by Angie Fox
“It was totally a ghost,” Beau said as if he’d been there. Which he hadn’t, according to Lauralee. “They should never have messed with that lock. That room hadn’t been touched since the 1930s, and the spirits liked it that way. Now the scary old ghost is angry and dangerous,” he added, with more relish than fear.
“First off, he might not be scary or old.” One could never assume. “And another thing—”
“I know one ghost who’s getting angry and dangerous,” Frankie said, cutting me off. “Our contact is in the main theater. Focus.”
I couldn’t believe Frankie of all people had to tell me to focus. But he was right. Beau had me off my game.
“Let me see what we’ve got.” Frankie stood next to an easel featuring photos of the cast and crew of Sugar Town and stuck his head through the door to the theater.
I stood by the board, surprised to see only one cast photo displayed: the portly image of Lowell Sanders, the self-proclaimed Sugarland choir director. He also waited tables at the diner, and now it seemed he was directing, producing, and starring in Sugar Town, a one-man show. He’d also written it.
“The guy’s got talent.” I’d give him that.
“Ellis needs to take you to New York,” Beau snorted.
“Why?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.
Frankie popped his head back out of the door. “You ready?”
Before I could say anything, I felt his power wash over me like a thousand tiny needles. His energy prickled across my skin and sank in deep to the bone.
Before my eyes, the theater lobby transformed. The doorway gleamed with fresh metallic paint, the chandelier sent off sparkles, and everything old—from the carpets to the stairway banisters—was new again.
“Stick close,” Frankie ordered. “Follow my lead.”
“Gotcha,” I said, waiting for him to pass through before I opened the door.
The ghostly movie theater glowed in shades of gray.
Rows of empty velvet seats faced an actual wood stage framed with brocade curtains held back with thick tasseled ties. On the ghostly side, a movie screen took up the entire back wall of the stage. Painted stars glittered from the ceiling.
The ghostly screen flickered in black and white. A trio of cowboys on horses galloped across the badlands, waving their guns in the air. The one in the lead shot into the air.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Past the ghostly vision, I saw that the modern theater had lost the luxurious curtains along with the movie screen. The stars on the ceiling had been painted over. The seats appeared worn—and still empty.
Lowell Sanders stood under the spotlight, dressed as a steampunk version of our first mayor, Colonel Ramsey Larimore. I knew this because he said it plain:
Larimore is my name and Sugarland is my game
I never wanted fame, I only want rain.
He did a jig that appeared sort of like a modern rap dance. It would have come off better if he’d had rhythm.
Our crops need rain! I feel the pain…
He raised his hands to the cloud dangling from a hook above him, imploring.
Rain!
He dropped to his knees.
Poor man. He was trying hard. There were only two people in the theater, both in the first row. An older couple. Probably Lowell’s parents.
“Ah, yes.” Beau nudged me. “There’s nothing quite like community theater.”
“Hush up,” I murmured. “He’s trying his best.”
An icy chill enveloped my left side, and I turned to see the flickering image of an usher in a pillbox hat. “Shhh…”
“Right.” I nodded. “Sorry.”
“Is that a ghost?” Beau hissed, drawing closer. “I feel a chill.” He touched my arm. “It’s just like when we were on the train.”
I shook off his touch. “You never helped me ghost hunt on the train.”
“I’m making it up to you,” he vowed.
I didn’t know where his sudden fervor had come from, but I didn’t like it.
“Hey, Bobbsey Twins.” Frankie swept toward us down an empty row of seats, his Panama hat cocked low over his forehead, his jaw clenched. “He’s up there,” the gangster said, glancing up toward the back of the theater.
“There’s no one here, Frankie.” The theater appeared completely empty save for the couple clapping politely up front.
“In the balcony,” Frankie added.
Then I saw him, a dark shadow of a man underneath the flickering beam of a ghostly projector.
