I stare across the foyer, at the wall of rectangular brass placards fronting niches full of urns and ashes. I breath in deep, focus my mind on the area around my left eye, sensing its wrongness. I hold that feeling and reach outward, to the ether. Its energy fills the spaces in and around us, invisible and indispensable. I direct a thin band of it inward, to my bruised face, until the wrongness dissipates. Slowly, the pain fades and disappears.
The reedy one’s staring at me, avid. “So that’s how it works.”
Shit. He could see it.
“It’s just guesswork far as I’ve managed.” I mask my curiosity. He might be one of the touchy ones, sensitive about a diluted talent. Me, I been called lucky, among other things. I can do the most minor of healing. Others can do inconsequential spells. Some just aren’t good for anything but seeing ghosts.
Wait a minute. I say, “You saw it, how it was done? You don’t need me then?”
The reedy one crowds me. “Nhuh-uh. Ain’t got enough talent for that.”
His partner chuckles darkly. “Old woman, you’re gonna be a gold mine.” He grabs me by the back of the neck, pinching up the loose skin there, between his palm and fingers. “Mrs. Lin said you’re the brains of the operation. So tell us how it worked, this scam a yours.” He squeezes.
I yelp. Is this how they got Stella to talk?
I lick my chapped lips. “The girls find a good corner, look for morons driving and on their phones. When they judge it right, they pick someone turning the corner. Slow enough not to risk death, but fast enough to startle the driver. Then they step in the way, get clipped.” I swallow. “We’re old, we have no extra health coverage. We claim against their insurance. We use the physio on Victoria and 46th. She’s a heavy gambler, needs the extra money. She bills up to three treatments a week, for maybe two months. No one’s gonna look too closely ’cause everyone knows seniors take longer to heal. She does the fake paperwork, creates fake appointments. I do my thing. We split the money.”
“So,” says the reedy one, “you can heal anything?”
I push away thoughts of Stella. “I can’t do broken bones, all right? No healer can, without a doctor to reset first, and no way we’re involving a doctor too. But cuts, bruising, sprains, strained muscles, those I can do. Just no head injuries.”
“What’s the split on the take?” The big man twists the hand holding my neck.
I wince. “Seventy-thirty.”
“Mrs. Lin said sixty-forty.”
“That’s how I split the seventy from the physio with her, yeah.”
He stares at me. “How much you take in a week?”
“Each girl got maybe a hundred, a hundred and fifty a week.” I have a fleeting image of my old friends, hearing me call them girls. It hurts.
The reedy one glares. “Chump change.”
“It’s enough for pin money, okay? We only got old age pensions otherwise, and they don’t stretch far. Not in this city.”
His partner shakes me by the scruff of my neck. “How many in a day?”
I gasp. “Not every day. The physio can only claim three sessions a week. Per patient. Too suspicious otherwise.”
He’s scowling. I don’t know if it’s the math or he’s trying to be intimidating.
“Also, I can’t heal that many so quickly. Mine’s a small talent.” The back of my neck’s gone numb. “Can you let go now? I’m cooperating, all right?”
The hefty one releases me, with an extra shove to prove his point.
I rub my neck. It stings. Then I rub my nose, hard. Can’t get his scent out.
He points a stubby finger at me. “That means you’re making up to $450 a week, old woman. That’s more than just pocket money.”
“Yeah, well, I was. It’s over now. Like I told you. Mabel and Mary and June, they were the oldest ones. They died over the past six months. Betty and Liza moved away. It was just Stella and me the past two months.”
“And you went and got her killed,” says the reedy one.
“It was an accident,” I counter hotly. “She miscalculated. It was raining too hard and she slipped.”
“Got her head bashed in.” The hefty one waves a hand. “Yeah, we saw her in the hospital. We know.”
“How?” I narrow my eyes. “How do you know her anyway?”
“She’s my great-aunt,” he says. “Was, I guess.”
I feel sick.
He pokes me on the collarbone. “You’re gonna run the scam again. ’Cept this time, we get the money.”
I scowl, rubbing the sore spot. “Why should I? You gonna hurt me more if I don’t? Go ahead. I can heal it. The rest is just pain. You break bones, it takes me time to heal normal, your gold mine’s out of commission. You kill me, you get nothing.”
“You got a son, a daughter-in-law, grandkids.” The reedy one pokes my forehead, his fingernail breaking the skin.
I heal the shallow cut as he watches, lay on the bravado. “No way am I gonna do this for free.”
They exchange a look, surprise clear on their hard faces.
I barrel onward: “You find six old women. No men, too whiny. Three accidents a week, they switch off weeks. Different neighborhoods. The physio’s split stays the same. We can’t afford to squeeze her. We split the 70 percent.” I run the calculations. “If you pay your seniors 25 percent, you still get 225 a week.”
“Chump change.” The reedy one shrugs. “But easy money.”
Stella’s great-nephew is squinting at me. Clearly the smarter one. I keep my eye on him.
“I deal with the physio,” I say. “If she gets wind of you, she’ll fold.” I make a face. “Took me months to suss her out. No time to find another.”
He gives a short nod. “Got just the place for the money drop. Ming Dynasty on Victoria at 41st. That’s, what, five blocks from your son’s house?”
I nod, my mouth suddenly dry. “You trust them to hold your money?”
“They know what happens if they don’t.” He reaches out. I cringe. He taps my forehead. “Soon as it’s set up nice and smooth, we get the ghost. Got a spell caster ready to pull it into a nice little containment trap.”
I frown. “What are you going to do with him?”
“None of your business.”
“But it could kill me.” The quavery note’s not fake this time. “Or turn me into a vegetable, as good as dead.”
“Not our problem.”
I narrow my eyes, thinking frantically. “If I come out of it normal, I want a cut of whatever you’re gonna do. It must be a decent payoff, right?”
Stella’s great-nephew shoves me. “Get this straight, old woman. You may be smart enough to run some penny-ante scam, but I’m out of your league.” He pokes a finger into my collarbone, twists it hard. I swear I can feel the bruise forming.
He grabs my purse, finds my phone, thrusts it at me. “Unlock it.”
I do, watching my hand shake.
He takes it back, taps the screen. A low buzz from his pocket. “We’ll be in touch. You better pick up or text me back, old woman.”
The reedy one snatches my purse from his partner, pulls out my wallet, empties it of cash. He drops the wallet and purse onto the floor. They land with a thud, the metal purse clasp clinking against the tiles.
I watch them as they push through the doors, back out into the early-winter drizzle. I crumple against the door as soon as they peel out of the parking lot, in some low, mean-looking muscle car.
I’m spent, panting like a dumb dog. Pain flares in knees, shoulders, elbows, wrists. Of course. What else is new.
I crouch laboriously and gather my belongings, cursing my useless magic. Can’t even heal my own damned chronic pain. I stuff things inside my purse, sling it over my head and crosswise over my chest, brace against the wall to stand.