Bull's Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective #3

Chapter 6

"If you're a reporter, I'm not giving interviews without a lawyer," Zandra says after she sits down with Vince in the spare office room. Then, thinking of Darryl in his ill-fitting suit, she says, "Actually, I'm good for an interview, if you want."

Vince unzips a leather business bag and sets a silver laptop onto the desk between them. Zandra takes note of his salt-and-pepper hair and matching light beard. Despite the quality of the leather, he's dressed like he's headed for either a safari or an old school press conference. The bush jacket draped over his shoulders bulges with full pockets. The extra weight doesn't slow down his stocky build.

Vince, whoever he is, is a frequent flyer, and he likes to travel prepared. He's not a reporter, though. He would've introduced himself as one right away. The professionals always do.

He's equipped too well to be an amateur writer or blogger, though. This is an entirely different class of person. Rugged, but well funded. Arriving unannounced means he's either confident with good reason or arrogant beyond reproach.

What's the word I'm looking for? Operative? Maybe he's a "fixer" Gene brought in.

"Who I am doesn't really matter," Vince says. It's the first words he's said to Zandra.

Going with arrogant on this one.

"Then I'm going back to my cell. I've had enough of assholes who think the world revolves around them," Zandra says.

Vince fires up the laptop, strokes a few letters on the white keys and turns the machine so Zandra can see the screen. She sees that he's typed the words, "I can help you, but you have to help me first."

Ah, the mysterious type. Two can play at that game.

Zandra reaches over to the computer and does the hunt-and-peck for, "Prove it." She hears the guard cough outside the door as she does it.

Vince nods and takes to pounding out a few paragraphs on the keyboard while Zandra grinds the pain out of her bad ankle with her palm. He turns the laptop back toward her so she can read.

"As you know, Gene Carey is setting the stage for his run for governor of Wisconsin, although he's yet to make a formal announcement. Because of how easily Gene could finance a campaign, and how likely it is that he'll get his party's nomination, the opposing political party is already taking steps to nip Gene's buds," Zandra reads, grinning at the imagery the metaphor provokes in her imagination. "I need your help verifying some information."

Did they find evidence about David's murder?

Zandra types back to Vince, "I'm not a charity. Also, we should make small talk in case the guard outside gets suspicious."

"How 'bout them Packers?" Zandra says out loud.

"Wouldn't know. I'm from New York," Vince says.

"Jets? Patriots? Bills?" Zandra says, sounding more like the football expert she's not.

"Hell no," Vince says. "Giants."

"Never heard of them."

"Then you don't really care, do you?"

"Nope."

Vince returns to the laptop. He writes, "What's your bail?"

"It's $11 million," Zandra types back. She adds a mil for good measure.

If he can do $10 million, he can probably do 11. We'll consider that my tip.

"You're out of your mind," Vince says with the expression on his face. Zandra doesn't need that response typed out.

"Good advice is hard to come by. You came a long way to meet with me," Zandra says out loud.

He's been paid to come here. That much I know now.

"How do you figure that?" Vince says.

Zandra points at the keyboard on the laptop. "You're right-handed, that much is obvious. Your dominant finger – everyone has one on their dominant hand – is your index finger. There's more dirt beneath that fingernail, because it didn't all wash out compared to the others. But that's only half of what caught my eye."

"What's the other half?" Vince says and inspects the nail. There's a slim lining of black grime tucked into the nail.

"How clean the white keys are on your laptop's keyboard," Zandra says.

Vince strokes the stubble of his beard. He looks more satisfied than he should. "And what does that tell you?"

You better be satisfied.

"That either you cleaned the keys ahead of time, which I doubt, or you've only recently been handed this laptop. My guess is whoever hired you to talk to me gave you this computer. There's something on it you want to show me, and it's important enough that your employer didn't want to be seen talking to me about it," Zandra says.

Vince grins and says, "So the rumors are true. You're not really a psychic. You just know how to fuck with people."

"Who says those are mutually exclusive?" Zandra says and nods to the door. "The guard listening to us right now has less than five years to live. He'll die at the hand of someone else. That's provable. I'm willing to wait."

You hear that behind that door, asshole?

"Actually, fraudulent psychics are why I'm here," Vince says, conveniently skipping over Zandra's observations about his fingernails. He brings up a new screen on the laptop.

"I'm not a fraud," Zandra says.

"We'll get to that," Vince says as he types.

If I had a dime for every time some arrogant prick talked down to me like that, I'd have enough to front my own fucking bail. The only way to knock some sense into them is to hit back even harder. It throws them off course, since they're probably used to a pair of pretty eyelashes batting every time he makes a joke. Of course, he'll probably call me an uppity bitch in the process, but what law says I'm supposed to give a shit what people like him think about me?

"You've got three seconds to keep me interested in talking to you," Zandra says.

Vince flips the computer screen around and says, "I need you to out a psychic."

"Why should I do that?" Zandra says, but then she sees the words on the screen. They read, "I'm going to blackmail Gene."