Ashes To Ashes: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (2 page)

It flashed on me, then
dissolved before I could really inspect the apparition. I shot a
look toward Bruno. He was staring at the ceiling. I had been
thinking about it since she called me that Wednesday night for the
appointment, and I'd decided to tell Miss Highland that I had too
many things going right now, and would she call me again next month
or next year if she couldn't find another counselor.

All that changed in that flash. I went to
the window and put my hands on her shoulders from behind in a
light massage—she was carrying a lot of tension there—and suggested
that she make herself comfortable.

She had told me, that night on the phone,
"Bruno is mute. He was just trying to attract your attention."

And I had told her that he looked like a
head-hunter to me, that he invaded my tennis game, that I'd felt it
only prudent to sit him down before inquiring as to his
intentions.

"He was flustered," she explained. "We'd
been trying to catch your attention for several minutes. He's just
very direct. And you wouldn't look toward us."

I could have explained to her, but did not,
that my concentration on a game of tennis approaches that achieved
by a Zen master, so I could buy her apology.

"Does he read lips?" I asked her, present
time, with a glance at Bruno as I escorted her to a chair.

"He's not deaf," she replied, "—just
mute."

"Then he is not going to sit here during
this consultation," I said flatly.

"Wait in the car, Bruno, please," she said
without hesitation and without raising her voice.

The big guy was up and out of there almost
before she finished speaking, as though he had received those
orders before they came in there and he was just awaiting his
cue.

I let the door close behind him before I
retreated to my desk—well, it's sort of a desk—more of a table with
a couple of small drawers, really—acrylic, transparent. Serves the
purpose without getting stuffy.

There was a long, almost tense silence while
the lady and I exchanged smiles. Finally I asked her, "So how can I
help you, Karen?"

She dropped those amazing eyes, brushed
nervously at her lap with scarlet-tipped fingers, waited a moment
as though trying to construct a sentence, then replied, "I was
referred to you by someone at Zodiac."

Zodiac is a metaphysical retreat up the
coast near Santa Barbara. I kept on smiling and said,
"Someone?"

"I don't know her name. Well, I—actually—I
wasn't actually referred. I just overheard this conversation." She
swept me with those great eyes. "And I figured—maybe—you're the
one."

"The one for what?"

"To—to help me."

"To help you do what?"

She was staring at her lap again. It was
like pulling teeth, opening this one up. I told her, "I'm not a
medical doctor, you know."

"Don't need one," she murmured.

"Nor a shrink."

She showed me a small
smile. "Well, maybe I do need one of those. But that's not
what—that is not why I am here. They said you're into all this
stuff."

"All what stuff?"

"The stuff they do up there. And that you'd
written this paper about—well, on uh, against asceticism."

"I did do one of those," I agreed,
remembering, and remembering also the furor at Zodiac over that
paper. It was actually a treatise on cosmic sex and the way it
really ought to be, the way it could be if people's heads were on
straight. The people at Zodiac—or a good number of them, it
seemed—were trying to leave the carnal plane behind without dying
first—some, without living first. I thought it was bullshit and I
said so in the paper.

"I read it," she said quietly.

It was my turn for the lap-inspection bit.
After several seconds of high-voltage silence I lifted a direct
gaze her way and said, "And ... ?"

"I'd like to try that."

"You'd like to try that what?"

"What you said in the paper."

I'm sure my smile was a bit forced as I
replied to that. "Okay. Why not? Can't hurt you, I guess, with the
right guy. But I would not recommend Bruno."

That amused her. "I inherited Bruno when my
parents died. He's like an uncle. No, uh—I was thinking of
you."

I already knew that—but was hoping like
hell, still, that she would not say it.

I told the beautiful lady, with all the
professional aplomb I could muster, "Doesn't work that way. I don't
work that way. Fall in love. Try it on your honeymoon."

