Tooner Schooner (16 page)

“I’m glad he’s stayin’,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“Do you know when he’ll come?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

Miss Tinkham shook her head.

“Velma told him she had gone to Palm Springs for a few days’ rest. He’ll have to find the way here on his own tonight.”

After supper, Sunshine went off to the Pango Pango. Red went into Madam Gazza’s unit on the corner.

“He’s helpin’ Miss Tinkham put on her fortuneteller’s suit,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Somebody’s gotta blow up that rubber jacket.”

The two went down to Jasper’s to borrow the stools.

“Give us a loan o’ three stools. Laddy-bucks like you had oughta be out on the town, dears,” Mrs. Feeley said.

Oscar gave her a sidelong look.

“We might just do that. I’ll call Red. He went into Madam’s a while ago. Maybe I’ll get a glimpse of the old girl.”

“And a sweet, plump old lady she is, dear!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Maybe she’ll give you a win in the numbers if you butter her up.”

They took the stools and went back to their sleeping unit, placing the stools at a vantage point under the window. The chimes boomed. Jasper and Oscar stood at the door, rather self-consciously.

“Enter in peace.” Madam Gazza’s voice was the same.

“Ah…Madam, we’d like to speak with the electrician.”

Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen saw Madam get up and signal them to enter.

“Light on her feet,” Mrs. Feeley whispered. “Damn if I hadn’t forgot it was Miss Tinkham.”

Red came from behind the screen.

“I’d like to go,” he said in answer to their invitation, “but I wired Madam here for sound an’ some of her dry cells are actin’ up. Maybe I’ll breeze along later.”

Madam Gazza was back behind the wicket and seated with the crystal ball in front of her.

“Anything I can do for you gentlemen?” she boomed.

“No, ma’am!” Oscar started for the door.

Madam retreated into the silence of the pyramids.

“Lookit! It’s him! They damn near knocked him down!” Mrs. Feeley grabbed hold of Mrs. Rasmussen.

“Enter in peace,” Madam Gazza said.

“It’s me, Bert, Madam. You talked to me last night.”

“You are less skeptical tonight, my friend,” Madam said.

“It’s downright amazing.” Ethelbert sat down on the hassock. “I don’t mind telling you I hadn’t much use for this stuff…”

“You have had two things come to pass already,” Madam said.

“There was a telegram from a mining company,” he said. “What’s the other?”

“Have you not observed a change in the woman you were interested in? I told you that you would never be master in that house…”

“Who, Velma?” Ethelbert blew a puff of smoke arrogantly toward the ceiling. “Velma’s all right, but she’s too aggressive a type for me.”

Madam’s voice was full of emotion. “The simple, dependent type is the only one capable of a deep love for you. And, my dear,” her voice was old and wise, “there will be compensations.”

“I’d always have a guilty complex if I let her down…”

The door chimes interrupted Ethelbert’s noble sentiments. Madam Gazza raised her shoulders in a mountainous shrug:

“Shall I let her in?”

“That’s your business,” Ethelbert said. “I realize I barged in without an appointment.”

Madam Gazza shook her head. “She is looking for you.”

“Me? You’re wrong there, Madam. Nobody in the world knows where I went. I never even told Velma. She’s the only person who knows I know you and she’s out of town.”

The bell tolled again.

“I ask you again: shall I let her in?”

“You haven’t been wrong yet. Let her in.”

Madam Gazza pressed a button and the curtains parted over the door.

“Enter in peace,” she said. The figure on the threshold hesitated at the sound of the voice.

“It’s Chartreuse,” Mrs. Rasmussen breathed. “I’d know that slump anywhere.”

“She folly’d him,” Mrs. Feeley said, “thinkin’ he’d gone to Velma. Wheesht!”

“The person you seek is here,” Madam Gazza said.

“Couldn’t you turn up the lights so a person won’t break their leg? What’s going on here, I’d like to know?” Chartreuse’s phlegmy voice was easily audible in the next block. She came up to the gold wire screen and stared at Madam Gazza in disbelief. Madam Gazza looked back at her, serene but unsmiling under slanting eyebrows. Chartreuse turned to Ethelbert.

“Tryin’ to move in on a new racket? Of course you know I won’t give you a red cent.”

“You did not find your friend where you expected to find him nor with whom you expected to find him,” Madam Gazza asserted.

“How did you know that?” Chartreuse’s voice was incredulous. “That Velma’s got her hand in this somewhere.”

“Madam knows everything,” Ethelbert said. “You better sit down and have a talk with her. It’s time you and myself got things on a better basis, Toozie.”

“Who’s that?” Chartreuse squawked like a seagull at the sound of high heels on the driveway.

“One of the other residents of the court,” Madam said. “I see no one except by appointment.”

“She only talked to me as a favor. Now, Chartreuse, you better listen to what Madam says, if she’ll talk to you. Will you, Madam? She can pay.”

“Exchange places with your friend and let me see your hands,” Madam said. Chartreuse sat down and stuck her hands out.

Mrs. Feeley patted Velma on the back as she sat down beside her on the third folding stool.

“You never made a sound comin’ in the house, but I knew your step on the drive.”

“Took my shoes off,” Velma whispered. “Guess what’s in this basket?”

“Loverly, loverly beer!” Mrs. Rasmussen whispered as she felt the cold bottles. “You missed some, but not much.”

“It should be good from here on out.”

“Tragedy has stalked your life, my dear.” Madam Gazza’s voice was gloomy. “Lines in your hand show that you have not heeded the promptings of your intellect.”

