Pushed to the Limit

by Patricia Rosemoor

  “WELL, LOOK WHO the cat dragged in,” Poppy said as Sydney followed Benno inside his establishment several hours later. Almost finished removing chairs from the tables, the barmaid set one upright with a bang. “I thought I was going to have the pleasure of running this place all by myself on a Saturday night, too. I can’t tell you how much fun last night was. You’re lucky I didn’t walk out and leave this place up for grabs.”

  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you you’re not supposed to give a man whose been shot a hard time?” Benno asked.

  “I heard it was only a flesh wound.”

  “And I was hoping you’d be worried.”

  Sydney remained silent through their bickering. At least Benno had loosened up and was talking freely with his employee if not with her.

  He’d been introspective since their lovemaking, and she hadn’t had the words or the will to open him up. Avoidance of an uneasy subject had seemed the safest route. She would have stayed at the cottage to keep her distance if Benno hadn’t insisted she come with him for her own protection, though, truthfully, she hadn’t wanted to be alone.

  “So, is the boss putting you to work tonight?” Poppy asked as Sydney propped herself on a stool at the bar.

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “Maybe you could read your Tarot cards for the customers,” Benno said sarcastically. “Give them some great insights into their character. Tell them what terrific futures they’re going to have.”

  Sydney flushed and avoided his eyes.

  “Tarot?” Poppy’s voice animated with interest, her irritation with her employer seeming to have faded. “You really know how to tell fortunes?” she asked Sydney who shrugged. “That’s a great idea. Benno, you’re a genius.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “I’m not. This place is kind of a throwback to the late sixties, early seventies, more like a coffee house than a real bar. Tarot card readings would fit right in and bring more customers. Come on,” the barmaid urged. “What do you say? Let’s try it.”

  “It’s up to Sydney... like everything else.”

  Tension rife between them, they stared at each other.

  Poppy eyed them both. “Uh-oh, maybe I shoulda kept my mouth shut, huh?”

  “No,” Sydney said, turning her attention to the other woman. “I’d love to read the Tarot – it would be fun.” And would keep her mind off Benno and the dilemma he presented. Because he was frowning at her, she added for his benefit, “But if you don’t want me to play fortune teller, say so.”

  “I wouldn’t think of telling you what to do,” he said coolly. “I learned a long time ago not to have any expectations. That way, you can’t be disappointed.”

  But he did have expectations of her that had nothing to do with the Tarot, Sydney knew. And she’d already disappointed him. The invisible barrier between them didn’t make her happy, though she’d been responsible for creating it.

  Weakening in her resolve, she tried to assuage his feelings. “Want me to read your cards again?”

  “Not on your life, lady. You know too much about me as it is.” He turned away and signaled to Poppy. “Since you’re so hot on it, go get your fortune told.”

  Telling herself she deserved the rejection, Sydney made herself comfortable at a table for two in a corner near the door. She slipped the pouch holding the Tarot from the pocket of her long, denim skirt. All the while she laid out the spread and began her reading, she was aware of Benno’s eyes on her. She tried to shake the guilt from her shoulders and concentrate, but it was a difficult task at best. At least Poppy made an enthusiastic questioner, even if the barmaid didn’t hear what she was hoping for.

  “So you can’t tell me who my next husband will be, huh?” she asked.

  Sydney grinned at the other woman’s exaggerated expression of disappointment. “I’m afraid the cards aren’t that specific.”

  “Shoot. I was hoping to get some guidance this time. My record with men, especially with husbands, stinks.”

  Several locals entered and took a large round table in the middle of the room. A family of tourists drifted in directly behind them.

  “Whoops. Gotta go or the boss’ll get mad.”

  The barmaid left to take their orders, at the same time informing the customers of the new entertainment – Sydney. Within minutes, she was busy reading another spread, and as the night progressed she had a steady stream of interested takers who wanted insights into their futures.

