“That’s terrible!” said Serge. “I have to make this right!”
“Where’s Madam Bovary? We want to talk to her this very second!”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible.” Serge sat down at the table and grabbed his Eight Ball. “She’s been recalled to the Mother Ship.”
“Do we look like saps to you? A UFO?”
“No, Parliament Funkadelic,” said Serge. “Backup singer, great pipes . . . It’s almost supernatural how that band keeps cropping up in my work.”
Nigel pounded the séance table, sloshing fluid in the Eight Ball. “I want to see some hard cash immediately!”
“Tell you what,” said Serge. “I’ll give you a top-shelf session at no charge, and if you aren’t satisfied, money back, no questions asked.”
“Who exactly are you?”
“Madam Bovary’s mentor, the Calico Kid,” said Serge. “Ready for my cosmic report?”
Nigel and Günter gave each other hopeful looks.
“Okay,” said Nigel. “But no funny stuff!”
“You mean like this?” Serge held his hands toward the kerosene lamp, casting a shadow puppet on the wall of a tap-dancing penis.
Nigel elbowed Günter.
“I’m getting it,” whispered the Bavarian.
“Now then,” said Nigel. “We’re working a four-year-old missing-persons case, probably a murder. Owned a motel with her husband and—”
“That’s a trick question,” said Serge. “She’s probably still alive.”
Nigel recoiled. “How’d you know?”
“I’ll do you one better,” said Serge. “A murder that hasn’t even been reported yet.”
“Really?”
Serge gazed strenuously into his Eight Ball. “I see a body in pine needles on the floor of the Apalachicola National Forest. Drive precisely five-point-seven miles from the Sopchoppy spur into Tate’s Hell, and walk two hundred yards east-southeast until you come to a log with a big mushroom-looking fungus. Despite being discovered far from open water, the body will be near a deep-sea transmitter, with a jaw-spreader in the mouth and stomach contents including earthworms and possibly Mallomars. He has a history of working in the health care field, but never fulfilled early aspirations of founding a network of pick-your-own catfish farms in an attempt to woo the affections of the second-chair bassoon at the Met. That Eight Ball is shaky on whether that last part is prescience or coffee, so no money back there.”
Nigel and Günter just stared with open mouths.
“What? Cat got your tongue?”
“H-h-how do you know such specific details about an unreported homicide?”
“Let you in on a little secret if you promise not to put it on the air.” Serge leaned in like they were old pals. “It’s the art of making the general seem specific. Earthworms, sonar equipment, jaw-spreaders? I mean, come on, when haven’t you seen that?” He sat back and grinned.
“Uh, so . . .” Nigel muttered nervously. “You wouldn’t have a name for this murder victim, would you?”
African clicking sounds.
Chapter 17
A Few Minutes Later
Serge shook his Eight Ball and called to the bedroom. “Coast is clear!”
The psychic came out and took a seat at the table. “How’d you get rid of them?”
“Gave ’em what they wanted. I’m a student of character that way.” He set the black ball down and opened the new book he had purchased at the gift shop. “What do you think of this stuff?”
“Crystals?” She grabbed her own clear ball from the middle of the table. “I’m on the fence, but some people swear by them. There are hundreds of varieties with their own vibration levels and energy fields, giving each one specific gifts similar to patron saints: peace, love, creativity, decision making.”
Serge flipped pages. “I loved crystals when I was a kid, but I was looking at little bitty ones with the microscope I got for Christmas. In fact, I used it to examine the whole house. That microscope opened a whole new world for me! I was so excited: ‘Mom! Come quick! You have to see this stuff magnified! All kinds of crazy little creatures are running around!’ Then she’d take a peek and ask what she was looking at. ‘Mom, it’s what you made for dinner.’ That was the end of my microscope period.”
A cell phone rang. Trish checked the caller ID. “It’s the spiritual center’s referral line.” She got up to take it. “Hello? . . . No, I’m sorry, but I’m not taking any more customers today . . . No, I’m sure . . . Well, if it’s an emergency, there are plenty of others on the board who would be happy to see you . . . What? . . . Wait, your voice. Who is this? . . .”
“. . . Then I got a telescope,” said Serge, “and I could literally read a newspaper through our neighbor’s living room window, but I was still too young to process the bedroom scenes . . .”
Madam Bovary hung up and walked to the table.
“What is it?” asked Serge. “Another unsatisfied customer?”
She steadied herself as she sat back down.
“Good God, what’s wrong? You look terrible, and I’m not even psychic.”
“He found me again.”
“Who?”
“My ex. He just called from the spiritual center and is on his way over.”
“Then we only have a few minutes.” Serge noticed her shaking uncontrollably. “I’ve seen the previews to this movie before, so give me the quick version.”
“I’ve called the police, got restraining orders, moved ten times, legally changed my name, but it’s never enough. Once, he even found me through public records when I hooked up to the city water. Except this time I thought I was so far off the grid he wouldn’t stand a chance. But just now he said he saw me on TV when I did that cold-case segment.”
“TV!” said Serge. “That’s the opposite of off the grid.”
“I know, I know, but I’ve never been east of Colorado before. Who would have thought he’d see that show—”
“Has he ever hit you?”
“Hit me, choked me, thrown me down stairs, burned me.” She turned her arm over, and Serge cringed. “Swears he’s going to kill me.”
“If you don’t go back with him?”
“No, says he’ll do it someday anyway, just doesn’t feel like it yet. When we were out west, detectives came around one day asking about his missing first wife, and that’s when I finally split for Florida.”
“I’ve heard enough.” Serge ran to the window and checked out the curtains. “Shit, he’s here. Do you have a car?”
“It’s around back.”
“Hopefully he’ll think the Corvette’s yours. Lock yourself in the bathroom and don’t come out! Now! . . . Oh, and what’s his name? . . .”
Feet ran down the back hallway. Others came up the front steps. Serge ran to the kerosene lamp and turned down the flame. Then he quietly unlocked the front door. “What an episode.”
Outside: “I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!”
Quiet.
“What? No answer? Is that any way to treat the love of your life?”
The ex tried the knob. “You’ve got to be kidding. This is too easy.” He slowly opened the door and poked his head inside with a bad Jack Nicholson impersonation. “Heeeeeeeere’s Johnnnnnnny!”
The parlor was ultra-dark as he crept inside. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
More svelte steps across the Tibetan carpet. Trip. Thud. “What the hell?”
“Ow!” said Coleman. “I’m trying to sleep.”