Medium Rare: (Intermix) (2 page)

Rose’s hands closed tightly on the coverlet. Her breath seemed to catch in her throat as her pulse hammered.

The figure became more clear. A man. Shortish. Stocky. Wearing a blue jumpsuit with a white undershirt showing at the V-neck. Hair slicked back, high forehead, deep-set eyes . . .
Holy shit!
A deeply satisfying wave of exasperation washed over her.

“Hannibal Lecter?” she snapped. “Really? Are you kidding me? Hannibal Lecter? What kind of sick joke is this? Get the fuck out of my bedroom!” Amazing how the combination of terror and annoyance made her sound like she was in control.

Hannibal Lecter floated a couple of feet away from the foot of her bed. His expression seemed vaguely disgruntled. “I was trying to find an appearance you were familiar with. I thought you’d like it.”

“Who are you?” She took another deep breath, trying to slow down her pulse. “And why exactly shouldn’t I just get the hell out of here right now?”

“If you walk out now, you’ll never know why I’m here, will you? And don’t tell me you don’t want to know.” Hannibal moved back a few paces. “Give me a moment and I’ll come up with something else.”

Lecter’s face became indistinct, the edges softening, blurring, then disappearing altogether. Slowly, he became a blob of light again. Rose stared, feeling slightly giddy, as if she’d been holding her breath too long. After a moment, the light elongated again, new features appearing in the face. Instead of the blue jumpsuit, the man now wore a tuxedo. The face was long and narrow, the hair parted at the side, nose slightly bulbous, narrow mouth spread in a faint smile. He raised an eyebrow. “Better?”

“I suppose. Who are you now?”

“George Sanders as Addison DeWitt. Won an Academy Award for
All About Eve
, one of the greatest motion pictures of all time. Your generation has forgotten him. Typical.” He had a pronounced British accent.

“All right.” Rose flexed her fingers, letting the spread drop. “So who are you really? And why are you here? And when will you go away?”

“To begin with your last question, I’ll go away after we’ve had our little talk.” George whatever-he-was reached into his pocket and extracted a cigarette in a cigarette holder. It was already lighted. He inhaled deeply and blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling.

“Don’t smoke in here,” Rose said automatically.

George gave her a patronizing smile. “I hardly think this smoke will bother you.”

“So what are you—a ghost?”

George frowned slightly. “In a manner of speaking. I suppose it’s easiest if you think of me that way.”

“Are you haunting this house? Did you die here?”

He blew another cloud of smoke. “I died elsewhere. A very long time ago. And as for haunting this house, no. If you leave this house, so will I. I suppose you could say I’m haunting you.”

Rose’s throat clenched tight for a moment. She swallowed hard. “I don’t understand. What do I have to do with it? I’ve never seen you before.”

“Caroline named you her heir. Therefore, you’ve inherited me along with all her other worldly and . . . otherworldly goods.” He gave her another half smile.

Her pulse picked up again, hammering in her ears. “Could you stop being clever for a few moments and just explain this to me? Simply? Starting with your name, which I’ve now asked you for three times?”

“Skag.” George—Skag—materialized an ashtray in one hand. “My name is Skag, or it can be for our purposes.”

“All right, Skag.” Rose sighed. “How exactly have I inherited you? You mean you’re going to haunt any house I live in from now on?”

“As I said, you’re Caroline’s heir. That means she had reason to believe that you’d inherited the family talent. Given that we’re having this conversation, which means you can see and communicate with me, I’d say she was right on the money.”

“The family talent,” she repeated. All of a sudden she felt more curious than frightened. “What family talent? Beyond a fantastic recipe for green salsa that Granny Ramos makes for the Fourth of July, I’m not aware that my family is particularly talented.”

“Not that family,” Skag drawled. “I know nothing of that family. The Riordans are, however, legendary for their talents in contacting the Other Side. They’re perhaps the most accomplished mediums of the modern age. Certainly they’re within the top ten.”

