Second Round: A Return to the Ur-Bar

by Garth Nix

  Then I passed a garbage can on which someone had stuck a poster of Lou Reed as the Statue of Liberty. Transformer-era Lou, smooth of face, his El Greco eyes fixed upward like a whacked-out Madonna, torch aloft. The image winked at me as I drew close. I crouched in front of it. “What the hell, Lou?” I waited for it to say something, but it had gone back to being a drawing again, water-stained, ink faded by the sun.

  I stood and resumed walking. My world had gone mad. The one thing I could do to give it a little order was to find out who killed me, and why.

  * * *

  I stood across the street from the red brick building I had called home for the last few weeks of my life. Ginny’s place was on the third floor, a corner apartment with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Seven grand a month plus parking and maintenance fees.

  An old job that paid really well, Ginny had told me when I asked how she could afford the place. I kicked in what I could and in exchange Ginny taught me how to charm my way through life. Training, she said, for the big score. New clothes. New hair. New IDs from someone who knew someone. It’s going to be huge, she told me as she taught me how to walk, how to talk. We’ll be able to retire. When I pressed for details, she deflected me and yeah, okay, that did bother me. But she was able to afford that apartment without my help, and yes, I did check.

  As I pondered all this, I spotted Ginny hurrying up the other side of the street, head down and shoulders hunched. I jaywalked, felt the cold gasoline-scented shudder as a Ford Escape drove through me. “Hey, Gin.”

  She slowed, stopped, then looked in my direction, eyes hidden behind huge sunglasses. I didn’t know how much time had passed since she last saw me, but she looked worse than I’d ever seen her—blond hair twisted into a messy topknot, T-shirt and cargoes that looked pulled out of a dirty laundry basket.

  “Gin?” I had no clue whether she could see, hear, or sense me at all, but I had to try. “It’s Sherry. I need your help. I need to reach you. I’m trying to figure out—” Before I could finish, she broke into a run and darted into the building. “Gin!” I ran after her, then staggered as something else passed through me.

  No, someone. A man, enraged—I felt his anger like barbed wire and broken glass. He darted around a taxi cab, thumping the hood with his fist when the driver laid on the horn, spinning out of the way of a bicyclist, pushing through a trio of women and sending one tumbling to the sidewalk. Shouts followed him as he tried to wedge through the entry door before it closed, but Ginny had gotten in ahead of him. As he beat on the glass, someone shouted they had called the police, while two men closed in after him. He fought them off when they tried to restrain him, then ran down the street.

  I tried to follow him but lost him as the layers of the city swallowed him up. All I saw were jeans and a dark blue T-shirt covering a slim frame, a shock of brown hair. I struggled to recall if I had seen him before, but in my time living with Ginny, visitors had been limited to restaurant delivery guys. We deal with men all day, she said. At night, I’m off the clock. At the time, I didn’t care—I was just happy to have a roof over my head. But now it hit me that Ginny might have a reason to want to be alone.

  * * *

  One good thing about being whatever I was—it didn’t matter that I had forgotten the apartment building’s entry code. I walked through the glass and past the security desk. Considered attempting to float upstairs, but decided to save that for another time and boarded the elevator. I shared it with an oblivious woman and her toddler son and didn’t bother to step aside when we stopped on the third floor and two men got on before I could step off. I sensed anticipation as I passed through them into the corridor, the possibilities of a night out complete with images, and tried without success to shake off the embarrassment I felt about this mind-reading thing I had developed. I’d have given a lot for this talent in my old life, but now it bothered me.

  Should I knock? I stood before the door to Ginny’s apartment, felt the sensation of cool velvet as I pressed my hand to the panel and watched it pass through. “Oh, hell.” I took a deep breath and walked inside, down the short entryway, walls hung with the museum prints, into the living room, with the hardwood floor and incredible views.

