The Empress File

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 involvedwith 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 ofwhite 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, MizDessusdelit.” 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.
    A FTER 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