Down These Strange Streets

THE LADY IS A SCREAMER by Conn Iggulden

Historical novelist Conn Iggulden is the author of the bestselling Emperor series— The Gates of Rome, The Death of Kings, The Field of Swords, and The Gods of War—detailing the life of Julius Caesar, as well as the Conqueror series—Wolf of the Plains, Lords of the Bow, Bones of the Hills, and Empire of Silver—exploring the life of Genghis Khan. He is also the coauthor of the bestselling nonfiction books The Dangerous Book for Boys and The Dangerous Book of Heroes, as well as Tollins: Explosive Tales for Children. His most recent book, written with Lizzy Duncan, is Tollins 2: Dynamite Tales.

In the flamboyant story that follows, he takes us on the road with a raffish con man who discovers a new profession—ghostbuster—but who learns that some ghosts are harder to bust than others.

I SUPPOSE I THINK OF MYSELF AS RUNNING A SMALL BUSINESS, PROVIDING a necessary service. I’m just one of a hundred million guys, paying the bills with the talents God gave them. I don’t have a fancy name for what I do. I’m not a stage magician and to be honest, the kind of clients I get aren’t impressed by that sort of thing. If I called myself Afterlife Inc., or something, well, it wouldn’t get my car there any faster. Not that car. I’m part of the backbone of America, my friend. Anyway, out of the four of us I’m the only one drawing a salary, so my costs are pretty low.

I started this to make a record of a few odd years, but I’m not really interested in passing on my pearls of wisdom. Not so someone else can wade through this kind of crap on a daily basis. If I had kids, I wouldn’t recommend it as a line of work, you know? It was all right in the beginning, when it was just checking the obits and knocking on doors. Everyone wants to say a few last words to the recently departed. If you’re interested, the number one choice was “Sorry,” closely followed by second prize: “I should have told you I loved you more often,” and my personal favorite, which was always some variation on “Are you happy?” No, my dear grieving widow with the sprayed hair still up from the funeral, he’s dead, of course he’s not happy. I’ll admit I hadn’t the first idea back then whether he was happy or not. I know a bit more these days, but I’ll get to that. I just used to assure her that poor Brian was just fine, that he missed her and he was looking forward to seeing her in heaven. If I handled it right, I’d also get a couple of juicy hits. Sure, as I’m already talking, I’ll tell you. Hits are when you get a detail right that they think you couldn’t possibly know. “He says he remembers that time in the Maldives, does that mean anything to you?” It’s a golden moment and you never get tired of watching the last trace of cynicism drain away from them. All it takes is a couple of Barnum statements and a little research.

Maybe I do have a little knowledge worth passing on, at that. P. T. Barnum made them famous, but it all started with a lecturer named Forer, back in the forties. I can start the list from memory, so here it is:

“You have a great need for others to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.” And so on. You get it? They apply to everyone. Couple a few of those to some personal research and you have a cold reading they’ll remember forever.

They never think I could do some actual work before turning up at the door. The Internet is good for that, though my favorite was the old microfiches they had in libraries. Newspaper records were useful, but the gold was often in court records and voting rolls. It’s all public. These days, half the people I read about are still the Google and microfiche crowd—too old to have heard of Facebook. The rest are low-hanging fruit. Facebook don’t dump a page for about a week after a death and their privacy policy is, well, the difference between me scoring and not, most of the time. You’d be amazed what you can find out in ten minutes.

You only need one proper hit and it’s all they remember when you’re gone. You’re in their house and you’re reading like crazy, taking in every tiny detail. With the old ladies, you ask to go to the bathroom and you check the meds. I had a lovely one at the beginning when I found a collection of insulin bottles and needle packets. I checked her name on the unopened boxes, then all I had to say was, “John says to remember your injections,” and she was a goner, full-blown tears like it would never stop. When it was over, I’d made a sweet two hundred for an hour, including the drive. I think it was then I realized I didn’t really need to go back to work. I could do it full-time.

It didn’t work out exactly the way I wanted, not at first. That day’s pay was more than I saw again in a month of trying, but I had to learn the trade and I made enough to keep me going. I could do the research in local libraries, which cost me nothing.

Well, this story isn’t going the way I thought it would. As I seem to be passing on my years of wisdom after all, I’m going to tell you the best bit and let you judge if your job is anywhere near as much fun. Are you ready? This is the good part. If you work for a sandwich shop, you’ll never starve. If you visit widows, you get a surprising amount of postfuneral sex. There is no greater aphrodisiac than grief. From experience, I can tell you Day Three is the winner, just when all the relatives have finally asked each other to let her mourn in peace, meaning they really want to get back to their own lives.

I can tell the best ones almost as soon as they open the door, sometimes just by reading the obituary. Big, strong husband gone too soon, sons who live in a different state. Those girls are like pressure cookers, all that raw emotion just waiting to blow. I’m telling you, just seeing the word cancer gave me a rush of blood after a while. Nothing gets the juices going like a long dry spell. Bless their hearts for trying, but cancer guys aren’t up to much in the sack.

