Sylvie had a figure to die for and was soft in all the right places. Not that I’d done anything inappropriate; she’d been asleep, for heaven’s sake. But lifting a grown woman of any size was just as difficult as I’d remembered, a fact my back continued to protest.
Another twinge had me asking if this should be taking quite so long.
Clarence paused with his fluffy paws hovering over the keys. “If you’d get me that voice-recognition software like I'd asked, I’d be a lot faster. And do you even know how hard this is?” He retracted and extended his claws. “These paws were not made for typing. It makes my claws ache like you wouldn’t believe.”
When he didn’t immediately return to the task, I mentally tallied his monthly bribes then gritted my teeth. “Voice-recognition software, got it.”
And the incredibly slow tapping started again. “Here, look, I’ve got something. You can quit with the Mr. Cranky Pants routine.”
“If I’m cranky, it’s because in about fifteen minutes I’m going to be confronting a peeper instead of enjoying the calming soak I desperately need.”
Clarence grunted. “Right. Let’s not dwell on past mistakes.”
“Your past mistakes. I didn’t invite a ghost to a nightly private viewing of my relaxation ritual.”
Clarence ignored that. “So, I’ve got Bobby’s work history, criminal convictions, and some financial information, all for the reasonable sum of nineteen ninety-nine.”
Modern technology at work. Sometimes I felt as if life had not only passed me by but had left me in the dust to choke. Wait, nineteen ninety-nine? “How did you pay for that?”
“Ahhh, you know that credit card you thought you hid from me? You might have hidden it, but I memorized the number first. Also, taped to the back of the toilet tank? Really? You’ll have to do better.”
“Of course, you memorized the numbers, because that’s normal behavior.” I shook my head. I knew at some point in his past Clarence had counted cards, because he’d told me so. I should have realized a handful of digits and a date wouldn’t be a problem.
Large green eyes blinked innocently at me.
I pointed at him. “I’ll be canceling that one, so don’t even try to use it again. And the next one will not be taped to the toilet tank.”
“Or stashed in the freezer, taped to the bottom of a drawer, hidden in a book—”
“That can’t be normal.” He’d covered every spot that immediately came to mind and then some. His creativity exceeded my own with the freezer. “But we don’t have a problem, do we? Because you’re not going to steal any of my credit card numbers again, are you?”
He whistled a jaunty tune.
“Clarence, how did someone with such a terrible poker face count cards?”
The tune stopped. “Ah, counting them is easy. Not getting caught is the hard part.” He tapped a few keys, and my printer started to whir and spit. “Grab that printout, will you?”
I retrieved the stack of papers, astonished by the amount of information that could be bought for the price of a large delivery pizza. “You weren’t kidding. There’s some good stuff in here. But I don’t see anything criminal. It looks like a few speeding tickets.”
“That’s the tricky part, since we don’t have an inside man at the force. As public citizens, we only get access to convictions. No arrests or anything.”
“How do you know this stuff?”
Clarence snorted. “I’m not allergic to technology.” He glanced at the computer. “It’s called the internet. Give it a try, Geoff. You might like it.”
Eh, or not. Seemed like a lot of people who weren’t really experts talking about a lot of stuff they didn’t really know that much about. Also, when I had tried it, I’d spent a total of fifteen minutes poking around before I felt the mother of all migraines looming.
“It’s getting close to date time. You better go get ready.” Clarence snickered.
“You have a strange understanding of what constitutes a date. And I’m not taking my clothes off, you old letch. Not till you can guarantee that she’s gone.”
“Hmmm.”
His noncommittal response didn’t reassure me, which meant I had to find a way to detect ghosts without the help of my self-interested housemate.
I was placing my faith in Lilac, the green-haired medium. Good thing I had an appointment with her tomorrow. My strategy was to ease into the problem by starting with ghost detecting. Then, once we tackled detection, I’d hit her with my second request: repelling ghosts. A charm, a cleansing ritual, a spell, there had to be some magical recourse for people who didn’t want to interact with the dead.
Also, repelling didn’t sound nearly so bad as exterminating, so maybe she’d give it a whirl. Lilac might not have thought she had an answer, but if she put her mind to it and tapped her contacts, I hoped she’d be able to help me.
What had she said? Something about visitors from another plane not being pests. Well, I might also attempt to disabuse her of that naïve notion to see if that improved her motivation to help out a poor haunted man.
“Hey, Geoff.” Clarence smacked me with a paw, claws sheathed, thankfully, but it felt like getting hit by a billy club. “Anyone home in there? You gotta get a move on, buddy.”
Right. My appointment with the peeper. I rubbed my arm.
“And I really think you should consider stripping down to at least your skivvies before saying anything.” He shouted at my retreating back, “I think she’s more likely to stick around if she has something to ogle.”
A few minutes of running water, and the bathroom mirror was steaming up. I’d tried to keep to the same routine, but most of my nightly ritual occurred without actual thought or planning, so I couldn’t be certain I’d mimicked it.
Now was probably about when I was taking off my clothes. I didn’t know how those guys in the clubs did it with throngs of screaming
