Black Cat Blues

by Jo-Ann Carson

  Rita’s Journal

  Decourcy Island, September 1930

  I am terrified. Brother XII tells us to be frightened of the outside world. People live unjust lives that torment their souls and make them do evil things. They would hurt us if they could.

  But I am beginning to be more scared of him than anyone else.

  When we first moved to Decourcy, life was perfect. The men built several buildings and while they were rustic, we were comfortable enough. And at night I spent time alone with Brother XII. Precious time filled with our love.

  Women hover around him. I’d like to think he doesn’t bed them, but dear diary, I am no longer sure. I know he does not tell me everything. I catch him in little lies, and I do not know how he spends all of his day.

  Our life on the island has changed. We live in a fortress now. There are stone cairns all around the perimeter of our land, and it is protected by guards with guns. He told them to be ready for a fight. He warned them that the police or the government could come after us at any moment, and they must be ready to shoot.

  Darkness is falling on the outside world. Countries have fallen into an economic depression. People are out of work and starving. To protect our money he turned it into twenty-dollar gold bars. He seals them inside mason jars with wax.

  But make no mistake, dear diary, it worries me that he now calls our money his gold. He has boxes and boxes of jars and spends a good deal of his time burying them, digging them up and reburying them, over and over again. He says people want to steal from him.

  The brother has two boats now: a sail boat called the Lady Royal and a speedboat called Kleunaten with a seven-cylinder engine. At times I feel as if I’m living in his kingdom with armed guards, and a fleet. Is he going crazy? Dare I say that of Eddie? My Eddie?

  Should righteous people need to barricade themselves away from the world? I wonder.

  There is something wrong about this colony. I can feel it in my bones, like the bitter morning fog.

  Meanwhile, the brother seems distracted when I am with him. I’m not sure if he is losing interest in me, or whether his security issues have grown so large he cannot relax. A gloom is settling into our little paradise.

  Still, when he holds me in his arms, my worries float away like the tide and everything seems good again.

  I do love Brother XII. I just fear he is more a man, than the god he pretends to be.

  26

  Music is very spiritual, it has the power to bring people together. Edgar Winter

  Maggy headed to Aiko’s, a popular Japanese restaurant that had become a favorite place for her to meet with Mei for lunch. It built its reputation on its Ishikari-nabi, salmon stew with sake, but she favored various kinds of sushi with lots of wasabi.

  The owner told her Aiko means “love child” in Japanese. Its namesake lay outside the front door as usual, a beefy basset hound with attitude. When in the mood his howl could wake the dead. Maggy stepped over him with care. Watching his left eye-lid quiver when she opened the door made her smile. Not disturbing the baby beast had to be a good omen.

  The smell of fresh fish and rice made her mouth water. The long room was immaculate, as always. Words spoken in Japanese flew hard and fast from the kitchen. She took off her shoes before entering the eating room, to which the waitress led her. It was one of six attached to the main room. Mei sat inside. She greeted her friend with a hug and they closed the screen that separated them from the larger room.

  “I only have thirty minutes,” Maggy said.

  Mei gave her a wide smile. “Always running.”

  “Yep. Gotta keep the murderers at bay.” She laughed, but the pretense sounded hollow even to her own ears.

  “Tell me,” said Mei, fixing her ebony eyes on her.

  And Maggy did. She caught her up with everything that had happened in what her ex called their girlfriend-talk, a rapid voice with lots of abbreviations and looks to fill in the blanks. Mei nodded repeatedly until the food appeared.

  Mei popped a California roll into her mouth. “So let me get this straight. Hunter’s running around looking for an arsonist. You and your new man-friend Logan are looking for buried gold—and a murderer who likes spikes. And Jimmy Daniel’s ghost is lingering in your head or something like that.” Her smile, more than a little sarcastic taunted her. “How did you get yourself into all of this?”

  Maggy started laughing. What else could she do? The situation sounded so absurd. If it hadn’t happened to her, she’d never have believed it. But it had happened, was happening and wouldn’t go away. Thank God for friends.

