"Isaac, I don't tell you storiesa""

"Shhh," he said, smiling. "Either this is just a foolish game . . .

or we must accept the power of the cards. Even when they don't smile."

"Isaac, what are you saying?"

"The truth." He shrugged. "Tarot comes from the Cabalaha"from the words, the soul, of our mystics.

They are not our Beliefa"they are not our Fatea"they are Truth itself." He shrugged again, smiled again, "So when the Angel of Death appears, there is no appeal."

"How do you know what the cards said?" Catherine demanded.

"This onea"with the other cards around ita"this one doesn't lie."

He tapped the twentieth card, the Knight of Swords.

Catherine fumbled beneath the cloth for the cad she'd placed there, facedowna"the Knight of Swords.

She turned it over.

Swish. Clang.

The innocent Lovers.

"I'm sorry that I will hear no more of your happy stories, Madame Catrina," said Isaac, rising. At the door he bowed with grave politeness. "I thank you for the happiness you tried to give, to me, to others.

Happiness is precious. Goodbye, Madame Catrina."

Catherine gathered the cards, feverishly counted them twice to make certain she had all seventy-eight, both times making certain the Fool was at the top, the Knight of Swords at the bottom. She dropped them into a ten-gallon plastic garbage bag, wound two metal ties around the top, and shoved it deep into a trash barrel at the degenerating end of the street.

When she returned to her storefront, slipping through the curtained door (where the sign had been turned to CLOSED), Iris was waiting for her.

Her black, spiked hair seemed horribly appropriate, mourning hysteria.

"You started a reading. You have to finish it. There were other things in the cards, things you didn't tell me. I could see it in your face."

"Don't do this, Iris." Catherine pushed shut the street door, pulled back the curtain across the doorway.

She looked at herself in the pier gla.s.s and wondered why she could now read exactly what the cards said, when before she had read only the faces of the customers.

"You've got to tell me!" cried Iris. "Last night you knew what was going to happen to Randy. That's what kept me awake last nighta"not Randy dying but your knowing that he was going to die. What else did you see, Catherine?"

"I don't know," said Catherine. "I can't remember."

"Then read the cards again."

"They're gone," said Catherine, glad she could tell the truth. "I threw them away."

"What are you talking about?" snapped Iris. "Look."

Catherine turned slowly. Turned slowly, because she knew what she'd see.

Swish. Clang.

"Well," said Iris.

The first card was the Fool.

"It's almost the same," said Catherine flatly. "Very bad."

"But there's more, isn't there?"

The second card was the Burning Tower, and the last card was the Knight of Swords.

"Go home, Iris."

"What did you mean, *almost the same'? What's different?"

"Your boyfriend's dead now,: said Catherine heavily, after a moment.

"That's all."

Iris stared at her.

Catherine abruptly gathered the cards together.

"You've heard enough, Iris," she said heavily. "And they're only cards.

So go home. Go home now. Please . . ."

She leaned against the refrigerator, dialing by the light of the sodium lamp that shone at the mouth of the alley in back.

"Esther,: she said in vast relief. "Thank G.o.d you're back, I've been calling all day. Can you come over?

Right now?"

The refrigerator motor hummed through Catherine's bones.

"I have to talk to you abouta"our work. The cards. No, this is not--?

She squeezed the mouthpiece with her hand, listening to Esther's remonstrances.

"No, I'm not all right," Catherine cried finally, near tears. "Nothing's right."

She pushed the tarot cards to the side and placed the largest of her set of three stainless-steel mixing bowls in the center of the table. She dropped half the deck into the bowl and poured out half the sandalwood-scented oil in the spirit lamp she kept on her dresser. She put in the remainder of the deck and poured over it the rest of the fragrant oil.

The Knight of Swords lay faceup atop the pile, his visage glistening in the oil.

She lit a match and dropped it into the bowl.

The oil flared in a rush of blue flame and incense.

Swish. Clang.

Esther wore a long, shapeless coat in threadbare herringbone tweed, and long earrings in Central American silver, hammered so thin that candlelight shone through it.

"Cat!" she cried, staring less at Catherine's drawn face than at the hideous afghan around Catherine's slumped shoulders. "Cat! What's wrong?"

"Something's happening," said Catherine, shutting the street door and locking it. "I don't understand it."

"This you'll understand." Esther pulled a large paper bag with fragrant grease stains from beneath her long wool coat. "A cheeseburger, double onions. Tea with lemon."

"Thanks," said Catherine, whose smile wasn't what it used to be. "I can't think about eating now."

"You look exhausted." Automatically Esther took the customer's place across the tea table.

"I couldn't sleep last night."

"Because of Isaac," said Esther with soft understanding.

"What happened to Isaac?" cried Catherine.

"It was in both papers. He was going up to his apartment, in the elevator. The cable . . .it just snapped."

"My G.o.d. I knew it. I saw it in the cards."

Esther paused a moment before speaking. "Cat, it's not your fault." She put her hand atop Catherine's just the way Isaac had. "You are definitely working too hard. Everybody gives happy readingsa"but not the way you do. They're draining you. Oh, sure, they're good for business. For your business, I mean. Not for anybody else's. You're taking all our customersa""

"I don't want anybody's customers!" Catherine jumped up from the chair and went to the sideboard.

She opened the second drawer and withdrew the cash box, which long ago she'd sh.e.l.lacked with cards from an incomplete tarot. "The cards only predict horrible things now! Things that always come true!"

"Always come true?" Esther laughed. "I know people who'd kill for that gift."

"It's not a gift!" Catherine cried, slamming the box on the table. "Stay here tonight and I'll show you."

She took a key from a chain around her neck, unlocked the box, and placed the tarot deck inside. She slammed shut the lid and locked the box again.

"All right, Cat." Esther laughed, accepting the chain with the key and draping it around her own neck.

"So what can happen now?"

They sat at the tiny table against the tiny kitchen window, drinking lemon tea. Esther told stories about her customers and tried to make Catherine laugh, but when Catherine should have laughed, she only looked blank.

"You're not listening to mea"" Esther protested.

"Shhh!"

Catherine was listening to something else.

Esther c.o.c.ked her eara"and was surprised she could hear something too.

A metallic rattling in the next room.

"What is that?" whispered Esther, frightened.

Catherine smiled, a small grim smile. She reached across the table and touched Esther's neck.

Touched the chain with the key to the locked box on it.

Catherine rose, pulled open the curtain, and turned on the light.

Esther rose, too, and looked over Catherine's shoulder.

The box remained exactly as it had been left.

The tarot deck sat beside it, in the center of the tea table.

Catherine stalked to the table, knocked her cash box to the floor with the back of her hand. "What is it?" she yelled at the cards. "Tell me!

What do you want from me?"

They sat at the little kitchen table by the little window, but now it was the morning sun that shone through and not the buzzing sodium lamp.

"I do want to help you," said Esther.

"How? You saw what the cards can do."

"Their power must come from something. There has to be a reason for it.

Let's go back. When did the bad readingsa"the dangerous readingsa"start?"

"Two days ago. With Iris. She's a regular."

"Before Iris?"

"A new client. Marlene. I don't think she told me her last name."

"How did she find you?"

"Some friend recommended me. She didn't say who it was."

"What did Marlene look like? How old?"

"Fifty, fifty-five. Sandy hair. She colors it."

Esther thought for a moment. "Marlene . . ."