3
"You really think I put that vision in your head? Have you already forgotten how vivid it was? Like a dream, but even more real, am I right?"
For some reason, this time, it gets through. She's right about the denial. I can't face what I've seen. It's too strange, too horrible.
"Some trick," I mutter.
"No. Listen, Mr. Heller, I'll be the first to admit that much of what people in my trade do is fraud and misdirection. Everyone knows the tricks, now. You can buy a book teaching you how to palm read at any large chain. People are educated about the cold read. That doesn't mean there aren't real things. Things that are hard to explain, even harder to understand, and harder still for people like you to accept."
"And what am I? What's a person like me?"
"Someone who trucks with reality alone. That's why your daughter gave you this gift, Mr. Heller. Because your mind is closed to these things."
"Now I'm disappointing my daughter?"
"You'll do much worse to her if you don't stay and hear what I have to say. A man of practicality can appreciate that, can't he?"
I move away from the door. "Practicality and reality are too very different disciplines. I haven't often been accused of practicality." The images from the daydream, the vision, are playing over and over in my head, weakening my resolve.
"Whatever the past, you will need to be practical now. There's a bad thing in your history."
"You're very good at this, you know? The way you talk, your spiel."
"I'm just trying to help you. It's my responsibility. Imagine I'm a doctor and I swore a sort of Hippocratic oath."
"More like hypocritical oath," I say. It's not a good joke. I'm tired.
She looks at me. She's tired.
"Just give me twenty minutes. Is that so much?"
"It's a lot."
"I'll make you a coffee. How's that? Do it for your daughter. She loves you very much and she's trying to connect with you."
"That's dirty pool."
"I'm trying to save her life, too."
"I wish you'd stop talking in such grandiose terms."
"Pragmatic, Mr. Heller. I'm being pragmatic."
"Fine. Make your coffee. But it's fifteen minutes you're getting, and the coffee making comes off that time."
"I can talk while I brew," she says. She makes a gesture for me to follow, then rises and returns through the beads.
I reconsider, looking out through the door. The street is black. One of the streetlights is out and I can barely see my car. I think of the marionette lady from the daydream and I find myself following Karen through the curtain.
"Shouldn't it be madam and not mistress?" I ask her, not really wanting to let her get a word in. I might be scared to go outside, but that doesn't mean I want to hear too much of her babbling.
She directs me back into my chair. "I used to be a hooker, too," she says.
I almost laugh. Though it might be true.
"You were a looker in your day, then?" I ask.
"Did you just insult me? I'm not that old."
"You're awfully touchy for someone who knows the future."
"I don't know shit about the future. Only what I get from the past. And your past has a bad thing, and your future's going to have it, too." She flicks a button on what looks to be an expensive coffee machine, one of those black and silver jobbies with little spouts and trays.
"For the last time," I say, "my father died of a heart attack. He was out for a walk and he died. So if the bad thing is heart disease, trust me, I'm well aware."
"What then do you propose?" she asks. "That you just made that up? That you went into a trance-like state and created a demon from nothing?"
"It was a lot like those horror movies," I say. "I saw a Korean movie once where –"
The coffee machine hisses, letting out steam. "Yes, you mentioned that before. This is not some fictitious ghost. The word ghost doesn't really apply, I don't think. This is not some spirit of a dead person, clinging to the world for personal reasons."
"That's your definition of a ghost?"
"You are not a very agreeable man, Mr. Heller." The coffee machine howls and begins to grind the beans.
I wait, arms folded, until the sound is finished. "Is this the part where you tell me what killed my father? What sort of creature it is? You got some old book somewhere that you need to blow dust off of? Let me guess, my father built a house on an ancient Indian burial ground."
"You are a man who talks in clichés," she says, bringing a platter to the table. It has a pot of sugar and a little, silver spoon. "And you see clichés with your eyes. You feel the need to fit everything into the most comfortable definitions."
"Am I getting a reading now?"
"You make your own future a plodding, boring series of comprehensive moments. You are of the least capable sort when it comes to listening, to changing your ideas."
"You're not very nice. Anyone ever told you that?"
"Did I hurt your feelings, Mr. Heller?"
"Very funny. Get on with it, will you?"
She tamps down the ground coffee, slides it into its proper place, and presses another button on the machine. It gurgles and coffee spills forth into two, porcelain espresso cups.
