The Reluctant Fortune-Teller

by Keziah Frost

  “You don’t know Summer! If she says she’s coming over, she comes over. She doesn’t forget. She doesn’t go somewhere else instead. She doesn’t leave her cell phone on her bed and go out.”

  “You’ve searched her apartment?”

  “I popped in. I didn’t search. I’ll leave that to the police.”

  “The police?”

  “Yes, of course, the police. This is serious. It’s not like her to disappear, even for a few hours. She’s reliable and dependable and predictable. She doesn’t miss appointments. She doesn’t go off without telling someone. Something is wrong. I feel it, Norbert! I feel that something is wrong. You talked to her last. Where is my granddaughter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did you tell her in the reading, then?”

  “That’s confid—”

  “BS, Norbert,” spit Carlotta. Why did this man make her say “BS” all the time?

  Norbert gave in. “Okay. I’ll tell you. Summer got a very bad reading.”

  “Norbert, what are you saying?” Carlotta was stricken with horror.

  “She pulled the Ace of Spades and the Nine of Spades. You may remember what that means.”

  “Are you out of your mind? What that means? What that means, Norbert? What that means is exactly whatever you say it means.”

  “Carlotta, I’ve learned to read the cards as they come.”

  “That is ridiculous! So what did you tell her, Norbert? What, exactly, did you tell my young and impressionable granddaughter?”

  “I told her the cards showed disaster and even death in some form.”

  Carlotta cried, “Oh!”

  “And I told her that there was still time to avert this, and that she would have to be careful.”

  “No, Norbert, it’s you, you are the one who was supposed to be careful. And you weren’t. And as for the death—if there’s going to be a death, I’ll tell you whose death it’s going to be. If I don’t get Summer back, you are a dead man, Norbert Zelenka.”

  * * *

  Norbert sat collapsed in his floral armchair as his house continued trembling from Carlotta’s fierce slam of the front door. His breath was shallow, and his heart was palpitating. Ivy huddled in his lap, but he didn’t even know she was there.

  For a person who earned his living through his alleged intuition, he had certainly ignored that intuition all along his way. He’d known from the beginning that fortune-telling was wrong for him. He’d had the persistent late-night alarm-bell feeling that kept going off, telling him to stop the card readings before something disastrous happened. Even in moments of exhilaration, he’d had the ongoing fear that he might cause some harm through a reading. When Summer had sat across from him at the café, his intuition had made him sick with dread. And yet he had stepped around his intuition every single time. And now Summer was missing and he was to blame.

  If something awful has happened to that young woman, it will be my fault. How could this be?

  I am a quiet person. I am supposed to be living a quiet person’s life. I am meant to be a simple man, getting by month to month, just living in a small white house with my white Chihuahua. Why did I try to be more? Was it only because of some silliness remembered from fifth grade about “everyone having a snowflake nature”? I felt good doing the readings, so I told myself it was right. I hadn’t felt so happy since Lois had looked into my eyes and truly listened to me. Was the fortune-telling always just about my own need for attention?

  What have I done? Oh, what have I done?

  * * *

  Carlotta’s next stop was the Gibbons Corner Police Department.

  The officer who met with her treated her like an old lady who had lost her mind.

  “Wait,” said Officer Curry, slowing Carlotta’s stream of vital information. “Your granddaughter got a bad reading from a psychic predicting disaster and death, and what? It scared her?”

  “Of course it did! It must have!”

  “Huh. So you believe in that stuff. Okay,” said Officer Curry. Carlotta saw him twist his mouth, trying to hide his amusement.

  “What I believe is not the point!” said Carlotta, reflecting briefly on the general decay of manners in today’s society.

  “Right. And she’s been ‘missing’ for—” he looked at his watch “—four hours. Is that right?”

  Carlotta said, “Well, four hours that I know of. Her bed was not slept in. She may have gone missing last night.”

  “But you don’t know that. She may have slept in her bed, and made it four hours ago. And she’s twenty-five years old? Old enough to do what she wants, without reporting to anyone.”

