Fool Me Once: A Tarot Mystery

by Steve Hockensmith

  I opened the door and let her in.

  “Sorry to come before you’re open,” she said, “but I was so excited to find out if you’ve lifted the curse. I just found out my cousin won one hundred dollars on a lottery scratcher card, and I thought, ‘I bet that’s a sign! I bet Alanis did it!’”

  “Yup,” I said. “It’s a sign, all right. I did a few more spells and couldn’t find any curse at all.”

  Liz blinked at me in astonishment from behind the large round lenses of her glasses.

  “No curse at all?”

  “Nope.”

  I walked over to the cash register, turned it on, and opened it. Inside was the stack of bills Liz had given me.

  I took the money out and offered to her.

  “Spend it in good health,” I said. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  Liz was still blinking. She made no move to take the money.

  “But your mother…she was so sure…”

  I shrugged. “Misdiagnosis. It happens.” I gave the money a little waggle. “Please. Take it.”

  “I don’t know. I’d hate to even touch it if the curse isn’t lifted.”

  “But it is, Liz,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Maybe you didn’t have enough money to detect the curse. I could bring in more.”

  Now I was the one blinking at her.

  Some people just won’t be satisfied until you have all their money, Biddle used to say.

  And I knew he was right. Some marks practically throw their life savings at you. But there was something else Biddle used to say.

  We’d be out of business in a heartbeat if people just remembered one thing: if it sounds too good to be true, it’s too goddamn good to be true.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “How about I show you proof the money’s been cleansed?”

  “You can do that?”

  “Absolutely. Follow me.”

  I led Liz down the hall to the reading room and motioned for her to take a seat. I put the money on the table as I sat across from her, and then I picked up the deck of tarot cards that I keep there.

  “We’ll let the tarot tell us,” I said. “Three cards should do the trick.”

  Liz hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”

  I shuffled the cards, then held them out to her. “Cut them with your left hand and make three piles.”

  She did as I said.

  I turned over the top card on the first pile.

  “Ahh, the Moon reversed. Usually this card tells us things aren’t what they seem. In the half-light of the moon, it can be difficult to see what’s true; there are too many shadows. Reversed, this energy can be increased.”

  I said a silent thank you to Josette for her mini seminar on reversals the night before.

  “So what does that tell us?” Liz said.

  “A lot—if you believe in the tarot. But we’ll know more when we see what’s next.”

  I turned over the top card on the middle pile.

  “Interesting. See how this card shows a guy sneaking off with a bundle of swords? Look at his expression. Confident, smug. He thinks he’s getting away with something, but he’s not as smart as he thinks: he’s left two swords behind. He’s careless. His plan was impulsive. He didn’t think everything through. His theft is going to be discovered—and so is he.”

  “So that’s you, maybe?” Liz said. “You made a mistake when you said the money wasn’t cursed?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Well, what does it mean then?”

  “Let’s see the final verdict.”

  I turned over the top card on the last pile.

  “The King of Cups—and look at that: it’s reversed. You know something weird? I’ve had a lot of reversals pop up in my readings lately. What do you think that might mean?”

  Liz shrugged. “You’re the tarot expert.”

  I didn’t tell her how wrong she was. The tarot was still very, very new to me. I was just beginning to understand how useful it could be—and how revealing.

  “Well,” I said, “upright, the King of Cups is a creative person. But reversed, he’s someone who uses his talent to deceive and cheat. He’s not always what he appears to be.”

  I looked into Liz’s eyes.

  “Like you,” I said.

  She didn’t flinch. And I knew then that I—and the cards—were right about her.

  Too goddamn good to be true.

  “You didn’t come here to get a curse taken off that money,” I said. “You came to give me the chance to steal it.”

  Soft, hapless, harmless Liz vanished, replaced in an instant by a woman with cold, hard eyes and a sneering smirk.

  “Told ya it wouldn’t work,” she said. “The bitch ain’t stupid.”

