Going, Going, Gone Read online

  ‘Accidents happen,’ I said. ‘Let’s try the divan.’

  Both of them sat down on the sofa. It moaned but didn’t take the gas pipe. ‘Let’s make with the labels, why don’t we?’ I asked. ‘How do yours read?’ They gave me a stare as if I was a chinaman and they were the new white slaves. Downright unsettling to see molls like these two showing the whim-whams. ‘Call me Walter. Walter Bullitt. What do they call you?’

  ‘Eulalia. Call me Eulie,’ she said. ‘Walter.’

  ‘Euphonious indeed,’ I said, and, still standing, bowed low to Big Girl. Didn’t imagine she’d let me kiss her hand. ‘My petit-four?’

  ‘Chlojo,’ she rumbled.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Chlo for Chloe,’ Eulie said. ‘Jo for Josephine.’ They gave each other a look, and nodded. ‘Chlojo.’

  ‘Music to my ears,’ I said, judging that Eulie wasn’t the only one showing tell-tale traces of the woodpile. When it came to the colourbar Chlojo had hardly any coffee in the cream; but there was another story being told when it came to the super-structure. Impressed me that they seemed to feel so fancy free when it came to coming and going as they pleased. ‘Gals, my cat’s on its last life. You’d better fill me in on something …’

  ‘What?’ Eulie asked.

  ‘Look, let me pledge my allegiance first. I’m no Royboy, there’s no tattletales here. The skin game leaves me cold and my sheets stay on the bed. But I can’t help but wonder about the bloodline I’m picking up on here. Tell me Big Momma, what boat’d Bigger Momma come over on?’

  Chlojo fisheyed me; then grinned, clam-happy to read the book without using the dictionary. Her teeth looked false but they also looked like they could bite through the Brooklyn phone book. ‘Jadish,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Swedish and Jamaican,’ Little Mod explained.

  ‘Nice grouping,’ I said; I can always spot the spots. Of course this was a talent anyone born to the colours knew in their bones: it was tricky to function in the modern world unless you could tell at first look how black white might really be. ‘I’m cool. Want to make sure you know you’re not the only ones with your hand in the tar.’ They gave each other a quick corner look and then turned their gaze back to the main attraction. ‘You two on a diplomatic gig?’

  ‘Diplomatic?’ Eulie asked.

  ‘I’d like to see the hotel clerk tell her no dogs need apply,’ I said, pointing at Chlojo. She didn’t pick up my thread that time, though; she and Eulie just sat there staring at me like they were at a county fair and I was in a jar. Maybe I was off on the diplomatic guess; they didn’t seem especially American but they didn’t act like foreigners either, at least not from any of the countries I was familiar with.

  ‘Well, fill me in, ladies,’ I went on. ‘Much as I like to let my imagination run wild I doubt you’re here to brush up on your orgy skills. What is on the menu anyway? Is this the appetizer or are we already having dessert?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ asked Eulie. ‘We’re dining?’

  ‘Nya, Eulie,’ Chlo said, her big marble eyes shining like black suns. ‘Explicate presence. Detail.’

  I winked at Chlo, who may have been somewhat antisocial but at least seemed hep to the jive. Sad to say she didn’t wink back.

  ‘Have you experienced hallucinations lately?’ Eulie asked, pulling her drumsticks up on the sofa and spreading them like she was keen to be stuffed. ‘What you believed to be hallucinations?’

  That was a difficult situation, my brothers. Try as I might to be gentlemanly, I couldn’t help sneaking peeks down between her legs to see what they were wearing in Tierra del Fuego. ‘Could be,’ I said. ‘Depends on the produce.’

  She shook her head. ‘What’s meant?’

  ‘Business-class tickets out of Bittersville,’ I said. ‘Mind masters only, got a cold war going with the bodybreakers. Can’t stand cokey joes, speedsters, redheads. Only junky I ever saw handle the stuff was Old Bill –’

  ‘Which drugs?’ Eulie asked.

  ‘Psychedillies. LSD-25, 34, 65,’ I said, and ran through the repertoire. ‘Mescaline and or peyote, fly agaric, ergine, ibogaine, yage, psyilocibin derivative and in the natural state, virola, so forth, so on. Then there’re the government beasts I test-market prior to distribution, DMT, STP, BZ, THL, VMC –’

  ‘Have you seen a specific vision?’ she asked. ‘Two people?’

