Psychoshop Read online

  Strength and beauty: muscle, stature, form, grace, skin, hair, eyes, lips, color. Power: over men, over women, over events, over selves. Success: in love, life, career, leisure. Brilliance: intellectual, political, artistic, social. Status. Celebrity. Popularity. Perpetuity.

  And a chaos of fears, fixations, hatreds, beliefs, superstitions, salvations, manias, plus fragments from the far future and dim past which had no meaning for me. All this I saw, felt, tasted, and touched. I was flayed by this shrapnel from the battle between Man’s realities and yearnings. I was shattered.

  Adam’s voice came. “Spooky, isn’t it?”

  I could make him out through the dark turmoil; his crimson was curiously luminescent. All I could do was croak.

  “You all right, Alf?”

  I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Something farther down the way had caught my attention, held it. Without thought or will I continued to move in that direction.

  “This isn’t real space, as you know it,” said Adam. “We’re protected by several layers of tricks. But even so, you are headed in the direction of the singularity. Go too far and it becomes dangerous. Go farther, and there’s no turning back.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, and I kept going.

  “You’re still well within the safety margin, of course, or I’d have stopped you. In fact, you’re only nearing the stripping field where I remove those traits or talents customers wish to dispose of. The adding field is off to the left—there’s a kind of symmetry involved in the way I engineered it. That’s where I install those things they’re trading up to—or down to. We’ve got to bear a little to the left now to pass safely between them. Just follow the illuminated claw marks. Wouldn’t want to be stripped indiscriminately. Not by a field, anyway.”

  I plodded on.

  “The fields also grow stronger the farther you go,” he continued. “I don’t really work with them much beyond this point—”

  I halted. I froze. I made some sort of noise in my throat.

  They hung there, as I had detected them subliminally from much farther back: human forms, bodies suspended as if from meat hooks, swaying, turning, limp and lifeless, as in some steady breeze. There were seven of them.

  “What,” I croaked, “are they?”

  “Seven guys,” he said, “who traded everything they had.”

  “How? Why?”

  “In each case, the man gained access here while I was out of the room. He wandered into the stripping field—you saw how easy it was to do—and it took away everything he’d added to himself since birth. What you see are the remains, breathing—albeit slowly—and with very faint heartbeats. The field’s time-effects preserve them. As Shelley said, ‘Nothing beside remains.’”

  “When did it happen?”

  “The first one, Lars, lived back when the Etruscans were in charge around here. Marcus came a few centuries later. Erik was a Germanic mercenary. And we’ve a Vandal and a Goth and a thirteenth-century Norman Crusader,” he said, gesturing. “The last guy, Pietro, was sixteenth century. Claimed to be a painter.”

  “Why do you think they did it?”

  He shrugged.

  “Maybe simple curiosity. I can understand curiosity. More likely, they wanted more than they thought they could afford and figured they might find a way to rip me off. You want that memory job now?”

  The nearest body was turning in that eerie breeze. Its profile began to come into view.

  I screamed. I turned. I began to run.

  “Alf! What’s the matter?”

  His hand fell upon my shoulder, steering me safely between the fields. His question rang in my head. But already I was blotting out—the horror.

  “What is it, man?”

  “It— It startled me. It was like— I don’t know.”

  “Uh-huh. It’s quite an experience the first time around. You’ll get used to it.”

  “I’m not sure. I’m so damned empathic.”

  “That’s the price the artist has to pay.”

  “And this is the real Black Hole?”

  “Oh, you’ve been in it since the front door. The foyer and reception are decorated to put people at ease. This is the undisguised real thing.”

  “It’s more of a Hellhole.”

  There was a dazzle of light as the door to reception opened and closed. Glory’s voice came. “Client, Dammy.”

  “Great, Nan. Alf can watch us in action. Where from and when?”

  “A college boy from the U.S. Early nineteenth century.”

  “What’s his problem?”

  “Something about asthma.”

  “I’m no M.D., but let’s see what we can do.”

  The client was seated but stood up politely when we entered the reception room: a skinny college boy in his late teens, dark, pale skin, big head, melancholy eyes, dressed in the post-Federal style.