  “Tell me: what’s Logan like?” Mei lifted an eyebrow. That eyebrow. The one that rose whenever she smelled a whiff of pheromones in the air.

  It figured Mei would pick up on her feelings. She took a deep breath and put down her chop sticks.

  “Okay.” Mei laughed. “I get the picture. She popped more sushi into her mouth and mumbled, “But I still think Hunter’s the man for you.”

  “You always say that.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  Maggy shook her head. “I didn’t tell you about my mom.” She picked up her chopsticks.

  “Your mom?”

  “I got an email from her five minutes ago. Her blood work isn’t good and they want her to start a new cancer med with another long Latin name. Because it’s so new its cost won’t be covered. But the doctors told her it’s her only hope.”

  “You’re already paying her rent and food.”

  “She needs this med. I’ll have to find more money.”

  Mei frowned. “How much?”

  “She said about two hundred and fifty a month. But truthfully I can’t afford even a penny more. I sold my good car and bought the run-down Honda which gives me nothing but more bills. I maxed my two credit cards, got to my limit on my line of credit, and I’ve taken the biggest loan the bank would give me on my houseboat. I’ve run out of things to hawk. My work at the dentist office is steady but it’s not enough. I’ll see if I can pick up some more dog walking and pray that Clarence can keep me singing.”

  Mei leaned back. “You have a full plate.”

  She nodded.

  “You could ask Adriano . . .”

  “No.” Maggy clenched her teeth.

  “Hear me out, Maggy. He likes your mother and for ten years she was his family. Family stands by family. You should ask him. If he doesn’t have the cash, he can get a loan easier than you can, because he makes good money.”

  “I hate to ask him for anything.” Her gut churned. Damn it.

  “I know, but if you have to . . .”

  “Let’s hope I don’t have to.”

  Mei pushed her plate away and reached down to her bag. “We’re going to do a reading.”

  “Really?” Maggy groaned. “Now?”

  “It’s the best time,” Mei replied. “The I Ching is all about change, the perfect divination tool when you’re in the middle of a big storm and can’t see the shore. Trust me. It’ll help.”

  Maggy grimaced. Mei had proven over the years to be adept at interpreting the ancient Chinese text of wisdom. When Maggy looked at it, she saw poetry that made little sense, but Mei could make the connections. She could divine the present, past and future from a hexagram.

  The book’s accuracy scared Maggy and she avoided letting Mei do readings. The truth wasn’t always something she wanted to hear. Who does? She took a deep breath. Maybe she needed it now.

  The three-inch-thick, hard-cover book with a tattered gray and yellow cover landed on the table between them with a definitive thud, creating a rippling wave in the bottle of teriyaki sauce. Maggy released her breath. It couldn’t hurt to listen. “I can’t believe you carry that thing around with you.”

  “Only for you.”

  “Okay,” Maggy said. “Okay.”

  Mei placed three quarters in Maggy’s palm and closed her fingers around them. “Think of the biggest question in your heart.”

  She’d
heard Mei say those same words many times, but never had they echoed in her body as solemnly as they did now, like church bells ringing on a quiet, dark night. The quarters in her palm warmed quickly. There were so many things she wanted to know. She played with them in her hand. So many. Who murdered Jimmy? Who murdered Edgar? Were they going to murder her? She squeezed the coins, feeling how hard and small they were in her world. How could she help her mother? And what about Logan? Questions raced through her head, and then one floated above the others. Her body froze. “How can I keep singing?”

  It was a selfish thought, but it was her question. Everything kept getting in her way. She wanted to sing. She inhaled the tangy smells of the kitchen like an elixir for a long life and crossed her fingers. Hell, why not.

  The fact that a book, written two thousand years before Christ, might understand her life better than she did—might give her direction—rattled her sense of the here and now. It raised too many questions about what life is really about. But still—Mei believed in it and she believed in Mei. And it was damned accurate.

