by Eve Paludan
“We’ll have to do some serious digging,” I said, trying to pun Ellen into a small smile. I succeeded.
Diego said, “I’ve only owned the building for six months, but as far as I know, it was only an old warehouse before I converted it to artists’ studios and working art galleries for the co-op. When I bought the building, I was under the impression that it was always a warehouse at this address. But there has been remodeling.”
“We’ll see what we find out,” Ellen said. “For tonight, I am completely bushed! Monty and I are really going to have to say goodnight.”
We all said our goodbyes for the evening.
It didn’t escape me that before we left, Diego had asked for Sandy’s phone number and when she handed him her business card for the cab company, he kissed her goodnight in that polite way that older gentlemen do when courting a younger woman. With respect and restrained passion.
Her hand over her mouth in awe at all that had transpired that evening, Sandy took us back to our hotel and promised to pick us up at nine in the morning for breakfast, and then for a research trip to the library. We had one more day to get rid of the fire-starting poltergeist and the spirit of the chupacabra at the art gallery before the First Friday Art Walk. Diego was almost beside himself, trying to get us to stay there all night and finish the job, but I told him that Ellen needed to recharge her psychic batteries to do battle tomorrow.
As soon as we got out of Sandy’s cab-van in front of the hotel and she pulled away, Ellen said, “We’ve still got two hours left of our wedding anniversary! Race ya!”
Oh, that tease! I loved it that she could switch gears to our private life.
Ellen and I swiftly walked through the gorgeous mirrored lobby at the Viceroy and made a beeline for our swanky hotel room, where we stripped, letting our clothes fall where they may, and took a shower together. Determined to use all of the amenities, we then got into our in-room Jacuzzi, and made love like we were in our twenties instead of like two people in a midlife crisis.
Then I carried her to bed and made love to her again, tenderly, like it was our last night on Earth. I was so scared to lose her, more scared of anything I had ever been in my life, and somehow, my adrenalin of the night translated into a very passionate encounter with the love of my life. It felt profound and meaningful, like we were claiming each other all over again, from the day that we met, until now. I didn’t just see my life flash before me. I saw my love flash before me, and Ellen was that love. Over and over.
We fell asleep in each other’s arms. She felt incredible, sleeping against me, my beautiful Ellen. I loved her more than I ever had. I dreamed of her all night long, of her wearing the blue chalcedony pendant and nothing else. In my dream, the stone glowed with a benevolent protective energy, as if it had taken on a life of its own.
Chapter Twelve
Chocolate pancakes before research. That was on my agenda. Right under solving our poltergeist mystery, of course.
The next morning, as Sandy drove us in her cab-van on the Pacific Coast Highway to the Original Pancake House in Redondo Beach, I enjoyed the scenery while Ellen tried to renegotiate our ghost investigation and poltergeist removal fee. I heard the whole thing on the cell phone speaker: Diego was increasingly desperate as the clock ticked toward First Friday’s Art Walk in Venice and the grand opening of the co-op gallery.
Diego agreed to cut our bill in half for the artwork and furniture that we’d bought, but he wanted at least the poltergeist entity removed before the grand opening of the gallery and the Art Walk. He knew that he shouldn’t have brought the stuffed chupacabra into the building and Ellen told him that we would do our best to remove the spirit that he had let loose with the crazy spell he had found on the internet to recall a dead loved one, but that removal of the chupacabra spirit would be secondary to solving the ghost fire issue.
He said he couldn’t afford to have any fires when customers were there, so we focused on that as a priority.
Ellen said, “We will do our best to clean house of all paranormal activity. See you later today.” She hung up.
I said, “Good luck with that. All paranormal activity? And really, Ellen, trying to get a deal on the furniture for our services is brilliant and clever.”
She smiled at me and said softly, “I’m going to give Sandy something extra, over and above her chauffeuring us around in her cab because she has been active at helping us solve this paranormal mystery. Her Tarot reading last night was spectacular.”
