“That so?” I took a rubber band from the pocket of my black jeans and pulled my hair back. There was barely enough to make the stubbiest of tails, but I was getting there. I’d pierced my other ear to go with it. Small gold hoops and a hokey billowing black shirt completed the look. There weren’t many red-haired gypsies out there, in real life or the movies, but I gave it my best shot. “What’s Lilly say about you listening to gossip?”
“My mom is the one who told me.” The lip was out in full force, pouting and sullen.
Lilly was one to know and tell every little thing going on at the carnival. Gossip with a side of grocery-bought cheesecake. Overly sweet with a rabidly red strawberry topping, you would eat it anyway to please Lilly. Gossip being her only vice, she was a nice woman, and she loved Abby. Took care of Abby, would never let anyone hurt her. Never. Good intentions only went so far in this world. It was the actions behind them that mattered. Yeah, a nice lady. The nicest. She would’ve been a mother figure to me if I’d let her. I wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
I sat down opposite Abby and fell into a now old and established habit. I reached for the cards. The thin silk gloves slid with comforting grace over the surface of the slick cardboard. Shuffling them from hand to hand with a skill more suited to a blackjack dealer than a psychic, I exhaled, then shrugged. “Nothing is forever, Amazing. You’re old enough to know that.” It was a bitch of a thing to say, whether it was true or not, and I didn’t have any excuse for having said it. I dropped the cards back onto the table and with a feeling of acid self-disgust started to apologize, “Ah, hell, I’m s—”
I didn’t get any further than that before small bony fingers cut me off with a sharply painful pinch to my forearm. Luckily, I was wearing long sleeves, and she hadn’t touched bare flesh, or I’d have had more than a pinch to deal with. Ignoring my yelp and glare, she ordered angrily, “You’re being mean. Stop being mean.”
I rubbed the abused flesh of my arm through the cloth. “Okay, okay. I was saying I was sorry before you tried to rip off a piece of me as a souvenir. Jesus.”
She leaned back in the chair with thin arms folded tightly across her nonexistent chest. “You know what you are, Jackson Lee? An asshole,” she said triumphantly, so obviously proud of her daring that I had to smother a grin. “A big, flaming a-hole. Just ask anybody.”
“Is that so?” I said with careful gravity. “Makes me wonder why you’re hanging out here, then, Miss Amazing. By the way …” I checked my watch. “It’s time for your first show. You better get out of here, or there won’t be any cheesecake for you tonight.” As far as I could tell, that was the worst punishment Abby had faced in her short life, and that included the time she’d turned the poodle trainer’s entire curly pack loose. The vicious little ankle biters had spent hours terrorizing the entire carnival until they’d been cornered after they took the Dog Boy down. Ten tiny sets of furry hips humping against both of his legs, Artie had never quite been the same. For that escapade, Abby had been sent to bed an hour early. With a big piece of cheesecake.
Shaking my head, I repeated, “Go on, Amazing. Be nice to your parents; they’re damn nice to you.”
She slid out of the chair and rocked back and forth on her heels. “Will you …” Chewing her lip, she scowled and tried again. “Will you write me?”
It would’ve been easier to lie, kinder, too, like I had done to that kid Charlie at Cane Lake, but I didn’t. My entire childhood had been a house of cards built of lies. I was tired of it. I wasn’t going to build my own house of the same. “I don’t know.” The flash of utter hurt in her eyes was a harsh kick, to the head, to the stomach, to the balls. It didn’t matter. It was still painful as hell. “I’ll try,” I amended. “I can’t make promises, though, Amazing. I’m …” I was what? An outsider deep down? Someone better off alone? A psychological study that would have a grad student pissing his pants in joy? A screwed-up son of a bitch who already had sisters, one dead and one lost, and didn’t want to take that risk again? I didn’t have a clue. But I did know I couldn’t make promises I didn’t have the inner resources to keep. “I’m not much of a letter writer,” I finished with a faint curl of my lips. “But I’ll give it my best shot, Amazing. For you.” She wasn’t Charlie, not old enough to know that sometimes things don’t work out. After a few months, she would forget me, anyway, mostly. She’d find a boyfriend or discover some new hobby besides a messed-up psychic. She would pass the way of all sisters, one way or the other. I could write a letter or two until then. It wouldn’t kill me.
