Unspeakable Read online

  "Why? Why shouldn't I be?"

  "You look like your cat just died."

  "Do I? I don't have a cat." She tidied up her papers. Then she said, "If I said 'the old man's parties,' would that mean anything to you?"

  George looked blank. "'The old man's parties'? Is this a riddle?"

  "I don't know. I don't know what it means. I get the feeling that it's something unpleasant, that's all."

  Doug came down at 10:25 to tell them that the Joseph application was on. They followed him out of the coffee shop, and as they left, the two lawyers swiveled around in their chairs to watch her. She turned and one of them winked at her, while the other one said, "Classy ass, too, I'm telling you."

  The Curse of Raven

  The hearing took less than four minutes. Silver-haired and sharply pointed of nose, Judge Imogene Yelland immediately granted the application for Daniel Joseph to be made a ward of the court pending the prosecution of Elliot Joseph for child abuse and a full welfare report and psychiatric report on Mary Joseph.

  Mary Joseph's attorney rose to protest that nobody had yet been convicted for beating up on Daniel, and that there was no proof that Mary Joseph was a neglectful mother. "Accidents do happen in the home, and there are plenty of recorded instances in which parents have been erroneously blamed for childhood injuries."

  Judge Yelland stared at him as if he had exposed himself. "I hope you're not trying to suggest that Daniel Joseph's injuries were in any respectselfinflicted,Mr. Leiderman?"

  "I, ah-"

  "Mr. Leiderman, if you are capable of pulling your pants down around your ankles and jumping on your own pelvis seven times, it would be most educational to see you do it."

  Nobody laughed. Mary Joseph's attorney reddened and sat down.

  "Next application," said the clerk. George turned to Holly and blew out his cheeks in relief. Judge Yelland had made no comments about the failure of the National Indian Child Welfare Association or the Portland Children's Welfare Department to foresee what had happened. All the same, that could well come later, when Elliot Joseph came up for trial.

  "I'll catch you in a minute," Holly mouthed, and patted George's shoulder. She left the juvenile division and walked across the echoing marble floor to the main court buildings. She found Detective Farrant outside Court Number 3, reading the sports pages and chewing gum with his mouth wide open.

  "Mickey around?" she asked him.

  He jerked his head toward the huge maplewood doors. "He just went in for the Joseph indictment. By the way, what did youdoto him last night?"

  "Me? Why?"

  "The guy was like walking on air this morning. He actually bought me a doughnut."

  "He came around to my place for dinner, that's all. Maybe I reminded him what it's like to be a normal human being."

  "Mickey? I doubt it."

  An usher opened the door of Court Number 3 for her, and she slipped into one of the seats at the back. Mickey was sitting behind the assistant district attorney and doodling on his notepad while Elliot Joseph's court-appointed lawyer made a windy application for bail.

  "This man has been the victim since childhood of relentless discrimination and pernicious ethnic prejudice that would have broken anybody's spirit. Day after day, week after week, year after year, he was treated as a misfit and an outcast in the land which once used to belong to his natural ancestors. Is it any surprise that he was brought to the point of madness-a point where he lashed out blindly at what he had understandably grown to believe was an evil spirit that had made his entire life purposeless and utterly miserable, and now seemed to be threatening to do the same to his only son?"

  As Holly made her way to the front of the court, Elliot Joseph turned his head around to see who it was. He was wearing bright orange prison coveralls. His greasy gray hair was sticking up wildly, both of his eyes looked like split-open eggplants, and his mouth was puffed up. All the same, he managed a grotesque grin and stared at her all the way to her seat.

  "How's it going?" Mickey mouthed as she sat down beside him.

  "Fine. Judge Yelland made the welfare order."

  "Any news about the kid?"

  "Critical but reasonably stable. They're worried about his left eye, though. Detached retina."

  "I should have hit that bastard harder."

  Holly glanced across at Mickey's notepad. He had sketched a mountain with thunderclouds around it, and dozens of pine trees with little stick people running around them.

  "What's that?"

  He flipped the notepad face down, as if he were embarrassed by it. "Nothing. Just dreaming of a little R & R."

  "I'll catch up with you tomorrow afternoon," she said. "What time do you want me down at the Compass?"

  "Make it three-thirty if you can. I'll meet you outside, in my car."

  Elliot Joseph's lawyer finished making his application for bail and sat down. The presiding judge, Walter Boynton, was a mild, sniffy man with huge ears and white hair. He reminded her of Ray Walston, the TV actor who used to star inMy Favorite Martian. He blew his nose with a large white handkerchief and made a long job of wiping it from side to side. Then he said, "Bail denied. The defendant will be kept in custody in the North County Correctional Facility until such time as a trial date can be arranged."

  Holly looked over at Elliot Joseph. He was saying something, but because his lips were so swollen, it was very difficult for her to tell what it was. But there was no doubt that he was saying it toher. He was staring directly at her and he was rhythmically jerking his head in her direction to emphasize what he was saying.

