The 'Geisters

MISTER SLEEPY

9:55 p.m.

10:05 p.m.

10:07 p.m.

10:15 p.m.

10:25 p.m.

10:29 p.m.

10:44 p.m.

Ann opened another tab and googled the Hollingsworth centre, copied the link into their Gchat, and when Jeanie asked again, once again didn’t say exactly where she was: in the “business centre” of a woodsy little motel complex outside of Mobile. The midsized car she’d rented on her credit card was parked outside her cabin. Her luggage, filled with honeymoon clothes and toiletries and such was still in the trunk. As she evaded another question from Jeanie, it was finally sinking in that although she had left the hospital in Miami with only mild protest from the airline, and the intensity of the FAA investigation suggested by Hirsch had not materialized—she ought to be taking matters more seriously.

The fact was, she was on the run.

The last call she made on her mobile phone was to Krenk and Associates. That was outside Tallahassee. After a short, teary conversation with Krenk’s assistant Noah—during which she assured him she’d take as much time as she needed and he told her to see that she did—Ann popped the battery out and tossed it and the phone into a drive-through garbage bin. She was staying off interstates and taking secondary roads as it was, but her knuckles whitened as police cars drove by—and then as she thought about it more, and realized that the police might not be her problem—her breath stopped when she observed the same car behind her for more than a few minutes.

She stopped at an ATM in Gainesville to get a cash advance on her credit card, and then, although it would have made more sense for her to continue north, she cut west through Alabama—and found this motel, this sort-of motel, that was willing to take cash and no credit card as an advance on a room for the night. She was exhausted, she explained, which was true, and then lied: she told them her name was Ann Brunt, and she made up a confused story about a stolen wallet at a diner down the road—a wallet that didn’t contain a bank roll of mad money she kept in her pocket. The place was family run, had the look of being off the grid—she’d been banking it was the kind of place that would let her do these things.

And after a while, Ann established that it was, and they understood, and even let her use the “business centre,” which was really just an adjunct to the front office with a couple of old PCs hooked up to the old router. As Jeanie signed off, Ann cleared the cache and shut the browser. She sat a moment, rubbed her temples and shut her eyes.

“Y’okay in there?”

Ann looked up and made herself smile. “I am,” she said. The owner’s name was Penny. She was middle-aged, a little on the heavy side with short-cropped blonde hair and cheeks rosy like there was a chill, which there wasn’t tonight, particularly. Ann liked her.

When Ann had come in, she was met at the desk by a whip-thin man who wasn’t at all comfortable not seeing a credit card.

But Penny had set him straight with a few questions. “How much we charge a night? She got that much there on the counter? Okay, then what’s your problem?”

The man turned out to be Roy, her husband and co-owner of the place, and as it turned out, not the final word on payment policy. Also, not the one who took the overnight desk duty.

“Been a hard time, losin’ your wallet like that,” said Penny as Ann packed up at the computer. “Lucky thing you got your driver’s licence and all.”

“Lucky,” she said. The word felt funny, saying it.

“Okay. Well you need anything else?”

“Think I’m okay,” she said, and Penny nodded.

“You don’t mind if I help you clear the cache,” she said. “You missed a couple steps.”

Ann blinked. “Sure,” she said, and Penny scooted a chair over, and laughed.

“Don’t worry—I wasn’t snooping on your chat. But I got a feeling you don’t want to leave a trail of breadcrumbs right now.”

“I—”

“Shush,” said Penny. “Wasn’t snoopin’, but couldn’t help noticing you sobbing as that chat went on. Brought back memories. I been where you are.”

Ann thought she might not have been there exactly, but she didn’t say that. “Thank you,” she said.

“He do that to you?” Penny motioned to the bandage on Ann’s head. Ann shook her head no.

“An accident,” she said. “But thank you.”

Penny nodded as she clicked through preferences windows on the browser.

“Mine hit me,” she said. “Not this one—he’s husband number two. But husband number one—he had a temper. And he had his views on things.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ann.

