“That doesn’t mean they all are, Liz!”

“I’m pretty sure Marsden will be.” She sounded very sure of herself. She didn’t understand that dead people can be unpredictable. “Let’s do this. Then I’ll grant you your fondest wish. You’ll never have to see me again.”

She said this in a sad way, like I was supposed to feel sorry for her, but I didn’t. The only thing I felt about her was scared.

58

The road ran upward in a series of lazy S-turns. At first there were some houses with mailboxes beside the road, but they were farther and farther apart. The trees began to crowd in, their shadows meeting and making it seem later than it was.

“How many do you think there are?” Liz asked.

“Huh?”

“People like you. Ones who can see the dead.”

“How should I know?”

“Did you ever run into another one?”

“No, but it isn’t exactly the kind of thing you talk about. Like starting a conversation with ‘Hey, do you see dead people?’ ”

“I suppose not. But you sure didn’t get it from your mother.” Like she was talking about the color of my eyes or my curly hair. “What about your father?”

“I don’t know who he is. Or was. Or whatever.” Talking about my father made me uneasy, probably because my mother refused to.

“You never asked?”

“Sure I asked. She doesn’t answer.” I turned in my seat to look at her. “She never said anything about it…about him…to you?”

“I asked and got what you got. Brick wall. Not like Tee at all.”

More curves, tighter now. The Wallkill was far below us, glittering in the late afternoon sunshine. Or maybe it was early evening. I’d left my watch at home on my nightstand, and the dashboard clock said 8:15, which was totally fucked up. Meanwhile the quality of the road was deteriorating. Liz’s car rumbled over crumbling patches and thudded into potholes.

“Maybe she was so drunk she doesn’t remember. Or maybe she got raped.” Neither idea had ever crossed my mind, and I recoiled. “Don’t look so shocked. I’m only guessing. And you’re old enough to at least consider what your mom might have gone through.”

I didn’t contradict her out loud, but in my mind I did. In fact, I thought she was full of shit. Are you ever old enough to wonder if your life is the result of blackout sex in the backseat of some stranger’s car, or that your mom was hauled into an alley and raped? I really don’t think so. That Liz did probably said all I needed to know about what she’d become. Maybe what she was all along.

“Maybe the talent came from your dear old Daddy-O. Too bad you can’t ask him.”

I thought I wouldn’t ask him anything if I ran across him. I thought I would just punch him in the mouth.

“On the other hand, maybe it came from nowhere. I grew up in this little New Jersey town and there was a family down the street from us, the Joneses. Husband, wife, and five kids in this little shacky trailer. The parents were dumb as stone boats and so were four of the kids. The fifth was a fucking genius. Taught himself the guitar at six, skipped two grades, went to high school at twelve. Where did that come from? You tell me.”

“Maybe Mrs. Jones had sex with the mailman,” I said. This was a line I’d heard at school. It made Liz laugh.

“You’re a hot sketch, Jamie. I wish we could still be friends.”

“Then maybe you should have acted like one,” I said.

59

The tar ended abruptly, but the dirt beyond was actually better: hard-packed, oiled down, smooth. There was a big orange sign that said PRIVATE ROAD NO TRESPASSING.

“What if there are guys there?” I asked. “You know, like bodyguards?”

“If there were, they really would be guarding a body. But the body’s gone, and the guy he had minding the gate will also be gone. There was no one else except for the gardener and the housekeeper. If you’re imagining some action movie scenario with men in black suits and sunglasses and semi-autos guarding the kingpin, forget about it. The guy at the gate was the only one who was armed, and even if Teddy still happens to be there, he knows me.”

“What about Mr. Marsden’s wife?”

“No wife. She left five years ago.” Liz snapped her fingers. “Gone with the wind. Poof.”

We swung around another turn. A mountain all shaggy with fir trees loomed ahead, blotting out the western half of the sky. The sun shone through a valley notch but would soon be gone. In front of us was a gate made out of iron stakes. Closed. There was an intercom and a keypad on one side of it. On the other, inside the gate, was a little house, presumably where the gatekeeper spent his time.

Liz stopped, turned off the car, and pocketed the keys. “Sit still, Jamie. This will be over before you know it.”

Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright. A trickle of blood ran from one of her nostrils and she wiped it away. She got out and went to the intercom, but the car windows were closed and I couldn’t tell what she was saying. Then she went to the gatehouse side and this time I could hear her, because she raised her voice. “Teddy? Are you in there? It’s your buddy Liz. Hoping to pay my respects, but I need to know where!”

There was no answer and no one came out. Liz walked back to the other side of the gate. She took a piece of paper from her back pocket, consulted it, then punched some numbers into the keypad. The gate trundled slowly open. She came back to the car, smiling. “Looks like we’ve got the place to ourselves, Jamie.”

She drove through. The driveway was tar, smooth as glass. There was another S-curve, and as Liz piloted through it, electric torches lit up on either side of the driveway. Later on I found out you call those kind of lights flambeaux. Or maybe that’s only for torches like the mob waves when they’re storming the castle in the old Frankenstein movies.

“Pretty,” I said.

“Yeah, but look at that fucking thing, Jamie!”

On the other side of the S, Marsden’s house came into view. It was like one of those Hollywood Hills mansions you see in the movies: big and jutting out over the drop. The side facing us was all glass. I imagined Marsden drinking his morning coffee and watching the sun rise. I bet he could see all the way to Poughkeepsie, maybe even beyond. On the other hand…a view of Poughkeepsie? Maybe not one to kill for.

“The house that heroin built.” Liz sounded vicious. “All the bells and whistles, plus a Mercedes and a Boxster in the garage. The stuff I lost my job for.”

I thought of saying you had a choice, which is what my mom always said to me when I screwed up, but kept my mouth shut. She was wired like one of Thumper’s bombs, and I didn’t want to set her off.

There was one more curve before we came to the paved yard in front of the house. Liz drove around it and I saw a man standing in front of the double garage where Marsden’s fancy cars were (they sure hadn’t taken Donnie Bigs to the morgue in his Boxster). I opened my mouth to say it must be Teddy, the gatekeeper—the guy was thin, so it sure wasn’t Marsden—but then I saw his mouth was gone.

“The Boxster’s in there?” I asked, hoping my voice was more or less normal. I pointed at the garage and the man standing in front of it.