Whoa! The lady throws in a little Latin.

Jack wished he had a way to work the remote again. Nothing he'd love more now than to start turning the lights off and on while she was spinning out her line of crap. But he couldn't allow himself to be seen reaching into his shirt.

It was such a weak line, though, straining toward the breaking point under the transparent weight of its own bullshit, that he didn't see any need to help it along. He had to strain to keep from laughing out loud.

Had to hand it to the lady, she was glib. Delivered her lines with utter conviction. But any minute now these four sitters would begin to scatter, fleeing this Temple of Eternal Wisdom to tell all their rich friends and everyone else they knew that Madame Pomerol was a class-A fake. Word would spread like a virus. If she was bent out of shape before about losing a few suckers, just wait till these four got through talking. She'll qualify as a Cirque du Soleil contortionist.

"Really?" said the other blonde. "You staged this all for us?"

"Of course, Elaine." She pointed to Jack. "And that was why I broke with my usual procedure and allowed a newcomer to observe a reading. I wanted Mr. Butler to witness firsthand the cheap tricks of the conscienceless swindlers who sully the reputations of all the truly gifted spirit mediums."

As the sitters stared at Jack he saw something in their eyes, something he didn't want to see.

No. This can't be. They're buying into her lame-o story. I don't believe this. How can they be so gullible?

An unmasked Carl approached the table with the material he'd been waving in the air.

"See?" he said, grinning as he held it out for the ladies to feel. "Nothing more than cheap chiffon."

"But it looked so real," the brunette said. "Exactly like when ectoplasm comes out of Madame during-"

Madame Pomerol cleared her throat and rose to her feet. "I think it is time for a little break. Please wait in the outer room while Carl removes these tools of chicanery. In a few minutes we will reconvene and make true contact with the Other Side."

Jack followed the women into the waiting room. As soon as the door closed behind them, he heard Madame Pomerol say, "What the fuck just happened?"

"I wish I knew," her husband replied. "/ can't imagine how-"

"Fuck imagine! Find out! I want the real story, not your fucking imagination! The electronics of this operation are your responsibility and obviously you fucked up!"

"I didn't fuck up! I haven't changed anything!"

"Well, something's changed. Find out what!"

"I'm going to check that switch."

"Shit! I've never been so embarrassed in my whole fucking life!"

"But you handled it beautifully."

"Yeah, I did, didn't I. And those four bimbos swallowed it. Do you believe that? Sometimes I'm ashamed of the caliber of people we have to deal with. I mean, how fucking stupid can you get?"

Jack wished he had the ability to play this conversation through a speaker in the waiting room. If only he'd thought of that. He'd heard Madame Pomerol's salty tongue last night and should have seen this as a golden opportunity to let her clients know what she really thought of them.

The Fosters lapsed into silence while Jack wondered how to play Madame Pomerol's sitters. He decided to listen first. Maybe he could find a way to salvage the day. He sidled up to the redhead whose name he remembered was Rose.

"Well," he asked in a low voice, remembering the hidden mikes, "what do you make of this?"

"I think it's stunning," she said. "What courage!"

"I feel so honored," said the dumpy blonde. "To think, she chose us-us!-for this demonstration! I can't wait to get into my psychic chat room and tell everyone how wonderful she is!"

The will to believe, Jack thought, fighting a wave of leaden chagrin. Never underestimate the will to believe.

And that was just what he'd done.

He remembered an experiment James Randi once ran on psychics and their marks. He set up a pair of sitters with a psychic, and after the reading they emerged very impressed with how the psychic had been able to see right into their minds. When Randi showed them a videotape of the session and pointed out that the psychic averaged fourteen or fifteen erroneous statements for every correct one, the sitters were unfazed. Even with the evidence of a poorly done cold reading staring them in the face, they remained impressed by the handful of correct guesses and disregarded all the wrong ones.

The will to believe...

Jack saw two options. He could show the women his remote and tell them he'd rigged the lights to expose Madame Pomerol as a fake. But he doubted very much that he'd sway them.

The will to believe...

The other was to play it cool and return for another go at the Fosters.

He decided on number two.

"Shit!" Jack heard Foster say. "Look what I found in the light box!"

"What's that?"

"A remote control on-off switch!"

"Fuck me! You've gotta be kidding!"

"Believe me, I know these switches."

"You think it's that new guy?"

"Could be, but how would he have got in here to install the switch? And don't forget, he paid us in gold."

"Gotta be those niggers then! Fuck!" She then began stringing together innovative combinations of every four-, ten-, and twelve-letter expletive known to humankind.

"You think so?" Foster said when she ran out of breath.

"Fuck, yes! They're the ones who tied us up last night and-"

"That was a white guy."

"Did you see him!"

"No, but-"

"Then what the fuck do you know?"

"It was a white guy's voice."

"It was them, I'm telling you! They must've taken our keys and come here and fucked us up. Who knows what else they've done! They're gonna pay for this. Oh, are they gonna fucking pay!"

This wasn't going the way Jack wanted. The whole idea of coming here had been to distract them from the Kentons.

"All right," Foster said. "Let's just say it was them. After what happened, do you really want to risk going back to Astoria? Our car's impounded, all our credit cards are gone, not to mention the humiliation of having to walk around Lower Manhattan dressed in cardboard."

"They're gonna pay! Maybe not this week, and maybe not next, but first chance we get, we're gonna fuck those niggers over good!"

Conversation between the two Fosters stopped, and Jack assumed that the Mrs. had stomped off while Carl reassembled the light switch.

Jack and the four women hung out for another ten minutes or so, then Foster reappeared to welcome them back into the reading room.

Jack hung back.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Butler?"

"Yeah. I think I've seen enough."

"I hope there's no misunderstanding here. You see-"

Foster thought Jack was bailing out. He cut him off to put him straight.

"I think that was real gutsy of her to pull that stunt. That shows me she's got real confidence in her powers. I'm totally impressed."

Foster switched gears like a Formula One driver. "Well, I took you from the start as a man of intelligence and discrimination."

"So when's the soonest I can book my own private session with the lady? You told me you had half an hour open Tuesday afternoon. Nothing at all tomorrow?"

Foster pulled the appointment book from the desk drawer and thumbed through the pages. He frowned.

"I'm afraid not. Tuesday is the soonest. Is three o'clock good for you?"

This lady was doing gold-rush business.

"I guess it'll hafta be. I'd really prefer an hour but, maybe a half-hour session for starters is best. You know, to see if she can make the right contact."

"Oh, she can, I assure you."

"Okay, see you then."

Jack let himself out and made for the elevator. Once inside and headed down, he slammed a hand against the wall of the car. Damn. He'd read this one all wrong. He saw what his mistake had been: He'd tried to strike at the Fosters indirectly, through their clientele. Wrong angle. He knew now he'd have to take the battle directly to them.