"The map book? Sure."
Wells walked through a wooden gate on the public counter to a glass-enclosed private office at the back. The clerk dug in a drawer, found a map book, and said, "That'll be twelve dollars. There's no sales tax on government publications."
I dug out my billfold and handed her a fifty. "I'm afraid I don't have anything smaller."
"That's OK. I'll just be a minute."
She walked back to Wells's office and said something. Wells nodded, stood up, came out, and walked to the safe. LuEllen put her hand in her purse. Mary Wells turned the combination dial on the safe, pausing briefly to align each combination number, and took out a cashbox. We got the change for the fifty, and two minutes later we were back on the street.
"OK?" I asked.
LuEllen shrugged. "Seemed to be. I'll have to look at the film. She turned the dial slowly enough, though. If the camera worked, we should be clear."
We were back aboard the Fanny before ten. John called a few minutes later.
"It worked. If the camera was aimed right, we got it because the film advanced four frames."
"Good," I said. "We've got to talk to Dessusdelit, and then we're going out on the river. I'll see you tonight at the Holiday Inn."
When Dessusdelit came over the levee wall, I turned to LuEllen and said, "We're on," and fled toward the head.
"OK. So after she cuts the deck, as soon as you pick it up, I say, 'What'd you do to this ball?' " LuEllen said, following me.
"Yeah. Right after I pick it up. And you've got to put something extra in your voice – like awe. Like gee whiz. Don't overdo it, but I'm not good at this, so you've got to turn her around. Just glancing your way won't be enough. Maybe you could hold the ball in that light beam," I said, nodding at a shaft of sunlight coming in the bow windows.
"OK. here she is."
I went on back to the head, stripped off my tennis shirt, and turned on the water, while LuEllen went to the door.
"Come on in," I heard LuEllen say cheerfully. Dessusdelit twittered a few words, and LuEllen led her to the same chair she'd sat in the day before.
While I splashed water on my face and neck, LuEllen got down the crystal ball and passed it to Dessusdelit, "just to warm it up." I wandered out of the head a minute later and posed in the galley, rubbing my wet face with a towel, yawning. Dessusdelit was wearing a bright print summer dress and beige low-heeled shoes. Even with the color, she still looked like a venomous sparrow, spooky, nervously glancing this way and that, as though a predator were about to jump out of a bush. She had the crystal ball cupped in her hands, rolling it, staring into it.
"You in a mood for a reading?" LuEllen asked me.
"Sure, I guess," I said lazily.
Dessusdelit knew something about tarot, so we couldn't fool her with a fake spread. LuEllen kept her working with the crystal ball while I got my deck from the cupboard. It was a common deck, the Waite-Rider. There are hundreds of tarots in circulation, but you can buy a Waite-Rider anyplace that handles occult stuff. It's a standard, which is a good thing, because when I needed the second identical deck, I had no trouble finding one. The second deck was in a little cardboard box we'd taped under the edge of the table.
"It's amazing," LuEllen said as I sat down across from Dessusdelit. My knee touched the box under the table. "We must have caught Miz Dessusdelit at a critical juncture. When she handles the ball, it lights up like a Christmas tree: money and adventure."
She paused, artlessly, and let a wrinkle crease her forehead, as if a new thought had just occurred to her. "And romance?" LuEllen looked down at Dessusdelit. "Do you think that peculiar flux and intensity could have something to do with romance?"
Dessusdelit blushed. "Well, I wouldn't be. there isn't anything-"
"Could be something wicked this way comes," LuEllen said. I jumped; LuEllen surprises me sometimes. She'd just quoted a piece of Macbeth, which later became a Ray Bradbury title. Dessusdelit obviously recognized at least the sound of it, and I wondered if it were the Shakespeare or the Bradbury.
While Dessusdelit was mumbling over LuEllen's suggestion, I thumbed through the deck and put the Queen of Cups on the table, faceup.
"Significator," I said. I glanced at LuEllen. "Would you pull the blinds just a little and kill the lights? I'd like it a little dimmer to help focus the concentration."
LuEllen started pulling blinds, and I put the deck, less the single card, in front of the mayor. "I want you to shuffle. At least seven times, and after that, as long as you want," I told her. She took the deck and began riffling the cards. When she was done, she placed it squarely in front of me.
"Do you want to cut it?" I asked.
"Should I?"
"That's purely up to you. Look inside yourself, and make a decision."
Dessusdelit closed her eyes, and after a moment her hand came out, groped for the deck, and cut it.
"Good," I said, picking up the deck.
"What'd you do to this ball?" LuEllen blurted suddenly. She'd been juicing it with the laser. When Dessusdelit turned her head to look, the crystal was fluorescing like a piece of cold fire.
"My God," Dessusdelit said.
"It just never stopped," LuEllen said.
As Dessusdelit turned, I switched the decks. The new deck was identical to the first but thoroughly stacked.
"You know what it is?" Dessusdelit volunteered. She turned back to me, her voice dropping to a whisper. "It's the tarot, focusing the energy in the room."
We all looked at the deck in my hand. "This is getting scary," LuEllen said. I agreed. Dessusdelit's voice had such a deadly intensity that the hair stood up on my arm.
I shook it off and did a spread. The Empress came up immediately, overlying the significator, the card that represented Dessusdelit. She grunted, and I realized that she knew more about the tarot than she'd let on. I rolled out the rest of the spread, and she grunted several more times, little under breath ummph noises. For the possible future, she got the Wheel of Fortune, upright, which generally means good luck; for the environment card, the Queen of Pentacles, which stands for success in business and the accumulation of property; and as the final outcome, the Ten of Pentacles, upright. The wealth card.
"Something's going on here," I said. "I've never seen a reading so consistent across the board."
I began the interpretation, and she nodded and then reached out to the spread. "But this." she said, tapping the future card. Death riding a white horse.
"I told you about the Death card," I said. "It doesn't mean Death; it means change. Usually welcome change."
"Yes, but it's a frightening image."
"Does the image strike you as particularly strong this morning? Did the image catch your eye, rather than the philosophical position behind the card?"
"Well."
"There are times when you must look at the image. You know, the tarot speaks on a lot of different levels. Sometimes it's on a mystical level that seems far beyond anything I can interpret," I babbled. She was listening intently. "On other occasions it's as simple as the picture printed on the card."
"It did seem sort of special."
Of course it did, with my implicit prompting.
"I don't know what it might mean, though," I said, putting new doubt into my voice. "A dark knight, a black knight, arriving on a white horse. That hardly seems to fit modern times – especially coupled with the wealth cards we see everywhere else. I don't know."
Jesus, I thought, am I overdoing it? Behind Dessusdelit, LuEllen was biting her lip.
I picked up the Death card and placed it in front of Dessusdelit. The room had grown tense, and Dessusdelit sat frozen for a moment, studying Death. Then, with a sudden release of breath, she pushed her chair back and stood up. Her eyes were wide and distant, as though she were stoned.
"Let's get some light in here," LuEllen said suddenly. She pulled a shade, and daylight cut through the gloom. "Boy, I've never seen anything like this." She looked down at her hand. "The crystal has stopped."