Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner Read Free Book Online

couldn’t see it well enough to know what it was—a woman, he would have guessed—but when he looked directly at where the thing ought to be, there was nothing. A pleasurable shiver ran up his back. It had been a long time since he’d imagined things watching him in the dark. (What had it been? A moth, perhaps, much closer to his eye than he’d imagined? A bat?) The place wouldn’t seem so eerie, of course, when you were used to it. In any event, eerie or not, it was beautiful.
    He ground out his cigarette, let smoke float slowly out through his nostrils, and decided to make an offer.
    That night, when he climbed the crooked, dimly lit stairs to his apartment—in his left arm his meagre week’s supply of groceries, in his right hand his mail, all of it depressing (bills, two letters marked “Occupant,” another computerized stern complaint from the I.R.S.)—he found a note poking out from below his door. He froze, then looked around as if whoever it was that had crept in on him might still be lurking near, in the shadows just beyond the reach of the cheaply shaded bulb. All around his door stood bulky, misshapen cardboard boxes—junk books he’d never bothered to unpack, junk appliances (the portable radio he had no use for anymore, his iron, probably his toaster, he wasn’t certain)—the shadows of the boxes low on the wall, as if trying to hide behind the boxes. There was no one there. He unlocked the door, carried the groceries in and set them down, then went back to stoop over and pick up the note. It was written in a stiff, old-mannish hand, and signed, with a sudden dissilient flourish, Michael Nugent. He read the first words: “It is extremely urgent that …”
    He closed the door and, without reading further, crumpled the note in his fist.

2
    â€œA what?” Finney wailed, dramatic. It was the omnipresent potential for theater that had gotten him into the law-game, Mickelsson was convinced. It was better than acting; he wasn’t impeded by some humdrum playwright’s lines.
    â€œHouse,” Mickelsson repeated, reaching toward the pocket where he kept his pipe, then changing his mind, getting out his cigarettes and hunting around under papers and books for matches. No luck.
    â€œHouse! Well, saints preserve us!” Finney said. He cracked his voice, old-time Irish. Mickelsson could see him: fat and sweat-washed; gold-rimmed glasses; black toupee, gray sideburns below; little blue eyes crossed with anger or, more likely, impatience as he stared for just an instant at the phone. While he talked he’d be reading and signing letters, motioning to his secretary, furtively scratching himself, raising his rear end off the chair to catch a breeze. “That’s good, Pete! Cute! Give the feds something solid to aim their pissers at.”
    â€œI know,” Mickelsson said. “Look—”
    â€œAlso makes your generous offer to your wife more interesting.” Abruptly solemn.
    â€œBelieve me—”
    â€œI can see you’re not wild for good advice, Professor, but take it from me, ole pal ole sock, by all the little golden, curly hairs on—”
    â€œIt’s relatively cheap, Finney. If I can’t manage it, then I can’t. Are you listening?”
    â€œOK.” There was a pause, no doubt while Finney ran his eyes over some paper, then handed it back to his secretary. “OK, cheap. Gotcha. Spare me the details! I don’t suppose you could get it in a friend’s name? That might be a very good idea, you know. Keep the feds’ sticky fingers off the moola—”
    â€œNo chance.”
    Finney laughed. “You oughtta be nicer to people, you know that, Professor? Let ’em see your sweet side! But OK, OK. I dig. I’m glad you touched base on this. If it looks like this is where the cheese starts to bind I’ll get back to you.” Another pause, then: “OK,