Read Online Spin Doctor by Leslie Carroll - Free Book Online Page A

from spending so much time in this depressingly downscale laundry room peopled with relatively upmarket tenants.
    â€œI can read you like a book,” Mala Sonia intoned, as though she were reciting from the Gypsy’s Manual, basic readings chapter. “Your grandmother is very unhappy now.”
    Alice’s eyes immediately began to well with tears. That’s how those Gypsy “readers” do it. They tap into something pretty general and allow the mark to relate it to something deeply personal. When the mark has displayed his or her vulnerability— pow!
    â€œShe wants you to be happy; to find a man to love you. And there is one who you used to love who will come back into your life and you must decide what to do about it. He is very close to you now, but this time there is someone who stands between you.”
    Alice shivered just perceptibly enough for her reaction to register with students of human behavior—like myself and Mala Sonia. “Well, first of all, this blouse is a cheap knockoff—although it is a lot like Dana Buchman’s designs. But if you can really read me like a book, tell me the guy’s name!” Alice challenged skeptically.
    Amy entered the room, carrying her son Isaac in a Snuggly. “Oh, there you are, Mrs. Badescu. I’m looking for Stevo. You remember me? I’m Amy Baum. My husband Eric and I just moved in last week? And there’s still something wrong with the showerhead in the master bathroom. So can you tell Stevo to get up to our apartment right away?” She pressed a bill into Mala Sonia’s palm. It found its way into the Gypsy’s pocket with the speed of a sleight of hand trick. “Apartment 4K,” Amy reminded her. I’m Baum, but it’s under my husband’s last name:Witherspoon.” She dashed out the door. “I’ll expect Stevo before two. Isaac has to go down for his nap then and we need absolute quiet in the apartment except for Baby Bach.”
    â€œWitherspoon?” Alice said incredulously. “Eric Witherspoon?”
    â€œYou asked me his name,” Mala Sonia said. “That’s him!”

4
    Alice looked totally stunned. “Eric Witherspoon lives here now? And that’s his wife?” Mala Sonia nodded. “I dated him last year; we even lived together for a few months at his garden apartment in Park Slope! I moved out of my grandmother’s apartment to be with him and then he ended up dumping me like raw sewage.”
    â€œ Kon del tut o nai shai dela tut wi o vast: he who gives you a finger will also give you the whole hand.”
    Alice looked at Mala Sonia. “Apparently.”
    â€œEric needed a second bedroom when they had the baby, so they moved into Manhattan,” Mala Sonia said.
    â€œMy God. And she has a baby already.” Alice started counting the months on her fingers. “No way that kid could have been conceived after they got married. That sonofabitch works pretty damn fast. I wonder what it feels like for him to move into the same building where an ex-girlfriend lives. I wonder if he ever told Amy about me.”
    â€œI know you do,” replied Mala Sonia. “And he did. But she was too busy thinking about other things just now to even consider that his ex might be you. Are you sure you don’t want that full reading?”
    â€œI want a drink.”
    â€œAt eight-thirty A.M .?” I said. “You might want to reconsider such self-destructive behavior.”
    â€œNot this morning,” Alice replied, and began to drag her laundry cart out the door. “I’ll be back in an hour when there’s a vacant washer. Totally pickled. That way I can be hung over before it’s too late in the day to drink a pot of coffee in order to get over it.”
    â€œIf you really want a drink, why don’t you come to Sappho tonight?” Claude suggested.
    â€œSappho? Isn’t that the nightclub in the meat packing