The White Magic Five & Dime (A Tarot Mystery)

by Steve Hockensmith

  “What was he calling about?”

  “A possible appointment. He said he might pop in sometime.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Mr. Roper.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Maybe I’m remembering wrong. He sounds like he’s in his forties or fifties, has kind of a raspy voice, acts a little cranky. Bald.”

  “He mentioned that on the phone?”

  “It came up. He said his nickname’s Cueball.”

  “Well, he doesn’t sound like anyone I know.”

  Clarice turned her attention back to her burrito.

  “So,” I said, “have you mentioned it? Me being here?”

  “Oh. Right. Yeah, I told a couple people. Why didn’t you ask the guy how he knew?”

  “He was in a hurry. Who’d you tell?”

  “Just some friends. How’s your food?”

  “It’s good. Which friends?”

  “People from school. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was nine. Athena used to make fun of me for it. She’d say, like, ‘What’s the use of being at the top of the food chain if you can’t eat everything below you?’ Or she’d take a big bite of steak and start singing ‘The Circle of Life’—that kind of thing. It used to bother me until I figured out she had to make fun of me to keep herself from feeling bad. Because if you stop to think about where meat comes from for one second, you’ll never start eating it again. And giving a shit is just sooooo inconvenient, you know?”

  I let her keep babbling. It was obvious I wasn’t going to get my questions answered tonight.

  Eventually she wrapped half her burrito in foil and stuck it in the fridge and announced that she had a test to study for. I might see her in the morning if I got up early enough. Good night.

  Later, after she went to her room and closed (and locked) the door, I heard her talking on her cell phone. I couldn’t make out any of the words, but the conversation went on for a long, long time.

  Once I’d finished getting ready for bed, I went through the medicine cabinet and all the drawers in the bathroom. Why wouldn’t I?

  My mother had always been old-fashioned about makeup. A woman just didn’t look right until every visible inch of skin had been powdered, rouged, spackled, and lacquered. She practically needed a sand blaster to wash her face at night. And that’s how it had been right up to the end, apparently. I found enough blush to keep every drag queen in San Francisco fabulous for years. The Avon lady must have been making her deliveries in a semi.

  Mixed in with all the bronzer and foundation and foundation primer and foundation primer primer, I found three medicine bottles. The kind you only get with a prescription. Each had pills inside, but what kind I couldn’t tell. The labels had been ripped off.

  don’t you dare was written on one in thick black ink.

  i count these every night was on another.

  The third had a skull and crossbones.

  I was in a little desert town I didn’t know, in an apartment with a stranger who may or may not have homicidal tendencies. The floor below us was a crime scene, while outside, somewhere nearby, was a man who said I’d die if I didn’t leave. And now I was lying in my dead mother’s bed, thinking of her stretched out in a refrigerator a few miles up the road.

  If “creepy” were a lottery, I’d just won.

  So what was I reading to comfort myself? A book about interpreting the freaky imagery on a bunch of weird old playing cards, of course. Because Mom didn’t have The Power of Positive Thinking on her shelf, and my copy of Happiness Is a Warm Puppy was hundreds of miles away.

  Starting Infinite Roads to Knowing a second time, not skimming and skipping around but really digging into it, I’d come to appreciate something about the woman who’d written it. Miss Chance wasn’t the touchy-feely New Age bullshit artist I’d thought her to be.

  She was nuts. A certifiable multiple-personality head case. You could watch her mix and match identities practically line by line. One second she’d be blah-blah-blahing about the numerological significance of the Empress card: “As it is assigned the value III, naturally it’s a combination of I (male) and II (female) and is, hence, a representation of the product of such a union: a child born of a joining both carnal and spiritual.”

  (Yeah, lady. And a three can also be represented by the raising of one’s three middle fingers, a gesture that is often accompanied by that classic decree to seek deeper meaning, “read between the lines.”)

  Yet then, in the very next paragraph, she’d slip in a reference to a vibrator and the Empress’s “robed rump,” and her interpretation of the card would actually make a little sense. That female symbol thingie that looks like a hydrocephalic stick figure really was right beneath the Empress’s booty, on the side of her La-Z-Boy/throne. A heart was there, too. So the card as a symbol of “passion and pure motherly love” worked for me (because it would be easy to remember).

  Not that I believed in “pure motherly love”—that was Bigfoot to me. Plenty of people claim to have seen it, but I had good reason to be skeptical.

  Around midnight I closed the book and turned off the light and stared up at nothing, thinking about the crazy, stupid thing I was doing and the odds it would get me killed. But I didn’t think about leaving.

  Because Clarice was right. Giving a shit is just sooooo inconvenient.

  Smart kid. I’d learned the same lesson when I was about her age. Caring is inconvenient, a pain, dangerous. Dumb, my mother said. But if you do it, you do it. It’s not a choice. It’s who you are.

  So I cared. And here I was.

  Sorry, Mom.

  Good night.

  Grim, stiff, stern, humorless—the Emperor is the law, and he is not amused. Do as he says and you will be tolerated. Defy him and you will regret it…or so he’d like you to think. See that barren wasteland behind the throne? That’s the old fart’s kingdom. Follow all his rules and you get to live there. Yippee! Or not.

