by Carey Lewis
Deacon and Brooke looked at each other, both took a big breath, readying themselves. Deacon said, “From our experience it’s a very real possibility.”
“There’s one more piece of footage we’d like to show you.”
Deacon hit the space-bar and the blue screen turned into the bedroom again, Ellen and Joe asleep on the bed.
“The footage came back to this,” Brooke said.
The full tiger/ pig scream rang from the laptop as the sheet was yanked from the bed and they were startled awake. Then the image went blue and Deacon closed the laptop.
Ellen jumped and let out a shriek. Brooke and Deacon stared at the couple across from them for a few moments.
“Who? Who is she?” Ellen asked.
“There’s a lot of possibilities,” Deacon said. “A lot of unhappy spirits. We’re guessing it’s the little girl.” Deacon produced a black and white picture of a Japanese girl wearing a white dress, standing in front of the house. Rodney had photoshopped it to look like it came from the ‘40’s - slight sepia tone, the house behind her in disarray. It was funny, it was a picture of the house taken two days ago, but the black and white with a touch of sepia and fade fooled most people into thinking the picture was taken from any time you told them it was.
“So it’s a slant girl?” Joe asked.
Deacon turned to Rodney who said, “We can edit it.”
He turned back to Joe, said, “We think the girl may be looking for her father and is angry about the bloodline of the house.”
“Mrs. Campbell, this is one of the most aggressive and tortured souls we’ve ever come across,” Brooke said.
“She won’t leave?” Ellen asked.
Joe stared at Deacon, said, “No, of course she won’t leave.” They held the stare for a few moments.
“We have to move,” Ellen said to Joe. “I can’t stay in this house with an angry Jap girl.”
NOW THEY WERE OUTSIDE, DEACON and Brooke, having a cigarette in the patches of brown grass, a broken lawn mower on it’s side, the grass starting to grow around it. From inside, they could hear Ellen yelling at Joe and him yelling back. Ellen telling him you’re goddamn right they were moving, Joe screaming at her she could go where ever she damn well pleased but he wasn’t leaving his family legacy behind.
“Think she’ll convince him?” Deacon asked Brooke.
“Think he likes to put up a show when people are around. Hurts his pride not being the man in front of others.”
“Some women have a habit of taking it from you,” Deacon said, turning his head back to the house to see the crew coming out, Rodney laughing to himself as he carried the computer gear under his arms. Dominic came out with a camera and tripod, getting a good look at the sun.
“Got about forty-five until it gets ugly,” he said.
Deacon nodded, asked how bad it was in there.
“She’s crying about the girl, asking him what happens when the spirit takes their daughter.”
“I didn’t think they had kids.”
“She thinks they’ll start.”
Deacon looked to Brooke, surprised she was staring at him. “That what you think I did to you? Took your manly nature?”
“No. Think I handed my balls over when I slid that ring on your finger.”
“Then you should’ve got them back when I put the ring back in your hand.”
Maggie came over then, a tiny woman with close cut blond hair, to clip a microphone on Deacon’s collar. He ran the wire under his shirt and handed the transmitter pack back to Maggie who clipped it on the rear of his belt. She started doing the same with Brooke as he tucked his shirt back into his pants.
Deacon looked back at the house, saw Joe sitting on the steps in a stew of his own anger, glaring at them. The suit jacket was off, the white shirt undone to the navel, yellow stains under the arms.
His attention was brought to the street where a silver Kia Serrento pulled up along the curb. Martina got out and put out her arms in a gesture that asked what the hell was going on before coming up to the picket fence with the peeling white paint.
“Had a few problems,” Deacon said.
“Flight leaves in three hours.”
“Where we going?”
“You don’t wrap this up I’ll tell you where you’re going,” Martina said. She was a short, black woman with a powerful build that wore her hair in a tiny afro, maybe trying to add height to her stature. She was the producer of the show, the one that found the haunted houses and decided if they were worth the time and money to bring the show to investigate.
