Keisha, queen of the psychic con, had been flimflammed. Bamboozled. The wool pulled over her eyes. Kirk had her thinking he was her dreamboat, but he turned out be the anchor tied around her neck.
So, the bottom line was, Keisha needed money. If she couldn’t get Kirk out of her house, she was going to need enough cash to move herself and Matthew out. Justin Wilcox’s scam presented an opportunity she was willing to take, even though there was something about that kid that gave her the creeps.
“You sure you can pull this off?” she asked Justin.
“I took drama,” he said. “Piece of cake. I got it all worked out. What I was thinking was, we pull this off, maybe we could do some other things together? I bet lots of times you need a backup person, am I right? Someone to help fool the customer? The mark? Isn’t that what you call them?”
“This thing you want to pull on your parents, it’s the kind of game you can only run once,” Keisha warned him. “Once you’ve spent this money, you’re going to have to find a new way to make more, and it’s not going to involve me.”
“Whatever,” Justin said. “But let me ask you something.”
“What?”
“All the other times when you go see people and tell them you have some vision about what’s happened to a loved one, don’t they get mad when you turn out to be wrong?”
“Who said I’m wrong?”
“Come on. It’s just us.”
“There’s always something in what I tell my clients that connects in some way. I often tap into something that’s very true.”
“Except it’s not something that actually helps them find who they’re looking for,” he countered, grinning.
“What I give everyone, for varying amounts of time, is hope,” Keisha said defensively.
“Yeah, well,” Justin grinned. “You know what’ll be really good about this thing we’re doing? This time, you’ll be right. You’re going to know exactly where I am. It’s gonna look good on your resumé.”
*
The job was behind her now.
It had been a week since Keisha had led Marcia and Dwayne Taggart to Justin’s hiding spot in those deserted offices. Dwayne had, as she’d requested, paid her in cash later that day. She’d taken Justin’s half, put it in a sandwich bag, put that bag of cash into a small Tupperware container, poured some spaghetti sauce around it, and tucked it into the freezer so Kirk wouldn’t find it. He never made the meals, so she wasn’t running any risk. As for her share, she’d lied to Kirk, telling him she’d only made a thousand on this job, half of which he demanded. The remaining two grand she’d hidden in a Tampax box that sat under the sink.
Justin had told her he probably wouldn’t be around for a few days to collect. He knew his mother would want him to see “someone,” and that she wouldn’t be letting him out of her sight for a while. His stealing the sleeping pills, and that note he’d written her, had her scared to death he might hurt himself.
But sooner or later, he’d escape. He was planning to make a speedy recovery, psychologically speaking. He’d tell whatever shrink his mother lined up that it was just a blip, he was right as rain, it was all triggered by his troubled relationship with his mother (lay as much guilt on her as possible, he figured), but they’d patched things up, he couldn’t be better, he was never going to do anything like that again, and while I’m here, have you got any samples of some fun meds I could take with me?
So when the doorbell rang that morning, seven days later, Keisha was not surprised to see Justin on her doorstep.
She’d been making Matthew’s breakfast, the kitchen TV on, the volume down low. Kirk was sleeping in. Last time he’d been awakened too early, he’d come hobbling into the kitchen like a bear with its leg in a trap and thrown a glass up against the wall. He scared the hell out of Matthew.
So Keisha tried to keep things quiet this early, but at the same time, she liked to know what was going on in the world, so the TV was on.
“Hurry up,” she said to Matthew, “or you’re going to be late for school.”
He picked at his breakfast, which was a piece of toast with peanut butter slathered all over it.
“Did you hear what I said?” she asked him.
“I’m not hungry,” he said.
Keisha had noticed he’d been particularly mopey these last few days. Quiet, withdrawn, spending a lot of time in his room. She’d asked Kirk, “You got any idea why he’s so down in the dumps?”
Kirk, dusting his mag wheel display in the living room, said, “Beats me what’s wrong with the li’l fucker. He’s just moody.”
But Keisha thought it was something more than that. Now, at breakfast, she said, “Somethin’ on your mind?”
Matthe
w shook his head.
“Anything going on at school?”
“Everything’s fine,” he said. “Haven’t I been good lately? Have I done anything wrong?”
She didn’t have to think. “You’ve been good.”
“So I don’t see what the big deal is,” he said.