  Mei watched her face. “You know, Maggy, that no matter what question you consciously choose the divination will answer the one you need to know.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Her heart sank like a rock into a pit of glacial fear. The day before her marriage fell apart, Mei had given her a reading. Maggy had asked about her sister’s stomach ulcers and the book of knowledge warned her instead about a problem closer to home. The next day, Adriano broke her arm. They had once had a love so intense she thought it would last forever, but it fell apart. No hiding from the oracle. It saw everything. Which gave her the heebie-geebies.

  But if it could help her . . .

  She tossed the quarters. The first toss formed the bottom line: two heads one tail. Then again: three heads. Again: one head two tails. And so on six times. Mei interpreted the tosses as solid and broken lines which formed a hexagram.

  When she was done she sat back and waited.

  Mei drew the hexagram on a napkin and then consulted her book.

  ____ ____

  _________

  ____ ____

  _________

  _________

  ____ ____

  “It’s the forty-eighth hexagram, “Ching,” The Well, with nuclear trigrams Li and Tui,” she explained in a quiet, calm voice.

  “The Well.” That didn’t sound so bad. Wells are solid. Maggy shook a strand of hair out of her face.

  Mei thumbed through her book and stopped at the appropriate page. “The well means union.” Her smile shrank.

  Was that a bad sign? Maggy’s gut tightened. Often words that sounded good in the Chinese script turned out to be bad, and vice versa. For example, dragons are a good thing in Chinese culture, whereas we tend to slaughter them in ours. She waited for Mei’s explanation.

  It was all about change. Yin to yang and back to yin. Mei had explained it to her a hundred times, but her rational mind still wanted to reject it. If it wasn’t so damn accurate, she would. She straightened her blouse, and waited.

  Mei began: “The judgment reads:

  ‘The well shows the field of character. The well

  abides in its place, yet has influence on other things.

  The well brings about discrimination as to what is right.’”[i]

  Mei’s eyes rose from the page, softening like a warm spring morning. “It’s not that bad, Maggy.” She touched her hand. “You know there’s no pure good or pure evil; no one moment in your life defines you. That’s what the I Ching teaches.”

  Maggy tried to breathe.

  “Life is about change,” continued Mei. “Nothing lasts forever. We go from moment to moment through change. What is important is how we act through the change. How we act can influence the change.”

  Maggy had heard all this before. She agreed with the spiritual idea behind it—yada yada yada—but how could it help her now? “Give it to me in plain English.”

  Mei’s eyes widened. She didn’t like to be rushed when she gave readings, believed in honoring the book of wisdom with a solemn contemplation of its lines. She looked up at the ceiling and continued. “In answer to your question, I believe the I Ching is saying that like a well, you offer nourishment to others. I believe it’s your big heart that is the well. You share it with everyone. I think that is your true music.” She stopped and closed her eyes for a moment. “It comes from deep inside you, so deep.” She hesitated again to take a breath that became ragged. “So deep.”

  “So deep what?”

  “You’re not ready for this.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You’re going to think I’m silly.” Mei raised her other brow.

  “Just tell me.”

  Mei closed her eyes again. “So deep it merges with the well of life and brings others in touch with all humanity, with . . . eternity.” She exhaled and opened her eyes.

  “That’s it? That’s all it’s got to say?”

  “Well no, there’s always more. Think of a well. It’s got a strong foundation and holds water inside it, deep, tranquil and clear. You must try to be strong for yourself and others. You must offer them your purest voice, your link to life.”

  Maggy swallowed, feeling the after-burn of the wasabi in her throat. “I’m not that strong.” No one is that strong.

  “You’re stronger than you think. You must be. Look here.” She pointed to the first broken line between two dark ones. This is the ruler of the hexagram. She read, “It . . .” Mei mumbled on, but Maggy no longer listened to the individual words. The book confirmed what she always knew. She was meant to sing. A warm glow filled her body. Somehow all this crap would work itself out if she kept her focus.

