Herculeah Jones Tarot Says Beware (11 page)

“Your voice is like hers,” Herculeah admitted, forcing herself to talk normally. “You might fool me, but you can't fool the parrot.”

“Who knows about a bird? Maybe in the darkness, Tarot get confused. Maybe he make a mistake, as I said, like the police.”

“No, you are not Madame Rosa.”

There was a pause and then a different voice, a man's voice, spoke.

“No, unfortunately for you, I am not Madame Rosa.”

“Well, you're somebody who knows Madame Rosa very well,” Herculeah continued in a rush.

“Yes, I knew her.”

Herculeah began to inch sideways toward the fence. She went on in a deliberate conversational tone, “Because you imitate her voice perfectly, and you couldn't do that if you didn't know her.”

Herculeah stopped. She drew in a breath. “Or maybe,” she said slowly, “maybe you're somebody who knows how to imitate voices.”

“That could be.”

“Maybe you're someone who makes a living imitating voices.”

As Herculeah said that, she was back at the flea market, standing in front of the puppet show, listening to dozens of different voices, all from one man.

“Now you're getting smart.”

Herculeah said, “Frankie.” It was not a guess, not a question. “The puppeteer.”

He did not answer, but Herculeah knew she had hit the mark.

“You killed Madame Rosa.”

No answer.

“I want to know why. I have to know why.”

Herculeah continued to move sideways. Just two feet more and she could rush, the figure in the cloak, knock him down, head for the street. With any luck she could be over the fence and—

Her thoughts broke off. It was important to keep talking.

“I really do want to know why. I don't think anybody cares but me. You did kill her, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

The voice seemed closer. Perhaps the puppeteer was inching in her direction as she was moving toward the fence. She couldn't see him clearly now.

She stepped on a dried twig and the snap caused Tarot to beat his wings again. “Beware! Beware!”

“It was your mother who consulted Madame Rosa, wasn't it?”

“Yes.” He gave a dry laugh. “I used to scare my mom into doing what I wanted. My mom would give me grief over something, and I'd start playing with a kitchen knife, twirling it on the counter or holding it like this.”

Now Herculeah could see the glint of a knife in his hand. He had drawn a knife from under his cloak. He was raising it.

Herculeah knew he had stabbed one person. He wouldn't hesitate to stab another.

She swallowed. She barely managed to say, “Go on with what you were saying.”

“I guess I scared her maybe a little too much—like I'm scaring you.”

“I'm not afraid.”

“You should be.” Another of those dry, frightening laughs. “Well, my mother was. She went to consult the famous Madame Rosa. ‘Oh, Madame Rosa, I'm afraid of my son. Is he going to kill me, Madame, yes or no? Is my little Frankie going to kill me?' ”

Now he was speaking in his mother's voice. Herculeah was cold with fear and dread. She felt as if she were in Madame Rosa's parlor with the frightened mother and Madame Rosa, actually hearing the conversation.

“ ‘Give me something of his. Bring me something.'

“‘I could bring you the knife he threatens me with. ” '

The terrible two-part conversation continued, with the puppeteer taking both parts.

“‘I'll go home right now and get the knife. You'll wait for me, Madame Rosa?'

“‘I wait....'

“ ‘I am back. Here, here is the knife my boy threatens me with. Here take it. Tell me.'

“ ‘Yes. Yes. Your boy, he kill with this knife. Your boy will kill!' ”

In his own voice the puppeteer added, “I guess the old broad actually flipped out, fainted. My mom told me about it when she got home. She said, ‘Frankie, she thinks you're going to kill.' I said, ‘Mom, I'm no killer. You know that. I'll handle it.' I meant to handle it by scaring Madame Rosa.”

Herculeah took another step toward the fence. In the darkness, the puppeteer did, too.

“I made a witch puppet. You saw her.”

“Yes. And just as I thought, it was modeled after Madame Rosa.”