  “How do, sir,” Maser said pleasantly. “Nice of you to wish here. We’re all on a first name basis. This is Nan, my assistant; Alf, my associate. I’m Adam. You?”

  “They call me Gaffy in college,” the boy said. His speech was unusual and quite charming; Southern spoken with a slight English accent.

  “And you want to pawn or buy what?”

  “I want to exchange my asthmatic wheeze for something endurable.”

  “Ah, you have rales, eh? What makes them unendurable, Gaffy? Are they too loud, too prolonged, painful, what?”

  “They speak to me in a language I can’t understand.”

  Adam’s jet eyes widened. “Now that’s a new one on me. Are you sure it’s a language?”

  “No, but it does sound like words in sentences.”

  “Most interesting, Gaffy. Permit me to listen.” Without waiting for approval, Adam bent and put an ear to the boy’s chest. “Deep breath, please, and let it out slowly.”

  Gaffy obliged. Maser listened intently, then straightened, smiling. “You’re quite right, my dear boy. It is a language, early-eleventh-century Persian.” He turned to me. “There’s no end to fantastic phenomena, Alf. Our client is wheezing passages from the Shah Namah, the epic fantasy by the great poet, Firdausi. It was the source for Scheherazade and the Arabian Nights.”

  I stared. Gaffy stared.

  “Now I’m not a physician, so I can’t remove the wheeze,” Adam continued briskly, “and I refuse to exchange it. It’s a treasure you’ll appreciate and thank me for some day. What I will do is sell you a knowledge of Persian so you can understand what you’re hearing. Self-entertainment, as it were. Inside, please.”

  We were seeing Macavity at his most Napoleonic. Arguments and objections were out of the question. It was something he’d referred to as his persona power. As the college boy followed Adam into the Hellhole, I looked at Glory.

  “If Maser’s just a kid, what’ll he be like when he grows up?”

  “God, maybe?” she answered. “He doesn’t overwhelm me but to tell the truth, Alf, he’s been whelming me lately.”

  “D’you think that this persona power is his quadratic?”

  Before she could reply, Maser and the college kid came out.

  “What?” I exclaimed. “So quickly?”

  “Moments, real time,” Adam smiled. “No counting, psychwise. There’s no time or dimensions in the libido and intellect.”

  “Xirad za’n Pahlavi.” Gaffy beamed.

  “No, no!” The redhead was overpowering again. “It was our agreement that no one is to know you understand ancient Persian. Questions will be asked and how can you answer them? You damn well better keep your word.”

  The boy nodded submissively.

  “Right. Got any money on you?”

  “All paper, sir. A dollar Federal and two-fifty Bank of Richmond.”

  “I’ll take the paper half dollar for my fee. I’m not undercharging you. It’ll be worth a hell of a lot more in the future.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Now pay attention. When you go through the front door think hard of the place you
wished yourself here from, and you’ll wish back into it. Same time. Same place. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.” The half-dollar bill was handed over. As the boy turned to leave, Glory said, “Do you want a receipt, Mr. Gaffy?”

  “No thanks.” He hesitated, then, “Gaffy’s what they call me in college. I hate it. My real name’s Edgar. Edgar Poe,” and he was gone.

  Three jaws dropped. Then we burst out laughing.

  “So that’s what inspired him,” I said.

  “And you think Rigadoon’s going to print this?” Adam chuckled.

  “I have my doubts. I also have doubts about Poe’s work. Wasn’t it a cheat, really?”

  “No way, Alf. You ought to know. Inspiration’s one thing; what you do with it is something else. Firdausi’s been translated into a dozen other languages. Same source for all. Has anyone else ever equaled Poe?”

  “God knows they’ve tried. Me too. But never.”

  “I had another thought about him,” Glory said. “Perhaps this is why he took to drink and drugs. It must have been hell, living with that stockpile and trying to re-create what he could remember.”

  “Ah yes, memory,” Adam said. “Come back into limbo, Alf, and I’ll replace your temp recall with that permanent from the one-man band. Like I said, on the house. No charge.”