“Don’t be. He’s gone now. But it sure wasn’t easy making it that way. I had to run off in the night—took his truck, so he wouldn’t follow me. ’Course he called the cops, like I knew he would. So I ditched it next town over. Hopped on a bus, headin’ to Mobile, which decided where I was going.”

Penny closed the browser and shut off the machine like she was folding a set of towels.

“But oh, I was scared. Thought I might wind up in jail, or worse, back home. With him. And I did at least five stupid things that’d make it easy for him to track me. I was jumpin’ at shadows.”

“I know about that.”

“I know you do,” said Penny.

Ann looked at Penny, Penny looked right back. Ann wondered for a moment: did they have her picture in the Miami papers? Did they put that picture on CNN, or on the internet on some blog that innkeepers in rural Alabama looked at to while away the day? Had Penny seen her picture—worked out that she was that “mile high” widow from Florida?

“Easy, girl,” said Penny. “I understand, that’s all I’m sayin’. If you like, I know some numbers of folks in Mobile—they can set you up someplace safe, where you can think things through. Y’aren’t alone.”

Or not, Ann thought. She smiled, weakly and said thank you to Penny.

“Things aren’t like that,” she said. “But thanks. I’ve been on the road for a long time, and it’s better that I just get some rest. You and Roy are a real godsend for that.”

“Sure,” said Penny. “I apologize for intruding. It’s just that when you been through something, you start seein’ it in everyone else.”

“You’re a good person,” said Ann.

“I am,” she said. “And in that spirit, here’s a word of advice.”

“Yes?”

“Park that rental car you got around the side of your cabin.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Don’t apologize,” she said. “It’s harder to see from the road. Just move it, or I can get Roy to if you like. Then you’ll have done one less stupid thing than I did.”

The motel was called the Rosedale Arms, and it, like the sign that advertised it on the road, was ticky-tacky cute.

The sign was lettered in sweeping cursive script, all meticulously cut out of a wooden board with a mitre saw, and painted rose red on the whitewashed background. The cabins had the same colour scheme, brilliant red on the eaves and white on the side. They were tiny, but well enough appointed—and they were set reasonably far apart from one another.

That was another reason that Ann had picked this place. She didn’t want to be too close to any other travellers as she tried to hold it together through the night.

There wouldn’t be many in harm’s way this evening. As she crossed the grounds from the office, she saw only one car: an old-model station wagon, parked by a cabin three away from hers. Ann hoped that might be safe enough. Of course if she did things right, it’d be safe enough next door to her.

She popped open her trunk and moved her bags to the front door to the cabin. Then, she did as Penny’d told her, started the car, backed it up, turned it to the side and tucked it around the side, nudging it up to the front of the propane tank.

As she shut the ignition and the lights off, the little girl standing there waved at her.

Ann sat frozen in the dark. There was a moon out, not full, but casting just enough light to see her.

The girl was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans cut off at the knee. She was black-haired. She was standing by the propane tank. Not smiling.

Ann opened the driver-side door.

“Hello?”

There was no answer; really, Ann hadn’t expected one. The Insect had been quiet since she’d left the hospital. It had let her drive, let her do her business, given her the time she needed to deal with things.

If it manifested now—well, no apology necessary.

Ann stepped out of the car. The air was warm and rich with the sweet smell of the trees, a faint tang of vegetable rot.

Nothing moved outside; not even the cicadas sang.

Ann drew her fingers together in fists and held them at her side.

“Fine,” said Ann finally. “I’m going to bed.”

She shut the car door and locked it, and went around to the front of the cabin. She didn’t check the back seat of the car to see if the girl had gotten in there now; she didn’t look over her shoulder as she opened the door. She didn’t bother to check corners in her room, or make a note to see if anything had moved, seemingly of its own devices, while she was outside.

Almost a day ago, the Insect had nearly killed a lawyer from Miami, just a day after it had killed Ann’s husband.

But Ann was starting to work it out. As far as her own safety was concerned, the Insect wasn’t a problem. It was the people around her who were at risk—who so often came to harm.