“You’d better. You’d better write.” She moved toward the tent flap and slipped through, trailing hair and unicorn tail behind her. A split second later, she stuck her head back in and said, “Oh, I almost forgot. I hate you.” And then she was gone.
I returned to the cards. They didn’t talk to me; they never would. I wished the same could be said about other things. “So long, Amazing,” I murmured, the comforting flow of a solitaire game dealt out before me. “I’m sorry, but I have plans.” I did, too. Plans for a house that didn’t smell of booze and cabbage. Plans for money and independence. Plans for a life where I could walk down the street and not automatically be labeled white trash. Plans where I was somebody. A big fish in a small pond, it didn’t matter. I would be somebody. I would be Jackson Lee, the All Seeing Eye.
Not the redheaded bastard from down Rooster Pike way. Not the boy with thrift-store clothes and the homegrown haircut. Not the kid with the occasional black eye and the smart mouth. No, I was done being that kid. I was going to change that for good. I had plans, all right.
I never thought that Abby did, too.
4
There’s a sucker born every minute.
Someone really on top of their shit had said that once. Some said it was the great con artist of his or any time, P. T. Barnum. Others said it was one of his competitors who coined the phrase. Not that it mattered. What mattered was the message, the inner truth of the words. There’s a sucker born every minute. It was staggering in its simplicity, heart-stopping in its beauty. It was also a personal mantra, my nightly prayer. Picture it, if you will. Me, on my knees beside my bed, hands clasped earnestly as I asked for nothing more than people as dumb as a box of hair to chase me down the street and throw money at me. More angelic a picture you couldn’t find.
Of course, it was a nice image but not strictly true. I didn’t have to beg. Sliding green out of sweaty palms came naturally to me, an instinct so strong I probably popped out of the womb with it. Lifted the doctor’s wallet before he had the chance to slap my ass. Outright stealing and unabashed conning were long behind me, though. The tricks I’d picked up in a state-sponsored home for the tragically unadoptable and the permanently screwed had gotten me through some hard times, but I’d moved on to other things. That long-gone carnival had taught me a better way, a safer way.
I was the real deal now. I genuinely earned the money I made. If people chose to pay me more money than they had, hey, whose fault was that? If they used what I gave them as an uncertain prop to a shaky life, that wasn’t my lookout. My product was solid for what it was—I never lied to a client. If they took it to be something else, took me to be something more than I was, all I could do was lean back and rake it in. I never claimed to be a saint. What you did with what I gave you wasn’t my concern.
What was my concern was an absent secretary. Abigail, who had never given up on me and had written enough letters to fill a steamer trunk, was off visiting her family. It was a different carnival but in the end just the same. It had come to roost for a while in a podunk town about an hour south of Atlanta, and she’d jumped at the chance to see her parents. Sticky cotton-candy fun for her, but for me it was a different story. No secretary meant calls would be missed and walk-ins turned away. That, in turn, meant a steady stream of twenties and fifties flapping their wings elsewhere. It wasn’t a mental image to put me in a good mood as I opened the office. Neither were the horns, curling mustache, and pitchfork so
me Bible-thumping delinquent had drawn in marker on the glass over my poster. Displayed prominently in the picture window, my face stared back at me with uncannily penetrating eyes. A brown so dark they appeared black, they delivered a gaze both brooding and knowing. Impressive, and it should be. It took me a good hour in the mirror to get that look down pat.
The rest had been easier. Dark red hair was pulled back tightly into a two-inch ponytail, and my work wardrobe was exclusively black. I’d decided a goatee might be pushing the envelope and went clean-shaven, but I still looked like every Hollywood image of what I was. On that note, I tilted my head and reconsidered as my hand hovered to rub the marker lines away. Who was I to say that the devil wasn’t a good look for me?
It is all in the advertising.