  The idea! This puppy of a “police officer” was a child himself!

  Carlotta looked the officer up and down.

  The officer looked Carlotta up and down.

  “Carlotta,” began the puppy.

  “Mrs. Moon, if you don’t mind, Officer. It would be more appropriate for you to call me ‘Mrs. Moon.’”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Moon. Ya know, I always call my elders by their first names, because calling them by their surnames might make them feel old.”

  “I am old,” Carlotta informed him with icy dignity.

  “Mrs. Moon, then. Your granddaughter probably just went to Walmart or something.”

  Carlotta bristled. The idea. Summer would never go to Walmart.

  “Or,” he continued, “sometimes people just go off for a little while to think, eh?”

  “Think? Don’t be ridiculous. She’s twenty-five years old.”

  The officer clicked his ballpoint pen closed, as if signaling that he was about done here.

  “It’s too soon to make a missing-person report. There is no indication of a kidnapping here, from what you’ve told me. Forty-eight hours is what we require before we consider a person missing, if there’s no sign of a struggle, nothing to make us suspicious. If she still hasn’t turned up by eight o’clock Monday morning, then by all means, come back and we’ll take care of you.”

  Carlotta bristled again. The very idea of this puppy “taking care” of her!

  “You’ll see, she’s probably fine. She probably just went—”

  Carlotta, now that she saw he was not going to help her, had to put him in his place.

  “Don’t you tell me where my granddaughter ‘probably just went’! Something is wrong. I feel it in every cell of my body. I know it.”

  “What?” said Officer Puppy, arching his eyebrows. “Like, a psychic intuition?”

  He smiled an irritating smile.

  * * *

  Carlotta didn’t break down until she got inside the sanctum of her home on Clarence Avenue. Then, when she composed herself, she phoned Hope to tell her she was taking Toutou to Summer’s apartment to camp out there, so she would be the first to know when Summer came home. She asked Hope to use her “Facebook thing” to “announce” that Summer needed to call her grandmother.

  “Make it sound not too serious, while at the same time, serious.”

  “I know what you mean. I’ll take care of it... Auntie, I’ve never heard you this upset.”

  Carlotta, damning image all to hell, allowed herself to whisper to Hope, “If anything happens to my Summer, I won’t be able to bear it.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Four Kings:

  When there are four Kings in the spread, the indication is of a gathering of support.

  Sunday morning, eight o’clock: twenty-four hours since Summer had failed to show up for Toutou’s walk. Carlotta had slept lightly in Summer’s bed, waking with every train that rumbled by just half a block west of the apartment. She had checked the clock each time she awoke. Toutou, curled in a circle by her feet, had awakened each time, too, and had looked with compassion into her mistress’s eyes.

  At last, s
he gave up trying to sleep, and surrendered to her mind’s will to take her back there, back to the worst moment of her life: December 30, 2006, ten thirty at night. A malevolent ice storm; two policemen at her door. She let them in. They stood in her house, dripping, red-faced, hesitating, while ice clicked and snapped against the window behind them.

  “Who’s been hurt?” she asked, but it didn’t sound like her voice. It sounded like a frightened person galaxies away.

  One of the policemen said, “Are you the mother of Charles Moon?”

  Carlotta sank into her chair, while at the same time, she was standing beside herself watching the scene. None of this could be real. It had to be a nightmare.

  They told her that Charlie and Barbara had just been killed.

  She didn’t believe them for a moment. Charlie and Barbara were alive. They were young. They had years ahead of them. They would bury her someday; that’s how it was supposed to be. There was some confusion. Or this was a dream. She wanted her granddaughter. “Summer?” she managed to ask.

  “Your granddaughter is fine. She’s at the Edwards Cove Police Department. Are you willing to have her brought here to stay with you tonight?”

  “Of course,” said the voice that was not Carlotta’s.

  She had no interest in asking any questions; she wouldn’t be able to absorb anything they might tell her. She didn’t even ask why Summer was at a police station.

