I hadn't been prepared to hear that Schell had died. I'd hoped that Antony would tell me where to find him. I felt like weeping, but I didn't.
Antony continued, his eyes gazing out across the valley, his voice oddly hollow. "No one was ever charged. I know who it was, though."
I knew he was referring to the Monster and the people behind Agarias. And I knew that even then, more than thirty years later, the Monster still lived. "Schell was a great guy," I said. "He saved my life when he took me in."
"Yeah," said Antony. "And luckily you were able to repay the favor that crazy night out in Fort Solanga."
"Have you ever wondered about the girl in the glass?" I asked.
Antony leaned forward in his chair. "I think about it almost every day," he said. "There's something I've wanted to ask you for years. The ghost Schell saw…"
"Charlotte Barnes," I said.
"You had nothing to do with that, did you?" he said and smiled.
"Are you joking?" I asked.
"Nah," he whispered and got that far-off look in his eyes again.
"So, I guess it was a real ghost."
"Maybe."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Do you remember the shape Schell was in just before that whole mess?" said Antony. "Moping around like he had a load in his pants? He was a good con man, but not a great con man. He wasn't ruthless enough. He had all the tricks, all the techniques, the facility for it. That part, if you'll excuse the expression, was in his blood. But he never really had the heart for it. He was trying so hard to convince himself that he was callous because that's the way his old man had been."
"Well if it wasn't a ghost, what the hell was it?" I asked.
He took a sip of his beer, squinted in the setting sun, and said, "Sometimes I think it was Schell."
"You mean he was seeing things because he was depressed?"
"Not exactly. When I left the East Coast he took me to the train station. It was the last I ever saw him. We were standing on the platform, waiting for the train to pull in, and I asked him about the ghost, 'cause, you know, it had never been resolved. Here's what his last words were to me before I got on board: 'The girl in the glass? She was always there, my friend. I just never had a good enough reason to notice her before.'"
"What was the reason?" I asked.
"I think it was you," he said. "I think it was you."
I sat in silence for a long time, stunned by the implications of Antony's theory, until I finally blurted out, "You mean he conned us?"
The big man wheezed with laughter and nodded. "He didn't want you to follow in his footsteps. He wanted something better for you. But he knew you wouldn't get it simply because he told you. So he mixed things up. The girl in the glass was the grain of sand in the oyster, the wrench in the gearworks, the mutation compounded over time, as he used to say about the spots on those fucking butterflies of his.
"Oh, I'm not sayin' he knew anything about Charlotte Barnes's murder before we all did. I think he must've made up the story about seeing the ghost of a little girl, just to toss the dice, and then BAM! Five days later…"
"He almost got us all killed," I said, smiling.
"Yeah, tell me that wouldn't have been a bitch. Sometimes, though, kid, you gotta do what you gotta do. That's the long and short of it."
By now the sun had nearly set; a sliver of orange stretched across the deep purple horizon before winking out. I didn't talk for a while but stared off into the twilight, trying to rekindle faded memories of the whole affair.
"Look, Diego, it's just a theory. No need to get morose. I'm half senile as it is."
All through the day Marta had been replenishing our beers. And although I hadn't had a cigarette in years, I smoked close to a pack that day. I stopped drinking at around eight o'clock and didn't leave till after midnight. By the time I got up to go, Antony had fallen asleep in his chair. I wrote out my address and phone number on an empty matchbook and gave it to Marta, telling her if he ever needed anything to call me. She promised me she would.
Before the year was out, Marta called me in Mexico. Antony had died suddenly, quietly, while sitting in his chair, overlooking the valley. I caught a flight, rented a car, and once again found myself lost in the hills. By the time I found the little funeral parlor where the wake was being held, the viewing hours were just about over. I jumped out of my car and ran up the steps. The last of the mourners were leaving, save one old man who sat, head bowed, in the last row of seats in the small room.
I stepped up to the large coffin and gave myself over to memories of my youth with Antony and Schell-the cons, the marks, the tricks. He lay there like he was carved from limestone, big and powerful even in death. Eventually, I touched his shoulder and said, "Okay, Antony," but before I turned away, I noticed something lying on the dark green satin liner, tucked in the corner to the right of his head. I leaned over and saw it was a playing card, turned facedown. My hand trembled as I reached for it. Flipping it over, I discovered the ace of hearts.
A sudden strong breeze, as if someone had thrown open a door, startled me, and I turned to see who was there, but the door was closed and the place was empty. That's when I noticed it fluttering above the center aisle, a simple pine white, like some ghost of a memory come to life.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Whenever a writer delivers to his readers a novel that is set in a distinct historical period, as The Girl in the Glass is set in 1932 America, there is usually a good measure of research that has gone into the effort. Please keep in mind that I don't claim to be an historian. In other words, I never let the facts get in the way of following the fiction where it demands to go, but, that said, I did delve into many sources in the course of writing this book. I list some of them below, not to act the scholar, but I believe readers might be discovering one or two of the historical actualities presented herein for the first time and will want to investigate them further on their own.
Anyone interested in the concept of spiritualism as a con would do well to read the work of James Randi, internationally renowned magician and escape artist. He has a long list of very fine titles and is an engaging writer who rarely fails to amaze with his insight as to how less-than-reputable practitioners of the supernatural dupe their customers. The particular work of his I found most useful on this subject was Flim-Flam: Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions. In addition to Randi, one can turn to the writings of the great Houdini himself, who penned a number of books, some of which remain in print, that dissect spiritualist techniques.
Before investigating the 1930s, I was unaware of the Mexican Repatriation that went on during that decade in the United States. In the 1920s and earlier many immigrants were welcomed into this country in order to serve as cheap labor for building the railroads and harvesting crops in western and southern states. With the onset of the Great Depression, though, the growing economic problems of the country and those in positions of power responsible for them found a scapegoat in immigrants. Many legal as well as illegal Mexican immigrants, along with children born in the United States, were forcibly deported back to Mexico. For an easily accessible and excellent essay on this subject, seek out Dr. Jorge L. Chinea's "Ethnic Prejudice and Anti-Immigrant Policies in Times of Economic Stress: Mexican Repatriation from the United States, 1929-1939" on the web at
http://www.people.memphis.edu/?kenichls/2602MexRepatriation.html.
For further reading, one can turn to the book Decade of Betrayaclass="underline" Mexican Repatriation in the 1930's, by Francisco E. Balderramma and Raymond Rodriguez.