Three Sisters (16 page)

Daisy rolled this over in her mind. “I wonder.”

Mandy arched a penciled brow. “Wonder what?”

“Uncle Blue Hummingbird knew lots of them old sayings. One of ’em was ‘Cheaters cheat themselves.’” The Ute elder explained with an impish grin, “Maybe the sneaky sister ended up getting the short end of the stick.” The woman who had survived three husbands explained to the puzzled waitress, “Not one man in ten is that much of a prize.”

Unaware of the slanderous gossip being dispensed by his waitress, the manager of the restaurant greeted Ms. Cassandra Spencer and Mr. Nicholas Moxon with a genuine smile and a discreet “please follow me” nod. He had taken no notice of the skinny blond woman whose big eyes followed the psychic.

A moment later, the Spencer-Moxon party was seated in a private dining room with a single table. The privileged patrons would not have to suffer the attentions of Mandy. The most attractive, competent waitress in the establishment was already pouring Silver Springs mineral water into spotless crystal goblets.

The manager’s crisply attired assistant appeared with a bottle of fine Belgian wine (1982), removed the cork with a pleasing pop, offered the aromatic stopper to the gentleman for his approval.

The lady’s escort was no gentleman, but the fact that he preferred Budweiser beer and burgers to “candy-ass” wines and tasteless broiled fish garnished with tiny green weeds is not the reason for this observation. Decompose the descriptor, and it becomes clear that a gentleman is, of necessity, a gentle man. There was nothing gentle about this man. Though his tastes tended toward the more popular foods and beverages, Mr. Moxon understood what was expected of him. He sniffed the cork, nodded absently to the gratified assistant manager, who poured the appropriate amount of amber wine into elegant, long-stemmed glasses.

It took perhaps another two minutes to order, and then they were alone.

The bald man reached inside his jacket, where a hard-eyed fellow such as himself might carry a 9-mm Glock semiautomatic. Or, if he was on the far side of fifty, a .38-caliber revolver. This male person being of indeterminate age, it is difficult to predict what his choice might have been in matters of deadly weapons. Never mind; he removed a small, gift-wrapped parcel from the inner pocket and pushed it across the polished granite tabletop to the pretty lady.

Her hand went to her throat. “For me?”

He resisted the temptation to reply, “No, for the big snow owl sitting on your shoulder.” What he said instead was: “I hope you like it.”

Cassandra untied and untangled the red silk ribbons with exaggerated care, as if she might be preserving them to wear in her raven-black hair. This task accomplished, she removed the beige wrapping, opened the hinged Moroccan-leather box, and stared wide-eyed at what nestled inside, cushioned in comfy folds of snowy satin—a lovely antique brooch and matching earrings. “Oh, Nicky—you shouldn’t have!”

He laughed. “Maybe you’re right—these baubles set me back almost ten grand.”

She slapped playfully at the cheeky man’s hand, then removed the largest of the Italian cameos from the box. “It must be a hundred years old!”

“These babies go back closer to two centuries. And I had them mounted in platinum silver.”

She pinned the brooch onto her dress. “It is
so
lovely.”

“Try on the earrings.”

Cassandra removed the pearl earrings from her pierced ears and clipped on the dime-size cameos. She tilted her chin. “How do they look?”

“Super, kid. But not half as good as you.”

Daisy Perika was about to leave the restaurant for the Dollar Store when she noticed the forlorn figure.
Poor thing looks like she didn’t know what to do next.
The Ute elder had seen her earlier, this yellow-haired woman who had arrived with the psychic and the bald man. The big-eyed creature was hovering near a door marked
PRIVATE
. Daisy hesitated.
The smart thing to do would be mind my own business.
There were street people all over town. Some were dangerous. Others were just down on their luck.
Maybe she’s hungry.
The old woman approached the slender youth. “Hey—are you okay?”

The peculiar person seemed not to hear. Kept right on staring at the closed door.

Daisy raised her voice: “When I ask you a question, Blondie—I expect an answer!”

Slowly, the head turned. The huge gray eyes stared vacantly at the Ute woman. “Were you talkin’ to me?”

Daisy cringed at the nasal drawl.
Oh, Lord help me—it’s one of them hillbillies from Dogpatch or Grinder’s Switch.
“I asked if you was okay.”

A taut silence while the full lips thinned, then: “Tell me…what do I look like?”

She’s a crazy hillbilly.
“You look like you ain’t had a bite to eat in days.”

“I don’t look…horrible?”

