“What's going on?"
“You've lost control,” Fieldman said. He was suddenly standing right behind me. “Stop fighting it."
To accent the “it,” Fieldman shoved the metal gizmo deep into my spectral body. I felt a white heat wash over me. My Brain limbs turned to jelly, and I fell to the carpet, at which point the gizmo tunneled through my chest and locked into the carpet. I tried to sit up, but it hurt so bad I didn't try again. I could barely breathe-or at least, perform the soul-equivalent of breathing-without spasms of pain.
The Ghost of Fieldman smiled at me, waved, then faded back into reality. As usual, without going through the lobby doors. Or saying what a goose he was.
But this time Fieldman did something new.
I watched, impaled to the lobby floor, as Fieldman resumed control of my body. Leah was looking down at my body on the bathroom floor, directly in front of the urinals. I must have collapsed when Fieldman yanked me back inside.
Get up, she commanded, nudging Fieldman's/our chest with her gun. C'mon, I didn't hit you that hard.
My pleasure, Fieldman said. Could you give me a hand?
To my surprise, she did. She kept the gun trained on him the entire time, though.
Fieldman brushed the wrinkles out of his/our suit, and adjusted the tie. I understand you and Mr. Loogan wish to kill us? Excellent. In fact, I'll even supply you with the address where we'll be staying this evening. The only thing I ask is that you wait a couple of hours, which will give me time to call my insurance company and put a few things in order. Then I'm all yours. Please do stop over. Shoot me in the head. Shoot Ms. Winston in the head. Shoot everyone in the head, if you please.
You, Leah said, are still fucking with me?
No, Fieldman said, then whipped out his fist and smashed Leah in the jaw. She stumbled back. Fieldman punched her again, then smacked the gun out of her hand and used his forearm to bulldoze her back into the stall she'd originally popped out of. I watched as her head connected with porcelain. She was out.
I gave that up long, long ago, Ms. Farrell.
Fieldman took a Magic Marker out of his suit pocket. He scratched out an address on a paper towel-the infamous 473 Winding Way-then balled it and gently tucked it down the front of Leah's dress.
He seemed to paused for a moment, then applied the marker to Leah's forehead. On it he wrote: BRING A DATE.
On the lobby screen, I watched Fieldman walk back out into the party, squeezing past hundreds of people shoveling food into their faces. No matter that they were all rich enough to sit at home and have a hundred Philly cheeseteaks delivered via limo without a second thought. The idea of hogging free food was too good to pass up.
Fieldman walked past the roasted pig, then paused. Nuts, I thought. He was collecting Brad again. True enough, within seconds, Brad appeared back in lobby. He scowled at me, then started to laugh.
“You're lucky a large percentage of guests at the party don't eat swine."
“I should have dumped your soul in a keg of beer,” I said.
“Don't go giving me any ideas, toilet-face.” Brad walked over to the lobby doors, then paused to turn. “Let me send a friend of yours back to keep you company."
As Brad walked through the doors, the Ghost of Fieldman materialized next to my pinned spectral body. “That was exciting!"
He started to pace around me, looking at the gizmo lodged in my chest. “I had no idea of the machine's adaptability. Tell me-to what extent does your soul feel the paralysis?"
“I'll make you a deal. I'll tell you how much this goddamn thing hurts if you tell me what Brad is planning."
“This is quite amazing,” Fieldman said, then touched the gizmo. “It was never intended to anchor a soul-only push it, like a cattle prod. Can you move your arms?"
I responded by flipping him the bird.
“That would be an affirmative.” Fieldman stood up. He folded his arms and looked down at me with mock pity on his face. “You know, I could tell you more than what Brad is planning to do. I could tell you what Brad is going to do. I could tell you how you're going to die. I could tell you who's going to be president in the year 2020."
“Because you exist out of time,” I said.
“The past, the present, the future… I see all dimensions at once."
“So,” I said. “Did you see me dumping Brad's ass into the roast pig?"
Fieldman didn't have anything to say that. That would be in the negative, I thought. “Okay, I give up. What is Brad going to do?"
“It doesn't matter, Collective. For you, this story is coming to a close."
“Then read me the last chapter."
“In less than twelve hours, you will undergo a profound and lasting change. You will question your immediate past, and by extension, your entire life. Everyone you know will be dead, or speeding away from you. You'll be covered in blood. You'll be trapped in a dead body. Your investigation will be over. Everything will be different."
“Couldn't you throw in a nuclear war or something, just for kicks?"
The Ghost of Fieldman laughed. “If you only knew."
I didn't like how this was going. The fact that I had a hunk of metal shoved where my astral perception of lungs should be didn't make me feel better, either. I decided to pick Fieldman's warped brain to see what angle he was working. After all, Buddha or not, he started out as an ordinary-well, almost ordinary-human being. There had to be something he wanted, enlightened or not.
“Where will you be in 12 hours?” I asked.
“Eating a luxurious breakfast with a breathtakingly beautiful woman, lounging over the morning paper. The meal will be soft-boiled eggs, with fresh croissants and six tiny jars of the freshest fruit preserves available. It will be the finest meal I've ever had. And then the new phase begins, and the woman and I will proceed to save the planet Earth from imminent destruction."
Good Lord. Did I actually think I could reason with a person so obviously insane? There was nothing he wanted, except to take me to the nut-hatch with him. My only option was to pass the time listening to Fieldman ooze psychotic verbal diarrhea until Brad returned. What would I do then? No idea. But I figured my chances had to be better with Brad. He might be a homicidal maniac hell-bent on avenging his dead wife, but he was still a reasonable human being.
Fieldman's attention had turned back to the reality on the lobby screen. “You might want to watch this, Collective,” he said. “This is going to be wonderful."
The worst part: Fieldman was right.
Brad, in our body, had finally spied Susannah and walked over to her. She smiled and made a tiny wave. What was Brad planning to do? Cut her open right here in the middle of the party?
“I was wondering where you went,” Susannah said. “What am I paying you for, anyway?” But Brad didn't say a word. He reached out and clamped his hands down on her hips. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
Brad cleared his throat. “I want to dance with you."
“Right now? There's nobody else dancing."
“There will be. There'll be plenty of dancing."
As if on cue-and come to think of it, it probably was-the freebie Big Band started to play the opening bars of “The Air That I Breathe.” Oh no, I thought. I searched the screen for a sign of Alison, but she was nowhere in sight. What the hell was Brad doing? Trying to drive his own wife nuts?