She stared up at him. “Okay. That makes no sense at all.”

Skag sighed, grinding out his cigarette. “All of this would be much easier if Deirdre had at least given you the basic facts instead of just dropping you here without any introduction.”

“Deirdre? You mean my mother? My mother knows you?”

“Your mother grew up in this house. She knows me quite well, in fact.”

Which perhaps explained Ma’s weird toast and her efforts to get Rose to leave. She felt a quick pinch of anger.
Should have warned me, Ma.
“Why are you talking to me, then? Sounds like Ma’s the next in line.”

“Deirdre has chosen to remove herself from the Riordan family business. I’m quite sure she’d decline any interaction with me.”

But she hadn’t had any problem sending in her daughter.
We’re going go have a very interesting conversation one of these days.
“So how exactly are you related to my family? Are you my long-lost cousin eighteen times removed or something?”

Skag narrowed his eyes. “You can think of me as an exceedingly distant family connection.”

“But you are a Riordan?”

He sighed. “At one time, a great, great many years ago, I was, in fact, a Riordan.”

“And you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart?”

“My heart, such as it is, has nothing to do with it.” Another lit cigarette appeared in his holder. “My job is helping the family. As long as Riordans exist, I exist.” He bowed his head slightly. “At your service.”

Rose frowned. That wasn’t exactly an answer, but it seemed to be the best she could get at the moment. “So what are you expecting me to do about all of this? Hold séances or something?”

Skag stared meditatively at the ceiling, tapping the cigarette holder against his teeth. “Your great-grandmother, Siobhan, did in fact hold the occasional séance. But hers was a much more credible age than this one. Caroline confined herself to other pursuits.”

“Other pursuits such as what?”

“Such as finding what was lost.” Skag brought his gaze back to hers. “For a fee. Usually a quite considerable fee.”

“Finding what was lost? You mean like missing wills, or the purloined family jewels? That kind of lost?”

“Among other things. Sometimes what was lost was merely information. Answers to questions that the living needed from those who had passed on.”

“The dead, you mean.” Rose shivered in the warm evening air. “And how do I go about finding this information?”

“You ask me, of course.” Skag gave her a lazy smile. “I’m what previous generations called your
spirit guide
.
You’re the medium between the living and the dead. The living ask you for help. You bring their requests to me. I transmit your requests to the most appropriate residents on the Other Side. In many cases, I can find the answers easily enough. The dead can be quite accommodating.”

Spirit guide. Of course. Made as much sense as anything else she’d heard this evening. “How do you go about finding the right dead person to give you the information you need?” She had a momentary vision of a room-size Rolodex—although maybe the dead had gone digital by now.

Skag sighed. “None of your relatives has ever asked all of these questions, you know. They were content to simply accept the information I was able to find for them.”

Rose folded her arms across her chest. “I’m a reference librarian. I like to know who my sources are.”

“The sources in question, for the most part, are the newly dead. Spirits may linger for a few years after death before they move to the next level of existence. They’re frequently quite chatty. If I need to speak to a particular spirit, I can usually find them by asking around.”

“Did you ever fail to find what Grandma Caroline was asking for?”

Skag shrugged. “Oh yes. I don’t have access to all the spirits. And nothing compels the dead to tell the truth any more than the living. And there are limits to what I can find. And sometimes opposing powers can be greater than my own.”

Rose frowned. “What powers are those?”

Skag narrowed his eyes. “No, Rose, this is as far as I’m willing to go. The secrets of the afterlife are not mine to pass on. I’m here to help you in your inquiries. I’ll find whatever information I can glean from the spirits to whom I have access. And that’s really all you need to know about the process.” He arched one eyebrow. “Anything else?”

Rose shrugged. “How would I charge people for this information without bringing the entire San Antonio police force down on my head? The cops have never been big fans of the supernatural in my experience and asking people for money in exchange for tips from the spirit world would probably put me on their radar.”