He hunkered in the very last row at the top, and he didn’t glow like ghosts normally did. I squinted to try to see better. “Are you sure he’s dead?” It could have been anybody.
Frankie gave a sharp nod. “That’s Wally. He always sits back there,” he said, leading us to a set of stairs off the main aisle.
The figure never moved.
“I suppose it is very private,” I whispered.
“Exactly,” Frankie said as we began the climb up the steep steps. “The back row is neutral ground. It’s the best place to buy and sell secrets.” He paused near a sconce casting a triangle of yellow light. It shimmered straight through him. “Wally provides a vital service, a point of contact. He’s above the petty gang business.”
“Until he sells you information.” It was a wonder somebody hadn’t bumped him off to keep him quiet. Then again, maybe they had.
We came to a wider, curved step before a sharp turn had us climbing higher. I heard Beau stumble behind me. With any luck, he’d realize he didn’t belong here and give up.
For me, Frankie’s gray glow lit the way. “For the right price, Wally can give you information nobody else has got.”
Like the current location of Frankie’s on-the-run brother. “Are you sure he knows where Lou is?”
“If anybody does, it’s him,” my gangster said with chilling certainty. “We used up my lead last night.”
We’d make it work this time. “Okay. What are we going to give Wally for the information?”
Frankie glanced back at me. “That’s up to you.”
“What?” He’d said I had to negotiate. He didn’t tell me I had to pay as well.
“Shhh…” Frankie hissed. Somehow it had sounded more compelling coming from the usher. “You’re always so proud of how ghosts bond with you and confide in you. Well, now’s the time to get Wally talking.”
Great.
Frankie wanted me to get free information from the guy who sold secrets. How did one even go about asking a mob information broker for the goods on a gangster who shot his brother and now didn’t want to be found?
Frankie halted at the top, and I almost went straight through the back of him.
“This is as far as I go.” His gaze flicked past the arched doorway leading to the balcony. “Good luck.”
“You don’t have any other advice for me?” I asked.
The gangster shrugged. “I told you, ‘good luck.’ Also, hurry up. My leg is starting to disappear.”
He was right—Frankie’s left leg had gone transparent up to the knee. He hadn’t lost power like this in a long time, and we were burning it fast if he’d begun losing body parts this quickly.
“I’ll try to hurry,” I promised. “In the meantime, think happy thoughts.”
I can do this, I reminded myself as I climbed to the top. Maybe.
Beau staggered out onto the balcony. “Who put a curtain here?”
The shadowy figure never moved.
I put on my best smile and edged down the row toward the figure in the dark.
Beau followed. He caught up to me about halfway down.
Oh, no. I stopped. “Go. Find a seat somewhere and let me work. Now.” I didn’t have time to argue with him.
Beau stood his ground like a wall of stubborn. “Just because you don’t love me anymore doesn’t mean I won’t be here for you.”
I was going to kill him. Or Ellis.
Maybe both.
He wore a hat with the brim pulled low over his forehead, like another gangster I knew. He appeared lean and broad shouldered, but that was all I could determine. I couldn’t even tell if he had big ears or not.
“Hey, Wally,” I said, drawing as close as I dared. I mean, how did one open conversation with a mobster in the balcony of a darkened theater? Especially with a live play going on and an ex-fiancé listening in. There was no rule book for this one.
“My name is Verity,” I said quietly, making every effort to be friendly as I took the seat next to him. “Do you like cowboy movies? I’ve never seen this one.”
The flickering screen illuminated the hollows under his high cheekbones. He didn’t answer.
Beau took the seat on the other side of me and did not even attempt to hide the fact that he was eavesdropping.
“He’s watching a cowboy movie?” Beau sighed. On the stage below, our one-man community theater star had put on a ladies’ bonnet and was rapping about women’s lib. “I’d sure take a cowboy movie over this.”
“Hush.” I elbowed Beau in the ribs. Ex-boyfriends should be seen and not heard.
“I’m from here in Sugarland,” I murmured to the ghost. “Are you?”
