Harbinger

by Jack Skillingstead

  “What?” I rubbed my temples, which did nothing to alleviate the throbbing. “I’m not really tracking you,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “First it might help if we clarify where ‘here’ is,” she said.

  “Here in my living room,” I said. “Jesus I feel strange. What’s going on?”

  “I want you to remember a couple of things, Ellis.”

  “All right.”

  “Everything is simultaneous.”

  “What?”

  “Everything is simultaneous.”

  The sunset light was extremely weird. Deep burnt orange with a smoky quality. Pumpkin light. I didn’t like it one bit. It reminded me in an unpleasant way of Halloween.

  I got up on my feet. It wasn’t easy. I felt heavy. My legs were shaky. Adriel stood up from the sofa. She was beautiful. She looked about twenty-two years old, though I knew for a fact that she was past seventy and the matriarch of EC: Evolution Consciousness, a world-wide movement of those who believed the human race was on the brink of an evolutionary leap. And she was at least seventy. Oh, what the hell. Everything was simultaneous, right?

  I felt drawn to the window. With the blinds tilted I couldn’t see what lay outside in the pumpkin light, but I had a feeling it wasn’t 22nd Place North East.

  Adriel took my hand. “Let’s have a look,” she said, reading my thoughts.

  Suddenly, I didn’t want to.

  “No,” I said.

  “It’s all right if you don’t want to.”

  “Good. Because I don’t.” I was afraid. “What’s out there?”

  “It’s up to you, Ellis.”

  “That’s a wonky thing to say.”

  “Just remember,” she said and gave my hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “Everything is simultaneous, and it’s up to me,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “My head really hurts.”

  “Baby, I’ll get you some ice.”

  I made a kind of strangled cry. Because it was Nichole who had spoken. And I was sitting on the rug again, and the room was filled with ordinary afternoon light.

  *

  A half hour later the phone rang. We were sitting at the kitchen table and I was holding a cold pack against my bruised jaw. She picked up the receiver, said hello, listened a moment, and started crying. I put the cold pack down and reached for her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My mommy died.”

  chapter seven

  Twenty-six years later I was sitting by myself in a Zingbar, looking out the window at the reflective copper towers of Bellevue, Washington. The bartender, a stunning redhead with fashionably flayed earlobes and the latest “mood irises,” handed me a Zingcup with a sanitary disposable inhaler attached. I thanked her and held my left hand up so she could scan my debit nail.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, her eyes coloring speculatively toward carmine.

  The cup was cool in my hand. I fitted the inhaler over my nose and breathed deep. It was Taiwanese Zing and the real deal, no Republic of China adulterations. A junk wind blew through my head, clearing out the detritus of stress and fear.

  A hand touched lightly on my shoulder. “Mr. Herrick?”

  I turned. A woman of about fifty years with short razored iron gray hair and—believe it or not—glasses.

  “I’m Herrick,” I said.

  “I’m Dale Posenjak.”

  We shook hands.

  “You’re the second private detective I’ve ever talked to.”

  She sat on a stool next to me. “Did the first one give you good results?”

  “Depends on how you define results. He slugged me on the jaw and knocked me cold. That was a long time ago, however, and you don’t look like much of a slugger.”

  She smiled. “You might be surprised.”

  “Can I buy you a Zing?”

  “No thanks. How can I help you, Mr. Herrick?”

  “I want you to find someone for me.”

  “Who and why?”

  “My wife, Nichole. She’s seventy-four years old. Until a month ago she was living here in Bellevue with me, in a condo we shared.”

  “And where do you think she might be now?”

  “If I knew that I wouldn’t need you, would I?”

  The bartender touched my hand. “Another of the same?”

  “Yes.”

  She brought me another Taiwan Zing. I inhaled and the junk wind blew. I felt clear.

  Dale Posenjak said, “Aren’t you supposed to wait a few minutes between those things?”

