The White Magic Five & Dime (A Tarot Mystery) (9 page)

The Chariot is the card for people who are really going places. It signals progress, momentum, achievement. This particular charioteer is so good, he can control the strength of conflicting drives—one black, one white, each pulling in different directions—without reins or even a harness. Let’s see Ben-Hur do that. Then again, Ben-Hur didn’t have to worry about his horses running away. Or turning around and eating him.

Miss Chance,
Infinite Roads to Knowing

Blackmail—a
classic
.
The video camera in the crystal ball was a nice new touch, though. Say what you will about my mother—it wouldn’t be anything worse than what
I’d
say—the lady was original.

Now I knew what the camcorder cassettes in the office had been for. Of course, a digital audio recorder would’ve been a lot easier to hide than a Handycam, but I’m sure Mom had her reasons for going old school.

My guess: a hand-off just seems so much more
real
when there’s a physical object involved. You give someone a tape and at least they can have the satisfaction of stomping on it. “Transfer the money into my PayPal account and I promise to delete the mp3 file from my hard drive” just doesn’t have the right ring to it.

There’d be downsides, though. Tapes would be a pain to back up, for one thing. And knowing that—that these were most likely the original recordings, with no copies—certain someones would be tempted to steal them.

In fact, I was pretty sure a certain someone
had
stolen my mother’s tapes. The camera was gone. You’re going to take that and not whatever it had recorded? No. That’s why all the cassettes I’d seen had been unopened. The ones that had been used were who knew where.

So who’d want them? Three kinds of certain someones came to mind.

A victim.

A rival.

An accomplice who wanted to be a rival.

I still didn’t know enough about the three groups to know which it was. I needed a lot more information. And I didn’t even have to leave the shop to start getting it because one of the certain someones did me a favor.

He called me.

The caller
ID
said
PAY PHONE
.

It had to be him again. Mr. Phlegm. The Man with the Exfoliating Voice.

He’d be calling from somewhere farther away this time. No way he’d be waiting for me at the 7-Eleven with a cherry Slurpee.

I thought about letting him talk to voicemail.

I’m not here to murder at the moment. Just leave your death threat after the beep…

But no. He’d probably be too smart to leave a message with a distinctive voice like that. And contact with him was an opportunity.

Sometimes you’ve got to rattle the cage to get the monkey to play,
Biddle used to say. Of course, in real life the monkey’s liable to throw crap in your face or bite off your fingers, but point taken.

I cleared my throat—talking to people who want to kill me always gets me a little verklempt—and picked up the phone.

“Lex Luthor!”
I said. “How goes it?”

Nothing.

“Hello? Mr. Luthor?”

More nothing.

“Listen, Lex, I gotta tell you: the silent intimidation thing doesn’t work anymore. Everyone just assumes their cell phone dropped the call.”

“You’re not on a cell phone,” the gruff-voiced man finally said. “You’re still in the White Magic Five & Dime. Mistake.”

“That’s more like it! I was starting to think, ‘What’s this guy doing? Calling up so he can
mime
threats?’ ”

“Shut up and listen. If you know what’s good for you—”

“Lex.”

“—you won’t spend another night—”

“Lex.”

“—in this town.”

“
Lex
. Rude! I’m trying to talk to you! That’s the whole problem with this relationship. Don’t get me wrong—I enjoy our chats; really, I do. All those light bulbs you’ve been eating have totally paid off because
man
do you have a voice for menacing phone calls. But our conversations are so one-sided. Let’s have a little give and take, huh? Get to know each other. Me first. I’m a Leo, I love piano rock and reggae, I don’t eat meat but I can’t stand tofu, my favorite movie is
The Goonies,
and I didn’t kiss a boy until I was twenty. Now—your turn. I know you’re not a member of the Hair Club for Men and you were at the 7-Eleven around the corner yesterday and as a welcome wagon you leave a lot to be desired, but beyond that I’m in the dark.”

