Shadow People

by James Swain

  “He’s here in New York.”

  “Really. May I ask how you came about this information?”

  “Peter and his girlfriend just left my office. They are having issues and needed counseling. A strange twist of fate that he would seek me out.”

  “Everything happens for a reason, Dr. Sierra. Please tell me, how is Peter coping?”

  “Not well. He’s battling with his demons, so to speak.”

  “Did you talk to him about his past?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t tell him what happened?”

  “The situation was not right. That’s why I contacted you. I thought we could do it together, being that we were both involved. It might…”

  “Lessen the blow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me an hour. I still remember your address,” Hunsinger said.

  18

  New York was constantly reinventing itself. The neighborhood around Sierra’s office was a perfect example. It was known as Kips Bay, yet most New Yorkers now called it Curry Hill for the many authentic Indian restaurants that had opened there. Saravana Bhavan was Peter and Liza’s favorite of the bunch, and it specialized in South Indian fare of dosas and vegetarian plates.

  The owner greeted them cheerfully at the front door. It was a family operation, with his wife behind the register, his son working the kitchen. He escorted them to a table in the back.

  “Menus? Or are we having the usual?” the owner asked.

  “The usual,” Peter replied.

  The breakfast crowd had thinned out, and the restaurant was quiet. Soon the owner served them crispy lentil doughnuts with sambar and chutney, and cups of steaming Madras coffee. Liza munched silently on a doughnut.

  “Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked.

  “I’m not hungry,” Peter replied.

  “You’re always hungry. Eat something. It will make you feel better.”

  He bit into a doughnut. It was deliciously warm and melted in his mouth. Liza sipped her coffee before speaking again. “What happened back there at the doctor’s office?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered truthfully.

  “It was ugly.”

  “How ugly is ugly?”

  “On a scale of one to ten, it was a nine.”

  “With a ten being my throwing Sierra out the window?”

  “I sure hope not. Why did you act like that?”

  He stared at his reflection in his plate. Sierra’s question about the demon coming out after his parents had died had hit a nerve. It was as if Sierra had known about the demon, and was baiting him. But how could that be? He’d never met Sierra until this morning. Except for the Friday night psychics and Liza, no one knew about his special powers or his past, and he planned to keep it that way. The only reason he told the doctor was because of the doctor/patient oath, and he was already regretting that he had done so.

  “You cry in your sleep a lot,” Liza said. “Did you know that?”

  What an icebreaker. He shook his head.

  “What do you dream about?” she asked.

  “Can we talk about this some other time?”

  “No more running away. I want to know.”

  “I dream about the night I lost my parents.”

  “Were you traumatized?”

  There are events in a person’s life which change everything. The night of his parents’ deaths was such an event. His life had been one thing before, another thing ever since. Not a fair thing to do to a seven-year-old, but life was hardly fair. He’d accepted that hard fact long ago.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Is the dream always the same?”

  “Pretty much. Three men whisk my parents down an alley in the theater district. I start to run after them, fall down, and rip my pants. When I look up, my mother and father are being hustled into the back of a waiting car. My mother looks over her shoulder at me. Her face tells me everything. I’m never going to see her or my father alive again.”

  “Your mother knew she was going to die?”

  “People were chasing them. They left England and came to New York. She knew.”

  “You were seven. You’re twenty-five now, and still having nightmares. Don’t you think you should talk to Sierra about this?”

  “I’m not going back there. Sierra’s no good.”

  “He’s a highly respected expert in his field. You’re just making excuses.”

  One doughnut remained on the plate. Peter tore it in half, and munched on his piece. He was not going to let Dr. Sierra peel back the layers of his soul. Not in this lifetime.

  “Is that a no?” Liza asked.

  “Let’s find someone else,” he suggested.

  “And start over? You think I want a repeat of this? No, thanks.”

  He wiped his mouth on a napkin and looked across the table at Liza. “Why are you stuck on this guy? Do you like seeing me getting hurt?”

  “That was low,” she said.

  “Do you?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Why are you the only one that gets to ask the tough questions?”

  “I’m going outside. Come out when you have something nice to say.”

  “Can I have the other half of the doughnut?”

  “Is that supposed to be a joke? You’re not funny.”

  Peter stuffed the remaining piece of doughnut into his mouth as Liza walked out the front door. He hadn’t told her the whole story about his nightmares. The pain of his parents’ passing had eased over time. What hadn’t gone away was the helplessness he’d felt as they were abducted. The pained expression on his mother’s face was one he’d never forget. Help us, her eyes had cried out. Help us.

  But by the time he’d reached the street, the car was gone.

  He’d failed her and his father.

  That was why he wept in his sleep at night.

  * * *

  The key to dealing with tragedy was to avoid thinking about it. But that wasn’t always possible. When Peter thought about the night he’d lost his parents, it made him grow angry, and the demon reared its ugly head.

  “Help!” a voice cried out.

  The owner raced out of the kitchen, followed by his son. Both men had their arms in the air and were moving fast. The owner grabbed his wife from behind the cash register, and the family fled to the street.

