She narrowed her eyes as I approached across the bar and smiled furious hunger. Sparks of violent yellow and red danced around her. "You have played far too close. I've had to expose myself in covering you. I had better not come to regret it."
"I'm too tired to fence with you. If you want to exploit the opportunity, be in the After Dark Wednesday night about nine thirty."
"Who told you about After Dark?"
I smiled with all the cold in my heart and didn't answer. Her icy acid hate slashed a storm against me, ringing off the beating Grey thing within. My knees trembled, but I stood it, somehow.
"When I'm done," I said at last, "you'll have your chance. If you move too early, you'll tip your hand, so be patient."
"Patient? I have been nothing but. And if you are double-crossing me—"
"What good would that do? I won't have a single friend in the room. In fact, you'll be the only one there who doesn't already have reason to take my head off."
I paused and turned a bit away. "Maybe I shouldn't bother. I can probably stay far enough away from you to live to a reasonable age. And I can't trust you, anyhow. You'll probably be first in line to exercise all those threats you've made."
I started to walk. Alice snagged my arm, sending heat and black ice through me. "Are you backing out now?"
I wrenched my arm from her grip, surprising us both. "Why not? What's to stop you?"
"I've said I wouldn't harm you if you did as I instructed."
"And I have, but all you've done is complain about how I haven't. So I'm screwed, aren't I? Forget it."
Alice growled.
I turned back to her and stared her in the eye, pushing against the Grey as hard as I could, hoping I had it right. "All right. Then promise-that you won't harm me if I help you get to Edward. So long as I stay out of your way, you leave me alone. Promise me that."
Infinite cold bore through me as she stared. When she spoke, her voice had dropped low and resonant. "I promise I won't harm you so long as you help me get to Edward, and stand aside."
I smiled at her and turned away again before she could reconsider.
She stared at me as I left, and I felt it all the way down my spine.
Chapter 28
Tuesday started out raining. Even though I felt weak and calcified, I ran until my chest hurt from something purely physical for the first time in days. My body was fine but I was falling apart in all other ways. I ran on, amazed that I could, considering how often I had thought of simply stopping over the past few days. And I got furious with myself for my self-pity and self-doubt. I was still afraid, still weak and unsure and in the midst of the unknown, but if I stood still, there was only one possible end. At least, going forward, I stood a chance, however small.
I ran. Sweat and rain washed away my stupidity and despair. I wanted to stay in the clean downpour until everything washed away, but I had made a choice and I would stick to it.
From the office, I called the curator of the Madison Forrest House and persuaded her I needed to see the organ that night. She agreed to let us in at nine, though she was not pleased. With another phone call, Mara agreed to come, too.
I chased down some more prosaic business, keeping my mind busy, and was interrupted by a call from Will.
He sounded tired. "Hey, Harper. I checked up on that Tracher organ some more." "That was quick." "A lot of the records have been computerized over the last few years and I know the right people to call in Europe. Anyhow, I don't know what your client wants it for, but that organ is a fake-up."
"Totally fake? It looked old."
"Parts of it are too old, actually. The frame and action numbers didn't match. There's some additional paneling behind the mirror and over the pipes which is older than the case and shouldn't be there at all. According to Tracher, the frame came from an instrument that was damaged in a fire in Amsterdam in 1923. The case was written off by the insurance company and sold to a furniture jobber. He probably installed the action, which came from another organ built in 1902. But there's no way to tell."
"Which part is the 'action'?"
"In this case, just the keyboard—the rest wouldn't have fit. What-ever your client told you about the instrument, it's probably not true. The organ disappeared for a while and finally turned up again in a Swiss estate auction in 1957, where it was bought by the last owner of record, a G. Sergeyev of Bern. I tried to track him down, but the best I could do was a news article about his death in 1960. He doesn't seem to have had any relatives to inherit the organ, so I don't know what happened to it between 1960 and when it was shipped out of Oslo."
My ghostly client's clothing and speech predated the 1950s, so he certainly wasn't the man from Bern.
"Did the obit say what the last owner died of?"
"It was a news item, not an obituary. He was crushed by a trolley. There's not a lot else, except a partial provenance on the organ from the estate auction, but it's completely bogus. It claims the family— Mandon was their name—was the original owner, but they only had it thirty-three years, at the most, and that hardly makes it an heirloom. And there's one creepy thing: the Mandons died of asphyxia from a gas leak in the house. That's, what, five owners who all died in accidents."
I wondered how many more of its owners had met unexpected deaths. And what had happened to the organ during its lost years?
Will broke my silence. "Harper? Are you there?"
"Yes My mind was wandering. Thanks, Will, that's helpful.
Will sounded grim. "Good, because I wanted to ask you a favor now.
I had trepidations. "Sure. What do you need?" "This fake provenance got me to thinking about some thing at work, so I looked into them. And I need to talk to the police."
"What sort of things?"
"I don't want to go into it yet. I had the impression you would know who to talk to, though. Do you?"
I didn't have to think about that. I gave him the number of a detective I knew at SPD-the most honest cop I had ever met. "Thank you." "Hey. Call me later?" «Sure» He hung up, sounding distracted.
I wondered what Will had found to upset him, but had no time to explore the question. I gathered my stuff and headed to the Danziger's; I wanted to talk to Mara before we met Carlos.
Mara and I were sitting in the living room about an hour later. Adjusting to the change in the Grey was not easy, and I had just made a hash of the same simple exercise of moving in and out at will.
Dizzy and frustrated, I pounded on the arm of the sofa. "Damn it. Why can't I do it when I want to? I can fall in and out when I'm not thinking of it, but I can't do it when I'm trying." "You're still fighting."
"It just looks so different. It feels different." "But it hasn't really changed. It's you that's changed. When you don't think of it, you've no difficulty. It's when your mind is in between you and the Grey that you have troubles." "I can't not think."
Mara leaned forward and caught my eye. "You can stop fighting it. You must. We've been wrong about so much, but of this I am certain. You must accept what it is and that it's part of you. When you are fighting it, it's like a snarled rope that tightens and knots up with every tug. Relax and the rope relaxes, too. I can see it happening."
I frowned at her.
"I can see that knot in your chest if I try. It ties you to the Grey, and the harder you fight, the more taut it goes. When you simply let it be, it spreads out and you become more Grey."
"I don't want to be more Grey!"
She sighed. Shivering spears of honey gold light combed through her hair and lit the wall behind. "I am sorry, Harper. You haven't that choice anymore. Accept what is and the rest will follow. Then this will all be easy—or at least easier. Coming and going, pushing and peeking—things we've not thought of, even—will be as automatic as walking or swimming." She looked up at the beginning of sunset through the rain outside. "You are meant to be part of that world and you can only exercise the powers you have when you accept that."