Peaceable Kingdom (mobi)

by Jack Ketchum

  “I guess the folks in Witchita got pretty short memories as these things go because nobody even bats an eye seein’ him in there. The barkeep serves him, the drinkers keep drinking—hell, a couple of the ladies even give him a look by way of well, maybe. But me, I’ve seen him a bit more recently so to speak and I guess my memory’s a little bit better so I pay up for that last one and get the hell out of there fast as I can, because I know for plain honest fact that Little Dick West is the unluckiest man who ever walked the Lord’s green earth and that’s a certainty.”

  A wind had come up from the west. The night was colder now those last few hours before dawn and the men drank silently a pull apiece and warmed their hands by the fire and the Kid shook his head thinking about luck and Little Dick West while Faro Bill rolled yet another Durham and lit it with a twig aflame. The horses snorted, chilled in sleep.

  “We better get us some rest, boys,” said Canary Joe. “Long way to ride yet tomorrow. I’ll gather us up some more of that mise’ble firewood I guess, get us through to morning.”

  He rose to his feet and stepped slowly into the waiting dark.

  “You watch out for Little Dick West, now,” said Faro Bill laughing and it was then that they heard the echo of his words from the mouth of Chunk Herbert dying against the juniper tree, clear this time and no mistaking them, not I-ill or Lily but Li’l Dick West, I shot Li’l Dick West in Dodge City, Kansas and the fusillade seemed to come from everywhere at once and ended Chunk’s luck and their own along with it for good and ever.

  The Haunt

  I found the place just off East Sunset, only three blocks from the sea, and I got it for a song.

  Lauderdale had been hit by a big one again the year before and on the first floor the water damage was extensive. It was no real problem though. I had money. We crewed the place through spring and summer and by start-of-season it was looking fine. I called it the Blue Parrot, after Sam.

  And Sam was the main attraction for a while. Drinks are drinks when you come right down to it, even though Shiela and Cindy had instructions to pour stiff ones, to leave the shotglasses under the bar for the time being and buy back for the regulars. As for the girls, you’d be hard pressed to find a waitress or barmaid anywhere near Sunset who wasn’t halfway gorgeous. So that left Sam our novelty.

  As novelties go I’ve seen worse. He’s an attention-getter for one thing, blue as the Caribbean with a bib of pure white across his chest. And he’s big around as the thighs on Schwarzenegger.

  We hung a high perch for him to the far left of the bar and if you were sitting over there you could toss him a salted peanut and watch him pluck it out of the air, toss it back like a shot of Cuervo and turn to you with that myopic-looking one-eyed stare and croak, “thanks, big boy, think can you afford another?” People swore he sounded like Bacall, though actually he’d learned that line from a hooker who used to come into my first place in Miami. If you threw too wide or low you got the same baleful stare only longer, and then after a while the bone-yellow beak would open. “God damn drunks!”

  He was ten years old and had plenty of lines by then, so he was good at the bar. But naturally I had ambitions for the place. As Florida goes Lauderdale’s a pretty wide-open town. The college kids do that and the gays. So a year later we went topless. We left Sam where he was and put a raised stage on the other side of the bar. The upstairs room was all tables but you could stand at the brass railing and look down at the dancers and at the same time cruise the bar.

  We did it right, too. Most of the girls were college girls so the turnover was high but that also meant you had dancers who were young and pretty and wholesome-looking, not beat-up hooker-types. There were a handful of local girls but I stayed away from them in general. Down here you never knew when somebody’s drunken boyfriend from Fort Meyers or Punta Gorda was going to come barreling across Alligator Alley with a shotgun in back of his pickup, bent on saving darlin’ Maisie from a life of squalor. They brought in a nice crowd, mixed, men and women and mostly young.

  We did real well with the wet teeshirt contests and the Best Buns contests and by the time we were open two years to the day I could count on packed houses three nights a week and no real slack time at all. We held our own off season, too, while other places closed down altogether.

  Sam got fat. I fell in love with the new bartender.

