The Ghost in Love (17 page)

“Hello.”

Neither woman said anything. This was his show and all three of them knew it.

“Danielle gave you the stone?”

German nodded.

Parrish's first impulse was to ask them to join him on the stoop. But after what he'd done to bring them here, he knew they wouldn't want to do that. So okay, let's get down to business. “I need to find your boyfriend, Miss Landis.”

“I don't know where he is. We're not together anymore.”

The bum was truly surprised. “You broke up?”

“Yes.”

“Woo, that changes things. But I still need you to tell me where he is.”

Scared though she was, annoyance tightened German's mouth. “I just told you I don't
know
where is.”

Parrish scratched his chin and looked at something over her shoulder. “That's not good enough.”

Surprising herself, German dared ask, “Where is Pilot?”

“He's okay. But he won't be okay if you don't help me find Ben.”

“Did you try his apartment?” She pointed toward the building. “Or his job? Do you know where he works?”

“Yes. He's neither of those places.”

She raised her hands palms up. “Then I can't help you.”

“I want to show you something.” Parrish had already taken it out of his pocket when he saw the women approaching. Now all he did was turn his left hand over. They saw the sharpened kitchen knife lying flat against his open palm. “Remember this?” he asked German, and she nodded again. She assumed it was the same knife he'd used to stab the man in the restaurant that horrible night. She couldn't stand to look at it now.

“Good. Now, do you see the silver motorcycle way down the block? That brand-new Harley V-Rod? You like motorcycles, don't you, German? No, Formula One cars and old bicycles are more your thing, right?”

They looked but didn't see the motorcycle at first because it was parked so far away.

“I'm going to throw this into its front headlight.” He flicked his hand forward. The gesture was haphazard; it looked as though he were trying to get something off his fingers. But the knife flew out of his hand like an arrow shot from a crossbow. Seconds later—much too soon—they heard a faint crash and tinkling.

“I hope the owner's got insurance on that machine. Danielle, would you go get my knife, please? You can tell us if I hit the light when you get back.”

She touched the scar on her temple. “I'm sorry, but my head is really beginning to hurt.”

“
Go get my knife!
You can sit down and rest when you come back. German and I need a few minutes alone together.” Parrish didn't bother looking at Danielle when he ordered her to move.

She left after a fearful glance at German.

Parrish pointed to the top step. “Sit down.”

When they were seated he said, “You don't know anything about what's going on with Ben, do you?”

“No . . . only what Danielle told me.”

“That's all right. You don't need to know. Just help me find your boyfriend and you're finished.”

“But I already told you—”

“I know what you told me, German. But you'd know better where he
might
be now than anyone else. So make a guess. That's why I came to you.”

She thought. She really thought about it but could not come up with an answer for him. “If he's in the city—”

“He's not. He's back in his hometown.”

Startled, she raised her voice. “What? When did he leave?”

Parrish ignored her question. “When Ben was a little boy, who was his best friend? I'm talking about when he was very young, like four or five, around then.”

“Gina Kyte.” German said the girl's name without thinking because when they lived together, Ben often told stories about Gina and their childhood escapades. His first love, he said it was also the purest love he'd ever known because there was nothing physical
about it, only pure human adoration. He just flat-out loved Gina Kyte and woke up most mornings grateful that she was on this earth near him.

“Yes, Gina, that's right. Where did she live?”

“Cinnamon Street,” German said, not suspecting this had any relevance.

Parrish slowly smiled. “You're joking.”

“No, Gina Kyte lived on Cinnamon Street. Ben told me that several times.”

“That is wonderful. What a name! Then Cinnamon Street it is. Thank you.”

To her great surprise, Parrish stuck out his hand to shake. After a moment's hesitation she took it.

German waited for him to speak again but he didn't. She looked over. His expression was serene. He seemed content watching the street in silence. She remained quiet a little longer but eventually couldn't stand it anymore and had to ask, “What is going
on
? Why are you here? Why are you threatening us?”

He didn't look her way when he answered. “Benjamin Gould fell in the snow and hit his head on the sidewalk. He should have died but he didn't. Danielle Voyles was supposed to die when the piece of pen from the plane crash went through her head, but she didn't die, either. There are other people this has happened to—more and more frequently these days. Others who were supposed to die but didn't. Something's gone wrong with the system. I've been sent here to find out what it is and fix it.”

“By stabbing people? By threatening to kill them? Who are you? How do you know that they were
supposed
to die? Who sent you?”

“The Natural Order sent me, German. The way things should be and always have been. That's my boss.”

Before his answer sank in, she stumbled on: “Why
did
you stab the man that night?”

“Because he was one of the bad guys: the guys who are letting things change that should never be changed. Believe it or not, we're the good guys here. You should be rooting for us.”

“Rooting for death?” Her tone was snide.

Parrish went on in the same mild voice. “Do you like order? Are you an orderly person, German?”

Surprised by his question, she answered hesitantly, “Mostly, yes.”

“Do you like pain?”

“No.”

“Do you like it when things are chaotic or your life is out of control?”

“No.” What was he talking about?

Danielle walked toward them. She held Parrish's knife away from her body, dangling between two fingers because it was something she didn't want to touch but must. All she wanted to do was take off, but the bum knew where she lived.

“Do you like being alive?”

German pulled back, thinking he might be about to do something to her. “
Alive?
Yes, I like being alive.”

He shook his head. “
Why?
Life's chaotic, full of pain and suffering. It's unreliable and as disorderly as you can get. Nothing in life lasts, nothing's permanent, and there's not one thing that you can trust one hundred percent.

“Admit it: if a person had all those lousy qualities, you'd never want to be around them.” His voice was measured and reasonable. He was not trying to convince her of anything, only stating some facts and making a very valid point.

