Ghosts

“You tried me at the apartment, didn’t you?” she said.

“Yes.”

“I’m here now,” she said. “I came back to get some clothes. The flux was strongest around the telephone.”

“Yes, well, good,” he said. “Can you tell me where you’re staying now, so in case I need to…?”

“You can reach me at my sister’s,” she said. “Her name is Denise Scott; the number there is Gardner 4-7706. You’d better write it down, it’s unlisted.”

He had already written it down. “And the address?” he said.

“3117 Laster Drive. What did you want, Detective Carella?”

“The security guard who normally has the noon to six at Harborview called last night. Jerry—”

“Jerry Mandel, yes.”

“Yes. He said Mr. Craig had a visitor at five P.M. on the day he was murdered. A man named Daniel Corbett. Does that name mean anything to you?”

There was a silence on the line.

“Miss Scott?”

“Yes. Daniel Corbett was Greg’s editor on Shades.”

“He was described to me as a young man with black hair and brown eyes.”

“Yes.”

“Miss Scott, when we were in the apartment yesterday—”

“Yes, I know what you’re about to say. The spirit I described.”

“A young male, you said. Black hair and brown eyes.” Carella paused. “Did you have any reason for…?”

“The flux was strongest at the desk.”

“Aside from the flux.”

“Only the flux,” she said.

“But you do know Daniel Corbett.”

“Yes, I know him.”

“Is he, in fact, a young man?”

“Thirty-two.”

“With black hair and brown eyes?”

“Yes.”

“Where do I reach him, Miss Scott?”

“At Harlow House.”

“Where’s that?”

“That’s the name of the publishing firm. Harlow House. It’s on Jefferson and Lloyd.”

“Today’s Saturday. Would you know his home number?”

“I’m sure Greg has it in his book.”

“Are you in the bedroom now?”

“No, I’m in the living room.”

“Could you go into the bedroom, please, and look up the number for me?”

“Yes, of course. But it wasn’t Daniel I was sensing yesterday. It wasn’t Daniel at all.”

“Even so…”

“Yes, just a minute, please.”

He waited. Beside him, Teddy rolled over, and stirred, and then sat up and blinked into the room. She was wearing a cream-colored baby-doll nightgown he’d given her for her birthday. She stretched, and smiled at him, and then kissed him on the cheek, got swiftly out of bed, and padded across the room to the bathroom. No panties. The twin crescents of her buttocks peeped from below the lace hem of the short gown. He watched her as she crossed the room, forgetting for a moment that she was his own wife.

“Hello?” Hillary said.

“Yes, I’m here.”

The bathroom door closed. He turned his full attention back to the medium on the telephone.

“I’ve got two numbers for him,” Hillary said. “One in Isola, and the other in Gracelands, upstate. He has a place up there he goes to on weekends.”

“Let me have both numbers, please.” In the bathroom, he heard the toilet flushing and then the water tap ru

“It wasn’t Daniel,” she said, and hung up.

Teddy came out of the bathroom. Her hair was sleep-tousled, her face was pale without makeup, but her dark eyes were sparkling and clear, and he watched her as she crossed to the bed and for perhaps the thousandth time thanked the phenomenal luck that had brought her into his life more years ago than he cared to remember. She was not the young girl he’d known then, she did not at her age possess the lithe body of a twenty-two-year-old like Hillary Scott, but her breasts were still firm, her legs long and supple, and she watched her weight like a hawk. Cozily she lay down beside him as he dialed the first of the numbers Hillary had given him. Her hand went under the blanket.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said.

“Mr. Corbett?”

“Yes?” The voice sounded a trifle a

“I’m sorry to bother you so early in the morning,” Carella said. “This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad. I’m investigating the murder of Gregory Craig.”

“Oh. Yes,” Corbett said.

“I was wondering if I might stop by there a little later this morning,” Carella said. “There are some questions I’d like to ask you.”

“Yes, certainly.”

Carella looked at the bedside clock. “Would ten o’clock be all right?”

Beside him, Teddy read his lips and shook her head.

“Or eleven,” Carella corrected, “whichever is more convenient for you.”

“Eleven would be better,” Corbett said.

“May I have the address there, please?”

Corbett gave it to him. As Carella wrote, Teddy’s hand became more insistent.

“I’ll see you at eleven,” he said, “thanks a lot,” and hung up, and turned to her.

“I have to call Cotton first,” he said.

She rolled her eyes heavenward.

“It’ll only take a minute.”

She released him as suddenly as she had grasped him and with a sigh lay back against the pillow, her hands behind her head, the bedclothes lowered to her thighs, the baby doll gown carelessly exposing the black triangular patch of hair below the hem.

“Cotton,” he said, “I’ve made an appointment with Daniel Corbett for eleven o’clock. He’s down in the Quarter. Can you meet me there?”

“How’d you find him?” Hawes asked.

“The Spook called.”

“Out of the blue?”

“Flux. Write this down, will you?” Carella said, and read off the address. “Eleven o’clock.”

“See you there,” Hawes said, and hung up.

Carella put the receiver back on the cradle and rolled over to Teddy. Her hands were still behind her head; there was an expression of utter boredom on her face.

“Okay,” he said.

She sat up suddenly. Her hands fluttered on the air. He watched her fingers, reading the words they formed, and then began gri

“What do you mean, you’ve got a headache?” he said.

Her hands moved again, fluidly, fluently.

I always get headaches when people stay on the phone too long, she said.

“I’m off the phone now,” he said.

She shrugged airily.

“So what do you say?”

She shrugged again.

“You want to fool around a little?” he asked, gri

Her eyes narrowed smokily, in imitation of some bygone silent-movie star. She wet her lips with her tongue. She lowered one strap of the gown from her shoulder, exposing her breast. Her hands moved again. I want to fool around a lot, big boy, she said, and licked her lips again, and fell greedily into his arms.

The Quarter on that Saturday before Christmas was thronged with last-minute shoppers, who milled along the sidewalks and swarmed into the stores in search of bargains they would never find. There was a time, not too many decades ago, when this section of the city was still known as the Artists’ Quarter, and when it was possible to find here first-rate paintings or pieces of sculpture, hand-fashioned silver and gold jewelry, leather goods the equal of any tooled in Florence, lavish art books and prints, blouses and smocks hand-stitched in Mexico, wood carvings and jade, pottery and exotic plants—all at reasonable prices. Them days was gone forever, Gertie. No longer was it possible to rent a garret here and starve in it. No longer was it possible to find anything of quality at less than exorbitant prices. The name had changed those many years ago, and the area’s uniqueness had vanished with it; the Quarter was now only another tourist attraction in a city that laid its traps like a fur trader. And still the shoppers came, ever hopeful of finding something here they could not find in the fancy shops lining Hall Avenue uptown.