by E. C. Bell
“Sometimes.”
James and I left her apartment and walked down to the street without saying anything. I was boiling over with questions, the biggest being, “Why didn’t we take her case?” but I let him set the pace, and soon we were on our way to the car. He didn’t speak until he’d plucked the parking ticket off the windshield and we were both inside and buckled up.
“Park’s full again,” he said.
Life had indeed returned to the park.
For a second, I thought I saw the light of a spirit floating around amongst the addicts, but gave my head a great big mental shake. Much as I’d hoped that Eddie would’ve shown up at the park, my guess was it wasn’t him. It was probably some other dead person, and that was the last thing I needed in my life at that moment.
“Why didn’t we say we’d take her case?” I asked James. “All we have to do is—”
“Is what? Prove she didn’t kill him? How are we going to do that?” James shook his head impatiently. “Marie, I don’t have a clue how to proceed—and I still don’t know anything about her. Not really.”
“So she was right,” I said, softly. “Wasn’t she?”
“What do you mean?”
“You still think she’s either crazy or trying to con us. Don’t you?”
James looked at me, surprise on his face. “Don’t you? What about the fact she’s been in and out of mental hospitals most of her life? And she thinks she’s having visions? Hey, and don’t forget her saying she channeled writers for two years . . .”
“She explained that,” I said, talking over his voice and wishing he’d just shut up about everything she’d told us. Mostly because it did sound crazy, and I didn’t know how to convince him otherwise.
“Some explanation,” he said shortly.
“She isn’t calling herself crazy, James. She’s calling herself a clairvoyant.”
“Same, same,” he said dismissively. “But what if it is all a con? What if she’s trying to use us to throw the cops off her trail?”
“Why would she do that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he snapped. “Maybe because we’re desperate for money and would do just about anything for it.”
“And by ‘we’ you mean ‘me,’” I said. “Right?”
“Well, you are quite motivated,” he replied. “What I don’t get is why you’re buying into any of her craziness at all.”
“Well, there are these,” I said, holding out the sheaf of sketches we’d taken from Honoria’s apartment. “Don’t you think they’re something?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Something.”
That horrible tone was back in his voice. He didn’t believe. I looked at the sketches clutched in my hand and tried one more time. “Maybe it’s like she said. Maybe everything we need to know is here. All we have to do is decipher them.”
“You’re kidding, right?” James said. “They prove nothing.”
“But what about Eddie’s mom’s place?” I asked. “Honoria drew it, and I drove right there. I met her.”
“And you didn’t ask if Eddie’s mom knew her. Because you believe her,” he said. “Even through all the crazy talk. You still believe her. But we have to do the right thing, Marie. We have to check everything out.”
“You mean we have to prove she’s either crazy or conning us.”
“Yes.”
“Because she says she sees the dead?”
“For one thing. Come on, Marie, only a crazy person would—”
“Screw you, James!” He pushed the biggest button I have, and my rage was instant and complete. “Do you honestly believe you know everything? That you have some kind of special power that allows you to determine the insane from the sane, just by looking at them? Don’t you think that maybe—just maybe—there are a couple of things you don’t know? That maybe you haven’t seen everything there is to see?”
“Marie, relax,” James said. “She was in a mental hospital, for goodness’ sake! Everybody knows she’s nuts! She might even be dangerous—”
And then, I lost it.
“Dangerous? Dangerous? She’s not crazy, and she’s not a danger to us! And you are being a great huge steaming pile of assholes about this whole thing! She needs our help. She doesn’t need us being all judgey and jerky. I’m betting she has enough of that in her life already! And if you won’t take her case, James, well, maybe I’ll take it all on my own! Can’t you see she just wants help?”
“Whoa!” James cried. “A steaming pile of what?”
“Assholes,” I said, but without much enthusiasm. I felt kind of bad for calling him that. Felt that maybe, just maybe, I’d overreacted just a tad.
“Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said any of that. Seeing her—it upset me.”
“I see that.”
“Can we just go back to the office, please?”
“All right,” he said, but the look he gave me was not a good one. The “steaming pile of assholes” conversation wasn’t over yet. I could just tell.
Eddie:
What a High’s Like When You’re Dead
I WAS SURPRISED to see Needle Park was nearly empty. Almost as surprised as I was at not bouncing back to the crucifixion tree. I had concentrated all the way to the park, but I didn’t think that would make such a big difference. Apparently it did.
I wasn’t hurting as much as I had been earlier in the day. This also surprised me. This is not the way it normally works. It had been days since I got high. Normally by this time I’m puking my guts out and screaming for help.
Actually, since the tree, I hadn’t hurt much at all. Some, yeah. Coulda used a hit, no doubt about it, but nowhere near as bad as it has been.
I wouldn’t have minded a little something, though. And that was the truth.
So I was pretty happy to see my street sister, Noreen, when I got to the edge of the park. I had been looking for Crank, even though I didn’t know what he could have done for me. That son of a bitch never helped me much—without money—even when I was alive, but I could count on him. His stuff was always clean. Well, cleaner than most.
