PsyCop 5: Camp Hell

by Jordan Castillo Price

  Pretty sweet job. Except I’d be taking Richie’s livelihood away from him. And I’d be working for a bunch of creeps. I pretended Dreyfuss hadn’t just alluded to me working for him permanently, which meant I couldn’t look at him—and I didn’t want to look a the guy repeatedly blowing his own brains out at the conference table, either. I stared at the carpet instead.

  Richie swung through the door and shone a huge magnum in my eyes. “Mine’s bigger than yours. Heh-heh.”

  I forced a smile.

  “I guess we’re ready,” Richie said. “Turn off the power.”

  Dreyfuss pressed a button on an intercom beside the door. “Laura? Cut the conference room power, please.”

  “I’ll call maintenance.”

  Richie positioned himself in the far corner of the room with his hand outstretched. “This wasn’t the spot, but I like to do the whole room, make sure I don’t miss anything.”

  The guy with the Beretta blew his brains out again.

  The lights cut out, and the magnum’s beam cut a swath through the darkness, revealing chairs, a whiteboard, the sleeve of Dreyfuss’ sweatsuit. I pulled out my pocket flashlight and cast my own beam. I kept it trained on Dreyfuss, and I wondered if they’d fault me for drawing my weapon.

  Richie’d made it to the far wall. He turned around, and his flashlight beam spun. “If you wanna do the opposite side of the room, you can,” he offered.

  I trooped over to the opposite corner while Dreyfuss watched me with a look of immense satisfaction on his face.

  “Does he have to be here? Because it’s harder for me to work with all these people around, all these distractions.”

  Richie shone his flashlight in Dreyfuss’ face. “Is that okay? It really would be better if you let us do this ourselves.”

  Dreyfuss held his hands up on either side of his shoulders. “I know when I’m not wanted.” He smiled when he said that, but obviously, he wasn’t too thrilled.

  His gaze lingered on me for a moment, and then he left. Richie pointed his flashlight beam directly at my eye. “Yeah, I think I used to have trouble doing this in front of other people, too. But then I got this job, and it got easier eventually.”

  I decided not to tell Richie that I’d been supporting myself with my talent for a few years now. Let him feel like he was the one with all the inside information and all the good tips.

  I flashed a light toward the conference table. The suicide was still there. Blam. Richie’s lights danced over the wall. “Now, this is where I felt it,” he said. “It was really cold, right here.”

  Good thing Richie’s light wasn’t shining on me when I saw her. She startled me so badly that I jumped back. I aimed my flashlight beam where Richie was pointing. Yep. There she was. Doctor Chance.

  Dead.

  “I’m getting it again,” Richie said. “It’s definitely cold here, even colder than the time I told Dreyfuss. It must not matter that you’re here with me. Probably because you’re a medium too.”

  “Maybe so.”

  Doctor Chance had a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead, right where her third eye should have been. She crossed her arms over her chest, and looked around the room. She didn’t seem very happy. She also didn’t seem like a repeater.

  “Richie, why don’t you come over here? I thought I felt something in the corner.”

  Richie’s flashlight beam bounced over the wall, shone through the suicide—blam—and then joined mine in a spot where absolutely nothing was actually happening. “Is this it?”

  “Yeah, right here. Let me move so that you can see how it feels to you.” I inched away from him, skirted my way around the suicide, and eased up to Dr. Chance. “I can see you,” I whispered, and then I cleared my throat as if I’d just been standing there, making random noises.

  Doctor Chance’s eyes met mine. She smiled, in a grim sort of way. “So, they got you after all. I figured they would. You might have a few…personal problems. But you’re still the strongest medium around. Anywhere.”

  I shook my head. The FPMP didn’t “get” me, I was just scoping them out. I couldn’t figure out how to say that and still make it sound like that was only clearing my throat. “Hey, Einstein, is there a bathroom around here?”