Snorting at a conceit that was pretty big even for me, I went ahead and wiped the glass clean with my glove … including the “Repent” sign above my head. I had some older clients. It wouldn’t do to scare them into heart palpitations on the sidewalk. Unlocking the front door to the office, I walked in with a shadow following at my knee and dumped the mail on Abigail’s desk. Small and dainty, it was all whites, golds, and ornate curlicues … much like Abby herself. Twelve years, and she hadn’t changed all that much, the same Amazing Unicorn Girl. The rubes hadn’t minded her glaringly fake special effects then, and their equivalent still doted on her today. There hadn’t been many kids cuter than Abby had been, and there weren’t any women more incandescent.
As for my truth, a runaway from the state who could see what lurked behind the mundane, I’d been different from Abby. Not as cute, for one. As for the seeing, it’s sad but true that most people have done things they regret. Add to that people who have done things, hideous things, that they don’t regret, and it was a lot for a homeless kid to know, to see. That’s why I’d gotten the gloves, wore long sleeves. It was why I’d only conned them at the carnival, but I’d known that if I wanted to move up one day, that would have to change.
When I left the carnival, I sucked it up. I used my ability; I didn’t fake it. I started when the people at Social Services weren’t as cooperative as they could’ve been when I was searching for Glory. I learned to handle the uncomfortable nature of it. I broke out the goods and went to work. It hadn’t helped me find Glory, but it had helped me start the business. It wasn’t wine and roses, but it was beer and barbecue. That had been a start. It had only snowballed from there.
After opening one of the envelopes from the mail, I fanned out fifteen twenties and grinned darkly at a whole new classification of lunch money. I stuffed the money back in and dropped the envelope into Abby’s in-box to be sorted later for a reading. I might charge an arm and a leg, but I did deliver. Moving back to my separate office, I propped open the door with a plaster cast of a head and got ready to greet the day. I had several appointments before noon, although I’d kept the next few days light until Abby was due back. I could’ve taken a short vacation, too, but a raging Atlanta summer left little to do but sizzle on the asphalt. Even sitting on my dock at home would be like enduring a sweat lodge. The breeze off the river was nonexistent, and the mosquitoes were carrying off water-skiers. The Ninth Circle of Hell had nothing on Atlanta in August.
Even with the air conditioner going full blast, it was still overly warm in the office. I pulled at my black fake-silk long-sleeved pullover shirt. No billowing sleeves—that much into the look I was not, and real silk showed Atlanta sweat stains if you merely looked out the window. It was my costume of choice—it shouted psychic or movie-style spy/assassin, but lightweight as it was, I didn’t think it was going to survive, air conditioner or no. My palms should’ve sweated under gloves of real silk, better fit, but they were long used to being covered. They stayed cool. Protected. I’d settled in behind my desk, a much more massive affair than Abby’s. A deep, dark cherrywood, it came direct from the factory. That’s the way I liked my things, new. Untainted. It kept my life simpler. Slipping off my shoes, I propped my feet up next to a crystal ball on a brass stand and reached for the nudie mag I’d bought at the corner store. A man had his needs. Being in touch with the pulse of the Universal friggin’ Soul wasn’t going to change that.
The jingle of bells and a strong hello had me shoving the magazine into a drawer and swinging my feet down. Placing my hands flat on the desk, I cleared my throat and said, “Mrs. Eckhardt, prompt as always.” I didn’t bother to deepen my voice, but I did flash her an appreciative eye. It was faked, but Ginger was an established client. She might already be hooked, but it paid to invest in her continued satisfaction. “And looking gorgeous to boot. Blond is a good color on you.”
A wrinkled hand automatically fluffed the buttercup-yellow bouffant hair as Ginger came into my office and sat in the plush crimson chair opposite my desk. “You heartless flirt. Always the same with you.” Pink lips peeled back to reveal the bright and shining smile you didn’t need to be psychic to know rested in a cup in her bathroom overnight.
It was hard to say whether Ginger kept coming back for the information from beyond or for the flattery. I didn’t care which it was. It was her dime, and either one paid the bills. “How could I not flirt with a woman so stunning?” I said with a sly wink. “It would be a crime against God and nature.” She threw back her head and gave a bawdy laugh that revealed that in her day, Mrs. Eckhardt had been something, indeed. Of course, I didn’t have to guess that by her laugh—I knew her original hair color. A rich chestnut brown, it came through clear as day. I had seen her stuff her first bra, kiss her first boy, and skinny-dip her way into a reputation she didn’t once regret. When she married the love of her life, I was there. She gave him three healthy children that I watched grow up. I also saw her husband die—a stroke while playing golf. I stood at her side at the funeral as they lowered the coffin to disappear into the ground, never to be seen again. That part I could’ve done without. I’d seen enough of that magic trick in my own past.
