Tomorrow Wendell (White Dragon Black) (6 page)

He thought it best to follow the script Wendell had relayed to him as best he could. He first checked the price tag as Wendell had, in case something about it had set off the chain of events, and blanched at the five-digit number written there. Jonathan suspected he wasn’t charging his client enough if he thought that price was reasonable.

He turned away from the machine, cleared his throat, and spoke just loud enough to be heard in the silent shop.

“Excuse me, but does this work?”

He got no response from the staff, probably because his ear was covered by a square of plastic.

“It’s like cell phones emit a frequency that turns you into an ass,” he continued. “Wonder if there’s an app for that?” Jonathan lifted his hand and tried again. “Hello?”

The man behind the counter looked up with a furrowed brow. When he spotted Jonathan, he blinked rapidly and tilted his head. Regaining his composure, having located the source of the voice that had disturbed him, the owner now looked at Jonathan with feigned interest.

“This fortuneteller machine—does it actually work?”

“Hum? Oh, yes, it does. Takes nickels.” And with that, the man once again returned the phone to his ear and his attention to the crossword.

Jonathan watched the older gentleman until utterly convinced the man couldn’t care if he used the machine or set his own eyelashes on fire.

He took one of the nickels he’d brought just for the purpose of feeding the machine’s cold guts and, he was quite sure, the antique dealer’s pocket. The nickel fell with a clack into the slot and the mannequin came to shuddering life.

One hand came to rest on the ‘pack’ of cards on the left, and the animatronic head turned gradually back and forth three times—‘viewing’ the displayed cards. Then the gypsy mannequin’s other hand slipped under the table in front of her and, sure enough, out popped the prediction card into the holder.

Jonathan slipped the card free of the slot and turned it so he could read what was printed on the back. It was banal. ‘Happiness is found from within.’

“Not even a real prediction,” he mumbled.

Jonathan slipped the lip balm container from his pants pocket and unscrewed the top. He unobtrusively dipped one finger into the mixture and only then realized how much it smelled like gremlin piss.

Since he hadn’t used any part of a gremlin in the concoction, especially not its waste material, Jonathan found the coincidence disconcerting. Wrinkling his nose, he hoped that the storeowner wasn’t overly keen in the olfactory department.

Jonathan quickly smeared the stuff on the machine. He touched the card slot delivery area, rubbed some on the side of the wooden base, and even spread a touch of the paste on the glass which encased the ‘old gypsy woman.’

Jonathan then had to pretend a continued interest in the machine while he waited for his mixture to react. He reread the attached price card as though seriously contemplating the ridiculous idea of purchasing the thing.

His concoction failed to change color. It stubbornly remained the same raunchy green as it had been when he first administered it. There was about as much magic in this fortunetelling contraption as there was in a box of Lucky Charms cereal.

Jonathan was bewildered. He couldn’t figure how Wendell was getting his responses from these items showing absolutely no sign of magical interference.

Jonathan shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. He swore under his breath and pushed around the concoction on the glass.

He liked a good riddle as much as the next fool who hung out his shingle as a P.I., less actually, but this was different. There was nothing. Not one conceivable way, which Jonathan knew of, for Wendell to be getting such predictions.

No method Jonathan had ever even
heard of
could cause the effects happening to his client.

He knew a complicated way to curse an individual so they
thought
that they saw death everywhere, but Jonathan had seen the proof of the prediction, so it couldn’t be that.

There were drawn-out rituals which could make any objects the individual touched react a certain way, but then the individuals themselves usually behaved in a certain manner.

They gave off subtle clues that, to the initiated, showed the person had been affected. Plus, most of those types of castings would still leave residual energy on the items touched, residue which Jonathan wasn’t finding.

An enchantment could be cast on individual items, but detection spells were the x-rays of energy use, and so far he’d seen nothing. The incantation would have to be cast before Wendell might touch any given object. But those type of energy fields were notorious for not lasting very long, making timing everything.

So, how was it happening?

Jonathan could see the fortuneteller machine being rigged, but only barely. If whomever doing this knew Wendell’s habits well enough, then they could have been able to predict his entering the store
.
But knowing about the dentist appointment as well? It would still be hit or miss.

To put one single card on the top of the pile and hope that no one else fed it a nickel before Wendell had a chance to, and that Wendell himself didn’t take a second card . . . it was ludicrous.

They could have put in many of the same card, but that would require returning to swap them out before a third party, like himself, came to examine it. Still, Jonathan had to admit it was within a plausible realm.

What if I had brought Wendell with me?
Jonathan thought, and he could have kicked himself. He believed he knew what the outcome would have been of that exercise anyway.
But it would have concisely ruled out direct, physical, human interference.

The horoscope, Jonathan knew, could have been pulled off without much effort.

The addition of a single line to one horoscope would seem harmless to the one writing it, and any lingering reservations could be soothed with a private cash deposit.

He knew just the person to talk to about that and planned on seeing her soon. She wouldn’t be happy to see him, but then, so few ever were.

However,
both
switching the cards and bribing newspaper clerks failed to give him an explanation for the Magic 8-Ball which was the real flea-biting between his haunches.

Wendell did say he had dug it out of the back of his closet, but then the one doing this to him must have known of its existence.

The architect of this scheme, to go to the bother of entering Wendell’s place, finding the ball, and then enchanting it, all for the outside chance that Wendell would remember he owned it? Not likely.

Jonathan knew people like that existed from the unfortunate experience of meeting them, but it seemed farfetched.

