Fool Me Once: A Tarot Mystery

by Steve Hockensmith

  Then Eugene got his chance. He rose and talked about the fact that Marsha had no prior record and, despite the prosecutor’s reckless and defamatory comments, no association with criminals of any kind. Given the weakness of the state’s case and the emotional trauma his client had just gone through, it would be unconscionable not to release her immediately.

  It wasn’t exactly Perry Mason, but it sounded good to me.

  When Eugene finished, the judge leaned back in his chair for a moment and squinted at Marsha over his glasses. Then he sat up and wrapped his hand lovingly around his gavel.

  “Given the gravity and circumstances of these charges, the defense’s motion is denied, and bail is denied. Trial date is set for one week from Monday. Next case.”

  And he banged the gavel quickly, sharply, like he was squashing a bug that had dared crawl across his bench.

  “So I have to go back?” Marsha said, her voice wobbly. “I have to go back?”

  Eugene leaned close and put his hands over hers and whispered something in her ear.

  She nodded, obviously trying to look brave—then began weeping anyway as the marshal told her to stand, put the cuffs back on her, and led her away. It all happened so quickly that all I could do was call out “We’re gonna get you out, Marsha! I promise!” before she and the marshal disappeared through the side door they’d come in through twenty minutes before.

  I felt a hand on my back.

  It was Eugene.

  “I can go talk to Marsha privately now,” he said. “Is there anything else you want me to tell her?”

  “I have some things I need you to ask her. I was hoping we’d all talk it over at the five and dime after the hearing, but…well…obviously…”

  I had to stop and suck in a deep, trembling breath. I knew bail had been a long shot, yet I still felt like Crowell had just punched me in the gut. I was going to have to figure out what kind of car the guy drove.

  One of these days, the old bastard was going to get a banana up the tail pipe.

  “I need you to ask Marsha why Jack Schramm from Huggins Construction would have been bringing cash to the house for Bill,” I said. “Lots of it.”

  Eugene’s eyebrows shot up.

  “And why mentioning Jack Schramm and Bill in the same breath would give Bill’s boss, Harry Kyle, the vapors.”

  Eugene’s eyebrows went even higher.

  “And why Bill was keeping old pottery in the crawl space under the house.”

  Eugene’s eyebrows went so high they almost left his forehead.

  “And why Bill would paint a human skull red.”

  Eugene’s eyebrows crashed back down hard and fast to form a glower.

  I put my right hand up with the three middle fingers pointing at the ceiling.

  “Scout’s honor again. I wouldn’t joke about this,” I said. “You need to ask Marsha about it.”

  The glower lifted. Slightly.

  “Like you were ever a scout,” Eugene muttered. “All right—I’ll ask. You’ll hear from me soon.”

  “Thanks, Eugene. For everything.”

  He nodded curtly, then walked up the center aisle toward the courtroom doors. I paused for another deep breath, then turned to follow him. I was halfway up the aisle when the ambush began.

  One of the men came at me from the seats on the left; the other, from the seats on the right.

  “Alanis, I want to say I’m sorry,” said the first.

  “Alanis, I came to apologize,” said the second.

  They stopped and stared at each other.

  “Who are you?” said Victor Castellanos.

  “Who are you?” said George Washington Fletcher.

  “You’ve got to be ducking kidding,” said I.

  Without the bird.

  Remember those baguette bombs that were headed your way? The promise—or perhaps the threat—that something big was about to happen? Well, forget it. The reversal means there’s been a flight delay, and now there’s no ETA for that something. The baguettes aren’t even falling to earth anymore. They’re flying skyward. Everything’s up in the air—literally. Of course, what goes up must come down, but now there’s no way of knowing where or when—or on who.

  Miss Chance, Infinite Roads to Knowing

  “I’m Victor.”

  “I’m GW.”

  The two men shook hands.

  I wanted to bury my face in mine.

  “What are you doing here?” I said instead. I didn’t address it to one of them in particular. The question applied equally to both.

  Victor spoke first.

  “I did a lot of thinking last night. And I realized that you were just doing what you could—what you know how to do—to help a friend. And even if I don’t like how you go about it, if I want to be a friend, I should be helping, too.”

  GW nodded, impressed, and jerked a thumb at Victor’s broad chest. “What he said.”

  I gritted my teeth and glared at him. Obviously, a courtroom wasn’t the best place to throttle somebody. An assistant DA was twenty feet behind me, so I’d have to resist the urge for the time being.

  “Shouldn’t you be at school?” I asked Victor.

  “I took the day off.”

  I turned to GW. “Shouldn’t you be committing a felony somewhere?”

  “I took the day off, too.”

  And he smiled his Lando Calrissian “I’m a charming scoundrel” smile.

  Screw the assistant DA. I was gonna kill him.

  GW saw the murderous fury in my eyes and dialed his smile down accordingly.

  “I put the you-know-what back,” he whispered.

  “You what?” I said.

  “The you-know-what. I went back to you-know-where and put it back where you-know-who found it.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “With the you-know-what still inside?”

  He didn’t know what.

  “Wait…we’re talking about a different you-know-what now?” GW said.

