The dog turned and trotted off toward its mistress.
5
‘This is Miranda,” Jack Fleetwood said, and the sixteen-year-old girl with the purple-striped hair sank further down into the sofa. Now that she had her hooded sweatshirt off, Cali saw all the glorious purpleness and even a streak of pure white down the side of her hair. She was quite striking and sullen, even for a girl of sixteen. Her jeans were so baggy that two of her could’ve fit into them, and her T-shirt read BITE ME, and she looked as if she hadn’t slept in days—but then, Cali had seen girls in Manhattan like this. It was all makeup—she had made raccoon circles around her eyes with mascara and eye shadow, and her lips were a dark blood color. Her nose was pierced with one small ring, and her left ear was studded with four small garnets. She had slipped the nose ring on for tea—Cali figured to Fleetwood’s daughter, this was probably “dressing up for company.” Underneath it all, she was pretty, and Cali felt an honest vibe from her. The girl was annoyed at being there at all. The dog, Conan, was curled up next to her, his snout on her knee. But his eyes were on Cali.
Of course, I’m the intruder. He’s protecting her and making sure I’m not going to be a threat.
“Hello, Miranda,” Cali said. “I guess you could say we’ve already met.”
“Mira.”
“That’s a beautiful name. And strange. Sort of like mine.”
“Whatever,” Mira said, drawing her knees up so that her Birkenstocks were scraping the sofa.
“Feet down,” Jack said. “And dog down. That’s an expensive couch.”
He snapped his fingers, and Conan leaped down from the couch, immediately curling up again on the rug by the fireplace.
Mira shot her father a fierce glance, but then slipped her legs over the edge of the sofa and let them touch the floor. She had long legs for a teenager.
Cali nearly laughed, remembering herself at that age. Virtually the same: pissed off, defiant, not feeling very good about herself, not liking the fact that she was the tallest girl in her class, not enjoying feeling different... Mira no doubt felt like a loner, as Cali had. “You live in the village,” she said.
Mira didn’t look at her. “Not this village.”
“Mira,” Jack said.
“I mean Greenwich Village,” Cali said.
“Yeah,” Mira said. She dropped the sullenness and actually sounded polite.
“I grew up in Pennsylvania, but when I was sixteen we moved to the East Village. My father used to play jazz piano at a club called the Glowworm. Near Tompkins Park. You know it?” Cali asked, knowing that Mira probably only shopped in the East Village.
Mira glanced up for just a second. “Sure. I’ve been there. Good music. Expensive cover charge, you ask me.”
“My dad was really into it. I used to go there with my sister, and we’d hang out in the back and listen to all the really cool blues players back then.”
Mira shrugged. “Sounds interesting.”
“I knew you liked the blues,” Cali said. “Just by looking at you.”
“You read my mind?” Mira asked. In her voice, Cali detected a slight fear.
Cali glanced at Jack Fleetwood. Had the father intimidated his daughter with these kinds of fears? Surrounded her with the whole idea of psychic or paranormal abilities, and somehow kept her in a box? She said, “No, I’m not much of a mind reader. I could tell by your style.”
Mira chirped a smile, which disappeared as soon as it came.
All right, Cali thought. We’ll get along. We’ll be friends now, Mira. I think we understand each other a little. I think your dad was probably a little bit like my dad.
“What’s your ability?” Mira asked.
“I read things,” Cali said.
“Like .. . books,” Mira said, softly sarcastic.
Jack Fleetwood jumped into the conversation. “Psychometry. She works in criminal investigations. She picks things up.”
“I know what psychometry is,” Mira said, not looking at her father, but keeping her gaze on Cali. “I’m around this crap twenty-four hours a day. I’ve heard you on the radio a couple of times. You do Tarot, too, right?”
“Sometimes. I don’t think the Tarot is magic or anything. I just
think it helps focus your mind sometimes. The images are cultural. It’s just a way to focus on a problem and see a metaphor for the situation that might be helpful.”