  ‘Stallion and mare?’

  Eulie blinked, and then her bulb lit. ‘Gendered accordingly, AO.’

  ‘Who’s asking?’ An undesirable notion crept into my mind like a cat burglar and now it was my turn to shake with the whim-whams. What if Bennett was having a go at working the pimp side of the street? Could be he’d gone flakeola, and started up his own ops unbeknownst to Martin? That runaround always landed on the offbeat for somebody. Bennett couldn’t get me to do anything I hadn’t already done, but the way they lulled me into sociability made me tell these sisters in blood more than I ever wanted Bennett to hear. Entrapment, no doubt. B-boy looked in the files, found a pair who’d blown their cover, brought ’em into the office and gave them the opportunity to keep passing unhindered.

  ‘Who we represent?’ Eulie asked.

  ‘You got it.’

  Chlojo gave me a sly eye and chirped, ‘Society for Psychical Research.’

  I played back everything I’d squawked to them about. After running through it I realized I wasn’t as in deep as I’d feared I was. That comment I made about having a hand in the tar might sound fishy to a fisherman, but something that vague could be talked away, especially if I called Martin on his hand. Back in the catbird seat: I decided to just act natural and lay off the code.

  ‘That so?’ I asked. ‘So are they ghosts or Fortean phenomena?’

  ‘Fortean?’ Chlo asked. ‘Define.’

  ‘Paraworldly,’ I said. ‘The unlikely and unexpected, but with basis in fact. Lake monsters, abominable snowmen, poltergeists, fish falling from the sky –’

  ‘Unusual coincidences, living pterodactyls, cows giving birth to sheep,’ Eulie added, sharing a fast stare with Chlojo. ‘Forteana.’

  ‘Well? Which are they?’

  ‘Uncertain,’ she said. ‘They aspect both. Investigation warrants.’

  ‘Whatever they are, how’d you know I needed an exterminator?’

  ‘We centred upon disturbances in the field,’ Eulie said. ‘Prompting interest.’

  ‘What field?’

  Ignorance being bliss, she kept me happy.

  ‘So why do they want to give me their business?’ I asked.

  ‘Coincidence, undoubted,’ she said. ‘You’ve seen them here?’

  ‘Today,’ I said. ‘First time I saw ’em though was last night, in DC. Then again this morning.’

  ‘Washington, DC?’

  ‘Know the place?’

  Eulie looked less than slaphappy. Chlojo lifted her head like she wanted to give the ceiling a onceover. She had as many scars under her chin as she did on her face, and it struck me she’d been through major trauma. Car wreck? High-school chemistry experiment gone haywire? Crazy boyfriend? She was put back together pretty well, considering. Maybe she used to work as a lab rat for a Palm Springs nip and tuck man. Some scalpel jockey honing his blade on the riffraff before trimming the dowagers.

  ‘Saw here when?’ Eulie asked, leaning forward, legs apart.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘before I went to Max’s. I spun some platters and they hightailed it.’

  I subtly began to fold up in the middle, because my southern inflation was starting to become a little too obvious. I was damned every which way and up with these gals. Didn’t matter if I tried not to go on beaver patrol with Eulie; I’d slide my eyes in the opposite direction and there I’d be, gazing deep into Chlojo’s posturepedic couture. Their six of one and half dozen of the other was knocking me way past blueball into mood indigo. The worst of it was that no matter how much these two were giving me happy pants, not knowing who they really were o
r why they were really here made me feel like a cat in a bag listening to the riverboats getting louder.

  ‘You see them now?’ Eulie asked.

  ‘Nowhere nohow,’ I said. ‘They weren’t much for tunes.’

  ‘We need to execute necessaried tests. Is that acceptable?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘don’t let me get in the way.’

  She nodded to Chlojo and they started unloading their gear. I picked up her empty satchel thinking at first it was leather but finding out soon enough it wasn’t leather or plastic. Whatever it was, it looked expensive, so I guessed the stuff was one of those new miracle space age things like Tang. Eulie positioned a set of twelve little black blocks on the floor and started tapping each of them in turn with a foot-long black rod. The tip of the gizmo was round and I couldn’t help wondering if Trish had been right, and my unforgettable guests were little miss muffets after all. Sad story indeed if true but I thought I’d wait till all evidence was in before passing judgement. Eulie stroked the beast’s sides in the expected manner as she tapped each box. The tip lit up with a pink glow like a car’s cigarette lighter. She aimed her rod my way, and it was hard not to flinch.

