Killer Karma

After a couple of blocks, he noticed that now and then someone glanced up and appeared to see him. Mostly winos, unfortunately. One almost toppled over backward gaping up at him. This could be a new sobriety test, Cole reflected wryly. If you can see me, you’re under the influence. The one non- wino had a looking-at-other stare that signaled disconnection from reality.

As he started to doubt that any rational adult would ever see him, he noticed three prostitutes outside the mouth of an alley down the block. They stood off to the side of the alley, peering fearfully into it around the corner of the building. Moments later Cole heard a choked-off cry and a snarling male voice.

“Bitch! I warned you not to hold out on me!”

Reflex kicked in. Cole raced down the block and into the alley. Below him, a burly male had both hands around the neck of a woman wearing a lacey camisole and panties under a hip-length faux fur jacket. Clearly a prostitute and her pimp. Anger still boiled up in him. He despised men who beat up women, no matter what woman and for what reason. “Get your hands off her!”

“Baby, no, I swear,” she choked out. “Business just isn’t- ”

“Then you’re not trying hard enough!” The pimp slammed her head into the wall behind her.

Cole tried to drop on top of the pimp. Only to remain suspended. He grimaced. Of course. No gravity, no drop. He charged ran down virtual stairs. By which time the pimp had slammed the hooker’s head into the wall again. And Cole remembered he had no way to intervene.

Or did he?

He lunged through the pimp from shoulder to shoulder. “I said, get your hands off her, dogshit!”

The pimp yelped and jumped back, releasing the hooker’s neck. A moment later he reddened in fury. “Now you’ve done it, you stupid cunt! You’re dead! Give me that stun gun!”

She gaped in bewilderment. “What stun- ”

The pimp pulled back his fist. Cole went through him again, this time slowly. Maybe his anger helped. He barely felt the buzz. The pimp, though, jumped back another step.

Cole followed, and this time instead of walking through, kept in the pimp’s space. As the pimp backed away, Cole stayed with him. Through the buzz, Cole felt faint heat flowing into him. From the pimp?

Apparently. The pimp started shivering. Seconds later he retreated toward the alley entrance. “I’ll let it go this time…but you get out there and hump, bitch!” he snarled, and wheeling, stalked away.

Gaping after him, the hooker stumbled out of the alley.

The other prostitutes crowded around her. “Are you all right, honey? God, look at your neck. You’re gonna have huge fucking bruises. You ought to go home- ”

She shrugged them off. “I gotta go back to work or Danny’ll get really mad. I’ll be all right.”

“No, Dannyboy is the kind who’ll kill you sooner or later,” Cole said. Maybe the next time he beat her, which was likely to be twice as vicious anyway. Rescuing her did her no favor in the long run. “You need to drop a dime on him and find yourself a different job- ”

The sentence died in his throat. One of the prostitutes, a tall red-head in red leather hot pants and a matching waist-length jacket, had glanced at him. A second later she turned away, but excitement leaped in Cole. She saw him. He was sure of it! And she looked sober and rational.

The prostitutes spread out along the block. Cole followed the one in red to her corner. His corner, really. Despite a good job of battening down his willie and a nice manicure with long false nails, those unmistakably male wrists gave away her sex. “Looking for a date, Red?”

She dug a cigarette out of her bag and lit it. “Not with you, baby.”

She did see him! “Why not?”

One brow arched. “I’ve resurrected dead dicks in my time, but the body has to be at least breathing.”

Cole felt his jaw drop and snapped it closed. “You know I’m a ghost?” And accepted that without batting an eye? “How can you tell?”

“Well let’s see.” She dragged on her cigarette and blew the smoke at him. “Maybe because…you look like a ghost?”

“How’s that? I look like myself to me.”

The brow went up again. “Yeah? To me you look like those tapes of old TV shows… kinda faded, and fuzzy on the edges. Except you’re colored instead of black and white.”

That described bad security tapes, too. Terrific. I’m not live; I’m worn-out Memorex. “Is that how other ghosts will look to me?” He should check whether the horror in the garage had a ghost attached to it. He hoped it did not.

Red sniffed. “You ain’t gonna see other ghosts. You’re around because you got business to finish with living people.”

“That’s hard to do when you’re the only non-wacko adult who sees me.” Cole grimaced. “Why do you see me?”

She shrugged. “I been seeing spirits all my life…just like my mama and gran.” After a last puff, she dropped the cigarette on the sidewalk and ground the butt under one platform heel. “You’re the first to give me the third degree, though. It must come from being a cop.”

Cole ignored the jibe. “You can tell that, too?”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, yeah. Even the ghost of a cop still looks like a cop.”

“Can I make someone else see me? When they’re rational and sober, I mean.”

“Do I look like a fortune teller?” She dug into her bag for another cigarette. “The odds ain’t good. Most people normally won’t, and some never will, no matter what.”

Normally? The word reverberated in him. “You mean it is possible to see me? When and how?”

She took a deep drag, then watched the smoke as she blew it out. “I don’t have a clue.” Her eyes focused past him, searching the street. “Look…I know you’re trying to figure yourself out and you seem like you were a decent guy. I appreciate what you did for Vicky and I hope you froze that prick Danny’s balls off. But…enough already. I’m trying to make a living here and I can’t fucking do it talking to you.”

Cole’s heart sank. Damn…he was losing her…and he had no official leverage to keep her talking. But let’s- continue-this-downtown had always been his last resort anyway. He put on a smile and slid his voice into a Jimmy Stewart impression that had served him well in the past for dealing with nervous or reluctant witnesses. “Honey, I–I can’t believe that with all the ghosts you’ve seen and-and the power of observation you’ve got in-in your job, you haven’t made some guesses about other people seeing ghosts.”

She snorted. “I bet you were a first class bullshitter.” After several seconds she sighed. “Okay…for what it’s worth, if someone wants to see you, they can usually learn. There’s a way to make yourself visible to almost everyone, too…for a few minutes anyway. This ghost back home does it. Don’t ask me how. I just know the room gets cold as hell when she shows up, like a deep freeze.” Her eyes focused past him again…on a car pulling up at the curb. “Now get lost.” Flipping away her cigarette, she slapped on a professional smile, then sauntered through him toward the john.

That definitely ended the conversation.

Cole trotted back up to his walkway and on toward Razor’s place. He noted the activity street below him — hookers and crack dealers doing business…homeless men and women settling into doorways for the night… officers confronting three young men about drinking in public, making them pour their beers into the gutter — but his thoughts lingered on Red’s information. If someone wanted to see him, they could learn. Razor ought to want to see him…once convinced he was there to be seen. Considering the walk-through’s effect on Danny the Prick, it and a computer message should be convincing enough. But…was wanting to see him enough to make it happen? Red did say “learn”. Expecting to see someone was not enough to make him visible close up to those people who glimpsed or heard him in the fog. Yet the Princess Fan and winos who saw him went through no apparent learning process.

He halted and stared down at the scene below. Maybe that was the way to go…let Razor know he was around, then turn off Razor’s reality check. The question was, how. Not by getting him drunk, not with Holly there. Was there any other way?

Yes, Cole realized, looking down at a homeless man asleep in a doorway. Everyone’s reality check shut off