I looked up at the ceiling. Surely I wasn’t murdered because CEO Perkins’s hands weren’t orange? That couldn’t be right. Then again, Faye’s logic, as corny as it sounded, made sense in a way. In a very unbelievable, highly improbable way. Maybe her snooping around had made someone nervous for reasons not related to broken diets. But why kill a janitor? A nosy journalist, I can totally understand. But a janitor? I took out the trash and the cleaned toilets, hardly grounds for murder, even if I did miss a dustbin or two.
Unless someone realised the piece of paper with the handwritten notes was missing.
How important was that piece of paper? I massaged my forehead, willing my memory to sharpen up. Where had I left the paper? I couldn’t remember. Had I told Lee where it was? Mental note: ask Lee. Second mental note: don’t forget first mental note.
For a few minutes, there was no sound apart from Faye’s pretend snivelling. Finally, I made a decision. “Poltergeists can move physical stuff. Right?”
Bob made a disgusted sound and muttered, “Talk about off topic.”
Faye stared at me with unblinking eyes and a confused expression. “Yes,” she answered hesitantly. “Poltergeists can move objects, make noise that the living can hear, that sort of thing. Oh, and the really experienced ones can even make people see them. You happy now?”
“Almost there,” I murmured. “Just one last question. About making mayhem.”
I leaned closer to Faye, so close that her field of vision was almost completely filled up by my eyes. Whatever she saw in them made her shrink back slightly.
“How do I become a poltergeist?”
Paper Trail
“Cooper, you do know I work tonight, right?” Lee grumbled as she fumbled with the door key.
“Sure do.”
“And you do know that I had a late night last night, a long day today and I still have to clean my place up and make dinner?”
I glanced skyward, asking the powers that be to come to my defense. They didn’t, so I said, “The way you go on about it, you’d think I’d dragged you half way across town instead of up a couple floors.”
Lee glowered at me as the key turned over with a click. “It may only be a couple floors up from my place, but that’s still a couple extra flights of stairs that I have to haul my exhausted behind up and down.”
“And I really appreciate your behind helping out like this.”
“That scrap of paper better be important,” she said as she pushed the door open. “For Pete’s sake, Axe. Now I remember why we never ate here. I could write a novel on all the dust.”
“Wouldn’t suggest that,” I said as I surveyed my small living room with a slight smile. “You know, because then you’d have to touch all those greasy fingerprints mucking up the surfaces under the dust.”
Lee shuddered in mock terror. “How you survived as long as you did is beyond me.”
I shrugged and followed Lee in. “It truly is one of life’s great mysteries. But don’t worry. When I miss a couple months’ rent, the landlord will eventually come in here to clean me out. You’re welcome to take anything you want, by the way. Before he tosses my junk out on the street, that is. It’s pretty much useless to me now.”
“Wow, thanks for the generous offer,” Lee said as she clasped her hands together to avoid accidentally touching anything, “but I think I’ll pass.”
“Suite yourself. You never know what treasures you might find under all the dust and grime. You may even discover a new form of bacteria that you can name Microbious Lilychanus.”
“Uh-huh.” She shook her head. “Where’s the paper, Axe? Some of us have to work for a living.”
“Some of us still live,” I reminded her and floated into my bedroom. My work overalls were right where I’d left them, draped lifelessly over a folding chair that was squeezed in between the narrow, unmade bed and the wall. Even though I didn’t actually have any internal organs, I imagined my stomach twisting up a bit and I took a deep breath. “Guess I won’t be wearing those again.”
Lee glanced at me. “Hey, if this is too much for you, I can…”
I shook my head, trying to block the image of my empty room, my abandoned life. “I’m good. Don’t worry. Just grab the paper so we can get outta here.”
“Sure thing.” Lee rummaged around in the overall pockets and triumphantly pulled out a crumbled, grubby looking piece of paper. “Got it.”
“Mr. Axe Cooper.” A voice boomed through the apartment.
