The White Night

by Desmond Doane

  He mouths, Sorry, ten o’clock.

  I back away from the glass doors and wipe a thin layer of sweat from my forehead. “Well, shit. What now? You hungry? Grab a bite while we wait? There’s an awesome greasy spoon diner a couple blocks that way—”

  Before I can finish, I hear the clatter of keys against glass, followed by the fat, fumbling, metallic clunk of a lock tumbler. Horn Rims is eagerly trying to get the lock open, smiling at us, telling us to hang on like he thinks we’re going to run away from him. “Just one sec,” he says, his voice muffled by the doors.

  “Changed your mind, huh?” Dakota asks him.

  Horn Rims gets the latch free and worms his fingers into the crevasse between the doors, grunting as he shoves them fully open. “Oh my gosh! You gotta be kidding me. Sorry about that. If I had recognized who you were I would’ve come over right away but I couldn’t see with the shadows and the—never mind. Mike Long and Dakota Bailey? Together? Here? I don’t even know… I’m Preston. And you’re Mike. And you’re Dakota. Wow, I’d heard people say that you guys lived here in town but—wow. Sorry, I’m Preston. Did I say that already? I’m babbling. Babbling Preston. I mean, yeah, I’ll shut up now. Wow.”

  Dakota flashes the sparkling smile that charmed America for three seasons, steps forward, and extends a hand to shake. “Hi, Preston. Nice to meet you.”

  He reaches for her hand and halts like it ran into an invisible forcefield. “Wait, can I give you a hug? Sorry, it’s just that I’ve always wanted to do that. Is that weird? It’s weird, isn’t it?”

  This guy is too much, in an amusing way, of course. It’s been a long damn time since I’ve seen this level of fandom gone wild.

  Chuckling, Dakota says, “Sure, why the hell not? Bring it on, dude!”

  And it makes me adore her all the more.

  Babbling Preston dives in and squeezes her tightly, saying, “My friends will never believe this.” Chin on her shoulder, he glances over at me with expectant eyes and a knowing grin. “I’m coming for you next, big guy.”

  “Right. Arms open wide, chief.” Might as well. You gotta be good to the evangelists like this, the ones who will tell a thousand people on Facebook and Twitter about how amazing you are in person.

  Preston lets go of Dakota and leaps over to me, wrapping one arm up over a shoulder, and the other around my side and back. Total “bro hug.” We slap each other on the back like old friends, and I’m already thinking about how I need to come down to the library for some promo if I can talk Ford into the documentary.

  Always thinking, always on.

  Anyway—setting my dreams of a bank account in the black to the side—it’s cool that Preston has so much enthusiasm. I really do miss it.

  He steps back from us, hands at his waist, huffing from the excitement. “Wow. So cool. What can I do for you? Did you guys want to come in early?”

  I have this thing where I’m always worried that I’m on the verge of inconveniencing a total stranger, so I wave him off, tell him he doesn’t have to do that for us just because we’re, well, us.

  That gets me a hearty pshaw, like I’m being utterly ridiculous, and we find ourselves following him inside before I have a chance to protest again. He squirms around us to shove the glass doors closed under his own power and secures the lock once more.

  After a couple more rounds of assuring us that we’re not going to get him in trouble, we learn that he’s the only one here, and he’d be thrilled to give us a tour or help us find something if we need it.

  “But can I just ask something first? Be totally nosy for a second?”

  Dakota says, “Sure,” before I can hedge the discussion with subtle misinformation.

  “What’re you guys doing here? I mean, like, together?” He must recognize the squint I’m giving him as a sign that this is probably too far over the line. “No, no. I don’t mean together. I just meant, like, do celebrities hang out with each other all the time? You know, because you don’t really have anything in common with the little people?”

  Dakota says with measured amusement, “We’re not too far from common ourselves. It just so happens that I’m having some—what would you call it, Mr. Long? Ghostly…troubles?”

  Ah, shit. That’s exactly what I didn’t want her to say.