“I didn’t even think of that,” I said. “But of course, she deserves it.”
“I read you loud and clear about the purchases and our stay at the Viceroy. You are broadcasting your money worry thoughts all over the place. But by the time I am finished negotiating with Diego for the artwork and furniture, and we have removed the negative entities from the co-op gallery, and even paid Sandy a bonus for psychic services, there is still hope that you’ll be able to buy that 1968 Shelby GT500 convertible when we retire.”
“How did you know about that?” I asked. “I’ve never told you a thing about it!”
She smiled. “Some men hide girlie magazines under the mattress. You hide car magazines with the pages dog-eared of the cars you like the best. It wasn’t hard to figure out where your head was about our nest egg. We’ll see if we can pull off the redecorating and the car, too, for one low, low price of…nothing,” and her voice trailed off.
“Nothing?” I chuckled.
“Just wait and see,” she promised. Ellen was whip smart. I didn’t know how she kept our paranormal investigations business going, but she was really good at it. She could take a circumstance and turn it into an opportunity. I saw her do it again and again, as we stumbled over ghost after ghost and made it our living to relocate them in a homeward-bound direction.
While Sandy insisted on sitting in her cab in the parking lot, burning up the airwaves talking to Diego on her cell and drinking a Slimfast, Ellen and I waited for forty minutes for a table at the Original Pancake House in Redondo Beach. Finally, Ellen had the veggie omelet and she said it was very good. I, of course, ordered the chocolate pancakes; they were served with a pile of chocolate and a mound of powdered sugar.
They were out of this world. Not only that, I asked the waitress for a side of caramel, as I heard someone else do, and when she brought it, and I tried it on the pancakes, I decided it was the second-best thing ever to touch my lips.
Ellen smiled while she ate her omelet like the lady she is, one who didn’t bolt her food, ate right, and took care of herself. I’m ashamed to say that I stole her thick bacon slices off of her plate and ate them as well as my own. She pretended not to notice. They were just so good, and paranormal investigations always made me ravenous. When I came up for air and quit shoveling in the food, she said, “You know that scene in When Harry Met Sally in the restaurant where she pretends to have a good time while eating?”
I nodded while chewing and taking a sip of milk. Ellen said, “Well, you’re kinda making those same noises. Cut it out! There are children in this restaurant.” I cracked up so hard that she almost made my milk come out of my nose.
“These are it, Ellen. These are the best chocolate pancakes I have ever tasted. They’re quintessential. It’s the end of the quest! We need to move to Redondo Beach just for the chocolate pancakes.”
Ellen threw down her napkin in mock surprise. “Wow, who knew the world’s best chocolate pancakes would be at a place called the Original Pancake House? It’s like the world’s best-kept secret that a pancake house would have great pancakes.”
“Sandy knew,” I said. “Sandy knows everything about West L.A. She knows where the bodies are buried in Hollywood Forever, where to find free parking in Santa Monica, and how to get to LAX from West L.A. in twelve minutes, without using the freeway.”
Ellen squeezed my thigh under the table and I almost knocked over the table because I got excited that she was touching me in the restaurant. “I think I know some stuf
f, too, handsome.”
I grinned at her and said, “Please Ellen, there are children in this restaurant. And you are wearing me down to a nub, you passionate young thing.” She cracked up at the word “young.”
After I paid for breakfast, Ellen kissed me in the parking lot, with tongue. My knees got weak. Oh, how that woman can kiss!
She said, “You had powdered sugar on your lips.”
“Maybe we should ask Sandy to take us back to our hotel room for a little nap after all the carbs and sugar. I feel a certain yen coming on for some horizontal gazing into each other’s eyes.”
Ellen said, “Down boy! We need to go to the library. We have a poltergeist to catch and remove, so we can get a deal on the great stuff we bought yesterday for redecorating the house.”
“Okay,” I gave in. “I was meaning to ask you if you still wanted to redecorate the bedroom. I mean, we did spend a lot on the living room and dining room.”
