The Queen and I

by Russell Andresen

  He was going to New York, and he wasn’t coming back without something that could help his friend.

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Abby-Dexterous

  The cabin appeared to be uninhabited when Abby Tisch and Sean Wagner arrived. There were a few lights on, but they seemed to be serving a more perfunctory purpose than one of necessity. She approached from the side and peered through the curtains, trying to get a good look at whomever or whatever might be inside.

  She knew Jeffrey was not at home, since she had seen him in town and watched as he was escorted to the temple to see the ridiculous Sheriff Pitts and Rufus O’Neal battle it out to see who would become the town’s new cantor. With him out of the picture for the next couple of hours, she quickly corralled Sean and instructed him to gather her hunting equipment from her shop while she stood watch. It was not like anything he had ever seen before. Her idea of hunting was not for the majestic ten-point or a bear, her hunting was of the supernatural kind, and all of her equipment was homemade—bottles of holy water shipped in from the neighboring town of Jonestown, crucifixes stacked ten high of various sizes and designs, a couple of squirt guns, and then there was the rock in the vodka bottle.

  Sean examined this one particularly closely, since he was confused as to why she would have ruined a perfectly good bottle of alcohol by putting a rock in it, but Abby had assured him that its purpose was the most important in securing the proof that she needed that there was, in fact, a ghost living among them. Once she could prove it, she could eliminate it.

  It had been her calling since she was a very young girl, when she was raised by her maternal grandmother, a borderline senile woman of Eastern European descent who believed in putting her granddaughter to bed with tales of Vlad Tepes and the ghosts that had haunted her small cottage in the Black Forest of Germany.

  These stories had left quite the impression on young Abby, and she was resolved to rid the world of such monsters to prevent them from ever haunting the dreams of young children whenever she could. To date, she had succeeded in identifying and/or capturing none, but she never let that discourage her, and with every new possibility came a newfound resolve to finally do what no other hunter had ever done—destroy what was already dead.

  As she watched the cabin, she was certain the ghost was home and that it was probably aware of her presence as well. The odds were that it was lying in wait for her to make the first move so that it could pounce on her and do God knows what before she even had a chance to scream. That was why she had brought Sean along. The way she saw things, the ghost couldn’t possibly kill both of them at the same time, so one of them stood a very real chance of escaping before it could turn its attention on them. Sean Wagner was not the smartest man in the world, but he was reliable whenever she had called on him before. And his task tonight was very simple, watch her back and report anything to the proper authorities if something went wrong. He was the backup plan, and she knew that she could count on him.

  The lights on the porch flickered briefly, and she smiled uncomfortably at the shock to her nerves that it caused. This had to be a message from the specter to let her know that it was aware of her being there, and it was not happy. She motioned for Sean to hand her the bottle of vodka with the rock and started to shake it like a maraca.

  Wagner watched as she closed her eyes and began humming much in the way that one does when meditating, and he wondered if this was some kind of magic that he had never heard of before. She opened her eyes slightly and Sean could see only whites, and she was convulsing with such force that he was sure that there had to be some kind of supernatural phenomenon occurring. He did not know what to do, so he watched her and the cabin at the same time and fumbled in his pockets for the keys to his truck in case he had to make a run for it.

  She let out a loud scream and opened her eyes wide, revealing a look of stunned horror, while breathing heavily. She turned to Sean and said, “I got nothing. Did you see anything?”

  He looked at her in silent bewilderment and replied, “Just you shaking like a leaf. What the hell was all of that stuff?”

  She brushed away his question and continued, “The rock says that something is here.”

  “Yeah, two lunatics in the woods staring at an empty cabin. I thought you said you got nothing?”

  “There is something in the house,” she whispered and motioned for him to follow her. “The rock is not always clear.”

  Sean thought the woman was out of her mind.

  Armed with a bottle of holy water and two crosses strapped to his back, he followed as she led the way up the walk toward the front door; he was careful to avoid the light shining down from the front porch.

  The closer they got, the more she was certain that something was happening. She heard the faint sound of voices, and if she was not mistaken, it was the sound of singing. She paused and listened intently as Sean wondered in confusion about what she was now up to. The sound was becoming clearer and clearer, and she was sure of the fact that she was hearing the song “A Place for Us” from West Side Story. The only difference was that it was not being sung by a woman. The voice behind this singing was low and very raspy, the very voice she expected a ghost to have. She smiled in the dark and whispered to Sean, “Go around the back and see if you can get in that way.”

  Sean’s eyes went wide with stunned horror and he answered, “Bullshit! I’m not going in there with nothing but a bottle of water and a cross.”

  She shook her head at him and replied, “Those are holy artifacts. The ghost will be rendered powerless to you if you use them correctly.”

  “And just how is that?”

  “Fill the squirt gun and shoot anything that seems ghostly. The cross is in case it is a vampire or a werewolf.”

  Sean squinted in confusion at her and said, “Crosses don’t kill no werewolves.”

  “They do if they’re Jewish.”

  “What if the werewolf is an atheist?”

