PsyCop 6: GhosTV (32 page)

Jacob and I stood in the doorway marked Quiet Room, while inside, Faun drifted in a Valium cloud on a big, cushy couch with an afghan pulled up to her neck. She didn’t want to be in her own bedroom, not after what she’d allegedly seen there. I didn’t blame her.

“We need to check out the blood ghost,” Jacob said. “What if it wasn’t a ghost? What if it was…something else? Something more powerful that can turn people into ectoplasm?”

“Maybe it’s not a ghost,” I agreed. “I see spirits when I’m physical.

I saw the blood ghost when I was astral.” I glanced at Faun. “So we should keep an eye on her. I’ll bet she’s the next target, given the relationship of everyone who’s disappeared so far…and the fact that she probably didn’t disappear them herself.” In fact, I was surprised she’d been left unslimed back in the bedroom, since now that made her an eyewitness.

Maybe only so much ectoplasm was available for sliming at any given time. Or maybe Faun was immune because she was a medium, and her subtle bodies fit together differently than other people’s.

Or maybe…hell. I really had no idea. “So how’re we gonna manage that? If blood ghost was really an astral demon or something, she was never human. It’s not as if we can pull her birth certificate and driver’s license.” I lowered my voice and said in his ear, “Plus I think I’m too full to go astral again. It might even be a day or two before I’m back to…normal.”

Jacob glanced down at my stomach. It felt as if a protrusion the size of the take-out bag should have been visible, but my jacket hid the evidence of my gorging well enough. The lapel was shiny where it had served as an impromptu handkerchief, though. “What if we turned up the GhosTV signal?” he suggested. “Between that and your natural talent, maybe it would be enough to help you launch.” Gotta love how blasé Jacob is about the whole thing—but my overstuffed gut was telling me different. “Cranking the knobs on the GhosTV
did
something to me. I’m not sure it’s totally safe to cross my fingers, spike the amplitude, and hope for the best.” He frowned. “It did something psychic to you.”

“Something that turned me into a competitive eater. I don’t think we can say, ‘It’s just psychic so it must be harmless.’ Intangible? Yeah.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t mess me up.”

His red veins got bulgier as he pondered the GhosTV’s effect on me.

“But the…entity…keeps ordering you to turn off the TV. First in your notebook, now on the floor of Bert and Katrina’s room.” And the oatmeal, though I hadn’t mentioned that to anyone.

“And then there’s Lyle.” Jacob said.

“Lyle?”

“Right. The way he unplugged it.”

“He just wanted to toss it out because it clashed with the decor.”

“You know the secretary’s usually the most important witness, don’t you? Everyone underestimates them, so they’re like a fly on the wall.” He watched me, like he was waiting for me to see what he was getting at. I had no idea.

“You have an in with him,” he said finally.

“I hope I’m hearing you wrong. There’s no way you seriously think I’d be able to play Mata Hari.”

“I’m just saying, put a few drinks in him, maybe he’ll slip up.”

“And tell me what? He already dished the dirt on Chekotah and all his fooling around.”

“He knows more. I’m positive he does.” Jacob warmed up to whatever idea he was brewing. “Plus, he was the one who brought the burritos. And he knew that light workers had big appetites, because he made that remark about Karen Frugali right before he left—so maybe he also knew it was hard to project on a full stomach. What if he did it on purpose, brought you all that food so you couldn’t project, because he had something to hide?”

“Like what? An embarrassingly big ABBA CD collection? You ordered that food, Jacob. He just brought what you ordered.”

“The guy lives on his cell phone. What if you were out for a drink, you remembered something you needed to tell me, and you notice your phone is dead?”

“I’m not leaving you alone.”

“You said it yourself, I have red energy all around me—I’ll bet you’re looking at it right now.” I tried hard to focus on anything but the veins webbing his cheeks, but my gaze must have infinitesimally strayed, and, of course, he saw. “I’ll be fine. So you borrow his phone.”

“Seriously,” I said, “this plan of yours is getting worse and worse.”

“You pretend you’re having trouble hearing me, you go outside with it, or maybe into the bathroom. And you get a look at the list of the last people he called.”

“There’s no way I’d ever sound natural enough to fool anyone.”

“I know you’re scared, since this is so far beyond police procedure—”

“I’m not scared.”

