by JL Bryan
"There's the roast rabbit—"
"We're wandering farther and farther from any species I'm likely to eat," I said.
"Steak with truffle? Pork with wild mushrooms?"
"Don't tempt me. I'm probably just getting a salad." I accepted the menu from him. It was printed in a somewhat legible curlicue font on heavy, stiff paper. The restaurant name Louis was inlaid in metallic gold script in the corner. The lunch entrees ran about thirty or forty bucks. I checked out the soups while he refilled the merlot glasses of the businesswomen down the bar.
"I have another question," I said when he returned. "Do you work here at night?"
"Five nights a week. A bartender can't live on lunch shifts alone."
"Have you seen anything unusual the last couple of nights?"
"There was a drag queen operating a hot dog cart outside. But that's every night."
"Maybe anything related to the old theater next door?" I pointed to the brick wall, beyond which lay the boarded-up Corinthian. Carlos looked ready to come back with a joke, but I could see it dying on his lips.
"That's interesting," he finally said.
"What is? I'm dying to know."
"I didn't see anything, but you could ask Sabrina." He nodded at one of the two waitresses currently attempting to keep the lunch-rush crowd pacified. "She was talking about that place when she came in."
"I'll ask when she's less busy," I said, watching the twentyish girl fly from one table to the next. She looked like an art student type, her hair cropped short and colored a dark blue that bordered on black, a glittering fake diamond stud in her nose, a spiral tattoo visible at her neckline.
"It's no big deal." Carlos gestured, and the girl ran over a minute later, looking flushed.
"What, Carlos?" she asked in a low whisper, hissing through her big, chipper smile. "We're slammed here."
"She had a question about what you saw last night at the Corinthian." Carlos nodded at me.
"It can wait," I hurried to add, not wanting to annoy her further. I expected her to snap at the bartender and then rush back to work, but instead she stopped to look me over, her shoulders slumping a little, as if she had all the time in the world.
"Seriously? Are you checking into that?" she asked me. "Who are you?"
"I'm a private detective. What did you see?" I fished out a card from my purse. She took her time reading it, again as if she'd forgotten all about the crowded tables that had almost overwhelmed her a moment earlier.
"It was so weird," the waitress finally said. "Kenisha and I were walking down the block to our cars, since Mark won't let us near customer parking, not even when we're closing."
"Mark?" I asked.
"The GM," Carlos said. General manager.
"So we're walking down the sidewalk, you know, and I think I hear something," Sabrina said, staring at me, reaching out to grip my forearm to make sure she had my full and undivided attention. She was one of those grabby types, I guess. "It was like a whisper, but from the wrong place. From up above, like someone was floating over me, whispering to me, maybe from the trees. So I looked, and that was when I saw it."
"What did you see?" I asked. Behind her, a balding, obese man in a wide brown tie waved an empty bread basket at the waitress's back, trying to get her attention.
"The light was on," Sabrina said. "It was up above the big empty sign, where they used to put up the movie titles, you know?"
"The marquee?"
"Yeah, up above that, there are a couple of little windows, I guess on the very top floor of the old theater," Sabrina said.
Behind her, the obese customer coughed loudly into his fist while staring angrily at her back. The cough sounded pretty fake. His face was beet red, and a vein stood out on his forehead. That guy really wanted his second round of bread.
"I never noticed them before," Sabrina continued. "Not until last night. One window was lit up, but the light wasn't...normal. It was red and glowing, like a fireplace or a bunch of candles were burning up there. I probably would have called the fire department, but then I saw the guy in the window. I'm pretty sure he was looking right at me."
"Hey!" the customer finally shouted, turning heads around the room. "Instead of yapping around with your friends, maybe you could bring some of us our food!"
Sabrina jumped at the interruption, then rushed over to calm down the customer. She was all smiles and chatter again, her work personality rising up like a shield.
"Told you she saw something," said Carlos. "She wouldn't stop talking about it during set-up today."