Now you see them. Abracadabra. Now you don’t.
I tossed a few more compliments her way, which she caught like a pro, before I peeled off my right glove and held out my hand. “What is it today, gorgeous?”
This time, it was a lost necklace. It wasn’t the first. Ginger lost things on a near-weekly basis. If it wasn’t my charm drawing her in, then it was a bad case of Alzheimer’s. I cradled her keys in my hand for a second, and the image bloomed clearly. Tucked away in a lovingly polished cedar chest and very purposely put there when Ginger was craving company and a big dose of flattery from her favorite psychic. With a twitch of my lips, I delivered the news, and soon Ginger was on her way after promising to call back and make another appointment with Abby.
The next client didn’t show up. A first-timer, no big deal. It happened. It did make me appreciate the fact that Abby wasn’t there to say I should’ve known that was going to happen. She never tired of that joke. Twelve years, and it still tripped from her lips as if it were the first time. Now that I thought about it, a few days’ vacation might not be enough for my devoted secretary. A little alone time wasn’t always a bad thing, even when it came to someone I’d come to think of, no matter how reluctantly, as a sister. Abby’s sense of humor might leave something to be desired, but she was all softness, bright eyes, good heart, and bubbling laughs. Not much like my real sister. Glory was every bit the greedy soul I was, but she went about her larceny in a more proactive fashion. Not averse to danger, she balanced on a knife edge of amorality and violence.
Cute little girls with strawberry blond hair go to foster homes, while gangly teenage boys who knew how to use a shotgun are swallowed by state institutions. At the time, I’d thought Glory had the better deal. It wasn’t the first time I’d been wrong. Probably wouldn’t be the last. In the end, I wasn’t sure which of us could lay claim to being more fucked up—by societal standards, anyway. Those standards had always seemed excessively lofty to my way of thinking, but when it came to Glory, maybe society was on to something. The little girl I??
?d once sworn to save was gone. And what was left in her place was someone who, if you crossed, it was safe to say you’d regret it.
Too late to change now. Wasn’t that the story of my life?
I was just thinking about what to do with my free hour thanks to my no-show, but someone tried to rob me instead. This was also not the first time this had happened to me. He was about seventeen, skinny, twitching for a fix, with a shaved head and a black tribal tattoo on the dark skin of the back of his hand. It was the same hand he used to hold the knife, no doubt thinking it was concealed by laying it flat against his leg.
Kids.
By the time with darting eyes he checked out the place for other people, he was way too late in the game. He turned toward me and lifted the switchblade, opening his mouth to say something he saw in a movie or a TV show—something that was damn sure going to scare the living shit out of me. The entitled, lazy youth of today. They couldn’t even come up with their own piss-your-pants threats. It was a shame. But as his mouth opened to deliver whatever plagiarized obscenity-filled demand, he noticed the gun I was pointing at him.
I kept the porn drawer closed so as not to offend the ladies, but I had a holster for one big-ass Glock studded in place to the underside of my desk so as not to offend my undertaker with a difficult-to-conceal slit throat. It was easy to pull, easier to point. I aimed at his scrawny chest. I didn’t think because he was skinny and underfed that he wasn’t dangerous. In some situations, back-to-the-wall ones, it made people like him—a kid like I’d been—more dangerous, if anything.
His eyes widened, the whites of them tinged more toward yellow. Hepatitis. Not long for this vale of tears. I didn’t wait to see if the gun made him back off. I went directly to defense line two and used my left hand to activate the alarm system. The button on the closest corner of the desk was red, simple, and small—the results weren’t. The wail threatened to puncture eardrums and bring the police in minutes. It was so loud that, forget Georgia, it might bring every cop in the tristate area to arrest me for disturbing the peace.