“Caroline offered a money-back guarantee. No payment if the customer wasn’t entirely satisfied. Occasionally someone tried to cheat us, but not often. They usually paid up in the end.” Skag smiled again. The wreath of smoke around his face made him look faintly demonic.

Rose licked her lips. “Did you have anything to do with that?”

“More frequently, the persuasion came from the other spirits. Some of the dead become quite angry at the idea their descendants don’t honor their memory sufficiently.”

She sat very still, as a thousand questions careened through her mind. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do about all this.”

“You’re supposed to agree to carry on where Caroline left off.” He ground out another cigarette. “This is a quite expensive area in which to live. Your salary as a librarian will hardly be enough to compensate. Once you attain Caroline’s level of business, you should be able to clear enough money to take care of everything nicely.”

“And what was Caroline’s level of business?”

Skag raised an eyebrow and named a figure that made Rose’s own eyebrows elevate almost to her hairline. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. It won’t be that much at first, but it will grow as you work. Ultimately, you’ll find the business is quite lucrative.”

“And what do you get out of this?”

He frowned. “Me?”

“Well, I mean, I assume you don’t need the money . . .”

Skag’s expression darkened. “I repeat, this is my job. My vocation, if you will. I have served the family’s interests for generations. I hope to serve them for generations to come. My reward, to put it crassly, is in performing my duties successfully. And making sure that the Riordan family continues to fulfill its own destiny.”

Rose’s eyes widened. “Destiny?”

Skag stared at the ceiling. “An old-fashioned word, perhaps, but one I’ve always preferred.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I’m aware of that.” He sighed. “For now, it’s enough to know that Riordans have special talents. Things they can do that other mediums can’t, or can’t do as well.”

“And you expect me to exercise these ‘talents’?”

He shook his head, the corners of his mouth turning up in a faint smile. “On the contrary. I rather hope you don’t have to exercise them.”

Rose frowned. “I need to think about this.”

“Yes, I agree that you do. Shall I return tomorrow evening to discuss it further?”

She nodded, then held up her hand. “One other thing.”

“Yes?”

“If I agree to do this, there will be some ground rules. Number one on the list will be that you confine yourself to the ground floor exclusively. No more coming into this room. Understand?”

Skag rolled his eyes. “The younger generation. So prudish.”

“Do you understand, Skag? No more bedroom visits.”

“Oh, very well.” He stood, brushing cigarette ash from his sleeves. “Until tomorrow, then.” His body began to fade, Cheshire cat–style, leaving his face until last.

“And no smoking in the house,” Rose called.

Skag shook his head, rolling his eyes again. And then he was gone.

Rose sat perfectly still for a very long time, thinking. About her mother. About her house. About all the things nobody had ever told her that she definitely needed to know. For a few moments she actually thought about calling home, even if it was after midnight. This was definitely worth a little inconvenience on Ma’s part.

And then she decided against it. Her mother had chosen not to fill in the gaps, and Rose had a feeling that was because she didn’t want to acknowledge those gaps existed. That situation wasn’t going to improve.

Especially since it appeared Rose was going into the medium business.

Chapter 2

Present day

Evan Delwin shifted in his seat, trying to find a comfortable spot on the smooth wooden surface. It seemed to have been designed for pygmies
—
at any rate it wasn’t designed for somebody his size. The faint creaking of seats around him told him that other members of the audience were having similar problems. He wondered why Bradford hadn’t rented a more upscale theatre—judging from the ticket prices, he could have afforded one.

The stage at the front had the remains of gilded masonry across the top, but it had been a long time since anybody had cleaned it. The red velvet curtains drawn open at the sides looked dingy.

Bradford sat in the middle of the bare stage in a leather desk chair. Maybe he’d brought it with him. Evan doubted the theatre had one handy. The white backdrop seemed to emphasize his bland good looks, like a soap opera star a little beyond his prime with a heavy, squarish jaw. He was tall, maybe six-two or so. His dark brown hair was a little overlong, one lock drifting down across his forehead, serving to soften the dark eyebrows.