  "-make sure it comes after you-however fast you run, you deaf bitch, wherever you hide-it's going to come after you-and it's going to tear you into pieces, I swear it on my boy's life-"

  Holly raised her hand against her face so that she couldn't see him. "Something wrong?" said Mickey.

  "No . I think this whole Daniel Joseph case hasupset me, that's all."

  He took hold of her hand and gave it a consoling squeeze. "Don't you worry. You thinkIwas hard on that scumbag? You wait till he gets into jail. The cons have a special welcome for guys who beat up on little kids. A live-rat enema. Ahungrylive-rat enema."

  "Mickey-"

  "Sorry, sorry. Look, I'll see you tomorrow."

  As Holly left the courtroom, Elliot Joseph was shuffling in his shackles back to the cells. She glanced back at him only once, but before he was jostled through the door she could see that he was mouthing the single wordRavenat her, over and over.Raven Raven Raven and with everyRavenhe was shaking his head at her in the way that a shaman shakes his medicine stick.

  The Various Shapes of Fear

  Holly and George rode a streetcar back to their offices. It was so crowded that they had to stand in the aisle, hanging onto the straps, and Holly was almost suffocated by a man standing next to her in a woolly bobble hat and a huge blue puffa jacket. The morning was so gloomy that it was difficult to believe it wasn't even 11:30 yet. The temperature had dropped, too, like a stone down a well. George said, "Feels like the end of the world, doesn't it?"

  Holly said, "Tell me about Raven."

  "Raven?Any particular reason?"

  "I'm trying to understand why Elliot did what he did."

  George shrugged. "Well, if hedidthink that Daniel was possessed by Raven, he would have blamed the poor kid for everything that went wrong in his life. Like I said, Raven is a scavenger who takes away people's luck. He takes it piece by piece. First your livelihood, then your home, then your loved ones, and last of all your happiness. Then, when you don't have any luck left, he takesyou,and rips you apart, and feeds off your utter hopelessness.

  "There are dozens of stories about Raven-hundreds-but in every one it's human misery that gets his juices flowing."

  "You said he takes different shapes."

  "That's right." George ducked his head so that he could see where they were. "He usually looks like a big black bird. Sometimes he doesn't have a beak, because there's
some story about him turning into a man and trying to steal a fish from some fishermen, only the fishermen were too strong for him and pulled his jaw off. But most times he appears as someone you know even someone you really like. Other times he's nothing but a shadow, or a cat, or a dog. Or even something inanimate, like a chair."

  "Can anybody send him after you? I mean, if somebody really didn't like you and they wanted you to lose all of your luck, could they ask Raven to do that?"

  George smiled. "That's a strange question."

  "I'm interested, that's all."

  "You got anybody specific in mind? Not that Lutz guy you were telling me about, the one in Accounts? The guy who keeps coming up to you at the water-cooler and breathing onion-ring breath all over you?"

  Holly gave him a wan smile. "Oh, no. I wasn't thinking of trying it myself. I just wondered if that was part of the legend you know, that somebody could send Raven looking for somebody else, to get their revenge or something?"

  "This is my stop. I can talk to you later if you like."

  "No, I'll come with you. I can walk the rest of the way."

  They stepped down from the streetcar, which rang its bell, closed its double doors, and hummed off northward toward the Pearl District, although to Holly it glided away in utter silence. The wind was growing blustery, so that the signs outside the coffeehouses and bookstores started to swing, and Holly had to tug down her black beret and button her long black trench coat up to the neck.

  George linked arms with her. "So far as I know, the only time that you can ask Raven to do you a favor is if you see through one of his disguises and catch him before he can change back into a bird and fly away."

  "Like Elliot Joseph did with Daniel?"

  "That's right."

  "So Elliot Joseph could send Raven looking for one of us?"

  "According to the legends, yes. But- Hey, what is this? It's only a story."

  Holly stopped. On the opposite side of the street, parked outside the Bellman Bookstore, was a silver Porsche Spyder with its convertible top down. She stared at it for so long that George nudged her arm.

  "What's the matter? I've been trying to talk to you and you haven't been looking."

  "I'm sorry. It's nothing. I'm sorry. Look, why don't we meet up tomorrow morning and talk about this interface idea?"

  "Okay I'll check my diary and give you a call. You take care of yourself; you look like you could use a strong cup of coffee."

  Holly stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. "Talk to you later, okay?" George disappeared through the reflecting glass doors of his office building, almost like a stage magician, but Holly stayed where she was, still staring at the Porsche. It was the same model, same year, same color, that James Dean had been driving when he was killed in California in 1955. James Dean had been David's hero, and David had owned a Porsche almost exactly like it. And died in it too.

  Now here it was, parked on Salmon Street, outside David's favorite bookstore, as if all the pages of the calendar had flurried back six and a half years, and David was still alive and still inside the store, browsing through the movie section.

