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

And control — with him — was becoming more and more of an issue.

She was reminded of Julie’s reading. Ron had once been Robin’s King of Pentacles: a person of character and intelligence with natural leadership ability and a gift for making money. Now he was her King of Pentacles reversed: mean-spirited, spiteful, controlling.

It was called the male climacteric.

She answered Ron’s question in the terms he understood. “Fifteen customers,” she replied. “About average for a weekday.”

“At fifteen bucks a shot, that’s two hundred and twenty-five,” Ron calculated. “Subtracting half for overhead, that leaves you with about a hundred and twelve.” (Ron did their taxes.) “Times ten, it just covers the payment for your expensive new vehicle.”

In other words, pin money. With Ron, it was always the bottom line. At least, that’s the way it had been recently. If he couldn’t control his mortality, he would try to control something else. Money.

And, she was beginning to suspect, something — or someone — else...

Ignoring his put-down, she said, “I had my regular Thursday customer today.” She never revealed the names of her customers, in keeping with the sign in her office that promised confidentiality. “It looks as if she’s about to take a lover.” She always tried to share the events of her day, however futile the effort might be.

“Oh, it does, does it?” he said, already engrossed in the newspaper.

After a moment, she changed the subject. “The church is holding its progressive dinner this weekend. I thought we might go. We had such a nice time last year.”

He looked up at her over the rims of his reading glasses. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m going to be in Cincinnati for a conference.” Catching her expression of disappointment, he added, “Maybe you can go with one of your friends. Or we could go out the following weekend for a nice dinner. How does that sound?”

She nodded in assent, but she was suspicious.

She was convinced he was having an affair. Unfaithfulness was one of the characteristics of the King of Pentacles reversed. And her readings for him had consistently turned up the Fool: the innocent who steps blithely into the unknown without regard for how his actions will affect others.

The prospect disappointed her, but it didn’t make her mad. Her work with the cards had revealed the frailty of human nature. Indeed, it sometimes seemed as if the motives of her adult clients were as transparent as a child’s. But if the cards exposed human weaknesses, they also showed how one could deal with them.

She glanced around her at the beautiful room, with the silver-framed photos of the boys displayed on the gleaming surface of the baby grand. According to the tarot, if she could get Ron over this one temptation, everything would be all right. Embracing husband and wife, dancing children, beautiful home — she had seen it in the cards.

Julie was right on time for her appointment the next Thursday. Robin was glad: She was eager to do her cards. It was exciting when events were unfolding in a client’s life. She was reminded of those nineteenth-century novels that had been issued in weekly installments, and how their readers would mob the news agents for the latest issue.

But she didn’t need to look at the cards to see what had happened in Julie’s life. She was aglow. Had Robin been able to read auras, which was not one of her psychic abilities, she was sure Julie’s would have been psychedelic. She was in love.

That’s what her cards showed, too. The Lovers was at the center of the spread, while the card indicating a mere attraction had receded into the position for the recent past. “There you are,” she said, pointing to the Lovers card. She looked up at Julie. “You did it, didn’t you? You took the plunge.”

She nodded with a happy, if somewhat embarrassed, smile.

Robin looked back at the cards. There was the wife again, crossing the Lovers. “Well, the wife’s here, and she’s about to find out, if she hasn’t already. I warned you that you had to be careful,” she chided. “You went away together,” she continued, pointing to a card indicating a recent trip. “Did the wife find out about that?”

Julie shook her long mane of hair. “I don’t see how she could have,” she replied. “We were very discreet. We were both attending the same business conference. In Cincinnati.”

“Cincinnati?” Robin repeated.

Julie nodded.

As the significance of what Julie had said sunk in, Robin felt the sensation of a physical blow to her midsection. No — it couldn’t be, she told herself. When she had recovered her composure, she said casually, “I don’t think you ever told me what line of business you’re in. Though I know from the cards that it’s financial services of some sort. Banking, investing...” she prompted.

“Insurance,” Julie said. “We do underwriting on construction jobs.”

It was true. Julie’s King of Pentacles and her King of Pentacles were one and the same! “But you don’t work for the same company as your lover.”