Remember Me (17 page)

"I think we should get off now," I said as Garrett restarted the truck.

"I wouldn't worry about him crashing," Peter said.

"I am worried. I don't want to be late to Jo's get-together."

"I won't be late. I can always just pop over."

"Lucky you. What do you think Garrett's doing in this sleazy part of town?"

"He's probably going to buy drugs," Peter said.

For a while I thought maybe Peter was psychic. Garrett rode several blocks north to Sunset Boulevard, to the bad end of Hollywood, where the porn shops and hookers carved out their existence. Garrett could have been searching for a pusher. He parked on a side street a hundred yards off the big boulevard and reached for a pair of binoculars. I noticed again the telescopic vision I'd had at the cemetery; I was able to follow Garrett's magnified gaze without effort. He was studying a tall, pasty white dude leaning against a streetlight.

The guy looked like a threat to young girls everywhere. He had on tight black leather pants and an orange Day-Glo shirt.

A thin gold chain circled his shaved head.

"He wasn't at the party, was he, Shari?" Peter asked.

"Hardly. What's Garrett doing?"

"Let's wait and see."

A half hour later, I began to fret. I could see Garrett's watch through the rear window. It was just past eight-thirty.

"We have to go," I complained.

"Not yet," Peter said, gesturing to the dude on the corner as Garrett simultaneously leaned forward inside the truck.

Someone was approaching. "Look at her. Wow."

The girl had long straight black hair and a cute heart shaped mouth. Her face was bony, her dark eyes set deep and wide. She needed a decent meal; she was thin as a rail. Yet her dress was conservative: a longish gray skirt and a freshly pressed white blouse. I understood Peter's wow—she was beautiful.

"I know her," I said.

"She was at the party?" Peter asked.

"Would you shut up." She was several years older, but it was definitely the girl in the picture Garrett carried in his wallet. I cringed as she embraced the slime on the corner.

"What could she be doing with him?" I asked. "Is he her pimp?"

"I doubt it," Peter said. "She doesn't have the hooker look. But she could be an addict.

The guy could be her connection. How do you know her?"

"I've seen her before."

"I hope Garrett invites her for a ride in his truck."

Garrett, however, did not make his presence known. He continued to follow the couple until the slime ball kissed the girl on the neck and slipped a plastic Baggie holding white powder into her hand. Then Garrett lowered his binoculars and leaned his head back on the seat, reaching for what was left of his bottle.

"It's his daughter," I said, understanding at last. The couple parted company, heading in opposite directions along the boulevard.

"Are you serious?" Peter asked. "A cop with an addict for a daughter? Sounds like TV.

Hey, where are you going?"

"I want to follow her," I said, leaping out of the truck.

"If you insist," Peter said, catching up with me in the blink of an eye.

The girl did not go far before she turned into a discount motel half a block off Sunset.

The place was not only run-down, the stuff that clung to its walls was choked with the threads of shadows I had first seen in the hospital. Only these threads were thicker and twisted at sharp angles like a form of astral barbed wire.

"What is that?" I asked, pointing.

"Pain," Peter said.

"Is that what people mean by bad vibes?"

"Most definitely."

"Can it hurt us?" I asked.

"If we let it."

We followed the girl into the lobby. The guy at the desk nodded to her as she strode by.

Her room was on the second floor. She opened it with a silver key she took from her black boot.

Surprisingly, inside it was fairly neat. The sheets on the bed were clean, and the paint on the walls was a fresh blue. But the threads of darkness were now rope thick. I kept thinking they would cut me if I bumped against diem.

I don't know what I hoped to discover. She was in the room less than a minute when she got out the Baggie of powder, a syringe, a spoon, and a rubber tourniquet on the stand beside her bed. It was sickening to watch. She set a portion of the powder into the spoon and mixed it with water.

Then she pulled out a lighter and ran the flame beneath the solution. I had to turn away a minute later when she steered the needle toward her vein.

"Why don't we leave?" Peter asked.

I nodded weakly. "All right." But the girl had closed the door as she came in. I had to go out the window. As I peered into the night with Peter and tried to estimate what the fall to the pavement would do to my supposedly invincible legs, I noticed the girl staring at me with wide, dilated pupils.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," she whispered.

