Stephen Leather - The Double Tap

‘Fortune-telling?’

‘No, Mike Cramer, it is not fortune-telling.’ She held out her hands for the coins and he gave them to her.

‘Do you do readings for your boss?’

Su-ming rubbed the coins between her hands as if trying to warm them. ‘Every day,’ she said.

‘He must believe in it, then?’

Su-ming sighed as if deeply disappointed. ‘It’s not a question of belief. You don’t have to believe in an aeroplane for it to carry you through the skies. Yes, Mr Vander Mayer believes in the integrity of the I Ching and in my interpretation of it, but that is irrelevant so far as its veracity is concerned.’

‘So it does work?’

Su-ming’s eyes flashed, then she smiled as she realised he was teasing her. ‘Yes, Mike Cramer, it works. Are you happy now?’

‘Will you do me?’ He held her gaze for several seconds.

She stopped smiling. ‘Is this a test, is that it? You want to test me?’

Cramer shrugged. ‘I thought it might be interesting, that’s all. If you don’t want to. .’

‘It’s not that I don’t want to, but I’m not some sort of guinea pig. I don’t need to have my abilities tested. I consult the I Ching for myself and for Mr Vander Mayer. I don’t do party tricks.’ She held out the coins and Cramer took them.

‘You have to ask a specific question,’ she said. ‘Not a question which can be answered with a yes or a no, and it must be a question which is significant to you. The I Ching is not to be used for fun, do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Cramer meekly.

Su-ming nodded. ‘When you have the question fixed in your mind, you toss the coins six times. Depending how they fall, each toss will be either yin or yang . If it’s yang , I draw an unbroken line, if it’s yin , I draw a broken line. The six throws produce a hexagram. Do you understand?’

Cramer shrugged. ‘I guess so.’

‘It doesn’t matter. All you have to do is to frame the question and throw the coins. I will use the hexagram and the coin combinations to interpret the answer from the book.’

‘Do I have to tell you the question?’

Su-ming shook her head. ‘No.’

Cramer wondered what he should ask. He toyed with something frivolous but he knew that Su-ming wouldn’t be amused. She clearly took it very seriously. ‘Okay. I’m ready.’

He threw the coins and Su-ming drew a short line on the notepad. He tossed the metal discs another five times and when he had finished Su-ming held up the six lines she’d drawn on the pad. The top, third and fifth lines were broken, the second, fourth and bottom lines were unbroken. ‘ Chi Chi ,’ she said. ‘Completion and what happens afterwards.’

Cramer frowned. ‘What’s that? What do you mean?’

‘The hexagram is called Chi Chi . The top three lines represent k’an , water. The bottom three lines represent li , fire. Together they form Chi Chi . It’s a good omen, so long as you remain alert. It’s like a kettle burning over a fire. If it’s controlled, then everything is fine. But if you are careless, the kettle will boil over and the water will evaporate. You will have lost that which you hoped to achieve. You must not become complacent, that’s the message of the I Ching .’ Su-ming looked down at her notepad again. ‘The hexagram is only the start,’ she said. ‘It provides an overall guideline, a framework. According to the way the coins are thrown, some of the lines are called changing lines. Any combination of the six could be changing lines.’ She looked at the notepad. ‘In your case it’s the fourth line. It was yang , but a changing yang . So I consult the I Ching to see what it says about the fourth line. Then we change the fourth line from yang to yin , from a broken line to a complete line, and that produces a second hexagram. The oracle’s advice is a combination of the first hexagram, the second hexagram, and the changing lines. There are thousands of possibilities. That’s why the book is so thick.’

She opened the leather-bound volume and slowly went through it. ‘Here we are. Chi Chi . The fourth line.’ She read it silently, then looked at him. ‘You must be on your guard. You must be careful. Things can very easily go wrong.’

‘Tell me about it,’ laughed Cramer. Her face fell as he laughed and he immediately composed himself. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you. It’s just that under the circumstances. . you know. Obviously I’m going to be on guard.’

She looked at him seriously. ‘The I Ching is referring to your question, remember? It is with regard to the question you asked that it is offering advice. This is not fortune-telling, Mike Cramer. The I Ching only answers specific questions asked of it.’

‘I understand, Su-ming.’

She picked up the notepad again and drew a second hexagram, changing the fourth line from broken to unbroken. ‘This is now ko . Revolution. A combination of tui , lake, over li , fire. The image is of a lake over a volcano, when the lava bursts through the water is vaporised. Great change. It’s not a bad sign, the opposite in fact. It suggests that the present situation is about to give way to a more beneficial one. An end to sadness. But you yourself must make the change possible. It must first come from within.’

Cramer nodded. ‘An end to sadness,’ he repeated. ‘That can’t be bad, can it?’

Su-ming closed the book carefully as if she was afraid of damaging the pages. ‘I suppose not,’ she said. ‘Was the advice helpful?’

‘Of course. I must be careful, but if I try hard there’ll be a happy ending.’

Su-ming looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘You sound as if you don’t believe what you’ve been told.’

Cramer shrugged. ‘It’s the sort of advice I’d get in a fortune cookie. Or in the horoscope of any tabloid newspaper.’

‘Your mind is closed,’ she said brusquely. ‘If you refuse to listen to what the I Ching has to say, how can you hope to be helped by it?’

‘I’m just not sure how throwing coins can give me the answer to a problem that I have.’

‘Because everything in the universe is connected,’ said Su-ming.

‘Well, I’m not convinced,’ he said. ‘It’s like when you read my palm. I don’t believe that the lines on my hand are an indication of what has happened to me in my life, much less a guide to what lies ahead of me.’

Su-ming picked up a small leather bag with a leather drawstring and dropped the coins in one by one. She put the bag on her bedside table and held out her hand. At first Cramer didn’t realise what she wanted, then he slowly held out his own right hand, palm upwards. She bent forward, her face only inches away from the palm as she traced the lines with her index finger. Occasionally her fingernail scraped his skin and he felt a tingle run down his spine like a mild electric shock. He shivered, but Su-ming didn’t appear to notice. She stared at his palm for several minutes, then released his hand.

‘So?’ said Cramer, his curiosity piqued.

Su-ming raised her eyebrows. ‘So what?’ she asked.

‘So what did you see?’

Su-ming shrugged. ‘I was just checking.’

‘Checking? Checking what?’

She tilted up her chin. ‘There’s no point in telling you if you don’t believe, is there?’

Cramer nodded slowly as he realised that she was toying with him. ‘Right,’ he said. He stood up. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

Su-ming picked up her coins again and smoothed them between her hands. She avoided Cramer’s gaze. ‘Are you frightened?’ she asked.