  Don't Look Behind You

  She crossed the street and peered in through the bookstore window, shading her eyes with her hand, but it was too dark inside for her to be able to make out anything but occasionally shifting shadows. She turned back to the car. Seeing it parked there made her feel as if she had stepped up to her neck in icy-cold water. Only ninety models had been made, and of those only seventy-eight had been sold to the public, so the odds were that this was actually David's car, repaired and resprayed. A large cellophane-wrapped bouquet of yellow roses lay on the backseat.

  She had hated this car. David had bought it out of a legacy from his aunt from Forest Grove. They could have used the money for a house, but when David heard the Porsche was up for auction he immediately put in a bid for it. He drove everywhere with the engine bellowing and the tires screaming like the Hallelujah Chorus. "You know, Jimmy said there were only two speeds in the Little Bastard: dead stop andbanzai!"The way David used to talk about "Jimmy," you would have thought that James Dean had been his lifelong buddy.

  Holly had agreed to take a ride in the Porsche only once. Even when she first climbed into it she felt as if she were sitting in her own coffin. David had grinned at her. He hadn't realized that he was sitting in his.

  She hesitated briefly, and then she pushed open the door of the bookstore and stepped inside. She still couldn't catch her breath. The store was lined from floor to ceiling with secondhand books on every subject from fly-fishing to feng shui, and stacks of old magazines likeLifeandThe Saturday Evening Post. The only light came from a row of windows at the rear of the shop, which were glazed with amber and yellow orchids.

  There was thesmell,too, of thousands of books whose former owners had no longer wanted. A sour and unhealthy smell, like that of a dayroom in a retirement home.

  Holly walked cautiously along one of the aisles. A tall young man was standing at the very end, reading. He was silhouetted against the windows, so it was impossible for her to make out his face. But he was wearing a dark green Burberry, like David's, and his fringe brushed forward the way that David's had been. And as she came closer, she could see that he was standing in front of the movie section.

  She had seen David dead. She knew beyond any question at all that he was dead. Yet, why was she walking toward this man half-expecting him to be David, returned from the grave as if he hadn't driven under a flatbed trailer at more than seventy miles per hour?

  She remembered him lying in his white silk-lined casket, his shirt collar fastened up much higher than he normally wore it because his head had been ripped off. The mortician said it was a blessing that he had looked away at the very last second before impact because otherwise they would have had to opt for a closed casket.

  Holly came closer to the man and stood looking at him from only three feet away. She still couldn't be sure if he was David or not. But then the sun began to come out, and the light in the amber-and-yellow windows gradually grew brighter, and the man became aware that she was looking at him.

  "Can I help you?" he said, and of course he wasn't David at all. He had shaving-brush eyebrows and close-set eyes and a little clipped mustache.

  "I, uh-I was trying to find a book on James Dean."

  "I'm sorry, I don't work here. Maybe you should ask at the desk."

  "Oh. Yes. Sorry."

  He went back to his reading but Holly stayed close beside him. Eventually he looked up again and said, "Thedesk. It's right by the front door."

  "Yes, I'm sorry. But do you mind if I ask you something?"

  "Okay," he said suspiciously.

  "That Porsche parked outside-is that yours?"

  "Porsche? I don't even own a car. I'm a dedicated cyclist."

  "Oh. Okay, sorry. I'll, uh, go to the desk."

  "Okay."

  A big bespectacled woman was sitting at the cluttered counter, sticking discounted price labels into a stack of encyclopedias. She wore a hand-knitted sweater in browns and purples, and her hair looked as if somebody had killed a struggling raccoon with knitting needles.

  "Are you interested in something in particular, dear?" she asked. Holly could immediately detect that her accent wasn't Portland, more like Maryland or northern Virginia. It was the prissy, mannered way she saidpahtickle-uh.

  "No, sorry. I wasn't looking for a book. I thought I saw someone I knew."

  The woman took off her spectacles and frowned at her. "Are you allright?"she asked.

  "I'm fine . It's just that I saw that Porsche parked outside and it's kind of a rare car and someone I knew used to own one."

  The woman looked toward the door. The Porsche was gone. The only sign that it had been there at all was a dry rectangle on the street with streaks of rain running across it.

  "Something's concerning you, isn't it, dear?" the woman said. "My nose always tells me when folks are feeling disquieted," and she tap
ped it by way of emphasis.

  "I've had a difficult morning, that's all."

  "You're not alone, though. You do realize that?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean exactly that. You're not alone. There's something following you, dear. Something behind you."

  Holly glanced around, but the woman touched her hand and said, "Don't do that. The thing that's following you, it's bad fortune, and you never want to turn around and look bad fortune in the eye-never."

  "I really don't know what you're talking about."

  "You don't? I think that maybe you do. I come from a long line of mothers and daughters who could tell when trouble was afoot. There's blood on the moon, that's what my mother used to say. And I can see that with you. I can see that as surely as if a black shadow was standing close behind you."