The Arms of Kali td-59 Read online

  A. H. Baynes stood on the raised platform next to the statue of Kali and looked out over the crowd in the ashram. It seemed as if every square foot of floor space was filled. The goddess was attracting new followers every day, and he felt proud of himself for the part he had played.

  "Brothers and sisters in Kali," he intoned, "I am your new chief phansigar."

  "Kill for Kali," someone murmured softly.

  "That's right," Baynes said. "And She has provided us the means."

  He waved the sheaf of airline tickets over his head. "This is a whole planeful of tickets for Air Europa, going to Paris," he said. "A whole planeful. Kali provided. "

  "She always provides," said Holly Rodan.

  "She loves it," someone else said.

  "This is how we're going to use them," Baynes said. "Europa's got two planes leaving for Paris, just an hour apart. These tickets are for the first plane. All of you are going to fill up that plane and go over there, and then when the second plane lands, you're each going to latch on to somebody from that plane and do Kali's work. I don't want anybody who was on that second plane to be coming back to the United States," Baynes said. "Not one. That was what She meant when She gave us a full planeload of tickets."

  "She is wise," murmured someone in the front row.

  "So is our chief phansigar," someone else said, and for a moment they all chanted, "Hail our chief phansigar," until Baynes blushed and stopped them with a wave of his hand.

  "We only reflect Her glory," he said, and then bowed his head as the wave upon wave of chants filled the room.

  "Kill for Kali."

  When the excitement had reached a fever pitch, Baynes tossed the batch of plane tickets out among the faithful, and a jubilant roar rushed from the throats of the disciples.

  Baynes picked out his son among the crowd. The boy was standing with his arms folded, his Europa ticket held between thumb and forefinger. Baynes winked and the boy responded with a knowing nod.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The devotees had gone and the ashram's door was locked. Outside on the street, horns blared and people were singing. It was ten o'clock in the morning and drunks were already shouting to one another in the street.

  "Sardine! Sardine!" bellowed A. H. Baynes. "You get your fat ass in here."

  Ban Sar Din stepped into his former office from his current home in the garage.

  "What the hell is that racket out there?" Baynes demanded.

  "It is Saturday. People in this city celebrate many strange things. Today they celebrate Saturday."

  "How the hell do they expect a man to get any work done?" Baynes said.

  They stopped talking as they heard an insistent rapping at the front door.

  "Why don't you go answer that?" Baynes said, and Ban Sar Din returned a few minutes later holding a brown envelope.

  "Messenger," he said. "It is for me. It is addressed to the leader of the ashram."

  "Hand it over," Baynes said. He tore the envelope from the Indian's hand.

  "Why are you so belligerent today,. Mr. Baynes?" asked Ban Sar Din.

  "Because I'm wondering about you," Baynes said. "I just don't know how devoted you are to Kaii, and I think maybe you're just in this for the money."

  "It is not so," Ban Sar Din said stiffly. "I will have you know that I was worshiping Kali when you were decorating Christmas trees in your home."

  "We'll see," Baynes said. "We'll see."

  When Ban Sar Din left the office, Baynes opened the envelope and found a typewritten message:

  Meet me at the Orleans Cafe at three o'clock. You will recognize me. The meeting will benefit you greatly.

  The note was not signed, and Baynes said, "Usual nut," and tossed the paper away. He kept working all morning, but he was unable to totally forget the note. Something kept pulling his mind back to it, something subtle yet powerful. Several hours later he picked it out of the wastebasket and studied it.

  The paper was of high quality, densely woven and difficult to tear, and its edges were lined with gold. But Baynes realized that that was not what had attracted him. It was something else.

  Experimentally he held the letter to his nose. A sickly-sweet aroma, faint but compelling, held him suspended out of time for a moment. He clutched the letter tightly and ran into the empty sanctuary and pressed his face against the statue of Kali. It was there too. The same smell. He checked his watch. It was 2:51.

  The streets of New Orleans looked like a dress rehearsal for Mardi Gras, and the Orleans Cafe was crowded with people in garish costumes. You will recognize me, the message had read. Baynes searched the clientele, which seemed made up mostly of large hairy men dressed as women.