“You think I’m joking with you?”

“No, Lex. I don’t.”

“You think I’m not serious?”

“I think you’re very serious, Lex. I’d just like to know why. Come on, open up. What’s your beef with me? I’m a reasonable person. Help me see things from your perspective and maybe you’ll get what you want.”

“Oh, I’m going to get what I want, all right. But you aren’t going to like how I get it.”

“Really, Lex—again with the ominous insinuations? I thought we were beyond all that.”

“You’re right. We are. No more insinuations. Just
action
. Starting tonight.”

“I hate to break it to you, Lex, but what you just said? That was an insinuation.”

Back to nothing.

“Lex? You still there?”

He wasn’t. He’d hung up. And just when I was going to switch from “Lex” to “Mr. Clean,” too. Damn.

I hung up the phone and took a deep breath. What had I learned? Only this: I still had it. I could push fear down so deep it was like it wasn’t there at all. Biddle would have been proud.

It wasn’t the kind of information I’d been angling for, but it was good to know.

As long as I was feeling fearless, I decided to get another cup of coffee.

Detective Logan
had told me that Kathleen, the blond glaring death at me from behind the coffee shop espresso machine, was “the gossip queen of the county” with a thing for cops. As if it never occurred to him that I’d be back in the place within the hour to get all the local dish he’d been holding back. Silly man.

Kathleen didn’t seem glad to see me.

I smiled. “I thought I should come back and pay for a cup,” I said. “I noticed I got the last one free.”

“Yeah. You did. Cappuccino again?”

“Just black this time, please. Small.”

Kathleen let me bask in a couple seconds of squinted contempt before turning away to grab a cup.

“I don’t want to overdo it,” I said. “I’m kind of jittery already. You see, I was in here with Detective Logan to talk about…”

Beat
.

Tighten throat.

Moisten eyes.

Go
.

“…my mother’s death.”

A different Kathleen handed me my coffee. This one looked sympathetic, concerned, unthreatened. And curious.

“My god. I’m sorry,” she said. “Listen—this one’s on the house, too.”

“No, no. Thank you, but I really want to pay.”

“I’m serious. Put that money away.”

She talked me into it.

There were no customers behind me in line—I’d made sure to come in when business was slow—so there was no rush for me to move.

“You’re very kind,” I said. “Everyone has been. It’s been a pleasant surprise, actually, since…well, to be honest, my mom wasn’t always Miss Popularity.”

Kathleen looked confused. Apparently, word that Athena Passalis’s daughter was in town had gotten around to my secret non-admirer but not to Her Royal Highness, the Queen of Gossip.

Interesting.

I told Kathleen who my mother was.

“Oh, no! I am so sorry about what happened to your mom! That was just horrible! Does Josh—Detective Logan, I mean—does he have any leads?”

“Well, I probably shouldn’t say anything, but…”

I glanced over one shoulder, then the other.

Kathleen leaned toward me so far I was surprised she could stay upright.

“There is someone Detective Logan’s interested in,” I whispered. “He described him to me. Middle-aged, gruff voice, bald, with some kind of connection to other fortunetellers in the area.”

Kathleen gasped. “Anthony Grandi’s a suspect?”

I nodded. “It would seem so.”

“Oh. My. God. That’s—oh, hi, Tom.”

One of Berdache’s finest was walking up behind me.

I don’t like it when cops walk up behind me. It makes me wonder how I screwed up and where the nearest exit is.

Old habits.

“Thanks again,” I said to Kathleen.

She looked sad to see me go.

I took my first sip of my coffee as I headed out the door. It wasn’t bad.

Good. I had a feeling I’d be back for more.

I walked
down the street to the law offices of Wheeler & Associates. I still didn’t see any associates. I didn’t see any clients either.

“Change your mind about selling?” Eugene Wheeler asked. He looked like a kid about to open the biggest box under the Christmas tree.

“Tell me about Anthony Grandi,” I said.

