Fool Me Once: A Tarot Mystery

by Steve Hockensmith

  “Crawl space?” I said.

  “Either that or we’re in a horror movie and it’s the doorway to hell.”

  “My money’s on crawl space.”

  There was a bolt locking the trapdoor, and Fletcher slid it open. Then he found a small metal latch, grabbed it, and pulled up. The trapdoor opened.

  I stepped forward to shine my flashlight through the hole in the floor.

  It was a crawl space, all right. I saw reddish-brown clay and shards of broken brick and the tip of something dark blue off to one side.

  “Geronimo,” I said.

  I stepped forward and dropped to the dusty floor below. It was only about a four-foot fall. When I crouched down and moved my flashlight around, I saw what I’d been looking for.

  A blue backpack.

  I picked it up—then let out a gasp and fell backwards onto my ass.

  “What is it?” Fletcher said. “Spiders? Snakes?”

  “No, but thanks for the inspiration,” I said, suddenly very aware of how completely creepy it is to be in the crawl space under a house.

  Not that I needed any further inspiration.

  A grinning human skull lay before me on the floor. It was surrounded by what appeared to be shards of broken terra-cotta pottery. The skull and the pottery were nearly the same color—a dull, mottled copper.

  “Oh my god,” I blurted out. “So he wasn’t crazy after all.”

  “Who wasn’t crazy?”

  “One of the neighbors. He told me he peeked in the window one night and saw Riggs painting a skull for a satanic ritual.”

  “What?”

  Fletcher’s head and arm popped down through the hole in the floor. He searched with his flashlight till he spotted the skull.

  “Jesus! That is freaky!”

  Then he noticed the backpack.

  “Given what Riggs kept in his basement,” he said, “I’m not a hundred percent sure I want to see what’s in that.”

  “I know what you mean. But if it’s going to help get Marsha out of jail…” I stood up, cradling the backpack in my arms. “On the count of three?”

  Fletcher nodded.

  “One…two…three.”

  I took hold of the backpack’s zipper and pulled. It opened easily.

  “Well, would you look at that?” Fletcher said.

  He was a lot more articulate than me. All I could manage was “whoa.”

  We were looking at money. Lots and lots of money. All of it neat and tidy in $10,000 bundles.

  “So…you’re just helping out a friend, huh?” Fletcher said, a strained, hostile tone to his voice.

  I started to look up at him.

  “Yoink,” he said.

  With his right hand, he grabbed the backpack and tore it away from me.

  With his left hand, he shoved me back down onto my butt in the dust.

  “Wait, GW! Don’t!” I cried.

  But it was too late. He was already slamming the trapdoor shut above me.

  A second later, I heard him lock me in.

  So here you are: an upside-down knave. A flip isn’t quite as bad for you as it was for the king and the queen and the knight. You don’t have a crown to lose or a mighty stallion to smash you flat, and apparently you don’t even have to worry about your skirt flopping down. (How much starch do you put in that thing?) You’re a simpler guy with simpler problems and a simpler approach to solving them, but don’t be simple-minded about it. You got thrown for a loop because you didn’t think things through in the first place. If you don’t want to go head over heels again, slow down.

  Miss Chance, Infinite Roads to Knowing

  “Let me out of here!”

  “Shhh. You’ll wake the neighbors,” I heard Fletcher say.

  The floorboards above me groaned. Fletcher was standing up.

  “Stop,” I said. “You can’t leave me down here.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. You’ll find a way out. Sooner or later.”

  “You son of a bitch—”

  “You shouldn’t have lied to me, Alanis.”

  “What are you talking about? I’ve never lied about anything.”

  I heard Fletcher scoff.

  “I meant to you, Fletcher. I’ve never lied to you.”

  “My friends call me GW,” said Fletcher.

  And he walked off. I could hear his footfalls fading as he went back up the hall and through the living room, the dining room, the kitchen.

  Then there was silence. Complete and utter.

  He was gone. I was alone—except for a human skull and whatever spiders and snakes happened to be down there with me.

