PsyCop 4: Secrets (15 page)

His dirty black coat flapped behind him, obeying some sort of weird ghost-physics. It didn’t make sense, but then again it also didn’t make sense that he would choose to run rather than simply disappearing.

“Stop,” I called, not quite as loud as I would’ve liked because I was already sucking air, and I wished I could shoot him and take out his kneecap to give myself a little advantage.

He ran through a fence that I’d have to vault. Great. Just great. I ran harder, hoping to have one of those moments where everything synchs up and you land just right, where I’d meet that fence with two hands and hop right over it, as if I was getting out of a pool.

My hands found the fence, all right. Something went “snap” in my arm as I hurled myself over. I landed on my side in a snowbank.

“Vic,” Lisa called. I heard the soles of her shoes crunching on snow pellets and road salt behind me.

The elevator ghost stopped at the alleyway and looked back at me.

I stood up. My arm hurt, but not like it was broken. “You son of a bitch,” I said.

He turned back around and started to run.

My gun might not be any good against him, but I had something else—a white balloon.

That’s not really what it is, but that’s how they explain it to new Psychs, and I’d never thought of it as anything different. It’s more like a force field, something pressed out by your sixth sense. A shield. A barrier.

Whatever it is, I shot one at the elevator ghost to keep him from getting away.

I couldn’t see it as sharply as I could see him. It was more like I had to imagine it and pretend it was real. But when he smacked into it like a bird against a dining room window, I did actually “see” a little glimmer of something with substance. I guess it wasn’t my physical eyes that’d perceived the thing, but whatever it was that let me see dead people.

It worked! My balloon worked!

I ran toward him, hugging my arm to my chest. I slipped and slid, balance thrown off.

Meanwhile the elevator ghost raised his hands in an arc. I saw him outlined in a shimmer-ing orb for a second, and then the light show disappeared.

He nodded at me once, and ran down the alley.

“God damn.”

Lisa, who’d opted to take the long way around the fence, caught up to me in the middle of the alleyway while I looked around at the ten possible ways the ghost could’ve gone.

“Lose him?” she asked me. I nodded. “Come on, let’s go,” she said. “I don’t like the way you landed on your arm.”

We turned and walked more carefully to avoid the slick patches of ice, the slimy deposits of God-knows-what. I checked my coat for fallout before I got in the car. I’d been lucky.

Just snow.

Lisa had the heater on high. I shut the door, snapped on my seatbelt and looked at her.

“You know what the white balloon is?”

She thought for a second. “You mean that trick they teach Psych kids?”

Not only kids. Sheesh. “Yeah. That one.”

“What about it?”

“I did it. I stopped him for a second. But then he waved it away and kept going.” Lisa pulled up at a red light and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “How much energy did you put into maintaining it?”

“They don’t keep going? That’s real helpful.”

Lisa raised her eyebrows. “I thought you were trained.”

“Yeah, back in the old days when you had to walk to Psych-school barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways.” And when the other students sometimes disappeared, because they’d ended up on the wrong side of an experimental treatment.

“You won’t like this, but hear me out. I think things would be easier for you if you really knew what you were doing. You should get more training.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“It doesn’t have to be at a school. What if you hired someone to meet you at the library, or maybe at a coffee shop? What if you took an online course?” I could do that? The library idea wasn’t making me hyperventilate, at least not on the first pass. And online. Would it matter that, according to the Internet, I didn’t exist? The computer. It gave me an idea. Lisa pulled up to my street and flicked on the turn signal.

“Wait,” I said. “Go to Damen and take a right.”

She turned off the signal, checked the rearview, and eased back into the flow of traffic.

“Okay. Where are we going?”

“To get some advice.”

We were quiet for a while as Lisa focused on the road. The fat Chinese guy who’d been mowed down by a bus was wandering through a mailbox near Damen and Montrose. My arm throbbed.

“That white balloon trick sounds pretty visual,” said Lisa eventually. “It would make a lot of sense. You say you see the ghosts. Your visual cortex is probably active when you’re sensing spirits.”

“You’re beginning to sound like blah-blah-blah. No offense.” Lisa glanced at me and blushed. “I’m just saying it ‘cos I tested as a verbal learner at PsyTrain. They say mantras are better than visualizations for me to work with.”

