“So, wanna know the story?” he asked.
“Which story would that be?”
“The story of why I want to hire you?”
“Desperately.”
“It’s for Rachel. She was my second wife. The best of the lot, actually. Sweet kid. We had our problems, that’s for sure, and maybe I should’ve stuck with it. You know, like given it more of a chance.”
“It’s a little late for regrets, isn’t it?” I said, but Goldblatt wasn’t listening. His head was cocked to one side and his eyes rolled up in their sockets. It was obvious his mind was off in the ether somewhere, strolling down Memory Lane, I assumed.
“How long were you married?”
“Let’s see.” He closed his eyes and started counting on his fingers. His eyes snapped open. “Technically, I guess it was a little more than six months.”
“Six months? You call that a marriage?”
“It was legal, if that’s what you mean.”
“And exactly what do you mean by ‘technically’?”
“I mean we were together for a few months before we actually got hitched, and then we were legally married for maybe three months before the annulment…”
“You got an annulment?”
“Not me. Her. I woulda stuck it out a while longer. You know, I’m really a traditional kind of guy. But she needed an annulment. Something to do with the church. It woulda looked bad on her record if she got a divorce. I guess Jesus don’t much like the idea of divorce. Mumbo jumbo, as far as I’m concerned. But I went along with the annulment thing. What’d I care? Remember, I’m a lawyer. I know all about legal fictions.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why’d she dump you?”
“I’m really not fond of the word ‘dump.’ I prefer, parting of the ways. Or, better yet, we had different priorities. It’s complicated and kind of personal.”
“Of course, it’s personal. That’s why I want to know.”
“Yeah, well, maybe some other time.”
“Man, this is a little too much to digest all at once, so we might as well skip to the part where you need to hire me.”
“Yeah, right. None of the rest is important. Anyway, Rachel, that’s her name. Did I already say that?”
I nodded.
“She’s a real sweet kid, but she’s always been kinda, shall we say, naïve…you know, trusting. Too trusting, if you ask me. And she’s also a bit woo-woo, you know, out there.” He waved his hands and rolled his eyes, aiming them up toward the ceiling that was blocking the way to heaven, which I presume was what he was shooting for.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know, like what do they call it?” He snapped his fingers. “New Agey. That’s it. She believes in all that bullshit like astrology, tarot cards, tea leaves, all that spiritual garbage. She wouldn’t marry me while Mercury was in retrograde. I don’t even know what the hell that means but hey, it wasn’t like I was in a hurry to tie the knot.”
“I thought you were a traditionalist?”
“That doesn’t mean I was stupid. You gotta get to really know a person before you take a step like that.”
“You took it three times.”
“No one’s perfect, Swann.”
I’m sure we could have gone on like this all afternoon, but I had better things to do, which meant just about anything else.
“Let’s get on with it,” I said, tossing my credit card on top of the check. It’s always a crapshoot as to whether or not I’ve reached my credit limit, but since I’d uncharacteristically paid it off a couple weeks earlier after a minor payday, I figured I was in the clear. Goldblatt had been making noises for several weeks about getting a “company” card, “for tax purposes,” he explained. But I didn’t see him making a move to apply for one and I sure as hell wasn’t going to sign on for a card where I’d be on the hook for any expenses he chalked up.
“So,” he continued, “not long ago, she goes off on this trip to San Francisco. You know, one of those things where she’s gonna find herself. Anyway, she’s hanging out in that old hippie district…”
“Haight-Ashbury.”
“Yeah, that’s it. She meets this guy. Nice guy, she says. Turns out he’s into the same shit she is and he’s even from back here. He’s out there for the same reason she is: to find himself. I guess there are lots of lost people out there, right? Anyway, she likes him a lot and he likes her well enough so when they get back here to the city, they start to go out. After a couple dates she falls for him. Hard. According to her, he falls hard, too. One night they have this date to go dancing downtown only he doesn’t show. She gets worried, ’cause she says that’s not like him. She keeps calling, but he doesn’t answer. She leaves messages. He doesn’t call back. What can she do? She figures he skipped out on her. She’s heartbroken, of course, but what can she do? A week or so later she gets a call from some woman. Says she’s his sister. Kate something or other. Tells Rachel her brother died.”
