by Carter
She blinked at me a few times, her eyelashes long and dark, the kind of eyelashes that took a woman a lot of effort to produce. “I was … I was just out with some friends. Some old friends. People I hadn’t seen in a while.”
Her voice was a little slurred—not a lot, but enough that it was obvious she’d been drinking. It was another one of those things that continued to amaze me. A ghost had no reason to show any signs of inebriation, or any physical effects of alcohol or drugs, but they still usually carried on as if it was so.
“Did any of those old friends die of liver failure?” I asked, having a hard time hiding my irritation.
“What?”
I motioned to the living room. “You want to sit down for a minute? I’ve got some questions.”
I turned on a side lamp and the two of us took our seats, her on the couch, me on the loveseat. She brought her handbag with her, clutching it against her chest as if she was afraid I might snatch it from her. Her eyes were wide and shiny, like saucers full of water, and she continued to blink rapidly.
“So when were you going to tell me about your drinking problem?” I asked.
“What?”
“I spoke with your father. He said you were basically an alcoholic.”
She blushed. “I’m no such thing. I like—I like a drink now and then, it’s true, but I never … I mean I haven’t …”
“He said that when you died, your blood-alcohol level was through the roof. He said that’s why nobody even suspected foul play.”
“I told you, that’s not why I died. It was the brakes. It doesn’t matter how much I … It was the brakes. They just didn’t work.”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I’m just saying that when a client starts lying to me about little things, then I start wondering if they’re lying to me about bigger things.”
“I wasn’t lying! I just didn’t … I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“Well, why don’t you let me decide that from now on, okay? Another question. Is there any reason somebody would hide in your apartment, then hit me over the head before I could see them?”
The blinking came back in full force. She really had to be careful, or she was going to blink those eyelashes of hers right off her face. “I don’t—I don’t understand—”
“It’s not a hypothetical. It just happened.”
“Oh! Are you—”
“I’m fine. There’s nobody staying here but you, right?”
“No! I mean, I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean, you don’t think so?”
“I mean … I mean I haven’t been staying here all the time. Just some of the time. Now and then. I don’t really—I mean, I don’t like being alone all that much. I stay with my sisters. My dad. They can’t see me, but it’s … It’s easier with them around. Not so lonely.”
“But you’re here tonight,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I just—I just wanted —”
“Who did you see tonight?”
She stared at me coldly. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
“It probably isn’t. But if you want me to find Tony, you really should just answer my questions.”
She held my gaze for a moment longer, her jaw set and her body as stiff as a plaster mold, then sighed. “Fine. I met my sisters. We meet once a month or so. A regular thing, at a bar downtown. You know, just to catch up and chat. Kind of like a book club.”
“Except with booze instead of books.”
“I guess.”
“But they didn’t know you were there?”
“Of course not.”
“They don’t have your dad’s, you know …”
“No. As far as I know, they’ve never sensed I was near them.”
“They talk about you?”
She studied the cuticle of her thumb. Judging by the general pall hanging over her, I assumed they had. I also assumed that something they’d said had upset her, which was why she was back here at her condo. Getting that information out of her might prove tricky, so I decided to take a more roundabout approach.
“They both live downtown?” I asked.
“No, but they’re close. Janice lives in Vancouver, just over the river. Her husband is the vice president of a local bank. Beth lives in Lake Oswego. Well, when she’s not at her cabin near Mount Hood. That’s where she goes when she needs to think. She’s a writer.” She spat out this word as if it explained everything.
“A writer? Of what?”
“Of whatever strikes her fancy. Novels. Poems. She’s been working on a memoir for the past five years. I don’t think she’s ever been published or anything. But boy, she really makes it sound like she’s doing the most important thing in the world.”
“She’s not married?”
“No. Wouldn’t want a man to get in the way of her art.” She said the word with the same distaste as she’d said the word writer.
I pulled out my trusted spiral notebook and a pen. “I’d like to verify their contact info,” I said. “You may have given it to me already, but let’s make sure it’s up to date.”
“Why?”
“So I can do my detecting thing.”
“But they’re not going to know anything.”
“Humor me.”
“I’m telling you, they hated Tony. They thought he was terrible. They never—they never said so around me, of course, but now that I’m gone …”
Her eyes clouding, she looked down at her black sequin shoes. Now I had a pretty good idea what her sisters had talked about tonight. I moved to the couch and sat next to her. I would have put my arm around her, because she looked like she wanted to lean into someone and have a good cry, but sitting there was going to have to do.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She sniffled. “I love them, but they can be so … cruel.”
“Everybody has their opinions.”
“They said he was just using me. For sex. For money. But I never gave him any money! Not really. A few dollars here and there, maybe. Sometimes he was between big deals and I covered the bills for a while. But he wasn’t using me.”
