Check-Out Time by Mark Rigney

Author:Mark Rigney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror;humor;ghosts;spirits;haunting;supernatural;Christopher Moore
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2014-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Quist

Gonzalo found me behind the Huntington, the part where the alley went under a tunnel-wide, second-story pedestrian bridge, all enclosed, connecting the bank to a shorter version of itself on the next block over. I was belly down in the gutter with my ear pressed to the storm drain, hoping to hear I don’t even know what. Something. I’d been doin’ another circuit of the tower, looking for some kind of break, and I thought I’d heard these real suspicious noises coming out of the drain, so. Down on the pavement I went.

I was lucky on two fronts: first, that the gutter was dry, and second, that nobody had taken any notice of me. Sure, I’d picked my moment, but anyone could’ve walked ’round the corner, even on a Sunday, and I’d have looked suspicious at the least and stupid for sure. The things I do for that pipsqueak Renner.

Anyways, Gonzalo cleared his throat to let me know he was there, leanin’ against the wall, arms crossed. “Hola, señor,” he said. “Happy to see me?”

I got up, dusted myself off and pumped him for information. Turned out, that shrimp of a sailorman was damn near a professional gossip. Not only did he report what he actually did, said and saw, but he offered up an opinion on absolutely everything. For one thing, he didn’t think Renner had a chance in hell of gettin’ into Angela’s pants, although he put it different, something incomprehensible about ‘back scuttling’, and for another—well. I finally had to just plain shush the guy.

“Whoa,” I said. “Did you get Angela’s last name?”

“Purvis,” he said, almost strutting. “The lost sheep is found. And we now must tell Mr. Purvis that his daughter is alive, alive-o.”

I blinked. “‘Alive, alive-o’?”

Gonzalo looked embarrassed. “A man who cleans my ship, he sings this song. It’s about cockles and mussels alive, alive-o. And the girl in the song, Molly Malone? She dies.” He frowned. “But not of pox. A fever.”

I sighed. “So you said we’d deliver a message to this guy Purvis? Do you know where to find him?”

Pointing up at the Huntington, Gonzalo said, “His daughter is in there, so he will be around. You would be, yes?”

“Yeah, I guess. Now explain again why this Beltane thing matters.”

The more Gonzalo spelled out Renner’s whole Beltane hypothesis, the more it backed up Meryl’s warning, and made sense to boot. Of a kind. Call it phantom logic. Logic according to things that go bump in the night.

When he’d finished, I said, “Good work,” and man, Gonzalo looked so proud, I thought I’d see peacock feathers bustin’ out of his ass. He also looked a little green around the gills, so I asked him if he was feeling all right.

“Not so good, in all the honesty. I think maybe I’ve been too long away, away from the Santa Maria.”

“Then you get on home,” I told him. “We’ll hook up soon enough.”

“‘Hook up’?” he echoed, with more than a hint of worry. “You sure

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