  “I rarely do what I’m supposed to do,” I said. “Besides it’s non-addictive.”

  “That’s what they say. Does Nichole want to be found?”

  “Not by me.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s being a martyr.”

  My detective nodded. She retrieved a stick of gum out of her breast pocket, stripped the foil off with her thumbnail, pushed the gum into her mouth and started chewing, thoughtfully.

  “I don’t think there’s much time,” I said. “Will you take the job?”

  “What’s the time factor?”

  “She’s dying.”

  Posenjak chewed her gum. She had very steady eyes and they never left my face. I wanted another Zing. My head kept filling with junk.

  “You haven’t said why you want to find her.”

  “I just want to talk to her again. She didn’t say good-bye.”

  “She sounds old enough to do as she pleases.”

  “Jesus, do you always try this hard to avoid gainful employment?”

  She chewed and smiled. “Not always.”

  “Then why now?”

  “Just curious. According to EC lore you two are halves of a bifurcated soul.”

  I stared at her. Junk clattered in my head. “Oh, Christ, don’t tell me you’re an Evolution Consciousness type! You could have saved us both some trouble by—”

  “I’m not an EC-er. I had a brief flirtation with the movement ten years ago, that’s all. I’m a sensitive. I was one before it was acceptable to be one, so naturally I sought the like-minded wherever I could find them, even among the ranks of the Evolutionaries.”

  “How many Harbingers does it take to make a forest?” I asked.

  She stopped chewing and grinned. “You can save the Harbinger jokes. I’ve never seen one and I don’t believe anyone else has either. I told you: I’m not an EC-er.”

  “Okay. Will you help me find Nichole?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It is funny, though, when you think about it.”

  “What is?” I asked.

  “We live in a world Adriel Roberts predicted with fair accuracy. Look at us. The Regeneration Man and a psychic detective sitting here talking, and not too many folks would find that weird. The weird is accepted, it’s as acknowledged as the periodic terrorist bombings and Quantum computer technology. People believe in things their parents would have scoffed at and their grandparents would have laughed at outright and maybe even had you locked up for espousing. The world has moved toward some kind of heightened consciousness.”

  I really wanted another Zing.

  “Look, I thought you said you weren’t an EC-er.”

  “I’m not. But I’m not blind, either. Everyone accepts my psychic abilities and I can even advertise them in the Yellow Pages. I’ve read all about you, Herrick. When you first made the national scene you were like some kind of miracle boy wonder. A lot of people flat out denied you were real. When the proof was produced it was like a boost or something. Some folks moved ahead and accepted a new paradigm, others closed themselves off. You were impossible. Now you could approach anybody in this bar and identify yourself and no one would doubt you for what you are. One generation back and that wouldn’t have been the case, no matter how many fingers you hacked off. The terminator line for the impossible has moved.”

  “Ms. Posenjak, maybe this isn’t going to
work out.”

  I singled the bartender and pointed at my Zing cup. She nodded and brought me a fresh one, picked up my empty, detached the disposable inhaler from it and plugged the cup into a refill slot behind the bar. Above the slot were a few yellow slashes: a kanji character.

  “I’m your best chance of finding Nichole,” my detective said. “That’s why you called me, right?”

  I picked up the fresh Zingcup but didn’t inhale it yet. “Listen,” I said. “Whatever you believe, I don’t care. I used to think all that stuff was true, about two souls in one. I never bought into the Harbingers, but I believed in Nichole and me. All I want to do now is find her and be with her, because I think she’s dying and is trying to spare me that. I don’t want to be spared. I don’t need it. All right? So if you can do your job and find her, that’s great. But there’s nothing else here for you. Consciousness evolution is bullshit. Okay?”

  “Sure.” She pushed the used up gum out of her mouth and wadded the foil around it and put it in her pocket. She offered me her hand again and I shook it.

  “Come by my office in the morning, bring everything you have, addresses, date of birth, history. And don’t forget a personal item, something that belonged to Nichole. We’ll sign the papers and make it official.