  “Then throw the cross at him and run!” she snapped. “Now go around back.”

  He muttered something under his breath and walked off into the surrounding darkness, making no attempt at stealth whatsoever, and Abby shook her head at his thick headedness.

  She turned her attention back to the cabin and slowly made her way up the steps and onto the porch. She was trembling slightly, but it was more from excitement at seeing what she knew to be a ghost than any kind of fear that she should have had. This was going to be the culmination of her life’s work, and it was going to make her rich and famous beyond belief.

  One of the curtains next to the front door was open, and she peered inside, trying to see if she could spot anything out of the ordinary. She saw a shadow pass one of the open doorways, and her heart skipped a beat. Whatever was there, it was moving, and that excited and frightened her at the same time. She tried to get a better look at whatever it could be, but it was gone for the moment. She was suddenly concerned that Sean would do something stupid and enter the house without getting her first and would either get himself killed or scare off the ghost before she could get a chance to see it. She gripped her water gun, said a brief prayer before trying the doorknob, found that it turned without any resistance, and slowly opened, allowing her access to the home of Jeffrey David Rothstein.

  She remained in a low crouch and quietly closed the door behind her as the singing grew louder and clearer. Whoever or whatever it was that was paying tribute to this iconic song was doing more harm than good with this rendition. The voice was all wrong. There was no place for an obviously male baritone with a scratchy undertone to be singing this piece of music, and she found herself wondering what kind of a demented and twisted spirit this was that she was so close to finding.

  Abby turned a corner and was now in what had to be the living room. It was dimly lit, and there appeared to be no sign of anyone being present other than a half-drunk glass of milk on the coffee table. The singing was coming from behind the door leading into the kitchen. She was certain
of it and reached for a cross and gripped her water gun tightly, hoping that they would be enough to protect her if anything went wrong.

  She heard the back door open and slam shut, and she immediately cursed Sean Wagner for his lack of discretion and feared that he was about to be killed, or worse still, scare off the ghost before she could see it. The thought of going through all of this trouble and not even getting a look at her prey was beyond anything else that she could imagine going wrong, and she began to wonder if she should not have come alone.

  A shadow passed underneath the door, and she was no longer certain if it was the ghost or if it was Sean ruining everything. She stood up and decided that the element of surprise was all she had left and moved toward the door in an attempt to catch whatever was moving behind it.

  The door opened and she found her clueless associate at the counter eating a piece of cake that had been left out. She was disgusted by his behavior and his obvious lack of understanding of the nature of what it was that they were doing. She walked briskly toward him to slap the cake out of his hand. The singing had now moved to the stairs.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she whispered angrily.

  “I was hungry,” he replied. “What’s your problem?”

  “Don’t you hear the singing?”

  “Yeah, I hear it. It sucks.”

  She shook her head and continued, “There is nobody home, but there is someone here singing. Don’t you find that to be a little odd?”

  “Maybe he left the stereo on.”

  “Maybe I should hit you over the head with this cross.”

  Sean shrugged his shoulders and answered, “Go ahead, I ain’t Jewish. Crosses don’t hurt me.”

  She stared at him in incredulous silence and turned to leave the kitchen, when the singing suddenly stopped. Abby turned to Sean and whispered, “Don’t move and don’t make a sound.”

  Sean rolled his eyes and leaned back against the kitchen counter and watched as Abby walked to the door to get a better look at whatever might be on the other side. She turned to her companion and put one finger to her lips as she slowly opened the door.

  * * *

  “What are we going to do?” Melissa Foreman asked, concerned. “What is the bookstore lady doing here?”

  Saul furrowed his eyebrows and looked over the second floor railing at the intruder as she made her way out of the kitchen and back into the living room. He knew who she was and what she was looking for. When Richard Kearney had owned the place, she had frequented the cabin in hopes of getting the former owner to grant her permission to do a full spectral sweep of the place, but Richard was more concerned with pretending that nothing was wrong than acknowledging that something might be amiss.

  He watched her grip her water gun and her cross and thought, What a schmendrick, as she walked across the living room toward the stairs leading to the second floor. At this point, he was not so upset about the fact that this woman would not leave him alone as he was that she was trespassing, and that angered him to no end. He looked at Melissa and said, “Follow me. I have a great idea.”

  Saul led the young girl into Jeffrey’s bedroom and immediately started writing on a piece of paper and handed it to her, saying, “Study these lines quickly and don’t forget them. I’m going to buy us some time.” He turned away from her and quickly went into the bathroom and emerged with a bottle of talcum powder and said, “Dump this over your head and rub it on everything.”

  He left her in the bedroom and quickly made his way through walls and downstairs to stand in the kitchen with the miserable Sean Wagner, who was once again eating a piece of the cake that Saul had made just the other night and was polluting his kitchen with his mere presence. Saul walked past him and gently lifted the plate out of Sean’s hands, causing him to jump in fear and immediately crouch down like a frightened child. He left the horrified man shaking in his own fear as he walked out toward the living room and found Abby slowly making her way up the stairs.