My mind dove away from that thought, because it reminded me of Luke, and I didn’t want to think about him. Because of me, he was dead.
Hell, because of me, I was dead. But as I walked through the small groups of people standing around talking about the latest bust—looked like I just missed it, lucky me—I couldn’t keep my thoughts from Luke Stewart.
Growing up, he’d been my best friend in the whole world. Poor son of a bitch, his dad was a cop, and that had been pretty hard on him. He’d tried to do right by that asshole, but it was like nothing he did was good enough. Guess I was half lucky that my dad hadn’t stuck around. At least I hadn’t had to go through what Luke did.
Luke never took drugs. That was the funny thing about him. Me? Man, started as soon as I could, and never let it go. But Luke tried to do life on the straight and narrow for his old man. And I think if his old man had ever let up on him, even for a minute, he would have done all right. Got married, house with the white picket fence, all that. But his old man was always on his back. Until one day, Luke just couldn’t take it anymore.
He’d watched me get high, lots of times. I wasn’t shy about it, and he didn’t seem to mind. Until that last time, six months ago. Six months ago, almost to the day.
Thinking about that started the pangs until I was jonesing something fierce.
That’s when I saw Noreen coming back out of the alley, and I could tell by that blank, orgasmic look that I’d caught her moments after smoking. I walked up to her, and I actually started to drool. Like I was starving and could see a steak.
Don’t know what made me do it, but I reached my hand out to her arm, through her arm, and for a second I could feel the blood pulsing in her veins, could almost feel the warmth, and there was something else, a tingle. A hint of her high transferred to me. When she shuffled past me, the feeling was gone.
Almost made me cry, being
that close to getting high and then having it walk on like that.
“Stop!” I cried. Or some such shit. Who really knows what I said? I was crying—don’t know when that started, could have been when I thought about Luke, or when I felt that ghost of a high through Noreen’s scarred-up skin—and I ran after her. “Wait, Noreen! Please wait!”
It was like she heard me. Stopped short and looked around. And I ran right into her.
When I say I ran into her, I’m not kidding. I ran right into her body. Felt her heart beat in my chest—hers was pounding like a racehorse’s run close to death, I recognized the feeling—and felt her warmth. And then her high hit me full-bore, and I knew if I’d seen my face in a mirror, I would have had exactly the same blank look that she had on hers.
She stood still for about five seconds, then moved on, but five seconds was enough. I was flying, flying, flying, and didn’t even care that she’d walked away.
My knees buckled, and I ended up on my ass on the ground. Still didn’t care. Felt good. Felt great. Felt my mind slip away, so I didn’t notice the garbage or the dirt or the fight that broke out next to me. Didn’t notice anything at all. Just felt at peace. That peace you feel for those three seconds after climaxing. All thoughts gone, and every good hormone in your body running through your system congratulating the hell out of you for doing your best to keep the human race going. That one. You know that one. But it went on and on, and just before I slipped onto my side and closed my eyes, I felt as good as I ever had before. Living or dead.
OPENED MY EYES. The screaming good part of the high was just about gone. All that was left was the capacity to deal with life for a few hours. Looked around and groaned.
“Dammit.”
I was back at the crucifixion tree.
I pulled myself upright, and almost without thinking, hit the sidewalk. Took ten steps, then stopped and thought. Where was I going? Realized I’d been thinking of going to my mom’s, and I stopped in my tracks. There was someplace else. Someplace better.
That girl. Marie Jenner. I needed to see her.
So I headed back to the Jimmy Lavall Detective Agency, over in Chinatown.
“This is the last time, girl,” I muttered under my breath as I stumbled along the sidewalks, but I knew I was lying. Even if she wasn’t there, I’d wait.
Whatever it took. I needed her. She could help me.
Somehow, I knew that.
Marie:
This Night Just Goes On and On and On . . .
JAMES BARELY SPOKE a word to me the whole way back to the office, and I was getting as jumpy as a cat. Under normal circumstances that can make me mean, but I did my best to keep it under control. It was now nearly 12:30, and I was really tired. Didn’t want another long-winded discussion about me and my stupid ideas and my overreacting. I just wanted to be able to lie down for a little while, then head back out with the sketches, find Dead Eddie, and get him to explain them to me.
He was the key to the whole thing, darn it anyhow.
James stopped, and I nearly ran into him. “So, are you going to stay here tonight?” he asked.
“If you don’t mind,” I said, primly. I felt my face heat, and then felt ridiculous.
“You can stay here anytime,” he said. “You know that.”
“I know.” I was even more uncomfortable and skipped ahead of him so I could be the one to open the door.
The building was quiet and a little bit creepy. The only time I ever felt that way was when a ghost was around. I frowned, wondering if maybe Eddie had finally figured out where I was. Maybe I wasn’t going to have to look for him after all. That would have been a massive break. But I didn’t see him anywhere.
Nope, something else was giving me the creepy feeling, and it didn’t take long for me to figure out what it was.
We came out of the stairwell and walked down the short hallway to the door of the office. Except the door to the office had been kicked in.