“I know some Tarot readers who think it’s mystical,” Mira said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She shrugged. “Dad has all kinds of kooks at the Foundation.”
“Not me,” Cali said. “And I’ve only done that a little. On request. It’s psychometry that’s my specialty. You like all this paranormal stuff?”
“It’s okay,” Mira said. “Of course, I don’t have any special talent.”
“Everyone has some degree of—” her father said.
“Not me. I couldn’t tell you what time it is right now, let alone anything about the future or the spirit world.”
“You believe in ghosts?” Cali asked.
“Do you?”
Cali grinned. “Not really.”
“Me neither,” Mira said, erupting in laughter. “I think this is going to be one big waste of human potential.” She glanced sidelong at her father: “Sorry, Dad.”
Jack looked up at Cali, shaking his head, smiling. “I hear it all the time.”
“So, you touch stuff and feel vibes?”
“Basically,” Cali said.
“All your life?”
“Ever since I was a lad. First at seven, and then when I was maybe eleven, something else happened. It was nothing very dramatic. My parents were talking divorce, and my older sister was acting like I didn’t exist because she was fourteen and hanging out with older boys. She didn’t want a younger sister following her everywhere, I guess. I can’t blame her. I was really needy as a kid, and a little bit of a constant liar. I made up stories just so people would think I was interesting. I even had imaginary friends, at eleven, and that seemed too old, even to me.”
“I don’t know. I could use some imaginary friends right about now,” Mira said, practically under her breath.
“All kinds of things were going on in my body—the pubescent stuff every kid has to deal with—I thought my family was about to break apart, and then the only friend I had ran off. Our dog. His name was Custer, and he was an Irish setter mixed with golden retriever. All I had of him was his dog collar, because I’d taken it off that morning to give him a really messy bath. So all these things were going on in my head—it was all happening at once. I thought the world was falling apart, and because Custer had gotten loose and hadn’t come back, I thought it was my fault, and no one would be able to identify him because I took his collar off with his tags and everything. So I practically blacked out from worrying. I lost consciousness for a couple of seconds and hit the planks on our front porch really hard, but I was holding on to his dog collar. And that’s when I knew I was stuck with this ability.”
“You saw your dog?”
“Not really. I saw everything about the dog. Pretty much any interactions with people. All these memories came back about when he was a puppy and I’d been holding him. I thought it was just me remembering. But when I came out of it, my mother told me later I sat up in bed (she’d brought me to bed and hadn’t been able to get the collar out of my grip), I said ‘Ouster’s downtown behind Lambert’s Kitchen Store/ And that’s where they found him, although nobody had believed me. My grandmother believed. She was into all kinds of old superstitious stuff. She told me what this ability was, and because I was a little obnoxious kid at that point, I believed her. Then I felt special. That was probably my downfall, because it didn’t always work. It doesn’t. It’s not a hundred percent true, what I get from reading things. Sometimes I’m wrong. It’s just that every now and then I’m right, and that’s what I guess helps in the criminal stuff I’m brought in on.”
“You a cop?”
>
“No. I do a late-night radio show three times a week, and then work sometimes with the NYPD on a few cases per year.”
“Wow. You got a gun?”
“Always,” Cali said. “You ever shoot a gun?”
“We don’t keep guns,” Jack Fleetwood said.
“I don’t blame you. If I didn’t have to, I wouldn’t. But shooting a gun is not a bad skill to have,” she said, directly to Mira. ‘There are times when guns are good.”
“We live in a violent culture,” Mira said, like she was reciting from a sociology class. “Guns only add to the problem.”
“We live in a violent culture because we’re violent people. Basically. People add to the problem,” Cali said. “I don’t love guns, Mira. But once you’ve been attacked, you can’t go back to believing you’re safe. I wish it weren’t so, but it is. The gun can be destructive, or it can be a tool for safety. We don’t need to promote or destroy firearms. We need to work on the human heart.”
