Soothsayer

by Cari Z

  “Are you all right?” the newcomer asked frantically. “What’s your name? I’m Felix. I’m gonna stay with you until the ambulance gets here, okay? Oh Jesus, are you all right?”

  “I’m…I think so?” the woman said, her voice gaining a little bit of strength. “I’m Paula.”

  “Paula, hey.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back. I rolled my eyes. “Nice to meet you.”

  For fuck’s sake. Well, at least the settlement from the trucking company would give them a nice nest egg to get their new place together. I turned away and walked to the end of the block before getting out my phone again and making a call.

  She picked up on the second ring. “Hi, baby.”

  “What, you can see me getting smeared across a wall, but you don’t bother to let me know about having a gun pulled on me?”

  “Cillian.” My mother sounded half apologetic, half resigned. “You know it doesn’t work like that.”

  Yes, fine, I did know that, but I didn’t feel like being reasonable right now. “So you didn’t see that this morning, then?”

  “Did you need me to see it?”

  I wasn’t about to go down the self-sufficiency road with her. It meant a surefire argument, and I was still buzzing with adrenalin from being so close to the car crash.

  “No,” I said flatly. “I guess not.”

  “Cilly…”

  Fuck, I was being an asshole. I didn’t talk to my mother very often, and I didn’t want to turn this into a thing. She didn’t hold grudges, but I did, and if I didn’t get myself together now, I’d end up not calling her for months out of guilt for being a dick to her. Vicious cycle.

  “I thought you didn’t like to text.”

  “The timing worked out better that way,” she said, sounding a bit more relaxed. “You’re all right, then?”

  “You know I am,” I replied, pulling out another cigarette and lighting up on the corner. “Thanks for that.”

  “You’re welcome, baby.” She sounded genuinely pleased, and I started to respond, but waited for the wail of the oncoming ambulance to diminish first.

  “How are you?” I asked once we could hear each other again. It sounded like a banal question, but it was anything but. If my mother was seeing things about me, then she was opening herself up more to other psychic influences. Depending on how those manifested, she might lose consciousness for days. I knew the neighbors would check on her―it wasn’t like she would die up there all alone―but I couldn’t help worrying. I would have given almost anything to be the one she could rely on, but she and I hadn’t been able to live in close quarters since I was thirteen. I might damage her if I stayed too close.

  “Fine, baby, I’m just fine. Dana’s dog just had puppies, and she offered one to me when it’s old enough. I think I’ll take her up on it.”

  “Good.” That was really good, actually. My mom did a lot better with a pet around, but she’d been heartbroken when her last dog had died and put off getting another for two years. There had been a few close calls since then, so a new puppy was a positive step. “That’s great.”

  “I thought it was time,” she said. “It’s been a little lonely, and I don’t want to go into another winter without a companion.” I wished, not for the first time, that that companion could be me. It hurt to know that my mom felt like she had to be alone in order to be safe. Just because I wasn’t safe with her didn’t mean no one else could fill that void.

  “Sounds like the puppy will be perfect,” I said, staring out at the passing cars but not seeing any of them. “So no headache, then?”

  “Not this time. Random events seem to affect me less strongly.”

  “Good.” The silence stretched out between us, and I thought about the last time I’d seen my mother in person, almost half my lifetime ago. I wondered if she was sitting on the same old couch by the window or if she’d finally gotten it replaced―the springs had been going back when I’d lived with her. I wondered if she was wearing warm enough clothes, because she tended to ignore the weather until it prevented her from going outside, and summer in Yellowknife was different from summer in Denver. I wondered if she missed me, and then felt like an idiot.

  “I looked up your interview online. It seems like it was fun.”

  “Oh.” Right, the interview. Through the complicated web of favors and reputation that my mother somehow maintained, she had gotten me in touch with a friend of hers whose daughter’s fiancé, a freelance journalist, was writing an article about psychics and wanted someone to talk to about it. I’d been volunteered and caved to my mom after a few minutes of arguing over exposure. I’d eventually talked to the guy on Skype, using a fake name and not giving him a visual, and the interview had been…surprisingly fun. Kind of tongue in cheek, really. He was more journalist than hardcore believer in supernatural phenomenon, but I guess when the economy was down you took work where you could get it, even if it was with Modern Parapsychia. “It was all right.”

  “You should take a look at it.”

  “I will.” My skin was starting to itch, just a little bit, and I knew it had to be worse for her. The longer we talked, the higher the chances of an incident happening. “Mom, I’ve got to go.”

  “I know, baby.” She was quiet for a moment and then said, “I love you, Cillian. I just want you to be happy.”

  “I know.” I wanted to ask her to call me again when she got the puppy, to let me know when the snow hit, to tell her about Marisol and her tarot and her strange dreams. Instead I hung up. The prickle immediately went away, and I scowled.

  Fuck this for a lark. The day was hardly begun and I already needed to forget it.

  I was in the right part of town for that.