  Bernie was her name and she was older than most, thirty-four, and she’d been married once the same way I’d been married, which was badly. For me home was a block away, right on Sunrise. Home for her was all the way across town. In no time at all my dresser drawers were full of skimpy teeshirts, shorts and panties, and her sister from Wisconsin was living at the place across town. I never regretted it.

  We came up with another attraction that year. Her name was Mary.

  Had it not been for Bernie I probably wouldn’t have hired her. It would have been too much temptation put in my way. You get used to topless dancers. But nobody got used to Mary.

  “Bwwaaak! Major babe alert!” was the first thing out of Sam’s mouth when he spotted her. He was only stating the obvious. But there was plenty more than that. The only way I can say it right now is that Mary was intimidating to look at—that beautiful. Why in the world she wanted to dance topless for the Blue Parrot I never did figure. She was a pre-med student. Yet she could have been anything—model, movie actress, even, from what I could see, a legitimate dancer. Up on the stage her moves were terrific, if you ever got by that strong perfect body long enough see the moves.

  And that glance.

  It was amazing how she could rivet an audience with that glance. Her eyes were a pale, pale blue. Incredibly bold. Onstage they seemed to flicker everywhere at once, sweeping the entire ground floor and half the guys in the balcony. I never in my life saw so many men trying to make eye-contact with a woman. And a half-naked woman at that. It was uncanny. From the first night she danced she got the feature spot, and I never heard a single complaint from any of the other girls, all of whom had been there longer than she had. You knew she deserved it.

  She had no boyfriends. She told me once that she’d never met a man as tough as she was and I believed her. The only one she flirted with was Sam, who’d wink at her. And I swear that now and then I’d catching him leering.

  It was Mary who got the bright idea about the body painting. Like I say, she was a bold one. Here she was, brand new, with the best spot in the show, and she’s rocking the boat, trying to change things instead of just leaving well enough alone. If the idea had flopped it wouldn’t have helped her much with me. But of course she knew all along it wouldn’t flop. After all—they were going to paint her body.

  The way it worked was that every night the customer got a raffle ticked with his first drink, right off the bat. At midnight I’d step up on the stage with all the tickets in a grey fedora hat and Sam perched on my arm. I’d stir the tickets around and then Sam would dip down and pull us out a winner. One of the girls would bring paintpots and brushes from off stage. Mary would come out and dance, and at the end of the dance she’d strike a pose, freeze, and I’d read the number on the ticket.

  I’d hand the winner a pair of scissors so he could snip off her panties—that always got a rise from the crowd—and then the guy would start painting. When we figured he’d been at it long enough we’d black-light the place and bring up the music, and when Mary started dancing again it was wild. The paint was irridescent and the dark was how we got around the laws about booze and dancing and total nudity. It brought the house down every night. The paint was water base so half an hour later she’d be washed off and back again, an encore for a star.

  Oh, we were rolling. Friday and Saturday nights we’d turn them away. Before it was a bar the Parrot was a bookshop, used and antique books, and before that an artist’s studio. So we only had space for about a hundred-fifty. But a hundred-fifty people all drinking all night is some pretty tidy cash, believe me. We were doing fine.

  Then on
e night we were closing and I saw Bernie feeding Mary double scotches at the bar while the waitresses stacked the chairs. Mary didn’t drink much normally so I wondered what was up. I walked over and ordered one myself. I could smell that perfume she always wore, Possession it was called, wafting through me like a subtle hunger.

  After a while she said, “it’s weird, Stu. Tonight during the show? I felt watched.”

  Well, you had to laugh.

  The way she looked stopped us though.

  “Hey you two, I’m serious. I don’t mean the way the guys normally look at you. Shit, I’m used to that. This was. . . . this was something else.”

  I felt myself freeze inside for a moment. “You mean we got some creep out there? Like that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Whatever it was, I don’t need it.”

  I watched her gulp the scotch.