  Richie aimed his flashlight beam on a door. “Sure, right there. You’re not going to do coke in there or anything, are you?”

  I took a couple steps towards the door, then shone my flashlight in his face. “Why would you say something like that?”

  “Oh, I mean, I don’t know. I just thought… you’re so skinny and all. Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. Really. It was a stupid thing to say.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Richie.” I made myself smile. “I could stand to gain a pound or two. But I’m not doing coke. I’ve got three cups of coffee raging through my system. That’s all.”

  I trained my flashlight beam on the bullet hole in Chance’s forehead, then swung it toward the bathroom. I almost held the door open for her, but then I realized that gesture would be totally unnecessary. Which gave me the creeps.

  I tried to flick the light on, three, maybe four times. But then I realized they’d cut the power to this part of the building so that it was easier for us to see the ghosts. Creepier still.

  I found the lock, locked it. I turned around, and there she was. I flinched.

  “You should’ve just gone along with me,” she said. “Everything would be different now. We’d have our etheric amplifier. We’d have all the money we could ever need. Why couldn’t you set your inconsistent and totally useless values aside and help me out?”

  Being dead never made anyone rational. Not if they weren’t that way in life. “How did you get here? Did you die here?”

  “In the hallway, actually. I was on my way for psychiatric evaluation outside the Cook County Medical Center, when the FPMP intercepted us and brought me to their headquarters. And now, here I am. For good. What an ending.” She shook her head. “I’ll bet I could’ve recruited a medium in the psych ward, too. It would’ve set me back a few years, until I got out, at least. But it could’ve worked.”

  “Look, I’m not working for these jokers. I mean, not permanently. What was I supposed to do? Tell them no?”

  “Maybe you should leave the country. I’ll bet they’d take you in France.”

  “The FPMP might be a federal agency, but I think they would follow me, even once I’m past the border. Especially since most mediums aren’t quite…so….” I couldn’t figure out how to say that I was the most amped-up medium I’d ever known. That wasn’t something to brag about—especially in the heart of the FPMP—not if I wanted to keep psy researchers from handling my organs.

  She tilted her head, the way she used to when she studied my blood test results. “I suppose they would follow. They have the money. They have the manpower.”

  “And they have remote viewers.”

  “You know about that, do you?”

  Oh God. So it was true.

  “Whatever you’re doing to scramble them,” she said, “I think you’re on the right track. They have trouble seeing you.”

  “Trouble, how?”

  “How would I know? Do I look like a remote viewer to you? They seem angry all the time, frustrated. You’re hard to pin down. Now that you figured out not to say anything useful on your cell phone, they’ve got nothing to go on.”

  That sounded pretty promising.

  “Except those reports they’ve been getting, every couple of days.”

  My stomach turned. “What reports?”

  “Handwritten things. Faxed. I guess that leaves less of a paper trail for the sender than an e-mail might.” She was right. All the sender would need to do was shred whatever they’d written, and there’d be no evidence on their end, not without a subpoena of their phone records. And all that paperwork would prove was that a fax was sent, not what it contained.

  I wondered who I saw on a regular basis that had access to a fax machine. Then I
wondered if we had one at home, and recalled that I’d noticed one of those all-in-ones when I was unpacking our office. But no, that was stupid. Jacob wouldn’t go through the trouble of scanning our house for bugs, and then turn around and leak secrets about me behind my back. Unless it was some elaborate double-cross…Christ almighty. I was so sick of the whole thing that I was tempted to eat a bullet, except I knew it was a piss-poor solution that’d only leave me with no one to talk to but Doctor Chance, possibly for eternity.

  “Can you look at the faxes, tell me where they’re coming from? There has to be some identification on them, even if it’s just a phone number.”

  “I could. But why should I? You never helped me.”

  I jammed my thumb into my eye. Ow. “There’s got to be something you want. You wouldn’t still be here if you didn’t.”

  “Think you can bring down the FPMP?”

  “I doubt it.”