  Chapter Four

  Back in the sixties and seventies, Colfax Avenue was the place to go in this city if you wanted to satisfy the four biological imperatives: feeding, fighting, fucking, and if you played your cards wrong, fleeing. You could do practically all of them at once if you went to the right bars. Those days were mostly gone now, washed away in the bubbly fervor of urban renewal, but there were still a few places around where a person could get in touch with their primitive side. I was jazzed with adrenaline, antsy and keyed up, and the only way I was going to work those bugs out of my system was with some serious exertion.

  The easiest thing would be to find a professional to spend a few hours exhausting myself with, but sex was risky. The odds of looking into the other person’s eyes during the act were pretty high, and during periods of stress―physical, mental, or emotional―fate became a lot easier to see. I could have a normal conversation with someone and walk away knowing nothing more than what they’d given me and maybe what they were thinking about having for dinner that night. With sex, I almost always got information I didn’t want unless blindfolds were involved, and most of the working guys were too cautious to go that route without being inside a specialty club, which I had no interest in. I had seen way more kink, debauchery, poorly executed sadism, and downright criminal levels of horniness in my mind than I ever wanted. I was no white knight, but a lot of my childhood had been spent running away from people who would have taken advantage of me, and I had no desire to be one of them. Especially not since him.

  Fine, so not sex. I bounced on the balls of my feet as I considered the envelope in my jacket pocket, the cut of my suit, and the odds that I’d be able to land a whale today. At the very least, I had the cash to get into the exchange, and at this hour I’d have plenty of time to find myself the right sort of player to attach myself to. Gambling it was.

  There was an underground sports betting exchange not far from Marisol’s, housed literally underground beneath a pub that had once been a famous strip club. The exchange catered to the professional crowd, people who made their living gambling. It also acted as a hangout for whatever Irish mobsters happened to be passing through Denver on their way to more profitable cities. The house controlled the doors, and if you wanted in to play, you paid a flat fee of f
ive hundred dollars. Whether you made the money back or not was your business, not theirs―the house didn’t run any bets. Once you were inside, it was all about working the crowd. In-play betting was huge, and knowing the game was only half as important as knowing how to get your opponent to make the bets you wanted him to.

  I sauntered down the street, keeping my walk slow as I passed the unmarked police car. The authorities tended to stare at me whether I was breaking a law or not thanks to my ink, so I generally made myself as innocuous a target as possible. It had worked so far. Even with all of the shit that had gone down in my life: the drugs, the fights, the kidnappings, I had only ever been picked up by the police once, on suspicion of soliciting. Never mind that I’d only stripped off my shirt to staunch the blood flowing from a head wound at the time. I’d been a young man, tattoos, no discernible gang affiliation, and half-naked to boot―had to be a prostitute! The fact that this was in rural backwater Louisiana and not New Orleans made no difference. I’d gotten out in no time, but still―cells were not something I enjoyed, no matter who the owner was.

  There was the pub. I walked behind the building, past a man who grunted “Morning” to me as he sprayed the alley wall with a hose to clean off last night’s piss and vomit, and down a narrow flight of metal stairs to a solid black door with the number 8 painted in small white letters in the corner. The Magic Eight Ball. So cute. I knocked, and the door opened up a crack. I was in luck; Phin was the bouncer today.

  “Cillian,” he said approvingly, looking down on me from his hulking height. The Irish places tended to give me the benefit of a doubt, thanks to Mom’s creative naming skills. “Here to play?”

  “I’ve got the feeling it’s a good day for it,” I replied.

  “Not many games going yet. So far’s just some footie, but we’ll have baseball up in a wee moment, and if you can stay until evening, it’ll be American football.” He leaned in close. “Got a good mark for you, someone you could make your whole day with if you don’t mind a few hurt feelings later on.”

  Ah, this was the other reason I loved Phin―he understood my situation. He didn’t know the details, didn’t want to, but he had a touch of Sight himself. Nothing like mine, but what Phin was good at was connections. Profitable connections, and if you treated him right, he wouldn’t steer you wrong.

  “Sounds good,” I agreed. “Mobster?”

  “Better.” He ushered me inside and accepted my six hundred dollars―the extra hundred was his bonus―with an appreciative nod. “Cowboy. You’ll know ’im when you see ’im.”

  Did I ever. The betting exchange was a mishmash of lounge-style comfort and theater seating, all of the focus on the series of enormous televisions that lined the far wall. The only thing up right now was the soccer game, which a small group of fans was paying attention to, but my eyes went to the man sitting at the bar. Oh, wow…it was Steve McQueen reborn, right down to the expensive TAG Heuer watch on his thick wrist. He had the cowboy hat, the boots―his hair was even dyed the right shade of blond. Perfect. Looking at him, I felt a frisson of energy in my head that meant work could be done here.

  I saw fates. It was my talent, my gift, my curse. It was what came easiest to me―it was what stayed with me forever, living on in my head. My mom had a much vaster ability, and while we’d been able to live together, she’d worked with me on mine, teaching me how to step back and take in less, to feel the energy in a room and let it guide my vision of where things were going to go, to let the fates I saw in other people―just glimpses―compel my own actions to manipulate circumstances in my favor. You couldn’t think about the epistemological implications of that for long, the whole “chicken or egg” thing would drive you mad. Needless to say, there were times when I could work a whole room to my advantage, and I could already tell today was going to be one of those times.

