Witch Water (24 page)

He shrugged away the coincidence for what it
was: impossibility.
People don’t get ‘barreled’ in this day and
age.
And Mrs. Anstruther’s question reminded him,
I wonder
if Artie and the research guys got anymore info on Karswell. I
better call him later.
“But sometimes I wonder, Mrs.
Anstruther. Maybe the horror from one era is no better or worse
than the horror of another—it just
seems
to be.”

The elderly woman reflected. “Why, I never
me-self thought on it that way before, sir, but I think it could be
you’re right. Might be that our
natures
are inclined to
think things is worse for us than they was for those before
us.”

Fanshawe
had
to mention. “The wax
museum might be a good case in point.”

She seemed thrilled. “Oh, so ya finally took
yourself a peek in there, did ya?”

“Yes, ma’am, I did, and you were right about
it—it gave me a case of the creepers. But, you know, it also showed
me—the torture chamber in particular—that humankind has quite a
capacity for cruelty.”

“That it does, sir, that it does.” She
raised a bony finger. “And maybe if we’se wise, we can
learn
by what went on back then to make things a sight better now.”

“We can only hope.”

Her voice piped up, and a gleam entered her
eye. “And isn’t it
amusin’
, sir, to consider how folk’d
behave if they was able to learn from the past but also from the
future?
”

Fanshawe didn’t follow her. “You’d need a
time machine for that, Mrs. Anstruther, or a psychic—” but then he
got it.
Jesus,
she’s persistent.
“Still trying to get
me into the palm reader’s, huh?”

She feigned innocence. “Oh, no, sir. I was
just bein’…what’s the word?
Suppositional!
That’s the word,
sir, to a T: suppositional, yes, sir.”

“Yes, I
suppose
it is, ma’am.”

The woman shrieked laughter. “Oh, my word,
sir, you’re quite the quipster, yes you is!”

“You must get a kick-back for every person
you send over.”

“On my honors, sir, nothing could be more
untrue. But seein’ ’ow you’s already bucked yourself up for the
waxwork, why not give the palmist’s a go?”

Fanshawe looked at the woman.
She’s
nuttier than a can of Planter’s, but…
He stood up. “You know
what, Mrs. Anstruther? I think I’m going to take you up on your
dare.”

“Smashing, sir! ’Tis the kind of man God
most admires who don’t dither ’bout havin’ a look-in on his
destiny—”

I doubt that God admires me very much
right now,
Fanshawe thought, almost laughing.

“—for God, too, looks quite high on a bloke
with a true heart.”

Fanshawe wasn’t comfortable with all the
references to ‘hearts’ lately.
If thou dost have the heart,
Evanore had said, emphasizing the last word. It seemed that her
image from last night was daring Fanshawe to confront something,
just as the old lady was.

But…confront WHAT?
he wondered.

Knowledge,
the idea struck him, but
that could mean anything.

Or maybe it means nothing. Maybe it’s
just a bunch of bullshit she’s talking, so she can get her
commission from the palm-reader.
“Well, I’m on my way, ma’am,”
he said. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

“Aye,” she said with a strange emphasis.

Fanshawe crossed the cobbles to the redbrick
row house whose neon OPEN sign blinked on and off in the window.
The bricks could’ve used a sandblasting, and the trim didn’t look
like it had been painted in decades. Browned flowers stood crisp in
the planters just outside the first-floor windows.
Kind of a
dump…
But he paused before he knocked on the scuffed Federal
Period door. First, the address,
No. 13,
struck a bad chord.
Fanshawe rarely believed in omens, good or bad, but after last
night?

Maybe I better start.

The next bad chord came from the
doorknocker. Mounted on the door’s center stile was an oval of
tarnished bronze depicting a half-formed face. Just two eyes, no
mouth, no other features. It seemed morose, even foreboding.

Fanshawe actually considered turning back.
He glanced over his shoulder—
You gotta be shitting me!
—and
saw Mrs. Anstruther watching him, waving.

But what was he afraid of?

Nothing,
he thought and rapped on the
creepy knocker.

