The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales

THE GHOSTS OF MELVIN PYE

There it was again.

Bernard Rigoulot heaved himself up on one elbow, staring into the darkness.

He told himself, Don't be a fool, Barney. It's your imagination. There ain't no such things—it's your imagination. You're getting old—ought to go to a doctor. If you can't afford a doctor, a clinic then!

The argument between two persons murmured and twittered along the floor and up the wall.

Rigoulot thought, If they're going to keep me awake, they might talk so as I can hear them.

The argument waxed suddenly, like a radio turned up.

"You scoundrel, he's awake," said one voice.

"I know, buddy," said the second voice.

"You'll scare him!"

"That's what I wanna do."

"It's against the rules." Here came a vulgar noise made with the mouth. Then an apparition appeared.

It was the wraith of a stout, dark man of forty, with a small mustache, and dressed in a neatly pressed, doublebreasted dark suit. It leaned over the foot of the bed, extended a plump forefinger, and said: "Boo!"

Rigoulot poked his wife. "Hey, honey! Wake up!"

Bertha awoke. "What is it?"

"Looky there! Do you see what I see?"

"Looks like a ghost," she said.

"I am a ghost!" the wraith said. "Heh-heh-heh!"

"Eeeeek!" said Mrs. Rigoulot, and pulled the covers over her head.

"Heh-heh," continued the ghost. "That's showing 'em, Phony, old boy?"

"Will you stop?" said a voice—either the same voice or another identical with it. At that point, Rigoulot, too, pulled the covers over his head.

The Conroy Realty Company—in private life George Conroy—looked up from its desk with a forced smile, knowing that tenants called only about complaints.

"Hello, Mr. Conroy," said Bernard Rigoulot.

"Hello, Mr.—uh—Rigoulot," said Conroy. "I'll have a man over to fix that burner in a couple of days."

Rigoulot ignored that remark. "I aim to break my lease," he said.

"You can't do that! A lease is a contract. I'll have that oil burner fixed!"

" 'Tain't that. It's ha'nts."

"Ants? I'll get the exterminator."

"Ha'nts, not ants. Ghosts—things that go woooo."

"You're crazy, man."

Rigoulot shook his head.

"I seen what I seen, and so did my wife," he said. "Yesterday my hands was shaking so I couldn't draw. So I'm leaving unless you can get rid of the ha'nts."

"Now Mr. Rigoulot, what's the real reason you want to leave?"

"I told you. Ha'nts."

Conroy sighed. "Look. Will you stay on if I spend a night in your house and see the ghost?"

"Mebbe. If you can get rid of the ghost, I'll see."

When Rigoulot had left, Conroy spoke to his secretary.

"Mrs. Small, get out the file on that block of houses on One Hundred Seventy-Fifth Place." Then he answered the telephone.

"Yes, Mrs. Barth, I'll send a man over right away. In a couple of days. Well, next Friday at the latest."

"Better do something about that stove, Mr. Conroy," said the secretary. "The Barths are two months behind on their rent and say they won't pay until it's fixed."

"Did you send them the usual notices?"

"Yes, but they didn't weaken."

Conroy sighed. "Guess we'll have to fix their blasted stove. Find out how much it'll be."

Mrs. Small got out the file on Rigoulot's house, and Conroy studied it.

"Unh," he said. "That's where that guy Pye was killed. That was before we took over the block. Em."

"Scared?" said Mrs. Small.

Before Conroy could frame a biting reply, the telephone rang again.

"It's Miss Winston," Mrs. Small said.

The Conroy Realty Company disappeared and George Conroy, the Man, took its place. He spoke into the instrument in monosyllables, half of them being "Unh."

"Okay, Babs, six," he ended. "By-by."

"Why don't you marry her, boss?" said Mrs. Small. "You owe it to her after monopolizing her time for ten years. Or are you afraid of dividing up your income?"

Conroy glared.

"I don't pry into your affairs, Mrs. Small!" he growled, and buried himself in the file on Rigoulot's house.

Conroy arrived at the Rigoulot house at 9 P.M. and drank the glass of beer that Rigoulot offered him. Mrs. Rigoulot excused herself and went to bed. Conroy did not miss her, for her conversation was confined to platitudes.

"You're one of my prize tenants, you know," he told Rigoulot. "Always on time with the rent. I'd hate to lose you."

