Razor Dreams: The Seventh Jonathan Shade Novel

by Gary Jonas

  Then I remembered that Dr. Anderson mentioned she had a Midtown practice.

  Google wasn't much help there either. Why couldn't she have had a more unique name than Anderson?

  “Esther, you want to do some investigating?” I asked.

  “That's your job.”

  “How about some Midtown Manhattan sightseeing?”

  “Now you're talking.”

  I led her out of the hotel room, and down to the elevators. I pushed the down button, and a moment later, the elevator doors opened to reveal Rayna and Kelly.

  Rayna Noble was drop-dead gorgeous, with her long auburn hair and her athletic body, and while she was my former lover, that had been a lifetime ago for me, though for her it was much more recent.

  Kelly Chan was a magically engineered assassin, and as usual, she wore all black from her shoes to her pants to her button-up shirt. She was Kelly but she wasn't my Kelly. Long story.

  I needed time to talk to the living women in my life, and they needed time to talk to me, but we required individual conversations, not a group discussion. Rayna gave Kelly a sidelong glance, and Kelly turned and stared at Rayna for a moment. They both looked at me, gave me a nod, and stepped off the elevator.

  “Hello, ladies,” I said.

  They walked past me without talking.

  “And the silence was deafening,” I said and stepped into the elevator.

  “Give them time, Jonathan,” Esther said. “They've got a lot to work through.”

  I pushed the button for the lobby. “If they won't talk to me, how are we going to work through it?” I asked.

  “Patience and perseverance.”

  “My mother used to say that.”

  “Then she was a wise woman.”

  “Or she just had a lot of empty platitudes.”

  Esther slapped at me, but of course her hand went through me. “Be nice,” she said with a grin.

  It felt good to spend time with Esther. Being in her presence made me feel like myself, and more important, I liked myself when she was around. I'd left a trail of death behind me through the long years, but if someone as genuine as Esther still cared about me, my soul still had a shot at redemption. We all need someone who'll give us another chance. We all need someone who cares.

  ***

  Try doing a search for psychiatrists in New York City. There are a lot of them. I could have done more online research, and I could have made more phone calls, but there was something about walking the streets of Manhattan with a lovely woman at my side--even if she was a ghost--that made the day worthwhile. We struck out at the first five stops, but then we entered the office of Dr. Corinne Anderson at 5:00.

  “I'm very sorry, sir, but we're closing now,” the receptionist said.

  “No worries,” I said. “I need only a moment of Dr. Anderson's time.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, but it won't take long.”

  Dr. Anderson stepped up to the desk with her purse in hand, sunglasses tucked into her blouse pocket. “Did you reschedule Mr. Davis for tomorrow afternoon?” she asked the receptionist.

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  Dr. Anderson was in her late fifties and looked nothing like the woman I'd met at the asylum. Her reddish hair was cropped short, and she looked tired. “Excellent.” She looked over at me. “I thought I was done for the day.”

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Anderson,” I said. “I'm Colin Fletcher with Hagar, Anthony, and Roth. I'm not a patient, and this won't take long.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Fletcher?” she asked.

  “I'm looking for a different Dr. Anderson, and I'm hoping you'll know her.”

  She shrugged. “What's her first name?”

  “I have no idea. She's mid-fifties, heavyset, floats at a few hospitals, but has a Midtown practice.”

  “That's not much to go on, Mr. Fletcher. I believe you've wasted a trip.”

  “She worked with a Dr. Anthony Fletcher, no relation, and a Dr. Cooper at one of the hospitals.”

  Dr. Anderson shook her head. “I'm very sorry. I don't know her. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm exhausted, and tomorrow is going to be a very long day.”

  “That's all right. I appreciate your time.”

  I turned to go, having been through this same routine with several other Dr. Andersons that afternoon, but as Esther and I stepped into the hallway, a janitor pushed a mop bucket and mop out of an office and splashed some water on the floor. He was old and he was black, and I knew his first name was Martin.

