The Empress File

CHAPTER 9

LuEllen rousted me out of bed at ten o'clock. She doesn't like getting up early any more than I do and was grumpy about it.

"Visitor coming," she said shortly. She was staring at a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios like Somoza reviewing the Sandinistas. "Get your ass in gear."

I try to stay away from breakfast as much as possible. Instead of eating, I brought up the computer, called Bobby, and told him that we'd failed to find the books. I gave him the names of the banks Ballem had listed in his will and suggested a wide-gauge search of credit company files for more background. And I mentioned the modem hooked into Ballem's computer.

Possible Ballem on-line w/books somewhere.

Will check.

How?

Phone analysis.

Fast?

Don't know. Toggle auto-answer 2nite, I'll message progress.

OK.

Before Bobby got into data bases, he was a major phone phreak. Still is, I guess; he's made the combination of the two into an art form. I wasn't sure what he was planning-not the details, anyway-but I suspected he'd look at the pattern of Ballem's office phone calls and try to spot possible on-line hookups. Then, in the evening, he would check those numbers for a computer carrier tone.

When I got off-line, I locked the big computer, unplugged it, and toted it back to the bedroom. The portable I tucked away in a cupboard. Computers were not part of our image.

While LuEllen set up the main cabin for Dessusdelit's visit, I cleaned up and got back into the shorts and Knicks T-shirt.

"Are you ready?" I asked LuEllen when I got out of the bathroom.

"Yeah, just about. You better get up above."

I climbed on top of the cabin with a bucket of water and a sketch pad and did a few quick studies of the waterfront. I don't get too much involved with detail, going instead for the pattern and emotional impact of the color. The waterfront had some nice effects. The river water formed a long olive band across the bottom of a composition, with the longer darker band of the levee above that, then suddenly the vibration of sunlight on orange brick- Never mind.

Dessusdelit showed up a few minutes before noon, stepping carefully down the levee steps. She was wearing a snappy black-and-white striped dress that looked both summery and businesslike at the same time and low heels.

"Mr. Kidd," Dessusdelit said as she came out on the dock.

" 'Lo," I called. "Come aboard." I stamped twice on the deck, and LuEllen popped out a moment later, saw Dessusdelit, and waved. LuEllen was wearing a bleached-out Mexican peasant top with an oatmeal-colored skirt and leather sandals, with Indian turquoise-and-silver earrings. Sartorially it was a standoff.

"I've made a light lunch, a salad, and some white wine," she said. "You come on, too, Kidd. You've been up there for hours. You'll burn your brain out."

Dessusdelit disappeared into the cabin, and I took a last look at the sketches, washed my brushes, and followed her down.

"Need a shower," I said. I grabbed the bottle of white wine as I went by the table. "Back in a minute."

I shut myself in the head, poured a couple of swallows of wine down the sink, sloshed some more around in my mouth, and took the shower, spending some time with it. When I got back, LuEllen and Dessusdelit were halfway through their salad.

"LuEllen has been telling me that you're an expert on the tarot, Mr. Kidd," Dessusdelit chirped brightly. She reminded me of a sparrow with fangs.

"I use the tarot, but I don't believe in any mystical or magical interpretations," I said. "I use it in a purely scientific way."

LuEllen snorted. "He says that because whenever he does one of his scientific spreads, he can't figure it out. When he does what he calls a magic spread, it usually reads right."

"That's interesting," Dessusdelit said, peering at me. "I didn't think such things as the tarot would work if the person wasn't sincere in using them."

"Oh, Kidd's sincere about using them," LuEllen said before I could answer. "He's being insincere when he says he doesn't believe. He had this scientific training in college, and the implications of belief. frighten him."

"Is that so, Mr. Kidd?"

"I leave the pop psychology to LuEllen, Miz Dessusdelit." I poured myself another white wine. "This is my idea of a great lunch," I said jokingly, saluting her with the glass.

A vague look of disapproval crossed Dessusdelit's face, but she was southern, and in the South, where men drink, nothing is said.

After the lunch LuEllen cleared the table and sat Dessusdelit with her back to the bow windows. I retreated to an easy chair at the rear of the cabin while LuEllen brought out her crystal ball. It was real crystal, antique and six inches in diameter, bought at a store in Minneapolis. One day after we'd been out on the river, learning about the houseboat, she left it on the table while she went to shower. When she came back, I was juggling the ball, a broken Ambassadeur 5600 bait-casting reel, and a conch shell. She'd gone visibly pale and snatched the ball out of the air, causing me to drop the reel.

"You know how much this fuckin' thing cost me?" she hollered. I hadn't messed with the ball since.

"It's very old," she said now, in a dark, hushed voice, unwrapping the ball's velvet sleeve and passing it to Dessusdelit. "There are rumors of Gypsy blood in my family, way back, and this ball supposedly came from them."

"It's so heavy," Dessusdelit said, marveling at the size and weight. The ball was a perfect sphere, but the interior was a complicated geological dance of inclusions and tiny fractures. A rainbow of colors flickered inside, depending on how the light hit it.

"Just sit and hold it," LuEllen said.

