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  “Who died?” I ask.

  Silence. And a palpable aura of sulkiness.

  “IS THAT MY FAVORITE GODDAMN WRITER IN THE WORLD??!!”

  The glass door to Mac’s office crashes open, and suddenly he rushes out to greet me, wiping his sweaty palms against his pants—a consideration usually reserved for car dealers when they’re looking at a big ad buy. Mac is short, about the height of the average fourth grader, but what he lacks in size, he more than makes up for in volume.

  “HOW THE HELL ARE YOU, KID?!”

  “Uh, fine,” I say. “Better.”

  “Great news, great news, so good to see you. You want anything to drink?” He shakes my hand eagerly, and his grip is almost painful. Nate gives me the evil eye.

  “MYRNA GET THE KID SOME COFFEE. WHAT THE FUCK’S THE MATTER WITH YOU?”

  Myrna jumps from her chair like she’s just received an electric shock (but then with Bob in the office, that’s a definite possibility) and scuttles over to the kitchenette with a speed I wouldn’t have thought her capable of.

  “You take sugar? Cream? We only got the powder stuff. MYRNA, WHY THE FUCK WE ONLY GOT THE POWDER STUFF?”

  “Black is fine,” I say, utterly confused.

  “Got that, Myrna? NO SUGAR!”

  “I got it,” mutters Myrna. I can only hope she’s not adding rat poison.

  “Well, come in, come in,” says Mac warmly, pulling me into his office. “We gotta catch up, right? Chew the fat, talk shop.”

  Everyone else stands, frozen in place.

  “WHAT THE FUCK YOU ALL WAITING FOR? GET BACK TO WORK.”

  This seems to be the magic phrase that releases them from the spell, because immediately everyone rushes away; in fact, Bob runs into Nate, which causes Nate to swear quietly.

  “Have a seat, kid. Make yourself comfortable,” Mac says, settling himself onto his leather executive chair, which squeaks vainly in protest. It’s a large chair, too large for his height, and instead of making him look appropriately intimidating (the point, after all, of executive furniture in general), it makes him look like a Keebler Elf. In fact, he has to reach up to grab his pencil off the desk.

  I ease onto one of the hard plastic chairs that I generally associate with getting screamed at and fired, since those are the only other times Mac has invited me in. But the vibe now is freakishly congenial. Myrna bustles in with a Styrofoam cup of steaming black coffee. Although I usually don’t drink the office stuff, because it tastes like a burnt dishrag, I actually feel guilty for the way Mac’s treating her and take a few sips.

  “Good?” asks Mac, scribbling his signature on a letter.

  Sure, if you enjoy licking the sole of your shoe. But I nod. Mac waves Myrna off, and she closes the door quietly behind her. Then he leans back in his chair, pressing his hands together like he’s having an intellectual bowel movement, his brows seriously furrowed.

  “I have to tell you, kid, you had us all gravely worried. I’ve always looked at you like you were a second son, ya know? Family, that’s what you are. Family.”

  He can’t be serious. I start to laugh and inhale the coffee into my lungs, which brings on a bout of coughing.

  Mac shakes his head seriously. “Look at you, you aren’t even fully recovered. What a trooper. Not like Nate, that lazy-ass piece of shit.” His eyes actually get moist. “If I had a son like you…”

  This line of thought needs to end. Immediately. I clear my voice. “So you were saying we need to talk shop.”

  “Exactly,” says Mac. “Cut straight to the point, that’s what I always say. This whole Aspinwall thing, it’s been like money in the bank. The fuckin’ bank. Just met with Accounting. They’re over the moon.” He leans forward, places a stubby hand on his chin and sighs. “I don’t know how long we can milk it, now that you’re on the mend,” he adds somewhat ruefully.

  “When you say cash in the bank—”

  “I’m talking subscriptions up 34 percent in just the last two weeks. I’m starting to have to turn advertisers away—everyone wants to know, what happens next? I got a reporter from the Enquirer who wants to take it national.”

  He says this like it’s a good thing.

  “I mean, shit, you woke up in a fuckin’ morgue. I wouldn’t be surprised if you got a call from Jerry Springer. Love that guy. Love him.” He slaps his hand down on the desk. “I got it! Exclusive interview. We draw it out over the next three weeks, double the cost of ad space. What do you think?”

