I said, "Somebody stole something that belonged to me, and I want it back." Technically, that was true, since half of whatever was in the safe was now mine.
"We lovers," said the talkative black guy. "Not thieves."
The high-as-a-kite black guy laughed. The Hispanic guy frowned. The sullen white guy kept being sullen.
"Cut the shit," I said. "I know there's drugs here." I pointed to a Pillsbury Doughboy cookie jar with a crack running up along its doughy body. "I know there're drugs in that cookie jar over there. I know there're drugs in the toilet bowl, and I know there're drugs down all your pants."
The high-as-a-kite black guy giggled nearly uncontrollably. The Hispanic leader sat forward. The energy around him crackled and spat. He said, "What the fuck do you want, lady?"
"I want the safe," I said.
"What safe?"
As I said those words, I watched the others in the room. The talkative black guy blinked. The high black guy continued grinning from ear to ear. The sullen white guy sank a little deeper in his chair. Just a little. Perhaps only a fraction. Not to mention his darkish aura grew darker still.
I had my man.
It was at that moment that I saw the old man in the far corner of the living room. Correction, two old men, as another just materialized. And they weren't exactly men.
They were ghosts.
Chapter Thirteen
I jumped off the stool.
As I did so, the Hispanic guy made a move to stand. He didn't move very far. A casual backhand across his face sent him spinning sideways to the floor. The others stayed seated, which wasn't a bad idea. I told them not to move and they mostly didn't, although the high-as-a-kite guy continued to fight through a case of the giggles.
I moved past them, slipping the gun inside my waistband. The backhand smack to their leader would keep the trio quiet for a few minutes.
People don't realize that spirits tend to be just about everywhere. I see them appearing and disappearing almost continuously, sometimes randomly. I'll see them briefly materialize by someone's side, squeeze their hand or hug them, and then flit off again. Usually the object of such affection is left shivering pleasantly. No doubt, the unseen encounter suddenly brought an unexpected memory to the recipient.
And some spirits, like the old lady and her piano, attach themselves to objects, seemingly for decades, although I always suspected that only an aspect of their spirit attached. The majority of their spirit was elsewhere, wherever spirits might go.
Then again, I could be wrong.
As I approached the two old men, they turned toward me. Their attention, I saw, had been centered around something in the far corner of the room, something hidden under a blanket. The spirits themselves were formed of bright filaments of light that coalesced to form shapes. In this case, the shapes of two older men.
They didn't speak and their shapes were only vaguely held together, which suggested to me that these were older spirits. Older, as in having died long ago.
Charlie had said that his father had died nearly two decades ago...and no doubt his grandfather had died many years before that. His grandfather and father were certainly two spirits who would have been powerfully connected to an object.
The safe.
The corner of this room smelled of smoke, or of something burned, and as I got closer, I saw tools scattered around the living room that didn't belong there. Hammers. Mallets. Crowbars. Even a blowtorch. The corner of the couch was blackened, too, but that's what happens when you use a blowtorch indoors.
I had the attention of both spirits, who watched me closely, silently, as I reached down and pulled back the corner of a stained quilt, revealing a very old-looking and heavy safe, the lock of which had been blackened by the blowtorch.
But the safe was still locked...and that's all that mattered.
Chapter Fourteen
As tomorrow was Christmas Eve, I thought it a fitting gift when I delivered the safe to Charlie's door.
Orange County doesn't get snow. Hell, we rarely get rain, but as I approached the door, carrying the safe under one arm, a stiff, cool breeze appeared, and that was good enough. Any weather was good enough at this time of the year.
I knocked on his door to the rhythm of "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way" and fat little Rocko jumped from the couch, barking his brains out, until he got a look at me, then he hit the brakes, and scuttled off with his tail between his legs. Thank God Kingsley didn't have the same reaction.
I set the safe down on the wooden deck, noting how the wood sagged mightily under the weight of the safe.
Charlie's round face soon appeared and he gave me a big smile. Charlie, I saw, needed some serious dental work. Except he didn't seem to care that he needed dental work, or that his teeth looked like crooked tombstones. Charlie was just happy to be Charlie.
He was about to slide open his door when he glanced down, and his crooked smile seemed to freeze in place. He blinked. Hard.
Then threw open the door.
I shouldn't have been surprised when he gave me the mother of all hugs, but I was.
* * *
We were in his living room.
I had told him that a friend of mine had helped me lug the heavy safe onto his deck, and I made a show of pretending to struggle with the safe as we moved it from the deck to the center of his living room.
Amid leaning towers of laser jet printer cartridges, 40's science fiction magazines, and enough clipboards to last two lifetimes, we set the heavy safe down.
Earlier in the night, after my discovery of the safe, I gave the boys ten minutes to clear out before I called the police. Most were gone in five. I kept their weapons and ammunition, which I would hand over to Detective Sherbet of the Fullerton Police Department.
For now, though, it was just me, Charlie and the safe. And inside, something, neither of us knew what.
The safe was clearly old. So old that it looked like it belonged on the back of a Wells Fargo stage coach. Part of the safe's dial still gleamed brightly, although most of it was covered in blackened soot from the blowtorch. The handle was badly dented, no doubt thanks to the various hammers I had seen lying around.
Still, the safe had held fast, and that's all that mattered.
Charlie stared down at it. So did I. My compensation was in that safe, whatever it might be. Could be gold. Could be old war bonds. Could be jewelry, gemstones or pirate booty, for all I knew.
I had been tempted to see if my own psychic gifts could penetrate the heavy steel safe, but I had resisted.
"I guess this is it, then," said Charlie. He didn't sound very enthusiastic.
"Do you know the combination?"
He pointed to the upper corner of the safe, where, upon closer inspection, I saw a number etched, 14. Two other numbers were etched into other corners, 29 and 63.