"Lots of colors in there," Dessusdelit said, peering into it.

"Let your mind go, but try to track the color," LuEllen said. "Look for greens for opportunity, red for danger or conflict. Those were my grandma's interpretations."

"OK," said Dessusdelit, fascinated.

"I think yellow might have something to do with prosperity, blue with peace; black, I think, is death. Orange is warm; I think that may mean excitement in the good sense or pleasure. I saw a lot of orange in the ball before we started down the river. This whole trip is kind of new for me, kind of exciting."

"Wonderful," Dessusdelit said. She was rolling the ball in her hands. "I don't see too much just now. Maybe if I were closer to the window and the light."

"No, no, stay where you are," LuEllen said. "I put the good chair there for a purpose. You should be comfortable. Don't worry, if you have the ability to see things, the colors will come."

That's when she gave the laser a goose with a foot pedal we'd wedged under the rug. The laser, a little two-hundred-watt deal with an output that was no bigger in diameter than a filament of spider web, was mounted in the bedroom. I'd fixed it to do a skittering scan across the area of the chair, a tiny dot of light moving so fast it was virtually invisible. Except when it hit the ball. When it hit the ball, the crystal fluoresced, and the veil lit up with some of the pulsing reaction of the northern lights. I knew when the laser hit because Dessusdelit suddenly caught her breath.

"It. did something," she said.

"I thought it might," LuEllen said. "I thought you had the power when I saw you in the restaurant. Were you able to pick out any particular colors?"

"Well." Dessusdelit was rolling the ball in her hands. "There was green."

"Opportunity, that's wonderful. Maybe it means the opportunity to explore your psychic self," LuEllen gushed.

"Is that what it usually means?" Dessusdelit asked, looking up. She was hooked.

"It can mean any kind of opportunity – often money, frankly – but in this case. unless you're expecting some money?"

"No, no, nothing special. In fact, there have been some problems in town."

"Then it may simply be the opportunity to explore yourself," LuEllen said, brushing away the hint at the burglaries. She touched the laser again.

"There it is," Dessusdelit said, brought back to the ball. "There's a lot of red, and my God. I can feel the power. And I thought I saw."

"Yes?" LuEllen prompted.

"My mother's face. She's been gone now for ten years. Is this possible?"

"Anything's possible if you have the power and the right crystal," LuEllen said.

I broke in. "This is not my style, I'm afraid. I'll leave you alone. I'll be on top."

"I think that would be best," LuEllen said, her voice now dreamier than ever. "I think Chenille and I have some work to do. Red, you say? Red sometimes means danger."

They were at it for an hour. I was deep into the painting again, sucking on a Dos Equis and cursing the asshole who invented Hooker's green, when the door popped open. LuEllen stuck her head out and called, "Chenille's got a favor to ask. She wonders if you could do a quick spread."

"Oh, boy," I said. I didn't want to read for her without notice. I wanted the deck ready, so it'd read my way. "That would be. my head's just not right for it."

"That's all right," Dessusdelit said from inside the cabin, but I could hear the disappointment in her voice.

"How about if we cut the deck just for a taste?" I asked.

"Would that work?"

"Sure, just for a taste," I said.

I dropped down into the cabin, got the Polish box, took the silk wrapping off the deck, and shuffled. Seven times. Nothing mystic in that; the good gray New York Times Tuesday science pages carried an article that said a good seven shuffle gives you the best approximation of a random distribution. When the shuffling was dead, I spread the deck across the table and looked at Dessusdelit.

"Do you know about the tarot?" I asked before she picked a card.

"Just a bit," she said diffidently.

"I like to warn people that the Death card doesn't mean death. It means change, often for the good. I don't want somebody to pull the Death card out of the deck, misinterpret it, and drop over dead of a heart attack."

"I know about Death," she said. She drew a card, held it for a moment, facedown, then flipped it over.

The Empress. I sat back, a little startled. "Have you actually done tarot readings before?" I asked.

"Yes, a few times."

"What card did you choose to represent yourself? Was it the Empress?"

"No, no. Usually the Queen of Cups."

"Which is a minor arcana analog of the Empress," I said. I tapped the Empress with my index finger. "Perhaps you underrate yourself. In any case, the Empress would suggest success, fulfillment in an enterprise you're involved with. Something you rule or manage. But that's just a taste."

"Just a taste," she said.

"Sure. I have to warn you, I really don't believe in this stuff," I said. And if I did, I wouldn't have picked her for the Empress or even the Queen of Cups. I pushed the cards together and rewrapped them in the silk.

"Well, I thank you," Dessusdelit said. She found her purse, and we went back out into the sunshine, with LuEllen trailing behind.

"If you're really interested." I said.

"I am," she said promptly.

"I read best in the morning. Frankly, I like to. have my beer, you know, and alcohol seems to interfere with the necessary connections."

"I thought you didn't believe in the magical interpretations," she said in amusement.

"Well." I shrugged. "You got me, I guess."

"Come down tomorrow," LuEllen said. "About ten o'clock. Kidd can do a reading, and we can do the ball again. And then maybe you can tell me where the best shopping is."