  “I am so confused,” said Victor.

  “The money,” I spat at GW. “It’s still in the backpack?”

  GW looked around, alarmed. “Could we not talk details in here?” he said under his breath. “I have a lot of bad memories of this place—and I don’t want more.”

  “Fine. Outside. Come on, Victor.”

  I took Victor by the arm and marched out of the courtroom and through the lobby without ever glancing back to see if GW was coming with us.

  He was.

  “No offense, Vic,” he said once we were out on the sidewalk, “but could you stick your fingers in your ears and go ‘la la la laaaa’ for a minute?”

  “No,” Victor said firmly.

  GW shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just trying to keep you out of an accessory rap if this goes sideways.”

  “Just talk,” Victor said, though I noticed his voice was about half an octave higher than usual.

  “Fine.” GW focused on me. “When I saw all that cash Riggs had stashed, I assumed you’d been playing me somehow—that there was an angle you hadn’t told me about because you didn’t want to cut me in. So I double-crossed you before you could double-cross me. It was just a knee-jerk reaction.”

  “You got the jerk part right,” I grumbled.

  “I said I was sorry, Alanis. And by the way—I knew there was a vent filter down in that crawl space that you’d be able to get out through. I was trying to delay you, not trap you.”

  “My god,” Victor said. “What did I miss?”

  I just squinted at GW skeptically.

  “Anyway,” he said, “I gave it some more thought later, checked out what you were saying about Marsha, then decided to take the backpack back—with the money. It’s right where we found it. When the time comes, you can use it as evidence of…whatever it’s evidence of. As for what you want to do next…” GW straightened up and saluted me. “Reporting for duty.”

  Victor looked tempted to snap a salute, too. Instead he just nodded at GW.

  “What he
said.”

  I took a moment to look them both over. They were actually a pretty good-looking duo as accomplices go.

  I leaned in close to Victor and gave him a peck on the cheek. “You’re on standby. If I can’t wrap this up in the next two hours, I’m going to need you.”

  “You could ‘wrap this up’ in two hours?” Victor asked, looking both confused and disappointed.

  “If we’re lucky.” I turned to GW. “All right—you’re coming with me.”

  GW swiveled his head to offer me his right cheek. “Don’t I get a kiss?”

  “No,” I said.

  Victor still looked confused, but he looked slightly less disappointed.

  I already had the Fixer’s down payment in the Cadillac: two twenty-dollar bills, forty-eight pieces of identically sized paper, and a yellow wrapper with “$1,000” printed on it to hold them all together. All I needed now was a bag for it.

  We went to McDonald’s.

  “You want something?” I asked GW as we pulled into the drive-thru line.

  “Nah.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  I told him: Fixer’s orders.

  “Does that seem like the guy’s standard MO?” I asked.

  GW shrugged. “It’s hard to say.”

  “That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. I chose you for this because you said you’d heard of the guy.”

  “And because your friend Mr. Muscles isn’t used to taking walks on the wild side, am I right?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Oh, come on. Like I don’t know how to spot a civilian. That dude’s so squeaky clean you could use him to brush your teeth.”

  “And there’s nothing wrong with that,” I said. “Back to the Fixer. Do you think you could spot him?”

  GW started to shrug again but caught himself. “I only know him by reputation, but that might be enough. He’s not gonna be toothbrush material, that’s for sure. So what’s our plan?”

  “I talk to him, try to feel him out on Marsha, and you follow him to his car and get the license plate number so we can give Burby an anonymous tip on the guy.”

  GW nodded his approval. “Not bad.”

  “Or,” I said, “the Fixer smells a rat, decides to off me, and you jump in to save my bacon.”

  GW stopped nodding.

  There was a crackle of static and what sounded like someone saying “Can I help you?” through a megaphone filled with bees.

  It was our turn to order.

  I looked at GW. He didn’t seem like the kind of person to pass up free food.

  “Well, as long as we’re here,” he said, “how about a Happy Meal?”

  Red Rock Factory Outlets was uncrowded by both consumers and, more surprisingly, factory outlets. Half the storefronts were vacant, and what stores were open were quiet and still.

  The Fixer’s choice made a little more sense now.

  Cops like to swarm. If this were a trap—the official law enforcement kind, anyway—it would be easy to spot.

  Being the unofficial kind, though, all I had to do was tell GW to wait in front of the L’eggs Hanes Bali Outlet Store for five minutes before following me to the outdoor fountain at the center of the mall.

  “Will do,” he said. “And be careful. Don’t forget this guy’s a killer.”

  “Oh, it’s on my mind. Trust me.”

  I moved on alone.

  A dozen or so concrete benches ringed the fountain. On one sat a little old lady clutching a Lane Bryant bag. A four-year-old was dancing on another bench while singing “Let It Go” for her mother. Neither looked like the Fixer.

  I picked an empty bench, sat, and put my McDonald’s bag down beside me.

  After a moment, there was a flurry of movement to my right. I looked over.

  The little old lady had left her bench and come to join me on mine.

  “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” she said.

  Great. I’m trying to rendezvous with an assassin and one of the Golden Girls decides she’s lonely.

