The Haunted Air Page 2

  "They never come," she said, heading for the door.

  Again that concerned look from Gia. "Jack, we can't let her go. She's in no condition—"

  "She's a grown-up."

  "Only nominally. Jack?"

  She cocked her head and looked at him with big, Girl Scout cookie-selling eyes. Refusing Gia anything was difficult, but when she did that…

  "Oh, all right." Donning a put-upon expression, he rose and offered a hand to help Gia to her feet; in truth he was delighted for an excuse to bail this party. "I'll give her a ride. But it's not 'just up the road.' It's on the upper end of Queens."

  Gia smiled, and it touched Jack right down to the base of his spine.

  Somehow, between saying good-bye to the hostess bride and reaching the sidewalk, they picked up two extra passengers: Karyn—the Bride of Frankenstein—and her friend Claude, an anorexic-looking six footer with a flattop haircut that jutted out over his forehead, making his head look like an anvil from the side. They both thought a jaunt to a psychic's house would be moby cool.

  Plenty of room in Jack's Crown Vic. If he'd come alone, he probably would have traveled by subway. But Gia's presence demanded the security of a car. With Gia in the passenger seat, and the other three in the back, Jack wheeled the big black Ford up a ramp onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and headed north along the elevated roadway. He said he hoped no one minded but he was opening all the windows, and he did, without waiting for answers. His car; they didn't like it, they could walk.

  This kind of summer night, not too humid, not terribly hot, brought him back to his teens when he drove a beat-up old Corvair convertible that he got for a song because too many people had listened to Ralph Nader and dumped one of the best cars ever made. On nights like this he'd drive with no destination, always with the top down, letting the wind swirl around him.

  Not much swirling tonight. Even at this hour the BQE was crowded, but Junie made the creeping traffic seem even slower by rattling on and on about her psychic guru: Ifasen talked to the dead, and Ifasen let the dead talk to you, and Ifasen knew your deepest, darkest secrets and could do the most amazing, impossible, incredible things.

  Not amazing or impossible to Jack. He was familiar with all the amazing, impossible, incredible things Ifasen did, and even had a pretty good idea how the man was going to get back Junie's bracelet for her.

  Yeah, Junie was a ditz, but a lovable ditz.

  Maybe some music would slow her Ifasen chatter. He stuck one of his homemade CDs in the player. John Lennon's voice filled the car.

  "This happened once before…"

  "The Beatles?" Claude said from the back. "I didn't think anyone listened to them anymore."

  "Think again," Jack said. He turned up the volume. "Listen to that harmony."

  "… I saw the light!…"

  "Lennon and McCartney were born to sing together."

  "You have to realize," Gia said, "that Jack doesn't like anything modern."

  "How can you say that?"

  "How?" She was smiling. "Look at your apartment, your favorite buildings"—she pointed to the CD player—"the music you listen to. You don't own a song recorded after the eighties."

  "Not true."

  Karyn piped up. "What's a current group or singer you listen to?"

  Jack didn't want to tell her that he had Tenacious D's last disc in the glove compartment. Time for some fun.

  "I like Britney Spears a lot."

  "I'm sure you like to look at her at lot," Gia said, "but name one of her songs. Just one."

  "Well…"

  "Got him!" Karyn laughed.

  "I like some of Eminem's stuff."

  "Never," Gia said.

  "It's true. I liked that conscience song he did, you know where he's got a good voice talking in one ear and a bad voice in the other. That was neat."

  "Enough to buy it?"

  "Well, no…"

  "Got him again," Karyn said. "You want to try the nineties? Can you name one song from the nineties you listened to?"

  "Hey, maybe I wasn't exactly a Spice Girls fan, but I was one hell of a nineties kinda guy."

  "Prove it. One nineties group—name one you bought and listened to."

  "Easy. The Traveling Willburys."

  Claude burst out laughing as Karyn groaned. "I give up!"

  "Hey, the Willburys formed in the nineties, so that makes them a nineties group. I also liked World Party's 'Goodbye Jumbo.'"

  "Retro!"

  "And hey, Counting Crows. I liked that 'Mr. Jones' song they did."