  Preston’s eyes can’t possibly get any wider. “Holy crap! Really? That’s like a season finale episode of Graveyard. Or maybe some sort of crossover episode on Yes, Chef!, like you would have to cook a masterpiece while you were terrified of the spirits in your house. How cool is that?”

  I raise an eyebrow at Dakota. “Sound familiar?”

  She nods. “You should make him a producer.”

  Before Preston can explode into an excitable mist of giddy glee, I ask him about public property records or if those microfiche things still exist so we can do some research on Dakota’s house, past occurrences there and the like.

  Sometimes fate, chance, or luck smiles down upon you, while a choir of heavenly angels sing a tune so sweet that you can’t help but feel like the universe is blatantly moving the chess pieces around for you.

  Preston’s entire demeanor changes. His smile droops. His hands go to his hips. He briefly checks the first floor, and it makes me wonder what he’s looking for, considering the fact that we’re supposed to be the only three in here. He lowers his voice and says, “To answer your question, public property records—you might need to go to the courthouse to find what you’re looking for. Probably? Microfiche, yeah, but can I make a confession first?” He waits until I nod assent. “Don’t think I’m a creepy weirdo, okay? That was—I mean, I know who you guys are. I was trying not to be an obsessive stalker fan or anything.”

  So that was just an act? Damn, he’s good. Dude has a career waiting for him in the theater.

  Preston continues, “It’s not like we were spying on you.”

  “We?” I ask.

  “A friend of mine thought he saw Dakota moving into Damon Healy’s old beach house.” He turns to her. “Is that true?”

  Dakota doesn’t hesitate to tell him it is—though I wish she would’ve—and she adds that she hasn’t been there long. “You’re not creepy,” she reassures him. “I’m not keeping it much of a secret.”

  Preston says, “That place is bad news, and I’ve been wondering how long it would take before someone showed up here. After Healy sold it, I mean. Never in a million years did I think both of you would. You’re here. You’re actually here. What are the odds?”

  “Given the fact that you work at one of two places where people go to dig up local history, I’d say they’re not that astronomical.” I wink to let him know I’m just yanking is chain.

  “Good point. What I meant was, what are the odds that I know something you’ll want to hear?”

  “Higher, but when you’ve been balls deep in the paranormal for as long as I have, coincidences are a permanent part of the equation.”

  “True.”

  “If you expected us, then why didn’t you come looking for me, specifically?”

  “It’s not the kind of thing I’m willing to broadcast.”

  “What changed your mind now?”

  “I’ll get to that.” Preston pushes his horn rims up where they rest on top of his skull like a headband, holding his curly mop back out of his face. His eyes dart left and right as the corners of his mouth lift. It’s completely a look that suggests, I have a secret to share, and, Wait until you get a load of this.

  We’re the only ones in the library. Half of the lights are off, and while it’s filled to the ceiling with books, computers, magazines, without the hullaballoo of readers marching to and fro, it feels empty and hollow. And yet, he lowers his voice further, barely audible, whispering, “You ready to hear some crazy shit?”

  ***

  Preston made sure all the doors were securely locked before he led us upstairs to the second floor, turned left, and practically scampered behind a shelf of young adult books, leading us at a bri
sk pace toward the northwestern corner. “We can go in here,” he says. “You know, for privacy.” He uses his jangling set of keys to open a solid oak door that reads, “Study Room 1” in bold white lettering on a black wall plaque.

  The study room is starkly empty of everything but a basic table and four uncomfortable chairs, along with brass pegs on the wall for coats and backpacks. The walls are painted a soft mushroom color. The chairs and desk are a single shade off for variety. Seems like the decorator was a total wild man.

  “Sit, sit,” Preston begs, pulling the chairs out for us.

  We do, and he sits down on the opposite side, lifting his eyes to the ceiling, shaking his head. “Okay, here goes. I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this. Unless, of course, you guys already know what I know, but then I doubt that would be the case because you probably wouldn’t be here if you did and—”

  “Preston?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We don’t know anything.”