“Blast it all,” I said, although I was grinning. At least now I had another image to focus on.
“Speak of the devil. It’s our favourite landlord,” Lee said, also starting to smile.
“Our only landlord.”
“Lucky us.”
I sighed deeply. “He must really miss me.”
Lee snickered as she left the room. “Good thing he can’t see you,” she whispered and then smiled radiantly at the small, fat, red-faced man blocking the doorway of the apartment.
“Mr.… Oh,” the landlord wheezed. “It’s you.”
“Yes,” Lee agreed cheerfully. “It is me. Can I help you, Mr. Smith?”
“Smits. It’s Mr. Smits. Is Mr. Cooper at home?”
“No, Mr. Smeed, I’m afraid he isn’t.”
“Smits.”
“And I’m Chan. Nice to meet you.”
Mr. Smits ground his teeth. “Well, please tell that degenerate friend of yours that I need to speak with him urgently, Ms. Chan. Today, in fact, and not one bit later. How you maintain a friendship with that man is beyond me.”
“He cooked great Chinese food,” Lee replied sweetly and smiled broadly as I floated behind Mr. Smits and pulled grotesque faces. “Well, Mr. Smith…”
“Smits. The name is Smits.”
“Of course. Mr. Mits…”
“Smits!”
“I have some rather sad news.” Lee sighed dramatically and continued in a weepy voice. “The truth is that Mr. Axe Cooper is dead.”
Mr. Smits stared at Lee. His floppy face was scrunched up, his mouth twisted as if he was sucking a lemon and his eyes were as wide as they could get. A moment of silence passed by and then Mr. Smits the landlord exploded.
“Really, Ms. Chan! Do you actually expect me to believe that story? Did he put you up to that? It would certainly not surprise me at all, not one bit. You tell…”
At that moment, a breeze blew through the room, despite the fact that all the windows were closed. The few strands of flimsy hair on the balding head of Mr. Smits waved around.
“That’s Mr. Cooper, by the way,” Lee explained, her smile almost connecting her ears. “He’s learning how to be a poltergeist, so he can haunt you. That way, you’ll never have to miss him. Not one bit. He’s blowing kisses at you now. He says to say hi and… Well, I can’t actually repeat the rest.”
Mr. Smits’s mouth moved silently in various intriguing ways. His face was beyond red and had turned a fascinating shade of purple. He gasped for breath. Finally, the moving mouth produced sound that loosely resembled spoken language. “Ms. Chan. You tell Mr. Cooper. I want the rent for last month. By end of the week. Not one bit later. Or I call in the auctioneers. And haul all this junk out to the street. Every bit of it.” He took a deep breath and shouted, “Have I made myself clear?”
He spun about, thumped into the doorframe, cursed, shifted to one side and staggered out while rubbing his forehead.
“You have indeed, Mr. Smack,” Lee yelled after him.
Lee waited until Mr. Smits was gone before turning to me, her mouth pursed. “Is that the best you can do? Blow in his face? Couldn’t you levitate something over his head?”
I shook my head and wiped my brow, pretending to flick off sweat. “Hey, it’s a lot harder doing that poltergeist thing than you realise. Gonna take some practise to get to that level. I’m de-energised. Let’s see what this paper says, the one that may have got me killed in the first place.”
“I think it’s pretty unlikely
, almost as unlikely as me sitting on that dust heap you call a sofa.”
I peered around. “Nope, I don’t call that a sofa. That’s my guest bed.”
“Whatever. Let’s go.”
“Sure you don’t want something from here to remember me by? Before it gets hauled away.”
Lee scoffed. “I already have something to remember you by: you. And no offense, but that’s as much a memento as I need or want.”
I nodded. “Yeah, guess you’re right.”
Lee tilted her head to the side. “Is there something you want me to have, Axe?”
“Nope. Not much here worth keeping anyway.”
