Conrad's throat clicked loose and he yelled. Luther cowered on his hindquarters as if a bolt of lightning had just gone off in the front yard. Conrad's hand slipped free and Jackson Pollacked the floor as he drew it back and wrapped it in his sweat-soaked tee shirt. And then the faceless thrashing woman was gone and the table was just a futon and he was here with the dogs, his knees buckling as he fell to the shredded carpet.
'Out! Get out!' This time they obeyed, bolting down the hall. He stood trembling with his hand curled inside the bloody shirt. The pungency that had been in his mouth and down his throat had been replaced by the sweet scent of fresh mowed grass.
He elbowed the light off, pulled the door shut with his good hand and backed away, the sweat all over his body cooling rapidly. He was shivering and very thirsty. He nearly went to fetch his beloved iced tea, but the pain in his hand became real and he hurried to the bathroom before he could bleed to death, freeing the woman on the table to come back for him.
17
Black Earth counted fewer than twenty-eight hundred souls among its population, leaving approximately one tavern, bar, pub, supper club or other drinking establishment for every one hundred or so people. Take away the minors, the recovered, the immobile elders and the infirm, and it should not have been too difficult to find the red-faced Laski.
Conrad started at the top of Main Street and hit them all, seeking the older crowds, the blue-collar guys who came in at five and left a stack of cash for the bartender to chip away at until it was gone.
'You know Leon Laski?' he would ask the bartenders. Most said yes, but he wasn't a regular. 'Tell him Conrad Harrison is looking for him.'
'Whatever you say,' they would say.
Conrad moved on.
On the second afternoon he was at the Decatur Room nursing his fourth Bud longneck, feeling the cool bottle against the hole in his hand - it wasn't really a hole any more; it was, in fact, healing rather quickly - when the former owner of 818 Heritage Street walked in. Same work pants and long sleeves as before, plaster-white dust or paint speckles dotting his hands, neck and ears.
Laski took a Miller from the bartender, an attractive skunk blonde who would not have been out of place at a Def Leppard concert circa 1988. He shared a laugh with a mechanical old man at the bar, then glanced over his shoulder and looked directly at Conrad.
Conrad nodded without smiling.
Laski sighed, wiped his brow with his forearm and ambled to the corner table like he'd rather not. When it was clear Conrad was not going to be the first to speak, Laski set his beer down, magically produced another broken toothpick from his ear and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops.
'You look like a cowboy's been line-dancing with the wrong heifers,' Laski said, chinning at Conrad's hand. 'Trouble on the home front?'
'I spoke to my lawyer today,' Conrad lied.
Laski's smile faltered. 'Oh, can't be all that bad. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. M'wife . . . she's not been herself lately. Said you was real nice to her the other day over'ta Wally World.'
Conrad smiled unkindly. 'I met the kids. They seem nice.'
Laski took a stool. 'You just gonna sit dare with a red ass or tell me what's on your mind?'
'Take a wild guess.'
Laski leaned in close. 'Your wife pregnant yet?'
Conrad tried not to give it away, but Laski saw what he needed to.
'Probably, what, about six weeks? Right after you moved in it woulda happened, so yeah, about six, maybe eight weeks. Only she just told you, right?' It was pretty goddamned specific to come out of the blue like that. But not impossible to guess. Young couple moves from the city into a four-bedroom house. 'You're trying to remember when was the last time you slipped her the Slim Jim. Because when it happens, it comes fast. All of the sudden you're gonna be a daddy. It's terrifying.'
Conrad finished his beer. Laski sipped, pretending to watch the Brewers on the TV above the bar.
'Okay, Laski. You want to play this game? Let's play this game. I hear things. I see things. Crying sounds. Something is tearing the place apart, opening the floor. You sonofabitch - you bring me this album with a baby tree, a photo full of ugly women, spiders. You want to tell me something? Tell me what happened in my house. I hear there's a lot of hiss-tow-wee.'
He didn't remember seeing Laski order them, but two more beers arrived. Conrad swiped one from the table and guzzled.
'Baby tree. That's funny.'
'What?'
'You know, like the placenta tree. Baby tree. Funny way to put it.'
'Placenta? What the fuck does that mean?'
'Old wives' superstition. Not important.'
'Jesus Christ.' Conrad thought about leaving then. He really didn't want to know more. But he had to. 'What happened in the house, Laski?'
'You think it's haunted?' Laski's eyes never left the TV.
'Without question.'
Laski nodded. 'What else?'
Don't tell him about the doll. You want him to think you're fucking nuts?
'I woke up in the middle of the night and heard this clicking sound. Fuck, it was--'
Laski cut him off, trying to make light. 'Hey, you think your house is haunted. Wait till you got a family. That's the real horror show.'
'Fuck you, Laski.'
'Aw, don't be like that. You think your house is haunted? Why? Because it's old? I got news for you, kid. A haunting is just history roused from her sleep. Any house can be haunted, even a new one. Know why? Because what makes 'em haunted ain't just in the walls and the floors and the dark rooms at night. It's in us. All the pity and rage and sadness and hot blood we carry around. The house might be where it lives, but the human heart is the key. We run the risk of letting the fair maiden out for one more dance every time we hang our hat.'
'So it's me? You think I'm nuts?'
'I didn't say that. I said what makes 'em haunted ain't just in the walls.'
'You think I'm crazy? Bullshit - I wasn't hallucinating the sound of a baby crying any more than I hallucinated my dogs finding a bloodstain under the carpet. We can go back right now--' Conrad was off his stool.
'Sit down.'
'You lying old fuck.' Conrad slapped the table. 'You knew all about it.'
Patrons turned to see what was what.
Laski waved them off. 'Sit down. There, we're just talking now. You're right about the history. It was a birthing house. But haunted? Now let's think about that for a moment. What does that mean? Like in one of those places where the shit gets handed down. Andyville, what was it called?'
'Amityville? Jesus!'
'No, no, listen. This Amityville was, what? Possessed? Some guy murdered his wife and kids up in dare? The Devil? What was the deal on that job?'
'Both, I think. No, it was the son killed his family first. The next one was the husband.'
'Right, so why come I lived dare twenty-six years and never seen boo?'
Conrad had no answer for that.
'You got to keep it together, Conrad. Play by the rules. Use your head.'
'I'm telling you--'
'But let's talk about murder, like one of these movies where the guy chops his wife and kids to bits and leaves a trail of black heart evil all over the house. It's like a coat of paint, this evil. Okay, so dare's dat den. And who cares where it came from. Satan, mankind, don't matter. It happens to good people, because even good people got problems. And problems is what your haunted house feeds on, son. Just like a one of them payday loan stores. So it goes, and sometimes it goes to murder. But if all that evil came from some murderin', what is the opposite of all that?'