  “I pays my own way.” I was all class. “I got fifty liras burning a hole in my pocket.”

  “A whole nickel U.S.? Like wow! You’re the last of the big spenders.”

  “Naw. I’m on expense account.”

  But just as we reached the door to the Hellhole, Glory called, “Another client, Dammy.”

  “Oh? Where and when?”

  “From the Beta-Prometheus Cluster. Twenty-fifth.”

  “Jeez,” I said. “Does it have two heads?”

  “Shut up, Alf. What business, Nan?”

  “His name’s Tigab. He wants to get rid of an obsession. Says he imagines he’s haunted by a hitching post that’s in love with his wife.”

  Glory was ushering the client in as we returned to the parlor. I whispered to Adam, “If I went through the door now would I be in that Cluster in the twenty-fifth?”

  “You’d be where and when you really wanted to be,” he murmured. “Not just dreaming. We’ll fill in details later.” Aloud, to the client, “Good evening, sir. So nice of you to wish here from so far off. You’ve met Nan, my assistant. This is Alf, my associate. I’m Adam, the psychbroker.”

  Not two heads, just one, and a marked resemblance to the classic portraits and busts of Shakespeare. Two arms, two legs, wearing a timeless jump suit.

  Adam continued, “Now what’s this delightful obsession about a loving hitching post, Mr. Tigab?”

  “Well, it’s like this. Me and the wife made our pile and thought we’d live it up a little. We bought a mansion from the estate of an antique dealer, furnished and elegant like this room.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Tigab.”

  “Elegant outside too. You know, gardens, lawns, trees, driveways, and ‘longside the front steps is an antique hitching post.”

  “Forgive me, Mr. Tigab, but why do you talk like that?”

  “Talk like what?”

  “Three words level and one word down.”

  “Oh. We’re born that way out in the Cluster. You know, like kids are born righties or lefties? We’re also born inflecting.”

  “I see. All with the same inflection?”

  “Oh no. All different.”

  “Anyway,” Mr. Tigab continued, “about this hitching post hangup I want wiped. We got settled in and everything was great until one afternoon we’re sitting in the parlor when my wife jumps up and yells, ‘There’s a man looking through the window.’

  “I jump up. ‘Where? Where?’

  “She pointed. There.’

  “I look. Nothing. ‘You imagined it’ I told the wife. She swore she saw him and he was some kind of ghost because she could see trees through him.

  “Well, she’s got imagination—she always wanted to be a poet—so I paid no mind, but she kept on seeing it all the time and damn if she didn’t start me thinking I was seeing it too.”

  “Yes? How did you see it?”

  “We were sitting by the fire in my study, talking, when I saw this dumpy little spook come in and sit down alongside my wife. It was the image of the figure on the hitching post.”

  “And?”

  “I kept imagining I saw it coming in and sitting with my wife, looking at me like it wanted to be me. She’s got me believing this damn delusion and you’ve got to kick it for me.”

  “You’re sure it’s the guy from the hitching post?”

  “The image.”

  “What’s it look like?”

  “Real antique. Hundreds of years. Hell, I’ll draw if for you. Got some white paper?”

  Glory produced a large pad and pencil.

  “No,” Tigab said, “we don’t use pen or pencil in the Cluster, we project. Just hold the pad up where you can see it.”

  He pointed a finger and the hitching post took form on the pad: an eighteenth-century figure, dumpy, right arm raised, left behind its back, top hat on the back of the head, high collar and loose ascot, long overcoat, unmistakable scowling face.

  Adam and I looked at each other and began to sputter.

  “What’s so funny?” Tigab demanded.

  “The hitching post ghost,” Adam said. “It isn’t a delusion, Mr. Tigab, it’s a genuine spirit, and it isn’t in love with your wife, it’s fascinated by how you speak to her.”

  “I don’t believe it. A ghost likes what I say to my wife?”

  “No, it likes how you say it. Your inflection. If you’ll come with me I’ll solve your problem by selling you a new inflection. No more spook sitting with your wife listening to you.”