"I was just brought up that way," said Rigoulot. "I don't accep' favors. But see here: I can't live in a ha'nted house. If I get so shaky I can't draw, you won't have no rent or tenant or nothing." He looked at the clock. " 'Leven fifty. Guess it's time to turn the lights out."

The time they sat in the darkness seemed longer than it actually was. Then a faint mutter trickled along the wainscoting. It drifted this way and that, growing louder. Conroy felt that his blood had left his viscera to concentrate in his scalp.

"Ga wan, scram!"

"How dare you!"

"To hell with the rules. I'm feeling good. Whoop!"

The apparition popped into view.

Conroy was as brave as most, and there was nothing too alarming about a plump, middle-aged ghost in a double-breasted suit. But Conroy had his share of atavistic fears. He rose, tensing Ms muscles to keep his knees from knocking.

"Who are you?" said Conroy.

"Heh-heh," said the ghost. "So you're that low-down landlord? Another mama's boy, like Phony. Watch out! Gonna getcha!" The ghost grimaced and extended clutching hands.

Conroy stood it as long as he could. Then something snapped, and he found himself outside and running. Ghostly laughter behind him made him run faster. But he did not go too fast to reflect that this phenomenon was practically certain to cost him money ...

The next morning, after some hesitation, Conroy worked up his courage to call the detective agency. He might never have committed himself to the expense but for Mrs. Small's sarcasms.

"Well, shall I do it for you?" she had asked.

The detective turned out to be a burly man named Edward Kalesky, who might have been left over from the Paleolithic.

"Spooks?" he said. "You wouldn't kid me, Mr. Conroy?"

"I never kid," said Conroy.

"I mean, are they real or phony?"

"That's for you to find out. It is a coincidence that a man named Melvin Pye was murdered by a burglar in that house ten years ago. All I know about him is his name, because we didn't own that block of houses then."

Kalesky approached Rigoulot's house without qualms. He was a good detective, having enough imagination to guess what other people might do but not so much as to let unusual events give him creepy-crawlies. He was a little depressed about working "way out in the sticks," by which he meant in a region where houses had lawns.

No. 10915 175th Place was a small brick house in suburban Georgian, exactly like all the other houses in the block except for details of coloring. Rigoulot, forewarned, let Kalesky in and made him comfortable.

The apparition, however, failed to appear on schedule. Instead, when midnight arrived, Kalesky's hair was raised by shrieks from next door. He started out, and met the ghost coming in.

"Whee!" said the apparition. "Got lost. All these goddam houses look alike. See, Phony?" The wraith hiccupped.

Kalesky quietly whipped out a blackjack and swung. He was not prepared to have the weapon pass through the apparition without resistance. As a result he swung himself halfway around, turned his ankle on the top step, and fell heavily.

He sat up, feeling his hurts, and groaned. Rigoulot popped into sight at the door.

"Reckon blackjacks ain't no good for ha'nts," he said.

"Ga wan, you cheap little tenant you!" snarled the ghost, making a snatch at Rigoulot, who disappeared up the stairs. The ghost looked down at Kalesky.

"A flatfoot, huh? Nosey gumshoe, coming to spoil my fun! I'll fix you! I'll follow you home, going woooo! I'll crawl in bed with you and rattle my teeth. I'll materialize just my head on your mantlepiece and tell your relatives what I think of them. I'll—let go, you! Scram! I don't give a hoot." The ghost seemed to be struggling with something, and gradually faded from sight.

Kalesky picked himself up and limped back to his hotel, muttering.

Next morning, Kalesky called Conroy and told him what had happened. Conroy gave him little sympathy, having troubles of his own. The tenant of 10917, which the ghost had mistakenly invaded, was also threatening to skip.

Kalesky spent the next two days examining Rigoulot's house and grounds. He had once conducted an expose against mediums, so knew what to look for. But not a sign of a concealed loudspeaker or projector did he find. He also looked up Rigoulot. But the little tenant had a prosaic enough background. Born in South Carolina, he had worked as a draftsman in the city for twenty years.

By now Kalesky had an open mind on the subject of the ghost of the late Melvin Pye. He got the date of the man's murder from Mrs. Small. The newspapers of that week in the public library gave some details about Pye, and the Police Department furnished Kalesky with more information. The killing had not been solved but was apparently the work of a burglar who had been surprised. Pye at that time was the treasurer of a small cafeteria chain.

