by Robert Bloch
It was a plain white card with plain lettering on it — but it wasn't regular printing, more like a mimeograph in black ink that was still damp. I read it twice.
WHEN THE BLACK CAT CROSSES YOUR PATH YOU DIE
That's all it said. The old superstition. Kid stuff.
"Kid stuff!" Don sneered. "Tell you what. This faker musta gummed up the machinery in this scale and put a lot of phony new fortunetelling cards of his own. He's crazy."
Tarelli shook his head. "Please," he said. "You no like me. Well, I no like you, much. But even so, I geev you the warning—watch out for black cats. Scales say black cat going to breeng you death. Watch out."
Don shrugged. "You handle this deal, Mosko," he said. "I got no more time to waste. Heavy date this afternoon."
Mosko nodded at him. "Just make sure you don't get loaded. I need you at the tables tonight."
Til be here," Don said, from the doorway. "Unless some mangy alley cat sneaks up and conks me over the head with a club."
For a little while nobody said anything. Tarelli tried to smile at me, but it didn't go over. He tugged at Mosko's sleeve but Mosko ignored him. He stared at Don. We all stared at Don.
We watched him climb into his convertible and back out of the driveway. We watched him give it the gun and he hit the road. We watched him race by toward town. We watched the black cat come out of nowhere and scoot across the highway, watched Don yank the wheel to swerve out of its path, watched the car zoom off to one side toward the ditch, watched it crash into the culvert, then turn a somersault and go rolling over and over and over into the gully.
There was running and yelling and swearing and tugging and hauling, and finally we found all that was left of 182 pounds and a brand-new suit under the weight of that wrecked convertible. We never saw Don's grin again, and we never saw the cat again, either.
But Tarelli pointed at the fortunetelling card and smiled. And that afternoon, Big Pete Mosko phoned Rico to bring Rosa to America.
She arrived on Saturday night. Rico brought her from the plane; big Rico with his waxed mustache and plastered-down hair, with his phony diamond ring and his phony polo coat that told everybody what he was, just as if he had a post office reader pinned to his back.
But I didn't pay any attention to Rico. I was looking at Rosa. There was nothing phony about her black hair, her white skin, her red mouth. There was nothing phony about the way she threw herself into Tarelli's arms, kissing the little man and crying for joy.
It was quite a reunion downstairs in the back room, and even though she paid no attention when she was introduced to me, I felt pretty good about it all. It did something to me just to watch her smiling and laughing, a few minutes later, while she talked to her old man. Al, the bartender, and the sharpies stood around and grinned at each other, too, and I guess they felt the same way I did.
But Big Pete Mosko felt different He looked at Rosa, too, and he did his share of grinning. But he wasn't grinning at her—he was grinning at something inside himself. Something came alive in Mosko, and I could see it — something that wanted to grab and paw and rip and tear at Rosa.
"It's gonna be nice having you here," he told her. "We gotta get acquainted."
"I must thank you for making this possible," she said, in her soft little voice — the kid spoke good English, grammar and everything, and you could tell she had class. "My father and I are very, very grateful. I don't know how we are going to repay you."
"We'll talk about that later," said Big Pete Mosko, licking his lips and letting his hands curl and uncurl into fists. "But right now you gotta excuse me. Looks like a heavy night for business."
Tarelli and Rosa disappeared into his room, to have supper off a tray Al brought down. Mosko went out to the big downstairs pitch to case the tables for the night's play. Rico hung around for a while, kidding with the wheel operators. I caught him mumbling in the corner and dragged him upstairs for a drink.
That's where Mosko found us a couple minutes later. Rico gave him the office.
"How's about the dough?" he said.
"Sure, sure, just a minute." Mosko hauled out a roll and peeled off a slice for Rico. I saw it — five Cs. And it gave me a bad time to watch Rico take the money because I knew Mosko wouldn't hand out five hundred bucks without getting plenty in return.
And I knew what he wanted in return. Rosa.
"Hey, what's the big idea of this?" Rico asked, pointing over at the scales in the corner.