Lee left and I paused to take one last look at my apartment, the closest thing to a home for the past three years. “Not that it means much,” I said to the empty place. “Nope, there really isn’t anything worth keeping.” I started to laugh, but didn’t. I turned and floated after Lee.
Timmy and Shadow had already left when we reached Lee’s place; storm clouds and the approaching night bruised the sky. Lee flopped onto her dust-free sofa and smoothed out the piece of paper.
“Hmmm. Not very impressive, is it?” she said. “Hardly worth all that stair climbing.”
“What’s impressive is how much is crossed out. And all these notes on the margins,” I pointed out, still trying to shake the gloom of seeing my apartment for the last time. “Like this was a really rough draft.”
“But it says ‘Final Version’ on the top.”
“Exactly.” I scanned the notes, my eyes widening as I did. Faye had been right to suspect the lack of orange on CEO Perkins’s hands.
I scratched at my chin, even though it wasn’t itchy. It was a habit. It used to get itchy around the jagged scar when I didn’t shave every day. I tried to remember when I had last shaved and showered, but the memory was vague, as if it had happened many years ago instead of a couple days ago.
“I think this little scrap of tree product is why I got killed.”
Lee snorted. “It looks like I underestimated your importance after all.”
“Sure did. And you have to get busy. Don’t you work a shift tonight?”
“You bet I do. And on top of that, I’m training your replacement.” She looked thoroughly disgusted.
“Gee, I’m real sorry about the inconvenience my death is putting you through,” I joked while I started planning my next move. “I’ll be heading out now. Keep that paper safe. I’m going to need it.”
As I was about to float through the door, which was a way more comfortable option than the concrete wall, Lee called after me. “I miss you. You know that, right?”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Stay out of trouble.”
I grinned as I turned to face her, although I could almost feel my throat constricting. I knew it wasn’t a real sensation, but it still hurt. “Come on, how much trouble can a ghost get into?”
Lee gave me a look like she was sucking on something really sour. “Personally, I wouldn’t know, but I do know that if there’s any ghost that can find out, that ghost would be you.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“I didn’t ask you to be careful,” Lee corrected me. “You’re already dead, so being careful won’t help much. Just stay out of trouble, okay?”
“You too,” I said and floated out through the door before she could extract a promise.
The Three Cowboys
There was still some activity in the office, most of it the type caused by people eagerly grabbing their personal items so they could exit the building as fast as possible and get on with their real lives. Elevators swooped down fully loaded and returned empty for the next load. By the time I floated into the office of Perkins & Co, the last remaining staff members were making a hasty dash before anyone could ask them a question or request a document. The janitors (Lee and my replacement) hadn’t yet arrived.
As I flew through the door of CEO Perkins’s office, the silhouette of a man jumped up. It didn’t have a hat on, but I still jumped. The thing was as eager as a dog when its master comes home, except in this case the dog wanted to gobble the master up in one big gulp. Fortunately, the deathmark’s range was limited. I still watched it for a few minutes, checking it couldn’t come any closer than half way.
“Lucky me.” I glanced around the office.
All the lights were off, but I could still see clearly. The first thing I noticed was the garbage can: it wasn’t there anymore. Apart from that, the only thing of interest was the locked filing cabinet that could’ve been a mini nuclear bunker. And of course the deathmark, which was going nuts in its corner. If it had a mouth, it probably would’ve been frothing.
“My sympathies, pal. What’d you do, forget to add milk in his coffee or something?”
The shadow of the dead man bounced from floor to ceiling and back again, but didn’t provide any explanation regarding the reason for its murder. I floated to the cabinet and tried to imagine what metal molecules could do. I rubbed my chin briefly and then stuck my head through the thick metal.
If concrete molecules felt like little cannonballs without the explosions, metal molecules felt like paper cuts minus the blood. No matter how much I told myself through gritted teeth that they couldn’t really hurt me, they hurt. And for nothing.
I pulled my head out gratefully and rubbed my neck. The cabinet was full of files, but there was no way I could find the one I wanted, even if I was strong enough to open the drawers. I had no idea what I was looking for and there must’ve been a decade of files in there.