Kalesky looked up the chain's offices. Most of the personnel had changed since Pye's time, but the present head of the chain had been a vice-president when Pye had worked there and remembered him.

"Yeah, he was smart as a whip," the president explained. "But I don't think he'd have gotten much further, He had a funny personality—sort of cringing. And he was so good it hurt. He didn't smoke, drink, swear, or anything. He was a good treasurer, though—careful and conscientious."

This picture of Pye did not convey an idea much like the ghost, unless the Pye character had deteriorated vastly since death. Kalesky reported to Conroy on his work.

"That's all very well," said Conroy testily. "But it doesn't get rid of the spook. Number Ten-Nine-Fifteen is vacant now."

"That little Southern guy leave?"

"Yes. He lost his job, he said, because he was too nervous to draw. Blamed me for it. He said he was moving in on some kinfolk."

"Whatcha going to do with the house?"

"I'm moving into it myself. I've been living in one of the apartments in my apartment house, but I'd have a better chance of renting the apartment than a haunted house."

"You got nerve."

"Matter of dollars, Kalesky. But what are you going to do?"

Thoughtfully, Kalesky rubbed his jowl.

"I dunno yet. How about my moving in with you? It would cut the expense account."

The first evening, a handsome woman, still young enough to be called a girl, rang the doorbell. When Kalesky opened it, she jumped back with a little shriek.

"Wazzamatta?" said Kalesky.

"Oh, I thought you were the ghost." She identified herself as Conroy's Miss Winston, who had come over to cook dinner for them.

Kalesky returned to his cigar and sporting page. In the kitchen he overheard Miss Winston talking.

"But George," she said, "what was I to think when the door opened and a hairy gorilla confronted me." Kalesky, who fortunately was not vain, grinned.

Miss Winston stayed to see the ghost hunt. There was not much to see. When midnight approached, Kalesky got out a camera with a photoflash attachment and put out the lights.

The argument began as usual. When the apparition popped into sight, faintly luminescent, Kalesky snapped the camera.

"Oh-oh!" said the ghost. "Getting my picture took. The real, original, authentic ghost of Melvin Pye. Beware of imitations. Hope you're having fun, flatfoot." By the time the watchers' eyes had recovered from the flash, the apparition had vanished, and the argument with the invisible interlocutor had subsided to a mumble.

Kalesky developed and printed the picture himself. It showed the living room, and in the living room the wraith, with the bookcase showing clearly through him.

"Okay," snapped Conroy. "You've proved that this house is haunted by the ghost of Melvin Pye. I knew that already. I want to get rid of the danged thing."

"I'm just a detective, not an ex—what are those guys that cast out devils?" said Kalesky.

"Exorcists?"

"Yeah. I'm not an exorcist. What do you expect me to do, say 'Boo!' to—say!"

When the ghost showed up that night, the closet door swung open, and a sheeted figure marched out. It stretched a bare arm toward the apparition.

"Oooooh!" it groaned.

"Yeow!" yelled the ghost. "I got 'em!" And he vanished.

But he instantly reappeared in another part of the room; or at least the new arrival looked like the other. "I must apologize, my dear sirs, for my double's abominable behavior," the second apparition said. "I shall take steps at the next guild meeting to have him cited for unbecoming conduct."

"Huh?" said Kalesky and Conroy together.

"I see you don't understand. I'm really the ghost of Melvin Pye. The other creature is a bogus imitation. You frightened him away so suddenly that his ectoplasm was transferred to me. Oh, dear, I do hope he doesn't go haunt the distillery again!" With which the second ghost faded out of sight.

"Hey, come back!" Kalesky called. But to no avail.

"Now what?" the detective asked Conroy.

Conroy groaned.

"We seem to have two ghosts. But the main thing still is to get rid of them. We could hire an exorcist, couldn't we?"

"I suppose so. It'd cost you more dough." "I can stand that, I guess."

Kalesky looked up a Swami Mahananda whom he had known in his medium-busting days. The swami was a thin, dark man dressed entirely in black except for his white shirt. He was one of the few practitioners of his profession on whom Kalesky had never been able to get anything. This was why Kalesky turned to him now.

"You say," said Swami Mahananda in his high, accented voice, "that you have two ghosts, both of them claiming to be the ghost of the late Melvin Pye?"