  Miss Chance, Infinite Roads to Knowing

  The day got off to a good start. I was alive when I woke up.

  It was almost eight, and someone—Clarice, I assumed—was clomping around in the other room. You would have thought she was building a pyramid out of concrete blocks, but that’s probably just what teenagers sound like when they’re getting ready for school. I wouldn’t know. I hadn’t heard teenagers in the morning since I’d been one.

  When Clarice finally stomped off down the stairs in her combat boots or clogs or whatever, I unlocked the door to my mother’s bedroom and went out to the kitchen. All I could find in the cabinets was instant coffee, so I got ready to go out for the real thing.

  Usually I’m a jeans and T-shirt woman. If I’m feeling especially fancy (or cold), I might put on a pullover. My footwear runs the gamut from black Chuck Taylors to generic Payless snow boots. (It’s a short gamut.) The last time I bought jewelry, it cost me two prize tickets at Chuck E. Cheese.

  This wouldn’t do. Not for Miss Chance.

  I went to my mother’s closet.

  There she was. All five of her, by my count. There had been dozens over the years, but she’d whittled herself down to this handful now: the Businesswoman, the Cougar, the Frump, the Blank Slate (designed to be so boring, she was invisible), and the Gypsy. Five different wardrobes for five different identities, all ready at a moment’s notice.

  They were neatly organized not just by style but by size, too. My mother, it seemed, was shrinking. From her perennial slender 6 down to a new shipwreck survivor 2. Maybe Clarice had convinced her to go vegan. You know, for the animals.

  Ha.

  I went for the Gypsy, size 6.

  When I headed downstairs, I was wearing a white peasant blouse and a long skirt and a clunky turquoise necklace that looked like a beaded string of petrified Smurf dung. The clothes were a bit snug here and t
here, but at least the brown sandals on my feet fit perfectly. I’d literally stepped into my mother’s shoes. I did my best not to let my thoughts get all metaphorical about that.

  I picked up the phone and called Josh Logan, Berdache 5-O.

  “Detective Logan speaking.”

  “I have another question for you.”

  “Miss McLachlan?”

  “Yes. Where do you get good coffee around here?”

  “Well…the tourists seem to like Celebrity Roast.”

  “We passed it yesterday, right? On Furnier?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Meet me there in two minutes.”

  “Is five okay?”

  “Take your time. Be there in three.”

  I hung up.

  “You’re late,” I said when Logan came in.

  It had taken him four minutes to get to the coffee shop.

  He made it up to me by getting me a cappuccino, which wasn’t the same thing as buying me a cappuccino. The blond behind the cash register wouldn’t dream of letting an officer pay.

  She shot me an icy glare when he walked over and handed the cup to me.

  “You’re not having anything?” I asked as he took a seat across from me.

  “I don’t like coffee.”

  “A cop who doesn’t like coffee? What do you drink to wash down your—?”

  “Please don’t go there. I don’t like doughnuts either.”

  I looked him up and down. “It shows.”

  I was hoping for a blush. Flirting men don’t have as many road blocks between their brains and their mouths.

  I didn’t get the flushed cheeks, though. Maybe too many blonds gave the guy free coffee.

  He nodded down at my faux gypsywear. “You’ve changed your look.”

  “It’s not my style, but you know how it is. Sometimes you have to wear a uniform to work.”

  “So you’re still gonna open the White Magic Five & Dime back up?”

  “For a while. What’s the matter? You don’t look thrilled.”

  Pictures of famous actors and musicians covered the walls, and Logan spent the next few seconds gazing silently into the mascara-ringed raccoon eyes of Adam Lambert.

  “I don’t want to offend you,” he said slowly, “especially after what you’ve been through. But…you see…I have to think about the good of the community, and…well…”

  “You’re afraid I’m a con artist like my mom.”

  “Yes.”

  “I understand. Let me put your mind to rest: I’m not.”

  I took a sip of cappuccino. It was good.

  “Golly, I’m so glad to hear that,” Logan said, deadpan. “As long as I have your word on it, there’s nothing to worry about, right?”

  “Did you call my boss?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “It’s like you said. You were in a Lombard, Illinois, boiler room pushing home refinancing all day.”

  “Loan modifications, actually. They’re different.”

  “Still sounds skanky.”

  “It is. But it’s legal. I am not my mother.”

  “Then why are you dressing like her and reopening her store?”

  “Curiosity. Speaking of which, I wonder: have you told anyone who I am?”

  Logan put a hand to the back of his neck. “Whoa, whiplash. You wanna put on a turn signal before you change the subject that fast?”

  “I got a threatening phone call yesterday. From a man who knew Athena was my mother.”

  Logan’s face went stony. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his BlackBerry. “Did you see who the call was from?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not filing a report. I’m just telling you. And asking you: who knows I’m here?”

  Logan sighed and put his BlackBerry away. “Only everybody, I assume,” he said. “I discussed it with a few different people, and I didn’t swear any of them to secrecy. It’s a small town. Things get around fast.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “What did the guy say, exactly?”

