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with each new disappearance that is orchestrated."
"How do we pinpoint the latest one? I mean, how do we find tonight's victims
so we can help them?"
And how would we explain the situation to them without sounding like dangerous
crackpots?
He started to rise. "We'll need to
yah
!" Max jumped when the phone rang. He closed his eyes and said, "I believe I
shall never get used to that."
"The phone ringing?"
He nodded, walked over to where it sat on the desk on the other side of the
shop and answered it.
I didn't really hear the conversation, which was brief. After hanging up, he
called to me from behind the bookcases separating us.
"Esther?"
"Yes?"
"I know who tonight's victims are."
Chapter 5
"Dr. Zadok, thank you so much for coming," said Darling Delilah. "It means so
much to me that a busy man like you just dropped everything and came straight
to my aid as soon as I called. Of course, I
became hysterical as soon as it happened tonight. There was no dealing with me
at first. So I can't tell you what a comfort it is to have you here now. I
telephoned you because Satsy said that if anyone can help me, surely it's
you."
Max nodded and smiled graciously at this effusive speech. Then he turned and
asked Satsy, whose bulk required her to sit a little away from the table, "How
did you know of me?"
"Well, I come to the bookshop all the time," Satsy said with a smile, "don't
I? You have the best supply of occult books in the whole city! That's why I
knew we should consult you."
I was surprised Max could forget someone of Satsy's remarkable appearance. He
said, "I'm sorry, I
know most of my regular customers, but I can't quite place "
"Oops!" A sheepish chuckle. "I guess I've never gone into the shop dressed for
work, have I?"
Max beamed at the drag queen. "Ah! That explains it."
Following Satsy's advice, Darling Delilah, a performer who'd had the shock of
her life earlier tonight, had summoned us here to the Pony Expressive, a
nightclub on West Fourth Street. The joint was jumping at the moment, the
customers enjoying themselves, the musical act onstage holding their cheerful
attention.
I asked Delilah, "I take it no one else here knows what really happened?"
"Nope, just the two boys and us," she said, gesturing at the little group
seated around our corner table.
"The two boys" were part of her act, but they weren't sitting with us.
In addition to me, Max and Delilah, our table included Khyber Pass, who looked
barely twenty and was dressed like a harem boy, if there was such a thing;
Whoopsy Daisy, blond, leanly muscled and wearing daisies over his crotch and
nothing else; and Saturated Fats Satsy who weighed over three hundred pounds
and was dressed in a long purple caftan, a long purple wig and long purple
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eyelashes. All were
performers at the club the exact nature of which I wasn't sure Max entirely
understood. Though I was still wearing Virtue's costume, even some of the
club's clientele were dressed more colorfully than me, never mind the
entertainers.
"And if it wasn't for all of you," Delilah said, glancing around gratefully at
the five of us, "I don't know how I'd bear this."
Darling Delilah's drag was darn convincing. A lot of women don't ever look
that good me included. She was about five foot ten, with a slim elegant figure
and smooth cafe-au-lait skin. Her dark hair tumbled around her shoulders in
lush curls, and her coquettishly feminine gestures were charming rather than
absurd. She was a sloe-eyed vamp with a sensuous mouth and a stylish evening
dress that suited her figure.
Max was quite taken with her. When she patted his hand while expressing more
gratitude to him, he forgot his next question and fell into bashful
incoherence. He and I were going to have to have a talk later.
"So, Delilah," I said, "can you walk us through what happened?" Though she'd
obviously made an effort to repair her makeup before our arrival, I could see
that tears had been part of the hysteria she'd experienced earlier.
"Well, the act started out perfectly normal," she said. "Exactly the way we've
been rehearsing it. It's a new act. Tonight was the debut. We were so& Sorry.
Sorry. I won't& " She blinked away some gathering tears, cleared her throat,
and then began describing the act. "The lights come up, the music swells. Sexy
Samson is dragging me onstage." She cast Max a sultry smile and said, "Wearing
almost nothing."
"You or Sexy Samson?" Max asked, taking notes.
"Max," I said, "how is that relevant?"
"Any detail, however minor it seems, might be relevant," he said.
Delilah leaned toward him and breathed, "Me."
He swallowed. "I see."
"He ties me to the Twin Pillars of Hercules the two boys, both painted gold.
They're in a number of the acts." She pointed toward the stage, where they
were right now. Sparkly gold all over and, by remarkable coincidence, also
wearing almost nothing.
Max watched their antics for a moment, then said, "Doesn't that hurt?"
"Mmm," said Whoopsy Daisy.
"Please continue," I said to Delilah.
"Then Sexy Samson whips me."
"Doesn't that hurt?" Max repeated.
"I struggle, escape my bonds and start running around the stage while he keeps
whipping me, and the two boys move around some of our props," Delilah said.
"We do a levitation routine, some sleight-of-hand, a few rope tricks."
"Are the two boys involved?" I asked.
"No, they're basically pretty grips."
Max said, "I beg your pardon?"
I explained, "Grips are stagehands. They move furniture and props, keep the
show flowing."
Delilah continued. "In the last of the rope tricks, I turn the tables on
Samson, and now he winds up tied to the Pillars of Hercules and I whip him.
But with each lash of the whip, a piece of his clothing disappears.
Vanishes! Until there's nothing left but his G-string."
I thought I'd kind of like to come see this act one night, if we ever managed
to reunite Darling Delilah with
Sexy Samson. For some reason, I wondered how Detective Lopez would react to
the Pony Expressive if
I brought him with me.
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Blandly, I decided. He was a cop, he'd probably seen it all before.
"Then," said Delilah, "with the final flick of the whip, Samson's hair
disappears."
"He goes bald?" Max asked.
"No, I cause his long hair to be shorn, thus depriving him of his strength."
"I see." Max kept scribbling.
"So I can have my way with him."
"Of course," Max said.
"And what is your way?" I asked.
"I put him in the prop box and make him disappear."
"It's a gorgeous
, box," said Satsy.
"Looks like a tiny Philistine temple," said Khyber.
"We'll need to examine it," said Max. "But please, do continue."
The rest of her story was quite familiar by now. She somehow knew Samson had
disappeared. She felt it when it hap-pened. Opening the tiny temple and
searching for him merely confirmed what she already knew.
"
Knew
," Delilah repeated. "Then I screamed and became hysterical."
After a brief period of confusion, she was hauled offstage, and the master of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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