An Astounding and Singularly Unique Experience!
The Mystical Oracle
The Mentalist
MADEMOISELLE CLARICE DUBOIS
Knows All, Sees All, Tells All
Experience Her Highly Developed Intuitive Abilities
Hypnosis! Telepathy! Divination!
Love—Luck—Lies
See Your Destiny!
A discreet location at 52 Pearl Street
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Not exactly enigmatic,” Kiyoko says, looking at Clarice DuBois’s advertisement inThe Sun. She tosses the newspaper onto the train seat next to us. “But at least she was easy to find.”
Pax agrees. “She’s not what one would call…low profile.”
“We need her,” I say. It somehow feels odd, thatI’mthe one lobbying to connect with others, that I’m the one saying other humans are actuallyneeded. I’ve spent the last year convincing myself that I need no one.
But we do. We need her. I know we need her. She’s our ticket into Max Blanck’s party.
Spirit shows me a flash of an image: a mountain lion, crouched and growling, swiping at me with its massive bloody claws.
We arrive at our stop and walk to 52 Pearl Street. And while it’s located next door to bawdy Fraunces Tavern, Clarice’s building is a gleaming gem. Kiyoko whistles long and low at its opulence.
The doorman rings Mlle DuBois’s bell, and we are given permission to take the elevator to her penthouse.
We’re greeted by a gentleman who appears to be mademoiselle’s personal assistant. He’s in a wheelchair, and his metal wheels have worn slight grooves in the wooden floors of the apartment. “Hello, William,” Pax says.
“Good to see you again, Mr. Princip,” William says. It’s very familiar, and for the first time, I wonder exactly how well Pax and Clarice know each other.
The room is all white: white walls, white furniture, white silk curtains. Near the floor-to-ceiling window sits a gold pillared altar, with a crystal ball at the center. Dozens of saint cards propped in cheap tin frames surround it, dozens of candles flicker and throw warm orange light across the room. A line of crystals and tarot cards and astrology charts crowds the table.
“Can I get you anything?” William says once we’re seated on silk tufted couches. “Water? Tea? Gin? Tarot cards?” He laughs at his odd little joke and pushes his wire spectacles up his nose.
“No, thank you,” Pax says, as Kiyoko says, “Milk.”
William peers at her.
“And do you have a pet?” She peeks behind ceiling-to-floor silk drapery.
William pulls a plaid blanket farther over his legs. “No.” He wheels away.
Pax leans over me on the couch, toward Kiyoko. “We aren’t staying long.”
“Exactly. Which is why we’re getting milk while we have the chance.”
William brings Kiyoko a tall, cool, luxurious glass of milk, which she promptly hands to Nirav. He drinks it greedily. Clean milk is hard to come by, and it can be a haul to Prospect Park to get to one of the safe milk stations funded by New York’s philanthropists.
I’m delighted that Daisy sent Kiyoko our way, even if Kiyoko has heard from her no more. Or so she tells me. I shudder at thethought that Kiyoko might know my most terrible secret, that she’s simply staying with us until we have our haul.