"I'll be happy to," Dessusdelit said. She looked at me again. "The Empress."

"Just a taste," I said.

LuEllen and I watched her step off the end of the dock and start up the levee.

"How'd you do that?" LuEllen asked, shading her eyes as she watched Dessusdelit disappear over the top of the wall. "Produce the Empress card?"

"I didn't," I said.

Later, while I put the computer back up, LuEllen went out to a grocery store and ran into Lucius Bell in the fresh produce department. He was the councilman who owned my painting.

"He wants us to come over tonight," LuEllen said as she unloaded her bags into the refrigerator. "After dinner. For bourbon and branch, whatever that is."

"Water," I said.

"Whatever." She closed the refrigerator door and stretched like a cat, as she tends to do when she's feeling sexy. "That boy could develop a serious case of the hots for me."

"And would it be reciprocated?"

"Could be," she said, grinning. "He has the nicest eyes, good shoulders."

"Probably wears nylons and lipstick when there's nobody around. Does strange things with carp."

"Not my Lucius," she said in a southern simper.

"Why, God?" I asked, appealing to the ceiling. "Why women? Wasn't the fuckin' bubonic plague enough? Wasn't the H-bomb-"

We were kidding. On the way over to Bell's, though, I noticed she was wearing her Obsession.

I'd done Sunrise, Josie Harry Bar Light 719.5 five years before, in about twenty minutes, sitting awkwardly on a sandbar a few feet from a rented pontoon boat. I've done a lot of traveling on the river over the years, though never before in the style of the Fanny. It had always been in little fourteen-foot bass boats and rented pontoons and even canoes.

Josie Harry was one of the good ones. I spotted it, hung on a white wall between two built-in book cabinets, as soon as I walked into Bell's dining room.

"Wonderful," I said. "Who did the framing for you? The gallery?"

"No, I had it done here in town," he said.

"You found a good framer," I said. "It looks fine."

I went over it inch by inch. After a minute or two LuEllen and Bell wandered back to the sitting room, chatting. They liked each other, all right, but I didn't expect any trouble. LuEllen had a penchant for variety but only when her security wasn't at stake. She would never let sex step on that.

"Satisfied? That I haven't done anything embarrassing to it?" Bell asked when I finally joined them. He did have an engaging way about him, not diminished by the fact that he owned one of my paintings and was taking good care of it.

"I'm more than satisfied; I'm delighted," I said, looking back at the painting. "It's got a good spot, good light, protection. That's what it's made for."

"I had an offer for it. An old lawyer guy here in town. Five hundred over what I paid."

"Tell him to get his own," I said.

He nodded. "I did, and he said he would. Don't know if he has, but he gets down to N'Orleans often enough."

So we sat and talked, passing pleasantries about the river until I mentioned the bridge. He suddenly got serious.

"Those peckerwoods – pardon the language, LuEllen, but I get mad thinking about it – up in the legislatures, they won't help us. See, the people across the river say, 'Hell, if we build a bridge into Longstreet, the people on our side will just go over there to spend their paychecks.' The people on this side say, 'Why should we pay the whole cost of a bridge?' So they dicker back and forth, and nothing gets done. It's killing me, is what it's doing."

"How's that?" LuEllen asked. She was picking up some of the southern rhythm of his speech.

"I'm a farmer. Most of my land is over there on the other side. Before the bridge got knocked down, I'd haul my beans to the elevators over here and ship it downriver. When the bridge went, we had to haul the beans out by road, and it's forty miles down to the nearest elevator on the other side. That's an eighty-mile round trip for my trucks, what used to be a five-mile round trip. The cost of gas, the wear and tear. That's why I got myself elected to the city council. They weren't getting anywhere with the bridge – crooked sons of guns probably looking for a cut somewhere. So I got myself elected, thinking I could push it harder. But shoot, I'm not getting anywhere either," he said. He finished his bourbon in a single gulp and got up to pour himself another.

"So what happens if you don't get a bridge? I mean, to you personally?" LuEllen asked.

He shrugged. "It used to be that in a good year I made a lot of money. In an average year I'd make a little, and in a bad year I'd find some way to break even. Now, in a good year I make a little, and in an average year I maybe break even, and maybe not. In a bad year I lose my shirt. I can't go on farming like that. Not for long. I've had a run of good years here, and they've had some drought problems up North, and that's helped the markets. But a bad year is always just around the corner, and they tend to come in groups."

"You couldn't build a barge landing on the other side?" I asked.

"Naw, not for miles, not the way the levees run. Nothin' but swamp behind them, no roads. Be more expensive than truckin' it out."

He was still brooding about it when we left.

"Nice guy," LuEllen said. "With major problems."

"But it's a help," I said. "We maybe couldn't pull this off without the bridge problem."

"Doesn't make me feel any better about it," she said as she got in the car.

After a moment of silence I said, "Well, you like him."

"Yeah." And after another moment of silence she asked, "Does that bother you?"

"A little bit."

"It never bothered you before," she said.

"That was before."

More silence, then: "Kidd, you're making me nervous. I mean, like really nervous."