It all went wrong, or went right, or changed my world, however the hell you want to say it, when I met the Lady. I still don’t know her name, and if she can talk, she never does to me. It’s usually my curse that I have to deal with women every day. They’re the ones who don’t mind finding a fifty in the purse for a few words and my best soft voice. I can’t say I don’t understand them, like some rummy guy in a bar you might meet. I do understand them. I just don’t like them all that much. They don’t think like us, you know? If it wasn’t for money and sex, I don’t think I’d talk to them at all. Crazy, every last one of them. I grew up with a strict mom, and maybe she turned me against them all, I don’t know. A man might write poetry to them or send flowers, but that doesn’t last for long once he’s cleared the bases, does it? Marriage is just making sure it’s still there when you get the itch and maybe making a warm nest for your kids. You’ll hate yourself for nodding along with me, but you know old Jack Garner speaks the truth. And, no, of course it isn’t my real name. Well, I’ve had it all my life, but it isn’t the one I was born with.

With the Lady, all I get is her blowing in my ears, like the wind. As it happens, that has turned out to be surprisingly useful, but I’ll get to that too. Look, you have to let me tell the story in my own damn way.

In those days, I used to advertise. I still do sometimes, though the rates have gone way up and, frankly, there’s a lot of competition. If the stock markets go down, my business goes up, I don’t know why. Oh, you could probably make some change about sharks feeding on grim times, but the way I see it, I spread a lot of goodwill when people really need it. I’m a philanthropist and, yes, I know what it means. I usually left them smiling. Crying too, but smiling through the tears, mostly.

My method of starting with a local paper and checking the deaths kept me in gas and jackets and paid for the cell phone. But every now and then, maybe if I was starting in a new area, I’d put a couple of ads in the locals. There just isn’t any point buying space in a specialist magazine, so let me save you a few dollars. They’re full of fakes—well, obviously—but the customers you want don’t get Spirit World delivered to their nice mailboxes, you know?

I had the kind of call that still gives me a thrill. I couldn’t tell her age from the phone and there was some kind of accent, I couldn’t tell which. I thought it was maybe Dutch, so I was imagining some big apple-strudel type, maybe with blond braids, just amusing myself with pictures in my head while we talked. I got out my maps and put the phone against my chest while I grinned. Penacook, New Hampshire, some godforsaken place in the middle of Merrimack County. Nice names and not a part of the world I knew that well. I told her it was four hundred miles and that I’d have to default on another job to reach her. I was sounding her out on the money, you know? But she was a good one, for all her funny vowels. I named a price and she just paused a moment, then agreed. No negotiation, which was exactly the sort of client I liked best.

After that, it all went a bit odd. I asked her who she wanted me to reach on the other side and she said, no, she wanted me to get rid of a spirit. She said she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in hearing what it had to say, she just wanted it out of her house.

I nearly told her to call Ghostbusters and put the phone down. I swear, if she hadn’t already agreed to a rate for gas mileage that was just ridiculous, I might have done it. Perhaps I was a bit short that week, I don’t remember, but I told her I’d be there in two days and she clicked her tongue and huffed and then agreed, as if she wasn’t the one who’d come calling. They don’t think like us. They don’t do logical. I had the idea even then that there wasn’t going to be much weeping on my shoulder from that one. I was right too, but then I am a bona fide psychic. I should be right every now and then. Did you notice the Latin? Self-educated, but I could still kick your ass.

Penacook is one of those pretty mill towns, couple hundred years old and proud of it. There’s a river, a few churches with high steeples, and a nice old Civil War memorial, like a thousand other places. I don’t go near the churches, though you’d think we’re in the same basic business, wouldn’t you? It’s all about giving a little hope. I found the address on Fisher Street and took a room at the cheapest hotel I could find to put on the black suit and kill a few hours. What I do doesn’t go so well in bright sunshine. Evening is best, with the shadows growing longer. It makes them just that bit more suggestible, in my experience.

I can tell you I was disappointed when Mrs. Weathers opened the door. She was tall, taller than me even, but there was no sign of blond braids and she was thin and kind of bony. Her hair was near white and she had it scraped back so tight it must have taken years off her face. She took a look up and down the street like she was embarrassed to be seen opening the door to me, then hustled me into the house.

This isn’t even the meat of my story, you know, not really. I always get caught up in the details when I’m thinking about the time I first met the Lady. I can still remember the way the door shut and I still wonder what sort of airlock door Mrs. Weathers had, because the silence was intense. It felt like I’d been wrapped in wool, like the thick carpets soaked up all the noise until I wanted to speak just to be sure it would come out. I recall there was an antique clock as tall as the old girl, but the pendulum didn’t move then or any other time. I guess you would call it tasteful, but I call it rich and my money gland began to squeeze a little.