The cabin had two rooms; a bedroom-kitchen, and a bathroom off to the side. There was a TV, old CRT-style, and a little kitchen with a microwave and a small fridge. Three lights, two on either side of the queen-sized bed. One in the middle of the ceiling. In the middle of the fan. There was an air-conditioner built into the wall. There were a couple of chairs and a little table. But aside from those, there was little that wasn’t nailed down.

Ann lay down on the bed. She shut her eyes, and descended the ladder of colours that put her in the place where she had thought things were safe, without realizing…

For her, everywhere was safe but there.

“I’m here to talk to you, if you want to,” said Ann into the unformed dark.

That was how it was, now; since the hospital, since the airplane, she hadn’t been able to properly imagine the tower, the place where the Insect might be held at bay. It was an imaginative exercise from the get-go. And now, Ann’s imagination felt used up; or at least, the images she’d used to hold things together, drawn from her fantasy Dungeons & Dragons world, were just too childish to do the work.

Maybe that was it.

Perhaps the darkness was empty, perhaps not. When she tried entering it, during little rest stops on the way, she certainly imagined her share of ghosts. Her mother visited her once, clad in a fleece vest and a pair of blue jeans, her eyes difficult to discern. She asked Ann if she were happy, over and over, so much so that Ann found herself speaking the question aloud to the empty car. “Are you happy? Are you happy? Really happy?”

The ghost of Michael sometimes made his presence known. Ann saw him in the shadows, balancing a saltshaker on the tip of his finger, whistling tunelessly with his back to her, once looking at her directly, idly masturbating as he rocked back and forth. He didn’t say anything, and Ann didn’t prompt him.

As she lingered in a filling station restroom, Ann thought she might feel the presence of Eva, even though the darkness at that moment was absolute.

Who knew if any of it was real? Eva claimed clairvoyance for herself, but never presumed that was what she was teaching Ann.

When she’d agreed to help Ann through the loss of her parents—when Ann had confided in her, about the Insect—Eva had made it plain.

You’re letting this thing rule you, that’s the problem. It thinks it runs things. For a while, the exercises you learned from those other people did the trick. Now, it’s found a way around them. So. We’ve got to find a way to tell it to be quiet, and keep it quiet when you’re not talking to it. So let’s play a game, she said.

And that’s what the game was—another exercise for gaining control. Ann thought these manifestations were nothing but a signal that she’d lost control; pieces of her unconscious, coming up to talk to her like waking dreams.

She had to get past that. She called out into the dark again: “I’m right here. Talk to me, please.”

There was a rustling, a squeaking of wheels—the sound of a sheet being drawn.

“Hey, sis.”

Ann didn’t answer immediately. Once again, the Insect would not speak with her, and her unconscious mind supplied her with a different companion.

This time was the cruelest yet.

“Philip,” she said.

“Don’t sound so excited to see me.”

“I can’t see you.”

“No? I can see you fine. Must be a trick of the light.”

“Or you’re a ghost.”

“Can’t be a ghost. I’m alive and well. Ghosts are the dead.”

“Or the Insect.”

“Or the Insect, that’s true. You think I’m the Insect? Because I can see how you might. Fucker’s done everything else to you. To me. Why not fake my voice here in your head?”

“Except the fact that you’re saying this, now disproves the assertion.”

“Because the Insect would never think of that.”

“Do you want me to just open my eyes and stop talking to you?”

“It, um, would be the sane thing to do, sis.”

Ann found herself smirking.

“All right,” he said. “Crazy as she ever was.”

Philip’s voice was the voice he had at seventeen, at Christmas, as he helped Ann make up names for imaginary cities and speculated about his romantic fortunes and occasionally stuck up for Ann at the dinner table. When his spine was whole and he didn’t need help.

When she could rely on him.

“Michael’s dead,” she said.

“No way.”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Folks don’t tell me much,” said Philip. “I think I must make them uncomfortable.”

“Well yeah. He’s dead. Pft. No more. Gone—”

“I get it. I’m sorry, sis. I don’t know what to say. I remember when Laurie died… you remember her, right?”

