Raga Six (A Doctor Orient Occult Novel) (21 page)

"Janice is dead." Pia’s face was far away and soft.
 

Orient’s hand came away from the chair empty.
 

"When did she die?" His voice seemed loud in the droning stillness.
 

"Last evening," Pia said, pulling the covers up to her neck. "Before I called you." She settled her head on the pillow. The throb of the engines vibrating through the metal wall seemed to grow louder as the morning light broke across the portholes.
 

"How did she die?" Orient asked finally.
 

"She had a kind of red cell anemia." Pia’s voice was fiat and her eyes flicked past his face and settled on a place far behind him. "It’s called Guglielmo’s disease. Janice knew she was going to die. Doctor Six told us both."
 

"Both?"
 

"Yes." Pia closed her eyes. "I have the same disease."

CHAPTER 12

In the afternoon Doctor Six asked Orient to examine the body, and that night, shortly before dawn, Janice was buried at sea.
 

The sky was exceptionally clear. A ripe, red moon hung low among an array of stars the size of small silver coins, their reflections splintering endlessly against the dark sea. The ship’s low electric lights glazed the foaming water next to the plowing hull, giving the cuffing white spray a hard, marbled luster.
 

Orient stood next to the rail watching the captain, the first mate, the purser, the ship’s doctor, and Doctor Six standing in a tight knot behind the two seamen who held the weighted sack that contained Janice’s body.
 

He had made a very careful examination in the cabin. Apparently Janice had died of natural causes. Before sailing, she had informed the ship’s doctor of her condition. After the examination, the purser produced various notarized documents given to the captain by Janice to be opened in case of her death. In her will she left everything she owned, the contents of her three suitcases, to Doctor Six. She also asked that her body be disposed at sea.
 

While listening to the purser read the contents of envelope aloud, Orient noticed that he also held another identical envelope in his hand. And the name on the envelope was Pia’s.
 

The crewmen lifted the stretcher that held the canvas sack.
 

Orient remembered the impression he had received when he bent over the body. The girl’s face had been calm, but for a moment he thought he had sensed a grimace of raging terror lying just underneath her placid features. His mind could still taste the contaminated quality of the energy in her cabin. An aura of decay. Bitter and unexpected. Exactly the same vibration left by Pia’s call.
 

The canvas sack slid off the stretcher. As it hit the water, Orient took a piece of paper out of his pocket. On it was drawn a perfect square set within a circle. The square was divided into twenty-five smaller squares, each one inscribed with a number or symbol. The design was a Tibetan pentacle for the passage of the dead. He rolled the paper into a tight wad and let it fall into the water.
 

The crew put on their caps and walked slowly back to their duties, while Doctor Six remained at the rail, staring across the glistening sea.
 

The next day Pia, Raga, and Doctor Six stayed in their cabins and Orient was besieged by the rest of the passengers for information. He tried to be polite but was unable to tell them anything more than he knew himself.
 

"She was such a sweet girl" Greta Wallet shook her head.
 

"The ship’s doctor told me that Pia has the same disease," Wallet said, turning to Orient.
 

"I think you’ll have to ask Doctor Six about that."
 

"Maybe it’s contagious," Alice Crowe looked at Gale.
 

Greta instinctively put her arm around her daughter. "No," she said quickly, "the doctor said there’s no danger."
 

"What did you find when you examined her?" Presto asked evenly, squinting at Orient.
 

"I wasn’t able to perform an autopsy, but all indications are that she died of anemia. She knew that she had only a short time to live."
 

Pia didn’t come out of her cabin until the following day. She came up to the upper deck while Orient was sitting in a chair taking the S1M1.
 

"Hello, Owen," she said, her smile faint.
 

Orient stood up. "How do you feel?" he asked.
 

"I’m fine." Her smile widened, but her eyes were flat and remote.
 

"Pia." Doctor Six’s heavy voice preceded him up the stairs.
 