  I found Ginny in the kitchen, crouched on the floor in front of an open cupboard, pulling out packages and pouring the contents on the floor. Dried pasta. Cereal. Rice. After she emptied the boxes and bags, she rummaged through them, pulling out bundles of plastic wrap bound with rubber bands. She pulled one apart—it was a wad of bills, tens and twenties, hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

  A flash of pink caught my eye and my stomach flipped as a scene replayed. Cashing a check from one of my marks, a ten-dollar bill the teller handed me half-covered with a pink stain. I gave it to you, Gin. You said you needed it for the pizza guy. So what was it doing hidden in a box of gluten-free rigatoni?

  Funny, the cascade that one memory can trigger. How Ginny always had to collect the mail herself and never wanted me to answer the door. How she talked a lot about the future, but never answered my questions about the little things that went on every day. And because I had my own problems and needed a place to hide, I never pressed. “Hello, Ginny.”

  Ginny paused, then looked in my direction. She had pushed her sunglasses up on her head, revealing red-rimmed eyes swollen from crying. Her skin looked waxy in the harsh lighting. Sickly pale. She eased to her feet, pausing when she lost her balance and stepped in a pile of cereal. The crunch seemed to echo.

  I reached for the jars and bottles on the counter, hoping to rattle one to get her attention. But my hand passed through them as it had through the door. Dammit. Before I could stop myself, I struck the granite with my fist.

  Impact. Glass and metal shook, one jar bouncing high enough to tip and roll over the edge. Reflex kicked in and I tried to catch it. For a bare instant, I felt the cool glass, but instead of stopping it, I sent it tumbling through the air. It struck Ginny’s leg, hit the floor, and shattered. She screamed.

  Then she looked in my direction. Her eyes widened and she backed up, collided with the counter, then scooted along the edge. “You’re dead.” She said it over and over, barely above a whisper. “I saw you. They told me.”

  “The cops?” I took a step toward her, stopped when she whimpered. “Do they know who shot me?”

  “Shot you.” Ginny’s knees sagged and she held on to the edge of the counter.

  “Gin, I know you must feel really shook right now, but I need you to tell me what happened. I need to know why.” I looked down at the front of my T-shirt, saw the dark stain spread. Shit. “Just please, ignore what I look like right now. Pretend I’m alive. Close your eyes or something. But please, talk to me.”

  “You’re a ghost.” Ginny’s voice sounded a little stronger, though she still looked ready to faint. “Are you here to haunt me?”

  “No. Why would I?” I shook my head, then pointed to the mess on the floor, the bundles of cash. “What’s with all this?”

  “I’m in trouble.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. Who was that guy who tried to get to you?”

  “What guy?”

  “Dammit, Gin. I was right outside. I saw the whole thing.”

  Ginny licked her lips. “That was Billy.” She flinched as she spoke his name. “I have to get away from him.”

  “Who is he?” I felt something hard hit my hip and realized I’d leaned against the counter. I placed my hand on the granite, felt the small chip on the edge where I’d dropped a bottle of wine. “What does he want?”

  Ginny pushed one of the wads of cash with her toe. “It’s my money.”

  “Really? All of it?”

  “Yes.” Some of the old strength returned to Ginny’s voice. She stood up straighter. “He thinks he helped, but he didn’t. But he isn’t going to leave me alone, so I need to get out of the city.”

  “And go where?”

  “I have a friend. In Connecticut.”

  “Does he know he’s your
friend?”

  “Yes, he knows. Why are you being so mean?” Ginny pulled the sunglasses off her head, worked the earpieces back and forth until one snapped, then threw them to the floor. “I’m sorry. About what happened.” She stared down at the wreckage. “You really don’t know?”

  I looked around the kitchen, then back into the living room. Nice floor, isn’t it? That voice in my head, unbidden. What was it trying to tell me? Things you know already, Tasso said, but I didn’t know anything. That’s why I had to come here. “I don’t remember a damned thing.”

  Ginny pressed her hands together. They looked a mess, fingertips red, nails bitten to the quicks. “They told me that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You were in a bar and a fight broke out and someone pulled a gun and you got shot.”