“So I’d do better with real simple pictures? Yeah, that’s just about my speed.” I had the dubious distinction of having failed both fourth and sixth grade. It wasn’t awkward enough that I was six feet tall by the time I was fifteen; I was still in junior high, too.

Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that all my records were top-top-secret.

“That building over there.” I pointed across the dash. “The palm reader.” Lisa kept checking the big neon hand with a concerned look on her face as she nosed around and searched for a parking spot.

“There’s a savvy ghost upstairs,” I explained. There was a lot more than that upstairs. But I figured I’d see Crash sooner or later, so I might as well get it over with when Carolyn wasn’t around, just in case there was something I needed to lie about. Plus I had Lisa along to keep me from wringing his neck. Or any other part of him.

Even though I felt like I’d had enough action to last me for the rest of the day, it was only quarter after eleven by the time we got to Sticks and Stones. I double-checked the hours, which Crash had written on the door with a felt-tipped pen. The store didn’t open until noon.

I banged on it like a cop. Three fast, hard pounds with the urgency of someone who’s got to be seen. Now.

No one answered.

“They’re closed,” Lisa said.

“He lives in back.” I gave another cop-knock.

“The ghost?”

“No. The helpful empath who Jacob’s been seeing on the sly. I’ve got to go through him to get to the ghost…if she’s even around.”

Lisa lowered her voice like we were telling secrets. “Serious? This is the guy? You gonna see the ghost, or you gonna have it out with him?”

I’d been telling myself I only wanted to see Miss Mattie.

“Remember, Vic. Jacob wasn’t cheating on you.”

No. But I’ll bet he wanted to. Or Crash did.

“You saw how much Jacob’s into you,” said Lisa. “So bad that Carolyn made you leave.” True. I felt a little petty. But it didn’t keep me from pounding on the door a third time.

A door opened above us on the third floor and someone shouted down in Spanish. Lisa called back the español version of, “Move along, we’re the police.” Nothing to see here.

“Do you have the phone number?” she asked.

Yes, of course I did. It was on my speed dial. I hit Crash’s button and we heard the phone inside start to ring.

After four, he answered. “Hey, PsyPig.” His voice was husky. “I’d normally tell you not to call me at this ungodly hour, but evidently someone’s running a cockfighting ring in the hall, so I wasn’t actually asleep….”

“It’s me. Open up.”

He was actually silent for a second. “Aren’t
you
butch?”

“Don’t fuck around. I need to see Miss Mattie.”

“Okay, okay, don’t get your handcuffs in a twist. I can’t find my pants.” I wondered if he could say the word “pants” without making something dirty out of it.

“Unless, of course, this visit is clothing-optional.” And there it was. I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see me since the door was still shut. “Miss Mattie doesn’t want to see you with your legs in the air.”

“I swear, you want to give me performance anxiety….” The door swung open and there he was, green-haired, tattooed and shirtless in a pair of jeans he’d pulled on but hadn’t bothered to button, gray and white striped boxers sticking out from the waistband. He squinted at me, then at Lisa, then at me again. “Who’s your friend?” he said into his cord-less phone.

“Lisa, this is Crash. He owns the store….”

Crash shoved by me, grabbed Lisa’s hand and shook it. “I’m Carolyn’s best friend in the whole world. You must be the infamous Lisa Gutierrez, Secret Psychic.” Since when was Crash actually nice to anyone in law enforcement? Lisa gave him a shy smile and fluttered her eyelashes. I barely restrained myself from kicking him in the kneecap. “Can we come in?” I said.

He shrugged and gestured toward the shop. “
Mi casa es su casa.
I’ll put on some coffee.”

Lisa went in and looked around at the cramped shelves of occult paraphernalia like a Weight Watchers refugee at a half-price bakery. “You burn copal?” she asked.

“Yeah, I dig the vibe. It works for me.”

It worked for me, too. When it helped me figure out why Jacob had come home so late all week. I glanced at the counter. It looked strange and abandoned without the store’s overhead lights on, without Crash and Miss Mattie behind it. “She isn’t here,” I said.

“Would you chill out? You just got here. And why’re you both wearing cheap suits? You on duty? I thought your sergeant made you ride with that Ziggy-whatsisface.”

“Zigler,” I told him. “I took the day off.”