Mira’s face brightened, as if she’d had a minor revelation. “True.” She paused, almost dramatically. Then, in a much lower voice, she said, “So, tell me: You ever shoot somebody?”
CHAPTER SIX
1
Chet took the long way up.
It had begun drizzling rain when he rolled out of bed that morning, and he knew that he might just get fired from his job at the gas station purely because Larry Hooper didn’t like his employees telling him when and how they would take time off from work. Chet didn’t care; the check was in his bank account, swelling it beyond its norm to the point that the bank had called to verify that he had put the money into the right account. Since he was overdrawn now and then, Chet had not been surprised at the call. He could barely believe his luck, because it seemed like all the money in the world to him.
He dressed in his cleanest pair of Levis and made sure he wore his white shirt, because he knew that he couldn’t show up at this mansion in New York looking like a hillbilly. He wore his best brown shoes, and stowed his sneakers and a few other things into his green knapsack. He dropped by the ATM and took out four hundred dollars, which he figured would cover him for the four days and then some—he didn’t want to scrimp too much while he was at this place, because he knew that the money was mainly to cover any expenses he had. Still, he saved on cab fare and walked all the way to the bus depot.
It wasn’t that the train wouldn’t have been more convenient, but the bus was just so damn cheap, he had to use it. Sure, he could’ve used some more of the advance cash, but he didn’t know how long that money would last, and he didn’t want to end up being completely poor again if he could help it.
Besides, the bus made the trip last longer, and he got to know a really nice lady of about sixty or so who sat next to him for most of the trip. She was from Washington, D.C., and she was going up to New York to see her grandchildren.
When she asked him about his trip, he said, “Just going to see some friends.” He felt a little paranoid about the whole idea of going to a house and watching to see if ghosts were there.
From the first view of New York City, he thought he’d see his mother somewhere on the street as the bus went up to the Port Authority, but there was no sign of her. Part of him wanted to go wander the city and at least try to find out her whereabouts. But the city was too vast—even riding through on the bus, he was amazed by how the buildings never ended, and there was no horizon once you got on the street.
He changed buses there, and then changed to another bus on up the road. All in all, an entire day had come and gone, and by the time he reached Watch Point, New York, deposited at the train station, he felt as if he’d been on the damn bus for days instead of hours.
The train station was desolate.
He was the only person to get off at Watch Point, and when the bus drove off he reached into his green bag and drew out an oversized sweatshirt with a big floppy hood. He pulled it over his head and shivered slightly. It was colder in Watch Point than even in New York City. The wind actually whistled around the bends of buildings.
It was dark, and the streetlamps played out a feeble but romantic light. It reminded him of a movie of a small village—it was so perfect. There were no taxicabs at the station, so he walked up the broad sidewalk, looking in the windows of the closed-up shops. There was a bookshop called the Whistle Stop Bookshop; in the window was a display for children’s books, including one of his favorites from childhood, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. It was a story about a brother and sister who run away from home, and they had done what Chet as a child had only dreamed of (until he was fourteen and did, in fact, run away). He grinned, seeing it displayed there. It was like an old friend.
Across the street was a fairly lively little Italian restaurant, and for a second he entertained the notion of grabbing a bite to eat there. He’d only had two bologna sandwiches all day, with some Mountain Dews on the side, and his stomach growled and gurgled just watching the people at the window tables eating pasta. There’ll be food at Harrow, he told himself. I’ll be there soon.
He walked past windows with women’s clothing and an appliance store full of shining new stoves and washing machines near the front of the giant glass window; as he walked, he passed one or two people—a boy about his age who looked like he must be in college. He was better dressed than Chet, in a thick wool sweater and khakis; Chet felt like a slob from the wrong side of the tracks. His jeans had a few holes in them, and his sweatshirt was stained and smelled musty to him. Some first impression you’re going to make.