Wally’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at me.
“I just realized I’m the girl talking during the movie,” I whispered, trying to laugh it off.
“She’s always been terrible about that,” Beau interjected.
I ignored him. This was not a team sport.
“You know, I suppose it’s your job to talk during the movie,” I said to the ghost. “Where do you go when you’re not being the information guru?” He had to say something. Anything.
He turned to look at me, and I felt my hard-won smile waver as I stared into the coldest, deadest set of gray eyes I’d ever seen.
“I don’t talk to friends of Frankie the German,” he said, his voice low and deadly.
“Oh.” That took me by surprise. Hmm… “Well, I wouldn’t say I’m ‘friends’ with Frankie the German,” I hedged.
Although, I couldn’t say that I wasn’t.
“Who’s Frankie the German?” Beau whispered.
“Nobody,” I said quickly, dismissing him, racking my brain for a way I could explain Frankie’s and my complicated relationship.
Wally stared at Beau, then at me. “He’s never heard of Frankie the German?”
“That’s Beau and he’s alive,” I said, by way of explanation. “I mean, I am as well. But he can’t see ghosts. He has nothing to do with any of this, and I have no idea why he is here.”
“I’m a lawyer turned folk artist,” Beau said to the general spot where Wally sat.
“He’s also my ex-boyfriend,” I explained. “Do you mind?” I added to Beau.
I had to get on with the ghost hunting. This was my specialty.
“So he’s a lawyer,” Wally said, looking past me to Beau, warming. And suddenly, I could see more of his face. He had a Roman nose and he needed a shave. “Say, how much time would a guy get for using a cop car to transport a trunk full of bottles over the Tennessee line?”
Truly?
This guy had access to all kinds of secret information, and this was the kind of thing he worried about?
But I had to keep him talking, so I repeated the question for Beau and watched him break out in a grin. “The guy would get nothing if I was his lawyer.” He laughed.
Wally joined in with a big guffaw. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said, smacking the armrest.
How had Beau gotten him talking at all?
It didn’t matter. I took the opening and ran with it. “What we’re really here to ask is if you know the whereabouts of Lou Winkelmann of the South Town gang. It’s important,” I added.
Wally looked past me to my ex. “You dated this doll?”
“Beau and I were engaged,” I said, admittedly a little defensive.
“She had lower standards a few years ago.” Beau grinned, and I swear the two of them would have fist bumped if I hadn’t been in the way.
How was Beau doing better than me when he couldn’t hear half the conversation?
“Your ex seems like a swell guy. I wish I could be talking with him,” Wally remarked.
I would have fallen over in my chair if it hadn’t been bolted down. He liked Beau. Not me. Beau.
Well, fine. As long as we accomplished what we’d set out to do, those two could ride off into the sunset together for all I cared. I leaned closer to Beau. “Tell him you need to know the whereabouts of Lou Winkelmann of the South Town gang,” I hissed. Maybe if Beau asked, Wally would tell us.
Beau leaned back in his seat, elbows out, resting his head in his hands with a satisfied smirk. “I’m just glad to meet a ghost who’s willing to make conversation.”
Sweet puppies. Was he trying to torture me?
From the wink he gave me, I’d have to say yes.
Wally thunked his elbow on the wall behind us.
“Oh!” Beau said, his attention drawn to the movie screen as a cowboy fell off his horse and was dragged by a foot in the stirrup.
“You can see that?” I gaped.
“It just started playing out of nowhere,” Beau said, shocked and ten kinds of excited. “How did it do that?” he asked, gripping the armrests on his chair.
“Morty owed me a favor,” Wally said.
The audience members up front started to clap. Lowell stood gaping at the movie that had suddenly begun playing on the screen behind him. He removed his steampunk stovepipe hat and took a bow.
He stayed down there until the clapping had subsided, and when he straightened, his eyes darted wildly. “Why, let me tell you about the wild west of Sugarland,” he improvised.
