By way of an answer, he said, “Papillon!” and we were pulled up toward the ceiling, a quire of paper floating after us like a poorly engineered kite. We touched down just outside the building, where both of us worked madly to gather all the papers together. I called, “Papillon!” once more, and we were zapped back through the Orgone before either of us had a chance to see if the outside of the Data Processing Center was very different from any of the other duck farms on Long Island.
MALCOLM proudly handed Tallulah the folded sheets of paper.
She pulled one end, and the paper began unfolding until it reached as high as her hand could hold it. She formed it into a half-circle and asked, “What is this, darling? Fan mail?”
“That’s a computer print-out,” Malcolm said.
She put on a pair of large, thick horn-rimmed glasses and began examining it closer. “Is it in English, darling?”
“Of course it is. What did you expect? Swahili?”
“I thought it might be in dashes and dots or glyphs. I never knew a machine that could speak English.”
“It doesn’t speak it,” Malcolm said. “It writes it.”
“It even says please,” I added.
“Really?” We nodded. “I had no idea machines could be so playful.” She examined one of the pages. “Why, look at this. Edgar and Fiona Widdup own a nursery. They call it Smarty Plants.” She put the papers down and removed her glasses. She thought a minute and said, “I like the name,” thought a minute more and said, “sort of.” She put her glasses back on and read some more. “They had a gross income of thirty-five thousand last year.” She took her glasses off again before saying to Malcolm and me, “That’s not bad.” She put her glasses on and read some more, took them off and said, “You two better run along now. It’s getting late.” We started backing out, and Spot started following us. Without looking up from the sheets, Tallulah called him back.
Malcolm said, “We’re going now, Tallulah.”
“Ta-ta, darling.”
“Don’t you want to say anything to us?”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Well, then, goodbye,” Malcolm said.
“Ta-ta again.” She looked up, took off her glasses and said, “You’re waiting for me to thank you, aren’t you?”
Malcolm shrugged. “You seem to be enjoying that stuff. I just thought you might like to take back what you said about computers and about mathematicians.”
She said, “Take it back? But, of course, I do, darling. I had no idea computers wrote English. I adore the English language.” She stuck the earpiece of her glasses in her mouth and saluted. “The last time Tallulah saluted was when the flag had forty-eight stars.”
“That was before I was born,” Malcolm said. “Long before.”
“Yes, darling. You can use it as a measure of my compliment or as a measure of my age.”
“I’ll think about it,” Malcolm replied.
“Tallulah has no doubt that you will.” She put her glasses back on and started reading again, and we quietly exited downstage and through the Epigene.
Tallulah says, “I have never spent a day in the country without wishing that Noah had not been so thorough.”
eight
WHEN MALCOLM and I next arrived at Rahab Station, Tallulah was wearing her eyeglasses and reading the computer printouts. She had pushed half the pillows behind her so that she was sitting more upright than usual. Spot greeted us by bringing us a gift of the last sheet of paper, unfolding it as he dragged it across the room. “Oh, Spot,” Tallulah scolded, “bring that back here.” She took off her glasses and said to Malcolm, “This is fascinating, darling. I just adore its being written in English, but one has to turn it around every other page, doesn’t one.”
“You can tear the pages apart, Tallulah. You just break them apart at the folds.” Malcolm sat on the floor and quietly rearranged the pages of the print-out. He also tore off all the edges.
“What are you going to do with all those strips from the edges, darling. The holes are so even. They must be worth saving.”
I said, “When I am rich and famous, and they have a Wall Street parade for me, everyone will throw confetti and those things at me. Save them for that.”
“How do you intend to become rich and famous, darling?” she asked.
“By being wonderful.”
“Darling, I was wonderful, but if they had a parade for me, I missed it. I think one must be in politics or be a hero to have a parade. Politics is simply out of the question, and being heroic seems so terribly physical. Tallulah never minded being brave, but she never enjoyed anything strenuous. I really don’t care to walk on the moon. Really I don’t. There’s absolutely no one there to talk to—even I know there is no man in the moon—and I’m sure the food is just awful.”
