The Grift

by Debra Ginsberg

  “Where are you?” Claire asked. “I can come right now.”

  Marina was in trouble. Claire, a dull-haired, birdlike blonde, sat across from Marina at the kitchen table, her sandy eyebrows knotting together in irritated confusion. Not only wasn’t she the woman from Marina’s dream, but she was also proving to be the most difficult client Marina had ever tried to read.

  “You said you saw a ring,” she’d said as soon as Marina had shut the door behind her. “It was an engagement ring, right? I shouldn’t ask, but what did it look like? No, don’t tell me! I want to be surprised.”

  Marina had had to fight through her frustration and disappointment when she saw Claire, a task made more difficult when it became obvious that nothing she had to offer was going to please this woman. Claire wanted the boyfriend who’d broken up with her to come back, preferably with an engagement ring in his hand. Unfortunately for both Claire and Marina, that wasn’t what was in her future. And Marina was literally stopped, as if her tongue was tied, every time she tried to tell Claire something that wasn’t true.

  “Do you think there’s any chance we’ll get back together?” Claire had asked.

  Marina saw the ex-boyfriend standing on an altar with a bride who wasn’t Claire and formed the words, It might be a good idea to keep your options open. But what came out of her mouth was “He is going to marry someone else.” After a few of these interchanges, Marina stopped trying to do anything except report what she saw before her. Which was how they’d come to this point.

  “Well, am I ever going to get married?” Claire asked. “Can you tell me that at least?”

  Marina looked at Claire and saw…Claire. She was sitting alone. There were no relatives around her looking in, no mate waiting in her future and no children. It was the emptiest future Marina had ever seen. Wrestling with the right words to say, she hesitated too long and her silence became Claire’s answer.

  “Oh, no,” Claire gasped. “I don’t believe it! Are you kidding me?”

  “You know, many people don’t—”

  “You’re the worst psychic ever!” Claire stood up so abruptly that she knocked her chair over behind her.

  “Claire, wait—”

  “I knew this was a mistake. I would have been better off calling one of those 900 numbers. At least those people try to give some kind of hope, even if they’re all full of crap.”

  “Claire, I can only tell you what I see.”

  “You’re a liar,” Claire spat. “You don’t see anything and you’re not even a good fake. I have as much right as anyone to get married. You told my friend she’d meet someone and she did. And she’s fat. Why does she get the happy ending and not me?”

  “Your friend?”

  “The one I told you about—Frederika. Or Kiki. That’s what she calls herself because it sounds thinner.”

  “Kiki…” Once again, Marina saw the dark-haired woman from her dream, but now she had a face to match it with: a pretty face with sad eyes and too much bright lipstick. The receptionist who was looking for dates on the Internet. Marina had pulled the Lovers card from her tarot stack and told her she’d be meeting someone soon. She’d smiled, Marina remembered now, and tapped the card with the tip of her polished fingernail. “A doctor?” she’d asked. “Because I do know a lot of them…”

  “I need to talk to your friend,” Marina said. “It’s very important.”

  Claire looked stunned. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

  “I only saw her once,” Marina went on, not caring that her words were probably making no sense to Claire, “and I don’t have her phone number. There was a fire in my office…”

  “I’m not paying for this,” Claire said and started moving out of the kitchen. “So don’t even bother asking for money.”

  “Do you know a man named Eddie Perkins?” Marina asked. Her head was thick with the sudden memory of her dream and the conviction that Eddie was somehow involved with all of this—and that he was in danger.

  “Too late,” Claire said, reaching the front door. “You’ve already told me I’m going to die alone and lonely. Don’t try to make something up now to try to get—”

  “I never said you were going to die alone and lonely, Claire. I didn’t see you getting married. That’s not the same thing.”

  “As good as,” Claire said. “And no, I don’t know anyone named Eddie.”

  Chapter 32

  Marina had to smile when she saw the house. Small and tidy with almost a gingerbread sweetness, it was nearly identical to her own save for two distinct details. The first was that this house was a bright lemony yellow, where Marina’s was a dull white and in need of a fresh coat of paint. The second detail was more telling: a large red neon pentagram surrounded by a circle hanging in the front window. At least the word psychic was nowhere in evidence, she thought, a small concession to subtlety.

