Possession (16 page)

He noticed me at once when I stepped up on the next break. “You again?”

I nodded and Chaos rumpled around under my hair, making me restrain a twitch. “Yes. I didn’t get to finish our conversation earlier. Do you know Jordan Delamar—the guy who was injured?”

He gave me a wary look, his eyes shifting from my face to the ferret, no doubt thinking I was a bit weird and possibly dangerous. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m a private investigator. I’m working for another patient.”

“I didn’t hear that anyone else had been hurt. . . .”

I just gave him a thin smile and repeated myself. “Do you know Delamar?”

He heaved a sigh. “Yeah. I know Jordy. Look, I don’t have time to chat. I need to make some money here.”

“Understood. Can I meet you later? I can pay for your time.” Chaos stuck her nose out from under my collar and wiggled her whiskers at him.

His expression brightened. “Oh. Well, then yeah. Um . . . I’m going to work my way around to Lowell’s in a couple of hours. See you up in the loft? Noon?”

I agreed and moved on. As I passed near the slabs, I looked across the street for Twitcher, but I didn’t see him this time, so I crossed the road and asked a few of the guys hanging out near the memorial if they knew him. None of them did and none of them recalled seeing him in the area. I’d have to go down to Pioneer Square later and find out what he’d been doing up here the day before.

I continued to ask around, killing a couple of hours with the same questions, but I didn’t have a lot more luck. But then I got one more “meet me at Lowell’s” offer from a woman in a ridiculously large hat whose act involved a talking parrot and a stuffed cat. Chaos had been very interested in the parrot, which had forced me to cut the interview short even though the woman seemed to know something.

“I’ll see you at Lowell’s,” I said, backing away.

“I’ll be there when I’m done here,” she replied, tossing the stuffed cat into the air.

I hadn’t realized how quickly time had passed—it was nearly eleven thirty already. I worked my way through the crowd to a washroom to clean up and then onward through the lunch crush to the restaurant inside the main market arcade. They’d filmed some scenes for
Sleepless in Seattle
there and the photos were still displayed near the entrance. Tourists always seemed to cluster around the doors, staring at them for a moment or two, though I imagined many had no idea what film they were from or who the people in the photos were. I felt old thinking of it.

I smuggled the ferret into the upper dining room at Lowell’s and found the woman with the stuffed cat—but no sign of the parrot this time—sitting with a cup of tea at a table near the windows with a vertigo-inducing view of Elliott Bay and the waterfront. I could see the Great Wheel—a giant Ferris wheel similar in design to the London Eye, but about half the size—revolving slowly at the end of Pier 57 and the aquarium’s roofs just across the road from the Hill Climb immediately below us. I couldn’t see down to the tunnel construction, but I knew it was there, just beyond the edges of the window. I wondered if Julianne Goss had turned to admire the same view on the day a mosquito had bitten her and wished I could figure out the connection between the three patients who might be running out of time as I sat and drank coffee with buskers and fabric cats.

I took a seat on the other side of the table from the woman and was about to say hello again when two more people approached us, carrying trays of food from downstairs. “Hey, Mindy! Can we sit with you?” the male of the pair asked.

The Cat Lady waved graciously for them to join us and then reached up to remove her hat, which she put down with care so it stood flat against the wall. Her revealed hair was faded strawberry blond and she appeared older without the shade of the hat brim on her face.

She looked at me and started to speak but was cut off one more time by the arrival of the guitar player I’d met in Post Alley. “Hey, make some room for me, too,” he said, pulling a chair over from another table and wedging himself between the unnamed lady and myself. I scooted my chair next to Mindy to make room for him.

Mindy rolled her eyes. “Sure thing, Fuso. Don’t mind us.”

“Ah, don’t be such a bitch, Mindy. I need to talk to the Private Eye, too.”

The couple to whom I’d not been introduced yet gave me a startled look and seemed about to pack up and leave, but Mindy patted the man’s nearest hand and they settled back into their seats.

“I thought your name was Dylan,” I said to the guitar player.

He shrugged. “Nah, they were just making remarks.”

“As is only fitting, considering how often you do the same,” Mindy said.

Fuso blew a raspberry.

