Marcia Muller - The Body Snatchers Affair

He knew now most of what there was to know. Only a few of the game’s pieces were still missing, the largest of them the one that had eluded him from the first — the significance of Fowler Alley.

Madame Louella’s fortune-telling parlor was one of several such establishments on the section of Kearney Street north of Market. There were a number of fortune-tellers doing business here, as well as such other charlatans as hypnotists, clairvoyants, astral seers, astrologists, phrenologists, even an alectromancer with cages full of roosters — all operating cheek by jowl with saloons, painless dentists, postcard sellers (which no doubt included the French variety sold from under the counter), auction houses, cheap clothing stores, and shooting galleries. During the evening hours the area was packed with crowds of citizens taking part in the nightly ritual stroll along what was known as the Cocktail Route, from the Reception Saloon on Sutter to the Palace Hotel Bar at Third and Market and scores of watering holes in between. Here, flaring torches and Salvation Army band music and the cries of sellers and pitchmen created a carnivallike atmosphere that would last for several hours.

This evening’s bacchanal was in full swing when Sabina arrived shortly before seven o’clock. She had walked the “Ambrosial Path” before, most recently on the trail of a vicious woman pickpocket at the beginning of what she and John termed the Bughouse Affair — one of the few women to do so who was not trolling nymphes du pavé . As a result she moved swiftly through the crush of humanity here, ignoring the entreaties of the hawkers and the bold stares and bolder comments of well-dressed men and street characters alike, many of whom were deep in drink.

Her destination, a narrow storefront on the block between Bush and Pine, was flanked on one side by a charlatan who billed himself as “The Napoleon of Necromancers” and on the other by MRS. BRADLEY, FASHIONABLE CLOAK MAKING. A large sign above the entrance proclaimed:

Sabina detoured around a lady of the evening touting her charms to a well-dressed businessman and climbed a short flight of stairs to the second floor. The fortune-teller’s door was covered with symbols — stars, planets, fog formations — that Madame Louella claimed were native to the Gypsy tribes of Transylvania where she’d been born. This was a patent fabrication. Sabina knew for a fact that the woman had been born Louella Green in Ashtabula, Ohio, where she’d been a problem child — truancy, shoplifting. When a band of confidence tricksters temporarily posing as patent medicine drummers had passed through on their way west, she had persuaded them to take her along. It was from them she’d learned the Gypsy fortune-telling dodge.

A bell above the door tinkled as Sabina entered the narrow anteroom with its three wooden chairs, all of which were empty. The odor of incense, meant to be exotic but in fact decidedly unpleasant, dilated her nostrils. The black curtain, decorated with more “magic” symbols, that separated the anteroom from the inner chamber parted almost immediately and Madame Louella’s turbaned head poked out. Her professional smile changed shape when she saw Sabina.

“Ah, good,” she said in her deep, almost masculine voice, “you received my message. Come in, dearie, come in. No one else is here. Let me just lock the door to insure our privacy.”

The rest of the woman’s large body appeared, draped as usual in her flowing robe of a somewhat tarnished gold color, emblazoned with a different set of cabalistic signs in black and crimson. The turban was gold as well, with a large blue jewel, obviously a cheap paste imitation, set into the middle of it like a third eye. Strands of none too clean curly black hair straggled from beneath the cloth.

She produced a key from somewhere inside her robe. “Not that this is necessary,” she said mournfully as she locked the door. “Business has been dreadful lately, I might even say nonexistent. Not a fortune to be told in three days, and only two the entire week. It’s an affront to a woman born with Romany blood in her veins and the gift of peering through the mists of time to what lies ahead—”

“Your spiel is wasted on me, Louella, you should know that by now.”

“Have you no sympathy, dearie? The fortune-telling racket really has been poor of late.”

“A sign of the times.”

“Yes, and not likely to change in the forseeable future.”

Madame Louella cackled at her little joke, one Sabina had heard before, then resumed her mournful pose as she led the way through the black curtain into her “fortune room.” The enclosure was small and dark, the walls painted black and unadorned, the single window thickly curtained to keep out light and mute the sounds of Cocktail Route revelry on the street below. It contained nothing other than a table draped in black cloth and two facing chairs. On the table sat one of the largest crystal globes Sabina had ever seen, treated with some sort of phosphorescent chemical that made it appear to emit an eerie inner glow, the room’s only illumination.

The fortune-teller’s chair was large and pillowed; Madame Louella sighed again as she lowered herself into it. “How much will my finder’s fee be?” she asked when Sabina was seated across from her.

“That depends on exactly what you have to tell me.”

“Ten dollars’ worth, I should say.”

“We’ll see.”

“I’m in arrears on my rent, dearie. Living hand to mouth.”

Sabina doubted that. Madame Louella may or may not have few customers wanting their futures told, but as part of the thriving network of information sellers she made enough to keep her rent current and her larder reasonably full.

“Business first. Your message said you’d know the whereabouts of Artemas Sneed by seven o’clock.”

“And so I do. One of my friends” — Madame Louella’s word for her coterie of informants — “brought the information shortly before you arrived. I had to pay him five dollars for his efforts.”

Sabina doubted that, too, but she made no comment.

“I shouldn’t tell you how he came by it, but I will,” Madame Louella said in an obvious effort to curry largesse. “He shared a cell with Artemas Sneed for two years in San Quentin, and by chance encountered him a few nights ago in a Barbary Coast deadfall. It took him most of the day to find out where Sneed is living.”

“And that is?”

“A rooming house on the waterfront. The name and address are surely worth ten dollars.”

“If in fact the information is correct.”

“It is. My friend guarantees it.”

“Secondhand guarantees are not always reliable,” Sabina said. “I’ll let you have five dollars now and five more after Sneed’s lodgings have been confirmed.”

“Oh, now, dearie...”

“I’ve always been fair with you, haven’t I?”

“Yes, but given my financial difficulties, it’s a hard bargain you drive.”

“Hard times, hard bargains.”

Madame Louella heaved another of her sighs. This was an old game between them, a form of haggling that the fortune-teller seemed to enjoy indulging in. Sabina didn’t, but patience and a firm stance eventually brought the desired results.

“Very well, then, Mrs. Carpenter. But I’ll have the first five dollars in advance, if you please.”

“Done.”

Sabina produced a five-dollar gold piece from her bag and Madame Louella made it disappear as quickly as if she were performing a conjurer’s trick. Her thin mouth stretched in a satisfied smile; in the glow from the crystal globe, her eyes had an unnatural brightness in her round, pale face. Not for the first time in these surroundings, Sabina was reminded of nothing so much as the witch in “Hansel and Gretel.”