by Anton Strout
IreneBlatt.
Her name left a little to be desired. She had been so striking when I met her, so full of life and class, that I was sure that her name would be something exotic. I felt both relief and disappointment as I stared at the page.
Irene Blatt.
I rolled it around my mind, seeing if it would fall into place, and realized that it wouldn’t. I double-checked the listing. There was a brief description of her, right down to the clothes she wore and the deep blue eyes of hers that I had fallen into. There was no doubt that this Central Park West resident was indeed our Irene.
“Irene…Blatt,” I said out loud.
Connor turned and looked up from his book.
“I’m sorry, did you just burp? Blatt?” Connor said, his face curling up with distaste. “You must be joking.”
“Does IreneBlatt seem like something I’d joke about?” I asked.
“Actually,” Connor said with a chuckle, “joking would seem like theonly way to bring up the word ‘Blatt.’” He snappedThe Dread Tome shut and slipped it back onto one of the inanimate shelves. “Is the address listed?”
I nodded. A heavy, clattering thump came from far back in the Stacks and I jumped at the sound. I caught the slightest twitch from Connor as well.
“Someone’s waking up,” I said.
“Yep,” Connor said. He took the book from my hands and reshelved it as well. “Let’s not stick around here for Round Two, shall we?”
Another volley of noise came from behind us, and I looked up the aisle toward the gate. There was a lot of space for us to cover and a whole lot of side aisles for something to charge us. “Do you think it’s safe to leave?”
“I suppose,” answered Connor, sounding quite unsure. “But just in case, you might want to get your bat out again.”
9
I desperately wanted to head straight to Irene’s address, but Connor wouldn’t hear of it.
“Look, kid,” he said. “I don’t know what to expect when we get to her place, but I’m pretty sure we’re gonna need your psychometry in top form. I don’t want you walking in there unprepared or unable to deal with any surprises we might encounter. I don’t want you flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water from low blood sugar because you couldn’t control your powers. All right?”
I nodded. Even though I hated him for his clearheadedness, Connor was right.
We cabbed it from Tome, Sweet Tome down to the Twenties and over to Sixth Avenue before Connor got out and led us into a donut shop.
“Sugar yourself up, kid. We’ve got some tests to run.”
If I was going to expend my powers during some field training, I was going to need as much sugar as I could take, and after scarfing down three Boston kremes in a row, I felt bouncy. Connor had never been around someone who went hypoglycemic from using their powers, but he seemed to be getting a kick out of watching me all sugared up.
“You gonna be all right, kid?” he asked. “Do you need a special helmet or something so you don’t hurt yourself?”
I shook my head. We continued across the street, paid the two-dollar admission, and entered the ramshackle warehouse that played host to the Annex Antiques Fair. It was exceptionally warm outside for fall, but inside the market they were thankfully churning the air conditioning. It was a smart thing to do, really. Without controlling the climate inside, a lot of the antiques-especially the older furniture-would be at risk. I typically shied away from furniture when I wasn’t buying for myself. I liked to snag the more portable discoveries when I was trolling for antique finds.
Bare bulb fluorescents hung high overhead, their unflattering light washing everything a little too brightly. The floor of the open warehouse space divided into row after row of sheetrock stalls that each vendor had stuffed full of their wares.
“It’s like that warehouse at the end ofRaiders,” I said as I looked down one of the never-ending aisles. “Think they have the Ark of the Covenant here?”
Connor ignored me, but I didn’t care. I was too busy taking it all in. This was the air that filled my lungs. Like the night market, this was its own type of holy ground-an enchanted place that whirled and swirled with rich fabrics and the light of a thousand lands reflected in almost every stall. It was living, always shifting, and sometimes dangerous. The world of secondhand goods was a dog-eat-dog world, gypsies and nomads fighting for every last sale.
I stopped to check the wares at one booth and noticed a young Asian woman approaching Connor. He had taken off his coat and was walking the aisles in tourist mode, and her “sucker radar” had picked up on his naivetй immediately. She swooped in, coming to rest on his arm like a falcon.
“Right this way,” she said with a flourish of Mandarin in her voice. It rang out like the soft tinkling of wind chimes. Connor smiled and turned to follow her as she kept talking. “I show you something nice. Something you give your girlfriend. She like earrings? We got many beautiful earrings here for her.”
I hurried over, waving at the woman. I grabbed her hands from Connor’s arm politely but firmly, and said, “No, thank you. He’s not interested.”
“Ohhh,” she said, with a knowing wink and a coy smile. “I see how it is. We have something nice he buy foryou then!”
“What?” I said and then it dawned on me-she thought we were a couple. I had to give her credit as a salesperson, though. Without any judgment call or even skipping a beat, she continued her sales pitch unfazed.
“No, it’s not like that,” I said.
She nodded and winked again.
“Connor,” I pleaded. “Tell her.”
Connor turned to me and put his hands on his hips “Honestly! No need to be such abitch about things, Simon. I swear! It’s like you’re embarrassed to be seen in public with me!”