I ought to just turn around and walk away.
But just in case St. Peter happened to be watching at this very moment, Daisy decided to do the right thing. She leaned on her sturdy walking stick, opened her purse. “Listen, Blondie—if you need something to eat, I’ve still got a couple of dollar bills I can spare.”
A couple that the money-grubbing
matukach
midget at the funeral home didn’t rip off.
“You could buy yourself a nice hot—”

“No.”

Surprised, Daisy looked up. “You don’t want the money?”

The pale face almost smiled. “No, thank you.”

At least the hillbilly’s got some manners.
The crotchety old woman decided that this good-works thing wasn’t half bad—especially when the intended object of the charity turned down hard cash. Which encouraged Daisy to give it another try.
I could take her down to that Salvation Army place on Copper Street, let them deal with her.
But something about the wistful stranger begged for personal attention. “If you’re not hungry and you don’t need money, is there something else I could do for you?”

After taking a Dainty Nibble of aged Cheddar, a sip of wine, Cassandra Spencer was about to swallow. She choked, then: “Oh—oh—Nicky!”

About to punch a number into his cell phone, Nicholas Moxon blinked at the unpredictable woman. “What is it, Cassie?”

“Oh—” The psychic pointed at something behind him. “It must be the aura of these antique cameos, but I’m seeing an apparition—
really and truly
!”

Oh boy, here we go again.
Not endowed with the psychic’s gift, he did not bother to turn his head. “Who is it this time—John Lennon? General Stonewall Jackson?”

“No!” Cassandra was almost breathless. “I see an ancient old woman.” From Nicky’s perspective, one of her more annoying faults was the use of redundant adjectives. “She’s all pruney-wrinkled—and hideous!”

“You ain’t exactly no Marilyn Monroe yourself, toots.” Daisy Perika said this with a sniff. “And I ain’t no apparition.”

The psychic’s mouth drooped. “You’re not dead?”

“I don’t think so.” Ignoring the only totally bald man she had ever seen, who had now turned to stare at her, Daisy stumped her way over to their table, plopped into a chair. “But at my age, I check my pulse every few minutes—just to make sure.”

Mr. Nicholas Moxon had not lost his composure since that day in the sixth grade when he broke “Pigeon” Nelson’s jaw on account of how Pigeon had deliberately spit on Nicky’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The psychic’s business manager spoke softly to the peculiar, elderly person, whom he assumed was one of that endless population of gushing fans, borderline psychos, and certifiable lunatics who were constantly attempting to get some face time with his famous client. “Excuse me, ma’am—but this happens to be a private dining room. And it’s reserved for me and my lady friend.” He indicated the door with a jerk of his chin. “So why don’t you toddle off and go bother somebody in the public dining—”

“Hush your mouth,” Daisy barked, and banged her fist on the table. “I’m here to talk to this girl who talks to dead people—not you, Daddy Warbucks!”

Seeing her agent’s eyes get that cold, smoldery look, Cassandra shook her head at Moxon.
Let me handle this.

He responded with a shrug.
Okay. Granny Big-Mouth is all yours.
He took a gulp of wine.

Daisy leaned closer to the TV personality. “That’s a pretty cameo pin, and your black dress really sets it off.”

“Thank you.” The lady nodded to indicate her male companion. “The brooch is a gift from Nicky.” She touched an earlobe. “And the matching earrings.”

“They’re pretty too.” Daisy was always ready to offer helpful advice. “But they’re too small for ears as big as yours.”

On his second gulp, Moxon choked on the expensive vintage.

Her face paling to the chalky white of an old plaster wall, Cassandra said, “It appears that you have the advantage over me.”

The Ute elder frowned.
Why can’t these white people talk in plain American, like us Indians.

Cassandra explained, “You seem to know who I am.” She raised a haughty chin, looked down the slender nose. “The question is—who are you?”

She must think everybody over eighty is stupid.
“Oh, I know who I am too.”

“Then perhaps you will share that information with us.”

Why do these
matukach
always use a dozen words when two or three would get the job done?
“I’m Daisy Perika.”

The psychic pursed her pretty lips. “That name sounds vaguely familiar.”

With a disarmingly earnest expression, Daisy nodded. “I know what you mean—every time I hear it, I think the same thing.”

Nicholas Moxon threw back his shiny head, his laughter boomed off the rafters.

Daisy joined in.

Cassandra did not.

When the hilarity had subsided, Daisy addressed the sullen white woman: “I was sorry to hear about how your poor sister got chewed up by a bear.”

