“To have your fortune told?” she asked almost coquettishly.
Ballard was staring at her, trying to read her.
“Whatever it takes,” he said.
So he felt it too. But even so, it could not be. She had taught herself to read and write, and when her husband had come back and had beaten her for it, she had left Madame Aquarra’s home and ofica with her bride price and had never returned.
Now, to the San Francisco kumpania, she was a woman of substance with her place in their councils. And very shortly, if she could keep Rudolph from getting the pink Cadillac, she would be Queen of all the Gypsies.
The pink Cadillac. The thirty-second Cadillac. If only...
And then she knew — knew before he said it — why Ballard was there. She shivered, because she had never believed in her own hocus-pocus: few Gypsy fortune-tellers did, or at least few would admit it. But here was the answer to her problem.
Ballard said, “You remember when we met that I was a detective looking for—”
“Yes. For a woman who had worked for your own company.”
“This time I’m a detective looking for a bunch of Gypsies.”
Yes. She had known what he was going to say. And now... now she knew that she was going to do to Rudolph just what he planned to do to her. She put scorn into her voice.
“So you come to my ofica asking me to betray—”
“I don’t want you to betray anyone,” Ballard said hotly.
He did, of course. That’s why he had come to her. But... not really. Really, it was the memory of that velvet night...
Yana disengaged her hands from his, sat back with a judging look across the table, not speaking. Ballard cleared his throat.
“All the Gypsies in the country can’t be your friends.”
The draperies behind him parted silently, and Ristik started through with a tray on which were cups and a teapot and several diamonds of baklava, dripping honey. Yana narrowed her eyes at him and he just as silently withdrew again.
“No,” she agreed gravely, “not even most of them.”
“So if someone you felt no obligation toward has...”
“Has what?” she asked quickly.
“Has, um... stolen some Cadillacs—”
“Stolen?”
“Absconded with. Embezzled.”
After a dramatic pause, she said, “And if I were one of those Gypsies who has done this, then I suppose you would—”
“Are you?”
Don’t hesitate. The pause betrayed the lie. “No.”
Don’t hesitate. The pause betrayed the lie. “Even if you were, I’d look the other way.”
It wasn’t really a lie. He would look the other way. The rest of DKA wouldn’t, but he would. Yana leaned toward him.
“There is another kumpania that has recently moved into the Bay Area, led by a man named Rudolph — I don’t know his last name or what he looks like — I have never met him. But he is a bad man, a bold man, he will do almost anything for money. It is such people who give the rom a bad name among the gadje, and such a man might well be involved in something like this... this theft of these Cadillacs...”
Ballard felt his excitement rising. If he could just get some leads from her... “There are over thirty cars,” he said.
“Of course if I am to ask around, perhaps learn something about their activities, where you might find some of these Cadillacs... I would lose money... be in some danger...”
“Hundred bucks for every recovery we make,” said Ballard promptly, with no disillusionment in his voice. She would surely want payment hand-to-hand, and when hands touched...
She was leaning forward again, eagerly, like a child, excitement and intrigue in her eyes, as if the prospect of money had rekindled her personal feeling for him. She laid her open hand palm-up on the table. She almost giggled again.
And actually said, “Cross my palm with silver.”
Ballard hesitated but a moment, then dug out his money clip and counted five twenties into her palm. That left him with three bucks. She closed her hand around the money.
“I wish to prove my heart is true,” she said, “so I will find you a car, today. After today, if I have information for you I will leave a message only we will understand, and you will come, and I will tell your fortune, and you will—”
“—pay you for the reading,” finished Ballard.
“And only you and I will know of it, no one else! I will be your... what do the police say? Your snitch!” She smiled complacently and leaned back in her chair. The $100 had disappeared. She glanced casually beyond him and added with delight, “And here is Ramon with the tea!”
Ristik came through the draperies with his tray again, as if just coming from the kitchen rather than lurking and listening behind the curtains. Ballard ignored him, wondering hopefully what else Yana might come to be for him besides his snitch.
Chapter eighteen
The two cheap metal plaques-were placed so they would be facing anyone who sat down across the desk from the broken-down swivel chair in the narrow cubicle. One read, INSPECTOR HARRY CALLAHAN, with, underneath it, Dirty Harry. The other read, FEEL SAFE TONIGHT — SLEEP WITH A COP.
“Pretty good, huh?” demanded a voice behind her.
Giselle turned. The man wore an off-the-rack suit and Polo aftershave obviously applied in the men’s room after seeing that she was good-looking. The cheap suit said honest cop; the Polo, and the leer he was giving her despite his wedding band, said son of a bitch. Said, to Giselle, don’t trust the cheap suit.
She stuck out her hand and said, on that insight’s impulse, “Inspector... Callahan? Gerry Merman, free-lance journalist. I want to do an article about the Gypsies, and—”
“Harrigan, not Callahan. Bunco.” Going around the desk, he ignored her hand but not what she had down the front of her blouse. “The other guys gave me that plaque ’cause my name is Harry an’ I get all the dirty jobs.” To her silence he added, “You know, Dirty Harry Callahan... in the movies...”
Giselle finally nodded. Harrigan was the SFPD Gypsy man, and despite his wandering eye she needed his help.
“Clint Eastwood,” she supplied.
“Yeah. As for the other plaque...”
“Very clever,” she agreed too quickly.
“Yeah.” A little sourly.
He lit a cigarette and leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. Early 40s, Irish, red hair faded to pink by the grey in it, face full of sexual predation. Would once have been good-looking and would have known it, still would never regard his mirror with less than full approval.
Just the reverse of O’Bannon’s bright blarney Irish coin.
“So, Gerry, you wanna do an article about me an’ the Gyppos. Well, lemme give you an example...”
Two retired brothers, both in their 80s, lived in one of the showplace homes across the Boulevard from the Marina Green. A his/her pair of Gyppos had come knocking on their door claiming to be from the French Hostel welfare department...
“Musta staked ’em out an’ followed ’em home, ’cause these old guys belonged to the hostel, all right — but they’d never heard of any welfare department there...”
Giselle realized that Bunco was even more depressing than Homicide. At least death had a hard truth. In Bunco it was all lies, lies to vulnerable old people who thought they had been helping the police catch a bad guy by cleaning out their trust account, only to learn they had given their life savings to some slime who’d dreamed up a new wrinkle on the pigeon drop.