He expected someone marmish—like Mrs.
Anstruther—or a foreigner, but instead the door was opened by a
tall, gaunt woman—late-thirties, probably—with jet-black hair cut
so severely across her bangs and neck it looked like a helmet. She
seemed dull-eyed and blanched. A baggy kaleidoscopic T-shirt that
read CHISWICK RECORDS hung limp on her shoulders, covering small
unbra’d breasts; she also wore a black-denim skirt hemmed by safety
pins, and clunky black boots. Fanshawe found the woman gawky,
awkward, nerdish, yet interesting in some way. Thick black glasses
made her a hybrid of a librarian and an over-the-hill punk
rocker.

“Are you here for a reading?” she asked in a
reedy voice.

“Yes.” He had the idea she was rattled by
him being there. “But if it’s inconvenient, I can make an
appointment and come back later.”

She yipped a laugh. “In a recession? Are you
kidding?
I’m just shocked to have a customer this early.
Come on in.”

Fanshawe entered an old-style parlor crammed
with old portraits, old furniture, and smoke-stained wallpaper. He
liked the cliché. A bumper sticker over a transom read CHIROMANCY
IS SEXY. Fanshawe guessed this was another name for fortune
telling. “So I guess you’re Letitia Rhodes?”

“Yes, and—” She turned quickly to glance at
him. Her eyes looked absurdly large behind the thick glasses. “And
you are…well, your first name either starts with an S or an F, but
I’m leaning toward the F.”

He remembered the word PSYCHIC in the
window.
A con,
he suspected.
She could easily have found
out my name.
“Better to lean the other way.”

Her shoulders drooped. “Aw, well. Can’t get
’em all.” Her long white hand bid a scroll-couch of some loud red
velvety fabric. “Have a seat…S.”

“It’s Stew, Ms. Rhodes.”

“Just call me Lett.”

Lett…
He sat down, waiting for her to
close her eyes, touch her forehead, and suddenly divine his last
name, but she didn’t.

“Sorry it’s so warm”—and she rushed to a
wall unit and turned it on. “The damn power company—they raise the
rates for no reason.”

“They’ve been known to do that.”

She sat down across from him and pulled out
an antique wooden box the size of a toaster oven. She smiled at
him, but Fanshawe got the vibe that she was unsettled.
By
me?
One way or another, though, the smile was manufactured.
“What kind of reading are you interested in?”

“Well, the palm-reading sounds all
right—”

“I can do charts, too,” she added quickly.
“Costs more but—” but the rest fell away.

“Let’s try with the simplest first,”
Fanshawe said.

Another stiff smile. “That would be
palmistry, which is probably the oldest form of fortune telling,
and the most widespread. It’s twenty…dollars per palm”—she fidgeted
through a pause—“but there’s a summer discount! Fifteen?”

Fanshawe needed to break some ice.
She’s
not very good at making herself credible.
“I’ll pay the
twenty…
if
it’s good.”

“Well, I can’t promise you a favorable
reading, but I can promise an accurate one.” She didn’t even look
at him when she continued, “More accurate than any reading you’ve
ever had.”

“I appreciate confidence,” he said, “and I’m
sure you’re right. I’ve never
had
a reading before.”

She peered at him, obviously doubting him.
“No?
Never?
Never in your life?”

Then it dawned on him. “Oh, yeah. Coney
Island, when I was a kid.”
Am I supposed to think that she
sensed that?
He crossed his legs, hoping he didn’t look too
disheveled after spending the night on the hill, but at the same
moment, she quickly got up, came over to him, and brushed off his
shoulder.

“You’ve got some grass there,” then she
offered another crumpled smile and sat back down. “Did you sleep in
the woods?” she added with a giggle. Fanshawe frowned.
Actually—yes.
From the box, she withdrew a fancy square of
ornately fringed linen that had a sandalwood scent, and spread it
on the low table between them. Fanshawe squinted; sewn into the
fabric were letters and designs like he’d seen on the Gazing Ball’s
stand, and in the portrait of Wraxall and Evanore.

“So other than Coney Island, you’ve never
had your fortune told in any way?” she asked, still puttering a the
table.

“Nope”—he tried to make a joke that turned
out not to be very funny. “Just at my stock broker’s.”

Letitia grumbled, and muttered, “Fuck…”

Fanshawe peered at her.

“Sorry,” she said. “The reason I’m sucking
wind is because of this damn recession. Every time I think about
all those stock brokers and CEO’s and bank presidents and mortgage
lenders who caused this because of their own greed—I wish I could
put an exsanguination hex on them.”

