“I’m not sure they’re coming through the door.” Perry heard himself and turned pink, but he stood his ground.
Mrs. MacQueen glowered at Nick. “Did you put him up to this?”
“Look, ma’am,” Nick said, “I’m not the imaginative type, and I saw enough to convince me someone is getting into Foster’s rooms.”
“That ain’t here nor there,” Mrs. MacQueen said. “The Watson apartment is a bigger place. It costs another hundred dollars a month.”
Perry’s heart began to pound hard, shaking his thin frame. He said, “There’s such a thing as renter’s rights, Mrs. MacQueen. If you can’t provide adequate security, I can break my lease. Then you’ll be out my rent and Mr. Watson’s rent.”
“I’ll sue you,” Mrs. MacQueen threatened.
“I’ll sue you back. And I’ll win. People have been in my rooms. Twice. At least. Mr. Reno is a witness to that. And if you do take me to court, I’ll sue you for damages too.”
“I’ve seen screwier cases than this win in court,” Nick supplied dryly.
MacQueen’s eyes darted from one to the other of them as she thought this over. The dogs were scratching at the bottom of the half-closed door, their tiny paws flashing in and out from under the door.
“Okay, whatever. It’s your choice,” Perry said, turning away.
“Now wait a minute,” Mrs. MacQueen protested. “Don’t be so hasty. Young folks are always so hasty. I didn’t say you couldn’t rent Watson’s. I said it was more than your rooms, but it’s paid through the end of the month, so you could stay there, and maybe these matters will clear themselves up by then.”
Battle over. Perry was all riled up and nowhere to go. He felt almost let down as he stared at her.
“But if there are any problems, if the…er…heirs claim anything’s missing, it’ll be on your head, sonny.”
“Great,” Nick said. “That’s settled. Come on, Foster.”
MacQueen’s door slammed shut so hard the chandelier high above them chinked like broken glass. But then like most things around there, it didn’t work anyway and hadn’t for years. Nick strode off toward the grand staircase.
“I can’t believe it was that easy,” Perry admitted to Nick’s wide shoulders.
“You amaze me, sonny,” Nick threw back.
They started up the stairs and he said briskly, “We’ll get you settled in, and then we’ll go talk to Tiny.” He was feeling more cheerful. He could stow the kid in a safe environment, and then get back to his own problems, like the fact he couldn’t get a damn job because he was “overqualified.”
They rounded the banister on the second landing, and Nick stopped short. Perry reached out to steady himself, touching muscles that felt like rocks beneath Nick’s flannel shirt.
David Center stood before them, tall and thin in a purple dressing gown. Nick didn’t think highly of men who drifted around in purple dressing gowns, although in that house nothing was surprising.
“So you’ve seen him,” Center announced.
Nick was crisp. “Seen who?”
“The ghost of Witch Hollow.”
Chapter Four
“And which hollow would that be?” inquired Nick.
Center ignored this. “Contact with the supernatural can be an alarming experience if you’re not prepared. The first time I --”
Nick opened his mouth, but catching his expression, Perry forestalled him by saying apologetically, “I don’t think what I saw was a ghost.”
In Nick’s opinion, the kid seemed to spend a lot of time making excuses for other people’s lunatic expectations.
“But of course it was a ghost!” exclaimed Center, turning in the direction of Perry’s voice. “You don’t truly believe one of the living dead appeared and disappeared in your tub?”
Speaking of one of the living dead…Center looked like the villain in a 1940s movie. Pencil thin mustache and hair black and smooth as a raven’s wing. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. Everything about him bugged Nick -- and that was just on general principles.
“When you put it like that, a ghost does make more sense,” he said sardonically. Catching Foster’s gaze, he realized the kid was struggling to keep a straight face.
Which was a huge relief. For a moment Nick had pictured Foster swallowing this pap the way he ate up the pulp fiction from the library.
“I suppose you are a nonbeliever,” Center said to Nick’s forehead.
“I believe in plenty of things,” Nick said. “But spooks aren’t one of them.”
Center turned away from Nick, groping for Foster’s hand. Nick felt Foster go rigid beside him and wondered why he put up with this kind of crap.
“Come, you must tell me what you saw,” Center breathed. “Every detail. We must determine why the specter chose to manifest itself to you.”
“Can it wait?” Perry asked. “Nick is helping me move my stuff.”
“Move?” Center was horrified. “You’re not leaving?”
“Only out of the tower room.”
“But you can’t! That would be a great error. The spirits have chosen to contact you there. You mustn’t reject them. The consequences could be grave.”
“No pun intended?” Nick’s tone caused the color to rush into Center’s pale face. “Foster, I don’t have all day.”
As he continued up the staircase, he noticed one of the doors down the hall, Stein’s door, closing. The guy must have been listening to their conversation. Good luck to him if he could make sense of that gobbledygook.
Perry caught him up on the third landing.
“Man, that was pretty cold,” he said.
“The guy’s a screwball.”
Silence.
“If you feel like spending the day chatting on the astral plane, be my guest. I’ve got things to do.”
Foster had no response to that, either.
There was more silence in Nick’s apartment. He went to check his phone messages, and Roscoe had actually called.
Nick dialed the number Roscoe had left. His palms felt sweaty and cold, his heart was thumping -- all unfamiliar sensations.
A receptionist put him through to Roscoe without delay.
“You asshole,” Roscoe greeted him. “You better not have taken a job with somebody else!”
It was all Nick could do to say calmly, “Why? What have you got?”
“Lousy pay, lousy benefits, long hours, and a bunch of assholes to work with.”
“What’s the downside?”
Roscoe chuckled. “Hey, listen, the job’s yours if you want it. There is a catch, though.”
“Shoot.”
“You need to interview with the partners. It won’t be a problem, I’ve already vouched for you. It’s a formality, that’s all.”
“When?”
“That’s the catch. Rick is leaving for South America on the eighth, and he won’t be back for a month. We could wait till then, or if you’re willing, we can get you booked on a flight to the West Coast this evening. We can interview tomorrow morning, do lunch and show you around the town, and you can get a flight out the following morning. Hell, you could stay a few days and hang out, catch up on old times, scope the operation.”
“I’m just treading water here,” Nick said. “I’ll take the plane ticket.”
“That’s my boy,” Roscoe crowed. He said to someone offline, “What did I tell you? He’s in.”
Roscoe gave him the details, and Nick rang off. He realized he was grinning at the receiver, and he headed for the bedroom to throw some things into a bag.
He’d clean forgotten about Foster who was sitting on the sofa, staring at the rain trickling down the window.
“Something’s come up,” Nick told him shortly, because -- although there was no reason to -- he felt guilty. “I’ve got a job interview in Los Angeles, and I have to catch a plane this evening.”