I jumped so high I almost hit my head on the ceiling.

"Peter, she can see me!"

He was not impressed. "Sometimes, when the living are in an altered state of consciousness, they can glimpse the realm we're in."

"Are you serious? Why should a drug give someone special powers?" The girl continued to stare at me with her weird, unblinking blue eyes.

"It is hardly a power," Peter said. "At best, drugs can give a peek at where we are. They never give people an insight into the higher realms you would now be enjoying had you followed my advice this morning. They often do the opposite, opening the mind to dark levels, to madness."

"I want to talk to her," I said.

"Why? She's stoned. You'll be late to Jo's meeting."

"Just a sec." I strode to the bed, where the girl now lay stretched out. Her head followed me as I moved.

"Hi," she said again.

"Listen," I said, sitting beside her. "You're blowing it.

Ybu're a great-looking girl. This is no life for you. You're messing up your dad's life as well. He's drinking himself into the grave because of you. He's so screwed up he can't find the person who murdered me."

"Murder," she mumbled.

"Careful," Peter said. "Don't give her any ideas."

I stood. "We're going to have another talk, you and me,"

I told her. "As soon as I figure out what you need to hear."

The jump to the pavement didn't slow me down a beat. We rode a fire truck back to the freeway, where we caught an ice-cream truck heading east. We didn't exactly get invited into the front seat. The freeway rushed beneath us, and Peter laughed at me for hugging the brightly lit cherry snow cone on top.

JIMMY AND AMANDA were sitting in Jimmy's station wagon at the end of Jo's driveway when we arrived. I told Peter to go on ahead while I eavesdropped on their conversation.

I did it without feeling a twinge of guilt. That's one good thing about being a ghost. When all you can do is watch and listen, you feel you should be allowed to watch and listen to everything.

Amanda had her arm around Jimmy's shoulder, and that annoyed me. Here she wouldn't even return his calls, I thought, and I die and now she's in love. It was sort of a ridiculous thought. Actually, I was happy she was taking good care of him. He looked pretty messed up. He had his window down, and I stood by his side as they talked.

"I don't know," Jimmy was saying. "Maybe I should have stayed home. I wasn't invited."

"Jo won't mind you coming," Amanda said.

"I guess not."

"Are you worried about your mom?"

"I probably shouldn't have left her alone," Jimmy said.

"We can always go back."

"We're here. We may as well see what Jo wants." He glanced toward the house, shaking his head. "Someone in there—"

"What?"

"Nothing."

Amanda knew what he meant. Jimmy thought my murderer must be in the house. She let it pass. "Are your parents still thinking of going away tomorrow?" she asked.

"Yeah. My dad wants to get my mom out of the house."

"Are you going to go?" Amanda asked.

"I haven't decided."

She kissed him on the cheek. ''If you don't, I'll come over to see you."

He looked at her. "I'll be lousy company."

She smiled. "I don't mind."

They got out of his car and walked toward the house. They almost bumped into Mrs.

Foulton coming out the front door.

She had on her nurse's uniform and was in her usual hurry.

"I didn't know everyone was coming over," she said, and I immediately understood why Jo had set the meeting for ten o'clock and not earlier—she had thought her mother would already be at work. "What's up?" she asked.

"Jo just said to come," Amanda replied. "She said it was important."

"Yeah, well, she thinks everything she does is important,"

Mrs. Foulton said, turning to Jimmy. "How are your parents?"

"Not good," Jimmy said.

Mrs. Foulton nodded sympathetically. "I thought that service was never going to end.

That minister read practically the whole Bible. I wish that—that he hadn't done that." She had been on the verge of saying something else. Jimmy was making her nervous. She fussed over Amanda's hair, brushing it away from her eyes. Amanda was her favorite niece.

"Your mother just called," she said. "She was looking for you."

Amanda took Jimmy's arm. "Really?"

Mrs. Foulton's uneasiness increased, for no apparent reason. "She wanted to know when you would be home."

"I'll call her," Amanda said.

