8
Arder eyeballed the paraphernalia scattered on the coffee table—the bong, a crack pipe, rock, thin line coke, assorted pills and capsules—then at the girl wedged between Nip and Stone. She had a pinched look on her face. Arder guessed her age at around fifteen, sixteen tops. She was just a kid—flawless skin, straight, blonde hair, eyes as green as jade and scared shitless. Arder placed a hand on her face and tapped a finger on her soft, delicate chin. She turned to Stone. “Well now, one of these things is not like the others. Care to guess which?”
Nip and Stone were mute. The girl let out a painful whimper, pleading with her sad, green eyes.
Arder paced in front of the table, flicking her fingers through piles of stolen pharma and packets of street drugs. She spun and stared at Stone. “Go ahead, take a stab at it. What is it here that’s out of place?”
Stone was still trying to get his bearings. Whoever this was, she’d crashed through the door and gave them the bounce before they’d had time to react. He assumed she was a cop, but he didn’t remember seeing a badge, just splinters from the kicked-in door and a lot of spit and slobber. He wanted to get up now, even tried, but something was holding him in place. It tore at his muscles and pressed him deep into the rotting fabric of the couch.
Arder upended the table with a swift kick. Her heel sent pills, powders, packets and pipes flying in a wide arch. The girl whimpered and made a wild lunge. She broke free of Nip and Stone and hid behind Arder. “You two weren’t planning on taking advantage, were you?”
Nip sat quietly inspecting his fingernails. Stone watched what was left of his latest score settle into the filthy carpet and roll down the heating ducts.
“Don’t much appreciate you barging in on our party when you wasn’t invited,” said Nip.
“Nonsense. I was invited by”—Arder turned to the girl. “What’s your name, sweetie?”
“Karla,” the girl whimpered.
“Yeah, Karla here, she invited me.”
Nip’s eyes hardened. “I don’t believe you.”
Arder gave Nip a wicked grin. “And I didn’t ask you, so hush it.”
Nip started to fire off a snappy comeback, then bit his lip.
Arder turned to Karla. “I get the feeling you don’t want to be here.”
Karla’s hands trembled. She was silent.
“It’s alright, you can trust me.”
Karla began to bite her fingernails. “That’s what these two said.”
“Ah,” said Arder, “but we must remember, these two are a couple of dicks.”
Karla let out a nervous snicker.
“Would you like to leave?”
“She ain’t goin’ nowhere!” shouted Stone.
Arder’s eyes went cold. “That’s her decision, not yours.”
“Don’t think so,” added Nip.
“If she wants to go, she’s going. Do you want to go, Karla?”
Karla nodded her head.
Stone crossed his arms. “What do you take us for, a couple of idiots?”
“Yes, actually, I do. Now, what say we let Karla be on her way?”
Nip began to bristle. “Word up, bitch, we ain’t idiots.”
Arder shrugged. “So, the idiot part is debatable. Letting Karla go isn’t.”
“You a cop?” asked Stone. “Don’t see no badge or gun.”
“Nope, not a cop. I’m worse. Much worse.”
“Uh huh, we’ve heard shit like that before, ain’t we Nip?”
Arder didn’t give Nip time to respond. “You may leave, Karla.”
Stone stood to face Arder. Arder’s eyes went black. Stone was slammed back into the couch. He checked his neck, his arms and chest. She hadn’t touched him, but the pain rushing through his body was intense. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. His mouth flapped uselessly. No words came out.
“You’d do well to stay put.” Arder turned to Nip as she levitated slightly above the grungy carpet. She pointed a wicked finger. “And you—.”
Nip scrambled to his feet, screeching at the top of his lungs and bailed out the back door. Karla dashed out the front and disappeared around the corner.
“Well, cowboy, looks like it’s just you and me.”
Stone vomited.
9
Arder crossed her arms, keeping her temper in check. “And you thought I was a cop. Don’t you get it, you simp? I’m a specter.”
Stones eyes crossed. He smelled sulfur. His forehead wrinkled with pharmaceutical-laced confusion. “Huh?”
Arder floated above him, letting her face change forms—a ghoul, a succubus, a toad, a zombie, a phantom, then back to Arder. “You dope, a specter. You know, a ghost, a haint, a spook, a haunter, an aborition.”