  “The usual: get out of Dodge or you’ll end up like your mother.”

  “That’s the usual?”

  “That was a joke.”

  “Sorry. What did he sound like?”

  “Barry White after a bender. Deep voice, super rough. Apparently he’s a bald, clothes-wearing, maybe-white guy, too.”

  Logan looked like he wanted to bite someone.

  “You know him, don’t you?” I said.

  “You could tell all this over the phone?”

  “I’m a very good listener. Are you? I asked if you know the guy.”

  “I know him.”

  “Well, who is he?”

  “I can’t name names. But his family’s in the same line of work as your mother.”

  “Is he a suspect?”

  “He has an alibi, thanks to his family. I wouldn’t put anything past him, though. Even if he had nothing to do with your mother’s death, he’s going to see you as a threat. You should take that phone call seriously.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, what are you doing about it, other than telling me?”

  “I unplugged the phone for the night. They can threaten me all they want, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.”

  Logan furrowed his brow and shook his head. “You know, I don’t get you,” he said. “Are you nuts or do you just not give a crap?”

  “What did my boss say?”

  “Little bit of both.”

  “That might be true most of the time, but not today. I give a crap. That’s why I’m sticking around.”

  I took another sip of my cappuccino. It was cold.

  “Thanks for the coffee. And the concern.” I got up to go. “If you ever have any actual information you’d like to share, I’d love it if you’d—”

  “All right, all right. Sit down.”

  I sat.

  “What do you know about Clarice Stewart?” Logan said.

  “Almost nothing. What do you know?”

  He took a deep breath. Then he told me.

  “Clarice Stewart and Athena Passalis showed up here together three years ago,” Logan said. “Athena opened the White Magic Five & Dime. Clarice started going to the junior high. Athena was the girl’s legal guardian. The parents, she said, were dead.

  “Eventually, we started getting reports that Athena was…less than honest. It was nothing we could follow up on, though. Almost all of the complaints came from third parties. The victims wouldn’t talk. That’s typical with confidence crimes. Most go unreported. People are so embarrassed by their own stupidity, they’d rather let a rip-off artist get away than admit how they were fooled.

  “Still, I’d pop in on Athena from time to time, just to let her know I was watching. I thought she might back off, drop the scams, but…I don’t know. I don’t think it made any difference to her.

  “Half the time I’d go into the Five & Dime, Clarice would be there answering the phone and taking money. This one time, she short-changed a customer right in front of me. The classic ‘I love your necklace’ move while she lets a twenty fall behind the counter. I guess she thought it’d be funny to get away with something while the big dumb cop’s there. I said, ‘I think you dropped something,’ and she just looked down and said, ‘Clumsy me! Thanks!’

  “Don’t let her act all innocent with you. She knew what was going on around there. She didn’t always go along with it, though. The last time I dropped by the shop before your mother died, I could hear them arguing from outside, and when I went in they clammed up. Athena was always a pro—she just smiled and said what a pleasant surprise it was to see me. But Clarice was still all agitated, angry. She couldn’t control herself. She turned to me and s
he said, and I quote: ‘You could accuse me of a lot of things, but you’ll never be able to call me a whore.’ And she stormed out the door. Your mom laughed it off, of course. ‘Teenagers are such drama queens, aren’t they?’—that kind of thing. I could tell she was rattled, though. For once.

  “Then, just a few days later, it was Clarice who found Athena’s body and called 911—at 1 am on a school night. She claims she’d been out with a boy, and he backs her up. Funny thing, though. The second she was done talking to the dispatcher, she was calling the boyfriend, and not on his cell phone: on the landline for his house. Woke up his mother, and she had to go get him up to talk to his hysterical girlfriend. The kid had dropped Clarice off ten minutes before, supposedly, and already he was home in bed, sound asleep…?

  “I should be getting the medical examiner’s report later today. And when I do, who knows? Maybe I’ll be dropping by the White Magic Five & Dime again. Is that enough actual information for you?”

  “It’s a start,” I said.

  “It’s a start?”

  “What’s the boyfriend’s name? And I’d still like to get in touch with some of my mother’s former clients—the ones ‘third parties’ told you about. And of course I’ll want to hear what the coroner has to say, so I’ll be expecting a call from you this afternoon.”

  Logan buried his face in his hands and groaned.

  “I know,” I said. “I’m demanding. What can I say? She was my mother. But hey”—I reached across the table and put a comforting hand on Logan’s shoulder—“just imagine what a pain in the ass I’d be if I’d liked her.”

  The boyfriend’s name was Matt Gorman. I’d get an update on the medical examiner’s report by the end of the day. And my mom’s supersucker clients? Confidentiality privacy discretion blah blah blah.

  Hey, two out of three ain’t bad.

  The blond barista was giving me the stink-eye as Logan and I walked out. It was so blatant I decided not to come back for another of her cappuccinos anytime soon. You never know what could be hiding under all that foam.

  Logan and I headed for the White Magic Five & Dime.

  “If you keep squiring me around town like this, people are going to talk,” I said. “In fact, I think at least one person’s already jumped to the wrong conclusion.”