  Marina was on the high north end of Pacific Beach, a neighborhood that straddled the line between expensive and completely ridiculous. The drive had taken less time than she’d anticipated, so she sat in her car for a few minutes, preparing herself for whatever was about to come next.

  Marina’s need to find a person with even a hint of psychic ability had intensified as soon as Claire had swept off in a cloud of righteous indignation. She’d gone back to her phone book and magazines, making a list and then calling every number regardless of how phony-sounding the names or claims attached to them. The first two calls rang through to voice mail, one with New Age music so loud she could barely hear the outgoing message, and the second asking her to press 1 for “tarot” and 2 for “massage.” Marina didn’t leave a message on either. The third call was answered by a woman who spoke so little English that Marina couldn’t make out more than a few words. In any case, the woman couldn’t hear Marina over the din of screaming children in the background. Marina hung up. The fourth number rang seven times, but Marina held on out of sheer curiosity over what kind of person still let a phone just ring. Finally, it was picked up. The voice on the other end seemed to have the dust of centuries within it; the words came slow and cracked. “No, my dear, I don’t do that anymore,” the voice told Marina. There was a long silence filled with labored breath and then, “But I have the name of someone who can help you.” And that was how Marina had ended up here in the bright hills bordering La Jolla.

  The psychic’s name was Ciel (“Pronounced seal, like the ocean animal,” she’d told Marina), and she hadn’t been the least bit taken aback by Marina’s burning need for an immediate reading. “If you can make it over here this afternoon, I can see you,” she’d told Marina in a thick, raspy voice. “You need directions?” It didn’t matter if Ciel was a total fraud, Marina told herself as she locked her car door and walked up to the house—at least she was trying something.

  Although by rights she shouldn’t have been, Marina was startled when Ciel opened the door before she could knock on it. She was of indeterminate age—maybe forty or maybe sixty—with pin-curled hair the color of orange marmalade. She was solid, but not heavy, and was dressed in a royal blue pullover with matching pants. She looked put together if not quite stylish, and Marina got the distinct sense that she didn’t care what anyone thought of her attire.

  “Hi, hon,” Ciel said. “Don’t look so scared. I saw you pull up from the window.” She gestured to her left. “Come on in, then.”

  Inside, the house smelled like sawdust and pungent potpourri, but Marina could see no evidence of either. What she did see was an exhausted-looking sofa and two shabby easy chairs, a beaten-up wooden coffee table and hundreds of paperbacks shoved into two faux pine bookshelves. Most of these books, Marina gathered from her quick glance, had the word Earl, Duke, or Surrender in their titles.

  “Don’t look over there, hon,” Ciel said. “You’re bound to be disappointed by my choice of reading material. Everyone is. But I can’t help it; that’s my entertainment. We all have to have that, don’t we? Come on into the kitchen and I’ll
get us set up.”

  “Set up?”

  “Well, sure. We’ll need a little tea to start.”

  “Tea?” Marina asked. “Do you practice tasseomancy?”

  Ciel raised one well-shaped ginger eyebrow and gave Marina a puzzled smile. “What’s that, hon?”

  “Are you going to read my tea leaves?”

  “Well, I hadn’t planned on it, but I suppose I could give it a shot if you want. I was just thinking it would be nice to have something to drink. I have iced tea, but I can make some hot tea if you’d prefer it. It’s just that it’s so warm outside, you know.”

  “No, of course, that’s fine,” Marina said. “I wasn’t…I mean, iced tea would be fine.”

  “Well, all right then. Follow me.”

  Ciel’s kitchen was quite a bit larger than her living room but no more modern. The cabinets, state of the art in the 1970s, were in dire need of updating, and the flooring, linoleum that had seen much better days, was faded to a vague shade of greenish blue. A chrome-and-Formica dinette set sat in the middle, laid with two empty glasses and some paper napkins. There were no cards, candles or anything else to suggest Ciel’s profession. Marina sat down on one of the three available chairs.

