Chapter 13
Autocorrect aside, it was a hell of a lot easier to text on my new phone.
You’re probably not up yet…but when you have a minute…I wonder if you can help me talk something through.
Crash’s reply came a few seconds later.
I’m here for ya, sweetcheeks. Haven’t gone to bed yet. It was just after six. Way to make me feel geriatric. Setting up new digs. Knock loud. We’re in back.
A street address appeared. It was blue and underlined, like a computer link, so I tapped it. A map popped up, and a button asking if I wanted directions, too. Wow. No wonder people were always looking at their phones.
I told Jacob, “You mentioning Crash last night got me to thinking, I could use a fresh set of eyes on this whole Andy Parsons thing. Can you spare me at the office for an hour?”
“Whatever you need,” Jacob said. Maybe more carefully than usual. But also relieved that I was no longer trapped in a downward spiral of suckitude.
Tracking down Crash somewhere other than Sticks and Stones was a wakeup call reminding me that I wasn’t the only one who’d been forced in a new direction to avoid being crushed under the relentless wheels of change. The Still Goods Consignment Shop was due west of me, in a working-class neighborhood where every other corner store did burner cellphones and payday loans, the hipsters spoke Polish, and the air was thick with exhaust from the Kennedy Expressway. The storefront looked old. Not abandoned, and not exactly neglected, either. But the brick façade did have a few cracks, and the painted woodwork around the doorway that had once been bright, artsy Victorian detailing was now muted with age and soot. I shielded my eyes against the glare of the rising sun and pressed my face to the window, but the glass was murky, or maybe it was the shop inside.
I rapped on the door. Loud. A cop-knock. Pulled out my weird, overlarge phone and was keying in I’m here when Crash opened the door with a saucy hand-on-hip pose and said, “Long time no see, Agent Bayne. Look at you and your fancy new phone. Bet you hate it.”
“Uh…jury’s still out.”
“Well, don’t just stand there with your thumb on the screen, step into my lair—I’m dying to show you around.”
One foot in the door and I was itching to turn around and leave. Take some junk, cover it in clutter, add a layer of dust, then repeat. Clearly, this was the business plan of Still Goods. “I don’t get it,” I said. “This place looks like it’s been here forever. Did you buy it this way, or what?”
“We don’t own the shop.” His casual use of the word “we” was oddly jarring. It wasn’t so much that I was jealous, more like I’d imprinted on him being a single guy. “I just got a major albatross off my neck, I’m not eager to replace it. Renting is much more my style. No down payment, shared risk. And best of all, the admin’s all handled, and I don’t have to waste my day standing behind a cash register anymore.” He paused, then gave me an uncomfortably lingering look. Up. Down. And up again. “After all, how can we be our glorious butterfly selves if we insist on clinging to our cocoons?”
Whatever that meant. He turned back and led the way without waiting for an answer. Thank God.
We traversed racks of clothes overseen by awkward, chipped mannequins. A room of toys filled with matted stuffed animals and smudged dolls. And a room of furniture grouped in unlikely seating arrangements, every wooden surface covered in yellowed doilies. I lost count of how many stale, overstuffed, shadowy rooms we navigated overall. Five? Maybe six, each one more claustrophobic than the one before. I was damn near ready to chalk up the whole experience as a loss and flee back to my blissfully organized car when we came upon a doorway that glowed a cheerful yellow in the oppressive dimness.
“Back when my sole income came from doing hair, I rented a stall in someone else’s salon. My new arrangement’s pretty much the same. Still Goods handles the admin—believe you me, I’m beyond relieved it’s someone other than me saddled with all the boring parts. And Red and me, we’re free to focus on our collection.”
The room we entered was no less cramped than the rest of the place, though at least, I suspected, it was cleaner. It was maybe a quarter the size of Sticks and Stones, but the vibe was nothing like it. There was a shabbiness to Crash’s old shop that had morphed into something more intentional now, with a depth and richness that I’d never realized was lacking before, in a flow of colorful ornament and twinkling fairy lights. I stood there, rooted to the spot, and tried to orient myself and take it all in. But it was hard to see past the ultrahot guy standing on an old wooden buffet, painting directly on the wall, adding sweeping crimson strokes to the hypnotic purple and green pattern that stretched from one end of the room to the other. He finished the stroke he was painting with an expert flick of the wrist, then turned to me and said, “Hello, Victor, it’s good to see you again.”
