Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003

Robin turned back to the cards. “Now, what about this guy?” she asked. She looked up at Julie. “Let’s find out some more about him. I know that you know all about him,” she said, “but I want to know more.”

Removing the King of Pentacles from the spread, she set it aside. Then she gathered up the rest of the cards and handed them back to Julie to reshuffle and cut. Once Julie had passed the cards back, she threw a second spread with the King of Pentacles at the center as the significator card, indicating the person about whom she was inquiring.

“The cards never cease to amaze me!” she exclaimed once she had finished throwing the spread. She looked up at her client. “He has almost exactly the same cards as you. Except that he’s farther along. He’s already in love with you. The Ace of Cups, which was your outcome card, is at the heart of his reading.”

Julie was looking very pleased.

“But,” Robin continued, lifting a warning finger. “There are some problems.” She looked up at her with concern. “He’s married, isn’t he?”

Julie nodded.

Robin showed her the High Priestess. “Here she is — the wife. She dominates the spread. She’s a very powerful woman. They’ve been fighting a lot.” She pointed to a card that showed men fighting with sticks. “But this is what concerns me,” she went on. She picked up a card that showed people jumping out of a burning tower.

“The Tower,” said Julie, reading the title on the card.

“Yes,” Robin said, setting it down. “Right next to the High Priestess. Which means that she’s going to make trouble.” She pointed to a card showing a family gathered in front of a castle. “She doesn’t want her home wrecked. You haven’t slept with him yet, have you?” She looked up inquiringly. “The cards don’t show that you have.”

Julie shook her head.

“Well, if you do, I would advise the utmost discretion. If his wife finds out, it will be devastating. It won’t be only the end of the affair, it will be the end of...” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t like to make dire predictions; after all, the cards weren’t infallible, though in her experience they were almost always right.

“I’ll be careful,” Julie said.

“Good,” said Robin. One of her tarot teacher’s favorite expressions had always been, “There are no accidents in the cards,” which meant that although the throw of the cards might be random, their meaning was not.

“How did it go at Madame Zorro’s today?” Ron asked over cocktails in the mahogany-paneled library. It was ten and he’d just gotten home. Few were the evenings when he got home on time anymore. During the week, he hardly saw their two teenaged sons, who were usually in bed by the time he got home, as they were this evening.

That’s what he called Robin’s business, “Madame Zorro’s.” He made it sound like a friendly joke, but it was really a thinly disguised form of ridicule. He hated her business. He thought it was unsuitable for an executive’s wife to be telling fortunes. But it was more than just that. He also hated it because he didn’t understand it.

Robin had started fooling around with the cards in the ’seventies. It had been the thing to do, along with smoking dope and stringing love beads. Her pastime had quickly turned into an obsession. In her daily readings, she had found that the cards offered amazing insight into the depths of her unconscious, as well as the occasional uncannily accurate prediction. Now and then, she’d been coaxed into doing readings for friends, but that had been the extent of her ventures into fortunetelling — until an office cocktail party.

Her husband, who had been vice president of marketing at the time, had wanted a business-development theme. It was Robin, who also worked for the company, who came up with it: “See your future with Reliance Insurance.” The guests were all business prospects; the gimmick was fortunetelling. Robin would do tarot readings, which, of course, would predict a successful business relationship with Reliance; others would do palm readings and crystal-ball gazing.

The party was a huge success. For three hours, Robin had sat at a card table and read fortunes. At the party’s close, the company had a stack of new contracts and Robin had a new profession. She had discovered she had a natural talent for divination, which was more than she could say for insurance underwriting. Besides, a part-time career as a tarot reader would allow her to leave her full-time job, which she had wanted to do ever since their sons had been born.

By the end of the year, she had set up shop in a storefront in the small city near the suburban community in which they lived. She took the shop’s name, “Madame Zigana’s,” from the Hungarian word for gypsy girl. A neon sign in the window proclaimed: “Reader, Advisor.” She worked from nine to three, when her sons were in school. If she needed to take off to go on a class trip or attend a class play, she did. And although they didn’t need the income, her work gave her money that wasn’t under her husband’s control.