  Esther pointed at him. “Jonathan, look!”

  “I see him.”

  “Meet you there,” she said and popped down the hall to where he worked.

  I walked toward the old man, and a feeling of unease settled on my shoulders. I shook it off. He was an older man and not a threat. “You get around,” I said.

  He looked up at me, and there wasn't an ounce of recognition on his face. “I'm sorry?” he said.

  “Your name is Martin,” I said.

  He glanced at the name badge on his coveralls. “I'm impressed with your reading skills, sir.”

  “You don't recognize me?” I asked.

  “Should I?”

  “I saw you this morning. You were at the old psychiatric ward telling Stuart to go to his room.”

  He blinked and gave me a frown. “I don't know what you're talking about. This morning I was with my grandson at the library.”

  He seemed genuine so he was either an actor on the level of Morgan Freeman or he was a different person. But I knew it was him. I'd seen him. I'd spoken with him. He wore the same damn coveralls with the same rag hanging from the back pocket.

  “Stuart,” I said. “Crazy guy thinks a smoke demon is out to get him?”

  “Ain't sure what you've been smoking, son, but you clearly have me confused with someone else.”

  “You know Dr. Cooper and Dr. Anderson and Dr. Fletcher.”

  “I know a lot of doctors.”

  “You were at Kings Park,” I said. “You said you'd worked there for forty years. You told me that this morning.”

  He shook his head. “I worked at Kings Park back in the seventies,” he said. “Wasn't for no forty years. Hell, I ain't set foot in that building since 1981.”

  “Can I buy you a beer? Talk to you about your time there?”

  “Son, I'm working here. I have to mop and wax four floors tonight. I don't move as well as I did in my younger years, but Social Security money don't cover the bills.”

  “What time do you get off?”

  “Midnight, but I ain't gonna spend no time talking to you. I'll be heading home to my wife.”

  “Please, Martin. It's important.”

  “Not as important as me getting these floors done. Building's closing, sir. You need to get your ass outta here.”

  “That's what you told me this morning.”

  “Then you must have a listening disorder.”

  “Martin, I saw someone who looks exactly like you this morning. He talks exactly like you. He moves exactly like you.”

  “Can he come in here and mop this damn floor?”

  “What if I mop the floor for you?” I asked. “If I do the work, will you talk to me?”

  He raised a suspicious eyebrow. “I ain't paying you, boy.”

  “You don't have to pay me. Just talk to me.”

  “Might want to wear some cheaper shoes and get some coveralls.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  He rubbed his chin. “You do my work while I supervise, I'll talk about whatever you want.”

  “Deal,” I said and extended my hand.

  He shook it and grinned. “You need to know I'm a perfectionist when it comes to these floors.”

  “I'll do a good job,” I said.

  “Or you'll do it over,” he said.

  He hooked me up with some coveralls, but there weren't any other shoes, so I worked barefoot. Again, a vague sense of unease nibbled at my senses, b
ut there was nothing to worry about. I'd mopped plenty of floors when I'd worked my way through college, and Martin was an old man, so my Spidey sense was on the fritz. I pushed the feeling back, and it faded into the distance.

  As I mopped and waxed the floors, Esther pointed out spots I missed, and Martin pointed them out a moment later.

  “I'm a good supervisor,” Esther said with a grin and pointed to a corner. “Over there, Jonathan.”

  “Hey,” Martin said. “Don't let that water stand in the corner, boy.”

  “Got it,” I said and did my best to get the floors done up nicely.

  As I mopped, I asked questions.

  “Did you know a patient named Stuart?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “You'd remember talk about a smoke demon,” I said.

  “We had one guy thought he was Jim Morrison and another thought he was Elvis. One man thought he was Muhammad Ali and used to point at the TV saying the real Ali was an alien clone. And as for demons, we got lots of guys talked about that. Dark, malevolent entities crawling on the ceiling, clawing at their brains, trying to drink their souls. You hear enough of it, and it all sounds the same.”

