by Tracy Lane
“Now that they’re occupied, let’s beat feet and go look for some clues.”
Frank looked excited, gesturing with his big, beefy hands toward the front door. Jake turned to him and hissed, “Not today, Frank. I don’t appreciate you teasing my parents like that. You know they’re going to obsess over this for days now.”
“I— I thought I was helping,” Frank sputtered in defense to the accusation.
“Then why did you make it so my Dad couldn’t record any of the stuff you were doing?” Jake whispered.
Frank paused, and then winked. “That’s not part of the deal, kid. You help me, and then I help you, remember?”
“How is this helping, exactly?” Jake asked, exasperated.
Frank nodded his giant hat toward Jake’s parents, who looked about as jittery as two kids on Christmas morning. “Consider this the appetizer. Now that they’re all excited, this’ll keep them on their toes until the main course. And don’t even get me started on dessert!”
“Fine,” Jake hissed, inching forward so that Frank had to back up. “I’ll help you tomorrow. Tonight I have to spend calming my crazy parents down. I hope you’re happy!”
Frank touched his hat as he quickly evaporated into a fine mist. “I’m far from happy, kid,” he said as the mist slowly evaporated. “That’s why I came to you.”
Jake sighed and turned around, trying not to feel bad for old Frank, only to find both of his parents only inches away, arms crossed over their chests, troubled looks stuck to their faces.
“What’s going on with you, son?” his father asked, resting one hand gently on Jake’s shoulder.
“You never used to talk to yourself before,” said his mother.
“I’m not talking to myself,” Jake insisted.
His father squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and said, “Is everything all right?”
Mr. and Mrs. Weir shared a concerned glance.
“We know we move you around a lot,” said his mother. “We’re worried that, well, all that stress of constantly starting a new life might be catching up to you.”
“I’m fine,” Jake said. “I’m just…I haven’t been sleeping so well, that’s all. Can I go to my room now?”
His parents nodded and Jake hurried to his tiny bedroom. He half-expected Frank to be sitting there on his bed, pouting, when he walked in.
No such luck.
Chapter 6
For once, Jake didn’t mind that his Dad’s shabby printer never had enough colored ink inside; the photo he was copying was in black and white anyway.
Outside of its frame, the photo of the Lido Lounge in happier times was crumbly and old, so he handled it very carefully while sliding it onto the glass printer tray. While his parents napped, he ran off a couple extra copies of the picture, just in case.
He placed the original picture back into its frame and hid it in his desk, then slipped the replicas into one of his parents’ black and green Paranormal Properties promotional folders on his way out the door of the apartment.
Usually, he waited until the last period of the day to walk up to Tank’s school, but he was antsy and eager to get started on his “mission,” and so headed out early.
Upon reaching the school, he found her sitting in the bleachers by the campus field, clutching the doctor’s note that always got her out of PE.
Although she looked healthy as an ox, Tank got out of breath easily; she and her starkly pink cheeks would be flustering all period. And then there was the sweat. Rather than endure taunting from her classmates, she just avoided the situation altogether.
Her Dad might not have been Father of the Year but, as a big man himself, the one thing he did understand about his daughter was her fear of being made fun of because of her weight. He personally made sure Tank sat out of PE.
“You’re here early,” she said, smiling. Fewer things were as unexpected, and welcome, as a Tank smile.
Jake shrugged. “I was getting cabin fever,” he lied.
With a quicker hand than he might have expected, Tank snatched one of the pictures that was sticking out of the folder and sat on the bottom step of the bleachers, studying it.
“Who are all these geezers?” she snorted disdainfully.
Jake chuckled. “They’re geezers now, but they weren’t always that way.”
Tank smiled. Jake followed her glance. “They sure do look happy!”
The people in the pictures did look happy. They all looked middle-aged, around his parents’ years, but their smiles were ageless. They were dressed in large suits and dresses that shone; nice clothes, like the ones his parents might wear to a New Year’s Eve party.
