Going, Going, Gone Read online

  ‘See ’em often?’ I asked.

  ‘We keep our distance,’ he said. ‘Kind of close in here, don’t you think? Let’s go back out, if that’s okay by you.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, and we put on our coats.

  ‘You ever get along with ‘em?’ I asked, once we were back up at Shaughnessy’s, and ensconsed in our usual booth.

  He shook his head, and drank his third club soda. Going by his face, and the grey there, I suspected this was one of those evenings where, if alone, he started instinctively slowing down, passing every liquor store. ‘Bobby calls me once in a while. We always got along. Not sure why, he’s the toughest one in the bunch. He was the one convinced the others to give me another chance down here.’

  I wondered what he possibly could have done that was so bad, within the context of his family. ‘Good of him.’

  ‘He’s staying out of touch this year, though,’ he said, smiling. ‘Long as the race is on.’

  ‘Probably what his henchmen tell him to do.’

  ‘They don’t tell him anything he hasn’t told them first.’

  Sometimes you look at somebody and you can almost see the clouds take shape overhead. Jim looked at that instant like the only one to have gotten out of the family alive, and at the same time looked like he wished he hadn’t. ‘What happened, anyway? What’d you do to them to give ’em such fits?’

  Looking at the ceiling, he stuck out his hands palms up, as if expecting rain, or pleading his case. ‘The curse of the Irish.’

  I nodded. Say what you would about them but that was one grave the Kennedys always kept clean. ‘How long you been off the sauce, anyway?’

  ‘Two years. After the first anniversary they got me the store. Bobby said it was only right. I could live like I wanted down here, long as I was down here. That was the deal.’

  ‘Good deal?’

  ‘No room for argument.’

  ‘So how do you manage?’ I asked. ‘You go to AA?’

  He shook his head. ‘Long as you know you have to stick with something, you do. Long as you got will power.’ With a quick jerk he downed his fizzy like it was a triple highball. Good as any reason to explain the cat’s stare he’d sometimes get, looking into the corner of an empty room as if spotting his own ghosts. Alkys who get with the programme say if you break the habit on your own you’re not really sober, only dry, and they know their stuff. Soon as the shades come down, next thing you know you’re looking at the bottom of a bottle of Old All Bets Are Off. ‘Knowing about the family,’ he said. ‘That make any difference to you?’

  ‘How so?’ I asked.

  ‘People have strong opinions about ‘em,’ he said. ‘I always worry it carries over. I’m not like them, you know. I never fit in.’ I nodded. ‘Never liked football. Flunked out of Harvard, it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Didn’t make any difference downtown, of course.’

  ‘What’d you want to do?’

  ‘What I’m doing,’ he said. ‘What I’m doing now, anyway.’

  However often I left my conscience somewhere behind me it always came crawling back, begging to be let in; and I’d always weaken, and throw open the door. No way I could see that Jim could be of any assistance to those DC clowns, no way I’d agree with at any rate. Started thinking I’d let things taper off; tell Martin that the truck wouldn’t start. I was tired of playing their reindeer games, anyway.

  ‘Lady, stop!’ I heard somebody shout. Jim and I turned around to see what was up. The bartender, a white-haired potatohead from the old sod, looked as if he’d just been told his mother was a child molester. Some of the barflies appeared as bumfuzzled but I couldn’t see what had them in such a tizzy. ‘What the hell, lady, you can’t come in here. Women aren’t –’

  ‘What’s meant?’ Eulie. She stepped between a couple of hulking louts as she sidled into the bar, brushing past elephants terrified by a mouse. Chlojo didn’t appear to have made the scene, else I suspected the patrons wouldn’t have been quite as vocal.

  ‘Jim,’ I said, standing up, ‘you’ll have to excuse me.’

  ‘She belong to you?’ he asked, smiling as he took in the melodrama.

  ‘Vice versa. I –’

  ‘Lady, what is it with you? Please, get out of here. Fucking Jaysus –’

  ‘See you later, Walter.’

  I shot over to where Eulie stood, slouching as if waiting for the crosstown bus. She had on a bus driver’s jumpsuit, black instead of grey. It looked three sizes too small. Some of the sots were so dumbfounded that they were slumping against the bar, nearly in tears, but a few of the younger – as beefy in head as they were in body – clearly wanted to mix it up.