“Marty I told you these back-to-backs are too much,” Brooke said to her.
“Talk to Dave at the network, they wanted to do the season in sets of three,” Martina answered. “How much of the wrap-up you got left?”
“All of it,” Dominic said. “Light guys,” he said to Deacon and Brooke, reminding them about the fading sunlight.
“Plane guys,” Martina said, pointing to her watch.
“Give me a level,” Maggie said, adjusting knobs on the pack on her hip with one hand, the other pressed to the headphones on her ear.
“He’s going to want a conversation,” Deacon said, gesturing with his head to Joe on the porch.
“Tell us how we poisoned the mind of his wife,” Brooke said. “Like she can’t have an idea of her own.”
“How much you think the house could go for?”
Brooke looked back to the house, saw Joe stomping down the porch, coming up to them, a bottle of clear liquid in his hand. “Looks like he’s ready for that chat.”
Deacon looked over and saw him, smelled the sour odor of moonshine on his breath before he opened his mouth. “So you’re telling me I’m leaving because a bunch a chinks?”
“Japanese.”
“But that’s why my wife’s crying now and telling me to give up my family? Because a couple zippers died here?”
“Innocent Japanese people your granddaddy killed.”
“Because they didn’t kill anyone at Pearl Harbor?”
“You act like you were there.”
“My grandpa was.”
“We just went over this inside. He was here then went to Canada because he was too chicken shit to fight for you to have this house.”
Joe took a step closer, almost touching noses with Deacon. He had to blink because Joe’s breath was stinging his eyes. “You know what I think?” he asked.
“Do you?”
“I think you made the whole thing up. I don’t think there’s any slant girl in there.”
“That’s up to you to think that. You decide to leave, I got a friend handles houses. I can give you his card.”
Deacon heard a crackle and saw Joe tense up before his body fell to the ground. He looked over and saw Brooke with a taser in her hand.
She turned to Dominic, asked, “Is he in the shot?”
“Got a three quarter. Figured you’d walk into a medium.”
“See?” Deacon said. “That’s the kind of thing takes a man’s balls away.”
“Didn’t think you were into the conversation.”
“Levels are good,” Maggie said.
“Dom?” Deacon asked.
“Frame,” Dominic said, ducked behind the camera.
“Think it’ll be better coming from you, giving the wife Harvey’s card,” Deacon said.
“Yeah okay,” Brooke said, straightening her wavy brown hair off her cheeks. “I’d say the house fixed up? Can go for three-fifty, maybe even four.”
“Tell Harvey to offer two-fifty?”
“I’d start at a hundred-fifty, use the murders to bring the price down. Get him down here, see how much work it needs before he starts making offers. Know what you’re going to say?”
“Figured I’d just follow you. The one with balls.”
Brooke smiled at him. “They’ll drop eventually.”
“Rolling,” Dominic shouted.
Deacon watched Brooke count to three silently, then sh
e started. “Welcome back to Gray’s Ghosts.”
CHAPTER TWO
TWO HOURS LATER, THEY WERE on a Delta flight heading to Myrtle Beach International Airport in South Carolina where they would be picked up by a couple cars and driven to a place in Rounders Bend, roughly forty-five minutes away, to investigate a farm that was supposedly haunted.
“There was one of them doomsday folk,” Martina said while crouched in the aisle. “Built one of them bunkers under the barn, you know that shit you white folk like to do? Load it up with canned shit and powders thinking you’ll live the rest of your days down there?”
“Sounds like my ex’s parents’ house,” Brooke said.
“I’m right here. Literally sitting beside you,” Deacon said.
“This was back in the mid-nineties, and here’s another one I’ll never understand,” Martina said as she flipped her finger on her phone, coming to the information she wanted. “Guy’s name was Dwight Williamson. Parents name the kid that it’s almost like he doesn’t have a chance making something of hisself.”
“Dwight Eisenhower managed,” Deacon said.
“Could’ve named him Willy,” Brooke said.
