Deadly Fortune Page 6

Shaking his head, Clint told her, “I’m not buying that.”

  “Didn’t think you would. All right, then.” She stabbed another bite of fish and brought it most of the way to her mouth before pausing and watching him. “Try the salmon.”

  Clint was already hungry, so he went ahead and tried it. It wasn’t half bad, which meant it must have come from somewhere other than the foul-smelling cart outside Gigi’s tent. “It’s damn near raw,” he griped.

  “That’s how it’s supposed to be. The cook is Japanese.”

  “That explains it.” He dipped the next bite into some of the sauce on the side of his plate, which made a big difference.

  “Wilhelm Torquelan is a pig,” Gigi said. “He’s ruined nearly a dozen families and God only knows how many others that I don’t know about.”

  “Did he ruin your family?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know he ruined anyone?” Clint asked.

  “Because some of the people he ruined came to me seeking financial advice.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t put much credence into that.”

  “This has nothing to do with what I see in the crystals or tea leaves or palms or anything else,” she insisted. “I told you people mostly come to me for two reasons.”

  “Money or love,” Clint recited.

  “That’s right. And I noticed a steady flow of good people coming to me with some very sad stories to tell about losing both of those things.”

  “What kind of stories?”

  Gigi took a deep breath and looked down at her plate as if she didn’t remember ordering the food upon it. “The first few came from women who’d lost their sons to violence. I was working in San Francisco at the time and that sort of thing wasn’t unheard of. The next few came from men who’d lost their fortunes.”

  “Nothing new for San Francisco either,” Clint pointed out. “Or California in general, for that matter.”

  “That’s what I thought. Also, these stories didn’t all come in at the same time or in a row. But then I started noticing patterns. Too many of the stories involved gold men being murdered by killers who moved like a pack of wolves.”

  Clint found himself picking at the fish more now. The sauce was spicy, but worked well with the flavor of salmon. He didn’t dwell on the food, though, focusing instead on what Gigi was telling him. “Again, not altogether unusual for California. What did you mean about a pack of wolves?”

  “That’s how I saw it.”

  Leaning forward, Clint asked, “What did you see?”

  Closing her eyes, Gigi spoke in a hushed, breathy tone. “I saw not a death stemming from anger or revenge, but from cold calculation. There was more than one killer and they did their jobs well. Like a pack of animals, only not wild. Wolves. With teeth that were—”

  “Dammit,” Clint groaned. “You’re talking about seeing something in your crystals instead of with your own two eyes?”

  Her eyelids snapped open and she said, “Not everything I say in that regard is a show. I do have genuine talent, you know. Like any profession, that’s what separates the successful practitioners from those who fail.”

  “We’ve already established what you practice.”

  “No. You’ve established that, but I never agreed. Not completely anyway.” Allowing her shoulders to come down from around her ears, she added, “Seeing something using my more exotic methods, when done properly, is just as good as seeing something with my eyes.”

  “For future reference,” Clint said, “when I ask you about something, I’ll always be more interested in the latter instead of the former.”

  “And for future reference,” she replied, “I won’t ever care about which you prefer.”

  “Fair enough.” Clint could feel his temper starting to flare, so he took another bite of his supper to try and keep it from getting the better of him. Surprisingly, it actually did help. “Is there truly a difference between . . . whatever it is you supposedly see?”

  Glancing about at the others seated in the little restaurant, Gigi lowered her voice a bit and said, “Yes. There really is a reason why some people in my line of work can make a good living at it and others don’t.”

  “If only there was a way to tell the difference,” Clint mused.

  Surely not missing the vague accusation in Clint’s words, she told him, “The best way to tell that difference is by looking at the place where a teller gives their readings. If it’s somewhere that can be folded up and packed away in under an hour or two, that’s probably someone used to leaving town in a rush. Someone with deeper roots has the trust of their neighbors.”

  “That . . . actually makes sense.”

  “Why do you look surprised?”

  “Because someone who sees tea leaves as anything other than garbage is actually making perfect sense to me.” Prodding his supper with his fork, Clint asked, “Did someone poison this fish? Maybe that’s why my brain is going soft.”

  “Do you want to hear the rest of what I have to say or not?” Gigi asked.

  Clint took a moment to weigh his options. Since there was still a good portion of his meal to finish, he said, “I’m listening.”

  FOURTEEN

  “That’s her,” Mason said.

  The man standing beside the gunman was about the same size as Mason, but was cut from a completely different cloth. Where Mason had hair that was thinning on top and unruly everywhere else, the second man always looked as if he’d just come from the barber. His features were chiseled and he made his simple, dusty clothes seem fashionable just by wearing them.

  Upon hearing Mason, the handsome fellow nodded and asked, “Who’s that with her?”

  “Clint Adams.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “No, Darrow. I pulled that name out of thin air and attached it to the man in there for no good reason.”