  I think I need to pay my rent and buy some real furniture. I lean back in my chair, whistle hard. “I don’t know, Mac. An exclusive interview. I might want to talk to my agent.” My imaginary agent.

  Mac’s fingers start tapping on the desk nervously. “What? I mean, we’re family, right?” A small trickle of sweat drips from his forehead.

  “Sure, Mac. Of course. But let me run something by you, see what you think.”

  Now Mac leans back, staring pensively. He obviously thought this would be much, much easier.

  “You know, some strange things have started to happen since the incident. I don’t know if they’re related, but they could be.”

  “Strange things,” says Mac, almost choking with eagerness. “What kinds of things?”

  “I was in my apartment, and someone, or something, threw two pictures across the room. What’s weird is that the photos were torn in half.”

  “That is weird,” whispers Mac.

  “But the spooky stuff only seems to happen in my apartment,” I say, deciding to omit the possibility that an angry boyfriend could be responsible for the damage. “Right now I’m trying to figure out what it could be, or who it could be.”

  “Like a mystery,” says Mac, his eyes widening. “Something that will take six months, a year to figure out.” I can see him calculating how much he can charge for advertising over the next six months.

  “Exactly. But the thing is, I need time, you know? Time to do my research; time to document everything weird that happens. And some funding too. You know, business expenses, that kind of thing.”

  “HOT DAMN, KID!” shouts Mac. “That’s it! You’re so fuckin’ brilliant, I can’t stand it.” He pushes his phone intercom. “MYRNA! Get Peters here a company card. PRONTO!” I can almost hear her mentally swearing on the other end. “Don’t think this isn’t going to get you a raise too, kid. Double your salary, at least. I’ve got to talk to the Board about it, but I don’t see a problem.” He pulls out a series of keys and opens his locked drawer. The company rumor is that he keeps a gun there to shoot writers who’ve missed their deadline. But instead he pulls out a fat wad of cash and starts to peel out bills, like an experienced dealer in Vegas.

  “Here, take a grand. Consider it a bonus. Myrna will have your card in a week. Just keep it to $2K a month.”

  Did he just say month?

  “But you mind staying on obits, too? People have been complaining about the shit Nate’s writing. Actually printed that Fred Jenkins died of alcohol-related liver failure. He’s a walking litigation magnet.”

  “Sure,” I say, and then casually add, “but do you need me in the office? I get more done at home.”

  Mac’s eyes widen, and at first I think I’ve overstepped. “Of course! Plus that’s where all the weird shit’s gonna happen too, right? And there will be weird shit, right?”

  “I guarantee it,” I say. And I will. I’m a fiction writer, not a journalist, damn it.

  “Done!” says Mac, eagerly opening the door of his office. “Now you go home, get some rest. You still look like shit, no offense. Take the day, and then show me something by Saturday, all right?”

  “Great,” I say while slipping the burning cash in my pocket, an act that escapes no one in the office. Psychic daggers hit me from all directions.

  Mac starts to chuckle, hits my shoulder with a soft punch. “You’ll never guess. Bob didn’t have polyps in his ass after all. It was beets.” He bends over with laughter. “Bob’s wife made him beets and h
e thought he had blood in his shit.”

  I look over to Bob and his face is as red as, well… a beet does come to mind.

  “WHAT ARE YOU ALL STARING AT YOU STUPID FUCKS? GET BACK TO WORK!”

  Apparently my cue to exit. It doesn’t feel safe to wait for the elevator—a pair of scissors could be plunged into my back—so I head briskly for the stairwell. As soon as I’m down a few steps, I feel a giddy sense of release. There’s more money in my pocket than has been in my bank account for the past year, and I’m free from even my sporadic time in the office.

  Dying may just be the best thing that ever happened to me.