Malcolm said, “What I don’t understand, Tallulah, is why you needed us to get these names and addresses. You knew where to send us during our trials.”
“Yes, I did, didn’t I, darling. My spirit has always felt close to poor old Mary Frances and dear old Horace, and I can always find them. But, you see, the awful truth is that my spirit is no longer in touch with any of the people who were there when I died. That is something that worries Tallulah a great deal; it is exactly what convinces her that one of them took her Regina Stone. But, now! Where would you like to start?” She put her glasses on again and began to leaf through the pages. “We have addresses for everyone but Emmagene.”
“Yes, I know,” Malcolm said. “I asked the computer for her forms three times, but nothing came up.”
“Isn’t it just awful that the computer knows our form? I never, I tell you, never told anyone my waist, hip or bra size. If they must look, they must estimate, I always say.” She took her glasses off and asked Malcolm, “Does this mean that poor Emmagene’s spirit has been sucked into all those vacuum tubes inside the computer, and the poor darling has lost her form?”
“Tallulah,” Malcolm explained patiently, “I was asking for IRS forms. Income tax forms. Besides computers don’t have vacuum tubes anymore; they have transistors.”
“I guess it is very clever of them to have transistors, darling, but what does that mean for Emmagene Krebs?”
“What it probably means is that she hasn’t filed an income tax form or that she doesn’t live in the part of the country that uses this data processing center.”
“Where else is there?”
“There’s Indiana, for example. Maybe Emmagene is filing her returns there. That’s where she came from originally. There are also all those states west of the Mississippi.”
Tallulah lifted her head and looked at Malcolm through half-opened eyes. “Everyone keeps telling me that those places exist, but I don’t believe it. Really I don’t. I have never met anyone going to one of those places. I only meet people who say they came from them. Now, tell Tallulah, have either of you ever met someone who said she was going to Kokomo, Indiana?” Both of us shook our heads. “You see! I’m sure it does not exist. If it ever did exist, the food must have been simply awful, and everyone left.” She put her glasses back on and read the print-out pages again. “How about Glen Cove?”
“Which one’s in Glen Cove?” I asked. “Malcolm and I haven’t had time to read it.”
“Practice that line, darling,” Tallulah said.
“What line?”
“I haven’t had time to read it. You’ll use it all of your adult life. Learn to make it sound convincing.”
Malcolm said, “Who’s in Glen Cove?”
“Nicolai Ion Simonescu.”
Malcolm said, “I want to start with Widdup. Jeanmarie says that the butler did it.”
“Fine,” Tallulah said. “Topside to Smarty Plants.”
WE WERE in a greenhouse that was as long as a city block. Along the sides were platforms that held thousands of pots of chrysanthemums. White to cream to yellow and lavender to burgundy. The yellow ones had more different shapes than the others. Some had short s
tiff petals; others had shaggy petals that made the blossom look unkempt. I took a minute to stand at one end of the greenhouse and look over the field of mums. I breathed deeply. The smell was ripe, not sweet, as much like cabbages as roses.
Standing there, I was unaware of Malcolm and unaware of our mission until an old Dalmatian came over to where I was standing and began sniffing at me. “Nice, Spot,” I said and reached down and petted him. He wagged his tail and licked my invisible hand. Malcolm came over and started petting him, too. The dog was old; I could see that there was a lot of gray in the black spots around his face. I said to Malcolm, “This must be the then Spot that was living with Tallulah when she died.”
He nodded. “I guess you’re right about the butler doing it. Widdup or Fiona must have taken The Regina Stone. How else could a butler and maid have paid for a business like this? This is hardly some tiny little florist shop. This looks like a big wholesale operation.”
