A Wild Ghost Chase by E.J. Copperman Read Free Book Online Page B

because she was enjoying herself, as I sank through the floorboards into the basement. It was time to try once again to raise someone who could help us with finding Antinanco’s mother.
    The process was turning out to be unusually difficult (as I had feared); a case that Harrison Investigations should not have taken on to begin with. But Melissa had made a rash offer, I had been forced to honor it, and now I was stuck in the position of trying to do something I was fairly sure could not be done.
    I had not gotten all the way into the basement—I believe my hairline was still between floors—when I noticed our client sitting in a corner opposite the furnace, looking at a box of toys Alison had stored from when Melissa was some years younger.
    He was sifting through the admittedly disorganized carton, discarding dolls and toy jewelry in favor of some of Melissa’s more aggressive playthings, chiefly small superhero action toys that were sometimes included in fast food children’s meals. He did not seem to notice me as I descended, so I ducked quickly behind the furnace to avoid his attention, and watched him.
    Normally, I would never spy on a client, or anyone else who was not a target of surveillance for an investigation. But in this case, Antinanco had been as mysterious as the puzzle he was asking us to solve, so observing him while he was unaware he was being watched had some utility. When people are alone, they exhibit their true character traits; no one is there (or at least, no one of whom they are aware) to see them, so they have no need to project a positive image and can do what they please.
    Antinanco was choosing to play with Batman toys.
    That in itself was not terribly noteworthy; the boy, no matter how many centuries he had been dead, had not aged. He was still an eight-year-old child, and they will play with figures, project personalities onto them and pretend to have great adventures. Any eight-year-old boy would be happy to play Batman.
    Any eight-year-old boy from the twentieth or twenty-first centuries, anyway.
    It was possibly true that Antinanco had been existing in the house at 123 Seafront or somewhere near it for some time, and he had himself said he was cognizant of current trends in popular culture. So the fact that he was aware of Batman was only slightly odd; surely he would have had the chance to observe books or television programs featuring the character. So his accurate depiction of Batman (in Antinanco’s version, he was battling with the Joker—represented here by his left hand, whose fingers opened and closed while the character “spoke”—over some enormous jewel being played by a plastic ring Melissa had owned) did not indicate anything strange on its own.
    What caught my attention were the toys Antinanco was choosing
not
to play with. Like many children, Melissa had apparently gone through a “cowboys and Indians” phase; the collection of toys scattered when Antinanco had been searching for a worthy plaything indicated she’d had a fairly healthy fascination. There were native headdresses, headbands, and small plastic figures that the boy would certainly recognize as his own people.
    Antinanco appeared not to be the least bit interested in them.
    Again, on the surface, that was not especially odd. But he had evinced such pride in his heritage that his decision to eschew the plastic figures that looked like himself or people he had once known was telling. The problem was I couldn’t understand what it was telling me.
    Perhaps now I needed two translators.
    Antinanco’s game went on for quite a while. At one point Batman appeared to be menaced by a Tyrannosaurus Rex, whose name appeared to be Mr. Rex, summoned by the Joker, but he managed to subdue it with the help of . . . I couldn’t make out all of what Antinanco was saying. I did not make any noise, but nevertheless he eventually glanced up in the direction of the boiler, and saw me. His eyes rounded and widened and he