I sipped my tea. It tasted like fermenting peaches. "My brother knew a girl named Krusemark when he was at Princeton," I said. "She went to Wellesley and told him his fortune at a prom."

"That would have been my sister, Margaret," she said. "I'm Millicent. We're twins. She's the black witch in the family; I'm the white one."

I felt like a man waking from a dream of riches, his golden treasure melting like mist between his fingers. "Does your sister live here in New York?" I asked, keeping up the banter. I already knew the answer.

"God, no. Maggie moved to Paris over ten years ago. Haven't seen her in an age. What's your brother's name?"

The entire charade hung limply over me like the skin of a deflated balloon. "Jack," I said.

"I don't remember Maggie ever mentioning a Jack. Of course, there were so many young men in her life in those days. I need for you to answer some questions." She reached for a leather pad and pencil set on the table. "So I can do your chart."

"Fire away." I flipped a cigarette from the pack and stuck it in my mouth.

Millicent Krusemark waved her hand in front of her face like a woman drying her nails. "Please don't. I'm allergic to smoke."

"Sure." I tucked the butt back behind my ear.

"You were born on June 2, 1920," she said. "There's quite a bit I know about you from that fact alone."

"Tell me all about myself."

Millicent Krusemark fixed me with her feline stare. "I know that you're a natural actor," she said. "Playing roles comes easily. You switch identities with the instinctive facility of a chameleon changing color. Although you are deeply concerned with discovering the truth, lies flow from your lips without hesitation."

"Pretty good. Go on."

"Your role-playing ability has a darker side and presents a problem when you confront the dual nature of your personality. I would say that you were frequently the victim of doubt. 'How could I have done such a thing?' is your most constant worry. Cruelty comes easily to you, yet you find it inconceivable that you are so gifted at hurting others. On one hand you are methodical and tenacious, but by contrast you place great stock in intuition." She smiled. "When it comes to women, you prefer them young and dark."

"A-plus," I said. "You were right on the money." And she was. She had it down pat. An analyst who could probe such secrets would be worth the twenty-five-bucks-an-hour couch fare. Only one problem: wrong birthday; she was telling my fortune with Johnny Favorite's vital statistics. "Do you know where I can meet some dark, young women?"

"I'll be able to tell a great deal more once I have what I need." The white witch scribbled on her notepad. "I can't guarantee the girl of your dreams, but I can be more specific. Here, I'm jotting down star positions for the month so I can see how they'll affect your chart. Not yours really, that boy I mentioned. Your horoscopes are undoubtedly similar."

"I'm game."

Millicent Krusemark frowned, studying her notes. "This is a period of great danger. You have been involved in a death quite recently, within a week at least. The deceased was not someone you knew well; nevertheless, you are deeply troubled by his passing. The medical profession is involved. Perhaps you will soon be in a hospital yourself; the unfavorable aspects are very strong. Beware of strangers."

I stared at this odd woman in black and felt invisible fear-tentacles encircle my heart. How did she know so much? My mouth was dry, my lips stuck as I spoke: "What's that ornament around your neck?"

"This?" The woman's hand paused at her throat like a bird resting in flight. "Just a pentacle. Brings good luck."

Dr. Fowler's pentacle didn't bring him much luck, but then he wasn't wearing it when he died. Or did someone take the ring after killing the old man?

"I need additional information," Millicent Krusemark said, her filigreed gold pencil poised like a dart. "When and where was your fiancee born. I need the exact hour and location. So I can determine longitude and latitude. Also, you haven't told me where you were born."

I ad-libbed some phony dates and places and made the ritual gesture of glancing at my wristwatch before placing my cup on the table. We rose together, as if on a lift. "Thanks for the tea."

She showed me to the door and said the charts would be ready next week. I said I'd call, and we shook hands with the mechanical formality of clockwork soldiers.

TWELVE.

I found the cigarette behind my ear on the way down in the elevator and lit it as soon as I hit the street. The March wind felt cleansing. There was almost an hour before my meeting with Vernon Hyde, and I walked slowly down Seventh trying to make sense out of the nameless fear that seized me back in the astrologer's bosky apartment. I knew it had to be a con, verbal slight of hand, like encyclopedia salesmanship. Beware of strangers. That was the sort of bullshit you got for a penny along with your weight. She suckered me with her oracle's voice and hypnotic eyes.

