PsyCop 6: GhosTV (9 page)

We walked past rows and rows of huge, testosterone-driven machines, some gleaming silver, some dull black, none with any sort of insignia to mark them, until a familiar smell tickled my nostrils over the smells of oil, jet fuel and metal.

Frankincense.

We rounded a commercial-sized jet to find a small gray plane surrounded by people. Most of them had Airport Security getups, only they were nothing like the guards back at Terminal 2 who’d seemed relatively human, at least until the drug dog went berserk. These guys were all male, all young, and all over six feet tall. And they all looked pretty damn athletic.

They were carbon-copy guards we could take in with a single glance.

The interesting individuals were the two FPMP employees kneeling in their midst, heads bowed, hands clasped in prayer—my old Camp Hell pal Einstein and his sidekick, the janitor.

Einstein—who went by Richie nowadays—glanced up from his prayers and broke into a huge smile. He made the sign of the cross and leaped up to greet me, and I saw he and his compadre were kneeling on some kind of elaborate padded panel—that, in fact, they had a heck of a lot of specialized gear with them. “Hardcore Vic!” he said.

I reminded myself not to sigh. I liked Richie, I did. He was a good guy. Even if he was sleeping with the enemy. “Hey, Richie. Good to see you.”

“You get to fly in the Learjet? Heh-heh. Lucky duck.” So that’s what a Learjet looked like. Small. Very, very small, small enough to fit in our loft. Granted, our house used to be a factory. But I still had a hard time feeling secure about boarding something that I could stash in the living room if I moved the couch out of the way.

“You know what they say. Some guys have all the luck.” The janitor—heck, he probably wasn’t a janitor, was he? Assistant medium? Co-medium? Incense specialist? He went about snuffing the candles in a particular order, same as I’d seen him do back at the FPMP’s Chicago headquarters. And just the same as then, he didn’t say a word to anyone as he did it.

Candles weren’t my thing, but even so, seeing their tricked-out kit and realizing mine was back in my bedroom made me feel like I was chasing down an armed suspect with an empty holster. If I had known my gear wouldn’t be confiscated after all, I would’ve brought it along.

“Hey, Richie,” I said. “You have any Florida Water with you?” He looked bewildered for a moment, then said, “Like Hoodoo?” Then he grabbed me by the sleeve, hauled me out of range, and whispered, “Just ’cos Carl’s black doesn’t mean he goes for all those hokey superstitions. He’s a good Catholic. Just like us.”

“Oh, uh, right,” I said. “Sorry.” I had no idea what ever made Richie think I was Catholic—or any other religion, for that matter—but I could see Dreyfuss getting a report from one of the big, athletic guards while Jacob scanned the area, undoubtedly noticing all sorts of things, and I decided it wasn’t the time or place to tell Richie that I believed in the power of Florida Water a heck of a lot more than I thought eating fish on Fridays would secure me a place in heaven. Or that heaven existed at all.

I slid another look at the gear Catholic Carl was now stowing away in a wooden box covered with crosses. Candles and incense. Tools used in so many diverse religions and ceremonies you’d think they’d be intrinsic to any kind of Psych work. So, of course, they were the ones I’d eliminated with no ill effects whatsoever. Just because I didn’t need any fancy trappings, though, didn’t stop me from feeling an unwelcome pang of envy from watching Richie wallow in all the gear his simple little heart could possibly desire. Richie, the functionally retarded level-two medium, had an assistant to light his candles for him and a special padded panel to kneel on, while all I got were a handful of vinyl ties and a morning in hell with a trainer named Sando. Then I told myself to stop being a jerk and cut him a break.

It wasn’t as if I’d personally touch his job with a ten-foot pole, not for all the fancy gear in the world. Not considering who his boss was.

When we rejoined the crowd beside the Little Jet that Could, Dreyfuss held up the pretzel with a flourish. “Hey, Richard, look what I found.” Richie’s face lit up and he danced in place like he had to pee. Words failed him.

“Go on,” Dreyfuss said. “Take it.”

Richie reached for the pretzel like it was a spiritual experience and took a big, blissful bite. Dreyfuss dug into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic container. “And there’s frosting.” Richie warbled something happy around his mouthful of dough and snatched the tub of frosting from his boss. I wondered if they sold Florida Water in California. And I did my best to stop thinking about what kind of “big pretzel” was in store for me. Because watching Dreyfuss take care of his own—that gave me more creeps than a visitation from your garden-variety spook ever could.

