Before There Were Angels (8 page)

How do you get a note like that delivered?
Rafaella was the most likely to have sent it but only in the mail. She had friends in the neighborhood? In theory she didn’t even know our address. If she had friends who lived in California, were they local or were they prepared to go to considerable lengths to frighten us on her behalf, in which case what else were they prepared to do?

If it wasn’t
Rafaella, could it be Robert, Belle’s ex-husband? Had he been roused by seeing me at the storage place? Was he in San Francisco? Was he planning to hit Belle or me, or simply to take back the boys?

The boys continued to treat the whole predicament as stupid adult paranoia, like having to pay utility bills, and paid no attention to it at all as having no relevance to their lives,
except when it suited them, such as Halloween, which was only a few weeks away.

“We have to have a party,” Zack encouraged us. “We have a murder house,
that’s seriously cool. We can re-enact the murder in your bedroom, Mom. Everyone will love it.”

“Cool,” said Stevie, but little more.

We had a party, decorating the house with lights, ghosts, fiends and demons, amid much speculation from the boys as to how to coax the real ghosts out. Of course, they hadn’t yet seen a real ghost, and I had, so it was a lot funnier for them than it was for me, with Belle looking on indulgently.

Belle’s parents came to stay for the weekend and Belle rustled up another twenty-five friends to participate in the festivities. None of them knew anything about what had really taken place in the house, so when I gave them a murder-mystery ghost tour they were impressed to the point of being visibly nervous, elated or skeptical.

“A real murder?”

“A real murder.”

“In this house?”

“Yes.”

“Four people?”

“And a dog.”

“Two children?”

“Yes.”

“In that room at the top of the stairs?”

“Yes.”

“Think of those poor children …”

“I don’t think the adults liked it much either.”

“Did you find any blood?”

“No, it had all been cleaned away meticulously. I have met the wife, though.”

“The killer?”

“No, the new wife - the victim.”

“I thought you said she was dead.”

“She is.”

“You met her before she died?”

“No, afterwards.”

“She was a ghost?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“On the landing, just there.”

“Then what happened.”

“She went into our bedroom, there, and hid herself under the bed.”

“How do you know she hid under the bed?”

“Because I found her there.”

“Why would a ghost have to hide under a bed?”

“I don’t know. That is what I asked myself too.”

“It was really a ghost?”

“Yes.”

“And it was really her?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“We found a photograph of her in the
San Francisco Chronicle
.”

“Oh.”

…

“Did she say anything?”

“No.”

“Was she all rotted?”
This from one of the children.

“No, she was as if she was alive, and very beautiful. I did talk to her, though.”

“What did you say?”

“I can’t remember. Something
like ‘Hello’.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing. She disappeared on me.”

“Is she any of these people here,
mwahaha?” asked Frank who could be relied upon to liven up any dull conversation.

I looked him straight in the eyes. “Yes, Frank, she is standing right next to you. There!”

I even raised a frisson, but not from Frank. “I tell the jokes around here,” he said.

We had a whole Halloween party and not a single ghost turned up, nor a serial killer.

Similarly to my reaction when I tried to discover a ghost in our bedroom at night and couldn’t find one, most people seemed half-relieved and half-disappointed. If only they could catch a glimpse of one briefly, without it looking back at them or doing any seriously scary shit.

If only …

Chapter 12

Black Friday.

I had never heard of ‘Black Friday’ until I came to the US. It is not remotely as ominous as it seems - very much the opposite. It is when several of the major retail chains sell a mass of stuff at ridiculously cheap prices during the night of Thanksgiving.

“Get me an
iPad, will you?” asked Zack.

“Come along and you can get anything you like, Zack,” I answered magnanimously.

“I’m not coming. I’m not going to stand in line for hours that’s lame. Can you get me one?”

“I want to get an Apple computer for work.”

“You can get that anytime and put it against your taxes. I’ll pay you.”

“With what?”

“You already owe me $50, and the iPads are $99, Mom says.”

“And what about the other $50?”

“$49.”

“$99.99, so $49.99.
I think we can call it a round $50.”

“OK, then.
Deal.”

“I didn’t say I would do it.”

“But you will, won’t you?”

“And what will you do?”

“I’ll be here. Studying.”

“Studying?”

“Something like that.”

“Won’t you be lonely?” I asked sarcastically.

“Doubt it.”

“What if one of the ghosts turns up?”

Zack rolled his eyes. “Ghosts … not again!”

“Won’t
you be nervous, all by yourself in this haunted house?”

“No, and I’ll have George.”

I shrugged. “What the hell …”

“Thanks, Luke.”

“Will you get me an iPad too?” asked Stevie, always anxious to have whatever Zack was getting.

“
Your mom wants to get a Christmas tree. If you want an iPad each, one of you is going to have to come with us.”

“OK, then,” conceded Stevie, “but I don’t see why Zack
should get an iPad if he isnt even there.”

“You know Zack. And it will be fun.”

“Suppose so.”

