The Astral

by V. J. Banis

  Closer, the surf washed in rivulets over the sand and formed little tidal pools in the rocks that dotted the shore below the ragged bluffs. They scrambled over the rocks and examined the miniature aquariums with their brilliant anemones, purple urchins, huge sea slugs and skittish crabs.

  The daylight faded and they abandoned the slippery rocks. They had dinner at Dizz’s As Is, an intimate shingled house whose walls sported a photo gallery of the in crowd of Hollywood’s glamour heyday. Judy Garland, Clark Gable, Lana Turner, and myriad others smiled their approval down on the vermouths they sipped and the rack of lamb that followed. As if by common agreement they spoke not at all of Gabronski or Chang or Trash Can Paterson. Jack was happy to see that by the time she was sipping an espresso, Catherine’s face had lost that haunted look she had worn for the last several days.

  It was late by the time they settled into the Porsche again and headed north on the San Diego Freeway, a lustrous pewter moon winking off and on through patches of cloud overhead. Catherine leaned against the soft leather upholstery, one hand in Jack’s, and savored the feeling of deep relaxation. Somewhere between Los Angeles International Airport and Santa Monica Boulevard, relaxation became sleep.

  Glancing over at her in the dashboard’s pale luminance, Jack felt himself engulfed in a tide of emotions: love, concern, protectiveness. He could not bear the thought of what she was suffering, and the possibility that anything could happen to her, could take her away from him again, was unthinkable.

  Her suggestion that life had only been lent to her this time around for one specific purpose and one purpose only would not bear his contemplating. He was sure that, if she really had been “sent back,” it was as much to share life with him as to ferret out a pair of admittedly evil child molesters.

  He still thought that her belief that she had been given a mission might be nothing more than self-delusion, fed by her desire to avenge her daughter’s death. One thing that he had come to realize: if Paterson was stalking her, as she believed, Catherine was stalking him, as well. In some bizarre psychic way, they were each of them feeding a need in the other.

  Anyway, hadn’t she told him that she had heard him call to her when she was hovering between life and death? That clinched it as far as he was concerned, and though she might think it treasonous, he was determined that their love for one another would take precedence over anything else, Paterson included.

  So, as he backed the car into a parking place near Catherine’s apartment, it was with no great happiness that he saw Chang’s now familiar red Bronco parked just outside the front door.

  She was waiting for them on the sidewalk as they walked up. “Chang,” he said before either of the women could speak, “I know how important this case is to you, but you’ve got to see that this is tearing Catherine apart.”

  Chang gave him a measuring look, and a longer one at Catherine. “Yes, you’re right,” she said with a sigh. “I know that you are, only....” She hesitated.

  “Only?” Catherine prompted her, already sure what she was going to hear.

  “There’s been another one. A boy this time, snatched from a playground. I suspect the very playground where you saw them earlier today.”

  Catherine fumbled in her purse for her keys. “Come up. I’ll make coffee.”

  * * * *

  They sipped coffee in Catherine’s living room while Chang gave them the details. They could faintly hear the hum and clang of Santa Monica’s traffic even through the closed balcony door. A fire on the grate offered a welcome respite from the cool December air.

  The discussion grew heated as well. For all the dread that it bred within her, Catherine felt more strongly than ever that she had to find Paterson and his companion, before they did more of their evil. Perhaps if she had after all gone back to that playground a second time when she was with Gabronski, she might have found some way to prevent this latest kidnapping. That was a suggestion, however, with which Jack disagreed heartily.

  “It’s too dangerous for you,” he insisted.

  Chang was torn. She cared about Catherine, cared about both of them. Jack was right, of course: it was dangerous. She understood how he felt. Probably, in his shoes, she would feel the same way.

  The bottom line remained the same for her, however. She had some bad guys to catch, really bad guys. And so far, Catherine was her best shot—hell, her only shot—at catching them.

