The C.J. Henderson MEGAPACK ®. C.J. Henderson
I don’t know. I couldn’t get a good sense of it. I didn’t worry about it, because I figured I’d find something later that would point the way to the truth. But, the more we checked the place out the cleaner it seemed to get.”
“And this is bad?”
“No; it’s just confusing.” Taking a tiny bit of pity on his temporary partner, and also knowing that placating her would allow him to get some sleep, he said:
“Look, we’re just here to do a job. If we don’t turn up anything more, then that’s what we tell the too-rich pair of country club snots who bought this museum. We give ’em the bad with the good, tip our hats, and we leave.”
“I know,” Renee answered. “It’s just that I met the wife. She’s young. She’s in love. She’s,” the sizable woman paused for a moment, then found the word for which she was looking.
“She’s nice. I don’t want to just take their money. Not this time. Am I making any sense to you?”
Franklin Nardi did not like to reveal much about himself, especially to women. But, he was not heartless, and he let Madame Renee know that he did indeed understand her concern. He also told her that, tired as they were, if there was anything in this house waiting to play with their minds, this was the time they would do it.
“We both came extra tired. That’s the deal. Our systems are as weakened as they can get without us bein’ sick or something. We’re as vulnerable as can be. If nothing bites our asses tonight, and we don’t find any reactions in the morning, will you be happy?”
“Heavens,” the large woman answered. “I’ve heard concern in the voice of Franklin Nardi. Why, I’m happy already.”
The detective simply reached over and turned off the lights as Madame Renee chuckled softly.
* * * *
Despite his fatigue, from a long evening on top of a long day on top of a week where he had already worked two double shifts, Frankie Nardi could not sleep. Renee’s words had stayed with him. As much as he was willing to trade quips with the woman, he respected her as a professional. To him, her tarot readings and the such were the hard evidence of her line of work. Opening herself up to her surroundings was subjective.
If her hard evidence told her one thing, and her subjective evidence told her another, he was wondering exactly what was wrong.
Did she just do a bad reading? Three different types? All wrong? Was that possible?
Nardi drummed the fingers of his left hand against the handrest of his recliner. Wide awake, he worried more and more over the problem before him. Although he did not like the de-ghosting part of his agency’s business, it was not because he did not believe in the supernatural. No NYC cop lasted twenty years without hearing about the Zarnak files, the Thorner case loads, old Tommy Malone…
“Damnit.”
The whispered word hung in the living room air accusingly. Franklin Nardi was a good detective. He had been a good cop. He did not leave a job unfinished. All stones on his beat were turned over. His tongue pressed against his teeth, face a tight mask of skin and tension, he threw his jacket off himself and got up out of his chair.
“All right, house,” he said, getting down on his knees. “You want something juicy, I got juicy for you.”
Renee had done this kind of thing a hundred times. A thousand. Maybe that was where the problem was. Maybe whatever her readings had picked up wanted more than a few bites out of a pro who could reject their spectral advances. Maybe she had found something lurking in a corner that wanted to taste real fear.
Fine, he sneered within his head. Com’on, I gotta bellyful of it for you.
So saying, Nardi closed his eyes and began pulling off his clothing. A man who never went to the office without a tie and jacket, who did not like the beach, who showered strictly by himself, the detective peeled away his layers of protection and sat naked on the floor. Then, slowly, he began to peel away those mental walls he had built over the decades as well.
It was hard work for Nardi, mainly because like most people, he did not know where to begin, where the boundary lines were drawn. As he fumbled, the back of his mind whispered:
It’s like George Carlin said, everyone driving slower than you is a moron, and anyone driving faster is an asshole.
The detective knew what he was trying to tell himself. With the courage he had used to knock in the door of a known gun dealer, that he had used when he had charged straight into a hail of gunfire thrown at him by both sides of a gang war, he looked into his soul and tried to figure out why he had never had a serious relationship.
What was it about women that he dreaded so? He had watched his father and others all his young years. So there were fights? So what? People fight. So families split up. His hadn’t. Some women cheated, but so did some men. His mother and father had been faithful. Everyone in his family had been as far as he knew. There were plenty of ugly rumors about who stole what from who, and who didn’t bathe, and who drank too much, his one uncle—the one who stayed a confirmed bachelor until he died, left all his money to the church, all those video tapes they found, Lassie, Wonder Years, The Andy Griffith Show, anything with a young boy in the cast—he had heard it all, knew it all.
So what’s your problem, Nardi?
The detective could feel the sweat flowing from his body. He thought of women he could have made a life with, remembered their faces, their bodies, the way they smelled in spring, the sound of their laughs, and he shuddered as one by one he remembered shoving them away from himself. Until it became easy. Until it became routine.
He thought of women with whom he had slept, those he had used as rough fun, for sex and satisfaction and nothing more. And he thought of others. His mind brought him pictures of dozens of girls, some he had slept with, others he had played around with, those he had merely kissed, and even women he had simply dreamed about.
And then he remembered Anna.
Anna, with her perfect hair. Anna, with the shoulders so straight, body so taut, legs so long, whose lips tasted of happiness and whose eyes could see into his lungs, could watch the oxygen in them reach his blood stream and rocket to his brain. Anna, who had laid beside him the night he got his acceptance papers to the Academy, who had surrendered herself to him, allowing him his ultimate conquest on his day of triumph, when he was a king who could not be denied.
Anna, who had been so shocked when he had rejected her when she told him she was pregnant. Anna, who he had sent to have an abortion. Anna, who he had ordered to murder his son, and then had blamed her for his death.
Anna, who had spit on his shadow and told him to rot in Hell, and who had found herself another.
Nardi sank to the floor and sputtered, tears pouring from his eyes, spittle bubbling on the carpeting. Afraid to face responsibility, afraid to be father to a thing like himself, he had instead poisoned his own life and then spent twenty years trying to throw it away. His gentle sobs turned into wails of despair, so violent a noise that he never even noticed when Madame Renee rose from the couch and covered him with her blanket.
* * * *
The next morning Nardi and Renee spoke at length. He explained what he had tried to do, and what the results had been. At first he thought he would be embarrassed, but he was too empty, too drained of anger and shame to care. For the first time in over a quarter of a century, he felt like a whole person and did not mind talking about it.
“So,” he asked, shoveling in a large spoon of corn flakes, “where does this leave us?”
“I think it comes down to what you said last night. We went through the entire place this morning—not a tripped wire, not a bit of powder out of place…” when the detective corrected her, Renee laughed, “all right, so we have to tell the blushing bride her pantry has mice—and small mice at that. But that’s it. I’ll offer to come back and do another reading after they move in, but that’s it. This place is