Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

“I don’t know about that last part,” he said. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Maybe it’s your Taurus moon that got you here.” She reached for another chocolate. “Your time of birth determines your rising sign, and that’s important in any number of ways, but in the absence of available information I’m willing to make the determination intuitively. My discipline is astrology, John, but it’s not the only tool I use. I’m psychic, I sense things. My intuition tells me you have Cancer rising.”

“If you say so.”

“And I prepared a chart for you on that basis. I could tell you a lot of technical things about your chart, but I can’t believe you’re interested in all that, are you?”

“You’re psychic, all right.”

“So instead of nattering on about trines and squares and oppositions, let me just say it’s an interesting chart. You’re an extremely gentle person, John.”

“Oh?”

“But there’s so much violence in your life.”

“Oh.”

“That’s the famous Gemini duality,” she was saying. “On the one hand, you’re thoughtful and sensitive and calm, exceedingly calm. John, do you ever get angry?”

“Not very often.”

“No, and I don’t think you stifle your anger, either. I get that it’s just not a part of the equation. But there’s violence all around you, isn’t there?”

“It’s a violent world we live in.”

“There’s been violence swirling around you all your life. You’re very much a part of it, and yet you’re somehow untouched by it.” She tapped the sheet of paper, with his stars and planets all marked out. “You don’t have an easy chart,” she said.

“I don’t?”

“Actually, that’s something to be grateful for. I’ve seen charts of people who came into the world with no serious oppositions, no difficult aspects. And they wind up with lives where nothing much happens. They’re never challenged, they never have to draw upon inner resources, and so they wind up leading reasonably comfortable lives and holding secure jobs and raising their kids in a nice safe clean suburb. And they never make anything terribly interesting of themselves.”

“I haven’t made much of myself,” he said. “I’ve never married or fathered a child. Or started a business, or run for office, or planted a garden, or written a play, or... or...”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I never expected to get...”

“Emotional?”

“Yes.”

“It happens all the time.”

“Oh.”

“Just the other day I told a woman she’s got Jupiter squaring her sun, but that her Jupiter and Mars are trined, and she burst into tears.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Neither did she.”

“Oh.”

“I see so much in your chart, John. This is a difficult time for you, isn’t it?”

“I guess it must be.”

“Not financially. Your Jupiter — well, you’re not rich, and you’re never going to be rich, but the money always seems to be there when you need it, doesn’t it?”

“It’s never been a problem.”

“No, and it won’t be. You’ve found ways to spend it in the past couple of years—” Stamps, he thought. “—and that’s good, because now you’re getting some pleasure out of your money. But you won’t overspend, and you’ll always be able to get more.”

“That’s good.”

“But you didn’t come here because you were concerned about money.”

“No.”

“You don’t care that much about it. You always liked to get it and now you like to spend it, but you never cared deeply about it.”

“No.”

“I’ve prepared a solar return,” she said, “to give you an idea what to expect in the next twelve months. Some astrologers are very specific—‘July seventeenth is the perfect time to start a new project, and don’t even think about being on water on the fifth of September.’ My approach is more general, and... John? Why are you holding your right hand like that?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“With the thumb tucked inside. Is there something about your thumb that bothers you?”

“Not really.”

“I’ve already seen your thumb, John.”

“Oh.”

“Did someone once tell you something about your thumb?”

“Yes.”

“That it’s a murderer’s thumb?” She rolled her eyes. “Palmistry,” she said heavily.

“You don’t believe in it?”

“Of course I believe in it, but it does lend itself to some gross oversimplification.” She reached out and took his hand in both of hers. Hers were soft, he noted, and pudgy, but not unpleasantly so. She ran a fingertip over his thumb, his homicidal thumb.

“To take a single anatomical characteristic,” she said, “and fasten such a dramatic name to it. No one’s thumb ever made him kill a fellow human being.”

“Then why do they call it that?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t studied the history of palmistry. I suppose someone spotted the peculiarity in a few notorious murderers and spread the word. I’m not even certain it’s statistically more common among murderers than the general population. I doubt anyone really knows. John, it’s an insignificant phenomenon and not worth noticing.”

“But you noticed it,” he said.

“I happened to see it.”

“And you recognized it. You didn’t say anything until you noticed me hiding it in my fist. That was unconscious, I didn’t even know I was doing it.”

“I see.”

“So it must mean something,” he said, “or why would it stay in your mind?”

She was still holding his hand. Keller had noticed that this was one of the ways a woman let you know she was interested in you. Women touched you a lot in completely innocent ways, on the hand or the arm or the shoulder, or held your hand longer than they had to. If a man did that it was sexual harassment, but it was a woman’s way of letting you know she wouldn’t mind being harassed herself.

But this was different. There was no sexual charge with this woman. If he’d been made of chocolate he might have had something to worry about, but mere flesh and blood was safe in her presence.

“John,” she said, “I was looking for it.”

“For...”

“The thumb. Or anything else that might confirm what I already knew about you.”

She was gazing into his eyes as she spoke, and he wondered how much shock registered in them. He tried not to react, but how did you keep what you felt from showing up in your eyes?

“And what’s that, Louise?”

“That I know about you?”

He nodded.

“That your life has been filled with violence, but I think I already mentioned that.”

“You said I was gentle and not full of anger.”

“But you’ve had to kill people, John.”

“Who told you that?” She was no longer holding his hand. Had she released it? Or had he taken it away from her?

“Who told me?”

Maggie, he thought. Who else could it have been? Maggie was the only person they knew in common. But how did Maggie know? In her eyes he was a corporate suburbanite, even if he lived alone in the heart of the city.

“Actually,” she was saying, “I had several informants.”

His heart was hammering. What was she saying? How could it be true?

“Let me see, John. There was Saturn, and Mars, and we don’t want to forget Mercury.” Her tone was soft, her gaze so gentle. “John,” she said, “it’s in your chart.”

“My chart.”

“I picked up on it right away. I got a very strong hit while I was working on your chart, and when you rang the bell I knew I would be opening the door to a man who had done a great deal of killing.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t cancel the appointment.”