Eight
Rob Norwich’s eyeless sockets, fragmentary nose, lipless mouth, broken facial bones, and other elements of bloody ruin were, as far as I was concerned, not conducive to conversation, whether in that gloomy mall basement or in a sunny park.
“Sir,” I whispered, “you have to stop coming up behind me. And I’d be grateful if you kept your face on.”
The ravaged countenance faded, and the gentle features of the English teacher replaced it. His expression said, Sorry.
“Are those three still here somewhere—Wolfgang, Jonathan, and Selene?”
He shook his head.
“They’ve left the mall?”
He nodded.
“Sorry I didn’t follow you to the other department store, sir, but going there wasn’t the right thing.”
He nodded again.
Having a conversation with a dead guy can be duller than you might think. Only someone in love with his own voice could be routinely enchanted by the experience.
Usually, lingering spirits come to me because, whether they realize it or not, they want me to talk them into moving on from this world. A couple of them have even been celebrities who were loath to leave this realm where they had been loved by so many. I have written about Mr. Presley and Mr. Sinatra in other volumes of this memoir, both of whom had been thornier problems for me than I imagined a former English teacher would be.
“Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Norwich?”
He shrugged.
“You’re afraid to cross over to the Other Side. Is that it, sir?”
He held one hand out, palm down, and rocked it back and forth, a gesture of equivocation. Maybe he was afraid to cross over, maybe he wasn’t. He didn’t want to commit himself to an opinion. He was dead, but he wanted to keep his options open. Although he’d been an English teacher, he was acting like a lawyer.
“Sir, your wife and daughter are already over there. Do you believe that?”
He nodded.
“Don’t you want to join them?”
He nodded. Then he held out both hands, palms up, and raised his eyebrows as if inquiring about something.
“You’re wondering what it’s like over there?”
He nodded vigorously.
“Well, not having been there, sir, I can’t describe it. But my girlfriend, Stormy Llewellyn, she believed this life is the first of three. She called it boot camp. She said we’re here just to prepare ourselves for a second life of service in some great adventure beyond our imagination. She thought it might be like The Lord of the Rings but with more magic, more danger, worse things than Orcs, maybe with no elves, though she had nothing against elves, maybe like Tolkien with a noir edge, something that would have roles for Bogart and Mitchum if it were a movie. And John Wayne, for sure.”
Mr. Norwich just stared at me.
It was my turn to shrug. “I’m not saying that’s what it’s like, sir. It’s just Stormy’s theory. Like Purgatory, see, but a lot more colorful than we usually think of it. Anyway, whatever the second life is like, once we get to our third and eternal life, then it’s all very sweet, you know, lovely and wondrous and perfect and happy-making.”
He cocked his head and regarded me as he might have a student who had failed to read an assignment and was trying to fake his way through a discussion of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
“Just take the leap, sir. What have you got to lose—other than the misery of ghosting around in this life where you don’t belong anymore?”
Mr. Norwich shook his head—no, I had not convinced him—and he dematerialized, there one moment but gone the next.
I hate it when they do that. I find it rude. You’d think he could have at least waved bye-bye or patted me on the head.
In the nearby suburban bat cave, the colony returned with a demonic symphony of squeaking and the beating of many wings, angry to have been spooked from their roosts.
“Okay, an omen … meaning what?” I asked.
But the closed door said nothing more to me than had the mute spirit of the English teacher.
With my flashlight, I found my way out of the service corridor, onto the subterranean loading dock, down to the employee garage, and to the violated door, where I had left the pillowcase containing my burglary tools.
Outside, the May sun had mostly risen. The cloudless sky was sapphire-blue in the west, lighter blue overhead, coral-pink in the east, reminiscent of an old Wurlitzer jukebox.
At the top of the ramp down which eighteen-wheelers had once driven daily, I stopped to examine my shirt and jeans, my shoes, expecting liberal splatters of bat dung. To my surprise, I appeared both to have escaped bombardment and to have avoided stepping in anything disgusting. Hesitantly, I combed one hand through my hair, but by some miracle, I had also escaped the indignity of a poo shampoo.
Nevertheless, I needed a shower, and I wanted one more than I needed it. But not yet.
Wary that one of the cultists might have been posted to watch for me, feeling dangerously exposed, I crossed what seemed like a hundred acres of blacktop to the exit. Earlier, I had used the bolt cutter to sever the chain that held shut the gate to the fenced parking lot.
I had left the motorcycle in a nearby residential neighborhood of modest homes shaded by massive old ficus trees. No one was abroad at that hour, except for one rangy coyote slinking down the center of the street, reluctant to give up the night’s hunt, looking left and right, hoping to find a house cat for breakfast or perhaps even a small child who had disobeyed his mother and had come outside alone.
Somehow the driver of the Escalade, who had tried to run me down the night before, had known that I would be traveling on the state route, straddling a Big Dog Bulldog Bagger; therefore, it made sense that the other cultists also might be looking for the bike. I didn’t have a master-of-disguise kit and didn’t intend to prowl Pico Mundo incognito; however, calling attention to myself didn’t make sense, either. Later that morning, I would need to ditch the Big Dog and find other transportation, but first I had an appointment to keep and no other wheels to get there.
After stowing the pillowcase and tools in one of the saddlebags, I put on my helmet and goggles. I pulled away from the curb and headed toward the coyote. It backed off but wasn’t intimidated. As I drove past the beast, it followed me with a yellow-eyed stare of predatory calculation, sharp teeth revealed in a sneer of contempt.