She went on like that for a while. I didn’t say much. My own history with Tony would never let me see him in any sort of objective light, but mostly she just wanted someone to hear her out, to let her vent, and even though I was feeling the itch to get out of the condo, I felt obligated to give her a sympathetic ear. I knew she was struggling with her own contradictory feelings about Tony, about what he was and what he wasn’t, and she didn’t need me to make those feelings any more complicated. There might be a time to press her, but it wasn’t now.
Finally, I begged my leave, telling her I’d see her on Monday, hopefully with news. She gave me her sister’s contact information, then followed me to the door. She had such a sad-puppy way about her, hanging her head, shuffling her feet, that I felt the need to offer her at least a little more encouragement.
“It’s going to be all right,” I said.
“Is it?”
“Sure. Just don’t give up hope, okay?”
“I’ll try,” she said, but there wasn’t a whole lot of try in her voice. “I just … I didn’t know dying would be like this.”
“Nobody does. That’s the bitch of it all.”
“You do. You know how it is.”
“Well, besides me.”
“Does it make it easier? I mean, knowing what’s coming. For you. For everyone.”
“I don’t know. Not really. Most of the time, I feel like I’m already dead.”
“What do you mean?”
I sighed. “Who knows. Probably the bump on my head talking. I’ve got to get going.”
I reached for the door handle.
“You know,” she said, her voice and demeanor suddenly turning demure, “you don’t have to go.”
“Karen—”
“You could stay here. With me.”
She ba
tted those enormous eyelashes at me. She hadn’t really cried, but there had been enough moisture to darken her mascara, deepen the lines around her eyes. It made her seem both more vulnerable and more alluring. All that luxurious blond hair, the way it flowed down her black overcoat. That knockout figure, every curve and slope to her somehow accentuated by that same overcoat, as loose as it was. It was hard not to look. She saw me looking and tilted her head slyly to the side.
“You’re a very handsome man,” she said. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Karen, I really should go.”
“Silly me,” she said. “Of course women have told you that. I’m sure you hear it all the time.”
“I think I’m double parked,” I said.
“I think you’re nervous. You shouldn’t be.”
“I’m a married man.”
“And I’m a married woman. It doesn’t seem to be working out too well for either of us.”
“Karen—”
“I’m lonely, Myron. Stay with me.”
“Karen, you’ve had a little too much to drink. In the morning, when—when your head is clear—”
Before I could finish, she reached out with her hand and touched me on the chest. Touched. It was only a tap, hardly stronger than a puff of air, but I’d felt it all the way through my jacket. More than that, this had not been any ordinary touch. It might have been weak in the physical sense, but it sent an electric shiver through my entire body. The feeling was so unexpected that I gaped at her, speechless. She smiled.
“Can your wife do that?” she asked.
I said nothing.
“Didn’t think so,” Karen said. “Just the drawing thing, right? I haven’t been a ghost for long, but I’ve already realized that not many of us can, and those that do usually have an attachment to a certain kind of thing, like your wife. So just think of that, Myron. Think if you were lying on my bed in the other room—naked—what I could do for you. The way I could make you feel.”
I swallowed away the lump in my throat. My face felt warm and my collar felt damp with sweat. It had been a long time since any woman, dead or alive, had propositioned me in such a way.
“I’ll see you Saturday,” I said.
“Don’t go,” she said.
“Saturday.”
“Myron—”
I opened the door and went out without looking at her again, closing the door immediately behind me. Besides me and the plants in their wicker pots, the hall was empty.
I didn’t linger long before heading to the elevator, just a few seconds to learn to breathe again, but it was long enough that I caught the unmistakable sound of crying from the other side of the door.
Chapter 14
He was tall and black, impressively tall and deeply black, the kind of height and skin color that would have made heads turn on any street corner in Portland. There were more African Americans in the city than in the rest of the state, but they still didn’t amount to more than five percent of the city’s population. He had to be nearly seven feet tall. He wore a sharp gray business suit, which, as he strolled down the sidewalk toward my house, made him stand out even more. People in my mostly residential neighborhood didn’t generally wear suits except for the brief walk from their cars to their front doors.
So it went without saying that people should have noticed him. The old man sticking his envelope in his mailbox, the mother loading her baby into the car seat of her minivan, the fit young woman jogging in time to the music piping through her headphones—they all should have at least glanced his way.
But they didn’t.
I watched him approach, feeling the familiar clench in my stomach. Would he be one of the normals or one of the weirdos?
It was a Tuesday morning in March, more than a year and a half since the shooting. After almost two solid weeks of near-ceaseless drizzle, the sun had made a return appearance. Though it was still cool, it was warm enough that I could feel the sun’s rays through my cotton sweatshirt. I was on my hands and knees in the wet grass, a plastic bucket half-full of weeds next to me, and I was adding to the collection with a hand shovel. After working on the yard long enough that my fingers were cramping, it was a toss-up whether I’d even made much of a dent. Still, the smell of wet grass and fertile earth was a welcome change from the smell of booze.