He leaned forward, bringing his hands together to rest his fingers against his lips as he surveyed the audience.

“
M
,” Bradford finally intoned in his mellifluous baritone. “I’m getting
M
. It’s over . . .” He gestured toward the far side of the audience. “It’s in that section over there. Anyone with a name starting with
M
? Anyone?”

Evan felt like sighing. Assuming you counted
Mom, Ma, Mommy, Mama, Mother
and
Mami,
a better question might be: “Anyone here without an
M
?” Watching Bradford was depressing. He knew all about how gullible people could be, but Bradford seemed to push the limits.

Several people in the audience raised their hands. Bradford pointed to a woman in the center. “You, ma’am,” he said politely. “It’s you. He’s pointing at you.”

The woman glanced behind her seat a little nervously. Bradford gave her a reassuring smile as he spoke. “I’m getting Manny. Is it Manny? Did you know a Manny?”

The woman licked her lips. “Manuel?”

“Manuel.” Bradford nodded. “Yes. Manuel. Your . . . husband. No. Something else. Some other relative. Father. Maybe . . . I’m getting a relative. Definitely relative. Father, but not exactly. Maybe uncle.”

“Godfather,” the woman murmured.

“Godfather. Very good.” Bradford smiled at her encouragingly. “He had . . . I’m getting chest. Heart maybe. Heart or lungs. Chest, definitely.”

The woman nodded. “Heart. Heart attack.”

“Well, he’s all right now. He’s not in pain. He’s all right.”

“Oh.” The woman clutched her hand to her own chest. “Oh, that’s . . . good. That’s . . . I’m glad to hear that.” Even in the dim light, Evan could see the tears on her cheeks as Bradford went on giving her messages from the mythical Manny.

Damn William Bradford to hell and back!
His jaw tightened, his hands balling into fists.

Beside him, Dominguez shook his head slightly. “Steady,” he muttered.

“Son of a bitch. Preying on people’s grief,” Evan muttered back.

Dominguez leaned closer, keeping his voice low. “He’s almost through. Just keep a lid on it.”

On the stage, Bradford was wrapping the show up, addressing the audience as a whole as he stood, spreading his arms wide in a kind of embrace. “Thank you all for being here tonight. Thank you for listening. Thank you for believing. Keep the faith, my friends. The grave is not the end. Believe me. There is life beyond.”

Sure there is. And lots of money to be made there, too.
Evan’s jaw flexed again.

Bradford slipped backstage as the audience applauded. When the lights came up, two or three assistants remained at the front of the stage to talk to the members of the audience who’d come forward as soon as Bradford was gone. The assistants would make appointments with the Great Man for anyone who was willing to pay the “sitting fee.” The ones who couldn’t raise the cash would be SOL, but they’d probably go on to find someone else. The supply of mediums never seemed to exceed the supply of the gullible.

Evan decided he really needed a beer. Or three.

“What did you think?” Dominguez opened the front door of the theatre, stepping outside into a blast of heat and humidity. Moisture danced in the air, forming haloes on the streetlights. In October. Didn’t it ever cool down in South Texas?

“Par for the course. I didn’t see anything you could charge him with, but you know more about the laws than I do.”

Dominguez shook his head. “He never does anything illegal at these shows. People pay admission. He doesn’t ask for anything else. It’s no different from any other magic show.”

“Except a genuine magician would give them a lot more for their money.”

“The real action happens at those private meetings,” Dominguez explained. “But even there, we’d have to have someone claiming that he’d cheated them out of some money in order to investigate him. And so far we’ve got nothing.”

“So why go after him? If there’s no evidence he’s doing anything except gulling the gullible why waste your time?”

“Because we have had evidence. Or at least complaints. A couple of people claimed their relatives gave Bradford money after he promised to put them in contact with loved ones who’d died. A lot of money. Like most of their estates.”

