‘There’s a tree of knowledge on your knuckle.’ : Dorothy and the Duck

Good news. Fame and fortune are in my future. My chalice sign shows luck, my trident shows fame and my money star is a sure indication of great wealth ahead. Don’t take my word for it. Ask Dorothy Greene-Pepper.

She looked me straight in the eye through pink, heart-shaped glasses the other day and predicted that I would be rolling in money very soon, which will please my wife because she has been lobbying to have the driveway repaved.

That’s not all.

“You are very smart,” said Dorothy Greene-Pepper studying my palm under a small light, “but you worry too much.”

“I’m not that smart,” I said modestly.

“Don’t argue,” she replied. “There’s a tree of knowledge on your knuckle.”

“Oh.”

“I also see an actor’s ‘A,’ ” Dorothy Greene-Pepper said. “That means you will be appearing on screen. And, here, ah-ha, a diplomatic sign!”

“Is that good?”

“Good?” Dorothy Greene-Pepper said. “Only the best politicians have it. If you run for office, you’ll win!”

Dorothy Greene-Pepper reads palms.

When I visited her tiny Coldwater Canyon Studio, I expected to find a skinny old woman with rotting teeth and bad breath eating fried chicken from a paper bag.

Instead I found a flashy, middle-aged lady in a skullcap gleaming with multicolored sequins. A brass hand adorned with silver celestial signs dangled from her necklace.

Dorothy Greene-Pepper is not your average fortuneteller.

She is a kind of jazzy self-promoter who has come to L.A. to seek a fortune of her own.

Ask her how and she rattles off a list of credits that include books, television shows and nightclub acts.

“I am,” Dorothy Greene-Pepper announces with unabashed self-admiration, “a woman of incredible diversification.”

“Put this down,” she said to me, tapping my notebook. “I have five or six careers going simultaneously, but I really want to sell my book on palmistry.”

I obligingly began taking notes.

“What’s the book called?” I asked.

“ ‘Your Life is in Your Hands.’ ”

“Good title.”

“Yes.”

Dorothy Greene-Pepper was born a number of years ago in Virginia of what she calls genetically compatible parents. Her mother was a spiritualist and her father a gypsy.

How many years ago she was born is none of my business. Also none of my business is what her real name is. Greene-Pepper is a name she adopted because she likes to paint green peppers.

When I asked why she likes to paint green peppers, she said, “Why not?” I couldn’t think of a logical response, so I let it go.

This is a feisty woman.

“Why do you need my real name?” she demanded.

“Well, I. . . “

“You’ve got a wealth of material.”

“I was just wondering wha . . . “

“Use what I gave you!”

“Yes’m.”

Dorothy Greene-Pepper is a self-promoter of astounding potential, and I don’t come to that conclusion by way of mysticism. It was contained in the press packet she gave me.

“If you need more,” she said, “I’ve got it.”

I visit psychics when I can’t think of anything else to write about. Before Dorothy Greene-Pepper there was a man who had lived 2,000 years and before him an old gypsy who said that someday I would be bigger than either Shakespeare or Jesus Christ.

I have never been to a fortuneteller who gave me bad news. The old gypsy, for instance, promised a future not only of fame, but of beauty.

“You mean,” I said, “I will someday be tall and blond and young and have clear skin?”

“It’s possible,” she said.

Since visiting Dorothy Greene-Pepper, I have talked with others who have been to palmists and none of them was ever given bad news. At least, not from fellow humans.

The Bombay Duck was less charitable.

A friend in Topanga named Duke visited the Bombay Duck. This is kind of a Duke and Duck story. Duke was in India on business when he was hustled by a fakir on the street.

“I forget how much money I gave him,” Duke said, “but he had a duck that told fortunes. Every time I gave the guy money, the duck would pick a card. One card said I would have a mental breakdown, another that I would lose everything I had. But what really depressed me was the third card. It said I would die in three days.”

Duke is still alive, still sane and still solvent. But he has a pathological hatred of ducks.

I asked Dorothy Greene-Pepper if she ever made a grim forecast. She patted the tufts of dyed reddish hair that protruded from under her sequined skullcap and replied vaguely, “We record our own futures in the palms of our hands.”

Of course.

Dorothy Greene-Pepper actually wasn’t bad as a prophet, but only one person has ever accurately foretold my future.

I was going out to a press club meeting one night in Oakland, and my wife predicted that, if I came home drunk and surly, there would be hell to pay.

I did and there was.

The Bombay Duck would have loved it.