“As you can see,” Dreyfuss told me, “I did my best to ensure the plane was clean, but feel free to poke around and make sure there aren’t any stowaways.”

I took a step toward the jet and snapped back when Jacob grabbed me by the shoulder. “I’ll check it out.” One of the interchangeable agents opened the door for him, and didn’t even flinch when Jacob pulled his sidearm. Maybe the agent’s eyes followed the gun, but since they were hidden by those mirrored shades, I was none the wiser.

It hadn’t even occurred to me that there might be someone waiting in the cabin for me with a syringe full of knockout juice. My initial impulse to be annoyed with Jacob for elbowing in gave way to a profound sense of relief that I had him on my team. That, and fear.

Because the FPMP was way bigger than both of us. They had a Learjet.

And a tranquilizer jab could take him down just as easily as it could me.

“Say, Richard,” Dreyfuss wondered aloud in a breezy, casual tone that I didn’t buy for even a second. “D’you suppose it’s even possible for an airplane to be haunted?”

Richie said, “Sure,” through a wad of chewed pretzel, but then he scowled as if he was second-guessing himself. Or maybe choking on cinnamon dough.

Dreyfuss looked at me and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

I stared back blankly and gave him the look that always pisses off everyone who’re so damn sure I’m hiding something. I wasn’t. How would I know if spirits stick to aircraft? It wasn’t as if I’d ever flown before.

Except, in the pit of my gut, I kind of suspected it was possible.

Ghosts with personalities, the kind of spirits you could hold a conversation with…they might have a home base, but they could also start following you around if they thought you’d be able to help them grab that brass ring and get off the merry-go-round for good. Repeaters, though—hard to say. I’d seen repeaters going through the motions long after the building they died in had been razed to the ground.

Richie swallowed hard and said, “If a ghost doesn’t leak through the floor of a building, why would it fall through the hull of a plane?” Brilliant. No, seriously, I meant it—brilliant. Why didn’t ghosts fall through the floor, and keep on falling until they hit either the center of the earth, or maybe China?

Dreyfuss’ gaze flicked over toward me. I did my best to look as blank as humanly possible so I didn’t let on that Richie had actually said something so simple it was profound. While I was doing that, Jacob leaned out of the Learjet. His broad shoulders barely cleared the door.

“You want to have a look before we take off?” he asked me.

“Yeah, why not?” Mostly, it was a relief to be able to stop doing my mannequin impression. Jacob lingered until I was practically fighting him for the tiny oval door, then brushed against me as I tried to figure out how to get through it without doing the limbo. He gave me a small nod.

I cleared the door and blinked in surprise. The entire Learjet cabin was a creamy, plush white, from the carpet to the leather seats to the built-in cappuccino machine.

I couldn’t have decorated it better myself.

No ghosts, that was obvious. I would have spotted them among all the cushy white seats. But I walked in a crouch to the back of the cabin where a long, inviting-looking bench spanned the plane, and wondered when the wisecrack about Jacob and me joining the mile high club was going to surface.

“What do you think,” Dreyfuss asked me when I stuck my head out the door. “Are we good to go?”

I looked at the goons in suits and mirrored shades. Were they capable of flying a plane? Some of them were ex-military, maybe. But they didn’t really fit my idea of what a pilot would look like—although I suspected that my mental image of a pilot was probably shaped by a series of dubious movies from the late seventies.

“Don’t worry,” Dreyfuss said. “I’m leaving them here. Too heavy.

They’d only add to the payload and shave time off our flight.” I glanced back into the cabin to see if maybe the jet was some ultra-modern self-piloting deal. The military had unmanned aircraft, right?

Why not the FPMP? The cockpit had a couple of plush swivel chairs in front of its bank of dials, readouts and buttons. And no robot. “We’re not taking off without the pilots,” I said, “right?” Dreyfuss laughed. “That’d be some kind of trick, now, wouldn’t it?

Especially when your average telekinetic gets a nosebleed from moving a golf ball.” He made an “after you” flourish to Jacob, who gave him a thorough once-over, then angled himself into the swanky white cabin beside me. I blundered against the cappuccino bar and squeezed awkwardly into a seat that faced the opposite wall. The cabin felt spacious enough, once I was sitting. Like a nice, big van, or maybe a limo. Jacob took the seat with the best tactical access to the door and the cockpit, and sat there with his coat pushed back behind his holster and his sidearm in plain view.

