"You don't need the cardigan," I said.

"Truly?"

"Truly. You look pathetic enough."

"That's a lovely thing to say."

"You're welcome, sir."

"I better get back to the parlor. I'll find a deliciously sad book to read, so by the time the doorbell rings, I'll be fully in character."

"They might not get a lead on me. They might not come here."

"Don't be so negative, Odd. They'll come. I'm sure they will. It'll be great fun."

He pushed through the swinging door with the vigor of a younger man. I listened to him walk down the hallway and into the parlor.

Shoeless, pantless, b.l.o.o.d.y, I scooped some cubes from the icemaker and put them in a OneZip plastic bag. I wrapped a dishtowel around the bag.

Pretending the confidence of a fully dressed man, I walked down the hallway. Pa.s.sing the open doors to the parlor, I waved to Hutch when, from the solace of his armchair, moored in melancholy, he waved listlessly at me.

TEN.

MY SCALP WAS ABRADED, NOT LACERATED. IN THE shower, the hot water and shampoo stung, but I didn't begin to bleed freely again.

Unwilling to take the time to cautiously towel or blow-dry my hair, I pulled on fresh jeans and a clean T-shirt. I laced my backup pair of sneakers.

The MYSTERY TRAIN MYSTERY TRAIN sweatshirt had been lost to the sea. A similar thrift-shop purchase featured the word sweatshirt had been lost to the sea. A similar thrift-shop purchase featured the word WYVERN WYVERN across the chest, in gold letters on the dark-blue fabric. across the chest, in gold letters on the dark-blue fabric.

I a.s.sumed Wyvern must be the name of a small college. Wearing it did not make me feel any smarter.

As I dressed, Frank Sinatra watched me from the bed. He lay atop the quilted spread, ankles crossed, head propped on pillows, hands behind his head.

The Chairman of the Board was smiling, amused by me. He had a winning smile, but his moods were mercurial.

He was dead, of course. He had died in 1998, at the age of eighty-two.

Lingering spirits look the age they were when death took them. Mr. Sinatra, however, appears whatever age he wishes to be, depending on his mood.

I have known only one other spirit with the power to manifest at any age he chose: the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

Elvis had kept me company for years. He had been reluctant to move on, for reasons that took me a long while to ascertain.

Only days before Christmas, along a lonely California highway, he had finally found the courage to proceed to the next world. I'd been happy for him then, to see his sorrow lift and his face brighten with antic.i.p.ation.

Moments after Elvis departed, as Boo and I walked the shoulder of the highway, drawn toward an unknown destination that proved to be Magic Beach, Mr. Sinatra fell in step beside me. He appeared to be in his early thirties that day, fifty years younger than when he died.

Now, lying on the bed, he looked forty or forty-one. He was dressed as he had been in some scenes in High Society, High Society, which he had made with Bing Crosby in 1956. which he had made with Bing Crosby in 1956.

Of all the spirits I have seen, only Elvis and Mr. Sinatra are able to manifest in the garments of their choice. Others haunt me always in whatever they were wearing when they died.

This is one reason I will never attend a costume party dressed as the traditional symbol of the New Year, in nothing but a diaper and a top hat. Welcomed into either h.e.l.l or Heaven, I do not want to cross the threshold to the sound of demonic or angelic laughter.

When I had pulled on the Wyvern sweatshirt and was ready to leave, Mr. Sinatra came to me, shoulders forward, head half ducked, dukes raised, and threw a few playful punches at the air in front of my face.

Because he evidently hoped that I would help him move on from this world as I had helped Elvis, I had been reading biographies of him. I did not know as much about him as I knew about the King, but I knew the right thing for this moment.

"Robert Mitchum once said you were the only man he was afraid to fight, though he was half again as big as you."

The Chairman looked embarra.s.sed and shrugged.

As I picked up the cloth-wrapped bag of ice and held it against the lump on the side of my head, I continued: "Mitchum said he knew he could knock you down, probably more than once, but he also knew you would keep getting up and coming back until one of you was dead."

Mr. Sinatra gestured as if to say that Mitchum had overestimated him.

"Sir, here's the situation. You came to me for help, but you keep resisting it."

Two weeks ago, he had gone poltergeist on me, with the result that my collection of books about him went twirling around my room.

Spirits cannot directly harm us, not even evil spirits. This is our world, and they have no power over us. Their blows pa.s.s through us. Their fingernails and teeth cannot draw blood.

Sufficiently malevolent, however, with bottomless depths of rage to draw upon, they can spin spiritual power into whips of force that lash inanimate objects into motion. Squashed by a refrigerator hurled by a poltergeist, you tend not to take solace in the fact that the blow was indirect, rather than from the ghostly hand itself.