“Abortion?”
“Not an abortion, you doofus, an apparition.” Arder passed a hand through Stones chest to make a point. “Boo!”
Stone flinched, checking his torso for a bloody wound. Nada. “Wha . . . What are you? What do you www . . . want?”
“Www . . . What am I? Wwww . . . What do I want? Are you really that dense? I’ve told you what I am.”
Stones lip quivered.
“Now for what I want.” Arder wiggled her ghostly eyebrows and began to grin.
“I’ve got nothin’ and I ain’t in much of a givin’ mood.”
“I don’t think you’ve got much choice Mr. Stone.”
“How do you know my name.”
Arder shifted to a new position and leaned over Stone’s trembling shoulder. “I know more than that. I know everything.”
Stone craned his neck to see her. “Everything?”
“Everything. Now, let’s discuss the terms of your payoff.”
Stone clenched a fist, but couldn’t move his arm to throw a punch. “Son-of-a-bitch, I can’t believe I’m being shook down by some creep from the boo brigade. Shouldn’t you be flutterin’ around in a wrinkled-up sheet somewhere?
Arder let out a throaty chuckle. “Sheets? Seriously?” She thrust her fingers inside her mouth. With a yank and a sickening crack of muscle and bone she inverted her face. Red gore and exposed veins throbbed and pulsed beneath her bony fingers. “Do I look like Casper to you?” She slobbered thick green bile, letting it drip in a puddle on the couch next to Stone. It sizzled and burned through the cushion.
Stone dropped to his knees. He covered his eyes and began to blubber into his palms. “This ain’t real. It can’t be real. It can’t be, it just can’t be.”
“News flash pal. This is 2013. I don’t do the sheet schtick anymore. And I assure you, I am real. Now, get up. We need to talk.”
Stone rose on wobbly legs. “But I already told you, I don’t have nothin’.”
Arder circled around him, then blew an icy puff of wind in his face. It put ice crystals on his spine. “Listen up, dumbass. I’m not here for your cash or your stash and I don’t want you to score me some. Got it?”
Stone’s cockiness began to return. “I’m not buyin’ it. Nobody turns down a primo high or a wad of cash. It’s the American way.”
“Listen to me closely. Where I come from, currency has the approximate value of a runny bowel movement.” Arder ran a finger through the lines of coke on the coffee table. “As for getting stoned? Haunting is my high.”
Stone managed to break his arm loose. He took a wild swing, surprised his clenched fist passed through Arder’s jaw as if it were a cloud of wood smoke.
“You missed.”
Stone followed through with a roundhouse.
“Ewwwww, big swing, no connection.”
Stone slapped his balled fist in his palm. “Might take a while, but I’m gonna kick your freakish ass.”
Arder raised a finger and pointed at Stone’s forehead. He was knocked back into the wall and skidded to the floor. He floundered in the cruddy carpet, struggling to get to his feet. Arder raised her finger again, pinning him to the floor.
“Relax, pal, I’m not here to rob you or clobber you.”
“Then what do you want?” Stone mumbled into the carpet.
Arder twitched her finger, rolling Stone onto his back. “You’re probably too stupid to realize it, but I’m actually here to save your goofy ass.”
Stone rolled over, pushed himself up and brushed the coke dust from his pants and shirt. “Save me? Save me from what?”
Arder brushed a long strand of hair from her eyes. “Yourself.”
Stone dabbed at a cut on his arm. “You know, for a spook, you ain’t makin’ a whole lotta sense.”
Arder hovered close again. “Get it together, Stone, you don’t have much time.” She snapped her fingers and was gone.
10
Nip cruised down Belmont scanning the sidewalks and alleys for any signs of Kilo. The little shit had skated for too long and Nip was growing tired of hunting him down. Nip had already told Stone, ‘If I find that numbnut, wait, strike that, when I find that numbnut, I’m gonna give him a taste of the boot. Then, after he coughs up the coin he owes me, I’ll rip off both his arms and stuff ‘em up his ass’.
Teddy Barnhorst Keyes, A.K.A. Kilo, had been buying from Nip for over three years. Kilo would snarf up anything that would give him a bona fide buzz, including the stolen pharma Stone unloaded on Nip. He always paid his freight too, until a couple months ago. That’s when he’d disappear for days, dodging Nip in every greasy bar and flea-bitten flop house in the city.
