The White Magic Five & Dime (A Tarot Mystery) (13 page)

“I’m not joking.”

“Neither am I. Hey, I’ve got family in neighborhoods like this. Believe me—plenty of these people are just as greedy and stupid as the rich people up the road. So why discriminate?”

“But it just doesn’t seem…”

The girl stopped herself. She wasn’t even sure if she’d been about to say “fair” or “right” or something else. But she knew the look she’d get.

She got it anyway.

Biddle cocked his head and gazed at her with eyes filled with pity.

“Sometimes I forget you’re not a midget,” he said.

“Oh, blow it out your ass.”

“My word!” Biddle gasped. “Wherever did you learn such nasty language?”

Then he smiled.

He knew.

“Look,” he said. “Are all rich people bad?”

“No.”

“Are all poor people good?”

“No.”

“So what makes them different?”

“Money.”

Biddle shook his head. “Luck. Dumb luck. Some people are born Kennedys, and some people are born here. It has nothing to do with who deserves it. Hell, nobody
deserves
anything. We don’t deserve a Russian bomb to fall on us, but it might any minute. So we may as well buy us some ice cream with the money we didn’t deserve to get today.”

“I don’t know, Biddle.”

“You don’t know if you want to go to Baskin-Robbins?”

“No. I don’t know if—”

There was a hard rapping sound. Metal tapped to glass three times.

The glass was the driver’s-side window.

The metal was the barrel of a gun. Pointed at Biddle.

The girl made a sound that wasn’t a word and wasn’t quite a scream. She wasn’t surprised, though. Not entirely. Some part of her had been expecting this for a long, long time.

How long could you do wrong and not be punished? Forever?

No. There had to be a
sometime
. There had to be a
finally
.

And here it was.

“Gimme your money!” someone said. He sounded young and angry. All the girl could see of him was his plain white T-shirt. It hung on him limply, like a toga. The body beneath it was lean.

Biddle pulled out his wallet, then rolled down the window and handed it over. He was moving very, very slowly.

“Men with guns either want respect or to kill you,” he’d told the girl once. “If they don’t kill you right off, just give them the respect and you’ll be fine.”

“Hers, too,” the boy or man outside the car demanded. He pressed the gun against the side of Biddle’s head. “Come on, come on!”

Slowly, calmly, Biddle held a hand out to the girl. Her hands were shaking so badly the bills she pulled from her pockets rustled and fluttered like wings. But she managed to give Biddle every dollar she had, and he brought it all to the window, and then it was gone.

The gun and the T-shirt disappeared, too. The girl could hear footsteps slapping on asphalt hard and fast.

“Don’t look back,” Biddle said.

He was staring straight ahead. After a long, silent moment, he started the car and put it in gear. He was still moving slowly, slowly, slowly. He drove away slowly, too.

The girl felt lightheaded. Her scalp and feet tingled. There was a low buzzing in her ears that sounded like the static between TV channels. Her hands were still shaking. A sob was welling up in her chest.

Biddle burst out laughing. He laughed and laughed and laughed. More than a block went by before he could even speak.

“Round and round she goes!” he said. “Where she stops, nobody knows!”

“It’s not funny, Biddle! It’s not funny!”

Biddle stopped laughing. But he couldn’t keep the grin off his face even as he looked over at the girl and saw that she was crying.

“Oh, don’t be upset, sweetie. Everything’s fine. The universe just has to mess with you every once in a while, that’s all. It’s over now. Before you know it, you’ll be eating rocky road on a sugar cone.”

“What are we gonna do—steal it? That asshole took all our money!”

And the girl began crying even harder, though it wasn’t the money she was crying about at all.

Biddle let her cry for a while. Then he pulled something small and stiff from his shirt pocket and put it on the girl’s lap.

“Now, now,” he said. “See there?”

The girl looked over at him, sniffling.

Biddle was still smiling.

“We’ve got another lottery ticket,” he said. His smile grew wider. “People like us always do.”