Wheeler’s shoulders slumped, and his eyes lost their glow. The big box was full of wool socks.

I threw in a candy cane.

“You can bill me for your time. It’d be better if our conversations aren’t gratis anyway.”

Wheeler sat up straight again, nodding knowingly.

Now it was official. I wasn’t just a former client’s daughter, I was a client. Everything he told me or I told him would be confidential.

Wheeler didn’t ask why that was important to me. He only asked about his rate.

I agreed to it—why not? I’d just inherited $45,000—so he started talking.

“Anthony Grandi,” he said, “is a scumbag. He has an office just a block south of here. Star Bail Bonds. Grandi’s the only bondsman in town and the worst; there is no best. He charges whatever you’re dumb enough and desperate enough to agree to, then he latches on like a leech and drains you dry. In the end, you’re lucky if he only ends up with all your money and not your house, too.”

I nodded.

So. A crooked bondsman. Good. That was just the kind of sleaze Mom would get tangled up with. Hello, prime suspect.

I was doing okay for someone whose previous experience with police work involved running away.

“Sounds like you’ve had mutual clients,” I said.

“We used to. If I have a client in that kind of trouble now, I tell them to call Sweet Freedom Bail Bonds in Sedona. You might not get out of jail as fast, but you won’t have a bloodsucker on your back either. Sometimes people don’t take my advice. Then they’re not my clients anymore. Usually they listen, though.”

“Grandi must love you.”

Wheeler shrugged. “He wouldn’t go out of his way to pull me out of a wood chipper.”

“Would he go out of his way to push you in?”

“If he thought he could get away with it. But it wouldn’t be out of spite. Everything with him is about money.”

“Do you know if he ever did any business with my mother?”

“No idea.”

“Would he have had some reason not to like her?”

“Not a clue.”

“What if I told you he’d been making threatening phone calls?”

“To you?”

“Yes.”

“To your cell phone?”

“To my mother’s place. From pay phones.”

“And you’re sure it’s him?”

“Does he sound like Moe the bartender with laryngitis?”

“What?”

“Does Grandi have a rough, gravelly voice?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s him.”

“In that case, I would advise you to go to the police immediately.”

“I did that, kinda sorta.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I mentioned it, but that’s as far as I want to go.”

“You didn’t file a report?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Not my style.”

Wheeler raised his thick, graying eyebrows.

I didn’t elaborate.

“Okay,” Wheeler said. “Then I think you should consider this: Arizona has some of the most liberal gun laws in the country. And by
liberal
I mean
anything goes
. You could be packing heat within the hour.”

“‘Packing heat’ isn’t my style either.”

“Maybe you should think less about your style and more about your safety.”

“My style
is
my safety.”

“Excuse me?”

“No police reports. No guns. Any other advice?”

“Well, if you won’t take steps to protect yourself, then you should probably find a new place to stay.”

“Run away?”

“Remove yourself from harm’s way. Don’t forget, though: Grandi’s a bail bondsman. He knows how to find people…and get at them. I don’t know what kind of threats he’s been making, but unless you go far, far away, you are going to find out whether or not he means them.”

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“I’m trying to warn you.”

“Hmm.”

I spent a moment sizing up Wheeler again. He looked like every Kiwanis member you’ve ever met: a big, doughy pillar of the community.

A lot of those pillars are rotten inside, though. Believe me. I’ve seen “respectable” people do things that would shock Genghis Khan.

Wheeler knew I was Athena Passalis’s daughter. He knew I was staying at the White Magic Five & Dime. He wanted me to sell the place and cut him in for a slice of the price. And (according to him, anyway) he’d had business dealings with a ruthless scumbag who’d started sending me RSVPs to my own murder.

Yeah.
Hmm
was right.

“Change of subject,” I said. “What do you know about Clarice Stewart?”

“Absolutely nothing…including who she is.”

“That’s weird. She’s a sixteen-year-old kid. Apparently she’d been living with my mother for years now.”