A quick shiver of tension moved across Evan’s shoulders. “Based on your use of ‘estate’ I’m assuming . . .”

Dominguez nodded. “They’re dead. Both of them. And Bradford collected.”

“Are you saying you think he had something to do with their deaths?” Evan paused at the street corner.

“Not that we can tell. Natural causes in both cases, and the family in one case actually asked for an autopsy.” He shrugged. “It didn’t turn up anything.”

“So we’re back to the basic problem again.” Evan turned up the block toward Commerce and the nearest bar. “Bradford may have gotten them to turn over their money, but all the families can do is sue him. And try to prove he played dirty with emotionally fragile elderly people.” Evan blew out a breath. He’d so much rather be having a beer somewhere than having this conversation. “What’s your plan, Harry? I assume you have one.”

“To get you a private appointment with Bradford.”

Evan shook his head. “Won’t work. Even if he’s never heard of me, he’s got people who check everything. By now, my name’s on their ‘Do Not Fly’ list. They know the kind of stuff I write.”

“You can make the appointment under an assumed name.”

“That won’t work, either. Somebody like Bradford would do detailed research on anybody he wants to fleece—that’s standard operating procedure for a medium. Unless you’ve got the resources to create a completely new identity for me, I’ll never get in.”

Dominguez looked like he was grinding his teeth. “Goddamnit, Evan.”

Evan sighed. “Look, Harry, I wouldn’t mind taking him down. But the best I can probably do is expose his methods. I’ll try to get an appointment with him once I hire my research assistant. Maybe he’ll go for an interview.”

“Better than nothing, I guess,” Dominguez growled.

“Let’s hope so.” Evan sighed again. “You want a beer?”

Dominguez blew out a long breath. “Sure. Might as well get something out of the night.”

Evan turned back up Commerce again as Dominguez fell into step beside him. “I’ll even pay for once.”

Dominguez’s grin flashed in the streetlight. “So what did you think of Bradford’s performance overall.”

Evan shrugged. “Standard stuff. Cold readings. He did move things right along, though.”

“Seemed to have a lot of people who recognized the names he was throwing out.”

“That’s because they were helping him. He says a letter, they tell him he’s right. He says a name, they come up with something close. Manny/Manuel. That’s what cold reading’s all about.”

“Still. There wasn’t much fumbling around, you know, like calling out letters nobody recognized. Seemed like he was hitting more than he missed.” Dominguez nodded toward a bar up the street. “The Elite. Good place. At least the beer is cold.”

“Right.” Evan followed him to the bar, trying not to frown.
Seemed like he was hitting more than he missed.
Bradford didn’t hit any more than any other phony medium. He just knew how to work the crowd.

Right?

***

Rose grimaced at herself in the bathroom mirror. She’d managed to wipe off most of the gray makeup, except along her hairline. The eggplant-colored shadow above and below her eyes needed to go next. Then the gray powder in her hair. The latex patches from her eyes and forehead lay on the side of the lavatory, looking a little like dried apricots.

She sighed. She wanted a shower and she needed a shampoo desperately. Her head itched. If only she could put this conversation off until tomorrow.

“What did you think of him?” Skag’s impatient voice echoed from the living room.

Rose pretended she hadn’t heard him. At least William Bradford had gotten to go off and have a drink somewhere after he’d changed out of that cheesy suit. She’d seen him on talk shows—she knew he owned at least one Hugo Boss. Maybe he sat around and snickered about the suckers. She, on the other hand, got to spend the next hour or so being interrogated by an impatient spook.

“Rose?” Skag bellowed.

“Give me a minute, for Pete’s sake,” Rose called back. She gritted her teeth. Being ordered around by the spectral host sucked.

She leaned over the bathroom sink again, brushing her hair until a cloud of powder filled the air. Looking in the mirror, she estimated she’d managed to knock off ten years or so. A shower would knock off thirty more, but then she’d have to listen to Skag whine about being kept waiting. She pulled her robe on over her bra and panties, tying it around her waist as she walked out of her bedroom and headed back up the hall.

