The Empress File

don’t know why. Tell them that Harold had some information about this political scandal that’s going on. That’ll put a lot of pressure on Dessusdelit.”
    “All right. I can do that,” Marvel said. Her fingers were dug an inch deep into the tough fabric of the couch arm.
    “I’ll go with her,” John said. “What are you doing?”
    “We’re getting ready to leave. We’re aboutdone, but I’ll tell you what. You better get back here quick if Brooking Davis and Reverend Dodge are going to elect you to the council. Hill and Ballem will most likely quit this afternoon.”
    “What’d you do to them?” she asked.
    “Squeezed them,” I said.
    “With Harold and Sherrie?” she asked.
    “Look,” I said, “I didn’t want anybody to get hurt, but some people got hurt anyway. We’re using Harold as a little extra encouragement for Hill to leave, above and beyond the computer material. That’s all.”
    She was no longer sure of me, and her face showed it.
    “If you manipulated Harold…”
    “You know what happened to Harold,” I said harshly, “because you sent him. We aren’t playing fuckin’ Ping-Pong here. We’re ruining some people’s lives, and they are hard people. They’ll fight back.”
    “If I’d known…”
    “Nobody can know,” I said. I looked at John. “You keep her close. Hill, Ballem, and the others, St. Thomas, are in a pressure cooker. Hill’s a psycho. I can’t predict what he’ll do.”
    I stopped at a supermarket on the edge of town and stocked up with sandwich meat, bread, soup, pasta, cereal, and milk for the run upriver. WhenI got back to the boat, LuEllen was waiting. So was Dessusdelit.
    “M R . K IDD ,” she said as I stepped aboard.
    “Miz Dessusdelit. What can I do for you?”
    “You know about our troubles?”
    “Yes, after our talk… and I was at the meeting.…”
    “Our animal control officer, Duane Hill—”
    “I know him.”
    “He believes you have something to do with it, that I’ve been a fool with these tarot readings, with the crystal ball.”
    She sounded like a magnolia, her voice slow and dreamy, something out of a Tennessee Williams play, like Blanche.… And she was pleading.
    “That’s bullshit, if you’ll pardon the expression. You know about my history with Hill?”
    “I believe there was some kind of confrontation on the river.”
    “It goes farther back than that. He attacked me, for no reason at all, outside the Holiday Inn. He was drunk. Actually he called LuEllen a rather unacceptable four-letter word, which I won’t repeat, and I was forced to respond. There was a fight, and he lost. Then Mr. Bell intervened and sent him on his way. Ever since then he has been watching me, and yesterday he tried to run us down with a speedboat andboard our yacht. I believe he was carrying a gun. Personally, Miz Dessusdelit, I think he’s crazy.”
    “He says you’re in league with a local Communist, a Negro woman—”
    “Miz Dessusdelit, I don’t know what to say, other than the man needs treatment. I don’t know anybody in this town, other than you and a few people I’ve encountered casually. And frankly Hill frightens me. He’s crazy. He’s so crazy that LuEllen and I are leaving. Because of him.”
    She thought it over and then said, “I don’t know what to do.”
    “I wish I could help you, but we’ve got to go.”
    She thought for a moment more, then sighed and said, “Once more with the cards?”
    We weren’t set up to cold-deck her. I don’t even know what cards we would have planted. As far as I was concerned, she was in a box, and there was no way out. But LuEllen, standing behind me, poked me in the spine, and I nodded at Dessusdelit.
    “All right.”
    In the cabin I got the deck from the Polish box, unwrapped it from its silk binding, and handed it to her.
    “I still don’t know how far to trust you, Mr.Kidd,” she said, still with the dreamy expression.
    “Then don’t trust me,” I said harshly. “You know that tarot spreads are artificial constructs. So let’s skip the spread. Pull out four cards and lay them down: past, present, future, and final outcome. You can do your own interpretation if you like. If you have questions, I’ll try to answer them.”
    A spark showed in her eyes as she stared across the table at me. “Yes,” she said. She shuffled the deck seven times, then spread it across the table. Her hand hovered for a moment and pulled a card.
    “Past,” she said, and flipped it