A Corpse in a Teacup (4 page)

He couldn’t hear his phone over the sound of the electric drill. It was only when he looked up to avoid an iron filing shooting towards his face that he saw the bright light flash, Zeus’s Thunderbolt. He recognized the caller’s avatar, raised his goggles and picked up.

“Yeah?”

“You busy? I got a job for you.”

“Another one so soon?”
He reached over and turned down the music on his computer.

“You’re a popular guy.”

“What do you need?”

“
I need you to make a murder look like a heart attack.”

“Who’s the target?”

“Girl. About twenty-five. Healthy. No enemies.”

“You don’t make it easy.”

“Like I said, I don’t write the order sheet.”

He laughed. “Order sheet. As if.”

“A few things come to mind. Is it local?”

“Practically in your back yard.”

“You know I like an excuse to travel.”

“I don’t plan these things.”

“How much?”

“The usual.”

“Heart attack in a young, healthy girl? Gonna take some extra effort.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“How much time do I have?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

“Definitely going to take some extra effort. Any publicity on this one?“

“Depends on how good your work is.”

“You know how good my work is.”

“So that’s a yes?”

He paused, then said, “Get me the particulars. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Clipper?”

“Yeah?” He was already bored with the conversation.

“This is a very important client.”

“When aren’t they?”

“I’m just sayin
’.”

“Get me the details
. I need an address. Anything you know about her habits. Where she goes when. The usual.”

He
had the drill whining before the guy knew he’d hung up. He smiled. Nothing like easy money.

Tuesday
flicked on the lights in The Mulberry Cat Café. Located in upscale, picture perfect Larchmont Village, the Cat was the current PBS in Los Angeles. The Place to Be Seen.

“Grab our table,
Holley, I’ll be there in a minute.”

Tuesday threw her keys and tote bag on the counter and
filled the kettle for hot water. The only time she was allowed to enter the kitchen, Chef Marco’s sanctum sanctorum, was on Mondays to make Holley’s tea. And that only after a humiliating lecture in front of the staff from the chef about not touching anything and being sure to clean every speck of dirt she deposited on the counter and floor. Tuesday made it a point to steer clear of the chef during her work hours. She wasn’t afraid of his temper; Tuesday was quite capable of speaking up for herself. However, she didn’t want his harassing energy infecting her readings.

The kitchen staff made tea
for her clients who scheduled readings after lunch or the Cat’s famed Champagne High Tea. She did not do readings for the dinner crowd. Male customers usually scoffed at her profession. The one evening she and Natasha had tried it, wives and girlfriends clearly were too intimidated by their partners’ teasing to give it a whirl. The two intrepid customers that night who braved the scoffing left huge tips in addition to the jacked up fee, which was why Tuesday wanted to try night time readings in the first place. She was disappointed to lose the extra money, but realized she made up for it in volume during the day when the lunch crowd encouraged each other to try a reading. Holley walked to the corner table that was reserved for Tuesday. It overlooked the sun drenched back patio and she watched the hummingbirds at their feeders while she waited for her reading.

Tuesday p
icked the Cat’s special herbal blend with cinnamon and orange, thinking it would calm her agitated client, as well as offer a variety of bits and pieces that might display some clues in the bottom of the cup.

Frankly, Tuesday did not fully accept Holley’s story. LA was full of characters who lov
ed to prank the innocent, and that’s what this sounded like. Young actresses such as Holley with stars in their eyes instead of a head on their shoulders became targets for cynical types who sucked them into schemes just for a laugh. Or, more sinister, for their money, offering contracts with a nonexistent agent, for instance, for a fee.

T
uesday decided that Holley’s dilemma sounded like the work of a discredited producer who once sent a contract to a girl who had just arrived in Los Angeles. On fancy letterhead, it purported to sign her up for the lead in a film with George Clooney. It outlined his next movie, Ocean’s Twelve. The girl signed the contract and returned it to the scoundrel, oblivious to the fact that the movie had been made years earlier and was already on Netflix. Then, to her bottomless humiliation, in the fog of imagined glory, she promptly posted a video announcing the news. The video went viral and she slunk out of town when it became a joke on late night TV.

Yeah, T
uesday decided as she put a cozy over the teapot and took the tray over to Holley, her client needed calming down. Maybe her cup would predict some exciting news that would take her mind off this threat nonsense.

She poured the tea for Holley, who sweetened it with two sugars and some lemon.
After tasting it, she added a third sugar. Tuesday gave her the no-no sign. “You need calming. Sugar will ramp you up. I keep telling you honeybun. Sugar is the enemy of good health. I never let it enter my system.” Under the table, Tuesday crossed her fingers.

As Holley sipped her tea, Tuesday tried to take her mind off the scary phone calls.

“So tell me how things are going on the aliens set. Are you about ready to wrap up production?”

Holley nodded. “It has been the best experience of my life
. Working with that director is like awesome. Quentin Tarantula? He pulls emotions out of me that I didn’t know I had in me. The script is so deep. Like he has me saying this line? And like I worked on it for a week? I have this death ray gun and I point it at this alient who is threatening to kill me? And like he says,” Holley pointed an imaginary gun at Tuesday and deepened her voice, “If you tell anyone where we are I’ll kill you. And then I say, ‘I don’t care what you do to me, I’ll never tell you where the crackonite fuel rods are.’ I mean he brings out such bravery in me.”

A light
bulb went off for Tuesday. “Holley, sweetheart. Listen to what you just said. The alien was threatening to kill you.”

Holley listened, wide
-eyed but uncomprehending.

