Expiration Date (69 page)

—Lewis Carroll,
Through the Looking-Glass

T
HE
morning air was raucous with the cries of the parrots that were swooping like livid green Frisbees from the telephone wires to the branches of the shaggy old carob trees along the Twenty-first Place curb, but when one of the apartment doors finally opened, the gray-haired fat man who came shuffling out ignored the clamoring exotic birds as though he were blind and deaf. He was clutching a sheaf of white business-size envelopes, and he tucked them into a rack under the bank of mailboxes out front.

The old man’s punctual in paying his bills, thought J. Francis Strube. The first of November isn’t until tomorrow, but tomorrow will be a Sunday, with no mail pickup.

Strube’s dark blue BMW was idling almost silently a hundred feet away from the apartment building, and certainly wasn’t blowing any telltale smoke out of the exhaust, but still he slid down a little in the leather seat, just peeking over the dashboard at the old man.

And he wasn’t sure. This fellow fumbling with the mail was about the right age, but Nicky Bradshaw had been athletically slim—and
healthy
. This man…he didn’t look well at all; he moved slowly and painfully, squinting up and down the street now with impotent ferocity. Strube slid down even lower in his seat.

The old man by the apartment building was plodding back along the walkway toward the door he had come out of; but he paused halfway there, and just stood, staring down toward his feet.

Strube’s lower back was cramping, and he sat up a little straighter in the seat.

And the old man curled one arm over his head and stretched the other out with his fingers spread, and turned on his heel in a 360-degree circle; then he paused again, let his arms fall to his sides, and opened the door and went back inside.

Strube had steamed the inside of his windshield by whispering a deep, triumphant “Hah!”

That had been the Spooky Spin, and even someone like himself, who had only seen reruns of the old “Ghost of a Chance” show, had to remember the way the
Spooky character had always executed that move just before the primitive stopped-camera trick photography had made him seem to disappear into thin air.

Strube was whistling the “Ghost of a Chance” theme music—
dooo-root-de-doodly-doot-de-doo!
—as he punched into the telephone the Find Spooky number. Probably no one would be answering the line until nine or so, but he couldn’t wait.

It rang twice, and then, to his surprise, someone did answer. “Have you seen Spooky?” a woman asked with practiced cheer.

“Yes,” said Strube. “I’ve found him.”

“Well, congratulations. If we verify that it really is Nicky Bradshaw, you’ll be getting two complimentary tickets to the filming of the reunion show. Where is he?”

“It’s him. My name is J. Francis Strube, I’m a Los Angeles-based attorney, and I worked for him as a legal secretary when he had an office in Seal Beach in the midseventies. Also, I just this minute
saw
him do the Spooky Spin, if you’re familiar with the old show.”

After a pause, the woman said, “Really? I’m going to transfer you to Loretta deLarava.” The line clicked, and then Strube was listening to a bland instrumental version of “Mr. Tambourine Man.”

I should think so, Strube thought, sitting back in the seat and smiling as he kept his gaze locked on Bradshaw’s door. I imagine Loretta deLarava will have room for a quick-witted attorney on her staff.

“This is Loretta deLarava,” said a harsher woman’s voice now, speaking over background static. “I understand you’re the clever person who has found our missing Spooky! Where is he?”

“Ms. deLarava, my name is J. Francis Strube, and I’m an attorney—”

“An attorney?” There was silence on the scratchy line. Then, “Are you
representing
him?” deLarava asked.

“Yes,” said Strube instantly. Spontaneity wins, he thought nervously. Trust your instincts.

“Where is he?”

“Well, we want certain assurances—”

“Look, Mr. Strube, I’m on the E Deck loading dock of the
Queen Mary
right now.” Good God, Strube thought, she’s hardly two miles away across the harbor! “I’m doing a Halloween-related shoot about famous ghosts on board the ship today, and I had been hoping to find Bradshaw in time to at least get him in a couple of shots there, film him doing his trademark Spooky Spin on the Promenade Deck, you know?” She was sniffling. “You’re not going to take a piss, are you?”