  Darrow looked over at Mason. “There’s no need to be rude.”

  Even though Darrow’s voice hadn’t risen above what could be considered a polite conversational level, Mason looked rattled by what he’d heard. “That’s Clint Adams,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Why’s he with the Pietrov woman?”

  “They’ve been getting friendly of late.”

  “How friendly?” Darrow asked.

  Mason smirked. “I heard a few sounds coming from her house and they sounded real friendly.”

  “I see. Didn’t you say something about one of the others on the payroll getting to this man first?”

  “They were two locals,” Mason said. “And they’re not on the payroll yet.”

  “They should be,” Darrow pointed out.

  “Why?”

  “Because, if that is Clint Adams, they spotted him before the rest of us did.”

  Mason grimaced as though he’d just swallowed something rancid. “And if they hadn’t acted like a couple of idiots, Adams would have probably left town already. Instead, we’ve got to worry about him.”

  “That’s a point. Do you think we have anything to worry about?”

  Darrow watched for a few more seconds. The expression on his face didn’t change. His stance didn’t change. His eyes gave nothing away. By all appearances, he could just as well have been watching paint dry. Finally, he said, “We still need to kill her.”

  “Certain folks will figure we or Mr. Torquelan had something to do with it.”

  “That’s why it should be a messy job. Very messy, in fact.”

  “That’s not how we usually work, but it still won’t turn all suspicion away from us.”

  “It’ll turn suspicion in every direction,” Darrow said. “At us, at a random cowboy who got drunk and found her in an alley, at some superstitious customer of hers who didn’t want to pay for their reading. Everywhere and nowhere. We just need
some breathing room. That should give it to us.”

  Mason sifted through some thoughts of his own before saying, “Mr. Torquelan will probably—”

  “Mr. Torquelan put me in charge of this job,” Darrow said quickly. “And I’m doing it. We’re not going to waste any more time before seeing it through.”

  “And if it goes bad,” Mason added, “you’re the one taking the blame.”

  Darrow shifted just enough to face the man beside him. “What possible good did you think would come from saying that to me?”

  “Just making sure we all know where we stand.”

  “We both already know that. If this goes bad, I would have taken the blame no matter what. Do you suppose that would leave you in the clear?”

  Mason didn’t have to think for long before chuckling. “I ain’t stupid.”

  “Right. So let’s see to it this job gets done, the right people wind up dead, and we all get back to making money.”

  “Hear, hear.”

  FIFTEEN

  Clint was almost done with his salmon when he asked, “Do you have something to say about Torquelan or not?”

  “I do,” Gigi replied. “I just wanted to make sure you would listen to me when I told it to you.”

  “You think I came along this far to ignore you when you finally got around to answering my question?”

  Chewing on the last bits of pink salmon mixed in with white rice, she said, “Possibly.”

  “Would it speed things along if I paid your fee? Maybe then you’d at least speed this along a bit if you treated me like a customer you wanted to get out of your door.”

  “When you talk like that, I wouldn’t mind getting you out of my sight for free,” she grumbled.

  “You’re right,” Clint told her. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”

  She batted her eyelashes at him before asking, “Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

  “Partly . . . yes.”

  Gigi recoiled slightly, but recovered quickly enough. “I suppose there’s something to be said for honesty in a man.”

  “That and I do realize I’m dealing with a mind reader.”

  Gigi couldn’t help laughing. “I never claimed to read minds. Still, since those two did try to hurt you to impress Mr. Torquelan, I suppose you should know who he is.”

  “Thank you,” Clint said.

  Pushing her plate aside, Gigi said, “After I met those people who’d run afoul of him and lost someone close to them, things became tougher for me.”

  “How so?”

  “More men tried to kill me.”

  “More men?”

  Gigi nodded. “I’m not as nice to every man as I am to you,” she said. “Also, you’d be surprised how many of them don’t take it well when you give them news they don’t want to hear.”

  “You could always try to avoid that last part,” Clint pointed out.

  “You know who also does that sort of thing?”

  “No.”

  “The people who work in those tents I mentioned earlier that are made to be broken down and taken out of town on short notice. And before you make a joke about all fortune-tellers being hucksters,” Gigi added, “let me remind you that I’m still carrying that knife hidden on my person.”

  Clint used his fork to point at her when he said, “I know where you’ve got that blade hidden.”

  “You want to bet your life on that?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Smart man.”

  “When did these men start trying to kill you?” Clint asked.

  “As soon as I told the first one of them that he wasn’t going to get back the woman who’d left him or any of the money he’d foolishly spent.”

  “My mistake. When did the number of those incidents take a sharp increase?”

  Gigi smirked. “It was the night after I told someone who’d just struck a deal with Wilhelm Torquelan that he’d see the end of his days before seeing a return on his investment.”

  “He didn’t like that too much, I imagine.”