A blind lady swinging a sword big enough for Conan the Barbarian seems like a bad idea. But look: this Justice has the traditional sword and scales but no blindfold. (Her muumuu’s a lot spiffier than the usual toga, too, but that’s beside the point.) The implication: screw impartiality. If things are to work out as they should (and that’s what justice is really all about), the important thing is to look at the situation—and yourself—and truly
see
.

Miss Chance,
Infinite Roads to Knowing

“Don’t try
anything funny,” the old man told me.

Obviously he was an amateur. Professionals never tell you not to do anything funny. They let their guns do the talking. His was either saying “geez, it’s cold in here” or “earthquake!” because it was shaking like someone had slipped in a quarter for the Magic Fingers.

“Whatever the problem is, sir, I’m sure we can resolve it,” I said slowly, gently. I was standing very, very still. “
Without
a gun pointed at me.”

“I’ll believe that when I have my jewelry back!”

“Your jewelry?”

I started wondering if someone had let grandpa go off his meds.

It was dark in the White Magic Five & Dime, with only light from a streetlamp outside to see by. Yet I could tell the old guy wasn’t the jewelry type. He was dressed for a brisk shuffle around the YMCA, not a home invasion. Anything more than a plain gold wedding band would’ve been too froufrou for the likes of him.

“Yes, my jewelry,” he said. “Don’t pretend you don’t know where it is. There’s probably a trunk of the stuff around here someplace.”

“I’m sorry, but really—I haven’t run across any treasure chests. I only got here yesterday, though, so who knows? If you’d just put your gun away, we could start poking around together and maybe—”

“Don’t patronize me!”

He jabbed the gun out toward me. It was too murky to make out the model, but I assumed it was the kind that goes
boom
and makes holes in things when the trigger’s pulled—whether the pull was on purpose or not.

“Sir, please,” I said soothingly. “If your jewelry’s here, I swear I’ll find it for you. But I can’t even start looking if I don’t know what it is or who you are.”

“Just get Athena down here. She’ll tell you who I am.”

“Athena’s…not available.”

“Busy with another sucker, is she? Well, I don’t give a damn. Hey! Athena! Get your buns out here this instant or your little friend’s gonna have a bullet where her brains used to be!”

“Athena’s dead.”

The old man tilted an ear toward me. There was a hearing aid in it.

“What did you say?”

“Athena’s dead.”

“Ha. You must think I’m senile.”

Yes
.

“No,” I said. “I just think you’re a little behind on the news. Athena was murdered right here in the White Magic Five & Dime. They still don’t know who did it. I could find a newspaper article about it if you want to see proof.”

“Athena…dead?” the old man said. He lowered his gun and started swaying like a reedy little tree in the breeze. “Murdered?”

I took a hesitant step toward him.

“Can I help you sit down? There’s a couch right over here.”

He nodded, and I took him by the arm and guided him to the waiting area.

“I’m Alanis, by the way,” I said once I had him settled. “Athena’s daughter.”

The old man scowled. “She never mentioned any daughter.”

“We didn’t get along.”

He kept glaring at me a moment, then decided to believe me.

“Sorry about this,” he said, putting his gun on the coffee table before him. “It’s just a toy. They keep taking away my guns.”

I waited for him to go on.

“They” the aliens? “They” the men in white suits?

“My name’s Ken Meldon,” he said. “I was your mother’s fiancé.”

Mom and
the old man must have had a love-hate relationship, which was really the only kind to have with my mother (love optional).

Kenneth Meldon was one of the names on Detective Logan’s list. Mom’s “fiancé” had complained about her to the police.

A projector whirred. Light stabbed the darkness. Images appeared. The whole thing played out like a movie in my mind—the kind where you know the ending two minutes in.

Still, I said, “Oh my goodness! How did you meet?”

Once a
week for more than a year, Athena Passalis had donated two hours of her time to the Dry Creek Assisted Living Community. Which told me that the Dry Creek Assisted Living Community was run either by crooks or fools (but who was I to judge, being a little bit of both myself?).