Fifty-second Street looked down-at-the-heels. Two blocks east, "21" preserved elegant speakeasy memories, but a fantan chorus line of strip joints had replaced most of the jazz clubs. With the Onyx Club gone, only Birdland kept the temple fires of bop burning over on Broadway. The Famous Door had closed forever. Jimmy Ryan's and the Hickory House were the only survivors on a street whose brownstones housed more than fifty blind pigs during Prohibition.

I walked east, past Chinese restaurants and petulant whores with zippered leatherette hatboxes. Don Shirley's trio was on deck at the Hickory House, but the music didn't start until hours later and the bar was quiet and dim when I entered.

I ordered a whisky sour and settled by a table where I could watch the door. Two drinks later, I spotted a guy carrying a saxophone case. He wore a brown suede windbreaker over a cream-colored Irish-knit turtleneck. His hair was salt-and-pepper gray and cut short. I waved and he came over.

"Vernon Hyde?"

"That's me," he said through a twisted grin.

"Park your axe and have a drink."

"Solid." He placed his saxophone case carefully on the table and pulled up a chair. "So you're a writer. What kind of thing is it you write?"

"Magazine work mostly," I said. "Profiles, personality pieces."

The waitress came over and Hyde ordered a bottle of Heineken's. We made small talk until she brought the beer and poured it into a tall glass. Hyde took a long sip and got down to business. "So you want to write about the Spider Simpson band. Well, you picked the right street. If cement could talk, that sidewalk'd tell you my life story."

I said: "Look. I don't want to lead you on. The story will mention the band, but I'm mainly interested in hearing about Johnny Favorite."

Vernon Hyde's smile twisted so far it became a frown. "Him? What'd you want to write about that prick for?"

"I take it he wasn't a pal of yours?"

"Besides, who remembers Johnny Favorite anymore?"

"An editor at Look remembers him well enough to have suggested the story. And your own memories seem sufficiently strong. What was he like?"

"The guy was a bastard. What he did to Spider was lower than Benedict Arnold's jockstrap."

"What did he do?"

"You got to understand that Spider discovered him, picked him up from some nowhere beer hall in the sticks."

"I know about that."

"Favorite owed Spider plenty. He was getting a percentage of the gate, too, not just a salary like the rest of the band, so I can't see that he had any complaints. His contract with Spider still had four years to run when he split. We had some heavy bookings canceled because of that little fade."

I got out my notebook and mechanical pencil and pretended to take notes. "Has he ever been in touch with any of the old Simpson sidemen?"

"Do ghosts walk?"

"Sorry?"

"The cat's croaked, man. Got bumped in the war."

"Is that right?" I said. "I heard he was in a hospital upstate."

"Could be, but I think I remember he was dead."

"I was told he was superstitious. Do you remember anything about that?"

Vernon Hyde smiled his bent smile again. "Yeah, he was always off in search of seances and crystal balls. Once, on the road, I think it was Cincy, we hired the hotel whore to make like she was a palm reader. She told him he was gonna get the clap, and he didn't so much as look at any frail until the end of the tour."

"He had a high-society girlfriend who was a fortuneteller, didn't he?"

"Yeah, something like that. I never met the chick. Johnny and I were on different orbits at the time."

"Spider Simpson's orchestra was segregated when Favorite sang with you, right?"

"We were all ofays, yeah. I think there was a Cuban on vibes one year." Vernon Hyde finished his beer. "Duke Ellington didn't break the color line back then either, you know."

"True." I scribbled in the notebook. "Getting together after hours must have been another story."

Hyde's smile lost most of its crookedness at the memory of those smoky rooms. "When Basic's band was in town, a bunch of us would get together and jam all night."

"Did Favorite make those sessions?"

"Nope. Johnny didn't care for spades. After a gig, the only black people he wanted to see were the maids in Park Avenue penthouses."

"Interesting. I thought Favorite was a friend of Toots Sweet."

"He might of asked him to shine his shoes one time. I'm telling you, Johnny Favorite had a thing about spades. I remember him saying Georgie Auld was a better tenor man than Lester Young. Imagine that!"