  Giving them what they wanted kept her busy and amused and her mind off her problems.

  But, at the same time, she couldn’t shake her awareness of the man she loved as he went about his business – pouring drinks, making fancy coffees, and serving burgers and other simple fare. He seemed so comfortable chatting with the customers, especially the tourists. He probably put them at ease as he had her that first night she met him. Despite Poppy’s indicating they needed something to help business, the room was jammed with people.

  Between readings, Sydney stared at Benno and memorized every detail about him with longing. His skin tight jeans and midnight blue shirt with silver buttons fastened to the neck. His dark hair tied back with a silver cord. His wrist wrapped with an elaborately tooled silver eagle. His clean-shaven face with its ever present five o’clock shadow. Benno was the very essence of masculinity, a pleasure she had experienced first hand.

  So why wasn’t she basking in the afterglow instead of trying to make a break as if she were cold-blooded? When he glanced her way, his expression held the same question.

  She came up with an answer if not an excuse: fear made people do stupid things.

  He looked straight at her, making Sydney’s cheeks grow warm. A lump formed in her throat and she concentrated on the Tarot in her hand. What would they tell her, she wondered, if she asked them about her relationship with Benno? Would they advise her to trust or to run from another entanglement as fast as she could?

  Maybe she was wrong to let her own fears of repeating a mistake keep her from realizing her own happiness.

  She shuffled the deck and cut the cards using the hand closest to her heart. All night she’d been reading the Tarot for fun, but this time, she sought real insight, an answer to what might be the hardest decision she’d ever have to make.

  Sydney focused inward, freeing herself of her usual constraints, willing herself to see the truth. She began the spread and tried to remain objective until she’d turned the last card.

  But the Ten of Swords – all of which were implanted in a man’s back – confirmed the unfavorable and highly serious implications of this reading heralded by four cards of the Major Arcana.

  Her significator, the Hermit reversed, indicated her over-dependence on others. The Chariot reflected the great ordeal she was going through. Temperance in her recent past showed her to be scrawling the middle road, and Magician as self indicated that she had the power to make things happen.

  But what?

  The positions of two cards next to each other made her most uncomfortable. The figure in the Five of Cups had its back turned to the Knight of Swords. Benno’s card. The three spilled cups could indicate loss and bereavement, her turning her back on Benno and leaving him. Then, again, the two upright cups might symbolize a union that couldn’t be destroyed.

  Which way to interpret these two cards?

  Sydney sensed her decision to accept the loss or to hold onto him would directly affect Benno. The Ten of Swords inferred she had the power to destroy him.

  Stricken, Sydney stared at the spread. Concentrated her energy. If ever she needed help above what common sense and natural intuition could give her, now was the time. She blocked out the sights and sounds and smells of the room and looked into her own heart and soul. She had to go deeper to know how to decode the cards’ message.

  A mistake could prove fatal to the man she loved.

  At the thought, a chill crawled through her limbs and enveloped her heart. Her sense of the present receded, first slowly, th
en more rapidly. She became off-center as she entered a blackness deeper than any she’d experienced.

  Trapped by the dark.

  Suffocating.

  She couldn’t breathe. Inside her mind, she struggled to find her way to safety. No exit. Danger everywhere.

  Terrified, she grew frenzied. Her lungs on the verge of collapse, she burst free of her inner prison.

  Benno was running toward her as if in slow motion. His mouth was moving, his lips forming her name. His arms were stretched out, reaching for her. Trying to protect her, Sydney realized. A mysterious figure blocked her view of the man she loved. The presence brought Benno’s approach to an abrupt halt. She felt his pain as he sprawled to the ground and was unable to rise.

  Then she saw the gun, the same one she’d seen in her dream. With painstaking slowness, the barrel revolved toward the spot where Benno lay.

  “No.”

  Her eyes flew open and Sydney took a quick look around to see if anyone had heard. No one paid her any mind.

