Ravenous Ghosts (7 page)

The guy with the purple coat stuck out like a diamond in a turd – as Greta was known to say – and thus, caught the eye of the thief as soon as he entered the train station.

Fat cat
, Stan thought, busy pretending to read the schedule mounted on the wall beside the restrooms while the ghost of the purple man crossed the plexiglass.
Tonight my dear we eat at the Golden Sword
.

For weeks now his wife had been nagging him to make a score they could actually live on for more than a week. Greta was quick to goad him into working but just as quick to blow his take on expensive clothes and jewelry, a habit that annoyed the hell out of him. All it would take to bring the end of everything would be a suspicious cop acting on a tip-off and calling to their house. He pictured Greta opening the door, wearing more chains than a moored boat, the cop slowly reaching for his own less fashionable set of bracelets…

Stan shook his head and cast a glance over his shoulder.

The purple man was heading towards the men
's room, his eyes fixed on the floor ahead of him as if fascinated by people's choice in footwear.

Stan pondered his next move but Greta
's voice shrilled in his head, making him wince. "Wait until boarding, you idiot. You're less likely to be spotted in a crowd and he's not going to feel you lift his wallet with fifty or sixty people crushing against him."

She was right of course, as always but how he hated to admit that.

His wife frequently used his lack of education against him whenever they argued and he would more often than not be forced to back down, as if the mere reminder was enough to lower his actual IQ, rendering him incapable of an adequate response.

Still, he loved her and as long as her decisions bore fruit and he got to spend half the money, then he could live with her claim of intellectual superiority.

The purple man emerged from the restroom, adjusting his belt with a meaty ring-studded hand.

This guy looks like a gangster from a Dick Tracy comic
, Stan thought, his mouth curling into a smile.

Indeed the purple man did seem better suited to a comic book. A three-piece suit concealed a massive bulk, presided over by an ill-tempered face mashed between meaty jowls. The guy
's pencil-thin moustache looked phony, drawn on for dramatic effect. A purple fedora with a yellow feather-band capped off the walking beetroot and Stan was caught between amusement and nervousness as he fell into step behind him. Some obscure cologne wafted into his face and he winced. It smelled like burnt leather.

"
Remember not too close. People can feel it when someone is treading on their shadow," Greta's disembodied voice advised.

I know. Give me a little credit.

However, as he kept his head low in a manner much the same as the purple guy, he noticed something odd.

Even if he chose to take his wife
's advice literally, there was no shadow to tread upon. He raised his face and looked at the bank of lights over the platform entrance. They were shining directly towards them. Stan looked over his shoulder at the tiled floor behind him. His own shadow followed obediently.

When he turned back, certain he
'd made a mistake, the purple guy was nowhere to be seen.

Goddamn it!

He made no attempt to hide his frustration and when he stalked past a cop, muttering about missing shadows and how the purple man had moved fast for a fat guy, the uniform didn't even register. Luckily for Stan, the cop spared him only the briefest of curious glances before going back to watching for real criminals.

There were several arched walkways leading to the various platforms. Stan danced with indecision for a moment before opting for the nearest one to him, the platform where any minute now the train to New Orleans might whisk away his chance at a successful score.

Struggling to retain his composure—because now this was no longer just another job but one he was convinced would yield unprecedented rewards—Stan weaved his way among the morose passengers, sidestepping trundling suitcases and enormous backpacks and searching for the slightest hint of purple.

Just as his heart began to lose some of its buoyancy, he spotted him.

Standing on the platform like a man who has all the time in the world, the purple guy rolled on the balls of his feet and whistled soundlessly. Wisps of dark hair poked out from beneath his hat and caressed his ear like the legs of beetles. He seemed oblivious to the gathering crowd of passengers who, unlike him, seemed impatient to be aboard the train and moving.

Stan moved behind the ever-growing crowd and waited for the jostling to begin as the train doors flapped open. Through the heaving mass of sweaty bodies, he caught a glimpse of the purple guy
's back pocket and beamed. A thick lump stretched the pocket to the point of bursting, the lip of a leather wallet pouting over the purple line.

Stan could already see himself at home with an excited Greta, patiently counting out the hundred dollar bills as his wife paced relentlessly around the room and his nerves.

Perhaps, if they were lucky enough, they could afford a vacation courtesy of Mr. Purple and his straining wallet. The thought was enough to make his mouth water.

The jostling began, a subtle rubbing of bodies as people began trying to squeeze themselves together. Ignoring the stabbing elbows and stamping feet, Stan slithered through the crowd and ended up right where he wanted to be.

He had almost forgotten the smell, but now that the purple man was this close, the odor of scorched hide almost choked him. He clamped his mouth shut, drew breath through his nose and concentrated on the bulge in the back of the man's pants.

Okay, nice and slow.

Mr. Purple was making it easy and not squirming uncomfortably like some of them did. Stan pressed his back against the crowd and shoved a little. Paused. Held his breath. The crowd shoved back. Perfect. By way of a tide effect (Greta's name for the ebb and flow of a crowd), he found himself forced up against the fat man's back.

In a flash, he let out a grunt, apologized to the fat man –who bore the inconvenience of Stan
's forced proximity without so much as a sigh—and melted ever so slowly back into the crowd until he was out the other side, slicked with sweat and barely able to control his elation.

