"Complainant alleges a psychic at a business called Sneak Peek did not provide services as described and refused to refund. Complainant apparently initiated divorce upon advice from said psychic. However, spouse was not cheating as the psychic described. Law enforcement advised complainant that psychics are for entertainment purposes only, as covered in downtown zoning regulations."

~ Stevens Point Police Department, report 14C2727

Zandra jerks backward in time with the explosion of the guard's scout rifle. Despite knowing the shot is coming and wearing special earmuffs, she can't help the reaction. The shot is more pronounced than in the movies, where gunfire sounds like toast popping out of a toaster.

Sunglasses remains against the wooden support, accompanied by his notebook and scribbles.

"Open your eyes, child," Zandra says and returns her hand to the guard's back.

The guard leaves the bolt open on the rifle and sets the firearm down on the bench. He stretches like he just woke up from a long night's sleep.

"I don't know if I hit anything, but I'll tell you this. I haven't felt this relaxed since the doctor gave me painkillers for my foot," the guard says.

Sunglasses searches the shooting station, eager to see whether the shot connected. He says, "Is there a spotting scope around here?"

The guard walks to the golf cart and comes back with a short telescope tailored for shooting ranges. He points it toward the 200-yard target and adjusts the focus. Surprised, he says, "The quarter is gone."

Sunglasses, perhaps a little too eager to confirm whatever it is he wrote in his notepad, takes the spotting scope. He's astonished by what he doesn't see.

Zandra remains cool and calm. "Why, what else did you expect, child?"

"Golf cart," the guard says and leads the way back to the miniature vehicle.

"I'm coming this time," Sunglasses says.

It's a cramped fit in the golf cart, but the three make it work. The guard says something into his walkie-talkie. The green lights turn off and the red lights turn on across the shooting range stations.

This time, the guard takes care to ensure a smooth ride out to the 200-yard target. The three exit, and Zandra leads the way for the inspection. Sure enough, the quarter is missing. In its place is a tear in the target that a quarter could slip through.

"We've got to find it. If I don't have proof, no one is going to believe me," the guard says.

I appreciate your enthusiasm.

Zandra stays close to the target as the other two fan out, eyes glued to the grass for the shine of a quarter, or at least the remnants of a quarter. Zandra lights up a celebratory cigarette as she squints at the ground while standing in place.

I'll give them a minute.

Zandra finishes the cigarette and then takes a step. She looks down and points at where she was standing, calling out to the others, "Over here, children."

The guard and Sunglasses hurry to the target. Zandra leans down and plucks a damaged quarter from the ground. She holds it up for the others to see. It's folded at a 90-degree angle, looking every bit like something powerful forced it into its new L shape.

"I'll be damned. It's the same coin, same year," the guard says as Zandra places the coin in his palm.

"Not damned, child. You're blessed," Zandra says. "Doesn't the quarter feel different in your hand? Almost like there's an electricity coming from it? Or perhaps it's heavier?"

The guard tumbles the coin in a closed fist. "It...it does."

Of course the quarter feels different; it's all bent to hell. The rest is suggestion.

"That's the energy that flowed from you to the rifle to the bullet to the coin. Everything is connected, child, but it takes a special person to see the threads," Zandra says.

The guard flips the quarter to Sunglasses for a closer look. Sunglasses places it on his notepad and snaps a photo with his smartphone.

"And just in case you think I swapped coins from the two quarters I picked up earlier, I didn't," Zandra says to Sunglasses. She pulls a second quarter minted in 2003 from a pocket on her purple gown and sets it on the notepad.

"Well, I'll be damned, too," Sunglasses says and snaps another photo.

"Enough with the damning, child. This day is a blessing," Zandra says. She turns to the guard. "Let's extend a blessing to Carter Cunningham, shall we?"

Hopefully no one asks for a repeat. This trick can only work once.