  It took me a moment to realize she wasn’t speaking to me.

  “Of course. You’re wearing a wire. Trying to entrap me,” I said. “Who sent you? Burby?”

  The woman just got up and walked out of the room. The trap had failed, and now she wasn’t even going to bother talking to me.

  I followed her as she headed for the door, showing her contempt for me by strolling slowly, utterly without fear. When she was out on the sidewalk in front of the store, I darted around to cut her off.

  “Just let me say one thing,” I said.

  She cocked her head and gave me a scornful, heavy-lidded look that seemed to say, “Do your worst, biatch. I don’t care.”

  I leaned in so close to her my face was less than an inch from her breasts—where I figured the mic was stashed.

  “duuuuuuuuuuuuuck yoooooooooouuuu!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. Only I didn’t really mention any birds.

  A plain white work van was parked just a few feet away. I heard my own voice coming from it, as well as feedback and a yelped “ow!”

  The woman shoved me back and told me to go duck myself. (Again without the bird reference.) Then she walked around to the back of the van, opened the doors, and climbed in. She slammed the doors shut before I could see who was back there with her, but a moment later a scowling middle-aged man with dark hair and a thick black mustache slipped into the driver’s seat, started the engine, gave me the finger, then peeled out.

  As they drove away, I noticed Josette watching from across the street. All the yelling about ducks (or things that rhyme with them) had drawn her out of her shop.

  “What was all that about?” she asked as she crossed the street to join me.

  “That woman was trying to catch me running a scam, but I wouldn’t play along.”

  Josette scowled in a way that she usually reserved for one subject, which she promptly brought up. “Trying to catch you running a scam? That’s ironic.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Josette pointed at the van as it zoomed away up Furnier Avenue.

  “That was Madame Jezebel. She has a phony fortunetelling parlor on the other side of town,” she said. “She’s one of the Grandis.”

  Your first line of defense—the breadstick stockade—has been upended. All the effort you put into erecting it was for nothing. It failed. You failed. You couldn’t keep the danger at bay. That means it’s time to take off your fez and put on a thinking cap, pal. You need a new game plan.

  Miss Chance, Infinite Roads to Knowing

  I didn’t know what the Grandis planned to do with whatever they got on me. Take it to the police or the DA or a TV station, maybe. Maybe try to blackmail me into leaving town.

  Whatever their scheme, it hadn’t worked. But I didn’t fool myself thinking I’d foiled the Grandi family for good. They’d be back again. And again. And again. As long as it took to get rid of me.

  I couldn’t worry about that just then, though. I had other nooses to stick my head in.

  I thanked Josette for the ID and the ride the night before, then went back upstairs to check for new email messages on the laptop. There were three.

  One was an offer to increase the size, strength, and “stanima” (
I assume they meant stamina) of my nonexistent penis. Another was an urgent message from a Nigerian bank manager who needed help with a million-dollar wire transfer. (How do those people find new email addresses so quickly? It was something even I had never figured out.)

  The third message was from TheFixer@greylist-responses.com.

  Noon today. Red Rock Factory Outlets. The fountain. Bring the down payment in a McDonald’s bag. come alone.

  I turned on the White Magic Five and Dime’s open sign and tried to pretend I cared whether anyone saw it or not. I couldn’t stop thinking about Marsha. While I’d had a pretty crappy night—getting locked in a crawl space, losing a backpack full of cash (and evidence)—it was probably nothing compared with hers.

  Her first night behind bars. I could only hope it was her last, too. My plan to make sure it was:

  1. Get the Fixer to admit Marsha hadn’t hired him (assuming she hadn’t).

  2. Learn why one of Riggs’s co-workers was making house calls with bundles of money.

  2A. Get said bundle of money back.

  2B. Kick GW Fletcher’s ass.