  “But it doesn’t have to be dangerous, does it?” she argued, wanting to convince herself as well as them. “Gabronski talked about wrapping yourself in the light, so they don’t see you. It’s that simple, isn’t it? You hide yourself in the Heavenly glow, you find them, you go outside...you can go outside, can’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” Catherine said thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t be able to turn a door knob, that requires some physicality and I haven’t mastered that yet. But, since I have no body, I suppose I could just pass through a door. I’ve never tried.”

  “Well, then, that’s what we need. If you can go outside, you can get me an address. A house number, a street name. Anything. That’s all. Then you come home. You won’t have to put yourself at any kind of risk.”

  “Won’t she?” Jack said. His stomach churned at the very idea. “Gabronski also told us he thought every time she visited Paterson she was making him stronger, bringing him closer to finding her.”

  Catherine sighed. “Don’t worry, darling, I will be careful. I’ll do what Chang says, pop in just long enough to see them, and back out again. And I do think I can manage to remain unseen. Maybe if he doesn’t see me, he won’t know that I’m there.”

  Jack remained unconvinced, but he already knew the futility of arguing. He swallowed his frustration. “Can you just do this now at will?” he asked instead.

  She shrugged. “I can try. Gabronski gave me that suggestion when he put me under earlier, didn’t he? It’s as good a time to find out as any.”

  She slipped off her shoes and stretched out on the sofa, plumping up a pillow for her head. Jack sat on the floor by the sofa. Chang got up to dim the lights. By the time she sat down again in her chair, Catherine’s eyes were already closed, her breathing slow and deep.

  * * * *

  “It’s a thousand bucks,” Paterson said, and when the man seated opposite him hesitated, he added quickly, “It’s the best one yet, worth every penny, I promise you. This kid’s cute as a bug. You can watch some of it if you want to.”

  “No, that’s okay, you’re cool.” Danny O’Dell took out his wallet and peeled off ten one hundred dollar bills, laying them neatly on the filthy tabletop. The place was a pigpen, he thought. It even smelled like one. He wrinkled his fastidious nose. Well, what could he expect? When you lay down with dogs....

  Paterson did not so much as glance at the money. “You hear that, Colley, we are coo-ol?” He made two syllables of it. “Cool, I like that. Have another line, bro.” He indicated the cracked mirror on the tabletop with its mound of cocaine. “Colley, get our friend a beer.”

  “Thanks, but I have to go.” O’Dell slipped the DVD into an inside pocket of his jacket and jiggled his keys as if to leave, but he lingered for a moment.

  “Do you...?” he started to ask, and paused hesitantly, before he screwed up his courage to ask the question that had puzzled him for some time. “Do you guys ever feel bad? You know, guilty about any of this?”

  Paterson’s look was at once amused and darkened underneath like clouds before a storm. “Guilty?” he echoed. “What are you talking about, guilty? You some kind of puritan, are you, thinks sex is evil? I notice you’re quick enough to run here when I tell you I’ve got a new movie for you. Are you feeling guilty?”

  The actor showed a trace of embarrassment. “No, you’re probably right,” he said. He looked away from Paterson’s ferocious glower.

  “Course I am. Say, you want to try some for yourself? The real stuff, I mean, not just movies of it. We can set that up for you, too, you know.”


  O’Dell swallowed. He didn’t really like talking about this sort of thing. Watching it, yes, imagining it—but until Paterson, he had never actually confessed his special interests to anyone. How had Paterson wormed it out of him, anyway? He didn’t actually remember. They had been doing drugs, drinking—somehow, they ended up watching a movie, one of the special ones. Paterson had reeled him in like a fish on a line.

  “How about I fix you up with the next one?” Paterson said, so offhanded, he might have been discussing a deal on a used car. “Cost you, say, five thousand.”

  For a moment O’Dell actually considered the offer. The money didn’t deter him. He could afford that. It was the idea that frightened him, though. It even sickened him a little when, as now, he considered it.

  He knew himself well enough, though, to know that he would feel no such shame when he arrived home and immediately put the new DVD into his player, locked his bedroom door, and watched it through to its end. Then, he would be filled with fantasies of the very thing Paterson was offering to arrange for him, and would berate himself as a fool for not taking up the offer.