"Here, Doctor," Pia waved.
 

"Hello, Orient," Six scowled. "Looking for my patient."
 

"How is she doing?" Orient asked.
 

Doctor Six studied him for a moment from beneath his heavy eyelids. "Pia has a fifty-fifty chance of survival. I’m taking her to a private clinic I maintain off the coast of Naples. Perhaps there I can do for her what I failed to do for Janice."
 

"A doctor can only do his best."
 

"Quite."
 

"Perhaps you wouldn’t mind showing me Pia’s X-rays and test results. I’ve had some experience with hemopathology."
 

"That won’t be necessary, Owen," Pia interjected, her voice firm. "Doctor Six is doing everything possible."

 
"Of course." Orient looked across at her. "I only thought to help." She looked at the horizon, her mouth set in a frown.
 

Every time Orient saw Pia after that, she was accompanied by Doctor Six. He was like an oversolicitous parent; he petted and fawned over her, at dinner he cut the meat on her plate, he fetched things for her, he whispered to her conspiratorially and glowered angrily and sulked whenever Pia’s attention strayed from him. Raga seemed to take no notice of his behavior.
 

Pia was friendly toward Orient but removed, as if he were an acquaintance from some childhood summer.
 

She did, however, fully recover her enthusiasm after a few days and began renewing her charming dominance over the other passengers. Gale Wallet followed her everywhere. Her parents and the Crowes waited expectantly for her to appear in the lounge every evening for bridge. Lew Wallet and Jack Crowe would maneuver to see which of them could give her his chair, and then sit beside her, advising her through the rest of the game.
 

Presto began spending his afternoons with Pia and Doctor Six, walking with them on their daily stroll about the decks. He seemed boyish and gangling next to them, his face earnest and perpetually squinting as he talked.
 

Orient kept to himself, and Pia made no sign that she wished to continue training her telepathic potential.
 

He read, talked to the various passengers about inconsequentials, and waited for the right time to ask Doctor Six again if he could study Pia’s medical history. But Six pointedly avoided him beyond a surly acknowledgment, giving Orient cause to wonder how much he knew about the night Janice died.
 

The weather was becoming progressively balmier and Pia began taking the sun on the upper deck in the afternoons along with Gale Wallet, Presto, and Orient. Doctor Six was always nearby, sitting in a shaded corner of the deck. Pia would chatter playfully with Gale; the two of them giggling and whispering secrets to each other. At other times she would listen intently and thoughtfully while Presto explained some facet of moviemaking or motorcycles. But she rarely spoke to Orient, and when she did, her eyes looked past him.
 

Orient would lie in the sun on a towel and focus his attention on maintaining his own harmonies.
 

Janice’s death and Pia’s actions were unpredictable but by no means abnormal. Perhaps the telepathic technique had set off emotions in Pia she found impossible to restrain. Perhaps Janice’s death had energized her sudden breakthrough in extrasensory communication. Orient’s memory of the bitter aura of her message was vivid. Or perhaps Pia felt she didn’t owe him any explanations about anything in her life. She would be absolutely justified.
 

"Are you asleep?" Raga’s husky voice roused him one afternoon from a blissful revue of his third incarnation. Cutting smoothly through the gleaming cobwebs of his universe.
 

Orient rolled over onto one elbow. Raga was sitting in a deck chair a few feet away. The others had gone. They were alone on the deck. The sun was sinking and the few clouds in the sky were edged with pink.
 

She smiled, her mouth light against her pale skin. "You were asleep."
 

Orient nodded. He sat up on the towel.
 

"I haven’t seen anyone for days," Raga went on. "Janice’s death upset me too much. Pia didn’t tell me until"—Raga’s yellow eyes looked at him steadily—"until later."
 

"Yes," Orient said. "Pia told me after you left that morning." He adjusted the waist band on his bathing trunks.
 

Raga’s smile was unreadable.
 

