Encounters Page 8

  “The Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones at your service, ma'am,” I said.

  She stared at me for a good long time. “Are you married?” she said at last. “I have this beautiful young niece in Florence...”

  “Well, actually, ma'am, I'm kind of married to the Lord, though He gets a mite fidgety when I refer to it that way.” I looked around. “Which way to the attic? The sooner I get these here ghosts up and exercised, the sooner I can put your kind donation to use.”

  She pointed to a staircase. “Go up two flights, to the third floor,” she said. “Then you will see a bolted wooden door leading up to the attic.”

  “Well, at least I'm gonna get exercised,” I said, but she didn't understand my joke, leading me to conclude that middle-aged Italian widows ain't got no sense of humor, so I just smiled at her again and started climbing up the stairs. When I came to the wooden door on the third floor I slid back the bolt, opened it, and went up this narrow set of creaky stairs leading to the attic.

  I pulled out the flashlight and turned it on. I hadn't never seen a ghost before, but I figured it'd be wearing a white sheet and floating a little bit off the floor, unless Italian ghosts were a lot different from American ones, but before I could look into every nook and cranny of the attic a huge unghostly hand reached out and grabbed me from behind.

  “What are you doing here?” demanded a low voice.

  “I ain't armed and I don't mean you no harm!” I said. “I'm just here to take you out for a little walk.”

  “Your voice sounds familiar,” said whatever was holding me.

  “Now as I come to think on it, so does yours,” I said. “Let go of me so's I can get a look at you.”

  I twisted around and found myself facing this eight-foot-tall guy with brown hair and blue eyes. He hadn't shaved in a few weeks, but I didn't have no trouble recognizing him.

  “Sam Hightower!” I exclaimed. “What in blazes are you doing here?”

  “Lucifer Jones!” he said. “I was about to ask the same thing of you.”

  “I been commissioned to exercise such ghosts as may be setting up shop in this here attic,” I said. “How about you? The last time I saw you, you'd given up the Abominable Snowman business and were hiding out from Guido Scarducci's friends and relations in Nepal.”

  “They found me,” he said.

  “He still ain't forgiven you for not shaving points in the big basketball game like you agreed to, huh?” I said.

  “The man is totally without compassion,” he answered. “I barely escaped with my life. They chased me all across Asia and into Europe, and I finally wound up in Rome.”

  “But why are you hiding out in an attic?”

  “Well, it's mighty difficult to hide out in a crowd when you're eight feet two inches tall,” he said. “I've been keeping to myself by day, and sneaking out to steal food at night.”

  “You know,” I said, mulling on his situation, “I think I see a way for the two of us to make a profit out of your unhappy plight. Maybe even enough so that you can finally pay Guido Scarducci off and go back home without worrying about what might be gaining on you.”

  “Yeah?” he said. “What's your plan?”

  “The old lady what owns this place is paying me a million lira to exercise you,” I said, “but even a compassionate woman like her ain't likely to pay me take you out for a walk each and every day. But,” I added, “if you was to move down the block, or maybe around the corner, and do some serious moaning and wailing at night, I could probably get another million to turn you out into the street, and we can keep doing it as long as you can keep finding attics.”

  “It does have possibilities,” he admitted thoughtfully. “And the best part of it is that no one would have to see me.”

  “Getting seen wouldn't exactly work to our advantage,” I agreed.

  “How will we manage it?” he asked.

  “We'll just wait until the widder lady's gone to sleep, and sneak on down the stairs,” I said, “and then you can point out the next house you plan to haunt. I'll stop by in the morning to collect my fee and explain that the ghosts ran off while I was exercising ’em and at least she ain't gonna be troubled by ’em no more. Then I'll give you a couple of evenings to stir up the owners of your next attic, after which I'll come by and offer my services again.”

  “Sounds good to me,” he said. “We split all the fees fifty-fifty, right?”

  “Wrong,” I said. “One-third for me, one-third for you, and one-third for the Lord.”

  He kept insisting that this was really a two-for-one split, so finally we struck a deal that he and I would split the first fifty million lira down the middle, and then the Lord had an option on the next ten million, at which point the three of us would renegotiate the contract.

  Well, we sat around in the attic for a few hours, reminiscing about Tibet and Nepal, and he told me all about how he got chased through Russia by Guido Scarducci's gunmen, and I told him all about the Land of Eternal Youth and the Scorpion Lady and the home-made man and all the people and places I'd seen since we parted, and then it was close on to three o'clock and we could hear the widder lady snoring up a storm, so we gently and quietly descended the stairs and let ourselves out, and just before we parted company Sam Hightower pointed out the next attic he planned to haunt, and I took my last few dollars and rented a room for the night.

  I came by in the morning and explained that the ghosts had all run off and hid once I got ’em outside, and before I could apologize or make excuses or nothing the lady had thrown her arms around me and kissed me and started thanking everyone from God to the Madonna to half a dozen local saints, although it was me and me alone what removed the ghosts, and then she paid me my million lira and kissed me again, and ran off to tell her neighbors the good news while I moseyed over to the Via Veneto and rented a suite at the Excelsior, which was the poshest hotel in Rome back in them days.