When she entered the living room, Skag pounced, figuratively speaking. It was hard for a being who floated to pounce literally. “Did you see him? What happened?”

She sighed. She could lecture him about his lack of manners, but it wouldn’t do any good. “Yes, I saw him. He’s a fraud.”

“Of course he is.” Skag waved a faintly glowing hand. “That’s not the issue. We already knew that. Did you see anyone from the local psychic community? Did anyone recognize you?”

“No and no. Not that the ‘psychic community’ would recognize me anyway. I was just another credulous little old lady. And if we already knew Bradford was a fake, then why exactly was I there this evening?”

“We knew the performances were fake,” Skag corrected. “But we need to know if Bradford himself is fake or if he has some element of true ability.” He blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling.

Rose’s jaw tightened. “Skag, I’ve told you not to smoke in here.”

He ignored her, as usual. “How did he strike you? What kind of thing did he do?”

“Mostly cold reading. You know, he calls out a letter then asks leading questions to get someone in the audience to respond, throws out a name, finds somebody with a close match. Like that.”

Skag nodded. “How many misses did he have?”

“Misses?” She frowned. “You mean when he threw out a name or a letter and got nothing?”

“Precisely.”

“Some. I didn’t count. He wasn’t a hundred percent.”

“No, he wouldn’t be. Approximately.”

She closed her eyes, trying to remember. “Maybe a quarter or so were misses. Maybe a third.” She opened her eyes again. “He did keep things moving. I’ll say that for him.”

“Interesting.”

She scratched at her powdery scalp. “Why are we checking out William Bradford, Skag? You still haven’t explained the whole thing. What does he have to do with us?”

Skag shrugged. “It’s always good to know the competition. Even if he is going after a somewhat different audience.”

“He’s not our competition. I’m not going to be doing stage shows anytime soon.”

“Thank God for that,” he muttered.

“The real question is, why do you need me to check up on him? Can’t you ask someone on the Other Side?”

Skag’s expression grew watchful. “I’ve already asked. There’s an odd lack of information concerning Mr. Bradford. In fact, if it were possible for spirits to be frightened, I’d say Mr. Bradford’s name inspires a certain amount of fear. Which should be a source of curiosity at least.”

Rose frowned. The idea of ghosts being afraid of the living wasn’t particularly comforting. “Actually there was someone there who could pose more serious problems for us. More than William Bradford, anyway. A couple of someones, as it turned out.”

Skag elevated an eyebrow. “Explain.”

“Lieutenant Harry Dominguez, the cop who investigated Locators, Ltd. last year, was there. Along with his good friend, Mr. Evan Delwin.”

Skag’s eyebrow stayed up. “Delwin? The author?”

She nodded. “Mr. Expose-Psychic-Fraud himself.”

“Well, well.” Skag gave her one of his Cheshire cat smiles. “I’d heard Delwin was in town, but I didn’t realize he was consulting with the police. Dominguez must feel there’s some kind of case to be made against Bradford. This may work out even better than I’d thought.”

Rose had the customary sinking feeling in her stomach. “What should work out? What are you planning now?”

“To annihilate two birds with a single stone. You’re going to apply for a job, Rose, drawing upon all those tiresome skills you developed as a librarian.”

“I’m not applying for anything until I know what you’re up to. And quite possibly not even then.”

“You can apply to become Delwin’s research assistant. I found his advertisement just today so he may not have many applicants as yet. Then you can use your position with him to investigate Bradford since I assume that’s what Delwin will be doing. In addition, you can keep an eye on Lieutenant Dominguez, should his interest inexplicably turn our way once again. He didn’t find your connection to Locators when he did his first investigation.”

Rose gritted her teeth. “No.”

“No?”

“No. Not unless you tell me what’s going on. I’m not your assistant, Skag, I’m your partner.”