  “So Stuart doesn't ring any bells.”

  “Can't say as it does. Wring out the mop.”

  “Did you know Dr. Anderson?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “Dr. Cooper?”

  He shrugged.

  “Dr. Anthony Fletcher?”

  “Sounds familiar but you might have mentioned him earlier. Time to get the buffer.”

  The buffer was a machine with rotating pads. I ran the buffer over the hallway floor, but it was too loud to allow us to hold a conversation. So I just focused on making the floor shine.

  “Is it break time?” I asked when I finished the floor.

  “Not for another hour, boy.”

  We went down a level, and I got to start over.

  “Anthony Fletcher,” I said again. “Black doctor. Had an office with a picture of his family? Beautiful wife, two boys and a girl for kids.”

  He shrugged. “Don't jog no memories. You need to change out the water in the bucket. It's getting too dirty.”

  “I think he's holding out on you,” Esther said. “He just wants you to do his job for him.”

  “You keep going,” he said. “I'm gonna step out for a smoke break.”

  “If you're taking a break, so am I,” I said.

  “No questions while I smoke.”

  “Fine.”

  We went down the elevator, and he led me to a small patio designated as a smoking area. He lit up a cigarette, breathed out a smoke ring, and smiled.

  “Something funny?” I asked.

  “I told you, boy. No questions.”

  “He told you,” Esther said, grinning.

  I tossed a dirty look at her when Martin turned away.

  She laughed. “I'll go wandering,” she said.

  “Good,” I said.

  “What's good?” Martin asked, and I realized I'd spoken aloud.

  “Feels good to do some real work,” I said.

  “Bullshit.”

  “I'll bet you've seen some crazy shit in your days,” I said.

  “Nice question without it being a question,” Martin said. “But yeah, I've seen some shit.”

  “I'd love to hear about any of it you want to talk about.”

  He pulled in a lungful of smoke and blew it out the side of his mouth. He pointed the cigarette at me. “I see what you did there,” he said.

  “Just trying to have a conversation.”

  He nodded. “Slick.”

  “Then maybe I need to run the buffer over it again.”

  He laughed. “All right, boy. Weird shit from Kings Park. Must have been back in seventy-six or so because I remember this girl wearing an American Bicentennial T-shirt. Anyway, Mexican girl comes in. She's screaming about demons, which ain't that odd. We got the screamers every night. But she screamed that it was there, that it followed her. I got a creepy feeling about it. She screamed that it was in her room. Next thing I know, an orderly tries to open her door but can't. Took three guys to break the door in, and by the time they got in there, the girl was dead. She clawed her own face off.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Gets weirder. Mexican guy, maybe eighteen, comes in screaming fifteen minutes later. Again, not unusual, but he's screaming that the demon is there waiting for him. How did it find him? It was after his sister, not him. So he gets put into a room and yells that the demon is in his room, that it killed his sister and now it wants to kill him. He screamed and that one rattled my bones. Orderly tries to go into the room. Can't get the door open. You know the way it goes. We get a few guys and break in, and sure as shit, his face is clawed off too.”

  “Were they brother and sister?”

  “What did I tell you about questions?”

  “Sorry.”

  “But yeah, turns out they really were brother and sister. They went exploring the old hospital on Ellis Island earlier that night and obviously got high on some bad PCP or something.”

  “That's pretty wild,” I said.

  He looked to the left then to the right then leaned close. “What's wild is that in both rooms, I could have sworn I'd seen bloody claws slipping through the air vents. But when I went to clean the vents, they were dusty as can be without anything disturbed. So sometimes the screams can get to you. Make you see things that ain't there. Ghosts. Demons. But mostly it's just shadows.”

  The unease returned a bit, but it had to be due to the story, so I ignored it. “Mostly?”