I leaned forward and said, “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I did promise to meet . . . umm . . . Fuso here, too.”

“That’s all right,” Mindy said. Chaos stuck her head out of my bag and sniffed at the odors of food. Mindy noticed her and smiled. “Better keep that under the table, just in case,” she suggested. “I leave Beaker with the folks who run the bird store on Western. They spoil him, of course.” Then she looked at the couple who had joined us. “Are you two comfortable? You don’t mind . . . ?”

“No problem,” the woman of the couple said. “Fuso’s always a rude pain in the ass.” Then she stuck her tongue out at the man named when he looked as if he would object.

Mindy looked around the table while I closed the zipper on my bag to keep the ferret from running amok in the restaurant.

Mindy waited until I was done, glancing at me one more time before saying, “Well, I’m Mindy Canter. Fuso you know—Ansel Fuso. And these are Nightingale and Whim Sonder.”

The male Sonder reached across the table and put out his hand to shake mine. “William, really, but it’s Whim to most.”

I had seen their names on flyers around town—Whim and Nightingale created children’s shows with all sorts of puppets, mimes, musicians, and wild costumes. “I thought you two were big-time producers,” I said.

Nightingale pulled a rueful face. “Unfortunately, puppetry is not the easiest gig to make a living at if you’re not willing to travel. Whim is utterly terrified of planes.”

“Not terrified, just not convinced they’re going to stay aloft,” Whim said. “And we can only afford to mount one show a year—the Christmas show at the Children’s Theatre.” He glanced away. “Our son would have been six this year. . . .”

I looked at Nightingale, who bit her lip as tears welled in her eyes. She met my gaze and shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about it. Silvery faces boiled around her in the Grey, one in particular whispering something I couldn’t catch.

Into the awkward silence, Fuso blurted, “But you want to know about the Banjo Guy, not Whim and Nightie’s kid.”

Mindy gave him a cold glare. “Yes, she wants to talk about Jordy, Fuso. You could be a little more sensitive.”

“Me? I’m the most sensitive guy in the world. Didn’t I give those two guys who snaffled Banjo Guy’s badge the rush?
I’m
not running around acting like he was never here.”

“No one acts like Jordy was never here. We just don’t use it as an excuse to be mean to other people.”

Fuso rolled his eyes and blew a noisy breath into his hair. “You say so.”

Mindy gave him one more hard look, then turned her attention back to me. “What did you want to know?”

“Well, I have a mailing address for him, but I really need to talk to his caregivers or family in person. I need an actual address where I can find him.”

“Why?” Nightingale asked.

“He may have something in common with a client of mine who’s also in a coma,” I said. “I’m trying to find out what happened to him and other patients with the same symptoms and see if there’s a connection that might help us understand and possibly correct their conditions. So far all the patients’ injuries seem to have some association with the tunnel construction zone, but that’s very vague and the longer it takes to find Jordan and possibly a common cause, the worse each patient’s chances become. I need more information and I think I can get it if I can see Delamar and talk to the people who are taking care of him. Do any of you know his address or anything about his condition or his accident?”

They exchanged glances before Mindy looked at me as if they had elected her their representative. “I have Jordy’s address. He’s been unconscious ever since the awning fell on him. Whim and Nightingale and I went to see him while he was in the hospital, but when Levi couldn’t afford it anymore, they moved him to a different facility and it’s been hard to go see him. We all work long hours in the summer. I have another job as well as this one. So do Whim and Night.” She cast an exasperated look at Fuso. “Ansel is just a bum who sponges off his mother.”

“Hey! I do my bit. Don’t go dissing me.”

Beside him, Nightingale gave his shoulder a token smack. “Don’t be such a whiner, Fuso. Learn to take a joke.”

Fuso grunted and snatched a handful of French fries off Nightingale’s plate and shoved them into his mouth in a wad. Nightingale shook her head and Whim made an exaggerated face of disgust. “You’re such a delicate flower, Fuso. I’m going to make a puppet just like you: Its mouth will reach all the way around to the back of its head.”

They poked fun at Fuso for a few minutes, diffusing the tension that had risen between them earlier. I waited for them to wind down. Then I said, “Tell me about Delamar. What’s he like? What did he do?”