I didn't say anything, and I wondered if Mosko would spill. Ail week long the weighing machine had stood there with a sign on it, out of order. Mosko had it lettered the day after Don got killed, and he made sure nobody got their fortune told. Nobody talked about the scales, and I kept wondering if Mosko was going to yank the machine out of the place or use it, or what he had in the back of his head.
But Mosko must of figured Rico was one of the family, seeing as how he flew in illegal immigrants and all, because he told Rico the whole story. There wasn't many around the bar yet that early — our Saturday night players generally got in about ten or so — and Mosko yapped without worrying about listeners.
"So help me, it'sa truth," he told Rico. "Machine'll tell just what's gonna happen to your future. For a stinkin' penny."
Rico laughed.
"Don't give me that con," he said. "Business with Don and the cat was just a whatchacallit — coincidence."
"Yeah? Well, you couldn't get me on those scales for a million bucks, brother," Mosko told him.
"Maybe so. But I'm not scared of any machine in the world," Rico snorted. "Here, watch me."
And he walked over to the scales and dropped a penny. The pointer went up. 177. The black disk gleamed. I heard the humming and the click, and out came the white card. Rico looked at him and grinned. I didn't crack a smile. I was thinking of Don.
But Rico chuckled and handed the card around for all of us to see. It said:
YOU WILL WIN WITH RED
"Good enough," he said, waving the card under Mosko's nose. "Now if I was a sucker, I'd go downstairs and bet this five hundred smackers on one of your crooked wheels, red to win. If I was a superstitious jerk, that is."
Mosko shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said. "Look, customers. I gotta get busy." He walked away.
I got busy myself, then. The marks started to arrive and it looked like a big Saturday night. I didn't get downstairs until after midnight and that was the first time I noticed that Rico must of kidded himself into believing the card after all.
Because he was playing the wheel. And playing it big. A new guy, name of Spencer, had come in to replace Don, and he was handling the house end on this particular setup. A big crowd was standing around the rig, watching Rico place his bets. Rico had a stack of chips a foot high and he was playing them fast.
And winning.
I must of watched him for about fifteen minutes, and during that time he raked in over three Gs, cold. Played odds, played numbers. Played red, and played black, too. Won almost every spin.
Mosko was watching, too. I saw him signal Spencer the time Rico put down a full G in blue chips on black to win. I saw Spencer wink at Mosko. But I saw the wheel stop on black.
Mosko was ready to bust, but what could he do? A crowd of marks was watching, it had to look legit. Three more spins and Rico had about six or seven Gs in chips in front of him. Then Mosko stepped in and took the table away from Spencer.
"See you in my office," he mumbled, and Spencer nodded. He stared at Rico but Rico only smiled and said, "Excuse me, I'm cashing in." Mosko looked at me and said, "Tail him."
Then he shook his head. "Don't get it," he said. He was working the wire now, finding everything in order.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rico over at the cashier's window, counting currency and stuffing it into his pocket. Spencer had disappeared. Rico began walking upstairs, his legs scissoring fast. I followed, hefting the brass knucks in my pocket.
Rico went outside. I went outside. He hear
d my feet behind him of the gravel and turned around.
"Hey," I said. "What's your hurry?"
Rico just laughed. Then he winked. That wink was the last thing I saw before everything exploded.
I went down on the gravel, and I didn't get up for about a minute. Then I was just in time to see the car pull away with Rico waving at me, still laughing. The guy who had sapped me was now at the wheel of the car. I recognized Spencer.
"It's a frame, is it?" Big Pete Mosko had come up from downstairs and was standing behind me, spitting out pieces of his cigar. "If I'da known what those dirty rats would pull on me — he was working with Spencer to trim me — "
"You did know," I reminded him.
"Did I?"
"Sure. Remember what the fortunetelling card said? Told Rico, you will win with red, didn't it?"
"But Rico was winning with both colors," Mosko yelled. "It was that dog Spencer who let him win."
"That's what the card said," I told him. "What you and I forget is that 'Red' is Spencer's nickname."
We went back inside because there was nothing else to do — no way of catching Rico or Spencer without rough stuff and Mosko couldn't afford that. Mosko went back to the tables and took the suckers for a couple hours straight, but it didn't make him any happier.