"Uh-huh."

"That is a very peculiar case. I have heard of one other like it—the dvirupa mentioned in the forty-second tantra of Kamakrishna. I will take your case, not so much for the fee—which you understand merely covers the necessary expenses that one incurs in this materialistic land—as for the intellectual interest."

Swami Mahananda showed up at the haunted house with a large, battered suitcase. The first thing he took out of it was an orange robe, which he put on in place of his shabby black coat. He looked more impressive at once. He also unfolded a small, jointed tripod and lighted a piece of incense, which he placed therein.

"I have decided to use the old Babylonian tabalum tatbal," he said. "If it does not work, nothing will, for there is no more powerful exorcism." The swami set up on the mantelpiece a row of candles made in the form of demons. He unstoppered a small bottle and sprinkled water from it on a branch of a tamarisk tree.

"Now," he said, "we're ready!"

At midnight the ghost arrived with a whoop. "Whee! I'm a Bengal tiger with a toothache! I'm bad! Hear me moan? Hear my chains rattle? Nix, I haven't got any chains. Watch me drive out all this rotten landlord's tenants!"

The swami imperturbably struck a match and ignited the seven demon-candles. Then he faced the ghost and cried, waving the branch in intricate patterns:

"Huh?" said the ghost. "Oh, hello, Giuseppe."

"Never mind my name before I was initiated," said the swami.

"Ouch," said the ghost, wavering slightly. "You play too rough." With which the ghost disappeared.

But at the same time he, or his double, reappeared.

"I'm sorry!" bleated the newcomer. "If you'll stop the exorcism a minute I'll explain."

"Well?" said the swami.

"He's been drifting over the distillery again, getting drunk on the smell. Mercy me, what a lot of stuff you have here. It's too bad it won't work on Bogus."

"Oh, yes, it will," said the swami.

"Heh-heh," said Bogus, reappearing. "That's what you think. Ga wan, Phony."

Now he was addressing another ghost. "I don't need your help to settle with this dopey wizard."

Swami Mahananda began another spell. The second ghost, Phony, faded out. Then the first ghost, Bogus, flickered from sight and the other apparition came back into view.

"Stop it, Bogus!" he cried. "You've disgraced us enough for one evening." At this point he went out again and Bogus reappeared. The changes went on for a quarter-hour—first one apparition and then the other being banished.

Finally Swami Mahananda collapsed into a chair with his head in his hands. Bogus, who happened to be visible at that instant, sneered.

"What'd I tell ya?" he gloated. "You can't exorcise the ghost of Melvin Pye. Just wait till tomorrow night; I'll have enough power then really to fix this goddam landlord!"

"Don't listen to him!" cried Phony, reappearing. "Pro. the real ghost of Melvin Pye!" "You are not! I am!" The argument broke out again, and the two ghosts, still disputing, faded away.

"It is no use, gentlemen," groaned the swami. "I can banish any spirit by himself, but the dvirupa is too hard to—how should I say it?—get hold of. When you push one half out, you push the other half in. I go."

The swami took off his orange robe, jammed it into his suitcase, put away his other properties, clapped on his old black hat, and departed.

"Well!" said Conroy. "Now, where does that leave us?"

"Search me," said Kalesky. "I don't think you want me on this job any more."

"Don't desert me, old man!" cried Conroy. "Didn't you hear his threats? He'll scare away all my tenants and ruin me! Please stay on a couple more days! Look into Pye's history again. There ought to be a clue there somewhere."

Kalesky shrugged.

"Okay, if you want it. But I don't promise nothing."

Kalesky began his hunt early the following morning. He found Pye's sister in another suburb, and from her he got more information.

Pye had undergone a strict upbringing and had not been very happy. Twice during his mature life he had suffered complete lapses of memory. The first time, he came to himself to find that he had joined the Marines.

He had served out his enlistment and then gone back to the accounting work he had formerly followed. The second time he had come to himself in jail. As well as he could discover, he had spent the previous year drifting around as an itinerant laborer. He had landed in jail as a result of a weakness for visiting waterfronts and picking fights with sailors.

Pye's sister referred Kalesky to the psychiatrist who had treated Pye after his second break—a Dr. Ekstrom. Kalesky looked Ekstrom up in the telephone directory and went to his office.

Dr. William Ekstrom was a tall, slender man with silvery hair, who looked like an actor playing the part of a distinguished psychiatrist.

