Poltergeist

CHAPTER 13

A rich man might enter the gates of heaven more easily than a 1972 Land Rover can find a parking space on Capitol Hill on a Saturday afternoon. Especially if it wants to be within walking distance of Broadway. I finally gave in and paid to put it in a tiny surface lot at the north end of the main strip. Any other day Id have taken a bus up from my office in Pioneer Square, but I had too many people to see to do without the Rover.

As I parked, I heard some kind of J-Pop bubblegum music of bleats and tweets with a mechanical drumbeat issue from my purse. It took me a moment to realize it was my cell phone. I didn't yet co

"Oh. Hi, Harper. I thought I was calling your pager. . ”

"It's OK, Ben. I got a cell phone and the number is being forwarded for a while. What can I do for you?”

"Well, it's more what I can do for you. I found some information about the table-tapping business and I was hoping you'd have some time later today to see it. Mara's chasing rhino-boy for a while, so I can show you exactly what the books describe, if you want.”

"That would be great. When and where?”

"Uh. . four? At the Five Spot up here on Queen A

"Happy hour? OK.”

Ben let out a sigh. "Yeah, happy hour—well, quiet hour by comparison, at least.”

I laughed. "I understand. I'll see you there. Thanks, Ben.”

I shut the phone off and tucked it into my jacket pocket.

By the time I reached the Harvard Exit Theatre, the first shows were more than halfway through—a film from Poland and an American independent film I'd never heard of. I asked for Ian Markine at the ticket window—which really was a window in the side of the building—and was told to go right in and wait until he came down from the third floor.

The theater was a large, bland brick building in a sort of mock Georgian style. Over the door the words "Women's Century Club" were preserved on the decorative cement surround. Inside, the lobby was freshly renovated and more like a posh living room from the flapper era than a theater. It was a long, narrow room with a patterned wall-to-wall carpet, a fireplace, cozy chairs, bronze Art Deco lamps, and a glossy black grand piano. There was a constant flicker of silvery ghosts—tracks of memory worn into the room—and a few squiggles of Grey energy rippling around the lobby.

Seeing no sign of anyone, I ducked into the washroom.

As I was standing over the sink with a handful of foamed soap, I glanced up into the mirror and blinked in surprise. There was someone standing behind me, but I hadn't heard anyone. I turned my head and the worlds slid over each other. The woman standing behind me was a ghost, without a doubt. Well, she could wait.

f rinsed my hands and turned to look at her. She was a plump woman with an intense gaze. Her dark hair was dressed back into a bun at the nape of her neck and her clothes were those of a fashionable matron of the Jazz Age. She frowned at me.

"I imagine you're a woman of sense, even if you stir up hornets by profession," she said. Her voice was firm, but quiet.

"Pardon me?”

"I have always believed women were the equal of men, but they must both come by their rewards honestly. Dishonesty repels me. That brooch is an outright fake. Like her claims to my family. Were it in my power, I'd throw it in her face, the jumped-up hussy. I hope you will tell her so.”

She turned and strode from the room, fading into the mist of Grey time before she reached the door.

"Flabbergasted" seemed an appropriate word at that moment. I looked around for the ghost in the immediate Grey, but she'd moved too far away and I couldn't find her nearby in the living mist of the space between worlds. "Who are you?" I called out, but she didn't answer. Nor did anyone else. I didn't have time to go searching through the Grey for her and wondering whom the ghost was so angry about.

I left, shaking my head and wondering whom or what I'd just met. I returned to the comfortably opulent lobby preoccupied.

"Nice, but stodgy. Sort of the anti-Gatsby, don't you think?”

I turned sharply and came under the beam of a toothpaste-ad smile. Blue eyes twinkled at me with well-schooled charm above that glittering white expanse of dentition. A yellow thread seemed to ring around his head and shoulders like a halo.

I nodded with a reflected smile. "Yes, it is. Very East Egg." I watched his smile broaden—he even had dimples. "I assume you're Ian Markine." He was the handsome white guy dating the Asian woman from the project. I'd watched him untangle her black hair from her earrings.

His eyes sparkled a bit at his name. "Yes, I am. You must be Harper Blaine, then.”

I just nodded. He was about my own height but where my brown hair was straight, his was wavy. He had remarkable good looks that he seemed well aware of, though he made a show of the opposite. His hair was just a little mussed, his spotless white shirt a touch too large, tie carelessly knotted, but still smooth. It looked like being young and sexy took a lot of work and I was glad I didn't have to do it, myself.

"You wanted to talk about Tuckman's project, right?”

"Yeah. Do you have time?”

"Oh, yeah. The audience won't be coming out for a while and nothing's had a chance to get messy yet. Why don't we sit by the fire? No one will mind.”

I agreed and Ian led me to one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace. He sat down near me, rather than across the hearth, and leaned over the chair's arm to look me in the eye.

"So, what do you want to know?" His eyes were lit from within by some amusement.

"When did you join the project and why?”

He chuckled and there was an odd glimmer around him, like color fragments reflected in a warped mirror. I'd never seen anything like that before. "Back in December I was feeling. . stagnant. You know—you keep on doing the same thing, seeing the same people, and it gets dull. So I thought I'd find something outside of the sociology department—that's my major—that would give me some new people to get to know. I admit I'm" — he broke off to laugh at himself—"well, I'm always kind of studying any group I'm in, and sociologists are just not fun to watch. They're never disarmed. And there's not much that's further away from functionalism than making your own ghost, you have to admit. It does start to smack of collective behavior, of course, but I just try to enjoy it, instead of analyzing all the time.”

"So this is a mental break?”

"Yes. And they're a good bunch of people.”

"Interesting?”

He laughed again. "Yes, they're great people. We get along well. Ana and I have been out a few times for drinks with Mark and Ken— good times. Well… I have to admit that Terry's an ass, but I don't have to deal with him, so it's no issue. Most of the time it's fun. It's certainly been rewarding.”

I raised my eyebrows. "In what way?”

He smiled crookedly, looking down. "It's not good of me, I know. I just find it difficult, sometimes, to be everything to Ana. She's the center of my universe but. . it's been good to have a few other people in it, to make some other friends. That's very selfish of me, very thoughtless of Ana.”

"That's Ana Choi, correct? She's also on the project.”

He looked up. "Yes. Please, don't rat on me. I don't want Ana to think I like them better than her. We can both be a little jealous and I assumed this was confidential," he rushed on, his blue eyes begging, but there was a flicker of dimple as he gabbled and that sparkle of strange color.

"Of course it's confidential, Mr. Markine." I wondered why he'd brought it up so fast.