He was still in a lousy temper the next morning when he cut up the week's take. It was probably the worst time in the world to talk to him about anything—and that's, of course, where Tarelli made his mistake.
I was sitting downstairs when Tarelli came in with Rosa and said, "Please, Meestair Mosko."
"Whatcha want?" Mosko would have yelled it if Rosa hadn't been there, looking cool and sweet in a black dress that curved in and out and in again.
"I want to know if Rosa and I, we can go now?"
"Go?"
"Yes. Away from here. Into town, to stay. For Rosa to get job, go to school nights maybe."
"You ain't goin' no place, Tarelli."
"But you have what you weesh, no? I feex machines. I make for you the marvelous scale of fortune, breeng you luck — "
"Luck?" Rosa or no Rosa, Mosko began to yell. He stood up and shoved his purple face right against Tarelli's button nose. "Luck, huh? You and your lousy machine — in one week it kills my best wheel man, and lets another one frame me with Rico for over seven grand! That's the kind of luck you bring me with your magic! You're gonna stick here, Tarelli, like I say, unless you want Uncle Sam on your tail, but fast!"
"Please, Meestair Mosko — you let Rosa go alone, huh?"
"Not on your life!" He grinned, then. "I wouldn't let a nice girl like Rosa go up into town with nobody to protect her. Don't you worry about Rosa, Tarelli. I got plans for her. Lotsa plans."
Mosko turned back to the table and his money. "Now, blow and lemme alone," he said.
They left. I went along, too, because I didn't like to leave Rosa out of my sight now.
"What is this all about, Father?" Rosa asked the question softly as we all three of us sat in Tarelli's little room. Tarelli looked at me and shrugged.
"Tell her," I said. "You must."
So Tarelli explained about being here illegally and about the phony roulette wheels.
"But the machine — the scales of fortune, what do you mean by this?"
Again Tarelli looked at me. I didn't say anything. He sighed and stared down at the floor. But at last, he told her.
A lot of it I didn't understand. About photoelectric cells and mirrors and a tripping lever he was supposed to have invented. About books with funny names and drawing circles in rooster blood and something called evocations or invocations or whatever they call it. And about a bargain with Sathanas, whoever that is. That must of been the magic part.
I guessed it was, because of the way Rosa acted when she heard it. She turned pale and began to stare and breathe funny, and she stood up and shook Tarelli's shoulders.
"No — you did not do this thing! You couldn't! It is evil, and you know the price — "
"Necromancy, that ees all I can turn to to get you here," Tarelli said. "I do anytheeng for you, Rosa. No cost too much."
"It is evil," Rosa said. "It must not be permitted. I will destroy it."
"But Mosko, he owns the machine now. You cannot — "
"He said himself it brought bad luck. And he will never know. I will replace it with another scale, an ordinary one from the same place you got this. But your secret, the fortunetelling mechanism, must go."
"Rosa," I said, "you can't. He's a dangerous customer. Look, why don't you and your old man scram out of here today? I'll handle Mosko, somehow. He'll be sore, sure, but I'll cool him off. You can hide out in town, and I'll join you later. Please, Rosa, listen to me. I'll do anything for you, that's why I want you to go. Leave Mosko to me."
She smiled, then, and stared up into my eyes. She stood very close and I could smell her hair. Almost she touched me. And then she shook her head. "You are a good man," she said. "It is a brave thing you propose. But I cannot go. Not yet. Not while the machine of evil still exists. It will bring harm into the world, for my father did a wicked thing when he trafficked with darkness to bring it into being. He did it for me, so I am in a way responsible. And I must destroy it."
"But how? When?"
"Tonight," Rosa said. "Tomorrow we will order a new scale brought in. But we must remove the old one tonight."
"Tarelli," I said. "Could you put the regular parts back in this machine if you take out the new stuff?"
"Yes."
"Then that's what we'll do. Too dangerous to try a switch. Just stick the old fortunetelling gimmick back in, maybe we can get by for a while without Mosko noticing. He won't be letting anybody near it now for a while, after what happened."
"Good," said Tarelli. "We find a time."
