The Frighteners (9 page)

She reached over and touched the edge of the chair, and her fingers went right through Ray’s leg. But he rested his hand atop hers anyway, or tried to—it slipped right through. Then he said, “This is why I didn’t take the corridor, Bannister.”

Frank’s attention was caught by a group of people entering the restaurant, among them Magda Ravanski and Steve Bayliss. Magda was dressed to kill that night, and Bayliss looked to all the world like the likeliest victim. Ray may have been acting like a teenager on his first date, but Bayliss looked like one.

As Magda sashayed past their table she gave Frank and Lucy icy stares.

Lucy noticed, and asked, “Who is that woman?”

“Magda Ravanski, the managing editor of the
Gazette,”
Frank reported.

“What was that stare all about?”

“She doesn’t like me. Probably she thinks I’m trying to con you or something.”

“People can be so mean,” Lucy replied.

“She excels at that,” Frank said.

The thought was interrupted by the waiter, who handed Frank and Lucy menus. Ray grabbed for one as well, but his hand went right through it.

“Damn,” he said. “I’m starving.”

Frank frowned at him.

“How are you this evening?” the waiter asked.

“Fine, thank you,” Lucy replied.

“Would you care for a drink?”

“Wine for me, please,” Lucy said.

“Me, too,” Frank said. “Lucy . . . red or white?”

At that, Ray jumped in, saying, “Red. We always have claret.”

Lucy smiled at Frank, then said, “I’d like a Chablis. I’ve never been fond of red.”

“Lucy!” Ray said, annoyed.

Frank ordered a bottle of Chablis for the two of them, and when the waiter was gone, she said, “Tell me—how is it that you can see Ray and I can’t?”

“I was in an accident,” Frank replied. “It was ten years ago. Sometimes, when you go through a trauma, it alters your perception. It allows you access to the part of your mind that connects with the spiritual world.”

“She doesn’t wanna hear your life story, Bannister,” Ray snarled.

Ignoring him, Frank continued, “I was in a bad car accident. I lost my wife.”

Lucy’s eyes got misty, and she reached over and touched Frank’s hand briefly.

“Don’t do that, honey,” Ray said.

Bannister continued, “And ever since, I can make contact with those who have passed beyond.”

“My fist is gonna make contact with your nose,” Lynskey threatened.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your wife,” Lucy said.

“I guess I’ve neglected the rest of my life,” Frank admitted. “There’s a house I never finished fixing up. With her gone, I kind of lost the will to do it.”

She touched his hand again. Seeing it, Ray began to emit ghostly steam.

“So since I can talk to the departed, I decided to make a career out of it,” Frank said.

“I can see why.” Lucy’s tone was earnest. “It’s a way of keeping in touch with your wife. Do you talk to her often?”

“Now and again,” Frank said.

“You better talk to a lawyer, buster,” Ray threatened. Again, Frank ignored him.

“I think you’ve led a very interesting life,” Lucy commented. “But I can’t imagine you get a lot of business in a town like Fairwater.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised how active the spirit world is around here,” Bannister said. “You’ve just got to go out there and find it.”

Seven

A
s Frank spoke, his ghostly cohorts were doing just what he said—going out there and finding business. On that evening it was at the Fairwater Museum, where the exhibition Evidence Embalmed: The Secrets of Ancient Egypt, was having its grand opening. The museum was a gray stone edifice, suitably adorned with ivy and surrounded by maple trees and black, cast-iron fences, positioned on a small hill behind Main Street. The glitterati of Fairwater were streaming up the grand staircase steps, which were covered with red carpet for the occasion. It was the black-tie opening of the town’s long-awaited Egyptian exhibition.

Inside a high-ceiling exhibition hall crafted of marble and limestone, Janet King guided the dignitaries through the spectacular Egyptian display, which was housed in a series of galleries. An attractive young Egyptologist dressed in a smart, pin-striped suit, she led them past an impressive array of stone sarcophagi, funeral statues, and images of Imhotep, Akhenaton, and Amon. Chariots, funeral masks, coffins embossed in shimmering gold and lapis lazuli, rows of hieroglyphics, and even a full-size mock-up of a burial chamber—all were lavishly displayed in the museum’s dramatically lit galleries.

