“H-Hello, Eddie,” Victor answers with a bit of hesitation.
“I am very impressed with your reading skills. Why don’t you try reading my cards?” Eddie slides the deck back over to Victor.
Victor stops the cards with his hand. “I don’t understand.”
Eddie sits back in his seat, crosses his legs, and clasps his hands in his lap. “Tell me, what do the cards tell you about me? Show me what you find.”
Victor picks up the deck and starts shuffling. He looks between Eddie and Madame Jeanette.
“Focus on me and not her or the cat. You should know this about tarot,” Eddie remarks.
Victor starts to put the cards down; the first card is the “Emperor.”
“Ahh!” Eddie says gleefully, slapping his leg, “A strong card. That’s definitely me.”
Victor places the “Moon” on top of the Emperor. Madame Jeanette giggles. “Looks like you’re acting a little cocky, ah, Eddie?”
“Would you like me to continue?” Victor asks.
Eddie scratches his chin and then takes a sip of his whiskey. “I think you’re good. But not ready.”
Victor is confused, “Ready? For what?”
“Where do you live, chéri? Do you still live in the desert, or is your heart elsewhere?” Madame Jeanette asks without hesitation.
Victor is baffled by her question. “What do you mean?”
Eddie snaps his fingers. A maroon business card with silver writing appears. He tosses it to Victor, and it stops perfectly before him. “When you get home, call this number.”
Victor picks up the card and studies it. It only has a number written in silver foil font, no name or address. The border has an elegant design. Victor looks at the back and sees nothing. He is confused by what was given to him. When Victor looks up, onlyMadame Jeanette is sitting before him. She rests her chin on her clasped hands while giving an almost devilish smile on her lips.
Victor is so focused on Madame Jeanette that he doesn’t notice Eddie appearing beside him. Eddie blows some black powder into Victor’s face. Victor coughs a little as he inhales the odorless powder. Victor’s eyelids start to flutter as he slumps over into his seat, knocked out from the powder. The mystery man appears from the darkness of another room. Behind him stands a slender Japanese woman with shoulder-length, straight black hair, wearing an asymmetrical, bright red dress and matching red high-heeled shoes.
“Boys,” Madame Jeanette starts as she puffs her pipe, “take him back to his hotel room. And make it look like he never left. We don’t want to startle him right away.”
Victor sits up quickly in his bed. His entire uncovered naked body is covered in sweat. He looks rapidly around his dark room, breathing heavily.What happened?he thinks to himself. Was it a dream? Did that actually happen?He turns on the lamp, reaches for a bottle of water on the nightstand, and starts chugging away.
When he finishes drinking the water, his breathing and heart rate start to slow down. The room no longer feels like it’s spinning. He continues to look around, but no one is present. Victor gets out of bed and heads to the bathroom. He walks over to the sink and proceeds to wash his hands and face.
As he dries off his face, he looks into the mirror and sees the slender Japanese woman standing behind him. He makes eye contact with her piercing blue eyes. She looks up and down at Victor’s naked body and gives him a smile and a wink.
Victor turns around and sees no one there. He looks back and forth between the mirror and where the woman stands. He takes a deep breath to try to calm his nerves. “I really need to stop coming to New Orleans.”
Back at Madame Jeanette’s table, Eddie sits to her right, and the mystery man is to her left. The Japanese woman sits across from her. Another older woman and a man smoking a cigar sit in the other seats. Madame Jeanette is now dressed in a tailored suit, as the rest of the audience.
“Well, what did you think, Chiyo?” Madame Jeanette asks the Japanese woman across from her.
Now dressed in a bright red suit, Chiyo taps her matching red fingernails on the table, “I can sense a lot of magic coming off him. It needs to be trained soon.” She turns to Eddie, raising an eyebrow. “He was a little startled when I saw him naked.”
Eddie snickers, “I took him for a guy who likes to sleep naked. And I was told to make it seem like he never left his hotel.”
Chiyo rolls her eyes. “I’m saying he has much potential. I can sense there are many avenues he can take and accomplish each of them.”
Madame Jeanette holds her pipe close to her lips and mentions, “He knows his way around the tarot. That is perfectly clear.”
“Do we know if he is part of a coven?” Chiyo asks.
The mystery man places a folder on the table. “He is not. However, many of you might remember his grandmother.” He opens the folder and slides it over to Chiyo. “It was such a shame she never got to pass on her teachings to her daughter and grandson.”