  “Okay, Ms Posenjak.”

  “Call me Dale.”

  “Dale.”

  She left and I quickly fitted the inhaler to my nose. A junk wind blew. Then the bartender was there to take the empty, her eyes a tangerine invitation. As usual.

  *

  I showed up at Dale Posenjak’s office in Pioneer Square at ten o’clock the following morning. She shared the fourth floor of the old Sloan building with two attorneys and a bail bondsman. A stylized eye, mystic and private, was painted on the frosted glass of her outer door. Under that: Dale Posenjak / Investigative Services. She could have added “Psychic Specialties” and no one would have blinked an eye, private or otherwise.

  Inside, a young man with a crisp manner and a string tie announced me, and I was immediately invited into the Posenjac’s inner office.

  She had her feet up on the glass desktop and was filing her nails.

  “Good morning,” she said. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks. I brought everything you wanted.” I held up the leather folder containing all of Nichole’s pertinent information.

  “Rough night?” Dale asked.

  “Not too.”

  “They say that Zing’s not addictive.”

  “Can we stick to Nichole, please?”

  She regarded me, appraised me, then swung her feet off the desk and sat up straight.

  “Did you remember to bring the personal item?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give it to me. We only need the other stuff if it fails to work.”

  “Does it often fail?”

  “Sometimes. Psychometry isn’t an exact science. It isn’t a science at all. It’s an ‘impossible thing.’ Don’t look so sick, I just said that to irk you.”

  She held her hand out and wiggled her fingers. I opened the zippered folder and took out a precious item and dropped it into the detective’s hand. A white gold ring on a chain. Just like the one on the third finger of my left hand.

  “She cherished this,” Dale said.

  “Yes.”

  She closed her fingers over the ring. Her eyes stayed open but they grew distant. I shifted nervously in my chair. After a while Posenjak blinked. She reached into her pocket with her free hand and fished out a stick of gum, stripped the foil off with her thumbnail, and folded the stick into her mouth.

  Now she handled the ring more casually, turning it so the light from her desk lamp slid silkily over the polished gold while she chewed her gum.

  “Catch,” she said and flipped the ring at me. I fumbled it out of the air, irritated.

  “She loves you deep,” Dale said.

  “Yeah, so she took off her ring and disappeared.”

  “She left because she knew you weren’t up to it.”

  “Do I have to pay extra for the relationship critique?”

  “On the house. For what it’s worth, you have the mind of a seventy-four-year-old man, the body of a twenty-nine-year-old, and the emotional maturity of a ten-year-old. Sorry. I’m compelled to say it. Next time bring something of personal significance only to the subject. Leave yourself out of it.”

  I waited, then said, “Where is she, do you know?”

  “I have some impressions. It’s clouded by all the gooey emotional stuff. Let’s go for a drive.”

  She stood and grabbed her coat.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To find your lady, one hopes.”

  She drove a red Honda Voltage 900 model. We hummed through the city. The car seemed practically to drive itself. She kept two fingers on the wheel and stitched us through midtown traffic like a magic needle.

  “Where are we going exactly?” I asked.

  “I have no idea. Probably not too far. I can taste salt. Oops, left here. Damn it.”

  We cornered hard, drawing horn blare and at least one flipped bird. Under the viaduct. Traffic light, our noses pointed at Elliott Bay. She sighed.

  “Over there,” she said. “The island. Bainbridge.”

  The Winslow ferry took us across the bay. We rolled off the ramp. My detective nodded her head to some inner rhythm, humming.

  “Okay, okay,” she said.

  “Okay what?”

  But she wasn’t talking to me. We drove in silence for a few minutes. She stopped where the road split in a Y, seemed to listen, then veered right. Then she visibly relaxed. She touched a button on the dash and Sarah Vaughn started crooning “You Must Remember This.”

  “We’re almost there, aren’t we?” I said.