But when she understood where he was going with this, she
wasn't having it. “I know what you're saying: that's all Sigmund Freud's death-wish theory. I studied it in college.” She raised an index finger as if preparing to recite something memorized for class. “Death means the cessation of pain, no more chaos, no more being controlled by things bigger or more powerful than you are, whether that happens to be people or fate or God. And nothing is more dependable than death because if you're dead today, you're going to be dead tomorrow. Mankind seeks permanence, not transience. Death is permanent.”

“Exactly!” Parrish was pleased and impressed that she knew these things. It would save him time explaining. Yet what she said next threw him off.

“But you know what my professor said after he explained that theory to us? He quoted the writer E. M. Forster: ‘Death destroys a man: the idea of Death saves him.' ”

Danielle approached and was about to speak when she sensed the tension between the other two.

“Very poetic, but what is it supposed to mean?” Now Parrish sounded snide.

German said, “To me, it means life becomes even more beautiful and valuable once we
truly
realize we're going to die. But most of us never make that realization until we're told we're terminal by a doctor or whoever. By that time it's too late, 'cause all we feel then is fear.”

Danielle enthusiastically added, “Like taking an ocean cruise but staying in your cabin the whole time. Only when the cruise is over and the boat's docking, you finally go out on deck and see how nice it is.” After speaking, she was embarrassed by her outburst. But it was exactly the subject she'd been reading and thinking about like crazy in the days since her accident.

Parrish was disappointed. “That's so wrong. Neither of you has any idea of what you're talking about.” He walked down the steps and onto the sidewalk.

Annoyed now, he looked at one woman and then the other. “You don't know how close you just came to . . .” His voice faded while he scratched his cheek. “The dog. I almost forgot the dog.” Raising his left hand, he snapped his fingers.

Twenty-five blocks away, Pilot froze in place, but not of his own accord. He had been trotting along, still fleeing the half-dead man. But gradually his legs and joints began to sing pain, which slowed him considerably. Nevertheless, he had been moving at a pretty brisk pace until he was stopped in his tracks.

Next, the dog was lifted twenty feet off the pavement and flown backward in the direction he had just come from. Fighting against this with all he had, there was nothing the animal could do to resist. He was held by a force much stronger, stronger by miles, than he was. Pilot was entirely helpless and at that moment knew for certain he was about to die.

He flew back toward Ben Gould's apartment building so fast that it took no more than six or seven minutes to arrive. As he grew nearer, his body dropped lower and lower. By the time he reached the stairs where German was sitting, Pilot's feet were touching the pavement. The moment he stopped, he looked around in panic. He saw the two women and then the back of Stewart Parrish as the man walked away.

None of them ever saw him again.

The deeper Ben and Ling walked
into the forest, the gloomier it got. What they had just witnessed hanging up in the branches of the tree didn't make things any brighter. Night and its entourage had arrived. The trees that surrounded them absorbed the dark like asphalt absorbs summer heat. Night sounds and smells are manifestly different from day. The man and the woman walked in single file along the side of the road that passed through the forest. The only lights they saw came from cars passing in either direction.

“How much farther is it?” Ling asked.

“To the school? I don't really remember. It's been a long time since I was last here.” Ben walked in front. He spoke over his shoulder to Ling, who was following a few feet behind. The ghost didn't like any of this one bit. The roadside was extremely narrow and there was no real place to walk safely. Both of them wore dark clothes. It would be easy for a driver to miss seeing them. Ling had already said twice she didn't think this walk was a good idea. After the third time she said it, Ben couldn't resist asking, “Are you afraid of being run over and killed?”

It had been his idea to walk through the forest to the elementary
school, even though it was night and there were no overhead lights on the road.

“Why do we have to do this now?” Ling asked when Ben was already several steps down the road.

He answered, “I don't know. I'm not sure, but I have the feeling it's necessary.”

The ghost put her hands on her hips and frowned. “Necessary?”

“Yes. Don't come if you don't want.”

“Ben, it's not like that: I
have
to come even if I don't want. You don't understand.”

He stopped. “I don't understand because you tell me nothing, Ling. I'm flying blind here. If you're not going to help me with what you know, then I'm just going to have to trust my instincts, because that's all I've got. Right now they tell me to walk through this forest to the school. So that's what I'm going to do.”

Fifteen minutes later, in what felt like the middle of the forest primeval, he turned left and began walking straight into the woods. Ling was glad to leave the dangerous road, but why here?

“Where are you going?” she asked his back.

He didn't answer but kept walking.

Ling followed. “Ben?”

No answer. She caught up and tried to get him to look her way, but he wouldn't. “You're not being fair, Ben. I can't tell you what you want to know because I'm not permitted to. They explicitly told me I couldn't. If it were up to me, I'd tell you everything—which, after what's been going on lately, doesn't appear to be much, believe me.”

Without looking at her he asked, “Who's ‘they'? Who told you that you couldn't tell me things?”

She half whispered, “I can't tell you that.”

“Fine.”
He sped up and away from her. There was nothing the ghost could do but follow a few steps behind him.

The surroundings got darker and darker. Car noises from the road faded until they were barely a soft murmur from what sounded like miles behind them.

Unused to walking in the dark, much less walking in the dark through a forest full of stuff to trip over, Ling had a tough time. Not Ben, though: he moved at a steady pace, making it much harder for her to keep up.

In due course the ghost stumbled, staggered, and really whanged her left shin against a downed tree branch. “Damn it! This
sucks
!” Ling howled, learning yet another human emotion she would have gladly done without. They continued tramping along in silence. Ben led the way, although Ling didn't believe he knew where he was going in this darkness.