“Willy Williamson? Sounds like a ballplayer.”
“But what have you done for me lately?” Martina said, putting her phone back into her pocket. “Anyways, guy built the bunker under his barn, went and died in it.”
“Tell me it was food poisoning.”
“Something fell on him, didn’t build the bunker as well as he thought, used a rotted piece of wood, I don’t know. There’s some theory out there he was murdered, another one saying he locked hisself inside. Conspiracy folk,” she stopped to give a glare to Brooke and Deacon, telling them it was another white thing she didn’t understand. “They’re saying the government did it for a number of reasons, saying good ol’ Dwight was onto something the government wanted hushed up. From there it goes down a bunch of different roads. Figure you can find something to play with.”
“Excuse me.”
Martina turned to see the Flight Attendant standing in the aisle with her trolley, a thin smile on her face.
“For what, being rude?”
“I need to get by ma’am. If you could go back to your seat.”
“Ma’am? My seat’s behind you so now you’re in my way if that’s what you want me to do. Didn’t think that one through did you?”
“Ma’am, I just need to get by.”
“So where you want me to go? Want me to sit on someone’s lap?”
Brooke turned in her seat, said, “Sorry, she hates flying. Give us two minutes and we’ll be done.” She tried her best smile on the Flight Attendant who sighed and made a spectacle of leaning on her beverage cart.
“Don’t apologize for me,” Martina said.
“What’s the family like?” Brooke asked.
“Seem nice, not bat-shit. Got the farm on a deal because the owner after Dwight said it was haunted. Now they say they’re seeing Dwight too. Started with the two kids seeing him.”
“And when can we tell people about us?”
Martina stood. “I still got hope you two will patch it up,” she said, then turned and squeezed between the trolley and the man in the seat beside it. “You a tiny bit nicer, you might’ve had a shot with me,” she said to the Flight Attendant then walked down the aisle toward her seat.
“Thanks Marty,” Deacon called after her. Martina raised her arm, not bothering to look back.
“She’s a lesbian?” the Flight Attendant asked, pulling up her trolley beside Brooke in the aisle.
“Pretty good at it too,” Brooke said.
“I love your show,” she said. “I watch it every time I’m on layover. You guys fake all that stuff don’t you?”
“Hotels get Spooky TV?” Deacon asked.
“If they get Discovery and National Geographic they do. On the same package right?”
“Only reason we’re on TV,” Brooke said.
“Anyways, just wanted to tell you I love the show. Keeps me up at night.”
“Thanks.”
The Flight Attendant forgot to ask if they wanted anything from the cart. She went to the next row and asked if they wanted refreshments.
“I told Harvey to give it three days, make the call then, see if they want to sell,” Deacon said.
“She seemed grateful for the card. Tears almost sucked back into her eyes when she asked how much I thought they’d get.”
“You tell her?”
“I just said it’s my friend, didn’t know. Hazard a guess, I told her, maybe one-fifty to two. She asked if that was all.”
“You remind her of all the lynchings and dead bodies there?”
“She had a hard time believing people cared about minorities.”
“One bad as the other,” Deacon said.
The pilot came on the intercom to tell them they would be landing in Myrtle Beach International Airport in approximately twenty-five minutes.
HUEY LOMBECK LEANED AGAINST THE Lincoln Town Car in a spot reserved for taxi pick-ups. He’d heard of the show before, even watched it some nights when he came home without a date from the bar. This ‘Gray’s Ghosts’ show that ran at three in the morning while everything else was playing infomercials.
This morning at Rounders Rides, the livery service Huey worked for, his boss was going ape-shit, saying they were handling celebrities. Jeff was the boss, a fat bald man in his thirties still living with his mom, had a habit of Google searching customers when they made a reservation. He’d find a good looking one on Facebook and look at the girl’s pictures for hours. When he Googled Martina Boivin, he came across a listing at the bottom of the page saying she worked as a producer on Gray’s Ghosts, a popular show on Spooky TV.
