When Laura knocked on my door on Saturday morning, I almost wished it had been a ghost. I knew it was time and I wasn’t exactly creaming my denims to meet her boss. Plus, to make matters worse, that Coffey dude gave me a wire to wear, meaning that not only was I now doing undercover police work for free, I was also lyin’ to my own sister and risking pissing off her boss if he ever found the fucking wire.
It was a pain in the ass putting it on in the bathroom. I only have like three hairs on my chest so at least I didn’t have to worry about shaving before taping it on but it felt weird, like I had a cold insect clinging to me. Back at the skateboard park, Coffey had taken the wire out of his coat pocket and explained how to put it on. Then he asked me to call him when I was about to leave since it was just one of those one way things. I reminded him that I lost my cell phone in the accident and that using the house phone was too sketchy.
So I logged on to AOL Instant Messenger and IM’d him at the really imaginative handle of MisterCoffey. He pinged me to acknowledge that he got my message and I logged off.
I got up from the bed that I was sharing with two other ghosts, two girls about my age that were killed in a car accident about a year ago. They floated past me and through the door before I had the chance to open it and the first thing Laura said was, “Jesus, Adam, did you just feel that draft? I felt like it came right through the door!” I just shook my head and shouldered past her, eager to get this spy shit over with. “Why are you wearing a buttoned collar shirt all of a sudden?”
After I got the kid’s message on my computer at home, I made sure I got within range of the rendezvous point. Blood apparently wanted something public but not too public and they settled for a trendy coffee shop in Braintree that was long on comfort and short on customers. The idea, I guess, was to provide just enough exposure to put the kid at ease while ensuring as much as possible that their conversation wouldn’t be overheard by prying ears like mine. Without any specific reason and without knowing a blessed thing about this Blood guy, I was starting to despise him. Maybe it was because I feared that he’d try to exploit Adam. Some of it also had to do with my son Chaz. Adam looked nothing like Chaz yet there was an innocence and vulnerability about him that would’ve made me think Adam was his reincarnation if Chaz had died before Adam was born. In fact, if Chaz was still alive, he’d be just a year older than the Moss kid.
I shook the thought out of my head as I drove to the coffee shop and looked for a place where I could park without being made. Before that time, I began getting the transmission as I heard Adam’s voice and his sister over the hum of her Chevy Cobalt. The kid was getting too freaked out and I was afraid he was going to blow it.
“So, what does this dude want, Laura?”
“I… I don’t exactly know, Honey. All I know is if I was him, I’d want to get a sense of what level your powers are at right now, what you’re seeing and hearing.”
“I’m starting to get this uneasy feeling that you’re not looking for my help but that you’re trying to protect me from something. Something that you know about that you haven’t told me, yet.”
“Adam, listen, I’m your big sister. I’m your friggin’ flesh and blood, OK? You should know I’d never put you in harm’s way.” She sounded sincere and shit but I noticed that she never looked me in the eye.
“Yeah, well, not too many dudes have big sisters that work for super secret fuckin’ spy agencies, either, with bosses named Blood.”
Laura turned and gave me the stink eye like I just picked my nose and put the booger on her passenger window. Alright, maybe I shouldn’t hold the dude’s name against him. Still, just my luck the guy couldn’t have a friendlier sounding name like Flowers or Pinkerton or something like that.
“Look, it’s just an informal meet and greet. You could’ve dressed like you usually do.” She looked up and down at my chest. “I mean, I appreciate the thought and all but seeing you in a collared shirt just… doesn’t look right.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a little cold for a tee shirt. Besides you bought this for me last Christmas. Well, you mailed it to me. You never showed up.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Hun. Ah, here we are.”
Laura steered into a parking spot across the street from the coffee shop. I couldn’t tell whether or not her boss was already there and I looked for a black car with government plates and ninjas, guys wearing sunglasses and trench coats and snipers on the roof.
The problem with someone wearing a wire is that fabric rustles against the stalk mic. A wire’s no fucking good if someone can see it so it has to be covered up by a shirt. I’d recommended a buttoned shirt like the one he was wearing. I was well aware that I was using an untrained asset to monitor and record a conversation with some super spook that was the head of a secret intelligence outfit and that maybe he’d sweep the kid for any listening device. But I was counting on Blood giving Adam a free pass because 1) he was just a kid, not a pro and 2) he was Laura Moss’s brother and maybe Blood would count on her turning up anything beforehand.