Strube assumed this was some showbiz slang, meaning
be an obstruction
or something.
Rain on my parade.
“No, of course not, I just—”

“So what? Do you want us to interview you, too? It’d be a cinch. Prominent local attorney, right? The man who tracked down Spooky.’ And then we could discuss your client’s possible role in the reunion show later. How does that sound?”

Strube didn’t like her tone, or her apparent assumption that he was motivated by a desire for publicity; and he wished he could say something coldly dismissive to her.

But of course he couldn’t. “That sounds good,” he said. Then, despising himself, he went on, “Do you promise?”

“You have my word, Mr. Strube. Now where is he?”

“Well—in Long Beach, in the Twenty-first Place cul-de-sac by the beach.” Strube read her the address from the stenciled numerals on the curb. ‘I'll be there too,” he said, “and I’m confident—”

“Good,” she interrupted. “I knew somebody was confident. I should have guessed it’d turn out to be a lawyer.”

And the line went dead.

I guess she’ll be here soon, Strube thought timidly.

T
HE SHOUTING
of the parrots made Sullivan open his eyes. He knew that he had been very nearly awake for some time; he remembered having dreamed of Venice Beach sometime during the night, but he couldn’t remember now if it had been Venice of 1959, 1986, or 1992, and it didn’t seem important.

A faint
thwick
from the kitchen made him lift his head—Kootie was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter, looking at Sullivan over the top of the Alice paperback, a page of which he’d just turned. Kootie touched a finger to his lips.

Sullivan turned his head sideways, and his neck creaked, and Elizalde opened her eyes and smiled sleepily.

“I guess we’re all awake, Kootie,” Sullivan said, speaking quietly just because it was the first remark of the day. He rolled over, got stiffly to his feet, and stretched. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, Mr. Sullivan—Pete, I mean. Could I have cold pizza and Coke for breakfast?”

Maybe Edison is sleeping off the hangover, Sullivan thought. “Sure. I think I’ll pass, though. We’ll probably be leaving here in an hour or two, after a…a walk down to the beach. You sure you wouldn’t like to wait, and get something hot?”

“I like cold pizza. We hardly ever have pizza at home.”

“Tear it up then.” Sullivan yawned and walked into the kitchen to turn on the hot-water tap. He couldn’t remember now whether the water had ever got hot last night; well, there
was
always the hot water in the toilet tank.

“Uh,” said Kootie. “Could you help me down? My cut hurts if I stretch. I was halfway up here before I knew I couldn’t climb up.”

“Sure,” Sullivan said.

“Kootie,” said Elizalde, who had got up and now hurried over to the counter, “didn’t I tell you not to put any strain on it?”

“No, miss,” the boy said.

“Oh. Well, once we get you down from there—”Suddenly a fourth voice spoke, from the bedroom doorway. “Leave him where he is.”

Sullivan spun, and then froze. A man was standing there, pointing at them a handgun made from a chopped-down double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun. Focusing past the gun, Sullivan saw that the man had only one arm; then that he was wearing baggy camouflage pants and a stained windbreaker, and that his round, pale face was dewed with sweat. His gaze crawled over Sullivan’s face, to Elizalde’s, and to Kootie’s, like a restless housefly.

“Harry Houdini
made a call from Long Beach last night,” the man said in a high, calm voice, “and as it happens I’m a big Houdini fan. But when I came down here I kept getting deflections, I couldn’t get any consistent directional for him. So I remembered this dead spot by the beach, like the wood where Alice lost her name. And then you all had a party last night. A man went to an Armenian restaurant, because his friends told him to order the herring; when it was served, it was alive, and the herring opened its eye and looked at him. He left, but his friends told him to go back the next night, so he did, and he ordered the herring again. But on the plate it opened its eye again, and he ran away. The next night he went to a Jewish restaurant instead, and ordered herring, and when the waiter brought him his plate the herring opened its eye and looked at him and said, ‘You don’t go to the Armenian place anymore?’”

Sullivan felt a drop of sweat roll down his ribs under his shirt, and he kept staring at the sawn muzzles of the gun, each barrel looking big enough for a rat to crawl down it. Elizalde had stepped in front of Kootie, but now none of them were moving.