A motor coughed and roared, then settled into a low, rumbling snore. Raga rose from her chair and went to the rail, her slender body moving effortlessly as if she’d been half-lifted by the wind. There was a faint smile on her face as she looked over the rail, but Orient couldn’t tell if she was amused or very sad.
 

He stood up and joined her at the rail. He saw Presto down on the main deck trying out his motorcycle. Gale was perched behind him on the machine, waving to Pia as he drove back and forth across the deck.
 

After three or four more turns, Presto stopped the bike to let Pia exchange places with Gale. "She’s a magnificent creature." Raga’s silken sleeve brushed his bare arm.
 

Orient looked at her. "Yes, she is."
 

"Even when Pia was a young model with my agency she had a great influence on me," Raga said. "On everyone she met." Her face was serene but Orient thought he saw something troubled in her gold-flecked eyes. An appeal of some kind.
 

"You were quite a surprise," he said.
 

She smiled and the appeal in her eyes was replaced by a glint of satisfaction. "Pleasant, I hope?"
 

Orient smiled. "Very."
 

"I’m so glad, Owen," Raga said slowly. "Pia likes her little sexual games and I find her ideas stimulating." She looked him over carefully from his face to his feet and back to his face again, with open approval. "And I found you stimulating too, Owen. Not everyone thinks love games are amusing."
 

"Pia." Doctor Six shouted on the lower deck.
 

Raga calmly turned her head and looked below.
 

Doctor Six was striding across the deck glaring at Presto. "Pia, I forbid this nonsense," he bellowed.
 

Presto had stopped his motorcycle and was sitting there, racing the idling motor as Doctor Six approached. Pia jumped off the back of the machine and stood next to Presto. Doctor Six began talking rapidly and angrily at the two of them. After a few moments Pia walked away toward the stairs, her chiseled face set and clouded with fury.
 

Doctor Six said something else to Presto, then spun and followed Pia.
 

"My husband’s in love with Pia," Raga said tonelessly.
 

"She’s a very magnetic girl," Orient said, his eyes on Presto.
 

"Magnetic." Raga smiled. "Yes. The eternal female. The photographers clamored for her. Even after she retired." Raga looked at him. "But you’re quite magnetic yourself, Owen. Have you ever been photographed?"
 

Orient shrugged off the question. "The three of you have a very intense relationship," he said. He watched Presto reluctantly climb off the bike and check the wheel.
 

Raga laughed. "Perhaps," she said. Her voice was oddly wistful. "It was much different at one time." She straightened up. Her long neck, high forehead, and backswept silver hair made her look even taller than she was. "But now Alistar loves Pia. I understand why Pia wants to taste everything in life. She could expire like Janice at any time. But then so could we all. If not from a lingering disease, then a sudden accident. I understand Pia very well. I want to explore pleasure as much as she does."
 

The delicate bones of Raga’s face were set under her pale smile. "I want to explore the boundaries of my life while I’m alive, Owen," she said, lookng direcdy into his eyes. "What does that make me?"
 

Orient smiled. "I suppose that makes you just like me," he said.
 

He stayed in his room after dinner. He read his books and resisted the impulse to go to the lounge to join some of the others. He especially wanted to avoid Doctor Six and Pia. She had made it very plain that she wasn’t interested in continuing their relationship and Orient didn’t want to push it. Sex was an expression of friendship or love or pleasure as far as he was concerned, and it was best without emotional entanglements. He had enjoyed Pia’s game but it had been her game, not his. He didn’t want to be the cause of any unpleasant scenes with Doctor Six. The man obviously had feelings of his own about Pia. And Raga was still Six’s wife.
 

He remembered Raga’s husky voice in his ear. Pia’s electric charm was immediate and exciting, but Raga had the profound luster of a precious stone.
 

Presto came in and sat down heavily on the couch.
 

"Doctor Six," he announced, "is a creep."
 

"What’s the matter?"