"Don't leave me hanging," I said. "What kind of person did she see? What did he look like?"
"Ellie, I'm here!" Stacey took the stool beside me, looking a thousand percent more put together than I did. I don't know how she can slap it all on so fast and make it look good. Then I checked the time and realized she was definitely late. "Did I miss anything?"
"That waitress has a story," I said.
"In this city, everybody has a story," Carlos said, drawing puzzled looks from both of us. He shrugged. "Just something I heard in a movie once. What can I get you?" He flashed a dazzling smile at Stacey, and she responded with one of her own, as if the race was on to see who could out-dazzle each other.
"Can I have a coffee?" Stacey asked. "I wasn't allowed my usual six hours of sleep. I'm not resentful. Just cranky. Extra caffeine, please. Maybe add a shot of Mountain Dew or something."
"Whatever you like, but I'd recommend an espresso instead," Carlos said, and she nodded, rubbing her eyes and yawning.
"If you hadn't been late, you could have heard it yourself," I told Stacey, while I watched the waitress whip around the tables, distributing beef tartare and foie gras.
"It's a French restaurant," Stacey said. "Being on time would be déclassé."
"Hmm. Well, the water's good." I looked at Carlos as he prepared Stacey's steamy, ultra-dark beverage. "Have you ever seen anything strange at the theater yourself, Carlos? Or ever been inside?"
"Not lately," he said. "We did go a couple times when it was a club—that was back when I was in school, though. Eighteen to party, twenty-one to drink kind of place, loose enough on the ID's that even high schoolers like us could sometimes get inside. It wasn't great, though. And of course the girls never wanted to go back."
"Why not?" I asked.
"They said some creepy guy would hang out in the girls' bathrooms. Actually, no. He would watch them from the mirrors. I think he was the owner or manager, or something."
"Eww," Stacey said.
"Through the mirrors?" I asked.
"That's what the girls said. Plus the place just wasn't any fun. It looked cool, and it should have been fun. They restored the old-time movie palace look, the bars were remodeled from the original candy stands, they had old movie posters on the walls, all of that. The DJ would project video clips on the old movie screen. It looked fun, but it felt off. That's the best I can say. Weird and cold. You just wanted to get out of there."
"Did you ever experience anything unusual, besides those feelings?" I asked.
"I only went a couple of times. It was years ago."
"Is there any chance you could put me in touch with one of your friends who went there with you? One of the girls who might know more about this mirror thing?"
"Uh...yeah. But it was a while ago, like I said. Years."
"Anything to do with the history of the theater could help our investigation," I said. "Sometimes you don't know which details are really important until the end."
"I guess I could try. Maybe someone will remember better than me."
"Maybe they will." I passed him a folded twenty-dollar bill and one of my cards. Then I took the card back. "Wait a sec. Make sure you use my cell number." I lifted a pen from my purse and struck out the office number. The landline would have him calling Kara, Nicholas, and the gang, who were not supposed to even know I was looking for Anton at all. "Here you go."
"Thanks." He raised the t
wenty. "Need change?"
"That was supposed to be my slick little tip to thank you for helping me," I said. "Even discussing it this much has ruined the moment."
"Gotcha." He winked at me and tucked the twenty into his pocket. "I hope you're still ordering lunch."
"Looks we'll be here for a while. Also looks like I'm having the gruyere and arugula salad. Stacey?" I offered her the menu.
"No fun, I just got here."
"She'll probably want the crepes."
"Ooh, they have crepes?" Stacey's eyes bugged out as she gaped at the menu.
Eventually, we dealt with the food ordering situation. I tried to pump Carlos for more information about the theater next door, but he really didn't seem to have any, even though he'd worked at Louis for six months. I did learn that Carlos drove a fairly new Jetta and that he was twenty-three and still considered himself to be taking a little break after high school. Carlos asked Stacey if she had a boyfriend, which she did.
