"Wonderful," Dessusdelit said. She was rolling the ball in her hands. "I don't see too much just now. Maybe if I were closer to the window and the light."
"No, no, stay where you are," LuEllen said. "I put the good chair there for a purpose. You should be comfortable. Don't worry, if you have the ability to see things, the colors will come."
That's when she gave the laser a goose with a foot pedal we'd wedged under the rug. The laser, a little two-hundred-watt deal with an output that was no bigger in diameter than a filament of spider web, was mounted in the bedroom. I'd fixed it to do a skittering scan across the area of the chair, a tiny dot of light moving so fast it was virtually invisible. Except when it hit the ball. When it hit the ball, the crystal fluoresced, and the veil lit up with some of the pulsing reaction of the northern lights. I knew when the laser hit because Dessusdelit suddenly caught her breath.
"It. did something," she said.
"I thought it might," LuEllen said. "I thought you had the power when I saw you in the restaurant. Were you able to pick out any particular colors?"
"Well." Dessusdelit was rolling the ball in her hands. "There was green."
"Opportunity, that's wonderful. Maybe it means the opportunity to explore your psychic self," LuEllen gushed.
"Is that what it usually means?" Dessusdelit asked, looking up. She was hooked.
"It can mean any kind of opportunity – often money, frankly – but in this case. unless you're expecting some money?"
"No, no, nothing special. In fact, there have been some problems in town."
"Then it may simply be the opportunity to explore yourself," LuEllen said, brushing away the hint at the burglaries. She touched the laser again.
"There it is," Dessusdelit said, brought back to the ball. "There's a lot of red, and my God. I can feel the power. And I thought I saw."
"Yes?" LuEllen prompted.
"My mother's face. She's been gone now for ten years. Is this possible?"
"Anything's possible if you have the power and the right crystal," LuEllen said.
I broke in. "This is not my style, I'm afraid. I'll leave you alone. I'll be on top."
"I think that would be best," LuEllen said, her voice now dreamier than ever. "I think Chenille and I have some work to do. Red, you say? Red sometimes means danger."
They were at it for an hour. I was deep into the painting again, sucking on a Dos Equis and cursing the asshole who invented Hooker's green, when the door popped open. LuEllen stuck her head out and called, "Chenille's got a favor to ask. She wonders if you could do a quick spread."
"Oh, boy," I said. I didn't want to read for her without notice. I wanted the deck ready, so it'd read my way. "That would be. my head's just not right for it."
"That's all right," Dessusdelit said from inside the cabin, but I could hear the disappointment in her voice.
"How about if we cut the deck just for a taste?" I asked.
"Would that work?"
"Sure, just for a taste," I said.
I dropped down into the cabin, got the Polish box, took the silk wrapping off the deck, and shuffled. Seven times. Nothing mystic in that; the good gray New York Times Tuesday science pages carried an article that said a good seven shuffle gives you the best approximation of a random distribution. When the shuffling was dead, I spread the deck across the table and looked at Dessusdelit.
"Do you know about the tarot?" I asked before she picked a card.
"Just a bit," she said diffidently.
"I like to warn people that the Death card doesn't mean death. It means change, often for the good. I don't want somebody to pull the Death card out of the deck, misinterpret it, and drop over dead of a heart attack."
"I know about Death," she said. She drew a card, held it for a moment, facedown, then flipped it over.
The Empress. I sat back, a little startled. "Have you actually done tarot readings before?" I asked.
"Yes, a few times."
"What card did you choose to represent yourself? Was it the Empress?"
"No, no. Usually the Queen of Cups."
"Which is a minor arcana analog of the Empress," I said. I tapped the Empress with my index finger. "Perhaps you underrate yourself. In any case, the Empress would suggest success, fulfillment in an enterprise you're involved with. Something you rule or manage. But that's just a taste."
"Just a taste," she said.
"Sure. I have to warn you, I really don't believe in this stuff," I said. And if I did, I wouldn't have picked her for the Empress or even the Queen of Cups. I pushed the cards together and rewrapped them in the silk.
"Well, I thank you," Dessusdelit said. She found her purse, and we went back out into the sunshine, with LuEllen trailing behind.
"If you're really interested." I said.
"I am," she said promptly.
"I read best in the morning. Frankly, I like to. have my beer, you know, and alcohol seems to interfere with the necessary connections."
"I thought you didn't believe in the magical interpretations," she said in amusement.
"Well." I shrugged. "You got me, I guess."
"Come down tomorrow," LuEllen said. "About ten o'clock. Kidd can do a reading, and we can do the ball again. And then maybe you can tell me where the best shopping is."
"I'll be happy to," Dessusdelit said. She looked at me again. "The Empress."
"Just a taste," I said.
LuEllen and I watched her step off the end of the dock and start up the levee.
"How'd you do that?" LuEllen asked, shading her eyes as she watched Dessusdelit disappear over the top of the wall. "Produce the Empress card?"
"I didn't," I said.
Later, while I put the computer back up, LuEllen went out to a grocery store and ran into Lucius Bell in the fresh produce department. He was the councilman who owned my painting.
"He wants us to come over tonight," LuEllen said as she unloaded her bags into the refrigerator. "After dinner. For bourbon and branch, whatever that is."
"Water," I said.
"Whatever." She closed the refrigerator door and stretched like a cat, as she tends to do when she's feeling sexy. "That boy could develop a serious case of the hots for me."
"And would it be reciprocated?"
"Could be," she said, grinning. "He has the nicest eyes, good shoulders."
"Probably wears nylons and lipstick when there's nobody around. Does strange things with carp."
"Not my Lucius," she said in a southern simper.
"Why, God?" I asked, appealing to the ceiling. "Why women? Wasn't the fuckin' bubonic plague enough? Wasn't the H-bomb-"
We were kidding. On the way over to Bell's, though, I noticed she was wearing her Obsession.
I'd done Sunrise, Josie Harry Bar Light 719.5 five years before, in about twenty minutes, sitting awkwardly on a sandbar a few feet from a rented pontoon boat. I've done a lot of traveling on the river over the years, though never before in the style of the Fanny. It had always been in little fourteen-foot bass boats and rented pontoons and even canoes.
Josie Harry was one of the good ones. I spotted it, hung on a white wall between two built-in book cabinets, as soon as I walked into Bell's dining room.
"Wonderful," I said. "Who did the framing for you? The gallery?"
"No, I had it done here in town," he said.
"You found a good framer," I said. "It looks fine."
I went over it inch by inch. After a minute or two LuEllen and Bell wandered back to the sitting room, chatting. They liked each other, all right, but I didn't expect any trouble. LuEllen had a penchant for variety but only when her security wasn't at stake. She would never let sex step on that.
"Satisfied? That I haven't done anything embarrassing to it?" Bell asked when I finally joined them. He did have an engaging way about him, not diminished by the fact that he owned one of my paintings and was taking good care of it.
"I'm more than satisfied; I'm delighted," I said, looking back at the painting. "It's got a good spot, good light, protection. That's what it's made for."