Free The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks by Josh Lanyon Page A

into the gazebo.
    It was small. The eight windows were brown with years of dirt, the wooden floor layered with dust and evidence of bird and squirrels. Perry pulled out a clean handkerchief to cover his mouth and nose.
    Circling the room, he had to admit there was a conspicuous lack of hiding places --
    some old rattan furniture, the faded cushions ripped open long ago. That was about it.
    No loose plank squeaked beneath his foot. He knocked on the walls, but they felt and sounded solid enough.
    After ten minutes or so, Perry gave up and returned to the house.

    * * * * *
The house was listening.
    Waiting.
    Perry could feel it in the silence beyond the cheerful canned laughter of Scooby-Doo.
    He sat on the late Mr. Watson’s long black leather sofa eating a bowl of cereal and watching Watson’s television.

    46 Josh Lanyon
    Every now and then, he reassured himself with a glance over at the shiny new locks on the doors. Serious locks. Heavy-duty locks. No one was coming in through that door --
    unless they broke the door down. He held the only keys; he had instructed the locksmith to cut a dummy key, and he’d handed that over to Mrs. MacQueen.
    So he was perfectly safe. Perfectly secure. And yet he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was not alone.
    That he was being watched.
    The house was quiet. Too quiet. Up in the isolated tower rooms that hush was normal; here on the second floor Perry expected signs of life. Where was the homey scent of dinners cooking? Where was the comfortable rattle and bang of activity from any of the surrounding rooms? From the sound of things, he could be the only person on this floor or in the whole house.
    Finishing a second bowl of cereal, he dumped his dish in the sink and made another nervous circuit of Watson’s rooms. He almost wished he were back with his own belongings in his own familiar surroundings -- except he’d never be able to use the bathroom in his apartment again.
    He checked the wine rack next to Watson’s stereo: lots of merlots and cabernets.
    Familiar brands, mostly from California. Nothing imported or priceless as far as he could tell.
    Not that he was any expert; he wasn’t much of a drinker. Red wine usually gave him a headache, and white wine -- according to his pop -- was for sissies. His own cupboards were bare even if he felt like braving the deserted third floor. So why not? Watson wouldn’t care, and the unknown relatives surely wouldn’t miss one bottle of wine? He could leave money for the bottle on the counter.
    He went into the bathroom, scrubbed down Watson’s tub, then uncorked a bottle of cabernet while the bath water ran.
    Two glasses of Salmon Creek and a long, hot soak went a long way toward relaxing him, and by the time Perry heaved himself out of the tub, he felt pleasantly limp and woozy.
    Pulling back the covers of the freshly made bed, he crawled between the sheets.
    Watson had an electric blanket. Perry turned the heat up.
    He thumbed through one of the comic books stacked beside the bed. More scantily clad ladies, this time fighting space aliens. He checked the date on the magazine cover. September 1950. Watson must have collected comic books.
    You could never tell about people. The few times Perry had talked to Watson, he had stuck strictly to sports and the stock market -- neither topics of great interest to Perry.
    Whereas he’d have been fascinated to hear about these comics and graphic novels. He loved the artwork, even if half-naked ladies were not really his thing.
    Curiously he turned back to the intergalactic warfare.

    The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks
    47
    After a time the breasts and word balloons all blurred together. He reached up and snapped off the light.

    * * * * *
What woke him? He wasn’t sure. For a minute, Perry lay there in the unfamiliar
    darkness trying to reorient.
    From next to the bed he heard the soft click of luminous numbers turning over. From the living room came the tick-tock of the clock. Closer was the