Though Xylda had loved the concept of easy money to be made online, she’d never adapted to it; and really, she’d been more of a performance artist. He grinned as he remembered Xylda’s appearances in front of the press during the last big murder case she’d worked. She’d enjoyed every minute of the publicity. Most grandsons would have found the old lady a source of acute embarrassment: her bright dyed hair, her flamboyant clothes and makeup, her histrionics. But Manfred had found Xylda a fountain of information and instruction, and they’d adored each other.
For all Xylda’s fraudulent claims, she’d had flashes of the real thing. Manfred hoped she’d never realized that he was much more gifted than she’d ever been. He had a sad suspicion that Xylda had known this, but they’d never done more than refer obliquely to it. Now they never would. He dreamed of her often, and she talked to him in those dreams, but it was more of a monologue than a dialogue.
Maybe she would pop up in one of his séances.
On the whole, he hoped she wouldn’t.
2
A few days later, Bobo Winthrop was thinking about his new tenant when Fiji came into Midnight Pawn. Bobo was sitting in a comfortable chair probably crafted sometime around the turn of the century. It was made of dark, ornately carved wood with faded crimson velvet cushions. He’d been sitting in this chair for a month now, and he would miss it if the owner ever came back to redeem it. Of course, the guy should have taken it down to the Antique Gallery and Nail Salon, but he hadn’t wanted to deal with “fruitcakes,” as he’d so charmingly termed Joe and Chuy. After looking at the chair for twenty-four hours, Bobo had positioned it in front of one of the wooden posts that went from floor to ceiling. He’d put an old table by it. The chair seemed at home in the maze of the pawnshop, and he was not instantly visible from the front door.
“Bobo?” Fiji called. “You here?”
“In my chair,” he said, and she began working her way through the furniture and assorted items that had been left there over the years. Away from the front windows, the pawnshop was dim and dusty, with a lamp left on here and there to guide the visitor.
Bobo was pleased to see Fiji. He liked her freckles and her gentleness and her cooking. It didn’t bother him that Fiji said she was a witch. Everyone in Midnight had a past, and everyone had a freaky side. Some showed it more than others. Backlit by the daylight streaming in the big front window, Fiji picked her way carefully through the decades of accumulated items that filled Midnight Pawn. She smiled when she reached Bobo.
“Hola, Fiji!” Bobo said, flipping a hand toward the rocker that he’d favored before he’d tried out the velvet chair.
She smiled even more happily after his greeting and sat her generously curved derriere in the rocking chair. “How are you, Bobo?” she asked, a little anxiously.
“Good. And yourself?”
She relaxed. “Fine as frog’s hair. What are you thinking about today?”
“My new neighbor,” Bobo said promptly. He had never lied to Fiji.
“I took him some lemonade and cookies,” she said.
“What kind of cookies?” Bobo asked, because to him that was the important point.
She laughed. “The sand tarts.”
Bobo closed his eyes in exaggerated longing. “You have any left over?”
“I might have kept some back, after I had a good look at him. He didn’t look like much of a cookie eater.” In fact, Manfred’s thin body had made Fiji all too conscious of her own curves.
Bobo slapped his stomach, which was still quite flat. “Not my problem,” he said.
“No, it’s not,” she said dryly. “I’ll bring ’em over later.” Then she paused, just on the verge of saying something else.
“Out with it,” he said.
“I recognized him,” she said. “Manfred.”
His brilliant blue eyes opened wide. “From where?”
“From the newspapers. From People magazine.”
Bobo sat forward, his lazy contentment destroyed. “Maybe you better tell me,” he said, but he didn’t sound excited. “I’m surprised you didn’t come over before.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I . . .” She stopped dead.
“What?”
She looked as though she wished she’d sink through the floor. “You’ve had enough to deal with since Aubrey took off.”
“You really don’t need to coddle me, Feej,” he said. “Women leave guys every day. I felt pretty damn bad about it, but she’s gone and I haven’t heard from her. Aubrey’s not coming back.” He forced himself out of the abyss always waiting to swallow him. “So what’s the deal with Manfred?”
“Okay, then,” Fiji said, shrugging. “He’s a psychic.”
Bobo began to laugh. “A phone psychic? No wonder he was so interested in the phone and Internet situation here. He must have asked me a dozen questions. I couldn’t even answer all of them.” Midnight was very fortunate in getting excellent cell phone service and Internet service, purely by chance. A division of Magic Portal, a major Internet gaming company, was located just close enough.
Fiji’s lips tightened. “Ha-ha,” she said flatly. “Listen, I know you’re not a computer person, but Google his name, okay? You know how to Google, don’t you?”
“I just put my lips together and blow?” Bobo said.
Fiji caught the reference, but she wasn’t in the mood for jollity. “Bobo, he’s the real deal.” She wriggled uneasily in her hard wooden rocker. “He’ll know stuff.”
“You saying I have secrets he might reveal?” Bobo was still smiling, but the fun had gone out of his eyes. He combed his longish blond hair back with both hands.
“We all have secrets,” Fiji said.
“Even you, Feej?”
She shrugged. “A few.”
“You think I do, too?” He regarded her steadily. She met his eyes.
“I know you do. Otherwise, why would you be here?” Abruptly, Fiji heaved herself out of the rocker. Her back was stiff, as if she intended to march out of the store. But instead, as he’d known she would, she wandered through the pawnshop for a minute or two before she left. Fiji always found it impossible to leave without looking at the pawned things in the store . . . on counters, on shelves, in display cases. Countless items, once treasured, sat in weary abandonment. Bobo was surprised to see her face turn a bit sad as she reached the door and cast one look back over her shoulder.