Goodlow's Ghosts (13 page)

She grimaced. "I'm not a fool. I talked to him through the screen door. It was just a short while ago, just before noon. He walked off, and he was gone. I called your number, got your housekeeper, learned that you'd stepped out for a while, and left a message with him that I was coming here. Actually, Mr.
Biergarten
, I'm a bit leery of going back to the house."

"I didn't get the message." He paused. "You could stay here, if you'd like."

She shook her head. "I'm booked into the Sheraton."

~ * ~

The boy thought that he was either being awfully brave or awfully stupid. Wasn't
he
the one who had decided that this strange mound of earth wasn't something to mess with? So what was he doing here, now, alone? Sometimes it was real difficult figuring himself out.

He poked at the mound with a long, thin stick. The dirt seemed hard.
Why not?
he thought. It had settled overnight. He nodded to himself. Sure, the dirt had settled, so it was harder. And there had been a thunderstorm too, and wouldn't that make the dirt thicker?

No, it wouldn't, he realized. The rain would have washed some of the dirt away, and it wouldn't be
thicker
, there would be less of it.

So, it wasn't the
dirt
that was thicker and harder. He wasn't poking at the
dirt
, he was poking at something
in
the dirt.

A rock. Sure, he was poking at a big rock in the dirt.

He withdrew the stick, hesitated, took a step to his right, poked again. The stick sank into the dirt a few inches and stopped. He pushed. The stick sank no further into the dirt. He pushed harder. The stick snapped.

The noise of the stick snapping brought an
Ah!
of surprise from him. He stared wide-eyed at the mound for a moment, threw the stick down, turned, and ran home.

~ * ~

The big man knew that it had to be done and that he was the only one who could do it. He had brought this ... thing up here in the first place—against the woman's wishes and, he had to admit, against her better judgment—and now it was up to him to dispose of it.

He stared at the body from twenty feet away. There was one dim overhead light on and in its soft, yellowish glow the body looked simply like one of the collectibles that had been stored up here for so long.

The big man held a fireplace poker tightly in his right hand. He had thought of using a gun on the little bastards that lived up here but had decided that that would be foolish—a slug could tear right through the floorboards and into the second floor of the house. Besides, he had always been leery of guns. Knives, clubs, and big cars were much more personal weapons, and that's the way he liked it when he killed—up close and personal.

He had a handkerchief over his mouth and nose, and because he was coming down with a head cold, it was difficult to breathe.

"Dammit!" he whispered into the handkerchief. This was something he definitely did not want to do. This was… offensive. Dirty. Bizarre. Grotesque. "Grotesque," he whispered, pleased with his choice of words. He thought that he had always been good with words.

He took a step forward. He stopped. The body seemed to be in motion and this sent a tremor of fear through him. He stared hard at the body and realized that it was not in motion, it only
looked
like it was in motion because the little bastards that lived up here were all over it, having their fill.

"Jesus!" whispered the big man, and turned and fled down the stairs to the second floor.

~ * ~

Sam
Goodlow
looked at his reflection in the window at his office and asked himself who he was seeing. That certainly wasn't
him
. That man was blond and handsome, and he oozed breeding and self-confidence. He—the real Sam
Goodlow
—oozed only clumsiness, bad taste, a sort of infantile vulnerability, and he always had.

And as he thought these things, his reflection changed and he was once again seeing a stocky, craggy-looking man with red hair and gentle gray eyes. Himself. The real Sam
Goodlow
. He was pleased. This latest "episode"—as he had come to think of them—had lasted quite a while.

Maybe he should see a shrink. What harm could it do? At worst, he'd simply get to know himself a little better, and that was always good for the soul.

He glanced at his desk, across the room. It was empty.
Empty?
he wondered. Why was his desk empty? This was his place of business and as long as he had conducted business here he had kept a good, cluttered desktop. Clients liked cluttered desks—it made them think he was busy, always on the move, that he didn't have time for something so mundane as neatness.

Except for clients like Violet
McCartle
. Classy old woman. "You're certainly not the neatest of men, are you, Mr.
Goodlow
?" she had said at their first meeting.

"Is it one of your requirements?"

She smiled. It was a good and gracious smile, but it looked to Sam as if it hurt. "I have a job for you, Mr.
Goodlow
. It's not much of a job, so I'm sure you can handle it." She produced a manila envelope from her cavernous purse and handed it across the desk. The envelope was sealed and he began to open it. "No," she said. "Please don't. Not just yet."

"I don't understand."

"You will." She nodded to indicate the envelope. "My address is there. Could you please come and see me a week from today, about this time?"

"And don't look in the envelope?"

"No. But find a place to hide it, please. Find a very
good
place to hide it."

He wasn't sure. He liked having all the answers up front and this woman's cryptic way of doing business made him uneasy.

"I assure you," Violet
McCartle
said, "that all your questions will be answered a week from today.

He was still uncertain.

"There's a good deal of money in it for you, Mr.
Goodlow
."

This fact was not completely persuasive, but it helped.

"How much?" he asked.

"We'll settle that next week, okay?"

He thought a moment and said, "I'll be there."

"Good." She said nothing for a moment, then finished,

"I look forward to seeing you." A quick, secretive smile flashed across her mouth.

~ * ~

The memory faded.

Sam looked at his reflection in the window again. He saw a craggy, red-haired man look back and he asked himself, "Is that me?"

The old man's name was Fredrick and he was going into his cellar in search of his cat, Adam. Fredrick lived alone with Adam, and had for a long time.