The psychic had not seen that one coming. “My sister’s tragic death is not a subject that I care to discuss—”

“I remember another time that little Astrid almost died,” Daisy said. “And I was there when it happened.”

Again, Cassandra was caught short. “Really?”

The Ute elder nodded. “It was about thirty years ago, at that art fair in Durango.” Daisy watched the white woman’s eyes.

The surviving sister’s face had quick-frozen.

Moxon was watching both women.

Daisy continued. “You little sister passed out. Stopped breathing.”

Cassandra stared past the Indian woman, as if she could see it all again. So plainly. “Yes. A nurse gave Astrid mouth-to-mouth.”

Daisy recalled this detail. The aged woman’s gaze penetrated deep inside the dark-haired woman, where all of Cassie’s little-girl fears still lived. “Except for that, I expect your sister would’ve died there and then.”

Determined to regain control of the rapidly deteriorating situation, Cassandra glared at the intruder. “Tell me—did you interrupt our private lunch to dredge up unhappy family memories? And if not, for what purpose are you here?”

This rapid-fire assault rattled the old woman.
What
did
I come in here for?
A more sensitive soul would have been embarrassed by the failure of short-term memory. But, shrugging off the minor defect, the crafty old innovator invented a plausible reason for her presence: “I’m here to make you a business proposition.”
But when she says “Then let’s hear it?” what’ll I say then?
Daisy lived in the moment.

Moxon addressed the peculiar visitor: “Then you want to talk to me.”

She gave him the look reserved for sassy young smart alecks and week-old roadkill. “Why would I want to do a thing like that?”

“Because I am Cassandra’s business manager.” The ruggedly ugly face assumed a mock-serious expression. “She doesn’t make a move without my okay.”

“Okay, if that’s how it works.” Daisy tapped the table with a bony knuckle until the inspiration came. “I’ve been watching her TV show ever since it came on the air. And it’s not all that bad. But the way I see it, the thing could use some improvement.”

If she had tapped the psychic’s face with that knuckle, the brittle mask might have fractured.

“Expert advice is always welcome.” Moxon produced a leather-bound notebook from somewhere inside his jacket, pulled a platinum ballpoint from his shirt pocket, poised pen over paper. “Shoot.”
Cassie looks like she’s about to explode.
This was great fun.

Not accustomed to being taken so seriously, Daisy was all puffed up. “All this stuff about talking to spirits and ghosts—most of it’s kind of…well—silly.”

Cassandra’s painted mouth gaped in the fashion of…Imagine a beached carp with scarlet lips. Not a pretty picture.

Moxon maintained a perfectly solemn demeanor. “You’re a woman who says what’s on her mind. I like that.”

Daisy was beginning to like this hairless white man. She pointed a gnarled finger at the TV psychic. “What this lady needs is professional help.”

Cassandra’s business manager was biting his lower lip, which made it difficult to reply. But, being a resourceful fellow, he did. “Do you have a—er—particular medical professional in mind?”

As the psychic imagined herself beaning said business manager with the proverbial heavy, blunt object, Daisy frowned and shook her head. “You mean like a doctor? No—what she needs is a professional
consultant
.”

Moxon and his client stared. Taken aback is what they were. And perplexed.

The tribal elder was on a roll. “Miss Spencer needs help from somebody who knows everything there is to know about talking to dead people—a person who could tell her what’s what and what’s not and how to tell the difference.”

The bald man nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “And you are applying for the job.”

The Ute shaman grinned. “You’re a little slow on the uptake, Daddy Warbucks—but give you enough time, you manage to figure things out.”

Moxon reddened.

Cassandra shot him a now-you-see-how-it-feels smile.

Still addressing the male, Daisy aimed a thumb at the TV psychic. “She could drop by and see me from time to time—or call me on the phone.” The old woman’s face turned as hard as stone. “But I don’t work for nothing.”

Cassandra’s business manager didn’t blink. “What’s your usual hourly rate?”

The Ute elder’s answer was instantaneous: “Fifteen dollars.”

The hairless one nodded. “A very reasonable price.”

Daisy wanted to slap herself across the face.
I should have said twenty!

Moxon exchanged glances with his client, then smiled benignly at the self-styled consultant. “Tell you what. Give me and Cassie some time to talk about it. We’ll call you.”

“Suits me.”
Well, I talked my way out of that one pretty good.
Daisy was about to withdraw, when—right out of nowhere—she remembered why she had crashed this party. She spoke to the television personality: “Oh—I’d almost forgot. There’s a young woman out there in the restaurant who’d like to have a word with you.”