  ‘Get your hoor outta here, you fuckin’ idjit,’ shouted a balding lout with broken teeth as he shoved me into the bar. The man in the apron leaned over and fixed a lobster claw on the back of my neck, squeezing hard as if he wanted to break it.

  ‘Get her out of here,’ he said. ‘Bring her in again, you’re eighty-sixed permanent.’

  Eulie grabbed my arm and we stumbled to the door, trying to avoid the imbeciles who kept sticking out their feet to trip us. When we finally got outside we walked as fast as we could, south down Broadway until we were sure nobody was coming after us.

  ‘Okay, we’re safe now,’ I said. ‘Where’ve you been? I –’

  ‘What problematicked back there, Walter?’ she asked.

  ‘Irish aren’t big on women in bars. You didn’t see the sign?’

  ‘Sign?’

  I sighed. ‘Where’s She-Beast?’

  ‘Chlo, meant?’ she said. ‘Around, but not present. For security’s sake.’

  ‘Considering the last time –’Walter, updates essential. Tell.’

  ‘With my ghosts, you mean?’ Seizing her elbow, I made a quick turn east onto Seventy-eighth. ‘Let’s take the scenic route.’

  ‘Contact continues?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re not having heart to hearts. It’s like I said, he knows my name. He says it, sometimes. I don’t pay that much attention anymore. Where have you been, anyway?’

  ‘Are they gaining mass?’

  Once she got her teeth in she clamped down like a bulldog. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Do they look any more solid?’

  ‘Clear as a clean windshield,’ I said. ‘When’d you get back into town? If you’d called, I could have –’

  ‘Today,’ she said, looking at a Greek grocery at the corner of Amsterdam. Lambs and squirrels dangled pink and bloody in the window, a fan stirring them into life. ‘Only today.’

  ‘You sure about that?’ Much as Muscles would have come in handy with the sons of Erin back at the bar, I still felt leery that she’d pop out of a manhole at any second and kill everybody in sight. ‘I was at a party downtown the other night. Almost got mugged, but seemed like I had a guardian angel.’

  ‘I’ve only been back today,’ she said. ‘Chlo stayed at my direction. To see that you were all right.’

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ I said, but didn’t make much of an argument.

  ‘When you see them, are they moving?’ We continued along the street. Two long ammo belts of trash cans lined each curb. ‘Have they appeared outside your apartment?’

  ‘They were at that party,’ I said. As soon as I spoke, Eulie went all pale – that’s to say she turned light olive as opposed to her usual café au lait – and looked like she’d swallowed a bad oyster. ‘What’s the matter?’ She shook her head.

  ‘We anticipated other, even though our AV confirmations predicted.’

  ‘AV?’

  ‘Audio video,’ she said. ‘Radio. Television.’

  ‘What’s television?’

  She didn’t fill me in. In the streetlight shine Eulie looked fourteen, very young and very scared. Can’t deny I’ve broken the Mann Act now and then in my life, but this was another kettle of fish indeed. Never been a candyman and didn’t want to be mistaken for one. At least she didn’t act like any teenager
I’d ever come across. ‘You were going to tell me something the last time you saw me,’ I said. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s difficult to detail,’ she said. ‘A tree, multibranched.’

  ‘All right. Why don’t you start by telling me who these ghosts used to be.’

  ‘She was a Russian scientist. He was Dryco’s security chief. Identifier, Jake.’

  ‘What’s Dryco?’

  ‘My owner.’

  ‘Nobody owns anybody,’ I said, speaking – it seemed to me, when I listened – with my father’s voice. Frightening; I’d never expected to hear him again. ‘You don’t mean literally.’

  A pause, way past pregnant into nine-hour labour. She eyed me as if she couldn’t fathom what I meant. ‘It’s a subunit of Dryco. I officiate.’

  ‘Not the Society for Psychical Research?’

  She shook her head. ‘The Lucidity Institute.’

  ‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘Look, is this ghost business some kind of a psyop? Am I the guinea pig?’

  ‘Psycop?’

  Op, op. Psyop. I’m no chicken in the basket. I have ears. Stories fly in.’