  “An accident?”

  “Yeah.”

  More of Tasso’s words came back to me. Sent here before your time. Well, the role of innocent bystander would certainly qualify. But I could ponder it later, in the quiet of the ballroom. Now I needed to help out Gin. She had apparently held out on me, but still, I owed her something. “So. Connecticut.”

  “My friend’s sending a car for me.”

  “Is he really?”

  “You didn’t sound this cynical when you were alive.” Ginny gathered up the bundles of cash, then reached into the cupboard under the sink. “I’m sorry about what happened to you, I really am.” She pulled out a paper bag and stuffed the money into it. “But it was an accident and let’s be honest, it wasn’t like we were really that close.”

  Honesty’s important. I touched the counter, to see if it still felt real. This time, my fingers sank into the slab.

  “So, you know, maybe we can talk sometime later. A seance or something. After this all blows over.” Ginny’s footsteps crunched, flecks of pasta skittering across the floor. “You’re fading,” she said as she brushed past me. “Guess that means you’re going bye-bye.”

  “Looks that way.” The kitchen shimmered in and out of focus. I could see layers again, dirty dishes in the sink, workmen installing the cabinets. Felt the rush of wind from a time before windows, before walls, before the building existed.

  Then I followed Ginny into the living room and smelled blood.

  “I need to pack—” Before Ginny could finish, a soft click filled the room. Then came the sound of a door opening. Footsteps.

  “Hello, bitch.” Billy entered. Soft, boyish face and dirty hands—definitely not Ginny’s usual type. He held up a couple of lock picks. “The delivery bay in the back. The lock on the sliding door is busted. You’d think a fancy place like this would have better security, wouldn’t you?”

  What happened next happened fast, the way these things do. Billy started to move past me to get to Gin and she screamed and I stepped between them. He barreled past me—tried to, at least. I saw the confusion in his eyes as he collided with someone he couldn’t see.

  And then he could. “What the fuck what the fuck.” He stumbled backwards. “You’re supposed to be—”

  “Dead. I know.” I realized then what had happened. Emotion. Anger. When I let it out, they could see me. Stay angry. My hand closed over his wrist—I felt the warmth, the skin and bone, and squeezed until he let out a faint squeal.

  Then I saw him as he’d been some time before. Face twisted in anger, a gun in his hand. “I remember now. I heard you enter. Gin had just left and I thought she had forgotten something.” I looked toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms and saw myself standing there. My old self, in the peach dress and the heels and the hair. “I stepped out to see what was up. I came in here. The lights were out and the blinds were closed, so it was dark. You didn’t even say a word. You just—” I mimed shooting the gun. “After that, I don’t know what happened. I guess you couldn’t find the money.”

  Billy shot a glare at Ginny that should’ve dropped her where she stood. But the expression died when he turned back at me. I’d had men look at me in so many ways over the years. So many emotions—lust, anger, hatred. But never fear. I took a step towards him and he backed away and pressed against the wall like he could squeeze his way through it if he tried hard enough.

  “I thought it was her. You had the same—” He grabbed a handful of his hair. “I didn’t know it was you. I thought it was her.” He slid down to the floor, legs working in slow motion, his shoes etching black scuffmarks on the wood. “She took my money. I got it from work and gave it to her to keep in case they searched my place, and next thing I know she’s not answering my texts and she’s never around here and goddammit that’s my money.”

  I looked at Ginny and her layers fell away. All her armor. I saw her as she once had been, as she still was deep down, wavy brown hair and a few extra pounds and a gaze that darted one way, then the other, like a trapped animal looking for an escape route. “This was your big retirement plan?”

  Ginny jerked her head towards her partner in crime. “I needed to get rid of him first because he was starting to scare me.” She met my eyes for a moment before looking away again, but a moment was all it took. “I was going to tell you. Honest.”

