The Ghost of Blackwood Lane

by Greg Enslen

  “Looks good, Gary. Good flow of air through the waiting areas without mixing air in from the ER or surgery. Hospitals are tough.” Mike had worked on the plans for a hospital on his last assignment, and he had given Gary a couple of suggestions. Mike was the same age as Gary, but he’d been in the field a little longer—he’d skipped college and gone straight to work for an architectural design firm with his uncle. He’d moved on after a couple of years, but his experience in the field had made him a valuable member of the MacMillan staff—Gary wouldn’t be surprised to hear him be put in charge of the whole Airport project, assuming the Austin folks signed off on the MacMillan plans.

  Gary stretched and grabbed his coat. “Yeah, the flows can’t mix, but they both need to be recirc’d back to the blowers though those huge banks of carbon filters in the basement. I think I’ve got it, though.”

  Mike nodded. “Yeah, looks good. Going down to Slade’s?”

  Slade’s was the bar on the corner across from the MacMillan offices, and going there was a nightly ritual for some of the employees. Gary usually only went on Fridays or when there was some type of event planned—he wasn’t a social drinker, or any kind of drinker anymore, and he always felt awkward with his coffee or soda while the other architects pounded their beers. But the idea of a gin and tonic sounded so good right now....

  “No, think I’ll pick up some stuff at the store and head home.”

  Mike nodded. “Okay, but if you need anything, call me. Anytime, day or night.” Gary knew what he meant and patted him on the back, thanking him. Mike had been just about the only person he’d talked to about his dreams, and Gary was glad he was there.

  “I’ll do that,” Gary said as they walked out together. He waved at Mike as he left to meet up with some of the others. Going to Slade’s was fun once in a while, but when he’d started here at MacMillan’s, he’d gone every night for months on end. Going back in there anytime soon would be a very bad idea.

  Chapter 5

  Gary’s apartment was small and within walking distance of his work, but the neighborhood left something to be desired, especially at night. Usually when he got home he just locked up and made himself something to eat, watched a little TV or read, and then hit the sack. It wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where you hung out at night on your front porch, chatting with the neighbors—nothing like living in the Midwest, where friendly neighbors were the norm. And besides, he didn’t have a porch—he lived on the fifth floor with a great view of an intersection.

  He changed clothes and put some water on to boil, pulling a box of macaroni and cheese from the cabinet. Not fancy cuisine, but he consoled himself by remembering how much money he was putting into savings every month. Someday soon, combined with the money from his father, he’d be able to drop completely off the map—forever.

  Gary’s place was a mess, with dozens of uncompleted projects vying for space. Two different puzzles sat on his small dining room table, and a half-completed model of a lighthouse took up half of his kitchen counter. There was a chair in one corner of the apartment that needed to be stripped and repainted, and four huge stacks of magazines and newspapers waiting to be read.

  He dialed the number as he waited for the water to boil.

  As much as Gary had called it lately, he should’ve put it into the speed dial, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. It would have felt like an admission of defeat.

  The clicks ended and the phone picked up immediately. They never made you wait—no chances to back out. A recorded voice came on, the female voice sounding European and a little mysterious. He’d heard the message many times before but had never figured out a way to skip it.

  “Hello, and welcome to the Psychic Counselors Hotline. We can help you for just $3.99 a minute. Why go through life wondering what the world has in store for you, when our psychic counselors can help you with all of your needs? We’ve got dozens of proven counselors just waiting to talk to you, so hold on. You’ll be billed $3.99 a minute. If you are under 18, you must have your parents’ permission to call this number. For entertainment purposes only. Now hold on, as we connect you to your own personal psychic....”

  He waited, glancing at the water on the stove. There was a whirring sound and then a voice came on the line. “Would you like a particular psychic or the next available?”

  “Meredith, please,” he said, feeling silly.

  A long pause, and he killed the time by opening the macaroni package and premeasuring the milk, setting it on the counter next to the stove.

  “Hi, caller, this is Meredith,” the woman answered cheerfully. “Have I spoken to you before?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s Gary from Los Angeles.”

  “Oh.” The voice grew more serious. There was a long pause. “You’re the one having the dreams, right?”

  “Yes. Actually just the one dream. I don’t know what it means, but it’s getting worse.”

  He explained all that had happened in the dream since the last time he’d talked to her, about two days ago. It took about ten minutes, but it was money well spent. The conversation was private and anonymous. He could tell this lady just about anything, more than he could ever tell Mike. “And I don’t know what to do about it.”

  Meredith was quiet for a moment. “This dream sounds like a portent of things to come. Do not interpret it too literally—often the mind is just using representations.” Gary heard rustling in the background. “I just threw some bones for you. I think you are about to understand what the dreams mean, and when you do, it will change you greatly. Do you want me to read your tarot?”

  “Yes, please.” Holding the phone in the crook of his neck, he stirred in the shells. He knew they were getting to the end of the call and he tried not to think about what would come after, the dream that would come when he tried to sleep.

  He could hear the low sound of the shuffling of cards. The sound had grown familiar. Somewhere along the line, he’d bought his own deck and tried reading his own fortune, but it was better from someone else.