  "That's because it sounded like Van Morrison!"

  "That's not my fault. And you can't say Counting Crows weren't nineties. So there. A nineties guy, that was I."

  "I'm getting a headache."

  "Some Beatles will fix that," Jack said. "This disc is all pre-Pepper, before they got self-conscious. Good stuff."

  The double-tracked guitar intro from "And Your Bird Can Sing" filled the car as Jack followed the BQE's meandering course along the Brooklyn waterfront, running either two or three stories above or one or two stories below street level. A bumpy ride over pavement with terminal acne. As they ran under the Brooklyn Heights overhang a magnificent vista of lower Manhattan, all lights ablaze, slid into view.

  "I feel like I'm in Moonstruck," Karyn said.

  "Except in Moonstruck the Trade Towers were there," Claude added.

  The car fell silent as they passed under the neighboring on-ramps of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges.

  Jack had never liked the Trade Towers, had never thought he'd miss those soulless silver-plated Twix bars. But he did, and still felt a stab of fury when he noticed the hole in his sky where they'd been. The terrorists, like most outsiders to the city, probably had viewed the twins as some sort of crown on the skyline, so they'd aimed for the head. But Jack wondered how the city would have reacted if the Empire State and the Chrysler Buildings had been targeted instead. They were more part of the city's heart and soul and history. King Kong—the real King Kong—had climbed the Empire State Building.

  Brooklyn turned into Queens at the Kosciusko Bridge and the highway wandered past Long Island City, then the equally unspectacular Jackson Heights.

  Astoria sits on the northwest shoulder of Queens along the East River. Jack visited frequently, but rarely by car. One of his mail drops was on Steinway Street. As he drove he debated a side trip to pick up his mail, but canned the idea. His passengers might start asking questions. He'd subway back next week.

  Following Junie's somewhat disjointed directions—she usually cabbed here so she wasn't exactly sure of all her landmarks—he jumped off the BQE onto Astoria Boulevard and turned north, running a seamless gauntlet of row houses.

  "If this Ifasen's so good," Jack said, "what's he doing out here in the sticks?"

  Junie said, "Queens isn't the sticks!"

  "Is to me. Too open. Too much sky. Makes me nervous. Like I'm going to have a panic attack or something." He swerved the car. "Whoa!"

  "What's wrong?" Junie cried.

  "Just saw a herd of buffalo. Thought they were going to stampede in front of the car. Told you this was the sticks."

  As the back seat laughed, Gia gave his thigh one of those squeezes.

  They passed a massive Greek Orthodox church but the people passing along the sidewalk out front were dressed in billowy pantaloons and skull caps and saris. Astoria used to be almost exclusively Greek; now it housed sizable Indian, Korean, and Bangladeshi populations. A polyglotopolis.

  They cruised into the commercial district along Ditmars Boulevard where they passed the usual boutiques, nail salons, travel agencies, pet shops, and pharmacies, plus the ubiquitous KFCs, Dunkin Donuts, and McDonald's, interspersed with gyro, souvlaki, and kabab houses. They passed a Pakistani-Bangladeshi restaurant; its front, like a fair number of others, sported signs written not just in foreign languages but foreign script. The Greek influence was still strong, though—Greek coffee shops, Greek bakeries,
even the pizzerias sported the Acropolis or one of the Greek gods on their awnings.

  "There!" Junie cried, leaning forward and pointing through the windshield at a produce shop with a yellow awning inscribed with English and what looked like Sanskrit. "I recognize that place! Make a right at the corner here."

  Jack complied and turned into a quiet residential neighborhood. This street was lined with duplexes, a relief from the row houses. A train rumbled along a trestle looming above them.

  "He's number 735," Junie said. "You can't miss it. It's the only detached single-family home on the block."

  "Might be the only one in Astoria," Jack said.

  "Should be on the right somewhere along—" Her arm lanced ahead again. "Here! Here it is! Awriiight!" Jack heard the slap of a high five somewhere behind him. "Told you I'd get us here!"

  Jack found an empty spot and pulled into the curb.

  Junie was out the door before he'd put the car in park. "Come on, guys! Let's go talk to dead folks!"