  He leans across the table. “You didn’t hear this from me. Not a word of it, because this is some storybook plotline stuff right here. Dangerous, too.”

  “Sounds juicy.” Dakota leans up on her elbows.

  Preston dips his head to the side, clucks his tongue once. “Not the word I would use, but yeah.”

  I feel a bit lost because I forgot to bring a notebook with me. That was my role on the show; I was supposed to follow everyone around with a notebook and act like I was taking notes. Occasionally I would mumble something in the affirmative and look like what I was scribbling down was terribly important.

  You know what I was really doing?

  Playing Sudoku.

  No lie. I’d have Ambrosia or one of the other interns print out some game sets for me, cut the boxes out, and tape them to the yellow-lined paper. You’d probably wouldn’t be surprised how many of those you can go through during a particularly grueling and boring B-roll film day.

  Anyway.

  Preston clears his throat and trips through a handful of false starts before he finally sputters through his top-secret info. And what he tells us about Damon Healy is like a jackhammer to my sternum, which means my earlier instincts about Dakota’s infiltrator were off by miles and millennia.

  Goddamn, was I ever wrong.

  “Damon Healy,” Preston says, knocking on the table, “was into some stupid scary stuff. Séances, animal sacrifices, Ouija board parties with other Fortune 500 CEOs. I haven’t told a soul about this, and one of the reasons is that who would fucking believe it?”

  I say, “Come on, now.” He’s right, because for a moment, I’m feeling like we’ve been totally duped, and this dude just wants us to listen to his nonsense because when is he ever going to get the chance to say he lied to Mike Long and Dakota Freakin’ Bailey, right?

  I push back from the table. “Dude, really? You’re not gonna give us some ‘sold his soul at the crossroads for money’ silliness, are you?” Though Dakota and I had joked about it earlier, I didn’t think I would actually hear it as a reason.

  The hurt in his expression is evident.

  Wow. He’s honestly wounded.

  “No way, Mr. Long. This is a hundred percent truth.”

  Dakota nudges me under the table with her foot.

  “Sorry. Old habits.”

  “I get it, but the thing is, that’s exactly what it was.”

  I snigger in disbelief and rock back on the chair’s hind legs. “I’m—sorry, continue, please.”

  Seems like I might be working my way onto Preston’s Shit List, because he turns away from me and tries Dakota. “They would have these meetings there at least once a month, sometimes more. They dressed up in robes and lit these blood-colored candles. If you were out on the beach, especially at night, there were so many candles going that you could see it from a quarter of a mile away. It sits up so high—of course you know what I’m talking about, you live there. It sits up high enough that nobody could ever look in to see what was going on, right?”

  I ask, “How do you know this?”

  “That friend I mentioned, his dad was there once.”

  “And he told his son about some secret robe-wearing ritual?”

  “I know, I know. But don’t forget, the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.”

  “And this friend of yours believed his dad?”

  “Well, yeah, why wouldn’t he?”

  “Uh, proof, maybe?” I let the chair drop back on all fours, then lean on the table, elbows propping me up. “Man, I’m really not trying to bust your chops here. Honest to God. And, look, Dakota is already freaked out. First and foremost, I’m trying to protect her, especially her emotions about all this, and to tell you the truth, I’ve seen and heard all of this before, especially with movie stars and musicians—”

  “Sean Franks,” Preston interrupts. “That episode in Hollywood where he lied to you about what was going on in his house.”

  “Exactly. Dude was playing us for exposure. Somehow his producers learned what our production schedule would be, right? Turns out, what they’d done was bribe somebody at TPC headquarters to find out when his episode would air so he could promote his movie.”

  Dakota interjects, “Which was a piece of shit, by the way. I remember some critic saying a statue could’ve given a better performance.”

  “Yup. Total waste of three hours. Anyway, my point is, we heard these stories constantly. Souls sold at discounts prices for fame and fortune. Meet me down at the crossroads after midnight.”

