Hardare’s fingers impatiently tapped the table they were sitting at. “What kind of psychics?”
“Five astrologers recommended by the San Francisco Police, four mediums, two psychic channelers, a woman who tells the future by interpreting dreams, two spiritualists, and a woman named Margaret Dansing.”
“The psychic bloodhound,” said Hardare.
“You’re familiar with her work?”
Hardare nodded.
“So what do you say? Will you give it a shot?”
“I’d like to help you, but did it ever occur to you that my prediction on the Tonight Show was a trick?”
Wondero’s mouth twisted uncomfortably. “I have a friend who works for the Tonight Show. I called him an hour ago. He said that no one had a clue how you made your predictions. Even Leno was baffled.”
So that was why the detective was here. He chose his words carefully. “Yes, but it was still a trick. I’m not, and never have been, a psychic.”
“For God’s sake,” Wondero said in exasperation. “You pull garbage like this, how is the public supposed to distinguish it from the real thing?”
Hardare took a deep breath, hating to burst his bubble. “Detective, let me assure you, there is no “real thing.” These psychics you’re working with are misrepresenting themselves. They’re ordinary people, just like you and me.”
“Now wait a minute!” Are you saying there is no such thing as ESP?”
“Of course not. Everyone has had a psychic experience during their life. The problem is no one has discovered a way to harness these hidden powers. Even the best psychics are wrong most of the time. The rest of the time, they’re simply guessing, or resorting to the same tricks I use.”
A thin line of perspiration had formed above Wondero’s lip. “What about Margaret Dansing? She helped us locate one of Death’s victims last month.”
“How did she do that?” Hardare asked.
“She told us that the victim would be at the bottom of a hill, beneath a pile of leaves. She also said the victim’s clothes would be torn, which they were.”
“And for that, your department has Margaret Dansing on a monthly retainer.”
“How did you know that?”
“Because that’s how she works,” Hardare said, sensing that Wondero was starting to hear him. “Margaret Dansing is a very successful locator of lost people. She claims she has a sixth sense, but in reality she does a lot of research. She has an exhaustive library of newspaper clippings concerning crimes in the L.A. area. She also has a ham radio operator’s license and monitors police calls. One of my friends at the Magic Castle believes Dansing has a newspaperman who works as a source for her, and provides her with inside information about specific investigations.”
Wondero’s eyes had taken on a cloudy expression. As if on a timed delay, he snapped his pencil between his hands.
“Shit. I’ve been had.”
“Margaret Dansing has baffled some of the brightest scientific minds in the country. You had no reason to believe that she was anything but sincere.”
Wondero shoved his legal pad into his folder. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. Thanks for your time. I really appreciate it.”
He walked the detective out of the hotel.
“I feel like such a rube,” Wondero said.
“Don’t,” Hardare said. “Even Houdini had a spiritualist fool him into believing that his dead mother was trying to contact him from the grave.”
“No kidding. Even I don’t believe in ghosts.”
They walked to where his SUV was parked.
“I thought you might be the breakthrough, but I guess that was pretty juvenile on my part,” the detective said.
“I’m sorry I disappointed you,” Hardare said.
“So am I.”
Wondero got behind the wheel and started the engine. As he drove away, his eyes briefly brushed Hardare’s face. Hardare could feel the detective staring right through him, and sensed that Wondero had already dismissed him from his thoughts.
He smothered a yawn. Wondero’s last remark had carried a great deal of resentment, and he guessed he’d done a good job disillusioning him. It was strange the things people chose to believe in. Most people didn’t go to church or believe in God, yet these same people believed in practically everything else, including extra terrestrials, psychic powers, and UFOs. Why not fire-breathing dragons or wizards with long white beards and pointed caps? If people were going to stake their faith on the ridiculous, at least it should be entertaining.
He went into the hotel, too tired to pay any heed to the man watching him from the running car parked across the street, and went upstairs to bed.
Chapter 4
The Road to Las Vegas
The next morning over breakfast, Hardare described his meeting with Detective Wondero to Jan. By the time he was finished, his wife’s face was ashen.
“It goes back to what I’ve been saying all along,” he said emphatically. “Too many people think these psychic routines in my show are the real thing. Intelligent people, not just the kooks. I’m fostering a belief in something I know is a sham, and that’s plain wrong. You finished?”
Jan nodded, and he got up, pushed the room service tray out into the hall and locked the door.
“Our bookings have never been stronger,” she reminded him.
“Uri Geller used to pack them in, too,” Hardare replied. He threw his clothing bag on the unmade bed and started to pack. “Remember that flim-flam artist? Israeli nightclub magician turned psychic wonder. The strange thing was, even after he was exposed as a charlatan, he still remained popular. Even Barbara Walters gave him twenty minutes of national TV time.”
She came over and tried to rub the tension out of his shoulders. “I’ve always been partial to your magic, myself.”
Thirty minutes later they met up with his daughter Crystal in the bustling hotel lobby. She’d been shopping, and while Jan poured through her bags to see what might fit her, Hardare settled their bill, tipped a bellman for loading their luggage into trunk of his Volvo 760, and coerced his wife and daughter into the car.
Traffic was heavy, and he drove down Santa Monica Boulevard trying to remember the quickest way to the Pasadena Freeway. The five hour drive to Las Vegas was a sleeper, consisting of several hundred miles of desert and an occasional dusty town, but many delays and lost pieces of baggage at LAX had convinced him that traveling by car was quicker, and generally less eventful.
He made the Freeway in an hour. Smothering a yawn, he put the car on cruise control, and glanced at Jan as she reclined her bucket seat, then into the mirror at Crystal sprawled across the backseat, her nose buried in a glossy fashion magazine.
It was hard going back to Vegas. Although he liked the management at Caesar’s, and the facilities and enthusiastic crowds night after night, it was a difficult environment for his family to live in. Vegas was a tourist town, and people on vacation got drunk, acted in the stupidest fashion imaginable, and woke up the next day not regretting it.
“I can already feel the excitement,” Crystal joked half-heartedly as they passed a flashy Vegas billboard on Interstate 15. The flat, barren desert opened up before them, and Hardare pushed the cruise control up to seventy-five.
“It’s only one week,” he reassured her. “Then back to L.A. for two weeks. That’s not a bad trade-off.”
“Great. But then what? She tossed her magazine to the floor. “I don’t know why you won’t tell me what our plans are.”
“He hasn’t told me, either,” Jan said. “Big secret.”
“That’s because I don’t know,” he said, glancing into his mirror at the shimmering white Pontiac Firebird with darkly tinted windows that had popped up on the horizon. “Management at Caesar’s wants to extend our contract another six months.”