“Don’t know how popular it is airing at three in the morning,” Huey said, leaning over Jeff’s shoulder, staring at the computer.
“Tell me what I’m smelling is a skunk you hit on your way in,” Jeff said, not bothering to turn his head. He didn’t like Huey smoking dope while he was on the job, but there weren’t too many options in Rounders Bend for hiring people at minimum wage.
Jeff clicked the link and was brought to Martina’s bio on the Spooky TV website. “Well shit, she’s black,” Huey said.
“So what if she’s black?”
“Boivin’s a French name.”
“Maybe she married a French man. Maybe her parents are French. Think there might even be one or two black French people.”
Jeff then went on to tell Huey to stop smoking until he dropped the celebrities off at the house they were renting, and to be on his best behavior. Gave him the itinerary and told him to make the sign so they’d know to come over to him.
“I know what they look like why do I need the sign?” Huey asked.
“Because it’s classy that way. You know what? I’ll just take the other car,” Jeff said, looking for an excuse to go himself.
So now Huey was waiting for these celebrities to come out of the terminal, giving the parking police the finger when they told him he’d been there too long. He looked to his right, saw Jeff standing there holding up the sign because they asked for two cars and Jeff never met a celebrity before. Watched Jeff wipe the sweat off his bald head while trying to maneuver his lard in the suit that was too small three years ago. He’d catch Huey’s eye and motion for him to hold the sign up. Huey just wanted to go home, get this damn suit off him.
Well, not home. He wanted to head over to Cesar’s house, see how the pot business was going. Cesar and Hector were trying to expand, to stop being dealers and become wholesalers. They had a pretty good racket now, driving into Myrtle Beach and selling the drunk college kids weed, overcharging them for it. They’d make a few hundred on the weekends, sometimes getting close to touching a grand. But it was all hustle and Cesar had bigger eyes than that.
Problem was, every time he tried to grow his own, he’d get hit by the other wholesalers in the area, either taking it for thems
elves or calling the cops in on the crop. That was the shit Cesar hated the most, getting ratted out by his competitors. A way to keep Cesar buying from them. But Cesar had a plan. He always had a plan.
Hector heard about some big player in Raleigh, up there in North Carolina. This guy was willing to sell to Cesar cheap, just come on up and get it. He wanted Huey to go, but Huey didn’t want to cross state lines and get hit with all those legal charges that come with that. Luckily he had to work, so that was his excuse not to go, so Cesar sent Randy instead. Huey wanted to know how it went. If Randy came back with the grass, they could start writing their own tickets Cesar said. Then he talked about Florida, someone there willing to back the operation and give him protection, allowing him to grow his own crop. Keep these other fuckers out so Cesar could do his own thing, not be worried about people stealing his shit.
And there was Jeff, looking at him now, saying, “Put up your fucking sign you lazy twat. They’re here.”
Huey saw the crew, recognized the two hosts, the married couple that talked about ghosts. The woman even better looking in real life. Saw the short black woman he recognized from Jeff’s computer talking on the phone, the others behind her pulling big boxes Huey thought must be camera gear and other TV stuff. He looked at Jeff, saw his gut hanging out of his shirt, holding the sign above his head like he was trying to touch a cloud.
The crew, seven of them Huey counted, gathered in a circle talking, about twenty feet away. Jeff still had that sign in the air, like they weren’t going to see him. Then the crew split up. The hosts, the Gray’s, came over to Huey’s car with the short black woman. The other four lugged their gear over to Jeff’s car. Huey held the door open as they climbed in, laughing at Jeff and the disappointment on his face. Huey closed the door and gave Jeff the finger as he walked around the trunk to the drivers side.
The celebrities were in the backseat, apparently too busy to have a conversation with Huey as he turned the car on and left the airport, looking in his rear-view to see fat Jeff trying to lift those Pelican cases into the back of the Lincoln MKC SUV, the pride and joy of Jeff’s fleet.
