The drunk slid a silver dollar along the table and the mind reader took it in his finger tips. It vanished in a quick movement. He bowed and turned away.
The girl snickered, the noise bubbling in her glass as she drank. “Daddy, isn’t he spooky?” She kept on chuckling. “Now, then, sweetheart, you heard what he said! He said, ‘A man who has a good head for business will give you the thing nearest to your heart, something which once lived in a wire cage.’ You heard him, daddy. What d’you s’pose he meant?”
The man said thickly, “Anything you say, kid, goes. You know that. Anything. Gee, honey, you got the prettiest lil pair of-” He remembered the slip of paper that the mind reader had told him to tuck under the strap of his wrist watch and he pulled it out, unfolding it and trying to focus on it. The girl struck a match.
In her affected scrawl, using small circles for dots, was written, “Will Daddy buy me that red-fox jacket?” He stared at the slip and then grinned. “Sure, kid. Anything for you, kid. You know that. Le’s get outa here-go up t’your place. C’mon, honey, ’fore I’m too lit-too lit t’enjoy”-he broke wind but never noticed it -“anything.”
At the bar Stan knocked off another quick one on the house. Even through the curtain of alky the maggot in his mind kept burrowing. How long will this joint last? They get crummier and crummier. That shiny-haired bastard- private. Private. Private information. Private investigations. Private reports, private shellackings. Private executions?
The thought turned and twisted in his mind, burning the alcohol out of it. Jesus, why did I ever have to tangle with that old crumb? How was I to know that Molly- Oh, God, here we go again.
A waiter stepped close and said, “Table eighteen, bud. The gal’s named Ethel. Had three husbands and the clap. The guy with her is a drummer. Plumbers’ supplies.”
Stanton finished his drink and dropped a quarter in the waiter’s vest pocket as he brushed past him.
On his way to the table Stan saw the boss, his navy-blue shirt sleeves rolled up and canary yellow tie pulled down, talking to two men in rumpled suits. They had not removed their hats. Both necks were thick.
A cold ripple slipped down his back. Wind seemed to whistle inside his undershirt. Cold. Oh, Jesus, here they come. Grindle. Grindle. Grindle. The old man’s power covered the country like a pair of bat-wings, flapping cold and black.
Stan walked slowly to the back of the room, ducked behind a partition and squeezed his way through the kitchen and out into the alley at the rear of the Pelican Club, breaking into a run when he was clear of the building. He didn’t dare go back for his hat. Christ, I ought to hang it on a nail right by the back door. But they’ll block that the next time.
Always different faces, different guys. They must hire private dicks in every state, all of them different. Anderson sits inside that barbed-wire fort and spins it out like a spider, millions of bucks to smash one guy. Mexico. I’ve got to jump the border if I’m ever going to shake them. Three thousand miles of this damn country and no hole to duck into. How do those goons do it so quick? Mind readers-they must chase after every guy doing a mental act and take a sample of his hair, see if it’s blond.
Across the dark rooftops a train whistled, long and mournfully. Stan ducked down another alley and leaned against the wall, listening to the roaring jolt of his own heart, fighting to get his breath. Lilith, Lilith. Across two thousand miles stretched the invisible golden wire still, and one end was buried in his brain.
Back in the Pelican Club the boss said, “Now you fellas run along. You tell McIntyre I’m not putting in no cig or novelty girls and I’m holding on to the hat check myself. It ain’t for sale.”
CARD XVII
IN THE light of the fire the cards fell, forming the pattern of a cross. Stan dealt them slowly, watching them fall.
The gully was shielded from wind, the fire hidden from the tracks a quarter of a mile away across fields standing high with brittle weed-stalks. Weeds grew to the edge of the gully, the fire turning them yellow against the sky where stars hung, icy and remote.
What did they think, the wriggling bugs of the scum, jetting into the world to meet acids, whirling douches, rubber scum bags, upholstery of cars, silk drawers, clotted handkerchief… two hundred million at a shot…
Across the fire the fat man lifted a steaming can from the embers with a pair of pliers. “Got yourself a can, bud? Java’s done.”
Stan knocked tobacco crumbs from a tin and twisted a rag around it. “In there, pal.”
The coffee set his stomach churning again. Christ, I need a drink. But how to snake out the bottle without that bastard cutting himself in?
He eased the bottle neck from his coat and pretended to be studying the cards while the white mule trickled into the steaming can.
The squat hobo raised his face. “My,
Through his smile Stan said, “Sure. Sure, pal. I was going to break it out later. I’m waiting for another pal of mine. He’s out trying to get a lump.”
The fat man took the bottle of rotgut, measured it by eye, and very accurately drank half of it, handing it back and returning to his coffee. “Thanks, bud. The only pal you got is right in there. You better soak it up before some other bo muscles in on us.” He shifted his weight, crossed his legs, and took a long drink of coffee, which trickled down the shiny blue surface of his jowls. A two days’ growth of beard made him look like a pirate.
He rested the can on his knee and wiped his chin, running his tongue around between his lips and gums. Then he said, “That’s right, bud-kill the bottle. How would you like it if we had an unexpected guest?” His voice took on a reedy, mincing tone and he held his head coyly on one side, lifting bushy eyebrows. “He’d find us in a dither-it being the maid’s day off. All we’d have to offer him would be a drink of that fine, mellow, wood-aged polecat piss.” The jowls swayed as he shook his head in mock concern. Then the dark face brightened. “Or perhaps he would be that priceless gem-the guest-who-always-fits-in-ready at a moment’s notice to don an apron (one of your frilly best, naturally, kept just for those special people) and join you in the kitchen, improvising a snack.”
Stan brought the bottle to his mouth again and tilted it; the raw whisky found holes in his teeth and punished him, but he finished it and heaved the bottle into the weeds.
The fat man threw another branch on the fire and squatted beside Stan. “What kind of cards are those, bud?”
The man’s shirt was almost clean, pants cuffs scarcely frayed. Probably rode the plush a lot. In his lapel was a tiny steering-wheel emblem of a boat club.
Stan gazed up into his face. “My friend, you are a man who has seen life. I get the impression that somewhere in your life has been an office with a broad carpet. I see a window in an office building with something growing in it. Could it be little cedar trees-in a window box?”
The fat hobo stood up, swishing the coffee in his can. “Everybody had cedars. I had a better idea-an inspiration. Grass hummocks-just plain grass tufts. But this will show you the
The Great Stanton smiled thinly, pointing to the cards before him. “This is the Tarot of the Romany