  CHAPTER NINE: DANIEL’S NUMBERS

  Outside on the sidewalk I check my watch—it’s only two. The sky is a darkening miserable gray, threatening rain, but I feel like celebrating, spreading around some of my newly acquired wealth. Of course, most of the retail establishments on Main Street closed years ago, except for Lombardi’s Pawn & Loan, the local Goodwill, and a Christian store, Sacred Heart Collectibles, which specializes in plastic statues of Jesus, Virgin Mary ceramic lawn ornaments, and state lottery tickets. A popular place among the sixty-plus crowd.

  Worse still is that I have no one to celebrate with now that Lisa’s not speaking to me. But I’m feeling lucky, and Crosslands is only a block away. I pull out my cell.

  Lisa’s professional voice answers the line. “Crosslands Nursing Center, may I help you?”

  “Ditch work and meet me.”

  There is a pause. She lowers her voice. “I can’t. You know some people only get paid when they show up.”

  “Meet me. Pretend you’ve got a migraine or something.”

  “Dimitri—”

  “Great, I’ll be by in ten.”

  I press END and can feel her cursing me, but I don’t care, because I’ve got a thousand dollars. Cash. I’m like Donald Trump with better hair. Which gives me ten minutes to kill, so I head into Sacred Heart to buy fifty lottery tickets—I’m on a roll; why not see how far I can take it? And maybe I’ll find something to further annoy Lisa with—a snow globe of Saint Peter perhaps.

  A bell chimes as I enter. The place is dimmer than I expected, and it smells cloyingly sweet, like scented candles, incense, and something oily, musty, and exotic I can’t place. To the right are a series of paperback books, their covers faded by the sun—Footprints in the Sand, Sisterhood of Faith, The Christian Book of Questions—plus a few badly printed folded brochures: Debunking the Da Vinci Code and Talking to Teens about Christ. To the left is an aisle of bobblehead saints, a variety of wide-eyed plastic cherubs, and a shelf devoted to Mexican-style patron saint candles—the source, apparently, of the sweet smell. There’s a spinning display of Christmas tree ornaments and crucifixes, while in the far corner a ceramic Saint Francis of Assisi fountain burbles cheerfully, a fake bird wired clumsily to his shoulder.

  In other words, deliciously kitschy.

  “Can I help you?” a deep voice calls from behind a beaded curtain that must lead into the back room.

  “Lottery tickets.” I check out the ceramic gargoyle banks on the glass counter. They are impossibly grotesque, with bulging eyes and leering grimaces, but the question is whether they’d be better than garden gnomes for my irregular-people date with Lisa. I pick one up, judging the weight. With a good swing and the right golf club, I bet it could go a fair distance.

  “No one’s ever won here.” A young guy pushes the curtains aside—not what I expected, with dark skin and long black dreads that reach his shoulder. New Goshen’s only Russian resident may be standing in front of its only African-American resident. It’s a veritable United Nations moment.

  “It’s my lucky day.”

  He snorts. “That’s what they all say. How many?”

  “Fifty.”

  He whistles. “High roller.”

  I somehow get the feeling that he only works here, that’s he’s not exactly a Sacred Heart customer himself. “What’s the most expensive and weirdest thing in the store?”

  “Man, that’s a tough one. Weirdest is the King David Ken doll.”

  “That’s tempting.” Lisa would definitely hate me.

  “Most expensive thing is in the back.” He takes a step back, eyes me critically. I wonder what it could possibly be. Solid gold crucifix? Diamond rosary beads? I mean, this is New Goshen we’re talking about.

  “You from around here?”

  “I write for the paper,” I say, extending a hand. “D. Peters. Actually Dimitri Petrov.”

  His eyes widen. “The dude who died and woke up in the morgue?”

  I nod.

  “Holy shit! I knew you looked familiar. Hey, can I get a picture with you? My girlfriend won’t believe me.”

  “Sure…”

  Before I can finish he’s already on the other side of the counter with his iPhone, and he stands next to me, eagerly holding out his arm to take the picture. When did I become a local celebrity?

  “I made her watch the video. She says it’s fake.” He gets closer, whispering as if someone might hear us: “It’s not fake, is it?”

  “Unfortunately not.”

  “Ha! Knew it. Well it’s been good for business either way. Rosary beads are flying off the shelf.”

  I smile, nod politely. Glance at my watch. Ahem.

  “Oh, the tickets,” he says, darting back behind the counter. “You want to pick out the numbers or let the computer do it?”