  I sat down next to the cowboy at the bar. He glanced my way, and as soon as I saw the glimmer of his eyes, I knew the tack to take. How about that―a true Southern gentleman in an Irish-run Denver betting exchange. I could see the arc of his trip: the cattle ranch he owned, the way his private jet was tied up in Baja thanks to the missus, her admonishment to have a good time…he’d be fighting a few preconceptions with me, but I could get around those.

  “Howdy,” he said after a moment.

  “Good morning,” I said, rounding my vowels a bit, letting my accent both elevate and harmonize with his own to make me seem more familiar. “It’s a little early for whiskey, isn’t it?” I asked, gesturing toward his glass.

  The cowboy sighed. “Never too early for whiskey. Especially when there’s nothin’ good on TV.”

  “Not a soccer fan, then.”

  “That ain’t a sport worthy of the name, in my opinion. Buncha runnin’ around, kick kick, jog jog, ooh no I fell down…nah, not my game.”

  “So I guess you wouldn’t be interested in a wager?”

  “On soccer?” He looked at me askance and then laughed. “Hell no, boy! Nah, I’m here to bet on real American sports, something I can sink my teeth into.”

  I shrugged. “No stakes, then, something just for fun.”

  “Ain’t no fun if there’s no stakes.”

  “Oh, I see,” I said knowingly. “You’re a bit afraid. It’s fine, I understand. A lot of men have these sorts of troubles when it comes to performance as they age. Don’t let it get you down.”

  He gaped at me. “I…what? Listen here, boy―”

  “One bet. C’mon, I’ll make it worth your while.”

  He looked me up and down. “That better not be a roundabout offer to suck my dick.”

  I laughed, attracting the attention of the cluster of men in front of the soccer game. One look and I knew how to play it. “No blow jobs,” I promised. “I’m not hitting on you, I swear. I’m just passing the time. Here―how about this. I predict the team that makes the next goal, and you get me a drink with your next round. Not whiskey, though.”

  The cowboy stared at me for a moment and then shrugged. “Fine. Let’s play.” We turned around so we could see the screen. I’d already seen the group’s reactions, largely dismay within five minutes, and one of them was wearing a Manchester United jersey, which meant… “AS Roma gets the next goal.”

  “If you say so.” He sipped his whiskey, and we sat in silence for a while. I could feel him getting bored, but about thirty seconds before he seemed ready to tell me to buzz off, there was action on the television. The group of men groaned, and as the replay flashed across the screen and the score changed, I smiled.

  “Well, damn,” he said. “There it is.”

  “I believe you owe me a drink, sir.”

  “I reckon I do. What’ll you have?”

  “Gin and tonic.” Light on the gin, heavy on the tonic―the last thing I needed was to get drunk right now. Fortunately the bartender knew my preferences, and a minute later, I was sipping a drink of my own.

  “What’s gonna happen next?” he asked me.

  “I can’t say without a bet,” I told him.

  “Fine.” He pulled a leather wallet out of his jacket pocket and unwound a hundred dollar bill from his stack. “What’s the bet?”

  “Oh no, a hundred is a little rich for my blood,” I lied. “Besides, it’s hardly fair. I feel like I’m taking advantage.” I emphasized it while he was still sober enough to appreciate my honesty. “You know nothing about soccer, and I’m generally a lucky person.”

  “Lucky, huh?”

  “Very lucky. I hardly ever lose.”

  “Huh.” I could see the wheels in his head turning. “Tell you what. You win a few more of these little bets and maybe we’ll see what we can do together once there’s a crowd in here, yeah? I’ve got the means to bankroll a nice run, if you’re lucky as you claim.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. “AS Roma again in…” I let the tension build in my mind, saw the time at the bottom of the television screen as the men in front of it moaned their derision, “about four minu
tes.”

  “We’ll see. I’m Roger, by the way. Roger Vandermoor.”

  “Cillian Kelly, and we will.” We shook hands and turned back to the screens.

  Four minutes later and I was vindicated. The soccer fans groaned, Roger whooped and smacked his knee, and I got another drink for my troubles. Apparently once Roger made a friend, he went all in. As the place slowly filled up, he paid for the drinks, the awful bar food that tasted far better than it should, and told me all about ranching and oil and natural gas and his dozen other businesses. I met his eyes every now and then, enough to get a glimpse of where things were going. It looked like he would stay even-tempered right up until the end, so I figured I was good.

  When the baseball started, things got more interesting. The way to make money in an exchange like this was to play against the other gamblers, and Roger had all the bearing of a golden goose waiting to be plucked. The professionals flocked to our table, and he drew them in with his Texan affability and liberality with drinks, while I fed him the bets to make. We didn’t play standard and completely ignored the spread―we made bets based on what I could see of the back of a particular player’s jersey as he slid into third, or on the quadrant of the stadium where the next home run would land. Goofball bets, stupid bets, and people took them out of curiosity and contempt and then kept betting to save their pride.

  By the time the football game started, I was two thousand dollars and one Cartier watch richer, and everyone was drunk except for me. The mob gents who had joined in our fun had lost most of their good humor, though, and the only one still laughing was Roger.