  Karyn and Claude piled out, but Jack stayed put. "I think we'll pass."

  "Aw, no," Junie said, leaning toward the passenger window. "Gia, you've got to come meet him. You've got to see what he can do!"

  Gia looked at him. "What do you say?"

  Jack lowered his voice. "I know this game. It's not—"

  "You were a psychic?"

  "No. I just helped one once."

  "Great! Then you can explain it all afterwards." She smiled and tugged on his arm. "Come on. This could be fun."

  "Fun like that party?" Gia gave him a look so Jack shrugged his acquiescence. "All right. Let's see if this guy lives up to Junie's press release."

  Junie cheered and led Karyn and Claude toward the house while Jack closed up the car. He joined Gia at the curb. He started toward the house but stopped when he saw it.

  "What's wrong?" Gia said.

  He stared at the house. "Look at this place."

  Jack couldn't say why, but he immediately disliked the house. It was colonial in shape, with an attached garage, but made of some sort of dark brown stone. It probably looked better during the day. Jack could make out a well-trimmed lawn and impatiens and marigolds in bloom among the foundation plantings along the front porch. But here in the dark it seemed to squat on its double-size lot like some huge, glowering toad edging hungrily toward the sidewalk. He could imagine a snakelike tongue uncoiling through the front door and snagging some unwary passerby.

  "Definitely creepy looking," Gia said. "Probably by design."

  "Don't go in there," said an accented voice from his left.

  Jack turned and saw a slim, dark Indian woman in a royal blue sari, strolling her way along the sidewalk, being led by a big German shepherd on a leash.

  "Excuse me?" Jack said.

  "Very bad place," the woman said, closer now. Her dark hair was knitted into a long thick braid that trailed over her right shoulder; a fine golden ring pierced her right nostril. "Bad past. Worse future. Stay away." She didn't slow her pace as she came abreast of them. Her black eyes flashed at Jack—"Stay away"—then at Gia—"especially you."

  Then she walked on. The dog looked back over his shoulder, but the woman did not.

  "Now that's creepy," Gia said as an uncertain smile wavered across her lips.

  Jack had always believed that in confronting a fear and facing it down, you weakened it. Recent events had given him second thoughts about the wisdom of that belief. And with Gia along…

  "Maybe we should listen to her."

  Gia laughed. "Oh, come on! She probably works for this guy; he sends her out to get us in the mood. Or maybe she's just a local wacko. You're not taking her seriously, are you?"

  Jack looked after the retreating saried figure, now barely visible in the shadows. After what he'd been through lately, he was taking a lot more things seriously, things he'd laughed at before.

  "I don't know."

  "Oh, let's go," she said, tugging him up the front walk. "Junie's been seeing him for a couple of months and nothing bad's happened to her."

  Jack put an arm around Gia's back and together they approached the house. They joined the others on the front porch where Junie had been jabbing at the bell button with no results.

  She jabbed it again. "Where is he?"

  "Maybe he's not home," Jack said.

  "He's got to be! I can't—"

  Just then the front door eased open a crack. Jack saw an eye and a sliver of dark cheek.

  "Ifasen! It's me! Junie! Thank God you're here!"

  The door opened wider, revealing a tall, lean black man, maybe thirty. He wore a white T-shirt and gray slacks; his hair was woven into neat, tight dreads that brushed his wide shoulders. Ifasen reminded Jack of Lenny Kravitz in his dreadlock days.

  "Ms. Moon," he said with an unplaceable accent. "It's late."

  Jack hid a smile at the obvious statement. This guy was experienced. The normal response would be, What are you doing here at this hour? But if you're supposed to be someone who knows all—or maybe not all, but a helluva lot more than ordinary people—you don't ask questions. You make statements.

  But he wondered at the man's expression when he'd opened the door. He'd looked… relieved. Who had he been expecting?

  "I know. And I know my appointment's tomorrow, but I had to come."

  "You couldn't wait," he said, his tone calm, exuding confidence and assurance.

  "Yes! Right! I need your help! I lost my good luck bracelet! You've got to find it for me!"

  As he considered her plea, his gaze roamed among Jack and Gia and the others on the porch.

