A Girl, a Guy, and a Ghost

by Patricia Mason

  “How could I forget? But in my memory, it’s the spot where you tried to knock me senseless for the first time,” Ry responded in kind.

  “Giselle. I see you!” A familiar voice with a French accent interrupted what would have been a very erudite reply on her part.

  “Omigod,” Giselle muttered to Ry. “It’s that annoying Vector guy. Let’s get out of here before—”

  “Too late,” Ry said. “Here he comes.”

  The skunk ran across the street toward them from the café.

  “You do not call me,” he said, ignoring Ry. A frown of consternation twisted his French skunk face.

  “No. I do not call you.” Giselle stated the obvious.

  “Pour quoi?”

  “What?” Giselle asked.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “What?”

  “Stop it. I’m getting confused,” Giselle said. “What do you want?”

  “Why you do not call me? All day I am thinking, Vector, why she does not call you? And then I think, Vector, she does not call because you do not protect her from the bugger. And then I say to myself, ‘No, Vector, she will know you cannot injure the hands of a great artiste.’ This would be catastrophe, no?”

  “No.”

  “But then I see you. It is how-you-say fate,” he gushed. “Now we have the dinner. We must pay Dutch of course. But we have nice food and then we go to the hotel for the sex. Yes?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes? You have the sex?”

  “No. Stop it. You are incredible.” Giselle shook her head.

  The little skunk puffed with pride. “Merci.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment.”

  “What is this word comp…compli…?”

  Giselle turned to Ry. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Not a thing.”

  “This bugger, he is molesting you?” The skunk gestured toward Ry.

  I wish. “No,” Giselle said. “I cannot believe this. I want nothing to do with you. Get lost. Do you understand?”

  “Ahhhh. I know.” Vector tapped his forehead. “You play the hard-to-get act.” He grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss to the back. “Your rejection, it excite me. I want you more than ever before. What hotel do you stay? I send you the flowers. I woo.”

  Giselle yanked her hand away from his clutching fingers. “I’m not telling you the name of my hotel. Get away from me. Don’t speak to me again.”

  As Giselle stomped away, the skunk followed, close on her heels. Ry brought up the rear of the conga line, having some difficulty in walking and laughing at the same time.

  “Ooooh, you are magnifique. I burn with the lust for you.”

  Giselle stopped and turned a burning glare on Vector.

  Ry pulled the skunk back by his tail-like hair and out of striking distance. “I think she’s reached her limit. You’d better get out of here. She could squash you like a bug,” Ry said.

  “You would fight me for her?” the skunk asked, puffing out his chest and bringing up his tiny fists.

  “Yes,” Ry said with a smirk.

  The skunk shrank back. “I do not have time to fight the duel tonight. Besides we need the boxing gloves. I must protect the hands.” The skunk made a move to embrace Giselle, who slapped him away. “I must depart, ma cheri. Au revoir.” And with that, the skunk scuttled off.

  Ry appeared to a have a comment ready to burst out.

  “Not a word out of you,” Giselle growled.

  “Didn’t I see him in a cartoon somewhere?” Ry chortled.

  “Shush it!”

  “What does that make you? Zee cat?”

  “You just couldn’t resist, could you?”

  * * * * *

  The skunk incident nearly caused them to be late for the appointment with the Vampire Lester. Fortunately, her anger spurred Giselle to a fast-paced stride and they were right on time.

  The restaurant Lester had chosen for the meeting specialized in both seafood and Italian cuisine. The modest restaurant had most of its seating located outside. Musicians played on the mall area of City Market and their music carried to Ry and Giselle as they approached.

  Giselle spotted Lester right away. Seated as promised at an outdoor table, a nearby streetlight illuminated his pale and emaciated handsomeness. Straight black hair, arranged loosely, touched the top of his shoulders. The vampire’s dark eyes stood out, pathetically large in his heart-shaped, porcelain face. He sat cross-legged in black velvet trousers accompanied by a crisp white shirt. The shirt had flounces at the open neck and at the cuffs. Apparently vampires didn’t feel the effect of hot, humid weather. The ensemble, while gothly stylish, could be called cool by no stretch of the imagination.