“Of course, even down to the cloak.” He gave a flourish that made the cloak flutter around him. On Herculeah's shoulder, Tarot gave an answering flutter.

“Oh, I enjoyed that play. Madame Rosa was doing her little palm-reading thing across the way, and she looked up and there she was on the puppet stage. Her face. Her voice. Her cloak. My knife.

“She froze with her mouth open—was too scared to close it, I guess—until the witch got stabbed.”

“That's when she fled?”

“I thought she got the message. Then the old fool went to your mom, a private detective, and I didn't like that. I knew I had to really scare the old woman—like I'm scaring you.”

“I'm n-not afraid.”

“A-aren't you?” the puppeteer asked. This time he spoke in Herculeah's voice.

“Go on with your story,” she managed to say.

“I went to her house. I opened the door with the knife—such useful things.” Beneath his hood he smiled. “Madame Rosa was in the kitchen. I was just going to put the knife somewhere so she could find it. There was a big book on the table. I decided to stick the knife in that. It fell open to a page on dolls. Voodoo dolls. I liked that. It fit. Dolls. Puppets. I raised my knife. Right then that stupid bird woke up and yelled, ‘Beware!'

“Madame Rosa came in and she went crazy. I just wanted to scare her—that's all I was going to do—but she threw herself at me. She was going to tear my eyes out or something. She was a wild woman. And I was holding the knife like this—”

Again Herculeah saw the glint of metal.

“And she fell against it. I never wanted to kill her. I don't want to kill anybody. I don't want to kill you.”

Herculeah took another step sideways.

“It just happened then, like it's going to happen now. She knew too much. You do, too.”

Without any more warning, he came toward her. His long billowing cape made him seem huge. Herculeah threw Tarot at him. There was a flurry of wings and cape as the puppeteer fought off the bird.

He managed to throw the bird to the ground. He came for Herculeah again. He made one thrust with the knife. He missed. He drew back for another.

She ducked and as she swirled away, she shoved him with all her strength. He stepped backward, stumbled on the hem of the cape, and fell to the ground.

This was the moment Herculeah had hoped for. She rushed past him. She had a moment of elation. She was free. She was going to get away. She was safe.

And then she felt his long, cold fingers circle her ankle.

Herculeah cried out in fear. She kicked, trying to shake off his fingers, but the puppeteer's grip was strong. His fingers held.

She kicked again—and again. He was as desperate as she. They were both fighting for their lives.

Herculeah twisted. With her free foot she stomped down, hitting the puppeteer's wrist. There was a grunt of pain, but he held her fast.

Tarot, frantic with alarm, was flapping around Herculeah's legs, adding to the confusion, raising her fear. She glanced down.

In the moonlight she saw the knife in the puppeteer's free hand. She saw him draw it back. He was ready to strike.

Herculeah stomped again, this time with all her considerable strength. And this time there was a real scream and this time the fingers lost their grip.

Herculeah took off. She ran around the house, across the old lawn. She took the fence in one jump and kept running. She flew across the street.

As she came up on the pavement, she ran straight into something that knocked her breath out. It felt like a frying pan.

“Help me! Help me!” she gasped. She clutched the person who held it. “Help me! There's a man back there—a murderer. He tried to murder me, and he did murder Madame Rosa. He's got a knife. He may be coming—”

She broke off and glanced in fear over her shoulder. The street behind her was deserted. “He's—” She sagged, completely out of breath. Anyway, it was impossible to explain what had happened to a stranger.

“I knew you were going to get yourself into trouble,” the woman Herculeah was clinging to said. “As soon as I saw that bird on your shoulder I knew no good would come of it.”

This was not a stranger. Herculeah looked up. Lit by the streetlight was the surprisingly beautiful face of Meat's mother.

“Am I going to need this frying pan, or are you safe?”

“I think we're going to need more than that. We need the police.”

“I already called them. I hung up on my sister—long distance from Chicago. I said, ‘I got to hang up, Tiff.' I said, ‘That was a girl at my door, and she had a bird on her shoulder that gets people in trouble. I'm calling the police.”

