Doppelgangster - Laura Resnick [77]
“Nerves,” I said shortly. “I’ll apologize to him.”
“I think that was your chance, and you just missed it.”
“I need this from you,” I said, “of all people?”
“Me ‘of all people’? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s not quarrel among ourselves,” Max said firmly. “We have enough problems to confront without adding that to the list.”
Lucky snorted. “Max is right.” He raised his hands in a gesture that indicated he was backing away from the argument.
Calming down, I looked at him curiously. “Why do you believe in the doppelgangsters, Lucky?”
“Huh?”
“I don’t mean now,” I clarified. “After all, you were there, too, talking to Johnny after—as we now know—he was already dead. I mean, why did you believe at first, as quickly as I did, that there was something supernatural going on?”
Max said, “As I’ve noted before, there really is no such thing as ‘supernatural,’ all phenomena are natural, but some—”
“Not now, Max,” Lucky and I said in unison.
I continued, “When I met Max, I was reluctant to believe in this sort of thing until he forced my eyes open and I saw things I couldn’t deny or explain any other way.
“But, as Max taught me, most people rationalize phenomena like this according to the conventional wisdom they’ve been taught. And if such explanations are inconsistent, then they find reasonable excuses for that. Like the Widow Giacalona. She thinks we’re mistaken about when we saw Johnny’s apparition—it must have been Johnny himself and we’re just confused. That’s how most people view events like this, and why they have no notion of the world that Max and his colleagues inhabit and the work that they do.
“You, on the other hand . . .” I shook my head. “You were quick to realize something mystical was going on as soon as I told you about Charlie’s fears of a perfect double and the evil eye. And when we met Max and you saw what goes on in his laboratory . . . well, you seem faster than most people to accept the unusual for what it really is.” Faster than Lopez, certainly.
Lucky shrugged. “Well, I was raised a strict Catholic, and there’s a lotta mysticism in the Church, y’know. Like Father Gabriel, for example, I believe in transubstantiation.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was being testy.”
“Yes, you were. But you’re Jewish, so you ain’t expected to believe in our rituals, just like we ain’t expected to believe in yours. I spent a lot of time in Mickey Rosenblum’s home when we was growin’ up, so I know how superstitious Jews are, too.” He shrugged. “Anyhow, more to the point, I was raised by my grandmother, who was a strega from Sicily.”
“A what?”
“A strega. A witch.”
“Ah,” Max said with interest. “A white witch, I assume?”
“Yeah, sure. But she was willing to put the screws on people she thought were bad. And she raised me with a lotta the knowledge and memories she brought over from Sicily, where this kind of thing was more accepted in her day. So I guess it gave me some insight that not everybody has got.”
“Indeed,” Max said. “And we’re very fortunate to have your expertise and dedication devoted to this matter, my dear fellow.”
Lucky sighed. “Didn’t help much tonight.”
“So what do we do now?” I wondered. “Just hope no one else gets duplicated?”
“Well, I, for one,” said Max, “am planning a long night of reading Germanic texts. It should be most invigorating. Especially since my High Middle German isn’t what it used to be. I look forward to renewing my acquaintance with the language.”
“Doc, you’re just a party animal,” Lucky said. “There ain’t no containing you.”
I said, “Maybe I’ll just, oh, go home, go to bed, and hope for a full eight hours of sleep for a change.”
“Me, too,” said Lucky.
“And while wisely preparing for the worst, we should nonetheless strive for optimism,” Max said. “It is possible, after all, that poor Chubby Charlie and Johnny Be Good were the only intended victims of these strange events. Perhaps Johnny’s doppelgangster misled us, and there never was a duplicate of Doctor Dapezzo. In which case, his mirth over our fears was well-merited.”
It was a comforting thought