TheCrystal Read online

  Standing on the sidewalk, he stared into Earth Religions, the store name emblazoned in gold across the large, front windowpane.

  As Christopher watched, the proprietor, one Nigel Robey, walked to the window and glanced up at the overcast sky. Robey wiped the glass, peered through and frowned as the rain ran in rivulets down the street gutters.

  As the big man’s head swung in his direction, Christopher turned and walked away, blending with the other pedestrians in a sea of raincoats and multicolored umbrellas. It had been over a year since that little altercation between him and Robey over a yellow diamond.

  Maybe Robey would recognize him maybe he wouldn’t. But why take a chance?

  His brow wrinkled. What or who was the equating factor that put Robey and Leaky in the same formula? Leaky, a small-time thief based out of New Orleans, had stolen the crystal and shipped it to Robey, who sold illegal antiquities from all over the country, his front, a shop that catered to mystics.

  Quite ingenious really, who would think to look for a crystal ball stolen in New Orleans in an occult shop in Springfield, Illinois? A shadow of a smile crossed his face. Who, that is, besides himself.

  He was just about to retrace his steps and watch the shop—Robey had to leave sometime—when a statuesque blonde came barreling into him. It would have been a pleasurable experience if he didn’t have more important things on his mind. The supple, wet body that slammed against him fit his length like a tailored suit. He plucked her off, with a directive to watch where she was walking and kept going.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Christopher saw the blonde enter Earth Religions.

  He cursed under his breath. She was the kind of woman one automatically noticed and, if Christopher was any judge of human nature, and he was, one with a temper. He hadn’t missed the spark in her eye or the upward thrust of her chin at his curt demeanor. He didn’t need her calling attention to him by accosting him in public for his rudeness.

  But he was nothing if not patient. He would come back tomorrow and take a careful look around the shop, check out the number of exits and the alarm system.

  Christopher clenched his jaw and thrust his fists into his coat pockets. No one is going to keep me from getting the crystal.

  The crystal had been in his family for several generations. And in some quarters, particularly among those folks who believed in mysticism and magic, was considered priceless.

  He didn’t personally believe all the malarkey about seeing your lover’s face in the ball, but his Aunt Tam did. She insisted that she’d seen her beloved Edward’s face in it.

  The thought of his fey relative loosened his clenched jaw muscles. His Aunt Tam was a birdlike creature who would have been termed by many crazy, if she hadn’t come out of her perpetual preoccupied state long enough to fall in love with a very rich man when she was young. And since the young man completely reciprocated her feelings they had married.

  So Aunt Tam went from being that crazy Werner girl to the eccentric Mrs. James.

  There was only one person in the world Christopher cared about and that was Aunt Tam. And now Leaky had stolen her crystal. The man was either incredibly desperate or incredibly stupid. Whichever, Christopher intended to point out the error of his ways.

  His mind roamed back to the first time he’d met Tamara James. The meeting had become a bedtime story she had told him over and over again while he was growing up. Out of all the children in the world, she would say, they had chosen him to be their little boy and that made him special, the chosen one. His hands deep in his pockets, he fingered the ring on his right hand with his thumb, remembering the story.

  The Jameses were traveling in Calcutta, when a half-starved Anglo-Saxon child cut Tamara’s purse strings and took off down a side alley. If Uncle Edward hadn’t been in top physical form and the boy weak from hunger, he would have never been caught.

  There was something about the boy’s tough demeanor that appealed to Edward James. Even though the man was in his prime and the boy malnourished and small, he’d still been ready to fight.

  But it was Aunt Tam who’d seen the scared little boy beneath the exterior of the scrapper. And since she and Edward had been married for over ten years and their union had never been blessed with a child, they took the young boy in.

  They questioned him extensively. But all he remembered was a dark-haired woman who disappeared a long time ago. They made discreet inquiries at the embassy, but turned up nothing. It was only too clear he was a street brat.

  A charm in the shape of a tiger hung from a thin silver chain around his neck. The cat’s eyes were simple green peridots. The charm’s origins, like his, were a mystery.