I said it was beyond comprehension.

"He thought they were bad luck."

"Tenor players?"

"Spades, man. To Johnny they were like black cats, no pun intended."

I asked him if Johnny Favorite had been close to anyone in the band.

"I don't think Johnny had a friend in the world," Vernon Hyde said. "And you can quote me if you like. He was a loner. Kept to himself most of the time. Oh, he'd joke with you and always had a big smile on his face, but it didn't mean a thing. Johnny was good at charm. He used it like a shield to keep you from getting too close."

"What can you tell me about his private life?"

"I never saw him except on the bandstand or riding through the night on some bus somewhere. Spider knew him best of all. He's the guy you should talk to."

"I have his number on the coast," I said. "We haven't connected yet. Another beer?"

Hyde said why not and a round was ordered. We spent the next hour swapping lies about 52nd Street in the old days, and Johnny Favorite's name was not mentioned again.

THIRTEEN.

Vernon Hyde departed for points unknown shortly before seven, and I walked two blocks west to Gallagher's and the best steak in town. I finished my cigar and second cup of coffee about nine, paid my check, and caught a cab on Broadway for the eight blocks down to my garage.

I drove uptown on Sixth, following the traffic north through Central Park, past the reservoir and Harlem Meer. I left the park by the Warrior's Gate at 110th and Seventh and entered a world of tenements and shadowy side streets. I hadn't been to Harlem since before they tore down the Savoy Ballroom last year, but it looked just the same. Park Avenue was under the New York Central tracks at this end of town, so Seventh, with its concrete center islands dividing the two-way traffic, became the street to be seen on.

Crossing 125th Street everything was bright as Broadway. Further along, Small's Paradise and Count Basie's place seemed alive and well. I found a parking spot across the avenue from the Red Rooster and waited out the light. A young coffee-colored man with a pheasant feather in his hat emerged out of a group loitering on the corner and asked if I wanted to buy a watch. He pushed up both sleeves of his natty topcoat and showed me a half-dozen timepieces on either arm. "Can make you a nice price, brother. Real nice."

I said I already had a watch and crossed on the green.

The Red Rooster was plush and dark. The tables around the bandstand were crowded with uptown celebrities, big spenders with their bare-armed ladies glittering beside them in a rainbow display of sequined, strapless evening gowns.

I found a stool at the bar and ordered a snifter of Remy Martin. Edison Sweet's trio was on deck, but from where I was sitting I saw only the piano player's back as he hunched over the keyboard. Bass and electric guitar were the other instruments.

The band was playing a blues, the guitar darting in and out of the melody like a hummingbird. The piano throbbed and thundered. Toots Sweey's left hand was every bit as good as Kenny Pomeroy had promised. The group had no need of a drummer. Above the moody, shifting bass rhythms Toots traced an intricate lament, and when he sang, his voice was bittersweet with suffering: I got them voodoo blues, Them evil hoo-doo blues.

Petro Loa won't leave me alone; Every night I hear the zombies moan.

Lord, I got them mean ol' voodoo blues.

Zu-Zu was a mambo, she loved a hungan man; Messin' with Erzuli wasn't part of her plan.

The spell of the tom-tom turned her into a slave.

And now Baron Samedi's dancin' on her grave.

Yeah, she's got them voodoo blues, Them bad ol' hoo-doo blues ...

When the set ended, the musicians laughed and talked and wiped their sweating faces with large white handkerchiefs. After a while, they drifted in toward the bar. I told the bartender I wanted to buy the group a drink. He filled their orders and nodded in my direction.

The two sidemen picked up their drinks, shot me a glance, and moved off into the crowd. Toots Sweet took a stool at the end of the bar and leaned back so he could watch the house, his large, grizzled head resting against the wall. I collected my glass and made my way over to him.

"Just wanted to say thanks," I said, climbing on the next stool. "You're an artist, Mr. Sweet."

"Call me Toots, son. I don't bite."

"Toots it is, then."

Toots Sweet had a face as broad and dark and wrinkled as a slab of cured tobacco. His thick hair was the color of cigar ash. He filled a shiny blue serge suit to the bursting point, yet the feet encased in two-tone black-and-white pumps were as small and delicate as a woman's.

"I liked the blues you played at the end," I said.