The Hanged Man (18 page)

“I never drink alcohol,” she said. “Not even a glass of sherry. It clouds the mind.” She spoke with a clipped, no-nonsense Yankee accent that had been softened by years of Southwest living, but not very much softened.

I smiled. “My mind is usually so cloudy that another cumulus or two doesn't make much difference.”

“All the more reason not to befuddle yourself.” She smiled. “But try one of the almond cookies. They go well with the tea. I made them myself.”

The cookies, all perfectly rounded, all exactly the same thickness, had obviously not been made by hand. If she'd baked them, she was moonlighting for Stella d'Oro.

We were sitting in the parlor of the house. The furniture was colonial, the chairs and the loveseat garnished along their backs with lace antimacassars. The curtains were also lace, and the rug on the dark hardwood floor was a kind of patchwork quilt. The walls were covered with floral wallpaper, the white background slightly yellowish now, the colors slightly faded. The one painting in the room showed a quaintly decrepit covered wooden bridge set against a billow of trees wrapped in brilliant autumn tints, reds and golds and coppers. The air was threaded with the scent of lavender sachet. If it hadn't been for the view through the window, a panorama of Santa Fe and the brown hills to the south, I might've thought that I'd been whisked magically away to New England, and the late nineteenth century.

It was a house I'd noticed many times before from the car as I drove along the northern sweep of Paseo de Peralta. Poised at the top of the ridge, it stood out from the two large and showy adobes that flanked it. It was probably the only house in Santa Fe built to a mock Tudor design, beam-and-plaster exterior walls, a mansard roof, and I'd often wondered who owned it. Now I knew. It occurred to me, once again, that these New Age people had staked out some nifty real estate for themselves.

I leaned forward from the loveseat and plucked up a cookie. I sat back, bit into it. Stella d'Oro.

Eliza Remington took a sip of tea from a Wedgwood cup. As Veronica Chang had done, earlier today, she kept the saucer in her lap. “Now let me see,” she said, cocking her head and eyeing me speculatively through her rimless rectangular glasses. “You'd be an Aries.”

“That's right.”

“On the cusp of Pisces, I'd say. A few days off. The twenty-second of March? Twenty-third?”

I smiled. “The twenty-third.”

She smiled, obviously pleased with herself.

If Bennett Hadley had been telling the truth, and she had access to a computer database, it wouldn't have taken her long to discover my birthday.

Her blue-rinsed hair was permed into tight wiry waves. Her hands were peppered with liver spots. She was in her late sixties or early seventies, about five foot five, thin and angular and somewhat stooped. But she was still very spry. Her movements were quick and decisive; her voice was strong. The blue eyes behind her rectangular rimless spectacles were clear. She wore black sensible walking shoes with thick soles and flat heels, black stockings, and a black dress festooned with small yellow fleurs-de-lis. At her throat, perhaps to hide her neck, she wore a yellow silk scarf. She had most likely never been beautiful: her chin and her nose were too forceful for that. But she had probably always been formidable, and time and experience had molded character into the lines and hollows of her face, and an expression that seemed to shift between alertness and a private amusement.

She said, “Your moon's in Sagittarius?”

“In Seattle, for all I know.”

She laughed, nearly spilling the saucer from her lap. She caught it with one hand before it slid to the floor—good reflexes—and she looked up at me, smiling broadly. Her teeth all seemed to be her own. “Not a believer, huh?”

“I'm afraid not.”

She leaned slightly forward. “Pardon?”

“No,” I said, “I'm not.”

She sat back, shrugged amiably. “Well, some are, some aren't. For those that are, astrology can provide a real solace.”

“I'm sure it can.”

She grinned. “No need to be polite. If you think I'm a crazy old bag, that's fine with me. I'll get by. Always have. Did Paul Chang do that to your face?”

I smiled. “You've been talking to his sister?”

She returned the smile. “She phoned me about an hour ago. Wanted to know if I'd talked to you yet. Told me you'd beaten Paul up.”

“I wouldn't put it that way, exactly.”

“Paul's supposed to be good at that karate of his.”

“I imagine he is.”

“What'd you do? Fight dirty?”

“Paul probably thinks so.”

She smiled. “Good. Never liked him. Nasty, I always thought. Veronica says he's furious at you.”

“You and Veronica are good friends?”

“Wouldn't go so far as to say that. We know each other. We talk from time to time. She told me to warn you.”

“Warn me about what?”

“Paul. He's looking for you.”

“She told you to tell me that?”

She smiled. “You must've made quite an impression on Veronica.”

“She kept it well concealed.”

“She wants you to call her.”

Interesting. “All right,” I said. “Thanks.”

She nodded toward the tray on the coffee table. “Have another almond cookie.”

I took one.

“So,” she said. “You told me over the phone you wanted to know about my Tarot card.”

“That's right.”

“Why?”

“It's missing. Quentin Bouvier and Leonard Quarry, the two people who wanted it, are dead.” I finished the almond cookie, sipped some tea.

She nodded. “Heard about Leonard yesterday. And Quentin, of course—I was there when it happened. But the card didn't kill 'em.”

“No, but I'd still like to know something about it.”

She nodded, sipped at her tea. “You know anything at all about Tarot cards?”

People kept asking me that question. “Justine Bouvier thinks they came from Egypt. Bennett Hadley says they came from Italy. Peter Jones thinks they're a kind of pictorial guide to enlightenment.”

She smiled, raised her eyebrows. “Talked to Peter, did you?” She nodded. “I like that boy. Sharp. Serious without being an asshole about it. You know what I mean?”

“I think so, yeah.”

Her blue eyes narrowed behind her spectacles. “It bother you, my talking straight out?”