He didn't ask me, but I considered that Michael had some pretty good reasons to break up with me when he finally did wake up. I intended to make those clear to him, too, so he could make a fair choice, because a relationship built on lies isn't real, it's an illusion. I had betrayed him, invited the horseman ghost to attack him, knowing Michael could die but not knowing how else to stop the murderous spirit of Anton Clay that was possessing him.
Michael and Anton. That was the situation that trapped me at the agency with my new bosses. I couldn't be free until Michael was restored and Anton was locked away for good. After that, I could quit, I could walk out in a huff or whatever I wanted to do. Until then, I had to make nice with Kara and pals, like it or not.
The food was incredible. I hadn't really thought about how good it was likely to be, coming from probably the most expensive kitchen on the block. Somebody back there knew their stuff. Too bad I was in such a low mood and couldn't really enjoy it—I just sort of distantly recognized the quality and wished Michael was there to share it.
When lunch rush ended, Sabrina stood near the bar with us, sipping a soda and fidgeting. She had a lot of nervous energy, in a way that made me nervous, too, but at least it meant she spoke freely. And copiously.
"So tell me about the guy in the window," I said as she joined us.
"Oh my gosh," Sabrina said. "So anyway, this guy is up there in the window, and I feel like he's definitely looking at me. The skin back here on my neck was crawling. Do you ever get that?"
"All the time," I said. "Can you describe what he looked like?"
"Not really. I mean, we're talking three or four stories up, right? The top level of that building. And the red light was all glowing behind him, so he looked more like a shadow person, you know, like we used to make in kindergarten with the lights and the construction paper..."
"A silhouette?" Stacey suggested.
"Yeah!" Sabrina shouted, clapping Stacey on the shoulder excitedly, as though Stacey had just solved the riddle of the Sphinx. "He was a silhouette surrounded by bright red light. It was like, um, hey, did you ever see that cartoon where Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam go to Hell?"
"Totally!" Stacey said, in complete contrast to my clueless shrug.
"It was like that. All red and glowing."
"If you could describe anything about the man you saw, it would really help," I said. "Anything at all."
"All I can say is that he was definitely a man, I could tell that. Even though I couldn't see his face, I felt like he was looking into me, like deep into me, and it was kind of making me feel queasy. But I couldn't look away, I was like stuck in place, like mesmerized. But then Kenisha finally pokes me, like, you know, what's going on? And then I look at her, and I look back, and it's all gone."
"What's all gone?" I asked.
"The red light, the guy's silhouette, everything. I couldn't even see the window anymore without the light inside. It was too dark."
"What time was it?"
"Um...we close at ten, then we break down and clean up, so...probably close to eleven. The bars were still open. There were people out on the streets, but nobody else was looking up at the old theater. It was one of those things where you're like, hey, you know, did that even happen? Only I could still feel the guy looking into me. It was like having worms or snakes wiggling inside your skin, like he could touch you with his gaze." She shuddered. "But maybe I'm just crazy, right?"
"I don't think so."
"So what are you, like, detectiving about?" She looked from me to Stacey. "What's up with the old theater? Was that scary guy a fugitive or something?"
"We're looking into the general history of the property," I said. "An overall assessment."
"Ooh, so maybe somebody wants to buy the place?" she asked. "And you're studying it for them?"
"I'm really not at liberty to disclose—"
"It would be great if somebody fixed that old place up," Carlos said.
"Or tore it down," Sabrina added. "It's always going to look creepy."
Her observation pretty well concluded our discussion for the day. Carlos texted a couple of his old friends and said he would let me know if anyone wanted to talk about the club that had briefly existed in the old playhouse.
"Tell them there's a substantial cash reward for useful information," I said.
"Another twenty bucks?" Carlos asked.
"Maybe even twenty-five. Thanks for all your help, seriously."
"Should I get your phone number, too?" he asked Stacey. "Just in case?"
