Part 24 (1/2)

”Hush. There is one more.”

”No there's not,” cried Catherine, ”because you're going to stop.” She s.n.a.t.c.hed the deck out of Mrs.

McNeill's hands and slapped it down on the table.

Swish. Clang.

The twentieth card, at the top of the deck, flipped over of its own accord and laid itself crosswise over the Fool.

”How did you do that?” Catherine said, snarling.

”I did nothing!”

”I hate tricks,” said Catherine, getting up and grabbing her coat and bag.

”I make no magic,” said Mrs. McNeill softly, staring at the layout.

”Take this,” said Catherine, dropping two bills on the table. ”I've got an appointment.”

”But your readinga””

”I don't want it. I don't want to know the future. And it's tricks, anyway. Tricks and lies.”

Catherine clattered down the tenement stairs, through the vestibule with its rifled mailboxes, down the cracked concrete stoop, and along the street. No taxi was in sight, but she knew she could find something at the intersection a couple of blocks up. She hurried along, fingering the tarot deck in her pocket.

Then she stopped suddenly, realizing she could not wait to find out if her plan had worked. She slipped into a small alleyway between two decrepit buildings and took the pack from her pocketa”Mrs.

McNeill's innocent pack. Catherine riffled through it till she found the Knight of Swords. She held it up, flicked a cigarette lighter, and held the flame beneath the card.

The pasteboard caught and burned between her fingers. She held it till she felt the heat of the flame, then she dropped the charred card to the ground.

She laughed aloud in her relief. Then, as if in further evidence of her good luck, she saw an unoccupied taxi pa.s.s along the street. She hurried out toward the mouth of the alley, happily calling, ”Taxi!”

But Catherine didn't make it to the mouth of the alley, for a strong wrist grabbed her hand and she looked up into the face of a tall man with wide shoulders. A black knit cap with three ta.s.sels was pulled over his brow.

A black knit cap with three ta.s.sels just like the Fool wore.

Swish. Clang.

He grabbed her bag with one hand. With his other he slashed out with a knife, to cut the straps.

Catherine drew back, frightened, not of the thief, but of the Fool.

The blade missed the straps. It found Catherine and slid up through her ribs to her heart.

When the Fool had clattered off, Catherine slipped to the rough pavement of the alley the way a child slips to his bed after a long day of relatives and food and car journeys. Her eyes looked a moment at the sky, then heavily slid down the smoky brick of the condemned apartment house, then past her bare arm with the flecks of blood like bright freckles, then to the bit of bright pasteboard that lay so close to her face, its image was blurred.

It's image of the Knight of Swords, his face pale and impa.s.sive, on a rearing horse, brandis.h.i.+ng his bloodstained sword.

Swish. Clang.

THE BITTEREST PILL.

by Frederik Pohl.

Margery tried putting the phone back on the hook, but it immediately rang again. She kicked the stand, picked up the phone and said: ”Hang up, will you? We don't want any!” She slammed the phone down to break the connection and took it off the hook again.

The doorbell rang.

”My turn,” I said, and put down the papera”it looked as though I never would find out what the National League standings were. It was Patrolman Gamelsfelder.

”Man to see you, Mr. Binns. Says it's important.” He was sweatinga”you could see the black patches on his blue s.h.i.+rt. I knew what he was thinking: We had air-conditioning and money, and he was risking his life day after day for a lousy policeman's pay, and what kind of a country was this anyhow? He'd said as much that afternoon.

”It might be important to him, but I don't want to see anybody. Sorry, Officer.” I closed the door.

Margery said: ”Are you or are you not going to help me change the baby?” I said cheerfully: ”I'll be glad to, dear.” And it was truea”besides being good policy to say that, since she was pretty close to exploding.

It was true because I wanted something to do myself. I wanted some nice, simple, task like holding a one-year-old down with my knee in the middle of his chest, while one hand held his feet and the other one pinned the diaper. I mean, it was nice of Uncle Otto to leave me the money, but did they have to put it in the paper?

The doorbell rang again as I was finis.h.i.+ng. Margery was upstairs with Gwennie, who took a lot of calming down because she'd had an exciting day, and because she always did, so I stood the baby on his fat little feet and answered the door myself. It was the policeman again. ”Some telegrams for you, Mr.

Binns. I wooden let the boy deliver them.”

”Thanks.” I tossed them in the drawer of the telephone stand. What was the use of opening them? They were from people who had heard about Uncle Otto and the money, and who wanted to sell me something.

”That fellow's still here,” Patrolman Gamelsfelder said sourly. ”I think he's sick.”

”Too bad.” I tried to close the door.

”Anyway, he says to tell Cuddles that Tinker is here.”

I grabbed the door. ”Tell Cud. . .”

”That's what he said.” Gamelsfelder saw that that hit me, and it pleased him. For the first time he smiled.

”Whata”what's his name?”

”Winston McNeely McGhee,” said Officer Gamelsfelder happily, ”or anyway that's what he told me, Mr. Binns.”

”Send the son of aa”Send the fellow in,” I said, and jumped to get the baby away from the ashtray where Margery had left a cigarette burning.

Winnie McGheea”it was all I needed to finish my day.

He came in holding his head as though it weighed a thousand pounds. He was never what you'd call healthy-looking, even when Margery stood me up at the altar in order to elope with him. It was his frail, poetic charm, and maybe he still had that, and maybe he didn't, but the way he looked to me, he was sick, all right. He looked like he weighed a fast hundred pounds not counting the head; the head looked like a balloon. He moaned, ”h.e.l.lo, Harlan, age thirty-one, five-eleven, one seventy-three.

You got an acetylsalicylic acid tablet?” I said, ”What?” But he didn't get a chance to answer right away because there was a flutter and a scurry from the expansion attic and Margery appeared at the head of the stairs. ”I thoughta”” she began wildly, and then she saw that her wildest thought was true. ”You!”