The Haunting of James Hastings

by Christopher Ransom

  Ghost turns to Annette. ‘You’re beautiful, too, baby.’

  Annette covers her mouth in mock embarrassment, spilling her champagne on the floor. Circus runs one of his gold-encrusted hands along her thigh and she throws her head back braying.

  ‘Ghost. Yo, Ghost,’ a man out of frame calls across the stretch.

  Ghost is slow to react. He’s watching Annette, shaking his head, as if sensing something here is off.

  ‘I knew you’d appreciate that,’ Rick says. ‘Should look nice with the rest of your collection.’

  Ghost nods at Rick.

  ‘G, you’re up,’ someone says.

  Ghost accepts a little gold-plated tray with half a dozen lines laid out. He hesitates, then looks at Rick.

  ‘Turn that fucking thing off before I throw it out the window.’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s just my phone,’ Rick says, his hands covering the lens. ‘It’s off. We’re cool.’

  The view goes black and buried for a few seconds, then Rick’s hand slides away. The view is lower now, looking up, as if the camera is resting on the seat or between his legs. He’s got balls, and I am reminded that high-quality digital video cameras no larger than a cellphone are now available for under five hundred bucks.

  Ghost uses the gold tuning fork thing and inhales two lines at once. He blinks a few times and holds it up for Annette. She doesn’t hesitate to hose down two of her own, coughs, and then steadies herself as someone refills her champagne glass, which she throws down like a shot.

  ‘This is some hot milf shit up in here,’ Circus says, then looks at Rick, above the camera. ‘I think I’m in love with yo wife.’

  Everyone agrees this is funny, including Rick, whose nervous laughter ripples forth. Annette shivers and then sort of luxuriates all at once, a woman who has just entered a warm tub of pulsating jets.

  I look into her eyes and I see death.

  This is all a ruse. She’s waiting to make her move but she must know that if she tries to stab or shoot him, with this crowd, she’s finished. She and Rick will never be seen again. She’s got to get him alone. Does she think this is going to lead to a suite at the Mondrian? Is this the night Ghost vanished? Began his year-and-counting ‘sabbatical’ that really wasn’t a sabbatical?

  ‘Someone’s having a lot of fun,’ Ghost says to her. ‘So what are you? Another collector?’

  ‘No, baby. I’m just a fan.’ Annette runs her right hand - the one not holding the champagne flute - over his still bare chest and kisses him on the mouth.

  ‘Daaaaamn,’ one of the guys says. ‘Where you all from, anyway?’

  ‘I know, I stopped trying to control her years ago,’ Rick says. ‘She keeps things interesting.’

  Everyone laughs.

  ‘We’re cool,’ Rick says.

  ‘You cool,’ Circus says. One of his hands is reaching around Annette’s front, mashing her breast. ‘But this pussy’s hot. C’mere, lil’ wife.’

  Annette’s giving Ghost the full-court press. Her hand goes over the waist of his red track pants, under, working him. There’s no one else in the limo as far as she’s concerned. Dudes are laughing and drinking and the music gets a little louder. I hear Rick breathing heavily in a disturbing way. Ghost is looking over her, at someone to Rick’s right.

  ‘We shoulda booked a third show,’ Ghost says. ‘That joint went off.’

  ‘LA loves you,’ a man says. I think it might be his publicist, Devon Wilson, a six and a half foot tall gay man who had been going with a kind of throwback rockabilly look the two times I had met him. ‘We’ll roll back in the spring.’

  ‘I’ll be in the studio in the spring,’ Ghost says. ‘Then we got the west, the south. I miss Atlanta. Atlanta’s twenty-thousand stubs.’

  ‘Summer, then. I’ll call Beaux and tell him to bump up So-Cal.’

  ‘Summer is them bullshit festivals in Chicago and shit. I hate those motherfucking festivals. Lollapa-jerk-me-off. Why can’t we be the show?’

  ‘Pretty sure you are the show,’ Devon says.