"Maybe next time," I answered for her, to give him some extra motivation to get back to us. I steered Stacey toward the door.
"So what do you think?" Stacey asked as we emerged onto the sidewalk. She glanced up at the marquee of the empty theater. I could see a row of three small, grimy-looking windows up there. Unlike the windows on the lower levels, they weren't boarded up.
"Sounds like Anton's decided to camp out in town instead of out in the country," I said. "Which means we have to get inside and hopefully not get arrested in the process."
"Should we come back tonight?"
"I'm not waiting that long," I said. "We need to get in, set up what gear we have left, get back out. Try to confirm whether Anton is active in this location or the other one."
"Could he be haunting both places?" Stacey asked. "Like a Voldemort with his horcruxes kinda thing?"
"I suppose it's possible he left fragments or impressions of himself here and there." I thought of the fiery picture on the bathroom door at the old gas station. "We need to monitor both locations. Immediately."
"Well, not immediately," Stacey said. "Because that would mean you want to break into the place in broad daylight. You didn't want to do that this morning, remember? Something about getting arrested, prison time?"
"That was before I knew he was here."
"You still don't technically know that."
"Well, before we had a strong suspicion, anyway. And a witness. Let's get the gear from your car." I approached her green Escape, parked across the street.
"Come on, Ellie. You're getting reckless." She grabbed my arm as I started out into the road. A balding guy dressed in a bright red bowtie, driving a rickety purple Gremlin, honked at me and chugged past. "See? You almost got flattened by a carnival barker."
"What do you think we should do?" I snapped. "Anton is camping out right there."
"Getting a camera inside the building won't change that one way or the other," Stacey said. "But if we get in trouble with the law, that's going to put a real delay on our ability to get in there and confront him. I'm assuming there's a plan for that, right? A strategy? You have a way of trapping him, and you're not just going to charge in there and scream at the powerful murderous ghost about how much he's hurt your feelings. Right, Ellie? You've thought it all out?" Her fingers dug into my arm as she spoke.
I looked from her car, where the gear waited, to the hulking mass of the boarded-up theater. Stacey was being the mature adult here...which raised
major red flags about my own state of mind. What plan did I have if Anton was waiting in there, waiting to incinerate us? I hadn't brought so much as a squirtgun to defend against that possibility. There might have been working fire extinguishers or even a functioning sprinkler system inside, but it wasn't the sort of thing I wanted to gamble my life on.
"Okay," I said. "Maybe I'm not thinking clearly."
"Yeah, maybe you don't want to die in a fiery death this afternoon," Stacey said. "Also, I didn't want to get into this in front of those other people, but your new best friend Kara is furious at you. That's what Nicholas keeps calling and telling me."
"She's not furious enough to call you herself, though."
"Maybe too furious," Stacey suggested.
I sighed, feeling suddenly exhausted. Too bad I still had a long night ahead.
"Okay, let's go face whatever trouble I started at work," I said. "We need to get the van anyway."
So we were stuck with going back to the office after lunch, but all I could think about was how much I wanted to get back and break inside the old theater.
Chapter Fifteen
We parked outside, in our usual spots. Well, not quite our usual spots, because those had been taken over by black PSI vehicles.
"Do yourself a favor," I told Stacey as we approached the building. "Wait outside for five minutes before you follow me in. That way you might not get swept up in whatever wrath I might have incurred here."
"Forget that," Stacey said. "You've had my back against entities far more dangerous than some whiny anorexic Russian girl."
"What about David Hasselhoffs?"
"I could take like three Hasselhoffs at a time, easy." Stacey raised her fists as we approached the back door of the building.
"How? Do you have some martial arts training I've never heard about?"
"Jazz dance. Three years. All through middle school." She splayed out both arms, flinging out fists on either side of herself, while kicking one leg up and back behind her. "See? I could strike three Hasselhoffs at once, if they come at me in just the right formation."
"I'm glad you're on my side, Stacey. You'd make a formidable enemy."
