Free Goodlow's Ghosts by T.M. Wright

anyway because he had never been able to ignore a ringing telephone.
    Jack Lutz, clearly upset, said, "It's my wife, Mr. Biergarten . It's Stevie. She's come back."
    Ryerson knew from the man's tone that She's come back did not mean what it seemed to mean. "Go on," he said.
    "Mr. Biergarten , she's here, now. I can see her, for God's sake."
    "You're at home, Mr. Lutz?"
    "She's looking at me! But I don't think she can see me. I'm sure she can't see me. I know she can't see me!"
    "Do you smell anything unusual, Mr. Lutz?"
    "For Christ's sake, she's looking right at me and she can't see me—"
    "Mr. Lutz, do you smell anything unusual?"
    "Yes. Salt air. Fish." A pause. "Wet clay."
    ~ * ~
    "Yes, Ms. Erb ," said the woman who called herself Violet McCartle . "I'm fully aware of what dumping my stock portfolio might do to the market, but it is, after all, my portfolio, and I can do with it what I wish. And I wish to unload it."
    Janice Erb sighed and poured herself another cup of coffee.
    "You may pour me a cup, too," said the woman who called herself Violet McCartle .
    Janice looked confusedly at her. "When did you start drinking coffee again?"
    A moment's silence. Janice noticed that the woman looked suddenly bewildered. She said, "Didn't you say your doctors recommended against it?"
    The woman nodded. "Yes, but, as you can see, Ms. Erb , I'm doing much better. Once again, I'm ambulatory. My blood pressure has returned to normal, and so I have resumed some old and very pleasurable habits." She withdrew a pack of cigarettes from her cavernous black leather purse. "Do you mind?" She lit up at once and glanced about for an ashtray. There was none. She flicked her ash on the floor, nodded at the coffeepot and said, "Light, no sugar."

TWELVE
     
    Sam Goodlow shuddered at his reflection because he saw it with such numbing clarity that it scared him.
    He could not remember seeing his reflection so dearly before, and he stared at it now for a long time without moving and thought, So this is what other people see then they see me .
    He remembered looking at his reflection before, but it had never been the same as it was now. Prior to this moment, looking at his reflection had been like trying to hear is own voice when he spoke. He had always heard it through the passageways, bone, and muscle of his own head, and it was not what other people heard. Looking at is reflection had been the same sort of thing. He had always seen what he wanted to see, what he had hoped to see.   He had been kind to himself, for his own sake.
    But there he was, now. Big and oafish and vulnerable looking. No macho man. Barely more than an infant in a double-X suit. It was what other people saw, and he had ever known it.
    He looked away.
    He turned around.
    There was a stairway close by and he could hear someone talking from below.
    He listened for a while, uncertain that he recognized the voice, and started down the stairway.
    ~ * ~
    "But now she's gone," Jack Lutz said. "I can't see her anymore. She vanished, like that, my God, like that, pff , Mr. Biergarten ..."
    "It may not have been her you were seeing," Ryerson said.
    "But it was. I saw her. It was Stevie."
    Ryerson hesitated. He wasn't sure what he was suggesting. Ideas often came to him that way—not fully formed. Often, they stayed that way. Often, they went nowhere. He said, "I'm coming over there, Mr. Lutz. I'll arrive within the hour. Promise me you won't go near the place where your wife disappeared."
    "Of course," Lutz said. "I won't go anywhere near it. I haven't been able to go anywhere near it."
    "Yes, good," Ryerson said, and hung up.
    Moments later, with Creosote in his arms, he was leaving the house.
    ~ * ~
    Sam Goodlow stood in front of the door, watched Ryerson go, and became very confused. Man and dog had passed through him as if he were no more substantial than air. Good Lord, he and the man had been talking together only minutes earlier, and now the man could walk through him and