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Painter.
    He said uneasily, “It doesn’t sound like anything much without my guitar.”
    “There, you see?” said Faber-Jones.
    “Sing it then,” said Madame Karitska.
    He shook his head. “I can’t sing without my guitar.”
    “Then let us read it,” suggested Madame Karitska, and took the sheet of paper from him. “I’ll read it aloud but of course it won’t be the same.”
    She read:
    “Once in old Atlantis
    I loved a lady pure …
    And then the waters rose
    And death was black and cold.
    Once in Indian days
    I loved a maiden pure …
    But white men shot her through the heart
    And I was left to grieve.
    I saw her once in Auschwitz
    Young, dressed all in black …
    Our eyes met once beside the wall—
    The Nazis shot her dead.
    She’s gone, I cannot find her
    A fortuneteller says ‘Not yet …’
    For life’s a slowly turning wheel
    And this turn’s not for love.”
    There was silence and then Faber-Jones cried agonizingly, “It doesn’t even rhyme!”
    Madame Karitska was looking at young Painter with interest.
    “And yet,” Faber-Jones added in a puzzled voice, “it does have something. The thing is, what?”
    “It’s subliminal, no doubt,” said Madame Karitska. “The subconscious is aware of many more things than we allow ourselves to know. You are intrigued enough to take the chance?”
    Faber-Jones sighed. “I suppose so.” He hesitated. “I don’t doubt what I saw, it’s just my getting connected with—I mean, he wears
sneakers.
”
    “Be patient,” said Madame Karitska sympathetically. “And
now
I believe you may get out your wallet, my friend, so that Mr. Painter can rescue his guitar. You were born under the sign of Pisces, were you not? Perhaps you can call your new company Pisces Recordings.”
    “Hey, not bad,” said Painter.
    Faber-Jones, counting out bills, only winced. “There,” he said, giving them to John Painter. “Get your guitar and we’ll see what should happen next.” He glanced at Madame Karitska reproachfully and added, “You’ll understand if I leave now, I hope? I’m expected at home for dinner and I’ll be late even if I catch a taxi at your door.” He hesitated and then, turning to Painter, said, “I can drop you off somewhere if you’d like. I’ll give you my business address too, and we can work out an appointment tomorrow.”
    “Okay,” said Painter, looking dazzled, and then with a grin at Madame Karitska he added, “sir,” and gave her a humorous little salute as he turned to follow Faber-Jones.

Chapter 7
    Madame Karitska had invited Lieutenant Pruden to dine with her—a simple Hungarian goulash with spaetzls, she said—and he arrived at seven, bringing with him a bottle of red wine.
    “But such a fine wine,” she exclaimed, holding it to the light. “It has been a long time since I have seen this.”
    “Well,” Pruden said, flushing slightly, “I asked the man at the shop what he’d recommend for a distinguished lady of Russian extraction who was serving goulash. He said he would first of all recommend my bringing
him
along to dinner too, and, if not that, a worthy bottle like this one. Myself, I’m a beer man.”
    She laughed, but her glance, moving from the wine bottle to his face, sharpened. “Something is troubling you, I think, and it is not the wine.”
    He grinned. “I wish you’d stop reading my mind. Anyway, nothing should interfere with goulash; it’s a favorite of mine.”
    “Good. We speak of it later then,” she told him.
    She had placed a card table with a checkered cloth over it near the windows, and had drawn the curtains and lighted candles. There were even two wilted white roses in a bud vase. “Plucked from a basket of trash on Walnut Street,” she said with a smile. “It remains incredible to me what things of value are tossed away on Walnut Street.” Sitting down to dine they began to talk about Walnut Street, and then about other parts of the city, which Pruden knew thoroughly and