  Saul ran across the room to one of the lamps and lifted it at an angle, causing a spotlight to shine at the top of the stairway.

  He yelled out, “How dare you interrupt my rehearsal,” throwing his voice so that it sounded as if it were coming from the top of the stairs. With a wave of his hand, the lights went out in the house with sparks and flickering, and the only light that shone was the one pointed directly at the young Melissa Foreman, who was now covered from head to toe with talcum powder, giving her an ethereal appearance. She began moving her lips as if saying something, but the voice was that of Saul, who was reciting the script he had instructed her to memorize.

  “I have lived in these woods for hundreds of years and have known many hunters in that time. They all now share the same existence as I do, for they knew not the power that I wield. Now you have come to your doom, and the only escape for you is to give yourself over to me and the music.”

  At that, the stereo began blasting the opening overture of Phantom of the Opera, and Melissa lip-synced as Saul sang the opening song with everything that he had.

  Abby Tisch watched in horror as glasses levitated and a candelabra danced in front of her face. The curtains all opened, and the doors began trembling as if to hold back a fierce wind. She threw her hands over her head and braced herself against the onslaught of flying debris and sparks, while Melissa kept a stoic stare and moved her lips perfectly to match the words coming out of Saul’s mouth.

  Abby turned and ran down the stairs, almost falling twice, and charged through the front door, into the woods, and to Sean’s truck. He was closely behind, but followed from the back of the house. The truck started, and the two of them left hastily as Saul and Melissa watched with unbridled amusement at the two intruders’ fearful retreat.

  “You were brilliant, my dear,” Saul said to Melissa.

  “I have a great teacher,” she answered, smiling.

  * * *

  “What the fuck was that?” Sean yelled in fear.

  “Did you see that? Was that incredible?” Abby did not hear him over her own excitement. She was only thinking back to what she had just seen, actual proof that there was a ghost living in the cabin and that it was sentient enough to not only speak to them, but to threaten them and display supernatural powers as well.

  “We have to go back, but we must be more prepared the next time,” she exclaimed.

  “You’re out of your fucking mind if you think I am going anywhere near that place again!”

  “Stop being a baby, Sean,” she snapped. “What we just witnessed was something that nobody can ever say that they have. We have proof that there is such a thing as the afterlife.”

  “The only thing I saw was that there is a ghost living in this town, and I’m not waiting around long enough for it to find out where I live.”

  Abby dismissed his concerns and added with a starry expression on her face, “Did you see her? She was beautiful.”

  “Sounded like a goddamned bull frog,” Sean replied.

  “She was so delicate, except for the voice of course. She must have been cursed by someone very powerful to have to live out her supernatural life with that face and that voice. She must have done something very wrong when she was alive.”

  Sean sped closer to town and spit out the window, having it fly right back in his face before saying, “Well, I’m telling Malcolm about this shit.”

  Abby turned on him and ordered, “You will do nothing of the sort! He’ll just contact those assholes in Ithaca, and before you know it there’ll be all kinds of arrogant college kids crawling around town. They’ll probably scare her off.”

  “Good!” Sean shouted. “I want that damned thing out of here.”

  Abby ignored him and said to herself, “She was so pretty. She kind of looked like Melissa Foreman.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five: The Cat Show

  Heinrich Schultz paced around his office occasionally staring at the phone, which was not ringing, and stroking the back of Herman’s head. Hi
s friend, Mendel Fujikawa, sat back on the sofa and thumbed through the latest copy of Vogue and laughed at how far the fashion sense of the celebrity actress had fallen over the years.

  The two of them had decided to meet at this time so they could discuss the search for Jeffrey David Rothstein that apparently had come crashing to a halt practically overnight. There was no word from Louis Grecko, and no matter how hard Heinrich had tried, he’d been incapable of getting any information out of the odd bounty hunter’s mother. She was either unaware of his whereabouts, or she was unwilling to divulge them.

  As he looked at the clock, he rapped his knuckles against the desk and exhaled heavily at his companion for some assurances that he was being silly and that everything was under control. The two of them had been certain that once Louis was on the case Jeffrey would be tracked down and brought to them within the week; that had been over a month ago, and they had not heard from Louis in more than two weeks.

  Mendel had tried his own investigation and had come up empty, in spite of his violent means of interrogation. He had left Rachel’s assistant with a scar she would have for the rest of her life, and the strange man who had been in her apartment would most likely never walk without a limp again. He reclined further in his seat and enjoyed the article he was reading about what Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were up to and looked across the room at his large friend.

  He stretched and asked, “What is wrong with you, Henry?”

  Schultz looked at him and replied, “Wrong with me? We set a lunatic loose on the world to track down a man for us and we have lost him!” He poured a glass of Scotch and drained it quickly, pouring another immediately. “That little prima donna Stone hasn’t returned any phone calls either and is the toast of the town. I made that little son of a bitch, and he can’t even be bothered to check in every now and then.”

  Fujikawa shook his head and added, “Well, he’s young and getting his schmekel polished on a regular basis; you can’t blame him for that.”