  She laughed. “Me too. At least you’re honest. Will it bring me any peace if you avenge me, if you tell someone that the FPMP grabbed me up and made sure I kept quiet about my amplifier…about you? I don’t know. It’s no fun being dead, Detective. On one hand, I’m free from my physical body and all the limitations that went with it. On the other hand, things get foggy at the strangest times, and I’m filled with urges and compulsions that make no sense. I always thought I’d be reincarnated once I was through with this life. So how do I make sense of…this?”

  She had to have known that I was about the last person who had anything intelligent to say about the afterlife, but maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe she was telling me because I was the only one who could listen.

  “I really do have to pee,” I said. Because I had no idea how she was supposed to make sense of being dead. Once she was gone, I felt around for cold spots and I channeled white light to make sure she wasn’t lingering around invisibly, waiting for me to unzip my pants. Even with that much focus, I couldn’t tell she was gone for sure, and it took me forever to relieve myself.

  “I don’t feel the cold spot no more,” Richie said when I finally emerged from the bathroom. “Do you think it went away ‘cos we were looking for it?”

  I shone my flashlight at the suicide. Blam. The cold spot must’ve been Chance. “I dunno. I’m picking up a little something over here, now.”

  Richie walked over and stood in the spot where the skull fragments and brains had sprayed. “Where, here? I…I don’t think I feel nothing. Do you?”

  Click. Blam.

  “Yeah. I get something.”

  Richie’s face twisted up. “Violent? Sudden?”

  “…maybe.”

  He nodded. Maybe he’d needed my permission to sense the repeater. Or maybe he couldn’t feel it at all. Maybe only the ghosts with their personalities intact, spirits like Doctor Chance, registered on his afterlife radar.

  Richie stuck his head out the door, and called Dreyfuss. “Okay, we’re ready.”

  Dreyfuss strolled in. He’d been right outside the door the whole time. “Well? What’s the verdict?”

  Richie answered him. “Sudden death. Violent.” He held his hand palm-down beside the suicide. “Gunshot, I think.” Maybe Richie really could feel it. Maybe he’d just needed me to confirm his vague impressions.

  Dreyfuss looked up at me. I had my flashlight trained on him. If he thought it was spooky, being alone, in the dark, with a couple of mediums, he didn’t show it. He was the picture of nonchalance. “What do you think, Detective?”

  “What he said.”

  Undoubtedly, Dreyfuss knew about the suicide. I’m guessing he could tell that I was holding back. But hopefully he couldn’t figure out that now I had all those specifics, too.

  Dreyfuss clapped his hands together. “Okay, then. We can’t be having cold spots wreaking havoc on our state-of-the-art HVAC system. Let’s get this mess cleaned up, shall we?”

  -EIGHTEEN-

  When Dreyfuss called his secretary, I had assumed he would tell her to turn the power back on. And then what? Send in the janitor? I don’t know what I thought would happen, but whatever it was, it wasn’t this.

  A black guy in a khaki uniform wheeled in a cart. It was as full of boxes and bottles as a shelf in Crash’s store. But more orderly, as if they had managed to institutionalize magic. The guy in khaki lit a white candle, and handed it to Richie. Richie took it and set it next to the suicide. I noticed he had unerringly selected the cardinal points. And then I was surprised that it had taken me fifteen years to remember learning that, when Richie, with his IQ of 80, had had access to this information all this time, in his conscious memory.

  Our helper lit a circle of charcoal, and Richie took it by the holder and sprinkled some frankincense on. It smelled like every other resin, but lemony. And I was surprised I remembered that, too.

  Richie put the censer on the table. He set it right in the spot where the Beretta kicked back, but I didn’t say anything. The black guy knelt on one side, and Richie knelt on the other. They both folded their hands, and began to pray. Out loud.