  The blast of a car horn nearby brought him back to the present. He shook his head to clear it of old memories. That life had ended and a new one begun twenty-odd years ago. Edward had since died, so now it was just Christopher and his aunt.

  Pulling his right hand out of his pocket, he glanced at it. The cat on his finger stared back at him, its eyes glittering in the gloom. On his twenty-first birthday, Aunt Tamara had the charm made into a ring. The peridots had long since fallen out and had been replaced with emeralds.

  Christopher grinned sardonically. The ring was actually quite symbolic. Polite society knew Christopher Saint as an extremely eligible bachelor and an indolent playboy.

  The Tiger, as he was known to the underworld, was a master cat burglar. Ah well. You could take the boy out of the slums. But you couldn’t take the thief out of the boy.

  Chapter Two

  Clutching the handle of her Earth Religions bag in one hand, Gabby fished inside her jacket pocket for the front door key with the other, anxious to see if the globe phenomena would repeat itself.

  On the other side of the door, Gabby heard barking overshadowed by the high-pitched yowl of a cat.

  “I hear you.” Gabby unlocked the steel screen security door then braced herself and pushed open the interior door.

  Gabby was not a small woman, but the combined greeting of a seventeen-pound Siamese and seventy-pound brown Chow-Sheepdog mix was enough to stagger her. “Yes, I’m aware you are starving, Jericho,” she told the complaining Siamese, weaving between her ankles.

  “And that you have an urgent need to go outside, Ned.” She patted the large brown head of the dog butting against her, his tongue hanging out, his bushy tail waving hard enough to stir a small breeze.

  She sat her prized possession on her secondhand coffee table then let Ned out into the small backyard, enclosed with chain-link fencing, and fed the cat.

  When peace once more reigned, she sat down on the living room floor. Leaning back against the faded blue sofa that Jericho considered his personal scratching post, she rolled her hips from left to right trying to get comfortable on the thin, frayed carpet.

  She plucked brown hairs off her capris then picked up her package. The tissue paper rustled as she pulled out the ball.

  Closing her eyes, she let the tingling warmth of the crystal seep through her fingertips and up her arms. When she opened them, the color inside the ball had once again begun to swirl and churn, turning a beautiful aquamarine.

  She stared fascinated. It was like watching the pitching waves of the ocean during a storm. As she watched, the stranger’s face began to materialize.

  “Go away,” she muttered, trembling.

  But the face in the globe only seemed to sneer at her.

  “GAAABBYY.” The voice from the hall sent her heart thumping in her throat as she fumbled the globe.

  “In here,” she called back. “Don’t you ever knock?”

  Her friend Amy tossed a set of keys onto the couch. “Not when you leave your keys in the door.” She brushed halfheartedly at the cat hair in a cushioned, white wicker chair, and then settled into it.

  “Whatcha got?” Amy, dressed in a black silk shirt that set off her flaming red hair, and designer black pants that couldn’t have been larger than a size two, held out her hands.

 
; Gabby was reluctant to let go of her treasure but she was also curious. Would Amy see the stranger in the globe? Curiosity won out. With a firm grip, she handed the ball to her friend. “Be careful with it.”

  “Cool.” Amy studied the globe. “Are you throwing a party and going to have parlor games?”

  Ignoring the question, Gabby asked, “What do you see in it?”

  Amy hunched over the crystal. “I see a tall, dark stranger,” she intoned.

  Deep in thought, Gabby closed her eyes. Dark, she really hadn’t thought of him as dark. Tanned, yes, and wet hair that reminded her of a lion’s mane. “And with a definite sneer about his mouth,” she supplied, opening her eyes.

  “Hey, if you want to be original, it’s okay with me. ‘And with a definite sneer about his mouth’,” her friend parroted. “I’ll tell the fortunes all right?” Amy pursed her glossy, coral-colored lips. “I’ll call myself Madame Sasha. I’ll wear a veil and a long flowing dress.”