  I tried pushing up against the trapdoor, but the bolt held firm. I was stuck.

  “Shit,” I said.

  Then I said a few more things, most of them unflattering descriptions of GW Fletcher—his provenance, his hygiene, and his sexual habits.

  When I finally ran out of vulgarities (it took a minute or two), I started exploring the crawl space, moving the flashlight methodically over the dirt floor and cement walls.

  “You’ll find a way out,” I said, imitating Fletcher’s smug, lightly accented drawl. “Bastard.”

  And then I saw it: a way out.

  Maybe. If I were a really strong opossum.

  About thirty feet from me was a squat rectangle of metal mesh: ventilation for the crawl space. I hoped it wasn’t as small as it looked. Slowly, walking doubled over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, I made my way to it.

  It wasn’t as small as it had looked. It was even smaller. About fourteen inches high and twenty across.

  I sat down in the sod, planted my feet against the ventilation screen, and pushed. And pushed. And pushed.

  And kicked. And kicked. And kicked.

  And cursed.

  And kicked again.

  The screen popped out and flew off into the darkness.

  I crawled to the opening it left behind and tried to figure out how a grown woman was going to get through it. Maybe if I had some full-body Spanx and a bucket of Vaseline…

  But I didn’t. So I started doing it the hard way. And hard it was.

  I tilted my head sideways and got it through, then managed to follow it with most of my shoulders. Since leaving the rest of my shoulders behind wasn’t an option, I had to squirm and thrust and writhe until they were fully through. Then it was a matter of wriggling and contorting and not minding the scraping and abrasions as I slowly, slowly, slowly pushed my arms and chest outside. (For not the first time in my life, I was grateful to be a B cup and not a D.) Then, after I’d given myself a minute to catch my breath, I had to get my hips through. I knew what fate awaited me if I failed: I’d show up in one of those “dumb criminals” stories people love so much.

  SHE BROKE INTO A HOUSE—BUT SHE COULDN’T BREAK OUT AGAIN!

  Or

  BUBBLE-BUTT BANDIT GETS CAUGHT IN THE (REAR) END

  A fate worse than death. The sheer horror of it gave me the motivation I needed to worm my way out.

  Once I was free, I took another moment to rest before getting up off the ground and heading around the house to the street. I felt like I’d just been squeezed out of a toothpaste tube, but that didn’t slow me down once I was moving. I was already envisioning how things were going to go once I was behind the wheel of my Cadillac.

  I saw myself cruising the streets of Berdache.

  I saw myself spotting Fletcher walking along the road.

  I saw myself veering from my lane just long enough to squash Fletcher flat.

  I saw myself smiling.

  It was a fun fantasy, anyway, and fantasy was all it would be.

  The Caddy was gone.

  I recycled some vulgarities, but it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Fletcher had the tools of his trade with him. If he could open the back door of a house with them, why couldn’t he hot-wire a car?

  I suddenly felt very, very tired—too tired to face the four-mile walk home. But who could I call to come get me?
Clarice and Ceecee didn’t have a car—and they might try to steal one if they thought it would help. Marsha was obviously a no go. And I didn’t feel like explaining to Eugene what I was doing outside the Riggs’s house dressed like I was. I may as well have had a black eye mask on and a big bag over my back with SWAG written on it.

  That was about it for friends and family.

  Except…there was a neighbor I could try. She’d probably come get me—if she owned a car. For all I knew, she went everywhere via unicorn or astral projection.

  I pulled out my phone (my sweatpants had pockets or I would have been really screwed) and looked up the home number of Josette Berg, owner of the House of Arcana, the occult shop across the street from the five and dime.

  It was after midnight, but she answered after the second ring.

  “Hello, Josette? It’s Alanis. You’re not busy at the moment, are you?”

  I asked Josette to pick me up at a corner six blocks away. As I headed toward it, I stripped off my Playtex gloves and dumped them and my flashlight in the first trash can I saw. Then I started jogging. Isn’t that what people in sweatpants and hoodies and running shoes are supposed to do late at night?