She made tea and I don’t even need to tell you it was in fine china, right? Cups so delicate I thought I’d break one just by holding it. I was reading everything, getting ready for the spiel, but she didn’t look like my usual customer. No red eyes, no trembling hands, nothing but that flat, blue stare as she watched me sip a cup of imported Assam.

Seems Mrs. Weathers had been in the house for only two months. I already knew she’d been a teacher. I’d seen the framed photo, with a younger version of her in a long skirt, adults at the front, smiling kids behind. It’s the kind of detail I notice, but I let her tell me she had retired from all that and she lived alone. She seemed reluctant to bring up the reason for my being there, so I pushed a bit, laying a hand on her arm in a brief touch as I asked. Funny how often that works. It’s like some sort of trigger.

I was busy revising my fee in my head when she finally got around to telling me about the spirit she wanted gone. I nodded when she talked about dreams of screaming, like we all had them. It was almost like she’d read Spirit World after all, like she had a copy on her dresser with a checklist for ghosts. Cold breezes in a closed room—check. Whispers in her ear—check. Nameless feelings of dread—check. I was beginning to think she lacked imagination, you know? When she said it was strongest in the basement, I stood up like I was excited and asked to see. I figured it would take me about an hour to tap walls down there, maybe burn a few feathers and chant my powerful old Arapahoe spirit call: “Eyelie Miggeymou, Miggeymou, Miggeymou. Eyelie Miggeymou, Plutotoo.” Or “I like Mickey Mouse and Pluto too,” if you really know your plains chant. I’d declare the place clean, washed of evil spirits, collect . . . maybe four hundred dollars on top of the expenses and go on my way. The funny thing is that I believed it would work. It’s not difficult to banish something that exists only in someone’s imagination, as long as they believe in you. I truly had no idea back then that there were any kind of spirits at all.

I’ve guessed since that the Lady wanted to leave that house. God alone knows why she took an interest in me. All she had to do was sit tight while I went through some routine, and then I’d have been gone, out of their lives forever.

It wasn’t dark down there at all. It was a nice, modern basement, all painted white, with a bit of water damage in one of the corners. I remember a faint smell of damp in the air and I thought of spores. There wasn’t much else to do, with Mrs. Weathers watching me. Apart from a jumble of old furniture, a reel of hosepipe, and a few boxes, it was just about as unhaunted a place as you can ever imagine, more like an abandoned office space than a door to the other side.

Even so, I take good green dollars as seriously as the next man. I spent the best part of an hour touching each wall, noting the new plaster, running my fingers along every crack. These things just come to me sometimes. You have to give them some kind of ritual, I’ve found. You can’t just stand in the middle and mumble.

I nearly had a heart attack when the Lady blew in my ear that first time. The basement was closed off, with just a slit of a window at ground level, too small even for neighborhood boys to get through. There was no chance of a breeze and this wasn’t some gentle breath I could tell myself I’d imagined. This was exactly like someone blowing hard into my ear and making me jump. I have to say I yelped a bit, but when I turned to Mrs. Weathers, she was way over on the other side, just smiling in that sour way she had.

“That’s the sort of thing I have to live with, Mr. Garner,” she said, all kind of triumphant. “So I’ll be pleased if you’ll cease your tomfoolery and just turn the thing out of my house. That’s if you can.”

I held back from saying she should be damned pleased if anyone wanted to blow in her ear at her age. I was that upset by what had happened.

“Six hundred, with expenses,” I said at last. Best part of a thousand dollars was more than I’d ever asked before. She curled her lip at me, so that I could see yellow teeth.

“Very well, Mr. Garner, but I want results.”

“And I’ll need some privacy. You’ll get what you want, don’t worry about it.” That was me stalling for time. It didn’t help that I felt another blow in my ear as I spoke. I rubbed it and that old bitch gave me a look like she knew exactly what was going on. Which she probably did. I watched her head back up the stairs and found myself alone in that cheery, not-at-all frightening, nicely lit basement.

“Okay,” I said. I remember my heart was tapping away and I felt more than a bit foolish. “If there’s anyone in here, if I’m not just wasting a perfectly good evening, blow in my goddamn ear again, I double dare you.”

Well, she did and I nearly peed my pants. You weren’t there, so don’t tell me it wasn’t scary. I sort of lunged in the same direction and took a couple of steps. She blew in my right ear and I lunged that way, arms flailing like I was in a swarm of hornets. It wouldn’t have looked too dignified, but there was no one watching me.

I found myself close to the far wall and whenever I turned back to the room, I felt the tickle, like she wanted me to stay where I was. I don’t know exactly when I started calling her the Lady, by the way. My first wife used to blow in my ears, and maybe it reminded me of that.

I stood there facing the paint and plaster for a time, chest heaving like I’d been running. You just can’t realize what a surprise the whole thing was. Oh, I’d been talking to the dead for years by then, nodding wisely and passing on whatever vague message of goodwill the client wanted to hear. Actually feeling one, no, interacting with one, well, it was a bit of a shaker and I don’t mean the cabinets with the tiny handles.