“Not especially.”

Again she leaned slightly forward. “Come again?”

“Not especially.”

She sat back and nodded. “Not that it'd make any difference.” She smiled. “One of the advantages of endurance. I'm a colorful old lady these days. Used to be a loud-mouthed bitch.”

I smiled.

She took a sip from her teacup. “Justine, now, she's an idiot. Learned everything she knew from Quentin, and outside of that magic mumbo jumbo of his, Quentin was a complete ignoramus.”

“What about Bennett Hadley?”

She frowned, puzzled. “You're feeling badly?”

“Bennett Hadley,” I said. “What do you think about him?”

“Bennett's an asshole,” she said comfortably. “Without being serious, although God knows he thinks he is. He's right, though, about Italy. That's where the cards came from. Started as a game.
Trionfi
. Triumphs. Which is where we get the word
trumps
. They weren't called
Tarrochi
until later. Back in the fifteenth century, they were a pretty hot item among the wealthy. Lot of the rich old farts back then, they commissioned a deck for themselves. Charles the Sixth of France had one done. And so did Pope Alexander the Sixth—Rodrigo Borgia. The Borgia Deck. That's the deck we're talking about. Painted by Pinturicchio, one of Rodrigo's favorites. Famous for the gilt work in his paintings, Pinturicchio. Anyway, Rodrigo gave the deck to his daughter, Lucrezia—you know Lucrezia?”

“Only by reputation.”

She blinked, apparently puzzled once again. “Constipation?”

I smiled. “I know of Lucrezia Borgia only by reputation.” I was beginning to wonder if she was actually hard of hearing or whether she was putting me on.

She narrowed her eyes again. “She wasn't a poisoner, you know. Lot of people believe that old story about her killing off her husbands. Horseshit.”

I nodded. “If you say so.”

“Damn right I say so. It's the truth.” She frowned, vaguely looked around the room, looked back at me. “Where was I?”

“Rodrigo gave the deck to Lucrezia.”

She nodded. “As a wedding present. When she married Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara. Her third husband, that one was. She passed it on to their son, Ercole, when he got married. The deck was split up sometime after that. Fifty or sixty years later, half of it, including the Death card, turned up in France.”

“How'd that happen?”

“Who knows? Ercole's wife was Renee, the daughter of Louis the Twelfth, the French king. Maybe she had something to do with it. But the French were all over Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They wanted Milan, Ravenna, Florence, most of the Italian towns. Folks today think that the people in the Renaissance, they just sat around and listened to lute music, ate squab all day. Horseshit. Half the time, they were out killing each other. The other half, they were getting killed.”

She frowned again, looked off at the far wall.

“The Death card was in France,” I prompted her.

Another frown. “His head in his
pants?
”

“The Death card. It was in France.”

“I know that,” she snapped at me. “I haven't gotten senile yet. And it was with the rest of the deck, the first twelve trumps. The Bourbons had them. Henry the Fourth, Louis the Thirteenth, that whole sorry bunch. The Death card disappeared sometime around 1774. Stolen from the royal palace.”

“By whom?”

“Cagliostro is a good bet. You know Cagliostro?”

“A magician?”

“No,” she said. “He was a magician. Or so he claimed. Claimed to be two hundred years old, too. Horseshit, of course. But he was there at the time, and he was suspected. Next place it showed up was Switzerland.”

“In 1776. Court de Gebelin mentioned it.”

She smiled. “Done your homework, eh? Good.” She nodded. “And de Gebelin knew Cagliostro, which fits in with the theory that Cagliostro was the thief. Anyway, from then on, it didn't show up much. Once in 1886, as I recall. Eliphas Levi claimed he'd seen it. Probably had. He described it well enough.”

I said, “From what I understand, the last person to see it was Aleister Crowley. Sometime around the turn of the century.”

She nodded.

“So where did it go from there?” I asked her.

A blink, a frown. “What chair?”

“Where did the card go after Crowley had it?”

She smiled, evidently pleased with herself once again. “To my great-grandfather.”

“How?”

She grinned. “He stole it. He was one of Crowley's disciples. He and his wife both were. Kirby and Loretta Knight. You know that Crowley's specialty was sex magic? He was going to rule the world with his penis.” She smiled. “Lot of men make the same mistake. But usually not on so big a scale.” The smile twisted slightly at the corner of her mouth. “Of course, I've heard that Crowley had reasons to think big along those lines.”

I smiled.

“He never got to rule the world,” she said, “but he probably had a pretty good time trying. At one time or another, he jumped all his women disciples. Couple of the men, too. And an occasional passerby. Kirby, though, he finally got tired of Crowley jumping Loretta—I never
did
hear how Loretta felt about it—and so he dragged her away and went back to Devon. This all happened in Sicily in a town called Cefalu, where Crowley had a retreat. But before Kirby left, he took the card.”

“How did Crowley feel about that?”

“Oh, he called up all the demons of hell and sent them after Kirby. Kirby was supposed to die in agony and torment, his body ripped apart, his soul blown to smithereens.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Kirby lived another thirty years and died in his sleep. He outlived Crowley.”

I smiled again. “Why didn't Crowley report the theft of the card? Use legal means to get it back?”

“Probably because he didn't own it legally himself. Legally, I suppose, it belonged to the French government. Anyway, Kirby gave the card to his son, Walter, my grandfather, and Walter gave it to Charles,
his
son. My uncle. In Devon. Charles gave it to my cousin, Adam. Adam gave it to me, mailed it to me.”

“Why?”

“Because he was dying. Heart. He needed the money. He told me we'd split whatever I could get. This was six months ago.”

“
Was
dying, you said?”

“He passed away in December.”