  More or less dazed, Tigab followed Macavity into the Hellhole while Glory and I grinned to each other, shaking our heads.

  A vaguely familiar-looking man in mirrorshades, sweat pants, and a red and white polo shirt walked in. I watched him in the mirror. He was about my height and build, his reddish hair was close-cropped, and he had on some sort of moccasins or dancer’s shoes. He wore studded leather straps about his wrists.

  He approached Glory. “Is the proprietor in?” he asked.

  “Yes, but he’s occupied,” she replied. “May I help you?”

  “No, thanks,” he said. “I’ll catch him another time.”

  He turned and left, soundlessly.

  When they came out of the Hellhole, moments later,

  Tigab was so stunned that he could barely mumble. All the same, his new inflection was equally unmistakable. My grin broadened.

  “Got to pay up and go home. The wife’s got to get used to my new singsong. Me too.”

  He pulled a pouch from a pocket, opened it, and dumped green pebbles on a table. “Cluster coin-of-the-realm,” he grunted. “Take as many as you like. You earned it and I’m obliged.”

  They were raw, uncut emeralds. Adam picked up the smallest stone and returned the rest. “This is too much, Mr. Tigab, but since you say you’ve made your pile I won’t feel too guilty. Nan?”

  I followed Glory as she escorted Tigab out. He was humming. When we returned, we three looked at the hitching post portrait.

  “I’ve seen blackamoor posts,” I said, “and jockeys, but what demented designer used Beethoven for a model?”

  “Like I said, Alf, there’s no end to fascinating phenomena in this world. D’you think Rigadoon’s going to print this?”

  I shrugged it off. “And I spotted what you replaced those first four notes from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes I did now; the main theme from ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’ Is Tigab going to be haunted by the ghost of George Gershwin now?”

  “All depends on the hitching posts,” Adam laughed.

  “If I understand it correctly, there’s got to be an exchange. Why can’t you just r
emove some unwanted aspect of the psyche?”

  “The danger,” he explained, “is squatters moving in on your psychique, Seele, nao-tzu. Farstayst? Had a woman once with a wild idea; she wanted to leave a vacanza, a vacancy, in her heart for her lovers. I went along with it to see how it would work out.

  “But a damn black widow spider nipped in ahead of her studs and that was that. Oh, sure, every living thing, animal or vegetable, has a soul. Never again. Borgia, her name was. Lucy Borgia.”

  The front door was suddenly enveloped by a pillar of cold, corposant fire. It advanced into the reception room and out of it stepped the towering figure of Mephistopheles.

  We had to give him a big hand.

  He bowed graciously. “Merci! Merri! Merti! I am the tenth Count Alesandro di Cagliostro.”

  “Ah yes,” Adam smiled. “Descended from the original Cagliostro, adventurer, magician, liar, cheat. Died in the fortress prison of San Leo in 1795.”

  “I have that honor, M’sieur Maser.”

  “The tenth Count Alesandro? Then you must be from the late twenty-first or thereabouts, eh?”

  “Paris. Early twenty-second, M’sieur.”

  “Welcome. We’re honored. This is—”

  “Your assistant of the serpents, Ssss.” Apparently he pronounced it properly. “But this gentleman from les Etats-Unis I do not know.”

  “Alf, from Rigadoon magazine. He’s associating with me while he prepares a feature on the Black Hole Hockshop.”

  “Delighted, M’sieur Alfred. I felicitate myself. You know, of course, that your admirable writings will never be received as fact. Who could believe the magique wrought by M’sieur Maser, eh? Yet he is as genuine as my great-great -etcetera grandpapa was— Pardon, Maitre. How does one translate simulateur?”

  “Faker.”

  “As the grandpapa was a faker.”

  “Thank you, Count Alesandro. I hope this is a social call, we’ll amuse each other. Dr. Franz Gall, who developed phrenology, paid a social call. Said he wanted to explore the bumps on the head of a charlatan. I was amused but he wasn’t.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “He was dumbfounded. Said I had no bumps at all, which threatened to undermine his entire theory. I started to reassure him with a— How does one translate craque, Count Alesandro?”