Their names slipped past him but Jack did his best to be pleasant and charming when introduced to the four. They could queer his whole plan if they objected to his presence. At first they were cool to him-probably put off by his mullet head and odd attire-but once they learned he was a psychic virgin they warmed up, apparently delighted for the chance to make a believer out of him. They gushed about Madame Pomerol's powers, but not one of them mentioned her mishap last night. Apparently they didn't read the Daily News.
Soon enough the big moment came and they were ushered into the reading room. Jack hadn't fully appreciated the room last night because he and Charlie had used flashlights. Now that it was fully illuminated, he was struck by the sheer weight of the decor. Velvet drapes in heavy folds, thick carpeting, satin-flocked wallpaper-all in various shades of red. Suffocating, like the inside of a coffin.
So this is what it's like to be buried alive.
He watched as Foster seated the four ladies around an ornate round table under a huge chandelier suspended over the center of the room.
Four sitters at five hundred a pop, Jack thought. Beats my hourly rate by a parsec or two.
Foster then indicated a lone chair set against a side wall, maybe a dozen feet from the table, for Jack.
"Remember," he said in a low voice. "You are here to observe. If you speak or leave your chair you'll disrupt the spirit presences."
Jack knew the only presence he'd disturb would be Carl Foster, slinking around after the lights went out. But he simply nodded and looked serious.
"Gotcha."
Foster exited and a moment later he heard him say, "Okay, the fish are in the barrel. Get out there and start shooting."
Finally Madame Pomerol herself appeared, her short, dumpy frame swathed in a flowing, pale blue, gownlike get up, beaded to within an inch of its life; some sort of white turbanlike thing sat on her head. Jack barely recognized her. But then, he hadn't seen her at her best.
Madame greeted the four sitters warmly, smiling and chattering in a French accent that had not been in evidence last night when she was cursing at Carl and their car.
Finally she came over to Jack and extended a ring-laden hand, dangling at the wrist as if awaiting a kiss. Jack rose and gave it a quick shake as unbidden visions of the woman naked and bound with duct tape swam through his head. He shuddered and chased them away.
Clothes make the woman too.
"You are chilled, Monsieur Butler?"
Her ice blue eyes glittered at him. If she had any facial irritation from the duct tape, she'd hidden it with make-up. Her thin, lipsticked lips were curved into a smile.
"No, ma'am. I just never been to one of these things before."
"Nothing to be afraid of, I assure you. You are observing, yes? So just hold your seat and your tongue and I will show you wonders that are, quite simply, incroyable."
Jack smiled and nodded as he reseated himself, knowing nothing she could conjure here would come within light-years of the reality he'd experienced since last summer.
She hit a light switch on her way back to the table. This turned off the spotlights recessed in the ceiling, but the chandelier remained lit.
Madame Pomerol made some introductory remarks, explaining-"for the benefit of our guest"-how she would go into a trance that would release ectoplasm from her body and open a gateway to the Other Side. Her spirit guide, an ancient Mayan priest named Xultulan, would then speak to the living through her.
"One more thing before we proceed," she said in a grave tone. "I know my four dear friends at the table are well aware of this, but I must repeat it for the sake of our newcomer. Should ectoplasm manifest itself, please, please, please do not touch it. It exudes from my body and soul, and contact with anyone else will cause it to flee back into my body. The sudden return of so much ectoplasm can harm a medium. Some of us have actually been killed by recoiling ectoplasm that was touched by heedless clients. So remember: gaze upon it in wonder, but do not touch."
Jack tuned her out. The rap was standard stuff; only the names changed from medium to medium. He was waiting for the lights to go out and the show to begin. That was when he'd make his move.
Finally the four sitters and the medium had laid their hands flat on the table. The clear bulbs on the low-hanging chandelier faded, but the few dim red ones among them remained lit. Darkness swallowed the rest of the room, but the table and its occupants were bathed in a faint red glow.
Madame Pomerol began a tuneless hum, then let her head loll. Soon the table began to tip to the accompaniment of giggles and gasps of wonder from the sitters. Their chairs, however, stayed flat on the floor. Charlie had given his brother's operation a leg up, so to speak, over Madame's.
And then the lady let loose a long, low moan that echoed throughout the room. Jack realized then that she had a wireless microphone hidden on her-in that turban thing, he'd bet-and her husband had just turned it on. Impressive reverb effect. No doubt she had an earpiece just like Jack's so Carl could cue her when a sitter asked a tough question.
Another moan, and then something happened. Jack heard one of the sitters gasp as a pale glow appeared atop Madame Pomerol's head.
Hello, Mr. Ectoplasm, Jack thought.
The glow expanded to a rough circle behind her, framing her head like a halo. It hovered there a moment, then began to flow upward, streaming from her head in a ghostly plume, six, eight, ten feet into the air, and then it pulled free of the medium and began to undulate back and forth above her.
"Xultulan, hear my call," Madame Pomerol intoned, her voice echoing again. "Lend us your otherworldly wisdom as you lead us to the souls of the departed. I have with me four seekers after the dear departed..."
Yeah-yeah-yeah, Jack thought, reaching inside his shirt. No sense in waiting any longer. Besides, her phony accent was wearing on him.
He found the lipstick-size remote stashed inside his belly padding and located the business end. He fixed a shocked expression on his face, then pressed the button with his thumb.
The overhead spotlights blazed to life to reveal a shocking tableau.
The four sitters and Madame Pomerol sat in their places, but behind the medium stood a man dressed from head to toe in black-his turtleneck and slacks were remarkably similar to Carl Foster's, but he'd added black gloves and a black ski mask with narrow slits for eyeholes. He held two long black manipulating rods from which a billowy length of chiffon dangled. The sudden illumination revealed him swinging it in undulating arcs through the air above his wife. A scream from one of the women-she apparently thought the room had been invaded by some weird terrorist-froze him in mid-wave.
Jack caught a brief, sudden glare from Madame Pomerol as her eyes bored into his, and was glad he'd prepared his expression beforehand.
Suddenly she laughed. "You should see your expressions!" Another laugh. "Carl, our little demonstration really took them by surprise!" She began to applaud. "Magnifique! Magnifique!"
"I... I don't understand," one of the blondes said.
Madame Pomerol looked over her shoulder and laughed again. "Take off that mask, Carl, and put down those silly sticks."
"I demand an explanation," said the redhead.
"And you shall have one, Rose," Madame said, fully composed now. "If you read the papers, I'm sure you know that fake spirit mediums are popping up all the time, making fantastic claims to prey on the needs of gullible believers, trying to entice them away from those, such as myself, with the true gift. Carl and I arranged this little show to demonstrate how easily one can be fooled. I control all the lights here, of course, and when I deemed the time ripe, I turned them on so that you might witness charlatanry and fakery in media res."