  "I see you've brought company."

  "I told them all about you and they're dying to meet you. Can we come in? Please?"

  "Very well," Ifasen said. He stepped back and opened the door the rest of the way. "But only for a few minutes. I have to be rested for my early clients tomorrow."

  That's right, Jack remembered. Weekends are busy times for psychics.

  Junie led the way, followed by Karyn and Claude. Jack and Gia were just stepping over the threshold when a deep rumble filled the air, vibrating through their bones and shaking the house.

  "Bomb!" Ifasen yelled. "Out! Everybody out!"

  Then another sound, a deafening, high-pitched, echoing scream—whether of pain, fear, or joy, Jack couldn't say—filled the air.

  Didn't sound like a bomb to Jack but he wasn't taking any chances. He grabbed Gia and hauled her back across the porch and onto the lawn. Junie, Claude, and a shrieking Karyn scurried behind them.

  Ifasen was still at the front door, calling for someone named Charlie.

  Jack kept moving, pushing Gia ahead of him up the walk toward the car. Then he noticed something.

  He stopped. "Wait. Feel that?"

  Gia looked into his eyes, and then at her feet. "The ground…"

  "Right. It's shaking."

  "Oh, my God!" Junie cried. "It's an earthquake!"

  Just as suddenly as the tremors had started, they stopped.

  Jack looked around. Across the street, up and down the block, lights were on and people were spilling out into their yards, standing around in all states of dress and undress, some crying, some looking simply bewildered.

  Gia was staring at him. "Jack. An earthquake? In New York?"

  "Don't you remember that one on the Upper East Side back in '01?"

  "I read about it, but I never felt it. I felt this. And I didn't like it!"

  Neither had Jack. Maybe people in places like LA got used to something like this, but feeling the solid granite bedrock of good old New York City rolling and trembling under his feet… pretty damn unsettling.

  "What about that other sound? Like a scream? Did you hear that?"

  Gia nodded as she moved closer and clutched his arm. "Like a damned soul."

  "Probably just some old nails tearing free in the quake."

  "If you say so. Sure sounded like a voice though."

  Sure did, Jack thought. But he di
dn't want to add to her unease.

  He looked around and saw Ifasen approaching with another, younger black man who bore a family resemblance. Both had similar builds and features, but instead of dreads the newcomer's hair was cut in a neat fade. He wore black slacks, black sneakers, and a lightweight long-sleeve turtleneck, also black.

  "An earthquake, Ifasen!" Junie said. "Can you believe it?"

  "I knew something was going to happen," Ifasen said. "But impending seismic activity interferes with psychic transmission, so I couldn't get a clear message."

  Jack nodded approval. The guy ad-libbed well.

  Close up now, Jack noticed a horizontal scar along Ifasen's left cheek; his milk chocolate skin was otherwise flawless except for the stipple of whiskers shadowing his jaw.

  "Can we go back inside now?" Junie said.

  Ifasen shook his head. "I don't know…"

  "Please?"

  He sighed. "Very well. But only briefly." He put a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "This, by the way, is my brother Kehinde. He lives in Menelaus Manor with me."

  Menelaus Manor? Jack thought, staring at the old house. This place has a name?

  Kehinde led the way back to the house. Jack hung back with Gia so he could talk to Ifasen.

  "Why'd you think it was a bomb?"

  Ifasen blinked but his onyx eyes remained unreadable. "What gives you that idea?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Maybe the fact that you yelled 'Bomb!' when the house started to shake."

  "I'm not sure. Perhaps I was startled and it was the first thought that came to mind. The pre-seismic vibrations—"

  Jack held up a hand. "Yeah. You told us."

  Jack sensed Ifasen was telling the truth, and that bothered him. When your house starts to shake, rattle, and roll, it could be a lot of things, but bomb should not be first on your guess list.

  Unless you were expecting one.

  "And where's Charlie?"

  Ifasen stiffened. "Who?"

  "I heard you calling for someone named Charlie while we were evacuating."

  "You must have misheard me, sir. I was calling for my brother Kehinde."

  Jack turned to Gia. "Let's split. I don't think this is a good idea."