He stormed off down the aisle like a faux drama queen before I could get a word in. I chased after him, thankfully ending my conversation with the woman. Connor had ended up in a quiet section full of Indian fabrics, throws, and pillows in rich shades of purple, orange, and deep red. Thank God no one was paying attention to us. When I caught up with him, tears of laughter were running down his face. I just stared at Connor and shook my head.
“What’s wrong?” he said when he saw I wasn’t laughing.
“Can you please not make a scene?” I said, angry. “Do I have to remind you that I’m recognizable in these circles? I’ve worked very hard to be taken seriously here.”
“Sorry,” Connor offered, sobering. “Fine. Let’s get started. Just grab anything. I need to see how you compare to some of the other psychometry experts in Other Division.”
“Whatother psychometry experts?” I said. “With the Mayor’s budget cuts, there’s only Mrs. Teasley and myself as the select few in the Department who exhibit any signs of psychic awareness. And truth be told, the jury’s still out on Mrs. T.”
But I was willing to play this game. I moved through the piles of decorative fabrics, watching them shimmer with dancing lights from the hundreds of tiny mirrors sewn into their patterns. I kept going until I came to a table piled high with books. Hardcovers, dog-eared yellowing paperbacks, and two full stacks of comics. I slipped my gloves off and passed my hand over the books one by one, looking for anything that might stir my power.
“In the past,” I explained, “my visions have been somewhat sporadic when they come, but when they do…it’s like I’m seeing a slice of the former owner’s life. Some are clearer than others. Sometimes they don’t come through at all.”
“What’s your best guess as to why it’s so hit or miss?” Connor asked, flipping through one of the old paperbacks.
I paused my hand over a beat-up copy ofHouse of the Seven Gables. Usually holding an old edition of a Hawthorne was good for something, but this time I didn’t feel the slightest twinge of my power. I continued rummaging.
I shrugged at Connor. “I imagine that it all depends on the object and how long the owner has been out of contact with it, as well
as whatever emotional significance the piece has.”
I picked through more of the books, but it was hard to concentrate with Connor watching me.
“Anything?” he said with finality in his voice.
I shook my head. “None of this stuff is charged with anything I can read.”
“Well, kid,” he started, leaning against one of the support beams between the booths, “that’s part of the problem.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. My hands were dusty from touching all the books and I wiped them against my coat.
“If you want to help Irene and be part of this investigation, you need to think of what you do as something scientific, and in order for something to be labeled science, it’s got to be repeatable. Some of the people who teach psi-science theorize that you should be able to pick upanything and get a reading off of it.Every object is supposed to have its own vibrations that reflect its entire history. So it follows that every object should resonate with that at all times.”
I had never really treated my abilities as something scientific. They were simply an unexplainable phenomenon.
“If that’s true,” I asked, picking up another book, “then why aren’t I getting a reading from this?”
“I don’t know,” Connor said. “Lazy? Unfocused, maybe? Let’s try something-”
“Fine. What do you sugg-” I started, but didn’t have a chance to finish my sentence.
Connor slapped me hard across the cheek with the back of his hand. I dropped the book I was holding. “What the fu-”
Connor picked the book up and shoved it back into my hands, and just like that, I psychometrically slipped into the life of someone else. I was the book’s previous owner-a man-and I instantly knew the book was an illustrated copy of the Kama Sutra. A ton of the facts of this man’s life flooded into my head. He taught philosophy at a small New England college, and at the moment of the vision, he was sitting naked in his study at home. He was fit for a man in his midforties, with blond curly hair that was graying at the temples. Another eager-to-earn-an-A female student was just leaving his house. The Kama Sutra lay open before him on his desk. Without even bothering to dress, he started taking copious notes over his latest sexual conquest in the margins, detailing which techniques and positions he had experimented with tonight. The names of other students filled the rest of the margin, each with one, two, or three stars next to their names. Of particular note was the unforgettable Katie B., the only recipient to receive four starsand an exclamation point. The things she had done kneeling on his office desk, and all while a class was going on in the next room!
I jolted out of the vision with the fleeting memories of the randy professor’s sexual encounters locked into my mind. My body’s sugar dropped but the donuts I had scarfed helped make the aftereffects minimal. I swayed slightly as I attempted to shake off the disorientation. Connor grabbed my arm to steady me.
“Well?” Connor asked. “What did you see? Anything?”
“You don’t want to know,” I said. “Trust me.” I felt my face flush from embarrassment. The stinging sensation in my cheek rose again and I rubbed it. “What the hell was with the slapping?”
Connor took the book from me and flipped through it. “That was part of the experiment, kid. Sometimes people have powers that activate under extreme circumstances. Anger, pain…you name it.”
“Great! So I’m the psychic equivalent of the Incredible Hulk.” I snatched the book back from him.
Connor laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to become a raging psychometrist with no self-control. What it does show, though, is that you are able to use your powers on previously unreadable objects given the right emotional stimulus.” He tapped one of the book stacks with his forefinger. “Try again, except I want you to do three or four as fast as you can.”
