The Haunted Air

  "This one does the same thing."

  Charlie clicked the mouse pointer on an icon near the top of the screen. "This take us to the O-S section."

  "O-S?"

  "Other Side."

  "Got it." Jack rested a hand on Charlie's shoulder. "Okay, do a search for 'coin collector' and see what comes up."

  "'Coin collect' might get us more hits, yo."

  He typed in "coin+collect." A few seconds later a list of half a dozen names appeared.

  Only half a dozen? Jack was disappointed. He leaned closer to the screen searching for dates.

  "I need a guy who's died in the past year or so."

  "Ay, yo, trip this," Charlie said, tapping a finger on the screen over the fourth name down. "Matthew Thomas West. Died January twenty-seventh."

  Jack looked and saw the typical documentation: name, address, date of birth—and, in this case, date of "crossing over"—along with Social Security number, the names of his wife—deceased sixteen years before him—and his brother and parents, even his dog, but no kids. Plus a list of his interests. Matthew West's big passion, besides his wife, with whom he'd been communicating through mediums for many years, was rare coins.

  This guy looked perfect except for the address. Minnesota…

  He shook his head. "I was hoping for something closer. Let's check out the others." He stared at the screen awhile, then shook his head again. "Nope. Looks like I'll have to make do with Uncle Matt from St. Paul."

  "Uncle Matt?" Lyle said.

  "I talked up a fictional uncle to Foster that I wanted Pomerol to contact for me. Fortunately I never gave his name. Well, now we have a name. Uncle Matt the Minnesotan. Can you print him out for me?"

  "Done deal," Charlie said. "But what you got going?"

  "A sting. If things go right, I hope to tempt Madame Pomerol into pulling the old Spanish handkerchief switch on me."

  Charlie frowned. "Spanish handkerchief? Whuddat?"

  "An old Gypsy con," Lyle said. "And I do mean old. Probably been running a couple hundred years now, and grifters are still working updated versions on the street." He looked at Jack. "But how's that—?"

  "Once she sets up the switch on me, I'm going to work a double switch right back at her—one with a nasty barb at the end."

  "Okay, but I still don't see what that's gonna do for us—me and Charlie."

  Jack held his hands high like a preacher. "Have faith, my sons, have faith. I can't tell you all the details because I haven't figured them out yet. But trust me, if this works, it will be a sting of beauty."

  Charlie handed Jack the printout. "You a natural at this. Why ain't you still in?"

  Jack hesitated. "You really want to know?"

  "Yeah."

  You're not going to like this, he thought.

  "I got out because I found it an empty enterprise. I wanted to be doing something where I gave value for value."

  "We give value," Lyle said, a bit too quickly.

  Charlie shook his head. "No we don't, bro. You know we don't."

  Lyle appeared to be at a loss for words, a new experience for him, perhaps.

  Finally he shrugged and said, "I could use a beer. Anyone else?"

  Jack had a sense this was mere courtesy—did Lyle want him to leave?—but took him up on it anyway. A beer would be good right now, and maybe he could find out why he was so on edge.

  Instead of drinking in the kitchen as they had last night, Lyle sat him down in the waiting room. And like last night, Charlie had a Pepsi.

  "So," Jack said after they'd popped their tops and toasted the coming downfall of Madame Pomerol, "what kind of electrical problem you having?"

  Lyle shrugged it off. "Nothing serious."

  "Yeah right," Charlie said. "Like a haunted TV ain't serious."

  Lyle glared at his brother. "No such thing as haunted anything, bro."

  "Then what—?"

  Lyle held up a hand. "We'll talk about it later."

  Haunted TV? Sounded interesting. Then again, maybe not if that meant it played nothing but "Casper the Friendly Ghost" cartoons.

  "Anything I can do?"

  "I'll straighten it out," Lyle said, but he didn't look convincing.

  "Sure?"

  "If I may quote: 'Philosophy will clip an angel's wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, the gnomed mine.'"

  "The gnomed mine… gnomed with a G?"

  Lyle nodded. "With a G."

  "I like that."

  "It's Keats."

  "You're quoting Keats?" Jack laughed. "Lyle, you've got to be the whitest black guy I've ever met."

