The Setup

Dan

Slow Eddie Holcum lay on his back on the hard lonely bunk contemplating the cracked, chipped, peeling paint on the ceiling of his cold empty cell. Letting out a long drawn out sigh, he admonished himself. “This ain't gonna get it.” He rolled off the bunk to crank out fifty pushups with military style precision. After that Slow Eddie began to pace the length of his one man prison block, fifteen pace up, fifteen paces back. A grim smile of irony played over his lips as he recalled the conversation with his public defender.

“Hello, my name is Dan Buckner,” stated the bespectacled young man in a cheap suit and tie with hair parted and feathered back like a young Jack McCoy from Law and Order.

“Don't you remember me, Dan?” Eddie asked. “English Lit. First Period, Senior Year?”

Dan blinked behind his glasses. “Yeah, that's right! You were with those other guys who set the swimming pool on fire!” He laughed. “How the hell did you do that?”

“Let's just say oil and water don't mix,” Eddie replied with a knowing smile.

Buckner chuckled but then quickly got on task. “Let's talk about your case. You're charged with Breaking and Entering upon an Occupied Dwelling after Midnight and Grand Larceny, which is theft over two hundreds dollars.”

“There's no assaulting an officer?” Eddie interrupted.

“None that I am aware of,” Buckner answered, puzzled.

“Well that's good. Stills must have some other idea,” Eddie theorized.

“I wouldn't know anything about that,” Buckner patiently pulled his client's focus back. “Your main concern is that you are facing a life sentence for the Breaking and Entering and an additional twenty years for the Grand Larceny.”

“Life!” Eddie exploded, shocked by this pencil pushing turkey neck geek. “What do you mean life!” Cold sweat broke out all over his body.

“Calm down, calm down,” said the attorney anxiously.

“Calm down my ass!” Eddie exclaimed. “I don't know what you are trying to pull here but I know a simple B&E don't carry no life sentence!”

Buckner met his eyes. There was no give. “After midnight. In Virginia. It does.”

That pretty much said it all as Slow Eddie sank back in his chair stunned and empty, feeling like he had just taken a gut shot from Connor McGregor in his prime.

The attorney droned on for a while until he caught Eddie's attention with, “Eddie, I know this is a terrible blow, but they never give out more than a twenty year sentence on the first offense.”

“How much do I have to pull on that,” Eddie asked urgently.

“Depending on good time and if you make first parole, it could be as little as four years.”

“Four years,” breathed Slow Eddie as it echoed in his head. He was in another world. One blow after another hit him over the last seventy-two hours. First the job, then the bust, the betrayal, and now a life sentence? His mind threatened to snap.

While his mind reeled and scrambled to take it all in and make sense of his predicament, Attorney Buckner quickly presented several papers for his signature. “Simply formalities,” he assured Eddie. “Permission to represent you and so forth.”

Tiny alarm bells went off in Eddie's brain but he couldn't hear them over the roar of life sentence, so he mindlessly signed.

Later, back to pacing the gray and steel cell block, he wished for the thousandth time he'd read what he had signed before he signed it.

“Did he sign it?” gibbered the overzealous Commonwealth Attorney Willy Moore.

Buckner reported to Moore's office and dropped the slim folder onto Moore's oversized teak desk like a convict dropped a bloody shiv. “Yes. Yes. He did,” Buckner answered dejectedly and adjusted his glasses.

“Don't look so sad, boy.” Moore grinned like a happy labrador retriever from behind his wide desk. “This is how the game is played. In a couple years when my daddy retires and I get his job, somebody will have to fill my spot. That somebody needs to know how to play ball in the big leagues.”

“Ok. Guess I better be going,” Buckner squirmed like a worm who'd gotten himself much deeper in the muck than he felt comfortable. “I've got a million things to do.”

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“That's right son, you go right on. I'm sure you've got a busy morning,” said Moore dismissively.

Double checking the signatures Willy contemplated the documents. Quite a bit of nastiness indeed. They could lead to dismissal from the bar if it ever came out he was a party to this, but this was the way Daddy wanted it done. The first document was the standard indigent request for a court appointed legal representation. The second formalized Dan Buckner as Eddie Holcum's attorney of record. The third was the kicker. Eddie waived all rights to a preliminary hearing. The fourth waived all rights to a jury trial which meant if Slow Eddie did not take the plea bargain Moore was preparing, then Eddie would have to face Judge William C. Moore in his own courtroom without a leg to stand on.

*

Direction

2011

Madrid, Spain

“I want to know where I should go now. What direction. I love Madrid ... but my friends left.”

Raphie placed two twenty Euro notes down on the black velvet cloth beside the crystal ball. This was her first time as a customer. She wondered what would happen, if it was all a grift, if she was about to attend her first séance, or if Mistress Tempest (La Senora Tempestad del Tarot) would stare silently into the crystal ball.