I pressed the headphones closer to my ears and checked for the twelfth time if the digital recorder was on. Satisfied that it was, I concentrated on the feed and tried to tune out the rustling fabric and focus on the voices. I heard Laura announce their arrival and I realized I was just a couple of hundred yards away. It was a pretty nondescript café that was nestled between a pizza place and a Brazilian grocery store. Since I was coming from the other direction, I could park on the opposite side of the street as Laura. I found the perfect spot just a door away. I could get a decent visual if they sat at the right places while not giving them much chance of seeing me. Trouble is, since it wasn’t a two way setup and I had no way of communicating with Adam, I couldn’t give him any idea where I was parked unless he actively looked for me. And that could blow the whole thing.
I checked for a car with government plates unless Blood would be stupid enough to drive all the way out to Braintree in his own car. Then I recalled Laura telling me at the station that their agency’s HQ was in Washington so that meant he, too, would be driving a rented car. So I began looking for rental car plates in the small parking lot out back. There were none. What could be so interesting and important about this Moss kid that the top banana of an intelligence agency would hop on a jet for several hundred miles just to have coffee with him?
I assumed that Laura and Adam were early until I heard a deep voice say, “Adam? Hi, I’m Oliver. I’ve been waiting to meet you.”
“Uh, hello, sir,” I half said, half swallowed. The tall black dude showed me his impossibly white teeth and laughed.
“Call me Oliver, please. You don’t work for me.” Then he looked at my sister, “You still have to call me ‘sir’, though.”
“Fuck you, Oliver,” she said. My eyes must’ve gotten as big as donuts but Oliver just looked up into the fluorescent lights and laughed again. The first impression I got was that the two of them had a relationship that was a whole lot more informal than she led me to believe. And that helped put me at ease. Then again, maybe that was the intention. I never forgot what these two did for a living. Innocent people suddenly died in their line of work and all I knew was that I wanted no part of it. If Laura’s war story about that Russian chick getting croaked was supposed to put my mind at ease, then she bombed big time.
“OK, just for that, Moss, you’re payin’ for everyone else.”
Laura smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “OK, cheapskate. Any excuse to get a free coffee. This guy’s an incurable mooch. Watch out for him.” Oliver laughed for the third time in half a minute. Yeah, they were layin’ it on pretty thick and it was getting old PDQ.
She ordered a couple of lattes for herself and her boss and I settled for an ice coffee. “While we’re waiting for the coffee, let’s sit down, Adam.” He tried to steer me into a corner of the café, the part with the least people but I wanted to sit more in the middle so anyone parked right outside could see us. I looked for Coffey’s car out of the corner of my eye. He said he personally drove an old Ford Grand Victoria but I didn’t see it.
I sat on the right side of the black leather sofa and kept nervously looking out the window while pretending to look at my sister. I had no idea where this Coffey dude was. I didn’t just want him to listen in. I wanted him to be able to see me… just in case.
I didn’t know if it was serendipity or savvy on the kid’s part but he managed to position himself and Blood perfectly from where I was parked. Adam could be seen from my oblique angle while Blood’s back was turned to the front bay window. He wouldn’t be able to make me even if he saw me, anyway, but his big sister was another matter. She met me.
“So, how are you doing in school, Adam? Have you gone back, yet?”
“Yeah. I, uh, went back yesterday. My folks figured it would be better if I went back on the last day of the week just to, like, ease me back into the routine. I was gettin’ my homework sent to me.” He tossed his long bangs out of his eyes.
“Good, good,” Blood said. “Ah, here we are…”
I could see Laura cautiously walk into view holding a tray with three cups which she then placed on the table between Adam and Blood then she sat next to her brother on the couch. All I could see of her boss was the back of his head of white hair. Among the dark furnishings, he stood out like a dandelion.
“Thank you, Elle. Is your iced coffee okay, Adam?” The kid nodded his head up and down. He cradled the cup against him like it was a kitten and looked scared. I could hear the coffee and ice sloshing around and I wished he’d put it down.
“Hun, Oliver here just wants to talk to you about some of the things you’ve seen and, considering what we do for a living, I think it’s safe to say you’ll get a fairer hearing than you ever got from Dr. Sutter or Dr. Rubin.” Adam just mutely nodded again and I felt bad for him. Here I was suspicious of Blood and Elle exploiting this kid yet what the fuck was I doing? At least I could confirm that I had his best interests at heart but that was cold comfort considering how uncomfortable he looked.