“Died?”
“Yeah.”
“Murdered?”
“Nah. She says natural causes. Heart attack or something sudden like that. She tells Rachel he went just…” Goldblatt snapped his fingers, “like that. Poor kid. She can’t even go to the funeral because it’s already over. They cremated the body, so she doesn’t even have a grave she can visit.”
“Sad story, but would you please get to the point where you tell me why you need to hire me.”
“Keep your shirt on. I’m getting there. So, he croaks and she’s heartbroken, I mean really torn up. Bad. She’s an emotional chick anyway but I’ve never seen her that bad. She loses weight ’cause she’s not eating. She can’t get out of bed and when she does she barely makes it to the couch. She sleeps most of the day. You know the drill. She’s so depressed she goes to a shrink. He gives her a prescription for one of those anti-depressants. Doesn’t work. She don’t know what to do with herself so she winds up wandering the streets. Day, night, it don’t matter. She’s out there looking for something but she doesn’t know what it is.”
“There’s an end to this story, right?”
“Yeah. I’m getting there. Anyway, she figures the only way to snap out of this is to maybe reconnect with him in some way, so she calls his sister. She talks to her and it seems to help a little ’cause Rachel starts to feel connected to the dead guy. They call back and forth a couple, few times. You know, like they become telephone pals. One day, when she tells his sister she’s still feeling really down about the whole thing, the sister mentions this fortune teller named Madame Sofia. She tells Rachel how she went to her when their father died and how she really helped by giving her closure. Don’t you fucking hate that word? Like it’s some kind of real estate deal. Anyway, Rachel, who believes in this kind of crap, decides she’s gonna try it too.”
“You mean going to this fortune teller?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Like I told you, Rachel’s not only a little spacey but by this point she’s pretty desperate. I mean, when better living through chemistry doesn’t work, what else is there? She’s willing to try anything to get rid of the pain, right? Even something like this. So, she goes to this fortune teller and this chick tells Rachel she can make contact with the guy.”
“The dead guy?”
“Yeah. Right. The dead guy. Now you gotta understand this about Rachel. She believes we don’t really die when we leave this mortal coil. She believes in an afterlife. Like, we don’t really die we just move on to ‘another room.’”
“Another room?”
“Yeah. Like another dimension, maybe. You don’t really die, according to Rachel, you just move to another place. It can be a better place or it can be a worse place. But it’s a different place. So, this fortune teller supposedly finds the ‘room’ this guy has moved on to and she supposedly makes contact with him.”
“Makes contact?”
“Yeah.”
“And Rachel believes this?”
He nods. “She believes, all right. Now Rachel may be woo-woo, but she’s not stupid. She had to be convinced, but she was. Evidently, according to Rachel, this Madame Sofia knows stuff about the dude and about her and him that she couldn’t possibly know.”
“Like what?”
“You’ll have to ask Rachel. But evidently it was enough to convince her that the chick really has made contact. At the end of that first session she tells Rachel she can only continue if Rachel can come up with some dough.”
“Big surprise.”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“Like twenty-five grand.”
“You’re kidding?”
“I wish I was.”
“For what?”
Goldblatt, the man of a thousand faces, made one of them. “You’re gonna love this one. It’s for a fucking ‘time machine.’”
I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. But Goldblatt, dead serious and not too happy about the situation, wasn’t laughing with me.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Like a heart attack. You and I know it was for that trip around the world and a Rolex watch and maybe a diamond pendant but Rachel, by this time she’s under some kind of spell. She’s bought everything this gypsy woman told her, hook, line, and sinker.”
“Didn’t she question the money thing?”
“Nope. She rationalizes. Tells herself, ‘everyone has to make a living.’ Me, I look at it as a killing, not a living.”
“And Rachel was able to come up with the dough?”
“She was. And a lot more. Because you know the drill. Once you’re on the line, they’re not about to let you off the hook.”
“Where was she getting the money?”
“Inheritance from her father. He was some kind of big-shot lawyer. He died before I met her. That’s probably why she married me. You know, what with me being a lawyer and all. Maybe she connected me with her dead father.”