I scooped up a tiny leather-bound copy ofPride and Prejudice. I flipped it open and was surprised to find delicate oilskin pages within, but the excitement of the moment flipped my mind’s eye into yet another vision. It was always odd to be female, but that’s who I was. Short reddish hair, “copper wire” her mother had called it years earlier, and tiny oval frames adorned her face. She was a writer, pigeonholed as a fantasist, but her true loves were the classics. As she discovered this volume of Austen, she could hardly believe it was only forty dollars! She adored its perfect little form, so compact yet so full of wonderful language that she could barely contain herself.
As I came out of the vision, the weakness hit again, harder this time, but Connor was waiting. He slammed a large floppy paperback into my arms and the only word I could make out on the book’s spine wasCookbook. I braced myself, expecting some boring scene of a homemaker crockpotting soup or perhaps images of a family settling in for Thanksgiving dinner. I was not prepared to find myself in the back of a bookstore. I was a greasy-haired teen in a long black coat. I checked the book in my hands and saw that, upon closer examination, it wasn’t a cookbook in the traditional sense.The Anarchists Cookbook, the cover read-a modern-day guide to urban survival, full of such fun stuff as growing your own weed or making a pipe bomb. The teenager checked to make sure that no one was nearby and quickly stuffed the book down the back of his pants, pulling his sweater down over it to hide the bulge. His heart raced as he walked past the cashier and toward the door, sure that he’d get caught…
When I pulled out of the vision, Connor was waiting with another book, but I waved it away weakly. “Enough. Are you trying to kill me?”
My heart raced and my palms were thick with sweat. I had depleted whatever reserve of sugar the donuts had built up in my bloodstream. I fished a roll of Life Savers from my pocket and consumed the whole roll in two sections.
“Just trying to toughen you up,” he said.
I knew the drain was making me cranky, but I couldn’t help snapping at him.
“Why don’tyou try it for a while then?”
“Hey!” Connor fired back. “Easy there. I’m just trying to get us ready to investigate your precious Ms. Blatt’s apartment. If we’re out in the field and your body craps out on me like this, it puts both of us in jeopardy. I’m trying to build you up. I want you at your peak.”
I guess he felt that was apology enough and fell silent.
“Remind me why they’ve got you teaching me again?” Already I could feel my body processing the sugar, the dizziness fading.
Connor put the books back on the table. “It’s simple,” he said. “Those who can do, do. Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach? They get stuck teaching psi-science.”
“That’scomforting,” I said.
“You want the truth?” he asked. He sounded pissed off so I nodded. “City Hall…again. Why else would they put a spook specialist in charge of you? The pay’s not good enough to get more experts on psychometry in here even if we could find more people like you. There’s no one left who’s remotely qualified to teach you, not for the money we can offer, unless you’d rather apprentice to Mrs. Teasley?”
I shook my head.
“All our most promising parapsychologists have left either to film their own infomercials, become a Psychic Friend, or run a psychic retreat in the Bahamas on some cruise ship.”
“Ooh! When do I get my own infomercial?” I asked. It didn’t sound like a bad deal. “I could stand a bit of the tropics.”
“Look,” Connor said soberly. I heard the Lecture Switch click over in his voice. “There’s about a million better ways to make money with the abilities you have, and I can’t stop you from choosing a route that’s going to give you a big fat check, kid. But I guarantee you won’t find any other use of your powers more gratifying. You’re learning to do Good, with a capital ‘G,’ for Goodness’ sake. Helping people like Irene. No amount of money beats that.”
Usually, I only half listened when Connor went into this mode, but I was a captive audience while I regained my strength.
“Weare poorly paid,�
�� I said, “and on top of that, the other more ‘legitimate’ arms of civil service and law enforcement hate us. They laugh at us behind our back and think we’re all certifiable.”
Connor nodded.
“Still, kid,” he said, “when I think of the people we help in the face of all the red tape and bullshit, how many Irenes might fall through the cracks and get lost in the system otherwise? Well, without well-intentioned people like us around-”
I squirmed at the thought that my intentions with Irene might not be purely good, and cut him off.
“It’s frustrating,” I said, as I started back toward the exit. “I definitely had no idea what I was getting into when I joined the Department…”
Now it was Connor’s turn to interrupt. “But you were surprised to find that you liked helping others, right? Doing Goodis its own reward, kid.”
I smiled. It was a very Hallmark moment.
“Besides,” Connor continued, “you could always fall back on whoring out your powers to Dionne Warwick if you have to-once you do hone them, that is.” Connor put his arm around me as a means of support. “C’mon. Let’s go check out Ms.Blatt’s address…”
Connor’s phone rang, playing a digitized “As Time Goes By,” and he pulled it out and flipped it open. “Yeah?” he said, then after listening for a few seconds. “Got it.”
He looked at me. “Sorry, kid. Your dead lady friend is going to have to wait. We’ve got a Code Gray. Jesus, first all the increased lingering spirit activity and now this!”
“Code Gray…” I repeated, trying to remember what the hell it was, then it hit me. “Zombies?”
Connor nodded. “Whole nest of ’em. Bring your bat. Should be fun.”
I wanted to get to Irene’s, but I knew the rules. If another department called a code like this, everyone scrambled. Zombies were an insidious infection, and if you didn’t cut them off quick, Manhattan was fucked. I felt surprisingly chipper as we headed out; I could use the batting practice.