She and Jadzia had hung out on the stoop on sunny days and come inside the cramped shop many times when it rained. Raphaella was fascinated by the Santeria, Celtic, Egyptian, and so many eclectic figurines, stones, amulets, and items for sale. She loved the smell of the shop, some combination of exotic Indian incense and the myrrh of Catholic churches combined with strong Spanish coffee and Mistress Tempest's flowery perfume.

The money disappeared as if by magic and was replaced by a slightly worn deck of oddly shaped cards, a tarot deck.

“Shuffle” the gray haired lady ordered.

Raphaella took the oversized deck as a challenge for her slim fingers. She shuffled lengthwise. The cards were pliable and shuffled easily through her stretched fingers. On a whim she shuffled them by the width as well. Giving a double knock on the deck to indicate she was finished she looked to the woman for what came next.

The mistress took the top half of the cards and set them down beside the bottom half, then placed the bottom half on top, cutting the deck. Next she drew six cards and placed them faced down, one card above a row of five. She turned over the upper card. The picture showed a man standing on a boat and a woman and child sitting in the small boat. Six swords stood in the boat point down and the man plied the boat with a large staff.

“The Traveler,” the tarot reader announced.

“Yes, I want to know where to travel. But Jadzia is a Traveler, not me.” Jadzia and the boys were part of a small group of Rom or Romani, crudely called gypsies by the ignorant, who traced their roots to ancient India. They had been living in an abandoned building for years, but the city finally began demolition. They bid her a quick good-bye then disappeared.

“This card is you, the Traveler. You will always travel. Perhaps over water.”

“Over water? Across a river?”

“To the water this time, but why not cross an ocean?”

“Across an ocean? I should go to Morroco?”

“There are many oceans and seas. You are the Traveler. You can go anywhere in this world.”

America is across the ocean. Raphaella considered. One day she hoped to get there, but she didn't dare act on that dream just yet.

The next card appeared. Two nude people stood under an angel, a man and a woman.

“Wherever you go, you will find love,” the woman grinned with a twinkle in her brown eyes. “And you will find lust and greed.”

“Is that Cupid?” Raphaella asked pointing at the stern angel with huge wings spread across the card.

“In some tarot decks it is a fat baby cupid. But that is a simplistic view of the complexities of love and lust.”

“Hmph!” Raphella grunted. Men made the subject of love very easy and simple.

“Perhaps it is the Archangel Raphael,” the crone said with a sly look, “telling you to love your Self.”

Raphaella blinked and looked at the card intently. She knew all there was to know about her namesake the writer Rafael Sabatini, but she knew next to nothing about the Healer of the Archangels.

The next card showed an upside down pentacle and the goatheaded Devil.

“Interesting,” the reader commented. “So quickly the Lovers are chained by Lust.” The two nude people chained to the Devil's plinth bore a resemblance to the nude couple on the Lovers card.

The Mistress caught Raphaella's eyes, “Beware addiction and your own weaknesses.”

Raphaella frowned. She drank and smoked but not everyday, only as it helped the job, the next con. She was well aware of the downfall of addiction and would never submit to it.

The third card in the line of five revealed a dark haired person wearing a floor length black cloak looking down at five golden cups. Three were spilled at his feet. Two stood upright behind the figure.

“Regret, loss,” the mistress intoned.

Raphaella could feel the sad emotions from the card art. She also felt a story weaving around the cards in the cluttered room on the velvet clad table.

The fourth card in line showed a skeleton, the Death card and Raphaella wondered how many customers got the Lovers, Devil and Death all in one reading. That must be the scam!

She was surprised when the woman said, “A new beginning. You will give up and start anew.”

“Wait! That's what I'm doing right now!” Raphaella protested.

“You will give up the bad things,” she tapped the Devil, “that you regret,” she tapped the 5 of cups, “and then you will start a new beginning.” She tapped the Death card.

Raphaella pursed her lips and nodded. So she was headed into another situation that she would eventually leave. Forewarned is forearmed.

Mistress Tempest turned over the last card a fully clothed man and woman with small children stood with arms raised under a rainbow decorated with ten golden cups. The positive happiness of the card was unmistakable.

“And then you will find true happiness, Miss Traveler.”

“Well that last part sounds good!” Raphaella laughed. “But Death and the Devil sound ominous.”

“Well, your question is ominous. What to do, where to go? You will decide your destiny. The tarot gives you some advice. Wherever you choose to go you will find love, face your demons, and begin anew. You are young so this cycle will repeat. But never fear,” she tapped the bright colorful Ten of Cups card, “happiness will be yours in the end.”

“Is that what you tell everyone?” Raphaella couldn’t resist asking.

“Not at all. I tell the tourists to beware pickpockets.”

They both cackled gleefully like old witches.