*  *  *

We went to the newly-opened Target in the Metreon Center. The deal was that we had to line up from about six at night outside the doors of Target to be two of the first hundred people to claim an iPad for $99.99 at nine o’clock when the doors opened.

Belle was going to buy a Christmas tree and maybe some Egyptian cotton sheets. For electronics or anything originally priced at over $1,000, you could on
ly have one special offer item each. For other items, you could buy as many as you could get hold of.

Eve
n at 6:00 p.m. there was a line that stretched away around the corner into the Yerba Buena Gardens and we had to make a judgment call as to whether it was worth staying. It was an outside chance but we decided to go for it, not wishing to accept defeat.

At 9:00 p.m. the doors opened and Stevie and I raced each other (and everyone else) to the Electronics
Department right at the far end of the shop and ended up in the line opposite Household, speculating as to whether we would make it, reassuring ourselves that we would.

Stevie produced a PSP. Much to Belle’s disgust, the boys had managed to wheedle out of her almost every electronic game device that existed. She wanted them to read books, claiming that gaming machines were for losers, but in this respect Zack and Stevie were confident that they were anything but losers, refuting Belle’s argument by declaring dismissively that the only people at school who were considered losers were those who read books. Sure, it helped if you pla
yed football, and that they did - well.

It was good to be alone with Stevie for a change. He rarely spoke to me normally. He may even have resented Belle leaving Robert and then getting stuck with me, not that he was ever hostile towards me, only evasive. He immediately got into his game, while I pulled o
ut my laptop and did some work.

“I’m bored,” Stevie said.

“It is boring,” I confirmed.

“Anything to drink?”

“Coke.”

“Thanks.
Anything to eat?”

“Pizza.”

“Thanks.”

I looked
at the tense faces in the line around me. “This is amazing,” I said. “I have never seen anything like it.”

“We did it two years ago
,” said Stevie. “In Phoenix. It was worse there. We had to stay in the store until four before we could pay and leave. Zack wanted a Wii. Mom was pissed. She said Wiis were only for pussies. ‘Call me a pussy, then,’ Zack said. I got my iPod, this one,” he added, pulling his iPod out from his pocket and surveying it admiringly.

“I’ve never seen you two on the Wii.”

“We never use it. Mom was telling the truth when she said it was for pussies. Zack just wanted it because Mom didn’t want him to have it. Zack and Mom were always fighting then, Mom and Dad too. It’s a lot better now.”

This was the first compliment I had ever had from Stevie or Zack, a night of firsts.

“Thank you.”

Stevie looked at me, surprised. “It’
s so much better with you and Mom. You don’t argue. You love each other. We can do our own stuff and not worry all the time about what’s going to happen.”

I moved to hug him but he kept his distance. We w
eren’t there yet - maybe never - but it was going in the right direction.

*  *  *

We weren’t out of the store until nearly 1:00 a.m., with me carrying a seven foot high artificial Christmas tree - the City of San Francisco was begging everyone not to buy real ones. Stevie carried the iPads and Belle had the sheets.

After waiting in another
line, we managed to get on the California Street cable car which took us most of the way home, but it was after 2:30 before we got there.

As we approached the house, we could hear George barking, somewhat frantically, I thought at the time.

“George is glad to have us home,” said Belle. “Zack probably hasn’t fed him.”

I unlocked the door
and Stevie rushed in ahead of Belle, shouting, “Zack, I’ve got it, I’ve got it”, only to be blocked by George who leapt up at him and scrabbled at his chest - very strange behavior for George.

“Zack!”
Stevie called again, and stopped. He dropped both iPads onto the floor.

“Hey,” I said, “you
’ll break them,” but Belle was pushing past me with panic in her eyes, sensing there was something very wrong.

Zack was in the hallway.
Silent.

To be more precise, he was a couple of feet above the hallway, hanging from a rope strung around the banister of the upstairs landing.

For the first time in his short life, he was not playing any sort of joke or prank on us.

He was not playing at all. He wasn’t anything anymore except a body ha
nging from a rope with an agonized expression in his eyes and his blue tongue lolling out.

Belle rushed at him. “Oh my God!” she shrieked, this time as a Catholic, this time in irreparable despair.

;We are not supposed to live to bury our children,’ as my own mother used to say.

Stevie was stock still, staring. In that moment he had lost everything that mattered to him in the whole world, including
himself.

Chapter 13

I ran into the kitchen, seized a carving knife, rocketed up the stairs, bumping against Zack, and cut him down from the landing.

You have to do something even when there is nothing to be done.

Belle went straight to his body and cradled his shoulders and his head on her knees. I could see that she fervently wanted to sob but the force of the shock was holding her back.

Stevie stood there, the two
iPads still on the floor, the Christmas tree on the steps outside.

I pulled out my cell phone and called 911.
Ambulance. Police.

“What condition is he
in?” the voice asked after eliciting the basic information.

“He looks like
he’s dead but send an ambulance anyway.”

It was impossible to believe he was dead, Zack of all people. Our minds and our hearts were fighting; our hearts were fighting for him to be alive despite all the evidence lying before us.