"Yeah, sure, we can go to the clubhouse now," the guard says. He retrieves the bent quarter before getting behind the wheel of the golf cart. The green lights switch back on as they ride away from the shooting range, and the gunfire continues.

Zandra tries to sneak a peek at Sunglasses's notepad on the short trip to the clubhouse, but he holds the cover closed.

You only think you're one step ahead, you thrift store James Bond. I wonder if any of those notes say how you think I pulled off that little stunt back there.

The key is to never prep while the trick is underway. The prep needs to happen way in advance so that it's harder to connect the dots afterward. It's even better if you can work something random into the prep, like finding two quarters on a sidewalk. Don't sweat the details. Work with what comes to you.

That's why I never offered same-day appointments at Sneak Peek.

Sunglasses slips his sunglasses off as the golf cart approaches the clubhouse. The sun is three fingers above the horizon. The mechanical clatter of floodlights switching on back at the range, along the trail, and around the clubhouse overpowers the whir of the golf cart.

The formidable clubhouse looks like it could've been a hideout for rumrunners during Prohibition. Constructed from whole timbers logged when Taft was president, it likely served exactly that purpose. When they needed to cool off, Chicago's most infamous Tommy gun enthusiasts escaped north to the big woods of Wisconsin.

Today, they don't need to travel so far.

The golf cart stops near the entrance of the clubhouse. The view through large, glass windows offers a glance at the Jay-Gatsby-in-a-flannel-shirt aesthetic inside.

The people who channel Gatsby never read the book.

"Wait here. I'll get you badges so you can get through the door," the guard says and hops out of the golf cart.

When the guard is out of earshot, Zandra turns to Sunglasses and says, "Well? What do you think?"

"They value security around here," Sunglasses says.

"No, not the badges. The shot. Show me what you wrote in your notepad," Zandra says and points.

Sunglasses stuffs the notepad into the pocket of his jorts without the revolver. "You wouldn't be able to read my handwriting anyway."

"Then what's the problem?"

"You have your process. I have mine."

Indeed I do. This next part is where I air out how the trick is performed to keep you looking elsewhere.

"I slammed one of the quarters in the door of the Jeep to make the dent. I licked my fingers when I taped the non-dented quarter over the hole, so that the adhesive wouldn't stick as well. The tape went on with a light touch so that it was guaranteed to fall off, which it did," Zandra says. "Then it was just a matter of swapping the two quarters when we went back to the target."

Sunglasses pulls his notepad back out and flips to a page. "That doesn't explain the hole in the target where the shot went through."

"Easy. The target was already shot up. All I had to do was place the quarter where it wasn't easy to remember, offset from the center," Zandra says.

Sunglasses jots a note down with his left hand. What he said before is true. His handwriting circles and scrawls like a shitfaced chicken in the dirt.

"You're telling me this because it's true, aren't you? And you suppose that I wouldn't accept what you just said as true because you think I don't think you'd confess to being a fraud, right?" Sunglasses says.

Very astute. You've still fallen into a trap, though. Now everything is called into question. You're going to start second-guessing your own eyes.

I'm still the one in control here.

"That makes about as much sense as your handwriting," Zandra says. "Of course it isn't true. I mean, it could be true, because the facts might support it, but you're not seeing the whole picture. All you have is what you record on your phone and write in your notepad. Real Plato's cave stuff."

"So how'd you do it?"

"Isn't that what you're here to figure out?" Zandra says.

I just answered a question with another question, if you're paying attention, Sunglasses.

"Didn't I already answer that question?" Sunglasses says.

Ah, so you are paying attention. It's almost like you can read my mind.

Zandra coughs into her sleeve.

The guard returns with square, plastic badges attached to lanyards. He passes them out to Zandra and Sunglasses. The word "Guest" is printed on each badge.

"Keep these on at all times," the guard says. "Get caught without one and you'll be asked to leave."