I did move about the room, of course. I didn’t just stand where she wanted me to. But she herded me back each time to the same spot, turning me left and right, or blowing on the back of my head to move me forward. I got kind of lost in the game for a time, and if you don’t believe me it’s only because you don’t know how exciting it all was. Over and over, I ended up back at the same piece of painted plaster, new and shining. I could feel the slight pressure on my hair pushing me on, like she wanted me to walk through the damn wall.

“Can’t do it,” I said aloud. “Can you even see there’s a wall there?” I remember thinking about secret passages, maybe an old dungeon where I’d find her bones walled up. I’ve read a bit about the subject, as you can see. I confess I started to get interested, but I had an idea Mrs. Weathers might refuse to pay if I cut a big hole in her wall, so I called her back down.

I was all business again, solemn and troubled.

“I’m feeling her most strongly in this wall,” I said, running my hands along it. “Is there anything behind it? Like another room?”

Weathers shrugged, but for the first time, she looked troubled.

“I don’t know. The previous owners might have bricked something up,” she said. I could see she’d read some of the same thrillers. She brushed at her hair then, exactly as if she’d felt a fly land on her. For the first time, I felt sorry for the old bitch.

“I’m going to need a ball-peen hammer, the biggest you have,” I said. She bit her lip in worry, but at last she nodded and went away to fetch one. I could feel the steady pressure on my head as I faced the wall, and I began to realize how damn irritating it would be to live with something like that. Not six hundred dollars irritating, not to me, but Weathers looked like she could spare it without much lost sleep.

When she came back with the hammer, I went at it like a teamster, walloping that drywall until it fell away and then really getting going on the bricks behind it. It’s funny, I would have done a lot less damage if I’d been using my eyes a bit more. It took me a while to see there were two bricks that didn’t match the rest. I’d been thinking of secret rooms, Al Capone’s treasure, who knows what else. It was only when I found plastic sheeting and raw earth behind my hole that I stood back, sweating. Damp-proofing is not that sinister, and I had a nasty feeling I had just worked myself out of a fee. I took a better look at those bricks then. With all the hammering, they were already loose enough to pull out.

I noticed that Weathers still stood on the stairs, like she was afraid to come into the room. I could feel her staring as I worked the bricks out and put them on the floor. I still don’t know what I was hoping to find, but in the end it was almost a disappointment. There wasn’t even much of a space, just about enough to get a hand in. It was the sort of secret hiding place a child might find and then forget. I used to have something similar in my mom’s house underneath the old floorboards.

In the gap, there was a lock of brown hair bound in a ring, tied with a red ribbon that looked as if some insect had been eating it. I pulled it into the light and the air changed all around me. It’s hard to describe, but it felt a little bit like a plane coming down to an airport. Your ears block and suddenly you can’t hear as well. As I stood there staring at the ring of hair, I pinched my nostrils and blew, but it didn’t make any difference. I just knew that I’d found the real thing, that the spirit was bound to the hair.

“This is a relic,” I said to Weathers, behind me. My voice sounded peculiar, still muffled like we were on the approach to O’Hare and dropping fast. I pinched my nose again, blowing hard to clear my head. It still didn’t work and I began to feel a bit choked. Well, there was a way out of that.

I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out my lighter. As I’m writing my own story, I guess I could tell you it was a really cool Zippo, but the truth is it was the cheapest butane lighter you can buy. I remember my hand shook as I thumbed the wheel, and as it sparked and the flame lit, the air changed again, popped almost so that it left me gasping. There was no wind, but suddenly we weren’t dropping into Chicago through a thick fog, we were just standing in a basement, staring at a cigarette lighter.

I raised the flame to the lock of hair and without any warning, it went out. I’d felt the breath on my fingers, but I lit it again anyway, just to see it happen. The flame stood up and then it vanished as the Lady blew it out.

I stood there for a time, thinking a bit more deeply than usual. She had wanted me to find the ring of hair with its sad little ribbon, but she didn’t want to be set free. Like I said before, I don’t know exactly why she chose me, but I’ve always had the Garner charm; at least my mom used to tell me I had. She never meant it in a good way, though.

I carried that thing out of the house like it was a live grenade, stopping only to accept the cash payment old Weathers took from a tin in her kitchen. Hell, I’d earned the money. I didn’t even put the ring of hair in a pocket, just carried it out in front of me until my arm grew stiff. I didn’t feel any breath on the back of my neck then, not until I was out on Fisher Street and walking away.

I can’t explain exactly why I did the things I did that day. It would have been easy enough to throw the lock of hair down a drain, or better still into the river so it could be carried out to sea. Maybe if I’d been scared I would have done it, but you have to realize that this was my life’s work. Finally I had proof I wasn’t completely wasting my time. I never claimed to be a good man, but I never wanted to be a complete fake either. It felt like I’d found my Rosetta stone, the key that would unlock it all for me. It was true too, in a way.

