Getting A Head In Business
By
Walter. Lane

Copyright © 2001 by Walter Lane

Eighteen inches high, the huge jar had plenty of room to hold the decapitated head floating inside.

"Will its eyes open?" Purdy asked and tapped the glass. The clear, liquid preservative vibrated slightly and the eyes did open. He jumped back from the conference table and nearly tripped over his feet. The eyes eased shut again.

"Don't do that!" Garrett admonished, his voice echoed slightly off the oak walls of the conference room. Then more calmly, "Don't disturb the head until you're ready to...conduct business so to speak."

Purdy nodded and pulled back a leather chair from the walnut conference table. He plopped down and stared into the face of the dead seer. "You did it! You actually did it! The head of Nostradamus." Deep lines etched around the eyes and cheeks gave the face an ancient pallor that went far beyond mere years. The short beard was sparse. The hair had probably fallen out over time and been discarded with the occasional change of preservatives.

Garrett grinned and gave Purdy a thumbs-up. "Took some doing, especially for my guy to smuggle it into the country undetected."

"I'll bet. Did he know what it was?"

Garrett shook his head. "All he knew is that I paid him twenty-five thousand to pick up a sealed package and deliver it to me."

It opened its eyes again, only slightly this time, and looked at them both. The fat one leaned back in his chair. The other one stood a few feet away, his face parted in a self-satisfied grin. It caught its own drawn face reflected in the high polish of the table and closed its eyes back.

Purdy asked, "Where'd it come from anyway?"

"A family in Russia had it."

"No, I mean, originally, where did the head come from?"

"In 1781, they say, devotees of Nostradamus dug up his humble grave to give him a more prestigious spot in the cathedral. As they were about to put the coffin into its new niche, they decided, why not take a look at the guy." Garrett glanced at the head floating lazily in the jar, then back at Purdy. "When they opened the casket there was an amulet around his neck. On that was the year, 1781."

"No way!" Purdy exclaimed. "You mean, he predicted the year he'd be dug up?"

"So they say. Anyway, the men closed the coffin and put it in its niche in the church. All of this is supposedly documented fact by the way." Garrett pulled back a chair and sat down. "Or at least it's accepted as fact." He glanced at the head again. "Word of it got around. At the time there was a sizeable black market for antiquities and curiosities. Story goes that someone went to the church, opened the casket, decapitated the head and later preserved it in brandy. Whoever did it simply closed the lid and put the casket and body back in place. The head was supposedly sold to a rich client."

"How much did you give for it?"

"Twenty-five dollars on Ebay." He laughed and said, "Actually, I got it for a hundred thousand. The people who sold it didn't know of its...little trick. They thought of it as just a curiosity."

Purdy smiled. "Good." His smile faded. "You know, this divination thing is all new to me."

"Not many stockbrokers practice the occult; they haven't got the imagination for it."

Purdy's skin tingled at the word occult. "I've run into some investors who were pretty superstitious," he said. "You know, wouldn't buy stock on Friday the thirteenth, that kind of thing. But noting like this."

"Hopefully, that's going to give us a big advantage. Even here at the firm we're the only two in on this. I brought you in because it takes two men to do the incantation. Of all the traders here, you're the one I trust the most." He smiled again. "Believe me, there's enough in this to make us both very rich in a short while. 'Course it has to be our little secret."

Purdy nodded.

"Besides," Garrett added, "Hart Investments wouldn't want its name mixed up in something like this." He raised an eyebrow. "But we have to be careful about more than just secrecy. The rolled parchment that came with the head said that divination can be very dangerous. That's why I wanted you not to tap the jar."

"Dangerous how?"

"It said that the same forces helping you can quickly turn on you if you offend them. You have to do things in a certain way."

"Is that why we have to wait until the moon rises before we begin?"

"That's part of it. The parchment also says the questioning ceremony can only be carried out during moonlight hours and only by moonlight or candlelight. I don't know why; probably nobody does."

Purdy crossed his hands on the tabletop and laid his head on them. Again, he stared at the head. "You sure it really works?"

Garrett checked his watch. "We'll find out in about two hours." He stood up. "C'mon, let's get some food. Pizza okay?" He pulled open the door and turned out the lights.

Purdy looked back at the head—a ghastly sight anytime, but especially lit by just the faint light coming through the door. "You think it'll be all right to just leave it here?"

"Yeah, we're twenty stories up and the only two on the floor. Housekeeping doesn't come in on Saturday nights. But I'll lock up to be sure."

***

It stared into darkness so engulfing it seemed to float in it as well as the liquid. A pale sliver of light at the bottom of the door was all it could see. The closing of the door seemed to have awakened it though it never really slept, but merely rested in a continual reverie. Now more alert than it had been in years, it thought about home:

In France he had been a respected doctor, a revered seer of the future. The joy of honor, the joy of love had been commonplace for him. Memories swirled in the darkness like dancers gliding across the floor. Visions of gala parties, the sweeping moves of high-stepping beauties, firm handshakes of important men filled the mind. It once had had a life, a life and so much more.

It rolled it eyes and took in the shrouding darkness. Denied the sweet freedom of death, existence now was just an ugly abomination. Its thoughts turned as black as the room. Whatever magic had brought it to this state, it could not remember. It closed its eyes tightly and tried to think. A clock somewhere in the room ticked softly.

