Ask the Dice (25 page)

Certified Psychic Medium

Old
Yvor
City
Spiritualist

Madame Chang

Palm & Tarot Card
Readings

Walk-Ins Always Welcome

Major Credit Cards Accepted

I'd always been curious if the mediums and psychics possessed any real fortunetelling powers. So I just might stroll on in there, my credit card in hand. Madame Chang sat under a feeble 25-watt light bulb and behind a low table. Polishing her crystal ball, she peered up and greeted me, her smile feral. The layers of tie-dye scarves tucked and knotted from the waist up gave her lithe figure an exotic flair.

"Come in, Tommy Mack. Come right on in. So good to see you. Cop a squat on my futon. What's that? No, we'll skip using the tarot cards. I'll rely on my powers of phrenology to map your future. Of course you know it's a brief one. You can't expect to keep sailing on blue water as you have been doing. After all, even the assassin Brutus had to fall on his own sword. How long before you die? Put it this way, Tommy Mack. Already I can see the halo of vultures circling overhead in the clouds."

The next thing I knew I was shoving paper money at the wiry Korean clerk to buy the Blue Castles. On the return to the coupé, I tore at the cardboard carton and cellophane pack in a mad scramble to get at a smoke. I'd no matches and heeled around to return inside and ask for a book when D. Noble hooted through his down window.

"I've got the matches. Come on and let's get going."

Back with them, as I lit up a
Blue
Castle
, I recalled the summer I'd worked in a butcher's shop with a couple of high school pals. One slow, rainy afternoon we smoked a jay and took turns lying down prone on the countertop and weighing our heads on the meat scales. My head—was it born stuffed with sawdust?—clocked in as the lightest one. We'd shared a juvenile chuckle over it, but at the day's end I returned home feeling certain I was wasting my time there. By the next week at Amanda's urging, I quit at the butcher's shop and set up my lawn care service, how I came to meet Mr. Ogg and later enter my present illustrious career.

I left the bodega, debating how much longer our adrenaline pumps could keep churning at full-tilt. Hitting the wall of fatigue, I knew the hour was getting late. Danny nestled down to sleep in the rear seat, and D. Noble dozing off up front both had the right idea. I went on driving and before very long, he roused, sat up in his seat, and said nothing over the next few minutes.

"You've never been a wheelman before, Tommy Mack, have you?"

I glanced over at him. "Why is that?"

"Because we've looped this same block twice."

"Actually I'm doing another flyby."

"You want to let me in on your thinking?"

"While you napped, I cut through the entrance to Rita's gated village."

"No sentry?"

"He'd drowse off, too. Did you see the Mock Tudor we just passed?"

"The joint that has the sedans clustered out in the front."

I nodded. "Rita Ogg lives in there."

"All we need to do is to give the dark suits the slip to get in and brace her."

"Right. Any ideas?"

D. Noble pinched his lips, gave it a little thought, and snapped his fingers. "Well shit, we're just overcomplicating it. Isn't our Rita your garden-variety, free-spirited, young thing?"

"I know she's a rich party girl spoiled rotten by her uncle."

"That's it then. The dark suits are guarding our party girl, but she can't stay at home, not tonight. She's got to be where the lights are hot and bright. I believe she's clever enough to dodge her watchdogs and hook up with her girlfriend posse."

"It's getting late to be out," I said.

"You forgot what it was like when you burned your wick at both ends."

"Where do the young partygoers prefer to go clubbing?" I asked.

"We'll search the discothèques and cabarets."

"Where are those?"

"Danny should know."

"Wake her up and ask her."

He jostled the somnolent Danny on the shoulder. He jumped back when she lashed out with a slap. "I was getting you up. Tommy Mack wants to know something."

"Oh." She stretched and yawned. "I don't like to be pawed."

"Sorry."

"Aw, forget it. What's on Tommy Mack's mind?"

"If Rita sneaked out and hooked up with her girlfriends to party, where might they go?" I asked.

"There are a slew of clubs," replied Danny. "Can you narrow it down any?"

"Assume she went on foot since she doesn't drive," I said. "We'll case the clubs nearest to her house. Where are the hot spots around here?"

"I'm not aware of anything," she said. "Google it."

I returned to the all-night Wegmans for the Wi-Fi. D. Noble engaged the map light down to shine down on his cell phone and did some nimble machinations with his fingers. He squirmed in his seat. "God, I'm itchy as hell. Fire me up a
Blue
Castle
," he told Danny. She did and wedged it between his lips as he used both hands to search the Web on his cell phone. "I can find some clubs, but none of them are close to us."

"Rita might phone for a cab," said Danny.

"Her Uncle Watson runs the city yellow-top cabs," I said. "She'd never risk doing it."

D. Noble forwarded his cell phone to Danny. "Not to add any pressure, but it's all up to you."

"My cousin Amber might know which clubs to try. She likes to party."

"Do you mind calling and asking her?" said D. Noble.

Without another word, Danny did so, chatted to get a suggestion after her pleasantries with Cousin Amber, and hung up.

"Amber tells me that Caligula's is the newest dive club, but skeevy is what gives it its character."

"We've crashed a few of those clubs before," said D. Noble, flicking his cigarette butt out the open window.

