Free Madball by Fredric Brown Page A

you told him the first time and don't let him get you mixed up."
    "Sure, Doc."
    "Even if he says he now has someone who saw you go to that sleeping top. He'd probably be bluffing just to see if he could get you to change your story. But even if he isn't bluffing, even if he confronts you with a witness who really did see you, stick to your story. It'll be his word against yours - and yours is supported by mine, such as it is."
    "Don't worry, Doc, I'll stick to that story whatever happens. If I changed it now I'd get you in trouble too."
    "You are a good girl, Maybelle. Ready now for the reading or will you have another drink first?"
    "Let's save the drink till after; I'll have one with you then. Are you going to run the cards for me?"
    Dr. Magus stood up. "Let's sit across from one another here, my dear, at the table. And I would rather use the crystal than the cards. Palmistry and cards, Maybelle, are good for reading the future in a general sort of way. But for an answer to a specific question, always the crystal. Sometimes, my dear, I almost believe in the crystal myself, and think that I see things in it and that they are not purely my imagination."
    Maybelle laughed. "You're kidding me, Doc. Sure, the crystal's fine if you'd rather use it But what made you think I had a special question? I haven't."
    "But you have, whether or not you thought of it in connection with this reading. You want to know, do you not, whether the police will continue to believe your story of Monday night or whether trouble may still come to you from it?"
    "Sure Doc, but you said - oh, I see what you mean. You said you thought I was safe. But with the crystal you can find out for sure?" Doc was smart. She had had a special question and hadn't even realized it until he'd told her.
    "I hope the crystal will tell me, Maybelle. I'll try. But I'm going to be honest with you; this will be a genuine reading or none. If I can see nothing in the crystal for you we'll pass it up and I'll run the cards. No, please don't light a cigarette. I want you to sit absolutely quiet."
    His eyes dropped from hers to the crystal and she watched him stare into it, completely motionless. And she sat motionless herself so as not to distract him, so motionless that some of her muscles began to hurt a little. And she began to get scared a little. It was spooky the way he sat there so still and for so long. It must be five minutes at least and maybe ten. What if he was seeing something awful in there, her dying maybe, or being injured or going to jail for something she didn't do?
    Then he spoke, his voice low. "I am seeing, Maybelle. But I am seeing things in your past life, not in your future. I shall tell you what I see and then perhaps those things will go away and I shall be able to see ahead. I see deep trouble that you have been in, and always because of a man who was a criminal. When you did something yourself that got you in trouble with the law, it was always because of the influence of a man who was evil."
    It was so true that she clenched her hands tightly. Yet she had to protest. "Doc, Dick wasn't really-"
    "Evil was too strong a word, Maybelle. But he was bad and he was bad for you. It has been your misfortune to be attracted to men like that. Dick was a long time ago. But there were others and recently there was Charlie. He was bad too."
    "He'd been a criminal, Doc. But he was going straight. You know that. He was doing good on his job."
    "Think, Maybelle, of how he happened to come here."
    "He was hot, Doc, yes, they were looking for him for a job in - he's dead now, so it don't matter I guess what I say - in Kansas, a bank job, and they'd killed a cashier so the heat was on plenty and they hadn't even got any money out of it, just peanuts. But Charlie swore to me that that had cured him and he was going straight and that's why I got him the carney job. I was with him for a while last winter but when I found out what he was I told him I was off him, I couldn't