“See?” I said to Beau. “Talent.”
“Nice,” Beau exclaimed as another cowboy started doing lasso tricks.
“That’s Rex Bell,” Wally said with appreciation. “If you’ve gotta watch one movie for the rest of eternity, this would be it.”
“He’s dynamite,” Beau said, fixated on the screen. The scene jumped as Rex leaped off a rock and back into the saddle. “I can’t believe I’m seeing this in the theater.”
“I can’t either,” I said out loud.
What had happened to questioning Wally? I wasn’t sure how we’d gotten so far off track.
“Back then, actors did their own stunts,” Beau added, as if I cared.
He was seriously into this.
“I saw Rex Bell ride standing through a river,” Wally gushed. “It was in The Winds on the Plains. Great movie.”
I didn’t get it. I honestly didn’t. How could men sit around and have a conversation without even speaking to one another?
It was bizarre.
“I really like Tim McCoy,” Beau said, leaning an arm over the back of my seat.
“Yes,” Wally said as if it were obvious everyone should love Tim McCoy.
Beau settled into a man-spread. “They used to show Tim McCoy movies on television when I was a kid. It was one of the only things my dad would watch with me.”
And then it hit me. Beau had accomplished what I could not, just by sitting next to me with a grin on his face, watching a movie. Wally had visibly relaxed to the point that the shadow had lifted from his face. I could see him clearly now—the individual hairs on his unshaven jaw, his guarded eyes, his side-cocked grin as he watched Rex Bell walk into a saloon only to be held at gunpoint by a pretty barmaid.
“She’s a feisty one,” Beau joked. “Totally my type,” he added, and he and Wally shared an honest-to-goodness belly laugh.
Unbelievable. Beau could talk to ghosts and he didn’t even have to hear what they were saying back.
Oh, who was I kidding? Beau had always had that way about him—the ability to get along with anyone. It was one
of the things that had gotten my attention when we’d first met. I’d always said Beau could make friends with a doorknob, and it seemed he’d now proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt. And it was nice to see the elusive ghost having a good time.
If Wally Big Ears had to spend every evening in the back row of the movie theater for eternity, he deserved to spend a little time with someone who “got” him.
The play on the stage ended. Lowell took his bow and did an encore—a look at future Sugarland. I’m not sure where he got the idea that we would all be wearing space helmets, but I’d give him points for forward thinking. Even if Lowell did seem a bit upset to have to compete with Tim McCoy chasing down a runaway train behind him. And right before it almost went off a cliff, too.
The couple in the audience gave a standing ovation, which seemed to pacify the temperamental actor. And when nobody kicked us out—per chance they assumed we’d left?—the boys watched the entire rest of the movie together, talking, but not. It reminded me of guys watching sports, come to think of it.
Beau even sang along to “My Texas Rose” as the cowboys gathered around the campfire at the end of the movie. And darned if Wally the gangster didn’t sing right along with him.
“My trail, my home. My Texas Rose,” they crooned in unison, both off-key. And when the credits rolled, I wasn’t sure what to do with either one of them.
“God, I haven’t had this much fun in fifty years,” Wally mused.
“Can we start the movie again from the beginning?” Beau asked.
“No,” I said before Wally got any ideas. For one thing, the theater would close soon on the mortal plane. Contrary to what Ellis might believe, I didn’t relish being anywhere I didn’t belong. For another, “We need to find Lou Winkelmann. If Wally won’t tell us where he is, then it’ll take twenty times longer to track him down. Of course, after we find Lou, you’re welcome to spend as much time in the theater as you want,” I added, sweetening the pot.
“Aw, man,” Beau groused.
“She’s not subtle,” Wally said.
“I’m serious,” I told the gangster.
“I realize that,” he said slowly, looking at me with fresh eyes. “At least you’re more charming than Frankie.”
“That’s not hard,” I said, generating no argument from the gangster.