pick a card, part three

by genghis gilgamesh

to read part one, click here

to read part two, click here

i think we should go see this gypsy, ask her what the holdup is. what holdup? the holdup about the check for the billion dollars, for that story. maybe we should give it a little more time. i don’t have any time, i already made some commitments on the basis of getting that check, if you know what i mean. she might not be home. we can find out. you were the one that said she never went anywhere. she might have stepped out for a cup of tea or something. don’t gypsies make their own tea? she might have stepped out to buy something else, a baboon maybe, or a cheeseburger. i will take that chance. it looks like she is not at home. look in the window, this is the 21st century, you can get in trouble looking in windows. not in this neighborhood. go ahead, look in the window. what do you guys want? don’t you reemember me? clem, from the other day. you gave me some advice on writing a story for a billion dollars. oh, right. and who is this guy? jem. what is he, your brother? we are members of the brotherhood of wise men and fools. i was the chief astrologer at the court of the emperor aristotle xxiii of atlantis. i remember you now, you had no sense of humor but kept telling bad jokes. humor was not a requisite for the job. and you were one of the empress’s numerous handmaidens. but i ran the whole show from behind the purple curtains. all that being said, what can i do for you gentlemen? that trick you showed me with the cards did not work out - not yet anyway. and we tried twice. what cards did you get? the queen of diamonds and the nine of spades. no wonder you didn’t get anything, you have to use one of my special decks. i don’t have one. i will sell you one for twenty-nine cents. i don’t have twenty-nine cents, that is why i need the half a billion dollars. half a billion dollars is a little more than twenty-nine cents. not if you do not have either of them. i was never good with numbers, it is all the same to me. i see you are an astrologer. how about if i just tell you guys a story? that sounds like a plan. all right, let me think. how about this? an astronaut and an armadillio decide to rob a bank. but when they get to the bank building it is empty. why is it empty? banks are never empty. they are haunted by the ghosts of a) sad young men playing dominoes with cigar butts and broken blossoms. b) baboons playing bongos c) beatniks writing endless poems about spaghetti recipes d) the man who broke the bank at the baccarat table on the titanic as the despairing rain falls on the deserted docks.