“Once or twice. I won’t deny it.”
“When was the last time?”
“I can’t recall with any great clarity. One gets old. Many of the things that were so crystalline clear in one’s youth become misty and difficult to plumb from the depths in our later years. Though I work hard to keep up appearances, I’m afraid I’m not the man I once was.”
Brigitte says, “In my experience, that’s what men say when they’re exactly the man they used to be, but hope to deny it with age and excuse it with youth.”
Cabal claps his hands in light, quick applause.
“Well said, young lady. You’ve ensnared me in a petite prevarication. Which, unhappily for you, doesn’t alter the fact that I have not consorted with the resurrected, either deliberately or inadvertently, in many, many years.”
I say, “It doesn’t help Regina Maab that it was a long time ago. Eaten is eaten and dead is dead.”
“Regina? What does she have to do with this?”
“Nothing, other than the fact that when she stepped on your toes you sent some Lacunas over with a jar of barbecue sauce and charcoal briquettes.”
His eyes narrow and he sits up. All traces of the drunk act are gone.
“Listen to me closely, young man. That’s not the kind of thing I’ll tolerate being murmured about me, not by you or any other soul in this sunny burg. Regina and I had our differences, yes. And there came a moment when she required the administration of a lesson that she would remember on a molecular level. And yes, I vainly and foolishly employed a gaggle of resurrected in what you might term a professorial manner to deliver said lesson, but when Ms. Maab took leave of Los Angeles, she was most exceedingly and annoyingly alive.”
“Why should I believe you when everyone else is positive you had her snuffed?”
He leans back in his chair and takes a box from his pocket, opens it, and pulls out what looks like a wriggling earthworm.
“Do you have a light?” he asks.
I reach for Mason’s lighter and Cabal picks up the earthworm, running a grimy finger along the length of its body several times. The worm straightens and stiffens until it looks like a pink chopstick. I hold out the lighter and flick it. Cabal leans in, holds my wrist, and puts the worm’s head into the flame. He puffs a few times and the worm catches, the end glowing cherry red. As Cabal smokes, he takes out a small black book and a pencil. He flips through the book, writes something down, and slides the piece of paper across the table to me.
“That is Regina’s number in Mumbai. That’s far away in a country called India. You might have heard of it. If you adjudge to ring her, please give the old girl my best.”
I hand Brigitte the number and she looks it over. I let her hold on to it because her clothes probably don’t get destroyed as often as mine.
“What kind of problem did you have with the Springheels?”
He looks genuinely puzzled by that. It caught him off guard and I can feel the edges of his mind sifting through old memories.
“None. They were like water buffalo shitting in the streets of Kathmandu. Like any lifelong resident of that fair city, they were something I neither noticed nor particularly cared about.”
“They were an important family once.”
“Virgin sacrifice and bloodletting were considered of the utmost importance once, but when they outlived their efficacy they were abandoned along with the other discarded refuse of an earlier, though in some ways more graceful, time.”
“You old Sub Rosa families are pretty concerned about your place in the social pecking order. The Springheels were the first family in America. You didn’t think that kind of history might overshadow you just a little?”
“The Springheels were a dusty diorama. A museum display illustrating Neanderthal man’s first crude efforts to control fire and not shit themselves at every opportunity. The only reason the Springheel family still existed was as a concession to nostalgia and sentimentality. They might have begun their days well in this green and verdant land, but through shrewd planning and incandescent gamesmanship, they managed to metamorphose from ancient royalty into dirt-scrounging hillbillies. They threatened my house as much as this luminous worm.”
He holds up his pink cigarette.
“What happened to them?”
“Time. The world. Charles Springheel, the one who repatriated the family to California, designed and constructed exquisite charms, protective objects, talismans, and the like. He was, at heart, a tinkerer. And a brilliant one, but sitting in your ivory tower fiddling with Lilliputian cogs and thingamabobs is no way to maintain one’s standing in the world. Many of us purchased Charles’s contraptions over the years, both to bolster the old boy’s sense of purpose and to add a bit of lucre to the family’s dwindling fortune. But there’s only so much one can do. A fool determined to saunter off a cliff will find his way around even the most formidable barricades.”
I’m learning to really hate Cabal. I don’t want to believe the words coming out of his skull-white face, but after seeing the pathetic and maybe deliberate death scene at the Springheel house, I can’t argue with what he’s saying about the family.
“Since you’re our resident demon expert, did Enoch Springheel ever ask you for advice on how to summon or control them?”
“Enoch seldom discoursed with anyone. Certainly not with me. The few times a year he would deign to appear at Sub Rosa soirees, he left the distinct impression of a man marooned in the Sahara of his own psyche.”
“Who would we go to if we wanted to learn about Drifters or perhaps hire one?” Brigitte asks.
Cabal shakes his head.
“No one mucks about with the resurrected these days. Too dangerous. You’d be making yourself vulnerable to a veritable avalanche of peril, both from the families and our lovely local Inquisitor, Medea Bava.”
“So, there aren’t any Drifter experts in L.A.?”
“There are a number; however, by publicly acquiescing to such a dubious practice, they would be aiming a gun to their own precious skulls. To put it in blunt terms that you’ll understand, they won’t talk to you. I’m not so rude as to call myself an expert, but I have more than a passing knowledge of the resurrected. Is there something specific you wish to know?”
“Unless you know someone in town who runs with them, no.”
Cabal drops the last few inches of the burning worm on the floor and crushes it out with his bare foot.
“I’m curious about the depth of your knowledge concerning our hungry friends. If I had a sense of your understanding, perhaps I could speed you along in your investigations.”
“Out of the kindness of your heart?”
He smiles.
“To get you off my fucking back.”