“We’ll get some new sheets and a comforter for the bedroom and call it done,” Ellen said. “We don’t need new furniture in there.”
I exhaled in relief.
“Is that what you thought we were doing? Redoing the bedroom, too?”
I nodded like a beaten man.
“Oh, you poor thing,” Ellen said. “And you didn’t even balk. No, I meant to refurnish the living and dining rooms but just throw some new linens on the bed in our bedroom. Three hundred tops for the new bed linens at Tuesday Morning or Ross. When I said I wanted to redecorate, I didn’t mean for you to think we were gutting the house or anything.”
“Bless you,” I said, relief flooding me. “I thought that yesterday at Diego’s gallery was just the beginning of the spendapalooza.”
She smiled. “No, Monty, I know money doesn’t grow on trees, so, of course, I was careful with the pieces that I chose. Including the prices.”
“I appreciate that.”
“But would you please put your dad’s recliner in the TV room? And the big poster of the pancakes that you stole from IHOP when you worked there in college?”
“Done and done,” I said.
We high-fived each other. What a woman!
***
Ellen and I spent a couple of hours in the Los Angeles branch library at Venice Beach, looking at things in the reference room that weren’t online, photographs and the history of Venice, starting from when Abbot Kinney and his friend first founded the city in 1905. I was practically bouncing off the walls of the library after eating all of that sugar at breakfast. I would have rather been in bed with my beautiful wife on those cool, smooth hotel sheets at the Viceroy, expending all of my sugar-fueled energy onto her luscious body, but we had a lot of work to do. She had her laptop computer open and was making notes while she sent me back and forth to the reference section for more books and to ask the librarian these crazy questions.
“Monty, I need some photos or drawings of American jockey silks from 1905 on, when Venice was founded as Ocean Park, until recently. We need to figure out when our little fire-starting jockey died, so we need pictures or descriptions of jockey silks, and even better, if there is a regional difference, in California. While you do that, I will be looking up accidents in thoroughbred racing, specifically of accidents with black thoroughbreds. I am guessing that the horse was black, hence the name, Nightfire. Also, I am assuming that she was a mare because of the tone of the suicide note.”
“I don’t think that mares are raced that much.”
“Really? You don’t think she was a racehorse?”
I shook my head. “I am thinking that the jockey silks were more of a costume.”
“Hmm,” Ellen said and Googled it. “I guess it is less likely for mares to compete in racing, though they do. Where are you going with this train of thought?”
“Somewhere, I promise. Remember, a long time ago, we saw that movie, Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken, about the diving horses and girls off the pier in Atlantic City?”
“Oh my God,” Ellen said. “Whatever made you think of that movie?”
“The suicide note said, ‘I have such deep sorrow that the frivolity of man took away your life and profound regret that I willingly participated in it.’ The language is so extreme, especially the word ‘frivolity,’ that I think whatever he did to take the horse’s life in an accident, that it was beyond horse racing and something really unique and extremely dangerous. We already know that Venice Beach had a pier that was no longer there because Angelina, that dead flapper that you met from the 1920s told you about it. I think that at one time, perhaps Venice had horses and riders diving off piers, too.”
“Look it up,” Ellen said.
I Googled it on my laptop. “Yep. There were diving horses in Venice! There is even a record of a horse dying. Not the same name of the horse, though, but maybe there were others who came afterward and tried to do the same thing.”
“Wow,” Ellen said. “Just wow. Monty, you are amazing.”
“We aren’t done yet,” I said. “I think we need a floor plan of the building. I really think that all of the other stuff we have been looking up goes by the wayside. Inside the building is a key to the missing jockey. We just need to find a body. It doesn’t matter as much about who he was as where he is, right now. His bones.”
Ellen sat up straight. “You’re right. Diego has got Ezekiel’s family digging and assembling Nightfire’s bones as we speak, getting them all accounted for, and packing them in big Rubbermaid containers.”