  Giselle saw that the vampire was not alone. A woman sat with her chair pulled around the table so that it was beside Lester’s. Although seated, she was probably tall—much taller than Lester. Like him, her pale complexion shown almost translucent under the streetlights. She had long black hair, dark eyes and matching emaciation. She wore a long black dress. Her hand, with pointed blood-red nails, gripped Lester’s arm tightly. Good thing he didn’t have any circulation to cut off.

  When he caught sight of Giselle, Lester leapt to his feet with swanlike grace. He kissed her on first one cheek and then the other in the style of Europeans. His companion also rose. She hung back, looking sullen and morose.

  The woman spoke with a deep tone and an accent of undetermined origin. “He says he is overcome with joy at seeing you once again. He also says that your beauty is greater than when he last saw you.” The woman didn’t appear at all happy to be conveying this message.

  Lester appeared no happier. He merely continued to gaze at Giselle with those dark, saucer-like, sad eyes as he held out a chair for her to take a seat. Maybe this was as much emotion as vampires could show.

  Giselle sat down and Ry plopped into a chair opposite her. Lester glided back into his own place.

  “Has Lester lost his voice?” Giselle didn’t remember him being mute on their date. In fact, he had talked quite extensively about his litigation and the curses that would befall the plagiarizing author. “Does he have laryngitis?”

  “No,” the woman answered. “But he has not spoken a word since—” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “The tragedy.”

  “Tragedy?”

  “The lawsuit was dismissed.” She put a finger to her lips and whispered again. “We do not speak of it.”

  “Well, I suppose he couldn’t go on a hunger strike,” Giselle mumbled. “Forgive me. But who are you?”

  “I am Marissa La Bianca. I am Lester’s lover.” She said the word lover with heavy emphasis on the V. As if the word were a dagger.

  “Congratulations,” Giselle replied.

  Marissa frowned in seeming confusion at Giselle reaction.

  A waitress appeared and deposited ice waters and menus for all before rushing away.

  Giselle turned to Ry. “As long as we are making introductions, this is Ry Leland. He’s a detective who’s assisting me with my article.”

  Marissa’s eyes widened. “You are police?”

  “No, Ry is a psychic detective,” Giselle said.

  “How do you do,” Ry said. “I’m not a psychic anything. I am just a private investigator reluctantly roped into this phony farce.”

  “Ixnay on the onyfay.” Giselle whispered furiously to Ry behind her hand.

  Ry whispered back behind his hand. “It is phony.”

  Giselle kicked him in the shins, which he endured with hardly a wince, and she turned back to the morose twosome.

  “Oh Ry, don’t be so modest. For example, I bet you can read my mind right now.” Giselle smiled and winked.

  Lester and Marissa stared back in silence. No sense of humor detected there. Oh well.

  “I was very pleased to hear from you, Lester. How long have you been in S
avannah?” Giselle inserted to break the silence that had settled over the table.

  Marissa answered. “We moved from New Orleans two months ago.” Marissa was sitting so close to Lester, she looked like she was on his lap. With her answering questions directed to him, the scene resembled a bizarre ventriloquist show.

  “Why move from New Orleans?” Giselle asked.

  Lester scribbled on a paper napkin on the table in front of him and then handed it to Marissa who read it aloud. “‘There were too many vampire poseurs there. It was disgusting.’”

  Ry choked on the glass of ice water he’d been drinking.

  “When the tragedy occurred, there was just no reason to stay there,” Marissa continued. “Especially when our crypt was washed away by a hurricane. Nobody cared. We did not even get help from FEMA, no compensation whatsoever.”

  “Uh-huh.” Ry bent his head and sucked vigorously on his water through a straw. Giselle could tell that he had to struggle to keep from bursting into laughter. The poor man. She should help him with that. Giselle kicked him under the table.

  “Ow. Watch it," Ry said.

  “So sorry. Just crossing my legs,” Giselle said sweetly.

  Ry mumbled something inaudible.