  “Computer is fine,” I say. “So you didn’t answer my question. What is the most expensive thing in the store?”

  He looks over his shoulder. God, the guy is paranoid. “My boss would kill me if I told you. It’s not officially for sale, but she’s gotta unload that thing. It’s got bad juju.”

  “Bad juju is my specialty,” I say.

  For a brief second he appraises me. His eyes fall to my cheap Kmart watch. “I don’t know—it’s worth at least five hundred bucks.”

  It’s an affront to my newly burgeoning sense of self-importance; he doesn’t think I can afford it; he doesn’t believe I am a high roller. Moi. So I pull out my wallet, taking my sweet time, and count out five hundred in twenties. I lay them slowly out on the glass counter, a veritable fan of cash. Hot damn, that feels good. “Let me take a look.”

  He nods, visibly impressed, and slips back behind the beaded curtain. The ceramic gargoyle on the counter stares at me reproachfully, so I cover his face with a pamphlet, How Well Do You Know Your Bible? A part of me can’t believe that I’m about to blow a month’s rent plus electricity on a piece of bad juju crap just to prove to my ego that I can. But didn’t Mac say I was getting a raise and two grand a month for expenses? Isn’t this what celebrities do—spend loads of cash on stuff they don’t need or want?

  He returns carrying a battered brown leather book; the cover is bound with peeling duct tape. Five hundred for that piece of crap? He quickly reads my expression.

  “It’s an antique. I don’t know much about it, but it’s old. And the pages are… Well, take a look for yourself.”

  I open the book, releasing a small cloud of dust. The yellowed pages are thick and roughly cut. There are brightly colored medieval illustrations—an angel slaying a dragon, wizened old men approaching a castle, a field of demons doing battle with knights in armor. The chunky text is obviously Greek—I recognize some of the letters from fraternity row. And on the opposite side of the pages is a different language altogether… Russian? I lift one of the pages and look closer at a drawing of a castle—there’s a watermark hidden in the stonework of the walls, a symbol…

  A cold shiver ripples down my spine.

  The man gasps, his eyes wide. “Your ring.”

  I look down at my hand. It’s the same Celtic-looking knot.

  “My father’s ring,” I correct quietly. I lightly trace the symbol on the ring with my finger. A random coincidence? What are the odds?

  “I’ll buy it,” I say, the words rolling out before I can even think.

&nbs
p; “I don’t know, my boss—”

  “It’s mine,” I say with an intensity that surprises me. But I can’t imagine walking away without it. I almost feel like I’d be ready to fight the guy for the book, which is, for me, a very odd feeling. The only time I almost got into a fight was in tenth grade when I accidentally hit weight-lifting, shaving Andy McClure with a Twinkie that I had aimed for the trash can. It took two weeks of lunch money to resolve amicably.

  “Still, I should check with the owner,” says the clerk hesitantly.

  I pull out my wallet and count out another hundred, pushing it toward him.

  He gives me a look but quietly pockets the cash while I grab the book and head for the door.

  “Wait—what about your tickets?”

  “They’re yours if you want them,” I say, and then I’m back out on the street, buzzing with a weird kind of jubilation. The book feels hot under my arm, like it’s alive, like it has a pulsing heartbeat, and I feel a strong desire to go home and pore through it immediately. But I know Lisa is waiting, and she definitely won’t wait forever.

  Great. She’s already pissed because I’m a good ten minutes late. But then Lisa looks pretty sexy when she’s pissed.

  Today she’s wearing a vintage forties flower-print dress and the dark blue denim jacket I’ve seen before. Her hair is pulled back in a neat ponytail, and her black combat boots are the only giveaway of her drummer aspirations.

  As soon as I’m near she narrows her eyes. “I just waited so I could tell you that I’m not talking to you,” she says, her voice tight.

  She turns away and starts to walk briskly down the sidewalk. Her combat boots make a clop-clop sound on the pavement. I have to jog to keep up.

  “Look, I’m sorry, but I found the most amazing thing…”

  She ignores me.

  “And I’ve got news—they’re giving me a raise; I can work from home. You should have seen Mac’s face when I came into the office…”