“—but we’re not on duty, so we’re not limited by any of that now, which means we don’t have the same kinds of resources we’d have if we were on official business, so we need to do what it takes to figure out what’s going on.”

“I’m not scared of Lyle, okay? I just think it’s a shitty plan.”

• • •

El Dorado, the Mexican restaurant across the street, might have been closed for lunch. But just my luck, it was open for happy hour when I called Lyle and told him I wanted to take him up on that drink. The sight of the chips and salsa on the bar made me want to hurl, but the mariachi music was loud enough that Jacob’s phone-borrowing plan might actually work. I got there before Lyle did and ordered a virgin margarita to make it look like I was drinking an actual drink, planted myself at the bar, and tried to imagine how I was going to make Jacob pay me back. ’Cos he totally owed me one for talking me into this ridiculous stunt.

On top of the bar, a plastic holder showcased laminated cards printed with glossy pictures of nachos, taquitos and jalapeno poppers. I flipped through the cards, and was seriously considering the fried ice cream when someone hopped onto the barstool beside me and the smell of Gray Flannel told me my date had arrived. “Sorry to keep you waiting. The phone company put me on hold for twenty minutes.”

“No problem.”

He waved to the bartender and ordered a vodka cranberry, while I pondered the fact that I’d actually been considering dessert.

“Seriously, how can these Christian Soldiers keep finding our unlisted numbers? There should be some kind of law against it.” He looked at me expectantly, as if I’d have something to say about “the law,” given my career, when my vision flickered. I assumed it was just my metaphorical vision, anyway, though I imagine I still did that staring-thing with my physical eyes I’ve built a reputation for, just to make sure.

“There should be,” I answered blandly, because most of my processing power was trying to figure out what had just moved.

“But anyway, enough about work. What are you into?” Another flicker. It was his face, but it was subtle, a trick of the light, almost. “Uh.” I couldn’t think of a single hobby, so I borrowed one of Jacob’s. “Running.”

He took a gulp of his drink, leaned toward me, and said, “In bed.” There it was—that flicker again, as he moved closer to me. It was his skin, doing that holographic thing. Now you see it, now you don’t. If I looked at Lyle from the proper angle, he was see-through. I glanced at the bartender. Solid. I looked at a table full of middle-aged women.

Solid. I looked at Lyle, and his skin flickered briefly and gave me a glimpse of his musculature beneath, which looked like the primo London broil at Moo & Oink.

“Don’t be shy,” he said. “I’m really hard to shock.”

“Just your typical…stuff.” So the GhosTV’s range reached all the way across the street.

“Typical, how? Oral? Anal?”

The flayed look that flickered in and out of my range of perception distracted me enough that I didn’t blurt out, “Who actually talks that way to someone they’ve just met?” Instead I said, “Regular stuff.”

“Because one guy’s kink is another guy’s vanilla.” He batted his eyelashes at me.

Oh shit, was that supposed to be alluring? “Uh huh.”

“How about role-playing? Do you get into that?”

“I dunno,” I said.

“Because sometimes authority figures like to hand over control, even if it’s just for a few hours.”

Is that what was going on with Jacob when he wanted me to be bossy, or was he just switching it up for the sake of a little variety?

And what about when I let him order me around and totally own my ass? That wasn’t exactly play-acting. He really could overpower me and force me to do anything he was inspired to demand of me. It should have triggered the aversion response that had roots in my interactions with Camp Hell orderlies, but instead it made me feel safe….I guess because of the mechanics of the rest of our relationship. I felt my cheeks get hot, and reminded myself I wasn’t actually talking about my own sex life with some guy who I was gonna get it on with once he was tipsy enough and we’d grown tired of the verbal buildup. I was just trying to grab a look at his phone.

“You like playing Good Cop/Bad Cop?” Lyle suggested.

“Not really. I like the balance of power to be on an even keel.”

“So you’re a switch.”

“Uh huh.” Great, all these painfully awkward questions to determine if I wanted to top, bottom or blow him. I couldn’t picture acting out any of ’em. And I desperately wanted the conversation to be about anything but me. “What about you?”

“My favorite thing…in the whole world…is felching.” I didn’t even know what that was. And so I stared.

He held my gaze with his eyes sparkling and a big smile on his face while his skin glinted transparent for a long couple of seconds, and then he burst out laughing. “I totally had you going…I’m kidding! No one really
likes
felching. No one actually
does
it. Even John Waters says he’s never met anyone nasty enough to try it.” I gave a totally unconvincing laugh.