  ‘Chlojo, position in accordance.’ She snatched up the boxes and laid them out in a semicircle on the hearth, in front of my bricked-up fireplace, on the hearth. ‘We’ll ready en momento.’

  The little one was a charmer, no doubt; impressive as I might have thought Chlojo to be at the getgo, the longer I was around her the more I found myself developing a soft gooey centre for the wee missy. She had some trace of an accent; sounded familiar. ‘You two New Yorkers?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Jersey.’

  Farmer’s daughters going hogwild in the big city: that explained their fashion parade if not the goofball behaviour. You may take the girl out of Secaucus but you can’t take Secaucus out of the girl. My nerves started doing that jingle-jangle-jingle; I knew if I was going to keep playing host with the most I was going to need relief.

  ‘You ladies wouldn’t drop your drawers if I fired up, would you?’

  ‘What?’ Eulie asked. Chlojo finished lining up the boxes and stood up. I took a pinch and a Bugler from the stash at hand and started up a one-hand Detroit roll.

  ‘Herbifaction,’ Chlojo said to Eulie.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Muchas thankas,’ I said. After giving the bone a quick lick I flipped up the crystal on my Doxa Firelight and clicked the bottom stem; the fire flowered up from the face and I listened to the sweet music of popping seed. ‘Pause that refreshes,’ I mumbled, drawing south until the fume soaked the alveoli; then I let the north wind howl.

  Chlojo gave me a loan shark’s grin. Sticking her fist into her bodice she tugged out a change purse. Squeezed it open, and she extracted a bud the size of a bing cherry. She held up her treat as if expecting me to beg.

  ‘Lovely one, I’m used to Manhattan grade,’ I said, stepping over to be polite. ‘No need to cop my muggles off eighth-grade hoods at the Nutley Dairy Queen –’

  Live and learn. When I took a whiff of that bud of hers I blasted off through mere proximity. Before I knew what hit me I was one with the floor, overcome by g-force. My head felt like the Babe had knocked it into the upper deck, and even though my blinds were drawn I saw the saucers swooping down to get me. ‘Valentine,’ I heard somebody say before realizing it was me. When I finally returned to the solid world, a minute or so later, I saw Chlojo flashing a truly sinister rictus. Eulie was holding my shoulders, and demonstrating far more concern than her duplicitious sidekick.

  ‘What is that shit?’ I asked, feigning a semblance of coherency. Clearly no playground was involved here. Only explanation I could figure was that these gals had big brothers in green overseas, and they loved their siblings dearly. ‘Vietnamese?’

  Chlojo sized me up as if deciding where to kick me next. ‘Secaucus.’

  The yen was on me; I somehow had to reserve acreage on this produce. ‘Not bad,’ I said, lifting my hand and seeing fourteen. ‘Would you ladies care to share and share alike –?’

  ‘Chlo,’ Eulie shouted, passing her big buddy the rod, distracting us for the moment from considering profitable co-op schemes. ‘Positioning. Formation ninety percent sure. Ready yourself.’

  ‘AO,’ Chlojo said, pointing the rod directly at the small boxes. The rod’s tip began shining fire-engine red.

  ‘What? What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re seeable, Walter?’

  I shook my head, and realized I shouldn’t have. It still didn’t really feel attached to my neck. ‘Nope.’

  ‘Walter, how many hours since initial contact?’

  ‘Uh, twenty hours?’ As I drifted back and forth over the enhanced plane it struck me that I should be more candid about my state, the night before. ‘First time I saw them I’d just dropped something vaguely psychoactive. Would that –?’

  ‘You’ve known similar alteration during successive showings?’ Eulie asked, extracting what I thought was a white business card out of a pocket I hadn’t seen. When she held it in front of the boxes the card got bright pink spots all over as if it had chickenpox.

  ‘No more than usual.’

  ‘Conceivably facilitated,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t generate.’

  ‘Eulie,’ said Chlojo. ‘There.’