“We’re helping Jacob,” said Lisa.

Crash had been busy scooping coffee into a basket—about fifteen scoops, by my count—and he stopped and scowled. “That’s some evil shit going down at Rosewood.” And he’d know all about it since he’d gotten so many detailed reports from Jacob. I went over to the closet where Miss Mattie sometimes lingered. I thought of it as her bedroom, or maybe her office. She’d glide through that door with such purpose. Maybe there was a portal to some ghostly dimension within that doorway. Or maybe that was bullshit, and I’d watched too many low-budget sci-fi movies as a kid.

I opened the door and found a four-by-four closet with a slop sink, some decrepit mops, and stacks and stacks of boxes taking up most of the space.

“I didn’t realize I could get this stuff around here,” said Lisa. I turned and spotted her gazing at a shelf of tacky New Age stuff. “Have you got any CDs? I left mine at PsyTrain.”

“Sure, whatever you’re looking for. Chant, chimes, meditation music. I have to keep ‘em behind the counter. Too easy to steal.”

“Chant!” Lisa sounded like she was thrilled. I buried my face in the broom closet again.

“How’d you know?”

“I’m good at reading people.”

“Oh, I have that one. It’s my favorite.”

“You like that, I can turn you on to something even trippier. What are you using it for?

Centering? Healing?”

“I, uh….” Lisa’s voice lost its self-confidence. I realized I’d been staring at the same blob of lint in the sink for several seconds. “I try to turn off my mind.” Crash didn’t seem to think that was anything strange. “This one’s great for clearing…but if you wanna save yourself twenty-five bucks, maybe we can do a little barter.”

“It’s not polite to eavesdrop.”

I jumped. Miss Mattie stood beside me with her head wrapped in a bright flowered scarf, fanning herself with a faded paper fan that had Saint Anthony printed on both sides. I wondered briefly how spirits brought things like paper and silk, and maybe even polyester, into the afterlife—but the idea of it made my brain hurt.

“I am so glad to see you,” I whispered.

“You be searching for something.”

“Well, uh, yeah.”

Miss Mattie turned away from the closet and went to a nearby candle display. Her fingers glided through the air in front of the merchandise as if she was taking inventory. “I’m not here for you. I’m here for Curtis. He got his own search.”

“I know. But you’re the only one who explains everything in a way that I can understand.”

Crash and Lisa took their CD appreciation party into the back room. Where Crash lived.

Where his bed was. I told myself it was stupid to be jealous of Lisa. As far as I knew, Crash didn’t do girls (except as best friends), but I couldn’t deny that it put me on edge to see him being so nice to somebody.

“Y’all got to promise me to be good to Curtis. He need friends who ain’t riff-raff and fast-talkers and no-account, no-job fools with their hands out for charity.”

“I’m good to him. I gave him a ride home the other night.”

“That seem like a nice girl you bring with you. What she be? Mexican?”

“Uh-huh.”

Miss Mattie nodded ponderously. I wondered if she even realized that Crash was queer, or if there was a clause in her Guardian Angel Contract that allowed her to conveniently overlook his obvious flamboyance.

“Listen, I’m trying to find out how I can stop a ghost. I think he’s haunting someone. Can I, like, exorcise him or something?”

“Might you could.”

Really? Holy shit. I mean, crap.

“How much of him still here?” she asked. She’d stopped pretending to inventory the candles.

“How much?” I’d never thought of it that way. “A lot, I guess. He was really solid…uh…

present. He seemed to be aware of what was going on around him.” Miss Mattie nodded and gave a guttural “Mmm-hmmph.” She turned her back on me and swayed down the aisle. I followed her.

“You need to take a bath in High John the Conqueror, make sure you clean and all your thoughts be pure.”

Pure? Oh, great. I’d be in the tub until April. I picked up the bath salts she’d pointed at.

“You got to see God’s love shine down from Heaven. It enter you right here.” She pointed at a spot on my forehead a couple of inches above the bridge of my nose. “Let God’s love fill you with white light.”

I’d conveniently forgotten that Miss Mattie frames everything by how it relates to God.

It wasn’t so much that I was an atheist; I just had trouble believing in religion when my own eyes told me that car crash victims were dragging their intestines around most every intersection in the city.