"I'm really sorry about Shari," she said to Jimmy, leaving in a hurry.

I followed Jimmy and Amanda into the house. I had never seen the place so clean.

Everyone was in the living room. I was surprised to see Jeff—he was lounging on the couch with Jo. Beth and Daniel were not close to each other; they were sitting stiffly in chairs and avoiding each other's eyes.

"What's Jo want?" I asked Peter, who was planted cross-legged on top of the TV.

"She's been waiting for everyone to get here," Peter said.

"But as soon as her mother stepped outside the door, she went for her Ouija board."

"Oh my," I said, interested. "Do those things really work?"

"What do you mean?"

"Can we talk to them through it?"

He shrugged. "They can work. Sometimes."

"I guess you're all wondering why I invited you here," Jo said as Jimmy and Amanda took a seat on the floor. Jo had finally put on her black dress—better late than never, I supposed.

The Ouija board rested on the coffee table at her knees. Jeff gestured to it and snorted.

"You want to use that thing again," he said, annoyed.

"You should have told us. We wouldn't have come."

If the remark hurt her, Jo showed no sign of it. "I know this may seem like the wrong time," she said. "God knows this has been an awful day. But think back to the party just before Shari jumped up and ran to the balcony. Something remarkable happened. I think we contacted Peter."

Jeff took a deep drag on his cigarette and ground it out. I wouldn't have been surprised to see him leave. Yet he said nothing, nor did he move to get up. I turned to Peter.

"Is that true?" I asked.

He spoke reluctantly. "Yes."

I grabbed him. "You used my body to talk to them?"

"Yes."

"But that's—that's obscene!"

"You volunteered to act as a channel."

"But I didn't know it was real!"

Peter was embarrassed. "I know, Shari, and I'm sorry. I just wanted the chance to talk to my brother."

I refused to accept his apology. I was furious with him, and I wasn't even sure why. But I was a hypocrite. I was wondering if it could be done again.

"It was just Shari talking," Daniel said.

"It was more than that," Jo said. "I can't be the only one who thinks this way.

What do you say, Amanda?"

"I hardly knew Peter," she said.

"How about you, Beth?" Jo asked, sounding less sure of herself.

Beth didn't answer immediately. I remembered that Peter used to talk to her frequently—probably out of respect for her big breasts.

"There was something in Shari's voice," Beth said finally, confused. "It gave me gooseflesh."

"Why?" Jeff asked sharply, sitting up.

"It sounded like him," Beth said. "I mean, it sounded like Shari, but also like Peter, using Shari's voice."

"She's smarter than she looks," I said, scowling at Peter.

"You knew Peter best of all," Jo said to Jeff. "Did it sound like him?"

He began to snap at her. He was mad. But he was also confused. He pulled out another cigarette. "If you want to use the board, then let's do it and get it over with," he growled.

"Excuse me," Jimmy said, breaking in. "I'm missing something here. Why do you want to do this now? Tonight?"

"I want to talk to Shari," Jo said. She raised her hand when the group started to protest.

"What happened at the party makes me feel it's possible. I don't think she's left yet.

I've read a lot on this subject. It's normal for someone who has recently passed over to hang around for several days. We must try to contact her before she leaves."

"That's my girl," I said.

"Don't get carried away," Peter warned.

"But Jo knows what she's talking about," I said.

Peter was unconvinced. "She has some knowledge. But a little knowledge is often dangerous."

"But can we talk to them?" I insisted.

"Let's see," Peter said.

"But Peter has been dead two years," Daniel said. "How did we get ahold of him?"

"Sometimes people have reasons to stay," Jo said.

"Showers they have to attend," I agreed.

"I don't believe any of this," Daniel said.

There followed an uncomfortable silence. Except for Jo, I doubted any of them honestly believed they could communicate with either Peter or me. Yet I also realized even before they took their vote that most of them probably felt that if there was one chance in a thousand it wouldn't hurt to try. It both excited and depressed me to see from Jimmy's expression that he was willing to give it a try. He had never been into such nonsense, and it didn't matter now that it might not be nonsense; it just hurt to see how desperate he had become.