There’s a sucker born every minute.
Someone really on top of their shit had said that once. Some said it was the great con artist of his or any time, P. T. Barnum. Others said it was one of his competitors who coined the phrase. Not that it mattered. What mattered was the message, the inner truth of the words. There’s a sucker born every minute. It was staggering in its simplicity, heart-stopping in its beauty. It was also a personal mantra, my nightly prayer. Picture it, if you will. Me, on my knees beside my bed, hands clasped earnestly as I asked for nothing more than people as dumb as a box of hair to chase me down the street and throw money at me. More angelic a picture you couldn’t find.
Of course, it was a nice image but not strictly true. I didn’t have to beg. Sliding green out of sweaty palms came naturally to me, an instinct so strong I probably popped out of the womb with it. Lifted the doctor’s wallet before he had the chance to slap my ass. Outright stealing and unabashed conning were long behind me, though. The tricks I’d picked up in a state-sponsored home for the tragically unadoptable and the permanently screwed had gotten me through some hard times, but I’d moved on to other things. That long-gone carnival had taught me a better way, a safer way.
I was the real deal now. I genuinely earned the money I made. If people chose to pay me more money than they had, hey, whose fault was that? If they used what I gave them as an uncertain prop to a shaky life, that wasn’t my lookout. My product was solid for what it was-I never lied to a client. If they took it to be something else, took me to be something more than I was, all I could do was lean back and rake it in. I never claimed to be a saint. What you did with what I gave you wasn’t my concern.
What was my concern was an absent secretary. Abigail, who had never given up on me and had written enough letters to fill a steamer trunk, was off visiting her family. It was a different carnival but in the end just the same. It had come to roost for a while in a podunk town about an hour south of Atlanta, and she’d jumped at the chance to see her parents. Sticky cotton-candy fun for her, but for me it was a different story. No secretary meant calls would be missed and walk-ins turned away. That, in turn, meant a steady stream of twenties and fifties flapping their wings elsewhere. It wasn’t a mental image to put me in a good mood as I opened the office. Neither were the horns, curling mustache, and pitchfork some Bible-thumping delinquent had drawn in marker on the glass over my poster. Displayed prominently in the picture window, my face stared back at me with uncannily penetrating eyes. A brown so dark they appeared black, they delivered a gaze both brooding and knowing. Impressive, and it should be. It took me a good hour in the mirror to get that look down pat.
The rest had been easier. Dark red hair was pulled back tightly into a two-inch ponytail, and my work wardrobe was exclusively black. I’d decided a goatee might be pushing the envelope and went clean-shaven, but I still looked like every Hollywood image of what I was. On that note, I tilted my head and reconsidered as my hand hovered to rub the marker lines away. Who was I to say that the devil wasn’t a good look for me?
It is all in the advertising.
Snorting at a conceit that was pretty big even for me, I went ahead and wiped the glass clean with my glove… including the “Repent” sign above my head. I had some older clients. It wouldn’t do to scare them into heart palpitations on the sidewalk. Unlocking the front door to the office, I walked in with a shadow following at my knee and dumped the mail on Abigail’s desk. Small and dainty, it was all whites, golds, and ornate curlicues… much like Abby herself. Twelve years, and she hadn’t changed all that much, the same Amazing Unicorn Girl. The rubes hadn’t minded her glaringly fake special effects then, and their equivalent still doted on her today. There hadn’t been many kids cuter than Abby had been, and there weren’t any women more incandescent.
As for my truth, a runaway from the state who could see what lurked behind the mundane, I’d been different from Abby. Not as cute, for one. As for the seeing, it’s sad but true that most people have done things they regret. Add to that people who have done things, hideous things, that they don’t regret, and it was a lot for a homeless kid to know, to see. That’s why I’d gotten the gloves, wore long sleeves. It was why I’d only conned them at the carnival, but I’d known that if I wanted to move up one day, that would have to change.
When I left the carnival, I sucked it up. I used my ability; I didn’t fake it. I started when the people at Social Services weren’t as cooperative as they could’ve been when I was searching for Glory. I learned to handle the uncomfortable nature of it. I broke out the goods and went to work. It hadn’t helped me find Glory, but it had helped me start the business. It wasn’t wine and roses, but it was beer and barbecue. That had been a start. It had only snowballed from there.