  Jack had expected a laugh, but Lyle's expression darkened instead.

  "What? You mean I'm not a real black man because I know Keats? Because I'm well spoken? Only white men are well spoken? Only white men quote Keats? Real black men only quote Ice-T, is that it? I'm not a real black man because I don't dress like a pimp and drive with a gangsta lean, or drape myself in dukey ropes and sit on my front porch swiggin' forties?"

  "Hey, easy. I was just—"

  "I know what you were just, Jack. You were just acting like somebody who's got this MTV image of what's black, and if a guy doesn't fit that he's some kind of oreo. You're not alone. Plenty of black guys look at me that way too. Even my own brother. Better get over it—you and him and them. It's a white man's world, but just because I'm making it in that world doesn't mean I'm trying to become white. I may not have a degree, but I've audited enough courses to qualify for one. I'm educated. Just because I didn't major in Black Studies doesn't make me a whitey wannabe; and just because I refuse to let the lowest black common denominators define me doesn't make me an Uncle Tom."

  "Whoa!" Jack held up his hands. He felt as if he'd stepped on a mine. "Sorry. Wasn't looking to offend."

  Lyle closed his eyes and took a breath. When he let it out he looked at Jack. "I know you weren't. You didn't deserve that. I apologize."

  "I'm sorry. You're sorry." Jack rose and extended his hand. "I guess that makes us even then?"

  "Even." Lyle's smile was tinged with embarrassment as they shook. "See you tomorrow. I'll have the first half of your fee ready."

  Jack tossed off the rest of his beer and headed out, making a mental note: Lyle Kenton = short fuse.

  7

  As soon as Jack was out the door Lyle grabbed Charlie's arm and dragged him toward the TV room.

  "You've got to see this."

  Charlie snatched his arm free. "Yo, what up with you, bro? Whatchu go and gaffle Jack like that for?"

  Lyle felt bad about that. Jack had said white and he'd seen red.

  "I'm a little on edge, okay? A lot on edge. I apologized, didn't I?"

  "You mad at him for what he say 'bout value for value?"

  "No. Of course not."

  Not mad… but it had stung. Maybe that was why he'd gone off about the "whitest black guy" remark.

  Lyle didn't kid himself. He was a flimflam man, but he wasn't a cad. He didn't go after people who couldn't afford it—no poor widows and the like. His fish were bored heiresses, nouveau riche artists, yuppies looking for a New-Age thrill, and dowagers seeking to contact their dead poodles in the great boneyard of the Afterlife. They'd probably spend the money on a trip to Vegas or another fur coat or a diamond or the latest status toy—like so many of his clients who never eat at home but simply must have a Sub-Zero refrigerator in their kitchen.

  "And why keep this licked TV a CIA secret?"

  "Our business. Not his."

  More than that, he didn't want to distract Jack with any of their side problems. Keep him focused on getting Madame Pomerol out of their lives, that was the most important thing.

  "Take a look."

  He led Charlie to the entryway of the room and stopped. He let him see the basketball game that was running on the set.

  "Yo, it stopped playing the Cartoon Network. What you do?"

  "Nothing. It switched on its own." He watched his brother
's face. "Okay. You spotted that. What else do you see?"

  His gaze lowered to the floor. "All kinda circuit boards and junk." He glanced at Lyle. "You been messin' with my stuff?"

  Lyle shook his head. "That's all from inside the set."

  "Inside?"

  "Uh-huh. I took it apart after you left. Damn near cleaned out the box. Practically nothing but the tube left in there, but it keeps on running. Still unplugged, by the way."

  He saw Charlie's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "You messin' wit' me now, ain't you."

  "Wish I were."

  Lyle had had most of the day to adjust to the craziness of their TV, but watching it still gave him a crawly sensation in his gut.

  "Hey," Charlie said slowly, staring at the screen. "Who that playing?" He stepped closer. "That look like… it is—Magic Johnson with the Lakers."

  "You finally noticed."

  "What you got on—Sports Classics?"

  Lyle handed him the remote. "Flip around the channels. See what you get."

  Charlie did just that, and wound up on CNN where a couple of talking heads were discussing Irangate.