After Jacob, Dreyfuss slipped through the door nimble as you please, and the thugs sealed it shut. I glanced at the pilot seat again, as if maybe the Invisible Man would show himself. Instead, Dreyfuss plunked down in the driver’s seat and pulled on a headset.

“Don’t tell me…” I said.

“Hey, you’re not the only one who’d like to go through life without ever knowing the intimate touch of a bullet. What better insurance policy than making sure I’m the most indispensable guy on board?”

“What about the co-pilot?” Jacob said.

“Here’s some aviation background for you: the term ‘co-pilot’ went out of vogue with the word ‘stewardess.’ Anyone who’s licensed to fly a plane is a pilot. And the chicks and gay guys who show you where the emergency exits are located are now flight attendants. And they’re phasing out peanuts in favor of pretzels because too many people are allergic these days—though with gluten intolerance on the rise, who’s to say if airline snacks’ll soon go the way of the smoking section.”

Great. He was the only one who could fly the plane, and I still wanted to kill him.

“Don’t worry,” Dreyfuss said, “I can do a four-hour flight myself, no problem. The narcolepsy thing is totally under control.” He fiddled with the control panel, then caught my eye and grinned.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re the opposite of funny?”

“All three ex-wives…but the alimony sure gives ’em something to smile about.” He looked at some readouts, tapped some buttons, and the roar of the engine blotted out everything else. His lips moved as he murmured into his microphone, but I would’ve needed to be telepathic to understand him. Then he tilted the mike away from his mouth and said, “Help yourself to the cappuccino. It’s not half-bad.

Just be warned there’s no bathroom, so if you’ve gotta go, you’ll have to aim into an empty soda bottle or hold it ’til we get to California.”

Takeoff was the worst part of flying. I actually slipped my hand into Jacob’s and squeezed as we hurtled down the runway, my stomach stayed in place while the plane angled up and started rising, and the tremble of the tarmac against the wheels gave way to the sickening smooth glide of flight.

Thank God I wasn’t on Auracel. I would’ve tossed my cookies for sure.

Jacob leaned across the aisle, pulled my hand onto his knee and worked it until my knuckles throbbed. “You okay?” I nodded, but kept my lips pressed shut tight in case I wasn’t. I squeezed his hand harder, encouraging him to grind my fingerbones together in that obscenely strong grasp of his so that I could focus on something other than that icky floating feeling. Instead, he shifted his grip and began stroking my palm with his thumb, which I supposed was a better idea if I ever hoped to hold a gun again. I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was just high, but my body didn’t buy it. So I centered my attention on the feel of Jacob’s thumb gliding over my life line, undoubtedly hitting all kinds of acupressure points, and I thought about nothing until my roiling gut stilled.

Con Dreyfuss’ voice startled me out of my brief moment of Zen, coming from behind me. A speaker. “Sorry for the rough ride—you feel everything more intensely in a small craft. We’re climbing to our cruising altitude of 42,000 feet, and then you’ll be free to move about the cabin.”

I looked at Jacob and said, “Is he serious?” I had to talk loud to be heard over the jet engine noise, and if there actually were microphones planted somewhere in the cushy white seats in hopes of listening in on our conversation, I couldn’t imagine how they’d extract our words from the ambient noise without a heck of a lot of cleanup.

Jacob gave me an “I dunno” shrug and peered out the window. A few minutes later, Dreyfuss’ chipper voice said, “Okay, kids, we’re on our way. No fighting, now. Don’t make me pull over.” Jacob motioned toward the back seat with his head and the two of us crouch-walked as far away from Dreyfuss as we could get without tearing open the door and taking a literal flying leap.

“I’d blow someone for a Valium,” I said in Jacob’s ear.

“Maybe he’s got one…but try offering a hand-job first so you retain some leverage.”

Over the deafening engine noise, I almost didn’t catch the inflection that would have told me Jacob was trying to come off calm, cool and collected by kidding around…and failing miserably. I don’t think he knew about the telltale line between his eyebrows that was as good as a blinking neon sign flashing the words, “Something’s Wrong.” I patted him on the knee awkwardly. “It’ll be okay.” As I said it, I realized it sounded just as hollow as his lame joke. “We’ll get there faster than we would have if we’d flown commercial, and that’s what matters. Right?”