“You mean his act?” Mindy asked. “He plays banjo.”

“He also makes them,” Whim said. “It’s part of the shtick. He has a real nice Gibson resonator, but he’s always got a couple of specialties around. Like . . . he has one made out of a dried gourd and a yardstick and another he made out of a cooking pot.”

“I remember that one!” Nightingale said. “He sold it to some guy from a restaurant supply company. Remember the cigar box?”

Whim laughed. “I do. That was a classic.”

“He made them all himself?” I asked. “So his act is some sort of gag?”

The Sonders looked appalled. “Oh no!” Nightingale said. “He was just so talented he could make a playable instrument out of almost anything. He made a three-hole chicken-bone whistle once, but he wasn’t a very good wind player, so he gave it away. He made things all the time—mostly out of junk he found around the market. He’d play them for a while, but if someone liked the instrument, he’d sell it to them. He was probably better at making instruments than playing them, but he only really liked banjos. I think selling the instruments brought in more money, but he liked to play. He thought of himself as a musician, not an instrument maker.”

“You speak of him in the past tense,” I noted.

Nightingale drew in her breath as if to rebut me, but stopped. “I—guess it’s just been so long . . .”

Whim put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s been a long time since we saw him and every show’s yesterday’s news. Once you go home for the day, it’s over and past.”

Fuso rolled his eyes. “What he really means is no one thinks he’s coming back.”

Mindy jabbed a finger into Fuso’s arm. “Fuso!”

He turned to her. “It’s true! You can pretend all you want, but we all know it. He was a good guy, but there ain’t no Prince Charming going to come along and wake him up.” He glared at the Sonders. “You know that better than anyone.”

Nightingale turned in her seat and slapped him. “Shut up, Fuso. Shut up.”

Fuso stood up with more self-possession than I’d have expected, and walked quietly away. Nightingale pushed her tray aside and got up from the table. She looked down at Whim, her face white and the energy around her flaring red, then yellow, then green. “I need to leave.” She looked at me. “I’m sorry I can’t help you. Jordan is a very nice man. He deserves better friends than Fuso. And us.”

She turned and walked off, Whim hopping up to follow her without looking back.

Mindy closed her eyes and shook her head. “I should have known better than to let Fuso open his mouth.”

“I get the impression he’d open it anyhow and you couldn’t have stopped him.”

“He’s such a brat.”

I thought that was too mild a sentiment, but Fuso wasn’t my problem. “I’m sorry to have raised such a stink.”

“It happens. Especially if Fuso is involved. He liked Jordan. I think he’s a little jealous, really, because he wants to be liked just as much, but he doesn’t know how. He’s immature and even younger than he looks, so he hasn’t learned to keep his temper in check. He’s not very good at making friends.”

I wasn’t either and I felt a niggle of shame since I was older than I looked and should have learned better by now. “I do know how that goes.”

Mindy gave a tight smile. Then she picked up a napkin and asked me for a pen. “I’ll give you the address where you can find Jordy. He won’t be able to talk to you, but someone there may.”

As she wrote the information down I watched her. “I have one other question,” I said.

She nodded without glancing up.

“Have things been . . . strange around the market lately?”

“Strange? This place runs on strange.” She raised her head. “What sort of thing are you really after?”

“I mean has it seemed haunted or like there have been more accidents or that things are unsettled lately?”

“Oh,” she said, her eyes lighting with recognition. “There has been more . . . disturbance than usual. It feels like . . . something’s broken. People are snappish, strange events have become more common—it’s always odd here and some people won’t work in the main arcade when that sort of thing starts happening. I won’t, for one.”

“Why?”

Mindy studied my face in silence before she answered. “Spirits. You can feel them, sometimes, watching you. All the people who lived on the bluff before the market was here, all the people who’ve been here since. Usually they’re just there, and it’s no problem. But sometimes—lately—they seem . . . agitated. Ever since Jordan was hurt. Do you think the ghosts are mad about that?”

“I don’t know. But there was a monkey in the office this morning and I was told things have been going badly a lot. I just wondered if that was a widespread impression.”