Martin Greenberg: Crime Spells

I didn’t know. Nor did I care. I just really didn’t want anyone else hurt by it.

SPRITE’s electronic equipment lay on the orange and turquoise blue rug in smoking heaps. Ooh, they were not going to be happy about that.

“Oh, hell,” Randall said as he saw the mess. “Look what that ghost did.”

“This is going to cost us a fortune.” Herb still clutched at his head as he knelt down beside the sparking remains of the thermal imager. “And to think we helped her-and she does this to our equipment?”

Me? They thought I did this?

That’s it.

I went home.

SPRITE did blame me, as I thought they would. All their equipment was destroyed, and in an odd twist of circumstance, the video they’d captured of me went missing. Even the copy Randall had kept was wiped clean.

I didn’t know how, and I didn’t care. The Smiths arranged for the house to be bulldozed and sold the property for more money than they paid. Bully for them. Woohoo.

It took me a week to get back on my feet, and I did come back to my body with a series of bruises over every inch of skin and muscle.

Ow, ow, and ow. Rest and plenty of Mom’s cooking and I’d be okay. Maybe a few pounds heavier. A new job came in-a small case involving a dot com company-involving snooping on the owners while they watched Chicago .

Two weeks away, mid-November. Tuesday.

With Rhonda in tow, I tracked down the Brentwood daughter and learned the camera had been her father’s. And it’d been used to do exactly what I was afraid of-to take pictures of her naked and prostrate.

But it hadn’t been her father that did it. It’d been her uncle.

We were sitting in a Starbucks in Augusta, Georgia. The crisp turn of cold bit at my nose as we sat outside, enjoying the break from the south’s cruel and soupy heat. It was nice now, but we all knew it’d be hot again in a day or so.

Pumpkins and corn stalks propped on hay bails still decorated the corner.

Rhonda sat forward. “Did your dad know?”

The daughter nodded. She was still a pretty woman at forty-five. Slim. Delicate. Careful. “I hid the camera, and my uncle accused my dad of taking it and keeping the pictures for himself. Dad found out what he’d been doing.” She gave a half smile. “And I never saw my uncle again. Even to this day I don’t know where he is. No one’s seen him.”

Rhonda and I looked at each other then, and I felt icy fingers move up along my spine to the base of my skull. I didn’t want to think about it or even consider it. But it’d be interesting to see what sort of things happened in whatever building rose on Web Ginn House Road.

So I am sitting there in the stands, and the Pittsburgh Pompadoodles are beating the Manhattan Misfits by a score of 63 to 10, which is not unexpected since the Misfits have not won a game since John Alden had a fling with Pocahontas, and I am silently cursing my luck, because the point spread is 46, and if the Misfits could have managed just one more touchdown, I would not have to pay off any bets to either side.

But it is the fourth quarter, and there are only twenty-two seconds left on the clock, and the Misfits are eighty-seven yards away from paydirt, and the Pompadoodles have been beating them like a drum all day. And then, suddenly, Godzilla Monsoon finds a hole off left tackle, and he races through it, and two of the Pompadoodles’ defensive backs run into each other, and damned if he hasn’t passed the midfield mark and is racing toward the end zone. Everyone is chasing him, but Godzilla’s got a head of steam up, and no one gets close to him. Now he’s at the forty-yard line, now he’s at the thirty, now the twenty-and then, just as I’m counting my profits, a piano falls out of the sky on top of him, and the ref whistles the play dead on the eight-yard line.

Benny Fifth Street turns to me, a puzzled expression on his face. “You ever seen it rain pianos before?” he asks.

“Not that I can remember,” I admit.

“I wonder if it was a Steinway,” says Gently Gently Dawkins, who is sitting on the other side of me.

“What difference does it make?” I ask.

“Them Steinways are always a little flat in the upper scales,” he says.

“You want to see flat, take a look at Godzilla Monsoon,” offers Benny Fifth Street.

“You guys are getting off the point,” I say.

“Was there one?” asks Gently Gently Dawkins.

“The subject was rain,” answers Benny. “I suppose if it can rain cats and dogs, it can rain pianos every once in a while.”

“The subject,” I say, “is who wanted the Pompadoodles to beat the spread?”

“That should be easy enough,” says Benny. “Who put some serious money on the Pompadoodles?”

“Everybody,” says Gently Gently, chuckling in amusement. “The last time the Misfits won they were the New Amsterdam Misfits-and then they only won because the other team was attacked by Indians on the way to the game and never showed up.”

I give what has occurred a little serious thought, and then I say, “You know, pianos hardly ever fall out of the sky on their own.”

“Maybe it fell out of an airplane,” says Gently Gently.

“Or maybe a roc was carrying it off to its nest,” adds Benny.

“Rocks don’t fly,” protests Gently Gently. “They just lie there quietly, and sometimes they grow moss, which I figure is like a five o’clock shadow for inanimate objects.”

“You guys are missing the point,” I say. “Clearly the hex is in, and I paid my hex protection to Big-Hearted Milton. If the piano was going to fall on anyone, it should have fallen on the referee, who’s been blowing calls all afternoon.”

“Or the tuba player in the band,” adds Benny. “He’s always off key.”

“So why didn’t Milton stop it, or at least misdirect it?” I continue.

“Speaking of Milton, here,” says Gently Gently, handing me five one-hundred-dollar bills.

“If I speak of Milton, will you lay another five C-NOTES on me ?” asked Benny curiously.

“This is a bet,” answers Gently Gently. “I forgot to give it to you.”

“From Big-Hearted Milton?” I say, frowning.

“Right. He gave it to me at halftime.”

“But Milton never bets,” I say. “It’s against the rules of the Mages Guild.”

“I heard they tossed him out for nonpayment,” says Benny.

“Which team did he bet on, as if I didn’t know?” I ask.

“The Pompadoodles, of course,” answers Gently Gently.

“Well, that explains why he didn’t stop the piano,” puts in Benny.

I get to my feet. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Where are you going, Harry?” asks Benny.

“I got to pay off all the guys who bet on Pittsburgh, and then I have to have a talk with Milton.”

“Where will you find him?”

“Same place as always,” I reply.

So I do like I say, and pay Longshot Louie and Velma the Vamp and Hagridden Henry and all the others, and then I head over to Joey Chicago’s Bar, where my office is the third booth on the left, and I toss my hat there and then go to men’s room, where I find Big-Hearted Milton sitting on the tile floor as usual, surrounded by five candles and half-singing half-muttering some chant.

“ Milton,” I say, “we’ve got to talk.”

“Why, Harry the Book-what a surprise,” he says. “Wait’ll I finish this spell.” He goes back to chanting in a tongue so alien that it might very well be French. Finally he looks up. “Okay, I’m done. Did you bring my money?”

“That’s what we have to talk about,” I say.

“All right,” he says, getting to his feet and snuffing out the candles with his shoe. “But I want you to know that I’m protected against spells, curses, betrayals, demonic visitations, and small nuclear devices.”