The black man stopped in front of me, hands behind his back. Based on his lean build, I’d judged him to be a younger man from farther away. Now I saw that he was at least in his early fifties. His face was lined with age, and his curly stubble was more gray than black. Since my front yard was elevated almost three feet, boxed in by a moss-coated concrete retaining wall, we were about at eye level with me on my knees. His eyes were as black as his skin, a deep, brooding black that seemed neither menacing nor kind. The suit fit him very well for his build, which meant it was tailored, which also meant he had money. Or would have, if he were still alive.
“Myron Vale?” he asked. He had a voice deep enough that it would have given James Earl Jones a run for his money.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the sleeve of my sweatshirt and glanced at him briefly. I’d been doing my best to avoid making eye contact with ghosts, figuring maybe they’d go away if I ignored them long enough, but it was very difficult when they were talking to you.
I looked left and right to see if anyone was watching. No one was.
“Who wants to know?” I asked.
“My name is Frank Brown,” he said. “I’m from the NAANCP.”
He extended his hand, which, with his enormous wingspan, reached me without forcing him to lean precariously over the muddy border where I’d planted rose bushes the previous weekend. I studied his hand, then looked at him with raised eyebrows. It took him a few seconds for him to realize his mistake, and when he did, he chuckled softly and dropped his hand to his side. There was something familiar about him, though I couldn’t say what.
“Sorry,” he said. “Just habit. I’ve never really dealt with somebody … Well, like you.”
“Lucky me,” I said.
“Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
“I don’t know. I got a lot of weeding to do.”
He nodded at my grass. “It looks like a big job.”
“Somebody’s got to do it,” I said. “Did you say you’re from the NAANCP?”
“That’s right.”
“Don’t you mean the NAACP?” I recited the letters very slowly to emphasize the missing N.
He smiled thinly, as if he’d had this particular exchange before and it was his burden to bear. “A common mistake, I’m afraid. That’s the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons. No, I’m representing a very different organization. The National Association for the Advancement of Non-Corporeal Persons.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.
“Do I look like the sort of person who kids?”
“And the fact that you’re black is just a coincidence?”
“It’s an annoyance, is what it is. People often make the same mistake you did. Be easier if I was a short white dude like you.”
“Hey, I’m almost six feet tall.”
“Like I said. Short.”
“Play basketball?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“Any good?”
“I was all right. Not a basketball fan, huh?”
I realized I’d heard a slight variation of his name before. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me you were Frankie Brown? The Hall of Famer?”
“I’m still Frankie Brown, the Hall of Famer. I just decided to go by Frank in my new life.”
“Three championships with the Sixers? Two MVP awards?”
“So you do watch some basketball.”
“More as a kid than now,” I said, grinning, “though you were a bit before my time. “You were definitely one of my dad’s heroes. He told me stories about your matchups with Wilt Chamberlain—two titans going head to head. Dad always said the only wa
y Wilt could beat you is if he cheated.”
He was grinning a little now. “Just think how I would have handled him if I’d been in my prime. I was already in my late thirties by the time he came along. My back was like solid wood by that point, and I still held my own against him.”
“Real shame about your heart attack,” I said. “You weren’t even sixty, were you?”
“Fifty-eight,” he said.
“Way too young.”
“Yeah, well, that’s one bus ticket we don’t get to buy on our own, do we? Anyway, I’m doing more good now than I was in those later years. When I wasn’t screwing women half my age, I was trying to single-handedly keep the liquor business profitable. If it hadn’t been my heart that killed me, it would have been my liver. Now at least I got some kind of purpose to my life. Without purpose, what a man got?”
He looked at me knowingly, and I felt my defensive walls rise. As much as I knew about him, at least the old him, it was obvious he knew plenty about me. Lately, the fights with Billie had been brutal, mostly about the booze, sometimes about other things too, but in the end, those other things were usually tied up with the booze, too.
I put down the hand shovel and stood. Now, elevated by my yard, I was looking down at him.
“What do you want?” I asked, and I heard the brittleness in my own voice.
“Hey now, no need to be rude. I just want you to know … Well, I know what you’re going through.”
“You have no idea what I’m going through.”
Frank raised his hands in a defensive gesture. His hands were so big he could have shoveled dirt with them. “All right, all right, fair enough. I can’t say much about the other thing, about your … specialness. But I know what it’s like to be searching for some kind of answer to my troubles in the bottom of a bottle.”
“I think you better leave,” I said.
“Hold on, now. Mr. Vale—Myron, can I call you Myron? You can call me Frank. Even Frankie if you want. Let’s be friends.”
“We’re not friends. Did Billie send you?”
“Myron, that’s not why I’m here.”