  3. Find out why Riggs had taken up skull painting in his spare time.

  4. Pray Marsha made bail.

  5. Stop trusting assholes.

  6. Start having much, much better luck.

  Foolproof it was not. But it was all I had.

  I was thinking I might start with 2A and 2B—since that was going to be one of the more satisfying parts of the plan—when my cell phone began playing “The Jean Genie.”

  I answered, not bothering with hello or good morning but going straight to “How is she?”

  “As good as can be expected,” Eugene said.

  I winced.

  I expected something pretty bad.

  “Has her first appearance been scheduled?” I asked.

  “That’s what I’m calling about. It’s set for 10 o’clock.”

  “Do we know the judge?”

  “It’s Crowell.”

  I winced again. I hadn’t been in Berdache long, but I already knew about Judge Crowell. He had a harder ass than the Venus de Milo.

  “Maybe he’ll take pity on her,” I said.

  “Maybe. After all, he is human…supposedly.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Can you come a little early? There’s something I’d like to discuss with you—in person.”

  “This is a hell of a time to propose, Eugene.”

  Silence.

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  Eugene hung up.

  I was four or five years old. We were in another nameless (to me) Midwestern city. The older buildings were brick; the newer, more “now” ones were groovy black glass and chrome.

  And then we drove past a building that towered over the rest. It was made of imposing gray granite, with a golden dome that thrust high into the sky like it was trying to compete with the sun.

  “What’s that, Mommy?” I asked, pointing.

  My mother glanced at it and sneered.

  “That’s where the stupid people go,” she said.

  “Not necessarily stupid,” said Biddle. “Just sloppy.”

  So of course I thought it was where all the hippies lived.

  Like I said: I was four or five.

  A couple years later, we passed an identical building in an identical nameless city, and this time I saw the brass sign bolted to the cornerstone.

  It was a county courthouse.

  I went where the stupid, sloppy people go. It didn’t look like the ones I’d seen when I was a kid, though. No imposing gray granite for Berdache, Arizona.

  It was groovy black glass and chrome.

  Eugene was waiting on a wooden bench outside one of the courtrooms. He didn’t get up when he saw me. He just sat there forlornly, waiting for me to come to him like a graying, 250-pound bump on a log.

  I walked over and sat next to him.

  “You’re quitting,” I said.

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Is it because of me or because you’re in over your head?”

  “I’m willing to stay in over my head until it starts harming Marsha.”

  “So it’s me.”

  “It’s you. The money you’re paying me with—where did it come from?”

  “You know that. My mother.”

  Eugene gave me a long, silent look.

  “And yes,” I said. “What you’ve heard from Marsha and, I assume, Burby is true. My mom was a con woman. I was a con woman—or a con girl, I guess. That’s why I eventually ran away from her. It’s why I was so surprised when she left me the five and dime.”

  “So why did you keep the store open? Why take over your mother’s business?”

  “Just look who I’ve met because I stayed—who I’ve been spending that money on. I’m atoning for my mother’s sins. That’s why I asked you all those questions about the cop who arrested Riggs and the guy he fought with in jail and Huggins Construction, too. That wasn’t idle curiosity. I’m trying to help.”

  “I’d like to believe you, but I’m not sure I should,” Eugene said. “My trust is nothing to trifle with, Alanis. I give it once. Once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.”

  “Are you saying you can never trust me again?”

  “No…because I never entirely trusted you in the first place. But I can’t keep going with this—taking money from you and feeding you information—if I can’t believe in you.”

  “What do you want me to say, Eugene? ‘I am not a crook’?”

  Eugene mulled that over—then nodded. “Yes. That. Exactly.”

  I put up my right hand with the three middle fingers pointing straight up, scout’s-honor style.

  “I am not a crook.” I brought down my hand and made an X across my chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “All right, then. That’s good enough for me,” Eugene said. “You’ll be getting my first bill for Marsha tomorrow.”

  He gave me a small, sly, sad smile.

