Dead to Me

28

When I breathlessly entered the Odessa Diner, I noticed a flurry of movement coming toward me and my first panicked thought was My God, I’m about to get swarmed by ghouls. After the night I had been through, anything was possible, and I did a double take. Upon closer examination, it was merely a group of Greek waiters eager to seat me. They were simply enthusiastic, not the walking dead. I spotted Connor next to a table of plaid-clad punks at the rear of the restaurant and headed back.

Even though it was now 4 a.m., the diner was packed with Alphabet City residents and NYU students trying to take the edge off their binge drinking with a late-night infusion of food. That meant it was loud, but I didn’t mind. Right now, I felt safer in a crowd.

I sat down across from Connor as a waiter clunked down a four-inch-thick binder that I assumed was the menu. I ignored it for the moment and looked Connor over. He was far more composed than I was. To be fair, I had dressed in a dark closet while attempting to flee for my life, so the lemon yellow pants and purple shirt should be forgiven. Hell, I didn’t even know I owned lemon yellow pants! I looked to the next table and the punk rockers gave my outfit a thumbs-up.

“Were you followed?” he said. I shook my head. “How ya holding up, kid?”

“Well, Tamara’s still dead,” I said frankly, “and now another room of my apartment is getting trashed just after I put the place back together.”

“At least you got out of there alive,” Connor said encouragingly, “if not with your dignity.”

“With all due respect, Connor, shut up.”

“Oh, and don’t forget Cyrus,” he added. “He might be missing and his warehouse burned down, but several more Ghostsniffing junkies were brought in after you took off. It’s going epidemic. It’s all the rage.”

Someone cleared his throat nearby and I turned to see the curly haired waiter looking down at me. He tugged at the edge of his black polyester vest and flipped open a pad. “You ready?”

Connor was already eating some sort of sampler platter that had one of everything in the diner on it, all of it battered and deep-fried. I looked at my yet unopened menu, felt deterred by its girth, and shrugged.

“You’re not gonna eat?” the waiter asked. He sounded like I had just disgraced his whole family or slept with his wife. All shock, with a little disgust mixed in for good measure.

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

“You’ve got to sit at the counter then.” The waiter sighed and stared off at the far wall as he spoke. “That’s the rules. If you’re not going to eat anything, you have to sit at the counter. Tables are for our customers who are eating.”

I shook my thumb at Connor. “He’s sitting at a table. I’m sitting with him.”

“He’s eating,” the waiter said as if he had been having this argument since the dawn of time. “You’re not. Those are the rules.”

I looked to Connor, incredulous, but he merely shrugged. He popped something deep-fried but unidentifiable into his mouth.

I flipped the menu open. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll have a grilled cheese and a bowl of matzoh ball soup. Oh, and a chocolate milkshake…and a coffee.”

The waiter snapped my menu shut before I had a chance to say anything else and scurried away.

“I can’t believe that.”

“You know what I can’t believe?” He popped another deep-fried unidentifiable into his mouth. “I can’t believe they charge eight bucks for a grilled cheese! That’s without tomato or bacon even!”

“Do you mind if we talk about something more pertinent?” I asked testily. “How about, say, Irene going all Amityville on me?”

Connor looked at me seriously for a second, and then laughed. “Simon, listen, I’m sure whatever happened was bad. But the Inspectre taught me that any situation where you make it out alive and have the opportunity to sit down and bitch about it is, comparatively, a good situation.”

I mulled that one over until my milk shake arrived. A long sip and a bit of brain freeze later, I was noticeably calmer.

“I don’t want to beat an old departmental horse,” Connor said, “but there’s a reason why Other Division doesn’t shelter any of our clients, kid. They’re simply too unstable for us to deal with. Besides, we really don’t have any good way to contain them even if we wanted to. This isn’t like Ghost-busters. ”

“What about the way you were able to bind Irene?” I asked. “Or something similar to those jars in the secret room at Mandalay’s shop but bigger?”

Connor shook his head. “Binding Irene with a potion was an extremely temporary measure. As far as those jars the Ghostsniffers use, I wouldn’t wish that fate on any spirit. Any containment like that means absolute destruction of the soul, kid. Never forget it.”

My food arrived with a side order of mild disdain (courtesy of our waiter), and I dug in, determined to get at least eight dollars’ worth of enjoyment out of this grilled cheese. As I ate, I told Connor how I awoke to Irene screaming at the top of her lungs, how she seemed upset over the idea that I was chasing another woman.

“Well, that’s a little unexpected,” he said. “Spirits are known to be emotional over things, sure, but usually there’s some basis in truth with what’s upsetting them. I mean even though we know Irene’s got a thing for you, it’s not like she had anything to be jealous of…right?”

I pretended to find something at the bottom of my soup bowl and avoided eye contact.