  He noticed a lean young transvestite wearing Dracula makeup eyeing him steadily.

  "Do you know me?" Baynes asked.

  "Depends," the creature said. "You into getting your tongue tattooed?"

  Baynes slipped away and had almost reached the door when he saw someone sitting alone near a window. The someone was covered from head to foot in a costume of stone gray. Its head was adorned by a cap of rhinestones. Its face was a garish painted mask. It had eight arms.

  "Of course," Baynes said. "Kali."

  The person at the table nodded to him, and one of the hands, covered by thick gray gloves, beckoned to him. He sat down across from the uncanny replica of the statue.

  "I knew it would be you who came," the person in the costume whispered. There was no hint of gender in the voice, no characteristics to mark it as male or female.

  "How did you know?" Baynes asked. He had to lean forward to hear the answer.

  "Because you are the true leader of the cult of the Thuggees. You control the members. You may do as you wish."

  Baynes sat back and asked, "What do you want?"

  "Kali," the statue whispered.

  "Sorry. The statue's not for sale." He began to rise.

  "One million dollars."

  He sat back down. "Why so much?"

  "That is my offer."

  "How do I know I can trust you? I haven't even seen your face. I don't know if you're a man or a woman."

  "You will learn in time. And to trust me, you need only test me."

  "Test you? How?"

  The statue took a pen and wrote a telephone number on a cocktail napkin. "Memorize this," it whispered. As Baynes looked at the number, the person said, "Call anytime. One favor. Anything. It is yours." Then the statue burned the napkin over a candle on the table, stood up, and left.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Numbers 129 and 130.

  Mr. Dirk Johnson of Alameda, Illinois, squeezed his wife's hand as they stepped off the Europa L-1011 jetliner into the futuristic grandeur of Charles de Gaulle Airport.

  "This'll make up for the honeymoon we never had," he said, smiling proudly. "I bet your daddy would never have believed we'd be standing here in Paris, France, one day," Johnson said.

  "I always knew you better than he did," Mrs. Johnson said, pecking him on the cheek. "Isn't the hotel supposed to send a bus to pick us up or something?"

  "Excuse me," a bright-eyed young woman interrupted. "If you need a ride, my friends and I are going right into the city. Can we give you a lift?"

  "Now, isn't that nice, Dirk?" Mrs. Johnson said. "You know, well, it's really nice." She wanted to say a lot of things about there being so many nice young people today who contradicted the rebel-teenager stereotype, but she thought she might sound gushy.

  "We'd be obliged, miss," Johnson said.

  "I don't see the hotel bus anywhere."

  "Believe me, it'll be our pleasure," the young woman said brightly. "Here's our car."

  Mrs. Johnson noticed the twisted yellow handkerchiefs around the necks of the clean, good-looking young folks. "Don't you look nice," she said. "Are you students?"

  "More like a club," the young woman said as the automatic door locks clicked the car's doors shut. "These rumals are our insignia."

  "Isn't that sweet? K
ind of like the Scouts."

  "We'd like you both to have one," the girl said.

  "Oh, no. We couldn't-"

  "Please. It'll make our day. Here, just slip it around your neck. You, too. . . ."

  Number 131, 132, and 133.

  Samantha Hall and Roderick Van Cleef explained to the chauffeur that if he couldn't do his job, he could find another.

  "But the car was running perfectly just minutes ago," the French driver said, with a touch of that French arrogance that wonders what it is doing even talking to lesser people, much less apologizing to them.

  "Well, that obviously isn't the case now," Samantha drawled, spinning her Oscar de la Renta cape dramatically about her shoulders.

  "What a bore," Roderick said with a sigh.

  "It's all your fault, Roddy. If we had flown the Concorde . . ."

  "What's that got to do with this? Besides, the Concorde's as uncomfortable as ballet shoes."

  "We could have chartered a plane, then," Samantha said.

  "For a bloody weekend?"

  "My last lover did," Samantha said.

  "Your last lover was too fat to fit into the seat of a commercial jet."