  Ghost just now remembers he’s on the receiving end of a handjob.

  Circus says, ‘I think this track needs more bass.’

  Annette’s green party dress rides up as Circus lifts her by the hips until she is sideways on the bench seat. Circus’s dick - a Snickers bar the size of my arm, bowing south - flops onto her ass. She stops administering to Ghost and looks over her shoulder - what the hell is going on back there?

  ‘Knock it off,’ she says without much volume. She tries to sit down again.

  But Circus grabs her hips again and tries to reposition her.

  ‘Easy, easy,’ Rick mumbles, but no one else hears or pays him any mind.

  Annette struggles, looking up at Ghost for help. He’s not paying attention - someone’s refilling his glass. She twists and Circus gets excited and pushes her forward too hard, throwing everything off.

  Ghost says, ‘What the fuck? Who’s rocking the boat?’

  Annette’s dress goes way high, flashing the bald eagle. She looks back at Circus and says, ‘I said not for you!’ and pulls her dress down.

  Circus looks angry for a moment, on the verge of pushing this too far, but gives up and haughtily puts his dick back in his pants. Annette turns back to Ghost, her hand returning to his pants as she leans in to kiss him.

  Bored and rebuffed, Circus slaps her ass aside to fetch another bottle of champagne. The slap accidentally knocks Annette off the seat and she yanks Ghost as she topples to the floor.

  ‘Hey, now!’ Rick barks.

  Ghost’s eyes widen. ‘The hell? This ain’t Ultimate Fighting, yo.’

  Annette gasps. ‘I’m sorry! He keeps pushing me!’ Her laughter is forced and embarrassing. Jesus Christ this is sad, awkward beyond words.

  The moment has been spoiled. Ghost looks at Rick, down at Annette, at the other faces watching or pretending not to watch him. He snaps his track pants up higher and pulls his shirt down and casually uses his foot to shove Annette out of his way. She rolls out of frame.

  ‘Everybody calm the fuck down,’ he says. ‘This shit ain’t workin’. TK, I need some ecs. Let’s go see your boy in Burbank.’

  Annette pulls herself together and tries to wedge herself back into the seat between them. She glances back at Rick, embarrassed, trying to salvage the party. She leans into Ghost and whispers something into his ear.

  He rears back, genuinely surprised, maybe even disgusted. ‘No way, you crazy.’

  ‘Will you listen—’ Annette says, pawing at him.

  ‘Go home and please your man,’ Ghost says. ‘Like, seriously.’ He scowls at the camera - Rick - as if to say, can’t you get your woman under control?

  ‘Aw, don’t be that way,’ Annette says. ‘You don’t know what I’m capable of.’

  ‘It’s cool, man,’ Rick says, half out of breath, meek.

  ‘Sorry, kids,’ Circus says. ‘It’s past our bedtime.’

  The music cuts off. The SUV rocks to a halt. A door opens. Ghost is looking away from them, tracing a design into the fogged window. I realize it’s a happy face. He’s done here, checked out.

  Circus exits the truck. ‘Party’s just switching up. We got an early morning wake-up call. Thanks for the gift.’

  ‘Out? You want us to get out?’ Annette says. She looks back at Ghost for help. He ignores her.

  She slaps his arm. ‘What the fuck, Nathaniel ?’

  He turns to face her, his eyes wide. Oh no, you di’hin’t. No one calls me Nathaniel. ‘Sorry, baby, you’re not my type.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ she says.

  ‘Honey,’ Rick says. ‘Not tonight. Let’s go.’

  ‘I was your type five minutes ago,’ she says. ‘What’s the problem? We’re just having fun. Come on, baby, have some more champagne.’

  Ghost scratches his chin.

  She goes for him again.

  ‘I said get your old ass out the car!’ Ghost snaps, shooting a look at Circus.

 
; Annette absorbs the insult. She is pierced, pale, and finally enraged. Circus grabs her but she slips free and goes at Ghost with her claws, raking at his face.

