Aces High Page 0,7

broke his neck up at the Cloisters about a week ago. You know anything about it?"

Fortunato shook his head. He stood by the door, holding his robe closed with one hand. If they came in they would see the pentagram painted on the hardwood floor, the human skull on the bookcase, the joints on the coffee table.

"Some of his pals say they saw you there," the second cop said.

Fortunato locked eyes with him. "I wasn't there," he said. "You want to believe that."

The second cop nodded and the first one started to reach for his gun. "No," Fortunato said. The first cop didn't manage to look away in time. "You believe it too. I wasn't there. I'm clean. "

"Clean," the first cop said.

"Go now," Fortunato said, and they left.

He sat on the couch, hands shaking. They would be back. Or more likely they'd send somebody from the Jokertown division who wouldn't be affected by his powers.

He wouldn't be getting back to sleep. Not that he'd been sleeping that well anyway. His dreams had been full of tentacled things as large as the moon, blocking the sky, swallowing the city.

It suddenly occurred to him that the apartment was empty. He couldn't remember the last time he'd spent the night alone. He almost picked up the phone to call Caroline. It was only a reflex and he fought it o$: What he wanted was to be with Eileen.

Two days later she called again. In those two days he'd been to her museum in Long Island twice, in his astral form. He'd hovered across the room 'invisible to her' just watching. He'd have gone more often, stayed longer, but he was taking too much pleasure in it. "It's Eileen," she said. "They want to initiate me."

It was three-thirty in the afternoon. Caroline was at Berlitz, learning Japanese. She hadn't been around much lately.

"You went back," he said.

"I had to. We've been over this."

"When is it?"

"Tonight. I'm supposed to be there at eleven. It's this old church in Jokertown."

"Can I see you?"

"I guess so. I could come over if you want."

"Please. As soon as you can."

He sat by the window and watched until her car pulled up. He buzzed the door for her and then waited for her on the landing. She walked ahead of him into the apartment and turned around. He didn't know what to expect from her. He closed the door and she held out her hands. He put his arms around her and she turned her face up to him. He kissed her and then he kissed her again. Her arms went around his neck and tightened.

"I want you," he said. "I want you too."

"Come to bed."

"I want to. But I can't. It's ... it's just a lousy idea. It's been a long time for me. I can't just climb into bed with you and perform all kinds of weird Tantric sex acts. It's not what I want. You can't even come, for crissake!"

He combed through her hair with his fingers. "All right." He held her a while longer, then let her go. "Do you want anything? A drink?"

"Some coffee, if you have any."

He put water on the stove and ground a handful of beans, watching her over the breakfast bar. "What I can't understand," he said, "is why I can't get anything from these people's minds."

"You don't think I'm making all this up?"

"I know you're not," Fortunato said. "I could tell if you were lying."

She shook her head. "You take a lot of getting used to."

"Some things are more important than social niceties." The water boiled. Fortunato made two cups and took them to the couch.

"If they're as big as you think they are," Eileen said, "they're bound to have aces working with them. Somebody who could set up blocks for them, blocks against other people with mental powers."

"I guess."

She drank a little of the coffee. "I met Balsam this afternoon. We all got together at the bookstore."

"What's he like?"

"Smooth. He looked like a banker or something. Threepiece suit, glasses. But tanned, like he plays a lot of tennis on weekends."

"What did he say?"

"They finally mentioned the word `Mason.' Like it was the last test, to see if it would freak me out. Then Balsam gave me a history lesson. How the Scottish and York Rite Masons were just offshoots of the Speculative Masons, and that they only went back to the eighteenth century."

Fortunato nodded. "That's all true."

"Then he started talking about Solomon, and how the architect of his