Chapter 12: Jim Visits a Fortune Teller

Two days after being handed Madam Huldah's card by a hooker in a seedy San Diego bar, Jim was on a plane headed for New York. Jim's client had agreed to pay for the trip. In order to sell his client on the trip, Jim had to do a little bit of exaggerating about how evidence he had. Because, the truth was, Jim didn't really have any evidence. He had a crazy story and a hunch. Jim had never gone out on a limb with a client's money like this before but hell, his client was rich, and Jim never felt a hunch like this before. He could feel it deep in his gut. He didn't know how and he didn't know why but he knew that the card was going to lead to something.

Once his client agreed to pay the tab, Jim hopped on a red-eye that landed him in the Newark Airport early on a Sunday morning. From there, Jim took a cab into Manhattan. He headed straight for Madam Huldah's. He had no desire to do anything else first. He hadn't even booked a hotel room. He barely understood his own eagerness but he couldn't fight it. It all came back to that image of the gorilla walking out of the zoo that kept replaying over and over again in his head. 

When Jim found Madam Huldah's tiny storefront, the place wasn't even open yet. He looked at the sign on the door. According to the sign, it wouldn't open for another hour and a half. Jim stepped back to soak the place in a little bit. Madam Huldah's was on a short side street just off Houston Street in Greenwich Village. It was pricy real estate. Either Madam Huldah had owned the place for a long time or she was very good at what she did. There was a maroon awning hanging over the entrance. The words Madam Huldah's were written across the awning in white lettering in the same calligraphy-style font that was on her business card. Beneath the name, there was a picture of two disembodied hands waving over a crystal ball. A phone number was listed on the bottom right-hand side of the awning. It was the same phone number that was on the card. Jim wondered to himself again if he should have just called first. If this was going to be a dead end, couldn't he have found that out on the phone from Los Angeles? He shook off the doubt. It was too late for that. He stepped closer to the metal grate covering Madam Huldah's front window to take a peek inside. He could see was a small waiting area with a plush velvet love seat and some magazines. Behind that was a velvet curtain leading to another room that Jim couldn't see from outside. That was it. There wasn't anything else for Jim to do or see, not until the place opened anyway. He had an hour and a half to kill. He could have gone and booked his hotel room but he had no desire to go that far away, Instead, he decided to grab a cup of coffee to help him fend off his jet lag and walk until the time was passed. 

Jim circled back to Madam Huldah's just as someone was opening the place. The metal grate that had been protecting the building had been pulled about two thirds of the way up. When Jim walked closer to the grate, he could see a woman standing on the other side of the velvet curtain. "Madam Huldah?" Jim asked, feeling silly using the moniker.

"Yes?" the woman replied. She had a thick Eastern European accent. Jim couldn't decide if it was fake or not, if it was an affectation to make her seem more mysterious. If she was faking it, she was good. 

"I was hoping I could ask you a few questions," Jim said. Madam Huldah stepped out from behind the curtains. She was dressed in tight jeans and a loose black blouse. If Jim had to, he would have guessed that she was about fifty years old but he had little confidence in the number. He could have been off in either direction by fifteen years. She wore thick dark eye-liner and blood rood lipstick. Each of her fingernails curled off of her fingers and was about half as long as the length of the finger they grew off of.

"Palm reading? Tarot cards? Or the crystal ball?" She replied, laying out the options slowly. 

"I'm not interested in a reading," Jim replied. "I wanted to ask you some questions about another client of yours."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Madam Huldah shook her head. "I am fortune teller," she said. "Each person's fortunes are their own. And they are strictly confidential." 

"I don't need to know about anyone else's fortune. I'm just looking for someone who gave your card to a woman in San Diego. I think he's been to see you recently. I'd like to talk to him." Madam Huldah eyed Jim with suspicion. He squirmed uncomfortably under her gaze.

"This man, he give card to your wife?" she asked with a hint of a smile.

"No," Jim replied, "It's nothing like that." Madam Huldah continued to stare at Jim with an intensity he found disconcerting. It was like she was trying to look inside him. "I just want to talk to the guy."

Madam Huldah thought about it for a moment. "You come in. We do a crystal ball reading. I will tell if you will ever find this man you are looking for." She nodded her head towards the back of the room and stepped slowly between the velvet curtains. Jim knew he wasn't going to get any information without forking over the $50 so he followed her. The air on the other side of the curtains was warm and smelled of incense. The room was tiny, barely large enough to fit the small table with the four chairs around it. Everything in the room was the same maroon color. "Please sit," she said motioning towards one of the chairs. There was no sound in the room but Madam Huldah's voice. Jim suddenly felt disconnected from the rest of the world. He sat down in a free chair. Madam Huldah turned around and gently lifted a crystal ball from the shelf behind her. It was a large glass orb, resting atop three prongs. One prong was a naked man, one a naked woman and one a snake. She placed the crystal ball between them. "$50 for crystal ball consultation," she said to Jim before sitting down.

"I know," he replied. "I have your card."

"Payment in advance," she said, without mimicking Jim's sarcasm. 

"I'll pay you," Jim replied, "but I don't want any crystal ball." 

Madam Huldah stared at him again. A chill ran down his back. "Are you afraid of the future?" she asked. 

Jim reached into his pocket and took out $50. Instead of handing it to her, he placed it on the table. "If you can help me identify this man that I'm looking for, without any of that mystic shit. I'll pay the fifty bucks. Just put the crystal ball away."

"As you wish." Madam Huldah turned and gently placed the crystal ball back on the shelf. Jim stole a glance inside the crystal ball as she did so. He saw nothing, just clear glass. Madam Huldah sat down in the chair opposite Jim. Jim took the card out of his shirt pocket and placed it on the table.

"Someone gave this card to a woman in a bar in San Diego. Do you have any way to trace these cards?"

"No," she shrugged. "Cards are generic. People take them as they walk by."

"I have reason to believe that this person came in to see you. How many of your clients are men?"

"I don't know," she replied with a shrug, "twenty-five percent." One quarter, Jim thought. He was hoping for less.

"This guy," Jim went on, "He's a middle-aged guy. He's got graying hair. He's average height and build." Madam Huldah stared at him blankly. He knew that he would have to give her more than that if she were going to identify his guy. "He may have asked you questions about animals." Madam Huldah shook her head. "This man told the woman that he gave this card to that you told him that he would find his Eve during his trip to San Diego." There was a spark of recognition in her eyes. Jim could see it. His heart began to beat faster. "You know who I'm talking about?" Jim asked.

"Maybe," Madam Huldah replied. 

"What does that mean?" Jim asked. He leaned into her, placing his elbows in the maroon table cloth in front of him.

"I know nothing of San Diego," she replied. 

"What do you know?" Jim asked. 

"I know of man who talk of Eve," she said. He couldn't be sure, after all Madam Huldah was a professional story teller, a professional bluffer, but he thought he saw fear in her eyes.

Jim slid the $50 across the table towards Madam Huldah. "Tell me what you know."