LITMIR.BIZ

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call her in a couple of weeks, let her know he didn’t hold a grudge. For now, the important thing was to get a nest-egg together, and Red Bear was just the man to help him do it.

      When Red Bear had first come along, all dressed in white, talking of his contacts in the spirit world, Kevin had written him off as just another nutcase. That had been almost a year ago. Kevin and Leon had been sitting outside at the Lemon Tree on Algonquin Avenue, shooting the breeze, watching the girls go by. It was likely going to be the last perfect day of summer, and all the tables were taken. Red Bear gets out of a black car – someone else was driving – and heads inside the shop. A few minutes later he reappears with a lemonade and comes right over.

      ‘You mind if I sit here?’ He said it to Leon, not Kevin.

      Leon shrugged. ‘It’s a free country.’

      Red Bear pulled the chair out and spun it round, then sat down facing them with his elbows on its back. The fringes of his white jacket hung nearly to the pavement.

      ‘In exchange for your kindness, I will read your cards.’ Red Bear had a curiously formal way of speaking, as if he were translating from another language.

      Kevin was expecting a Tarot deck, but Red Bear pulled out an ordinary pack of cards and fanned them out across the table. ‘Pick a card to represent yourself,’ he said to Leon. Leon tapped the king of hearts, nothing subtle about Leon. He sat back and rubbed at his forehead with his index finger. He had a small scar there, and sometimes he rubbed at it as if he could erase it.

      Red Bear gathered up all the cards except the king, shuffled them, and then began laying them out in squares and crosses. A deep groove of concentration formed between his brows. ‘You’ve recently had trouble with a relative,’ he said. ‘A difference over money.’

      Leon looked at Kevin. His cousin had stayed with him the past winter and had stolen two hundred dollars before hopping on a Greyhound in the middle of the night. Next day, Leon had gotten drunk and beat the hell out of some stranger in the Chinook tavern, till Kevin managed to pull him off. Leon raged about his cousin for weeks afterward.

      ‘That’s pretty right on,’ he said to Red Bear. ‘Keep going.’

      ‘There is violence in your past.’ Red Bear looked up from the cards, a trace of concern on his brow. ‘You can be a violent man.’

      Leon laughed. Maybe with nerves.

      ‘Not really. I’ve mellowed out a lot. Well, okay. Yeah. I been known to lose my temper now and again.’

      Red Bear returned his gaze to the cards. ‘You have coming up some major opportunities for development. Perhaps a way to channel this anger.’

      ‘Okay, all right. Can we move on to another subject, please?’

      ‘You are leaving behind a period of romantic frustration.’

      ‘I hope so,’ Leon said. ‘Women, man. I could use a little action along that line.’

      ‘You are alone right now – romantically, I mean – you’ve been alone for some time.’ Red Bear snapped a two of hearts across the king and took off his sunglasses. Looked up at Leon. ‘That, my friend, is about to change.’

      It was then that Kevin realized what a handsome guy Red Bear was. Strong bones in that face, two little parentheses at the corners of his mouth when he smiled, and those eyes. When he took off his sunglasses, Red Bear’s eyes were the palest blue Kevin had ever seen, paler than a husky’s, almost transparent.

      Red Bear had pointed out a lot of other stuff in Leon’s cards that Kevin could not now remember. Leon had been impressed, excited even, but Kevin hadn’t been, not then: lucky guess on the money thing, and the rest was the sort of crap you saw in astrology columns all the time.

      ‘You’re sceptical,’ Red Bear had said to Kevin. Those transparent eyes, those amazing cheekbones. Cherokee. The word had popped into Kevin’s mind, even though he didn’t know a Cherokee from a Blackfoot. He looked every inch the Red Bear, even before he mentioned his background.

      ‘It doesn’t matter if you believe,’ Red Bear said. ‘A thing will be true whether you believe it or not.’ He spread the cards again. ‘Pick one to represent yourself.’

      ‘Naw, that’s okay.’

      ‘Go ahead. Pick one.’

      ‘No, really. It’s not my kind of thing.’

      ‘I’ll pick one for you.’ Red Bear selected a jack of diamonds. Jack of all trades? Jack-off? One-eyed jack? One-eyed monster?

      Red Bear shuffled the cards and snapped them off the top of the deck one by one.

      ‘Problems with the family,’ he said. ‘Someone older than you. The two of you bump heads now and again.’

      Close. Very close, but Kevin didn’t say anything.

      ‘You have recently overcome a bad habit, perhaps an addiction. That shows clearly, here.’ He tapped the pair of threes with a seven of diamonds. Kevin felt the hair at the back of his neck lift.

      The queen of hearts came up, separated from the king by another three.

      ‘You have a lady in your life,’ Red Bear said.

      ‘Not me, man. Broke up with one about six months ago, and now I’m as single as they come.’

      ‘I didn’t say a lover. I said you had a lady in your life. A good woman who loves you. But this habit or addiction is a problem between you.’

      Well, all right. That could be Terri. Once you have an addiction, a lot of stuff follows. Call it a lucky guess followed by common sense.

      Snap, snap, snap. King, ace, king.

      ‘Oh, you are easy to read, my friend. A pleasure, too.’

      ‘Why’s that?’

      Red Bear tapped the cards – strong finger, manicured nail – ‘The kings, my friend. The kings. You are going to be rich.’

      Kevin had laughed out loud at that one.

      Red Bear leaned forward, squinted at the air around him. ‘I’m seeing a lot of odd shapes around you. T shapes. This lady of yours, is her name Tammy? Something like that?’

      ‘There’s someone named Terri,’ Kevin said. ‘But she’s not my lady.’

      ‘Really? I see a strong connection there.’

      Red Bear finished his lemonade and got up. Somehow he could drink a lemonade and make it seem serious as bourbon. He signalled to the black car parked across the street. The car started up and made a U-turn, stopping right in front of the café.

      ‘If I see you again, my friend, maybe you’ll tell me how you plan to make all that money.’

      ‘You’re the one who sees the future. You’re going to have to tell me.’

      Red Bear had grinned – teeth by Paramount Pictures – and opened the car door.

      Kevin rubbed the bite on his neck and stared at the rough wood of the cabin ceiling. He heard another car drive up and a couple of shouts. That would be Leon back from town; he always made a racket when he rolled up. He’d be knocking on Kevin’s door any minute, wanting to shoot the breeze. Big talker, Leon, but a little too prone to violence for Kevin’s peace of mind. And his talk was getting strange since they’d taken up with Red Bear. Spooky, even.

      Although Kevin didn’t believe in astrology or card reading or any of that paranormal blather, Red Bear had been close enough on a couple of counts that a tiny vibration of fear had started up in the pit of his stomach. And even though Red Bear treated him pretty well, that fear had never really quit; it hung on like a low-grade fever.

      There had been four of them in Kevin’s outfit back before Red Bear arrived on the scene. Kanga was ostensibly their leader – basically because he owned the only car

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