Fredrick was going on eighty-five, Adam was going on nineteen, and the two made a happy if eccentric pair—one was almost continuously searching for the other because both were nearly blind and deaf, and both had a very hard time getting around.

It took Fredrick nearly five minutes to descend the short flight of stairs into his cellar. As he descended, he cast about for any sign of Adam, but saw only elongated lumps, vertical lumps, horizontal lumps, beige lumps, brown lumps, green lumps, all of which constituted part of the minutiae of his life—a dollhouse, a circa 1932 Lionel train set (all laid out on two ping-pong tables, but unused for decades), a floor lamp he and his wife had bought the day after coming home from their honeymoon, a lawn mower, hand-powered tools, a grandfather clock bearing a white patina of dust.

"Adam?" Fredrick called soothingly. "Come and have your dinner; it's time for dinner." Actually, it wasn't time for Adam's dinner—that time had come and gone several hours earlier and Fredrick hadn't noticed.

He carried a can of
9 Lives
tuna supper with him. The can was unopened, but he believed that Adam could spot a can of
9 Lives
tuna from a long way off and did not need to smell it. Adam's veterinarian told Fredrick that the cat was probably almost blind, and that his sense of smell was doubtless nearly gone, but Fredrick did not believe this. Adam was his companion, after all, and had been healthy all his life. Just like him.

Fredrick stopped to wonder if he had switched the light on in the cellar. He supposed that he had.

He turned and looked at the bare light bulb hanging from the rafters. It was switched on. This did not please him. He had hoped that he could add its light to the early morning light coming in the cellar windows.

He stepped forward. "Adam?" he called. "Come, come, Adam. Dinner time." There was no answering meow. He took another step forward. He was cautious here; the cellar was cluttered, and on his last visit he'd tripped over a can of paint and had nearly pitched headlong into the furnace.

He took another cautious step forward.

The air changed. It became cooler. He even supposed there was a little breeze.

"Adam?"

He smelled fish.
Fish?
he wondered.
In my cellar?
Perhaps he had fed Adam down here recently and what he smelled was the cat food. But no—he always fed Adam in the kitchen. His long-term memory might be kaput, he thought, but his short-term memory was as good as a young man's.

He smelled salt air.
Fish, salt air?
he wondered.

And the tangy smell of earth. Wet clay.

He glanced about. The lumps in the basement seemed to have changed. He dug in his pants pockets for his glasses, found his keys, some change, then realized that he was wearing his glasses. "Dammit all!" he whispered.

One of the vertical lumps nearby moved. It was a lump as tall as a man and Fredrick leaned forward to get a better look at it. A white face and dark eyes appeared before him out of the fog of his near-blindness.

"Jesus Christ!" Fredrick screamed, and backed away from the face.

The vertical lump and the face vanished.

The air grew warmer.

He took another step backwards and reached out to push at the face that was no longer there. His heel hit the bottom stair, he fell backwards, and his arms flailed about. He caught the railing with his left arm, and sat down hard on the stair.

"What in the name of heaven. . ." he breathed.

After a few moments, he realized that he no longer smelled fish and salt air and wet clay.

He heard a meow at his feet. He looked. The orange lump that was Adam looked back.

Fredrick smiled, leaned over, and held his old cat close to him, as he would a baby.

~ * ~

As soon as he woke, early that same morning, Ryerson knew that Sam
Goodlow
was in the room. He couldn't see him; he didn't need to see him.

The room was dark and Ryerson noted Sam's predilection for coming to him in darkness. Perhaps the man did it for show.

Ryerson glanced about. "Hello," he said. "Sam?"

"Do you know what I am, Rye?" It was Sam's lazy tenor; it was non-directional and it filled the room.

"Tell me what you are," Ryerson said.

"Puzzled. I'm puzzled. Befuddled. Benighted. No. No. Death didn't give me any answers, Rye. I expected answers. What did I get? Puzzled. Here I am, there I am. Half the time I don't know
who
I am or
where
I am, or even
that
I am, hell."

"I understand that," Ryerson said, and tried to think of something cogent to add. Nothing came to him.

"I think you're puzzled, too." It was a woman's voice, now.

"Perpetually, Sam."

"Was that a woman speaking? It's so hard to hear one's own voice—" Still the woman's voice.

"It's no problem, Sam. You're coming across just fine."

"I can see for you and be for you here, Ryerson."

"Sorry?"

"I think you need that." Sam's lazy tenor again. "I need you and you need me. You'll find my killer or you'll find me and I'll know what I am and where I am, and I'll find this lost woman who's married to the asshole and we'll both be as happy as rams."

"Clams, Sam?"

"As I said."

"Yes, I am puzzled, Sam. You say you don't know who killed you? I'd think that that would be easy for someone in your ... position."

"Say that when you
are
in my position, Rye."

"You're right. I'm sorry."

"Perpetually puzzled and perpetually sorry. Who can operate at all well in an alien world? My killer lives and teethes in your world—"

"Lives and breathes, Sam?"

"Whatever. And the asshole's wife lives and breathes in mine. And here we are, two detectives. Let's go and detect. I'll bash your head and you'll rub my feet."

"You mean, one hand will wash the other?"

"Which is what I said. Are you correcting me? Don't correct me. It's all I can do to stick here, hell. I'm being bugged, tugged all over, like taffy, Tom. I feel waffled, discerned, digested, muscled out and mutilated, and if my tense talk is in error, hell. I can see for you, and I can be for you, here,
you
. Yes or no? The heater's running."