A plain-looking woman wearing a long, gray cardigan came into the greenhouse just then. She looked around and started walking slowly down the length of the greenhouse. She stopped to pick a dead leaf off one of the plants, saying, “Now, there, sweetie, you don’t need to hold on to that any longer.” She walked a little further and straightened one of the other pots and said, “Stand straight and tall, dearie, and give Mr. Sunshine a chance.” She reset the small seeper hose on another plant saying, “A little thirsty, are we?” Then she looked up, saw Spot and said, “Oh, there you are, Spot. Come along now. Widdup and I are waiting. You know we can’t leave you out here.” She walked over to where Malcolm and I were standing, and Spot began to whimper. “Come along now, old fella,” she said. “Widdup has made you a kidney pie. Come along.” Spot kept looking back toward us and wouldn’t budge. Malcolm and I started walking toward Fiona, and Spot followed.
“What’s the matter, fella? You’re not getting moon madness again, are you?”
Spot whimpered a reply.
Malcolm and I lagged behind and watched as they walked toward a house, a rather plain one-story house. They walked into a back door and closed it before Malcolm and I could get there.
“Malcolm,” I said, “I think this is as good a time as any to see if we can walk through doors.”
“Of course we can walk through doors. We do it every day of the week.”
“I mean through closed doors.”
“I think it is just as much fun to slowly turn the handle on the door, then open it and walk through. As a matter of fact, I prefer doing it that way.”
“Malcolm,” I said. “I am interested in knowing the limits of our magic.”
“Funny for you to say that.”
“And why is that so funny?”
“It is funny because it is usually me who wants to define things.”
“I just need to know the limits of the magic, that’s all. Will you please walk through that door?”
“Ladies before gentlemen.”
I was afraid of breaking my nose or otherwise maiming myself. I hate the word ‘maim’; it is the second ugliest word in the English language. “Promise that you will say the password immediately if you see any blood?” I asked. Malcolm said he would. “And tell the plastic surgeon that I’ll need rhinoplasty.”
“How do you spell that?”
“Just say nose job. Can you say nose job?”
“I can even spell it.”
I walked up to the door that Fiona had just closed and stood full-face about three feet in front of it when Malcolm told me to be practical and to lead with my shoulder, the way the television cops do. I turned around so that I was sideways to the door, and I pushed against it with my shoulder, but I didn’t get through. Braving my nose and a separated shoulder, I backed off from it, way off, in order to get a running start, when Malcolm went over to the door, quietly opened it and walked in. I watched the door swing shut and heard Fiona say, “Widdup, I keep telling you that you have to do something about that door.” Then I heard a deadbolt slide into place.
So I was locked out, and Malcolm was locked in. He could have used his magic fingers to pull the deadbolt back and open the door for me, but either he did not think of doing so or didn’t want to. I waited for what seemed like a very long time, and the door did not open.
If the fates or Malcolm close one door, find another. I started walking around the house, looking for a window that I could break and climb through—even if it meant getting cut and bloodied in the process, but I didn’t have to. I found the front door was unlocked. I walked into the parlor and decided to wait there for a little while and let Malcolm worry about me. I saw a book on a table and sat down on the sofa and started to read. The book was The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird. It was a big book, four hundred and two pages, if you count the index. There was a place marker at the beginning of Chapter Two, “Plants Can Read Your Mind.” Page seventeen. I smiled to myself. Tallulah had said to practice the line, I haven t had time to read it.
I spent a few minutes leafing through the book. Some of the other chapter titles were: “Plants Will Grow to Please You,” “The Mystery of Plant and Human Auras” and “Live Plants or Dead Planets.” Most of it seemed to be saying that plants can feel pain and respond to kind words and beautiful music. A lot of the clones at school had begun giving their plants names like Ernest and Daphne and talking to and about them as if they were people. I was willing to bet that none of them had read the book, but they had caught on to the fad, the way they had started piercing a second hole in their ears.