“Unless you’re talking about porn—I’ve got a couple of really gritty, eastern-European twink vids where everything’s bareback and they’ll eat come out of anything.”

The words
eat come
, combined with the horrible pressure in my stomach and the photo of the Mexican fried ice cream, made my throat start to flutter.

“You like porn?” he said. “I’ve got a huge porn collection.” And here I’d assumed it would be ABBA. “Who
doesn’t
like porn?”

“I know, right?” He sipped his pink drink. “Ohmigod. I have this awesome set of comeshots you just have to see. There’s these three guys on a pickup truck with a big black dildo—”

Enough. “Can I use your phone?” I blurted out. He stopped, mid-comeshot. “My battery’s dead,” I said, “and I need to check a case.” Over the
ais
and oompahs of the mariachi piping through the speakers, the phrase “check a case” didn’t even sound made-up. Or maybe my delivery was better than I’d hoped, given how desperately I wanted to stop talking about dildoes and comeshots and felching, whether I was a top, bottom or switch, and how many times I shook off my dick after I took a piss.

I probably shouldn’t have actually called anyone, because that would only serve to bump someone else off the end of the “recent calls” list, but I thumbed in Jacob’s number anyway.

“Marks.”

“It’s me. So. How’s that…case?”

“You got the phone, great. Do you have anything to write on? Maybe you should go outside.”

“What?” I said. I could hear him perfectly fine.

“Do you have anything to write on?”

I sat there for a minute while the mariachi music bounced along in the background. And then I said, “What?”

“Vic? Go outside.”

I covered the phone, leaned over to Lyle, and said, “The music’s a little loud. I’m gonna go outside.”

He nodded and started digging into the basket of chips. I strode off and considered demanding that Jacob tell me what felching was, specifically…although if the director who’d talked Divine into eating a dog turd on film thought it was gross, I undoubtedly didn’t want to hear about it on a stomach full of semi-digested Mexican food. As I burst out onto the street, I said, “This…sucks.”

“You’re almost there. The phone menu, is it pretty similar to yours?” I hadn’t even checked. “Close enough.”

“Good. Don’t forget to catch the times and dates of the calls. They might be important.” And with that directive, he hung up.

Bossy. And not in a suck-that-cock-mister way, either. The thing with Jacob is this: he might look like a big, musclebound gym rat. But I don’t think that’s what his fitness regimes are really about. All his eating right and exercising has more to do with his mental focus—and his preternatural ability to get other people to do what he wants. In this case, me.

I pulled up the menu on Lyle’s phone, and nope, it was nothing like mine. Damn it. I scrolled down, fat-fingered something, and ended up in his settings. And it wouldn’t be suspicious
at all
if I accidentally changed his ringtone. I backed out carefully. Text messages…none.

Either he wasn’t into texting, or he kept them erased. Back up. Scroll.

Where the heck were the call lists and the voicemails?

I snapped a photo of my shoes. Great. I fumbled for the delete button, and a stored photo appeared on the little screen.

A photo of me. Not my shoes. My whole upper body and head.

I was standing there in the lobby at PsyTrain in my cop-suit, hands on hips, scowling at something. My hair looked pretty good.

I scrolled back. Another one of me. Same expression, this one closer up and angled to one side. Back again. Another one. In all, eight snapshots of me, seven of them scowling, one of me talking to Jacob.

A sick wave of dread washed over me. What if Lyle was some kind of Five Faith mole? What if he was nowhere near as harmless as he seemed—and he wasn’t interested in sleeping with me at all—he was just a really great actor? What if he’d sent those photos to his base camp, and now every violent religious zealot in the country would be able to identify me…since apparently I always looked the same, because I’d scowled too much when I was a teenager and my face froze that way.

I backed up one more click and found the first not-me photo, a picture of Lyle and a buddy of his in a coffee shop bending their heads together and smiling, obviously taken by Lyle himself with an outstretched arm, given the unflattering angle. He didn’t look like a religious zealot at all. He looked like a gay white guy having a cappuccino with another gay white guy. And before that, he’d taken a bunch of pictures of one of the security guards at PsyTrain—a tall, lanky guy like me, though one who didn’t scowl nearly so much.