“Couldn’t forget her.”

“Well I couldn’t talk about it, but it tore me to shreds. I really loved her.”

“You were only together for a few months.”

“Same as you and Michael. Long enough to know.”

Ann considered that. “Not really,” she said.

“Wait a second—are you telling me you might not have truly loved Michael Voors?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I married him, right?”

“I was there.”

“We were good together, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“But you know—he betrayed me.”

“Did he now?” Philip asked.

“So I don’t—”

“What?”

“Are you making fun of me?”

A knowing chuckle drifted out of the darkness. “You’re kind of full of shit sometimes, you know that?”

“Oh am I?”

“Oh yes. You are. Look. Michael Voors was a really stand-up guy. I remember when you brought him by the first time. You introduced me, and being who I was—I was just lying there. And Michael leaned over, not too close, and looked me in the eye, and introduced himself again, and not batting a fuckin’ eyelid, told me how happy he was to meet me. Those things are always weird—I’d stand, you know, if I could.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re forgiven. Now stop interrupting. Michael kept his cool around me, and I admired that. Really polite.”

“Just what a girl looks for in a man,” said Ann.

“If you say so. I mean, you picked him, right?”

“I’m not so sure that I did, actually.”

“Oh really?”

“Really. I think that I didn’t have too much say in whether or not I’d marry Michael. I think I was manipulated into it.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. After Michael died—well when Michael died. I caught him…”

“Caught him what?”

Ann struggled. “Doing it.”

“Doing it. With who?”

“The Insect.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah. Whoa.”

“Okay,” said Philip. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, I been watching CNN, and I know all about what’s been going on in Florida.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s say that I know about this ‘mile high’ club thing, but was being too polite to bring it up with you.”

“Sounds plausible.”

“So let me ask you this. Was Michael ‘doing it’ with your poltergeist during the flight?”

“Yes.”

“And was all of that turbulence that nearly brought your plane down—was that all caused when things got… how shall we say… out of hand?”

“It was.”

“Okay. Now are you sure—”

“I don’t think it was the first time. And I don’t think just him. I think Ian Rickhardt—”

“Asshole.”

“Yeah. I think he did it with the polter—the Insect too, in Tobago. I saw it. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing….” Ann recalled Rickhardt again, turning in the air outside their villa as the world combusted. “But I think he was… having sex with it. And I think the Insect… it doesn’t like it.”

“Hmm. Man fucks ghost. I guess if you can describe it, there’s someone who’s into it.”

“More than one.”

“Well there’s the late Michael Voors. And Ian Rickhardt. So that’s two of them, I guess.”

“There’s more,” said Ann. She told him about Hirsch, and his display in the hospital room.

“Shit.”

“He’s not dead, but he can’t move. He’s like—”

“Like me. Yeah. And Auntie Eva—she’s had a stroke too. That’s interesting, don’t you think?”

“You don’t think—”

“Well Eva, bless her, had it coming. She was eating poutine before your wedding, as I recall her saying.”

Ann bridled. “And Philip—you are okay, aren’t you?”

“Right as rain.”

“But I mean, you can tell me that. I got Jeanie to talk to Lesley, to check up on you.”

“I’m just fine.”

“I mean, I’m not just talking to myself, and—”

“Hey, hush. You want this conversation to continue, don’t go too far down that road.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re into some important shit, here, little sister. You want to keep your eye on the prize.”

Ann peered into the darkness. She thought she could discern shapes there—not of Philip, but of some kind of architecture. Were there stairs? A faint shape of a window, covered or dark, by the first landing?

“It’s interesting,” said Philip. “Hey, remember the innkeepah?”

“Penny?” Ann squinted into the dark; it really was taking some form. “Oh. You mean—”

“Yeah. The camp.”

“I do remember the innkeepah. That was Dr. Sunderland, right?”

“He was a creepy old bastard.”

“He really helped us, though.”

“Yeah. Did you ever let him touch you?”