“What’s going on here?” James breathed, stepping through the open doorway.
“Wait,” I whispered. But it was too late.
He was already well into the office, and I could hear his shoes crunching on glass and debris. Debris in our nice little office. I sighed and stepped through the door myself.
Someone had certainly done a number on the place. Everything was pulled apart and broken. All the drawers of my desk hung open, and everything that had been sitting on it was now scattered all over the floor.
“Shit,” I whispered. “Shit shit shit . . .”
I crept toward the door that led to the inner office. James was already in there, and I could hear him. I didn’t want to look, but I had to.
It too was a wreck. James had picked up a book that had been ripped in half, and I thought he was going to cry.
“Why would someone do such a thing?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, and walked closer to him. The place still felt massively creepy, even though I could see that no one was here but us. Living or dead.
He gently put the ripped book on the empty desk. “Who would have done this?”
I felt a flutter of something close to guilt. “Maybe I rattled a cage or two at the park.”
“But—”
“Or maybe it was that cop, trying to figure out what I was doing there.”
“The cop?” James looked confused. “Why would either a cop or someone from the park have showed up here? At my office?”
I heard the “my”, and my face warmed. “It might have been because I gave a guy at the park one of your business cards,” I whispered. “And I used this address when I was arrested.”
His face showed no emotion, but his eyebrows raised until I was afraid they were going to get lost in his hairline. “You were handing out business cards at the park?”
“Just one, but yeah.”
“Maybe don’t do that again.” He still looked relatively calm, but his eyebrows hadn’t dropped back to their usual place on his forehead.
“All right.” I looked around so I didn’t have to look at him. “It could have been the cop, though. The cop that busted me. Stew, I think his name was.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “Maybe.” Then he frowned again. “But why?”
“I don’t know!” I cried, then shook my head, and tried to calm down. “I don’t know.” I looked around at the mess. “We going to call the cops?”
“Let’s see if they took anything first,” James said. “Might give us a clue who did this.”
We looked around, but could see nothing missing. Just stuff wrecked. As though someone had come in looking for—something—and then had a temper tantrum when they couldn’t find it.
“I think I’m glad the cops still have our computers,” I said. “Maybe this didn’t have anything to do with the park. Maybe somebody decided to rob you. You think?”
“I guess,” he replied, but didn’t sound convinced. “There’s nothing missing though, is there?”
I went back out and looked around the outer office, but still could see nothing missing. My daytimer was lying facedown on the floor. I picked it up and looked at the page to which it had been opened. Bits and pieces of my day written down on nearly every page—and Honoria’s name and the time of our initial meeting. Under that I had written “Eddie Hansen.”
I was relieved to see I’d forgotten to write down our meeting with Honoria that evening. I would have written in her address, and I had a feeling that would have been a very bad thing.
I carried the daytimer into James’s office, and held it out. “It was turned to this page,” I said.
He looked at it. Shook his head. “I knew that woman was going to be trouble.”
“Or maybe we’re bringing trouble to her,” I replied.
“Yeah,” he said, and pulled his cell from his pocket.
“It’s James,” he said after quite a long pause. “I’m sorry I woke you, Honoria, but I wanted to make sure you were all right.” He leaned over and plucked a
piece of wood from the cuff of his jeans, tossing it to the floor with the rest of the garbage.
“We had a break-in here,” he said. “And I just wanted to make sure— No. I don’t think so. Yes, I probably will.” He rolled his eyes at me, then, when I giggled—and why did I giggle like a kid at him? It was so embarrassing!—he turned his back to me and continued to answer her obviously panicky questions.
“So, who’s he talking to?”
The voice was right behind me. I whirled, ready to do battle, scared almost out of my mind, and faced Dead Eddie Hansen. Face to dead face.
“How ya doin’?” he asked, and grinned, his teeth black, broken, and really quite horrible. They looked way too old for his young face. “I didn’t think I’d ever catch up with you.”
He’d found me. Finally! He’d look at the sketches, tell me who had really killed him, I’d tell James—making up some suitably plausible lie concerning how I found this information out—and we’d be done.
I glanced at James. He was still standing with his back to me with his cell phone pressed to his ear, so I turned to Eddie and pointed through the open door to the other room.
He shrugged and led the way. I followed him, trying to figure out the best way to get the information out of him without him getting upset. Upset ghosts were always more trouble than they were worth.
He watched me, a fuzzy smile on his face. I think he was pleasant-looking at one time, but not anymore. He looked used-up. Paper-thin, his hands and face covered with old scabs and scratches that hadn’t healed before his death. Plus the big new ones, of course. The great huge holes where the spikes had gone through both hands, and a bashed-in bit on his forehead. I glanced down at his feet and could see carpet through a hole in one foot. The other one wasn’t quite as bad, but close enough. I felt sick and pulled my line of sight back up to his face. His teeth might be bad, but at least I could stand looking at them.
“Look pretty bad, don’t I?” he asked.
“You don’t look too good.”
“Haven’t for a while.” He grinned. “But I’m feeling good now.”