With the badges hanging loose around their necks, Zandra and Sunglasses follow the guard inside the clubhouse. The door opens to a large gathering space crowned by a chandelier made from white-tailed deer antlers. A hot buffet and a full-service bar line one of the walls. The staff, dressed like penguins, wait on blue-jean millionaires slapping backs and sucking meat off chicken bones.

Zandra immediately recognizes the faces in the room. They're too busy to notice her.

"This way," the guard says. He leads Zandra and Sunglasses to a hallway branching off the gathering space. Smaller meeting rooms line the hallway. Wall-sized windows next to each door offer a look inside. The rooms appear cozy and inviting, with sofas and fireplaces, and stocked with alcohol and taxidermy.

The guard stops at the last door on the left. Zandra can see two men leaning against the brick of an unlit fireplace sipping cocktails and chatting. The man on the right, dressed like he's trying to hide $5,000 of fuckery inside $50 worth of clothes, looks straight out of central casting for a docudrama about financial crimes.

That would be Carter Cunningham. No idea who the other person is, though.

The guard knocks on the door. Carter bends his index finger like he's training a dog.

Zandra and Sunglasses step inside the room. The sting of alcohol in the air is enough to clear even Zandra's cigarette-charred congestion.

"This is the gift I told you about," the guard says, introducing Zandra.

Carter's eyes make their way up and down Zandra, pausing at her chest. He says, "The gifts my clients usually send aren't so...seasoned."

The man next to Carter chuckles.

You won't be laughing when I stick a knife in your fuck stick, fuck stick.

"And who is this?" Carter says to Sunglasses. "The fourth-string quarterback for the Packers or the world's shittiest pimp?"

The man chuckles again.

"I'll leave you to it," the guard says and heads for the door.

After the door closes, Carter points at Sunglasses's pocket with the revolver and says, "I'm almost – no, I am – insulted that Vilshenko thinks so little of me to send a cheap hit man. Take the gun out of your pocket. Have a little respect for the person you're trying to kill."

Sunglasses reaches into the pocket of his jorts with a slow hand. The bulge in the pocket relaxes as he pulls out not the revolver, but the notepad. The slim design of the pocket holster keeps the gun from printing against the jeans.

"Shooting notes," Sunglasses says and holds the notepad up.

"Let me see them," Carter says. Sunglasses obliges and hands the notepad over. Carter sets his drink down on the fireplace and takes a moment to flip through the notes. Frustrated, he drops the notepad next to his drink. "The hell language is this in? No one can read that."

"It's technical," Sunglasses says.

"Is you being here with a fucking con artist a technicality, too?" Carter says.

And here I was worried you'd forgotten all about me, Carter.

"Hello again," Zandra says.

Carter returns his drink to his lips and sips. It's a loud sip. An obnoxious sip. It chews at the clock.

"So what client of mine sent you? Is it as imaginary as your so-called powers?" Carter says.

"Yes. You're clearly the smartest person in the room," Zandra says, barely able to contain her loathing at the gilded prick sipping over the sound of her voice. "But here I am all the same. You let me in."

"More out of curiosity than anything else," Carter says. He tips his drink toward his chucklehead of a companion. "Present company excluded, I'm bored most of the time. I am Caesar, weeping at the thought at no more worlds to conquer."

"All but one," Zandra says and taps the spot on her forehead between her eyebrows.

Carter swirls the ice in his cocktail and paces the room. Sunglasses uses the opportunity to get his notepad back.

"So this is your peace offering, is it? After you nearly brought my empire down, you've come to apologize with a metaphysical shooting lesson? You must know that I'm a world-class, champion marksman. What could you, of all people, possibly teach me?" Carter says.

If things would've worked out a little differently, I'd be the one with the cocktail and you'd be trying to bullshit your way to a paycheck as a psychic. But here we are.

"Nothing, which is why your friend here needs to give us some privacy," Zandra says.

Carter gives his companion a certain look, and the room of four turns to three.