“Hey,” I replied lamely. Because somehow, he managed to take a perfectly mundane sentence and imbue it with a sort of gravity that made me feel supremely uncomfortable for checking out his ass. Though, in my defense, his posterior was eye-level with him standing on the furniture.
Crash gestured to the mural in a grand flourish, and I realized it was an elaborate letter-C in the making. “Behold, Curious Curios. Your source for all things metaphysical, antique, and obscure.”
I looked down at a crystal ball on an elaborately twisted mahogany base, and did a triple-take at the steep price. “You’re doing…resale?”
“Sure,” he said, in a voice that implied, Go ahead and think that. “On paper, that’s exactly what we do.”
“Okay. And really?”
“Little bit of this, little bit of that.” Crash dropped his voice into full-tilt flirt mode. “Let’s just say we’re…versatile.” Red gave an unperturbed smile and turned back to his painting. Crash openly admired the view for a moment, then added in a more utilitarian tone, “By which I mean, resale, consignment, hair, house blessings, and whatever else it takes to pay the bills. So what about you? Beefing up on your espionage or what?”
“Not everyone at the FPMP is a spy.” Funny how that just rolled out, whereas I shook my head every time I heard it myself. “Heck, right now, I’m wishing we kept closer tabs on ourselves. Then I’d figure out how one of our agents nearly ended up spread across someone’s flowerbed.”
Crash pulled a pair of threadbare velvet chairs from an adjacent vendor’s room, sat in one, toed off his combat boots and pulled his knees up to his chest. I considered sitting in the other one, but was too keyed up to rest. I paced around it instead.
“If only I could see—” I nearly backpedaled and minimized my actual ghost experience, but why bother? They’d both watched me interact with Miss Mattie. “His ghost wasn’t with the body. Or the apartment. Short of finding the murder scene, I have no idea where to look.”
Crash had stretched out a leg to polish the dust off an old gilt cabinet with the toe of his sock. “When they say people get ‘attached’ to their stuff—is that just an expression? Or does part of them really come along for the ride? ’Cos Red and I have smoked out the vibes from this stuff so many times, I’m buying my incense in bulk. And I don’t even sell piddly little things like incense anymore.”
“His apartment was pretty generic,” I said. “The only thing worth anything was that autographed…baseball.” I pulled out my phone and jabbed out, Andy was big baseball fan…maybe a lead?
Jacob’s reply was fast. Season ticket holder. Check his seat.
Once I memorized the seat number Jacob gave me and pocketed the phone, Crash said, “Want me to walk you through voice-to-text?”
“It’s awfully convenient,” Red said.
I waved the offer away. “Some other time. I’ve gotta go take a look at this new angle.” I charged out the door, and shortly found myself at the top of a stairwell that led to a basement you couldn’t pay me to explore.
Crash, thankfully, was hot on my heels. He plucked at my sleeve and said, “C’mon, Speedy McGee, the door’s this way.”
I followed him through the warren of weird rooms, but whereas before they were closing in on me, now they receded into the background as my brain churned through a tentative plan. Time distorts for the dead. If the Cubs were the highlight of Andy’s life, maybe he wouldn’t realize it was a few months till baseball season. Or maybe he simply wouldn’t care. I was just about to burst out into the street when Crash swerved around me and draped himself dramatically across the exit. “So. Did you get what you came for?”
I took a disoriented step back. “I don’t get it. You’ve got this boyfriend who’s totally…I mean, shit. Why bother flirting?”
“You and I both know that not every pang of attraction leads to the bedroom.” A naughty smile spread across his face as he stepped aside to usher me out the door. I took the opening. At the last second, he leaned in and purred in my ear, “Besides…you’d be bummed if I didn’t acknowledge the Vibe. And I always aim to please.”