The Diviners

Page 129

Now, draped in capes, Mabel and Evie sat in chairs at a beauty parlor on Fifty-seventh Street while a pair of beauticians washed and set their hair.
“How would you like an adventure?” Evie called over the rush of water in the sink.
“What sort of adventure?” Mabel shouted back.
“You trust me, don’t you?”
“Ha!”
The conversation ceased for a moment as the beauticians patted their hair dry and led them to waiting chairs, getting to work setting Evie’s finger waves and combing out Mabel’s long mane.
“There are times when one friend requires the blind faith of another, darling girl. This is such a time,” Evie said after a long pause. “Besides, when have I ever steered you wrong?”
“Would you like a list?”
“What if I told you this had to do with the Pentacle Killer murders and that we were about to undertake a necessary investigation?” The beautician’s comb paused over Mabel’s hair, and Evie gave the beautician a sidelong glance. “I’ll bet you’d go with me, wouldn’t you?”
“Absolutely positively! I’d bring a gun and shoot that horrible man with all six bullets. Then I’d stab him to be sure he was dead.” The beautician shrugged and resumed combing. “You gotta be sure.”
“And how,” Evie said.
“Ow!” Mabel said as the comb hit a snag. Her hand flew to her injured scalp.
“Sorry, Miss. That is some head of hair. You ever think of cutting it?”
“Don’t even try,” Evie said with a sigh. “We’ve been at her for ages.”
“Very well,” Mabel said decisively. “I’ll do it!”
Evie hugged Mabel. “Mabel, you’ve joined the twentieth century! Hip, hip, hooray!”
“Carpe diem!” Mabel declared.
The beautician shook her head. “Well, I don’t know from nothing about those foreign movie stars, but you’d look swell with Clara Bow’s haircut,” she said and grabbed her scissors.
The sun was a nice, fat ball as Mabel and Evie stepped off the train at 155th Street and walked north through streets of sprawling Tudor-style apartment houses and smaller brownstones, past the Old Wolf tavern and Johnson’s Greengrocer, around a corner anchored by a realty office with flats to let, and on toward the river, where the houses were fewer. A couple of boys in dusty coveralls tossed a baseball back and forth, narrating their play as if it were a Yankees game: “It’s Babe Ruth at the plate, the Great Bambino, the King of Swing hitting for the stands….” The boys nodded at the girls, and Evie made a swinging motion. “Clobber it like the Caliph of Clout!” she said. Finally, the girls turned onto Knowles’ End, a forgotten side street that wound up a hill overlooking the Hudson. There the house sat on the windswept hill like a gargoyle.
“Please don’t say that’s where we’re headed,” Mabel gasped, winded. It had been a climb. “We’re likely to be eaten by rats or meet Dr. Frankenstein’s monster.”
“Wouldn’t that be a thrilling afternoon? At least you’ll go out with the ritziest coif in town. Your hair is abso-tively the cat’s pajamas! I am so happy you decided to bob it!”
Mabel refused to be charmed. “Evie. Why have you brought me here? What does this have to do with the murder investigation?”
“I believe this may be the lair of the Pentacle Killer.”
Mabel stared, dumbfounded. “Theta was right to nickname you Evil. I believe you need the services of Sigmund Freud. He’s the only person who could possibly understand the workings of your very unhealthy mind.”
Evie linked her arm through Mabel’s. “I’m going to tell you something confidential about the case. But you must swear on the King James Bible—”
“I’m an atheist.”
“You must swear on the atheist Bible not to tell.”
“There’s no such thing as an atheist Bible.”
“We should write one, then. Swear on the grave of the Sheik himself!”
“I swear on the grave of Valentino,” Mabel said.
“I have it on good authority that there may be clues inside that house that will prove the identity of the killer.” It wasn’t lying, exactly.
“I thought the police already had the killer locked up—that Jacob Call fella.” Mabel scrutinized Evie’s face for a moment. “You don’t think he’s the Pentacle Killer.”
“Call it a hunch.”