"Now that's the Zandra I remember. Taking shelter in the shadows of secrets," Carter says with a sarcastic smile. He empties his drink down his throat and slams the cocktail glass onto a table before collapsing into a leather love seat. "Now we can talk like adults."

Funny, because you've always seemed more like an overgrown child. That inheritance didn't shovel itself up your nose all on its own.

Zandra hobbles to an ornate liquor cabinet opposite the love seat. She helps herself to a bottle of imported Żubrówka and a few ice cubes in a glass. It's been ages since she last drank, but the pain in her ankle needs dulling if she's to keep up all this activity. There's no way she'd ask for Advil at a place like this. At least the bottle of Polish vodka is unopened before she gets ahold of it.

Zandra holds the bottle up for Sunglasses after pouring her drink. He shakes his head. She places the bottle back and holds the glass to her lips. The vodka burns the whole way down, and she's reminded why she curbed her drinking in the first place.

She hacks into her sleeve and places the glass down.

"Drinks are only free for members. You expecting me to pay for that?" Carter says after Zandra settles down.

"Why, are you broke?" Zandra says.

Carter laughs and slaps his knee. He says, "Wouldn't you like that? I couldn't spend it all in six lifetimes, let alone one."

"Then let's talk money. You seem to know something about the going rate of hit men," Zandra says and rubs her palms together. "I want to know if you hired someone to kill me."

"You'd know it if I did. Only for a second or two, but you'd know it," Carter says without missing a beat.

Zandra returns to her drink for another round of sipping and coughing.

I can act like my time is more valuable than yours, too.

From the leather love seat, Carter shifts his focus to Sunglasses while Zandra's lungs settle back into place. With a grin he says, "There a reason you're so quiet, jorts man?"

"Yes," Sunglasses says as lifeless as the taxidermy on the wall.

Zandra breaks the crud in her throat, by saying, "Ukraine."

Just one word is all that matters. He knows I know, and what I know could have the feds giving him a 30-year colonoscopy.

And if one word won't slap him in the face, four more will. Money laundering. Murder. Prostitutes.

It turns out Carter Cunningham turns to psychics when he's desperate and drunk. The alcohol soothes his paranoia, but it gets him into just as much trouble as when he's sober.

"What did you just say?" Carter says. His obnoxious smirk disappears. Eyes on Zandra, he points to Sunglasses. "Tell me his name."

"Sunglasses," Sunglasses says.

"No. Your name," Carter says.

"John Smith," Sunglasses says.

"Your real name, motherfucker," Carter says, panicked.

Sunglasses remains stoic. Zandra slips a business card out from the pocket of her purple gown. She hands it to Carter.

"The fuck is this?" Carter says and looks the card over.

"An invitation you can't say no to," Zandra says.

Carter tears the card in half and says, "You'll be hearing from my lawyers. Plural. You're not going to fucking blackmail me again, you witch."

"I've got lots of these," Zandra says and holds out another card. Carter leaves it dangling between Zandra's fingers.

"Spare time to fuck around is your game, not mine. I'm too busy for your bullshit," Carter says.

"No, you're not," Zandra says, keeping the card outstretched.

Carter gets up from the love seat. "Security will be seeing you out."

Sunglasses appears at Carter's side. "That's not necessary."

Nicely done, Sunglasses. I'll keep it going.

"My friend here is with the federal government. Get the picture now?" Zandra says.

"Then I want my lawyer," Carter says.

"No one said this was part of an investigation. This is just a friendly invitation," Sunglasses says.

Carter's head droops just a little. It's slight, but Zandra notices. He takes a second look at Zandra's business card.

"I still call bullshit," Carter says. He walks to the liquor cabinet and mixes himself a fresh cocktail. "Tell you what. They told me about your little shooting trick. If you can do it again, for me, I'll go to your little MLM party or whatever the hell this is. Deal?"

"Deal," Sunglasses says before Zandra can reply.

Well, shit. That trick only works once.