  “You are in a very difficult place in your life, I know. I’m putting down the cards and...let’s see here.

  “I see happiness on the horizon for you,” Meredith said quietly. “I know you are glad to hear that, right?”

  “Yes, that’s good.”

  “The Wheel of Fortune is your third card, and that means that your destiny and fortune are culminating. You are approaching the end of your problem, but that advancement toward the outcome could be good or bad. But it looks like you’re moving toward completion. Your fifth card is...the six of swords, the man in the longboat. That usually means travel or a voyage—are you going somewhere?”

  “Not that I know of.” Maybe MacMillan would win the St. Jude’s contract and the firm would send him to San Francisco as a reward.

  “Hmm, that’s strange. Well, maybe you’ll be taking a trip soon. Or it can also mean success after anxiety, a journey through difficulty that results in happiness. The next cards all seem to be working along those lines, about overcoming your problems. You are definitely moving toward some type of resolution. Now your last card is...oh, my.” The line was silent for a long moment.

  “You didn’t pull the Death card for me, did you?” He tried to sound jovial and uninterested.

  “No, my son. The tenth card is the Sun Card. Usually that is a very good card, representing happiness and light, but your card is reversed.”

  “What does that mean?” He thought he already knew, but her interpretation of the arrangement of the cards was as important as knowing the meaning of an individual card.

  “Unhappiness and loneliness. Fire and death, hell, the opposite of the life-giving sunlight when the card is right-side up. It can also mean a broken engagement of some sort, or maybe a triumph delayed, though not necessarily lost.”

  He thought about that for a few moments, and then thanked her and got off the phone. The cards supposedly held some kind of power, but even if it was all just a
big pile of hocus-pocus, it made him feel better to talk to someone about his problems. And every phone call helped him delay the inevitable moment when he would have to sleep.

  Gary turned on the TV and sat down to eat his dinner, putting the pack of his own tarot cards nearby. He flipped through the channels, looking for anything to watch, but his mind was still on the tarot reading and on the delay of triumph.

  Chapter 6

  Judy stirred the pot, bringing the soup to a boil. Lately, all she made was soup—it was easy and required minimal attention.

  Life for her had recently morphed into a day-to-day struggle. Her shoulder ached as she moved the wooden spoon around the large pot, and her mind wandered.

  It would be a late dinner tonight because Vincent was working late at The Hole. Tuesdays were usually slow and, as the head bartender, Vincent’s tips would be less than stellar. Fridays and Saturdays were better, with lots of tips and money skimmed from the till when Armand and the bouncers weren’t looking. And even if they caught him, they probably couldn’t have done anything about it.

  Her husband was a drunk and a thief.

  For the past few years, Vincent had tended bar at The Hole. It was part of a hotel and restaurant that catered to highway travelers heading west to St. Louis or east into southern Illinois and Indiana.

  Usually he made pretty good money. It had snowed a lot earlier in the year and that had helped—travelers tended to stop at a hotel/restaurant combination so they wouldn’t have to go out again. There had been several nights over the past winter where he’d brought home big wads of ones and fives, showing them off to his wife. Judy had looked hungrily at the wads of money, but Vincent had always locked them away in his little metal safe before going to bed. And every morning they would disappear.

  She figured he was plowing back into his criminal schemes. And every time he told her about the money, she felt like a silent partner.

  He also bragged about his ability to steal from his boss. On busier nights, when business was good, he would charge for the watered-down drinks he made and tuck the money underneath the cash register, collecting it at night after Armand or whoever was in charge would leave. Sometimes he could scrape together a hundred or a hundred-fifty; adding this to his tips, he could clear two hundred in a good night on top of his miniscule hourly wage.

  Of course, Vincent wasn’t as concerned about the money lately—it used to be that the money he made at The Hole was all they had to live on—that and the money that came from his “friends.” But lately, he’d seemed less worried.

  Judy had only a vague idea of what he and his friends did—but she knew it was illegal. Sometimes boxes of alcohol or cigarettes or unlabeled crates would rest in the living room for a day or two before disappearing. Sometimes there were mysterious trips up to Chicago, or down to Mexico.

  And then there was Vincent’s family. The Lucianos were famous in southern Illinois. For five decades, until Ginovese Luciano had gone to jail, they had been the most notorious crime family in the Midwest. But now the family was split.

  Tony, frightened by what had befallen his father, wanted the family to go legitimate. Most of the capos and higher members of the family agreed, so they had slowly started to divest or subvert the family’s criminal activities, focusing for the first time on the family’s legitimate businesses.

  Vincent, disgraced after his failed attempt to find the O’Tooles in Sacramento, had retreated into what he knew: a life of crime. Tony had allowed him to take any members of the organization with him that he wanted. It really hadn’t been a peace offering—Tony had known that Vincent would recruit from within the family, and that Vincent would take with him the most violent and criminal elements of the family structure.

  That would make it much easier for Tony to take the family legit.

