Doppelgangster

"I think we should leave this to the cops," I said firmly.

"Until when? Until you you get whacked out?" get whacked out?"

I flinched. "What makes you think I"ll get whacked out?"

"Cops think you saw something, don"t they?"

"But I didn"t!" I insisted.

"You know you didn"t. But if the cops keep saying you did, how long do you figure it"ll take the hitter to decide he should tidy up his loose ends, just in case?" Lucky said. know you didn"t. But if the cops keep saying you did, how long do you figure it"ll take the hitter to decide he should tidy up his loose ends, just in case?" Lucky said.

"Tidy up . . . You mean, kill me me?"

"A lot of these young guys . . ." Lucky shook his head. "No patience. No self-control. It"s disgusting, the things they"ll do when they get a little nervous."

I started rethinking my position on protective custody.

Lucky said, "So it"s best if you tell me whatever you can, kid. Did Charlie say anything to you before he got whacked?"

I nodded. This, at least, was a subject that I didn"t think would make me a potential accessory to homicide. "In fact, he said a lot."

"He had problems? He knew something was up?"

"He knew he was going to die." I added, "But Charlie sounded crazy, Lucky."

"It wouldn"t be the first time," Lucky said. "What did he say to you?"

"He said he"d been cursed, he"d been marked for death."

"Hmm. Marked for death?" Lucky nodded. "Go on."

"He talked about la morte la morte-"

"He talked Italian?" Lucky stiffened, as if the use of Italian made the situation doubly serious.

"A little. La morte La morte was the only part I understood. Oh, and something about a dope." was the only part I understood. Oh, and something about a dope."

"A dope?"

"Um . . . a doppio doppio?"

"Doppio." Lucky frowned, puzzled. "A double?" Lucky frowned, puzzled. "A double?"

"Yes! He kept babbling about a double."

I"d told Napoli about this, too, but he had dismissed it-just as I had dismissed it when Charlie was clutching my arm and raving about it. Napoli went over and over some parts of that conversation with me, though, since he found it noteworthy that Charlie believed he was going to die. The detective obviously thought that, somewhere in that ranting, Charlie had made a revealing statement about the antic.i.p.ated homicide that I"d either missed, forgotten, or was deliberately concealing.

Lucky asked me, "What about about a double?" a double?"

I thought back. At the time, I"d been convinced Charlie was having a medical or psychotic episode, and I"d been more concerned with trying to get help than with listening to him.

"He said something about the evil eye," I said.

Lucky clutched the pew in front of us. "The evil eye?"

"I thought it sounded silly, but he-"

"Hah! Don"t mock the evil eye, kid."

"He said he"d seen his perfect double. That it looked, walked, and talked like him. I thought he had looked at a mirror and had a hallucination, but he insisted it was real. He said that he"d looked into its eyes, that it had spoken to him, and so now he was marked for death. I know it sounds crazy . . ." I spread my hands.

Lucky rubbed his jaw as he thought it over. I noticed he needed a shave. "But is is it crazy?" it crazy?"

"Well, something was certainly affecting his brain," I said. "Remember how strangely he behaved the other night? The night he came back to the restaurant and acted . . ." The memory suddenly hit me in a completely different light. "Acted as if . . ."

Our eyes met.

"As if," Lucky said, "he hadn"t been to dinner yet."

"Hadn"t asked me to sing for him," I said. "Hadn"t been inside the restaurant at all yet."

"As if he was . . ."

A chill crept through me. "A different Charlie."

"A second second Charlie," Lucky said. Charlie," Lucky said.

"Charlie"s perfect double." It took me a moment to realize my jaw was hanging open. "My G.o.d, Lucky, we saw saw him! It? Er, the double." him! It? Er, the double."

He nodded. "The same night we saw Charlie."

"So which one of them was the real real Charlie?" I wondered. "And which was the double?" Charlie?" I wondered. "And which was the double?"

"I dunno. They both looked like Charlie to me."

"And they both behaved exactly like Charlie," I said.

"But one was a fake. A ringer."

"Why?" I wondered. "And how how?"

"And where the h.e.l.l did it come from?"

"That was the last thing Charlie said before he died," I recalled. "That he didn"t know who had sent it."

Lucky thought it over. "So did Charlie"s double double whack him?" whack him?"

"Wouldn"t someone have seen it? Charlie"s double was every bit as big as Charlie, after all."

"Yeah, that"s another problem we got. If the double was the hitter, did it become invisible or something?"

"Has anything like this ever happened before?"

Lucky shook his head. "I been in the business more than forty years, kid. I never seen or heard of nothin" like this. It"s weird weird. I got no idea what to do about it."

Wondering just how big a can of worms I was opening, I said, "I know someone we should talk to about this."

"Not your boyfriend," Lucky said firmly.

"No," I said. "Definitely not him." Lopez might have me locked up in a padded cell if he knew what I was planning to do. "Lucky, I"d like to introduce you to Max."

5.