  "She was not," Samantha said. "And anyway-"

  "Pardon me, but I see you're having some car trouble," said a young man with a yellow handkerchief in his pocket. "May I give you a lift?"

  "Roddy, have this person arrested," Samantha snapped.

  "Why? He's offering us a ride."

  "In a Chevrolet," Samantha hissed. "And he's wearing polyester. You don't want me seen with someone in a polyester jacket, do you?"

  "Frankly, I wouldn't give a damn if he were wearing fig leaves. Look at the taxi line."

  "Actually, the car's quite comfortable," the eager young man said with an engaging grin.

  Samantha heaved a great sigh. "All right. My weekend's already ruined anyway. I might as well turn it into a total fiasco. Bring on the Chevrolet."

  She stepped haughtily toward the blue American sedan. Another young man smiled at her from the front seat. He was holding a yellow handkerchief in his hands.

  "You can come too," the young man told the French chauffeur.

  "I will not ride with a paid laborer," Samantha screeched.

  "It'll be all right," the young man said soothingly. "He can ride in the front seat with us. And the trip will be over in no time at all."

  Number 134.

  Miles Patterson sat in the airport bar sipping a martini, his well-worn leather bag at his feet. He had been flying internationally for twenty-five years and he had found that a couple of stiff drinks immediately after a long flight helped eliminate jet lag. Let others scurry through corridors dragging their bundles and bags and kiddies and then wait interminably at the baggage claim and then again for a cab ride. Miles Patterson prefered to blot up two martinis in silent ecstasy, until Paris looked like a warm and friendly place.

  "Do you mind if I sit next to you?" a young pretty girl asked as Miles was nearing the end of his second martini. She was less than twenty years old and had Brooke Shields's hair and melon breasts. Paris had never before seemed so warm and friendly.

  He shook his head and the girl asked shyly, "Are you visiting?"

  Miles stared, stupefied for a moment, before dragging himself back to reality. "Uh, no. Business. I'm a jewelry merchant. I make this trip six, eight times a year. "

  "Goodness," the girl said, looking down at the leather bag. "If those are your samples, you'd better be really careful."

  "No, no," Patterson said, smiling. "The samples are on me. Big security risk, you know. I have a hell of a time getting through customs."

  The girl laughed as if he'd said the funniest words ever uttered. "It's so nice to meet another American," she gushed. "Sometimes I get so . . . I don't know, hungry ... for men like you."

  "Hungry?" Miles Patterson said, feeling the olives from the martinis tumbling around inside his stomach.

  "Um," the girl said. She licked her lips.

  "Where are you staying?" he asked quickly.

  The girl leaned close and whispered. "Very near here," she said. "We can walk there. Right through a field of deep grass." Her chest rose and fell.

  "What a coincidence," he said. "I've just been thinking that what I need most right now is a good brisk walk." He tried to laugh. She brushed her breasts against him as she stood up. A yellow handkerchief dangled from her belt.

  "You lead the way," he said.

  "Oh, I will," the girl said. "I will." As they left the airport, she took the handkerchief from her belt and stretched it taut between her hands.

  Mrs. Evelyn Baynes was not wearing a sari. Not today. Not in Paris. She was wearing the latest Karl Lagerfeld walking suit in mauve and her hair had been done by Cinandre in New York. She was wearing the most uncomfortable Charles Jourdan shoes that money could buy and she felt terrific for the first time in weeks.

  "Hurry up," she said, prodding her two children toward the portly couple waiting at the baggage claim area. "Joshua, take Kimberly's hand. And smile. This is the first time we've been out of that pit in God knows how long."

  "The ashram is not a pit," Joshua said hotly.

  "And I don't like Mrs. Palmer," Kimberly balked. "She always tries to kiss me. Can I kill her, Joshua?"

  "Sure, kid," the boy said. "Just wait for me to give you the signal,"

  Evelyn Baynes beamed. "That's using psychology, Joshua," she said. "You'll be a fine leader someday."

  "Someday I will be chief phansigar," the boy said.

  "Now, I don't want to hear another word about that god-awful place. We've got a whole week in Paris to be civilized again." She squealed as she embraced Mrs. Palmer. "My, Emmie, the extra weight agrees with you," she said.