The idea that Goldblatt could remind anyone of their father struck me as odd at best, but women are a strange lot. As Freud said, “women, what do they want?” In this case, at least for a few months, I guess it was Goldblatt.
“What was this so-called time machine supposed to do?”
“It wasn’t an actual time machine. You know, one of those H.G. Wells thingies that’s supposed to send you back in time. It was some kind of otherworldly apparatus that was supposed to make a clear connection between them while he’s in this other ‘room.’ I’m sure you know what comes next.”
“The time machine isn’t quite enough, right?”
“Bingo. She asks Rachel for another twenty-five grand.”
“For?”
“Now that she’s made contact, she needs to build what she calls a ‘golden bridge’ across the dimensions, so Rachel can ‘visit’ the ‘room’ where this guy is parked, probably for eternity.”
“Give me a break.”
“Yeah, real Twilight Zone stuff. But Rachel bought it. She believed she could actually communicate with the dead guy.”
“So, she came up with the dough?”
“Yeah. But now when she sees nothing’s happening, she starts getting a little suspicious.”
“About time.”
“You’re telling me. So, she tells me the whole story and wants to know if I think maybe something’s fishy. I practically have a fucking heart attack…I mean, that’s a shitload of dough.”
“And here I would’ve bet it was food that was gonna get you.”
“Very funny. Anyway, she starts crying, because in her heart she knew all this was just a load of bullshit. But the poor kid was lonely and she wasn’t thinking straight. She feels worse now that she was taken for such a sucker so she makes me promise to get her money back.”
“Which is where I come in.”
“Right. I could probably do it myself but if I found this quack I’d probably kill her.”
“What do you mean, ‘find her’?”
“You don’t think after taking Rachel for all that dough she’s gonna stick around, do you? Rachel goes back to the storefront to confront her to try to get her money back and abracadabra,” he snapped his fingers, “she’s gone.”
“Storefront?”
“Yeah. She worked out of one over on First Avenue, near the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, or whatever they’re calling it now. Only it’s not there anymore.”
“What do you mean it’s not there anymore?”
“It’s a Subway sandwich shop now. So, partner, you gotta help me out by helping Rachel out.”
My gut response was to say no. I didn’t want to get involved in Goldblatt’s life any more than I had to. Besides, this sounded like a no-win situation. The chances of finding this woman were pretty slim, the chances of getting the dough back even slimmer. But I knew I couldn’t say no to Goldblatt. It wasn’t just that we were partners, even though the idea of that turned my stomach, it was that he’d helped me out in the past and although I would never admit it to him, I did owe him something. And it might give me a unique opportunity to find out more about Goldblatt, My Man of Mystery.
But if I took this on, I had to set firm ground rules because if I didn’t, he’d be hovering over me like a helicopter mom, second-guessing my every move. Getting all up in my face.
“When can I meet with Rachel?”
“I’ll give her a call and set it up.”
“Just give me her number and I’ll take care of it.”
“And you’ll let me know so I can be there, right?”
“You’ll just get in the way.”
“She’ll be much more comfortable with me in the room. Otherwise, she’ll clam up and you won’t get anything from her.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. I’m pretty good at getting people to give me what I need.”
“She don’t know you, Swann. She’s skittish.”
“Look, Goldblatt, this is nonnegotiable. Either I meet Rachel alone or you can find someone else to help her.”
“You’re threatening me?”
“It’s not a threat. It’s how I conduct business. You want me to do my best, don’t you?”
“And your best means I don’t tag along?”
“Exactly.”
He was thinking it over. I knew this because he grabbed for the last roll in the basket, split it in half, buttered it generously, and took a couple bites. This is what he does when he thinks. Eat.
“Okay. I get it. I don’t like it but I get it. But let me talk to her first so she doesn’t get spooked.”
“Fine by me,” I said, trying to remain calm as I imagined the fun that might be in store for me in meeting the former Mrs. Goldblatt.
Click here to learn more about Swann’s Down by Charles Salzberg.
Back to TOC
Fatally Haunted Page 23