  Sometimes it really does hit you so hard that you stumble. The realization. The knowing. Men prefer blondes, Ginny had told me. Seemed like months before, but hadn’t it really been last week? I’d had a bad day at a high-end bar. Five hours and not one approach, much less an offer of a drink. Besides, you look too much like their daughter. That was the night she dyed and straightened my hair, then trimmed it into a shoulder-length bob like hers.

  Look, she said as she bent close, mirror in hand. We could be twins.

  I walked around the living room, noted the location of the couch and the chairs and the fancy rugs. Did anything look different? Was anything missing? I toed the edge of a rug, brilliant red and gold, an abstract leaf pattern. “This is new, isn’t it?” I heard Billy groan as I crouched, then lifted one corner. Ginny had moved behind the couch, fist pressed to her mouth.

  The stain was hard to see at first. But the floor had a rough finish, which made it hard to clean completely. I could just pick them out, the flecks of brownish red filling the tiny nicks in the grain. I placed my hand on them and felt the warmth, the soft flutter of a heart beating its last. My heart. What had they done with my body? Did it matter? “Get out.” I turned to Billy. “Just go.”

  Billy sprang to his feet and started for the door. Then he stopped, hands working, rubbing his thighs, forming fists. “What about my money?”

  I flicked a finger at Ginny. “Give him the money. He’s the one who’s going to die when whoever he stole it from finds out it’s missing.” I took a little cold comfort from the sound Billy made as he closed his eyes and shivered.

  “I should get to keep some of it.” Ginny’s voice steadied, as it always had when negotiations got underway. “For my trouble.”

  I shrugged at Billy. “She has a point. She hid it for you, which means they might come after her, too. You owe her something.”

  “Like hell I do.” Billy started towards her, then stopped when I moved to cut him off. “Five.”

  Ginny laughed. “Fifteen.”

  “Ten.”

  “Fifteen.”

  Billy started to argue. But he couldn’t stop looking at me, and that seemed to take the fight out of him. “Yeah, fine.” He made a show of looking around the living room. “That’ll cover what, two months in this place? Then where will you go?” He twitched back and forth on the balls of his feet while Ginny extracted her share. Then he circled around me, taking care to stay beyond arm’s reach, yanked the bag from her hands, and ran.

  Ginny sighed as the door clicked shut. “Why did you let him leave?” She frowned at her plastic-wrapped payoff, then stuffed it in her pockets. “Couldn’t you have scared him to death or something?”

  I walked to the front window and pressed my hand to the glass. I was still solid enough to feel the warmth. “You set me up.”

  Ginny sniffled an
d wiped her eyes. “I didn’t know he’d kill you.”

  “Stop it.” I waited until she ditched the poor me expression and looked me in the face. “What did you think, that he’d panic after he realized he’d made a mistake and leave you alone?”

  “What are you going to do? Are you going to haunt me now?” Ginny’s face brightened and she stepped closer. “You could haunt Billy. He’s the one who shot you. He’s the one who killed you. He’s the one who deserves—”

  “Shut up.” I gave the glass a final pat. “I am not going to clean up after you.”

  “Nobody knows you’re dead.” Ginny followed me to the door. “Your family doesn’t even know where you are. I bet they don’t even care.” She tried to move past me and block my path. “Hey, you could be, like, my ghost bodyguard. Like what you did now. We could be a real team.”

  “I told you to shut up.” I tried to walk through her. But I was still too solid and I wound up knocking her against the wall. I caught the fear in her eyes and backed away, hands raised. I didn’t want to hurt her. I just wanted to get away. “I trusted you.” Just like Tasso had trusted his friend, and no doubt like others in the bar had trusted someone. I tried to think of what else to say, cutting, acid judgment. But words would never make a dent in Ginny’s hide and killing her—assuming I even could—would just mean that I’d see her at the Emmaline. I never wanted her to set foot in the bar, or watch Gil pour her the little drink. “Goodbye.”

  I actually had to open the door to leave the apartment. An older man edged away from me when I entered the elevator. Once I got outside, it took ten minutes of deep, slow breathing before I became invisible again.