  Now, though, with these two watching like a pair of vipers getting ready to strike, he hadn’t the courage to say yes. “I’d better not,” he said with a roll of his eyes that would have been entirely familiar to his television audience. “Too risky. What if I was recognized?”

  “We can put a mask on you. I don’t guess anyone would recognize your pecker, would they. That’s not famous, is it?”

  Paterson laughed again, but suddenly his eyes narrowed and he shot a look around the room as if someone had entered it, peering into every corner.

  “What is it, Trash?” Colley glanced around too, puzzled and concerned at the same time.

  Paterson’s sudden look of alarm spooked O’Dell. “Did you hear something?” he asked, genuinely frightened. Just being found here, with the drugs and the movies, would ruin his career. Nobody was going to sponsor a children’s television show hosted by an actor arrested for drugs and kiddie porn.

  I must be crazy, coming here, he thought. In the future, he would make arrangements to meet somewhere. Or maybe there oughtn’t to be a future. He had half a dozen movies, surely he didn’t need more. What more was there to see?

  Except—a new face, a different body. A new fantasy. That was what it was, yes. He lived in a world of fantasies, they were his stock in trade, that was what excited him, not the reality. He would never really do what Paterson suggested. That was sick. He only wanted to watch, not even in the flesh, but at a remove, on his television screen. That was the difference between him and them.

  Paterson shook his head and looked calmer, but there was an underlying anxiety that didn’t quite leave his eyes. “Nah. I just like keeping an ear tuned, is all.”

  “I’d better go.” This time O’Dell did get up, a little too quickly. He patted the pocket with the DVD in it, slipped his hat on his head and the dark glasses over his eyes. “I’ll let myself out.”

  When the door had closed behind him, Paterson strode quickly across to lock it “I’ll let myself out,” he mimicked in a falsetto voice. “Pansy.”

  Colley took a long sip of his beer. “You know, Trash,” he said speaking slowly, “There was one of those kids at least didn’t have any fun.”

  Paterson wheeled on him. “What are you talking about? You bringing that up again?” He grabbed an ashtray off a table and flung it at Colley, ashes and cigarette butts leaving a trail across the dirty carpet. The glass ashtray caught Colley on the shoulder.

  “Ouch, damn it, Trash, that hurt.”

  “Don’t you be throwing that business up to me,” Paterson railed at him, “You know damn well it wasn’t my fault what happened.”

  Colley wilted in the face of his harangue. “You’re right, Trash.” He rubbed his bruised arm meekly.

  “Listen, you don’t like what we’re doing, you just take your butt out that door, you go on and quit right this minute. Maybe prissy little TV host will give you a job.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to quit, Trash.” Colley’s voice had become a whine.

  “Cause there’s plenty of guys would like to be getting what you’re getting and get paid for it too,” Paterson said, pacing back and forth in long, quick strides.

  “Shit, I know that, I wasn’t complaining.”

  “Well, don’t you be, and don’t you be talking about her, it wasn’t my fault. Damn, that makes me sore.”

  “I’m sorry, Trash, I didn’t mean nothing, I was just running my mouth, you know what I’m like. I’m not as smart as you.”

  “You got that right,” Paterson said more calmly, mollified. “And don’t you forget it either.”

  Colley clamped his lips tightly together and turned on the TV news. Paterson was about to tell him to turn the damned thing off when he remembered something: a man on the television screen, not this man, another one, working his yap about something: the Mid East maybe, blah, blah, blah.

  TV. Shit, that was it. That was where he had seen the bitch’s boyfriend, the man he had seen in the sack with her. He was some kind of news reporter.

  He sat down in a chair in front of the screen, staring at it, hardly even noticing what he saw. He knew who she was, too.

  Catherine Desmond. Why hadn’t he tumbled onto it sooner? And she had been here, just minutes ago. Maybe not in the flesh, but her ghost, her something.

  He was sure of it.

