Chapter 1.4
Thomas pulled out his iPhone and texted the landlord, suggesting they meet so he could pay past-due rent now that he had money from Holder’s case. The reply came back immediately, the landlord conveniently online.
On my way, the landlord texted back.
Thomas stared at his reflection in the law office window. He’d looked good in court today, hadn’t he? He was six-two and had the broad shoulders of a swimmer, cornflower blue eyes, mud-brown hair, and was only a few pounds overweight. His nose was crooked, though, not horribly, but noticeably. He knew he looked good in court—physically—wearing his navy suit, but that wasn’t what he’d meant. He’d presented his case quickly and succinctly, and he’d scored points with the judge.
He adjusted his dark green tie and saw a face looking out at him. Gretchen, his secretary. She waved a stack of pink phone message slips.
Thomas went in, the bell above the door jangling merrily. “Surprised you’re still here,” he said.
“Wanted to hear how it went. I like that Mr. Holder. Very polite.” Gretchen paused and rested her hands against her waist. “So … don’t keep me twisting. How did it go? Did we win?”
Brock was always struck by how small Gretchen looked behind the big oak desk, the largest and nicest piece of furniture in the office, and the one just inside the door. It had been the only piece he’d bought new, and Gretchen had claimed it when he’d hired her. He hadn’t argued; he wanted the best up front to make an impression on potential clients.
“Not yet,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure we will.” He proceeded to tell her about the afternoon spent before the Honorable Vernon Vaughan.
Gretchen listened raptly, turning up the volume on her hearing aid. Gretchen was seventy-three, and looked as stately as Katherine Hepburn had in her later years, but she was tiny, not quite five feet, and shrunken from the years. Her cane was propped against the desk, her overlarge purse next to it. Brock could tell she’d packed up for the day.
“Good,” Gretchen pronounced. “I like that Mr. Holder. Very polite.” Sometimes she repeated herself.
“So we go back Monday morning to wrap it up, though we probably won’t get a final judgment until later in the week. Vaughan wants to talk to the children.”
Gretchen pushed away from the desk and adjusted her thick glasses. “You got a dozen calls to return,” she said, fluttering the pink message sheets before setting them down with a flourish. “Though I suppose some of them have already gone home for the day. Most of them are normals, but you got two from that psychic trying to warn you about something and one from that shape-shifting dog-man.” She opened her desk drawer and pulled out an antique Colt revolver, dropping it in her purse. Thomas knew she kept the gun for protection, but didn’t know if it actually worked.
“That psychic, she was persistent as all get-out.” Gretchen bent to retrieve her purse and slung it over her shoulder, the weight momentarily setting her off balance. She reached for the cane. “I’m going home.” She toddled to the door. “See you on Monday, Thomas. I have tomorrow off, remember?”
He remembered. She’d signed up for a day-long senior citizen bus trip to wine country. “You have a good weekend, Gretchen.”
She turned and looked over her hunched shoulder. “Oh, and Val pestered me pretty much all afternoon. He cut out just before you showed up. Tell him to lay off me, will you? Can’t go through the case paperwork and deal with him at the same time. You tell him that, will you? He never listens to me.”
“Certainly, Gretchen. Enjoy your week—”
“I’m hoping for some Zinfandels. I like blackberry zin. Gonna watch the Forty Niners game on Sunday. They’re gonna crush Detroit.” She was gone with the jangling of the bell, heading toward the bus stop that would take her to the San Francisco Towers, the retirement community where she lived.
Gretchen Cain was Brock’s part-time legal secretary, though she usually kept full-time hours. When he first opened his practice, he hadn’t been able to find a good young or middle-aged legal secretary who would work for his rates. So he hired Gretchen, who’d come in answer to his classified advertisement.
She’d told him she was bored at the Towers; that retirement hadn’t agreed with her, and that she needed something to keep her occupied. She had a wealth of experience working as a legal secretary, first for the DA’s office and then later for a couple of corporate firms, and Brock, a crusader against discrimination, could hardly turn her away because of her age. He’d found her indefatigable, tolerant of the odd clientele that crossed his threshold, and she’d taught him more than a little bit about the law.
