Chinaman’s Chance

“And those four young kids that live here?” Betty Mae said.

“One of them’s my bodyguard,” Silk said. “You know, the tall one.”

“And the other ones?”

“Well, the two girls are researchers, and the other one — you know, the young guy with the glasses — well, he’s a lawyer who’s with this big law firm that’s handling everything.”

“You really need a bodyguard?” Betty Mae said, hoping that the answer would be yes.

Silk Armitage didn’t disappoint her. “We figure that there’s a million, three hundred thousand dollars involved. These two guys are desperate, and they’ve got some funny connections that, well—” Silk let her sentence trail off.

“Mafia?” Betty Mae almost breathed the word.

Silk nodded.

Betty Mae had read the gossip about Silk and the late Congressman Ranshaw, who had been her lover. She thought of asking Silk about the Congressman, but decided not to. Not yet, anyway. Instead, Betty Mae pressed her thighs together in excitement and delight. This was better than any old Mary Tyler Moore Show. This was the real stuff, and here she was sitting in this tacky old kitchen drinking tea with Silk Armitage, who was in all sorts of trouble, real danger, and there was just no telling what might happen next.

“Where’d you ever learn to tell fortunes like that, honey?” Betty Mae said, determined to scrape up every last crumb of information.

“Down home.”

“You’re from Arkansas, aren’t you — you and your sisters? I read that some place.”

“Uh-huh,” Silk said. “Arkansas.”

“And that’s where you learned it?”

“There was this real old lady down there. Some folks said she was a witch, but we never believed it. She taught me and Ivory — that was my oldest sister. Lace, that’s my other sister, you know; well, Lace never was much interested.”

“Ivory’s dead now, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Was she in the same kind of trouble like you’re in now, honey?”

Silk closed her eyes. Forgive me, Ivory, she thought. Then she opened her eyes and said, “It wasn’t quite like this. Not exactly, I mean.”

“Sure, I understand. But how’d you get all your dope about what’s going on around here?”

Silk smiled. “Kids. The same way you do.”

“I never saw any come in here,” Betty Mae said, and immediately wished that she hadn’t because Silk might get the wrong impression and think she was a snoop.

“The back door,” Silk said, and smiled again. “They came to the back door. You know that little Chinese boy, Sandy Choi?”

Betty Mae nodded. Sandy was one of her best sources.

“Well, he was sort of the ringleader. There was a whole bunch of them. They started out charging a quarter; then they went up to fifty cents. But they sure know what’s going on.”

Betty Mae felt somehow betrayed by the defection of her spy ring. But she decided to ignore her resentment, because there was something else that she wanted.

“Honey, I was just thinking,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I was just wondering if maybe I could still come and see you sometimes. I mean, you don’t have to be a palm reader or anything anymore. But you know how I keep a pretty close check on what’s going on around here, and if I saw something suspicious — like those cops out there this morning. Well, you didn’t know about that. But if I spotted somebody else nosing around, maybe you oughta know about it.”

Silk smiled. “I’d like that, Betty Mae.” She looked at the big blond woman searchingly. “But you can’t tell anyone about me. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Oh, sure, honey,” Betty Mae said. “You don’t have to worry about me. I know how to keep my trap shut.”