had the doppelgänger stopped to check his watch? Apparently he’d done so when walking out of the hotel, after assaulting Dupree, which seemed like odd behavior for a murderer fleeing the scene of a crime. Had he paused simply to give witnesses a chance to see him, the better to finger Sailor? If not, why would he be so concerned about the time?

I followed Patience down a narrow hallway to the back of the building. She rapped on a plain wooden door, then walked in without awaiting a reply.

I don’t know what I’d been expecting from a Russian psychic’s office, but it wasn’t this. Patience’s fortune-telling business was located in an old Victorian, with the mystical accoutrements one might expect of such an establishment. But then, given the way Patience dressed, I supposed that was no surprise.

Juna’s place, in contrast, was about as romantic and otherworldly as an accountant’s office. There were two file drawers in one corner, a messy desk in front of a small window that looked out onto an alley, a crowded bookshelf, and one plain round oak table with four chairs.

“Thank you for meeting with us,” Patience said. “Juna, this is Lily Ivory. Lily, Juna.”

Juna was tall and thin. She wore an expensive-looking navy pantsuit and her dark hair framed a rather severe face that would have been at home on a runway model: sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes, more chic than pretty.

“Please, have a seat.” She gestured to the table. “So. You want to know about a man named Jamie,” she said without further niceties. She spoke with an almost imperceptible Russian accent, the kind of slight lilt one might have if raised in the US by Russian-speaking immigrants. “No last name?”

“No, sorry.”

She brought out a stack of cards and started to handle them, mixing and cutting. They weren’t a traditional tarot deck, nor were they regular playing cards. They had Cyrillic symbols and Byzantine drawings, reminiscent of the cathedral walls.

“Actually, I didn’t come for a reading,” I clarified. “I was just hoping you might know him, or perhaps you’ve heard about him from the talk around the neighborhood.”

Her elegant eyebrows rose and she looked down her patrician nose at me. “You’re paying for the hour. You’re certain you don’t want a reading? I’m quite good.”

Patience let out a small bark of a laugh. “This one’s a special case, Juna. Take my word for it. You don’t want to read for her.”

“The price is the same.”

“I understand,” I said. “Really, all I want is information. Have you heard of Jamie?”

“Of course,” she said, setting the deck of cards aside. “He used to run a few of the psychics with the carnival, did tourist scams, that sort of thing.”

“He wasn’t associated with you?”

“Please,” she said with a snort. “Jamie didn’t deal with real psychics. I mean, I knew a couple of his girls, and one or two might get lucky occasionally, but that’s about it. Then he screwed up—not sure what happened, but he became indebted to a woman. . . .”

“Renee Baker,” I said.

“I don’t know her name, but she’s bad news.”

“They’re all politicians,” Patience said. “You can’t trust politicians.”

“Do you know her?” I asked.

“No. But I have heard rumors. . . . She shouldn’t be crossed. She’s got people paying for protection now. Jamie makes the collections.”

“And if you don’t pay?”

“People have gone missing.”

“We’re talking about the cupcake lady?” Patience asked, clearly unconvinced. “Seriously?”

Juna made a face. “Everybody loves cupcakes. Good cover.”

“That’s what I thought,” I said. “So, Renee is extorting people and Jamie does the collections. Is that right?”

“If people don’t pay, he threatens that his boss will place a domovoi in your store—that’s like a poltergeist—or maybe give your name to the Rusalka.”

“Rusalka?”

“She’s a water demon. Lures people to their watery deaths.”

That reminded me of La Llorona, a water demon I’d dealt with not long after I had arrived in San Francisco. It seemed a lifetime ago. I blew out a frustrated breath. None of this told me anything helpful.

“Witches, spirits, demons. They’re what we call unclean forces,” Juna continued. “Generally bad news. We tend to be a very superstitious people, especially the newcomers or the country people. The crossroads, thresholds, that sort of thing, can be zones of danger. It probably has more to do with the insecurity of an immigrant population than anything else, but Jamie knows how to exploit such fears. To tell you the truth, I sort of feel bad for the guy. He used to run a racket, but he was always pretty nice about it. More of a player, a fast talker. Not a leg breaker, like you see in the movies. Jamie’s strictly small-time. He seems almost embarrassed to threaten people.”

“So he’s not responsible for the ‘disappearances’?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t think so. But then again, I hardly know him. The only time I really interacted with him was when he was looking for Lepisma saccharina.”

“What’s that?”

“I really don’t know. Some sort of sweetener? I sent him to the little grocery on the corner; they have a lot of Russian specialties. Anyway, he wanted that, and the recipe for my grandmother’s famous meat-and-mushroom pasties.”

“Did you give it to him?”

She nodded. “A man who has an in with the Rusalka gets what he wants.” A cat-and-the-canary smile lit her face. “But you know, my grandmother always left something out of her recipes. The secret ingredient was just that, secret. That way no one could ever copy her. Not even I know it.”

I felt a quick shiver of premonition and glanced at the little window over the desk just as a bird hit the glass with a loud thump.

Juna jumped out of her chair, eyes wide, and crossed herself.

“Death,” she said in a fierce whisper, then pointed at me. “That is a harbinger of death! You have brought death to this place. Unclean forces! You must leave, now.”

• • •

“Gotta hand it to you, Lily Ivory,” Patience said as we were unceremoniously escorted through the jewelry store and out onto the sidewalk.

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