That seemed to sting her. A nostril flared.
I could

feel the self-consciousness oozing away.
When she spoke it was gone entirely. "Three cheers for old-
fashioned morality." Stung, yeah. "You disappoint me, Ashton."

I was rather disappointed
in myself, to tell the truth. But I did not tell her that truth.
What I did tell her was, "I am not a professional anything, you
know. I have...certain insights. People have found me out.
Sometimes I agree to help them with specific problems. But I do not
rent myself out for sex. There's a name for that. I'm not it. But
what is your real problem?"

"What?"

"Why are you really here?"

"I told you."

"Bullshit."

"What?"

"Bullshit. I saw her, when you were at the
window." I described the apparition. "Anyone you know?"

She had become very pale and her hands were
shaking as she struggled with a cigarette. "Then you're really for
real," she said quietly, giving up on the cigarette.

I did not respond to that.

After another long moment
of silence the lady said, "I've seen her too. It's spooky. I think,
maybe ..."

I lit the cigarette for
her—one for myself too—gave her another moment to get it back
together, then prodded. "You were thinking, maybe ..."

"I don't know, it sounds
crazy, I never talk to anyone about this. I have been seeing her
since I was a little girl. Not—I don't mean—not all the time,
nothing like that. But ... now and then ... special
times."

"Such as?"

"Oh, if I'm sick, or upset
about something or ... well, and since I've grown up she seems to
appear more frequently and now she's ..."

"What?"

"I think she's trying to communicate."

"How does this manifest?"

"What?"

"In what way does she attempt
communication?"

"Nothing ... physical. I
just get this ... awful feeling that she's trying to tell me
something."

"Something important."

"Yes. It seems very
important. But then she ... wisps away."

"Wisps?"

"Like smoke dispersing."

I said, "Uh huh. Who is she, Karen?"

The reply was whispered. "I don't know."

"No idea at all?"

"None." This reinforced with a decisive
shake of the head. "But I think she ... wanted me to ... to find
you."

"Why do you think that?"

"I just do. Don't ask me to explain
something I don't understand myself." A bit of fire again. "She
wanted me to."

I mulled it for a moment,
then: "What exactly do you want from me? No bullshit. What do you
want?"

"Maybe I want two things."

"By the numbers, then. One?"

She took a deep breath. "One, help me get
rid of her. No, that's number two."

I supplied the necessary prompt without
blinking an eye. "And one?"

"Teach me cosmic sex," unblinkingly came
right back.

"Because?"

"Because I just might kill myself if you
don't."

"It's that bad?"

"Believe me, it's that bad." The fire was
back, full blaze. "Look, to hell with pride. I have tried
everything there is to try. I am not a frigid woman, believe me,
I'm not. I am very responsive, highly responsive. To a point."

I did not have to feign sympathy. One of the
awareness kicks I had tried involved a process of sexual arousal
right to the cresting point and then backing off, over and over. I
tried it for about a month. I developed a stammer, could think of
absolutely nothing but sex, and had a hard-on all the time.

So I did not have to feign sympathy, no.
"One point below bliss, eh?"

"Always one point below."

"Nonorgasmic."

Getting edgy again, almost hostile: "That's
the dirty word."

"Since when?"

"Since forever."

"What does your ethereal companion have to
do with it?"

"Oh shit!" She was on her feet, moving
toward the door. "I knew you'd get to that! Forget it, huh? Just
forget it!"

"Sit down!" I commanded loudly.

From the door: "Go to hell!" Out, then back
in again, furious: "This must have been a great treat to your ego!
Well, forget it! Temporary insanity! Do you think I have to pay a
man to fuck me?"

She was gone before I could have replied to
that, if I'd had a mind to, which I didn't. I'd handled it very
badly. I knew that. And I was already formulating a plan to
telephone her as soon as she'd had a chance to cool down.

But I did not have to do that.

She was back again within seconds, standing
in my doorway all pale and shaking. "Help me," she moaned.
"Something is wrong with Bruno."