  I was trusted by Eugene Wheeler. And I was grateful.

  “So what are you going to be saying in there?” I asked.

  “That Marsha admits she exchanged emails with an anonymous individual who claimed to be an assassin, but that she never asked him to do anything, never paid him anything, and in fact broke off contact with him when he pressed her to make a commitment. She was a scared woman having an idle conversation that didn’t lead to any harm to anyone. That’s all. So if the Google searches and emails are the only proof the DA’s office has, they may as well drop the charges now so we can skip the whole conversation about bail.”

  “Sounds good,” I said with an approving nod. “You’d think you actually know something about criminal law.”

  Eugene mock-grimaced. “Thanks.”

  “So how’s our girl holding up?”

  Eugene sighed, and the grimace turned real.

  A court clerk came out to let Eugene know that Marsha’s case was next. We stood and walked into the courtroom together. Eugene sat at the defendant’s table. I sat right behind him.

  I looked over at the prosecutor’s table and found the bony, ponytailed, fiftyish woman sitting there staring right back at me.

  “Howdy,” I said.

  The woman held my gaze another moment, then started sorting the papers spread out on the table before her.

  A minute later, a dead-faced female marshal came in with a handcuffed Marsha.

  Marsha looked like she’d aged ten years in a single night. Her face was ashen, her eyes puffy and pink, her shoulders stooped, her gait a stumbling shuffle.

  When she saw me, a little life came back to her eyes.

  “Oh, Alanis,” she said. “You—”

  The marshal stepped in front of her to remove the handcuffs, then pointed to the chair beside Eugene.

  “Sit there,” she said tonelessly.

  Marsha sat.

  I leaned forward and stretched out a hand, wanting to pat her on the b
ack, but the marshal gave me a pretty good stink-eye for someone who seemed to be a zombie. So I sat back and just said “Hang in there” instead.

  A moment later, the bailiff stood and called out, “All rise. Yavapai County Circuit Court. The Honorable Judge Crowell presiding.”

  The Honorable (I’d heard various other adjectives) Judge Crowell swept into the courtroom from his chambers. With his long strides and swirling black robes, he looked like he should be escorted by a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers. He was a pale Darth Vader with a bad comb-over and pair of glasses perched on the end of his nose.

  He took his seat on the bench, lifted his gavel, and brought it down hard. Most of us flinched.

  I got the feeling Crowell liked that.

  “State of Arizona versus Marsha Riggs,” he said. “The accused is charged with murder in the first degree. How does your client plead, Mr. Wheeler?”

  Eugene rose. “My client pleads not guilty, Your Honor.”

  Crowell looked at the paper in front of him. “You are asking that the defendant be released on her own recognizance.”

  “That is correct, Your Honor.”

  Crowell kept his head tilted down but lifted his eyes to meet Eugene’s. Then he shifted his gaze to Marsha.

  I looked hard into the man’s dark eyes, hoping there was a soul in there somewhere.

  Crowell turned to the DA’s table.

  “Does the prosecution have anything to say about this?” he asked dryly.

  “We do, Your Honor,” the skinny woman said. “We believe that Mrs. Riggs engaged in a conspiracy to plan and execute the murder of her husband. That—combined with the fact that the defendant is known to associate with criminal elements in Berdache—makes her a flight risk. We request that the defense’s motion be denied.”

  “‘Criminal elements’?” Marsha said to Eugene. “What is she talking about?”

  “Later,” Eugene whispered to her, throwing a worried look at Judge Crowell.

  The guy was already reaching for his gavel, but he sat back and relaxed when he saw that Marsha had stopped talking.

  “Go on,” he said to the prosecutor.

  And she did. At length.

  She talked about the brutality of the crime and the cold calculation that preceded it and the need for Marsha Riggs to answer for what she’d done. And as she spoke, Marsha sank lower and lower and lower in her chair until I worried she was going to slip under the table and form a puddle on the floor.