I stayed in Penacook for a couple more days and I bought myself the box I carry today. It’s a small brass thing, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, about as big as a pack of cards. The ring of hair went with me and from then on, well, I guess I was haunted.

The Lady was quiet for a few days after. I’ll spare you the details of how I tried to get her to perform—once for a newspaper guy and once in a bar when I’d had too many shots. She stayed in the box and then, just to rile me, blew in my ears all the way home until I was swatting my own head in frustration. I had enough money to live and I spent that time thinking. What if every ghost had its link to the world, like the Lady’s lock of hair? It took me a while, but after about a week, I found myself in Franklin County, Massachusetts. I stopped again to put new ads in all the local papers. For the first time in years, I changed the copy and sold my services as a Ghost Hunter—Satisfaction or Your Money Back. It didn’t hurt that I’d made more money from Mrs. Weathers than my previous six jobs combined. I didn’t even grumble at the rates per word they quoted. There was gold in them thar hills.

The first few months were a bit of a nightmare, I don’t mind telling you. It wasn’t that I didn’t get any calls; I did. I even thought I’d have to get another cell for work, it was so busy. The trouble was that of the houses I visited, not one of them had anything more supernatural than mice behind the walls. Even so, I learned the skills and I put a toolbox together that a carpenter might have approved. I could strip a room in an hour, and I guess the good builders and painters of Massachusetts must have thought it was Christmas with all the extra work I left for them. I found grumbling old pipes, rat nests, a bird trapped in a chimney, all sorts, but the Lady kept quiet. Outside, she would still tickle my head at times, just to show me she was there, but in the houses, she was quiet as the grave probably should be.

The money ran out and for a time I was forced to go back to the old work, just to keep the main ads running and pay for gas. She didn’t like that. I could feel her breath on my face, pushing me away whenever I went to do my readings, until I had to leave the box in the motel room.

It all changed that winter, after a heavy snowfall. I had a live call from my Hunter ads, though it meant driving to a town named Montague, about forty miles from where I was. I couldn’t afford chains and it was hard going, maybe four hours of creeping along with the wipers going and the lights lost in a blizzard. All those big trucks kept whooshing by as well, making me nervous.

I had my tools and the Lady’s box with me and maybe I imagined it, but there was a feeling of excitement as I pressed the bell of a huge old house on Treadle Road, to the south of Main Street. A young Asian woman opened the door and I smiled at her, thinking that servants were a good sign for a payday. I felt that slight pressure at the back of my head as well, pushing me into the house after her.

I’d been wrong before, but not that time. I was taken to a proper library, filled with books from floor to ceiling. The man who finally came to see me was young to own a place like that. I wondered if he’d inherited it, or whether he was some high-powered broker or something. He looked uncomfortable the whole time he talked to me, and I couldn’t read him that well. Turns out it was his wife who had called me, but she was out of town. You could see he would rather have thrown me out, but the snow was still falling and I assume his wife was not the sort of woman you cross lightly. I’ve met a few like that.

He took me upstairs, fidgeting the whole time, like he couldn’t keep his hands still. He didn’t offer me a drink or anything, and I could see he was going to stand over me to be sure I didn’t steal anything. I didn’t mind, though, because the Lady was pushing me the whole way, like she knew there was something good up those stairs.

The stairs opened up onto a landing with six or seven doors. To my surprise and mounting interest, he had to unlock one of them before I could go in. He saw my look and made a grimace.

“It’s always cold in here, even with the boiler going. I don’t think it was properly insulated when the house was built.” I just smiled politely and he made his face again and led me in.

It was cold. Not freezing, but chilly after the rest of the house. Straight away I could feel the Lady blowing on me, but I didn’t want to make it look easy.

“My usual fee is six hundred dollars for this kind of work,” I said. He looked as if he’d bitten into a lemon when I said that, but I just stared him down.

“You should know I don’t believe any of this,” he said, like he was scoring a point. I waited for him to think of his wife and how angry she’d be if he said he’d sent me away. Thing was, though, I’d have done it for free at that moment, just to see how it should work. Still, I waited until he nodded.

“Cash,” I added. He almost sneered at me.

“Of course,” he said.

I left him alone. Time was I’d have taken pains to annoy a man like that, maybe even broken him up a little, but I was eager to get on and I could feel the Lady pressing me farther into the room.

It took about five minutes, maybe less. I’ve learned since not to do it so quickly. The Lady guided me to the right place, and I used a handsaw to cut a floorboard and a claw hammer to yank up the right part. I found a piece of bone lying in the dust there, black with soot.

“Have you ever had a fire here?” I called over my shoulder. He was looking kind of horrified at the damage I’d done, but he nodded.

“My grandfather’s time, yes,” he said. It would have been a good hit, just the sort of thing they don’t expect you to know, even though it would have been in all the local papers at the time.

