Wanted (20 page)

“At least there's a possible loophole—better than anything else we've got,” Jack says. “I'd better check when they died.” He pulls out his phone, shaking his head. “Can't believe Asshole got in because of my asthma attack.”

I nod, secretly feeling better knowing that the blame doesn't rest solely on my shoulders. “You check on that and I'll check on Milo. Maybe our guardian angel has more info.” I grab my phone from my purse, careful not to touch Bonnie's poem nestled alongside it, and zip that section closed.

When I navigate to my app, there's a response from Milo. “Listen to this, Jack. Milo wrote, ‘I had a horrible nightmare about running through a graveyard last night. I'm wondering if that means G is for graves.'” I look at Jack and wince. “Hopefully theirs, not ours.”

“Don't say stuff like that,” Jack barks, his dark eyes filling with anger. “First it sucks to think about, and second, it's not helping to keep me calm.”

He's right. “Sorry, bad habit. I'm a blurter.”

“I noticed.” He taps the surface of his cracked cell phone screen, courtesy of Clyde. “Says here that Bonnie and Clyde died on May 23, 1934; 9:10
A.M.
, to be precise.”

I look at Jack, my eyes wide with panic. “Wait a second. That's tomorrow!” The familiar buzz of anxiety builds in my rib cage. “It says we need to do some sort of ritual to get rid of them, but what exactly—kill a sheep, dance in a circle, throw salt?”

Jack runs his hands through his hair, staring straight ahead.

I want to shake him. “Well?”

“I'm thinking.”

Tapping my foot against the vibrating floor, I do some thinking of my own. Something else about that date sounds familiar. “Hold up. What were the numbers Milo gave you—the ones that were burned onto his palm under the word ‘deadline'?”

“I'll check.” Jack reads through his messages on his phone. “Here it is. 5-2-3-9-10.” He looks at me. “Why?”

Bells of recognition sound off in my head. “Don't you see? Now we know for sure. 5-2-3-9-10 is May 23rd at 9:10
A.M.
Tomorrow
is
the deadline!” I look around, sizing up the people around us. “I think we need to come clean to someone and get their advice so we get this ritual right. The question is who can we trust?”

Jack shakes his head violently. “No, forget it. We're not telling anyone. If it gets back to Mr. Johnson, he'll tell my father. You have to realize that my dad is a retired marine sergeant. He'll go ballistic if he hears about this. Besides, you're jumping to conclusions. Let's say the deadline is tomorrow. Maybe that signals the time Bonnie and Clyde have to go back to their graves.” He shrugs. “Like they have twenty-four hours on earth and
ziiip!
they're gone. You're assuming the worst.”

I wish with all my heart what he said is true, but it doesn't add up. “Do you seriously think that if Clyde knew he only had one day to live, he'd spend it on a tour bus with me?”

“Quiet!” The daughter from the mother-daughter team sitting in front of us glances over her shoulder, making a sourpuss face. I itch to tell her that if talking about dead people offends her, maybe she shouldn't be on a ghost tour. She suddenly licks her lips and stares at Jack, rolling her shoulder seductively. She lowers her voice. “Forget what Chunky Monkey says, sugar. You can come by my place and talk all you want. Ditch the chick first.”

Jack looks at her, frowning. “Uh, no thanks.”

When she turns back around, Jack sticks out his tongue in disgust before beckoning me closer. I strain to listen. “Remember how Mr. Johnson said the dead roam around until their unresolved final requests are granted? Ask Bonnie what she wants.”

I frown. “I did. All she'd say is she wanted to be with Clyde forever. She told me if I hooked them up, she'd be happy and leave. Either she was lying, or they need something extra to allow them to stay together. When you were Clyde and you touched me, she spoke out of my mouth. That means that technically they were ‘together' for several seconds, but nothing happened.”

“Did they both know the other one was around?”

“Bonnie knew, but Clyde didn't,” I admit. “I'm afraid to let him find out. I mean, what if he grabs on and doesn't let go, and then Bonnie is able to take over my body completely?”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Will you stop coming up with all this horrible stuff? We could play the What-If game forever. See if Bonnie knows anything about Clyde's last request, and then, at the next stop, we can casually ask some people about what others have done for the ritual.”