“Cool,” I said. “We found out that Venice is built on reclaimed marshland and it stands to reason that basements might have gone out of fashion when they were built and got filled with seawater during storms. We also found out that there were buildings on Pacific that had illegal speakeasies in them in the 1920s. And tunnels that led to the beach. There could be a whole network of crazy stuff under the building that is harboring all of these ghosts and spirits. There seems to be a powerful pull downward, according to the data I went through this morning that we recorded last night. It’s very intensely populated with spirits in that place.”
“Let’s go to the art gallery,” Ellen said. “I’m getting something.”
“A floor plan?” I asked.
“No. I want to see if I can gain the trust of the jockey. He’s calling me.”
Chapter Thirteen
We were in the dreaded basement utility room and it had quite a dank smell about it today. Even Ellen’s nostrils quivered.
“Ugh,” I said, “it smells like something really did die in here.”
“Shhh for a sec, Monty. I have an impression of the jockey.” She paused. “Wait, I see him! Hello, my name is Ellen,” she said softly.
“Something is different about him.” Ellen looked at me and touched my hand. Hers was hot and the gold band of her wedding ring was even hotter. “I think he’s autistic or maybe he has Asperger’s. He’s not a good communicator, but he is our poltergeist. Unlike your standard issue cold and drafty ghost, he’s hot, very hot.”
“Wow! I saw his infrared image for a fraction of a second on the equipment and then he disappeared through the wall. Now he’s gone.”
“I just caught a glimpse of him,” Ellen said. “He seemed to be wearing that same set of worn jockey silks. After I introduced myself, he used American Sign Language to say, ‘Help me.’”
“Oh my,” I said. “That doesn’t sound good. What’s upsetting him that he has to gallop around on a ghost horse and set things on fire?”
“I don’t know yet,” Ellen said. “I have to gain his trust.”
“Well, I think we know who he is,” Sandy said, and we followed her gaze up to the ceiling where letters were burned into the paint, sixteen feet above us. The letters were backward, as if he had written them from above the ceiling, looking down. The letter “r” was reversed.
“If he wrote that, or burned it into the ceiling, his name is Troy,” Diego said.
“How long has that name been up there?” I asked Diego.
“I’ve never seen it before,” he replied.
“Ever look up?” Ellen asked him.
“Sure. I had a cleaning crew come in here just after I bought the place to get the cobwebs out before the art gallery opening for the First Friday thing that Venice Beach has. And then, after that cleaning crew zoomed through here, the ceiling was painted…a couple of months ago. So, it must have happened after that. The backward name burned into the ceiling from above.”
I looked at Sandy as we walked back to the bathroom area. “You’re a medium. Are you getting any vibes from the jockey or anything bouncing off Ellen?”
Sandy looked away and closed her eyes. “No.”
Weird, I thought, but didn’t say it out loud.
Sandy sighed nervously. She looked down at her hands. “I have to tell you all something, something it is hard to admit, even to myself.” She looked up and her eyes met Ellen’s. “I’m not really a fake, per se. But I am not as good at this as you are, Ellen. I can sense the presence of spirits, and I read the Tarot cards pretty accurately. I write horoscopes and do readings. But never in my life have I seen anyone’s spirit, except for people I have loved and lost. I didn’t see him. I felt him. He was a hot draft. And then he was gone.”
Ellen touched Sandy on the shoulder. “You have a sensitive nature and you just haven’t tried out all of your abilities yet. I can feel that you are genuine, even in your humble doubt of yourself. I don’t want you to compare yourself with me. Just trust your own instincts and let yourself grow.”
Sandy nodded. “I don’t know if I am equipped for this. I don’t want to be a hindrance to your investigation. I want to help you, but I don’t know how.”
“I do,” Ellen said. She looked at me with her wide blue eyes, as if she was going to ask something of me, too. “I need you and Monty to go get me a ghost and bring her here.”
Sandy’s blonde eyebrows rose. “Bring you a ghost? Aren’t there already plenty of ghosts here?”