  * * *

  By ten o’clock, the Good Fortune Café was crammed full of people ready to form an organized search party for the missing young woman, Summer Moon.

  Norbert had roused himself from his depression and horror and joined the town-wide effort. He had left Ivy at home alone. He gave her her favorite stuffed duck, hoping that would ease her loneliness. Something told him that where he would need to go today would be no place for a four-pound Chihuahua.

  The café was full to bursting. In spite of the large number of people, there was a sense of united purpose over them all. The teenager Liam from the oil-painting class was pushing a mop around people’s slush-spattering boots with the doggedness of Sisyphus. Hope brandished flyers she had printed with photographs and the question “Have you seen her?”

  Norbert looked around at so many familiar faces in the crowd: Gloria from the bakery, Roseanne from the library, Summer’s friend Marisol Fernandez, Daphne and Stanley from the Center for Deeper Understanding, Birdie and Margaret.

  Everyone was seeking a task to assume, to help in the search for Summer. Word had gotten around—Carlotta made sure it did—that Summer’s disappearance was precipitated by a frightening reading from Norbert Z. Many friendly acquaintances and even friends seemed to regard him with surprised disappointment, or even reproach.

  Norbert thought, I deserve it. I’ve caused all these people to be here this morning; I caused Summer to run away. By involving myself in other people’s personal affairs, I’ve been risking creating a calamity like this, and it’s finally happened. And why have I done it? So that I could help people? Or so that I could feel so special?

  Wasn’t he delighted when he heard back from customers that they had done as he advised, and they were happy? Wasn’t his pride inflated when he saw the list of appointments Hope booked for him each day—all the people reserving twenty minutes of his time, and paying good money for it? Was his desire to “help people” something he could trust? Clearly it wasn’t, when it led to disasters such as this.

  Carlotta’s words came back to shame him: “This isn’t about you!”

  Margaret, with Birdie at her side, was briefing Daphne the former nun and Gloria the baker, who were still ignorant of all the facts.

  “Summer’s been missing since early yesterday morning. She didn’t show up at Carlotta’s when she was supposed to, at eight o’clock, and it looks like she didn’t sleep in her bed the night before. The police aren’t interested and won’t help us. They say it looks like a ‘voluntary’ situation, and we should come back to them after Summer’s been missing for forty-eight hours.”

  “Well,” said Gloria from the bakery, “it sounds like she might have spent a couple of nights at a boyfriend’s, or something like that.”

  “But what about her not showing up at her grandmother’s—or even calling her? Carlotta and Summer are very close. Especially since Summer’s parents died when she was in high school. Summer wouldn’t disappear on Carlotta. Not in a million years.”

  Daphne frowned. “What do you think happened, then?”

  “That’s what we don’t know. We can’t figure it out.” Margaret looked around, and then lowered her voice. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this,” she said.

  The listeners leaned in closer.

  “I can tell you that Carlotta has been worried about Summer lately. About her, you know, mental state. Her parents died tragically, you see, and this is the ten-year anniversary of their death.”

  “You mean,” said Gloria, “you think she might have—Oh, but no! Summer is the happiest girl anyone’s ever seen! She would never—”

  Margaret straightened and reassumed her former tone, as if afraid she might have betrayed too much. “What we do know for sure is that something is wrong. We don’t want to let time pass while we wonder. The minutes are ticking by. The longer a person is missing, the worse the outcome. Liam goggled it.”

  “I think you mean he ‘Googled it,’ dear,” corrected Birdie.

  Margaret, unconcerned, continued, “Carlotta is calling in a private detective—Birdie’s nephew—Reggie Di Leo, from Buffalo. If the police won’t help us, he will, we’re sure.”

  The authoritative voice of Marisol Fernandez cut through the din:

  “Okay, everybody! Listen up!” The room became silent. “All of you who have internet access right now, get on your Facebook accounts and share the post on Liam’s page about Summer. It has current photos, a description, weight, age, hair color, etc. We want this going far and wide.”