  “How can we who died to sin yet live in it? Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were indeed buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”

  Seriously? That was it? That was how you are supposed to get rid of a repeater—by praying? The back of my neck prickled, and I caught Dreyfuss looking at me. He didn’t look relaxed at all, not anymore. He looked eager. Hungry.

  I turned toward Richie, to have somewhere to look other than at Dreyfuss’ glittering eyes. There was a gentle glow around him that seemed like it was coming from the candles, only it wasn’t. It was too steady, too uniform.

  “For if we have grown into union with Him through a death like His, we shall also be united with Him in the resurrection.”

  The repeater aimed, pulled the trigger, and fired. His body jerked. But I could see the outline of the chair through him more clearly than I could before.

  Richie was definitely glowing now, a soft, mellow, beautiful glow. I looked hard at his crown chakra, and when I really focused, I could see the faintest thread of white light flowing in.

  “We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over Him. As to His death, He died to sin once and for all; as to His life, He lives for God.”

  Was it working because Richie believed it? Or did the words have power? Or maybe a combination of both of those. Because Richie was obviously pulling on something, some sort of power, but who’s to say that lots of people wouldn’t have been able to do that, depending on the circumstance, or the level of their beliefs.

  I realized that I had been pulling white light down harder than before, too. It must’ve been a reaction to seeing it flowing into Richie. I wanted some of that for myself. When I realized I had this energy tingling inside of me, I focused it outwards, and strengthened the silver condom.

  “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

  The repeater was faint now, and it seemed like he was cycling more slowly. The pause was greater between the time his head exploded, and the next time he shoved the muzzle under his chin.

  After maybe half an hour, the repeater grew faint, and finally disappeared. Dreyfuss spoke, so close to my ear that he startled me. “Pretty good show, huh? And you’ve got a front-row seat.”

  Damn. My poker-face needed work. I shrugged.

  “It’s way past lunchtime. You want a donut? I’ve got donuts in my office. I promise, they’re clean.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather leave.” And never come back.

  Richie snuffed the candles in order, last to first, while his helper doused the area with a cloud of frankincense smoke.

  Dreyfuss set a plain, white envelope on the conference table. “He’s a lot more confident with you around. There’s
room on the team, Detective. And it’d be a win-win. You’d pick up those skills that didn’t seem to take the first time around, when you trained.”

  “I have a job.”

  “It doesn’t have to be full-time. I’m flexible—keep that in mind.”

  I promised myself I’d do no such thing, but I picked up the envelope. It felt heavy. I tucked it into my pocket, and gave my Glock yet another reassuring pat.

  Dreyfuss went about getting the power restored, and Richie approached me with a mile-wide grin on his face. “Well, Vic, what do you think?”

  “The room feels clean to me. You getting that, too?”

  He nodded.

  I clapped him on the shoulder, almost pulling away at the last minute, but forcing myself to follow through. He was the closest thing I had to a fraternity brother, after all. “Good work, man.”

  “Did I hear Dreyfuss trying to hire you?”

  “I have a job….”

  “’Cos that would be so neat, to work with someone I know from the old days, from Heliotrope. And you get a company car, and a big, huge Christmas bonus.”

  That’s what they were telling us, but my guess is that Richie might conveniently disappear if I accepted Dreyfuss’ offer. Even though Sergeant Warwick and Betty had been reporting to the FPMP all these years, and even though I’d have to pass “Andy” in the hallway on a regular basis, I still felt a hell of a lot more comfortable at the Fifth than I could ever hope to feel at the FPMP. I patted Richie on the arm, more stiffly now, though I don’t think he noticed. “I’ll keep it in mind. Take care, all right?”

  • • •

  The stink of burning sage hit me on my front doorstep. I opened the door—the one that used to have the word fuck spray painted on it, and now had a spot that was paler than the surrounding wood where we’d scrubbed it with acetone and mineral spirits—and a burnt cloud wafted out.

  A motorized whine came from the main room, followed by the sound of pounding. I hung up my coat and poked my head out of the vestibule.