“Simon…? There’s not something you want to tell me, is there, kid?”

“No,” I said. “There’s nothing I want to tell you.”

“Oh God.” He sighed. He pushed his plate away, gripped the edge of the table, and leaned across to me. “You’re not involved with that Jane, are you? You realize this is the type of thing I’m supposed to report to the Enchancellors, don’t you? Crushing on the forces of Darkness’s secretary isn’t just frowned upon; there’s a pamphlet expressly forbidding it!”

“I’m pretty sure that wasn’t in my orientation packet,” I offered.

“That’s hardly the point,” he spat out. “The point isn’t about you at all. You’ve put me in a shit situation, kid.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. And I meant it. My private entanglements were just that, private. I didn’t want to drag Connor into this.

Connor’s face softened a bit, but he still sounded angry. “I suppose it’s my fault, really. I should have seen it coming. I’m the mentor, after all.”

“Nothing’s happened,” I said and thought about it. “Okay, well, that’s not entirely true. We kissed, but that was only after I pulled her out of the garbage in my alley.”

Connor simply stared at me. “Oh. Well, if that’s all it was!”

“The Sectarians are probably going to kill her for failing!” I said, my voice rising. The table of punk rockers stared over at us now. I lowered my voice. “Look, feelings aside, I think we have a real opportunity here. She’s scared now. I think we can turn her.”

I watched Connor think it over before he spoke. “I want you to listen very carefully, kid. I’m not going to the Inspectre or the Enchancellors with this…yet. See what you can get out of the situation. I think this whole thing’s a mess, but it’s your mess, and because I’m a generous guy, I’m going to give you a chance to clean it up.”

“Thank you,” I said, relaxing a bit.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, hardening. “I’m doing this for myself as well. You know how bad it will look if I report this while they’re rating my mentoring this quarter? I need to give you a chance to fix this if I’m ever going to save face in the Department. Understand?”

I nodded.

“As far as the rest goes, let me give you some mentorly advice? May I?”

I nodded once again.

“You are familiar with the works of Dante?”

“Divine Comedy Dante?” I asked.

Connor rolled his eyes. “No, Frank Dante over in Things That Go Bump in the Night. Of course Divine Comedy Dante!”

I had a passing familiarity with his books, but if his name came up on Final Jeopardy, I probably wouldn’t bet all my money.

“Dante wrote a lot about Divine Love,” Connor said. “Beautiful stuff. Anyway, he goes on and on about chivalry and, most importantly, forbidden love. That which is labeled wrong or unattainable.”

He stopped to flag down the waiter and made the internationally accepted check mark symbol in the air to get our bill.

“Anyway, when Dante descends into the Inferno, one of the first places he’s taken is to the level of least sin—the lustful. Giving in to the wrong kind of love is the least offensive of sins to him, see? While he’s there, he sees the spirits of famous ill-fated lovers—Paris and Helen, Cleopatra and Antony. Real tear-jerker material. Condemned to the Big BBQ Pit simply for choosing the wrong kind of love, the kind that led them astray from the path of love that leads to the divine, to God. A simple sin, really, easy to make.”

The waiter stopped by the table with the check, and lingered as Connor spoke. Even the punk rockers were listening now.

“It’s not loving that’s the sin,” Connor continued, “but more the act of choosing the incorrect kind. A slippery slope, if I ever read of one. So, you’ll want to think carefully before you make your next move.”

“But what should that be?” I asked. I was exhausted, fearing to return home. Ever since Irene had disappeared—or was pulled away by whatever mysterious force was out there—I had been wishing for her return. Now for my own safety, I hoped that she had disappeared again.

Connor threw down a few bills.

I felt for my wallet. “Can you cover me?” I asked. “I left my wallet back at the apartment when I was running for my life.”

Connor threw down a few more bills. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a vial of the viscous, patchouli-like fluid he had used on that spirit back in the alley. He slid it across to me. “Use this if she gives you any more trouble, kid. And then call me.” I picked it up and slid it in my pocket, feeling relieved.

“You wanna get your head together and figure out what you should do?” Connor asked. “Let me jump ahead several hundred years to answer that one, if you don’t mind. I’ve come to use it as my personal mantra. ‘Dead is dead and life is for the living.’ Helps me get through the day in our line of work.”

Connor stood. I rose. “Who came up with that?”

“The Master himself,” Connor said as he threw up the collar on his trench coat and stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “Humphrey Bogart.” He lit the cigarette, and then with the worst Bogey impression I had ever heard, he said, “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

I stood there, shaking my head as he left. Connor walked toward the door, the waiters swarming him angrily for lighting the cigarette in the diner. He parted them like the Red Sea and was gone, leaving me with much to wonder about. One thing I knew for sure. I certainly wouldn’t be renting Casablanca in the near future.