  "Irangate? Whuzzat?"

  "Something that happened when you were too young to care." Lyle barely remembered it himself. "Keep surfing."

  Next stop was a close-up of a big-haired blonde crying so hard her make-up was running down her cheeks.

  Charlie's eyes widened. "Ain't that…? What's her name?"

  "Tammy Faye Baker," Lyle said. He'd known what to expect, but even so, his mouth was growing drier by the minute. "Keep going."

  Then came a football game. "Hey, the Giants. But that look like snow on the sidelines."

  "It is," Lyle said. "And check out the quarterback."

  "Simms? Simms ain't played for…"

  "A long time. Keep going."

  He picked up speed, flashing through a news show where the Bork nomination was being discussed, then to a review of Rain Man, a Dukakis-for-President ad, and then two dreadlocked guys prancing around on MTV.

  "Milli Vanilli?" Charlie cried. "Milli Vanilli? This is like Trek, man. We in some kinda timewarp or somethin'?"

  "No, but the TV seems to be. Everything showing on that tube comes from the late eighties."

  Lyle stood with his brother and watched Milli Vanilli swing their plaits and lip-synch "Girl, You Know It's True," but he heard next to nothing. His mind was too busy rooting through everything he had learned or experienced in his thirty years to find an explanation.

  Finally Charlie said, "Now do you believe me? We haunted."

  Lyle refused to board that train. Had to quell this queasy, uneasy buzz in his gut and stay calm, stay rational.

  "No. Crazy as all this seems, there's got to be a rational explanation."

  "Will you give it up! You always laughing at the sitters who believe any fool thing we throw at them. You call them compulsive believers, but you just like them."

  "Don't talk like a fool."

  "It's true. Listen yo'self! You a compulsive nonbeliever! If it don't fit with how you want things, you deny it, even when it smacks you upside the head!"

  "I don't deny that this TV is running without power or cable and showing stuff from the eighties. I'm just not jumping right off the bat to some supernatural explanation, is all."

  "Then why don't we haul it to some scientists and have them look at it and see what they can come up with?"

  Some scientists… what did that mean? Where do you find "scientists"?

  "I'll look into it in the morning."

  "You do that," Charlie said. "I don't wanna squab. I'm steppin' off. Gonna do some reading."

  "On ghosts?"

  "No. The Good Book."

  As Lyle watched Charlie head for the upstairs, he almost wished he had something like that to comfort him.

  But all he had was an impossible TV.

  8

  Jack made good time driving downtown. He wanted the car along in case Bellitto took off in a cab. He found Eli Bellitto's antique store in the western reaches of Soho. His Shurio Coppe occupied the ground floor corner of an old triple-decker ironclad that had seen better days. A couple of the cast-iron columns on the facade looked as if they were coming loose from the underlying bricks. Odd to see an ironclad here; most of them were further east.

  Still in his Bob Butler outfit and mullet wig, Jack wandered up to the store's main front window. Under the elaborate gold-leaf script of "Shurio Coppe" was the phrase, "Curious Items for the Serious Collector." Holding center court in this window was a large stuffed fish, a four-foot sturgeon with hooded brown eyes, suspended on two slim wires so that it looked as if it were floating in midair. The thick down of dust on its scales said that it had been swimming in that window for a good long time.

  Jack moved on to the front door and checked the hours card. Eli's brother had been right. Sunday hours were noon to six. Jack checked his watch. Five-thirty now. Why not kill the remaining half hour till closing by browsing the shop? Might find something interesting.

  He stepped up to the front door and pushed it open. A bell jangled. A man in the aisle directly ahead looked up.

  Here was the brother himself. Jack recognized him from the photo Edward had given him: Eli Bellitto. At six feet he looked sturdier in person, and the photo had missed his cold dark eyes. He wore a perfectly tailored three-piece charcoal gray business suit with a white shirt and a striped tie. With his sallow skin, high cheekbones, dark brown hair—dyed?—and receding hairline he reminded Jack of Angus Scrimm. Sure as hell looked nothing like his brother. Edward had said they had different mothers, but Jack wondered if they might have different fathers as well. Maybe somebody's mother had fooled around with the local peat cutter, or whoever straying Dublin wives might have fooled around with sixty years ago.