  ‘The fuck off me, crazy ho!’ Ghost yells. Their arms tangle and there is a loud slap. Ghost hit her, maybe. I can’t tell. It was an accident, self-defense. Or not. Ghost’s cheek is bleeding in tiger stripes, Enter the Dragon-style. His eyes are pinwheels of rage. He cocks a fist.

  ‘No!’ Rick shouts, his voice booming.

  Circus Mouse lunges in and hauls her out. ‘No way, darlin’. Not going to happen.’

  Annette struggles uselessly in the huge man’s embrace.

  ‘The fuck you lookin’ at, faggot?’ Ghost leaps at Rick and swings an open hand. The slap of flesh is loud and clear and the camera tumbles aside, out of the truck, to the ground. The view is now of the chrome wheel and the curb, a line of parked cars and parking meters and darkness going up the boulevard. ‘Don’t even try it,’ Circus says calmly.

  ‘Whoa, whoa, it’s cool, it’s cool, we’re gone,’ Rick says. I can’t see him but he sounds scared. Circus probably has a gun on him now. Or maybe Rick’s just not that tough.

  ‘Sorry, Dad,’ Circus says. ‘Go get a room and have some fun on the house.’

  Paper, rustling.

  ‘Money?’ Annette yells. ‘You think I’m a fucking whore?’

  ‘Annette!’ Rick yells.

  ‘Fuck you, Ghost, you fucking faggot, can’t even get it up, you fucking phony!’

  A door slams and tires squeal as the engine roars and fades away.

  ‘Don’t touch me, you fucking coward,’ she snaps. ‘That was our chance.’

  His voice pathetic, hurt. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know when to stop it. You said wait till after—’

  Blackness.

  A frame of dark shadows flickering, we’re in a car, sitting quietly in a neighborhood of large homes on a block dense with mature trees. The silence and change of mood are unsettling. It’s still night. The same or another I cannot tell.

  ‘I’m so tired,’ Rick says offscreen. ‘I have to take a piss.’

  ‘I know he’s in there,’ Annette says.

  She doesn’t sound tired at all.

  The scene jumps. It’s still night, the same street. The view is Rick’s dozing face, out his rolled-down window. There is a large custom home with a rock façade set way back on the neatly groomed lot. Half a dozen European cars in the circular driveway. Only the single porch light on. The screen door opens. A man steps out, is obscured by trees as he walks to the end of the driveway.

  ‘Wake up,’ Annette says.

  Rick makes a snotty, coming awake sound. ‘What? Where? No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Look at his hair. The suit.’

  The guy crosses the street, under a street lamp, back into darkness. Red track suit. Peroxide blonde. The swagger, the slightly concave shoulders, a little hunching menace. He is Ghost and he is alone.

  ‘Annette,’ Rick begins, his voice tight.

  ‘No, it’s better. Wait until he’s drives off.’

  Ghost walks ahead of them, up the street, and the camera pivots, aiming through the windshield now. He passes two, then three cars, doubles back and shakes his head. Forgot which car was his. He slips into a sedan. The engine fires, headlamps brook the night, he rolls out.

  ‘Do you even know what you’re doing?’ Rick says. ‘Is this the coke talking?’

  ‘Follow him,’ Annette says. ‘Or get out and walk.’

  We catch up with Ghost five or six blocks later, at a light on Ventura, roll through a yellow light, can’t lose him. An In-N-Out Burger off to the left, closed. A Del Taco, open. A darkened shopping plaza. A 7-Eleven serving late-nighters. Some kid busts an ollie on his skateboard, beefs it. An elderly Mexican woman on a bench at a bus stop. Then a few bars, people smoking out on the sidewalk. There are more street lights now. The road is getting brighter. We move closer to the target. There he is.

  A white car. An Audi S5.

  Stacey’s car.

  Cue the Sergio Leone score in my head, give me a key of Norman Bates. It’s not Ghost they are following.

  It’s me, James Hastings.