"Pye was a case of split personality," he said. "The hedonistic, adventurous aspects of his psyche, so sternly repressed in early life, collected in his subconscious to form a secondary personality. Twice this second idea-complex got the upper hand. It is as though two personalities, P-One and P-Two, were alternating in their control of one body."

"You wouldn't kid me, Doc?" Kalesky asked. "Some people can have two minds in one body?"

"Yes, my dear chap, they can. I might have been able to cure Pye if he hadn't died when he did."

"How do you cure them?"

"You merge the two personalities under hypnosis. But look here; what's all this getting at? The man's dead, you know."

"Well, Doc," said Kalesky uncomfortably, "he is and he isn't. I mean." "Yes?"

Kalesky finally told the story. When he had finished, Ekstrom nodded.

"Fascinating, my dear friend," he said. "Here, will you cross your knees a moment?" When Kalesky did so, Ekstrom smote him below the kneecap with a little rubber hammer. Kalesky's leg flew up.

"You don't have to worry about me being nuts," said Kalesky. "That stuffed shirt Conroy will tell you the same thing. Have you got an engagement this evening?"

"No, but—here, what have you in mind?" said Ekstrom suspiciously.

Kalesky opened his wallet and counted out five tens.

"If you could have merged him while he was alive, you can merge him when he's dead."

"Don't be silly, old man. I'm not a psychic researcher. But—" as Kalesky began to gather up the money "—it might be worth trying at that. You understand that if there's no ghost, I keep the retainer."

"We'll have to handle this carefully," Ekstrom said. "I understand that the hedonistic personality, or P-Two— the one called Bogus—is fond of alcohol. Who has a bottle of spirits?"

A bottle of whiskey was produced. Ekstrom poured the contents into the bathtub and soaked a bath towel in the liquid, to faint groans from Conroy and Kalesky. Then he hung the towel in the living room. Soon the smell made the air hardly breathable.

"Ah-hah!" cried Bogus, oozing out of the fireplace. "Now I'm really going to town on your houses, you fresh little realtor, you! When I get through you won't have a tenant. Hello, aren't you that dumb little psychiatrist who was always trying to merge me with Phony?"

"Yes," said Ekstrom.

"Well, you can go stick your head in a bucket. I don't want any part of that lousy imitation ghost."

"That's all right, old fellow," said Ekstrom heartily. "Don't you like the liquor?"

Bogus sniffed. "Say, that's not bad stuff. Mean you fixed it up for me? Maybe I misjudged you, Doc. But no mergers with that sissy, understand!" He leaned back, as if reclining on an invisible sofa. "Hey, Phony, get a load of this!"

"Can you tell me why you ghosts wear suits instead of sheets?" Kalesky asked.

"Because we're buried in suits instead of sheets. That reminds me—aren't you the guy who came out of the. closet with a sheet on and scared me out of my ectoplasm? I'll get even with you. Right now, though, I'm feeling too good." The ghost yawned.

Ekstrom took out a pocket flashlight.

"Mr. Pye," he said. "Here's a little experiment that might interest you." He focused a spot of light on the ceiling, and moved it slowly back and forth. "Watch that spot. It's warm in here. Just the temperature for sleeping. Your eyelids are getting heavy. A feeling of numbness is stealing over you. You're falling asleep—asleep— asleep."

Five minutes of this reduced Bogus to a rigid, glassy-eyed wraith. Then the other ghost appeared.

"My goodness!" cried Phony. "What have you done to him, Doctor Ekstrom? I never thought anybody could control him, he's so wild. He pays no attention to the rules and gets away with it. Politics, you know."

"What rules?" asked Kalesky.

"Union rules, about haunting quietly and invisibly. We adopted them after so many haunted houses were torn down. It's a terrible thing to be a ghost whose house has been torn down."

"Do you have to haunt?" Conroy asked.

"Yes, sir. I was murdered here, so I have to haunt the house till my murder is avenged. But the felon who slew me is in prison for life, so I shall have to await his natural death."

"Don't getting sent up for life count as avenging a murder?" Kalesky asked.

"It would, only this burglar wasn't sentenced for murdering me. He killed one of his fellow-felons."

"I could have this house torn down," Conroy said thoughtfully.

"Deary me," said Phony. "You wouldn't do that, sir?"