Athena did free readings for residents and talked to them about tarot. Naturally, the conversations could get personal. She came to know which residents had family troubles, which had money troubles, which were lonely (which was all of them). Which, like Meldon, were widowers.

“She read my palm and she stole my heart,” he said.

The jewelry had belonged to his wife. Piece by piece, it went to Athena. At first they were given out of gratitude. Then they were shows of affection. Eventually, after Athena turned up both the Lovers and the Two of Cups during a reading, Meldon offered her an engagement ring.

(“The Two of Cups?” I asked.

“Yeah. That was the clincher,” Meldon said. And he carried on with his story without any further explanation.)

“I’ll have to think about it, Ken,” Athena had said when he proposed. “Can I keep the ring in the meantime? I like how it feels on my finger.”

“Of course!”

So Athena thought about it. And thought about it. And thought about it. And each time she came, she was wearing the ring…though it seemed thinner now, with a smaller setting. And hadn’t the band been silver? Meldon couldn’t be sure. His eyesight wasn’t what it used to be, and he’d never paid much attention to jewelry anyway.

“It all looks the same to me,” he said.

Then one day another resident, “an old man” (the old man called him), let Meldon in on a secret. He and the pretty lady with the blond hair and the weird cards? They were engaged—or would be soon, anyway. She was still thinking about it.

The next time Athena came to Dry Creek, Meldon demanded the jewelry back.

“What jewelry?” Athena said.

“The jewelry I gave you. My wife’s brooches and pins and…oh, you know what I’m talking about.
The jewelry
.”

“I
don’t
know what you’re talking about.”

“But you’re wearing Judith’s ring right there on your finger!”

“This? I’ve had it for years. I have to say, I’m very disappointed, Mr. Meldon. I thought we were friends, and then you go and accuse me of stealing. I don’t know if I should come here anymore.”

She didn’t. And when Meldon started telling people about his doomed affair with the fortunetelling gold-digger, no one believed him. Not even the old-old man who’d claimed she was engaged to
him
. He could barely remember who Athena was or who Meldon was or who he was himself.

“So you went to the police,” I said.

Meldon nodded. “They said they didn’t believe me either. Sons of bitches. They’ve never liked me ’cuz I stand up for my rights.”

A-ha.

The old guy’s story wouldn’t have any aliens after all.

“
They
keep taking away your guns,” I said.

“Yes! I used to have dozens—a real collection. But take one out of its case to show some punk who’s messing with your mailbox or a dumb bastard who thinks he can drive past your house playing his music so loud it rattles the windows, and
whoops
—there goes the Second Amendment! And then when my kids moved me into Dry Creek, they wanted the whole bunch. Well, I didn’t give ’em up without a fight.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” I said. “So—the police wouldn’t help you, and today you decided to get the jewelry back yourself.”

“That’s right. I heard some of the staff at the home whispering about her, and I thought they were laughing at me and it made so mad I walked right out and went to the sporting goods store and bought myself that pea shooter. They wouldn’t sell me the real thing. Said I was too agitated. Can you believe it? In America! In
Arizona
! Anyway, I got what I could and I came here. That was a lot of walking for an old man, let me tell you. But I just had to see Athena again. For…for…”

Meldon squeezed his eyes shut and searched for the word he wanted.

“Closure?” I suggested.

The old man’s eyes popped open.

“What the hell is that?” he said. “No, I just wanted your mother to do the right thing. Give me back my wife’s jewelry and admit she’d done me wrong.”

“Well, I’m afraid it’s too late for an apology from her, but we’ll see about the jewelry. If I come across it, I’ll let you know.”

“Oh, you will, huh? I should just crawl back into my little hole and wait for you to bring me what’s mine out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Exactly,” I said. “Come on. I’ll give you a lift. I have to pick up some burritos anyway.”

Meldon glowered at me.

“Or we could always just have the police drive you home,” I said. “I’m sure they’re looking for you by now.”