  “So, the answer to my question is to act like a well?” Maggy said with forced humor. It made sense to her, but she wasn’t about to admit to buying into the spiritual stuff. After all, what would be next? Looking for prophecies in chicken bones?

  “That’s right. Remember, the Chinese symbol for crisis contains the symbol of danger and opportunity.”

  Yada yada. She’d heard that line before.

  “In this crisis,” Mei continued, “you can help ensure a good outcome by becoming a strong well.”

  A crazy idea from an old book, but what was even crazier was that Maggy believed it. Her phone buzzed. Shit, fifteen minutes late. “I gotta run.”

  Mei put the book down. “Be careful, Maggy. It’s not anything I read in the book, but it’s something I feel. You’re treading in dangerous waters.”

  “Tell me about it.” She kissed her friend’s cheek and put fifteen dollars on the table. On her way out she nodded to the woman at the cash register and said “Domo,” the only Japanese word she knew.

  Maggy leaped back over Aiko and ran to her office, her jacket flapping in the wind and her mind a messy smorgasbord of thought. Crap. “The Well?” How could she be expected to be strong for others when her life kept falling apart at the seams? A leaky well. She smiled. A leaky well in a tsunami. That’s me.

  She really didn’t want to ask Adriano for money. But her mother needed meds. She kicked a stone on the street. Sweet Baby Jesus, she didn’t want to talk to him. She slammed the door of the office without meaning to. Damn it, the witch dentist would kill her.

  As she yanked on her white lab coat over her street clothes, it came to her. She’d beg Clarence for more work. And while she was at it, find out if he knew anything more about Jimmy Daniel’s murder. Kill two birds with one stone. Her gut tightened. The “kill” word stuck in her throat. She’d never make it as a comedian. Good thing she could sing.

  ***

  The dentist was already working on her first afternoon patient without her. With a professional smile, Maggy took her place. Minutes ticked slowly along while Doc Heatherington’s icy stares assaulted her over the body of an innocent patient.

  The next one, a five-year old girl named Sally, complained about her left, lower molar. Maggy handed her Fuzzy, the office stuffed to
y, to hold. Fuzzy was a hippopotamus that had won the heart of many a young patient, but he may not have had enough voodoo left in him to impress this one. Sally frowned. “He’s only got one eye.”

  “Makes him more lovable,” Maggy said.

  Jenny, the prim new receptionist who was one of those few women Maggy knew who could walk in high heels with grace, slid into the sterile cubicle. “Excuse me, Doc,” she said.

  Heatherington lifted her eyes. “Yes.”

  “There’s a policeman here to talk with Maggy.”

  Maggy’s throat constricted. What, now?

  “Maggy?” Doc Heatherington lifted her overly manicured brow.

  Maggy shrugged as if she had no idea in the world what this could be about.

  The witch dentist tilted her head and scowled. “You’d better go see the policeman.” She put down her pick. “Me and Fuzzy will take over.”

  Sally giggled.

  “Excuse me,” Maggy said.

  The doc exhaled noisily. “I hope he’s not here to take you away.” Her grimace said a whole mountain of things, Maggy didn’t want to hear. Like maybe it soon would be time to find another job.

  “I’m sure it won’t take long,” Maggy said over her shoulder as she left the room.

  Inspector Peterson looked about as comfortable in a dentist office as Sally did holding a one eyed stuffy. Not that anyone ever looks at peace in such a place. Patients lined the reception room, a long laminated desk housed three receptionists, working hard to appear as if they weren’t watching Maggy. She thought the one on the left was going to go bug-eyed. Maggy sighed.

  “Miss Malone.” Peterson’s deep, gravel voice resonated inside her as well as in the room. The patients hushed. Even though he wasn’t wearing a cop uniform, everything about him spoke authority.

  “What can I do for you, Inspector?” She thought she’d throw that to the peeping receptionists, in case they didn’t already know.

  He looked around and then back at her, squinting. “We need to talk.” Had he realized he was the center of attention? He was probably used to it. It would be really odd to go through life like that.