“And you worked on th
ose lines all week until they were drilled into your unconscious.”

Holley
nodded her head excitedly. “Oh, yes they were. That’s how I could be so spontaneous. That’s what the director told me.”

A wave of relief came over Tuesday. They were getting to the bottom of thi
ngs. “Well just think about this. I’m just saying, since we know how sensitive you are.”

Holley’s face turned serious
. “Oh I’m such a sensitive person. It can be a cross you know, to feel things so deeply.”

Tuesday pulled her chair closer and pushed the
sugar and milk pitcher away so she could lean into Holley. “I know sweetie, and that’s why I’m thinking, I mean I don’t know for sure, but is it possible that you think you heard somebody threatening to kill you, but it was just the voice of the alien? Like speaking from your unconscious?”

This sounded so reasonable to Tuesday that she got annoyed when Holley shook her head
. “I know what I heard, Miss Tuesday. I didn’t make it up.”

“I’m not saying you made it up, I’m just saying . . . “

Holley drained her cup and turned it upside down over the saucer to distribute the tea leaves along the bottom and sides of the cup as Tuesday had taught her, then placed it back on the saucer for the reading.

“There
. Now what do you see?”

Tuesday gave up
trying to talk Holley out of her threatening call. She reached into her handbag for the silk scarf she used for her readings. The silk, which Tuesday believed held a special energy that facilitated the information, came up spilling a candy bar onto the floor. Tuesday kicked it under the table before Holley could spot it, then wrapped the silk around the cup. She always kept a candy bar in her purse in case she had a spike in blood sugar, a fact her clients who relied on her for nutritional advice didn’t need to know. They might get the wrong idea and go whole hog with sugar when Tuesday just used it to control a spikey metabolism. Which troubled her a lot.

She noted where Holley had left her spoon and the direction of the handle of the cup
. But she forgot those markers when she looked into the pattern of leaves in the bottom of the cup. An undeniable M next to a dark smudge that Tuesday was convinced was the figure of a body. A dead body. A corpse. Oh my fricken gumdrop, she thought. She’d have to handle this reading with more than her usual delicacy. She wasn’t sure how Holley would take this news.

Holley bent over the table eagerly
. “What do you see, Miss Tuesday?”

Tuesday
pondered her ethical responsibility. Should she tell her client she saw an M for murder? How could she prepare her for this news? After receiving the phone calls, this reading could unhinge her. The new director, the Vitale guy, might be feeding Holley a line about her ability to feel things deeply for his own ends, but the girl was definitely very impressionable. Tuesday had to be very careful about how she conveyed this information.

But Holley solved Tuesday’s predicament
. “Miss Tuesday,” she exclaimed, her voice singing with excitement. “Look at that, do you see it?”

“Yes, I do, Holley
. It’s an M.”

Holley clapped her hands with glee
. “An M! Do you know what that means?”

Tuesday replied solemnly, “Yes, I do, sweetheart,” wondering how she would cope when Hol
ley fell apart as the meaning of this reading sank in. M. For murder. Next to what was clearly a corpse. The image had no life in it that Tuesday could see, as the body of a baby, which signified new life, would.

“I’m going to get the part!”

After a slight double take, Tuesday asked, “What? What part?”

“The
lady pilot role. That’s M for money. I’m going to get paid big money for that new movie. Movie. Yes, that confirms it. M for money and M for movie. Oh, Miss Tuesday, you are the best.”

Holley leaned over and hugged Tuesday. “Thank you so
much. I’m going home now and call my agent to work on the contract.”

Tuesday
decided not to burst her client’s bubble. “No, Holley, I wouldn’t do that. You want to let the energy flow, not interfere with it by working on details prematurely. Allow things to happen in their own time. Just let it be until you fully understand what this means.”

Excitement
brought more color to Holley’s cheeks. “You’re right,” she cooed. “I think I’ll go home now and call Albert’s for one of their high colonics. It’s that spa in Toluca Lake. They always refresh me.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll drive you.”

“Oh, no, Miss Tuesday. You’ve done enough. I’ll call a cab. How much do I owe you?”

Tuesday
was fighting with Holley’s interpretation of the tea leaves. Then she thought, Money? Movie? If they make her feel good, why not? One thing she had learned in her reading practice, people will only see what they are ready to see.

Holley searched th
rough her handbag, then held up her hands apologetically. “Put this on my tab would you? We left in such a rush, I didn’t bring the purse with my wallet in it.”

Tuesday said, “Sure.
”

“And charge me twice for coming to my house. I’ll pay you next week.”

“That’s fine, Holley. Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you next Monday, same time. But here, not your house, right?”

“Right.”

Then Holley ran out of the Café with her cellphone to her ear, calling a cab. Tuesday watched the door close behind her, uneasy about the reading. She scooped up the candy bar under the table. It was too late to start her cleanse today. Her body was out of synch from the bad air on the plane and jet lag. Oh, wait. No jet lag. Well, from getting up at such an ungodly hour. And did she feel a little low blood sugar? She paused, checking out her internal workings. Yes, she did. She peeled the wrapper and took a satisfying bite of the chocolate.

But the front door opened and
Holley came running back into the Café. Tuesday quickly hid the candy bar in her lap. “Oh, Miss Tuesday. Duh. I don’t have my wallet. Can you lend me some money for a cab?”

Tuesday fished a twenty out of her bag and Holley took off.
Then a chill ran down her spine. Maybe they’d worked out the meaning of the M, but they hadn’t talked about the corpse in the teacup.