Velma punched Mrs. Rasmussen with her elbow and rocked in silent mirth.

“Always you have followed the promptings of a warm, overgenerous and far too trusting heart.”

“Of course, you know, I’ve been taken advantage of ever since I was fifteen.”

“Lines in your hand show it to have begun around the age of ten. You are the victim of unscrupulous men, always using you for their selfish ends. If you had the time to untangle this labyrinth with me, perhaps I could help you to help yourself. You have so many talents…”

“See? What I always told you, Ethelbert! How long would it take…and how much?”

“She’s worth it, whatever it costs,” Ethelbert said.

“Now he’s touting for Madam!” Velma whispered.

“The cost is very little. The time…” Madam Gazza put her hands over her eyes. “Perhaps in two readings if I can arrange them without unfairness to the other clients. If your friend will leave us, I can give you the basic life-pattern tonight.”

Ethelbert pulled out his wallet.

“There will be no charge for your visit,” Madam Gazza said. “I have already given you the answer to your problems. You may deposit the fee for your friend on the way out.”

“I’ll wait for you at the apartment,” Ethelbert said.

“You can sit in the car,” Chartreuse relented. “Here’s the keys.”

Madam Gazza waited in stately silence, aloof from mundane considerations.

“Lack of discipline and laziness have kept you from finishing anything you started in this life.” She flashed the light into Chartreuse’s face. Chartreuse bridled. “Unless you can learn it in ten easy lessons, out the window it goes. Each discouragement has sent you into an abyss of self-pity, and for comfort…”

“The bottle,” Chartreuse grumbled. “I never had a chance. But since Ethelbert and I…”

“Became associated,” Madam Gazza prompted.

“Of course you know, I’m not married to him,” she said.

“I know,” Madam Gazza’s voice was deeper than ever. “It is not for me to say what is good or what is bad; all I can tell you is that all your happiness and well-being depends on marrying this man.”

“I’d marry him quick enough if he’d have me. But he’s the out of sight out of mind kind. There’s one other little detail…”

“The fact that you are legally married to another man.” Chartreuse pulled her hands away from Madam Gazza. “Give me your hands,” Madam said. “From me you shall hear only true things. Do you think you are the first woman who has found her love too late and snatched at the crumbs she could get? You and your husband care nothing for each other. You do not live together and for years have had nothing in common. But the climax is approaching rapidly; there are two other women after your…friend at this moment.”

“Who do you think that’s news to?” Chartreuse grated. “I expected to find him laying up with one of ’em right this minute…”

“Careful!” Madam Gazza cautioned. “Appearances are not sufficient grounds for…”

“That Velma and her nightclub! He can just see himself lording it around down there! Makes it rough for me, where she throws all that dough around in front of him. I’m not worried about the little Hawaiian girl or whatever she is. I threw a good scare into her the other night. I wish I didn’t go for him so strong, but what can I do about that?”

“Marry him,” Madam Gazza said. “If you don’t, the other one will. Your attitude makes him feel you don’t care for him because you have never divorced your husband.”

“My husband’s a rough, outdoors bully-type,” Chartreuse grumbled. “He’ll never divorce me or let me get a divorce.”

“These self-inflicted moods of morbidity are doing you untold damage; they sap the vital life force that you need so badly, especially since you are interested in holding a man considerably younger than yourself.”

Chartreuse stared in stupefied silence at Madam Gazza.

“That’s chapter and verse,” Velma whispered.

“You can’t blame a girl for trying to hold on to what little she’s got,” Chartreuse whined.

“Have you asked him outright for a divorce?”

Chartreuse hesitated:

“Well…in a way,” she mumbled. “I guess it’s no good to bluff you, Madam. It’s like I said: a girl’s got to have something she can fall back on.”

“Someone to run back to when you got a rebuff from someone else? The only security in the world lies within yourself.”

“What should I do to get him to marry me?”

“The first thing to do is to get a divorce from your present husband.”

“I’ll ask him, but I know what he’ll say. What am I going to do about Ethelbert? I’m mortified half the time, and now I have a chance to pick up some big money and he doesn’t want me to sell my place.”

“Heed what I say,” Madam Gazza’s voice was firm. “Lines in your hand show you getting what you want most. I will help you, but only on one condition.”

“What is it?” Chartreuse’s voice was no longer surly.

“My condition is this: if you go in a straightforward fashion and ask your husband to consent to a divorce, granting him some rights in the matter, making some small compromise if necessary, and he refuses to agree to the divorce, I will tell you how to get what you want, permanently and legally.”

Chartreuse stared at Madam Gazza for a full minute without blinking.

“You mean I can do it even if he doesn’t want me to?”

“I must remind you, my dear, that I am a seer: one who sees.”

Chartreuse’s face lit up greedily. “Are you sure. Madam?”

“Only if you do exactly what I tell you to do. Otherwise, your actions will backfire with most horrible consequences.”

“Bigamy?” Chartreuse said.

“Worse.” Madam Gazza’s voice was serene. “Perjury and fraud.”

“Can you guarantee your…method?”

“If you can fulfill one requirement.”

“Gosh, I hope so!” Chartreuse’s voice trembled.

“You are a legal resident of the state of Arizona?”

“I bought my place there three years ago. I’ve lived there ever since except when I came over on little trips to see my husband about…well, business. My taxes are all paid up and I vote in the elections. If that isn’t a legal resident, I don’t know what it takes to make one.”