Fanshawe laughed a bit too loudly. “A
what
hex?”

“Oh, I’m just bitching. It’s a medieval
curse that makes corrupt people bleed from all their orifices. The
bastards.
They’re all like that jackass Madoff—could care
less about who they destroy as long as they fill their
coffers.”

Fanshawe, still chuckling to himself, at
least felt sure he was not one of the “Madoff’s” she referred to.
I never ponzi’d or short-sold. I never cheated investors, did I?
No, no way. I earned my money the old fashioned way: I gambled on
long shots and got REALLY lucky.

Lett sprinkled something like dull glitter
over the linen. “Seramef dust,” she said. “It jacks up the psychic
ambience, kind of like using higher octane in your car.” When she
looked up, she started, then gawkily went “Oooo! You have a very
pronounced aura. But don’t ask me what color it is. I never
tell.”

Fanshawe sighed. “Come on.”

“Nope. Sorry.” She shrugged. “It’s low
class.”

Aura, huh?
“All right, Lett, then
tell me this”—Fanshawe
had
to know. “Does Mrs. Anstruther
get a cut of your fee if she sends someone over?”

Lett’s face tensed in a displeasure. “That
old biddy! I told her she was hard-selling people too much!” Then
her lips pursed. “Yeah, I pay her five bucks for each
customer.”

“I
knew
it!”

Lett made a single, silent clap. “She’s a
kick in the tail, I’ll tell ya, but I guess I shouldn’t complain;
she
does
bring in some business.” Still, the woman seemed
flustered. She exhaled hard. “All right! We’re ready! You said both
hands, right?”

“I didn’t say, but let’s do both.”

Very quickly, she grabbed his left hand.
“It’s best to start to your dominant hand.”

Fanshawe was left-handed…,
But she
could’ve determined that by watching me,
 he knew.

“Left-dominant people are more subjective,
and they respond more deeply to intellectual stimulus and ethereal
provocation.”

Fanshawe winced at the latter term.

“They’re also more sensitive to spirituality
and para-naturalism.”

Fanshawe could only stare in response.

“
And…
they’re more attuned to
non-physical realms.”

“Jeez, I thought you’d look at my lifeline
and tell me how long I’m going to live,” he said, expecting the
usual clichés.

“That’s a misconception.” Now she seemed to
be inspecting the undersides of his knuckles. “The lifeline has
nothing to do with how long a person lives. Palmistry isn’t about
one’s death, it’s about one’s life.”

Fanshawe opened his mouth to speak, but then
she seemed to notice something important on his hand. “Now this I
don’t see very often, you’re part Aqua Hand and part Fire Hand; it
means you’re energetic but shift from one interest to another. Oh,
and now I see why you’re not concerned about the summer discount.”
She smiled down but not at him. “You’re
very
wealthy.”

Someone at the hotel could’ve told her
that,
he knew. And also, “You can see that by the watch.”

She glanced at the five-figure timepiece.
“Oh, yeah. Didn’t notice, but left-dominants are
always
skeptical.” A pause as she squinted closer into his palm. “Not only
are you successful in your business, you—well…wow
.
You’re
probably a genius in your field.”

Fanshawe shrugged. “Let’s get to the good
stuff.”

She giggled. “Okay. Let’s see… Mmm, yes,
great
heart line, and an interesting fluctuation of your
Girdle of Venus. It means you’re passionate and unselfish—”

Fanshawe took exception. “You could say that
about anyone and they’d find a way to agree with you—”

“It also shows me in detail that you love
your wife but you’re either divorced or separated. It’s a severe
injury to you…that she…” Her lips closed quickly.

“That she
what?
”

“You already know, so why would you want me
to repeat it?”

“I’m
paying
you,” he pointed out. “So
tell me.”

Her eyes glanced down. “Your wife hates you.
She’s disgusted by you for some reason.”

The words dulled his vision; he could’ve
been staring a mile off. But how could he not be impressed? There
was no way she could she have known
that.
After a few
moments, he said, “You’re right.”

“But here’s the good news!” she chirped too
quickly. Her voice lowered. “There is someone else on your romantic
horizon. She has more in common with you than you think, and she’s
nuts
about you.”