Harley Davidson was out, and he wouldn't be back. He'd left his body behind on the floor of his bedroom, filled with sleeping pills.
I picked my way through the empty plastic vials on the floor and called Garth. Uranus sat down on the edge of Davidson's bed and began to cry softly. I began to poke around. The first thing that caught my attention was what appeared to be a notebook on a night stand. It had metal covers and was inscribed with strange symbols. I used a handkerchief to pick it up and carry it over to where Uranus was sitting. Her sobbing had subsided and she was staring off into space, beyond a young man's corpse, at what was and what might have been.
I touched her gently on the shoulder and showed her the notebook. "Darlin', do you know what this is?"
She glanced at the notebook. "It's a witch's diary," she said distantly. Her voice had the quality of an echo. "All initiates start one, and fill it the rest of their lives. It usually contains personal experiences, spells, and coven secrets."
I grunted, opened the book and started to leaf through it. There wasn't much in it that made any sense to me; I decided the obfuscation was probably intentional, designed to preserve its contents from prying eyes like my own. Borrn's name was mentioned a number of times, along with a list of various ceremonies in which Davidson had participated.
"Borrn seems to be the coven leader, judging by all this," I said.
Uranus said nothing, nor did she exhibit any interest in the notebook. I didn't press her on it. I asked a question instead. "What's 'scrying'?"
"Is that mentioned in there?"
"A number of times."
"Scrying is a method of divination," Uranus said hollowly, "of looking into the future or discovering secrets. It usually involves crystal gazing, but flame or water can also be used. Bob would have been nowhere near the point where he could scry."
"Who is at that point?"
I must have made a face, or the tone of my voice wasn't right. Uranus suddenly snapped, "Don't mock what you don't understand! I do it all the time!'' She punctuated the outburst with a long sigh; it was an apology, unasked for and unneeded. "With the locked door and empty pill bottles, it's an obvious suicide. It's finished, Mongo. What's your interest now?"
It was a good question, one I'd been asking myself. Maybe it was the fact that a lot of Sandor Peth's money was still rustling around in my pocket. It seemed a shame to give it back, and if I were going to keep it I had to work for it.
"There's a point of law called psychological coercion," I said. "If it can be shown that Borrn or any other member of his coven influenced Davidson to take his own life, it's a criminal offense. Probably impossible to prove, but worth looking into."
"Leave it, Mongo. Please. No good will come out of your investigating Borrn. I know you don't believe this, but you can't imagine the misery he could cause you."
I didn't say anything. I was tired of warnings, tired of unwanted glimpses into the dark attics of men's minds. There was the body of the boy on the floor, shot out of the tree of life by invisible bullets of what had to be superstition. Those bullets had found their mark in a bright, talented and rich boy who had exploded under their impact, plunging from the rarefied atmosphere of celebrity to end as a cold, graying hulk, like a falling star.
Uranus suddenly gripped my arm. "Bob shouldn't have had something like this."
I looked at her. The grief in her eyes had been replaced by something else. She looked as if she had just waked from sleep, passing from a nightmare into something worse.
"Why not? You told me Borrn was a witch. Under the circumstances, wouldn't it have been natural for Davidson to become a member of Borrn's coven?"
"No. It would have been virtually impossible. I told you that a coven is made up of thirteen members. Thirteen is a magic number of sorts. No coven would take in a fourteenth member."
"Maybe somebody died or decided to join the Elks instead."
Uranus shook her head. "Not at the level at which this coven operated. You don't just 'leave' a coven like that. And, even if a member had died, they would never choose a boy like Bob to take his place. Borrn's coven is highly skilled. They would never accept an initiate."
"Maybe the book belongs to somebody else."
"I doubt it. A witch's diary is his most precious possession. He almost never lets it out of his sight."
I put the book back in its place and started for the door. "Garth should be here in a few minutes," I said. "You fill him in. I'll talk to him later."
"Where will I tell him you've gone?"
"Tell him I've gone to have my fortune told."
It took a bit of looking, but I finally found Borrn's store-front operation. It was the only open door in a narrow alley bounded on both sides by crumbling warehouses with boarded-up windows. I went through it.
The room was small and cramped, permeated by the smell of incense. Borrn sat in the middle of it like a spider in the middle of an invisible web that was no less deadly for the fact that I couldn't see it. In front of him was a plain wooden table on which was a crystal ball. It was the only exotica in the room; the rest consisted of bookshelves filled with books, most of which looked well-worn. I wondered whether he actually read them, or had picked them up in a secondhand bookstore. Borrn himself was dressed in a very unmystical outfit consisting of faded denims and dungaree jacket. I felt vaguely disappointed, like a boy who'd peeked into a clown's dressing room.
Borrn rose as I entered. He was not a big man, but he had presence, the kind of self-assurance that comes from being able to make a living doing what you like and being good at it. He was short and stocky, with brown hair and piercing black eyes.
"Can I help you?" His voice was soft, almost lilting, like the swish of a garrote before it bites into flesh.
I gave him a phony name. Business or no, I didn't want my name popping up at a later date on some astrologer's list of clients. "I hear you tell fortunes."
I'd offended him. Borrn sat back down and crossed his arms over his chest. "I do not 'tell fortunes,' as you put it. I advise you to look on Forty-second Street."
"What do you do?"
"If you are serious, I will read your palm. I charge twenty-five dollars for a one-hour consultation. However, I do not think you are serious. You would have known that I am not a fortuneteller."
"What do you call palm reading?"
"The palm is a map of your past and an indication of what your future may hold. It does not tell your destiny; you decide your destiny."
"It still sounds like the same thing."
"It is not. If I tell you there is a red light two blocks from here, that does not affect your freedom to decide to stop for it or to run it."
"It sounds a little complicated to me. How about doing my horoscope?"
He motioned me to sit down. I did.
"I believe your horoscope would be useless to you," he said in the tone of a doctor criticizing a medication. "I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you to be told that you're a dwarf. Your horoscope would probably show a great affliction in the physical area, but the rest might not necessarily hold true. A horoscope is like an insurance company's actuary tables. You differ markedly from the norm; your dwarfism-the immediacy of it-would consistently influence your life far more than the planets."
"All right," I said, holding out my hand, "see what you can do with that."
"Are you right-handed?"
"Yes."
"Then this hand is the record of what you have done with your natural talents. The left is your subconscious, your potential. Later we will compare the two."
He took my right hand and began to manipulate it, bending the fingers back and forth, pressing the mounds of flesh at the base of the palm and fingers. He had a soft, delicate touch. To this point he had been rather pleasant, a natural psychologist; I had to remind myself that the worst evil often comes in the nicest packages.