A middle-aged couple passed by, and the wife nodded to him with a sweet smile. He nodded back and continued up the slight hillside, until he saw the Exxon Station at the convergence of two sloping roads.
Inside the convenience store of the gas station, he poured himself a big cup of coffee, mixed liberally with cream and then coated in sugar. He needed the boost. Then, what he liked to think of as “an All-American gas station sandwich,” which came in a small triangular plastic case. Inside, a sliced egg salad sandwich on the whitest and flimsiest bread imaginable, and still, it tasted okay. After he’d paid for it, and sat munching it out under the bright lights of the gas station, the guy who ran the pumps asked him where he was headed.
“Some house here. I need to call a cab.”
“A house? I’ve lived here twenty years. I know most of these places. Whose is it?”
“I think her name is Martin. Something Martin.”
“Oh, Jeez,” the guy said. “That old rattrap. She bought it six months ago, and she hired everybody in town practically to work on it. And then some. She had a team of contractors come up from the city. She must’ve spent a small fortune on it. After the fire last year, it’s not worth a dime, in my opinion. It’s one of those old messes that are all along the river—Bannerman’s Castle, Wyndcliffe—mansions that were once something but are now just rotting and too expensive to maintain even when they’re not rotting.”
“Yeah,” Chet said, munching on the last of his sandwich. “I hear it’s something.”
“It’s something,” the guy said. “It was a school last year but got shut down when some kids died. Half the building got burned, and what wasn’t burned, she tore down.”
“Why’d she do that?”
“Not the house. The school buildings. The school sold to her in April, and as quick as you can say ‘jackshit,’ she took out a lot of that building. My brother Pete worked on it. He said that she was crazy. Two people got hurt bad in the construction. Or I should say, destruction,” the attendant said. Then, “She throwing a party?”
“Kind of.” Chet grinned, feeling pretty good now. All right, it was clear: the Martin lady was certifiable, and this was going to be some kind of lark in the park for a nice wad of cash. Life could be worse.
“Well, you want a lift, I can give you one in twenty minutes,” the guy said, and then thrust his hand out. “Boz.”
“Chet.” Chet took his hand an
d gave it a good, hard shake. “I pump gas, too. Down near Baltimore.”
“So, you want a lift?”
Chet nodded. “I was about to break down and get a cab.”
“As it so happens,” Boz said, “I am one of three cabbies in town. After my shift here. Usually no one needs one unless they’re going to the depot, or some of the old ladies who want to get their hair done in Poughkeepsie but can’t see the road.”
“Quiet little burg,” Chet said.
“Quiet and full of nutcases.” Boz laughed, and then the bell rang at the full service pump, and he dashed over to it.
2
Boz drove a ‘69 Mustang that had once been bright yellow, but nearly thirty years after the car’s creation was a mottled and scratched white with an occasional splotch of color. It had dents and bangs all over it, and the seats were torn as if by a wild animal. “I got it for three hundred bucks four years ago, and I been working on it since then,” he said proudly. “This is how you get up to Harrow. It’s a weird road.”
“Weird?”
“I don’t mean weird weird. I mean weird like it zigs and zags a little. See? Pothole!” Boz cried out, and then pressed his right hand on the windshield as the car practically bucked like a bronco on the bump. “One time I hit one of those and the windshield cracked.”
“No kidding.”
“All this gravel flew up. I’ve had to get a new windshield twice already. This road sucks.” Then, brightening a bit, Boz nodded ahead. “Look beyond those trees and you can see just a little of it.”
Chet looked forward and saw what looked like the top of some medieval castle, rising above a stand of trees in the distance. The sun was just going down behind it, and what he saw became shadowy in the sudden October night.
“Dracula’s castle,” Boz said. ‘That’s what we used to call it. It used to be full of preppies, but they all burned up. Well, not all of ‘em. Just some of “em.”
Harrow: Three Novels (Nightmare House, Mischief, The Infinite) Page 44