Free Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll

idea. I was grateful that neither of my friends had suggested I had the wrong store—or that I’d made the whole thing up; I wasn’t going to impose on their credulity any further by talking about supernatural weather or dybbuks or the blue symbols I’d hallucinated inside the silver box. “How could Dee really have set up such an elaborate scheme on such short notice?”
    “Clearly he was organized enough to vacate his store and make it look like it hadn’t been used in years,” Becky said. “I say you’re dealing with a clever mastermind.”
    “An evil genius!” Jay added in an ominous low voice.
    “Thank you, Orson Welles.” Becky swatted Jay with a dishtowel. “You have to give Detective Kiernan John Dee’s name and the address of the store. Maybe he’s a known con man.”
    “Sure. I’ll just tell him that the baker at Puck’s told me that John Dee, Elizabethan alchemist, who resides at 121½ Cordelia Street, an abandoned storefront, has our Pissarros. I’m sure he’ll drop the investigation of my father immediately.”
    As Becky and Jay exchanged a look, I was sorry I’d let myself sound as bitter and discouraged as I felt. Especially around Jay. I knew he picked up on people’s unhappiness and took it on himself.
    “You need some rest, James,” Becky said. “We’ll stay and keep you company. You shouldn’t be alone here. What if those thugs come back?”
    “No way! You have that gig at Irving Plaza tonight, which—shit!” I looked at the clock over the stove and got to my feet. “Which you’re going to be late for. And I have to get back to the hospital to check on Roman. I promise I’ll be fine.”
    Becky looked as if she were going to launch into a speech, but Jay silenced her with a look—no mean feat. “We’ll walk you to St. Vincent’s then,” he said. “And we’ll come back here after the last set. It’s easier than hauling the equipment back to Williamsburg anyway.”
    I couldn’t argue with Jay’s plan. The truth was I didn’t relish the idea of being alone in the town house with the thought that those hollow-eyed men might come back.

Jaws
     
    My father was sleeping when I checked in on him at St. Vincent’s, and my favorite nurse—whose first name, I learned, was Obie—assured me that he was doing fine. “Don’t you worry; I’ll watch out for him tonight. You hurry on home.” He glanced out the window beside my father’s bed. “Looks like some weather’s coming up from the south.”
    Obie Smith was right. A cold, needle-sharp rain was falling when I left the hospital. I turned my coat collar up and bowed my head, wishing I’d brought a hat or an umbrella. But the air had been dry and crisp when I’d left the house. On the corner of Seventh Avenue and Twelfth Street I looked north toward midtown. The lights of the avenue shone clear white against a cobalt sky. But when I looked south, I couldn’t make out the opposite street corner for the fog. It was as if the southern tip of Manhattan had been swallowed by a cloud.
    Weird weather, I thought crossing the avenue, perhaps another sign of global warming. But it wasn’t anything to get nervous about. There were plenty of people on Greenwich Avenue walking toward me . . .
    I stopped on the corner of Jane and looked around me.
All
the pedestrians on Greenwich were walking toward Seventh Avenue,
none
were walking toward Eighth. Could there be a parade or an event I didn’t know about? But what parade fell in the middle of December? Maybe they were all heading over to Irving Plaza to hear London Dispersion Force, I thought, determined to think
positively
.
    The fog was worse on Jane Street: a viscous clot of curdled cream, tinged yellow and faintly redolent of rotten eggs, sort of the same odor the shadowmen had given off.
This
couldn’t be freak weather—it had to be a water-main break or a gas leak. Maybe I should go back . . . but back where? I was exhausted. All I wanted was to be in my own home in