Zadok"s Rare and Used Books was a cozy shop in an old, ivy-covered townhouse in a quiet street in the West Village. The discreet exterior meant that few window shoppers or casual browsers ever entered the bookstore. But since the shop specialized in rare and expensive occult books, many of them written in ancient languages, it wasn"t really a foot-traffic kind of business, anyhow.

"Your friend"s a bookseller?" Lucky said as we approached the shop. "Our problem don"t seem to me like a book book problem, kid." problem, kid."

"Max has special expertise that we may need. He just sells books to show the Internal Revenue Service a visible means of support," I explained.

"Ah," Lucky said, nodding. "You mean the store is his perfectly legitimate business interest."

In a sense, that was exactly what I meant.

"I just don"t know if he"ll be awake this early," I said. We had come by foot, cutting over to Hudson and heading north, since it was an easy walk and since I thought Max might be more coherent if I let him sleep as long as possible, instead of dashing here from Little Italy in a cab by dawn"s early light. "He often works late into the night, and-"

A m.u.f.fled explosion coming from the depths of the bookstore made me flinch.

"What the h.e.l.l was that?" Lucky demanded.

"I don"t know, but it came from below the shop!" Worried about Max, I headed toward his door.

"Wait a minute, Esther!"

"He might be hurt!" Though he was a skilled sorcerer, not all of Max"s alchemy experiments went smoothly.

When I opened the door of the shop, Lucky said, "It"s not locked? There"s something fishy about this."

In fact, it was was locked. Magically. Max couldn"t keep track of the key, so he used a spell that kept out strangers when the shop was closed but allowed him access at all times. I had become a regular enough visitor since Golly Gee"s disappearance (and subsequent reappearance) that Max had modified the spell so that I, too, could enter the shop at will. locked. Magically. Max couldn"t keep track of the key, so he used a spell that kept out strangers when the shop was closed but allowed him access at all times. I had become a regular enough visitor since Golly Gee"s disappearance (and subsequent reappearance) that Max had modified the spell so that I, too, could enter the shop at will.

But this was no time for an explanation that would require even more explanations. So I just said, "No, it"s fine."

I entered the bookshop and quickly headed to the back of the building. There was a little cul-de-sac there with some storage shelves, a utilities closet, a bathroom, and a door marked PRIVATE. I opened that door onto a narrow, creaky stairway.

One set of steps led down to the cellar, where Max"s laboratory was. The other steps led up to the second floor, where he slept. There was also an apartment on the top floor. Hieronymus had lived up there, and I a.s.sumed Max"s next a.s.sistant would, too. It had been empty for several weeks now. Apparently, finding a decent sorcerer"s apprentice wasn"t easy. Especially after recent experience had convinced Max to add "must harbor no evil ambitions whatsoever" to his list of requirements for prospective candidates.

"Whoa!" Lucky said behind me. "Weird."

I a.s.sumed he meant the method of lighting the stairwell: there was a burning torch stuck in a sconce on the wall. Like the front door lock, it functioned via mystical means.

I smelled something foul floating up from the laboratory, a putrid, acrid odor mixed with smoke, incense, and . . . wet dog fur?

"Max?" I called.

The only response was a menacing sound-like a hungry demon"s stomach growling.

"Max! Are you all right?" I called, my voice sharp with anxiety.

Lucky elbowed me aside to peer down the steep, dark stairway that was filling up with foul-smelling smoke. "You ain"t saying he"s down there there?"

I faintly heard some coughing from below.

"Max?" I shouted.

The growling sound turned into a roar.

Then I heard a man scream in terror. "Argh!" "Argh!"

"Max!" I started down the steep, narrow stairs, holding tightly to the railing so I wouldn"t stumble. I started down the steep, narrow stairs, holding tightly to the railing so I wouldn"t stumble.

"Esther, no no." Lucky made a grab for my arm, but I slipped away, too scared for Max to pay attention. "I"ll go. You stay-G.o.dd.a.m.n it!" I heard the thud of his footsteps behind me as he started descending after me. go. You stay-G.o.dd.a.m.n it!" I heard the thud of his footsteps behind me as he started descending after me.

The roaring sound from the laboratory got louder, bouncing off the narrow walls of the stairwell.

I choked on the smoke, covered my nose and mouth with my hand, and shouted over my shoulder, "Watch your step! These stairs are uneven!"

"No s.h.i.t!" Lucky shouted back.

I knew the bad language-so common among wiseguys, but so rare for Lucky to use in a woman"s presence-was a sign of how perturbed he was.

Understandable. As the roaring reached a pitch that seemed to make the stairs shake, fear ran through me hot and fast. I reached the landing and burst into the laboratory.

At first glance, I thought Max was being attacked by a demonic h.e.l.lhound. I stared in shock, peering through the smoke-filled room.

Max, a small and slightly plump man, was rolling around on the floor, grunting and crying out in protest. His long white hair was disheveled and tangling with his beard as he tried to ward off his attacker.

An immense, tan canine beast was jumping up and down on top of him as it barked noisily. Its teeth were bared, its pink tongue lolling and its big ears flopping around. The huge creature"s paws batted playfully at Max as its tail wagged . . .

Its tail was wagging wagging?

I said, "What the h.e.l.l-"