“Who are they?” she asked, and handed the picture back to Jake, who put it with the others.
“It’s an old photo of guests at the Lido Lounge,” he said carefully, having concocted a story the night before in case anyone asked why he was running around town tracking down senior citizens for no good reason. “My parents are thinking of doing a Paranormal Properties episode there. They asked me to help.”
“I wish my Dad would ask me for help sometime,” Tank murmured while she scuffed her shoes together.
“What about last week when he asked you to wash his fleet of cars for him?”
Tank chuckled. “Very funny. What are you doing here so early?”
He shrugged theatrically. “I couldn’t stay away from you another second.”
She snorted, and then looked over her shoulder as the coach blew his whistle.
“Gotta go and hit the showers, Jake.” Tank started picking her way down the bleachers. “You gonna be out by the bike rack when I’m done?”
He looked around as kids started streaming off the PE field. “Where else am I going to go?”
And he didn’t go anywhere, not for a while. He figured the bleachers were a good place to sit and hide out until the school day ended.
After a few minutes’ worth of staring at the folks in the Lido Lounge photo, Jake fell into boredom and decided to start looking for Frank.
He looked left and right, peeking under bleachers and peering out around the grounds, searching in vain for a giant goof in a fedora. Yet, the old ghost was nowhere to be seen. Jake had to wonder if Frank was mad at him.
What if Frank never showed up?
He hadn’t meant to be rude after Frank made all that trouble in the apartment the day before, but what did the guy expect? So Jake had blown off some steam. Frank had thrown a little tantrum of his own in the middle of the living room.
He sat there on the bleachers, waiting for the final bell to ring, and worried. Then he fretted, then he worried some more. He didn’t know how to conjure Frank. There were no “ghost calls” he could do to attract the dead gangster.
He felt suddenly, terribly alone.
“Jake?” Tank startled him, appearing at the foot of the bleachers, her cheeks flushed. “Do you mind walking home alone today? Dad’s secretary called. He’s having chest pains and they took him to the hospital. They’re sending a car right now to take me there…”
She stopped, breathless, her chin moist with sweat.
“Are you okay?” Jake asked, standing and walking down the bleacher steps. “Do you want me to go with you?”
She paused, like that had never even occurred to her. “No, no,” she said, reconsidering. “Just…I didn’t want you to think I’d stood you up,”
She stumbled back then and, without another word, walked back toward the school. Jake stood there, alone again and watching her yellow hoodie bounce with each stiff step. His heart sank a bit.
He stood there, silently, not looking forward to the long walk home alone. He realized then how big a part of his life Tank had become and how that very same feeling of emptiness filled him as she walked away.
“You should socialize more, kid,” Frank said suddenly, dusting off the bottom bench of the bleachers before sitting down.
Jake smiled, and relief automatically filled him. Who would have thought h
e would be so happy to see a ghost?
“I thought I ticked you off,” he said, climbing onto the seat next to Frank.
“Off of what?” Frank asked, wrinkling his nose at the modern expression.
Jake chuckled. “Sorry, I mean…made you mad.”
Frank’s eyes lit up for a second as if he remembered the saying. Then, he shook his head. “Nah, kid. I was acting like an idiot yesterday, teasing your parents like that. It wasn’t very nice of me, I know. It’s just…you have no idea how boring it is, being a ghost!”
Jake only nodded solemnly, considering he did have absolutely no idea.
They were silent for a moment, and then Jake thought of something. He opened his folder and slid out one of the pictures, uncapping a pen as he showed it to Frank.
“I’d like to get started talking to some of these people. Can you tell me who any of them are?”
Frank sighed and slid the picture over. It was odd, watching his fingers touch the paper, hearing him draw the printout across the rough, wooden bleacher seat. Jake thought of what Frank had said about taking years — decades — to become “physical” again.
Jake didn’t think he had that kind of patience, even if being dead meant that he didn’t have much else to do.
“Smitty Johnson,” Frank said, pointing to a dark-haired man on the very left of the picture. On his own copy, Jake circled the face and wrote the name.