  I figured to give Sam three nights to get the owners of his new domicile time to get used to the idea that they had more than mice in their attic, but the very next afternoon a little Italian feller with glasses and an umbrella came calling on me while I was grabbing some expresso at a local streetside cafe.

  “You are Lucifer Jones, are you not?” he asked.

  “The Right Reverend Lucifer Jones, at your service,” I said, gesturing for him to join me, but he just stood there looking kind of nervous.

  “Thank God I have found you!” he said. “Signora Mondedori described you to me, but nobody knew where you lived. I have been searching for you all day.”

  “Who's this Signora Mondedori?” I asked, wondering if I'd made any romantic promises that had slipped my mind in the past few hours.

  “You removed the ghosts from her house.”

  “Oh, that Signora Mondedori,” I said, much relieved.

  “She lives across the street from us, and told us of your faith and your bravery,” he said.

  “Well, it comes from living a clean life and thinking nothing but pure thoughts,” I said modestly. “And now that you've found me, what can I do for you, Signor...?”

  “Signor Palusco,” he said. “Enrico Palusco. I will come right to the point. I have lived in my house all my life. My father lived there for his entire life, as did my grandfather. Never have we had a cause to regret this. Never has there been any reason not to be content.”

  “I'm sure glad you're getting right to the point,” I said.

  “But last night,” he continued, “I heard things in my attic!”

  “What kind of things?” I asked.

  “Unholy, supernatural things!” he said, his voice shaking. “Ghostly things! Horrible moaning and hideous screeching!”

  “I'm right sorry to hear that, Brother Palusco,” I said. “Sounds like your neighborhood has caught itself a plague of ghosts.”

  “Will you remove them from my house?” he asked.

  “Well,” I said, “I got a lot of exercising jobs lined up. To be truthful
, I don't think I could get to your house much before next week. My best advice is to put all your affairs in order and scout out a reputable funeral parlor. These ghosts don't ordinarily devour a whole family at a single sitting, so there ought to be at least one survivor to see to the burials.”

  “I will pay you ten million lira if you come tonight!” he said. “I beg of you, Signor Jones!”

  “Well, I really shouldn't sneak you in ahead of all these other needy families,” I said, “but somehow you've touched my compassionate Christian heart. I'll be there with my exercising gear just after dark. Why don't you wait out front for me, to make sure I got the right address? I'd hate to wind up in the wrong house, since in my experience goblins and leprechauns don't take as well to exercising as ghosts do.”

  He kissed my hand and started muttering in Italian.

  “And don't forget to have the money ready, Brother Palusco,” I said as he began walking away.

  Well, when I showed up, there must have been fifty people from the neighborhood all wanting to shake my hand and bless me and such, and I thanked ’em and told ’em to go back to their houses because exercising ghosts was a delicate and tricky business and could well take the whole night, and then I went up the stairs with my little black bag and found Sam wailing and moaning into a heating vent. I gave him a sandwich that I'd brung along, and then pulled a couple of beers out of my bag, and we sat around until we figured the rest of the world was asleep, and then we snuck on down the stairs and back into the street, and Sam chose his next attic, and the next day, even before I could come back for my money, Signor Palusco showed up at my hotel and paid me, and it was all I could do to get him to leave before he started kissing me so much that people began looking kind of strange at us, and one very clean-cut young man stopped by to tell me his name was Damon and he could usually be found hanging around the lobby in late afternoons.

  Then a strange thing happened. Even though I knew Sam was only haunting one house at a time, word of my success at exercising spooks and spirits started making the rounds, and before evening I'd had another half a dozen requests from people that was sure they had ghosts in the attic, though after talking to ’em I figured what they mostly had was bats in the belfry.

  Still, business looked so good that I figured I might as well rent out an office. I found myself a nice one over near the Spanish Steps, all furnished and everything, and even though the sign painter couldn't spell and wound up painting “Ghosts Exorcised” on the door, I was pretty well-satisfied with the way things were going.

  I exercised Hightower out of five more houses in the next two weeks, and we began thinking about expanding the business and maybe hiring a few more ghosts and a few more exercisers. We were still mulling it over when I escorted him out of yet another house in the middle of the night, and we decided that before we committed to taking on more help we ought to make sure that the market could bear it, so we decided to have him move his base of operations and start haunting a brand-new neighborhood, just to see if we got the same reaction.

  Well, we walked through the residential sections of Rome for maybe an hour, and finally, when we figured we'd put enough distance betwixt ourselves and our former stamping grounds, we turned onto the Via Aurelia. Hightower studied the area for a minute or two, then pointed to a house about halfway down the block and told me that was where he planned to set up shop. I couldn't see what it was about that particular house that attracted him when they all looked so much alike, but I figured that haunting was his business and unhaunting was mine, and I didn't want to make no intrusions in his area of professional expertise.

  I spent the next day visiting my competition at the Vatican, mostly because I'd heard that they had a really fascinating collection of pornography, but evidently they didn't feel the need to share it with no outsiders, because I was told it was kept under lock and key and no one was allowed to see it, which struck me as just plumb wasteful, but even thought I put up a fuss and asked to see the head man they wound up escorting me out the door, and I returned to my office just in time to get a phone call from a Signor Crosetti who lived on the Via Aurelia and has just come down with a bad case of ghosts. I scribbled down his address and negotiated a fee, then promised him I'd be there an hour after sundown.