  He nodded. “Questions, boy. Sometimes it's not shadows.”

  “And this is where you tell me you think there are dark spirits in the halls.”

  He grinned. “No, this is where I tell you that those of us who worked there sometimes fucked with our coworkers to make them think there were dark spirits in the halls. Nothing there but bad memories.”

  “So you don't believe in demons.”

  “Just demons of the mind, son. Just demons of the mind.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “You do good work, Jonathan,” Esther said. “You should ask if they're hiring.”

  “Cute. Did you find anything?”

  The evening slipped into late night, and we walked back to the hotel down the long blocks of Lexington Avenue. Esther stayed close to me. “I found a lot of offices, but none of them had pictures of anyone we saw at the other place.”

  “Anything useful?”

  “Not really.”

  “What do you know about Ellis Island?” I asked.

  “Not much. It's where immigrants came to enter the States.”

  “It closed down in the fifties,” I said. “They had a hospital there.”

  “Sure. Some poor saps showed up too sick to come into the country got sent there,” Esther said.

  “Send us your poor, your hungry, but not your sick,” I said.

  “Or crazy.”

  “That's right,” I said. “People who were mentally unfit didn't get admitted, so they were sent to the hospital too. Marked those bad boys with chalk. As I recall, pregnant women weren't admitted either. Back in the old days, I was more focused on helping Henry than paying attention to things like immigration.”

  As we entered the hotel, that familiar unease crept up my spine, and I felt as if someone were watching me.

  I turned and looked behind me, up and down the sidewalk.

  A few people milled about, but nothing seemed out of place. Nobody tried to hide.

  “What's eating you?” Esther asked.

  “Maybe I'm letting the story Martin told get to me. I feel like someone's watching me.”

  “If it's demons, I'm gonna scram.”

  “Thanks for the backup.”

  “You can call Kelly for that.”

  “That's the plan but it needs to be worth her time.” I shook off the feeling and moved through the lobby to the elevator
s. Esther watched behind us but shook her head once we were on the way to our floor.

  “All clear,” she said.

  “Good to know.”

  When we stepped out onto our floor, I got that creepy feeling again. I looked around but the hallway was empty.

  “All berries?” Esther asked.

  “I feel like someone's watching again.”

  “I don't see anyone.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Imagination?” she asked.

  “I hope so.”

  “We'd both be able to see other ghosts if they were here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But not demons,” she said.

  “Thanks for that.”

  I shook off the bad vibes again and moved down the hall to my room. The feeling swept over me once more, and I spun around. Nothing there.

  “Okay,” I said. “You're going to watch over me while I sleep.”

  “I do that every night,” Esther said.

  “I'm going to take that as a good thing instead of a creepy thing.”

  “I'm not a sparkly vampire,” Esther said.

  “I want to laugh,” I said, “but I still feel eyes on me.”

  “If the demon is here, it knows your room number.”

  “You're not helping.”

  “You going to sleep in the hallway?”

  “No.”

  I slipped the keycard into the slot, and the green light flashed. I entered the hotel room and closed the door.

  First thing I did was click on the light.

  I was alone in the room.

  A moment later, Esther stepped through the wall. “Looks clear to me,” she said.

  “You don't feel that?”

  “I don't normally feel anything physical, but it's all jake.”

  “Esther, I feel like there's something here in the room with us.”

  “I don't see anything.”

  “Neither do I. That's what scares me.”

  I took deep breaths to calm myself. If something was there, it couldn't harm me with direct magic because I was immune. I felt like something hovered just out of sight, lurking in every shadow, watching my every move.

  “Maybe some music will help,” I said and moved to the clock radio. I switched it on, and the damn radio station was playing the Police. Sting sang the ultimate stalker song and how he was watching every move I made. I did not feel reassured. I turned off the radio and clicked on my iPod. Queensrÿche's “Gonna Get Close to You” played, and I turned it off too.