“Is that his real name?” Jake asked.
Frank shook his head, which was mostly comprised of his giant hat. “No, sorry, it’s Smithfield Johnson. He passed away about five years ago.”
Jake corrected it and pointed to the woman next to Smithfield. “And her?”
“Mabel Gable,” Frank chuckled. “And, yes, that’s her real name. Current residence? The Dusk Home for Seniors, Shut-ins and Recluses.”
Jake knew the place. According to his parents, it was haunted, too.
“And this one’s Robert Appleton,” Frank gestured to him. “Lives in the same retirement home.”
Jake arched one eyebrow and Frank sighed. “I know, I know, but…they’re all in their eighties now. Can’t be too surprised.”
Four down. Two more to go. Jake pointed to the second woman in the photo, a tall blonde wearing a beret and sipping a glass of champagne. Frank couldn’t hide his smile.
“That’s my old gal, Betty Cooper. She died some years back...” Frank’s voice grew wistful as he looked just over Jake’s shoulder. “I must admit to haunting her something fierce, Jakey Boy, though she never knew it.”
Jake wasn’t so sure about that. He wasn’t sure Frank knew how to play it cool and stay unnoticed.
“And, last but not least,” Frank said while Jake wrote Betty’s name just above her dashing black beret, “Ray ‘Crackers’ Coltraine.”
Jake chuckled. “Did everyone have a nickname in the fifties?”
“Everyone who was anyone, kid.”
Jake wrote the name over the man’s head. Then, he looked more closely at the young man in the picture. He had a full head of black hair, a thick moustache, and wore a black suit with a white shirt underneath. He was smiling, arm-in-arm with Betty Cooper.
“He looks familiar,” Jake muttered.
“He should,” Frank said. “He works at this school.”
Chapter 7
“You can’t just walk up to him like that!” Frank insisted as Jake started to walk across the bustling hallway once school let out for the day. “You’ve got to bribe him a little.”
Jake panicked slightly as the entire school — it seemed so, anyway — parted to go around him and get to the busses, bikes and carpool lanes on time.
“With what?” he asked over the roar of the crowd, for once not afraid that anyone would hear him, let alone notice him. “I don’t have much money.”
Frank shook his head. “You kids today don’t know anything about class. He doesn’t want money, just…a little respect. He’s a custodian, for Pete’s sake! You think anyone around here respects the man?”
Frank stood tall, craning his neck over the swarming kids to spot a row of vending machines along the opposite wall. “There!” he said. “Crackers always loved orange soda and peanuts!”
“So, why not call him ‘Peanuts’?” Jake whispered as he fed money into the soda machine.
“That’s no fun,” joked Frank. “Why have a nickname if it makes any sense?”
Jake took his time working the vending machines, hoping that by the time he got Cracker’s snacks, the crowd would be gone.
It was, mostly, but Frank said, “Wait until he goes into the Chemistry lab, Jake. He always sits down and rests in there, so you’ll have a chance to talk.”
When the custodian appeared down the corridor, Jake followed him from afar as Crackers wheeled his squeaky custodial cart toward, and then into, the Chem lab. After a suitable amount of time, Jake tapping his feet just outside the classroom door, Frank nodded and they both went in, Jake leading the way.
“Crackers?” asked Jake before Frank elbowed him hard. “Ouch,” he griped. “I mean, Mr. Coltraine?”
Crackers was sitting in the teacher’s chair, feet up on the desk, and didn’t look too embarrassed when Jake caught him. In fact, he was smiling. “Crackers,” he mused, twirling a pencil in one hand. “I don’t think anybody’s called me that in years.”
The older man looked trim in his navy custodial uniform. Jake had seen him on campus once or twice while he waited around for Tank after school, pushing around his cart with the trash can in the middle and brooms and buckets on either side. He had never paid him much mind until today.
Then Crackers looked more closely at Jake. “What do you want, kid? And how’d you know I used to be called that back in the day?”