I put the book down and looked around the room. There was a piano against the wall opposite the fireplace. On top of the piano was a picture of Tallulah, with her chin tucked down and looking up through half-closed eyes. Not very different from the way she looked now. I guessed that this must have been one of her publicity photos. Tallulah was not beautiful, but she was memorable. Those high arched eyebrows and those painted lips. It was too bad that a person could not hear her, for her voice, that low pebbly voice of hers, defined her more than anything else. I thought that anyone who had had the good luck to have seen her on stage probably carried away from the theater something they would remember always.
I was halfway to the kitchen before it occurred to me that someone who stole The Regina Stone would hardly keep a picture of the person they had stolen it from right on top of their piano. The top of the piano, after all, is usually reserved for royalty or grandchildren, whichever you happen to know better.
When I got to the kitchen, I saw Widdup feeding Tallulah’s then Spot. He was sitting on the floor, picking up pieces of kidney pie and hand feeding them to the dog. Every time Spot would take some, chew and swallow it, Widdup would say, “Good, doggie. Nice fella.” Fiona was watching. “His appetite seems improved today, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, much better, dear,” Widdup replied.
The kitchen looked like an extension of the greenhouse. There were plants everywhere. Some were enormous. Not what you would call house plants at all. They looked like the picture in my fourth grade science book that showed the prehistoric forest that had become coal. Malcolm was standing behind one tree-sized plant, beating his chest. “Me, Tarzan. You, Jane,” he said to me.
Widdup said, “What was that, dear? Did you say something?”
Fiona thought a minute and answered, “I don’t believe I said anything. Of course, one can never be sure.”
“Don’t worry, love. You’ll think of it later.”
“It may have been Ficus benjamina again. I noticed that he seems restless this evening.”
Widdup replied, “Could well be. Spot does not seem himself either. I could swear that he is seeing things this evening. Do you think it’s possible that he’s gotten his sight back?”
“Stranger things have been known to happen, haven’t they, duck? I’ve noticed that Mimosa pudica has perked up a bit.” She leaned over and whispered to Widdup, “Perhaps, she’s come out of her doldrums. It doesn’t pay
to be as sensitive as she is.”
“I would like to think so, love,” Widdup whispered back as he continued feeding Spot the kidney pie. Spot was looking up at Malcolm and me between mouthfuls. At last he finished everything that had been in the bowl, and Fiona handed Widdup another bowl filled with plain water. Widdup held this under his chin until Spot drank a good bit, then he got up and went to the sink where he washed out both bowls.
The minute that his back was turned, Malcolm and I sprang into action. We began ruffling the leaves of all the large plants in the room. Widdup turned to face back into the room and saw the plants waving as if swept by gale force winds. “Are you sure that I bolted the door, Fiona?” he asked, as he sat down to read the paper.
“I’ll check it,” she said. When she saw that the door was still bolted shut, she explained, “I just think the plants are restless tonight.”
Widdup resumed reading his paper.
Malcolm called out in a high pitched voice, “E-E-E-ED-GAR WIDDUP, E-E-E-ED-GAR WIDDUP. . .”
Widdup looked up and asked, “Was that you, Fiona?”
“No, dear,” she replied. “I think it was Ficus benjamina. He does seem to require an awful lot of attention this evening.”
“Well, what is it then, Ben?” Widdup asked, looking at the plant that Malcolm was standing behind.
“I am the spirit of Christmas past,” Malcolm said, still using the high-pitched, whiney voice.
“Good grief, Fiona,” Widdup said, “I’ll bet Ben is going to scold us again for not using him as a Christmas tree.”
“He bears a grudge, that one,” Fiona said. “I thought we made him understand that we never cut down the trees that we decorate. We just rescue the ones that are left in the Kiwanis lot over there in Riverhead.”
Malcolm was beginning to look confused, so I ruffled the leaves of the plant they had called Mimosa pudica, and the minute I touched the leaves, they began to fold up. I pulled my hand away quickly but not before Fiona noticed. “I think Mimosa wants to say something, dear.”