Life to Life: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (16 page)

I thought, what the hell, it's just an
apparition anyway, no need to get uptight. But then the smoke from
my cigarette drifted into the beam just above her head...and the
apparition blinked at that.

So I was already in
an
oh shit!
mode
when those arms came down to its side and the apparition turned to
regard me with a solemn gaze.

And this was too real, too solidly
three-dimensional. Those eyes were turning me inside out and the
figure in the beam was repositioning arms and legs in a modest
attempt at cover.

I had to clear my throat twice before I
could force words through it and ask her, "Can you hear me,
Ann?"

She replied, "Yes, I hear you," but the
voice was faint and seemingly far away.

I said, "Sorry for the intrusion. But I'm on
the case and I'm at work."

She said, "Thank you, Ashton. Please help me
if you can. I am in a terrible place."

I was replying to that, "I am going to—"
when she flat winked out, like someone throwing a switch on a
light; one moment she was there, the next she was not.

I was thinking bilocation and astral
projection and apportation and wraiths and all the other
possibilities, but no explanation—at such a time—is sufficient to
quieten the butterflies in the belly or to warm the chills that
trickle endlessly along the nervous system.

She had
been
there, damn it, in
all her physical glory. I could even smell her perfume and taste it
on my tongue.

But do you know what I was thinking, at that
very moment? I was remembering our first meeting and what she'd
said to me on that occasion—and I was remembering the experience at
her home earlier that day.

She had told me that we would meet
again—which we did, at Francois's house that same night—and she had
said that we would fall in love—which had not seemed too likely, as
of that second meeting.

But it was the memory through George Farrel
that was coming in the strongest, the sense of utter adoration—and
I realized that this feeling was now as much my own as
anyone's.

Wonder what is.

Chapter Twenty: There You Go

So how do you go home and
go to bed after an experience like that? I was not really all that
tired, anyhow. Besides, I was beginning to get a feel for this case
and I simply could not let it go; so at 1:30
a.m
., I gathered all my notes and
documents together and took them into an all-night restaurant for
a breakfast-table review.

The waitress was cute and
appealing but I guess I was the only customer at her station and
she wanted to hang out and talk while I was trying to assemble my
case. She delivered my coffee with a flourish and said, "There you
go." I don't know why everyone in food service delivers it with
"there you go." It is one of those expressions that have crept into
the language by the backdoor—like "have a nice day"—except that
"there you go" does not really mean a damned thing. If they would
say, "There; now go," that would mean something, see, and you'd get
their drift. But I think what they really mean is, "There; I went
and fetched," and I guess maybe you should scratch their ears or
their belly as a reward but I have never tried that.

At any rate, I had the coffee—but I still
had the waitress too. She glanced at the papers I had scattered
about the table and said, "What are you, a workaholic? Good-looking
guy like you should be able to find something more interesting to
handle at two o'clock in the morning than paperwork."

I put down the Xeroxes of David Carver's
file and looked her straight in the eye. "Have any
suggestions?"

She was just flirting. She
laughed softly and replied, "Well not with me. I'm here 'til seven
o'clock."

I made a sorrowing face and said, "See?
That's the way my luck has been running lately."

She glanced again at the papers and said,
"You're not a cop, are you?"

I said, "Do I look like a cop?"

She studied me for a moment before replying,
"No, I guess not." Her glance flicked along the papers again. "So
what're you doing?"

I told her, "I play with puzzles."

"Oh."

"Keeps me out of mischief."

"Sounds boring. Surely you could find
something better to play with."

I said, "Well, I'm always open to
suggestion."

She laughed again; said, "If you're still
footloose and fancy-free at seven o'clock, come on back."

I said, "Best offer I've had all week.
Thanks."

I went back to my puzzle.

She continued to hang out.
Presently she told me, "My name is Sandra."

I smiled but did not look up as I replied,
"Yeah, I checked out the nameplate. Mine's Ashton."

She said, "That's an odd name. Kind of
sissy, isn't it?"

I lifted my gaze to hers and told her,
"Well, see, it was given to me by a woman."

Her laugh that time was a bit uncertain but
it sent her away. She was back a minute or so later with my eggs
and bacon, delivered again with the inevitable, "There you go."

I asked her, "Want me to scratch your
belly?"

She showed me a wicked
smile and replied, "Not 'til seven o'clock." She fussed with the
table setting and I guess she was looking at the paperwork while
she did that because she said, "Oh. Reverend Annie. She's in here a
lot."

I toyed with the plate of food and casually
replied, "Guess it's in the neighborhood, eh?"

"Yeah. We get a lot of
those people in here. Specially on my shift. They sit over there at
the big corner booth and gab the night away sometimes. I never
heard such junk. I mean, auras and out-of-body travel and all that
junk."

I said, "All that Bible junk, eh?"

She said, indignantly, "That junk isn't in
the Bible!"

I said to her, "Sure it
is. What do you think a halo is? And how do you think Jesus
appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus?"

She didn't know what the
hell I was talking about, but she said, "Oh well, that was in the
old days."

I said, "Right, right. This is the New Age,
isn't it."

"Sure. You can't do that stuff anymore. And
I'd think they would have something more interesting to do with
their time than sit around and talk about that junk."

I said, "Well maybe they like puzzles,
too."

Her eyes flashed to my paperwork. She said,
"I think they like sissies, too. Are you one of them?"

I chuckled. "One of what?"

"Half of those men are gay. Now don't tell
me you're gay, Ashton."

I said, "I didn't tell you that, Sandra.
Which men are you talking about?"

"Those guys from Reverend Annie's. Are you
part of that bunch?"

I said, "No. But they are my puzzle, you
see."