  Each little box started putting out a deep blue shine, looking like they were heating up, though since I wasn’t dripping I could tell they weren’t. After ten seconds or so the shine intensified and something like St. Elmo’s fire outlined the fireplace mantle. There were two lamps on in the room and one in the record chamber and all of them suddenly started putting out black light. Our skin turned deep purple and the gals’ teeth went all snowy. Place looked like some California head shop. When I touched the walls I felt static electricity giving me that doorknob in winter feel; an ozony perfume filled the air, the kind that comes up when a rainstorm suddenly ups the ante, and bolts start belting down from the lords above.

  ‘This going to hurt the records –?’

  ‘Are you sighting, Walter?’ Eulie asked. I watched my ectoplasmic pals begin to gel in the far corner of the living room. ‘Walter?’

  ‘There she blows,’ I said, pointing.

  ‘Shield, Chlo.’

  They both reached up into their dos as if primping for company. Eulie pulled out a small round box and popped it open. This evidently was just the moment for them to put in contact lenses. Now I’ve always been under the impression cheaters were glamorizers, but the look theirs gave them weren’t so much Rita Hayworth as Lon Chaney. They were yellow, with spots and lines. Seemed impossible to see through but I guess they did.

  ‘Godness,’ said Chlojo. I think she’d met her match. The rod’s knob shone like the headlight on the midnight express. Their geiger counter, or something, started clicking out a mambo beat.

  ‘Walter!’ Eulie said, sounding touchy. ‘You recognize?’

  ‘None other.’

  My airy pair, as always, didn’t seem to be up on the news that we were close at hand. They just hung there in the corner like a painting you could walk all the way around; looked sealed in lucite. I took advantage of their lassitude and gave them a closer one-two. I’d have put the dude at my age, thirty or so. From the look of him I guessed he’d been standing on Everest when somebody pulled it out from under him. The buttons on his jacket were gone, the lining hung down all raggedyass; his pants were wrinkled as Grandpa’s kisser. The shoes didn’t matter, they kept fading in and out. His dreamgirl was a goner, no wondering about that. Couldn’t tell exactly what did her in but judging from the bruises I’d think somebody’d played xylophone on her with a pair of meat tenderizers. She’d been a luscious morsel once, though, and her face wasn’t touched. Her eyes were shut. His weren’t. I don’t know what he saw but he didn’t seem to like it.

  ‘Scrolling?’ Chlojo asked.

  ‘AO,’ Eulie said, putting her card underneath the end of that red-h
ot rod. ‘Ratio coordinates verifying. Wave accessibility doubling, enter primary codes –’

  No need to eavesdrop; I might as well have been putting the glom on Armenians. Impossible for the layman to get much of a grip on the wonders of science. Wished now I hadn’t cut those paraphysics classes during the six months I cooled my heels at the U of Washington. Knowing the basics would have let me be more hep to their jive. They did their chores as if this was the kind of thing they did every morning before breakfast. I settled back in the purple gleam to soak in the zen of the moment. Just then the phone rang. The gals sprang hurdles when the jingle bells started clanging and the ghosts took off on a fade. Eulie and Chlojo glared at me; in my state of heightened enlightenment I wasn’t too clear on what I was supposed to do. ‘Answer!’ Chlojo shouted, starting toward me. I snatched up the receiver and bleated a hasty salute.

  ‘What’s shaking?’ Trish’s lovely dulcets charmed my ear in reply. La Fabulosa never fails to send me express, but on this evening, at that moment, I’d have been a lot happier if she’d gone to play stickball on somebody else’s block. ‘Cat got your tongue? Speak up.’

  ‘Basta,’ I said, going low-toned and sultry so she’d think I was in the midst of heavy loveseat action. Chlojo and Eulie were getting frantic with their machinery but the ghosts weren’t sticking around. ‘Not talking. Loose lips, ships.’

  ‘Don’t feed me that huggermugger.’

  ‘Unavoidable, fabs.’

  ‘You hotfooted it so fast out of Max’s you beat the smoke out the door. Give me the dirt, handsome. You get anywhere trying to shift into babe-o-luscious or did those fair maidens put on the brakes and toss you out on the curb?’

  ‘Ixnay on the usciouslay,’ I chided.

  ‘You mean they’re still there?’ The amazement in her voice annoyed me, but there was no need to get into it here. ‘Both?’

  ‘The sixty-four thousand dollar question.’

  ‘It’s groovitudinous?’ she asked.

  ‘Maxima.’

  ‘Mea maxima groovitudina.’

  ‘Must run,’ I said, knowing she rarely recognized hints when she heard them. ‘Tally ho.’