I grunted in acknowledgement after he nudged me in the ribs. I left Wegmans and punched the accelerator pedal. Twelve minutes later, she'd guided us into the teeth of the city's worst decay, and my sense of direction put us on the northern rim near the old switchyard. A valet in a blue velvet tux and beefier than Esquire strutted over to the fuzzy rope and offered to park the coupé for a fin. D. Noble gave him two fins to say we never came. The valet, grinning, left us alone. At the end of the block, D. Noble gestured a hand for me to veer over, scraping a tire against the high curb. I hoped the coupé was still in one piece when I returned for it. We got out.

Live music—retro head-banger rock—rumbled out of the ground floor to a blocky edifice that in a prior generation had to have served as a department store. Closer up, I saw the red neon bright as a lit Roman candle on the marquee sign screaming its name—CALIGULA—at us.

D. Noble and I let Danny lead us inside—no cover charge—where the noise took ice pick stabs at my throbbing eardrums. No off-duty cops worked Security, and the methed-up valet with our money had left, probably to hot-wire a Jaguar and squeal off for a joyride through the city. The smog draping us came from the club-goers' potent weed. Some pursuits of happiness never changed much. The emcee had dimmed the overheads, rendering a chiaroscuro effect to my old eyes. I waded into the L-shaped club crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with flesh, much of it laid bare. Leather couches, tacky to the touch, lined the long wall where I also noticed two ATMs.

D. Noble flashed me a thumbs up. Leaning forward, I tried to shout in his ear: “find Rita Ogg.” He nodded as if he understood me. Danny stood in the restroom queue speaking to a tall, slim girl with long, jet braids. A cavernous aquarium green-lit on its angel fish glimmered behind the bar patrons, and I used it for my compass point.

The yellow flag of a serpent drooped over the aquarium proclaimed, "Don't Tread On Me!" I could get with that motto. At the cash-only bar, my 360 saw Danny had vanished. The noise had diminished to the point where holding a conversation was possible. A tug yanked at my shirt, and I peered down at a devilish grin.

"Hey, Tommy Mack. What's doing, my good man?"

The dwarf Big Jamal I'd last seen at the boxcar marooned in the old switchyard wore a pearl-gray suit replete with a bola tie. The bulge I saw under his jacket was either his Glock or the illicit pharmaceuticals he peddled to his clients.

My greeting nod was curt.

"What brings you to our debauchery?"

"My two friends and I are searching for a girl from the trouble I told you about earlier."

Big Jamal tipped his chin for me to follow him to a quieter, more private corner. A ponytailed blonde recognized him. Smiling, she sidled over, but he scowled and heeled up both small palms. Their dope buy got postponed. She flopped down on one of the leather couches and pouted into the compact mirror she'd removed from inside her halter-top. Women of her vintage had no business wearing halter-tops, but then tasteful apparel wasn't the point at Caligula's.

"Who is the girl?" he asked me.

"Rita Ogg."

"Yeah, I know her, but she's not at this zoo, not tonight."

"Do you track who comes and goes?"

"Only the doorman knows better, and he's usually stoned."

"Thanks. You've saved me some time and trouble. I'll move on then."

"Wait, man." Winking at me, he patted his jacket. "Glock?"

"Are you offering or pitching me?"

"Just take it. Go on. Tonight has been good, so I'll share a little of the love." He slapped the loaded Glock into my sweaty palm. "I've got more artillery close at hand."

"All right, thanks and I owe you."

"If I were you, I'd stay and mingle because Rita is bound to pop up. Caligula's is the last club to close its doors, and where all the celebrants troop to hang out until dawn. Plus, I'm known as the candy man, and the party girls bring their sweet tooth to me."

"Maybe I will." The side exit stood next to the bar. "Excuse me, Big Jamal. I want to go grab some fresh air before I fall ill from gagging on this reefer smog."

"Go ahead," he said. "I'll grab you whenever Rita is a show here."

Chapter 28

D.
Noble had lent me his cell phone, and I moseyed out the side exit where I found a cramped alleyway. The red neon on the marquee sign out front leaked its residual glow down the alleyway. The heavy-gauge steel door sealed off the club's bombast, and I could hear myself think. I walked off a couple of car lengths from the steel door.

A few stars overhead lay scattered like the sparks shaken from a discarded cigarette, and I contrasted this sky to the big skies over
Texas
glinting a galaxy's worth of glitter. What had gone on down there? Madame Chang with her cheesy insights couldn't tell me, but I knew who just might. My check saw I pulled in the right bar strength, and Amanda connected.

"What's going on?" she asked, her voice garbled as if from just waking up.

Since she asked me, I got straight to the point. "
Texas
."

"Oh, not that tragedy again."

"I can't get it off my mind."

"Understandable since its barbarism scarred you for life."

"Help me out. Did I inherit their self-destructive genes?"

"Absolutely not, Tommy Mack. You didn't come from a bad seed. Are you getting depressed again?"

"Not so much."

"We tried to buy you the best professional counsel. Every Thursday afternoon I drove you over to
Georgetown
. My friends all said he was the tops."

"I know, Mom. I remember everything you did for me."

"Who was your shrink again? He kept his office so dark he reminded me of a mole. His name was something Jewish."