“That’s right. Let me give you a basic overview of what our agency does. We’re not exactly what you call ghost hunters although we’re called upon to investigate the paranormal and to prevent certain private and government entities from perverting research into the paranormal. More often than not, we directly get leads or are tipped off by other intelligence agencies when there’s a strong probability of someone seeking to exploit that technology.”
“Yeah, I know. My sister told me a little about it.”
“OK, good. Now, considering our line of work, Elle here thought it would be prudent to tell me about your experience since your accident. She tells me you’re seeing more and more full body apparitions, that you can communicate with all of them?”
“Well, not all of them. Some of them can’t talk. But it’s obvious they’re coming out of the woodwork just to see me. I hate it. I just wish they’d go away and leave me the fuck alone.”
Blood nodded his platinum head. “Yeah, I can understand that. We’ve seen our fair share of manifestations. It takes a lot to get used to, that is, if anyone can get used to that sort of thing.”
“So, where do I come in, Mr. Blood?”
“Please, call me Oliver. Where you come in has yet to be largely determined. We know that you’ve been seeing ghosts left and right starting the moment you came out of your coma. We happen to be very interested in what happened on Halloween night in Boston, the… incident that claimed the lives of your girlfriend’s parents.” He leaned forward to take a sip of his latte and continued. “We’d like to know if the spirits of any of those victims have been talking to you and, if so, have they shed any light about what happened that night?”
Son of a bitch was thinking along the same exact lines as me. Yet something told me that this Blood character’s interest in Adam went far beyond him being a stenographer for the dead. I held my breath for a minute and hoped and prayed the kid wouldn’t let it slip that some fat Boston cop with bad taste in ties was asking the exact same questions of him. It suddenly occurred to me that I rushed out of the house without having a cup of coffee. I looked forlornly at the café next to me. How ironic is that?
“Well, uh, nothing that I can think of. Like I said, dude, they can’t all talk. And there’re so many that I kinda tend to tune ‘em out since they all drive me apeshit.” The kid took a long sip of his iced coffee then looked up and frowned. “Wait a minute. If your agency’s getting involved in this, you think what happened on Halloween night has something do with the paranormal?”
“Well, we’re not officially involved, yet, Adam. We were tipped off by the FBI. Don’t forget, there were senators and congressmen in that high rise so that automatically gets the federal government involved. You’d be surprised how many of our so-called leads turn into doggie doo doo. More often than not, it’s not remotely paranormal.”
Then he regaled Adam with a story about a woman who claimed to be haunted by ghosts only to find out her husband was manufacturing the hauntings by using hidden speakers and piano wires to make things move. Apparently the idea was to drive his wealthy wife insane and to the point of suicide so he could collect the inheritance. As an investigator myself, I know all too well that not all investigations bear fruit. I never told the Moss kid about the autopsy results and I specifically told Elle back at the station to pay her kid brother the same courtesy. He didn’t need to know about hearts being torn apart and people pierced with ghost swords. The poor kid was freaked out enough these days as it was. I was counting on Blood to be equally considerate.
“Still, why this? Where didja get the idea there could be something paranormal about this?”
“Well, at first glance, Adam, it looks like a mass suicide. But not a whole hell of a lot adds up. What would make all those people jump from a penthouse dozen of stories up? There wasn’t a fire, gas leak, shooting or any kind of terrorist attack that would account for that kind of sheer, blind panic. We’re just covering our bases.”
Through the glass I could make out just enough of the kid’s facial features to know he wasn’t buying it. In fact…
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”
In fact, the kid whispered the word “bullshit” into the mic. Good boy. Teach them skepticism early, I say. Then Adam took off his hooded sweatshirt, hung it up on the coat rack and announced he was going to the bathroom.
He began muttering into the microphone as soon as he was out of their earshot.
“Dude, I don’t buy this shit for a minute. There’s, like, so much they’re not telling me.” I nodded and silently agreed with him. Now that he was no longer there, they were no doubt talking amongst themselves. I was looking right at them. Unfortunately, with Adam no longer there, I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
As if reading my mind, the kid then said, “I figgered if I left them alone, they’d start talking. I know what you’re thinking, dude, but don’t worry. I got that covered.”
I frowned in puzzlement and wondered what he was talking about then I looked at the hooded sweatshirt still hanging on the coat rack. Elle and Blood continued talking and weren’t paying it any mind.
“Oh, this kid is good,” I chuckled out loud.
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