“Ask him why,” Frank whispered.
By now, Jake was used to the voice in his ear. He ignored Frank and said, “Do you mind, first, telling me why they used to call you ‘Crackers’?”
Crackers smiled as his bright eyes shone. For just a second, he looked exactly like he did in the old picture shoved in Jake’s folder.
He wheezed out a laugh and said, “Because I loved peanuts, but ‘Peanuts’ wasn’t funny enough.”
Jake shook his head. In his mind, “Crackers” wasn’t much better.
“That’s your cue, kid,” Frank said, nudging him forward.
“Thanks,” said Crackers with a slightly suspicious gaze as Jake handed him the snacks. Still, he opened the individual-size bag of peanuts and guzzled half the bag anyway. “How’d you know?”
Jake didn’t need Frank to answer this question. “Lucky guess.”
Crackers polished off half of the orange soda in one chug. “What are you doing in here anyway? Shouldn’t you be heading home by now?”
“Sure, sure,” Jake said, sitting down in a desk. “I was just wondering, do you ever watch that ghost hunting show on TV?”
Crackers gave him a look.
“On Public Access 438?” Jake added.
The custodian snorted. “What, the two clowns on Saturday night?”
Jake’s face burned with shame. “Uh, those ‘clowns’ are my parents.”
Crackers sat up a little straighter in his chair, taking his leg off the desk. “Sorry. I mean, I love the show. What’s it called: Spooky Streets?”
Jake almost chuckled, considering it was actually a pretty good name. “Paranormal Properties,” he corrected gently.
“That’s the one! What about it, kid?”
“Well,” Jake said, sliding out a copy of the black and white picture. “My parents are thinking of doing a show about the old Lido Lounge, out on Route 3?”
“I know the joint,” Crackers replied, picking up the picture Jake had placed on the edge of the teacher’s desk. The custodian’s face instantly split into a huge smile. “Wow, I haven’t seen this gang in ages. Look how young we were. Man, Betty Cooper; look at how classy that gal was. I remember she had a thing for the lounge singer, what was his
name? The one who sang ‘Happy Hour Eyes’ or something?”
Jake cracked a similar smile. “‘Barroom Eyes’?” he and Frank corrected at the same time.
“That’s it,” Crackers snapped his fingers. “Frank Barrone. Boy, that cat could sing. The ladies all loved him, too, but none more than Betty.” Crackers paused, his gaze far away.
Suddenly, he blinked out of his trance and looked Jake in the eye. “But why would a ghost hunting show be interested in some run down club?” Then, he smiled, answering his own question with another question: “Your folks think it’s haunted?”
“Well,” Jake bluffed, “it hasn’t been widely publicized but, in the ghost hunting community, there have been several reports of local residents spotting a large, young—”
“Handsome,” Frank interrupted, “don’t forget handsome.”
“…handsome man in an old white suit and big fedora stalking the property at night.”
Crackers sat bolt upright. “Kid, you just gave me the chills. That’s Frank Barrone to a T. And he did die, over sixty years ago, under mysterious circumstances.”
“How mysterious?” Jake asked, scooting his desk up an inch or two. He felt like a real detective, grilling a suspect in a tiny interview room.
“How does a bunch of gangsters bursting through the door and gunning the poor guy down in cold blood sound?”
Jake looked just past Crackers to where Frank was leaning against the chalkboard at the front of the room. The ghost’s eyes bore into the back of the custodian’s head.
“How do you know they were gangsters?” Jake asked.
Crackers backpedaled slightly. “Well, I mean, black suits, black hats, black bandanas over their faces, guns firing…we all thought they looked like gangsters, but it happened so fast…”
“Happened so fast…” Jake shook his head. Those were almost exactly the same words Mr. Murphy had used.
“Do you remember anything more?” he continued. “Anything specific about the gunmen?”
Now Frank was leaning forward, practically breathing on Checkers. Jake watched as he turned his head slightly and shivered before looking back to Jake. “Did it just get cold in here?”