After opening one of the envelopes from the mail, I fanned out fifteen twenties and grinned darkly at a whole new classification of lunch money. I stuffed the money back in and dropped the envelope into Abby’s in-box to be sorted later for a reading. I might charge an arm and a leg, but I did deliver. Moving back to my separate office, I propped open the door with a plaster cast of a head and got ready to greet the day. I had several appointments before noon, although I’d kept the next few days light until Abby was due back. I could’ve taken a short vacation, too, but a raging Atlanta summer left little to do but sizzle on the asphalt. Even sitting on my dock at home would be like enduring a sweat lodge. The breeze off the river was nonexistent, and the mosquitoes were carrying off water-skiers. The Ninth Circle of Hell had nothing on Atlanta in August.
Even with the air conditioner going full blast, it was still overly warm in the office. I pulled at my black fake- silk long-sleeved pullover shirt. No billowing sleeves-that much into the look I was not, and real silk showed Atlanta sweat stains if you merely looked out the window. It was my costume of choice-it shouted psychic or movie-style spy/assassin, but lightweight as it was, I didn’t think it was going to survive, air conditioner or no. My palms should’ve sweated under gloves of real silk, better fit, but they were long used to being covered. They stayed cool. Protected. I’d settled in behind my desk, a much more massive affair than Abby’s. A deep, dark cherrywood, it came direct from the factory. That’s the way I liked my things, new. Untainted. It kept my life simpler. Slipping off my shoes, I propped my feet up next to a crystal ball on a brass stand and reached for the nudie mag I’d bought at the corner store. A man had his needs. Being in touch with the pulse of the Universal friggin’ Soul wasn’t going to change that.
The jingle of bells and a strong hello had me shoving the magazine into a drawer and swinging my feet down. Placing my hands flat on the desk, I cleared my throat and said, “Mrs. Eckhardt, prompt as always.” I didn’t bother to deepen my voice, but I did flash her an appreciative eye. It was faked, but Ginger was an established client. She might already be hooked, but it paid to invest in her continued satisfaction. “And looking gorgeous to boot. Blond is a good color on you.”
A wrinkled hand automatically fluffed the buttercup-yellow bouffant hair as Ginger came into my office and sat in the plush crimson chair opposite my desk. “You heartless flirt. Always the same with you.” Pink lips peeled back to reveal the bright and shining smile you didn’t need to be psychic to know rested in a cup in her bathroom overnight.
It was hard to say whether Ginger kept coming back for the information from beyond or for the flattery. I didn’t care which it was. It was her dime, and either one paid the bills. “How could I not flirt with a woman so stunning?” I said with a sly wink. “It would be a crime against God and nature.” She threw back her head and gave a bawdy laugh that revealed that in her day, Mrs. Eckhardt had been something, indeed. Of course, I didn’t have to guess that by her laugh-I knew her original hair color. A rich chestnut brown, it came through clear as day. I had seen her stuff her first bra, kiss her first boy, and skinny-dip her way into a reputation she didn’t once regret. When she married the love of her life, I was there. She gave him three healthy children that I watched grow up. I also saw her husband die-a stroke while playing golf. I stood at her side at the funeral as they lowered the coffin to disappear into the ground, never to be seen again. That part I could’ve done without. I’d seen enough of that magic trick in my own past.
Now you see them. Abracadabra. Now you don’t.
I tossed a few more compliments her way, which she caught like a pro, before I peeled off my right glove and held out my hand. “What is it today, gorgeous?”
This time, it was a lost necklace. It wasn’t the first. Ginger lost things on a near-weekly basis. If it wasn’t my charm drawing her in, then it was a bad case of Alzheimer’s. I cradled her keys in my hand for a second, and the image bloomed clearly. Tucked away in a lovingly polished cedar chest and very purposely put there when Ginger was craving company and a big dose of flattery from her favorite psychic. With a twitch of my lips, I delivered the news, and soon Ginger was on her way after promising to call back and make another appointment with Abby.
The next client didn’t show up. A first-timer, no big deal. It happened. It did make me appreciate the fact that Abby wasn’t there to say I should’ve known that was going to happen. She never tired of that joke. Twelve years, and it still tripped from her lips as if it were the first time. Now that I thought about it, a few days’ vacation might not be enough for my devoted secretary. A little alone time wasn’t always a bad thing, even when it came to
