"I don't date. I just... It's crazy. Really. You don't want to know."

She leaned toward him and the front of her robe parted, revealing a long, swanlike neck and a delicately turned collarbone. A lock of dark hair fell over one eye. "Wait a minute... the first thing I heard you say was, 'My beautiful c.o.c.kroach.' Don't tell me you fell in love with Svetlana Gusalev!"

He goggled at her, unable to believe the words that had fallen from her mouth, certain that he was still sitting on the barstool at The Tavern, dreaming.

"You...you know about Svetlana?"

She blew out a gust of air. "Around here, who doesn't? Of course, around here, they call her Svetlana the Mule-headed (or just Lana the Mule). Every writer, poet, and musician below Market Street knows that sob story. I've written songs about it, myself. Heck, my brother's even got a little three-act about it playing weekends down at the Y.'"

She poured more coffee into his mug.

"About...? Even the part about her father turning her into a c.o.c.kroach?"

"Oh, not her father. He just makes sausage. It's that sister-in-law of his-the jealous witch. That Beyle."

She rose and returned the coffee pot to the hot plate.

"Lana's aunt is a witch?"

"After a manner of speaking."

"What's she jealous of?"

"That her sister Stella (well, Rodenka actually, but she likes to put on airs) is the Sausage Queen. When Lana the Mule refused to marry Boris the Befuddled, Beyle the Witch put a bug in the Sausage King's ear-you should pardon the pun-that she could perform a curse. At least that's what my song says."

"But a c.o.c.kroach?"

"Hey, the old biddy loves Kafka, so she does Kafka."

"None of that matters," said Ganady, "if I can't find Lana again." He looked up at the woman sitting across from him, her dark hair falling mysteriously over one eye, a smile still peeking at him from the other. "I think you're supposed to help me."

The Singer sat back in her chair, hands around her mug, looking as if she were uncertain she wanted to help him.

"Please?"

The woman tipped back her head and laughed. It was a deep throaty laugh that warmed better than the coffee. "Okay, so let's say I'm 'supposed' to help, whatever that means. All right...how'd you find Lana the first time?"

"The Baseball."

She gave him a long, strange look, grinned lopsidedly and said, "So, try a baseball this time."

"Lightning won't strike twice in the same place."

The Singer shrugged. "That's an old wives' tale, as I should know. My grampa got hit twice while he was out picking mushrooms. And lived to tell. So, try a baseball."

"I don't have it anymore."

The strange look again. She got up and left the table, disappearing through the beaded curtain a second time. Ganady was sure this was where she called the cops...or the hospital. Instead, she returned with a baseball. A venerable baseball, gra.s.s-stained, scuffed, and covered with autographs.

She held it out to him across the table. "Here. It's yours."

"But this ball has every autograph from the Phillies infield."

"Yeah. It only had Eddie Waitkus's autograph on it when I got it. See, it's right there, along the seam-but I got the rest over the last couple of seasons. Take it."

"Where'd you get this?"

She shrugged. "My sister's a nurse at Our Lady. She found it in the trash."

"This is a very special baseball."

"It's going to take a very special baseball to find your girl."

"But why are you giving it to me?"

She smiled a crooked smile. "I'd like to give you something else, but I figure you'd rather have your Svetlana."

oOo He stood for a while under a street lamp outside the Singer's apartment, realizing he couldn't remember her name, or if she'd even told him what it was.

He studied the ball, turned it so he cold see Eddie Waitkus's signature. Right there, along the seam-right where he would have looked for it, even if she hadn't told him. It was clearly older than the others, more faded. He turned it in his hand, over and over.

"It's yours," she'd said, and it really was his. He was sure of it.

Marveling at the strange sequence of events that seemed to have taken it from his dresser to a complete stranger's, he moved out into the middle of Chestnut Street and tossed the ball away from him. It bounced and rolled; he followed. When it stopped, he picked it up and tossed it again.

Twenty-Two: The t.i.tan Street Crone.

The Baseball led Ganady up and down, back and forth, to and fro, until he was many blocks away from the little walk-up on Chestnut Street. The eastern skyline was fading to violet-gray and Ganady's feet were dragging when The Baseball ricocheted from a street lamp on t.i.tan Street and disappeared down an alley.

Ganny shuffled to the mouth of the alley and peered in. The alley was a dead end and, arrayed along the rear wall, he made out the shapes of trash cans, stacks of crates and, between here and there, a low stoop with an iron rail. His heart raced as he made his way toward the jumble of refuse. It reminded him of the place he had found Svetlana, which made his heart kick and his breath catch in his throat.

He had oriented himself toward a trio of garbage bins along the back wall and had drawn level with the stoop, when he saw a blurred, spherical shape out of the corner of his eye. It was The Baseball, and it seemed to be suspended about two feet above the top step of the stoop.

He stopped in the middle of the alley, staring at it, vaguely aware of the rancid smells that were waking with the approach of dawn. Was this some new magic? Had The Baseball acquired the ability to float in thin air? Ganny approached the rear of the stoop cautiously, his eyes adjusting to the predawn gloom.

The reality was more mundane than magical. The Miracle Ball had wedged in a tear in the open screen door of the shop to which the stoop belonged. Ganny climbed the short flight of steps and wiggled the ball out of the screen, noticing as he did that the inner door was slightly ajar and spilling light onto his shoe tops.

He took a deep breath, swallowing the aromas that were at once alien and familiar. He could just go home and sleep, he supposed. Or he could go back to the "Bard" in her walk-up on Chestnut Street.

No. He could do neither of those things.