  Judy had pieced all of this together over the years, just as most of the people in O’Fallon who kept their ears open could have. Some of the story had come from Vincent, but most of it was common knowledge. So over the past nine years, the brothers had each come to control a different aspect of O’Fallon—Tony worked within the law, using his money and influence to try and gain even more money and power. And Vincent, Judy was convinced, ran a small and completely illegal operation of his own.

  But lately Tony’s legitimate side of the family wasn’t doing that well. Judy had heard that his money was running out.

  Vincent wasn’t doing badly—this house was not something a bartender could afford. It wasn’t a mansion by any stretch, but it was a nice two-story house and it sat on almost two acres, fronted by Blackwood Lane.

  Over the past few months, things between Vincent and his brother had changed, and Judy had noticed that it seemed to coincide with Vincent’s growing appetite for violence. Vincent had been seeing a lot of his brother, spending time with him at the complex of offices his brother had bought in Belleville as part of the move to take the family legit almost ten years ago. She wondered if Vincent might get back into the business again, helping his brother. That would be good for Vincent—he’d make more money from more legitimate means, and maybe if that happened they might move to a bigger house. And he might start taking better care of her. Surely if he became a powerful businessman, someone would talk to him about pounding his wife’s face in, right?

  If there was one thing that man loved in this world, it was money. He’d spent his life chasing it. He’d left his family convinced that he could make more money by retaining his family’s discarded illegal activities, and that had failed to bring him the level of wealth he felt he required.

  But it had proved him right in one way—the Luciano family’s income had fallen steadily as Tony had tried to right the ship and make his crime family into a real business.

  She stirred the soup and wondered when Vincent would be home, and if he would be good to her.

  As strange as it sounded, she knew that sometimes he was. Sometimes his spirits would lift, and something in his heart or in his head would loosen temporarily. Sometimes he would walk happily through the door carrying a new dress that he had impulsively purchased for her, and it reminded her of when they had first started going out. For those few moments, she would question her own memories of the things he had inflicted upon her—how could that be the same man that would smile and hand her a small bouquet of wildflowers?

  This morning, before he had left for work, he had come at her with a knife and almost killed her. And he’d never said why.

  She no longer even tried to understand what was going on inside her husband’s mind. Days would pass where nothing happened, and now, two incidents in less than a day.

  She tried not to cry. The soup was done enough for her to leave it alone for a few minutes, so she set the lid on it, leaving it tilted a little to let the steam out, and wandered out onto the porch to watch the sun set.

  On a good day she could watch the sun paint the clouds a hundred shades of red in the western sky. On a really clear day she could see the very top of the glittering Gateway Arch in the distance, standing over St. Louis fifteen miles to the west, its arcing shape a dark rounded streak on the horizon near the setting sun.

  Vincent hadn’t always been this way—he had been nice to her, sweet, at the beginning. During the trial, when Chris’s father had testified against Vincent’s father, the famous Luciano boy had begun taking an interest in her, and she’d assumed it was just something related to the trial. It made sense, too, on some level—everyone knew that Chris and Judy were dating, had been for quite a while, and she had figured that the Lucianos were looking for any kind of advantage.

  Of course, no one had thought that the trial would turn as violent as it had, with Chris’s mother getting killed and the other witness falling to his death. Ginovese Luciano had been convicted after Chris’s father had completed his testimony despite the fact that he had just lost his wife.

  The attention from Vincent had been flattering and more than a little strange at the beginning. Vincent ha
d traveled around her like a planet circling a sun, watching her. After the trial, Chris had simply disappeared. Vincent’s attention didn’t wane, and the occasional visits and dinners together became more frequent.

  After Chris left, it had been what she had needed. The months after he left had been horrible. The loss was baffling. And Vincent had been there, listening to her frustrations. She began to rely on that attention. He’d denied knowing anything about the death of Chris’s mother Gloria, and at first she had not believed him, but after a while he’d convinced her that it had been other elements in the familia.

  She hadn’t known at the time his level of involvement in his family, or the power struggle that was playing out. She’d only known that he managed to fill some small part of the emptiness inside her.

  All of her senior year she had spent with Vincent, slowly growing to love him in some way. Nothing like what she had felt for Chris, but something, nonetheless. He’d helped her when she’d needed it, and his concern for her was obvious. He was good to her, and sometimes that’s all a person really needs.

  When he’d asked her to marry him as they danced in stiff clothes at the senior prom at the Marriott in downtown St. Louis, she had only hesitated for a long, silent moment before she’d smiled and whispered “yes” into his ear.

  That pause had been filled with her memories of Chris, memories of a love that was gone. And in that moment before she’d whispered her response, in that moment as her neck pressed against her fragrant corsage, she’d asked for forgiveness from Chris, wherever he might be. She couldn’t wait any longer for him—she was ready to make a new life, accept Vincent as her husband.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t meet her real husband until their wedding night.

  She had insisted on keeping her virginity until then. She thought of it as a gift that she would give to him, the most precious gift she could give anyone, and she spent many heated nights trying to explain this, trying to defend against his advances like the queen of an embattled castle. She even compared him to Chris, who had never pressured her for sex, and that had angered Vincent. Looking back on it, she had seen some of his fire even before they had wed.