Carlos and recommend we tell Pasco that was it. I was composing the recommendation in my mind when I walked into Morey's Deli on Beverly Boulevard, a block from the office. I generally eat breakfast there. When I eat at home, I keep going back for refills. At Morey's the only refills are coffee.
When I walked in, a guy waved to me, a guy called Indian. He wears a big feather in his sweatband; calf- length, moccasin-style boots with a fringe on their turned-down tops; and a beaded leather vest. I went over and sat down with him. Indian's got hair about the color of mine—halfway between brown and blond—a red, Viking- looking mustache, and a ruddy complexion. Pretty un-Indian looking, except for facial structure. He insists he's a quarter Chippewa, and that his mother grew up on the Bad River Reservation in Wisconsin.
Whatever, he's an Angeleno, born and raised. A tallish, strong-looking guy who works for Yitzhak's Transit as a casual. Some days Yitzhak has work for him, some days he doesn't. When he doesn't, Indian comes in to Morey's, about two blocks from Yitzhak's, for coffee and a fat, glazed doughnut. I see him quite a lot.
Yitzhak's a New Gnu, and almost all the people who work for him are New Gnus, but not Indian. Indian's a Loonie, belongs to a cult of moon worshipers. They don't actually worship the moon, but they meditate on it. And it occurred to me a Loonie might know something about astrology. So after I gave Morey's daughter my order, I asked Indian about it.
'Don't know much,' he said. 'But Moonbeam does. She checks the horoscopes in the paper each day and tells me if there's something I need to watch out for. Moonbeam's pretty spiritual, you know? She's part Indian too, and an Aquarius, so she's got a better feel for that stuff than me. That's why she's our house mother.' He stopped and examined me a moment. 'You got a girlfriend? You never talk about one.'
'Yeah, I've got one. Her name is Tuuli.'
'Tooley? That's a neat name! What does she do? For a living I mean?'
'She's a professional psychic.'
'Hey! Wow! That's a coincidence! We got a fortune-teller in our house!' Indian's life is full of coincidences. 'Her name is Becky. She's from Sacramento. You know they made a law against telling fortunes in Sacramento County?'
I did. But to keep him going, I said no, I didn't.
'Yeah. Ain't that crazy? What kind of country is this, they can make a law against telling fortunes? Becky didn't have no job, so she told a guy his fortune, and he's an undercover cop. She couldn't pay the fine, so they put her in jail. And when she got out, she still didn't have no job. A friend of hers, a hooker, give her the money to come down here.'
Indian grinned. 'The hooker said she'd get even for her, with the guy that got the law passed. She didn't say how. Maybe he's a customer or something.'
Sometimes I just half listen to Indian. He rambles. This time he had my attention. 'What's the guy's name?' I asked.
'I don't know. She said, but I don't remember.'
'Wellington?' I threw that out to test him.
'Nah, nothing like that.'
'Miller? Pasco?'
'Pasco! That's it! You know about him?'
'I've heard of him. He doesn't like psychics.'
Indian looked suddenly wary. 'It's not against the law in L.A., is it? Nah, couldn't be. Besides, your girlfriend is a psychic.'
'Is Becky pretty good at fortunes?' I asked.
'I don't know. I guess. You want yours told?'
'Maybe. Tuuli won't tell me mine. Can I get in touch with this Becky?'
'There's a house on Franklin, on one of those little streets east of Bronson. It's got a little sign in the front yard—
He told me Becky didn't leave for work till after nine, and gave me the phone number where he lives. So when I got to my office, I called her. A reading, she told me, cost ten dollars, and she'd be at the House of the Moon by ten o'clock.
I was too. She called herself Madame Rebecca, wore a head kerchief, a black satin shawl with white stars and moons, and a dress to her ankles. The face beneath the kerchief was small and pointy, vulnerable looking. I suspect going to jail in Sacramento wasn't her first visit from hard luck.
The fortune she told me was interesting. I'd entered a time of challenge and uncertainty, she said. And if I passed through it safely, I'd overcome the challenge. There was a special person in my life, someone with whom I shared a special communication, who would disappoint me. But if I persisted, I'd win there too. All this with appropriate silences and frowns, and passes at her crystal ball.
The whole thing was general enough to give me a choice of things it could allude to. I could interpret the uncertainty and challenge as the Ashkenazi case, though I couldn't imagine any danger there. The special person in my life I could take to mean Tuuli. We even shared a special communication—Finnish—though hers is a lot better than mine. I learned some of it from my dad, and after he died, I lived with my older brother Sulo and his wife, who talked it to me.
When Madame Rebecca had finished and I'd paid her, I got down to the questions I was really interested in. 'Indian tells me you're from Sacramento,' I said.
She admitted she was.
'I'm going up there on business next week. A couple of days. Can you recommend a lady I could look up? Someone reasonably nice looking, who's healthy and likes a good time?'