I take a deep breath. He's right again. I need to think more rationally. “Good idea.”

Clyde's last request was the same as mine—to be with me forever.

Yeah, yeah. That's your answer for everything.

Bonnie's absolutely no help. Not that I trust her anyway. I skim a Wikipedia website on half-deads, looking for some new information to jump out at me, when Mr. Johnson starts back up with his narration. “Soon we'll be at the Biograph Theater, the famous location where John Dillinger was gunned down following his attendance of the movie
Manhattan Melodrama
.” He pauses, rubbing his chin dramatically. “Or was he? An interesting controversy still exists over whether the FBI killed the right man that evening
.
”

The tour group starts to buzz about Dillinger when Jack says, “Hey, listen to this. Bonnie and Clyde were both buried in Dallas, but in
different
cemeteries.”

“Are you sure?” I tinker with my ring, thinking. “Something about being buried together rings a bell.” I try to remember what I'd heard, but nothing clicks. “Let me check my notes.” I pull out my phone.

The bus pulls to the side as a wailing fire truck and three police cars approach. Jack scrunches down in his seat, as he peeks ever so slightly over the top of the glass. They sail past us and he sits back up.

Mr. Johnson's commentary resumes, “The fingerprints on the deceased did not match the ones on file with the police, so some historians believe that Dillinger had a friend on the police force who gave him a heads-up. Dillinger cleverly arranged to have a look-alike patsy accompany the lady in red to the theater that night. Roam around and see if you can speak to the ghost of whichever man was killed that evening and find out the truth once and for all. I've scheduled fifteen minutes for this stop.”

The same way that Jack will be Clyde's patsy. Just you wait and see.

For once, Bonnie's annoying comments helped trigger a memory. Passengers stand and shuffle their way to the front, but Jack and I stay seated. Going on a hunch, I type in, “The Trail's End” in a search window. Seconds later, I have the info I need. “Listen to this, Jack. This is the last stanza of a famous poem Bonnie wrote.” I clear my throat and read over the noise of the exiting Half-Dead Society members. “
Some day they'll go down together/ they'll bury them side by side./ To few it'll be grief,/ to the law a relief/ but it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.”

Jack's eyebrows pinch together as if confused. “What's your point?”

“My point is that Bonnie hoped they'd be buried
side by side,
but their families buried them in separate cemeteries.”

“Whoa. That could be significant.” He rubs a finger along the ridge of his chin, gazing at me.

“Exactly. And here's the thing: Bonnie keeps telling me that the only thing they wanted, both in life and in death, was to be together. And their families screwed that up.”

Watch what you say about my family. I'm sure my mama had her reasons.

Sounds like I touched a nerve. “I think that would qualify as a last request, don't you?”

Jack frowns, shaking his head. “Yeah, but if it does, we're screwed. We can't unbury them.”

I shrug. “Unless there's some spiritual way out of this. Let's have a little chat with Bob and see what we can dig up.” I glance at Jack. “Sorry. No pun intended.”

We hurry down the bus steps, rushing to find Bob. On the way we pass Lionel, who smokes a cigarette in the shade, waving his bus driver hat in front of his face as if to cool himself. We stand waiting for Bob to conclude his conversation with the German guy before jumping in to talk to him ourselves.

After introductions, Bob rubs his chin. “I've been thinking about your sister and her husband. They must be pretty scared having known criminals as cohabitators, huh?”

“Definitely. I'm scared for them too,” I agree, not having any trouble looking authentically sick to my stomach.

Jack nods. “To try and help them out, we wanted to ask you a question about last requests. What if someone hadn't been buried where they wanted? How could you make
that
ghost happy?” Several cars screech, narrowly missing a drunk guy jaywalking unsteadily across the street.

Bob clears his throat. “The thing with burial sites is that the final resting place usually has more to do with where the
souls
of the dead rest, not their bodies. So if you bury a special memento of the deceased at the spot they wished to have been buried, that usually appeases them. If you're talking about Bonnie and Clyde, you could probably purchase an object that belonged to them online somewhere. People sell stuff like that all the time.”