“All right, all right.”

The old man tried to push himself up off the couch. He didn’t make it.

I took his hands and pulled him to his feet.

A prime suspect he was not.

He yanked his hands away and started shuffling toward the door.

“Don’t you want that?” I asked.

I pointed at the air gun he’d left on the coffee table.

He didn’t even look back.

“They’d just take it from me,” he said.

Before I followed him out, I noticed two pairs of feet on the stairs at the back of the building. Clarice and Ceecee had been sitting on the steps, eavesdropping.

I wondered how long they’d been there.

I wondered if they’d seen the old man pointing a gun at me.

I wondered if they’d been hoping he’d pull the trigger.

It was
a short drive to the Dry Creek Assisted Living Community. On the way, I thought again of Detective Logan’s list. There was only one person on it left to track down.

“Does someone named Victor Castellanos live at Dry Creek?” I asked Meldon.

“No.”

Damn.

A block went by.

“There was a
Mrs
. Castellanos, though,” Meldon said. “She used to come to all of Athena’s talks, same as me.”

“‘There
was
a Mrs. Castellanos’? Past tense? Meaning she’s passed on?”

“You mean
died
? No. She moved out. Not long after Athena stopped coming around, too.”

“Do you know her first name?”

“What do I look like? A phone book?”

Another block went by.

“Lucia,” Meldon said.

I didn’t
pull into the Dry Creek parking lot. Instead, I stopped on the street just outside the entrance.

“It’d probably be best if you didn’t tell anyone I brought you back,” I said. “We don’t want to answer a lot of questions about what you were up to and why, right?”

“Yeah. I suppose so.”

“Do you need help getting out of the car?”

“No.”

Meldon tugged on the door handle a few times. The door didn’t open.

“Yes,” he said.

In the time it took me to walk around to his side of the car and open the door, he’d started crying.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking about the Two of Cups, of all things. Athena used to say it was our card.”

“I understand.”

Or I meant to, anyway. Later.

“Mad as I was at your mother, there was a crazy part of me that actually thought we might patch things up. Me and my wife used to fight all the time. Hurt each other in a million mean little ways. There was love there, though. I guess I hoped it might be the same with Athena. That makes me an old fool, doesn’t it?”

“No,” I said. “Not at all.”

Meldon wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands, then let me help him to his feet.

“All right, all right, I’m good now,” he said, steadying himself with the door.

I let go.

He gazed off at the Dry Creek Assisted Living Community—a long white building with only one story. It looked nice enough. To me, at least. Meldon seemed in no hurry to get back.

“You say your mother was
murdered
?” he said.

“That’s right. They still haven’t caught the killer.”

The old man gave his head a weary shake.

“Maybe she had another fiancé.”

He started walking away. He was moving slowly, even by his standards. I was worried he might trip and fall in the parking lot, so I stayed and watched him until he’d gone inside.

I had to wait a long, long time.

Ceecee didn’t
stick around for her carne asada. When I got back to Mom’s place, Clarice’s gothy friend had gone.

“It’s a school night. She couldn’t hang out here forever,” Clarice said with a shrug. She took a bite of her vegetarian burrito. “So who was that banging on the door?”

“You didn’t hear me talking to Mr. Meldon?”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

I took a bite of my own burrito. It was cold.

“So what did Mr. What’s-His-Name want?” Clarice asked.

“He was selling Girl Scout cookies. Hey, you know what? I’ve been wondering. I was going through my mother’s clothes—”

“I noticed.” Clarice looked pointedly at the turtleneck and chinos I was wearing.

“—and I see she was down to a size 2,” I went on. “My mom was
never
a 2. How’d she do it?”

“Oh, she went on some crazy diet about four months ago. Yogurt and cheese and fruit and nuts. I told her she looked fine already—she always did—but of course what I said didn’t matter. After a while, she got so skinny even I was saying, ‘Jesus, Athena. Get yourself a Big Mac.’”