"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.