“Ew. No.”

Philip was quiet for a moment, and Ann thought she heard a click—and far off, down a long hallway, a light came on.

“Well, that’s good. He touched me.”

“What?”

“Not like that. But I remember a needle.”

“Philip! What?”

“You were there. We were in the music room—remember?”

“Not too well.”

“Mom and dad were sleeping. He had us in there listening to some kind of boring music. Pan pipe or something.”

A kind of music started to echo down the hallway. Ann could see that it was lined with doors—but not doors such as she might have found in the Insect’s world. It had more of an institutional feel; there were little windows in them, and light filtered dully through them. Maybe they were classrooms. The music came from one of these; it was slow and almost atonal. Ann recalled listening to it as she sat on a beanbag chair in a brighter room, blinds drawn against the snowy winter. Dr. Sunderland sat there cross-legged in a pair of track pants and a sweatshirt, on his own beanbag. Ann was watching, as he fiddled with a wooden box, as Philip sat there beside him, knees up, hands leaning back like he was getting ready to crab-walk.

Dr. Sunderland nodded to Philip, and whispered, “Hold still,” as he opened the box and removed a syringe, and when Philip pulled away, he slowly, firmly, took hold of Philip’s arm and inserted the needle.

“Yeah,” said Ann, “I remember.”

“And I was out cold,” said Philip. “And it was just you and Dr. Sunderland. And what did he say, Ann?”

“‘Now, you’re isolated,’ I think.”

“And then?”

Ann swallowed. “‘It’s just the three of us.’”

And Sunderland had reached into the box, and pulled out a scalpel, which gleamed in the light. And he let it go, and watched as it floated there in front of him. Philip lay still, but he was still aware—still awake. Dr. Sunderland climbed to his knees, and backed away, and watched as the tiny blade moved through the air, slowly, towards Philip’s face.

“It’s just the three of us,” he said to Ann again. “And Philip.”

Ann remembered that much.

“Did he… let it cut you?”

“I didn’t get cut,” said Philip. “I remember that. But the knife came really close to my face. I was terrified. Scared shitless. So were you. I remember you sitting up and yelling for it to stop, and yelling at Dr. Sunderland to make it stop. And you yelled at it. And you yelled at me. And do you remember how Sunderland’s face got?”

Ann thought about that. He was biting his lower lip, his shoulders were really stiff, as he watched the knife hover there, closer and closer until the blade caressed Philip’s jawline.

“And then he… it was like he barked,” said Ann. “I remember that. It was like a dog.” She frowned. “And you didn’t get cut. It was like he called it off. With a bark. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

Philip chuckled. “Yeah—you were pretty young. So was I. And maybe he did call it off. But you know something? That’s what it sounds like. Sometimes. A shout. A bark. It can sound that way… when a guy comes.”

Ann found herself walking down the corridor now, past that flight of stairs leading up. At the far end, something was heading toward her.

“Ann,” said Philip. “Is that you?”

“Coming,” said Ann. “He was one of them too. Hirsch said there were a lot of them watching me. And he was the first of them.”

“Ann,” said Philip. “Ann—I think I’m in trouble.” The figure drew closer. It moved very quickly for coming along such a long hallway.

“I need you.”

It wasn’t Philip, Ann realized.

Any more than the disembodied voice who’d been speaking with her was, telling her things that really—she already knew.

Philip was back in Canada, living by the good grace of the trust fund their parents had left him. He might even be safe there.

And the figure that emerged from the corridor…

That was someone else.

The doors flung open. Light streamed in.

The figure stuttered through the shafts of that light, one after another, transforming each time. A little girl—the one Ann had seen outside? No. An old man—perhaps the one who’d helped her from the ditch, and showed her the way to the wreck of the family’s minivan? No. A policeman? A scientist? Ian Rickhardt?

By the time it stood face to face with her, it was none of those. It was the Insect. Finally, it had granted her an audience.

When it spoke, its voice was the sound of splintering wood.

