist, she didn't believe in ghosts, she didn't expect contact.