  Though she was once more in the present, her sense of unreality stayed with her. People were talking, but their words sounded garbled, meant nothing to a confused mind. She was disoriented and a little shaky, and a light coating of perspiration covered her entire body.

  Reluctantly, she returned her attention to the spread.

  Heart racing, Sydney saw the truth. She needed to stop being overly dependent and to stop taking the middle road about their relationship. In order to save Benno, she must turn her back on him as the figure in the cups card did to the dark knight. She had to start acting alone to clear her name before it was too late. If she hesitated now, Benno would be the one to suffer. Her premonitions might be slightly askew, but they always held some basic truth.

  Hands trembling, she gathered the cards and slipped them into their pouch.

  But what to do?

  Her gaze traveled around the crowded room, coming to rest on two newcomers who were claiming the last vacant table. Mick Brickman and Martha Lord. The man was being conciliatory, wrapping a black leather jacket around the young woman’s bare shoulders.

  Why would either of them come into Benno’s Place other than to make trouble? Sydney wondered.

  The two were acting awfully familiar, but she couldn’t fathom Martha’s being interested in Brickman unless she was using him. And, despite the fact that Parnell Anderson had a motive to kill Kenneth, Sydney didn’t believe he had anything to do with murder, not after finding Martha’s mechanical pencil in the car Al Fox stole. Thank God she hadn’t turned it and the note over to the lawman.

  Rather than dwelling on her suspicions, Sydney seized the opportunity the couple’s presence gave her. Benno was busy filling orders at the bar, his attention definitely caught by his work.

  She rose, and, slipping her cards into the pocket of her long denim skirt, quietly left. She would take the opportunity to finish the search she and Benno had begun.

  If she were lucky, she would somehow find the murderer’s identity in the house on the cliff.

  AFTER CATCHING UP with a backlog of orders, Benno looked around the room and caught Martha and Brickman at a table for two. He couldn’t resist approaching and giving them a hard time.

  “I didn’t know you two were an item.”

  “You have a problem with that?” Brickman asked.

  Benno looked directly at Martha who wasn’t dressed with her usual panache. The biker’s jacket was in direct contrast to her strapless dress.

  “No problem,” he answered. “Not as long as it doesn’t interfere with your work... and judgement.”

  Martha’s face grew red and pinched looking. “How dare you imply–”

  ”I’m not implying anything. I’m saying I don’t believe you’d attach yourself to a man of little means.” He gave the lawman a searching look. “No offense, Brickman, but you have to admit your date has a prime motive for murder, and therefore a motive for cozying up with the law.”

  “That’s enough, DeMartino,” Brickman growled.

  Benno backed off. “I can take a hint. You two enjoy your evening now.”

  “Brick, I told you this was a bad idea,” Martha said in a low tone. “I want out of here.”

  Benno eyed Sydney’s corner table and was surprised to see it occupied by a couple of locals. He’d glanced her way often enough while working, but hadn’t noticed she was gone until now. His gaze skimmed the rest of the room. No Sydney. She wasn’t at the bar talking to Poppy, either. His barmaid was alone, flipping a couple of burgers on the grill.

  Approaching Poppy, he asked, “Have you seen Sydney?”

  “She’s not here. Couldn’t stand your singing, I guess.”

  Worry made him ignore her teasing. “And you just let her leave?”

  Poppy seemed startled. “I didn’t know I was supposed to be her jailer.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “How am I supposed to know? She left right after Martha Lord waltzed in here with Brick. Boy, I wonder what he wants with a tramp like her.” She flashed the couple in question a resentful look. “Stupid question,” she muttered.

  Not about to get involved in a conversation about Poppy’s ex-husband, Benno said, “Hold down the fort for a while, would you? I have to go after Sydney before she gets herself into trouble.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not leaving me to run this place by myself again.”

  “You’re terrific,” he assured her, already on his way. “We’ll talk raise tomorrow.”

