“I’m on it. If I live through the night, I’ll make it a priority.”
“You think you’re dying?”
Dalton let out a slightly self-pitying sigh. “I think so. I think I’ve passed out from loss of blood.”
“What about the spider bite?”
“Or that, yeah — from the spider bite.”
“And now you’re… where? Lying on the bathroom floor having an out-of-body experience? Don’t go into the light, Carol Ann?”
“Yes. Something like that.”
“Melodrama. Your generation drives me nuts.”
Cursing softly to himself, Naumann leaned down and fumbled around in the papers, picked up Dalton’s Agency-issue Beretta, thumbed the magazine release, letting the magazine plop onto the bedspread. Then he racked the slide once, deftly caught the flying brass round as it popped out of the ejection port, and tossed the unloaded Beretta onto the bed beside it. He handed the round to Dalton, patting his cheek with a raspy palm as he did so.
“Don’t take it personal. I don’t trust you around loaded guns when you’re all maudlin and pitiful.”
He gave Dalton a fatherly smile and fished a silver flask full of Napoleon brandy out of Dalton’s case, unscrewed the top, and took two long gulping swallows. Dalton thought about going back into the washroom to see if his dying body was still spread-eagled out on the floor in there, and decided against it. If he was really having an out-of-body experience, one of the advantages of it was that his left arm wasn’t hurting like hell right now.
Naumann pulled the flask away from his lips, exhaled noisily, and handed the flask to Dalton with a satisfied smile. The light from the street glimmered on his teeth and put a sickly wet sheen along his right cheek. It reminded Dalton of Milan and Gavro, Gavro’s mean leer in the moonlight, Milan about to get himself kicked to death.
“Go on,” said Naumann. “I left some for you.”
Dalton put the flask up to his lips and then hesitated, displaying a reluctance that made Naumann laugh, in itself an unsettling sound.
“You’re talking to a dead man while dying from a spider’s bite, but sharing a flask of cognac is where Micah Dalton draws the line?”
Naumann had a point, even if he was dead. Dalton put his head back and let the cognac sear its way down his throat. He screwed the top back on while Naumann pulled a chair over and sat down by the bed. Naumann leaned forward and took the flask from Dalton, unscrewed the cap again with a wry look, put it to his lips, and gulped a mouthful down with obvious enjoyment.
The light from the street flared around Naumann’s silhouette, giving him a pale aura in the darkened room. The cold blue glow from the open bathroom door lay in a luminous wedge across Naumann’s feet and ankles. Naumann wiggled his toes in the shaft of light, stretched out his legs, and leaned back into the chair with the silver flask cradled in his hands. Dalton leaned forward and plucked it back, giving Naumann a significant look. Bogarting a flask of Napoleon, Dalton recalled, was a typical Naumann trait. Naumann shrugged, smiled, and spoke out of the dark.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I called this meeting?”
“Not really. You’re a hallucination, that’s all. A figment.”
The room seemed to ripple and the aura around Naumann brightened. Dalton’s vision was suddenly flooded with white light. He blinked several times and shook his head hard, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opened his eyes the room was back to normal, but Naumann was still there.
“You are, however, a damn persistent figment,” he said, with some resentment. He needed to either wake up or finish dying. Naumann watched him drinking from the flask with amusement, took the flask back and had another sip, set it down. Dalton woozily considered another drink and realized how little he needed more of anything alcoholic right now.
Naumann seemed to be of much the same mind.
“Man, we need to ease up on this stuff before we’re both tanked. I never knew you could still get drunk after you’re dead.”
“So you actually know you’re dead?”
Naumann gave him a look. “It’s kinda hard to overlook being dead, Micah. It’s the sort of thing that jumps out at you whenever you look in a mirror.”
“Do you know anything about how you died?”
Naumann shook his head. “No idea. All a blur. Maybe there are rules about this sort of thing. Maybe I’ve got amnesia.”
“You can’t have amnesia when you’re dead.”
“I’m the only dead guy in this room. So far. I’ve even been autopsied. I’m certifiably and reliably dead. I think that gives me a measure of credibility.”
“Stallworth thinks you committed suicide. So do the cops.”
“Suicide? Not my style. I had too much to live for.”
“Stallworth didn’t think so.”
Naumann cocked his head to the side.
“Yeah? Why not?”
“He said you had a prostate operation. Lost your will to live.”
Naumann snorted. “He knew that, huh? That surgeon of mine couldn’t keep a secret if it was hammered up his colon and sutured shut. Sure I had a prostate operation. And it screwed up my courting tackle. So what? I could still play the trumpet, enjoy a scotch. Life was sweet. Come to think of it, I wish I’d paid more attention to being alive when I was still alive.”
“This is a real Hallmark moment for me, I’m sure. I’m touched beyond words. La douceur de la vie and all that. But I have to figure out what happened to you.”
“Look, kid, I haven’t got much time—” Naumann made a move as if to check his wristwatch, realized he didn’t have one anymore, and sighed heavily, his mood darkening.
“Damn. That was a Chopard. I wonder who got it.”
“It’ll be in your effects, Porter. I’ll get them tomorrow.”
“Make sure you do. It was an anniversary gift from Joanne. However, back to my point, as much as I’ve enjoyed seeing you one more time, and I admit that I have thoroughly loved freaking the living Jesus out of you, I’m actually here to give you some advice.”
Dalton emitted a pained groan and put his head in his hands. “Please. Not Marley’s ghost.”
“What? You don’t think you need some advice?”
“Not from a ghost.”
“Ghost? I thought I was just a figment? How about we ask Milan and Gavro if you need any advice?”
This brought Dalton’s head up. Far too quickly. The room reeled, steadied, and somewhere inside his skull a vein pulsed in time to the gentle heaving of his stomach. “You saw that?”
“Saw it? Christ, Micah. It was hard to miss. You sang ‘People’ while you kicked Milan around the plaza. Where did that ugly shit come from?”
“I gave those assholes a wake-up call. That’s all.”
“You really think Gavro’s gonna wake up?”
“I actually don’t give a flying bat-fart. No offense.”
“He’s in a coma. And Milan’s gonna spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair down by the seashore, wearing a diaper and drooling at the nurses.”
“You don’t think the world’s a better place without those mutts?”
“Yeah. I probably do. But you’re gonna get some serious grief for it. Believe it or not, Gavro had family. A nasty vengeful family. So like they say in those legal notice letters, govern yourself accordingly. But that’s not why I’m here. I mean, watching you do it was diverting as hell and I can hardly wait to tell the guys back in the station all about it. But I was gonna drop by for a talk anyway.”
“Lucky me.”
“Yes. Lucky you. You’re going to wake up tomorrow morning and convince yourself this was all some kind of fever dream. Then you’ll go on about your business for Stallworth and the Agency. You shouldn’t. None of that shit really matters.”