  ‘Walter, you’re baffling,’ she said. ‘Clarify.’

  ‘Baby, I may not look the part but I’m pretty tight with my ninth circle connections. They don’t know you from Lilith. Who are you with?’

  ‘As stated,’ she said. ‘Dryco. I can’t detail further, not presently.’

  ‘Why not?’ No response. ‘Why is this Jake character hanging out? Why can’t he go on to where he’s supposed to go?’

  ‘He wouldn’t know how. He’s been in his state for thirty years.’

  ‘Why’s he showing up now, then? In my apartment?’

  ‘We have theories,’ she said. ‘But actualities, unknown.’

  Seemed to me I may as well have been speaking in Choctaw for all the info I was getting out of her, and finally I gave up. Figured when she really had something to tell me, she’d tell me; and all I could think of now was how much I wanted to see what was under her jumpsuit. We reached Columbus Avenue and crossed against the orange. Within the park, beyond the trees, rose a dark black hulk. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘Natural History Museum. Awful place.’ A new idea popped into my head, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it on for size. ‘Are you and Chlo poltergeist girls?’

  She stopped dead in her tracks. ‘Iterate?’

  ‘All right, so maybe you’re the guidance counsellor, but you can’t tell me Chlojo’s not experimental.’

  ‘Chlo’s perfected,’ Eulie said. ‘Poltergeist girls? Detail, please.’

  ‘I’ve read some of the studies. Little missies who divert raging hormones into useful trades. Lock ’em in a room and they go to town. Think about people who did them dirty. How much they hate their mothers. Whatever, doesn’t matter long if they get upset. Once they build up a good head of steam, they let ‘er rip. Break all the glasses in restaurants. Tracks in a freight yard bend out of shape. Cows spontaneously combust.’

  ‘Cows?’

  ‘My main man told me they did a trial run at Khe Sahn last year. Every man on the battlefield cooked from the inside out. Experiment succeeded, soldiers failed. I have to keep up on these things if I’m going to do my job right. What’s up with you two? Bringing the war home in a different way?’

  We strolled into the park. Didn’t think it’d be too hazardous this time of night, Central Park West was the place in this part of town that suffered the heavy action. ‘What is your job, Walter, and how do you do it right?’

  We stopped under a light while I tried to put it into words. ‘Government work. I freelance. Go where the market takes me. Satisfy the needs of –’

  ‘Yes?’

  Came to me that I didn’t think I was satisfying the right needs, just then. She looked at me, and I couldn’t say another word. I’ve always heard that the first tongue you touch other than your own is the one you never forget. Back in Seattle, Karen and I were both fifteen, and it was outside the school before the ninth grade dance. I remember my surprise at how wet her mouth was, how sharp her teeth were. Didn’t work out in the short or long run; wasn’t but a week later or so she fell in love with a quadriplegic, ten years older. (He’d taken shrapnel in the spine while he was in the Jackson Brigade, fighting Nazis in France.) I got over it, but never forgot that kiss. But when I kissed Eulie I knew I’d remember that kiss even longer. She didn’t try pulling away; she held me just as close as I held her, she up on her toes, me craning my head down. Each of us took a step back when we came up for air.

  ‘Ah, gee,’ I said. ‘Eulie –’

  She didn’t look scared, not at all; but suddenly she turned and hopped over the broken benches to our left as if she was wearing springs on her feet. I saw her running deeper into the park, into the darkness where the streetlights didn’t shine. No telling what kind of characters were laying in wait down there. ‘Hey,’ I shouted, ‘wait a sec. Eulie! Eule!!’ I clambered over the bench, managing not to fall over it. I heard her feet crunching over the dead leaves somewhere between me and the museum. Just when I thought I was closing in somebody let off a flashbulb, or at least that’s what I thought it was; but who was there taking pictures? One of Frye’s photogs, no doubt. ‘Gimme that film, you son of a –’

  But nobody was there, after all; not a wandering shutterbug, not Chlojo, not Eulie. A cold wind blew through the park, rustling the trees; for a few minutes it sounded as if it were starting to rain, and then I felt small plops on my shoulders and head. I started walking back toward the light, wondering how she’d pulled a Judge Crater so completely, wondering who’d taken a photo, wishing I had an umbrella. It still seemed to be raining when I reached a streetlight. The sidewalk wasn’t wet, but it was covered with what had been falling. Little green frogs, no bigger than a dime, hopped across the concrete, looking just like the ones that always fall in July thunderstorms. But it wasn’t July.