She said, "I think you're part of the
puzzle, handsome. Never mind seven o'clock. I've got something
interesting to do."

Sandra went away, then, and left me alone
after that. I tackled both my food and my puzzle and did not see
her again until I was leaving. Another girl brought me a refill of
coffee halfway through the meal and uttered not a word.

Sandra took my money at the cashier's stand,
deadpanned it as she gave me my change, but she did say, "Have a
nice day."

I replied, "There you go," and paused at the
door to put the change away.

Sandra called after me, very quietly,
"They're fruits and nuts, Ashton. All of them. Better you should
find something more natural to play with."

I turned back and said, "Thanks. I'll keep
that in mind."

She said, in that same controlled tone, "And
that Annie bitch is the fruitiest of them all. I think she's really
a man, in drag."

I told her, "You're wrong about that, kid.
You are dead wrong about that."

And she told me, "Then
she's a butch lesbian. And I am
never
wrong about that."

I hoped she was wrong about that. God, I
hoped so.

Maybelle had been dead for more than two
months but her house looked undisturbed—probably very much the same
as it had been when they carried her away, except that the
utilities had been disconnected. I doubted that there had been
time to move the estate through probate. With her daughter as
executor, that probably was not being pushed. Annie had been a very
busy lady, of late. Besides, it can be very traumatic going
through all the personal possessions and trying to decide what to
keep and what to throw away. Not that there were a lot of those.
Maybelle, like Clara, had lived simply.

I used a pencil-flash to
find my way around, and tried to keep it quiet. Did not need to
attract the attention of curious neighbors and even more curious
cops. Technically I was housebreaking. Of course, I did not want to
take anything away. Nothing physical, that is.

I did check out the
kitchen stove, though. The bedroom where Maybelle had slept was off
the kitchen and it was the stove, they say, that killed her. It was
one of the old ones. And it had been red-tagged by the gas company
as unsafe to operate. There was no gas now so I could not verify
the problem.

I went in and sat on the
bed for a couple of minutes. It had not even been made up; was
probably exactly as it had been when Maybelle died in it. I got
nothing there. So I walked about the house for a few minutes, ran
my fingertips along the walls and windows, lay down on the living
room floor. Nothing.

I went into the attached
garage. Maybelle's car was there. A 1952 Dodge Coronet. Paint was
faded, upholstery a bit tattered. Key was in the ignition. Battery
was still up; there was half a tank of gas.

Something fluttered me
while I was sitting in the Dodge, but it went on past and would not
return. So I returned to the house, sat on the sofa, lit a
cigarette, and called her. Very quietly. "Maybelle. Maizey. Let's
talk."

Nothing.

I tried for about five
minutes then went to dispose of the cigarette in the
toilet.

When I returned to the living room, another
presence was there.

I could not see it. But I could feel it.

So I tried again. "Maybelle. Maizey. I am
Ashton Ford. I am trying to help Ann Marie. Will you talk to
me?"

A moment later an indistinct form appeared
near the doorway to the kitchen. It glowed luminously but did not
illuminate the darkness between us. When I say "indistinct," I
mean that it was no more than a shimmering luminosity, larger in
the vertical than in the horizontal but no more of a form than
that.

"That you, Maybelle?"

"Hello, Ashton." The voice was in my head
and I recognized it but she was working through my own
articulation centers; I was aware of phantom movements of my tongue
as she spoke. "Maizey cannot come."

It was Selma. Believe me, it was Selma.

"Where is Maizey, Selma?"

"She cannot come."

"She left before you, kid. Why can't she
come?"

"She is not..."

I felt her struggling for a word. I tried to
help, threw my whole damned vocabulary open to her, but still she
struggled. I tried vocalizing again.

"I need to talk about Ann Marie."

"We cannot help."

"Why can't you help?"

"Different. It is different."

Her appearance was improving, the shape
becoming more like a person. I could see a distinct head now—hair,
eyes, and mouth—though like white smoke. Gradually she brought it
all out, the entire process consuming most of a minute, after which
I could see her clearly but still without firm delineation—not,
that is, a three-dimensional body with planes and angles but more
like a photographic image projected onto smoke. But she was a young
woman, that was clear, and she was probably quite pretty.

I asked her, "Are you Selma or are you
Clara?"

"I am forever Selma. I have been Clara."

I tried again. "Ann Marie is in big
trouble."

But she was holding firm. "We cannot
help."

I was a bit irritated by that. I snapped,
"Why the hell can you not help?"

"Different. Not allowed."

"Different how?'

"Not the same. Different."

"Not the same plane?"

"That is close."

"Not the same state?"

"State of being, yes, that is closer. We
cannot help that girl, Ashton."

I said, "Well shit."

Something like a fine wave
of humor moved through me and I knew it came from her. It was
followed instantly by an almost chiding question. "Is it so
serious, my dear?"

I replied, "It's serious, yes. Where the
hell is Maybelle? It's her kid, after all."

I actually heard her laugh, that time. And
she told me, "That girl is nobody's kid. She is... different. And
her...consorts. All different."

I had a sudden intuition, and went with it.
"It's a different game."

A brief hesitation, then: "Yes."

“
Tell me the name of the
game, Selma.”

"Forbidden."

“
Tell me something.
Anything. Give me something”"

The apparition was losing itself, losing
focus or something, disintegrating.

I repeated, "Anything, damn it!"

Faintly:
"Azusa."

"What?"

"Go to Azusa."

So okay.

That was better than nothing at all.

I would go to Azusa. And I would find the
name of this goddam game.

But I was talking just to cheer myself up. I
knew that it would not be as simple as that. Unless I had lost all
my powers of fine discernment, Selma had just given me a tutorial
on life after death—or life after life, if you will.