  The restaurant was filling with smoke. Rising from his chair, Peter pushed open the swinging kitchen door to see what the problem was. A grease fire on the stove had jumped onto a wall and was burning out of control. The demon inside of him was like that. It was capable of creating havoc and destruction with little regard for the consequences. It had no conscience, or sense of right and wrong.

  He looked straight up. The kitchen ceiling had turned transparent. In the apartment above the restaurant, an older Italian couple was eating a late breakfast. In the apartment next door, four women were playing gin rummy while chatting away. Next door to them, a young mother was nursing a newborn. The building’s other apartment units were also occupied. So was the apartment building next door. It was filled with people, maybe fifty in all.

  They were all about to die.

  Within moments, the fire would be as hot as a nova, and eat through the structure with the speed of a runaway train. Once that happened, there would be no stopping it. It would race up the walls of both buildings, becoming so hot that the bricks would catch fire. The occupants of both buildings would hear a loud whoosh! like the sound of wind passing through a tunnel. That would be the last thing they heard. No a soul would be spared.

  The fire trucks would come, and the city’s bravest would give battle to the roaring flames, but it would be too little, too late. The block between 26th and 27th streets would be destroyed, the street’s foundation buckling from the heat. Before it was eventually contained, the fire would destroy tens of millions of dollars in real estate and ruin countless lives.

  And Peter knew in his bones that it was no mere accident,
that it had been his temper that had started the fire.

  But Peter also knew that the things he started he could stop. It wasn’t easy, but he could do it. He walked into kitchen and faced the burning wall. The fire had eaten through the plaster, and was heading to the second floor. He had a few seconds at most to stop it.

  He had to make the demon leave. There was only one way to do that—through his mind. He thought back to when he was a kid, and the Sunday afternoons he’d spent with his father going to see the Yankees play in the Bronx. His father had showered him with attention, and bought him baseball caps and hot dogs and anything else his heart had desired. They were his fondest childhood memories, and he could not help but smile.

  The demon began to recede into the deepest regions of his soul. It was like pushing back a boulder, and took all his strength. As it did, the flames rolled down the wall and returned to the frying pan on the stove. The heat vanished, and the choking smoke evaporated like fog being burned off by the sun. The room returned to normal in the blink of an eye.

  Even Peter had to marvel at the illusion.

  Liza stood at the open door with her hand over her mouth.

  “Holy shit,” she said. “Did you do that?”

  “I sure did,” he said.

  He heard voices. The owner and his son were coming back. Peter couldn’t explain what he’d just done without exposing his psychic powers to them.

  “Stall them,” he told her.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Stall them. Please.”

  Liza turned around and blocked the owner and his son and from entering. Peter found a fire extinguisher hanging on the wall, and he quickly doused the room with white foam until the interior looked as if a snowstorm had hit it.

  “All clear,” he called out.

  Liza stepped away from the doorway, and they rushed in. The owner clapped his hands together joyously, and embraced the young magician.

  “Thank you for saving my restaurant,” he exclaimed.

  * * *

  The police were the first to show up, followed by a fire truck and an ambulance, then more police, followed by a gaggle of onlookers. Peter had wanted to bolt, but did not want to raise eyebrows. So he gave a statement to a uniformed cop, and asked if he could leave. The cop said okay, and they headed up Lexington Avenue with their heads bowed to the punishing wind.

  “Did you cause that fire to happen?” Liza asked, her hands tucked in her pockets.

  “I think so. I was mad.”

  “Bad things happen when you get angry.”

  “I’ve never burned down a building before. I know that sounds juvenile, but it’s true.”

  “I believe you. But there could always be a first time.”

  “You want me to go back and see Sierra, don’t you?”

  “He was trying to help us. Why can’t you see that?”

  “It didn’t feel like help. It felt like torture.”

  “Just give it a shot. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “How many times is a shot?”

  “Just one more.”

  Peter could deal with that, and said okay. Liza said she would contact Sierra’s office and schedule another session. They stopped and kissed and things were good again. He felt like a regular human being whenever he was with her, and wondered if the trick to having a normal life was to never let her out of his sight. Not a bad solution.

  They decided to walk home. It was a long hike, and would let them clear their heads. They headed up Lex with the city’s thrum in their ears. Buses rumbled, horns honked, and a car alarm wailed like a colicky baby. A racket to some, they were the noises Peter had known his entire life, and sounded like music. It was not hard for him to imagine Gershwin in the sound of garbage cans being thrown, or a symphony in the roar of a subway. By the time they reached the brownstone, the morning’s bad events had faded into the past.

  Walking up the front steps, Peter had his keys out when he heard a car door slam. The sound was not friendly, and he spun around to see Garrison climb out of his parked SUV. The look on the FBI agent’s face was nothing but trouble.

  “Just the man I was looking for,” Garrison said.