  * * * *

  Going through the door had been as easy as pie after all, the wood no more substantial to her than a wisp of a cloud. Outside, Catherine looked back at the house she had just left, a fake New England cottage that years ago had probably been charming. Once white paint was now dingy and peeling, dark green shutters hung askew. A curdle of shrubs, overgrown and badly in need of a trim, lined the walk and a bamboo fence, eight feet high, blocked the view from the street.

  A rusty van and an Oldsmobile of questionable vintage sat in the drive, both license plates splattered with mud so that all but one or two of the numbers were illegible.

  Chang needed an address. The house numbers too had been disguised, but the paint that had been daubed over them had not quite covered them. Three seventeen, she thought, or maybe fourteen. All she needed, then, was a street name.

  Moving along the drive was oddly like walking, she could almost feel her steps making contact with the cement, though she knew that wasn’t possible. Or was she gaining physicality?

  No sidewalks here, only a narrow strip of weedy grass. A rusty mailbox tilted starboard on a bare wooden post. She reached for the mailbox door, thinking there might be letters inside, but her hand went right through the metal latch. So much for physicality.

  She heard the familiar growl of a car’s engine and the whine of tires going fast on pavement. The headlights of a car shot past an intersection maybe fifty yards away.

  Of course, even in the country, even where people made it clear they wanted to be left alone, streets and roads were marked, weren’t they? She moved in that direction, found it easy to hurry; found, in fact, that she could move as fast as she wished, virtually flying.

  Yes, there was a street sign: Morning View Road. And the cross street...she came closer to the sign, and found the scene before her fading rapidly, growing paler. She paused, took a step back. Her sight grew slightly clearer.

  She thought about that for a moment. It was Paterson to whom she traveled, to whom she was linked, and apparently, she could only travel so far away from him before the link began to weaken.

  She tried again to get close enough to read the next sign. She made out a letter A. Au. Or was it Av? Yes, Av, Avalon, she was sure of it, but when she moved closer still, wanting to confirm, it faded into oblivion, and she felt the solidity of her sofa beneath her. She was back in her apartment, Jack leaning over her anxiously, Chang watching from her chair.

  “Are you all right?” Jack asked.

  “Yes,” she said after a moment of mental invento
ry. “Yes, I’m fine.” She even managed a smile. “And they didn’t see me, I’m sure,” she added. It had been a relief to find that she could indeed conceal herself from Paterson. She need not be so frightened of him, then, surely. “And, I saw our ‘third person’ at last. Danny O’Dell, he was there with them.”

  “The children’s show, the little twirpy guy with the checked suits?” Chang said. “And you’re saying he’s actually Danny the Diddler? Crap, that is disgusting, isn’t it? Are you sure he was into this kiddie stuff with them? There could be all kinds of reasons why he was there. Maybe he sells Tupperware on the side?”

  “No, he was buying a movie,” Catherine said. “Paterson talked about the kid on it, a little boy, and O’Dell paid him a thousand dollars.”

  Chang whistled. “A thousand bucks. For sure that was no travel video. Jeez, that’s a great lead. I can have this O’Dell creep put under surveillance. If he’s actively into this filth, we’ll get him.”

  “There’s more, too,” Catherine added triumphantly, “I heard Paterson call his friend—the one I called The Bear—he called him Collie. Like the dog.”

  Chang made a note. “If he’s got any kind of record, we can find him in the computer. What about an address? Did you get that?”

  “Three seventeen, or it might have been three fourteen, Morning View Road, cross street, Avalon, I think. It’s the first house down Morning View, maybe a quarter of a mile. And, it’s out in the country, very rural, a large open field across the way, no houses close around that I could see.”

  “That should do it,” Chang said. but there was an odd hesitation in her manner.

  Jack sensed it. “That’s enough for a warrant, surely, isn’t it?” he asked.

  Chang was thinking that maybe she was going too fast, asking for a warrant, with nothing more to support it than Catherine’s astral visit. She was still having a hard time getting her teeth into this ghost business. And King wanted something concrete, not just visions.