  “Hon,” Ciel said, reaching into the refrigerator for a pitcher of iced tea, “before we get started, if you wouldn’t mind…”

  Marina stared blankly at Ciel for a moment before her meaning sunk in. “Oh, right,” she said, “payment.” She reached into her purse for the ninety dollars she’d brought and placed the bills in the middle of the table.

  Ciel scooped up the money and replaced it with a small dish of lemon wedges. “Thanks, hon. It’s just better that way, you know? Then we can really focus.” She poured a glass of tea for Marina, one for herself, and then, from some unseen pocket in the folds her clothing, she produced a worn deck of tarot cards and put them on the table between them. The two women sipped their tea in silence for a minute or two and then Ciel said, “Are you worried about the baby, hon? Because I’m getting a real strong feeling that the baby’s going to be just fine.”

  Marina put her hands on her swollen belly, remembering that she was now big enough for someone who was paying attention to notice that she was pregnant. “Well,” she said, “that’s good.”

  “When are you due, hon?”

  “I’m not sure,” Marina said. “I haven’t really figured it out yet.”

  The look on Ciel’s face changed from quizzical to concerned. Lines that Marina hadn’t noticed before appeared between her nose and mouth and there were crow’s-feet etched into the corners of her faded blue eyes. Maybe she was an older woman after all, Marina thought. “All right,” Ciel said. “That’s fine.” She swallowed some of her tea, picked up the cards and began shuffling them dexterously. “So what happened to your regular person, if you don’t mind my asking? Not that I mind getting the business, but one does like to keep up with the competition.” When Marina didn’t answer, she barked out a quick laugh. “That was a joke, hon. At least the last part of it.”

  Marina thought about telling Ciel everything, start to finish. She could feel the weight of the confession like a stone on her shoulders and wanted so badly to roll it off and away. But no, that wasn’t what she was here for. If Ciel was the real thing, she’d figure it out anyway. And if she wasn’t, it wouldn’t make any difference to tell her. “I don’t have a regular person,” she said finally. “To be honest, I haven’t had much luck with this kind of thing in the past.”

  Ciel continued to shuffle, her hands moving faster but never fumbling. “Is that right?” she said. “Well, I guess we’re going to have to see what we can do to fix that.” Marina watched, mesmerized, as Ciel’s fingers moved across the cards with speed and grace. “Want to tell me what’s on your mind, hon? Or haven’t you figured that out yet, either?” Marina had to smile a little, although she didn’t take her eyes off the cards. She liked Ciel’s style. She realized something else, too, as the blur of Ciel’s hands lulled her into transfixed calm: for the first time in months she felt still. There were no voices, dead people, visions or premonitions—only the here and now and the soft sound of the cards as they slid across each other.

  “Cut.” The cards hit the table with a smack and Marina startled before automatically reaching over and cutting the deck twice to the left. Ciel placed her right hand on Marina’s left for a moment and then reassembled the deck right to left. “You ready?” she asked, and Marina nodded.

  “Celtic Cross,” Ciel said. She laid out the ten cards, facedown, in the ancient formation of a cross and a staff. The first card she turned over, in the center of the cross, was the Three of Swords. The sight of the pierced heart with the driving rain behind it immediately conjured the memory of Marina choosing this very card for Mrs. Golden and “interpreting” it as a warning that her son was in danger. It was one of the most dramatic cards in the deck and never failed to get a response.

  “Oh, hon,” Ciel said, “such sorrow for you. You’ve lost a great love and it was a violent parting.” The second card, the Queen of Cups, crossed the first. Ciel sighed and put her hands together, cracking her knuckles one by one. “The greatest obstacle is you,” she said. There was a hint of surprise in her voice. “You stand in your own way, in the middle of your own path. You must move beyond yourself.” Ciel turned over the next card, the Six of Cups. “Ah, but you have an inheritance,” she said. “A gift given to you as a child. This is your foundation. You can build on this.” Ciel turned another card, the Ten of Swords, a most frightening card showing a man facedown with ten swords buried in his back. “Your immediate past,” she said. “Danger, treachery…” She frowned and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “This is a card of hatred, enemies…. Someone who wants you…” She turned the next card quickly, the Five of Swords. “Your immediate future shows theft, deception, manipulation.” Ciel was growing agitated, her eyes now focused solely on the cards. Marina knew every one of these cards, had even offered the same words to her clients, and yet she felt as if she were seeing now through a new pair of eyes—Ciel’s eyes. “The Nine of Wands,” Ciel was saying, “crowns you. You are strong, stubborn and ready to fight. You can win—you have the strength to win. The Eight of Cups here means you are ready to leave behind the life you once lived. The cups are still full. You have much to offer.” Ciel turned over the Hanged Man and the Three of Pentacles. “So much loneliness”—she sighed—“and so much sorrow. You are at a crossroads and feel you are getting no guidance. You have lost…so much. You must let go. You must trust yourself.”