  “It sure is.” I picked up the McDonald’s bag and stood. “Enjoy it.”

  The old woman looked disappointed that she wouldn’t have the chance to share more observations about the weather.

  I walked halfway around the fountain, found another empty bench, and sat again.

  It was high noon now. The Fixer would be showing up any second—if he wasn’t there already. He might be the tattooed UPS guy pushing the dolly loaded with brown boxes. Or he might be the older, outdoorsy-looking man striding out of the Timberland store.

  Or he might be slipping up on my left and sitting beside me. Somebody was.

  I looked over.

  The old woman had followed me.

  “Such a perfect day,” she said. “Nothing to fix about it.”

  I stared at her.

  “Too bad things need fixing sometimes,” she went on. “But that’s why we have people to fix them. You know. Fixers.”

  I was still staring.

  She was a tiny woman in a pink pantsuit and pearls. Her hair was a halo of perfectly styled white. She looked like she should be in her room at the rest home watching Lawrence Welk, not setting up a hit.

  “Well, say something,” she said. “I’m not here to get a suntan, sugar.”

  “Okay. Did the Fixer send you to meet me?”

  The old woman sighed. “Ageism. It’s an epidemic nowadays. Don’t let my looks fool you, hon. I get things done.”

  And she gave me a big wink.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  “You’re the Fixer?”

  She nodded proudly. “A gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do. Those social security checks only get you so far.”

  “How long have you been…in business?”

  “Long enough.” She stretched a liver-spotted claw toward the McDonald’s bag. “So hand over the dough and we’ll talk turkey.”

  I snatched the bag up and held it tight.

  “Just hold on a second,” I said. “How do I know you’ll follow through?”

  The old woman looked hurt. “Oh, honey. You don’t trust me?”

  “Give me a reason to,” I said. “Name a job you’ve done recently.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Tell me about your latest ‘fix.’”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t do that. Wouldn’t be very smart.”

  I gave the bag a little shake so she could hear the cash (and paper) inside slide around. “Prove to me you fix things or no down payment.”

  The old woman hmphed. Really actually truly said “hmph” out loud. I didn’t think anyone did that in real life.

  “All right, then,” she said. “Take a look at this.”

  She leaned closer to me. The smell of White Diamonds was so overpowering I almost swooned.

  She opened her Lane Bryant bag and nodded down at it.

  Inside, nestled atop a pink cardigan with the price tag still on, was an Uzi.

  “So that’s how you do it?” I asked.

  “You betcha.”

  “You don’t have an assistant Fixer you farm things out to?”

  “Nope, it’s just me. It’s safer that way—you don’t want other people knowing the details. Loose lips and all that.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  And I did. About her, anyway.

  Bill Riggs had been beaten to death with a baseball bat. This woman had had nothing to do with it. She was just a lonely old fraud.

  “Time to piss or get off the pot, shug,” she said. “I’ve got another client lined up for today, so it’s not like I’ve got nothing else to do.”

  “Tell you what…” I said.

  I started moving my hand toward the Lane Bryant bag. The plan: grab it, get the Uzi out of reach, then call Burby and tell him to come pick up “the Fixer”—and let Marsha out while he was at it.

  “Looks like he’s a no-show,” someone said.

 
; GW was standing in front of us.

  “Check your email,” he told me. “Sometimes people will change the meet at the last second as a precaution.”

  “Umm…are you talking to me, sir?” I said.

  It didn’t work.

  The old woman plunged her hand into the Lane Bryant bag. “I swear—you can’t trust anybody these days,” she snarled. “I said come alone.”

  “Wait,” GW said. “Is this—?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And she’s got a gun.”

  “Not just a gun,” the old woman corrected me. “A mini Uzi submachine gun capable of firing 600 rounds per minute with an effective range of 100 meters. Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I don’t know a thing or two.” She smiled wickedly. “One squeeze of the trigger and you two are going to look like Swiss cheese.”

  “Those things are hard to control, grandma,” I said. “You start shooting, you’re just as likely to fill yourself full of holes.”

  “I know—and everyone around me, too.” The old woman shrugged. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take. How about you?”

  On the other side of the fountain, the four-year-old was still singing “Let It Go.” A gaggle of giggling teenagers walked past us with smoothies and cell phones in their hands. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Carla—there’s nothing in Williams-Sonoma we need that we don’t already have,” I heard someone say.

  The place wasn’t busy, but it wasn’t deserted.

  The old woman had us.

  She saw my resignation on my face.

  “Give me the money,” she said. “Then don’t leave here for fifteen minutes. If I see either one of you—bang bang bang.”

  I nodded and handed her the McDonald’s bag. She took it with her left hand, keeping her right on the Uzi. Then she dropped the Happy Meal into the Lane Bryant bag, stood, and began backing away.

  “Are we really gonna let her go?” GW whispered.

  “Absolutely.”

  I’d already stirred up enough trouble trying to help. I wasn’t going to get a bunch of innocent bystanders shot while I was at it.

  The old woman turned and began walking away—but she made a point of glancing back at us every three or four steps. Eventually she stepped around a corner and disappeared.

  “What now?” GW said.

  “This, for starters.”