The Fool's Run

loomed over me. “I don’t think so. We have excellent sources of information. You were recommended by Jack Clark at Clark Foods. He gave you high marks for solving his problem, whatever it was.”
    If she’d talked to Jack, there was one more thing she’d know, but hadn’t asked about. It was coming.
    “There’s one more thing,” she said.
    “I thought there might be.”
    “A couple of people said you do the tarot. That makes us a little nervous.”
    “It shouldn’t. You don’t know how I use it.”
    “The job we have is critical. We don’t want it done based on the stars, or whatever.”
    “I’m probably less superstitious than you are,” I said. I stood up and it was too close for comfort; she backed off. “I use the tarot my own way. You wouldn’t understand it, and I’m not inclined to explain. If you don’t like it, you can hike back over the levee.” I pulled the easel apart and laid the uprights in the boat.
    “We just don’t want it to get in the way,” she said.
    “Is that a royal We? Or do We have an employer?”
    “You’ll get a name when you agree to work with us. That’s what this is for.” She unfolded the envelope, and showed me the money. She was a big woman, her eyes level with my chin, and the sun and the light breeze turned her blond hair into a halo. Behind her, on the water, a tow pushed a string of rust-colored barges upstream. A bare-chested deckhand in grimy jeans sat on the lead barge and watched us. “We will give you five thousand dollars to ride in to Chicago with me this afternoon. I’ve got a plane waiting at the airport. We’ll buy you a return ticket.”
    “Convincer money,” I said.
    She shrugged. “Free money, Mr. Kidd. All cash, no record, no taxes.”
    “I declare all my income, Miss . . .”
    “Smith.”
    “Right.” If her name was Smith, I’d eat my brushes. “How much for the main job?”
    “You’ll have to talk to my employer about that. If you take it, you won’t have to worry about financing a place in New Orleans. You’ll be able to buy it outright.”
    She was cool, superior, and slightly snotty. A male friend, if she had time for one, would have a hard body, a great tan, a gold chain, a two-seater Mercedes-Benz, and no sense of humor. A commoner had little chance of peeling off her shorts. Should it happen, she’d do it purely for the experience, like shopping at Kmart or sniffing glue.
    She knew what I was thinking, of course. And she knew she was reaching me, with her information, money, and long athletic legs. All management tools, properly deployed, well under control. It was mildly irritating.
    Letting it percolate for a moment, I looked down at the battered, grass-green fiberglass hull of my boat, the brilliant white D’Arches paper, the black handles of the watercolor brushes. It was all I really wanted to do; I didn’t want to fool with some rich guy’s computers. But a bigger boat would be nice, and money would buy more time to paint. And New Orleans is a pleasurable place.
    “It sounds illegal,” I said after a while.
    “I don’t know what you did for Jack Clark,” she said, “but I got the impression that the police wouldn’t be happy about it. When I talked to him, he was grinning like the cat that ate the canary.”
    “I could call Jack and ask who your boss is,” I said.
    “He wouldn’t tell you,” she said promptly.
    “Five thousand?” I’d been rubbing my hands with an old T-shirt, now a paint cloth. She handed me the envelope, absolutely sure of herself.
    “In twenties and fifties,” she said. “See you at the airport in an hour?”
    “Make it an hour and a half,” I said, giving up. I tucked the money into my hip pocket. “I’ve got to pull the boat out of the water, and make arrangements for the cat . . . take a shower.”
    She looked at her watch and nodded. She started to walk away, then changed her mind and turned back to the ruined painting.
    “I went to an opening a few weeks ago,” she said. “Oil paintings, though, not watercolors. They had holes cut in the middle of them. Like that one. My friend and I spoke to the artist. He said the holes represented his contempt for the conventional form that has trapped painting for so long. He said the American Indian, for instance, often painted on irregularly shaped war shields. . . .”
    It was the kind of talk that gives me headaches.
    “Miss, ah, Smith?” I said when she slowed for a breath.
    “Yes?”
    “If we have to fly