  Five minutes later, I was at the corner, only panting slightly, when a Cadillac pulled up beside me.

  A white Cadillac.

  The window on the passenger side rolled down, and Josette poked her head out.

  “Hop in!” she said.

  I climbed into the back.

  A tubby, gray-haired man with a walrus mustache was in the driver’s seat. He looked a bit like Wilfred Brimley’s not-quite-as-suave younger brother.

  He was wearing striped pajamas, and Josette was in a fluffy white bathrobe.

  “Alanis, this is my husband, Les,” Josette said. “Les, this is Alanis.”

  “Nice to meet you, Les,” I said. “I really appreciate you coming out to get me so late.”

  “Alanis?” Les grumbled. “You Athena Passalis’s kid?”

  “That’s right.”

  Les snorted. “If I’d known we were giving the competition a ride, I’d have stayed in bed.”

  Josette gave him a playful swat. “Oh, you grumpy old bear.”

  Les growled.

  “So…” Josette turned to pin me with her gaze. “How’d you get stranded out here?”

  “I’m too embarrassed to say.”

  “Oh, come on—you’re among friends.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Les muttered.

  Josette ignored him. “There’s no reason to be embarrassed.”

  “Okay. Well. To be completely honest with you…I went for a run and got lost.”

  Les burst into gruff guffaws.

  “In Berdache? Lost?” he crowed. “That’s like getting lost in a cardboard box.”

  “Oh, stop it, you,” Josette told him with another little swat. I got the feeling she hit him like that about a thousand times a day.

  “I told you it was embarrassing. I’m just grateful someone could come get me.”

  “It’s our pleasure,” Josette said. “We were just lying there reading anyway.”

  “I was sound asleep,” said Les.

  “You know, it’s funny—I was actually thinking about you, Alanis,” Josette went on.

  “Now I’ll be up all night,” Les said.

  Josette shushed him, then continued again.

  “I keep going over that reading I did for you the other day. You remember all the reversals? The Ace of Cups reversed, the Fool reversed, the Magician reversed. Reversals can be so complicated. There are so many different ways to interpret them. Some people try to make it easy by just going with the exact opposite of the upright card, but that’s not always right. A reversal can also mean the energy of the card is increased or decreased depending on what the rest of the cards in the reading say.”

  Les started snoring loudly. Fortunately, he wasn’t asleep at the wheel; he was just showing what he thought of all this shop talk. Josette didn’t even bother hitting him this time.

  “Well,” she said to me, “I think I missed something. I think there’s a connection between those three cards you had reversed, Alanis. Like maybe someone’s trying to charm you and use his powers to deceive you. And please don’t take this the wrong way—I know you’re a very worldly woman—but I’m afraid there’s a chance he might actually fool you.”

  I sighed. “Thanks for the warning, Josette.”

  “Not a problem. I probably should have called you right when I thought of it, but things got hectic. A tour bus stopped by, and I had a ton of customers—more than I could handle. I tried to send some your way, but the five and dime was closed.”

  “Always helping the competition,” Les grumbled. “It’s a wonder we’re not broke.”

  Most of the homes and businesses we were cruising past were dark, but the lights were still on in one office.

  “Looks like Anthony Grandi’s working late tonight,” Josette said sourly as we went by Star Bail Bonds. The Grandis are the only thing I’ve ever seen put a damper on Josette’s good vibes.

  “Now that’s a dependable business,” Les said. “All you have to do is sit back and wait for schmucks to get in trouble. I wonder who it is tonight.”

  I did, too. One thing I knew: It wasn’t Marsha keeping Grandi at work. Eugene would make sure she took her bail bond business elsewhere—if she got lucky enough to get out on bail at all. Allegedly hiring a hit man would get you a charge of first-degree murder with aggravating circumstances; bail wouldn’t be a given.

  We turned onto Furnier Avenue, and half a minute later Les was slowing to a stop in front of the White Magic Five and Dime. He ended up parked behind a black Cadillac.