  She tapped her chin with a coral-tipped manicured nail. “No on second thought, you can tell the fortunes, I know just the costume to set off your, shall we say, attributes,” Amy said, then grinned at her best friend.

  Gabby gave an inelegant snort. “Not in this lifetime. Amy, don’t you see anyone in the crystal?” She gave an involuntary glance at the globe. It looked like an ordinary green crystal ball. No churning colors. No stranger’s face sneering at her

  Amy winked at her. “I just told you. I saw a tall, dark stranger, with attitude. When’s the party?”

  Gabby reached over and took the globe, relieved that her best friend hadn’t seen the bad-tempered stranger in the crystal, though, why she wasn’t sure.

  Unease followed on the heels of relief. Why was she the only one seeing him? She was certain the store clerk hadn’t seen anything. If he had thought the globe was a paranormal phenomenon he would have tacked a few more zeroes onto the asking price.

  “I’m not having a party and I’m sure as hell not using my crystal to tell fortunes with.” Gabby hugged it to her as if it were her firstborn.

  “Then why did you buy it?” Amy gave her a knowing look. “You hit a sale.”

  “Not exactly,” Gabby’s tone was dry.

  Amy tilted her head to one side, studying her. “How much?”

  Gabby swallowed, phenomenon or not for her it was a lot of money. “Five hundred,” she said.

  Amy’s eyes widened. “You paid five hundred for a crystal ball? Honey, you got took. You could have ordered one from Art and Artifacts for $39.95.” She tapped her chin and wrinkled her brow. “Or am I thinking of gazing balls?”

  Amy snapped her fingers. “You’re working on a story, aren’t you?” She nodded sagely. “Tax write-off, very wise,” she added.

  Gabby was a freelance reporter, a struggling freelance reporter. So far she’d sold a total of three stories. But they had been good ones she consoled herself.

  She chewed on her lower lip, thinking. Amy was right. There just might be a story here. Probably, “Reporter goes mad and sees man of her dreams in crystal ball”. Though, he was hardly the man of her dreams, she corrected herself.

  “Am I right?”

  Amy’s question brought her back to the present.

  Gabby arched her brows and leaned toward Amy. “Can’t fool you for a minute,” she replied.

  Ned was scratching at the door, howling to be let back in.

  Amy got up. “I’ll let the mutt in for you.”

  “Just a minute!” Gabby grabbed the discarded tissue paper, nested it in a sandstone bowl sitting on the coffee table and placed the crystal inside it. Picking the bowl up, she carried it to her battered bookcase and sat it down.

  She stared at the globe, tapping her finger against her lips. I’m going to learn your secret. Contrary to gypsy fortune tellers, faces do not appear in crystal balls.

  “Okay?” Amy asked, breaking into her thoughts.

  “Okay.”

  Amy went to the kitchen and opened the back door then nimbly stepped back as Ned galloped in. His tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, he made a beeline for his beloved mistress then went to play with his pal Amy.

  Amy complied for a few minutes then headed for the door, “Got to go. Let me know when the party is.”

  “Umm,” she responded in an absent manner, her friend already forgotten. As she stared at the globe nestled in the bowl, Gabby fought the urge to touch it and whispered, “What hold do you have over me?”

  As if it mocked her, the globe remained silent, an inanimate object devoid of brilliance or changing color.

  * * * * *

  The old man pushed open the door of Earth Religions, causing the bell overhead to jingle. With an irritable gesture, he pushed stringy gray hair out of his face. Hunching his shoulders, he leaned on his cane and shuffled across the floor. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  The clerk glanced up from behind the counter then turned his attention, back to his paperwork.

  The newcomer leaned heavily on his cane causing the tapping to increase in volume. “Young man.”

  He received no response.

  “Young man.” The newcomer let a peevish note slip into his voice.

  Not looking up, the clerk said, “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  The old man raised his cane. “I bet a sharp rap alongside your noggin will get your attention you young whippersnapper.” He smiled in satisfaction as the clerk’s head jerked up and his eyes widened behind the thick lens of his glasses. The salesman jumped backward bumping into the wall.