  The night comes back in a slap of memory. Mark Harris’s party in Burbank after the show. A total bust with no action. Just a bunch of industry people sitting around talking about royalties and marketing campaigns. Rum and Cokes, I remember. I had six large Myers’s Dark Rum and Cokes. Ghost came in, stayed for half an hour to score some ecstasy, and lit out for the clubs with the only three beautiful women at the party. I sat around drinking and playing poker with a couple of film producers and a visual effects artist named Doyle who told me Mexican beer is the safest way to go and proceeded to take three hundred of my dollars, perhaps proving his point.

  I have no memory of seeing Rick and Annette, but I’m still sick and frightened by the knowledge that they had me in their sights. Have me in their sights, reality and time bending and folding within my head as I watch them now watching me as we head up Ventura, turning left on Crescent, wind up the hill, through the light at Mulholland.

  A red light in the corner of the screen begins to blink.

  ‘Shit,’ Annette says. ‘The battery.’

  ‘That god damn thing’s going to get us in trouble.’

  ‘I have a spare,’ she says.

  The new battery brings us back on Venice Boulevard, then right on Arlington and left into West Adams where Ghost - correction, the white Audi carrying James Hastings - takes the alley. They hang back between 20th and 21st, then crawl forward slowly, into the alley behind me. The Audi pauses, waiting for the door to go up, then noses into the garage, out of sight.

  Safe, I can’t help but think on Rick’s couch.

  They roll forward until the camera moves over the garage, up to the back of Whitey, which is dark inside every window. It’s got to be three or four in the morning.

  ‘This isn’t a party,’ Rick says. ‘It’s dead.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Annette says. ‘What if he lives here? This is, like, his LA crash pad or some fucking thing. He’s probably got some whore in there.’

  ‘Annette, no. You’re not going up there. He’ll shoot you.’

  ‘Oh, stop it.’

  ‘And it will be legal. You’re not getting out of the car.’

  She doesn’t say anything for a minute. ‘But he has to come back out sometime, doesn’t he?’

  Daylight. A sunny morning, maybe eight or nine. The garage door is opening. We are twenty or thirty feet down the alley from the garage and fence that surrounds our backyard.

  ‘Wakey wakey,’ Annette says, and turns the camera to her brother.

  Rick is sleeping in the driver’s seat, his head leaning into the ball of his leather jacket. He looks pale, unwell. The rusty stubble along his chin is showing the first signs of gray. He does not wakey wakey.

  ‘You’re no fun,’ Annette says. She turns the camera toward the windshield again and sets it on the dashboard, like a cop camera catching footage of a speeder who’s just been pulled over. Up ahead in the alley I see the couch, the riot orange couch with sprung cushions, a shoe, some cinderblocks and a pile of rotting grass clippings. Every so often, but not often enough, a car or two passes the mouth of the alley, people leaving the neighborhood, cutting through side streets before they meet up with the real morning rush hour on Washington or Venice.

  Annette opens her door and leaves it open. At first I think I am imagining it, but no. I can actually hear the faint sound of another motor growling. It’s the Audi, hidden in the garage.

  Annette walks ahead of her car, strutting in her dress and bare feet. For any other woman, this would be the walk of shame. Annette moves as if she is just now starting to have fun.

  The garage door is up. The Audi’s white trunk backs slowly into the alley. Annette prances out, blocking its path. The red brake light glows. The car doesn’t move for half a minute. Stacey must be checking the rearview mirror, trying
to decide what this means, who this woman is, what’s wrong. Annette just stands there, arms hanging at her sides, feet planted.

  Stacey emerges, on foot. She is wearing her vanilla cargo pants, a nice V-neck t-shirt with a chic tie-dye print, her hair pulled back in a loose tail too short to qualify as a pony’s. Her yellow-framed sunglasses sit high up on her head. She approaches Annette slowly, and I know from her posture she is concerned but cautious, willing to help this strange woman. Stacey stops about six feet away, both women in profile now.