  In the meantime, I had myself a nice dinner at the Sans Souci, where I'd took to reserving a regular table, and then picked up a couple of sandwiches and some beers to bring along for Hightower. Since it wasn't quite dark yet, I returned to the office to spend a few happy minutes counting our money and arranging it into artistic stacks and the like, and somehow or other I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew Signor Crosetti was on the phone, telling me that it was after midnight and his ghost was haunting up a storm.

  When I showed up, Signor Crosetti was waiting for me out in front of his place with a lantern in his hand, all red of face and covered with sweat. He told me he'd sent his family off to spend the night with his brother, and he planned to join ’em just as soon as he let me into the house, and that nothing would ever get him to go inside again until I assured him that I'd whipped his ghost in straight falls and sent it packing.

  This struck me as right considerate on his part, since it meant that Hightower and me could enjoy our beers in comfort in the living room before making our departure a few hours later, so I waited until he unlocked the front door and told him to show up at my office in the morning and I'd give him a blow-by-blow account of what went on.

  Then I was inside the house, and the door slammed shut behind me, and I walked over to the staircase and pulled out my flashlight and shined the beam up to the next floor, where Hightower was moaning like there was no tomorrow.

  “Hey, Hightower,” I called out. “Come on down and have a beer. The coast is clear.”

  Nothing much happened except that he stopped moaning and started rattling a batch of chains that he must have found up there, or maybe swiped off someone's bicycle and brought along for the effect.

  “Come on, Hightower!” I yelled. “This is me, Lucifer, calling to you. The house is empty!”

  Hightower started making noises like unto a bull moose calling for his ladyfriend, and I started getting a little hot under the collar.

  “Are you gonna make me climb all the way up there?” I said. “I keep telling you, there ain't no one else in the whole house except you and me!”

  He got to moaning and wailing again, really sorrowful-like, and after a couple of minutes I gave up yelling at him and climbed up the stairs.

  “Okay, Hightower,” I said, shining the light around. “Where the hell are you hiding?”

  He started moaning louder, and now I could tell his was up in the attic, and I figured that probably he just hadn't been able to hear me, and even though I was annoyed at having to climb all them stairs, I made up my mind to praise him for the way he was devoting himself to his work.

  Problem was, when I finally reached the attic, there wasn't no one there. There was a heap of wailing, and I could hear some chains rattling in the corner, but I couldn't see hide nor hair of Hightower, and at eight feet two inches tall that was a lot of hide and hair to hide all at once.

  “Come on now, Hightower,” I said. “Fun's fun, but the beer's getting warm and I'm getting tired. Let's go on downstairs.”

  "Go away!" he whispered.

  “What do you mean, go away?” I demanded. “Here I am being considerate enough to bring you some grub and some beer to wash it down with and you're getting temperamental?”

  "Leave me to my misery!" he whispered.

  “Your misery?” I said. “Look, I may have took a little more out of your half than mine for expenses, but that ain't no reason to—”

  "Go away!" he whispered again.

  “You tell me to go away once more and I just may do it!” I snapped. “I can always hire me another ghost, you know.”

  “Who are you talking to up there, Lucifer?” said a familiar voice.

  I looked back
down the stairs and saw this eight-foot-tall figure climbing up to join me.

  “Hightower?” I said.

  “I was in the attic next door, and I saw you come into the wrong house,” he said. “When you didn't come right back out, I figured I'd come over to see what was going on.”

  “You mean you're just getting here this second?” I said.

  “That's what I just told you,” he answered.

  “And I suppose you ain't never studied to be a ventriloquist?”

  “It ain't ever been one of my major ambitions,” he said.

  “Then I think we got a serious problem on our hands,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I'm all through talking,” I said, heading down the stairs. “What I'm about to start doing now is beating a tactical retreat.”

  “What's so all-fired frightening about an attic?” he yelled after me.

  “Attics don't scare me none,” I hollered back. “It's what's in the attic that I don't want no part of!”

  “I've been living in these old attics for months,” he said, walking in. “I'll show you there's nothing to be afraid of.”

  “You do whatever you think's best,” I said, as I reached the front door. “Me, I'm high-tailing it out of here.”

  I had just made it to the street when I heard a scream that would have woke such dead as weren't otherwise occupied, and a second later Hightower burst out of the house, yelling that he was heading for home and all Guido Scarducci and his friends and relations could do was kill him, and that wasn't nothing compared to what could happen to him in the attic. The last I saw of him he was running on a true course for Butte, Montana, and something about his manner implied that he wasn't gonna let a little thing like an ocean stand in his way.

  As for me, I figured if I stayed in Rome people would keep asking me to get rid of their ghosts for them, and I had permanently retired from the exercising business the minute I ran out of Signor Crosetti's house, so I cleaned out the office, stuck all the money into my little black bag, and set out to find a suitable site to build my tabernacle.