The door hung open. A man wearing a pale blue windbreaker, the top of his head covered in close-cropped hair, stepped inside with measured haste. He was sweating, and tense—but he didn’t seem especially afraid.

He had something in his hand. A gun? No. Not a cell phone either. There were prongs coming off it at one end. It was a Taser.

He kept his back to the wall as he examined the bed, the luggage that sat unpacked at the foot of it, peered into the washroom. He looked under the bed too.

The bathroom door was closed. He approached it warily, almost diffidently—who knew what might be waiting inside? It could just be the occupant, having a quiet pee. It could maybe be something else.

With his free hand, he turned the doorknob and opened the door. The bathroom was dark. Inside was a toilet and a short bathtub, a shower. The light over the sink and mirror was the only light in the room. He flicked it on. There was a jangling sound as he moved the shower curtain from one side to the other.

At length, he re-emerged from the room. The two prongs at the end of the Taser flashed nervous blue as he idly flicked the switch.

He went to the bed, lifted a pillow to his face… sniffed it. He set it back down. There was a small window looking out the back of the cabin, into the woods. He checked it. Latched shut. He knelt down, peered under the bed.

As he was doing so, the barrel of a shotgun entered the cabin—preceding Penny, who held it at the ready. The man was preoccupied; he didn’t notice anything until he heard the pump chambering a shell.

“This is not rock salt, sir,” said Penny. “I aim to shoot you dead.”

She was wearing a deep blue housecoat. Her hair was uncombed, and stuck out from her left ear. The man looked up and began to rise.

“Raise your hands,” she said. “I will shoot you dead.”

“I heard you, ma’am.” The man’s voice was high for one so big. He had an accent that was hard to place. Not quite the same as Penny’s, but close. He stood the rest of the way, and raised both hands. The Taser went into his coat pocket, smoothly. “I’m here with my wife. Just checking in later.”

“Oh are you?” Penny didn’t move. “Well she ain’t here now. She’s gone.”

“I can see that,” said the man. “Please put the gun away, ma’am. She’s gone, but she left her car and all her things behind. Do you know where she might’ve gone?”

“You got no business here,” said Penny. “She wants to talk to you, she’ll call.”

“It’s really best that I find her.”

“Uh huh. She a danger to herself and others, by any chance?”

“You—you have no idea.” It was hard to say, but he might have been trying a smile.

It was the wrong approach. The shotgun wavered.

“I can shoot you right here,” said Penny. “You’re in my place—broke in. Looks like you got a joy buzzer there, counts as a weapon.” The barrel of the shotgun wavered only slightly as she braced it. “I’m within my rights. And it’d solve a lot of problems if I did that. Get you what’s comin’ to you.”

“Now ma’am—” the man’s voice got a little higher “—there’s no need…”

“I think there is,” she said.

And the shotgun flew from her hand.

Penny screamed, as it tumbled in the air for an instant—pointed at her—and the man barked, “No!” and moved fast.

He pulled the Taser from his pocket, and ran fast around the foot of the bed. Penny was frozen, staring at the shotgun, suspended in the air—twirling slow like a baton—so it was easy for him. He jammed the Taser into Penny’s side, and she spasmed and fell to the floor, her housecoat obscenely askew. The man stood over her for a second, but looked out the door, and held his hand up in a calm-down gesture.

“Thank your friend for me, honey,” he said. “That’s enough.”

“Okay,” said a voice—a little girl’s voice. “But let’s go from here. Mister Sleepy says it’s scary. He needs a cuddle.”

“He’s not the only one,” said the man, and glanced down at Penny. “Crazy fuckin’ bitch.”

And with that, he flicked off the light, shut the door, and was gone.

The shotgun landed on the bed.

A moment later, Ann settled down beside it, as the Insect lowered her gently from the rafters, where it had safely hidden her from the moment the bad man with the poltergeist came to call.

There was a lot of beer in the fridge at the Rosedale Arms’ back office. And it was a good thing, Ann thought; there was a lot to process, for everyone involved.