  There wasn’t much to say after that. I promised her I’d keep an eye on the crowd for her, see if I could spot anybody strange out there, and if I did I’d bounce him. I’d see this kind of thing before. Usually these guys are harmless, but you never knew. My promise seemed to help. She finished her double and went home and I just sat a while, aware of the lingering smell of Possession and thanking my lucky stars that I had Bernie there with me to remind me that I was much too old to try to comfort her further.

  And the next few nights I did look, but there was nothing. Though Mary was saying it was happening every night to her now. She would get this feeling. I began to wonder about her. You could see she was troubled. You could see it in her eyes when she performed. They weren’t the same—you didn’t see the boldness there. She could still hold a crowd absolutely breathless but she wasn’t doing it with her eyes anymore, she was doing it with her will and with her body, and you missed something.

  Then I started noticing things.

  Little things at first. There was a light in the girls’ dressing room that didn’t seem to want to go off. I’d turn it off at closing and come in next morning and it would be on again.

  Now and then on alternate Friday and Saturday nights we’d bring in a live band, local boys, and they were always complaining that somebody was moving their instruments around in the storage room. Now, nobody had a key to that room except Bernie and I, and we sure as hell weren’t doing it. We lost that band in a couple of months. I couldn’t blame them. Those instruments were costly and all they ever got out of me by way of explanation was a puzzled shrug.

  Then the chef started complaining about dishes rattling in the kitchen.

  When Bernie and I would open up the place we’d find that somebody had moved the tables and chairs around.

  We went through all the possibilities and then some. The dressing-room light was faulty wiring. Kids breaking into the storage room were messing with the instruments and moving the chairs and tables at night. The foundation was settling, rattling the dishes. Of course nothing fit with anything else. It was bullshit and we knew it.

  We had ghosts. The Parrot was haunted.

  I was already half convinced of that when somebody who wasn’t there started saying things to Paula.

  Paula was one of our dancers, a perky little blonde with a sensational bottom and a gap between her two front teeth like Lauren Hutton’s. She was sort of shy, an English lit major if I remember correctly, and the only girl in the club who insisted on wearing pasties. I used to fight with her about the pasties—it was 1996 after all—but the few times I got her to try it without them she couldn’t dance worth a damn, so finally I let her keep them. Strange what will give somebody confidence. With the pasties on she was the second best dancer we had. Not in Mary’s class but good.

  She came off stage one night and trotted over to me and said, “what is this? You teaching Sam ventriloquism or something?”

  She was angry, but sort of pale-looking too, as though she’d eaten something that didn’t quite agree. I asked her what she was talking about and she said that while she was up there somebody had been speaking to her all the while. And it was like he was standing right there with her or how else could she hear him over the music? So she thought maybe Sam had gotten into the rafters above her, into the lighting.

  Sam, of course, was on his perch where he always was. He never flew around. Sam was lazy as hell. I told her that.

  “Well, then you’re damn well haunted, Stu,” she said. “And I’d like to know exactly what you’re going to do about it.”

  I asked her what it was she’d heard.

  “The guy was giving me compliments.”

  “Compliments?”

  “Yeah. Likes my breasts. Likes my thighs. He particularly likes my ‘derriere’.”

  “He called it that? Your derriere?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus.”

  “What I want to know is what you intend to do about it.”

  I thought about it for a while. Hell, there was only one thing I could think of doing. “Hold a seance, I guess.”

  It seemed logical, really. Find out what the guy was up to, what he wanted. See if I could get him to disappear—over to the Seahorse a few blocks away would be nice. No trouble finding a medium. Lauderdale was crawling with them. In every tourist town you get your share of psychics, faith-healers, mediums, whatever. I just needed somebody who knew the appropriate words.

  As it turned out Mary knew the words.

  “Sure, Stu,” she said. “I used to listen to my Aunt Lilian back in Indiana. She was forever trying to summon her brother, Uncle Joe, ‘who died of drink’ as they say back there. And she’d summon him all right, but I guess he was still boozing on the other side because everything he said came out garbled. But I remember the whole routine.”

  “Want to try?”

  “Sure. Why not? Sooner the better. He talks to her, he watches me. Let’s get the bastard. Tomorrow night, after closing.”

