The Spirit Cabinet Read Online Free PDF Page A

voice, and Kaz spun around in his seat to see who the intruder might be. Judging from the circle of twisted necks, the voice belonged to Rudolfo. Rudolfo’s thin lips were compressed into a shallow smile. Rudolfo took a deep breath through his nostrils, puffing out his chest until the tiny nipples poked through the pieces of metal and mirror.
    Kaz was devastated. He couldn’t play with these guys, not the two guys together. He couldn’t keep up, the simple arithmetic wasn’t there. He also couldn’t say “five million.” The accountant had told him that calamity would absolutely befall him should he say those words. Kaz rose out of his seat suddenly, making for the aisle with a haste that gave no one time to move crossed feet or knees. He stumbled most of the way, grabbing hold of tops of heads for support. He thought he might faint—he’d fainted fairly regularly as a young boy—so when he achieved the aisle, he doubled over and sucked in air. “Congratulations, boys,” he groaned.
    There was applause, awkward and halting, because no one was sure how to applaud at an auction.
    As Kaz passed through the doorway at the back, he leaned in toward Preston the Adequate, close enough to bathe him in streams of putrid breath. “It’s like a couple of chimps bought some books about brain surgery,” he said bitterly.
    Preston shrugged.
    “We could have worked out a deal, you, me and McGehee. Private sale. Four million would have been no problem. Because I deserve the books. You couldn’t handle them, could you? Only I can handle them. Only me in the whole fucking world.”
    “You don’t know what’s in the books,” said Preston the Adequate.
    “Oh, yeah, I do,” said Kaz as he disappeared. “I
know
.”

Chapter Three
    “Well, that was brilliant,” said Rudolfo, fuming in the back of the limousine. He pulled open the bar beside him and poked around until he found a bottle of Orangina. He wrenched off the cap and poured some down his throat. Outside the darkened window lay the wasted plains of Nevada.
    “What’s your problem?” wondered Jurgen, leafing through the catalogue with pursed lips. Jurgen’s lids had slid down to cover his eyes almost entirely; they didn’t rise up now, but there was some slight muscular activity, a weak electrical charge that caused them to quiver. “You made the final bid, after all.”
    “Right,” nodded Rudolfo. “Because I had to go feed the animals, and I didn’t have time for
four millions and seven hundreds and fifty hundreds of thousands of dollars
.”
    Miranda laughed, mostly because she was surprised at the sudden spurt of thick and clumsy English. Both men stared at her, sitting on the seat opposite. “Sorry,” she said.
    “I’ve never bought anything before,” said Jurgen quietly, even though he was reasonably certain that Miranda couldn’t understand German.
    “Oh, no? You bought the Lamborghini four-wheel drive.”
    “I didn’t buy that,” returned Jurgen. “You gave that to me for my birthday.”
    “Only because you asked for it.”
    “That’s a different thing.” Jurgen flipped a page and began to read studiously. “Look,” he said, without removing his eyes from the print, “you buy all sorts of things. You spend millions of dollars every year on your animals—”
    “
My
animals?” interrupted Rudolfo. “The animals are for the Show.”
    Jurgen sighed wearily.
    Miranda could understand some of the things she heard—
die Tiere
, for example,
the animals
. It was a phrase the two often exchanged, Jurgen employing a tone of annoyance, Rudolfo one of gentleness.
“Die Tiere sind für die Schau, da,”
said Rudolfo. When he said
die Tiere
he moved his arms, throwing them away from his body and then allowing them to resettle gently, a vague kind of gathering motion.
    Rudolfo leaned forward and touched Miranda’s knee. It was an odd thing to do, as if her attention needed redirection from the window or something, whereas in fact she’d