What mattered to Jonathan most, as he stood staring blankly at his own weathered face reflected in the glass of the fortuneteller machine, was the all too familiar feeling he had in his gut. Being punched in the kidneys after downing a quart of vinegar would probably produce the same effect.

That feeling made him believe the problems he had already encountered in deciphering the method and motive behind Wendell’s situation were far more cryptic then he’d first thought.

Jonathan wondered if it was possible he faced something that he hadn’t encountered before. The thought intrigued him, but he couldn’t deny a certain unease. He hadn’t felt its like in years.

To make sure that the paste he had coated on parts of the exorbitantly priced toy didn’t so much as flicker other colors when he activated it, Jonathan dug into his pocket for another nickel and thumbed it into the slot.

He heard the slug of metal fall with a hollow rattle and studied the machine. He didn’t watch the animatronics this time, but tried to keep his eyes on all three spots that were smeared with his concoction.

The mannequin moved.

A card was delivered.

And there was no difference.

Paranormally, nothing had occurred.

Jonathan decided it was time to speak with the man behind the counter. He grabbed the last prediction card and headed to the counter.

“Excuse me,” Jonathan said, glad to see the dark cell phone sitting on the countertop. He waited for the owner to lift his head before continuing. “I was wondering if you could tell me anything about that gypsy fortune machine?”

“Tell you anything?”

“Yeah. Its history, owners, that sort of thing.”

“Oh.” The man looked at him as though that sound might sum up the entirety of his obligation to the conversation.

After a few moments, during which Jonathan failed to react, the man said, “Uh, well . . . I got it at an auction upstate.”

Jonathan stared down at the paper on the counter and the hash marks scribbled on the crossword. Having his crossword studied seemed to be the key to the owner’s locked mouth because suddenly the jaw swung open and the info tumbled out.

“The previous owner was the son of the guy who first owned it. It used to be set up at the old fairgrounds back in the forties and fifties. That’s it—all I know.”

“Huh,” Jonathan said looking back at the machine where the ‘gypsy’ sat waiting for another nickel.

“You remember the name of the fellow?”

“Really?” The owner asked, half annoyed, half intrigued that Jonathan cared.

Jonathan took out his wallet and laid a twenty on the counter over the crossword. The owner looked at it and, with a sigh of resignation, got up off his stool.

When he removed the hand he’d braced on the counter to lever himself off the stool, the bill was gone.

The man moseyed over to a small filing cabinet made of dark wood with brass fixtures. Jonathan eyed the piece like a dieter watching a pizza commercial. It would have looked great in his office.

He took a moment riffling through the papers held in the beautiful cabinet and returned to the counter with one white page covered in nearly illegible scrawls.

“This is it. Let’s see, uh . . . it was the Newman estates. I think there was a first name somewhere.” The man ran his finger up and down the page and then jabbed a name. “Yes, Joshua. Now, I think that was the son’s name and not the father’s.”

“Joshua Newman. Thank you. One more question? Do you remember a guy coming in here and using that machine recently?”

“You mean the Sasquatch who came in this morning, tried the machine out, then took off like he’d seen the grim reaper?”

“Uh—yeah,” Jonathan admitted.

“Yeah, I remember. What do you want to know?”

“Actually, I think you already answered my question.”

Jonathan thanked the man and headed for the door.

As he left, he said over his shoulder, “Thoth, by the way. T-H-O-T-H. Answer to seven down—wise moon.”

Sitting in his car, Jonathan lit a smoke and looked at the second prediction the machine had delivered, ‘Dark Days Come Your Way.’

“At least it’s a prediction this time,” Jonathan said, tossing the card onto the back seat.

The old Lincoln started after the first try; she always ran better once she’d had a chance to stretch her pistons.

His stomach rumbled as he drove back to his office and, for a moment, simple hunger distracted his mind from the problem of how someone was manipulating Wendell’s world.

He thought longingly of Singapore noodles from The Lucky Monkey, but realized he should make one more stop. It seemed even the most basic of human needs could not derail Jonathan’s annoyance at being stymied.

If he covered all angles now, then he could see if, between himself and his client, they couldn’t brainstorm any new leads, or possible enemies, while he ate.

Jonathan hung a right at the next corner and detoured toward the office of The Herald, the city paper. He had a question about today’s horoscope and, patting his shoulder holster, he knew that he’d get a straight answer—eventually.

T
he editor of the department that wrote the daily horoscopes as well as other useless text, such as the crossword the antique dealer had been struggling over, was a woman named Sylvia.

There were only three things, Jonathan reckoned, anyone needed to know about Sylvia—she was in her forties, the only picture on her desk featured her three Yorkies, and she had control issues.

She also disliked him—immensely.

Sylvia looked up as Jonathan came over to her desk and frowned. “What the hell do you want
this
time, Alvey?” she growled.

“Good to see you, too, Syl,” Jonathan replied with a smile that would make a snake proud.

“The only good thing about seeing you, Alvey, is seeing you
leave
.”

“Well, why don’t we expedite that part of our relationship and you tell me what the fuck was up with this morning’s horoscope?”

“What the hell are you jabbering about?”

“The prediction for Virgo,” Jonathan stated. “Who the hell paid you off?”

“Yeah, look at me getting ready to head to the Canary Islands on my ill-gotten funds.”

“Did you even look at the horoscopes, Sylvia?”

The woman puckered her lips and glared at him, but when he didn’t show any intention of leaving, she said, “No, all right? Our usual columnist was out sick and we used a default download from a national site. Everyone does it. That okay with you?”