The office was actually a screened-in porch, with a cone-covered lamp dangling from a chain and wire in the middle of the ceiling. It offered a view of the cabins. Penny and Roy sat with frosty cans of Budweiser in front of them; Ann picked a Corona, downed it quickly, then took another.

“First things first—that wasn’t your husband, was it?”

“No,” said Ann. “My husband’s dead.”

“By your hand?” asked Penny. When Ann didn’t answer right away, she nodded.

“I feel comfortable askin’ about that, because you saw me nearly shoot that fella dead on your account. So I’m guessin’ you didn’t kill him exactly, but it’s not that simple.”

“My husband wouldn’t have died,” said Ann, “if it wasn’t for me. But it was his own fault.”

Roy didn’t say anything, but he gave Ann an appraising look as he took a noisy sip from his Bud.

“Fair enough,” said Penny. “Any idea who it was that I almost murdered?”

“I don’t know,” said Ann. “Not exactly. I think he might be one of my late husband’s…”

“Kin?” prompted Roy.

“Associates,” said Ann.

“He hooked up in the mob?” asked Roy. “Jesus, tell us we ain’t in the middle of some mob fight. We gotta call the cops.”

“I don’t think it’s the mob,” said Penny. “And we ain’t callin’ the police.”

“Why don’t you want to—”

“Hush. You know why, Ann. You saw what happened. Can’t tell the police anything about that business without either seemin’ crazy or lyin’ about it. And cops don’t like neither of those things.”

Ann finished her beer, and reached for another, but Penny stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Slow up,” she said. “You’re gonna be drivin’ in a few hours. Don’t want to be tipsy behind the wheel.”

“We should call the cops,” said Roy again.

“Shut up, Roy,” said Penny. “No cops. But.” She frowned, as though doing arithmetic on the fly. “Here’s who you are gonna call. Pete Wilshire. You’re still tight with him, right? Well good. Miz ‘Brunt’ here—” her own beer sloshed at the bottom of the bottle as she made air quotes “—is gonna need a car that’s not so easy to trace as a rental with Florida plates. I know Pete can fix her up with somethin’ driveable, for just a small bit of that roll of bills she’s got in her handbag. After seein’ what went on in that room, I can see why she won’t take a bus or a train, or God forbid, an airplane. So you think you can do that?”

“Not right now,” he said, “but in morning, sure. He won’t be able to do it right straightaway, though.”

“That’s fine,” said Penny. “Because once you call him, you’re goin’ to follow Miz Brunt into Mobile, where we’ll find a place to return that rental car of hers. She can settle up there, and for good measure maybe go into a bus station and buy a ticket somewhere. Then you can pick her up, bring her over to Pete’s lot, and see her off in her new car.” Penny turned to Ann. “That sound good to you?”

“Sure,” said Ann, and Penny said, “You’re welcome.”

“I’m sorry. Thank you. You don’t have to do any of this.”

“Well, here’s how you can really say thank you,” said Penny. “First off. Keep your cell phone turned off. And don’t go sending revealing messages on chat programs in fancy business centres. Might be all right to buy one of those disposable cell phones, for emergencies. But I’d even keep the battery out of that, most of the time. If you can get any more cash on that credit card you lost, get it—then cut the thing up for real. Don’t use it anywhere. Drive the speed limit, and stay off freeways. Though it may be tempting, don’t buy yourself a gun. It’s easier to get one here than pretty much anywhere else, true enough, but you still gotta show I.D. and register it. And unless you got the will to use it on a fella, it can be turned against you. Like you saw just now.

“That joy buzzer your dead husband’s ‘associate’ has is a better deal all the way around. Easy to buy and use, and less costly. In fact, you might want to take the money you save on that and buy yourself a wig. If you’re goin’ somewhere after this—don’t take the direct route. Zigzag a bit. Throws ’em off the scent, if they’re on it. Now let me see. Is there anythin’ else I can think of?”

As she thought, Roy got another couple of Budweisers out of the fridge, popped them both and handed one to Penny.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Get yourself an exorcist. But not the kind uses snakes and potions. Those ones are liars.”