  “And Torquelan liked it even less. It was his men who came after me. They told me to amend what I said about him paying what he owed and convince my customer that every spirit in this world and the next would vouch for me.”

  “And did you?” Clint asked.

  “No!”

  “You didn’t?”

  Gigi scowled at him. “Why do you look so surprised?”

  “Because you were asked by men who were there to threaten you. Weren’t they armed?”

  “Yes, they were armed. First of all, someone in my line of work needs to protect her reputation once she builds one that’s worth something. And second . . .”

  When she didn’t finish her sentence, Clint prodded her by saying, “Go on. What was second?”

  Gigi let out a short sigh and rolled her eyes as if Clint had already started making fun of her. “I don’t like being threatened. When those men came to tell me what to do, the first thing I wanted to do was the opposite. Even if they wanted me to do something I had no objection to.”

  “I haven’t known you for very long and that doesn’t surprise me in the least.”

  “You probably think I’m foolish for doing something like that.”

  “On the contrary,” Clint said. “I’ve gotten myself into more scrapes than I care to remember because I refused to cater to some blowhard waving his gun around.”

  “When you’re a woman, those blowhards think they can get a whole lot more out of you,” Gigi told him in a somber tone. “And considering fortune-tellers get less respect than whores, things get a whole lot worse.”

  “How bad was it this time?”

  “Not too bad.” Perhaps knowing that she wasn’t lying very well, she added, “I’ve had worse.”

  “Did they hurt you?”

  “The first time they came around, they were full of nothing but threats. The second time, they shoved me a bit. The third time, things got a bit rougher.”

  “How rough?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” she replied.

  “Come on, Gigi. You’ve told me this much already. You might as well spill the rest.”

  “One of them burned me.”

  Clint studied her carefully. He figured it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think she’d play things up to make them seem worse just to get him on her side. A claim like that, on the other hand, seemed a bit extreme for that sort of a lie. “Burned you?” he asked.

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Where?”

  Reluctantly, Gigi pushed up the sleeve of her blouse to expose her left arm to just past her elbow. There were three circular scars that were about half the size of pennies. One of them could have actually been two scars that had run together. They weren’t something he’d noticed before and were only slightly paler than her regular skin tone.

  “Are those cigarette burns?” he asked.

  She nodded. “They told me they’d do a lot more than that when they came back.”

  “And did they?”

  “I didn’t stay around long enough to find out. As soon as they left, I packed up everything I could and left town. Left the entire state, in fact,” she told him. “I made it as far north as Oregon, earning as I went. But Lumberjacks and millers aren’t nearly as good customers as the folks I found in California, so I came back.”

  “Smarter money would be on the fact that you came back because you damn well felt like it and weren’t about to be told any different.”

  Although she didn’t say anything to that directly, Gigi shrugged and told him plenty with the expression on her face.

  “I would’ve felt the same way,” Clint told her. “Nobody should be told where they can or can’t make their living. Why would this Torquelan fellow go thr
ough so much trouble to get you to change your reading? Do you have that kind of sway with your customers?”

  “Not as such,” she told him. “But he didn’t want anyone at all talking along those lines. He deals in the shadows,” Gigi added in the faraway tone that seemed to be reserved for when she was consulting with her spirits. “The money he makes comes from blood and suffering.”

  “I could’ve told you as much without even meeting the man,” Clint said. “Is there anything you know for certain?”

  Snapping back into her regular voice, Gigi said, “Just what everyone else does. He buys up gold claims and deeds to property. I’ve heard tell that he smuggles illegal cargo into various ports along the coast, but that’s about it.”

  “That’s plenty. Are you finished eating?”

  “We haven’t had dessert, but I don’t have any more of an appetite.”

  SIXTEEN

  Clint escorted Gigi out of the restaurant and down the street. The sun had already dipped below the horizon to cast a dull glow over the rooftops on the western side of town. Shadows were stretching out farther along the uneven ground like oil that had been dumped from passing wagons. Although there were plenty of people to be found, Clint spotted a face among them that he wasn’t exactly happy to see.

  “You still have that blade on you?” he asked.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “What about any other weapons?”

  She stopped and turned to face him. “Clint, what’s wrong?”

  Placing a hand at the small of her back, Clint moved her along without appearing to be in too much of a hurry. “Remember when I told you someone was watching your tent?”

  “Yes,” Gigi replied as her muscles tensed.

  “Well, there’s someone watching us right now. Don’t look,” Clint said as he gave her another nudge. “Just follow my lead and try to look like nothing’s wrong.”

  When Gigi glanced over at him, she smiled in a way that convinced even Clint that there was nothing bothering her. “Where is he?”

  Clint let his gaze wander toward a store’s window. Instead of looking at anything displayed behind the glass, he focused on whatever he could see reflected in it. “Close,” he said, despite the fact that he couldn’t see anything useful in the reflection on the window. “When I give you this signal,” he said while tapping the small of her back, “break away from me and find someplace to hide.”