  Heads dropped and fingers tapped away on cell phones.

  “Next! We’re going to divide you all up into pairs and threes, and send you off to different places. As you go, you’ll be putting up Hope’s flyers on trees, storefronts, street signs and everywhere you can. We’ll need some to go down by the beach, others all through Gibbons Corner. Some of you will go to Edwards Cove. We’ll need a few people to go into the forest preserve areas on the outskirts of town.”

  “What about Black Bear Island?” asked someone in the crowd.

  “Yes! We need people to go everywhere. Roseanne—you all know Roseanne from the library—she’s over here with a sheet of paper and all the locations. We need you to make a line, and tell Roseanne where you want to go. If you don’t know, we’ll tell you. We’re in a hurry. As soon as we get two or three people for one location, off you go. Get in line, and while you do, I’m going to give you my cell phone number. Program my number into your phones now. I want you to call me if you find out anything, even the smallest thing.”

  Norbert was listening and watching, as if he were nothing more than a video camera rooted to the spot. Everyone was taking a role to try to undo the harm he had caused, and he was doing nothing at all. At last, he shook himself. These well-meaning and well-organized people were not going to find Summer. He was sure of that. If the young lady was to be found, it was going to be up to Norbert, and Norbert alone. He would not be joining the search party. An image had come to him unbidden, and was filling his mind. This image insisted on Norbert’s full attention.

  Norbert had brought about this disastrous turn of events by playing psychic. How could he even think of trusting his so-called intuition again? Yet the vision was clear and vivid. He wished that he could push it aside. It was stronger than he was, and would not be ignored.

  Norbert knew where he had to go.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Jack of Spades:

 
A pompous man; a blowhard.

  As Norbert stood to leave, Carlotta rushed through the door of the café, which was held open for her by a fortyish man, short and stocky, with thick black eyebrows under a fur trapper hat. Carlotta made a beeline for Norbert, with the stranger lumbering quickly behind.

  “Reggie Di Leo,” said Carlotta, “meet Norbert Zelenka, the fortune-teller I’ve told you so much about. Norbert, I’d like you to spend a little time with Reggie. Tell him whatever you know.”

  Carlotta looked witheringly at Norbert and bustled off to confer with Marisol.

  Several people stopped talking and watched the detective take their town psychic in hand, and then they glanced away quickly. They did not want to be seen rubbernecking, even though they all wanted to know what Norbert could have said to make Summer disappear. Norbert led Reggie to the back of the café, to what had become his business booth.

  The two men sat down. Reggie took off his hat, and his plentiful hair hung in black chaotic curls, with some graying at the temples. Sitting across from this man whose mission in life seemed to be to track the guilty and recognize the liars, Norbert felt guilty, and as if his lies were about to be exposed. And yet he had not lied. Why did he feel as though he had?

  Reggie took a few notes on his phone, but looked intently at Norbert most of the time. After Norbert had given Reggie his full account of his Friday meeting with Summer, Reggie sat back and regarded Norbert for an unnerving moment.

  “I get it,” Reggie said at last. “So, you—you’re a con artist.”

  Norbert recoiled. The private eye continued, the corners of his mouth turned down in disgust.

  “I see right through you, Zelenka. Fortune-teller.” He sneered. “You like that adrenaline rush of getting away with stuff—and you have your whole life, haven’t you? You get high on people believing in your ‘psychic powers’—literally shoving their hard-earned money into your hands. It’s like they’re telling you how smart you are. And Friday, you told Summer Moon a bunch of bull so you could watch the fear in her eyes. You got off on that. And she actually paid you money to frighten her—even better! So you talked to her about death and disaster, and now she’s missing. And, hey, if she goes and does something crazy out of her fear—that’s not your problem. Matter of fact, it works in your favor, doesn’t it? You told her something bad would happen. So then if it does, well, that makes you look good—you predicted it! You get to just keep on telling fortunes and feeling so damn special. Making people believe in you, that’s your drug. You like getting your kicks this way, don’t you?”