Mr. Sinatra wasn't evil. He was frustrated by his circ.u.mstances and, for whatever reason, fearful about leaving this world-though he would never admit to the fear. As one who had not found organized religion highly credible until later in life, he was now confused about his place in the vertical of sacred order.

The biographies had not ricocheted from wall to wall with violent force, but had instead circled the room like the horses on a carousel. Every time I tried to pluck one of those books from the air, it had eluded me.

"Mr. Mitchum said you'd keep getting up and coming back until one of you was dead," I repeated. "But in this this fight, sir, one of us is already dead." fight, sir, one of us is already dead."

His sunny smile grew wintry for a moment, but then thawed away. As dark as his bad moods could be, they were always short seasons.

"There's no point in you resisting me. No point. All I want to do is help you."

As was often the case, I could not read those extraordinary blue eyes, but at least they were not bright with hostility.

After a moment, he affectionately pinched my cheek.

He went to the nearest window and turned his back to me, a genuine spirit watching the fog haunt the night with its legions of false ghosts.

I recalled "It Was a Very Good Year," a song that could be read as the sentimental and boastful recollections of an irredeemable Casanova. The poignant melancholy of his interpretation had elevated those words and that music to art.

For him, the good and the bad years were gone, and what remained was merely forever. Maybe he resisted eternity out of fear based in remorse, though maybe not.

The next life promised to be without struggle, but everything I had learned about him suggested that he had thrived thrived on struggle. Perhaps he could not imagine an interesting life without it. on struggle. Perhaps he could not imagine an interesting life without it.

I can imagine it easily enough. After death, whatever I might have to face, I will not linger on this side of the door. In fact, I might cross the threshold at a run. can imagine it easily enough. After death, whatever I might have to face, I will not linger on this side of the door. In fact, I might cross the threshold at a run.

ELEVEN.

I DID NOT WANT TO LEAVE THE HOUSE BY THE front door. The way my luck was running, I would find the barbarian horde on the porch, about to pay a visit.

In my dictionary, three bad guys who between them have at least one chin beard, one set of rotten teeth, and three guns qualify as a horde.

Leaving by the back of the house meant I had to pa.s.s the parlor, where Hutch brooded about the wife and son he'd never had and about how lonely and vulnerable he was after losing them.

I did not mind if he called me an ungrateful little s.h.i.t again; that was merely rehearsal for a possible visit from a representative of the horde. The quick shower, the change of clothes, and the chat in the kitchen with Hutch had cost me twenty minutes, however, and I was anxious to locate Annamaria.

"Odd," he said as I tried to move past the open parlor doors with the stealth of a Special Forces op in camouflage and sound-suppressing footgear.

"Oh, hi."

Roosting in his armchair with a chenille throw across his lap, as if keeping eggs warm in a bird's nest, he said, "In the kitchen a little while ago, when we were talking about what a useful bit of wardrobe a cardigan can be..."

"A tattered cardigan," I qualified.

"This may seem a peculiar question...."

"Not to me, sir. Nothing seems peculiar to me anymore."

"Were you wearing pants?"

"Pants?"

"Later, I had the strangest impression that you hadn't been wearing any pants."

"Well, sir, I never wear pants."

"Of course you wear pants. You're wearing them now."

"No, these are jeans. I only have jeans-and one pair of chinos. I don't consider them pants. Pants are dressier."

"You were wearing jeans in the kitchen?"

As I stood in the parlor doorway, holding a bag of ice to the lump on the side of my head, I said, "Well, I wasn't wearing chinos, sir."

"How very peculiar."

"That I wasn't wearing chinos?"

"No. That I can't remember them."

"If I wasn't wearing chinos, you wouldn't remember them."

He thought about what I had said. "That's true enough."

"Just enough, sir," I agreed, and changed the subject. "I'm going to leave you a note about the dinner ca.s.serole."

Putting aside the novel he had been reading, he said, "Aren't you cooking dinner?"

"I've already made it. Chicken enchiladas in tomatillo sauce."

"I love your tomatillo enchiladas."

"And a rice and green-bean salad."

"Does the rice have green sauce, too?"

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, good. Do I heat them in the microwave?"

"That's right. I'll leave a note about time and power."

"Could you put Post-its on the dishes?"

"Take the Post-its off before you put the dishes in the oven."

"Of course. I wouldn't make that mistake. Again. Going out?"

"Just for a little while."

"You aren't leaving for good, are you?"

"No, sir. And I didn't steal Corrina's jewelry, either."

"I was a diamond merchant once," Hutch said. "My wife conspired to have me killed."

"Not Corrina."

"Barbara Stanwyck. She was having an affair with Bogart, and they were going to run off to Rio with the diamonds. But, of course, something went very wrong for them."

"Was it a tsunami?"