  PART II

  SHADOW PEOPLE

  19

  Special Agent Garrison was a man of simple tastes. His wardrobe ran from blazers and dark trousers to sweatshirts and blue jeans. Today, he wore faded denims and a charcoal gray cardigan.

  “You need to start keeping your cell phone on,” the FBI agent said. “I’ve been looking for you all morning.”

  Not on Mondays. On Mondays, Peter’s cell phone was turned off while he and Liza roamed the city’s neighborhoods.

  “Peter put out a fire at a restaurant in Kips Bay this morning,” Liza jumped in. “He was a hero.”

  Peter squeezed Liza’s hand. She hadn’t told Garrison the whole story of how he’d lost his temper and accidentally set the restaurant’s kitchen fire, and it made him love her that much more. Garrison acted impressed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Nice going. I realize this is your day off, but I’ve got a situation on my hands and I need your help. Do you mind coming downtown with me for a little while?”

  Peter tried to help the law whenever possible. He also tried to have a life with Liza. Right now, the two were colliding. “Where to?”

  “Grand Central Station. The police caught a shadow person running through the terminal on a surveillance camera. I want you to have a look, see what you think.”

  Peter instinctively touched his shirt, and felt the five-pointed star around his neck. Liza did the same. Their recent encounter with the shadow person was still fresh in their minds.

  “What do you think?” he asked Liza.

  “By all means, go. Maybe you can catch this thing.”

  “You’re welcome to come along.”

  She shook her head. They got only one day a week off. Liza used some of that time to talk with her family, whom she regularly stayed in touch with. “I need to talk to CiCi. She’s been having difficulty with one of the routines in the act.”

  Liza’s younger sister CiCi had replaced Liza in the family troupe, and Liza continued to coach her whenever possible.

  “Tell her I said hi,” Peter said.

  “I will. Please be careful. Don’t let that thing kidnap you again.”

  They kissed and Liza went inside the brownstone. Garrison tapped his shoulder, and Peter climbed into the passenger seat of the SUV without a word. As he was strapping himself in, the vehicle lurched away from the curb like a wild animal jumping out of a cage.

  * * *

  The fluid human dance of Grand Central was best viewed from the main concourse. A mammoth space framed by high windows, glittering constellations in the ceiling, and a double staircase at either end, it was here that a person could observe the complex patterns made by arriving and departing passengers on the Connecticut and Westchester railroads. During rush hour, it was one of the busiest areas of the city, and one of the loudest. That changed once rush hour ended and the commuters cleared out. Then it became a tourist site, with group tours and lots of pictures being snapped of the famous architecture. Garrison hurried up the staircase on the west side with Peter glued to his side.

  “I analyzed the film of the shadow person your smart-mouthed assistant shot,” Garrison said. “You’re not going to believe what I found.”

  “His name is Snoop, and he’s my best friend,” Peter said.

  “He’s got a bad attitude and is a threat to national security.”

  “Just because he can hack your computers doesn’t make him a threat.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  They hurried down a marble hallway. With multiple exits and doors leading to multiple train platforms, it was easy to get lost, and Peter realized he didn’t know where he was.

  “I examined the video of the shadow person frame by frame like you suggested,” Garrison went on. “I was able to make out a face.”

  �
��Man or woman?”

  “It looks like a woman, but that’s just a guess.”

  They stopped at a door marked NYPD—NO ENTRANCE at the hallway’s end, and Garrison rapped loudly.

  “I told you—no cops,” Peter said in alarm.

  “There aren’t any cops here right now. You’re safe.”

  “Then what are we doing here?”

  “I sent the video to the NYPD, and asked them to run it against their database of collected images from the past thirty days. The cops have thousands of surveillance cameras in the city, and I figured one of them might have spotted your ghost. Sure enough, I was right. The Grand Central team found the shadow person on a tape, and alerted me.”

  “You gave the police the video?” Peter asked. “I’m on it, for Christ’s sake. And so is Liza.”

  “I didn’t tell them anything about your involvement, and neither did anyone on my team.”

  “The police aren’t stupid. They’ll make the connection.”

  “Which is what? That you were visited by a ghost? If they contact you, play dumb.”

  There were times when Peter wished he’d never struck a deal with Garrison. The FBI agent didn’t know how to keep a secret, and might someday blow Peter’s cover, and mistakenly tell the world who the young magician really was.

  The door swung in, and Special Agent Nan Perry ushered them into a windowless room lined with video screens monitoring the ebb and flow of the terminal concourse. The lighting was muted, and the images popped off the screens. As promised, there were no cops.

  Garrison’s team sat at desks facing the screens. Each agent was at a keyboard with an odd-looking joystick. Peter had seen those joysticks before. Back when he was breaking in his act, he’d worked at one of Trump’s lavish casinos in Atlantic City, and had been given a private tour of the casino’s surveillance room, where he’d been shown how cheaters were caught trying to scam the games. The cheaters’ moves were invisible to the naked eye, but they weren’t invisible to the cameras, and they all got caught.

  “This looks like a Pelco DX system,” Peter said.