The White Magic Five & Dime (A Tarot Mystery)

by Steve Hockensmith

  Riiiiight.

  “Look,” I said, “we can work all this out later. Right now, I don’t see how you can even be in this place. I mean—don’t you know what happened in here?”

  The girl gave me a look so toxic I’m surprised I survived it without a hazmat suit.

  “Of course I do,” she said. “Don’t you know who found the body?”

  Clarice led me up the stairs. The second floor was an apartment. Communal living room, kitchen, bathroom. And, yes—two bedrooms.

  It wasn’t hard to guess which one belonged to Clarice. The dirty clothes covering the floor had spilled out through the door, as if the room had vomited wadded-up jeans and wrinkled T-shirts.

  The rest of the place was a mess, too. Dirty plates and bowls were everywhere. From what I saw on them, it looked like Clarice had been living on Hot Pockets and Cap’n Crunch.

  Clarice started scooping up the dishes and carrying them into the kitchen.

  “Sorry about the mess. I haven’t been in the best mood since…you know. But I’ll do better.”

  I walked to the other bedroom and looked inside. Names, identities, accents, ethnicities, hair styles, hair colors, glasses, contacts, whole wardrobes—these things came and went with my mother. But one thing had stayed the same all the way to the end.

  The woman was a neat freak. A place for everything and everything in its place—so you can grab what you need quickly when the inevitable time comes for a quick, quiet exit out the back. Clutter could slow you down.

  People, as well. Mom always kept that streamlined, too.

  There were no pictures in her room. No mementos. No hint of a past, a family, a daughter. It was as if I’d never been born—which was what I assumed my mother would have preferred.

  So why was I here now?

  “How did you end up living with Athena?” I said.

  Clarice was jamming glasses into an already overloaded dishwasher.

  “My family’s kind of messed up. Athena took me in.”

  “Out of the goodness of her heart?”

  As if there was any.

  Clarice glanced back at me, and there was the slightest pause—a second’s reassessment and recalculation—before she answered.

  “In the beginning, yeah. But before long I had to ‘earn my keep.’ I was her little slave, basically. I cooked, cleaned, ran errands, helped out downstairs.”

  “You worked in the White Magic Five & Dime?”

  “When I could.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Took messages, made appointments, made sure no one walked off with anything, got hit on by creepy guys, dusted, vacuumed. That kind of thing.”

  “How about the behind-the-scenes stuff?”

  “What behind-the-scenes stuff?”

  “The readings. What Athena told her clients. Her advice, guidance, services. How much of that did you know about?”

  “None of it. That’s all private. Like doctor-patient stuff.”

  “No one ever mentioned any special—?”

  “Although you know,” Clarice cut in, “I would overhear things sometimes. Just a phrase, a few words. There was this one time I had to go to the bathroom, so I was walking down the hall during a reading, and I thought I heard Athena say to this lady, ‘What you need are llamas.’ I was like, ‘Chuh ? Did I hear that right?’ I so wanted to stop and listen. But of course I couldn’t or Athena would be all up in my grill later. That lady never came back in or I would’ve asked her, ‘How’s it going with the llamas? They look like they’d smell.’”

  I smiled and nodded and thought llamas, my ass.

  “There was this other time…”

  And Clarice told me about this other time. And this other time. And this other.

  You want to know about the business? Sure! Let me tell you about the llama lady. And the Transformers guy. And the woman who thought Bruce Willis was following her.

  It was verbal sleight of hand. A minute into it and you’ll have forgotten what your original question was. Five minutes and you wouldn’t remember that you’d asked a question at all.

  I’d learned it from my mother, of course.

  So had Clarice.

  Mom was dead. Long live Mom!

  “There was this other time all I heard was ‘never, ever with asparagus,’ and the guy was like, ‘How about a carrot?’” Clarice went on.

  And on and on.

  I let her prattle. I could’ve given her some pointers—“It’s called obfuscation, dearie, and it requires a lighter touch”—but she was trying so hard, it was endearing.

  I wondered if I’d been a better liar at her age. I would’ve had more practice, certainly, but there’s a lot to be said for natural talent.

  “Wacky,” I said when I’d had enough.

  “Totally. The people around here…man. I could tell you stories all day.”

  “I bet.”

  Clarice started the dishwasher, dusted off her hands, then gave me a well-I-guess-you’ll-be-going-now look.

  “There’s something else you can do for me, though,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell me about the night Athena died.”

  She was reluctant, but I was the new landlord and she obviously wanted to stay. So it only took a little wheedling to get the girl to talk.

  “I’d been out with friends,” she said. “Just hanging, goofing around. I got in really late and came in the back way, like always. And I noticed that the light was on in the reading room. That was weird. Athena never had anyone in after nine. She might stay up messing around on the computer, but she wasn’t in the office when I came in, and it wasn’t like her to leave lights on after she went upstairs for the night. She was always so particular—so anal. So I went down the hall to check it out. She’d been kind of extra-moody lately, and I thought maybe…well…I don’t know what I thought.”