Cassandra cringed.
They follow me wherever I go. Why can’t they leave me in peace—at least when I go out for lunch?
She shot Nicholas Moxon a look.
You handle this, Nicky. Earn your 30 percent plus expenses.

Perhaps her business manager’s receiver was out of tune. Whatever the case, he did not receive the psychic’s message.
All these spooky groupies ought to be good for something.
His rubbery brow furrowed in not-so-deep thought.
Maybe I should get them talking to each other—start a fan club for Cassie.

With no help forthcoming from the business-managing half of the team, Cassandra had to deal with the issue herself. “You say this person wants to speak to me—what about?”

Daisy shrugged. “She didn’t say.”

Cassandra regarded the wrinkled ancient. “Is she a friend of yours?”

“No, Blondie’s nobody I know.”

“Blondie?”
Egad.
Feeling the need for liquid refreshment, Cassandra lifted her wineglass.

“Blondie isn’t her real name. It’s April.”

The long-stemmed glass slipped from Cassandra’s fingers, was pulled by a warp in the space-time continuum into a crashing encounter with the tiled floor, where it shattered instantaneously into a thousand shards. More, if you count the teeny-tiny ones. Unlike the fractured glass ejected from Astrid’s broken picture frame, these fragments did not stick to Cassandra’s dress. But along with the spilled wine, they made a quite a mess. She uttered a single word: “What?”

Daisy frowned. “What do you mean ‘what?’”

Ignoring the odd look she was getting from her business manager, Cassandra pressed her fingers against her temples, closed her eyes. “What did you say her name was?”

“April.”

“April what?” The psychic held her breath.

The old woman studied about it.

Moxon:
What the hell is going on here?

Still holding the breath, the oxygen-depleted psychic unconsciously leaned toward the enigmatic Indian woman.
Please please please. Let it be her.

Daisy was straining to recollect.
It was a kinda funny last name, even for a
matukach.
Some kind of holiday.
She quickly eliminated Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, and Chief Ouray’s birthday.
Did she say she was April Halloween? No, that’s not right. And it wasn’t a big holy day like Christmas or Easter.
But wait a minute.
It was somewhere between Christmas and Easter. And had something to do with a saint.
Aha! “Now I remember.” She grinned at the white woman. “It was Valentine. April Valentine!”

Cassandra’s lips had turned blue under her scarlet lipstick; she exhaled. “Oooh!”
I knew it—April has found a sensitive—someone she’s able to communicate with. And the clever spirit has sent her contact to me!

Caught in a rut, Nicholas Moxon spun on the retread phrase:
What the hell is going on here?
It is commonly believed that Men of Business are not capable of creative thought. Bosh! Which is to say—do not be fooled; Mr. Moxon was, in his devious way, quite an inspired thinker.

Daisy also wondered what was going on. “D’you know this April?”

Having regained a measure of composure, the TV personality said quite truthfully, “I have heard of the young lady. But we have not actually met.”

“Well, if you’d like to, she’s waiting right outside the door. I can go get her for you.”

Feeling the weight of her business manager’s gaze, Cassandra hesitated for only a moment. “Yes. Please do.”
This should be interesting
.

Daisy got up from the chair, hobbled off to the door, opened it, poked her head into the hallway, turned her face this way and that.
Well, isn’t that just like these young people nowadays. Ask you to do something for them, then wander off. The silly wart-head!
She turned, spoke to the psychic, whose alabaster skin shone exceedingly pale in the glow of fluorescent light. “She’s gone.” Daisy eyed the clock on the wall. “And so’m I.”

Cassandra popped up from her chair. “Wait—how can I get in touch with you?”

Having forgotten about her “business proposition,” the Ute elder regarded the TV psychic with wide eyes. “What for?”

Nicholas Moxon reminded her: “We might wish to discuss a consultant contract.”

Daisy came very near blushing. “Oh, right.”

Cassandra looked hopefully at the Ute woman. “Do you have a telephone?”

“Sure I do.” Daisy chuckled. “And electricity and a well with an electric pump and a flush toilet and a septic tank with a leach field. When Charlie Moon built my new house, he put all those things in for me.”

Cassandra’s thinly penciled brows arched like black inchworms. “You are acquainted with Charlie Moon?”

“I’m his aunt.” Daisy added, “His
favorite
aunt.”
All the others are dead.

The psychic was beginning to get a glimmer.
Of course. This is that old Ute woman I’ve heard so much about. The one who brews all kinds of herbal medicines—and talks to spirits.