Then she lowered her head to stare at the five people sitting across from her at the table, and her shoulder muscles flexed under her T-shirt. At last her gaze fixed on Cochran. “Are we near the sea?” she asked him in the shriller voice of Plumtree’s mother. Are you going to call her up now, and send her to India?”
“No,” Cochran said. “We need to learn some things Omar Salvoy knows. We’re going to call him up, and question him. You can see that he’ll be restrained.”
“I can see a car,” protested Plumtree’s mother, “and I can smell the ocean! Are you too squeamish to kill her body? You said you loved her!”
At the same time Angelica was leaning forward from between Mavranos and Pete to say, quietly, “Sid, this isn’t even a ghost of her mother, this is just a, an ‘internalized perpetrator,’ why are you talking to it—”
“As far as Cody’s concerned,” Cochran interrupted, “it’s her mom.” He looked back at Plumtree taped into the chair. “Trust me,” he said, “I won’t let him have her.”
“We won’t let him have her,” Mavranos agreed.
“Oh, Jesus,” said the mother’s voice. She looked back to Cochran. “I hope you’re a lot smarter than you look, mister.” She sighed shakily. “Go ahead, and God be with you.”
“Omar Salvoy,” said Cochran, and he felt Kootie tense beside him.
Plumtree’s eyes hadn’t left Cochran’s face, but now it was an amused, crafty, almost reptilian gaze. Again the arms flexed, but the tape held, even though the muscles had bulked out more. “Hdll-lo, baby!” said the man’s voice from Plumtree’s mouth. Cochran’s nerves were twanging with the impulse to run, but his muscles felt as loose as wet cement.
“Valorie,” said Cochran then, breathlessly.
One of Plumtree’s pupils visibly tightened down to a pinprick. Split-screen, thought Cochran.
Like a pole-vaulter visually picking out each spot his feet would touch on the run to the bar, Cochran prepared his words; then, carefully, he spoke: “What did we do wrong twelve days ago, when we tried to get Scott Crane restored to life?”
“Oh, eat me.” The childish taunt rode incongruously on the deep, vibrating voice.
“I will, if you don’t tell us,” spoke up Kootie. “I can.”
“AY,” CAME,” a new, flat voice from Plumtree’s lips, speaking to Kootie, “sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth; whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.” The face contorted and gasped for breath, and the man’s voice added, “Dammit, that’s Henry the Sixth, Part One! Valorie, you traitorous bitch! Who do you think you got all your lines from, anyway? Do you remember Love’s Labour’s Lost? We to ourselves prove false, by being once false for ever to be true to those that make us both—fair ladies, you.’”
“Valorie is on our side,” said Kootie, “and she’ll know it if you lie.”
Plumtree’s gaze fixed on Kootie, and her teeth were bared.
Kootie’s shoulder jumped against Cochran’s arm, and then the boy leaned tensely forward—
—The air was suddenly colder, and Cochran thought the pepper trees shook in no breezc—
And in the same instant Plumtree’s head was rocked back as if from a physical blow. “Easy, kid!” gasped the man’s voice. “Unless you want all the fair ladies dead!”
“I bet you can tell I pulled that punch,” said Kootie. His voice was calm and level, though Cochran could feel the boy shivering, “I have used it full strength, before today. And I don’t believe that punching you dead out of that head would hurt any of the Plumtree ladies.”
“You haven’t yet seen any of my strength, boy.” Salvoy’s voice seemed to vibrate in Cochran’s ribs. “That was a love-pat a moment ago. I killed your king, and I did not flinch when I did it. But I don’t want you to be hurt.” The teeth were still bared, and now the lips curled in a smile. “I’m prob’ly the only one here who doesn’t want you to kill yourself.”
Angelica started to say something, but a rumbling, liquid growl from Plumtree’s throat stilled her.
“You’re the one with the wound in your side, boy,” the man’s voice went on, loudly and almost anguished, “it’s always been you that would have to drink the real pagadebiti, even supposing you assholes could ever find a bottle of the stuff. It’s you, Baby Gawain, that would have to be possessed by the actual god, abandon yourself to his…bestial mercies. You sure you’re up for that, Gumby Gunslinger?”
Cochran heard elbows shift on the wooden table somewhere to his right, and guessed it was Angelica.
Plumtree’s gaze swung toward Angelica, and the flat Valorie voice said, “Pardon me, madam: little joy have I to breathe this news; yet what I say is true.”
“Were we at the right place, at least?” asked Mavranos insistently. “Out at those ruins by the yacht club? Mammy Pleasant was talking about a spot out on that shore.” “You were in the right place,” said Omar Salvoy, “but you didn’t have the right wine, and I’m glad to say I don’t even know where you would get—” Abruptly Plumtree choked; and then Valorie’s voice said, “Upon my soul a lie, a wicked lie. Touching this dreadful sight twice seen of us—you may approve our eyes, and speak to it. Looks it not like the king? Thou art a scholar; speak to it.” And immediately Salvoy’s voice shook breathlessly out of the mouth: “Valorie, when I have you alone under me—”
“At those other ruins, she means,” said Kootie, “the ruins of the baths, by that restaurant. That’s where we saw Crane’s ghost. And it was the second time Plumtree had seen it.”
The Plumtree body leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath. “You all were so embarrassed by that, I bet,” said Salvoy, grinning. “Your exalted king, probably babbling nonsense and dressed like a bum, right? Or naked, looking like a crazy man. Brought down in the world, and how. Dizz-gusting! And you sensible folks probably just ran away from him. Think how pleased he must have been with his friends.”
“I,” stammered Mavranos, “ran after him—!”
“The palindrome should have been a clue,” Pete Sullivan interrupted, making a chopping gesture at Mavranos. “The Valorie personality gave Cochran one line of that, at the ruins, and we knew that palindromes were good for nothing but drawing ghosts.”
“Palindrome?” said Salvoy. “What palindrome?”
“Sit on a potato pan, Otis,” Kootie told him.
“And that foghorn was a clue,” said Mavranos. “I bet the foghorn we heard in that motel room at dawn was the one you’d hear out at the Sutro Baths ruins. Shit, I even noticed it.”
Plumtree’s face was red and twitching, but in a mockingly conversational tone Salvoy asked, “Is one of you ready to die? That’s part of it, you know. To get a life back, the god wants one in exchange. Even to repay an old debt-of-honor,” he said, with a scorching glance at Cochran, “he can’t violate his own math. And blood—fresh blood has got to be spilled. Splintered bone, torn flesh, before he’ll consider it consummated. Ask apple-o’-my-eye Valorie if you think I’m lying about this.” Plumtree’s head rocked back, and the Valorie voice said, “That this is true, father, behold his blood. ’Tis very true.” Her head came down and Salvoy’s furious gaze swept across them. “And what body is your king going to take, now? Some bums? That’s another death, in addition to the god’s bargain!” He gave a harshly jovial laugh, and then Plumtree’s eyes squeezed shut. “I’m fading out, thank Ra. Think about what I’ve said Koot Hoomie—and any of the rest of you that care—”