  “Now that I have your attention, the green globe I saw in the corner yesterday, it’s gone.”

  The young man frowned, his back and the palms of his hands still pressed against the wall. “I don’t remember you being in the store yesterday.”

  “That’s probably because you were too busy ogling that long-legged blonde.” The old gentleman wiggled bushy gray eyebrows and winked, his manner switching from threatening to conciliatory.

  “Oh that one, not my type.” He brushed his fingers through mousy-brown locks and tossed his head.

  I bet she’s not, you little prick, Christopher thought contemptuously. “She had a little too much of everything,” he agreed, “Too leggy, too much bosom.”

  “Like a milk cow,” the clerk muttered under his breath, propping his chin up as he leaned on the counter.

  Milk cow. A surprising spurt of anger rocked through Christopher. His eyes, hidden behind the horn-rimmed glasses, narrowed before he forced himself to relax and shrug it off. So the little epicene didn’t care for the knockout blonde, so what? “Personally, I prefer someone with a more boyish figure,” Christopher lied and placed his fingers over the clerk’s.

  The clerk pulled his hand away, but showed no signs of embarrassment.

  Christopher’s quirky sense of humor surfaced. Prefer them younger and not so stringy do you? “But that’s neither here nor there, where’s the ball?” His chin quivered with the tremors of old age as he pounded the floor with his cane.

  The clerk winced, but put his elbows on the counter and leaned forward in a familiar manner. He jerked his chin in the air and sneered, “The heifer bought it.”

  Christopher stiffened. Heifer now is it? Christopher rolled the cane between his hands in a considering manner. The man, and that word was questionable, really needed a lesson in manners. No, he thought with more than a tinge of regret, he had more important things to do and it would hardly be a fair fight.

  In keeping with his role, his bushy eyebrows drew downward and he pursed his lips in disappointment.

  The clerk hurried on, “There’s plenty in the back that haven’t been unloaded, if you’d like to see one.”

  Behind the querulous expression, Christopher’s mind clicked rapidly. He tapped his lips with his index finger. “Yes. Yes. I believe I would like to see one.”

  The clerk nodded and disappeared behind the curtain separating the stockroom from the display area. The heavy black fabric dividi
ng the two rooms made a soft swishing sound as it swayed then settled back into place.

  Christopher looked around. The only other person in the store was looking at the herbs. He leaned over and thumbed through the papers on the counter. Yesterday’s credit slips, perfect.

  He glanced back over his shoulder. The woman still had her nose buried in the neatly little packaged bags of dried aromatic plants.

  The papers rustled between Christopher’s fingers. Ah. He smiled in satisfaction as he glanced at the ninth slip, Gabriella Bell—Green Crystal Ball—Five hundred dollars.

  He snorted. Five hundred dollars! The girl had practically stolen it herself. Robey must be beside himself.

  Minutes later, the curtain rustled as the clerk pushed aside the heavy black material. “This actually has more aesthetic appeal than that old antique that was sold yesterday.”

  He looked up. The old man was gone.

  The doorbell tinkled and a young couple came in.

  From the street, Christopher watched the clerk shrug and put a crystal ball in the same spot the original had been in. The clerk then fussed with a cape, straightening it, his head turned away from the window.

  While the clerk busied himself with the cape, Christopher flagged down a taxi with his cane and hopped in the backseat. With a whine of the motor and a belch of exhaust fumes, the vehicle pulled away from the curb.

  Fifteen minutes later, Christopher shuffled into Springfield’s most prestigious hotel, his head down, his shoulders bowed.

  Reaching his room, Christopher ran his key card through the lock. A green light flashed and he pushed open the door.

  Stepping inside, he pulled off the wig and tossed it on the bed. Carefully, he pulled off the eyebrows. Walking over to the dresser he placed them in a brown calfskin attaché case.

  He glanced at the colorful guidebook lying beside it, compliments of the hotel. Featured prominently on the cover was Abe Lincoln’s tomb. In a smaller picture, near the top, was a depiction of endless rows of cornstalks.