Hope swells in my chest. At least we already have Bonnie's poem. “Okay, cool. I'll let my sister know about that.” A troubling thought hits me then. “By the way, wouldn't everyone's last request be that they wouldn't die?”

Bob swats a swarm of gnats away from his face. “Yes, but having only one life to live is a basic and unyielding rule—similar to the idea that a person who gets three wishes cannot wish for unlimited wishes.” He smiles at a couple from the tour. “How's it going, Mark? Tammy?”

Jack waits until they pass before jumping in to the conversation. “Except that doesn't make sense, because aren't all of these half-deads getting a second life?”

Bob nods. “Good point. But as you may have read in the brochure I gave you, there are specific, very unusual circumstances that allow limbotic spirits to inhabit a sapien's body. Those spirits who successfully transition into a second body are few and far between. More luck than intent. Wishing for a second life is an exercise in futility.” He checks his watch.

Jack clears his throat. “What about the loophole that's mentioned? How does that work?”

Bob shrugs, looks uncomfortable. “There is one woman, Jeanette Finnegan, who has been a member for quite some time. She claims that she was inhabited by a French woman named Suzette. Some doubt Jeanette was ever half-dead—but she seems like the honest type to me. Anyway, Jeanette says she got rid of Suzette by satisfying her last wishes on the anniversary of the date, time, and location of Suzette's original death.”

“Date, time, and location?” Jack asks, sounding alarmed. “It didn't say anything like that in the pamphlet. Just ‘the anniversary of his or her death within the first year.'” Jack looks at me, as if to confirm.

Bob rubs his hairless head and squints at Jack. “Really? We'll have to fix that. Because I know for certain that Jeanette flew out to Paris when she did her ritual.”

Panic builds in my chest, along with a sour taste of dread on my tongue. My mind starts racing, wondering where the hell Bonnie and Clyde died and how we can possibly get there by tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. “What kind of ritual did she do?”

Bob frowns, pausing as if he's unsure if he should continue. “Now, don't get your hopes up. There have only been a few half-deads who claimed that it worked. Two of them live in other countries and I've never met them in person, but I did have a chance to talk to Jeanette last year.”

Bob smiles at the guy in the Bob Marley t-shirt. “Staying out of trouble, Mike?”

“Trying to,” the stoner replies, shaking his head.

Turning back to us, Bob resumes his story. “Anyway, Jeanette told me she buried a locket that had been given to her limbotic spirit by her lover. Along with that, she also tossed in a copy of her lover's death certificate that she had ordered online, and then buried both items at the actual spot where he had committed suicide.” The space between his eyebrows creases. “Along the River Seine, I believe. She told me she lit a candle and recited the Last Rites and supposedly, by the time she was done reciting the words, her half-dead spirit was gone.”

“Wow! That's awesome,” I say, as hope floods in, rinsing away some of the anxiety.

You hear that, Bonnie? You're going down!

He don't know nothing. The man's a fool.

Bob shrugs. “Might sound awesome, but in practice, not so much.”

His words puncture my heart. I can almost feel the hope oozing out. “Why not?”

“Because dozens of us have tried it since and we were all unsuccessful.” Bob holds up a finger to wait and then looks off to his left as if listening. “Uh-huh, okay. I'll tell them.” He looks at us. “My other half, Silke, insists it's possible, but not likely. Most limbotic souls prefer living as a half-dead as opposed to lying asleep in limbo, so they're not about to share what to do to send them back.” Bob points to his head. “She's one of them. She's content to live upstairs from me, as I like to call it, watching and listening as I lead my life. I've come to enjoy her company. My wife left me because of her, but maybe it was for the best.”

“I'm sorry,” I say, feeling awkward. But how could he possibly like someone else living in his head like a parasite, devouring his thoughts and analyzing his actions?

“Don't be,” Bob says with a grin. “I'm never lonely.”

Ask him if the dead can change places with the living.

Bonnie's question unsettles me but I need to know if it's even possible. “Can the limbotic spirit ever like, completely take over the human?”