The harried secretary said, “Mr. Kidd?” as soon as we walked in, and ushered us through to Dessusdelit’s office. Dessusdelit was with one of those young-old people you find in corners around city halls, a guy maybe twenty-five, who’d seen fifty years’ worth of corruption and showed it in the weary, overly wise crinkles around his eyes.

As tired as he looked, Dessusdelit looked worse. She’d aged ten years in two days. She’d tried to cover her distress with makeup, but now she looked like a painted puppet.

“Could you excuse us for a minute, Robert?” she asked the young-old guy. “I have to talk to these folks privately for a few minutes.”

“What’s happening?” I asked. “I saw the papers

“

“There’s been a serious problem,” she answered. She glanced at her watch. “I have a question about your tarot. Must I ask you a question? Explicitly? Or can I just hold the deck and think a question?”

“You can do it either way,” I said. “A lot of tarot readers don’t believe the question should ever be spoken. I think it clarifies a reading, but no, you don’t have to speak it.”

“I’d like to try it that way if we could.”

We couldn’t cold-deck her, so I simply took the deck out of its box, unwrapped it, shuffled a few times, passed it to her, and had her go through the routine. She might be asking any of a number of questions: Should I quit the council? Where did the hundred thousand go? Will the murders be found out?

“You know, stress can twist a reading,” I said conversationally as she shuffled the cards. “Maybe we should wait until you’re a little more relaxed

“

She stopped shuffling long enough to glance at her watch and shook her head. “No. It has to be before the meeting.”

So. It had to do with the meeting. That most likely meant that she was asking whether she should quit, although I couldn’t be sure how she would formulate the question.

“Don’t try to formulate a precise question. Just let your mind settle on a situation, and let’s see what the cards have to say about it. They’re really not best for yes or no answers.”

I rolled the cards out. We got a spread that could have meant a lot of things. Her eyes darted around like a bird’s looking for a worm, past the Three of Swords, a deadly card, to the Nine of Pentacles, a card suggesting attainment, and finally settled on the Hanged Man. I tapped the card with my index finger.