Norman Partridge - Wildest Dreams

“Leave it alone? Shit, Gilbert, I already let it out of the box. In fact, Diabolos is dying to talk to you. Here, let me get him on the line

Ripley swore some more. I sighed. The big guy was getting excited. Yelling. In the background, Circe was getting excited, too. Asking questions, trying to figure out what the hell her bodyguard was so worked up about.

A quick glance at Janice’s porch told me that the guard was distracted by the uproar. He stared through the cottage window, trying to see if there was something going on inside the house that should worry him.

I could only take so much. “Take a Midol, Gilbert,” I said finally. “And hand the phone to your boss.”

Circe came on the line. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but it isn’t going to work.”

“Oh, I think it’s working just fine. I don’t know about your daddy, though. When he wakes up, I’ll ask him.”

“That head is a hunk of dead meat. It doesn’t mean a thing to me. Spider was supposed to get rid of it.” The next part seemed more for Gilbert’s ears than mine. “If he’d followed orders and fed the damn thing to the Dobermans like he was supposed to-”

“Like you told me-good help is hard to find. Spider didn’t do what he was told. Your guard dogs had to stick to Puppy Chow. So now we’re back to square one.”

She sighed. “I have a feeling we’re going to talk about money again.”

“You’re right,” I said, even though I didn’t give a damn about the money anymore.

But I couldn’t let Circe know that, so I said the things she expected me to say. “I have your father’s head, and it’s for sale. If you pay up, I’m willing to forget the way you tried to screw me. I’ll be on my way, and no one will be the wiser.”

“There’s no reason for me to pay you one fucking dime.”

“Then maybe I should call someone else. Say a few reporters. I’m sure they’d be real interested to discover that you aren’t holed up in a mansion in San Francisco. I’m sure they’d be just as interested to find your father’s head in a pyramid owned by a guy you’re fucking. I’m sure they’d hustle right over here to Spider’s place. Even that crew from CNN.”

“Do your worst. I can cover anything if I have to.”

“Maybe you can, but you don’t want to. I know that, and so do you. So don’t treat me like Gilbert Fucking Ripley. He may be fool enough to think you won’t sell him out, but I’m not that stupid. Neither are you. You nearly dug my grave. I can return the favor. You don’t want to play that kind of game with me.”

She didn’t say a word.

“Good,” I said. “I think you’re wising up. Now listen to me, and listen very closely. I want you and Gilbert to go to your estate. I want you to do that right now. I’ll call you in an hour with my price, and with instructions for paying it. As long as you don’t do anything stupid-like call the cops-we’ll make our trade and get on with our lives.”

“Cops are overrated. Yesterday I learned that the hard way, and I don’t believe in second chances. This time, it’s just me and you.”

“Now you’re being smart. You do what you’re told, and we’ll both get clear of this. You don’t, and I’ll haunt you like a fucking ghost.”

I cut her off before she could say another word.

The whole thing was a smokescreen, of course.

For the first time in my life, money was useless to me.

The dead don’t spend dollars.

I couldn’t ransom a little girl’s ghost.

Shivering, I watched the cottage.

A minute passed. Another, and another. Just as I was starting to worry, the front door banged open. Circe and Spider hurried to the Rolls. Janice hollered after them, but they ignored her.

Car doors slammed. The Rolls roared alive and fishtailed onto Hangman’s Point Drive.

Janice was understandably upset. She obviously needed to vent. She screamed at the bodyguard, nice and warm in his big coat, but he only shrugged and flicked his cigarette butt into the rain.

Janice stomped into the house and slammed the door behind her.

My teeth started chattering again. The bodyguard lit another cigarette. The crimson end flared like a target.

A few minutes later, I hit the redial button on Spider’s cell phone.

Janice’s phone rang for quite a while. I let it ring. Janice probably didn’t much like telephones anymore. I figured she needed to work up her courage before she answered, the same way you work up your courage before you stick your hand into a lion’s mouth.

I watched the house. I tried to be patient.

Finally, a familiar click.

A handset wrestled from its cradle.

A hand entering a lion’s mouth.

Janice said, “H-hello?”

“They left you all alone, didn’t they?”

“N-no. I’m not alone. I’ve got protection-”

I chuckled. “You mean the guard on the porch?”

“How do you know…how do you know where he is?”

I tossed the dead guard through the window.

“I know where he is.” I stepped over the sill and over the corpse. “Now we both know where he is.”

Janice stared down at the corpse’s broken nose. It was tilted at a piggish slant, with the bone rammed into his brainpan.

Janice didn’t move. She couldn’t move.

Until I told her to.

I pointed the K-Bar at the dead man. “Strip him,” I said. “Give me his clothes. Especially that coat.”

She did, and it didn’t take her long. It wasn’t the kind of work you wanted to linger over if you were Janice Ravenwood, if every scrap of clothing you touched coughed up a dark panorama of psychic impressions.

I changed quickly. The guy was a little bigger than me, but the fit was close enough. Apart from a little blood on the shirt, the clothes were dry. That was what mattered most.

I didn’t care about a little blood. As far as I was concerned they were my clothes now. The dead man didn’t need them. Neither did his ghost-a dark, thin shadow that cowered outside, howling in the rain.

I ignored the dead man’s screams.

The coat felt good, and warm.

“How do I look?” I asked.

“F-fine,” Janice said.

“Great. Now get a coat for yourself, or rain gear if you’ve got it. I don’t want you to get wet.”

“Where are we going?”

“Across the River Styx,” I said. “Just the two of us.”

The rain fell harder now, sheeting across the highway. The storm was getting worse, and it showed no sign of letting up anytime soon. No way did I want to rely on a busted-up Toyota that had been to hell and back when Janice’s new Ford Explorer was ripe for the taking.

The self-important scribbler didn’t need it now. I was doing the driving. Janice rode shotgun, though that was a laugh. She wouldn’t have touched a gun if one lay in her lap. She was that scared.

Maybe she was scared enough to tell the truth.

“I was supposed to be Circe’s ghostwriter, if you can believe that,” Janice began. “She had an offer in the high six figures from a publisher who wanted her autobiography, and she handpicked me to write it. How could I refuse? Slice up a pie like that, there was plenty left for me. My agent negotiated the deal and managed to make it a little sweeter. In fact, she bumped us over the million dollar mark. When it came to Circe Whistler, she said there was a lot more money in channeling the living than channeling the dead.”

“Celebrities sell,” I said.

“All I wanted was the money.”

“There are lots of ways to make money.”

“You’re right. If you can kill people and and cut off their heads, I’m sure the job offers just roll right in.”