“I'm glad you did. Oh, it was just awful. I can't describe it. I thought I was going to get away, and then I felt his hand grab my ankle—like that.” She made a claw of her hand and shuddered at the memory. “It was the puppeteer.”

Meat's mother went back to her original topic. “And as soon as I hung up after talking to the police, I went to the kitchen. My frying pan was waiting for me on the stove. I came out here and stopped on this very spot. I told myself I wasn't going to cross the street again unless I absolutely had to. I wasn't going a step closer to that murder house until I heard screams.”

“I did scream.” Herculeah thought that Meat's mother and her frying pan, her weapon of choice, would have been a welcome sight.

“Not loud enough. You have to work on your screams if you expect me to hear you.”

“I will. But the puppeteer screamed, too. Didn't you hear him?”

“I wouldn't lift my frying pan for the likes of him,” Meat's mother said firmly. She looked up. “Well, here they come at last.”

A police car, blue lights flashing, siren wailing, came around the corner and stopped at the streetlight. A second car came racing around the back road, blocking off the alley.

“It's about time,” Meat's mother told the first officer who got out of the car.

Herculeah was still standing with Meat's mother across the street from Madame Rosa's.

“We ought to go in the house,” Meat's mother said. “It's cold. You're shivering.”

“I'm not shivering from the cold.”

“Come on. Let's go inside.”

“I can't, yet. I want to see them bring him out. I have to be sure they got him. I'm really afraid of him. I won't sleep tonight unless I see him in custody.”

They waited side by side under the streetlight.

“Well, there he is,” Meat's mother said. “Take a good look.”

The puppeteer came out between two policemen. He was no longer wearing Madame Rosa's cape, and he was in handcuffs. As the policeman put him in the back of the squad car, Herculeah caught a glimpse of his face. He no longer looked frightening. He looked frightened.

“Doesn't look as dangerous as I thought he would,” Meat's mother said.

“When he was holding that knife, he looked dangerous.”

“Looks can fool you sometimes.”

Herculeah nodded. “Voices, too. I actually believed he was Madame Rosa.” A sudden thought caused her to draw in her breath. “Oh, I'm going to have to go back for Tarot.”

“That awful bird. I went over to Madame Rosa's one time—I needed to give her a piece of my mind about something—and the bird flew off its perch like it was trying to attack me. Maybe that wasn't its intention, but one of its claws got caught in my necklace. Fortunately, I wasn't wearing my pearls. I had on some cheerful plastic things I won at Bingo. If they hadn't been pop-it beads, they would have been ruined.”

Meat's mother stuck her frying pan under her arm, since it obviously was not going to be needed. She sighed.

That sigh told Herculeah they were getting ready to talk about something more serious than pop-it beads.

“I wish I understood why this terrible murder happened,” Meat's mother said.

“It happened, I think, because a boy tried to scare his mother,” Herculeah said.

“Scare his own mother?”

“Yes.”

“Well, thank goodness my Albert doesn't do that.”

“No, you have a wonderful son.” Herculeah broke off. “Oh, there's my mom. She'll help me now. Thank you very, very much.”

“Just stay out of trouble. That will be thanks enough.”

“I will.”

“And keep my Albert out of trouble, too.”

Herculeah waited for the squad car to pull away. Then she walked over to her mother's car and stood there impatiently.

“What was that police car doing here? There hasn't been another murder, has there?”

“No,” Herculeah said, “but almost. The victim this time would have been me.” She put her arms around her mother. “I am so glad to see you.”

“What happened?” Her mother drew back to take a better look at Herculeah.

“Well, I got this telephone call and—”

There was a whine from the backseat of the car. “What's that noise?” Herculeah asked, bending down to peer into the rear window. She looked at her mother in amazement. “Mom, it's a dog. You've got a dog. Why? You have never liked dogs.”