“And someone died in that fire, in this room,” I said. It wasn’t even a question, and he just gaped at me as I brought the bone out into the air. It was only a piece and I couldn’t tell which part it had come from. Maybe an ankle, I don’t know. It was enough to keep the spirit in the same place, though. I could feel the temperature dropping, though there was nothing special, like frost patterns on the window. This wasn’t a powerful spirit. I’d meet those later.

I took the bone out of his house and he paid me in cash, with all his sneers and fine attitudes neatly cut out of his manner. He had a look of awe in his eyes when he went up to check the room and found it warm. I had the bone in my pocket and it felt like there was winter all round me. I saw the man flinch as he took my hand and pumped it.

“I’ll destroy it,” I promised. I did too. I wasn’t ready then to take in another boarder, and a spirit who just made you cold was no use to me.

I don’t know what he said to his wife, but that girl had connections and there are a lot of old houses in Massachusetts. I stayed there for another six months and work came flooding in. There were the usual blanks, of course, but the Lady helped me with two real ones and I was off and running. I put my rates up for the big houses and for the first time in my life, I made some real money, enough to change out the transmission on the car. I even thought of renting a house for a time, but I’m happier moving on, always have been. Of course in the past, there’s always been bad memories to run from. I passed my fiftieth birthday in a motel and I even bought myself a goddamn cake and a candle. The Lady blew it out and I drank a fifth of good whiskey.

I found Geronimo halfway through my second year. Now I know what you’re going to say and I agree with you. Why would that old Apache medicine man haunt an abandoned mansion in North Carolina? My honest guess is that whoever he really was, he just likes to call himself something different. I don’t know whether he was a New York broker who leaped out of a window, or just some cattle driver from the thirties. I do know he’s powerful, and that’s what matters. That’s what dragged me two hundred miles south when I heard about that old house, falling down with neglect and no one daring to live in it for half a century.

He has enough strength to speak to me. Maybe working with the Lady made me sensitive, I don’t know, but I can hear the old man as a whisper and understand maybe about a quarter of it. The Lady and I found his relic in the usual way, but that was all that was usual. I’d grown accustomed to thinking of spirits as weak things—a slightly chilly room isn’t The Shining, if you know what I mean. Geronimo could call up a storm, and we found his relics while there were books and dust swirling around us. I had to use an old door from the basement to cover my head while we dug out his bones. I guess he was probably murdered, as they don’t let you bury your loved ones in the garden, even in North Carolina.

I dug them all out and took them down to the furnace in the basement. It took me half a day to get it going again, with four trips to a hardware store for supplies, but you need a high temperature to reduce bone to ash. You can’t just throw gas on it and stand back. I had the last bit in my hands, a piece of broken yellow bone, when the Lady blew on my face. The house had gone very quiet since I started the burning and I could feel the tension, the way air feels before a storm.

I’d grown to trust the Lady and I put that old bone in my little box and took it away with me. Maybe she talked to him. Maybe she told him about the exciting life on the road and he went along. Hell, maybe a ghost in an abandoned house gets lonely, I don’t know. I didn’t really need him, or so I thought at the time. The Lady was my finder and I was getting a name for myself. I’d even had TV companies sniffing around me, but I don’t want my face shown around the country. There are a few people who would be very pleased to see it, and I don’t want to meet them again, not ever.

I did say there were four of us, when I started this record. The last to join my little family was about as muscular as Geronimo. He could throw things around like you wouldn’t believe. It was an old place in Georgia where I found him, overgrown with so much green crap that it looked like it was about to sink into the marshy ground. I nearly fell through the floor more than once. There was graffiti on the walls and beer cans all over the ground floor, even some marks from fires, where kids had tried to light the old place. It was too damp to burn, I think.

I’d gone looking for his relic and he’d come at me in a dust devil, blowing the filth of a century of neglect into my face. I was blind for a while, and only the Lady guiding me got me out into the sunshine. However, I’m a professional and it wasn’t so hard to buy goggles and overalls for the second trip. As it happens, I didn’t need them. I reached the old kitchen and as the wind started up, I opened my little box.

“Meet the kids,” I said. Well, that wind just died on the spot. I imagined them all sniffing each other like dogs.

“I can take you to places you’d never see otherwise,” I said aloud. That was how I added an old gold locket with a lover’s lock to my box. I never could hear him, but Geronimo told me his name was Thomas, so I always called him that.

Together, we toured the country for maybe three years. I never found another like Tom or Geronimo and if I had the slightest trouble, I’d just open the box and the air would get real heavy while they slugged it out. I don’t know exactly how they could give a ghost a beating, but those boys seemed to love it when we had the chance. I might have gone on like that forever, until the fall of ’04, when I finally met Erwin Trommler. He’s sort of the reason I started this record, so if you’ve been drifting while I gave you my valuable wisdom, it might be time to sit up and gulp the cold coffee.