  “Well, as I said, I was very pleased to hear from you,” Giselle said.

  Lester smiled wanly in response. Marissa glowered.

  “You said in your email that you might have something for my article.”

  “Yes," Marissa said. "Lester thought you would like to write about the tragedy. Perhaps something about the discrimination suffered by paranormal beings under the U.S. legal system. Discrimination against beings such as we is tolerated without any guilt or censor whatsoever in this country.”

  “Are you a vampire too?” Giselle looked from Lester to Marissa.

  “Yes. I am a member of the second-class citizens who this country spits upon. We are the last-accepted prejudice. We are at the mercy of the Man. We are oppressed by the Man.”

  Giselle turned to Ry and whispered, “Did she just say ‘the Man’?”

  “My shins don’t want me to answer you.”

  Giselle turned back to Lester and Marissa, a smile plastered on her face. She tried for a mixture of pleasantry and sympathy in her expression. “Yes. It sounds terrible,” she said. “When I get back to New York, I’ll talk about your situation with my editor and see if the magazine will authorize an article. But it doesn’t sound like it would fit with the subject of my present piece. I’m here strictly to investigate and document a ghost phenomenon.”

  Marissa’s eyes turned from vacant to hard and glaring. “Lester is very disappointed,” Marissa said, and Lester nodded. “He’d hoped that someone he thought was one of his,” she choked, “best friends—” Lester pressed a hand to Marissa’s arm. “His most special friend in the world, would want to help him in this time of tribulation.”

  Lester thought she was one of his best friends? His most special friend in the world? The poor man—er—vampire. They’d only had one date and a series of email contacts. He must have no friends at all.

  “Of course I want to be all the help I can.” Giselle fidgeted with the straw in her water glass. “As soon as I’m finished with this ghost article, I’ll talk to Willie about the tragedy.”

  Giselle felt guilty for offering nothing more. She felt like a horribly bad friend.

  “Does Lester know any ghosts in town?” Giselle asked tentatively. Yeah, go ahead and use the poor pathetic vampire for information after refusing to do anything for him. Was that any way to treat your best friend?

  Lester wrote on the napkin in front of him just two words, ghost and door. Marissa spoke to him in some language Giselle did not understand. Lester shook his head several times, looking stern. Marissa visibly composed herself and then spoke. “Lester wishes to give you information even though I say you are unworthy of his affection and favor. Lester says there is a ghost who opens the door at an abandoned mansion on Oglethorpe Avenue to whoever knocks upon the door at midnight.” She wrote jerkily on a napkin and thrust it toward Giselle. “This is the address.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’ve lived here all my life. There’s no truth to that story.” Ry practically frothed at the mouth as he said it.

  What had triggered such a strong response?

  “Where did you get such a stupid story?” Ry continued.

  “Ry,” Giselle said. “I’m sure Lester has a very good source. After all he is a vampire. He’s imbedded in the paranormal community. He no doubt has mystical powers we can’t even imagine that would allow him to detect a ghostly presence at a location. Right? Tell him, Lester…Marissa?”

  “We heard about the ghost during the haunted Savannah walking tour we took when we first moved here.”

  Silence. Then Giselle turned to Ry. “See, they have it on the best authority.”

  Lester and Marissa rose in concert. “We must go,” Marissa said in a flat monotone accompanied by a morose glower.

  Giselle and Ry stood also. Lester embraced Giselle again, kissing her on both cheeks. Then he gave Ry a small bow.

  Giselle felt terrible and called after Lester as the glum couple walked away. “Call me. I’m at the Great Eastern. I’ll talk to my editor about your story. Bye.” She sat back down and let her forehead fall to the table. Ry chuckled.

  She weakly turned her head to the side. “You were a big help.”

  “Glad to be of service.”

  It was Saturday at 8:54 p.m.

  Chapter Five

  Giselle pondered the question of what to do with the feeling she was a horrible, human being with no redeeming features? She quickly came to a conclusion. Eat dinner of course.

  Ry opted for the salmon and Giselle for pasta with Alfredo sauce. An expensive white wine completed the meal. It made Giselle feel a lot better as she took another deliciously savory bite.