  “A major raise,” Poppy added loudly.

  As he dashed to the door, Benno almost ran into Martha.

  “Watch where you’re going,” she said, jumping back.

  Benno circled her and kept going. Before exiting, he glanced over his shoulder and realized Martha was staring after him. And Brickman was nowhere in sight. Had she been listening to his conversation with Poppy? Even if she had, Martha couldn’t possibly know where he thought Sydney had gone.

  He raced down to the corner where he’d left his Thunderbird. The full moon was bright in a cloudless sky, the rising winds the only indication the weather might turn during the night. Getting into his car, Benno hoped against hope that Sydney hadn’t gone back to the Lord house.

  He checked his cottage first, calling her name and checking every room. No Sydney. The Lord house was a safe bet. He couldn’t understand why she would go there alone. Surely she recognized the possible danger.

  Afraid he was already too late, he gunned the accelerator and turned the Thunderbird toward the house on the cliff.

  DISAPPOINTED THAT she hadn’t found anything more to implicate Martha after a quick search of the other woman’s bedroom, Sydney headed downstairs for Kenneth’s study.

  The wind rattled around the house. A loose shutter banged somewhere nearby and made Sydney jump. She sucked in a deep breath. She couldn’t help being a bit spooked. Taking charge of an illegal act like breaking and entering was not the easiest thing in the world for a person who had more than once been accused of being a “straight arrow,” though technically she hadn’t broken anything since she still had the front door key.

  To distract herself from any untoward imaginings, Sydney set her mind back on the pieces of the puzzle they’d found as she’d been doing off and on since she’d left Benno’s Place.

  Something kept niggling at her, something she was positive she was missing. The register tape and arcade coin were of no further use. But the newspaper clipping and mechanical pencil were of significance, as was the note. If only she knew whether Martha had sent the missive to Al Fox or to another... say Mick Brickman.

  Could the three of them be working together?

  She entered the study and turned on the room light, wondering where Benno had left off in his search. There was no helping going over the ground he’d covered.

  The large first floor room made a comfortable yet fairly informal office for a working architect. Leather couch and chairs surrounding a fireplace. Drawing table set bet
ween two long windows. Teak storage unit with a pull down desk hugging the wall opposite.

  Noting the file drawers that were part of the wall unit, she decided to start with those.

  Kenneth Lord certainly had been organized. The hanging files with matching interior folders alternated in color – gold, red, blue, gold, red, blue – and their identification tabs were set precisely in five stair step positions.

  About to pull the first file, Sydney froze when she heard a noise outside she couldn’t identify. Someone returning to the house? Though she listened intently, no other sound followed but the scraping of a tree limb on the upper story. No doubt the wind had blown some loose object against the house.

  Breathing normally again, she got to work, checking file after file, skimming through the folders within, but finding nothing obvious. Only when she finished all three drawers did she think to take a more objective look inside. She started over.

  When she reopened the middle drawer, something about the color coding didn’t seem quite right. Gold, red, blue... gold, red, blue... gold...

  A red file was missing from the center of the drawer. The gold file on one side of the blank spot was labeled “Kramer, James,” the blue file, “Lundquist, Helga.”

  Resolved to find out what that red file might be, Sydney began by checking the desk area as well as the drawers and shelves of the wall unit, all the while fighting the uneasy sensation that made her want to look over her shoulder. A frisson of fear settled in her chest and blossomed. She was being silly, she assured herself in an attempt to shake the feeling. If Martha returned, she would hear the car.

  She ordered herself to concentrate in the meantime, to try to pinpoint that which was still nagging at her – something she’d missed in going over what she and Benno knew about the murder.

  The murder.

  To the best of her ability, Sydney replayed first the dream and then the reality. What did she know from either? The only clue had been a small metal stud found in Kenneth’s closed fist. In the dream she’d seen him rip something from his assailant’s sleeve while falling.