I’d worked the East Coast for a few years and I’d been thinking of heading farther west, maybe to Memphis. I’d gotten the idea that someone with my talents should visit Graceland, you know? If you don’t understand right away, you never will, so don’t worry about it.

Before I went, I had a live one call me to Long Branch, New Jersey, right on the coast. Ms. Gorski, she called herself, so I knew she was going to be an ugly one. Not that I did that anymore. Taking out the ghost trash doesn’t seem to get them hanging off you the way speaking to the dead does. I worked out the distances and thought, yes, I could do that job and then swing west to reach Graceland in the fall.

She was standing on the step waiting for me when I swung into her road. In fact, she wasn’t too bad looking. She was dark-haired and sort of formal in her manners, maybe a little plumper than I like to see in a woman, but not too far gone. I spotted her and pulled up, taking my box from the front seat. I know they could travel in the trunk, but it seemed disrespectful somehow.

When we were all inside, I took a look around, pleased to see the signs of serious money. I have a pretty good eye for antiques and there were some nice pieces in there. Good neighborhood too. It’s not that I won’t help poor people, it’s more like I have to make a living too and poor people don’t pay so well. So I was relaxing a bit as I sat there on a sofa that must have cost more than my car.

“Tell me about your father,” I said. I had a routine by then, mainly to give them a sense of value for money. I could feel the Lady breathing on my neck, so I knew it was a real one. Talking to the clients didn’t help me find relics any faster, but if I didn’t, I think I’d have been the loneliest man alive.

Now you have to understand that her father, Erwin, had died just a few days before. If it had been a different kind of call and if she’d been more to look at, it could have been a fun afternoon for me. Like I said, I don’t do that anymore, but I didn’t see any grief in her. She just sat there and talked, but all the time I had the feeling she was giving me nothing. Hell, maybe I am psychic. She told me his name and that he’d come through Ellis Island a long time ago. He’d been about ninety when he died. I could see she didn’t like talking about him at all. So I pushed for more details, with my bump of curiosity itching away like crazy.

“I feel his spirit in the house,” she said. “Things move and there are noises, not just bad dreams. If you come back tonight, you’ll feel it too. No one can live here until he’s gone. That’s all you need to know.”

“Ma’am, you shouldn’t tell me my business,” I said. “If I tell you I need to know more, it’s because I do. Now I can just leave and maybe you’ll find some other fool, I don’t know. But I’m telling you, there’s no one else who can do what I can. If you truly want him gone, you’ll be honest with me.”

She looked at me for a long time and I felt a kind of thrill, like I was on the edge of something.

“I was born here, Mr. Garner. But my father was originally from Germany.”

“Well, folks have to come from someplace,” I said. My own grandmother came through Ellis, bringing her little daughter with her. I wondered for a moment if they would have stood in line with the young Erwin Gorski.

“He arrived in 1944. His real name was Erwin Trommler, before. He claimed to be Polish and he spoke the language fluently. He hid himself in America.” She hesitated again and I had a sort of premonition, not so much a psychic thing as a sick feeling in my stomach.

“Tell it all then,” I said softly, reaching out to touch her arm. “I need to know.” There were tears in her eyes, just a glimmer, like I was seeing her heart torn out.

“He worked in Bergen-Belsen for three years, Mr. Garner. I don’t know exactly what he did there, but he earned enough money to get false papers and get out before the end.”

Belsen. I knew more about that than she did. The British found thousands of dead bodies in that place, left to rot on the ground. The ones they found alive made some of the most harrowing pictures you’ll ever see. Walking skeletons, with dead eyes, the ones who lived. Babies, women, piles of children. If there’s one thing that God will hold up to humanity, one thing to shame us on the day of judgment, it will be the Belsen concentration camp.

“My father was a cold man, Mr. Garner. He never talked about his past. It was only after his death that I went through his papers.” She shuddered and I thought to myself that I didn’t want to see what she had found. Not then, not ever. Some things burn themselves so deeply into your mind that you can’t ever tear them out.

“Will you come back tonight, Mr. Garner? I haven’t slept in here since he died, but I can still feel him. I want him gone. I want him properly dead.”

I nodded, thinking I was going to have to make some plans for this one.

“You stay out of the house,” I said. “I’ll come back when it’s dark.” To her credit, she didn’t flinch at the idea of giving me a key to a house full of antiques. I guess she’d seen something in my eyes as I’d listened. She trusted me, and I’d almost forgotten how good that could feel.

I stood before that old place as the sun went down and I felt a little bit like an exterminator come to kill roaches. I had my tools, a pair of goggles, and some overalls. I suppose I looked like an exterminator as well. I also had my little brass box, with the Lady, Geronimo, and Tom. The Lady was pushing me in, with that breath on the back of my neck that wouldn’t let up, so I knew she was as keen as I was.

I opened the door and closed it softly behind me. I’d been in enough homes over the years to know this one was real angry. Well, that was just fine with me. I was pretty damn angry myself.

