Douglas, Nelson - Cat with an Emerald Eye

"Any particular kind of danger?"

"Well, I see several men, all of them capable of bringing you much misery and woe."

"No kidding."

"But you have a secret ally!"

"Really?"

"I don't pick up much about him: a short fellow with dark hair."

"Anybody we know?"

"One of the men at the seance, you mean? Well, Professor Mangel is short and his hair was dark, when he had most of it, but no ... I sense prior acquaintance. Still, at least you have a champion, and he was at the seance, yes! Though not in the usual sense."

"Could this be Houdini?"

"He fits the description, but we had agreed that the pitiful display put on can only be cardboard and trick lighting ... no, this is someone you are not used to turning to for emotional support, but he is there, never fear."

Short. Dark. At the seance and not a medium or a medium-booster. Oh, no! Crawford Buchanan, Say it ain't so, leaves!

"Usually the hero is a tall, dark stranger," Temple pointed out.

"Sorry, no strangers in your fortune at the moment. And I may be old enough to be your grandmother, but I am not your mother. Still, I think you should reconsider dating the Hell's Angel."

"Hell's Angel?"

"You may be able to fool your nearest and dearest, but not the leaves," Agatha Welk chided.

"I see a motorcycle."

Temple was flummoxed, until she remembered the recent loan of the Hesketh Vampire and its new, uneasy rider.

"Amazing!" She tried not to smile. "You're quite right; I do know someone who rides a

'cycle." She supposed that Matt on a motorcycle was a sort of "hell's angel," after all. Amazing how you could skew your life to fit a fortune-telling.

"Examine your so-called friends and their lifestyles well. Things are often not what they seem."

Indeed, Temple said silently. And such a pity too. And they often are not exactly what the tea leaves say either.

"I see another dark man, or perhaps the first one in another role. A romantic role." Agatha's voice lilted with satisfaction on the last two words, as if expecting Temple to rise up and sing with joy.

Instead, Temple felt wary. Bad enough that the gray tea wanted to cast Crawford Buchanan as an ally; now who did it want her to cozy up to?

Agatha's voice grew wavery with optimism. "I see a nightclub, a tete-a-tete, a man with something vital on his mind, and you the focus of it."

"What does he look like?" '

"My dear, the leaves are not a scrying glass. I only pick up vibrations. You seem to know a good many dark-haired men."

"A few. No light-haired men in my future?"

"Ummm, possibly. I sense trouble with a tax return next year. You may be meeting a blond auditor."

"Oh, great!"

"Listen, these are merely indications. It could be I'm reading everything wrong today. I am ...

upset."

"Why is that?"

"Need you ask?" Agatha looked indignant. "The real and false manifestations at the seance. I hate to be manipulated like that, by the living or the dead. The passing of Edwina Mayfair. Most distressing to have some man die, and then to know he was a notorious debunker of psychic phenomena... well, it makes one wonder why he died just then and there."

"Because he knew some fakery was going on?"

Agatha's gray pupils widened until they floated like over poached egg yolks in the watery whites of her eyes. "Because he may have caused some fakery to have something to debunk!

These crusaders will stop at nothing, and their activities verge on persecuting some poor medium. We are not claiming our visions are exact or our predictions certain. But we do, many of us, receive honest signals, even if we may misread them. We only try to pass on the word, and for that we are often humiliated and hunted. That this man, this ... failed magician should go to such lengths to try to trap us is most upsetting. I had heard of Edwina Mayfair for years! How could he continue such an unnatural masquerade? Honestly, if I had known of his presence and his purpose, I only wish Houdini had come back to confound him. Perhaps he did, and frightened the pathetic soul to death."

Temple forgot about her harem of dark-haired men. It seemed to her that blue-haired Miss Welk could possibly be even more lethal to anyone who naysayed her dangerous visions.

"That's all," Agatha said, handing Temple back the cup with the soggy dark leaf residue coating its bottom third.

This was the end of an audience, so Temple took up her cup, wrapped it in a napkin and stowed it in her tote bag.

Miss Welk raised wispy eyebrows but said nothing. Temple wondered if she had seen in the leaves that Temple would have it studied by an expert, wait to see if she developed any sudden stomach cramps and then wash it and return it--anonymously--to the hotel.

Probably not, she decided, turning over her shoulder to say farewell and surprising a look of concentrated venom on the old dear's face.

Chapter 32

On to the Oscar's

Temple had found time to go home to change--and wasn't sure what to wear.

According to Agatha Welk with her phalanx of lurking short and medium-tall dark men, chain mail wouldn't be enough protection. On the other hand, romance as well as danger could strike with the suddenness of a shot in the dark. What did the daring young up-and-coming entrepreneur wear to a combination execution-escapade?

Temple seldom wore slacks because they made her look like a lost Girl Scout rather than like a Femme Fatale ready for love or death on the run. She decided, though, that a toreador appearance would allow for quick escapes if not escapades, so she slithered into a pair of shiny stirrup tights (size small) she had found on sale for $3.98, strappy black patent heels, a red knit cummerbund and a snappy red knit "Bolero" bolero with official-looking brass buttons.

The Mirage's moving sidewalk was teeming with tourists and she was soon skimming past the teeming fish tanks to one of the hotel's many eateries and drinkeries.

At the entrance to the Black Spot bar she hesitated, studying a dim landscape of tables populated with unfamiliar faces. It was like trying to tell one sergeant-major fish from another.

Actually, now that she peered at the clientele, a lot of them did look a little fishy.

One, however, waved a fin ... that is, a hand, and she sped to where it still waved, hoping she hadn't been taken for a cocktail waitress in this getup, which might be a bit much, but, hey, either love or murder was waiting in her tea leaves and now was no time to dress drably.

She came to such a screeching halt at Oscar Grant's table that when she slung her red patent-leather tote bag around to put it on the floor she nearly decked him as he rose to pull out a chair.

Temple scooted into the chair and slang the bag (was that the proper tense?) on the long-unoccupied chair at the table. Why was she always almost-late to these crucial love-and-death affairs? She smiled at Oscar Grant like a cruising lady shark.

"Sorry I'm late. I thought I'd never get away from Agatha Welk. She was reading my tea leaves."

His mustache curled with unspoken scorn for the person under discussion, a nice trick that only Geraldo Rivera had also mastered.

"Agatha!" He laughed. "Always lagging behind the times. Tea leaves are passe."

"I don't doubt it. Reading cigarette ashes would make so much more sense nowadays, except that smokers are a vanishing breed too. Oh, you smoke, I see." Temple followed the sinuous updraft of blue haze trailing from a brass tray. "My, that is a most revealing ash--"

Oscar Grant swiftly took care of revealing ashes by grinding the cigarette out in its own excrement, so to speak.

"I hope you won't believe anything Agatha tells you," he said. "She really is in another world."