  “There’s nothing for me to get out of this, Mr. Long. The opposite, actually. I could lose, well…” Preston’s voice trails into silence. That buried-secrets look returns to his face as he reaches into a pocket and pulls out his cell phone. “You want proof? My buddy’s dad managed to get a picture,” he says, using his thumb to swipe across the screen, going from photo to photo. “He was looking to dig up dirt on one of his competitors, made some connections and managed to score an invite to one of these little billionaire jerk-off sessions. He pulled some real James Bond type shit to take pictures with these fake glasses he ordered online and—anyway, here, see for yourself.”

  He hands the phone over to me and adds, “It’s like an episode of Crime Watch Nightly, right?”

  I hold my hand over the screen, not looking yet because I want to see where he’s going with this.

  Dakota asks, “Why do you say that?”

  “Brandon’s dad got that picture out, and two days later, they found him dead.”

  “Oh no, that’s horrible. Murdered?”

  “Supposed to look like a suicide,” Preston says. “Lots of detail at the scene. But Brandon and I, we had that, so we knew better.”

  I wave the phone around. “And now you have the proof? Aren’t you afraid?”

  “Hell yeah, I am.”

  “If it’s all true, trusting you with this is pretty heavy, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yup.”

  “So why do you know?”

  Preston shakes his head, like he simply can’t believe the shit hand that life has dealt him. “I got drunk at a party one night, and poof, wouldn’t you know it, Brandon’s sister ended up pregnant. She lost the baby, but this is still my penance. I’m the dead man’s switch if anything ever happens to Brandon.” He notes the confused look on Dakota’s face and explains, “A dead man’s switch basically just means I’m supposed to open the floodgates if he dies—gets murdered.”

  I ask, “And he wants you to do that why?”

  “Exposure. Publicity.” He takes a long second before he adds, “Bribery.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m not telling you how much, but Healy deposits a healthy amount into an untraceable account each month. If that stops, or if anything happens to Brandon…let it rain.”

  Dakota says, “Is that why Healy sold the beach house and moved to whatever island he bought?”

  “I’d say so, yeah. Doesn’t mean that Brandon isn’t always looking over his s
houlder. His hair is falling out. He’s lost about sixty pounds. The stress is eating him alive.”

  “If Healy’s payoff money is going into an untraceable account, send your buddy into hiding. What’s the big deal?”

  “He’s gone already, but this is like trying to run away from cancer. You can’t escape your own paranoia.”

  I shake my head and push Preston’s phone back across the table. “If what you’re saying is true, we shouldn’t even be here. I don’t want any part of it. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life hiding from some billionaire on a mission. Besides, what does any of this have a damn thing to do with Dakota’s house being haunted?”

  “I thought—” He stops himself, rubs the bridge of his nose. “I thought, eventually, whoever moved to that house after Healy left might show up here, just like you did, to check on the place’s history. Then, I could use them as a cover to get to you.”

  “To get to me? What do you mean?”

  “I was trying to be careful. I figured it would set off alarms if I started asking around about where you lived or how I could get in touch with you.”

  “I’m in the goddamn phonebook.”

  “Who uses a phonebook anymore?”

  Point made, so I drop that line and ask, “What were you hoping I could do?”

  “Totally a long shot, but I kinda hoped that if I got to you, you’d hear this story I’m telling you, and then send that demon thing that’s in the house to wherever Healy might be since he conjured it up. If something was haunting him, maybe he’d forget about Brandon, and I could get this fucking picture off my phone. I don’t want to be a failsafe anymore.”

  I stare at him in disbelief for so long, Dakota touches my arm to bring me back around. I’ve had enough. This is insane. “What the immortal fuck are you talking about? Are you fucking with me? Do you know how many holes are in that plan? What if you weren’t working the day somebody came to look for information? What if nobody ever did? What if, what if, what if. And did you really think I could just call up this demon and hand him a map to the south Pacific and tell him where to go? You’re kidding me with this, right? I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a stupider plan—”