"If I couldn't stop the haunting otherwise."

"But it wouldn't do any good. All the other houses in the block are built to the same plan as this. Practically speaking they are the same as this. So we'd have to haunt one of the others."

"You could tear down all the houses in the block," Kalesky said.

"Ow! Do you know what it costs to build, with crooked contractors and lazy workmen?" Conroy moaned. "It would ruin me! They're practically new, too; only twenty years old."

"I see your point of view, sir," said the ghost. "I wish I could help—"

"You can," broke in Ekstrom. "All we have to do is merge you with Bogus. The combined ghost would be a fine, well-balanced character who wouldn't give any trouble."

"What, merge me with that uncouth buffoon?" shrieked Phony, fluttering his transparent hands. "Horrors! A thousand times no!"

"Aw, come on!" wheedled Kalesky. "It won't be so bad."

"You want to do the right thing, don't you?" said Conroy.

"Trust me to know best, old chap," said Ekstrom.

After a prolonged argument, the ghost gave in. "Hurry and get the horrid business over with," it wailed. "To think of my being submerged in that crass boor whom I despise!"

Ekstrom got to work with his flashlight, and soon had Phony stiff and stark like his twin. Then the psychiatrist said:

"You and Bogus are really parts of the same man. You must merge yourself with him. Each of you has virtues that the other lacks. You're only half a ghost as you are. Phony, go merge yourself with Bogus, to make a complete Melvin Pye."

Phony drifted dreamily over to where his double sprawled. He moved into the same position in the same place, whereupon there was but one ghost to be seen.

"Wake up, Melvin Pye!" cried Ekstrom.

The ghost of Melvin Pye awoke.

"Say, that's quite a trick, Doctor Ekstrom," he said, with a grin. "I remember everything that either of my former selves did."

The ghost stood up. He seemed a little larger and more substantial than either of his former components.

"Ha," he said. "Wish I'd been this way before. No telling what I'd have accomplished."

This was neither Melvin Pye, the mama's boy, nor Melvin Pye, the irresponsible roughneck. It was Melvin Pye the Man of Destiny.

"But I can still accomplish a thing or two. You! You're that tightwad landlord, aren't you?"

"I—" began Conroy.

"Shut up! You know I can empty your houses just like that, don't you?"

"I—"

"Shut up! From now on you'll do as I say."

"I'll get the swami—"

The ghost scowled.

"Shut up! I know enough about Giuseppe. He won't dare bother me. First, you've been letting these houses run down disgracefully. You'll have three oil burners, two stoves, six refrigerators, and four plumbing systems in this block fixed, and no slipshod job either!"

"But—"

"Will you do as I say, or must I get tough?" snarled the ghost.

"Okay. But I—"

"Shut up! Then there's that tenant who used to live here, Rigoulot. He lost his job. You'll give him one."

"But I don't need a full-time draftsman!"

"Shut up! Then there's that Miss Winston who comes around to. cook dinner for you. She loves you, God knows why. Marry her."

"What?"

"You heard me! No excuses, unless you want to have to tear down all your houses. I'll be back tomorrow, to see how you're doing. I'll have thought of some more tasks by then. Good night, gentlemen." The ghost bowed briskly to Kalesky and Ekstrom, and vanished.

After a few seconds of silence, Ekstrom spoke.

"A very interesting experiment, gentlemen. The final result wasn't quite what I anticipated. I thought the united Pye would combine the timidity of Phony with the stupidity of Bogus and be easy to handle. Instead he combined the intelligence and moral fervor of Phony with the aggressive belligerence of Bogus. So you'll have to play ball with him, old man—ha-ha—unless you want to lose your houses."

Conroy made a choked sound. Ekstrom got up and looked at his watch.

"Ho-hum! I can just make the train back to town. A most interesting evening, gentlemen. I wish I dared write it up for the journals. Conroy, old fellow, where shall I send my bill? Your office—why, what are you looking at me like that for? You can't threaten me! Don't you dare touch me, Conroy! Kalesky, stop him! Help! Ouch!"

Seconds later, a tall, silver-haired man sprinted along the dark streets, while after him pounded, with clutching hand and bloodshot eye, the blocky figure of George Conroy. Ekstrom ran faster than Conroy—or the suburb would have had on its hands another ghost, doomed to haunt the site of its murder until suitably avenged.