  My black Cadillac.

  Was that SOB searching the store, looking for more money now that I was (supposedly) out of the way?

  I looked up at the second floor. The lights were on.

  Clarice.

  “Thanksgoodnight,” I said quickly as I jumped out of the car and rushed to the front door.

  “Such gratitude,” I heard Les say. “What manners.”

  I guess I hadn’t made a good impression. I didn’t care.

  The front door was locked, but that didn’t mean anything. Fletcher would have gone in the back way whether the door was locked or not.

  I unlocked the door, ran through the store, and tore up the stairs.

  “Whoa,” Clarice said when she saw me. “What’s the hurry?”

  She was sitting at the kitchen table with the laptop and a bowl of Froot Loops in front of her.

  “You’re all right?” I said.

  Clarice put a spoonful of cereal in her mouth.

  “Do I not look all right?” she said as she chewed.

  “You haven’t noticed anything weird?”

  Clarice swallowed, then nodded.

  “I have, actually,” she said. “You busting in after midnight wearing sweatpants and a hoodie. Since when do you dress like Eminem?”

  I let out a sigh of relief.

  Obviously Fletcher hadn’t broken in. He’d simply dropped off the car where he knew I’d eventually find it.

  So the man wasn’t a complete tool. Just 99.9 percent.

  “Anyway,” I said, “it’s a school night. What are you doing up?”

  “Waiting for you, of course. I had to show you this.”

  She jabbed her spoon at the laptop. On the screen was what looked like an email message. When I moved closer, I could see who it was from.

  The address was TheFixer@greylist-responses.com.

  When will you learn? Your whole world’s been turned upside down, and you’re still holding on to those damned Twizzlers! The burdens you’ve taken upon yourself are just as heavy as ever, but now you can’t even count on gravity to keep the earth under your feet. You ought to think about throwing away the whole kit and caboodle now. Because if your world can do a loop-de-loop once, it could do it again any second.

  Miss Chance, Infinite Roads
to Knowing

  The price is $2,000 per fix, the message read. Half in advance, in cash, in person. Details are only discussed face to face. If you agree, I’ll let you know the time and place for the meet. do not proceed if you are not serious.

  “So,” Clarice said. “What next?”

  “That’s obvious,” I told her. “You’re going to bed.”

  Clarice dropped her spoon into her Froot Loops. “What? Come on! That’s not fair!”

  “It’s not fair that I’m making you go to bed at 12:37 on a school night and not letting you stay up all night writing emails to assassins?”

  “Yes!”

  “You have a warped sense of fair, kid.”

  I closed the laptop, unplugged it, and put it under my arm.

  “Well, good luck finding a better hiding place this time,” Clarice said. “The dishwasher was the first place I looked.”

  She got up and marched off to the bathroom, leaving her bowl and spoon for the washing elves.

  I took the laptop to my bedroom, closed the door, and got to work.

  I am deadly serious, I typed. Just tell me where and when, and I’ll be there with the money.

  The next morning, Clarice was even louder than usual as she got ready for school. I heard stomping feet, clattering dishes, music, an electric toothbrush that sounded like it was being used vigorously right outside my room, and finally a slamming door.

  It was my sister’s revenge for being cut out of the action the night before.

  Fair enough. It beat a flaming bag of dog crap and a knock on the door. And I needed to get up anyway.

  First order of business: checking for another reply from the Fixer.

  There wasn’t one.

  Second order of business: making myself look and feel like a human being.

  That took a little time—and I didn’t quite get to finish. Just a few seconds into my own tooth brushing I heard a faint, distant rap-rap-rap.

  I stopped brushing and listened, and there it was again.

  Someone was knocking on a door downstairs.

  I spat out my toothpaste, rinsed out my mouth, and headed down to the first floor.

  The rapping was coming from the front door—the entrance to the store. As I walked up the hall toward it, I could see someone peering in through the glass. When she noticed me approaching, she smiled and waved.

  It was Liz, the woman who’d left $5,000 in “cursed” cash with me a few days before.