“What do you want?” asked Sullivan in an even voice.

“I want to speak to Thomas Edison.”

“This is the guy that stabbed me,” whispered Kootie; then he shivered, and in a louder voice he said, “You have my attention. What did you want to talk about?”

“Unplug me,” the man said. “The rotten ghost is jammed in my mind, and I can’t…eat. When you did this to me in ‘29, I cleared it inadvertently, by injecting a quick ghost into a vein in my arm; that worked, but it blew my arm off. I can’t afford to do that again, even if I could be sure the ghost would only blow off another limb, and not detonate inside my heart. You did this, you must know how to undo it.” His wheezing breath was a hoarse roar, punctuated with little whistles that sounded like individual cries in an angry crowd.

“And then you’ll stab me again, right?” said Edison with Kootie’s voice. “Or just blow out my middle with that scattergun and catch the boy and me both, when we breathe our last breath. It’s a Mexican standoff.” Kootie looked up at Elizalde. “No offense, Angelica.”

Elizalde rolled her eyes in angry frustration. “For God’s sake, Edison!”

“I won’t,” said the one-armed man. Distant voices shouted in his lungs. “I’ll leave you alone, and subsist on ordinary ghosts. How can I assure you of this?”

Sullivan saw Elizalde’s eyes glance across the room, and he looked in that direction. The 45 was lying against the wall where she had slept. He knew she was thinking that a dive in that direction would make the one-armed man swing the shotgun away from Kootie and himself.

But she couldn’t possibly get the gun up and fire it before the shotgun would go off; and the shotgun wouldn’t have to be aimed with any precision for the shot pellets to tear her up. He spread his fingers slowly, to avoid startling the gunman, and closed his hand firmly on Elizalde’s forearm.

A whining buzz tickled Sullivan’s car, and he restrained his free hand from slapping at it.

“What the hell is this?”
said the tiny voice of Sullivan’s father’s ghost.
“I can’t get to the beach by myself—I’m tethered to my grave portrait, and it’s way too heavy for me to carry.”

Sullivan looked anxiously back at the one-armed man—but the man was apparently unaware of the ghost in Sullivan’s ear.

The barrels of the shotgun wobbled. “Well?” The man’s tiny eyes were fixed on Kootie’s face.

“I could write the procedure down,” said Kootie’s voice thoughtfully, “after you let us go, and leave it in some preagreed place. You’d have to trust me to do it, though.”

“Which,” said the one-armed man, “I don’t.” He kept his little eyes fixed on Kootie, but he rocked his head back and
sniffed
deeply. “There’s another ghost in here. If you tell me how to get unjammed, I’ll just eat
it
. That’ll keep me alive until I can go gel more.”

“No good,” said Kootie’s voice, “that’s Pete’s dad, and Pete’s sentimental about it. Besides, the procedure involves a bit of work on your part.” The boy’s face kinked in a crafty grin. “It’s not just crossing your eyes and spitting.”

The one-armed man stared impassively at the boy sitting on the counter. Finally he sighed. “Let me tell you a parable,” he said. “A man had a new hearing aid, and he was telling a friend how good it was. ‘It cost me twenty thousand dollars,’ the man with the hearing aid said, ‘and it runs on a lithium battery that’s good for a hundred years, and it’s surgically implanted right into the skull bone and the nerve trunk at the base of my brain.’ And his friend said, ‘Wow, what kind is it?’ and the man with the hearing aid looked at his watch and said, ‘Quarter to twelve.’”

Sullivan wished the story had been longer. Surely Nicky would…would somehow come along soon, and perceive this, and put a stop to it. The shotgun was steady, and the man was standing just obviously too far away for Sullivan to have any hope of leaping forward and knocking the short barrels aside before the gun would be fired.

“I’ll give you twenty thousand dollars,” the one-armed man said. “I’ll take that automatic that’s against the wall there, I can hold that on you without being
conspicuous. We’ll go out and get the money, and you can tell me then, once I’ve handed it over to you. We’ll be out in public, I won’t be eager to shoot you out in a street. Once I’m unjammed, I can kill
anybody
and eat ’em, I won’t need you.”