I look at his eyes. It doesn’t look like he’s lying. And he’s genuinely interested in hearing what I’ll say.
“Brigitte is the expert, but she’ll talk longer and I’m in a rush, so here’s what I know. There are Drifters and Lacunas. One is dumb as dirt and one is maybe as smart as a house-trained poodle. They bite and they won’t stop until you rip out their spines.”
Cabal looks at Brigitte. She clears her throat.
“I could recite a thousand years of lore and list the anatomical and biological differences of the species, but for the purposes of our mission, James is right.”
Cabal kills off the wine and drops the bottle on the floor.
“I see that I can aid you children with your quest, after all. When I place this bauble of knowledge into your greedy hands, I’d be immoderately grateful if you would quietly exit the way you came and leave me to my guests.”
“Deal.”
“Most Sub Rosa don’t have any greater understanding of revenants than you. They memorize a few salient facts and drop them into conversations at cocktail parties to make themselves sound more interesting than they really are. I know this because most people believe that the resurrected are a binary species, but the truth is they are tripartate. You mentioned golems or Drifters, as you call them, and Lacunas. They are a formidable pair but there is also a tertiary species known to those with a deeper knowledge as Saperes and to the man in the street as Savants. The peril with this particular resurrected is that you will often not perceive its true nature until it’s eating your guts au gratin. Savants appear to be fully functional members of the brotherhood of man. They can chitchat, hold a job, dress themselves, and they possess, or seem to possess, the power of thought as clearly and intoxicatingly as you or I.”
“So, a Savant is a Lacuna that can call for pizza delivery. I don’t get it. Why are they so special that no one knows about them?”
“The first, most obvious reason, is panic. Admitting the existence of a strain of resurrected invisible to even adept Sub Rosa would have dire consequences. Human history is strewn with the corpses of those entangled in the panicked slaughter of mobs. This is especially true if the person or people perceived by the general population is different. Wouldn’t you agree, little Gypsy?”
“Definitely.”
“That was the obvious reason. What’s the other?”
“Saperes are special because nature or God or some other entity has chosen to make them so. You see, at any one time there are exactly twenty-seven of them in the world. No more. No less. If one is destroyed, a new one appears somewhere else. It then becomes the burden of those of us, as you say, in the know, to find it. It’s not unlike Buddhist monks searching for each new incarnation of a Lama subsequent to the death of the old one.”
“Is that all?”
“You’re one of those dark souls impossible to satisfy, aren’t you?”
He wants to start an argument. I just smile and shrug.
“The number of Saperes appears deliberate. If you add two and seven, you get nine. Nine is a holy number. Three times three. The Trinity times the Trinity. I could go on, but you see the pattern.”
“What does it mean?”
“I have no idea. No one does. And that’s another reason Saperes are such a closely held secret. We haven’t a clue as to how they befit the everyday workings of the world.”
“How does knowing any of this help us find last night’s Drifters or who’s controlling them?”
“We care for Saperes by seeding them strategically around the globe. If one is destroyed in Sumatra, the others remain safe while we scour the globe for its replacement. The three most proximate Saperes are in New York and Mexico City. Can you guess the location of the third one?”
“In Los Angeles,” says Brigitte.
“Bellissima. I assure you, the twenty-seven cities were not chosen willy-nilly. Each is a magical crossroads. Each is a power spot, Los Angeles being a distinctly active one.”
“You think if we find the Savant, it can help us?”
“If it wants to.”
“How can we make it want to?”
Cabal grins like a naughty little boy.
“Give it what it wants. What all the resurrected want.”
“You’re fucking joking.”
“I’m not telling you to gut some hapless soul. Go to an abattoir. Go to a boucher. Their desire is simply for fresh flesh. Human is the preferred fare, of course, but pig is close enough to man-flesh.”
“How do we find the Savant?” asks Brigitte.
“Call the number on the piece of paper I gave you.”
“You said that was Regina in Mumbai.”
“I lied.”
“Where is Regina?”
“Well, she’s certainly not chained up in my basement. That would be wrong of me. Still, Regina does tend to inspire the desire to lock her away somewhere deep and dark and full of more than an immoderate amount of spiders.”
I look at Brigitte. She shakes her head. I look back at Cabal.
“If you’re sending us into a trap, it’s not going to work. And even if it does work, just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I can’t get to you.”
“I’m exceedingly aware of your reputation, Sandman Slim. The phone number is true and leads to no trap that I know of. You’ll want to call soon. If anyone can point you to true north, it’s Johnny Thunders.”
“The singer?”
“No. The zombie, you dunce. Johnny Thunders is your Savant.”
He waves a tired hand in my direction. “Johnny’s minders will explain.”
If Cabal is lying, he deserves a teddy bear from the top shelf and the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. I’ve heard world-class whoppers and told a few of my own, but this guy is spinning sable from shit.
Or he’s just let Brigitte and me in on one of the world’s weirder secrets. If he’s lying, it would be a fun excuse to come back and punch holes in Castle Grayskull. But if he’s telling the truth, it would make life a lot easier.
“One more thing,” says Cabal. “There’s someone else you might chat with concerning the resurrected. Rainier Geistwald, Jan and Koralin’s son. He’s a clever boy, and while a genuine brat, his brains are more acute than he cares to let on. He’ll be an important man one day.”
Cabal stands up. This time he doesn’t offer his hand.
“I could say it’s been enchanting, but I’ve already told you one lie today. I couldn’t bear it if you lost all faith in me. You know the way out. Feel free not to linger. Ta-ta.”
He turns and disappears through the Sun wheel curtain without looking back.
Brigitte asks, “Do you think he is sending us to people who will try to kill us?”
“I don’t know. What would be more fun for him? Killing us right away or watching us bump into things and skin our knees?”