I stood inside that entrance hall in the moonlight and smiled to myself as I felt the air move and grow solid. I know the Lady’s touch, and that wasn’t it. Maybe I should have been freaked out by the feeling of cold fingers touching my face, but I wasn’t. I really wanted him to be in there. I wanted him to fight me.

“I’m calling you out, Erwin Trommler,” I said out loud. “Come to me and see what I have for you.”

Now I thought Geronimo and Tom were strong, but nothing prepared me for the feeling of fingers tightening on my throat. Throwing things is almost random, but this one had control and power. I began to choke and though I waved my hands in front of my face, there was nothing to grab.

I opened the box. I don’t really need to, I guess, but it works for me and for them. I think they like jumping out on some spirit who thinks he’s a badass. The choking stopped in an instant and I coughed and wheezed, rubbing my throat.

“Sic ’im,” I said.

It was like standing at the center of an explosion. Every damn thing in that house crashed like it had been struck by an earthquake and the air was filled with sharp pieces. If it hadn’t been for the goggles, I think I’d have been blinded. I tell you now I’d never seen a fight like it, and for the first time I wondered if Geronimo and old Tom could handle this one.

They battered each other through walls, so that I could see great holes appear from nothing. The noise was incredible and I spared a moment to wonder if I’d be seeing flashing lights outside before it was over. The house was set apart from the others in the street, but I had no idea how I’d explain all this to the cops if they showed up. Plaster rained down from the ceiling, and even the lights were ripped out. I staggered after them, and sometimes I could see dim shapes and shadows grunting and struggling in the dust. My three had him down for a time, but he got up and slammed Geronimo across the room. The air was thick, winds blowing like we were standing on a cliff.

I began to worry that he was too strong for all of us, but in the moonlight, I caught sight of the Lady. She was no more than a wisp, like a piece of cloth dragged this way and that, but she closed on him when Geronimo went down and then I heard her scream for the first time. I didn’t even know she could. God, I don’t ever want to hear it again.

I fell to my knees, the pain was that bad. My teeth vibrated and my skull buzzed and I thought I was going to puke. I just hoped it was worse for Erwin goddamn Trommler. As it went on, I let my lunch go all over the carpet, though you couldn’t even see it then, with the dust that coated everything. I was still dry-heaving when the noise stopped and the silence was so complete I thought I’d gone deaf. Then I heard a car passing outside and I got to my feet. I was a bit shaky, but I was grinning. The Lady was a screamer, who knew? She’d battered that old spirit into a corner and I could feel Geronimo and Tom standing over him, like they were daring him to get up and try it again.

I looked around at the devastation and I felt a pang for his daughter, but not too much. I still had work to do and I almost sobbed when I felt the Lady breathing on my neck once again. Erwin Trommler didn’t dare stir while we searched for his relic. I was expecting hair or something. Instead, she helped me find some old teeth in a box in the attic. They had gold in them and I guess he’d kept them for that, when they came out. It made me think of the gold teeth the Nazis pulled out of Jews in the camps, and I spent a little time weeping before I came down. I’m not ashamed of it.

It was about midnight by then, and I still had work to do. I could have burned the teeth, but I’d had a few hours to think it through and buy a few things. I didn’t want his relic destroyed. I wanted it to last for a thousand years, about as long as he’d once thought his Third Reich would. So I filled a little plastic jar with clear resin and put them in. I smoked a few cigarettes while it set, looking like some prehistoric thing trapped in amber, you know?

After that, I took a thin sheet of lead and I wrapped it all over, bending the metal with my thumbs. It wasn’t pretty, but it felt good and solid in my hand.

I felt foolish locking that door behind me, after all the damage we’d done. The house would need to be stripped back and every room rebuilt on that floor, but I was satisfied. The moon was bright as I drove to the ocean. I had chartered a little boat that afternoon, and though I don’t know the first damn thing about boats, I figured it wouldn’t be so hard to take it out into deep water and drop that lead block overboard, where it could sink into a darkness that went on forever. I wanted him to choke on eternity.

I did say I wasn’t born with this name. My mother was a hard woman, but maybe that was because she’d seen things no one should ever see. I still remember the faded blue numbers on her arm. She hadn’t talked about them and it was years before I knew what they were and why she wouldn’t wear short sleeves even in summer. When I was still a baby, she’d changed my name from Jacob Grossman to Jack Garner. Like many before her, she started a new life in the New World. She left a lot behind, but those blue marks never did come off.

I stood in that little boat, holding the lead box over the deep waters. Even out there, with the town lights twinkling in the distance, I could feel the struggle they had to keep him still. Oh, he fought, of course he did. I hope they hurt him as they kept him down. I dropped the relic and it disappeared into the blackness. I felt like a weight had been lifted from me, one I hadn’t even known I was carrying. It was a good feeling and I stayed out there to watch the sun come up.

I’d like to say I retired after that, but I didn’t. I just went to Memphis.