It was always the same routine—Nip would threaten to cut him off, Kilo would go into bawl-baby mode and toss out an endless stream of lame excuses, Nip would slap him around a little, Kilo would bark out a tearful apology and cough up the cash. Once Nip got what was owed, all was forgiven. Kilo would then pull his shit together and keep it on the straight and narrow. It never lasted.
This time, the time that finally sent Nip over the edge, was a real cluster fuck. Kilo had made a deal for a shitload of Percs, muscle relaxers, Xanax and a smorgasbord of low-test generic pharmaceuticals. The agreement was half at delivery and half a week later. Kilo came through with the initial payment, counting it out in front of Nip while drooling a doper’s puddle on the table between them. When it came time to deliver the balance, Kilo had turned into a ghost.
Nip was pretty sure Kilo planned on reselling some of the pharma to support his own habit. That didn’t mean squat to Nip. Competition from a guy like Kilo was zero threat. More often than not, Kilo was so whacked out of his skull he couldn’t find his own ass with both hands and a Garmin. What did matter to Nip was reputation. If word got out that a lame-o like Kilo had punked his ass, his street cred would vanish overnight. A nub like Kilo deserved something drastic, something that would teach him not to fill his pockets and veins at Nip’s expense.
Nip hooked a left on Hemlock and cruised through tweaker territory. It was the land of the crawlers, vermin oblivious to everything but their next big score. The gutters and alleys were littered with crushed beer cans, shattered malt liquor bottles, bits of foil and scorched steel wool. An empty fast food bag blew across the street and lodged between the curb and a headless parking meter. A crackhead dressed in a filthy T-shirt and faded jeans hobbled down the sidewalk and disappeared around a corner.
The neighborhood was in a world of shit and Kilo was a first class shit magnet. If Nip kicked over enough trash cans, he knew Kilo was bound to slither out from under one of them. Unless, of course, he’d managed to get his throat opened up by some street creature toting a rusty box cutter. Nip hoped that wasn’t the case, otherwise he’d be out his cash, his stash and the pleasure that would come from giving Kilo a little tune-up. And he so wanted to tune that little prick up.
Hide and seek. This was the part of the job Nip dreaded, hunting down drugged up dipwads who sweated bullets when they needed his product, but ran like a rabbit when the bill came due. Nip was always willing to play along. After all, he had to take care of his customer base or they’d go twitching off in all directions looking for a buy somewhere else. Buy was the operative word. Nip had no problem extending a little credit to his regulars. All he wanted in return was a little gratitude and, eventually, what he was owed. But this? Crawling through the gutters looking for Kilo? It was more like being a wet nurse.
Other dealers would’ve put a serious pinch on anyone who pulled the janky shit Kilo had been pulling. Nip knew that. Hell, most of ‘em wouldn’t consider a deal that wasn’t cash-up-front. And, if they did, they got burned. Chumps like Kilo would be chopped into chunks and flushed down a sewer. Nip always saved the slice-n-dice as a last resort. Kilo was pushing the limit. Nip was running out of options.
Nip made another pass down Hemlock and hung a right on Bilks. There was a grungy tavern half way down the block, a little rat trap called Mick’s Mecca that served cold food and warm brews. Kilo use to run a tab there, when he kept it paid up. Nip slowed down, hoping to catch a glimpse of Kilo, slumped in the doorway or hunched over a trashed parking meter. No dice. The windows at Mick’s were boarded up and the door was bolted shut with one of those steel cage gizmos that looked to Nip like it had been stolen from the drunk tank at county lock-up. He cursed into the steering wheel and tromped the accelerator.
He finally spotted Kilo ditty-boppin’ down Carver Street. He couldn’t believe it, but there he was, pretty as you please, a clueless grin on his mug and a smoldering blunt between his lips. As usual, he was toasted. Nip pulled to the curb, got out and fell in line behind him. “You’re a hard man to track down, bro.”
“Nip, my man,” Kilo mumbled. “I been lookin’ all over for you.” He took a long, sincere hit off the blunt, held it deep inside for a minute, then hacked it back out into Nip’s face.
Nip stared at Kilo, his jaw tight with anger and disgust. “Whatum I gonna do with you, Key? I cutcha a huge break on some primo pharma, at a low-ball price and this is how you do me?”