  "You've simply withered away to nothing, dear," Mrs. Palmer cooed back. "Have you been ill? Oh, no. That's right. You've been living with some religious cultists or something, haven't you?"

  "Now, Emmie," Herb Palmer broke in.

  "Well, it is the talk of the neighborhood, dear, The Madisons have already moved out."

  "Emmie . . ."

  "It's all right," Mrs. Baynes said, flushing violently, "Actually, the ashram's the latest. All the rage among the 'in' Europeans."

  "You called it a pit, Mommy," Kimberly Baynes said.

  "Where's the car?" shouted Mrs. Baynes.

  "Coming around the corner."

  The black driver smiled and touched his fingers to his cap as they climbed into the car. Joshua helped Mrs. Palmer and his mother and sister inside. He started to get in, then hesitated. "I have to go to the bathroom," he said.

  "Oh, Joshua. Not now. It's not far to the city," his mother said.

  "I said I have to go. Now."

  Mrs. Baynes sighed. "All right. I'll go with you."

  "I want him to take me." He pointed to the black driver.

  "No problem," Herb Palmer said. "Go ahead. I'll just drive around the block and wait for you both." When he had circumnavigated the block twice, Joshua was waiting at the curb alone. "Your driver quit," he said as he got into the car.

  "What?"

  "He met some woman inside the airport. They told me to get lost and then they went away together. They said they'd never be back."

  "Well, I never . . ." Mrs. Palmer said.

  "We'll see what the company has to say about that," Palmer said through clenched teeth.

  "You poor brave little boy," Mrs. Baynes said, clutching Joshua to her breast.

  They drove away before the body of the black man was discovered in the men's room and the screaming began. Number 135.

  Numbers 136, 137, and 138.

  "We want to go to the Bois de Boulogne, Mother," Joshua said.

  "Don't be silly, dear. We're going straight to the Georges Cinq."

  "But it's special," chimed in Kimberly.

  "Yes. Special. We read about a special place in a book. Kimmy and I wrote a special poem to recite to you there. The three of you. It has to
be now."

  "Hey, why not?" Herb Palmer said. "We're all on vacation. Forget schedules."

  "Such sweet children, Evelyn," said Mrs. Palmer. They stopped by a swamp on the northern end of a swan lake.

  "But don't you think it's nicer over there, children?" Mrs. Baynes suggested. "Near the birds, where the people are?"

  "No. It has to be here," Joshua said stubbornly. "Oh, very well. Let's hear your poem, darlings."

  "Outside," Herb Palmer said. "Poetry needs sun and sky and water and fresh air."

  The adults all moved out and sat on the bank that ran down to the brackish water and looked out at the swans far away.

  "The poem," Herb Palmer said. "Let's hear the poem."

  Joshua smiled. Kimberly smiled. They pulled yellow handkerchiefs from their pockets.

  Mrs. Baynes said, "Those look familiar. Did you bring them from that ... that place?"

  "Yes, Mother," Kimberly said. "You all three have to wear them."

  "No," Mr. Palmer said laughingly. "The poem first."

  "For luck," Joshua insisted.

  "Please," Kimberly pleaded. "Josh even has an extra one for you, Mother."

  The children slipped the kerchiefs around the necks of the three adults.

  "And now the poem," Joshua announced to the backs of the three adults.

  "Is that the signal?" Kimberly whispered to him.

  "That's the signal."

  She jumped up behind Mr. Palmer, and as they chanted, "Kill for Kali, Kill for Kali," they pulled the yellow rumals around the Palmers' necks.

  "Kill for Kali. She loves it. Kill, kill, kill."

  Mrs. Baynes was watching the swans. Without turning, she said, "That's a strange poem. It doesn't even rhyme. Is that what they call free verse? Or blank verse?"

  "Kill, kill, kill."

  The Palmers' eyes bulged. Mrs. Palmer's tongue lolled out of her mouth, violet and swollen. Herb Palmer struggled to free himself but the metal clasp on the rumal around his fleshy neck held tight.

  "I don't think the Palmers are enjoying your poem, children," Mrs. Baynes said acidly, still without turning.