Phantom prey

never bought insurance; kept it out of sight.

They began to scout, to make schedules, to watch. Early on, it became apparent that the bartender was at the center of the plot-the fulcrum of Frances’s Goth world. He took in people, places, events, and plans, and passed them on. He knew what was happening, knew the history.

Fairy talked to him three times: once on the sidewalk, when he passed her, looking her over, and she passed by and then turned and called, “Excuse me, are you Mr. Ford?”

He walked back to her and grinned, shoulders up, hands tucked in his jeans pockets. A charmer. “Yeah. Have I seen you around?”

“I was over at the A1 a few weeks ago with Frances Austin,” Fairy said. “Did you hear about her?”

“I did. There’s been a lot of talk.'

'I can’t imagine what happened,” Fairy said, shaking her head

“Some people say drugs, some people say she must have had a secret lover.”

“She used to smoke a little, I know that,” Ford said. “But… I’m not sure she even had her own dealer. She didn’t smoke that much. I can’t believe it was drugs. Must’ve been something else.”

“The police think… I don’t know. Because she was one of us”- Fairy patted her black blouse-“that maybe somebody sent her to the other side, to see… what would happen.”

“Well, that’s scary,” Ford said. “What’s your name?” She made up the name on the spot: “Mary. Janson. Mary Janson.” They shook hands. “Some of the people have tried to get in touch with her. On the other side.”

Ford’s eyebrows went up, and he smiled. “No luck, huh?'

'You don’t believe?'

'Oh, you know. I used to, I guess. Used to talk about it, anyway

With me, it’s more of a hang- out thing,” he said. He looked away. “I used to listen to the people talk about… you know. Life, death, crossing over. It’s interesting, but, I don’t know. Too depressing, if you do it for a long time.”

Fairy shook her head again, the black hair swirling around her shoulders: “It bothers me so much. If I could find out why she’s gone, what happened to her, I’d be fine. I could sleep.”

Ford leaned closer to her: “If you want my opinion, it was a money deal.”

“A money deal?'

'You knew her pretty well?” Ford asked. “I did,” Fairy said. “Then you gotta know she was rich.'

'I knew she was well- off.'

'Rich,” Ford insisted. “She told me that when her father was killed, she inherited, like, two million. She already had money from trusts her parents set up when she was small. She said they put in, like, ten thousand each, every year; during all those big stock market boom times in the nineties, she had a million of her own, before she inherited. So I know she had that much.”

“A lot more than I knew,” Fairy said. “We joked about starting a club,” Ford said. His eyes drifted away, seeing another reality. “She’d back it, I’d run it. We’d bring in some dark music; change the scene around here. It would have been a moneymaker.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Fairy said. A rueful smile: “Yeah: she gets killed, and my life flashes in front of my eyes.” Ford looked at his watch: “Shoot. I gotta go, I’m late for work. Are you going to be around? Mary Janson?”

“I’ll be around,” Fairy said. He leaned closer again. “You smell wonderful.” She twiddled her fingers at him, and went on her way. “I’ll see you at the A1.”

Loren had been leaning against an old elm, listening. He caught Fairy down the sidewalk and said, “You smell wonderful.”

“I do.'

'You heard what he said.'

'Money,” she said. They seemed, now, to pick things out of each other’s minds. “She must’ve talked it around,” Loren said. “You know how she liked to talk-and so, what happened is, she got some of these people all cranked up about starting a club, a new scene, but you know how conservative she really was; so it comes to the moment when she has to produce the cash, and she backs away.”

Fairy frowned: “How do you know so much about her?'

'Why, from you,” Loren said. “All you do is talk about her. All day, all the time.”

Back home, in bed, they made love in his cold, frantic way. Loren’s fingernails were an inch long, left scratches on her rib cage and thighs. And afterward, she said, “Ford knows.”

“Yes, he does. We should see him again; and some of the others. Patricia…”

“I don’t think she’d be involved,” Fairy said, tentatively. “She’s involved,” Loren said, sitting up, the sheets falling to his waist, showing off his rib cage. His body was slender as a rake. “I can feel it. She was jealous of Frances. Her parents broke up, they don’t care whether she lives or dies. She’s over there by herself, nothing to do, no place to go. Frances had two parents who loved her, and the money. So the fat girl gets involved in this club thing, she’s going to be cool, she’s going to be a club owner, or operator, hang out with the bands… and Frances finally says she can’t have it. Can’t have any of it. Jealousy and hate.”

“Maybe.'

'For sure,” Loren said. “As far as I’m concerned, she’s on the list.'

'We have more scouting,” Fairy said. “We have Dick Ford, we have Roy Carter, and Patty…'

'So we take a week, and think. Then we move again. If we don’t, the energy will fritter away. Just fritter away.”

She talked to Ford again, for ten minutes, at the A1, passing through. And finally, a third time, just at closing. Went to the bar, drank a beer, and he touched her hand, and touched it again, and the knife was like the Sword of Freya in her belt. When she finished the beer, as Ford was calling to the patrons to “Drink up and go home,” she drifted out the back door and looked back, caught his eyes with hers.

The alley was paved with red bricks, covered with the grime of a century of wear; she wanted to lean on something while she waited, but everything was dirty, so instead, she wandered in little circles, rocked back and forth, hoping that nobody else would come through the door.

A thought: I could leave right now. She could leave, and nothing would happen. She could sell the car-or not, who’d care? — and be done with it.

She toyed with the thought, then let it drift away. Dropped her hand to the knife. She’d spent some time with it, sharpening the edge until it was like a razor. She yawned: nervous.

Then Ford came through the door. He might have worked on his smile, inside, in the restroom mirror, because it was perfect-an effort to generate a bit of wry charm, in an uncertain situation with a good looking woman. “So, what’s up?”

He was wearing a leather jacket, unzipped, which was good, and beneath it, a canvas shirt. She got close and let him feel her smallness, her cuddliness, while her right hand slid along the handle of the knife. “I can’t stay away from the Frances Austin thing,” she said. “I thought you… could tell me about it.”

“Frances Austin?” He frowned: not what he expected. “You’re sort of stuck on that, huh?”

There was one light in the alley, and they were almost beneath it. She caught a corner of his jacket sleeve, and tugged him closer to the open end of the alley, toward the street, but deeper into the dark. Turned him, set him up against the wall, pressed into him, said, “You were her friend. You must have some ideas about what happened.”

“No, I really don’t… Not so much.” She whispered, “Don’t give me that bullshit,” and she jammed the knife into his gut, just about at the navel, and then, as she’d imagined it, pulled it up toward his heart, the blade cutting more easily than she’d expected, and she put all her muscle into it, up on her tiptoes, using both hands on the knife handle. Ford swung his arms at her, but they were soft and straight, like zombie arms, uncoordinated, shock with pain, and she moved around them and pulled on the knife, pulled it up to his breastbone, and then out.

He slumped back against the dirty wall, staring at her, made gargling sounds, his hands stretching down toward the earth, and then he slumped over sideways and fell on his side, and spewed blood.

She squatted, listened to him die, then wiped the knife on his shirt and spit on him: “That’s for Frances,” she