  “So you’re the vampire’s special friend. Does that mean you have a rare blood type?” Ry’s green eyes sparkled.

  “Shush it! You’re making my sauce curdle.”

  His full lips taunted her with more than words as they opened and he placed a piece of salmon inside between white teeth. The way he chewed was even sexy. Ry sipped from his glass of wine. His tongue came out to lick a few drops from his lips. Ooooh, that tongue. The man had a dangerously talented tongue.

  This was business. Dammit. She couldn’t just sit there gazing at his tongue. Talk about something.

  “So tell me about yourself,” Giselle said.

  About to take another bite of salmon, Ry stopped and arched a brow suspiciously. “What do you want to know?”

  “Tell me about your childhood. I told you about my parents. Tell me about yours.”

  He didn’t look pleased at the suggestion.

  “Come on. What are you afraid of?” she goaded.

  “Well, okay, after all, you are buying dinner.”

  “I am?”

  “Yeah, I get expenses along with my daily rate. Dinner is an expense.”

  “Oh all right. Maybe I should have taken the skunk up on his invitation. At least he was going to go Dutch.”

  “But he would have demanded sex after dinner. I won’t.”

  “Oh yeah.” Demand away, big boy. “You are a better deal.” Dammit. Silence. Think about anything except sex. Sex, sex, sex… “Stop it!”

  “Stop what,” he said, startled.

  “Uhmmmmm. Stop evading the question. Tell me about your childhood.”

  Ry wiped at his mouth with his napkin and put it back in his lap. “Let’s just say my mother had, and for that matter has, very high standards, especially for her family.”

  Demanding.

  “She expected a lot of me as a child. She always wanted me to excel.”

  Domineering and critical.

  “She could be quite assertive.”

  Pushy and overbearing.

  “My father disappeared when I was ten. My grandmother always blamed my mot
her. She thought my mother had driven her son away.”

  A royal bitch. “I see.” Memo to self, Avoid meeting Ry’s mother. “She sounds…interesting,” Giselle said. “What about your father. What was he like?”

  “I don’t remember him as being anything much. I remember him being there, until he disappeared of course. But I don’t remember him having any kind of personality. He just did what Mama told him.”

  Ry’s voice trailed away into silence. He sat there, lost in his own thoughts, and it didn’t look like they were happy ones. What a great topic choice, Giselle. What other cheerful subjects could they talk about over dinner? The Holocaust? World famine?

  Maybe she could think of something similar about her own family to comfort him with.

  “My grandmother sounds a lot like your mother. She always nagged us about something. You knew she loved you if she insulted you.”

  “That was never the case with my mother. When she insults you, she means it.” He clenched his jaw and frowned. His expression was grim.

  Well, that didn’t work. “Excuse me, I’m going to the, uh, ladies’.” Giselle stood up.

  “Yeah, okay,” Ry said. She could tell he hadn’t heard her.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, Giselle. She walked with unseeing eyes to the ladies’ room. She had a brief impression of white tile and chrome fixtures as she went into the first of the three stalls.

  She didn’t even have a chance to turn in the close space to lock the stall door when the lights went out, leaving the windowless room in complete blackness.

  Without warning, the metal door of the stall came pummeling inward, slamming into Giselle with high velocity force. Her arm took the brunt of the hit, stinging. Pain went up the elbow into her shoulder.

  She felt a figure taller than her barrel though the now-open stall door. A hard palm struck between her shoulder blades and sent her flying forward. Then she was jerked back as rough hands encircled her throat.

  Giselle clawed at the hands and found them covered by gloves. Unable to make any impact on them, her own hands flew wildly to the face of her attacker, trying to gouge at the eye area.

  “Ugh.”

  Triumph flared in her when she heard the attacker’s grunt. But triumph was short-lived. The attacker threw her forward again and Giselle’s knees rammed the toilet bowl. Her automatic instinct was to try to prevent her body from falling, so she put out her arms to brace herself. As she did, her palms struck the cool tile on the back wall.