  SIX

  ‘You’re working up a sweat, Walter,’ Bennett said. ‘Taking too much of something?’

  ‘Yeah. You.’

  We hooked up in a gloomy knock’emback called the Expressway Bar, down at 40th and Eighth, just below the last Manhattan exit ramp before the Robert Moses Bridge. At my demand Martin arranged a meet and greet when he hit town the next Monday. As punishment, though, he showed up with his dopey sidekick; and while he’d left Hambone and Chuckles back in the swamp, Sartorius hitched a ride as well. I hadn’t wanted to let those louts in on anything I had to say but there was no getting out of it, and it wasn’t long before I understood why.

  ‘What is it, Walter?’ Martin asked. From the moment he parked himself he sounded peevier than usual; he hadn’t given himself the usual close shave that morning, and a faint five’o’clock darkened his dome. Whole time he sat there he tapped out a semblance of a beat with his fingers against the top of the table – he’d lived too long in DC to have any sense of rhythm left.

  ‘Before I go any further with this you’ve got to fill me in on what the long-term goal is.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘With Jim Kennedy. What’s the master plan?’

  Sartorius sipped his coke and tried on a variant sneer. His expression made me wonder if he’d slipped a blood sample of mine under the microscope and didn’t like what he saw crawling. Bennett looked unnervingly calm, as if he were already in on the joke. Martin was sweating, though it wasn’t hot. ‘Family reunion,’ said the weasel. ‘Leave it at that, Walter.’

  ‘Why is this bothering you now?’ Martin asked, his voice raw. Sounded like he’d been up three nights in a row preaching.

  ‘Always bothered me,’ I said. ‘I’m just being more upfront about it.’

  ‘Treat it like all your assignments,’ he said. ‘Drive in the nails and don’t worry about what you’re building.’

  ‘My brothers, mayhap you don’t get me. What I’m saying is, if you don’t tell me what I’m doing, I’m not going to do it.’

  S
artorius held his fork tightly, as if ready to spear out my eyes, but he didn’t budge an inch. Bennett cracked his knuckles. ‘What’s the matter, Walter? Turn over a rock and find your conscience?’

  ‘You can’t quit, halfway through the assignment,’ said Martin.

  ‘Look, I was squeezed into this assignment, it didn’t fit me –’

  ‘You let yourself be squeezed.’ He had nothing to add; I didn’t like the way he wasn’t looking at me when he spoke to me. That’s never a good sign. I couldn’t get why he acted like he was almost taking his cues from Benny. ‘Walter, you didn’t answer my question. Why is this starting to bother you now, when it’s never bothered you in the past?’

  ‘You know as well as I do this isn’t the usual gig,’ I said. ‘Generally, I don’t have to see who the joke gets played on. Jim’s family may be straight out of Charles Addams but he himself isn’t hurting anybody –’

  ‘Not presently,’ Bennett said. ‘Walter, time’s come to move on to step two. This is where your previous experience’ll come in handy. What you’ll be doing –’

  ‘You heard a word I said?’

  ‘Every word. Doesn’t matter. Walter, you’ll –’

  ‘No offence, Bennett, but how is it you’re slinging the do this do that around? Far as I know you’re just a tall root on the government tree.’

  ‘Acorns, oaks.’

  B-boy could toss off a real death’s head when the joke was on somebody else. I looked over to Martin, and the second I did I could tell that at some point, for some reason, somebody heavier’d sat down on the teeter-totter since the last time we hooked up. ‘Walter,’ he said. ‘At Hamilton’s request, Bennett is now playing an active role in this operation.’

  ‘An active role, or the active role?’

  ‘You can’t quit, Walter,’ Bennett said. The Germ fell into line as he suddenly drew himself into the vertical. ‘There’s no need to add anything. Martin, your boy seems to find it hard to handle change. So you tell him about step two. See if he listens.’