  “Almost.” Then, two minutes later: “Here we are.”

  She stopped the car at the top of a private beach road overhung with shaggy pines.

  “Down there. Probably there’s more than one dwelling. Hers is the one with some kind of hideous wreath thing made out of shells glued together. It’s hanging on the porch.”

  “She’s there right now?”

  “Yes.”

  I tapped my knee. “That was fast.”

  “Look. I’m not going to hold your hand. You paid me to find her and I found her. What you do with that is up to you.”

  I nodded. “Back at your office . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m wondering, did you pull that whole character critique of me off Nichole’s ring?”

  “I didn’t pull any of it off the ring. Hardly any. Look. She goes off, what’d you say, two months ago? But you just get around to calling me yesterday, and even then it’s half-assed, like you’re in a Zingbar and you think of it. Guilt, whatever. Lucky for you I was in Bellevue, right? Then there’s the redhead, but forget her. Where there’s one there’s another.”

  “You’re fired,” I said.

  “Too late.”

  I got out of the car and started down the road. Nichole’s ring was in my pocket. After a short distance the road opened up on a view of the water and a few houses strung out along the beach. If they had porches they would be facing the water. So I found a path and picked my way down to the rocky beach.

  It was cold. I dug my hands in my pockets and hunched my shoulders. The wind was sharp and it stung my eyes and fluttered my pant legs. I noticed I was walking too slow and picked up my feet. Only grown-ups walk toward pain deliberately, and none of them want to.

  A wreath of seashells dangled and spun on the porch of a weathered gray beach house with lots of bay-facing windows. Smoke tore from the brick chimney. A flight of crooked stairs ascended from the beach. I mounted them. Halfway up, I realized someone was watching me. A figure stood in the window almost lost among the reflections of cloud scud and water.

  I kept climbing.

  When I reached the porch a door in the glass opened and an old man stepped out. He was bear-li
ke in a heavy Pendleton coat and watch cap. His face was pulled down by some significant pain. After a moment I recognized him, recognized his hangdog white-whiskered jowls.

  “You,” Stone said.

  “Me.”

  “Betrayal’s a bitch, ain’t it?”

  I wanted him to be twenty-five years younger so I could in good conscience pitch him over the porch rail head first. I was tempted to do it anyway. Then Stone did something unexpected. The grin slipped off his face and he said:

  “I apologize. That was petty. She didn’t betray you. She couldn’t, she’s not built that way. All she wanted to do is spare you some pain she knew you couldn’t handle. You didn’t deserve her. But hell, I probably didn’t, either.”

  “Is she in there?” I nodded toward the house.

  “Not really, not anymore. But go see for yourself. Straight down the hall, second door on the left.”

  The room smelled medicinal, even with the window open a crack. The sheer white curtains moved in the breeze, like beckoning ghosts. A table lamp glowed next to the bed. Nichole’s head was sunk into the pillow, her gray hair spilled around. She was hollow-cheeked and pale. Her eyes were closed, her hands folded over her lap, and I was too late. She was dead.

  *

  That night I craved the junk wind but kept away from it. I wanted to sleep and dream. I wanted one of my special dreams. I wanted Nichole young and whole again, so I could say good-bye to her. A visitation from the dead, an enigmatic message, epiphany. But watching my love wither into old age, I had stopped believing in such things.

  I didn’t dream.

  I did, however, receive a visitation.

  First I was buried in sleep. Then I was awake again. I opened my eyes, the lids gummy. What was different? Well, the stink. Also: Rasping breath. Not my own.

  I bolted up. A man sat in a chair in the predawn dimness of my bedroom. He was the one with the raspy breath and overripe smell. I rubbed my eyes.

  “Who—”

  “El-lis.” A voice like rust scraping off an iron bar.

  I fumbled for the switch on the table lamp.

  “Don’t,” he said, raising a palsied hand. “The light hurts my eyes. Your eyes.”