  “And you found her.”

  Clarice nodded.

  “I freaked out. Screamed, ran outside, called the police. It was obvious someone had killed her. Her eyes were…”

  The girl’s words trailed off, and her jaw clenched tight.

  Then she shivered and swallowed and started again.

  “Her eyes were all bugged out, and I could see bruises around her neck. So far as I knew, the guy might still be inside. When the cops came, they checked the place out, but he was gone.”

  “How’d he get in?”

  “Through the window in the office, they think. The front and back doors were both locked—I had to let myself in with a key. And the window was cracked open, so there you go. The guy didn’t take much. Just some money and whatever electronic stuff he could grab from downstairs. The police think I probably missed him by, like, thirty minutes.”

  “And they let you stay here after that?”

  “Oh, god no. They kicked me out. Can’t have some kid messing up a crime scene. So I stayed with friends and then snuck back in a couple days later. I figured they’d already done their CSI thing in the Five & Dime, so what would it matter if I’m up here? It’s not like they were going to come back and find some new clue that would crack the case open. Naw. It’s gonna be some druggie saying, ‘Hey, man—wanna buy a camcorder? I killed a lady for it’ to a scumbag friend. And then the friend gets arrested for possession and tells his lawyer, like, ‘Hey, I know something the cops’ll want to hear.’ I think that’s how these things usually work out. Or maybe that’s just the way it looks on Law & Order.”

  “Were there cards on the table?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “On the table. In the reading room. Were there any tarot cards?”

  “I guess. There’s always a deck on that table.”

  “But were they spread out? Like for a reading?”

  “I didn’t stop to check. I was
a little distracted—you know, by the body.”

  “Try to remember. It could be important.”

  The girl’s bearing—her aura, Josette might have said—suddenly changed. Her face turned hard; her eyes darted.

  She was going fight-or-flight on me.

  “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you. Who are you, anyway? You claim you just bought this place, but then you call Athena ‘Barbra’ and start asking questions like a cop.”

  “I didn’t say I bought the building. I said I own it.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Eugene Wheeler never spoke to you? You don’t know anything about the will?”

  “What will?”

  “My mother’s will.”

  “Your—?”

  Clarice’s eyes widened.

  “Oh my god,” she said. “Athena was your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she left everything to you?”

  “Yes.”

  Clarice looked away. She shook her head. She started to laugh though she looked like she wanted to cry.

  “That bitch,” she muttered. “That goddamn bitch.”

  Not the most tactful thing to say to a grieving daughter, but I couldn’t argue.

  “Look,” I began.

  I was going to tell her she wasn’t getting kicked out. I didn’t know what I’d be doing with the place, but until I decided, she was welcome to stay.

  I didn’t have to bother, though.

  “Bitch!” Clarice shrieked, and the tears finally broke through as she ran to her room.

  She had to kick dirty clothes out of the way, but after a few seconds she was able to give the door a nice loud slam.

  What a very special woman my mother was. Dead and gone, she could still make people cry.

  I’ve never had any desire to be a mom myself and have always acted accordingly. There are many, many reasons for this, and here’s one: I don’t like the idea of a teenager screaming “bitch!” at me as she runs to her room in tears. And here it was happening anyway.

  Old news: life’s not fair.

  I stood there a minute feeling stupid. Should I knock on Clarice’s door and ask if she was all right? It would be a dumb question. I could hear her sobbing. What could I do about it?

  No one ever taught me how to console someone. No one ever taught me to care. I’d spent the last two decades trying to teach myself, but it was still a work in progress. I was a work in progress.

  Eventually I just went back downstairs without saying anything.

  I headed to the front of the store and turned on the big neon sign in the window. Then I walked to the display case and pulled out a copy of the tarot-reading book—Infinite Roads to Knowing by someone called Miss Chance.

  I started reading.

  Open yourself to new ideas and new people, and you could be like the High Priestess—a reader of minds and diviner of dark secrets. Just look into those eyes. They’re already looking into you.

  Miss Chance, Infinite Roads to Knowing

  It didn’t take me long to decide that Miss Chance was full of crap. Her introduction I skipped. Ditto the history of tarot cards and “divinatory” readings. I wanted to get straight to the how-to: You see this card, you say that. You see that card, you say this. That’s all a “guide to the tarot” needs to be, right?

  Yeah, maybe. But apparently Miss Chance didn’t feel that way. Each and every card got its own chapter: as many as eight pages devoted to one little drawing that looked like it came from some weird-ass medieval comic book.

