She closed her eyes and fell back into her chair with a heavy sigh. Tears leaked from beneath her eyelids. “I told him not to go alone.” Owen kept his mouth shut, allowing her to grieve. A couple of minutes passed in silence before she wiped her eyes and cheeks with the backs of her hands and sat forward again.
“This is the part that’s hard to believe.” He was surprised she didn’t stop him in the middle of his lengthy explanation. When he asked her if she knew what an OBE was, she nodded confidently. She also knew about traveling in the night world, and informed him that the Ambrogio traveled in sleep as well, but took to their beds during the day.
“You mean that thing could be at large in Westwend right now? Invisible?”
“He could be right in this room, listening to us,” she said. “That’s why it was so goddamn stupid of you to come here.”
Owen was stunned. He turned around as if he might see the old man materializing in the corner. “Can he hurt me when in his ethereal form?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Can you kill him?”
“I have special bullets that explode in the body and release phosphorous. All I have to do is get one in him anywhere from head to toes.”
“What are we gonna do?”
She took out her cell phone and whispered, “Give me your number.”
He whispered it back, even though he knew, if Crenshaw was in the room with them, he’d have it.
“I need someone to watch my son while I’m out hunting,” said Kiara.
“I might have someone for you,” he said. “I’ll text you later. Are you going after him by yourself?”
“No, you’re going to help me.”
12
OWEN WAS SWEATING BY the time he left Kiara’s apartment. He couldn’t get it out of his mind that the spirit presence of the old man could be trailing him, bounding along behind his car, seeing everything, peering into their preliminary plans. He stopped at the market on the way home in order to buy something easy to make for dinner. His scheme was to invite Mrs. Hultz over to eat and, in the process, try to talk her into babysitting William and lending him her husband’s gun. It was amazing to him that with so much on his mind, he could still be so devious. When he got out of the car and walked across the market parking lot, the feel of the persistent wind against his face made him think of a wispy Crenshaw swirling around him.
He chose pork chops for dinner. Also asparagus. The checkout lines were long because only two aisles were open. While he was waiting, a family passed by—two kids, a girl of about twelve and a boy, perhaps fourteen. The father, gaze on the ground, hands in his pockets, had raven-black hair and seemed in a dark mood. The mother exuded a kind of energy and looked familiar to Owen. Then he realized he was seeing Melody in the waking world. Definitely middle-aged, but tall and solidly put together, mid-length hair going gray. Her face wasn’t in an open smile, but she seemed calm and content. She turned and said something to her husband, who laughed and put his arm around her. As they passed from his sight, Owen was surprised that he felt something nebulously akin to jealousy.
Later, after having burnt the pork chops beyond recognition and boiled the asparagus to mush, he ordered a pizza and took it next door. He knocked but there was no answer. The inside door was open, and although the screen was closed, he found it wasn’t latched. After calling “Hello” numerous times and getting no answer, he pushed open the door and entered. From the foyer, looking across the lavender living room, he saw Mrs. Hultz slouched in the chair. He wondered, with a shiver, if the vampire artist somehow found out she was a tangential but important part of the plan and had done her in. As he was bolting toward her chair, he heard her snore. She opened her eyes as he stood over her and said, “Is this a nightmare?”
“No,” he told her, “the nightmare is next door. Burnt pork chops and overcooked asparagus. I was making dinner for you. How about pizza?”
She pulled herself up in the chair and, blinking her eyes, said, “That sounds swell.”
Mrs. Hultz insisted on having hers with gin, but Owen had read somewhere that alcohol makes you sleep poorly, and he had to make it to the night world later. They sat in the living room with dinner trays set up in front of them. On the TV was an old black-and-white crime movie with Jack Palance called House of Numbers. He wanted to spring the question on her about babysitting before she had too much to drink.
“How are things going for you, Owen?” she asked.
“Well,” he said. “Better, but there’s only one problem.”
“Tell me,” she said.
“I have a date tonight but it’s contingent on whether I can find a babysitter for my girlfriend’s son.”
“A date?
“Yeah.”
She clapped and the bracelets on her wrists jangled. “What about the old woman who’s your neighbor?”
“I never thought of it,” he said.
“I’ve gotten so easy in my old age. Sold out for a pizza,” she said.
“You will?”
She nodded. “I’d better stop drinking. Tell your friend to bring the child over at seven; we can spend a half hour getting acquainted.”
“I have one other favor to ask you.”
“What now?”
“I was wondering if you could show me your husband’s gun. You know, the gat.”
“Why?”
He was taken aback, and grasped at the first lie he could think of. “I have a friend who trades in old guns. He told me that a lot of times, they don’t have to be all that old and people usually don’t know their value. In other words, you could be sitting on a mint.”
“A mint? Please. For that old peashooter?”
He thought his ploy had failed, but after Mrs. Hultz had finished the slice of pizza she was working on, she got up and went into the dining room. He watched her go to a hutch and open a waist-high middle drawer. From it she retrieved a revolver. She closed the drawer with her hip and grasped the gun by the handle. “I’ll fill you full of lead,” she said, the gun wobbling in her unsteady grip.
“Do you have bullets for it?”
“It’s loaded right now.”
“Loaded,” he yelled. “Don’t point it at me.” He squirmed in his chair and it reminded him of Helen at the Busy Bee when she first faced the gunman’s weapon.
“Don’t be such a wimp,” she said, and handed the gun over to him. “I think it’s a Colt .38 Special. Some cops in the thirties carried them. I don’t know where Stan got it.”
“OK,” said Owen, “I just wanted to see it. I’ll tell my friend and ask what he thinks it’s worth.”
Mrs. Hultz walked back into the dining room. “I don’t know if I’d ever sell it,” she said. “You know, sentimental value.” She returned the gun to the middle drawer. A little while later, when she got up to go to the bathroom, Owen went to the hutch, opened the drawer, and carefully put the gun into his jacket pocket. When Mrs. Hultz returned to the living room, she grilled him on her babysitting assignment. He told her his friend Kiara would bring the baby over to her house, which would make it easier. She said that was fine.