“So much for that idea.” I turned to go, absently waving at the shadow that was going berserk in the corner, and for the second time in two days, CEO Perkins almost walked through me.
“Blast it all! How did I not hear you come in?” I demanded.
I scowled at the big man who of course ignored me (not being able to see or hear me). He went to the wall opposite the door and stopped in front of a portrait of himself looking all regal and slightly more youthful and slimmer than the actual model was. CEO Perkins glanced around, as if anyone could possibly be hanging out in his office, apart from a ghost and a deathmark. Satisfied he was alone, the man carefully removed the painting, opened up the safe hidden behind it and took out a wad of money before shutting it.
“Can’t rely on help these days,” CEO Perkins muttered.
“Yeah, no kidding,” I said, eyeing the thick bundle of cash. I figured there was more in that stack than I had in my savings account.
The man stuffed the cash in an inside pocket of his dark grey overcoat like it was pocket change, and maybe it was.
“Nice meeting you,” I told the deathmark. “See you later, pal.”
“Who are you calling pal?”
I spun around but didn’t jump through the ceiling. “Shadow. Surprises never cease. What, you get lonely when I’m not around? Or did I unknowingly adopt you as my personal ghost shadow?”
“Hey, Axe, good to see you too.” Shadow grinned wickedly, which would’ve given CEO Perkins nightmares if he were able to see us. “You know ghosts don’t have shadows, but I figured I’d find you here. We need to expand your places of haunting, my friend.”
“Wow. I’m touched you missed me so much.”
“So what’re we doing tonight?”
“I…” I emphasised the singular pronoun. “I am going to follow that man right there.” That man in question was just closing the door and locking it.
“Sounds good,” Shadow said with a beaming smile and a dark glitter in his eyes. “Since I don’t have anything better to do, I’ll just tag along.”
I shook my head but didn’t bother arguing. We followed CEO Perkins out the building and into a waiting limo. No word was spoken but the driver seemed to know where he should go next. Shadow took the front passenger seat; I floated above the leather seats in the back and watched my former boss help himself to the minibar with hands that were definitely not orange hued.
“Hey, buddy, aren�
�t you supposed to be on a diet or something?” I shouted in CEO Perkins ear. “You know, carrot juice only? Why anyone would do that to himself is beyond me.”
“When you have that much money,” Shadow said, “sirloin steak and caviar just don’t taste as good anymore.”
CEO Perkins popped a handful of salty, oily peanuts into his mouth and crunched on them with great satisfaction. Actually, his expression was too satisfied, like he had everything all wrapped up tight the way he wanted it. I was always suspicious about people like that. No one could be that satisfied with life unless they knew no one could touch them. And only the sharks at the top of the food chain could afford to feel that way.
I don’t like sharks.
I’m not going to eat shark fin soup, mind you, but I’m not going to adopt a shark either. And when they come in human form, they’re the worst.
The limo stopped near a juice bar on Robson Street. The preppy bar was almost empty at this time of day, with only a few minutes to closing. CEO Perkins went in and ordered a tall carrot juice, which he then took to the countertop running along the glass wall at the front. He took a few sips, watching people and umbrellas rushing by outside on the sidewalk. I floated beside him, also studying the crowd. Shadow lay down on the counter, his hands pillowing the back of his head, and his black ghost shoes resting in the glass of juice.
A few minutes later, another man slipped up to the counter, staring out at the people scurrying home. The man might have been tall, but he slouched a lot, like he wanted to hide his existence. He was wearing a long, navy blue trench coat with the collar pulled up and holding a takeout cup of coffee from one of the numerous coffee shops lining the street.
“Hey, that’s illegal,” Shadow said, waving at the coffee cup. “You’re not supposed to bring another restaurant’s merchandise into a place.”
“Says who?” I didn’t bother to look over.
“It’s one of those sort of unspoken… what’s it called… things…”
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