  She scribbled out a shopping list for me. In the morning I went out and purchased everything, white tablecloth, white candles, ceramic candleholders, and a Ouija board. At dinnertime the chef told me that somebody had stuffed one of his chickens with mocha ice cream and wild rice. It wasn’t an easy thing, getting him to relax.

  That night unseen fingers plucked ever-so-lightly at Paula’s pasties.

  Things were getting out of hand.

  By three o’clock our last customer was gone and we assembled on the stage. I’d set up a table and four chairs, covered the table with the white tablecloth, put the candles in their holders and opened up the Ouija board. Mary and Paula changed into street clothes and then the three of us waited for Bernie to finish cashing out the register. Then we all sat down and I turned off the lights and lit the candles. We closed our eyes and held hands.

  I don’t remember all of what Mary said that night but it was something about how here we were, four friends, ready to invoke whatever spirit lingered here, how we came in peace and friendship and hoped he’d communicate with us either directly or through the board. She was very polite.

  I remember her hand in mine was warm and soft while Bernie’s was cooler, rougher, yet somehow far more comforting. I remember smelling Possession again, a heady incense. For a while there was just dark and silence. We waited.

  “Open your eyes,” she said. “We’ll try the board. Place your fingertips on the planchette very lightly.”

  If you’ve never used a board a planchette is a clear plastic triangular kind of affair with a pin set into it and it’s supposed to move around to the letters on the board, the pin spelling out the message. Bernie, Paula and I did as she said and the planchette was a dead slab of nothing. Then Mary put her fingers to it. And the damn thing went careening around the board so fast we could barely keep up with the spelling.

  “You’re pushing it!” Paula said but I could tell she wasn’t. All of us could. There was a sudden sensation in the room that was electric and practically exausting. Mary didn’t even bother to deny it. She was too busy watching the swooping, whirling plastic.
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br />   About five minutes later we had our message. Bernie wrote it down. I have it in a drawer to this day.

  HELLO MY NAME IS FRANK W AND YOU OFFEND ME I DO NOT LIKE OR APPRECIATE RATHER YOUR LIQUOR AND YOUR NAKED DEGRADED WOMEN OR YOUR NOISY DRUNKEN CROWDS AND ESPECIALLY THE PAINTING ESPECIALLY THAT IT IS STUPID IT IS DISGRACEFUL AND I HAVE CERTAIN SENSIBILITIES WILL YOU PLEASE DESIST AT ONCE INCIDENTALLY WHAT IS THAT REVOLTING MUSIC

  “Rock’n roll,” said Mary.

  OH said the board. And then for a while we got nothing. We asked questions, who he was and why he was here, and got only stubborn silent inactivity for our trouble until finally he said THIS IS MY HOME I HAVE ALWAYS LIVED HERE IVE BEEN HERE FOREVER THE LIGHT IS GOOD AND BY THE WAY WHAT IS THAT PERFUME YOURE WEARING

  “Possession,” said Mary.

  OH said the board. ITS VERY NICE

  “One of us naked degraded woman he likes, anyway,” said Paula.

  And that was that.

  We sat over drinks and stewed. Bernie kept setting them up for us. Mary would toss Sam a peanut now and then. We talked well into morning and by the time we were through, Sam, who is pretty good with short-term memory, was re-asking all the questions for us. “What are we supposed to do? How are we gonna get rid of the sonovabitch? Who is this guy? Anybody got any ideas?”

  “Shut up, Sam,” said Bernie.

  Suddenly I got it. “The hall of records!” I said.

  “Sure,” said Mary. “We can find out who he is, anyway.”

  I didn’t get much sleep. By noon Bernie and I were over at the hall of records and it took us till 2:30 to find him. We started too far back, taking him at his word the he’d lived there a long time. But he hadn’t. He was the artist, Frank W. Morgan. He’d owned the place for fifteen years just prior to its conversion into a bookshop back in the 1920s. I should have figured it from what he said—THE LIGHT IS GOOD HERE. A painter. Of course.