He committed The Baseball to his pocket, pushed his way through the door, and found himself in a kitchen that smelled of sausage spices and cigarette smoke.

Across from him, on a stool behind a central island, a crone wearing a stained white smock and a hair net blinked owlishly at him from behind a sausage grinder. A cigarette dangled from her lips. It had gone out and the ash threatened to fall into the bowl of ground meat set before her on the counter.

"Uh," Ganady said, "excuse me, but your cigarette is..." He gestured toward the bowl.

"What?" one side of the crone's mouth asked, while the other continued to grip the cigarette. It was an impressive feat; the cigarette did not so much as wiggle. "You want a smoke?"

"Oh, uh, no...I don't smoke. It's just that your ashes are about to drop. Into your hak flaish."

The old woman regarded Ganady intently for a moment-eyes screwed up, nose wrinkled-then flicked the ash sideways to land upon the floor. "Maybe that's the secret ingredient. You here to rob me? I gotta warn you, I got nothing but sausages."

"Rob you? No! I'm looking for Svetlana the-the Mule-headed." It sounded stranger than he had imagined it would. The words had slipped so naturally from the Singer's lips.

The crone's eyes widened. She reached into the pocket of her smock and pulled out a fresh cigarette, which she lit by leaning nearly off the stool and holding the tip to a burner on the stove top behind her.

"No kidding? Well, isn't that something."

Ganady shifted from one foot to another. "Do you know where she is?"

"I might. Come closer so I can get a look at you. My eyes aren't so great these days."

Ganny obeyed without hesitation, moving to the broad puddle of light around the island.

The crone nodded at him. "Not bad. Better than I would've thought that girl could do, considering. You're a musician?"

Ganny tucked his clarinet case under his arm. "Yeah. Klezmer clarinet. Some cla.s.sical. I play at The Samovaram and The Tavern."

"And you want to find Svetlana."

"Yes." Into that one word, Ganady put all of his hope and despair and longing.

"Why'd you come here?"

"This." He held up The Baseball. "I followed it here."

"Why?"

"Because my Baba said I should. Sort of. It's not an ordinary baseball." He fell mute, stunned by the sheer absurdity of his own words.

The crone puffed on her cigarette and watched him watching her. Then she flicked another ash to the floor and said, "I've been expecting you."

"You have?"

"It's written, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

She made a dismissive gesture. "You met Mr. Joe, have you?"

"Sure, I used to wash the windows at his shop over on Thirteenth." Then, in the interest of full disclosure, Ganny added: "Actually, I broke one of them when I was sixteen. With a baseball-this baseball. That's how I met Svetlana."

"You broke one of Joe Gusalev's precious windows? The big one? In front? Tell me it was the big one in front."

"It was the big one in front," Ganny said obediently.

"Well, that's something."

"Mr. Joe thought it was a sign. He thought G.o.d was telling him he should spend the money to get the lettering changed. It still said ' Gusthof and Sons' when I broke it."

"Yeah? Well, that's Joe for you-such a karger. Tighter than one of his d.a.m.n sausage casings, you should pardon my language. This is all his fault, you know. This thing with Svetlana. If he'd had an ounce of sense in that thick head of his... Ah, but that's water over the bridge. You want to find the girl."

"I do."

She settled on him another narrow, intent gaze, puffing away on her cigarette. Just for a moment her eyes, veiled by the curls of blue smoke, reminded him of Baba Irina's. A chill pranced down his spine.

Finally, she spoke to him again, taking the cigarette from her lips as if to underline the import of her words. "Okay, kid. This is what you do. At midnight on the Christian Sabbath-that's 12 AM Monday morning-you go to the butcher shop on Sigel Street between Seventh and Eighth. You got that?"

"Sigel between Seventh and Eighth," Ganny repeated.

"You can only get into the shop through the window over the sink-it looks out onto the alley, like that one." She pointed a gnarled finger at the window over her own sink. "You got that?"

Ganny nodded. "I don't have to break it, do I?"

"It'll be open. But if it's not, don't give up. This is about Svetlana, remember."

How could he forget?

"Inside you're gonna find a setup like this one, but bigger and cleaner. Much nicer, with newer equipment. There'll be sausages hanging in the smoke room. Lots and lots of sausages. Svetlana the Mule-headed is in one of the sausage casings. You open 'em up, you'll find her."

"She's in a sausage casing?"

The old woman's eyes grew so wide, Ganady could almost see the whites of them all the way around. "You come traipsing in here following a magic baseball and then have the chutzpah to doubt me?"

Ganady felt panic well up from the soles of his shoes. "No! Gosh, no! Of course I don't doubt you." And he didn't, which surprised him less than he cared to admit. "Which casing is she in?"

"I don't know which one. How should I know which one? She's in one of them-you just keep opening them up until you find her. That's pretty simple, right? You can do that, right?"

Ganny could only nod. "Um...when I find her, will she be her or will she be...you know. A-a c.o.c.kroach."

"You find her, kid, and she'll be whatever you want her to be."

"The curse is done? It's over?"

"The curse is done. Over. Cross my heart." She did cross her heart, then tossed her cigarette into the sink, where it landed with a soggy hiss.

Ganady thanked her very kindly and turned to go. On his way out the door, he had a thought. "About your screen door. I didn't tear that just now, did I? With The Baseball?"

She regarded him steadily for a moment, then shook her head. "Naw. You didn't do that, you poor shlub. Now get out of here. Go sober up."

"I am sober," Ganny protested wanly, but went away as ordered, and dragged himself the many blocks home, where he fell into bed and did not dream at all.