  "Good evening," Eli Bellitto said. "Can I help you?"

  His voice surprised Jack. A trace of an accent, but not Irish. He remembered that Edward had said they were raised apart. Maybe in different countries?

  "Just browsing," Jack said.

  "Go right ahead. But please be aware we close promptly at six and—" As if on cue, a number of clocks began to chime. The man pulled a pocket watch from a vest pocket and popped open the cover. He glanced at it and gave Jack a thin-lipped smile. "Exactly half an hour from now."

  "I'll watch the clocks," Jack said.

  On the other side of the store he saw a heavyset older woman with a loud voice and a tragic resemblance to Richard Belzer giving instructions to a younger red-haired man as she guided him through the store, pointing out price tags.

  New help, Jack guessed.

  He turned away and meandered among books, plaques, mirrors, dressers, desks, lamps, vases, sculptures of stone and wood, ceramic bowls, china cups, stuffed birds, fish, and animals, clocks of all shapes and vintages, and more, curios ranging from the splendid to the squalid, from Old World to New, Far East to Near, patrician to plebeian, ancient to merely old, exorbitant to bargain priced, Ming Dynasty to Depression Era.

  He fell in love with the place. How long had this store been here and why hadn't anyone told him about it? Hundreds of square feet crammed with a vast and eclectic array of truly neat stuff.

  He wandered the aisles, opening book covers, angling mirrors, running his fingers over intricately carved surfaces. He stopped in a corner as he came upon an antique oak display case, oval, maybe five feet high, with beveled glass on all sides. The case itself carried no price tag, and the items within were untagged as well. These were of much more recent vintage than the rest of the stock and seemed jarringly out of place. Arrayed on the three glass shelves within were what might best be described as trinkets, knickknacks, baubles, and gewgaws, none of which were more than ten or fifteen years old and could have been picked up at any garage sale.

  He looked closer and saw a stack of Pog disks, a Rubik's cube, a Koosh ball with purple and green spikes, a bearish looking Beanie Baby, a red Matchbox Corvette, a gray Furbie with pin
k ears, a red-sneakered Sonic the Hedgehog doll, a tiny Bart Simpson balancing on an even tinier skateboard, and a few other less identifiable tchotchkes.

  But the item that grabbed Jack's attention was a Roger Rabbit key ring. For an instant, as his eyes drifted past it, he thought he saw it shimmer. Nothing obvious, just the slightest waver along its edges. As he snapped to it, he saw nothing unusual. Probably just a defect in the window. Old glass was like that, full of ripples and other defects.

  He stared more closely at the little plastic figure and noticed that some of the red had rubbed off its overalls, and off the yellow gloves at the ends of his outstretched arms. But what struck him and grabbed him was the intense pale blue of Roger's eyes. Supine in his somewhat cruciform pose, he seemed to be staring at Jack, imploringly. Real pathos there, which was way out of character since Roger was pretty much a moron.

  The little key ring made him think of Vicky, who'd taken to the Roger Rabbit video lately. Watched it a minimum of three times a week and could do a fair mimic of Roger's saliva-laden, "Pppppleeeeease, Eddie!" Vicky would love this key ring.

  Jack looked for the knob on the door and found instead a sturdy padlock. Odd. Every other piece in the store, no matter how small, had to be more valuable than all of these put together. Why the lock?

  "We're getting ready to close now," said a voice behind him.

  Jack turned to face the proprietor himself. The older man's expression was neutral.

  "So soon?"

  "Six o'clock is closing time today," Bellitto said. "Is there anything I can help you with before we lock the door?"

  "Yes," Jack said, turning back to the display case. "I'm interested in one of these doo-dads."

  "I can't imagine why. They are beyond question the least interesting items in the shop. Remnants of recent fads. Detritus of pop culture."

  "Exactly why I want one."

  "Which, may I ask?"

  "The Roger Rabbit key ring."

  "Oh, yes." His thin lips curved into a small, tight smile. "That one's special. Very special."

  "Not so special. I'm sure half a zillion were sold, but no one's making them any more, and I know someone who'd really—"