"Tonight," Rosa repeated. "There must be no more cursed fortunes told."
But she was wrong.
She was wrong about a lot of things. Like Mosko not having any use for the fortunetelling scales, for instance. He lied when he told Tarelli the machine was useless.
I found that out later the same afternoon, when Mosko cornered me upstairs in the bar. He'd been drinking a little and trying to get over his burn about the stolen money.
'Til get it back," he said. "Got a gold mine here. Bigges' gold mine inna country. Only nobody know it yet but you and me." He laughed, and the bottles rattled behind the bar. "If that dumb guy only could figure it, he'd go crazy."
"Something worked up for the fortunetelling," I needled.
"Sure. Look, now. I get rich customers in here, plenty of em. Lay lotsa dough onna line downstairs. Gamblers, plungers, superstitious. You see em come in. Rattling lucky charms and rabbit foots and four leaf clovers. Playin' numbers like seven and thirteen on hunches. What you think? Wouldn't they pay plenty for a chance to know what's gonna happen to them tomorrow or next year? Why it's a natural, that's what — I can charge plenty to give 'em a fortune from the scales. Tell you what, I'm gonna have a whole new setup just for this deal. Tomorrow we build a new special room, way in back. I got a pitch figured out, how to work it. We'll set the scales up tomorrow, lock the door of the new room, and then we really operate."
I listened and nodded, thinking about how there wasn't going to be any tomorrow. Just tonight.
I did my part. I kept pouring the drinks into Mosko, and after supper he had me drive him into town. There wasn't any play on the wheels on Monday, and Mosko usually hit town on his night off to relax. His idea of relaxation was a little poker game with the boys from the City Hall — and tonight I was hot to join him.
We played until almost one, and I kept him interested as long as I could, knowing that Rosa and Tarelli would be working on the machine back at the tavern. But it couldn't last forever, and then we were driving back and Big Pete Mosko was mumbling next to me in the dark.
"Only the beginning, boy," he said. "Gonna make a million off that scales. Talk about fortunes — I got one when I got hol
d of Tarelli! A million smackers and the girl. Hey, watch it!"
I almost drove the car off the road when he mentioned the girl. I wish I had, now.
"Tarelli's a brainy apple," Mosko mumbled. "Dumb, but brainy — you know what I mean. I betcha he's got some other cute tricks up his sleeve, too. Whatcha think? You believe that stuff about magic, or is it just a machine?"
"I don't know," I told him. "I don't know nothing about science, or magic, either. All I know is, it works. And it gives me the creeps just to think about it — the scales sort of look at you, size you up, and then give you a payoff. And it always comes true." I began to pitch, then. "Mosko, that thing's dangerous. It can make you a lot of trouble. You saw what it did to Don, and what happened to you when Rico had his fortune told. Why don't you get rid of it before something else happens? Why don't you let Tarelli and Rosa go and forget about it?"
"You going soft inna head?" Mosko grabbed my shoulder and I almost went off the road again. "Leave go of a million bucks and a machine that tells the truth about the future? Not me, buddy! And I want Tarelli, too. But most of all I want Rosa. And I'm gonna get her. Soon. Maybe — tonight."
What I wanted to do to Big Pete Mosko would have pinned a murder rap on me for sure. I had to have time to think, to figure out some other angle. So I kept driving, kept driving until we pulled up outside the dark entrance to the tavern.
Everything was quiet, and I couldn't see any light, so I figured whatever Rosa and Tarelli had done was finished. We got out and Mosko unlocked the front door. We walked in.
Then everything happened at once.
I heard the clicking noise from the corner. Mosko heard it, too. He yelled and grabbed at something in the dark. I heard a crash, heard Tarelli curse in Italian. Mosko stepped back.
"No, you don't!" he hollered. He had a gun, the gun had a bullet, the bullet had a target.
That's all.
Mosko shot, there was a scream and a thud, and then I got the lights on and I could see.
I could see Tarelli standing there next to the scales. I could see the tools scattered around and I could see the queer-looking hunk of flashing mirrors that must have been Tarelli's secret machinery. I could see the old back of the scales, already screwed into place again.