Pausing by a meticulously bandaged mummy, Janet King expounded on ancient Egyptian funeral practices. “The most elaborate method of mummification was inevitably the most expensive,” she told the impressed crowd. “The liquefied brain was drawn out through the nose, using a hooked iron. An incision was made in the side of the abdomen and viscera were removed, except for the heart, which was believed to be the seat of the emotions and intellect.”

Following the slowly moving crowd was curator Amos Osborne, justifiably proud of the number of solid citizens gracing his museum that night. Everything seemed to be going as smoothly as silk, he thought as his just-polished shoes stepped on something on the marble floor. He looked down, and discovered to his shock that he had just stepped on a little pile of business cards—Frank Bannister’s business cards.

He quickly bent low and gathered them up. How did these get here? he wondered. I haven’t seen Bannister tonight. Osborne walked briskly to a litter basket alongside a vertical display case in which a dry, shriveled, unwrapped mummy was propped up. He was just about to throw the cards in the garbage when he noticed the mummy’s head slowly turning toward him.

A bead of sweat rolled down the curator’s forehead. The mummy’s thin, desiccated lips tightened into a ghoulish grin.

Osborne looked back and forth from the suddenly revivified mummy to the cards in his hand. Then he stuffed one of Frank’s cards in his pocket before tossing the others in the litter basket. Sweating noticeably, he hurried off to rejoin the crowd, which had moved a distance down the exhibit.

Now visibly behind the mummy, Stuart’s fingers pulled the mummy’s lips back.

“Subtle, but effective,” Stuart said.

“You made the man look like Boris Karloff,” Cyrus agreed, appearing nearby and looking at the ancient corpse with distaste. “Man, I never thought I’d lay eyes on someone more decayed than the Judge.”

“Show some respect for your elders, boy,” the Judge said, stepping gingerly out of the display case that contained the mummy and reaching into the litter basket to retrieve the rest of Frank’s cards.

“Who you callin’ boy?” Cyrus snapped.

“I’m callin’ you boy, boy,” the Judge replied. “And when you get to your first hundredth birthday you can call others that, too.”

“I hope I die before I get to be as old and as decayed as you.”

“You’re already dead,” Stuart added.

“I don’t
feel
dead,” Cyrus argued.

“You smell it,” the Judge offered.

“I’d like to get my feet on a dance floor, that’s what I’d like. Y’dig? Pump up the volume on a little dance music, set me off a little disco inferno or something. Do you dig where I’m comin’ from?”

“Yeah,” Stuart said, “And I dig where you’re goin’ to—back to the cemetery if we don’t help Frank bring in some business.” With that, he led the way up the gallery. Cyrus and the Judge followed him, and to anyone who happened to be looking—no one, at that point—a batch of Frank Bannister’s business cards appeared to float merrily through the air, autumn leaves wafted on a gentle breeze.

Back at Bellisimo’s, Lucy was staring dreamily, at times into space, at times toward the apparently empty chair next to her, and also at Frank. Off in a far corner, a trio was playing “Misty.”

“I wonder if someday I’ll be able to talk to Ray,” she said.

“I’m here now, honey,” Lynskey replied. “Just talk and I’ll listen. Here . . . take my hand.”

He tried to hold her hand again, and one more time grabbed nothing but air. Frustrated, he said, “Dammit!”

The waiter returned with a bottle of Chablis, which he uncorked and poured for Bannister to sample. “Excellent,” Frank said.

“As if you would know,” Ray commented.

The waiter poured glasses for Frank and Lucy, then asked, “Do you need more time to decide?”

“Yes, please,” she replied.

He left. Lucy sipped her wine, then leaned toward Bannister and said nervously, “I have an important question for Ray.”

“Go ahead,” Frank said. “He can hear you.”

She turned toward what looked, to her, like an empty chair, and said, “Ray . . . I need to know where you invested my money. You know, the sixteen thousand dollars I’d saved? The attorneys can’t find it.”

There was silence as Ray sat, biting his fingernails, and sweating nervous ectoplasm.

“Well?” Bannister asked after a time.

“Oh, shit,” Ray said. “I blew it on a bad investment. I lost every dime. But, hang on, don’t tell her that. I’ll think of something.”

Bannister looked uncomfortable, then sighed and said to Lucy, “He says he blew it on a bad investment.”

“Asshole!” Ray spat.

Lucy was shocked. “What kind of investment?”

Again Ray was silent, straining to think. At last he said, “Remember that opportunity I had to get in on the ground floor of the company making flatten-your-tummy machines?”