But I could not help her all that much. A
lot was wrong with Bruno. All was wrong with Bruno.

He was seated behind the wheel of a shiny
new Mercedes, not a mark on the body, but also no pulse and no
heartbeat. There was no response whatever to twenty minutes of CPR.
The paramedics took over and tried for another ten minutes or so,
then they simply covered him and transported him to wherever
lifeless bodies are taken.

"Did you see her?" Karen asked me in a
stricken voice as the ambulance rounded the corner onto Coast
Highway.

Yeah, I saw her. She'd moved into the
ambulance behind Bruno and was staring at us through the rear
window as it pulled away from the house. And I am certain that she
was smiling.

Chapter Two: Ashes

Let me assure you very quickly that I am not
into spiritism, black magic, nor the occult arts. It offends my
sense of universal order to even admit the possibility that some
sort of dark forces could be consciously manipulating this reality
of ours. Ghosts, banshees, and demonic spirits simply do not
represent my concept of an orderly universe.

So I have an automatic resistance any time I
am confronted with phenomena of this nature. I have been
confronted, yes, time and again. But I have always sought a
nonphenomenal explanation to account for them. Sometimes I have
succeeded in that, sometimes not. But I do not let the failures
deter me.

I am very much aware, you
see, that we inhabit a phenomenal universe—phenomenal, that is,
from the ordinary viewpoint allowed by the usual human sense
perception. Atomic theory itself is an occult, highly mysterious,
and largely incomprehensible concept even to those who are schooled
in it. To say to me that the table in front of me is a solid object
capable of supporting my weight with ease, but then to go on to
explain that, of course, it is more of an empty space than anything
else—other than that, an electromagnetic field more than anything
else—that it is the relativity of my state of being in relation to
the table's state of being that allows me to perceive the table
(and myself) as a solid object, well, say, what could be more
phenomenal than that?

Is the table a solid object or is it not?
The answer is yes and no. Remove all the space that separates the
quarks and widgets and other esoteric elementary particles that go
to make an atom, then remove the spaces that separate the
atoms—shred the molecules, in other words, and throw out all the
space—and what is left is enough matter to maybe fit the hollow of
your palm, except you could not hold it there because it still
weighs the same as it did when you saw it as a table—besides which
you'd better look damn quick because matter explodes at infinite
density. I'd call that phenomenal.

If I tell a physicist that I have 20/20
vision and he says to me, great, that's wonderful, 20/20 lets you
see point something percent of the total electromagnetic spectrum
now bombarding this room, that makes my 20/20 seem like a paltry
effort at apprehending reality.

Can you see, the same guy
asks me, the X rays, cosmic rays, gamma rays, microwaves, radio and
television broadcasts that are dancing all about us? No—but if
you'll let me switch on the television, maybe I can .... Not good
enough, he says; that is still just a fraction of the total
spectrum. It's all here, right now, passing over, under, around,
and even right through us—can't you see it? Well, no, not really
but ... There!—did you see that free electron that was just knocked
out of its orbit around a helium nucleus by that neutrino from Upsa
Vagabondi (umpty-million light-years away)—and did you see the
helium atom then decay into hydrogen?

Of course not. I see the wall, the table,
your face— that's 20/20 to me and to all of us who share this
particular parcel of reality. The point is, there is always much
more there than most of us ordinarily perceive. So don't get bent
out of shape with me when I say to you that I saw something that
appears to exist in a different parcel. My physicist sees that sort
of thing all the time—using, of course, special tools that enable
him to get a better glimpse of total reality than you and I.

Okay. Apparently I, too,
have some sort of special tool buried somewhere in my skull. I do
not know how it got there and I really do not know how to operate
the darned thing. It comes on all by itself, gives me a glimpse
that I could not get otherwise, then shuts down. I have nothing to
do with it, no control whatever, and I have not the faintest idea
what it is, how it works, or why it works. I have spent the better
part of life wondering about it and ...