is going to sound a little crazy,” he said as he sat down. “Damn, this cement feels cold on my ass.”
“It’s gonna sound crazy? How much more crazy can it get?”
“Well, here it is,” he said. “Just let me tell you the whole story before you say anything, okay?”
“I’m all ears,” I said.
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “In 1971, when I went up to Detroit, there were a few of us who got called up together. You remember Marvin Lane, the outfielder, and Chuck Seelbach, the other pitcher? A couple guys from double-A, too. Anyway, we were all new in town and kinda overwhelmed by everything, so we ended up spending time together, just hanging out in the afternoons, before the games. One day, we’re having lunch at the Lindell AC. It was a nice September afternoon in the big city, you know, so we’re just walking around down there in Corktown, feeling like hot shit ‘cause we’ll be going over to the stadium in a few hours for the night game. And we see this place, with this sign on the sidewalk. A big hand, with all these lines on it. MADAME VALESKA, SPIRITUAL READER. I guess she’d call herself a psychic nowadays. But back then, the sign said SPIRITUAL READER. It was one of those buildings with the stairways that go up the side. We all went up there, thinking we’d all get our fortunes told. See if we’d see any game time that night. You know, just as a gag. I tell ya, Alex, this place was wild. It had this incredible red wallpaper, and all these strange paintings on the walls. One was a guy hanging upside down, like on the tarot cards, and another was a skeleton in a black robe-you know, with the big blade thing he carries around to harvest souls. Anyway, Madame Valeska was sitting in the back room, with a crystal ball, I swear to God, and she read our fortunes one by one. All five of us. I was the last guy. By the time I got into see her, I was already in love. This girl, in the lobby, sitting at a little table. She had black hair. And these eyes that just… God, I know what this sounds like, Alex. I don’t know how to make this sound any different. But when she looked at me, it was like everything just stopped. I couldn’t even breathe. I finally asked her what her name was. She said it was Maria. And that’s it. That’s how I met her.”
We both sat there for a long moment. The wind picked up and whistled through the deck. The cold air was making my eye hurt.
“So what did Madame Valeska say?” I said. “What was your fortune?”
He laughed. “I wasn’t listening too well. Although I do remember, she said some things that were pretty amazing. She knew that I was about to have the biggest test of my life.”
“You were there with a bunch of other young baseball players,” I said. “Of course she’s going to say that.”
“No, there was more than that. She seemed to know stuff about how I was trying to prove to my father that I could be successful doing my own thing instead of going into business with him.”
“A son trying to impress his father. Another amazing revelation.”
“All right, Alex. I hear ya. It’s not like I really believed in that stuff. It’s certainly not why I went back the next day.”
“Let me guess.”
“I left Maria a little note. Just like a high school kid. I was only twenty, remember. She was nineteen.”
“How many times did you see her?”
“Every day for ten days. Until I got shelled and then… um, sort of left the human race for a while.”
“You had your fortune told every day for ten days?”
“No, just a few times,” he said. “Madame Valeska would have killed me if she’d know about Maria. And her father. And God, her older brother. His name was Leopold. He saw us walking together downtown once, and he just about strangled me right there. Maria had to go over and talk to him, calm him down. She must have made him promise not to tell their parents. We always had to sneak around, you know, meet in different places. I saw her every day, even if it was only for a few minutes before a ball game.”
“Did you have sex with her?”
“Alex, come on.”
“Did you?”
“It was 1971. Everybody was having sex back then.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Yes,” he said. “We had sex. Although really it was only the one time. A couple other times, we sort of just-”
“All right,” I said. “I don’t need the details. Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Leon’s house,” I said as I stood up. “He’s waiting for us, isn’t he?”
“Does that mean you’re going to help me?”
“How can I not?” I said. “It’s such a heartwarming story.”
“I told ya,” he said. “I know it doesn’t sound good.”
I led the way down the stairs. “Did you say that Leon has already been working on this for you?”
“Yeah,” he said as he caught up to me. “Actually, I had already tried a couple of those person-locator services, but all I had was an address from 1971. I don’t even know her birthday. Leon’s been looking at some stuff, says we’ll probably have to do some leg-work in Detroit. And in his condition…”
“What condition?”
“You know, from his accident. Are you telling me he’s your partner and you don’t even know about his accident?”
“No,” I said.
“He fell off his roof. He was trying to get the ice out of his gutters or something. I tell ya, you guys are crazy living up here.”
“Yeah, we’re crazy,” I said. “Come on, let’s go see what he did to himself. And see if he’s got any ideas about how to find your fortune-teller’s daughter.”
CHAPTER 4
Leon’s wife answered the door. Her name is Eleanor, and the first thing you notice about Eleanor is how large she is. You can’t help it. There was a time when Leon hated me, back when he believed in his heart that I had cost him his job as a private investigator. In those days, I was honestly more afraid of Eleanor than of Leon. They’re both bigger than I am, but something about Eleanor always made me think she’d move a lot faster than her husband.
Since then, I’ve gotten to know Eleanor a little bit, enough to know that she’s a good woman, with a quick mind and a sense of humor. And a lot of patience about her husband’s dream of being a practicing private eye. I’d still take her over Leon, though, if I needed some backup in a bar fight.
Randy kissed her hand when I introduced them. Another woman charmed right out of her socks.
“Don’t mind him,” I said.
“I don’t mind him one bit, Alex,” she said.
“What in hell happened to your husband?” I said. “Randy said he fell off the roof?”
She rolled her eyes and pointed behind her. There was an open door on the other side of the kitchen, and through it I could see Leon lying on the bed with both feet propped up on pillows. There were casts on both ankles. “Alex!” he called when he saw me. “Bring our client in here!”
The lights were off in the bedroom. There was a computer monitor set up on one side of the double bed, and Leon was bathed in the blue glow off the screen. It made his unruly red hair look downright frightening. He had a plaid flannel shirt on and gray sweatpants. The keyboard from the computer was in his lap.
“You must be Mr. Wilkins,” he said, extending his right hand.
“Call me Randy.” He shook Leon’s hand.
“Leon,” I said, “did you actually fall off the roof and break both your ankles?”
“I was trying to get the ice out of the gutters,” he said. “Ellie’s been carrying me around for the last week. Good thing I’m as light as a ballet dancer.”
“Make that three ballet dancers,” Eleanor said as she came into the room. “I should have just left him out in the snow.” She was carrying a big wooden kitchen chair in each hand as casually as a pair of dinner plates. “You’ll