In a minute the eyes popped opened. Lessons learned from mentors who had known more than he, who had taught him far more than merely predicting the future returned. Recollections of how to move objects by mere thought, the psychic ability to control the minds of others began to swim to consciousness. The eyes widened and the thing grinned hideously. It would show these puny thieves what real power was.

***

A box of pizza sat on the far end of the conference table, the top open. Most of it was uneaten. Garrett was not that hungry and Purdy's normally voracious appetite was much subdued. The knife they had brought from the office kitchen to cut away melted slices lay in the box smeared with red sauce.

Purdy leaned over, held the parchment close to the candle on the table and read aloud mysterious passages copied from Nostradamus' own writings. Garrett lit another candle. Like the first one, he poured a little of the melting wax into a short, crystal candleholder. He put the candle in the holder and sat it on the table. He repeated the operation until four candles surrounded the head.

Garrett through back his shoulders and cried, "Awake and shine!"

According to the instructions he had previously received, Purdy repeated the incantation, but with far less enthusiasm. The blinds now open he glanced through the window at the moon. Bright beams fell into the conference room and pushed back some of the gloom. However, the darkness in the room was of a kind far beyond the power of moonbeams to combat.

Again Garrett shouted, "Awake and shine!"

As Purdy was about to open his mouth, the eyes of the head popped opened and glared hatefully at him. His mouth went dry and he wished he had never heard of this thing.

"Sit down," Garrett instructed. They pulled back chairs and sat on either side of the table end. The jar and head sat two feet away.

Garrett said, "The way this works is like this. You form your questions in such a way that the answer is either yes or no, no essay answers or explanations. The right eye closing means yes, the left, no. Both eyes closing means the question will not receive an answer."

Purdy nodded slowly. He looked again at the burning eyes of the head.

"You can only ask seven questions per ceremony, and only one ceremony a night. So, are you ready to play the Feud?"

It took Purdy a moment to catch the game show reference. He turned and glared at Garrett.

Garrett exclaimed, "Will you lighten up!"

"Lighten up! What kind of stinkin' mess have you got me into!"

Garrett had noticed before that Purdy's small town, North Carolina speech patterns often emerged when he became excited.

"Let's just start." Garrett reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a pen and a yellow sheet of paper with a list of stocks and ratios he thought looked promising. He unfolded the paper and laid it on the table. "Will buying Comtef make us make us at least twelve percent on our money?" He clapped his hands twice and shouted, "Awake and shine!"

They watched in fascination as the right eye closed and opened.

"Okay!" Garrett exclaimed. "We've got a winner right off the bat." He put a check beside the first question. "Will buying Pastab make us a least twenty percent on our money?" Again he clapped his hands and shouted the incantation.

The left eye closed and opened. Garrett crossed through the second question.

It only took a few minutes to go through all the questions; four got a yes, two a no. Regarding stock in the Revuis company, both the eyes closed and opened, no answer was forthcoming. After the last question the eyes closed and remained closed, indicating the session was over.

Garrett held up the paper. "Four great stock tips. Just one could make us a killing; four could make us a fortune." He stood up. "I'm going to my office and get on the computer. With the dummy accounts I've set up, I can buy the stocks without the SEC getting too nosy over our success." He stepped to the door and on the way out, said, "We're going to be stinkin' rich, my Tarheel friend."

Purdy got up and turned on the lights. He slowly walked from the jar towards the other end of the long conference table, raising and lowering his hand to the tabletop to steady himself. He plopped into a chair and rubbed his face. There was a shaking noise. He looked through his fingers and saw the jar and head suddenly turn around and slide down the table to him, knocking away the candles and box of pizza in its path. Suddenly, he was eye to eye with the head, only the glass of jar kept them from touching noses.

In a kind of hypnotic semaphore, the eyes began blinking repeatedly, the right, the left, then both together. He stared directly into the bloodshot orbs and felt a slithering sensation in his mind. It was like a snake burrowing deeper and deeper into his subconscious.

He started convulsing and the head grinned at him. He screamed for a few moments but stopped as a voice began speaking inside his brain, a voice far too deep to be human.

It said, "Soon you will pass out, my friend, only for a moment. When you wake up, you will be...ready."

***

The door swung open and Garrett came in. "I've placed the orders. It's going to take—"

Purdy charged him with the pizza stained knife. The first cut went right across the jugular. More slashes followed and it did not take long for Garrett to bleed to death. However, cutting Garrett's head off using the small knife took some time.

Exhausted and blood-soaked, Purdy climbed off the floor with Garrett's head in hand. At the jar, he sat it down and removed the glass lid. The liquid was cool and went all the way to his elbow as he reached inside and grabbed the seer's head by the hair. He pulled it out and set it on the table. Liquid spilled onto the blood stained carpet. He picked up Garrett's head and sank it into the jar. Fresh blood from the severed neck clouded the liquid a bit.

He put the lid back in place, picked up the head of Nostradamus and took it to the window. With his elbow, he pushed it open and threw the head out. Leaning over, he watched it fall twenty floors to Wall Street below.

He stepped back to the table and sat before the jar and Garrett's head. He clapped his hands twice and shouted, "Awake and shine!" and waited for the eyes to open...

 

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