Gripped like the Holy Grail in his left hand, was the purple guy
's wallet.

Whispering self-praise, Stan hurried through the station to the exit.

*
* *

It was an unspoken rule between Stan and Greta that the score not be assessed until he got home. Although the primary reason for this was that his wife wanted to share in the joy or as the case may be, disappointment with him, there was always the danger some eagle-eyed citizen would report him to the police after spying him digging through a wallet quite obviously not his own.

Now, with the small but swollen dark brown leather wallet lying on the coffee table, Greta took a seat across from him and nodded.
"Do it."

Stan bit his lip and watch as her smile grew by the second.

Taking a deep breath, he reached over and flipped open the wallet. It lay between them like a crippled bird, the contents of the lining still a mystery. There were no credit cards or family photographs in the clear plastic window and this made Stan a little uneasy. Could it have been a ruse? Was the guy accustomed to carrying around an empty wallet?

No. Although the inside of the wallet was bare, it remained fat, indicating that something was inside the folds.

"How much are you guessing is in there?" Greta asked, another ritual of theirs.

He shrugged.
"I'm hoping the guy was on his way to buy a car and wanted to pay cash."

Greta giggled and motioned for him to hurry.

He sucked in a breath and grabbed the wallet. The frown was beginning even before he spread apart the imitation velvet folds and saw what was inside.

Greta
's smile dropped as surely as if he'd slapped her and in a way he had. Slapped her with another week of fast food.

The wallet was empty.

As they watched in abject misery, the wallet deflated with a sigh, the air above it wobbling as if it had exhaled heat.

"
What the hell was that?" Stan asked, letting the wallet fall to the table and still staring at where the bizarre shift in the air had been.

Greta stood up and looked down at him, disgust wrenching her face into ugliness.
"Sweat from the guy's ass. Who gives a damn? That's another job down the toilet, another day playing Fagin when you could have been out looking for some real work."

Stan said nothing. This unfortunately, was also standard whenever the score was less than fifty dollars, or worse, nothing but air, and he knew he would be better just letting her vent. It wasn
't as if she meant any of it anyway.

"
How long more are you gonna keep this up?"

He shook his head and turned away to avoid the coals her beautiful sapphire eyes had become.

A peculiar smell had risen from somewhere within the room and Stan sniffed while Greta continued her spiel. "This, Stan is what happens when you don't abide by the rules. Mistakes are made and people get caught. What the hell would I do if you ended up in prison? I'd have to take up the job myself. God knows I'd probably be better at it than you. Are you listening to me?"

He wasn
't and when she followed his gaze, she saw why. "Stan? What's that smell?"

A pool of shadow had formed in the corner of the room, between the ceiling and the wall farthest from them. It looked like a three-fingered hand, as if a child were using a torch to make strange animal shapes on the wall. But there were no children here, just Stan, his wife and the shadow.

They watched, paralyzed with horror as the shadow lengthened and ran like oil down the light blue surface of the wall.

"
Stan?" The fear in Greta's voice did nothing to allay his own but as much as he wanted to, he could not move.

"
Stan? What…" It was separating now, dividing itself into what could only be described as puddles if puddles had suddenly decided to ignore the natural laws of gravity.

They began to widen and reconnect.

"Stan?"

"
I don't know Greta but stay where you are."

The shadow turned.

"Oh God," Greta collapsed back into her seat. "Oh God, what is it?"

Although Stan had an answer, it wasn
't one he thought he could force past his lips for fear it would drive him insane if he acknowledged it.

The shadow had taken the shape of a man.

Stan shook his head. He felt like someone in the audience at a shadow theater, the wall of his living room the screen behind which an actor waited for his cue.

"
Stan, what's happening?"

It stood motionless, featureless, and yet Stan had the feeling it was staring directly at him. He swallowed.

The doorbell rang.

"
Don't answer it," Greta begged and crammed her knuckles into her mouth.

The shadow of the man on the wall nodded once and though there was nothing about this scene that made sense to Stan, he knew what had to be done.

"I have to, honey," he told Greta and made his way toward the front door.

"
Why? Why do you have to?"

He started to answer and then thought better of it. How could he possibly put into words what had happened, what he
'd done?

He saw himself following the purple man in the train station, curious as to why he cast no shadow but too preoccupied to give it much thought. He thought about the smell…

And as he opened the door to a gust of blistering heat that singed his eyebrows, he finally knew exactly what he had stolen.

And whom he had stolen it from.

SPA
RROW MAN

Writing is a solitary affair, and I find to keep the idea factory fresh, I must occasionally break free from the confines of my little office and see the surrounding flora and fauna.

On the day this story was born, I was walking in a violent storm, contemplating abandoning the sojourn, no matter how sanity restoring it might be, when I came across two sparrows dead on the road, little more than a foot separating them. I had borrowed my brother-in-law
's jacket for this walk and it was about three sizes too big. As I stared down at the bird, the jacket whipped around me and I wondered what this peculiar little scene must look like to any observers, especially since the road I found myself on rarely bore any pedestrians. The image of a man, standing in the road looking down at the dead birds mutated into this story.

It's a Thursday. Down by Tanner's pond.

I
'm sitting there minding my own business and thinking about nothing in particular, when this old man sidles up to me with a strange, crooked smile on his skeletal face.