  This could apply to anyone, Marina thought, although she realized her heart was beating hard. Ciel’s words were a one-size-fits-all garment that could be molded to any body shape. You could stretch it, shrink it, work it until it fit. At least this is what Marina told herself as Ciel continued, turning over the final card in the spread, the one that signified the outcome. It was the eleventh card in the Major Arcana.

  Justice.

  Ciel touched the card with the tip of her finger, traced the sword and scales held by the red-robed, crowned figure of Justice, and finally raised her eyes to meet Marina’s. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” she asked. “All this violence I see…” Once more, Ciel reached over and touched Marina’s hand lightly with her own. The touch was warm, dry and reassuring. “It will be all right,” she said. “It is going to be made right. But it isn’t going to be easy.”

  “What’s easy?” Marina said after a while. “Nothing.”

  Ciel took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair. “What’s your story, hon? There’s so much going on behind those eyes of yours, I can’t even imagine where you’ve been. There’s a lot more to it than what’s in these cards, isn’t there?”

  “I could tell you,” Marina said, “but then I’d have to kill you.” Ciel just sat there, staring. “That was a joke,” Marina added.

  “Fair enough,” Ciel said, but she wasn’t laughing. “But what is it you really cam
e here to find out? I’ve been doing this long enough to know when there hasn’t been enough on my table to satisfy.”

  Marina was about to protest, but as she was forming the words, she realized exactly what it was she wanted from the woman sitting across from her. “How do you do this?” she asked. “I mean, how do you keep from going crazy?”

  “What do you mean, hon?”

  “You have to absorb so much energy from everyone else all the time. Everyone’s loves and losses and desires coming at you. How can you tell what’s what? How do you sort it all? How do you keep it straight?”

  Ciel looked down at the cards and tapped on the Queen of Cups. “No wonder you wouldn’t tell me who your regular person is,” she said. “Your regular person is you. But why didn’t you tell me, hon? I would have given you the professional discount.”

  “You have a professional discount?”

  “Oh, dear. I guess neither of us should be trying to tell jokes, huh? What I mean to say is that you don’t need to hide it from me.” She tut-tutted softly to herself. “No wonder,” she said again. “Always harder to read for readers.” She broke apart the spread she’d laid out for Marina and pushed the cards back together. “Come on now, you don’t need to look so sad. It’s going to work out, hon, trust me. I’m going to pour us some more tea and then we can go on into the living room and make ourselves more comfortable. I don’t have anything until my poker game at seven so we have plenty of time to visit.” She smiled at Marina, who noticed for the first time that Ciel had a large star-shaped keloid scar at the base of her throat.

  “How about you, hon?” Ciel asked. “Anywhere you need to be?”

  Chapter 33

  The first thing Cooper wanted to do after escaping Max’s office (because escape was very much what his mad not-waiting-for-the-elevator run down the stairs had felt like) was to shovel a handful of pills down his throat and wash them all down with a bottle of wine. But his instinct for self-preservation (still strong enough despite his emotional devastation) kept him from swallowing his whole stash while he was still in the car. Vanity played a part in his hesitation as well. Something about seeing Max with that woman had drawn Cooper’s attention to how far he’d fallen, physically, since this whole fiasco had started. He had a vision of himself crashing his car into a tree under the influence of twenty Xanax and the Jaws of Life having to remove his puffy mangled body from the wreckage. The thought of anyone seeing him like that—especially Max—was too much for Cooper.