  And what was on those eight pages? Stuff like this:

  If in the four suits we see the four elements that the ancients believed make up all things—earth (Pentacles), air (Swords), fire (Wands), water (Cups)—then in the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana (the Fool, the Magician, the High Priestess, and so on) we see something separate from and beyond the trumps and, consequently, separate from and beyond the material realm. Looked at like this, the cards of the Minor Arcana (the Queen of Pentacles, the Ace of Swords, the Eight of Wands, the Two of Cups, etc.) are depictions of the physical realities that surround us—our world and the things we do in it—while in the Major Arcana (Latin for “big secrets,” remember) we find reflections and refractions of the archetypes that can define human identity and act as signposts on the road to knowing.

  Miss Chance didn’t just lay it on a little thick. She backed up the BS truck and poured it out by the ton.

  Eventually, however, with much perseverance, I was able to find passages that seemed to be written in English. A few I even understood. Kind of.

  I found a pen and started underlining.

  I was putting a star next to a particularly sane sentence when the front door opened.

  “That isn’t going to fill customers with confidence,” someone said.

  I looked up.

  A man stood in the doorway. He was tall, dark, and handsome. (His hair and clothes were dark, anyway. He was a white guy, so he could only get so dark without being sunburned.)

  He was smirking at the tarot book.

  “I’m just looking for typos,” I said. “I wrote it, and there’s a new edition coming out next year. Are you here for a reading? I’m the new proprietor. Returning clients get half off their first session.”

  The man’s smirk grew smirkier.

  “No. I never got my fortune told here, although I did always come with a lot of questions.”

  He pulled his black leather jacket aside to reveal a badge clipped to his belt.

  “Now it looks like I’ve got questions for you,” he said.

  I stifled a sigh and walked to the window and turned the sign off again. It had been on for all of twenty minutes.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  His name was Josh Logan, and he was the head of the Berdache Police Department’s detective division.

  He was also the entire staff. The Berdache Police Department had seven employees, and he was the only investigator in the bunch.

  His smirk disappeared fast when he found out who I was.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know Athena had any children. When I saw the sign was on, I just assumed some crony of hers was trying to pick up where she left off.”

  “I look like a crony to you?”

  Logan winced.

  “An associate. A colleague,” he said. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do, actually. And where exactly is it that you think my mother might have left off with one?”

  Logan took a few strides in silence. We were walking up Berdache’s main street, Furnier Avenue, which doubles as a short stretch of Highway 179. Every quarter block or so, someone would say “hey, Josh” or “afternoon, Officer.” From their smiles, I took it Detective Logan was a popular man. Given his looks, I wasn’t surprised. He was like a taller, younger George Clooney, only not so homely.

  “So you’re a fortuneteller, too,” he finally said to me.

  “Not really.”

  “But you said you wrote a book about—”

  Logan cut himself off with a snort and a shake of the head. I knew what he was thinking.

  Like mother, like daughter.

  “Look,” I said, “I hadn’t spoken to my mom in a long, long time. I can’t imagine she changed much, though. That’s part of the reason I came to Berdache. If she hurt anyone here, I want to find out who. To do that, I need to connect with her clients—particularly the most vulnerable ones. The most gullible. Do you think that’s something you could help me with?”

  “You want me to round up your mother’s dumbest customers for you?”

  “I didn’t say dumb. I said vulnerable and gullible.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Why?
Because I say I want to track down the people my mom swindled and make amends? You find that so hard to believe?”

  Logan said nothing.

  “It’s because I look like a crony, isn’t it?” I said.

  Logan gave me a long look.

  I batted my eyes at him.

  I do not look like a crony. I look like a 4-H beauty pageant runner-up. Not tall or thin or blond enough to win, but the big brown eyes and sweet smile would knock the judges dead in the Q&A.

  That’s why I used to make such a good crony.

  “There must have been some complaints,” I said. “I assume all those questions you wanted to ask my mom weren’t about your love life.”

  Logan gave me another sideways look. He held it for seven or eight steps, glancing away just in time to glide around a lamppost. It was as if he had every inch of Berdache memorized.

  “Maybe I can help you, maybe not,” he said. “Why don’t we see if you can help me first?”

  I couldn’t.

  He asked about my mother’s methods, her tricks, her partners. And though I could have told him stories all afternoon—not that I ever told those stories—none of it would have done any good.

  “I’m not denying it: my mom was a con artist back when I knew her,” I said. “But I have no idea when or how she got into the fortunetelling thing. We didn’t even have a Magic 8 Ball when I was a kid, let alone tarot cards.”

  “‘Back when I knew her’? That’s a weird way to talk about your mom.”

  “Not when you haven’t spoken to her in twenty years.”

  I got yet another of Logan’s long looks as we continued up the sidewalk. It was a miracle he hadn’t steamrolled a tourist.

  “You go all that time without contact of any kind, then you just waltz into your mother’s place and take over after she dies?”

  I shrugged. “There was a will. I was in it.”

  “I doubt if it’s that simple.”

  “Then you’re smart. Don’t make it too complicated, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean there was a will. I was in it. I assume I’m your number- one suspect now. And I shouldn’t be.”