Kilo staggered over to a newspaper box and leaned on it for support. “You got me all wrong. I’m gonna pay ya what I owe ya.”
“Betcher ass you are, bro.” Nip balled his fist and pressed it firmly into Kilo’s quivering jaw. “All I gotta do now is figure out how many of yer teeth to bust out for makin’ me track your dicky ass down.”
Kilo took a step back. “Easy, killer, I don’t want no trouble.”
“Shoulda thought of that before you punked me, Key.”
Kilo held up a shaky palm. “Tell ya what, give me another week, maybe two, and I’ll get you your money.”
“Give you? I’m supposed to give you somethin’?”
“I just need a little more time, see? That way, you get paid, I’m off the hook and we’re both happy as a pig in slop.”
“A regular fairy tale ending, huh?”
Kilo shrugged. “We go way back. We’re pals. Whattaya say?”
“You wanna know what I say?” Nip took a long close look at his fingernails, as if the solution to some mystical equation were hidden somewhere deep beneath the cuticles. At last, he tilted his head and gazed into Kilo’s glazed, empty eyes. His fist landed dead center in Kilo’s gut. “I say you ain’t getting off that easy, not this time.”
Kilo crumpled over the newspaper box, gasping for air.
“Get up.” Nip grabbed him by the back of the neck and began to squeeze. The blunt slipped from Kilo’s fingers and bounced on the concrete in a shower of sparks.
Kilo coughed up a wad of something green and black. “W . . . Wha . . . What’re you gone do?”
Nip’s knuckles turned white. He eased his grip on Kilos greasy neck. Kilo let out a raspy cough that sounded like ‘fuck’. “Do? You wanna know what I’m gone do?”
Kilo rubbed his aching stomach and waited for Nip to regain his cool.
A Cheshire grin bloomed on Nip’s face. “What I’m gone do is give you the chance to redeem yourself.”
“How’s ‘sat?”
“What say we get in my car, take a little ride and I’ll explain the whole thing?
Kilo cleared his throat and hacked another wad into the
gutter. “I . . . I ain’t so sure. I mean, yer pretty pissed right now. Maybe I better—.”
“Hey,” Nip interrupted, “I was pissed. I hadda go on safari to find you. I got better things to do, ya know?”
Kilo’s head bobbed up and down as he searched the sidewalk for his blunt.
“You listenin’ to me, Key? I got shit to do, bro.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure, I know you do. I’m sorry, man. I’ll make it up to ya.”
“I know ya will.” He slipped his arm around Kilo’s shoulder and gave him a light slap on the cheek. “Now get in the car.”
Kilo tittered nervously. “I don’t think I wanna.”
“It’s o’kay, Key, I accept yer apology. I just need a small favor, you know, a little something to help me out and prove to me how truly sorry you really are.”
Kilko gave him a half-hearted ‘aw shucks’ shrug.
“Come on, Key, I been good to ya. Don’t ya wanna redeem yourself?” Nip snatched the blunt from the sidewalk, stuffed it in Kilo’s yap and fired it up with his Zippo. “It’s the least ya can do.”
Kilo took a deep hit, held it and hacked it back out. “I guess you’re right.”
“Sure I am, now get in the fuckin’ car.”
11
They’d been driving for nearly an hour, out of the city, through the industrial district, past acres of abandoned factories and crumbling warehouses. Now all Kilo could see was field after field of corn and wheat. The roads had turned to gravel and other than the occasional farm barn and isolated farm house, the landscape was deserted. Kilo was getting twitchy. He needed a blast, a fix, anything to smooth out the ragged edges of his crack infested brain stem. Nip was silent. He hadn’t uttered a peep since they rolled off the asphalt.
“Listen, Nip, I don’t wanna seem ungrateful, you givin’ me this big break and all, but you mind if I ask you somethin’?”
Nip began to whistle something that sounded a lot like ‘Free Bird’. “Sure thing, there, bro. Whatcha got on yer mind?”
Kilo watched Nip’s fingers happily drumming on the steering wheel. He seemed giddy, like someone had just handed him the only winning ticket to a 60 mil Powerball Jackpot. “I was just curious. Where we goin’?”
Four Ghosts Page 12