The ceiling creaked. Evelyn was walking through the apartment above. A moment later he heard the upstairs door shut and the thud of her hurried footsteps down the side stairs. He stepped back behind Gretchen’s desk and stared out the window, moments later seeing Evelyn jog by. She’d changed into blue jeans and a sweatshirt and had one of those messenger bags slung over her shoulder, the faint outline of an iPad inside. It looked like she was going to run to her class rather than wait for the bus; he knew she did that sometimes. Evelyn was in great physical shape, and San Francisco University and its School of Law wasn’t all that far.
A familiar male voice coalesced in the empty space behind him. “Chick’s a looker, eh? Fine as wine, and no foam domes. I like to watch her, too.”
Thomas shivered from the instant chill and whirled to see a translucent image hovering a few inches above the floor. As he watched, the details grew sharper; the figure looking like a piece of morning mist along the bay that had congealed into the semblance of a man.
“Valentino,” Thomas pronounced. “Gretchen said you bothered her today.”
The mist shrugged. “She can be a real drag, you know, Tommy-boy.”
Thomas scowled.
“Sorry … She can be a real drag, you know.” The manlike shape had a mass of wispy hair that hung past sharp, narrow shoulders. “I know. I know. Lay off her.”
“Yes, Val, you need to lay off her.”
“Especially when she’s in one of her moods.”
The ghost had first revealed himself to Thomas after the law office had been open two months. Thomas had spent time with a handful of OTs at college, including his vampire roommate who’d become a close friend during his senior year of law school, but ghosts…? Val had been his first ghost.
Always open-minded and curious, Thomas nevertheless didn’t initially like the dead hippie. Val was all about getting high and talking about Haight-Ashbury’s summer of love; he definitely “lived” in the past, not in the “now.” Straight-laced Thomas just wasn’t a good fit with him. But as the weeks wore on, Thomas mellowed on the spirit, eventually coming to enjoy the ghost’s company. Now he almost considered Val a friend.
“And Gretchen was certainly in one of her moods,” Val continued.
A silence settled between the spirit and Thomas and in it a siren wailed mournfully, crescendoing as an ambulance sped past, and then fading to nothing. Traffic resumed, a little sparser now. A Golden Gate Transit bus went past, looking almost full, and then there was a gap before an aging Buick trundled by and slowed in front of the office, its windows dark.
“Sounds like that dude’s running open pipes,” the spirit observed.
Thomas agreed that the car was loud, probably a bad muffler, and the driver could get cited for it. Maybe a potential client was behind the wheel, looking in to see if the office was still open. Thomas realized he hadn’t turned the sign around yet. Maybe he’d get another case. With the windows of the car tinted like that, you couldn’t tell who was driving. Maybe an OT.
“I’d at least put a glasspack on that baby, don’t you think? Pigs’ll pick him up if he keeps revvin’ like that.”
Thomas took a step toward the door. Let the driver realize we’re still open. But then the car squealed away. An opportunity lost, he thought. “Val … about Gretch—”
“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll lay off Gretchen. Really, I will.”
“Thanks.”
“You have to understand—It’s just—” The spirit let the thought dangle for a moment before explaining. “It’s just that her arthritis was acting up more than usual today. Can you dig it? She was popping Vikes.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said Gretchen got her a script for Vicodin and popped a couple with her Cheese Doodles, and I hung close to get the effect. That was all. I wasn’t really bothering her, just … you know … copping the buzz. Didn’t you notice how she practically floated out of here?”
Thomas stretched out an arm toward the closed sign, fingers grabbing it, but hesitating. The Buick cruised past again. Something niggled at the back of his brain. “That car—”
“Yeah, it could be bitchin’ don’t you think? But the dude probably doesn’t have enough bread to get it sanded out and cherry.”
Thomas remembered that he’d seen the old Buick back at the courthouse, right before he and Evelyn had boarded the bus. “That car—”
“Listen, Tommy-boy, I gotta split. Catch you tomorrow, man. You hang loose.”
Thomas dismissively waggled his fingers. He didn’t have to look to notice the spirit had vanished. The chill in the air was gone.