“He blew it on the tummy-flattener company,” Frank reported.

“I told him that was crazy,” Lucy said.

“Tell her everything’s gonna be okay,” Ray said. “I’ll look after her. I’m moving back into the house.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Frank said.

Lucy looked up. “What idea?” she asked.

“He wants to move back into the house.”

“I just buried him. And I already had the house de-ghosted once.”

Bannister turned to Ray. “She doesn’t want you hanging around the house.”

“Bannister! This has nothing to do with you.”

“What is Ray saying?” Lucy asked.

Bannister hesitated for a moment, then said, “Nothing. He just left. He said he was sorry and wants to leave you alone to get on with your life.”

Seething, Ray said, “I swear to God, I’ll kill you.”

“That’s just like Ray,” Lucy said. “Take the money and run.” Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes. “Can I be honest with you?” she asked.

“I wish you would.” Bannister reached across the table and touched her hand.

“Ray and I weren’t honest with each other for a long time. It wasn’t a good marriage, Frank. I realize that now.”

Ray leaned on the table and, yelling into Lucy’s ear, screamed, “Bitch!”

“If he were still here, I’d tell him that I knew that nineteen-year-old aerobics instructor was teaching him more than cardiovascular conditioning.”

“Oops,” Ray said, and sat back down.

“A lot of good
that
did him, anyway. I was always faithful to the man,” Lucy said. “And there he was running around behind my back with that tramp from Portland.”

“You’ll be okay,” Frank said.

The tears had started to run down her cheeks. Bannister brushed them off.

“Don’t touch her,” Ray yelled at him.

Getting to his feet, Ray swung wildly at Frank’s wineglass, sweeping it off the table and into his lap. Lucy looked up as Frank grabbed a napkin and rubbed his trousers.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

He got up and, when he was sure no one was looking, wound up and smacked Ray in the face with a right jab. Ray staggered backward, wailing and clutching his nose.

“You bastard,” he swore, making his way toward the door. “I can make your life miserable, Bannister,” he yelled. “You better watch your back.” With that, he stormed out of the restaurant.

Bannister turned back to Lucy and, brushing off his pants, said, “Excuse me . . . I’ll just clean up.”

“Sure . . . go ahead.”

He pushed his chair away from the table and walked across the dining room to the back of the restaurant, where he located the men’s room between the cigarette machine and the coffee station. The men’s room was done in white tile that had been decorated with small, pink gondolas, Leaning Towers of Pisa, and Roman fountains. A basket of brightly colored plastic flowers sat atop the marble countertop next to a potpourri dish that contributed a scent of lilac to balance the odor of cleaning fluid that permeated the room.

Frank stepped up to the counter and ripped a handful of paper towels out of the dispenser. He used them to rub the wine out of his trousers.

“Jesus, a guy goes to all the trouble to get his suit pressed to impress a girl, and this is what happens,” Frank complained to his image in the mirror. “It’s another example of Murphy’s Law—if I left the suit rumbled and dirty, no one would have spilled wine on it.”

At that point the men’s-room door opened and in stepped a snappily dressed man of around forty. His brand-new Italian suit cost more than Frank made in a month, and he smelled of expensive cologne. He hurried to the urinal, grinning at Frank as he unzipped.

“Good band, huh?” he said.

“At least it isn’t Isaac Hayes,” Frank replied.

“Who?”

“Some disco singer who wore a lot of gold jewelry.”

“Disco, huh? I’m afraid that goes back before my time.”

Frank was certain that it didn’t, but if the man wanted to play younger than his years, that was fine. Frank knew better than most that nobody lived forever, so they might as well get as much mileage out of their lives as possible.

It was then that Frank noticed that tattooed on the man’s forehead was the number thirty-eight. It was printed there in ugly raised welts—exactly as the number thirty-seven had been tattooed on Ray’s forehead before he died.

Frank stared at the man’s forehead, trying to figure out what was up. Then the fellow noticed him watching and turned away. Frank sneaked another curious look at the designer-dressed stranger through the washbasin mirror as the man zipped up and waited for his turn to wash up.

At that moment a cubicle door silently swung open. Frank saw it and expected it would naturally be accompanied by the sound of footsteps. Instead silence reigned, and then, looking in the mirror, Frank saw a tall, dark, hooded figure glide out. He couldn’t see a face, only that whatever it was, the creature was sinister, predator-like, and definitely not human, moving as it did in a pool of blue-black light.