The Spirit Cabinet Read Online Free PDF

had her eyes aimed steadily at him. Miranda tilted her head slightly by way of asking what he wanted.
    “Miranda,” asked Rudolfo, “where can you drop off?”
    “Oh,” she shrugged, going through her not very extensive list of alternatives. “The hotel.”
    “
Ja
, Jimmy!” shouted Rudolfo. The driver raised his shoulders, wrinkling the folds of skin on the back of his neck. “Miranda is to the hotel going.”
    Jimmy grunted. Jimmy seemed to have only a specific number of words that he could utter on any one day—twelve, perhaps—so he usually grunted or made a chicking sound as though everyone else in the world were a horse.
    Samson sat up front beside Jimmy, because it made him very nervous not to be able to see where he was going. The ancient albino leopard craned his neck back toward the other passengers and appeared to nod. His tongue hung from his mouth, a long slab of meat with just the slightest tinge of pinkishness.
    “Christ is hot,” said Rudolfo, throwing himself backwards into the leather seats. He turned his head sharply to Jurgen. “You could have told me.”
    “Told you what?”
    “That the books were so fucking expensive, what else?”
    “It was an
auction
,” replied Jurgen. “How was I to know how much the books would cost?”
    “You could have told me
the park of the ball
.”
    Jurgen shrugged and continued to flip pages. He couldn’t have said what books he’d expected to find on the list, but the names he was reading didn’t seem right:
Geeston en Demonen, Satanova Cirkev, Ho Leukas Magos, Tachydaktyklourgon Kai Thaumatopoion, Mejik Triksa
. So many in so many strange languages.
    “Did you know,” asked Rudolfo, “that Kaz the asshole was going to try to buy the Collection?”
    “Sure,” Jurgen nodded.
    “You could have told me that,” said Rudolfo.
    “Why, what would you have done? Have him murdered?”
    “We might have been able to negotiate a private deal with the auctioneer.” A scowl blew across Rudolfo’s face as he remembered the man with the peanut-shaped head and the laugh he’d gotten from the crowd. “By the way,” he mentioned, “I’m thinking about a small change to the Show—”
    Jurgen sighed.
    “What?” snapped Rudolfo.
    “Nothing.”
    “What?” demanded Rudolfo again.
    Miranda, who this time
had
been looking through the window at the endless desert, spun her head toward Rudolfo and his harsh,
“Was? Was?”
She immediately saw that it had nothing to do with her, but she didn’t look away.
    “This silly guy,” explained Rudolfo, jerking a thumb at his partner, “all I’m having to do is say
die Schau
and he is hurling his chests. Every time he is doing this.” Rudolfo did a sarcastic imitation of Jurgen’s breast-heaving.
    “A small change,” said Jurgen, leaning forward suddenly, adjusting his bottom on the leathery seat, sticky despite the air conditioning. “I’m tired of small changes.”
    Whatever Jurgen said, Miranda saw, had made Rudolfo angry. His skin, so smooth that he sometimes seemed waxed, coloured many shades of red, the deepest ruddiness filling in the hollows of his cheeks. Rudolfo’s blue eyes widened and his nostrils trembled as though he were stifling a sneeze. Then he began to speak, softly, the German sounding to Miranda like nothing more than wet sounds and growls.
    “Sure,” he said to Jurgen, “what we really need to do is completely change the Show. After all, it has only won Act of the Year four years in a row. That means that it’s not particularly good. Maybe we should reconsider the whole concept. Maybe we should do a fucking song-and-dance act, maybe we should try plate-spinning like that greasy Italian boy you thought was so adorable.”
    The limousine pulled into the driveway of the Abraxas Hotel. The driveway was four kilometres long, a huge circle that curved around tennis courts, an outdoor pool, a soccer field and a fountain. The grounds were crowded, largely with doughy blond people, German,